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Dem's Stimulus Plan Costs $278k per Job

Whoozyerdaddy

Whoozyerdaddy

Lifer
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-s-economists-stimulus-has-cost-278000-job_576014.html

When the Obama administration releases a report on the Friday before a long weekend, it’s clearly not trying to draw attention to the report’s contents. Sure enough, the “Seventh Quarterly Report” on the economic impact of the “stimulus,” released on Friday, July 1, provides further evidence that President Obama’s economic “stimulus” did very little, if anything, to stimulate the economy, and a whole lot to stimulate the debt.

The report was written by the White House’s Council of Economic Advisors, a group of three economists who were all handpicked by Obama, and it chronicles the alleged success of the “stimulus” in adding or saving jobs. The council reports that, using “mainstream estimates of economic multipliers for the effects of fiscal stimulus” (which it describes as a “natural way to estimate the effects of” the legislation), the “stimulus” has added or saved just under 2.4 million jobs — whether private or public — at a cost (to date) of $666 billion. That’s a cost to taxpayers of $278,000 per job.

In other words, the government could simply have cut a $100,000 check to everyone whose employment was allegedly made possible by the “stimulus,” and taxpayers would have come out $427 billion ahead.

Furthermore, the council reports that, as of two quarters ago, the “stimulus” had added or saved just under 2.7 million jobs — or 288,000 more than it has now. In other words, over the past six months, the economy would have added or saved more jobs without the “stimulus” than it has with it. In comparison to how things would otherwise have been, the “stimulus” has been working in reverse over the past six months, causing the economy to shed jobs.
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Why would anyone reelect this tool? He's like the anti-Midas... everything he touches turns to shit.

And just in case you think this info comes from some right-wing think tank or other hostile source...

Again, this is the verdict of Obama’s own Council of Economic Advisors, which is about as much of a home-field ruling as anyone could ever ask for.
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All sides agree on these incriminating numbers — and now they also appear to agree on this important point: The economy would now be generating job growth at a faster rate if the Democrats hadn’t passed the “stimulus.”
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The American economy is a pretty reilliant thing. Most of the time it just fixes itself. And it appears as though this is a perfect example of less is more. Should have just left it alone and let it work itself out. Instead we have a negative result and tons of debt specifically related to the 'stimulous' that should actually now be referred to as the 'speed bump'.
 
751animated-obama-money.gif
 
Most of the money went to mitigating the results of the disastrous policies of his predecessor. There has been very little direct government hiring, which would have been the best way to create jobs.
Furthermore, the council reports that, as of two quarters ago, the “stimulus” had added or saved just under 2.7 million jobs — or 288,000 more than it has now. In other words, over the past six months, the economy would have added or saved more jobs without the “stimulus” than it has with it.
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Funny how this qualifies for "logic" in Republican circles. 😀
 
Yes, about $50k went to each worker, and then the rest of the money was burned. It didn't go into the economy and indirectly create jobs. It was burned. Stimulus money was destroyed. It's gone.


Fucking rightwing morons.
 
Ahh the weekly standard. Always a paragon of journalistic integrity. Not only does it neglect to mention how bad tax cuts are for generating jobs, but it of course your always expert analysis neglects to mention that the stimulus did more than just employ people.

But hey, NOBAMA, amirite!?
 
blame bush and it doesn't matter how bad obama does..... right senseamp?
and hiring government workers is NOT what you want to do..... that adds more taxpayer burden in the long-run. The government is too big already
 
Yep, they haven't mentioned that the current economic disaster was created under Bush tax rates which we were told by Republicans would stimulate the economy, and which we are still told we need to keep in order to stimulate a recovery.
 
Lithium381 said:
blame bush and it doesn't matter how bad obama does..... right senseamp?
and hiring government workers is NOT what you want to do..... that adds more taxpayer burden in the long-run. The government is too big already
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That's the kind of mentality that keeps us from having a recovery. You can't have it both ways. If you want to maximize jobs per dollar, you need to have direct government hiring. If you want trickle down, you are going to have to give away hundreds of thousands to banks, CEOs, corporate profits, etc, to create a job... probably in China. Unfortunately, anything but trickle down gets blocked in the current political environment.
 
senseamp said:
Most of the money went to mitigating the results of the disastrous policies of his predecessor. There has been very little direct government hiring, which would have been the best way to create jobs.
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Right. That was the intent. It now turns out that things would be better now if he had just left well enough alone and let the situation right itself.

Funny how this qualifies for "logic" in Republican circles. 😀
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Only because you cherry-picked your quote. You didn't quote the entire thing... the stimulus is now COSTING jobs. 288,000 lost in the last six months directly attiributable to the 'stimulus'. And the jobs that were created... It would have been cheaper to just hand those people a big check.

