Stimulus added millions of jobs in Q2

[kcwolf]

By Andy Sullivan
Stimulus added millions of jobs in Q2
Tue, Aug 24 2010


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The massive U.S. stimulus package put millions of people to work and boosted national output by hundreds of billions of dollars in the second quarter, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said on Tuesday.

CBO's latest estimate indicates that the stimulus effort, which remains a political hot potato ahead of the November congressional elections, may have prevented the sluggish U.S. economy from contracting between April and June.

CBO said President Barack Obama's stimulus boosted real GDP in the quarter by between 1.7 percent and 4.5 percent, adding at least $200 billion in economic activity.

During that time the economy was growing at an anemic pace.

Gross domestic product rose just 0.6 percent during that period, according to preliminary Commerce Department data which economists expect will be revised sharply lower when new figures are released on Friday.

The massive package of tax cuts, construction spending and enhanced safety-net benefits was passed in February 2009 in the midst of the deepest recession since the 1930s.

It raised employment by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million jobs during the second quarter of this year, CBO estimated.

Measured another way, CBO said the stimulus increased the number of full-time equivalent jobs by up to 4.8 million, as part-time workers shifted to full-time work or employers offered more overtime work.

CBO said the package, officially known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, would cost $814 billion, down from its previous estimate of $862 billion. The lower figure was thanks largely to health-care subsidies that cost less than anticipated. CBO initially estimated the bill would worsen budget deficits by $787 billion.

Other than that, the estimate varies only slightly from the budget office's forecast released in May.

With both the House of Representatives and the Senate up for grabs in November, Democrats hope voters will give them credit for breathing some life into the economy, which had begun to weaken while Republican George W. Bush was still president.

"The Recovery Act is working to rescue the economy from eight years of failed economic policy and rebuild it even stronger than before," Vice President Joe Biden said in a prepared statement. "It's impossible for even the most cynical, bent-on-rooting-for-failure critics to deny."

Republicans, who almost universally opposed the stimulus, have criticized it as wasteful and ineffective.

Some 67 percent of those surveyed in a Reuters/Ipsos poll last month said Obama is not focusing enough on job creation. Voters in that survey said the economy and jobs are the most pressing issues facing the country.

CBO said it expects the effects of the stimulus to gradually diminish over the remainder of the year.

(Additional reporting by Emily Kaiser; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

 

[Mags]

By Andy Sullivan
Stimulus added millions of jobs in Q2
Tue, Aug 24 2010


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The massive U.S. stimulus package put millions of people to work and boosted national output by hundreds of billions of dollars in the second quarter, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said on Tuesday.

CBO's latest estimate indicates that the stimulus effort, which remains a political hot potato ahead of the November congressional elections, may have prevented the sluggish U.S. economy from contracting between April and June.

CBO said President Barack Obama's stimulus boosted real GDP in the quarter by between 1.7 percent and 4.5 percent, adding at least $200 billion in economic activity.

During that time the economy was growing at an anemic pace.

Gross domestic product rose just 0.6 percent during that period, according to preliminary Commerce Department data which economists expect will be revised sharply lower when new figures are released on Friday.

The massive package of tax cuts, construction spending and enhanced safety-net benefits was passed in February 2009 in the midst of the deepest recession since the 1930s.

It raised employment by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million jobs during the second quarter of this year, CBO estimated.

Measured another way, CBO said the stimulus increased the number of full-time equivalent jobs by up to 4.8 million, as part-time workers shifted to full-time work or employers offered more overtime work.

CBO said the package, officially known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, would cost $814 billion, down from its previous estimate of $862 billion. The lower figure was thanks largely to health-care subsidies that cost less than anticipated. CBO initially estimated the bill would worsen budget deficits by $787 billion.

Other than that, the estimate varies only slightly from the budget office's forecast released in May.

With both the House of Representatives and the Senate up for grabs in November, Democrats hope voters will give them credit for breathing some life into the economy, which had begun to weaken while Republican George W. Bush was still president.

"The Recovery Act is working to rescue the economy from eight years of failed economic policy and rebuild it even stronger than before," Vice President Joe Biden said in a prepared statement. "It's impossible for even the most cynical, bent-on-rooting-for-failure critics to deny."

