Who Will The Democrats Select In 2012?

[Drake Tungsten]

it's all predicated on your assumption that the "bottoming out" will necessarily occur in the summer or fall of 2009

That's what the economic consensus is, including amongst Obama's economic advisors. As Imran said, if the economy does get worse and the bottom is reached in 2010 instead of 2009, the stimulus will be somewhat useful only due to dumb luck rather than any sort of intelligent planning and structuring of the program.

[Darius871]

economic consensus

You might read more econ blogs than I do, but that should only make you more aware of how utterly clueless even the brightest minds in the field are about the not-immediate future, not less.

Did the "economic consensus" see the events of September 2008 coming? Even to the extent that it foresaw a recession of some sort in 2009, did it expect it to be so fast and severe?

Don't get me wrong, I certainly don't subscribe to Chicken Littles liks Peter Schiff, but I've at least learned enough in the last year to trust the "economic consensus" to predict the unemployment rate 6-12 months out no more than I'd trust Kevin Trudeau to clean my colon.

And even supposing that the "economic consensus" ultimately ends up being correct by accident, there's this:

(PS: And that's leaving out the even more obvious counterargument already made, that a late stimulus' accelerating even a post-bottom upswing is still a "success" in its own right, even if not the originally intended purpose.)

If you were to say "the Obama economic team's prediction of the timing of the stimulus package's impact was a complete and utter cluster**** of a miserable failure" I'd agree with you 100%, but the stimulus would not itself be a failure because even with late timing it would have some stimulative impact. It's just that simple. It'd be less of a success than a better-timed one could have been perhaps, but is that the definition of failure?

[Drake Tungsten]

So you think it's just fine that an $800 billion dollar stimulus package was structured in such a way that it would have little to no stimulative effect, assuming that the projections of the government's economic community held? Glad to get that out of the way; now I know not to listen to you anymore...

[Darius871]

So you think it's just fine that an $800 billion dollar stimulus package was structured in such a way that it would have little to no stimulative effect based on the best projections of the government's economic community?

Of course not. What I'm saying is I have yet to see the evidence that the bottom won't be at roughly the same time as the stimulus, and even if it won't, I have yet to see the evidence that a stimulus after the bottom would have "little to no stimulative effect," considering that even an already inevitable upswing can be accelerated. Accelerating the inevitable is a significant stimulative effect, period. That would be a "success," unless you define success more in terms of A) academics' being able to pat themselves on the back for an accurate prediction rather than B) actually mitigating the hardship ordinary people experience in a recession, but I was under the impression that (B) is the main purpose of a stimulus package...

Also, there's this:

(PPS: And this is coming from someone who agrees with you that extended unemployment insurance would have a faster and more significant stimulative effect than public works, regardless of the latter's timing.)

In other words, I agree that a different package would have been more successful then this one which is not only late but also weak, but "less successful" and "a failure" are two very different things. This really is just a question of petty semantics, which is why GePap bit the troll for so long.

[Drake Tungsten]

What I'm saying is I have yet to see the evidence that the bottom won't be at roughly the same time as the stimulus

You might want to look at the leading indicators.

This really is just a question of petty semantics

I know lawyers like to boil every argument down to a semantic one (as semantics are the only thing lawyers are good at), but I have no interest in such a discussion. The stimulus has been a failure even by the Obama administration's own standards, but if you want to call it a "lesser success", be my guest. The fact remains that it wasn't worth the money.

[Darius871]

I know lawyers like to boil every argument down to semantic one (as semantics are the only thing lawyers are good at), but that's not the case here. The stimulus has been a failure even by the Obama administration's own standards. If you want to call it a "lesser success", be my guest. The fact remains that it wasn't worth the money.

To that extent we don't disagree then.

[SlowwHand]

Did anyone answer which generation will finally pay this off?

[Drake Tungsten]

Don't act like you Baby Boomers actually care.

[SlowwHand]

Hey, jackass. Obama isn't a boomer. Start taking ownership.

[-Jrabbit]

Get used to it, Sloww. All the world's ills shall be laid at our feet.

[SlowwHand]

No doubt.

[Drake Tungsten]

Obama isn't a boomer.

Yes, he is.

[KrazyHorse]

He's right on the tail end of the boomers by most definitions of the term. Most people place gen x as starting in the middle 60s and running to 1980. Some go as far back as 1961 (Obama's birth year) but these are outliers.

Luckily I caught the tail end of Gen X. I'd hate to be a Gen Yer.

[Joseph]

Obama isn't a boomer.

Yes, he is.

Obama was born in 1961.

Boomer are from 1946 to 1956 I believe.

[Jon Miller]

1980 is still GenX?

Good.

JM