Stimulus Me
I guess I’d been intentionally staying away from from politics over the last several post for several reasons, among them that they go against the grain of that which I’m trying to accomplish as a writer. But you, my faithful 15 readers must be sated.
And so, while I’d mentally written a piece on When Chimps Attack and a separate piece addressing the passive-aggressive comment of a would-be suitor/former reader, I decided to apply my energies instead to a blog on politics and the economy.
Repulbi-buddies of mine would do well to remember that their guy helped put our country in the mess we’re in and that while it’s all well and good to protest the considerable amount of “pork” in the stimulus bill, I’ve now sat through 2 agency CIO presentations in which I’ve seen Obama’s transparency initiative at work. These guys so much as fart and americans can download a 45 minute webex of that fart in 3D with a scratch-n-sniff down loadable plug in.
Americans who are fighting to keep their heads above the financial flood line 5,000,000 of them who are now unemployed are simply not going to tolerate rampant tax cuts to the Fortune 1000 companies who, by and large don’t re-invest in people but rather continue to make SG&A cuts to insure that their shareholders make money. I know, I know, such is the way of capitalism which is all well and good as long as it doesn’t victimize the people it is supposed to serve.
My answer to the national whine that we are becoming a nation of socialists? Yeah, and? As a single, (relatively) high income contributor, with no children, ask me how much of my tax dollars go into and education that I don’t directly benefit from so that Captain Catholic and his 12 kids can have the best public education possible. I indirectly benefit in that my house retains value because I’m in a better than most school system and one day some kid might find a cure for my propensity to exaggerate.
My point is that there is a price to pay for being a member of this thing we call society. Sometimes that means funding things that we don’t like or don’t agree with. God knows, I’ve choked down more than my fair share of pork during the last 8 years of the Bush White House. That many of these things, too many may in fact have found their way into the stimulus bill is unfortunate but doesn’t negate the intent of the bill or it’s favorable impact that it might have on the economy. The cost of doing nothing is far greater than 800 Billion.
And lest you come at me with an argument that I’m looking for a handout, I’m one of the good ones. Virtually no debt, a mortgage I can afford with a minimum wage job and I have a hight credit score. I’m the one paying so that a subset of our population can live in thier grey and brick suburban houses sucked dry of equity so that Mr. and Mrs. can drive a 2009 Landrover and maintain privledges at the my-head-so-far-up-your-ass country club. And I STILL think the stimulus package makes sense overall. If that makes me a socialist, get me the T-shirt.
And to the media: left right or middle. Shut up, already. You’re only making it worse for us all by creating the self-fulfilling prophesy and the next Bill O’Reilly
As is true with most things, the impact of the stimulus plan will help some, but not others. It will help certain sectors of the economy but not the economy in it’s totality. It could make Obama a one-term President or the most lauded President of our times. I don’t know. I’m not an economic major.
I just have major attitude.
This sounds a lot like a conversation I had with a friend on my ride home from Charlotte on Friday
There are several things that I think people forget. Any government spending is pork of one kind or another, it benefits a particular group, but not necessarily everyone. You pointed out one of my favorites which is education. I like you have no children, yet I pay taxes for schools, busing and other educational resources. I do so without so much as a peep. I don’t even bitch that the same people who benefit from my tax dollars then get tax credits for having children (even though it seems backward, I’m not adding burden to the system for systems I pay for and I DON’T get a tax credit); sounds like the ‘parent’ special interest group is getting a handout to me. The definition of pork truly is based on your ideology. If you believe in Supply Side economics (aka Trickle Down, aka VooDoo Economics), you believe that all the breaks should go to those with the most resources. If you believe in more traditional forms of economics then you think helping the average person does more good (Funny that the only time we’ve run a surplus in the federal budget in the last 30 years was when a non-Supply Side President was in charge, we also had one of the best economies during that same 8 year period… I digress).The fact that so many on the right decided to come out against this is because their special interests didn’t get greased in this bill (tough shit, you guys ran things your way for 8 years and now look where we are). I’m not convinced that this will fix the problem, but I am convinced that we need to do something other than the same thing that got us here. Giving huge breaks to the richest amongst us hoping that it trickles down doesn’t work. Giving sole responsibility for oversight to company CEOs doesn’t work…we all see that now. Laissez-fair leaves us in a recession with our financial system crippled, all because of greed; greed needs to be kept in check.So the fact that the little guy is getting some extra help here is quite alright by me. I like JJ make a fine living, have a reasonable mortgage (1/3 of what my mortgage broker told me I could have), own both of my 2007 cars outright, have no credit card debt, and am still spending money to hopefully stimulate the economy. I think that unsophisticated people were used and abused by a handful of unscrupulous people, and that is why we are in this mess. Since the government decided to let these people conduct business this way with NO oversight, then they owe it to all of us to help fix it. Hopefully the 800B stimulus gets us headed in the right direction; least we should all be grateful knowing it’ll be no less effective than dragging out the cauldron and brewing up another batch of voodoo economics.
