Wall St. Journal reports stimulus is working

[charrison]

Originally posted by: shira
Hahahah. SO funny watching the righties twist and turn trying to turn every economic report into an anti-Obama screed. Just a week or two ago, there was a thread about "Stimulus fails," and how we had wasted SO much money on a useless plan.

Now, after the WSJ article, we read, "The economy was already turning around - the stimulus is irrelevant," and besides, it was too SMALL.

Finally, although it was predicted at least as far back as January that the unemployment rate would continue to increase at least until mid-2010 even AFTER the recession ended, we read, "Oh, a jobless recovery."

Man, you righties really do need to come up with some less obvious rhetoric. You're SO desperate to discredit this administration, it's heads Obama wins, tails he fails.

Employment is always a trailing indicator, but that did not stop libs from proclaiming a jobless recovery during the last recession. DO you think this will be labeled a jobless recovery? That was my point, which you seemed to have completely missed.

 

[shira]

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: shira
Hahahah. SO funny watching the righties twist and turn trying to turn every economic report into an anti-Obama screed. Just a week or two ago, there was a thread about "Stimulus fails," and how we had wasted SO much money on a useless plan.

Now, after the WSJ article, we read, "The economy was already turning around - the stimulus is irrelevant," and besides, it was too SMALL.

Finally, although it was predicted at least as far back as January that the unemployment rate would continue to increase at least until mid-2010 even AFTER the recession ended, we read, "Oh, a jobless recovery."

Man, you righties really do need to come up with some less obvious rhetoric. You're SO desperate to discredit this administration, it's heads Obama wins, tails he fails.

Employment is always a trailing indicator, but that did not stop libs from proclaiming a jobless recovery during the last recession. DO you think this will be labeled a jobless recovery? That was my point, which you seemed to have completely missed.

Nine months from now? Yes. 18 months from now? No.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: shira

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: shira
Hahahah. SO funny watching the righties twist and turn trying to turn every economic report into an anti-Obama screed. Just a week or two ago, there was a thread about "Stimulus fails," and how we had wasted SO much money on a useless plan.

Now, after the WSJ article, we read, "The economy was already turning around - the stimulus is irrelevant," and besides, it was too SMALL.

Finally, although it was predicted at least as far back as January that the unemployment rate would continue to increase at least until mid-2010 even AFTER the recession ended, we read, "Oh, a jobless recovery."

Man, you righties really do need to come up with some less obvious rhetoric. You're SO desperate to discredit this administration, it's heads Obama wins, tails he fails.

Employment is always a trailing indicator, but that did not stop libs from proclaiming a jobless recovery during the last recession. DO you think this will be labeled a jobless recovery? That was my point, which you seemed to have completely missed.

Nine months from now? Yes. 18 months from now? No.

That did not stop libs from proclaiming a jobless recovery during the last recession. And for the most part unemployment remained below historical averages. It will take at least 18 months to bring the current unemployment levelsback to where they were before the crash started.

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: shira

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: shira
Hahahah. SO funny watching the righties twist and turn trying to turn every economic report into an anti-Obama screed. Just a week or two ago, there was a thread about "Stimulus fails," and how we had wasted SO much money on a useless plan.

Now, after the WSJ article, we read, "The economy was already turning around - the stimulus is irrelevant," and besides, it was too SMALL.

Finally, although it was predicted at least as far back as January that the unemployment rate would continue to increase at least until mid-2010 even AFTER the recession ended, we read, "Oh, a jobless recovery."

Man, you righties really do need to come up with some less obvious rhetoric. You're SO desperate to discredit this administration, it's heads Obama wins, tails he fails.

Employment is always a trailing indicator, but that did not stop libs from proclaiming a jobless recovery during the last recession. DO you think this will be labeled a jobless recovery? That was my point, which you seemed to have completely missed.

Nine months from now? Yes. 18 months from now? No.

That did not stop libs from proclaiming a jobless recovery during the last recession. And for the most part unemployment remained below historical averages. It will take at least 18 months to bring the current unemployment levelsback to where they were before the crash started.

It was pointed out on CNBC today that it took 19 months before positive job growth resumed after the last recession was delcared OVER. This recession hasn't even been declared over YET and based on the curve, positive job growth "could" happen at the end of the 4th quarter. The 19 months at the end of the last recession is well outside the norm for return to positive job growth. Personally, that's what happens when you have global wage arbitrage and offshoring of a large chunk of your work to cheaper labor around the world. It will happen this time too.

It will take longer than 18 months to bring the levels of employment back to pre-crash levels, IMO though. Too many cuts this time and no willingness to hire back....just a willingness to force workers to work harder (will fewer pay raises and benefits - if not cuts).

