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Originally Posted by dippin
No one has ever said that government spending can "solve unemployment."
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I am confused. What was the point of the government stimulus spending?
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What has been said was that fiscal stimulus can 1- improve the economic situation
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I have agreed, with the qualification that the improvement is short-term. In the long-term the net impact will be zero, assuming no wasteful government spending.
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and 2- help an economy get out of a slump as the private sector reorganizes itself.
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I am confused by this also. According to Obama what was the cause of the "slump", or the economy being on the "brink"? Was it government? Was it Wall St.? Was it governments lack of oversight of Wall St.? Depending on the answer, doesn't that tell us what the solution should be? In the first year what has he actually done in this regard? I would say - nothing!
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That the stimulus improved the economic situation is beyond question, even by its detractors.
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You have got to be kidding!
My interests are tied to the American economy, when America does well I do well. I have a low tolerance for empty words. I don't have a government job, no big corporate job, no union job, not tenured, no trust fund, no vast holdings of real assets, no sugar momma and I have never won a state lottery. I need the economy to improve, and I need it to happen sooner rather than later. What we need is for Washington to simply nurture an environment for economic success. They need to get out of the way.
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And if I was condescending in any way, it was in response to your claim of "truism" and your challenge to "find an economist who disagrees with what I have presented." The point remains, the issue you think is so true it has become a truism, that no one can possibly disagree with you, is actually far from being that, and if anything is a relatively minor position within economics.
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In order for the government to spend a $1 or to use a resource it has to take $1 or take a resource. How is that possibly not true?