Comments | says_bomb: Stimulus Stuff

says_bomb

Stimulus Stuff

Feb 05, 2009 23:37

Talking Points Memo, quoted entirely because I agree with every word:
This week, out on the broad wastes of cable news drekdom and the uplands of Beltway journalistic drivel, a simple fact has gone almost entirely unreported: virtually everything congressional Republicans are saying about the Stimulus Bill wouldn't cut it in remedial economics. Not ( Read more... )

politics

Comments 6

perich February 6 2009, 12:40:22 UTC

I'm not going to say Republican Congresspeople aren't ignorant buffoons, because, well, hey.

But lines like this:

recession economics or even how jobs come into existence

... and this ...

all the credible evidence is that tax cuts are only about half as stimulative as direct government spending.

... don't give me much hope for the author of this post, either.

says_bomb February 6 2009, 16:07:43 UTC

I'm confused about what you find wrong with those statements. Are we understanding the same things about what he's actually criticizing and referencing there ( ... )

perich February 6 2009, 16:23:03 UTC

Republicans have out-and-out said things like "Government does not create jobs" and "government spending is not a stimulus."

I agree with both of those sentiments and I'm not a Republican.

Creating jobs - out of what, pixie dust and children's wishes? Why weren't those jobs available in the first place? I don't believe the U.S. employment market is a perfectly free market like we find in textbooks, allocating jobs to employers and wages to laborers with faultless efficiency. But I don't believe that companies are refusing to hire, or that new enterprises aren't starting up and demanding laborers, out of spite or laziness. I believe jobs aren't available because either the supply of capital or the demand for labor are low.

Running the money presses doesn't create capital, not in a legitimate sense. It waters down the value of all money currently existing, by inflating currency.

So government initiatives can "create" jobs only by destroying them elsewhere.

Government spending as a stimulus: the presumption that consuming ( ... )

says_bomb February 6 2009, 17:24:44 UTC

I'm sorry, I guess we are just very far apart in background here. But if that's the case, I'd request that you not respond to what I'm saying by talking past me ( ... )

Thread 6