 

[alphatarget1]

I'm a firm believer that you cannot create wealth merely by creating more debt, which is what the federal government is doing. I don't think the economy can get any worse, but 2-3% growth for Q3 09 is wishful thinking.

Will other countries be willing to invest in the United States the way they did in the past 10-15 years (including the dot-com years)?

 

[LegendKiller]

Originally posted by: alphatarget1
I'm a firm believer that you cannot create wealth merely by creating more debt, which is what the federal government is doing. I don't think the economy can get any worse, but 2-3% growth for Q3 09 is wishful thinking.

Will other countries be willing to invest in the United States the way they did in the past 10-15 years (including the dot-com years)?

You're telling me that if a company goes out, takes 30% of equity in debt, invests that 30% of debt into revenue producing projects, those projects will not produce more wealth beyond the 30% of additional debt + interest? Some won't, but they CAN.

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: shira

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: shira
Hahahah. SO funny watching the righties twist and turn trying to turn every economic report into an anti-Obama screed. Just a week or two ago, there was a thread about "Stimulus fails," and how we had wasted SO much money on a useless plan.

Now, after the WSJ article, we read, "The economy was already turning around - the stimulus is irrelevant," and besides, it was too SMALL.

Finally, although it was predicted at least as far back as January that the unemployment rate would continue to increase at least until mid-2010 even AFTER the recession ended, we read, "Oh, a jobless recovery."

Man, you righties really do need to come up with some less obvious rhetoric. You're SO desperate to discredit this administration, it's heads Obama wins, tails he fails.

Employment is always a trailing indicator, but that did not stop libs from proclaiming a jobless recovery during the last recession. DO you think this will be labeled a jobless recovery? That was my point, which you seemed to have completely missed.

Nine months from now? Yes. 18 months from now? No.

Libs were calling it a jobless recovery 4 years after the last recession when we had a sub 5% unemployment rate. I am going to enjoy watching them try to proclaim the opposite with over 7% unemployment.

 

[alphatarget1]

Originally posted by: LegendKiller

Originally posted by: alphatarget1
I'm a firm believer that you cannot create wealth merely by creating more debt, which is what the federal government is doing. I don't think the economy can get any worse, but 2-3% growth for Q3 09 is wishful thinking.

Will other countries be willing to invest in the United States the way they did in the past 10-15 years (including the dot-com years)?

You're telling me that if a company goes out, takes 30% of equity in debt, invests that 30% of debt into revenue producing projects, those projects will not produce more wealth beyond the 30% of additional debt + interest? Some won't, but they CAN.

What kind of "revenue producing projects" of the "stimulus" are you referring to? Obamanomics = 70+% of Debt/GDP ratio. IMO that's suicidal.

Face it, we will not experience the same growth like we did in the past 2 decades.

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: alphatarget1

Originally posted by: LegendKiller

Originally posted by: alphatarget1
I'm a firm believer that you cannot create wealth merely by creating more debt, which is what the federal government is doing. I don't think the economy can get any worse, but 2-3% growth for Q3 09 is wishful thinking.

Will other countries be willing to invest in the United States the way they did in the past 10-15 years (including the dot-com years)?

You're telling me that if a company goes out, takes 30% of equity in debt, invests that 30% of debt into revenue producing projects, those projects will not produce more wealth beyond the 30% of additional debt + interest? Some won't, but they CAN.

What kind of "revenue producing projects" of the "stimulus" are you referring to? Obamanomics = 70+% of Debt/GDP ratio. IMO that's suicidal.

Face it, we will not experience the same growth like we did in the past 2 decades.

That's because we've run out of bubbles, cheap and nearly unlimited consumer credit and finally, cheap energy. Throw that together with a stagnant wage vs inflation for the majority of the citizens of the US and you're just asking for mediocrity all the way around (if you're lucky enough to even get that).

 

[JD50]

Originally posted by: Pens1566
More lies from the librul media ... er, wait ...

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: Engineer

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: shira

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: shira
Hahahah. SO funny watching the righties twist and turn trying to turn every economic report into an anti-Obama screed. Just a week or two ago, there was a thread about "Stimulus fails," and how we had wasted SO much money on a useless plan.

Now, after the WSJ article, we read, "The economy was already turning around - the stimulus is irrelevant," and besides, it was too SMALL.

Finally, although it was predicted at least as far back as January that the unemployment rate would continue to increase at least until mid-2010 even AFTER the recession ended, we read, "Oh, a jobless recovery."

Man, you righties really do need to come up with some less obvious rhetoric. You're SO desperate to discredit this administration, it's heads Obama wins, tails he fails.

Employment is always a trailing indicator, but that did not stop libs from proclaiming a jobless recovery during the last recession. DO you think this will be labeled a jobless recovery? That was my point, which you seemed to have completely missed.