The only problem that I have with trying to spend our way out of a recession is this: it’s never worked. The Depression lasted 10 long years – - 10 years! – - before WWII came along to revive the economy. All the partisan schtick and “gotcha” and party rhetoric in the world doesn’t overcome the fact that it’s never worked for the US or any other country, and could very well have the effect of prolonging the suffering of the very people you sanctimoniously purport to want to help. You watch, in a year they’ll come back and say “we need another stimulus bill, it didn’t work because it wasn’t big enough”.
C’mon, that’s such a crappy BS pile of a lie (that is BLATANT propaganda). Have you ever looked at actual economic data of the great depression? It CLEARLY shows that in early 1933 when FDR took office, GDP was down nearly 50% from July 1929 levels (the height of the pre-great depression era). From 1933 to Mid 1936 GDP recovered to 1929 levels and was heading upward until mid 1937 when FDR cut New Deal Programs to balance the budget (he was a fiscal conservative at heart). That action put the still fragile economy back into recession. Once he realized that the cuts were too much too soon, he reinstated many of the New Deal Programs; GDP grew over 10% the next year (from 1938 – 1939). By December 1941 GDP was over 40% greater than it had been in 1929 (uh, that was when Pearl Harbor happened). So actually, the New Deal programs took us from ~45% less than 1929 GDP in 1933 to ~45% greater than 1929 GDP in 1941…that sounds like economic growth if you ask me.-I REALLY wish that people would look at facts instead of listening to all these hacks on the airwaves that LIE, DISTORT, and attempt to rewrite reality for their own benefit (many of which wouldn’t know the truth if it hit them in the head and knocked their cochlar implant loose). New Deal Programs nearly doubled GDP output in 8 years (PERIOD – FACT). It also created infrastructure that TO THIS DAY still adds to our economy (PERIOD – FACT). The economy was well on it’s way to full recovery by the time the war started (PERIOD – FACT). Link to the REAL hard TRUE numbers is below-http://www.economics-charts.com/gdp/gdp-1929-2004.html-Of course it’s going to take more than 800 Billion to fix the economy, there are trillions of dollars of crappy UNREGULATED bad loans in the market; thanks to the right wing political hacks that decided that wall street greed would never be out of check, and could/would self regulate (of course they were just as wrong about that as they are about Voodoo economics…) You don’t fix trillions with billions…-I’ve looked at several ecmonomic models over the past few weeks with different variants of the stimulus plan (since the actual iteration hadn’t come out yet). EVERY SINGLE model that had legitimate assumptions showed the 800B package helped the economic situation. Of course the right wing hacks load unreasonable assumptions into their models to make them look worse than they will really be. And then you’ve got the wacko right wing talk radio hosts who wouldn’t know what an economic model looked like if it walked up them and stole their bottle of “oxy”, ranting about stuff they have ZERO, yes ZERO actual knowledge about. These hacks should be arrested for treason. Most of our economic growth comes from consumer spending; these guys spouting off at the mouth that it “Won’t work”, is not helping to reinstill consumer confidence but rather is for their own political gain. If they SCARE enough people to stop spending, then it will limit growth. They aren’t helping the American People, they are pushing their own political agenda with what sounds like facts (but they aren’t really facts, they are PROPAGANDA).-Personally I think there are better ways to spend the money, but I may be wrong (and yes, I do have a degree in Economics, still maintain contact with several public and private economists, and keep up on economic trends/theories/modeling). Doing this is better than doing nothing, and will help our economy begin to turn around. -Now if we could just get some regulations on Wall Street that will curb these “greed” events (the 1929 crash was caused in large part from unchecked greed in the stock market and instability in the banking system, the dot com bust – unchecked greed, this economic downturn again unchecked greed – I see a theme here…) from taking place…
