Stimulus Spending Doesn't Work

[LegendKiller]

Just because there are studies that disagree doesn't mean its true, there are lots more studies and real world cases where stimulus doesn't work.

The government caused the recession and they will only make it worse by trying to fix it.

You don't get it, pretty much NO studies show that tax cuts have a bigger benefit than stimulus.

The government did not cause the recession, private people caused it. Any person who looked at the situation rationally and dispassionately knew what was going on and could have stopped it quickly. However, as with tulip bulbs, railroads, margin stocks, S&Ls, tech companies or houses, everybody was caught up in the "game".

I know your teabagger brain has a hard time swallowing the inevitable psychology of boom/bust mentalities, but it's been happening for a long time, long before the current incarnation of "big government".

 

[Incorruptible]

You don't get it, pretty much NO studies show that tax cuts have a bigger benefit than stimulus.

The government did not cause the recession, private people caused it. Any person who looked at the situation rationally and dispassionately knew what was going on and could have stopped it quickly. However, as with tulip bulbs, railroads, margin stocks, S&Ls, tech companies or houses, everybody was caught up in the "game".

I know your teabagger brain has a hard time swallowing the inevitable psychology of boom/bust mentalities, but it's been happening for a long time, long before the current incarnation of "big government".

The government did cause the recession, they subsidized the risk for banks and actually encouraged them to make those loans.

I know your liberaltard brain has a hard time swallowing the inevitable psychology of boom/bust mentalities.

 

[LunarRay]

This is the problem... the most profit... yada yada... greed aint good...

This sort of thinking backs people into corners, deciding whether to go without food or pay the rent this month.

What makes the most profit for businesses is to cut pay to employees (whether its laying them off, cutting salary/benefits, shipping $20/hr jobs to Afghanistan in return for $7/hr labor).

Yeah, nothing works in this world, and never will. Keep complaining about Obama, and you'll complain about Romney, and the next President.

Changing people won't work, changing attitudes will. But that won't happen either....

Business do consider their image as a profit factor. Their image is quantifiable to some extent... but hard numbers carry the day.

Greed is a motivator and not seen as a desirable trait to have. But, in the case of our beloved Corporations who provide for our every need and want just who are the greedy folks....
Who own those corporations and who among them want earning less on their investments?
How many among us want paying more for what our corporations provide... Do we shop at Costco and Walmart because their Chinese made goods are cheaper than say Ralph's Food Market or some other American Business? Everyone of us want the most for the least and we bitch if our 401K or IRA is losing money....

IF you work for one of these American Corporations do you quit because the management opts to outsource or do you get fired and if you are lucky enough to not have your job outsourced do you remain and do you try to do the best you can to stay employed at your current rate and days per year?... Can you afford to cut your 2080 hrs and vacations and sick leave and benefits so your neighbor and you can both move to the trailer park from your foreclosed and bought by some Chinese investor home?

 

[LunarRay]

The government did cause the recession, they subsidized the risk for banks and actually encouraged them to make those loans.

I know your liberaltard brain has a hard time swallowing the inevitable psychology of boom/bust mentalities.

Who is this government you mention?

Is it the one in which fewer regulations permitted the home mortgage fiasco and who or which side of that debate wants fewer regulations?

You do realize that you MUST take care of Wall Street AND Main Street... both are integral to the big picture when they are in trouble.
Do you recall Chrysler's bail out back when and NYC and and... Government is us... We elect the idiots on both sides... We are to blame... and we are hell bent on causing the other half to suffer so we don't.... That is reality.

 

[Doppel]

Stimulus spending works in the short term, but indefinitely, which is the equivalent of what the West has been doing now for decades, results in an untenable economy because it invariably involves a deficit, and now we see it unraveling in those who jumped into the stimulus effect with the most glee.

 

[LunarRay]

Stimulus spending works in the short term, but indefinitely, which is the equivalent of what the West has been doing now for decades, results in an untenable economy because it invariably involves a deficit, and now we see it unraveling in those who jumped into the stimulus effect with the most glee.

Assume for a moment that the 28th Amendment said that Government is prohibited from providing fiscal policy stimulus and the FED is abolished.

Ok... now bursts a couple bubbles.... say housing and some other biggie... all manner of economic down ticks occur...
How do you stop the spiral and how do you get the economy rebounding?

Only big business can do it... but will they or would they? And if so why would they? I suppose the fact that if they didn't they'd die might be incentive enough to get them to do something.. but they sure ain't doing it now even without the 28th Amendment and government pouring money into the system.

I guess the best way to survive is to die and start over... Reincarnate as a pigeon or something.

 

[LegendKiller]

The government did cause the recession, they subsidized the risk for banks and actually encouraged them to make those loans.

I know your liberaltard brain has a hard time swallowing the inevitable psychology of boom/bust mentalities.

Nobody "subsidized the risk" for the banks. Almost nobody at the banks had any inkling of what they were doing or how it would end, they simply didn't even think that housing would go down. I know, I worked at a big bank chock full of of Duke, Wharton, Princeton, Yale graduates who thought that the fairy tale would never end and their precious credit card master trust would never face a liquidity crisis.