But you can keep defending this madness if you like. Good luck with that.
 
eskimospy said:
Ahh the weekly standard. Always a paragon of journalistic integrity. Not only does it neglect to mention how bad tax cuts are for generating jobs, but it of course your always expert analysis neglects to mention that the stimulus did more than just employ people.

But hey, NOBAMA, amirite!?
Click to expand...

Are you smoking crack?
 
senseamp said:
Yep, they haven't mentioned that the current economic disaster was created under Bush tax rates which we were told by Republicans would stimulate the economy, and which we are still told we need to keep in order to stimulate a recovery.
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Tax rates had nothing to do with the recession.

It was created by too much debt and spending.

It was a typical cyclical recession. The economy got to hot for to long and over heated. Nearly every recession we have had has been due to the same problem. Too much production and not enough people or money to buy that production. In this case it was too much housing.

The one thing that makes this one different is the financial aspect of the crash. But most of that was fixed under the TARP program.
 
Lithium381 said:
blame bush and it doesn't matter how bad obama does..... right senseamp?
and hiring government workers is NOT what you want to do..... that adds more taxpayer burden in the long-run. The government is too big already
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Government (all levels) is down 380,000 jobs since Obama took office. It was up 1.6 million jobs from the previous 8 years.

As for the stimulus, can't see how there would have been more jobs without it (as stated). Can't say it was or wasn't worth it (time will tell) but can't see logic stating that there would have been more jobs without it at all.
 
Whoozyerdaddy said:
Right. That was the intent. It now turns out that things would be better now if he had just left well enough alone and let the situation right itself.



Only because you cherry-picked your quote. You didn't quote the entire thing... the stimulus is now COSTING jobs. 288,000 lost in the last six months directly attiributable to the 'stimulus'. And the jobs that were created... It would have been cheaper to just hand those people a big check.

But you can keep defending this madness if you like. Good luck with that.
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Your failure here is you can't tell the difference between the actual findings in the report and The Weekly Standard's dishonest partisan spin. It is NOT the report that found the stimulus cost jobs. It simply revised its estimate downwards based on the most current data. It's that propanda rag masquerading as a news source that invented the "cost us jobs" canard, obviously pandering to its agenda.

The irony is if they were ethical, they could find all sorts of valid issues with the stimulus program. It wouldn't have been nearly so simple-minded and sensationalistic, but it would have been legitimate.



In short, work on your critical thinking skills.
 
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boochi said:
Are you smoking crack?
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Nope. Tax cuts are among the least effective methods of creating jobs. If the 8 years of Bush tax cutting failure didn't convince you, perhaps the fact that businesses are sitting on some of the largest stockpiles of cash in our history would answer this question for you.

ie: Companies already have tons of cash. They still aren't hiring. Why would you think that giving them more cash would somehow change their mind?
 
eskimospy said:
Nope. Tax cuts are among the least effective methods of creating jobs. If the 8 years of Bush tax cutting failure didn't convince you, perhaps the fact that businesses are sitting on some of the largest stockpiles of cash in our history would answer this question for you.

ie: Companies already have tons of cash. They still aren't hiring. Why would you think that giving them more cash would somehow change their mind?
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It's 10+ years now.
 
boochi said:
Are you smoking crack?
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Yeah, I'm not so sure about that. The reading I've done says the opposite.

OECD Economics Department WP 715 (2009): Economic growth and the role of taxation – disaggregate data

5. Overall Summary and Implications

211. The decision to become an entrepreneur is affected by the level of taxation and the
progressivity of taxation. Theoretical analysis predicts that taxation alters the risk and return characteristics of the income stream faced by a potential entrepreneur. The empirical results show that the net effect is a reduction in the probability of entrepreneurship being chosen. This can reduce innovation in the economy and have an adverse effect upon the growth rate.

The choices of entrepreneurs are also sensitive to tax incentives. The empirical analysis has identified sole-proprietors with entrepreneurial activity. The research has shown that the business decisions of sole-proprietors are affected by the personal tax system.

An increase in taxation reduces the probability that they will employ workers, reduces the probability that they will invest, and reduces the rate of growth of their business.

212. Investment expenditure is sensitive to tax incentives. The empirical analysis of tax reforms
has established stronger estimates of the tax response. The estimates show that investment will increase when the tax-adjusted user cost falls.

Expenditure on Research and Development is sensitive to tax incentives. The sensitivity of R&D expenditure to tax incentives is one of the most clearly estimated coefficients in the entire literature reviewed. The use of natural experiments coupled with significant changes in policy has given a good measure of the value. The elasticity is smaller in the short run than in the long run, and is consistent across countries.