C’mon, that’s such a crappy BS pile of a lie (that is BLATANT propaganda). Have you ever looked at actual economic data of the great depression? It CLEARLY shows that in early 1933 when FDR took office, GDP was down nearly 50% from July 1929 levels (the height of the pre-great depression era). From 1933 to Mid 1936 GDP recovered to 1929 levels and was heading upward until mid 1937 when FDR cut New Deal Programs to balance the budget (he was a fiscal conservative at heart). That action put the still fragile economy back into recession. Once he realized that the cuts were too much too soon, he reinstated many of the New Deal Programs; GDP grew over 10% the next year (from 1938 – 1939). By December 1941 GDP was over 40% greater than it had been in 1929 (uh, that was when Pearl Harbor happened). So actually, the New Deal programs took us from ~45% less than 1929 GDP in 1933 to ~45% greater than 1929 GDP in 1941…that sounds like economic growth if you ask me.<br>I REALLY wish that people would look at facts instead of listening to all these hacks on the airwaves that LIE, DISTORT, and attempt to rewrite reality for their own benefit (many of which wouldn’t know the truth if it hit them in the head and knocked their cochlar implant loose). New Deal Programs nearly doubled GDP output in 8 years (PERIOD – FACT). It also created infrastructure that TO THIS DAY still adds to our economy (PERIOD – FACT). The economy was well on it’s way to full recovery by the time the war started (PERIOD – FACT). Link to the REAL hard TRUE numbers is below<br>http://www.economics-charts.com/gdp/gdp-1929-2004.html<br>Of course it’s going to take more than 800 Billion to fix the economy, there are trillions of dollars of crappy UNREGULATED bad loans in the market; thanks to the right wing political hacks that decided that wall street greed would never be out of check, and could/would self regulate (of course they were just as wrong about that as they are about Voodoo economics…) You don’t fix trillions with billions…<br>I’ve looked at several ecmonomic models over the past few weeks with different variants of the stimulus plan (since the actual iteration hadn’t come out yet). EVERY SINGLE model that had legitimate assumptions showed the 800B package helped the economic situation. Of course the right wing hacks load unreasonable assumptions into their models to make them look worse than they will really be. And then you’ve got the wacko right wing talk radio hosts who wouldn’t know what an economic model looked like if it walked up them and stole their bottle of “oxy”, ranting about stuff they have ZERO, yes ZERO actual knowledge about. These hacks should be arrested for treason. Most of our economic growth comes from consumer spending; these guys spouting off at the mouth that it “Won’t work”, is not helping to reinstill consumer confidence but rather is for their own political gain. If they SCARE enough people to stop spending, then it will limit growth. They aren’t helping the American People, they are pushing their own political agenda with what sounds like facts (but they aren’t really facts, they are PROPAGANDA).<br>Personally I think there are better ways to spend the money, but I may be wrong (and yes, I do have a degree in Economics, still maintain contact with several public and private economists, and keep up on economic trends/theories/modeling). Doing this is better than doing nothing, and will help our economy begin to turn around. <br>Now if we could just get some regulations on Wall Street that will curb these “greed” events (the 1929 crash was caused in large part from unchecked greed in the stock market and instability in the banking system, the dot com bust – unchecked greed, this economic downturn again unchecked greed – I see a theme here…) from taking place…
You’re just filled with the absolute certainty of conviction you only see in tunnel-visioned partisan zealots. Most moderates agree that there is a high degree of uncertainty as to whether this will work, to say the very least. For every economic model one side can roll out, the other can too. I’m pretty certain Republicans aren’t the only ones with a political bent in their opposition, after listening to 8 years of unrelenting and many times insanely irrational Democratic attacks on Bush you oughta get used to attacks on Obama’s policies because that’s what the opposition does.Time will tell if the stimulus package, and the 2012 election is probably riding on the outcome.
