Over at U.S. News & World Report, Reason columnist and Mercatus Center economist Veronique de Rugy explains why the stimulus failed to stimulate.
As part of her wind-up, she notes that a recent study by one of her colleagues found "the median multiplier in relevant studies is 0.87, far lower than the administration's claim that every stimulus dollar would produce $1.57 worth of activity." Which is to say, there's little evidence to suggest that the multiplier theory has a purchase on anything other than the taxpayers' purse.
Then there's the design of Obama's stimulus (and Bush's before that). Under Keynesian theory, stimulus spending should be timely, targeted, and temporary. And it should be aimed ultimately at increasing private investment. What did we get instead? Bailouts of the public sector in the form of large cash grants to states. But
states chose to use the money to close their budget gaps. This choice meant that the money went to keeping school teachers in their jobs and paying public sector workers, rather than to creating jobs in the private sector. Furthermore, the spending wasn't timely: Three years after the law was adopted, some programs still have managed to spend only 60 percent of the appropriated funds. Not only was the spending poorly timed, it also wasn't targeted. The data show that stimulus moneywasn't targeted to those areas with the highest rate of unemployment. In fact, a majority of the spending was used to poach workers from existing jobs in firms where they might not be replaced. Finally, a review of historical stimulus efforts shows that temporary stimulus spending tends to linger. Two years after the initial stimulus, 95 percent of the new spending becomes permanent.
And here's the kicker: Increases in federal spending have a negative effect on how businessess spend, with the latter clenching up when more tax money floods an area.
More here.
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"Like a frightened turtle."
That episode always annoyed me. The girlfriend was such a cunt.
"Yes. I mean, if she thinks that's me, she's under a complete misapprehension. That was not me, Jerry. That was not me."
When he fed her the lobster at the end, it was pretty funny.
I think some of the writers might have had some pent-up animosity towards ex-girlfriends. None of the women came off well.
Maybe so. It was definitely a man's fantasy show. No way would a shlub like George ever dated some of the women he did or been engaged to someone as cute as the blond in that show.
How about his rejection of the delicious statuesque supermodel in Shallow Hal? What was it? Her toe was too long! LOL
Plus, how does a stand-up comic afford to keep all that food in the house?
Why would they even think the size in that situation would have anything to do with erect size?
"Do women know about shrinkage?"
"What do you mean, like laundry?"
Shrinkage!
-1
But I was in the pool!
shouldve been spent on roads & bridges instead of rich banks and car companies
Where do they get these random numbers from, and why on Earth do people take them seriously?
Because people are fucking stupid.
NOOOOOOOOooooooooooo...........
But without the stimulus, unemployment would have been 77.567%. Try proving that wrong, de Rugy!
But the stimulus did everything it was supposed to. (hurriedly puts old unemployment estimates down the memory hole)
It was never intended to be a stimulus. It was intended to raise baseline domestic spending by 50%. That way when the Republicans took back over and tried to get rid of it Democrats could talk about how the radical heartless Republicans want to cut spending by 50%. It was always about theft.
Actually, they would only be cutting spending by 33.3%.
/math pedant
Touche
But everything else you said is accurate. Somehow, now, these ridiculously inflated levels of spending are the standard, never mind that the spending just five years ago was 2/3 as much. If we just went back to that level, we'd have no debt. But somehow that's unthinkable.
Pedantism is a thing, up with which I will not put.
Kudos on not ending your sentence with a preposition. You have properly phrased the idiom.
It was never intended to be a stimulus. It was intended to raise baseline domestic spending by 50%.
Bingo.
And the steadfast refusal of the Dems to allow any budget since then has cemented it into place under "continuing resolutions".
Ahhh, hadn't considered that. They've gotten flak for not ever passing a budget, but that's obviously working out better than having to actually examine the entire spending platter.
U N S U S T A I N A B L E
Why hasn't states paying down debts created jobs? Isn't the resulting "confidence" from this sort of action just what you guys claim is the appropriate medicine?
Why hasn't states paying down debts created jobs?
Who said anything about the states paying down debt?
"Closing a budget gap" is not the same as "paying down debt". And the former does no good if money going out is still > money coming in. As to confidence, there is still uncertainty, for example, exactly how much will Obamacare increase your share of your workers' health care costs, you might have to hire losers who haven't worked in 99 weeks or get sued, etc.
And the former does no good if money going out is still > money coming in.
Dude, Tony doesn't do math. As he's said, he's "not a numbers guy"--like a lot of nerds, he thinks money comes from elves and wormholes.
They just need to keep trying. One of these times it will work! It did in Greece.
Juanita|12.3.08 @ 4:21PM|# Just because something isn't always completely effective doesn't mean we shouldn't continue. Drugs are wrong, the war is the right thing to do, in order to help keep people of drugs.
Juanita is right mmmkay,
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