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Note that early, Obama and Company hedged their positions by changing their claim of "create four million new jobs" to "create or save three and a half million new jobs."
Of course, a true figure of 150,000 jobs is a real embarrassment. So is the latest June job loss, 467,000.
They can say they didn't spend anywhere near all the money committed, but then we have to ask why not given all the hype we were treated to about the "necessity" to spend ourselves into oblivion and record debt. Why didn't they do what everyone was expecting, begin infrastructure projects nation-wide, not only on road and bridge repairs and replacements, and even some new road projects (LA metro could use two 20-30 mile all-new freeways to complete its system), but also projects like electrical transmission (new projects and uprating existing rights-of-way to higher voltage and power levels)?
Maybe they were saving money to give to the states needing a likely bailout, merely to waste it on current operations. (Does anyone believe California will reform its destructive liberal policies?)
Even as a conservative, I don't think the stimulus bill at this point has done harm, and some of the spending which didn't create jobs was still needed (my understanding is that most of what has already gone out the door was funds to states to cover Medicaid expenses, since the states are unable to cover the shortfall.)
But it's still fair to point out that the stimulus has not met one of the main goals touted by some of its supporters- stopping the downward cycle of a steep recession. In fact, we're already on a much steeper curve of unemployment than the Obama administration predicted would occur without passage of a stimulus package. That doesn't mean that anyone should claim cause:effect that the stimulus spending has led to greater unemployment than we'd have had otherwise- but certainly the policy has not had its intended effect (which was supposed to already be a positive effect by this point.)
And with the hefty price tag and our enormous deficits, it's also fair to ask whether or not the stimulus in the form that it took was wise policy. Even some moderate Dems like the Blue Dogs and former Clinton cabinet official Alice Rivlin pointed out that it would have made more sense to break down the bill into emergency spending (the state Medicaid payments, for instance, and increased disbursements for unemployment insurance), and some targeted 'shovel ready' infrastructure projects and tax breaks which could have a more immediate effect on spending and jobs. Then start a more deliberative debate process over long term investment projects.
Instead Obama and the Dem Congress chose to rush through an expensive package which had little of the short term stimulus effect that economists recommend to stop the downward spiral of recession. So, yes, they do own that decision and this summer the voters are starting to hold them accountable for it.
Undoubtedly, mikkel- in fact I've already seen that argument made in regard to explaining the unemployment numbers currently being higher than they predicted would occur without passage of the stimulus.
"The Federal stimulus money has allowed me to retain my current workforce, not lay them off. And I'm very happy with that."
Notice he said "retain my current workforce" but not hire. That is what is occurring here in Georgia and I imagine in other states. There may be more job retention but job creation will be little to none. And job retention doesn't help those that are unemployed in the slightest.
The bubble burst and so many jobs lived on that bubble. We are in a period of economic suffering. And right now, Democrats and Republicans are flailing about on this issue. Personally I would have pick one or two big infrastructure projects and dumped funds into that as stimulus. I would have kept it very simple and sweet. Instead of dividing funds among the states (along with associated frosting).
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2009/06...
And it's only going to get worse. We're in the middle of a crash pure and simple and the government action is sending us deeper.
In light of it all my plan is to get out of all debts and hedge some in gold and silver. Looking at the widget http://www.learcapital.com/exactprice both those metals are trading down right now. But I don't expect them to stay there in the coming months. Time will tell of course.
Not sure how the stimulus package caused a worsing of the job market, the auto bailouts, and a tax on the middle class. Sounds a bit like conservative talking points to me. If anything, Obama is going to tax the rich.
From what I have read, a "jobless" recovery has become the historical standard. Jobs come after the recovery...that is just how it is.
I know Krugman is calling for more stimulus, but I think it is a bit late for that.
Part of the traitorous and undermining lack of regulation was the increasing export of labor overseas where "our" products are now produced en masse. Are we really just dumber than dirt? Solution: mandate return of labor, lower the minimum wage, provide universal health care and then the sultans of industry can maintain their caviar lifestyles without the foreign slave force to provide them with it. The only thing "wrong" with our economy is that it has been pimped out by a bunch of insatiably-greedy CEOs while our elected leaders are paid to look the other way.
