The New Bailout

[xoxoxoBruce]

Like any business, the boss screws up and the employees get screwed.

[skysidhe]

yup exactly

We are mandated to balance every year unlike California which is running a deficit. I am not sure if that is the right word 'deficit' but I think for California to go bust would be scary thing.

[TheMercenary]

I feel sorry for all those folks who paid hansomely for those cars within the last few years. I wonder how long they will continue to fix them?

[tw]

History says unemployment may peak in 2012. With less than 100 years of comprehensive data, we have insufficient information to predict how well and what will happen due to what Bernanke, et al have done. We do know the economy was on the verge of a complete meltdown. How much less damage could have been done? That is debated. We do know, without doubt, that it could have been massively worse.

We also know the debts incurred to avoid a complete economic catastrophe will appear many years later. A disastrous home mortgage fiasco has yet to be addressed. We do know American fiscal irresponsibility over most of the last ten year will result in economic harm years from now. Economics takes revenge on those who use money games (ie tax cuts, corporate welfare, tariffs).

Large parts of America must be sold to pay our debts. Unfortunately irresponsible parties (ie General Motors) would rather destroy existing organizations rather than admit how little those organizations are now worth (ie Saab, Oldsmobile, Opel, Saturn, Pontiac, Vauxhall, etc).

Spread sheet games from years previously mean job losses or sale of America to others. We don't have much left to mortgage having even converted a government surplus into massive debts (with nothing to show for it). These are the lessons even from Nam. One need only learn why George Sr was so smart as to have the world - not America - pay for Desert Storm. Lessons from history. Now we will learn if a different tack from Bernanke, et al will work better.

Obvious was a crashing housing industry based in money games. Same reasoning says we have yet to see the eventual unemployment numbers. Worse are the number of American jobs that must be filled by immigrants - due to a shortage of technically educated American and a government that has subverted science for political purposes. Things have yet to get worse. The only question is how much. Mild or severe?

[classicman]

Bumpity bump... not sure yet how to take this. Its probably bunk, but ...

Pelosi: Without Obama's Stimulus, Unemployment Would Now Be 15%
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) said at her press briefing Thursday that if the stimulus had not been enacted the unemployment rate would now be 15 percent.

"I think it’s really important to know that President Obama was a job creator from day one," Pelosi said at her Thursday briefing. "Now, was the ditch that we were in so deep that when you’re talking to people and they still don’t have a job, that that’s any consolation to them? No.

“But I’ll tell you this,” said Pelosi, “if President Obama and the House congressional Democrats had not acted, we would be at 15 percent unemployment. Again, no consolation to those without a job, but an important point to make."

A report published by the CBO in August estimated that in the fourth quarter of 2011, the stimulus signed by President Obama in 2009 would have the impact of reducing the national unemployment rate between 0.3 points to 1.1 points from what it otherwise would have been. The report also said that although CBO initially estimated that the stimulus would cost $787 billion, CBO had subsequently increased its estimated cost to $825 billion.

According to the CBO report, 600,000 to 2 million people have jobs as of now that were "created or retained" because of the $825 billion stimulus. If the maximum number of 2 million is accepted, that works out to a cost of $412,500 per job. If the minimum number of 600,000 is accepted, that works out to a cost of $1,375,000 per job.

Help me out here people. What am I missing?

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by classicman

Bumpity bump... not sure yet how to take this. Its probably bunk, but ...



Help me out here people. What am I missing?

Not bunk. The supposed Obama-Pelosi-Reid "Stimulus" was a boondoggled failure.

[classicman]

Maybe it was this ...
Link

[SamIam]

Your link led me to something called the "Wonk Blog." When I tried to click on its content, the site wouldn't let me do anything. Maybe you have to subscribe?

That CBO report came out in 2010, so its sort of old news. Although I don't see why it would lie since the CBO is non partisan.

Nancy Pelosi, on the other hand, is running for re-election. I'd take the word of any politician running for office with a gazillion grains of salt.

[classicman]

Wonkblog is the Washington Post editorial page.

The link takes you to an article that goes over 9 different assessments of the stimulus and its benefits.

[SamIam]

OK, I tried it tonight, and now it works. This morning I either had gremlins in my computer or quite possibly my brain.

That's a lot of info there and I just glanced through it. The author says 6 out of 9 studies show that the stimulus was effective. But he also notes that economists seem to have some quarrels with each other over which economic model to use or something.

Off topic but this finding interested me

Aid to low-income people and infrastructure spending showed very positive impacts.

So, why does Congress want to throw low income Americans out to be food for the wolves again?

Anyhow. I didn't see anything that explained the incredible money to job ratio that you highlighted in your post. But I didn't read all nine studies - maybe buried away somewhere in one of them?

Say an average American made $40,000/year. At those costs, you could just directly give an unemployed worker that sum for anywhere from 10 - 34 years.

But if you looked at it like each worker has been placed in a $40,000/year job that s/he is going to keep for 20 years, get periodic pay increases, and pay taxes on - well then the numbers might make more sense.

I'm not much help, am I?

UT or tw needs to give you a reply.

[classicman]

no the original post based that jobs created # off the total amount of the stimulus when only part of it was for job creation. Thats what I got from the second link anyway.

[Happy Monkey]

It's like the "$16 muffins".

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

It's like the "$16 muffins".

That report was false.


http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/10...n_never_e.html

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

That report was false.

Of course. That was my point.

[classicman]

zactly ... I think.
Shouldn't this be a relatively easy figure to guesstimate?