The CBO is as credible as anybody, but not very credible. The information required to make accurate predictions is astronomical. That's why centrally planned economies fail.
The Stimulus Worked
- Thread starter Bonestorm
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The CBO is as credible as anybody, but not very credible. The information required to make accurate predictions is astronomical. That's why centrally planned economies fail.
Question:
How do you put such faith in the same people who predicted that unemployment would never reach the levels we are at? Seriously their numbers are very often best described as wildly inaccurate in their predictions. I have a hard time believing them because they are so bad at number projections.
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how can those people be right onceler? the stimulus worked, but it was too small, we need another one....if it worked, we don't need another one. if the stimulus worked, the economy would be fine, but it is not, that is why they need another one. i notice you totally glazed over SF agreeing with me, you didn't even try to argue with him about it....how odd.
you don't even support their view that we need another one, yet you go around and spastically call me a hater.....why is it ok for you to disagree with them, but not me? i think you're just a nutcase who loves to spout crap.
I gave you the reasoning; it happens to be reasoning I don't agree with, but your attempt to simplify the reasoning & basically ignore it is noted.
The CBO has some of the most conservative estimates of stimulus job creation. The fact of the matter is that pretty much everyone agrees that the stimulus created lots and lots of jobs. I could understand discounting the CBO if it were a wildly off the mark outlier on this issue, but it isn't.
Additionally, if you are going to discredit the CBO you should at least offer some plausible alternative analysis from someone who got the baseline projections right. I mean, it's one thing to say the CBO sucks but it's quite another to say that the CBO has these particular numbers wrong and show why you think it is wrong.
Right. Because being wrong differently than other people in predicting the effects of stimulus means they are "better". Please.
You want us to accept their numbers when it benefits you and to reject them when they are wildly inaccurate at predicting something like unemployment numbers. Same prediction, we just should cherry-pick in your favor every time.
It doesn't matter if everybody gets the equation wrong, when it is wrong it is still wrong.
You keep saying the bold over and over and over again yet you refuse to state why you think it simply has to be true.
The stimulus worked but the underlying economic conditions were worse than anticipated. Thus, the stimulus was too small to completely bring us back to strong economic growth and job creation.
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lol....you can't actually bring yourself to agree with me expressly, all you can give me is other people's reasoning....your answer actually agrees with me, but you can't be honest and admit it, so you have to give me "other" people's answer
for you personally - your answer is: yurt is right, if it worked, we don't need another stimulus
thanks buddy!
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The Almighty
1) Yes, I think the psychological benefit was there at the start and it had the benefit you mention. However, the way the money has been spent has caused uncertainty as time has passed. The market wanted more of a focus on jobs. We did not get that. We have been stuck in a tight trading range for almost four months now. With the uncertainty of the health care bill and the uncertainty of how the stimulus will be spent, the market is not sure where it wants to go.
2) As for Pelosi... had she not made that stupid speech I think the market would have rallied on the passage of the bailout plan. That would have likely kept it from breaking the technical barrier at the time of 10,700 on the Dow. Obviously we will never know for sure, but in my opinion I think we could have saved ourselves the panic move down to the 6500 level. From a psychological/confidence viewpoint, I think the employment situation would have been more in line with the projections Obama gave on employment. But that panic led companies (especially banks) to pucker up tight and start cutting jobs to prep for what appeared at the time to be a nightmare unfolding. I cannot say for certain that the bill would have passed had she not given that speech, but I believe it would have. At a time of crisis, it was as you stated, quite stupid for her to behave as she did.
So on one side, we have the CBO, Moodys.com, the American Enterprise Institute, IHS Global Insight, among others, and on the other side we have . . . nothing.
I'm not suggesting that you cherry-pick in anyone's favor. I'm merely suggesting you provide some plausible alternative economic analysis that says that everyone from the right and the left that are saying that the stimulus worked are wrong.
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The Almighty
Come on now... when the CBO estimates the jobs 'saved' to be between 800k and 2.4m .... how can you doubt their accuracy? They have narrowed it down quite nicely for you and you spit in their face. for shame.
lol....you can't actually bring yourself to agree with me expressly, all you can give me is other people's reasoning....your answer actually agrees with me, but you can't be honest and admit it, so you have to give me "other" people's answer
for you personally - your answer is: yurt is right, if it worked, we don't need another stimulus
thanks buddy!
I do think the stimulus is working; I understand the arguments that we need another, but don't agree with them.
Also, I think without the stimulus, we would have been screwed. I have little doubt about that.
I don't even really know what you're saying in the above post; you tend to get weird & frantic & put words in my mouth, though, so I'll chalk it up to that.
It's impossible to have a discussion with you where you don't find a way to mire it in 3rd grade logic...
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LOL...it was too small to "completely" work...i can't believe you don't see the idiocy of your statement in trying to weasel your way around the fact that you and others believe we need another, but it worked!
i notice you still have no answer as to why, if it worked, we need another....any rational person can see if something more is needed, then it didn't work
if my car needs an engine to run and the engine i put in is too small, thus the car cannot run properly, then obviously the engine didn't work
I think you are, at best, being overly optimistic. Yurt is correct, had it "worked" we would not need another infusion of "stimulus". It worked partially by saving public sector jobs, unfortunately no economy has ever stood the test of time built on public sector jobs.
My point is, believing the numbers from groups that were wrong because there is no other "better" source is silly. Wrong is wrong regardless of a replacement source, the CBO is no better than the USSR was at central planning of an economy. We already know that fails miserably and suggesting that they are the main source of "truth" because they are wrong with a bunch of other people at the same time is just sad.
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you actually agree with me, but you can't bring yourself to admit it.
i have no problem if you think the stimulus worked because you don't believe we need another one. i have a problem with idiots claiming it worked, but we need another one.
take a step back and think about it. get off your hate yurt mode and just objectively think about it....you couldn't bring yourself to argue with SF agreeing with me for a reason....what is that reason?
If we agree, I'm cool with that. I'm glad to see that you think the stimulus is working & was a good move....
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The Almighty
The CBO range is 800k to 2.4 million jobs 'saved'. They ARE the outlier on both the HIGH and the LOW end from what I have seen.
Trying to count jobs 'saved' is as String put it... nearly impossible. THAT is why we look at the unemployment numbers.
Would things have been worse without the stimulus? Yes, we likely would have seen several states fold under their debt. But to state this stimulus created lots and lots of jobs is simply absurd. If lots and lots were created, the unemployment rate would not be at 9.7%.
No, Yurt is not correct. If the underlying economic assumptions were correct and the stimulus worked we would not need additional stimulus. The underlying economic assumptions were not correct, hence we need additional stimulus notwithstanding that the original stimulus bill worked.
So you think everyone is wrong except you. I get it, I'm just not buying it and you really shouldn't expect anyone else to buy it either.
No. I think that everybody using these numbers as if they are some sort of "Truth" is silliness, then suggesting that they are somehow perfect in stating something now is just more silliness.
They are an imperfect tool and should be treated as such, not as the end-all you are trying to make them into. The reality is their numbers are best taken with a grain of salt, like any other group who "predicts" poorly consistently. Their "assumptions" were, wrong. Saying that they are somehow uber-accurate in reporting THIS but were terribly wrong on THAT is what you seem to be trying to do. They aren't uber-accurate at ANYTHING... I don't trust them any more than any other predictor...
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The Almighty
You are incorrect. Yurt is correct. To suggest we need further stimulus prior to spending about 75% of the last stimulus bill is quite absurd. They are simply using the lack of progress on unemployment as an excuse to create another package. Spend the rest of the $797b THIS year... then they can show us that they need more.