Republicans, who almost universally opposed the stimulus, have criticized it as wasteful and ineffective.

Some 67 percent of those surveyed in a Reuters/Ipsos poll last month said Obama is not focusing enough on job creation. Voters in that survey said the economy and jobs are the most pressing issues facing the country.

CBO said it expects the effects of the stimulus to gradually diminish over the remainder of the year.

(Additional reporting by Emily Kaiser; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

OK, I'll take the article at face value (although it is hard to believe the CBO - they intially send the health care bill would decrease premiums and the deficit to get the bill passed, and now are saying it will increase both premiums and the deficit, but, moving on)....

It says the stimulus "created UP TO 3.3 million jobs" - which is the high number shown.... I'll be kind and say that it is 3.3 million (even though that number is high)...

Then it says the stimulus cost was 814 billion.

So, doing the math, doesn't this mean that each job cost us approximately $250K per job? I assume that is the salary for each job? Aren't these types of jobs (and the people that hold these jobs) the type of people that Obama hates, as he always singles out anyone making $250K a year or more as being bad?

 

[Chadman]

Doesn't the overall stimulus package pay for jobs AND the projects the jobs are created for?Or at least partially pay for those projects? I have personally seen many road projects around attributed to the stimulus, which is good for workers, for state/tourism in the future, for drivers, and returns money in taxes on the products purchased and used for those projects. I think actual stimulus projects that are infrastructure related are very worthwhile, and good for the states and country in many ways. I certainly don't think (I could be wrong) that all the stimulus money went to worker salaries, did it?

 

[Mags]

Doesn't the overall stimulus package pay for jobs AND the projects the jobs are created for?Or at least partially pay for those projects? I have personally seen many road projects around attributed to the stimulus, which is good for workers, for state/tourism in the future, for drivers, and returns money in taxes on the products purchased and used for those projects. I think actual stimulus projects that are infrastructure related are very worthwhile, and good for the states and country in many ways. I certainly don't think (I could be wrong) that all the stimulus money went to worker salaries, did it?

Actually, you are right Chad - none of the stimulus went for worker salaries (the companies themselves pay the salaries - like the road construction crews).

So, that means it costs on average $250K to "create" a job? Doesn't that sound a bit much?

And yes, some of the infrastructure work was sorely needed and welcomed - however some of it was wasteful. For example, here in WI they are using some of the stimulus money to pave seldom used bike paths......

 

[Lumi]

Obama?s failed stimulus program cost more than the Iraq war

Obama?s failed stimulus program cost more than the Iraq war

Obama?s failed stimulus program cost more than the Iraq war
http://madjacksports.com/forum/#comments_controls
Mark Tapscott
Washington Examiner
August 24, 2010

Expect to hear a lot about how much the Iraq war cost in the days ahead from Democrats worried about voter wrath against their unprecedented spending excesses.

The meme is simple: The economy is in a shambles because of Bush?s economic policies and his war in Iraq. As American Thinker?s Randall Hoven points out, that?s the message being peddled by lefties as diverse as former Clinton political strategist James Carville, economist Joseph Stiglitz, and The Nation?s Washington editor, Christopher Hayes.
http://www.efoodsdirect.com//index.html?aid=13&adid=43
The key point in the mantra is an alleged $3 trillion cost for the war. Well, it was expensive to be sure, in both blood and treasure, but, as Hoven notes, the CBO puts the total cost at $709 billion. To put that figure in the proper context of overall spending since the war began in 2003, Hoven provides this handy CBO chart showing the portion of the annual deficit attributable to the conflict:

Read entire article

 

[DOGS THAT BARK]

Per #'s in article by Andy Sullivan on stimulus--

-they will be revised on Friday--can I get a wager on which direction they will be revised???
I'm going on the --lower
--anyone:shrug:

I think Joe likes the over--:SIB

BIDEN: 'We're moving in right direction'...

 

[rusty]

???

???

