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Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru
I invite you to find them. However, I would like to hear your opinion on how the author suggests stimulus spending should be managed. I know you are opposed to stimulus spending; if you don't want to comment on the aspects of it, at least comment on why you'd disagree with stimulus spending of this kind.
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Here's a couple articles about economists who disagree with the stimulus programs
Economists: Stimulus Not Working, Obama Must Rein in Spending - Peter Roff (usnews.com)
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Nearly 100 prominent U.S. economists including former CBO Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Ohio University’s Richard Vedder, and James C. Miller, III, who headed up the White House Office of Management and Budget under Ronald Reagan, are telling President Barack Obama that his economic stimulus has failed and that “immediate action is needed to rein in federal spending.”
In a letter to the president in which they refer to the latest jobs figures as “a source of disappointment and alarm,” the distinguished economists who signed it echo the concerns of others that the predominant share of the jobs created in May 2010 were temporary government jobs while the civilian labor force shrank by 322,000. “In addition,” they write, “46 percent of those out of work have been jobless for six months or longer--the first time in history that such a dire statistic has been recorded for the American economy.”
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Peter Morici: Struggling Americans know more than arrogant advisers | Contributors | projo.com | The Providence Journal
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The Council of Economic Advisers claims the $787 billion stimulus package saved or created about 3 million jobs, but the administration head count of jobs directly funded by the economic Recovery Act simply contradicts the assumptions behind this analysis.
A good deal of the money was wasted, or it delayed private hiring, exacerbating unemployment. For example, subsidies to build windmills or green buildings displace other investments in new generating capacity and commercial space but don’t add to the kilowatts purchased and office space rented two and three years from now. The economy gets the same investments — but they just cost more and get postponed.
The president managed to make much temporary stimulus spending permanent, creating trillion-dollar deficits for many years to come and endangering the federal government’s triple-A bond rating. Obama’s response is to increase income and estate taxes and Pelosi is floating a national sales tax. None of those create jobs.
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As to why I'm opposed to Obama's stimulus programs, he borrowed hundreds of billions of dollars to artificially inflate the economy. Just the two examples I've referenced, cash for clunkers and the new home buyer's credit borrowed against future sales to create a temporary bump in the economy, with subsequent slump in sales after the programs ended. So the taxpayers paid for a nice discount to people who took advantage of the programs for no benefit.
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Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru
If the American government stopped "meddling" with their economy, it would be at the mercy of global markets and it would be taken advantage of. America would be the only advanced economy that isn't a mixed economy, and if you think that's a good idea, you're mistaken, because government "meddling" includes such protective measures as tariffs, quotas, and embargoes. (That's right, even the embargo against Cuba would come to an end.) And this is just one aspect.
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My point was government subsidies. That means that the company is having part of the price of his products paid for by the taxpayer. The company should succeed or fail on its own merits.
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Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru
I can't comment much on these programs because I don't know much about them. However, on the surface they've always seemed to me to be short-term measures to prevent deep damage to the industries. Did Cash for Clunkers, despite its effect on the used market, get domestic manufacturers to loosen up their inventories, which would in turn lead them to fire up their plants to make more? And although the homebuyer's tax credit was short-term, did people not use it to buy homes? Does this not in turn lead to further sales in the form of home-based consumer goods and services?
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If GM and Chrysler couldn't manage their business to remain profitable, then they deserve to go out of business. If the UAW was collectively such a group of greedy people who were unwilling to recognize they had priced themselves out of the labor market, then they collectively deserve to lose their jobs.
If people selling their homes has so inflated the market that they priced themselves out of the market, then they, not the taxpayers should eat that loss.
If people were dumb enough to sign a mortgage with terms they couldn't afford, they should suffer the consequences of that mistake, not the taxpayers. Next time maybe they will read before signing.