Posted on 09/25/2011 9:54:44 AM PDT by Son House
It’s a sound proposal, but you might not know that listening to some of the arguments against it. They may sound plausible, but they don’t stand up to scrutiny.
WE NEED A HOUSING PLAN, NOT MORE FISCAL STIMULUS The premise of this argument is probably true: recent evidence suggests that high debt is holding back consumer demand.
Recent research shows that government spending on infrastructure or other investments raises demand even in an economy beset by over-indebted consumers.
THE COST PER JOB IS TOO HIGH Martin Feldstein, the Harvard economist...each job produced by the plan would cost about $200,000.
This calculation is attention-getting, but it’s misleading. First, many of the jobs would be in 2012, but not all. Infrastructure spending, for example, would be spread out over several years, so the total number of years of employment created over the life of the program would most likely be substantially larger than two million.
More fundamentally, the program wouldn’t just create jobs. Consider the proposed $140 billion for roads, bridges, school repair and teachers. Jobs are, in a sense, a side benefit. What we’re really getting is better infrastructure and more education for our children.
The bottom line here is that we should be discussing which policies are likely to generate the most jobs while being valuable in other ways.
IT’S THE DEFICIT, STUPID People are concerned about the deficit, and this concern is holding back the recovery. Fiscal austerity, not more stimulus, is the answer.
This argument makes me crazy. There’s simply no evidence that concern about the current deficit is a significant factor limiting consumer spending or business investment. And government borrowing rates are at record lows, suggesting that financial markets are not worried about the deficit, either.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
quote “tax increase of 1% of GDP lowers real GDP by almost 3%”
Let’s make it easy: if Christine Romer says it, then I strongly support the opposite view.
Now THATS an easy way to be right 100% of the time, and her performance in the administration proves it.
What’s the “jobs plan” for the NY Times?
More layoffs, declining ad revenue, and lower circulation.
Christina Romer...
Isn’t she one of the brilliant engineers of last year’s recovery summer?
The initial round of publicity for Ron Suskind’s “The Confidence Men” ...we’re seeing some of the meatier revelations, including that President Obama confounded some of his economic advisers — notably Larry Summers and Christina Romer — by arguing that high unemployment was driven by rising productivity. “The president seems to have developed his own view,” Romer said, or at least is reported to have said.
So, Obama doesn’t even have the economic understanding of a Keynesian (which is pretty limited itself).
He blames unemployment on productivity? Unbelievable!
No wonder he hates ATM’s so much. He’s a Marxist Luddite.
This article is incoherent. Simply incoherent.
Jobs are a side benefit?? tell that to the unemployed
We need a housing plan?? I thought we had that 3 years ago. Just another catastrophic Obama failure.
As I recall, she was the one behind the “unemployment will not go over 8% if the stimulus is passed”.
Romer has zero credibility. Zero, I said with a chuckle.
Yes. That Christine Romer...
That and the fact that it’s in the NYT means you can stop reading right there.
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