Poor Job Growth Rains on Wall Street

* August 8th, 2010 1:57 pm PT

Unable to grow private sector jobs over the last three months, President Barack Obama finds himself behind the eight-ball trying to sell his economic program. His $787 billion stimulus program was supposed to either save or create millions of new jobs. With cash running out, three?s growing concern about the economy slowing down. Last week?s GDP rate of 2.4% was under economists? expectations for future growth, causing Wall Street to sell off. Without a steadily rising stock market, publicly traded corporations don?t have sufficient capital to expand payrolls, eventually reinstating the 7-million lost jobs since Dec. 2007. Now at 9.5%, the unemployment rate doesn?t tell the whole story, especially about the chronically unemployed who have given up on finding jobs. Obama?s Keynesian plan of subsidizing government jobs has petered out leaving the private sector bereft.

Private sector employers only added 71,000 jobs in July, offset by losses in local, state and federal jobs, leaving the net gain at a paltry 12,000. Over 200,000 jobs are needed a month to stay ahead of normal population growth. Obama?s decision to push for national health care March 22, 2010 won an age-old Democratic battle but lost the war against unemployment. White House officials believe the country can do both, expand jobs and implement a $1 trillion dollar health care plan, but haven?t shown they can grow the economy running massive budget deficits. If the government stimulus-based recovery loses steam, the recession could double-dip, further hurting private-sector job growth. Private sector job growth is directly connected to a rising stock market, something that can?t happen unless the government gets control of short-sellers, private equity and hedge funds that bet against the market.

Without an advancing stock market, the private sector doesn?t have the capital needed to expand payrolls. Consumer demand also doesn?t start until the unemployed go back to work. Today?s sluggish jobs growth and low consumer demand directly relates to publicly traded corporations not having the needed capital to add jobs. Many companies today hire temporary workers to offset current gyrations in the stock market where private equity and hedge funds start short-selling in response to cyclical profit-taking. With government census jobs winding down, the economy could lose another
20,000 to 30,000 more jobs a month. Some economists worry that further contraction in the jobs market?whether private sector or government?could cause the current 2.4% growth rate to go negative. Prospects for adding significant private sector jobs look more and more dismal.

Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben S. Bernanke hinted that more rock-bottom interest rates and stimulus may be needed to keep the economy from double-dipping. ?If we don?t see significant job growth by the end of the year, the economy could be in serious trouble,? said Bill Cheney, chief economist of John Hancock. Cheney knows that you can?t create private sector jobs without a rising stock market. Since yesterday?s home equity lines are no longer available, it?s imperative that the stock market continue to inflate until publicly traded corporations have enough cash to begin adding to payrolls. ?Employers do not want to take chances,? said Sung Won Sohn, an economist at California State University Channel Islands, formerly with Wells Fargo Bank. With demand down and companies strapped for cash, the stock market provides the best source of operational cash.

Hiring temporary jobs provides some hedge against the growing possibility that the economy could deteriorate in Q-3 and Q-4. ?There is a very clear recovery during the first half of the year, but there are still questions whether that will continue in the second half,? said Jose Maria Alapont, CEO of a Michigan-based parts supplier. While car sales don?t necessarily predict the overall economy, they do reflect consumers? perceptions of job security and future growth. Fed Chairman Bernanke will keep rates low, and, if needed, add liquidity to the bank system, making consumer loans more available. Without more government bailouts, a number of states could start running further into the red, putting more pressure on unemployment. Whether Democrat or Republican, no one wants to see more state workers, or those like school teachers dependent on state aid, to face more unemployment.

President Barack Obama faces his greatest challenge of creating more private sector jobs. No capitalist society can thrive only on government-sponsored jobs without severe economic, social and political fallout. Instead of busting the budget, the president should look for ways to reassure the business community that his policies are pro-growth. When Barack signed regulatory reform into law July 21, he needed to reassure Wall Street that they could get their piece of the pie without, compromising economic growth. Barack has more work to do with his Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Fed Chairman Bernanke to make sure that currently unregulated private equity and hedge funds don?t sabotage the current fragile bull market with runaway short-selling. Without a sustained rising stock market, it?s doubtful companies will generate enough cash to hire long-term permanent employees.

About the Author

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He?s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.

 

[Chadman]

Actually, you are right Chad - none of the stimulus went for worker salaries (the companies themselves pay the salaries - like the road construction crews).

So, that means it costs on average $250K to "create" a job? Doesn't that sound a bit much?

And yes, some of the infrastructure work was sorely needed and welcomed - however some of it was wasteful. For example, here in WI they are using some of the stimulus money to pave seldom used bike paths......

