The difference is that since there is no real way to determine how many jobs were "saved" you can claim ridiculously high numbers that will be believed by those in the same party as the claimant especially.
The Stimulus Worked
- Thread starter Bonestorm
- Start date
Obviously, you get my point hence your dodge.
As I said to SF, no one in this thread has mentioned the Obama Administration's "created or saved" figures except for you and SF. Why is that?
Obviously you get mine, hence the ridiculous straw man argument. The difference is there is no way to prove that Jim's job was "saved" at all so you can just claim it and hacks will especially believe you.
What other analysis do you need other than the fact that there numbers were significantly wrong? There assumptions on where we might be without the stimulus are no better than there assumptions were a year ago. Nobody knows what the job numbers would look like without the stimulus.
I disagree. Projecting where the economy and unemployment rate will be year from now is much more difficult that assessing where the unemployment rate would be right now sans stimulus based on observed data.
And really, I'm surprised that no one can come up with anyone anywhere with a credible alternative analysis.
As I said, no one is talking about "saved" but you and SF. Congratulations, you won an argument against no one.
Since they are based on the same assumptive process guessing at where it would be now "if" is the same as predicting where it will be. There is no indication that they are any more accurate at either process and, in fact, much evidence that they are almost invariably wrong on assumptions based on previous performance.
Right. You said he "wasn't laid off because" rather than "saved"... The reality is you used four words rather than using "saved"... You have no way of proving he wasn't laid off because of the stimulus except by using CBO assumptions which were shown to be consistently inaccurate.
Congratulations, you've passed Desperate Spin 101.
No, it is not. It requires the same sort of predictions and assumptions. In the case of economics, hindsight is never 20/20 because you have no control group.
Cancel 2018. 3
<-- sched 2, MJ sched 1
translation:
i have no answer as to why we need another stimulus if the first one worked.
Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
I don't think your really going to see a true indicator on how the stimulus bill is impacting job creation till this spring/early summer when the construction season starts. If the stimulus bill is genuinely working there should be an upswing in contruction jobs.
FUCK THE POLICE
911 EVERY DAY
And that's the only reason right-wing economics still exists, lack of control groups to decisively drive them out of existence.
The fact is, every time America has embraced neoliberalism, we've had a huge depression. Quite a coincidence. But Americans never learn from their mistakes, and I'm sure you guys will drive us into disaster once more in eighty years.
FUCK THE POLICE
911 EVERY DAY
Well, there are two assumptions that we can make here:
1. With absolute certainty, we can say that the stimulus directly created a ton of construction jobs. This is obvious; barring nothing else, it put idle hands back to work building things that will be useful for future generations.
2. With less certainty, Keynesianism would predict that raising the effective demand in this way and putting demand on lots of products using the stimulus will prevent a much more catastrophic impact on the economy at large, as demand starts getting back into line.
The trend line was pretty obvious before the stimulus was passed, and the stimulus pretty obviously interrupted this trend line.
1. With absolute certainty, we can say that the stimulus directly created a ton of construction jobs. This is obvious; barring nothing else, it put idle hands back to work building things that will be useful for future generations.
2. With less certainty, Keynesianism would predict that raising the effective demand in this way and putting demand on lots of products using the stimulus will prevent a much more catastrophic impact on the economy at large, as demand starts getting back into line.
The trend line was pretty obvious before the stimulus was passed, and the stimulus pretty obviously interrupted this trend line.
Well, there should be this time. I hope. That's if they actually spend stimulus money building things rather than saving public (union members only need apply) jobs.
This.
FUCK THE POLICE
911 EVERY DAY
Economists have some good things to say as long as you don't ask them to try and predict anything.
One of the things economists say is that a failure in effective demand can cause great depression like events. The prescription for this is to have some sort of stimulus. We can't "predict" how high unemployment would have gone with any certainty, just that it would've been much higher.
One of the things economists say is that a failure in effective demand can cause great depression like events. The prescription for this is to have some sort of stimulus. We can't "predict" how high unemployment would have gone with any certainty, just that it would've been much higher.
Cancel 2016.2
The Almighty
LMAO... again you mention a 'baseline'... the numbers are DOWN from where we started. Pretending that 'saved jobs' somehow means positive change is frigging absurd. You are translating 'could have been worse' into 'this is positive'.
This makes absolutely NO sense. By NOT spending the money in 2009, you allowed the situation to become worse. More people were laid off than necessary, more people thus lost homes than necessary, less spending was done, which in turn leads to more people being laid off. The double dip is more likely when you DONT spend the stimulus. That is the WHOLE friggin point of a 'stimulus' bill.... to STIMULATE the economy with SPENDING when the public and corporate spending are tight.
Again you are using the tired argument of the administration that somehow 'things could have been worse' means 'POSITIVE' effect. You are only looking at one side of the 'could have' argument. Because it ALSO could have been BETTER. But instead, they hung on to the bulk of the money that was supposed to be used for stimulus.
Again... it could also have been at 7% had they actually spent the money. Just because things might have been worse, does not eliminate the fact that they also could have been better. So to say the stimulus was positive simply because the worst case scenario did not occur is ridiculous.
I don't think we can say that with much certainty. The predictions were that job losses were going to slow down without a stimulus.