Unemployment

[Meat]

Why are you guys mad at Obama? He's just reading what's on the teleprompter. Blame the guy who put it there for him to read.

[mr beauxjangles]

Originally Posted by Epistaxis

President Obama's crew told us in January that with the stimulus bill, unemployment would not exceed 8%. Today's report....9.5%.

To sell the stimulus bill, we were told without the stimulus bill we could expect to see unemployment at 9+% NEXT year.

They told us this to sell the stimulus, and it might just end up costing us 787 billion.....for...what exactly?

I'm not feeling particularily stimulated. But we'll pay anyway.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/01/bu...ardt.html?_r=1

It wasn't like the administration made those figures up. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's, did some extremely thorough analysis predicting that unemployment would peak around nine percent in early 2010 with the stimulus; eleven percent without. This wasn't an easy recession to peg - no one has predicted the outcomes perfectly at any stage.

Zandi spoke numerous times at congressional hearings regarding the stimulus package. If you don't know the guy, it's worth pointing out that he was a prominent adviser to McCain during his presidential campaign. Hell, even Martin Feldstein (Reagan's chief economic adviser) supported the stimulus plan.

The stimulus bill will create jobs, that's a certainty. The magnitude of the effect, the bang for the buck, and the time at which those jobs will be created remains to be seen. In my opinion, the administration's biggest mistake in "selling" the stimulus was the timing of the effect - they were far too optimistic about the federal governments ability to disburse the funds, and far too optimistic about the speed with which state and local governments could prepare their lists of projects and apply for funds.

The president was being told every day that the economy would disappear if he didn't act, the same way Paulson literally told congress that there would be no more US economy tomorrow if they didn't enable TARP. This has been an absurdly scary moment in our nation's history. If there was ever a proper time for federal economic stimulus in the last 3/4 of a century, it was during this recession. Conservative economists who spent their entire careers trying to find empirical evidence to counter Keynesian policies came out and supported the stimulus.

To be certain, we can all disagree about the best way to stimulate the economy, but my original point was simply that no one hit the mark in predicting the depth and breadth of this recession today.

[Zod]

Any wonder what unemployment would be at without the stimulus?

[Epistaxis]

Not sure.

Anyone wonder what happened to our money?

Anyone care?

[Zod]

I have heard that just about every city in america has been able to cut fewer govt jobs because of it. I think thats pretty important.

[mr beauxjangles]

Originally Posted by Epistaxis

Not sure.

Anyone wonder what happened to our money?

Anyone care?

Last time the government reported (about three weeks ago I think) less than 2% of the approved funds had actually been disbursed, and close to 40% had been allocated to various projects. Don't act like the money just evaporated. Bureaucracy is a biatch, and it was destined to be a slow process regardless of who was in the White House.

[Meat]

Originally Posted by Zod

I have heard that just about every city in america has been able to cut fewer govt jobs because of it. I think thats pretty important.

Whew. We saved all of those hard working people's jobs?

[Epistaxis]

Again, remember I'm not a mindless Republican shill that poo-poos anything and everything the Obama admin. has done or will do.

I simply question being TOLD something in order to ramrod expensive legislation thru (cough...Bush...cough....Iraq) and then have it already prove to be inaccurate (cough...WMDs) very quickly in to the year/plan.

The excuse making is shades of the other side when the Iraq boogeyman wasn't coming thru for the Repubs.

If you can't see the similarities, you are blinded by partisan douchebaggery.

And doomed to repeat the same mistakes. Different focus, same game.
Waste. Though I will admit as much as I hate flushing money down the toilet, I prefer the domestic toilet to the warmongering (and the expense of American lives as an added stench in the meddling in foreign affairs) toilet.

[Jase]

Originally Posted by Zod

Any wonder what unemployment would be at without the stimulus?

Any wonder how many terrorist attacks we'd have if we hadn't invaded iraq?

[Zod]

Originally Posted by Meat

Whew. We saved all of those hard working people's jobs?

only if you consider cops, firemen, teachers as hard working.