Don't understand why you are extrapolating the entire cost of the package into a narrow cost per job average, since the stimulus was not just a job creation program. It was an economy stimulating program, that benefited individuals, businesses, states, and the economy through taxes from products and the sale of products by companies. I have no idea if the money spent was worthwhile but I do understand the idea behind it, and I also know how serious our financial problems were at the time of coming up with the stimulus (at least Obama's time, anyway).

I also wonder how many republicans who have criticized the plan have since taken credit for the funds in public political appearances and commentary in their home states. Very few refused those funds, and made that stance, which is a strong position (and admirable one in many ways) to take. The others are political opportunists and hypocrites, in my view.

 

[Trampled Underfoot]

Obama?s failed stimulus program cost more than the Iraq war
http://madjacksports.com/forum/#comments_controls
Mark Tapscott
Washington Examiner
August 24, 2010

Expect to hear a lot about how much the Iraq war cost in the days ahead from Democrats worried about voter wrath against their unprecedented spending excesses.

The meme is simple: The economy is in a shambles because of Bush?s economic policies and his war in Iraq. As American Thinker?s Randall Hoven points out, that?s the message being peddled by lefties as diverse as former Clinton political strategist James Carville, economist Joseph Stiglitz, and The Nation?s Washington editor, Christopher Hayes.
http://www.efoodsdirect.com//index.html?aid=13&adid=43
The key point in the mantra is an alleged $3 trillion cost for the war. Well, it was expensive to be sure, in both blood and treasure, but, as Hoven notes, the CBO puts the total cost at $709 billion. To put that figure in the proper context of overall spending since the war began in 2003, Hoven provides this handy CBO chart showing the portion of the annual deficit attributable to the conflict:

Read entire article

Isn't this the same joker that I exposed doggie for using?

 

[Trampled Underfoot]

I haven't read the article or done research on this but are these really good long term jobs? Doubtful. That reminds me. I still need to dig up the list of Kissenger's war crimes. So much to do.

 

[Skulnik]

4 years of Democrat control of the House and Senate.

Pity really.

 

[Lumi]

Isn't this the same joker that I exposed doggie for using?

uHHH

Corn Flakes ? :shrug:

How the duck am I supposed to know? Or remember for that fact, actually it was Raisin Bran today.

 

[Trampled Underfoot]

uHHH

Corn Flakes ? :shrug:

How the duck am I supposed to know? Or remember for that fact, actually it was Raisin Bran today.

This guy won some award for conservative writer of the year. :mj07:

doggie used that writer after he poked fun at Trench for having a liberal slanted article. He is so fun to mock.

 

[Terryray]

These rather silly CBO estimates are cut from the same cloth their ridiculous health care cost estimates were.

It is not the CBO's fault!

One thing ya gotta know about CBO estimates. All policy wonks know that:

Congress tells CBO what figures it will use for parameters. Often, these assumptions have little to do with reality or even trusted economic models. Silly numbers are frequently foisted on CBO, and CBO by law has to generate a report based on the phony math.

You can tell how much CBO is skeptical in this particular report, as they carefully note that they do not analyze what would have happened without a stimulus. As Elmendorf noted in his December report ""it is impossible to determine how many of the reported jobs would have existed in the absence of the stimulus package."

CBO was directed to assume that X dollars must create Y number of jobs and Z economic growth.

In other words, they assumed stimulus dollars always creates jobs, therefore the stimulus program created these jobs--and here's the number.

And notice the huge range in their estimate "between 1.4 million and 3.3 million jobs"

As CBO director Doug Elmendorf notes in this interview, these stimulus reports are "repeating the same exercises we [already] did rather than an independent check on it."

Elmendorf further notes the reports are a reflection of the inputs Congress told them to take, and don't reflect what is going on in the real world.

questioner asks Elmendorf "If the stimulus bill did not do what it was originally forecast to do, then that would not have been detected by the subsequent analysis, right?" Elmendorf's response-- "That's right. That's right."