The health "care" industry sits at the top of offenders in that they have made american workers [and people in general] so unattractive to hire $$ that they aren't being hired. To put it in simple terms our nation is crumbling due directly to the stranglehold BigInsurance and BigPharmaceuticals has on our shorthairs..
Yes, I'm "calling out" the racket. The emperor[s] have no clothes.. Make lobbying illegal and make the penalties for accepting bribes so harrowing that nobody would ever even think of doing it..
We can get jobs back with universal health care lessening the burden on goods manufactured in the USA.. This stuff is all inter-related folks..
Oh, and research India and China's taste and needs in green cars before Japan does and corners us out of the market... again.
You'd think this stuff was rocket science? *sigh*
"The jobless rate jumped to 9.5 percent, the highest since August 1983, from 9.4 percent."
"Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute, said that the loss of 6.5 million jobs since the start of the recession combined with the growth of the workforce means that the gains of the previous business cycle have been completely blown away."
"The ranks of the long-term unemployed — people out of work for 27 weeks or more — grew by 433,000 in June to a total of 4.4 million. Three in 10 workers are now long-term unemployed."
What's wrong with this picture?
6,500,000 unemployed means 9.5% unemployment. Yet 4,400,000 long-term unemployed means 33.3% long-term unemployed?
I know these are not your words. And I agree with your point(s). But I'm curious - do you think someone's playing a bit with the numbers too?
I'm about to take a mandatory unpaid week of vacation. And yes, if this is the worst it gets for me, I'm extremely fortunate. But this "3 out of 10" comment you quoted is just plain wrong, right?
Even with universal health care, we will not get most of these jobs back.
Why pay an American union worker 30 an hour to build something a chinaman can build for 30 a month?
Why pay an American IT person 50 an hour to do the job an Indian will do for 50 a day?
It is simple, you shouldn't.
Americans should be training for the jobs of the future, not manual labor jobs that will no longer support the "American dream". People need to understand that the world has changed and that manual labor will not provide like it used too. We need skilled workers that produce goods that require well-educated and hard working people. Making hub caps simply isn't going to cut it anymore.
This is more about education than it is about UHC.
Exactly. Some of this stuff has been coming for years, even decades. We are reaping the rewards that come from throwing aside common sense and morphing into a culture that embraces greed as a virtue. That said, we have an electorate that is slow to hold it's leaders accountable, probably because they spend more time filling their heads with fluff instead of learning how their government is functioning.
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Yes. And the politicians are filling something too. It's their pockets from lobbying money, Their heads know exactly and deftly how to court the bottom line. The only thing "fluffy" about them is their morality and patriotism.
I care very much about this country. Solidly. That is the wellspring from which all my leanings emerge. So it may be confusing to you and others on either side of the extremes spectrum [unbridled bacchanalism or unbridled greed] that I seem to waffle back and forth between "camps". There are no camps. There is only pragmatic solvency of our country which is in dire trouble right now. And it is to this end that I write and strive daily to salvage it.
Promoting gay agendas or the agendas of the greedy right now in our nation's history is suicidal. Learn to put aside personal agendas and pull together to knit our country into one solid intent: to recover our basic infrastructure before the vultures descend to pick our collective carcass clean. Last I heard, there aren't a lot of "gay" [what is "gay" specifically?] "rights", nor provisions for unbridled economic expansion [greed] under Chinese or Russian rule...
Democracy divorced from morality becomes mandated communism. Use responsibly..
Clear enough?
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/29/ba...
Do not neglect the public's concern about the rushing of the destructive (in fact, pathological) climate bill and how they're rushing to do the same with health care and deliberately avoiding the cost issue as they rush to get something legislated. (Followed by the start already of another rush on immigration "reform")
"... slippage in [Obama's] economics ratings..."
http://people-press.org/report/522/
Much of the balance of the stimulus package is a slow-walk "stimulus", stretching over two years and designed to reach its greatest impact in - guess when - 2010.
