Economists aren't so good at predicting the immediate future. They excel however at analyzing the past and suggesting a reasonable action to combat certain negative economic forces. If it drops next quarter, you might have an argument. Until then, this is only a minor blip. By my calculation, approximately $400 billion was used to create (or maintain) jobs. The rest was tax cuts, unemployment benefits, education grants, and state medicaid assistance. With $2.5 million jobs created, that's $160,000 per job. The relevant number would be [cost/(job*years)]. If the average stimulus job lasted 2 years, it would be $80,000 per job per year.
Ah yes, the economy sucks but it could be a lot suckier.How can you argue with that brilliant line of debate. Thanks RatDog. Fact is we aren't recovering. We may even be regressing.
No offense, but your post is no better than VFish's. It's full of rhetoric and stuff that's been said over and over. If you want to make a positive impact, use data and sound logic. Name calling only increases the ideological gap between the left and the right.
Why would you not include education grants into the equation? I am told that was money used to save teacher jobs?
No, those are grants for re-education (going back to school, learning a skill). The money to maintain teachers' jobs was in a category separate from the "grants" in all the pie charts I've looked at.
So do you want to guesstimate the cost of each job created or not? Bullshit, but that's fine. Throw out this expense too. So what is the guesstimate on the cost per job?
Honestly, any math we do will probably be flawed. I'll point you in the direction of a un-biased article about the whole situation though. Media Matters does specialize in correcting conservative media, however I generally found that their information is accurate and dependable. Also, Krugman is definitely a self-described liberal, but his theories are solid. He doesn't trot the democratic party line either. He lets the evidence available dictate his position.
I understand you don't want to commit, but even the White House put a number on it $278,000 per job. So certainly you can conjour up a number closer to the truth.
That, in itself, isn't terrible. If those jobs lasted a couple years, that's $278,000/# of years. That could be $139,000 to 92,000 per person per year. When you consider health care costs and other benefits, that's not bad. Its not perfect, but if most economists believe that it prevented a depression...I'll take it
As much as anything, that tells you what is wrong with the economy. Profits are being kept liquid. Companies don't want to spend money to make money, because they're not sold the 2nd half of that equation will work.
I have had the discussion of economic uncertainty when it comes to corporate spending and was chided as not knowing what I was talking about. Why would corporations be sitting on piles of cash? Why aren't they sold on the second half of the equation?
Yup. That cash could be spent on expansion or on raising employees' salaries. Either action would spur growth. Holding Treasury bills does not. Or to put another way, while Wall Street analysts and the right tend to view labor costs as an unmitigated bad, and it's an unmitigated good if companies feel that they have the power to squeeze labor and not give raises, things aren't quite that simple. Labor that gets paid better buys more things, which boosts demand for the products and services for those same companies that are saving $$ by cutting back on labor costs.
Well, stanger, I'm just a left wing pinko commie, so you may dismiss it but I think the problem is a lack of demand. Personal income is doing a'ight...nothing special, and actually poor considering we're coming out of the worst economy since the Great Depression. But the killer is state'n'local austerity. They're sucking a huge amount of money out of the economy. That's my 4 sentence response.
So we should be blaming those damned job creators, who aren't creating a damn thing. Maybe we should lower their tax rates. Yeah, that's it.
The GOP got what it wanted. It wanted austerity, government spending is on the decline. It wanted lower taxes, with the exception of those making $400k or better the Bush tax cuts were made permanent. It didn't want stimulus, there hasn't been stimulus spending in 3 years. And then after getting what it wants, the GOP complains that this is bad policy.
To be fair the Democrats also wanted lower taxes (arguably they were put in a position where the political calculation made them want lower taxes) for all but a few on top. The tax difference in the tax revenue “lost” buy not allowing the full tax cuts to expire and just the amount that was raised on the 400K+ is a lot, over 200 Billion per year if I remember correctly.
That is true, but it doesn't change the analysis that the GOP got what it wanted. In effect, Obama has followed W's economic plan, with the exception of the 2009 stimulus, plus Obama has had a more regulatory-friendly climate.
And what solutions will they come up with? More austerity!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That and tax cuts for the job creators.