Who Will The Democrats Select In 2012?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Kuci, ironic as GePap's statement may have been, don't you see the huge difference between "the Obama economic team was wrong about when the stimulus package would begin to take effect" and "the stimulus is a failure"? Even GePap openly conceded that at least the former is true.

On some level, though, they are very strongly linked to each other. Mostly because when the package would begin to take effect was a key to having it be stimulative to get the economy out of the crapper.

[GePap]

On some level, though, they are very strongly linked to each other. Mostly because when the package would begin to take effect was a key to having it be stimulative to get the economy out of the crapper.

1. The Economy hasn't bottemed out yet, only slowed its decent as far as we know.

2. Even when it bottoms out, there is no evidence that private investement would do anything but flatline. Stimulus money is meant to not only stop a fall, but to get the economy back rolling.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Which basically means that maybe the Obama economic team may luck into being right, as when they assumed it would bottomed out (for when the stim was targeted for) was wildly incorrect.

[GePap]

Which basically means that maybe the Obama economic team may luck into being right, as when they assumed it would bottomed out (for when the stim was targeted for) was wildly incorrect.

Stimulus is Stimulus - whether its effect is to stop a free-fall or to speed up recovery (and in either scenerio limit the danage to individuals and companies), it remains a good thing. Having slow growth that only produces enough jobs to keep up with demographic growth would not be something positive. We need not only to stem the loss of jobs, but create enough to begin replacing those lost (while keeping up with demographics on top of that).

Right now, given that most of the money has not been spent (and this is a TWO YEAR plan after all), calling the stimulus package a failure is stupid.

[Imran Siddiqui]

So...

Which basically means that maybe the Obama economic team may luck into being right, as when they assumed it would bottomed out (for when the stim was targeted for) was wildly incorrect.

[z4ckdabeast]

Right now, given that most of the money has not been spent (and this is a TWO YEAR plan after all), calling the stimulus package a failure is stupid.

Calling the stimulus package a success is what is stupid. The whole idea is extremely flawed.

[Drake Tungsten]

AND THAT IS WHY THE STIMULUS IS A FAILURE.

QFT

[SlowwHand]

Where did Obama find all this extra money? It doesn't have to be paid back does it?!?

[Drake Tungsten]

Kuci, ironic as GePap's statement may have been, don't you see the huge difference between "the Obama economic team was wrong about when the stimulus package would begin to take effect" and "the stimulus is a failure"?

An economic stimulus is quite obviously a failure if it fails to stimulate the economy when such stimulus is actually needed, ie. the year in which the recession is at its worst. The Obama stimulus isn't really going to kick in until 2010, well after the bottoming out of the economy. It's a failure and was obviously going to be one since the day it was approved.

[-Jrabbit]

Nice goalpost placement.

[Drake Tungsten]

I've been saying the same thing since before the stimulus was passed. It was structured in such a way that it was bound to fail.

[Dis]

Obama has been pretty horrible already. but there's still time for the economy to improve. People may look favorably on him in 2012.

[Kuciwalker]

Nice goalpost placement.

This one's entirely on Obama, Jrabbit. From day one of the stimulus pitch Obama was saying it would be targeted at shovel-ready projects and we'd start seeing returns as soon as Q2 09. (For example, see the graph Drake posted in the other thread and I reposted here.) Lots and lots of people called him out on it. Now people like GePap are essentially saying we'd have to be idiots to believe Obama's sales pitch.

As a politician you are allowed to outright lie to support your cause; the price you pay for this is you can't complain when people call you out on it.

[GePap]

I would love for any of you stimulus haters to point to any source of private investment that you think might want to jump into the current economic situation and help the economy not only stop losing jobs, but start making jobs again at a pace above that needed to keep up with basic demographic growth.

And on Imran's earlier point, if we take the graph and say that unemployment is a lagging indicator by say two full quarters, the Obama people were claiming the economy would have been in decline until the Fall since they didn't have unemployment bottoming out until Q2 of 2010. So why the hell are any of you claiming that Obama wanted to time this with the rock bottom? And why the **** would he want to do sucha thing? The point of stimulus would be to use public investement to make the bottom less painful and deep, and start a gradual climb back up sooner, not to capitalize on any supposed utter bottom.

[Darius871]

Kuci, ironic as GePap's statement may have been, don't you see the huge difference between "the Obama economic team was wrong about when the stimulus package would begin to take effect" and "the stimulus is a failure"?

An economic stimulus is quite obviously a failure if it fails to stimulate the economy when such stimulus is actually needed, ie. the year in which the recession is at its worst. The Obama stimulus isn't really going to kick in until 2010, well after the bottoming out of the economy. It's a failure and was obviously going to be one since the day it was approved.

I anticipated this "goalpost placement," but for starters it's all predicated on your assumption that the "bottoming out" will necessarily occur in the summer or fall of 2009, which I see as merely probable, not a given. It's entirely possible that a vicious cycle of delinquencies and lenders' consequent tightening of credit standards, combined with declining consumer spending, continued decline in the value of residential and commercial real estate, unpredictable consequences of eased mark-to-market rules, and even the ongoing spike in treasury interest rates (with correlated decline of the dollar), among myriad other variables, could ultimately place the bottom well into 2010, when you think the stimulus will really start to "kick in."

In other words, for you to be so sure of the timing of the "bottom" when we haven't even hit it is every bit as misguided as Summers et al having been so sure of the timing of the stimulus' impact. Even if the decline begins to level off, problems as unanticipated as last September's could come out of the blue and delay the bottom for even longer. 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. We won't know the true bottom until it has already happened.


(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.)

(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.)