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LA Times: Obama stimulus spending: $246,436 per new job

20 posts on this thread

and he doesn't have time

LOL!

i hope that doesn't bother my new friend

maybe it's the ONE TRIL PER YEAR that's getting under your skin

that'd be THE NY TIMES

i hardly think i factor

i wonder what john maynard said about that---ONE TRIL PER YEAR
 
phattonez said:
So then you want to talk about loans? So when government borrows all of this money, what happens to the private company's ability to get a loan?
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Private companies aren't taking out loans much in a recession because they aren't expanding. If they were, we wouldn't need the government to do it.
 
The Prof said:
20 posts on this thread

and he doesn't have time
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You would need way more than 20, dude. Sorry. Just follow along with the thread instead.
 
misterman said:
We're not talking about Reagan and Bush's tax cuts here. :mrgreen:

The problem with Keynes is that it should involve tax increases and spending cuts in good times, but somehow that never quite happens. I'm not a hardcore Keynesian and that's partly why, but at least I understand the damn theory and don't go around making wild goofy comments about it based on nothing more than ignorance, like some people here. This is just like the whole 14th amendment thing all over again. I don't mind people disagreeing, but damn, don't insist you're right based on what you don't know.
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The irony is killing me. You continue to assume you're right, and spew talking points without backing up what you say, JUST LIKE that 14th amendment thing, you're right.
 
misterman said:
You would need way more than 20, dude. Sorry. Just follow along with the thread instead.
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tell it to keynes

or the times

or recovery.gov
 
EpicDude86 said:
The irony is killing me. You continue to assume you're right, and spew talking points without backing up what you say, JUST LIKE that 14th amendment thing, you're right.
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I'm assuming I'm right? The horror!

Of course I do. Doesn't everyone? That's the definition of having an opinion.

Sure, I could be wrong. I'm happy to acknowledge that. Happy now? Can we get back to business?

As for talking points, I'm talking, and making points. Get over it. Peope are asking questions, I'm giving answers. Straight, clear, honest answers btw.

Backing up what I say? You want a friggin' link to an economics textbook?

It's just a conversation. Get over yourself.

I fail to see how my posts are any different from anyone else's here, except for the fact that mine tend to have more substance and less empty mocking.
 
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misterman said:
I'm assuming I'm right? The horror!

Of course I do. Doesn't everyone? That's the definition of having an opinion.
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No that's called having one's head up their ass.

misterman said:
Sure, I could be wrong. I'm happy to acknowledge that. Happy now? Can we get back to business?
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Well this is a refreshing change for you, but will you follow through? You've got some acknowledging to do if this is the case, you could start by acknowledging you are incorrect (at least meet halfway and admit partial incorrectness) in your 14th amendment argument about holiday ornaments.

misterman said:
As for talking points, I'm talking, and making points. Get over it. Peope are asking questions, I'm giving answers. Straight, clear, honest answers btw.
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Talking points = no substance. Especially when you do it. Me personally, you've only given me one or two links over the course of the many in depth discussions we've had and all you do is seem to assume you are correct and all dissenters are wrong because they simply "Just don't get it".

misterman said:
Backing up what I say? You want a friggin' link to an economics textbook?
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Using more than talking points would be nice. Give me some credible links, or literature that I can access to verify what you're saying is truth.

misterman said:
It's just a conversation. Get over yourself.
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It's just a forum on the internet, get over yourself. You show signs of someone who lacks control in their life and must therefore project control or superiority online. I wouldn't be surprised if you suffered from some sort of inferiority complex and you come here, to the interwebs, to overcompensate, knowing that here you have a sort of "prestige" and people might listen to you.
 
misterman said:
Private companies aren't taking out loans much in a recession because they aren't expanding. If they were, we wouldn't need the government to do it.
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So you're telling me that no private companies are expanding right? Interesting. See my oil stocks are doing pretty well, as did Ford and some fast food stocks that I was interested in. No companies are expanding? You have it wrong there. A recession is a little more complicated than that.
 