Nine months from now? Yes. 18 months from now? No.

That did not stop libs from proclaiming a jobless recovery during the last recession. And for the most part unemployment remained below historical averages. It will take at least 18 months to bring the current unemployment levelsback to where they were before the crash started.

It was pointed out on CNBC today that it took 19 months before positive job growth resumed after the last recession was delcared OVER. This recession hasn't even been declared over YET and based on the curve, positive job growth "could" happen at the end of the 4th quarter. The 19 months at the end of the last recession is well outside the norm for return to positive job growth. Personally, that's what happens when you have global wage arbitrage and offshoring of a large chunk of your work to cheaper labor around the world. It will happen this time too.

It will take longer than 18 months to bring the levels of employment back to pre-crash levels, IMO though. Too many cuts this time and no willingness to hire back....just a willingness to force workers to work harder (will fewer pay raises and benefits - if not cuts).

Yes but unemployment never got that high either. It peaked at around 6.5, which is only 1.5 points over "full" employment.

 

[shira]

The difficulty/dilemma faced by ANY administration (and this goes for the Bushies with regard to terrorism and now the Obamans with respect to the economy) when faced with what could well be an impending catastrophe is that you don't get full credit for a catastrophe that does NOT happen.

We will never know that - absent the vast amounts poured into the U.S. and global economies to avert a financial meltdown - if the meltdown would indeed have occurred. None of us even knows what "meltdown" really means. We cannot know - no one can possibly know - how bad things might have gotten.

Because of this ignorance about what didn't happen, it's easy to make bold pronouncements - from the comfort of our NON-catastrophe desks - about how irresponsible the administration (pick one) was in pursuing its aggressive anti-catastrophe agenda.

But keep in mind that the real success of Obama's policies (and let's not forget that the economic policies to avert catastrophe began under Bush) MAY be that our (and the world's) economy is still in decent shape. We will survive to be economically stupid another day.

So, before your next rag against Obama, consider that his real success may well be that we are now debating when the recession will really end, as opposed to debating how deep the depression we MIGHT have been in will go.

 

[LegendKiller]

Originally posted by: Engineer

Originally posted by: alphatarget1

Originally posted by: LegendKiller

Originally posted by: alphatarget1
I'm a firm believer that you cannot create wealth merely by creating more debt, which is what the federal government is doing. I don't think the economy can get any worse, but 2-3% growth for Q3 09 is wishful thinking.

Will other countries be willing to invest in the United States the way they did in the past 10-15 years (including the dot-com years)?

You're telling me that if a company goes out, takes 30% of equity in debt, invests that 30% of debt into revenue producing projects, those projects will not produce more wealth beyond the 30% of additional debt + interest? Some won't, but they CAN.

What kind of "revenue producing projects" of the "stimulus" are you referring to? Obamanomics = 70+% of Debt/GDP ratio. IMO that's suicidal.

Face it, we will not experience the same growth like we did in the past 2 decades.

That's because we've run out of bubbles, cheap and nearly unlimited consumer credit and finally, cheap energy. Throw that together with a stagnant wage vs inflation for the majority of the citizens of the US and you're just asking for mediocrity all the way around (if you're lucky enough to even get that).

There are tons of industries that can lead us out of this.

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: eskimospy
The stock market is most certainly a leading indicator, I'm not sure where you got the idea that it wasn't.

Your right it is, but it is not typically one of the first things to turn positive. Stock market usually turns positive on other news.

Copper futures were at roughly the same level as they had been all year up to that point, and they didn't show a significant increase until the March/April time frame. At this point it looks like you're just making things up so please provide links to the data you are using to make this determination.

Um no. Copper futures tanked in oct 2008 and hit bottom dec 2008 And started a slow steady climb from there. Stimulus did not pass to late feb 2009.
linkage

It's still impossible to say what the long term effects of it will be (if any significant ones), but this is certainly a good sign.

Yes there have been plenty of good signs for a while now. The long term effects will be lots of debt and if there is not enough economic growth, there will be plenty of inflation.

While copper futures hit bottom in December, they were still at an extremely low level in February when the stimulus passed. I mean I guess you could call them having 'picked up', but that term is really loose. They were approximately 10% above rock bottom... and I'm not aware of anyone who would consider a 10% rise in copper futures off super lows to be the sign of a recovery.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: eskimospy
The stock market is most certainly a leading indicator, I'm not sure where you got the idea that it wasn't.

Your right it is, but it is not typically one of the first things to turn positive. Stock market usually turns positive on other news.

Copper futures were at roughly the same level as they had been all year up to that point, and they didn't show a significant increase until the March/April time frame. At this point it looks like you're just making things up so please provide links to the data you are using to make this determination.

