Posted on 08/15/2011 5:59:41 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
In early January 2009 two White House-bound economists — Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein — predicted that if the stimulus bill were passed, unemployment would peak at 8% by midyear and then start coming down. If there were no stimulus, they said, joblessness might hit 9% and not peak until 2010.
Well it's now obvious that the push didn't do the job. Even with it, unemployment is higher than the Romer-Bernstein worst case. The optimistic forecasts now look embarrassing.
Let's examine that epic failure.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
If I had the opportunity to ask Bernanke just one question, it would be:
“Mr. Bernanke, is there a set of circumstances under which you would say ‘holy crap, we completely screwed this up’”?
yes!
so fashionable.
especially on el collegio campi.
Agree, the Infrastructure Bank is just another deal for the left to toss our tax money out the window into the laps of the left’s buddies and politicians. If the present nuts occupying our White House do nothing and stop using nonsense regulations to hobble our industries, we will see the economy self-heal through the magic of capitalism.
It's the “THIRD WAY”, half way between the two.
Govt and business working together.
Let's give this “NEW” idea a catchy name.
How about, let me see.
OH! I've got a catchy name.
How about we call it National Socialism, or Nazism for short.
Yea buddy, Nazism is the answer. Why didn't somebody think of this before.
Boy, that's the key statistic, isn't it.
Mainstream economics in this country has sunk as low as the mainstream media. It is now commonly accepted and taught in our universities that consumer and government spending -- no matter their source -- are the true indicators of a healthy and growing economy.
Business-to-business spending is completely ignored (it's larger than consumer spending) and the drawing down of savings which is the consumption of our capital isn't anything to worry about. If more capital is needed, so the thinking goes, the Federal Reserve will print it.
To overcome this nonsense will take an incredibly sharp-witted and strong-willed president aided by a similarly courageous congress. I hope we manage to find them.
economists can wrangle over the details and the long range pro vs cons...but they aint runnin for office, so they dont count...
*job* security says that anybody countin votes aint interested in fixing squat beyond their next election cycle...
gilbo says rope manufacturing is the next boom/bust cycle that must happen if we are to avoid going back to animal/manual labor as a society...
We had to pass the Stimulus to find out what was in it...MORE ACCUMULATED DEBT!!!
The Obama jobs tour: A new RNC campaign dubs it “the debt-end bus tour”
Bush 41’s comments about a new world order were extremely accurate. Everything withion our recent political history (post 1947) dealt with a bipolar world. The bipolar world disappeared in the 1990’s.
Our political experience pre-1947 was that of a secondary player not the primary player status we achieved after 1947. Again, no relevant political history to draw upon.
The only period of history that I can come up with is Europe 1820 - 1880. And there the best option available would be Victorian England. Even then, that model has several very serious flaws for Americans. It worked because there was a single political figure for the entire time period - Queen Victoria. It also worked for England, like it or not, still has serious feudal overtones - something that didn't quite fully established in America even though there are factions that would dearly love to have inherited political power.
The reality the Keynesians refuse to realize is ObamaCare put a glass ceiling on the economic recovery (by striking fear into all business), and Dodd Frank reinforced that glass ceiling (by killing lending to small business, even those too small to be impacted by ObamaCare).
The author is right, the stimulus did not work, we need to do something new, the something new needs to target business. But there is not data or evidence his proposals would move the needle at all.
What we need to do is the following:
Repeal ObamaCare.
Repeal Sarbanes-Oxley.
Repeal Dodd-Frank.
Immediately cut the corporate income tax rate and implement a moratorium on repatriation of overseas corporate profits. Longer-term, implement the FairTax.
Neuter the EPA.
End all bans on energy exploration.
The one fatal flaw in this article is that JKG believes that Obama intended the Porkulus to actually be a stimulus bill. Obviously, we know that it was written months before the economy tanked, by a group headed up by Tom Daschle.
It was written IMHO to solidify Obama’s support heading into the DNC convention, heading off any last-minute floor challenge by Hillary’s people.
And because it was well-known in Dem circles back in June, the Congress didn’t need to read it when they passed the thing in a few days’ time in February 2009.
The Obama administration is not planning to fix the economy. They are going right ahead with the spending. They went ahead and announced this month that they were proceeding with grants that for rail projects that had been already cut twice by the Congress. Ray LaHood, secretary of transportation already announced the grants, the first week in August. The WA state grant was already allocated earlier this year.
I don’t understand why we never heard about it.
I would never have thought that Van Jones would assume such a Caucasian sounding pen name; James K. Galbraith.
Good post
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