When asked one time what they would do to save the master trust in the event of higher borrower defaults resulting in lower excess spread, one executive merely said "We'll just increase credit card rates throughout the entire trust".

They had no fucking clue.

I was almost laughed at for the preposterous idea that housing would decline. How could that possibly happen, it never had nationally in the country's history?

Nobody underwrote anything, that was the exact problem. Banks didn't underwrite borrowers, borrowers didn't underwrite their houses.

It's hard to acknowledge, I know, you just want to blame the banks. However, blame your fellow Americans who bought into the bubble in the first place.


That's not even to get into the discussion that had the housing bubble not happened we'd have been in a recession for the last decade anyway. The only reason why we even got out of the 2001 recession was through the housing bubble, that's it. So really, the current recession is nothing more than a continuation of the headache from the tech bust.

 

[Incorruptible]

Nobody "subsidized the risk" for the banks. Almost nobody at the banks had any inkling of what they were doing or how it would end, they simply didn't even think that housing would go down. I know, I worked at a big bank chock full of of Duke, Wharton, Princeton, Yale graduates who thought that the fairy tale would never end and their precious credit card master trust would never face a liquidity crisis.

When asked one time what they would do to save the master trust in the event of higher borrower defaults resulting in lower excess spread, one executive merely said "We'll just increase credit card rates throughout the entire trust".

They had no fucking clue.

I was almost laughed at for the preposterous idea that housing would decline. How could that possibly happen, it never had nationally in the country's history?

Nobody underwrote anything, that was the exact problem. Banks didn't underwrite borrowers, borrowers didn't underwrite their houses.

It's hard to acknowledge, I know, you just want to blame the banks. However, blame your fellow Americans who bought into the bubble in the first place.


That's not even to get into the discussion that had the housing bubble not happened we'd have been in a recession for the last decade anyway. The only reason why we even got out of the 2001 recession was through the housing bubble, that's it. So really, the current recession is nothing more than a continuation of the headache from the tech bust.

But the government did subsidize the risk for the banks and made it easier for them to give out loans. The blame also goes to the morons who took those loans when they knew they couldn't afford it.

 

[HendrixFan]

But the government did subsidize the risk for the banks and made it easier for them to give out loans. The blame also goes to the morons who took those loans when they knew they couldn't afford it.

The problem wasn't the loans, it was securitization of those loans. That opened up the spigot in ways low interest rates never could.

 

[LegendKiller]

But the government did subsidize the risk for the banks and made it easier for them to give out loans. The blame also goes to the morons who took those loans when they knew they couldn't afford it.

How do you think they subsidized the risk?

 

[Darwin333]

Corporations just having had the most profitable two years in their history since the end of the era of robber barons IS a sure sign that stimulus don't work. I am so sure!

You are right, stimulus spending does work....... for them.

 

[ultimatebob]

Europe has proven that austerity measures don't work either. Sooo... What does?

 

[glenn1]

In general, yes.

There are exceptions however. In limited, temporary, endeavors the government can incur debt and/or print money. Anything more than a shot in the arm can crash the government and/or inflate the currency.

So stimulus is not a infinite magic bullet but rather a limited tool to be used wisely. Our leaders are obviously not the sort who are going to do that. For four years now stimulus has been their solution to everything, to the doom of us all.

The government has become an addict whose drug of choice is debt. They're such junkies now they can freebase $800 billion dollars worth of "stimulus" and it doesn't even increase their pulse. Someone ought to do one of these "faces of meth" images with Uncle Sam on it showing before and after his 200+ years and tens of trillions dollar bender:

 

[LegendKiller]

The government has become an addict whose drug of choice is debt. They're such junkies now they can freebase $800 billion dollars worth of "stimulus" and it doesn't even increase their pulse. Someone ought to do one of these "faces of meth" images with Uncle Sam on it showing before and after his 200+ years and tens of trillions dollar bender:

You still don't get it. It's not the government that's addicted to debt, it's Americans and larger, humans. We elect the "government", we allow them to spend the money, we allow them to get into wars we don't need. We do this by allowing the same muppets to get voted in and screaming at each other about wedge issues while they tell us what policies they will enact outside the wedge issues and we just don't care.

Put it this way, we knew Obama would put in Obamacare and we knew that McCain would go to war every 5 seconds, increase DHS and the military. Yet either one of them was OK based upon the wedge issues you believed in, whether that's abortion, gay marriage, or whatever neocon or uber-liberal bullshit belief you have.

Don't divorce our problem with debt from the government.

 

[glenn1]

You still don't get it. It's not the government that's addicted to debt, it's Americans and larger, humans. We elect the "government", we allow them to spend the money, we allow them to get into wars we don't need. We do this by allowing the same muppets to get voted in and screaming at each other about wedge issues while they tell us what policies they will enact outside the wedge issues and we just don't care.