Additional portions of the stimulus bill are targeted at democratic policy objectives, many of which are not ready for funding and, therefore, not stimulative.
This was an extremely poorly crafted piece of legislation, particularly if the goal was short term economic stimulation and job creation. From his perspective (not mine) Krugman is probably right that we need another stimulus bill...since we didn't get one the first time. But, can Krugman guarantee a do-over would be any better?
The undeserving UAW was obviously paid off in the takeovers of Chrysler and especially GM. (The UAW is in effect an auxiliary arm of the Dems in Washington.) So far no movement on Employee Free Choice Act, though.
Wiser folks were always skeptical and we're seeing less than stellar results from this stimulus to date.
The cost of living has risen but not the means to support it outside of more borrowing, more debt.
America's middle class was conned into putting its money into Wall Street scams that were designed to make a fast profit for the Masters of The Universe at Goldman Sachs, all the while being told it would pay off due to the magic of compound interest. That might have been the case in a properly regulated market but not in the free for all of the last 30 years. We continue to give tax breaks to "American" companies that make all their products overseas. The real engines of industry, small businesses, are screwed due to the pendulum swing of overly tight credit that came as a result of all the banks finally taking a look at the utter crap they had bought with their CDOs and trying to mitigate their losses.
Luckily for us the change is going to come when speculators have sent the price of a dwindling oil supply so ridiculously high that it finally becomes cheaper to manufacture here in the US again compared to transporting goods across the ocean. Obama may be spurring this to happen a little faster with his cap and trade energy policy but its still a decade away by my reckoning.
If we could just get Card Check passed quickly so that companies could gain the benefits of being unionized, then pass a carbon tax to increase the energy costs for everyone, everything should be fine.
Hope and Change.
Instead of creating jobs, interest rates were bumped up, the dollar slid... and it didn't help anybody get any work. Much of this is due to the fact that Obama's agenda has mortified almost every machine of job-and-growth creation in the country.
The One couldn't deliver the type of "temporary, targeted, and timely" bill that he promised for weeks. Irregardless of his beautified image in the press, Obama lacks the the political stature to control Pelosi and Reid... who hit the trough hard, while bickering like siblings.
But the lack of GOP co-conspirators exposed Obama politically... this legislation now looks to be a huge gamble. And when all this pork-n-welfare fails to generate any real economic gains... the Democrats could face a bloodbath in 2010.
One could make the argument that Obama knows his legacy will be in tatters by 2012.. and is ramming through as much of his far-left agenda as he can before the day comes when people cringe at the mere mention of his name... sure seems like it.
http://reaganiterepublicanresistance.blogspot.com
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The foolish $700B+ "stimulus" legislation has already crapped out: these figures are far worse than the ones the White House warned us about if we DIDN'T pass the bill- but it was passed, and still unemployment soars?
Instead of creating jobs, interest rates were bumped up, the dollar slid... with few actual economic benefits.
Much of this is due to the fact that Obama's anti-business agenda has mortified almost every machine of job-and-growth creation in the country.
The Democrats just HAD to insist on tax-n-spend, rather than a tax holiday for, say, six months... can you imagine how things would be doing with a $700B tax cut instead?
And the One couldn't deliver the type of "temporary, targeted, and timely" bill that he promised for weeks, either. Irregardless of his beautified image, in reality Obama lacks the the political stature to control Pelosi and Reid... who hit the trough hard, while bickering like siblings.
The lack of GOP co-conspirators exposed Obama politically... this legislation now looks to be a HUGE gamble. And when all this pork-n-welfare fails to generate any real economic gains... the Democrats could face a bloodbath in 2010.
One could make the argument that Obama knows his legacy will be in tatters by 2012, and could care less how much damage his radical programs do to the economy. He's therefore ramming-through as much of his far-left agenda as he can before the day comes when people cringe at the mere mention of his name-
Sure seems like it.
http://reaganiterepublicanresistance.blogspot.com