Steve commented on my post:
"I hate to be one of "those people"
but doesn't that graph simply show that it didn't work?
I mean
if the % jump after the new deal was implemented was 45%
and the percentage jump for the 4 years after it was abandoned was 45% (including the spike downwards)
doesn't that indicate that the Stimulus didn't do anything?
In any case, does this mean if our production doesn't jump by 45% in the next four months I can blame Obama?
-Steve"
Response from Penguin Monkey Author P.J.:
"1. The critical point isn't the record-breaking increase in wealth that started at that point, it's that the continued economic collapse of The Great Depression was stopped.
2. "Slashed" isn't the same as "abandoned" - many of the programs instituted under the New Deal are still in effect now. (What do you think the neocons are railing against?)
3. 1939 was the start of World War II - while we weren't in the war until several years later, countries that were, got their supplies from somewhere - usually, us.
Investing in infrastructure is the single most effective way of rejuvenating the economy. That isn't actually a negotiable point - that is a fact. The single most effective way to get money into the economy is to give jobs to the people who work on building our infrastructure - the people at the bottom being the people who actually spend the money they are given, because they have to. Tax cuts are the least effective way, because the people at the top have the least motivation to spend their money.
So, our choices for rejuvenating the economy, are investing in infrastructure, or world war III. World War III isn't really an option any more, either - we don't export enough of the necessary goods to the rest of the world to make it worthwhile economically, and realistically there is nobody who can stand against us and win if the US chose to actually use all the weapons at its disposal. In a war for survival, we win and everyone else is dead. So - exactly one option. Everything else is re-arranging the deck chairs on the titanic.
Here's the best 8-minute explanation I've heard of the economic stimulus:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/
As Rachel Maddow points out, this is basic economics - it's not opinion, it's fact. If you're arguing against it, you're wrong. Provably.
The last thing the Republicans in congress were criticizing about the stimulus bill, was spending money to build railroads. Which is exactly the thing we should be doing, because building more railroads gives peoples jobs as well as reducing our dependency on foreign oil - shipping by train consumes less foreign oil than transporting by truck.
Pj"
2 comments:
Game>Set>Match ----> PJ
sweet, I'm trying write a report and now this
Alright, a couple things
1. Investing in infrasture certainly is an effective means with wich to boost a flagging economy.
BUT
That's only if the investement subsationally increases the net productivity by a greater percentage then the interest on the debt that was acured to make said investement
The Hoover damn and the interstate highway system where both excellent methods by to invest in infrasture because they provided cheap power and expanded transit system
Now, to me, there is a distinct difference between investing large sums of money to IMPROVE our national infrastucre and the current target of our economic stimulus plan.
1. Tax cut, cutting taxes while increasing national spending is not really cutting taxs, it's delaying them. We have to pay that money back, and it will be more then we recieved in Tax cuts
2. temporary increase in the medicaid matching fund. I don't really understand this, so I can't really cover it
3. State fiscal relief
Approximately 79 Billion Dollars is going to be spent propping up failing state budgets. This is not a stimulus, this is maintaining the status Quo
4. increased unemployment benifits and job training.
This certainly is not building the infrastrucre
I'm not sure how much farther down the pie with have to go, but eventually we will actually get to something that involves "green energy" and "roads"
Green Energy - The Fundemental Truth is, it costs more money to generate a MegaWatt from wind then it does coal, that mean spending money to replace our coal generators with wind generators is not a stimulus, it's exactly the opposite. Also, Ironically, it makes us more depenent on imports since we have coal, but not natural gas, which is vital to maintaining a grid with wind energy
Anyway, my point simply is, only a trivial amount of money of this bill is actually being spent on building anything, less then half certainly, probably closer to 1/4
Most of it, is in the form of GIGANTIC goverment spending to placate voters, congress, ect....
anyway, my point about the graphs was simply that since FDR cut those programs to balance the budget, that growth was unstainable in the first place. Because to maintain it would have required an increasly large tax burden.
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