The government, in it's entire history, has never created wealth. All they have the ability to do is take money from one location and move it to another. Nothing the gov't does is "for profit." They have never operated in the black, always in the red. The post office has long been a disaster, even mentioned by BHO himself, Amtrak earned the name "Am not on track" because of numerous derailments, medicare and medicaid are being threatened as we speak. Nothing the gov't has done has been a success besides the military. And that's not because its profitable of course but because they spent more money on it than any other nation they actually have decent equipment for SOME of the military.

And before you even think it, the IRS does not make a profit. It takes people's money through threat of force. That is not a legitimate business.

Again, the gov't has never, and will never, create wealth. All they are is a money moving machine. They can take it from one place and move it to another, they can borrow it, but they can never legitimately CREATE it.
 
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dontworrybehappy said:
The government, in it's entire history, has never created wealth.
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Oh they can create wealth, but I dare anyone to find a case of the wealth created being greater than the investment.
 
Well, then that isn't creating wealth, that's a net loss. If you invest 1 dollar and create 85 cents of wealth you didn't create anything. You lost.
 
dontworrybehappy said:
Well, then that isn't creating wealth, that's a net loss. If you invest 1 dollar and create 85 cents of wealth you didn't create anything. You lost.
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I know, don't worry, I agree with you.
 
Your Stimulus Dollars at Work

Grim17 said:
This colossal waste of taxpayer money is a classic example of the inefficiency of the federal government, and the number 1 reason why we need to keep the government out of the health care industry.

Do you people realize, that if the Obama administration would have taken that $157 billion, split it up, and simply given it to the 3 million people who have lost their jobs since Obama took office, that would have given each of them $52,600 a piece... That's an entire years wages.

.
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fed-sign_258484c.jpg


We've had one of these signs up by our house for months. It just sits there and nothing happens.

I laugh everytime I drive by, because it pretty much sums up the stimulus. Then again, I'm sure that putting up the sign created or saved five jobs, and the one that crew put up down the road created or saved another five jobs, etc. etc.
 
Re: Your Stimulus Dollars at Work

Taylor said:
fed-sign_258484c.jpg


We've had one of these signs up by our house for months. It just sits there and nothing happens.

I laugh everytime I drive by, because it pretty much sums up the stimulus. Then again, I'm sure that putting up the sign created or saved five jobs, and the one that crew put up down the road created or saved another five jobs, etc. etc.
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Vandalize it and create a job to clean it. :lol:
 
Re: Your Stimulus Dollars at Work

Taylor said:
We've had one of these signs up by our house for months. It just sits there and nothing happens.

I laugh everytime I drive by, because it pretty much sums up the stimulus. Then again, I'm sure that putting up the sign created or saved five jobs, and the one that crew put up down the road created or saved another five jobs, etc. etc.
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There's one near my home. They dug up a street that had nothing wrong with it.
 
Re: Your Stimulus Dollars at Work

phattonez said:
There's one near my home. They dug up a street that had nothing wrong with it.
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This was my face when they started talking about creating the current 'stimulus':

epicdude86-albums-stuff-picture1166-implied-facepalm.jpg


Endangered frogs and turtle crosswalks?

I can't even facepalm hard enough, Congress. Not nearly hard enough.
 
Re: Your Stimulus Dollars at Work

EpicDude86 said:
Vandalize it and create a job to clean it. :lol:
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OMG, you don't know how many times I've wanted to! Maybe just add a little carboard sign under it that reads, "Citizen Taylor. Putting America back to work with equal effictiveness for a trillion dollars less. Where's my Nobel Prize?"
 
Re: Your Stimulus Dollars at Work

Taylor said:
OMG, you don't know how many times I've wanted to! Maybe just add a little carboard sign under it that reads, "Citizen Taylor. Putting America back to work with equal effictiveness for a trillion dollars less. Where's my Nobel Prize?"
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If you could just get Fox to cover that you might make some publicity off it too! :lol:
 
Re: Your Stimulus Dollars at Work

EpicDude86 said:
turtle crosswalks?
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Don't underestimate the importance of turtle crosswalks. Isn't it obvious how they make life better?
 
Let's do a mental exercise and look at some basic economics. I am only presenting a 'common sense' approach here and no specifics.

I have just got paid from my job making widgets. I have two dollars - one I send off to the federal government and the other I put in the bank.