 

[DOGS THAT BARK]

Appears even ultra liberal AP had no stomach for Dems blatant grifts anymore-- per


FACT CHECK: Stimulus assessments overly optimistic

<CITE>AP ? <ABBR class=recenttimedate title=2010-08-26T03:39:12-0700>57 mins ago</ABBR> </CITE>
<!-- end .hd --> <CITE>AP</CITE>
WASHINGTON - The Obama administration claimed this week that $100 billion invested in innovative technologies under the economic stimulus law is "transforming the American economy" by putting the nation on track for technological breakthroughs in health care, energy and transportation.

But an examination of details in the 50-page report unveiled Tuesday by Vice President Joe Biden reveals something a bit different: a collection of rosy projections that ignore many of the challenges, pitfalls and economic realities in all those areas.

A look at how the [COLOR=#366388 !important][FONT=arial, helvetica, clean, sans-serif][COLOR=#366388 !important][FONT=arial, helvetica, clean, sans-serif]administration's [/FONT][COLOR=#366388 !important][FONT=arial, helvetica, clean, sans-serif]claims[/FONT][/COLOR][/FONT][/COLOR][/COLOR] compare to the facts: Full Story ?




---and Rove having field day

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703632304575451502211231456.html

By KARL ROVE

In what will rank as one of the all-time presidential PR disasters, we're now well over half way through what the White House called "the summer of recovery." And what a recovery it's been.
Earlier this month, first-time claims for unemployment hit a nine-month high. The unemployment rate remains at 9.5% and 18.4% of workers are out of a job, can only get part-time work, or have given up looking for a job altogether. Sales of existing homes dropped 27% from June to July, hitting the lowest point since data were first collected in 1999. The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index fell to 50.4 in July, continuing a slide that started in February. And the stock market is down 11% from its peak in April.

<CITE>Getty Images</CITE>


All of this has helped shatter public confidence in the president. In early May, Mr. Obama's approval on the economy in the YouGov/Polimetrix poll was 42%. By mid-August, it was 35%?a frightening number for Democrats less than 70 days from a midterm election. According to this week's Reuters poll, 72% are "very" worried about jobs and 67% "very concerned" about government spending.
Mr. Obama's credibility is crumbling, and for good reason: He and his people are saying things people don't believe. At the start of his summer of recovery road show, the president flatly asserted that last year's massive stimulus package had "worked." Vice President Joe Biden, not to be outdone, promised monthly job gains of up to 500,000 and insisted that the recovery's pace "continues to increase, not decrease" as stimulus spending was "moving into its highest gear."
It's slightly surreal. "Who are you going to believe," as Groucho Marx once said, "me or your own eyes?"
The administration's claims have collided with reality in other instances as well. Mr. Obama's Council of Economic Advisers Chair Christina Romer?speaking before the 2009 stimulus was approved?said unemployment would top out at 8% by the third quarter of 2009 and decline to less than 7% by the end of 2010. Even the White House now admits that the unemployment rate will stay at or above 9% through 2011.
The White House also frequently asserts that "between 2.3 million and 2.8 million jobs were either saved or created" by the $620 billion in stimulus money spent by June. Set aside the absurdity of the administration inventing the "saved" category and then pretending it can ascertain, with scientific precision, the number of jobs that have been "saved." Since the stimulus passed, 2.6 million Americans have lost their jobs and 1.2 million people have given up even looking for work.
Mr. Obama and his people also mischaracterize where most stimulus dollars go. Their constant prattle about "shovel ready projects" is an attempt to leave the impression that most goes to bricks and mortar. Not true: Only 3.3% of the $814 billion stimulus went to the Federal Highway Administration for highway and bridge projects.
The administration's misleading statements and obfuscations aren't limited to the economy. On health care, for example, Mr. Obama continues saying that (a) health-care reform will reduce costs and the deficit, (b) no one who wants to keep existing coverage will lose it, and (c) the law's cuts in Medicare won't threaten any senior's health care. These assertions are laughable.