Did you read my post? I clearly stated that I think there are better ways to spend the money, but doing this was better than doing nothing. Does that really sound like absolute certainty? It’s NOTHING like what I hear from the partisan zealots….about how this will destroy America (more right wing scare tactics).The fact remains that doing nothing won’t expedite the recovery. Giving money to those of us that make a lot of money already won’t fix the problem either (we did that for 8 years and look where we are…)Historical data and economic models do show us that offsetting some of the lost GDP (from consumer spending) with government spending WILL shorten and lessen the severity of the downturn, while deleveraging takes place. If we could instill some consumer confidence, then people might begin spending a little more….we know what happens then.I’ll say this one last time so that you understand where I am coming from. The government ALLOWED rampant greed to go unchecked by maintaining that regulation was bad for the markets. The policies of many presidents and congress (both parties) allowed for an atmosphere where unsophisticated consumers we taken advantage of by the markets. The government then must help to fix this mess it created along with enacting laws that curtail future possible excesses; and punish the shit out of people who perpetrate these offenses.I personally don’t like the fact that we have to do this. It goes against what I believe (remember, I ONLY voted against Palin, I didn’t vote for Obama). But at this point we have very few options, so we might as well put the ones we have to use.I really don’t care if Obama gets re-elected, I want someone in office that is thoughtful, intelligent, reasonable, and has great ideas to make America and even better place; we didn’t have that for 8 years. Now we’ve got someone who is at least intelligent, reasonable, and thoughtful…we’ll have to wait and see how great or not great his ideas are.
I thought this was going to be about Travis the Chimp. This is the real story of note if you want to understand America. It’s not about Republicans and Democrats, it’s about a people fumbling to understand why comfort, technology, and if-it-feels-good-do-it leaves us angry, stressed, and lost. Sleeping with your chimp seems so satisfying at first, but he really doesn’t like wearing condoms and one day you’re going to get pregnant.
Here’s something I wish I had written:
The Audacity of Hope” was the title of the first sermon Barack Obama heard by the to-become-controversial Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. It also became the title of his second book, the sequel to “Dreams from My Father.”
Audacious hope has certainly become the hallmark of the first days of his administration as president. It can be seen as the necessary fast start in a presidency that wishes to accomplish something in its four years in power. It can be seen as a rapid response to what Mr. Obama sees as a serious slackening in America’s physical and moral tone. Finally, and I don’t think it is Mr. Obama’s primary goal, what he is doing is good party politics — and he did develop sharp elbows on neighborhood basketball courts and in Chicago’s truly brutal politics — if the Democrats have sense enough to see it and work with him.
The alternative for greedy, individualistic Democratic politicians is to mistake their current predominance in the House, their insufficient margin in the Senate and their piece of luck in Mr. Obama’s having been opposed in November by Sen. John McCain, for solid support among the American population. Voters will turn on a non-delivering pack of Democrats in 2010 and 2012 like an ill-tempered pet chimpanzee if they don’t see their needs being met.
First and foremost, correctly, Mr. Obama has put the need to deal with the catastrophic slide over the cliff of the American economy, especially unemployment. The stimulus package is the front end of his assault on a deeper problem — the softness and breakdown of the sinews of America. Mr. Obama also has set out plans to end the Iraq war and contend with Afghanistan.
More necessary than creating jobs in the short run is the need to make American health care more effective. Because so much money goes to insurance companies and other wasteful links in the bureaucratic delivery chain, we pay top dollar for Third World-ranked care. Our infant mortality rate falls between those of Belarus and Cuba.