The one that goes to the government is collected by the IRS. So part of the dollar goes to pay for their time and effort. The remains are now in the general pool where Congress (after taking their expenses out of it) decides where to spend it. The remains are now back in the economy paying for something or other.

The dollar I put into the bank allows the bank to pay its expenses and hold out the portion required by law - let's say that it is an arbitrary 50%. The bank holds onto that 50% and sends the other 50% into the economy through loans.That 50% circulates in the economy and then is put back into the bank again. So 25% goes back out again, etc. In each step the bank is making money "out of thin air" because they are giving 50% out in loans while my account still says 100%. This is a money multiplier situation. So my one dollar I saved in the bank becomes roughly $2 in value - $1 in the bank and another dollar circulating as loans.

Now Keynes is going to point out rather quickly that the dollar that went to the government also ends up in banks so the same multiplier works out. So it really does not matter whether the government or the individual spends the money.

But lets go back to what I do in my job. I make widgets. My company buys raw materials which I use to create a finished widget. The finished widget is sold by my company for more than the costs of the raw materials and my time. Thus, my company has also made money 'out of thin air', also known as profits. So my job has produced more money for the economy as a whole.

The money that is paid to the IRS does not make money 'out of thin air' until it hits a bank. Congress does not make money 'out of thin air' until it spends the money and the recievers put it into a bank. So my dollar that went into the bank and then went out in loans may end up somewhere in the private sector creating more money 'out of thin air'. Or it went to the government to buy some of the government debt in which case it did not increase.

Now our current recession is universally blamed on a credit crunch. There was no money to lend out. That meansthat bank deposits were not keeping up with the demand for loans. So the government solution was to generate more government debt soaking up investment dollars into non-productive investments so that they can spend more money. Another solution may have been to encourage more savings, but our government's tax policy is very 'anti-saving'. Bank accounts (where more money is created) pay interest which is taxed as straight income. The tax rate on the interest is such that, when you take into account the rate of inflation, you actually have less money value than when you started. And yet increasing our savings rate would help our economy avoid a credit crunch. Our problem in the past is ignoring the savings rate and just concentrating on the spending rate.

So there, proof that the private sector is a better place for money than filtering it through the government.
 
carlkay58 said:
The dollar I put into the bank allows the bank to pay its expenses and hold out the portion required by law - let's say that it is an arbitrary 50%. The bank holds onto that 50% and sends the other 50% into the economy through loans.That 50% circulates in the economy and then is put back into the bank again. So 25% goes back out again, etc. In each step the bank is making money "out of thin air" because they are giving 50% out in loans while my account still says 100%. This is a money multiplier situation. So my one dollar I saved in the bank becomes roughly $2 in value - $1 in the bank and another dollar circulating as loans.
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Sure. But there's also a money multiplier effect when someone - including the government - spends money. The money is spent, and then spent again, etc. This also translates into a job multiplier effect.

Now Keynes is going to point out rather quickly that the dollar that went to the government also ends up in banks so the same multiplier works out. So it really does not matter whether the government or the individual spends the money.
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Right, I say that too, me being Keynes for a day!

Now our current recession is universally blamed on a credit crunch. There was no money to lend out. That meansthat bank deposits were not keeping up with the demand for loans. So the government solution was to generate more government debt soaking up investment dollars into non-productive investments so that they can spend more money.
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Non-productive investments? In a recession, there is a lack of productive investments. That's why the government steps in.

Another solution may have been to encourage more savings, but our government's tax policy is very 'anti-saving'. Bank accounts (where more money is created) pay interest which is taxed as straight income. The tax rate on the interest is such that, when you take into account the rate of inflation, you actually have less money value than when you started. And yet increasing our savings rate would help our economy avoid a credit crunch. Our problem in the past is ignoring the savings rate and just concentrating on the spending rate.
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Absolutely. We should have done that. But we didn't.

So there, proof that the private sector is a better place for money than filtering it through the government.
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Of course it is.

But we're in a crisis. The private sector isn't filtering enough money. It needs a boost so it can get going again. A stimulus is a temporary, one-time measure designed to get the private sector moving again.

Thanks for a productive, reasoned post instead of empty mocking with no substance.
 
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