The president's habit of exaggeration and misstatement has infected other Democrats. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, for example, routinely talks about how the recently passed "Stimulus II" spending bill protected the jobs of police and firemen.
But it didn't.
Stimulus II consisted of two parts: $10 billion for education and $16 billion for Medicaid. States can't spend Medicaid money for anything but Medicaid, and they can only spend the education money on education, i.e., they can't shuffle state funds around. Language allowing Stimulus II dollars to pay for police and firemen didn't make it out of the Senate. Yet Democratic leaders persist in saying that their latest stimulus has helped keep police and firefighters on the job. The claim is flatly untrue.
By overselling the stimulus before its passage in 2009 and exaggerating its benefits with layer upon layer of slippery half-truths in 2010, Mr. Obama has made voters angrier. This is not America's summer of recovery; it is a summer of economic discontent that will ensure that Democrats take a pounding in the midterm elections.
Mr. Rove, the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush, is the author of "Courage and Consequence" (Threshold Editions, 2010).

 

[DOGS THAT BARK]

By Andy Sullivan
Stimulus added millions of jobs in Q2
Tue, Aug 24 2010


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The massive U.S. stimulus package put millions of people to work and boosted national output by hundreds of billions of dollars in the second quarter, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said on Tuesday.

CBO's latest estimate indicates that the stimulus effort, which remains a political hot potato ahead of the November congressional elections, may have prevented the sluggish U.S. economy from contracting between April and June.

CBO said President Barack Obama's stimulus boosted real GDP in the quarter by between 1.7 percent and 4.5 percent, adding at least $200 billion in economic activity.

During that time the economy was growing at an anemic pace.

Gross domestic product rose just 0.6 percent during that period, according to preliminary Commerce Department data which economists expect will be revised sharply lower when new figures are released on Friday.

The massive package of tax cuts, construction spending and enhanced safety-net benefits was passed in February 2009 in the midst of the deepest recession since the 1930s.

It raised employment by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million jobs during the second quarter of this year, CBO estimated.

Measured another way, CBO said the stimulus increased the number of full-time equivalent jobs by up to 4.8 million, as part-time workers shifted to full-time work or employers offered more overtime work.

CBO said the package, officially known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, would cost $814 billion, down from its previous estimate of $862 billion. The lower figure was thanks largely to health-care subsidies that cost less than anticipated. CBO initially estimated the bill would worsen budget deficits by $787 billion.

Other than that, the estimate varies only slightly from the budget office's forecast released in May.

With both the House of Representatives and the Senate up for grabs in November, Democrats hope voters will give them credit for breathing some life into the economy, which had begun to weaken while Republican George W. Bush was still president.

"The Recovery Act is working to rescue the economy from eight years of failed economic policy and rebuild it even stronger than before," Vice President Joe Biden said in a prepared statement. "It's impossible for even the most cynical, bent-on-rooting-for-failure critics to deny."

Republicans, who almost universally opposed the stimulus, have criticized it as wasteful and ineffective.

Some 67 percent of those surveyed in a Reuters/Ipsos poll last month said Obama is not focusing enough on job creation. Voters in that survey said the economy and jobs are the most pressing issues facing the country.

CBO said it expects the effects of the stimulus to gradually diminish over the remainder of the year.

(Additional reporting by Emily Kaiser; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Per #'s in article by Andy Sullivan on stimulus--

-they will be revised on Friday--can I get a wager on which direction they will be revised???
I'm going on the --lower
--anyone:shrug:
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

FRIDAY
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100827/ap_on_bi_go_ec_fi/us_economy

Snapshot of economy about to get a lot bleaker

<CITE class=vcard>By CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER, AP Economics Writer Christopher S. Rugaber, Ap Economics Writer </CITE>? <ABBR class=recenttimedate title=2010-08-27T03:19:37-0700>19 mins ago</ABBR>
<!-- end .byline -->WASHINGTON ? The government is about to confirm what many people have felt for some time: The economy barely has a pulse.

The [FONT=arial, helvetica, clean, sans-serif][FONT=arial, helvetica, clean, sans-serif]Commerce [/FONT][/FONT][FONT=arial, helvetica, clean, sans-serif][FONT=arial, helvetica, clean, sans-serif]Department[/FONT][/FONT] on Friday will revise its estimate for economic growth in the April-to-June period and Wall Street economists forecast it will be cut almost in half, to a 1.4 percent annual rate from 2.4 percent.

That's a sharp slowdown from the first quarter, when the economy grew at a 3.7 percent annual rate, and economists say it's a taste of the weakness to come. The current quarter isn't expected to be much better, with many economists forecasting growth of only 1.7 percent.


