Responsible Adult Way vs. The Sure Thing

9 thoughts on “Responsible Adult Way vs. The Sure Thing”

1. From whom?

   Obama’s plan certainly isn’t to get anyone’s money back, it’s to take much more from them under the guise of “stimulus”.

   In fact, there are many skeptics regarding this monstrous expansion of government. To wit:

   John Cochrane, a professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, says that among academics over the last 30 years, the idea of fiscal stimulus has been discredited and in graduate courses, it is “taught only for its fallacies.”

   New York University economist Thomas Sargent agrees: “The calculations that I have seen supporting the stimulus package are back-of-the-envelope ones that ignore what we have learned in the last 60 years of macroeconomic research.”

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   1. I mean, you voted for McCain.

      …Oh wait.

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      1. He’s more accountable to me, not less.

         This stimulus thing is really getting out of hand.

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   2. Replied to myself instead of you. Sorry!

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   3. If economic stimulus is such a dud, why were the years 1933-1941 hold the title to the greatest job expansion in history, bit by bit?  What else was at work?  Good luck?  Plutocratic make work programs?  

      Second, what should we do now, if not ES? Wait?

      Economics is not a science as you know.  So some academics now diss ES.  Recall, same cats were all the the bandwagon of the Chicago School, which now has wheels coming off.  

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      1. 

         Unemployment stays above 20% even with the New Deal.

         Here’s the link from the study the UCLA folks did that claims that FDR’s policies extended the Depression by seven years.

         “Why the Great Depression lasted so long has always been a great mystery, and because we never really knew the reason, we have always worried whether we would have another 10- to 15-year economic slump,” said Ohanian, vice chair of UCLA’s Department of Economics. “We found that a relapse isn’t likely unless lawmakers gum up a recovery with ill-conceived stimulus policies.”

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         1. But unless I am getting it all wrong, here’s the lynch pin of their argument.

            “Using data collected in 1929 by the Conference Board and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Cole and Ohanian were able to establish average wages and prices across a range of industries just prior to the Depression.”

            Are they saying everything was great and then suddenly boom out of nowhere, The Depression? What makes them so sure that those average wages and prices from that time were good for the average person, rather than the beginning of the slippery slope the country was about to slide over en masse?

            I also see no quantifiable proof of their statement that the county was poised for a beautiful comeback.  Saying so doesn’t make it so.  I could say I am personally poised to make a beautiful comeback as a supermodel rockstar, but you’d be well advised not to place any significant bets on that happening.

            My daddy used to say, “Figures don’t lie, but liars figure.”  And he should know. He was a used car salesman, and later in life, a government employee.

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         2. …I’ve never seen 38% UE figures before, anywhere.  But using that, a drop of 40% in a few years is not effective?  Holy Breadline, Batman, GW would have loved to seen that during his administration.

            It is beyond me how anyone can Monday morning quarterback from 70 years and say that the New Deal made things worse.  Your chart alone shows otherwise.  It was doing NOTHING why Hoover got the boot.  

            Beside economics, there is the matter of national morale and hope.  The Communists, the Fascists, the Klan, were all trying to take over the government. There was a military coup forming that Smedley Butler ratted on. People were listening, joining, marching.  

            FDR deflated those sails by putting people to work.  Sometimes the appearance of doing something is as successful as doing something. (See: Placebo.)

            And The Heritage Foundation is not exactly a neutral or academic source of this information, see lower corner of your chart.  Any organization that is doing a “Thank You President Bush” is fucking nuts.  

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2. Who has ‘our’ money?

   Big Banks/Credit Card companies? Lord knows they have more of mine than is decent, right or proper.

   Haliburton and Legalized In-the-Pocket Gangs just like ’em?

   Big Pharma? Big Oil? Big Anything?

   Not that I have made a genuine study of it — I’m admitting that at the start — but I think the general Obama plan is more like, getting ‘our’ money back in CIRCULATION.

   In my household, money comes in from here and there, and we pay our bills and buy the stuff we need and it goes out again.

   In households where nothing or not much is coming in, there’s nothing to go out. So then there are more households somewhere, where nothing is coming in so nothing can go out.  Problem!

   Giving people a one time chunk of change was a stupid idea that didn’t work worth a dang. Giving away money to corporations who already blew one humongous wad seems like a pretty dumb idea, too.

   Starting projects that will create paychecks and purchase of infrastructure building supplies so that money can start going around and around again strikes me as a pretty GOOD idea.  

   So I’ll take that one, even if it means some rather deserving CEOs and such don’t get kneecapped. Can’t have everything.

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