Um no. Copper futures tanked in oct 2008 and hit bottom dec 2008 And started a slow steady climb from there. Stimulus did not pass to late feb 2009.
linkage

It's still impossible to say what the long term effects of it will be (if any significant ones), but this is certainly a good sign.

Yes there have been plenty of good signs for a while now. The long term effects will be lots of debt and if there is not enough economic growth, there will be plenty of inflation.

While copper futures hit bottom in December, they were still at an extremely low level in February when the stimulus passed. I mean I guess you could call them having 'picked up', but that term is really loose. They were approximately 10% above rock bottom... and I'm not aware of anyone who would consider a 10% rise in copper futures off super lows to be the sign of a recovery.

Leaving the the bottom is always a sign of recovery. Every recovery starts by leaving the bottom....

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Great! So lets not spend the rest since it's "working" with just a tiny part already paid out. No need to waste more money.

 

[JohnOfSheffield]

I'm not too well versed in national economics but isn't that within what a so called "natural trend" could produce?

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY
Great! So lets not spend the rest since it's "working" with just a tiny part already paid out. No need to waste more money.

/facepalm

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: charrison


Yes but unemployment never got that high either. It peaked at around 6.5, which is only 1.5 points over "full" employment.

Interestingly enough, that's the very reason that that one probably never really gained jobs (near full employment) while this one most like will....over cuts leading to under employed. Many employers have cut too far and don't have the level of people required to make gains on historical low inventories right now. It's been mentioned on CNBC as well as the company that I was "supposed" to interview with last week. They simply cut too far (too bad my company is still in cut mode and most likely, after 17 years, this will be my last month under employment by them! ).

The last "recovery" was the first in recorded history that did not feature a gain in manufacturing employment as more and more jobs were offshored. I suspect that this will happen again which will lead possibly to the same thing. At some point, not making "stuff" is going to be the fall of the middle class and the US as we know it. That's my 2 cents on that one....

 

[JSt0rm]

well my industry is starting to recover. In the last 2 months I've made as much as I've made all the rest of the year. We make stuff

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: JSt0rm01
well my industry is starting to recover. In the last 2 months I've made as much as I've made all the rest of the year. We make stuff

As does my company and there are signs. However, production was cut to historical lows as well as inventories (of everything). My plant, a skilled trade tool and machinery plant, won't be spare we don't think though. It has survived for over 50 years (many people have near 40 years there) and has beaten out every single other source that has went head to head with it....including the Mexican tooling plants. Sadly, it won't beat this economy and the new management ideas for the company.

 

[zephyrprime]

This is not due to the stimulus since most of it hasn't even been spent yet. The economy heals on it's own so long as it is not actively collapsing.

 

[JSt0rm]

Originally posted by: zephyrprime
This is not due to the stimulus since most of it hasn't even been spent yet. The economy heals on it's own so long as it is not actively collapsing.

Yes but an amazing amount of money evaporated. It wasn't even real money but we needed the banks to be flush to lend and make sure deflation doesn't happen. Who would invest money in things if their money just was worth more. Our economy doesn't work that way.

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: zephyrprime
This is not due to the stimulus since most of it hasn't even been spent yet. The economy heals on it's own so long as it is not actively collapsing.

Well it would appear that economists disagree with you.

 

[miketheidiot]

Originally posted by: eskimospy

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: eskimospy
Article here.

The good news is that this is just the front end of the stimulus spending, and there is still quite a bit more to come. If the economists cited in the article are correct, this could be very good news. Amazing what socialistfascistunamericancommiepork can do!

In all seriousness, growth of the US economy at a 3.3% rate in the 3rd quarter would be pretty fantastic, that's even better than I had hoped. Lets hope it turns out that way, eh?

Most of it is coming from tarp and cheap fed money. Not nearly enough of the stimulas package has left the govt purse. The economy had was already turning around before the stimulus was even passed.

HIgh unemployment will be around awhile, I wonder if the libs will label this a jobless recovery as well.

The DJIA fell another 15% or so after the stimulus was passed. What economic indicators are you referring to that make you think the economy was turning around before the stimulus went into effect on February 17th?

If you go back and search the stimulus threads I said then as I believe now that no matter what the stimulus does (and what it is credited for), those against it will claim the economy would have done just fine without it. Similarly had things continued to worsen people who were for the stimulus would have said things would have been even worse without it.

Luckily for all of us however, at least so far it would appear that the pro-stimulus people were in fact correct. Look at it this way, you might be wrong on an internet message board, but the whole country is doing better. I'd take that any day.

nothing he's full of shit, unless he classifies ceasing to fall off a cliff into the abyss as a turnaround, which i suppose is legit in a way.