:0corn

 

[Chadman]

I think it's very easy - almost simple, in the true sense of the word - to ridicule these stimulus programs at this point. I guess the question to those of you examining this issue (for political points, of course) is what should we have done, considering the situation we were in? It's easy to say "we should have done nothing" and allowed everything to fail, including banks, investment groups, insurance companies, etc... but what would the ramifications of all of that have been? I can assume with this examination that all of you are also against the Bush stimulus, which was nothing more than a glorified tax cut for individuals (as I remember it), which clearly did NOTHING for the economy, right? So, tax cuts didn't work, Obama's stimulus didn't work, and we have no real idea where we would all be at this point had we not tried to do either one.

Step up. What SHOULD we have done? It's easy at this point to say what could have been done with no pressure or repercussions, of course, or proof what would have been the right thing. But I am curious what you economic wizards think should have been done. Because MANY conservative economists agreed stimulus was necessary to prevent a complete economic collapse in this country, ONE YEAR into Obama's term (by the way).

 

[DOGS THAT BARK]

I think it's very easy - almost simple, in the true sense of the word - to ridicule these stimulus programs at this point. I guess the question to those of you examining this issue (for political points, of course) is what should we have done, considering the situation we were in? It's easy to say "we should have done nothing" and allowed everything to fail, including banks, investment groups, insurance companies, etc... but what would the ramifications of all of that have been? I can assume with this examination that all of you are also against the Bush stimulus, which was nothing more than a glorified tax cut for individuals (as I remember it), which clearly did NOTHING for the economy, right? So, tax cuts didn't work, Obama's stimulus didn't work, and we have no real idea where we would all be at this point had we not tried to do either one.

Step up. What SHOULD we have done? It's easy at this point to say what could have been done with no pressure or repercussions, of course, or proof what would have been the right thing. But I am curious what you economic wizards think should have been done. Because MANY conservative economists agreed stimulus was necessary to prevent a complete economic collapse in this country, ONE YEAR into Obama's term (by the way).

No econ genuis but had 3 initial probs with this almost 1 trillion expenditure

--1st had to be passed in middle of night behind closed doors--with only one party involved be cause it was emergency in order to keep unemployment under 8%.

2nd most had no clue what was in it by very nature it was passed-see above

3rd after it was sorted out after the fact--nearly 1/3 went for entitlement programs-not job stimulus.

--again no econ genius--but from common sense arena--fail to comprehend how things like increasing unemployment to 2 years will have positive effect on people going back to work.

 

[Duff Miver]

I think it's very easy - almost simple, in the true sense of the word - to ridicule these stimulus programs at this point. I guess the question to those of you examining this issue (for political points, of course) is what should we have done, considering the situation we were in? It's easy to say "we should have done nothing" and allowed everything to fail, including banks, investment groups, insurance companies, etc... but what would the ramifications of all of that have been? I can assume with this examination that all of you are also against the Bush stimulus, which was nothing more than a glorified tax cut for individuals (as I remember it), which clearly did NOTHING for the economy, right? So, tax cuts didn't work, Obama's stimulus didn't work, and we have no real idea where we would all be at this point had we not tried to do either one.

Step up. What SHOULD we have done? It's easy at this point to say what could have been done with no pressure or repercussions, of course, or proof what would have been the right thing. But I am curious what you economic wizards think should have been done. Because MANY conservative economists agreed stimulus was necessary to prevent a complete economic collapse in this country, ONE YEAR into Obama's term (by the way).

You're kidding, right? Doggie come up with a comprehensive understanding of economic actions and results?:mj07:

Next you'll be expecting him to do brain surgery.

 

[Trampled Underfoot]

No econ genuis but had 3 initial probs with this almost 1 trillion expenditure

--1st had to be passed in middle of night behind closed doors--with only one party involved be cause it was emergency in order to keep unemployment under 8%.

2nd most had no clue what was in it by very nature it was passed-see above

3rd after it was sorted out after the fact--nearly 1/3 went for entitlement programs-not job stimulus.

--again no econ genius--but from common sense arena--fail to comprehend how things like increasing unemployment to 2 years will have positive effect on people going back to work.

Please list your economic credentials. I can't wait to hear this.