Education, Mr. Obama’s plans for which he announced last week, is another American shame. Does anyone grasp the clear link between some Americans’ willingness to abandon the public school system, at least in the cities, and the soaring of the population of our prison system? Forget about the societal implications of locking up more and more of our citizens, think of the financial cost, in terms of what we pay for prisons and, perhaps even worse, the loss of working men and women to our economy and the tax rolls. (I make an exception for Bernie Madoff, who cheated some 480,000 people out of perhaps $64 billion. A chain gang sounds right for him.)
Our infrastructure not only needs patch-ups, it is also obsolete. America used to lead the way in modernization. Now, where are our high-speed trains? Where are our energy-efficient cars? Why are most of our wires on poles, where every wind and ice storm that comes along brings them down, cutting off our power, which, by the way, is delivered by a grid that can be smoked by someone throwing the wrong switch somewhere in Ohio?
Mr. Obama’s stimulus package may put people to work patching our rusty bridges, but the real work in preparing America to become competitive again in the world economy is the assault he offers to lead to modernize education and health care.
The ending of the war in Iraq and the expanding of America’s presence in Afghanistan points up another slackening of America’s muscles as a country. Understanding perfectly America’s aversion to the draft, I think we haven’t understood all the costs of depending on a professional military. Mr. Obama is confronting some of the political aspects of the problem as he tries to withdraw from Iraq and cut the Pentagon budget to pay for the economic stimulus package and other measures.
Finally, there is party politics. I don’t think future victory at the polls is first and foremost for Mr. Obama. That is not to say that he wouldn’t like to have two terms. But if that were his primary goal, he would not have tackled all these big items in the first weeks of his presidency: the economy, Iraq, Afghanistan, health care and education. Instead, he would have identified a smaller number of easier targets — he would have taken two points, instead of trying five straight three-pointers.
Mr. Obama is putting this menu forward as a necessity. A quote from earlier this month is relevant: “Look, I wish I had the luxury of just dealing with a modest recession or just dealing with health care or just dealing with energy or just dealing with Iraq or just dealing with Afghanistan. I don’t have that luxury, and I don’t think the American people do either.”
The Republicans and some Democrats in Congress should think hard about which of those objectives they would like to be seen blocking at the next election. Wisdom on Mr. Obama’s part. And sharp elbows.
Dan Simpson, a former U.S. ambassador, is a Post-Gazette associate editor
Sorry, but trying to overhaul Healthcare and the Education system when the US economy isn’t healthy enough to sustain proper levels of employment – and when the government doesn’t have $$ is one of the most irresponsible and short-sighted things I have seen in a while. I know is sounds noble and all…but reality is what it is. Do we need to address healthcare: absolutely – when we have the focus, funds and manpower to do soDo we need to address education: absolutely – but, the fact is that $$ doesn’t solve THIS problem, nor does the Federal Government. First step is cutting waste at the local and state levels – and there is a lot of waste. I know this first hand – but this is a topic for another discussion. The FIRST thing that has to be addressed are the necessities – and in a long list of “important” things, some really are more important than others. Like avoiding total economic collapse. The so-called stimulus was supposed to address this. Instead, it became a pork-laden, pet project, long term jump-start to long term initiatives which will require a ton more $$. Oh, the stimulus “putting people to work” portion? Yeah, that was the smallest part of the plan which will have so little impact on unemployment and consumer confidence that it won’t really be felt. What we will feel is long term debt, deepening recession, and a post-recession devaluation of everyone’s hard-earned cash coupled with an ever-expanding debt to cover. Gee, thanks Obama and congress. Obama is well intentioned. But his desire to be all things to all people and create a new program for everything and right all wrongs is a recipe for fiscal disaster. In the end, he is on track to pleasing no one and getting nothing done. I hope he – and congress - wake up soon, because we need them to. It would help to get the entire staff in place for the Treasury. That would be a prudent place to start…considering there is still no real plan and Geithner seems increasingly out of his league with each day that passes.