The level of Foreign Direct Investment is sensitive to tax incentives. Foreign direct investment arises from mobile capital seeking the highest net return. It is therefore no surprise that it is responsive to taxation. This is true between different states within the US, and between countries. There have been many studies of foreign direct investment with good consistency in recent estimates of the tax elasticity.
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That said, the Bush income tax cuts obviously had a negative impact on the United States in creating a structural deficit.
 
eskimospy said:
Ahh the weekly standard. Always a paragon of journalistic integrity. Not only does it neglect to mention how bad tax cuts are for generating jobs, but it of course your always expert analysis neglects to mention that the stimulus did more than just employ people.

But hey, NOBAMA, amirite!?
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So how does one profit when a dollar is spent and .89 cents is what you get back? Please, spare us commentary on "expert" analysis.
 
yllus said:
Yeah, I'm not so sure about that. The reading I've done says the opposite.

OECD Economics Department WP 715 (2009): Economic growth and the role of taxation – disaggregate data



That said, the Bush income tax cuts obviously had a negative impact on the United States in creating a structural deficit.
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Nothing in your quote goes against what I said. I said that tax cuts were among the LEAST effective options available to us. Not that they were wholly ineffective.

Corporate profits are way way up, they are sitting on mountains of cash, but they still aren't hiring. Why do you think that if we gave them a slightly larger profit margin and a slightly higher mountain of cash that their behavior would suddenly change? It's pretty clear that something else is causing this reluctance to expand.
 
eskimospy said:
Ahh the weekly standard. Always a paragon of journalistic integrity. Not only does it neglect to mention how bad tax cuts are for generating jobs, but it of course your always expert analysis neglects to mention that the stimulus did more than just employ people.

But hey, NOBAMA, amirite!?
Click to expand...
Hey genius here is the report written by Obama's team.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/cea_7th_arra_report.pdf
It is only 16 pages long, go read it.

Straight from the report:
"As of the first quarter of 2011, the report estimates that the Recovery Act raised employment by 2.4 to 3.6 million jobs relative to what it otherwise would have been."

Do the math.
$666 billion divided by 3.6 million jobs equals $185,000 per job at best estimate.

We could have sent every person living in this country a check for $2,000 and probably got a better result.

Or think of it this way...
There is around 13 million unemployed Americans. We could have sent each of them a check for $50,000.

The bottom line is that the stimulus worked, but it cost too much per job saved.
 
I think to say the the Obama Stimulus is the reason we're in the state that we're in is to discount the economic impacts of the following events:

H1N1 Swine flu scare. Toxic assets still owned by the banks. Shit was about to hit the fan in the EU (might still). Middle East goes nuts. Gas prices reach $4/gallon. Snowmageddon followed by major floodings. Japan nearly about to become uninhabitable. Deep Horizon Oil Spill. Underwear bomber. Time Square Bomber. Housing market still in a slump.

Obviously, the list isn't exhaustive but you get the picture.
 
ProfJohn said:
Hey genius here is the report written by Obama's team.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/cea_7th_arra_report.pdf
It is only 16 pages long, go read it.

Straight from the report:
"As of the first quarter of 2011, the report estimates that the Recovery Act raised employment by 2.4 to 3.6 million jobs relative to what it otherwise would have been."

Do the math.
$666 billion divided by 3.6 million jobs equals $185,000 per job at best estimate.

We could have sent every person living in this country a check for $2,000 and probably got a better result.

Or think of it this way...
There is around 13 million unemployed Americans. We could have sent each of them a check for $50,000.

The bottom line is that the stimulus worked, but it cost too much per job saved.
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Psst: the stimulus did more than just create jobs.
 
ProfJohn said:
Tax rates had nothing to do with the recession.

It was created by too much debt and spending.

It was a typical cyclical recession. The economy got to hot for to long and over heated. Nearly every recession we have had has been due to the same problem. Too much production and not enough people or money to buy that production. In this case it was too much housing.

The one thing that makes this one different is the financial aspect of the crash. But most of that was fixed under the TARP program.
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Top tier tax rates have everything to do with it- too much "investment" money chasing too few returns creates credit bubbles. Debt can't exist w/o lending- perhaps that's too obvious, huh?

This is *not* a typical recession, at all. It's a lot bigger than that- it's a disaster, an utter failure of Republican policy except as it relates to the true Bush constituency. Just because massive govt intervention has, at least, postponed a replay of the Great Depression doesn't change that.

You know that to be true, and you also know that Republican proposals wrt taxes & govt spending will only intensify it. Hence your rather desperate posting of new threads making the same empty arguments over & over again, which is just rehashing the same talking points as the Weekly Standard.

If each job cost as much as claimed, that just means that the financial elite took a really, really big slice off the top, stashed it or whisked it offshore in the dollar carry trade. It's really an argument for direct govt employment so that money goes where we need it to go, rather than straight to the top to be held out of circulation in this country.

The American people can afford to take care of each other when we need to do so- what we can't afford is acquiescence to the bottomless pit of greed at the top of the economic food chain.
 
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