The Stimulus Is A Failure

[Zkribbler]

That's true. The grandkiddies would be much better off if Obama had allowed the economy to totally crash and burn. 25-30% unemployment. Defaulting on our government bonds. Closing down schools in all but the richest districts. Cutting back our armed forces to a couple of divisions. Revoking Social Security and Medicare. Sure, nooooo problem!

[Dinner]

To what end? Blowing billions of bucks that his grandchildren can worry about.

I didn't hear you whining when Georgie Junior blew $5 trillion on garbage and nonsense. In fact I notice Republicans created this problem and now you're trying to dump all the blame on the guy who has been in office less then five months.

[Zkribbler]

That's the Republican plan, all right. They created the problems. They have no solutions. Their only hope is to blame Obama for everything because he hasn't fixed all their screw-ups instantaneously.

[DinoDoc]

I didn't hear you whining when Georgie Junior blew $5 trillion on garbage and nonsense.

The problem with your analysis is that the Obama admin is making Gee Dub look like a fiscal conservative with his spending $ on garbage. So why shouldn't Sloww or anyone else "whine" about it?

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

That's true. The grandkiddies would be much better off if Obama had allowed the economy to totally crash and burn. 25-30% unemployment. Defaulting on our government bonds. Closing down schools in all but the richest districts. Cutting back our armed forces to a couple of divisions. Revoking Social Security and Medicare. Sure, nooooo problem!

The fallacy of course with this line of thought is that it is disproven by the opening post. Virtually no stimulative monies were spent so how exactly were governmental bonds, schools, revocation of social security and medicare avoided in these all so critical short months where speed of response was so critical that no one was given the opportunity to read the bill. The house is on fire grab the fire hoses and douse the flames with 800 bil of water as it were. (cept of course the fire lines are two miles long and it takes 20 minute for the water to get there)

No the monies were always known/expected to hit long after the recession was on the mend. The intention of course was and is always payback and pet projects in order to cement a political renaissance of the Democratic party. Heck the new definition of "shovel ready" should simply mean fire up the environmental impact statements we've got a project to plan for 2015.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

That said just about all the economists said the stimulus package was to small and filled with to many tax breaks which were unlikely to actually stimulate new demand.

The science is settled ehhh? About all the economists ehhh? Too many tax breaks? What color is your sky?

[Seeker]

Liberalism=Socialism???

John Locke, hello anyone?

Liberalism was about 'inalienable rights' and egalitarianism, which is why modern liberalism is basically about anti-racism.

It is NOT so much an economic ideology as a political ideology then.

Lets just admit it: Conservatives constantly try to cast modern liberalism as 'socialist' because they differ with "liberalisms" basic egalitarian project.

That's it. Real socialism is really really obvious and easy to identify. Conservatisms real 'beef' is with egalitarianism, so why don't we just come out and have that debate.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Strawman alert.

[Seeker]

(bleep! bleep!)Scanning in all directions...Locate source of straw...identify target! identify target!

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

You need a mirror. It tough to spot a target whilst outwardly scanning in all directions.

[DaShi]

That time of the month?

[Kuciwalker]

That's true. The grandkiddies would be much better off if Obama had allowed the economy to totally crash and burn. 25-30% unemployment. Defaulting on our government bonds. Closing down schools in all but the richest districts. Cutting back our armed forces to a couple of divisions. Revoking Social Security and Medicare. Sure, nooooo problem!

Except NONE OF THE MONEY HAS BEEN SPENT YET and that hasn't happened.

[KrazyHorse]

25-30% unemployment

You're a ****ing idiot.

Honestly, this is the problem with people who claim to be able to assess whether a stimulus helped or not; THERE'S NO REASONABLE ESTIMATE OF THE COUNTERFACTUAL.

In this situation you have morons like zkrib claiming that the counterfactual is however bad they need to make it in order to claim that the ****ing stimulus was a success.

[Lorizael]

I love the juxtaposition of "You're a ****ing idiot" with "THERE'S NO REASONABLE ESTIMATE OF THE COUNTERFACTUAL."

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Actually the counterfactual approximates reality considering the level of payout.