Put it this way, we knew Obama would put in Obamacare and we knew that McCain would go to war every 5 seconds, increase DHS and the military. Yet either one of them was OK based upon the wedge issues you believed in, whether that's abortion, gay marriage, or whatever neocon or uber-liberal bullshit belief you have.

Don't divorce our problem with debt from the government.

People don't vote in elections hoping that government will mirror the debt mistakes they make, they want and should get a government that is better than that. If you're saying they can't expect that, then that should be all the explanation you need for why it needs to be cut down - the citizens could do just fine going into massive debt all on their own without needing to pay a bunch of politicians to do it for them also.

 

[Matt1970]

This would be a case of not regulations but there is a greater incentive to off shore stuff than do it here... profit... and profit is good stuff... it is the motivator for good stuff and stuff that seems bad but is in keeping with what corporations ought to be doing... making a profit for their owners...

Corporations are free to make stuff here, it's just your toaster made in USA costs twice as much as the one made in China and Americans will flock to the cheapest thing they can get their hand on time after time.

 

[shortylickens]

It works great!
The government contractors all have pools now!

 

[LunarRay]

Corporations are free to make stuff here, it's just your toaster made in USA costs twice as much as the one made in China and Americans will flock to the cheapest thing they can get their hand on time after time.

Right!

So... since we can buy American made toasters [I assume we make them but don't know why if we can't sell them] and if the price is the same because of lots of factors including economies of scale we'd solve that problem once we figure out the balance of 'lots of factors'.

We could start with lowering the Direct Labor Costs. But then those workers couldn't afford toasters.... Fork stuck in bread over an open fire for them. And that is dangerous and they'd probably start an unintended fire... and with the Fire Depts understaffed the house would burn down... hmmmm But that is good too... You'd have to rebuild and that creates jobs and if we use US trees milled in the US... it is a win win. But wait... the insurance company would have to foot the bill on that one... costing them profit cuz the regulations allow them to reduce the reserve funds to cover loss. And if Geico is the insurance company Buffet loses money and can't give as much away to Angola so they don't eat as much and die early from malnutrition causing a new wave of hate against their benefactors who then have to invade to sort that out costing billions to accomplish increasing the US debt which causes the rating bureau to lower the US credit rating thus the yield demand increases forcing a higher debt service and necessitates mandate cutting so Grandma can't afford a toaster anymore either and there goes economies of scale... Yup, buy Chinese Toasters makes sense to me not only because they are cheaper but because I don't want seeing us invade Angola.:hmm:

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Corporations are free to make stuff here, it's just your toaster made in USA costs twice as much as the one made in China and Americans will flock to the cheapest thing they can get their hand on time after time.

No they aren't. The market forces them not. Not by the scenario you describe, but by the fact at the equilibrium price of a toaster, their profit margin is greater if produced outside the US. Corporations are slaves to profit maximization far, far more so than consumers are to the lowest price.

 

[sportage]

I highly suggest watching the PBS film AMERICAN EXPERIENCE - RIDING THE RAILS
(if you can get your hands on it).
Once available on netflix, but no more

I thought it was about hobo's, which it basically was, but more so about the post depression era of "no government".
Not BIG-BAD government (like we hear today), but NO government help.
People were on their own. Period.
Much like what many republicans wish for society today.
Returning back to those good ole days.
Everyone on his/her/their own.

And what got us out of that post depression era? Government stimulus programs.
So strap in, grab a train, elect more republicans, and RIDE THEM RAILS.

Seriously.... watch this if at all possible. So much history.
Much of it forgotten, and destine to be repeated, and sooner than you might think.

 

[Incorruptible]

Stimulus spending doesn't work, if the government can somehow create 2 million jobs then why cant they create 4 or 5 million, government cant create jobs only the private sector can. The private sector wont create jobs until they know its safe

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/rails/player/?flavour=mobile
Thanks for the recommendation. I'll check that out, but if the rightwingers on this board are like the rightwingers I know in real life you are wasting your breath recommending anything from PBS. This is also pretty good and relevant:
http://video.pbs.org/video/1309577149

 

[LegendKiller]

Stimulus spending doesn't work, if the government can somehow create 2 million jobs then why cant they create 4 or 5 million, government cant create jobs only the private sector can. The private sector wont create jobs until they know its safe

I am going to ask the mods to start regulating you. You are nothing but a massive troll who doesn't even answer questions he's asked. Instead, you just run around making stupid statements without any backup (aka, a troll).

Just shut the fuck up.

 

[Matt1970]

And what got us out of that post depression era? Government stimulus programs.

Ya, the New Deal was soo successful that as soon as the money stopped flowing we were right back in the shithole. Even back the Stimulus spending doesn't work.

 

[Incorruptible]

I am going to ask the mods to start regulating you. You are nothing but a massive troll who doesn't even answer questions he's asked. Instead, you just run around making stupid statements without any backup (aka, a troll).

Just shut the fuck up.

If people are going to ignore me and just be ignorant to my ideas then yes I wont answer there questions. Where did I make stupid statements? I backed them up yet too many ignoramuses refuse to look at them and ignore me, so there's no point bothering with evidence