The $287k job

[travelover]

Mod alert!


The troll gate leading from the political section of the forums has been breached .

[Westernskies]

Quote:

Originally Posted by travelover Mod alert! The troll gate leading from the political section of the forums has been breached .

Hmmm...maybe the troll gate is open... There has been no mention of partisan politics or political arguments; just a discussion of how record deficit spending is affecting us financially, most notably SS, a major component of the federal budget, and a subject near and dear to the pocketbooks of most FIRE members.. None of your posts in this thread have addressed the topic at hand; you seem more concerned with trolling the mods to have having this thread moved than adding to the discussion at hand.

[FUEGO]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Westernskies Hmmm...maybe the troll gate is open... There has been no mention of partisan politics or political arguments; just a discussion of how record deficit spending is affecting us financially, most notably SS, a major component of the federal budget, and a subject near and dear to the pocketbooks of most FIRE members.. None of your posts in this thread have addressed the topic at hand; you seem more concerned with trolling the mods to have having this thread moved than adding to the discussion at hand.

I was going to say the same thing. Seems like a third of the posts are just trolling out and out, and have nothing to add to the actual discussion whatsoever.

Donheff made a good point in the first half of his post above. The stimulus/bailout money that was directed to unfreezing credit markets MAY have had a significant role in preventing much a more serious economic collapse than we actually had. Clearly a debatable (in a non-political way of course) issue as to the stimulus's effectiveness.

And to provide some counterpoint to the OP's assertion that we spent $287k per job, we also get some stuff out of it. Stabilization of the financial system (surely the stimulus helped at least some??). In the infrastructure spending which I am most knowledgeable about directly and professionally, stuff IS getting built. It is worth SOMETHING. Repaving a road that didn't really need to be paved yet will extend the life of the road. Building things that have a very marginal benefit still have some benefit. My point is that part of the $287k per job is actually attributable to some real (however small) benefit in terms of infrastructure.

To those who keep yelling "Politics!" - please stop crapping up the thread. Analyze/discuss the issues, or refrain from trying to quelch the discussion of the rest of us. Thanks!

[Sarah in SC]

Um, okay, I seem to get some impression that you want this thread moved to another forum...sure. I think I remember how to do that. You can also request suchlike by using that little red triangle or sending one of the mods a PM. We're happy to accommodate. I wasn't paying attention to the thread before now, sorry.
Stand by.

[donheff]

No question that this topic is of intense financial interest to ERers. The reason I agree that it belongs in FIRE related political topics is that, like health insurance, the debate on the stimulus gets hot and "political" very quickly. Maybe the best solution is what was done in this case - post in the money forum which seems closest to the topic so people who might otherwise ignore a potentially good money thread see it. Then move it to political if the temperature rises and the faint at heart might object

[eridanus]

When examining the budget, there are 3 elephants in the room. Well, only one is truly an elephant; the other two are now noticed and discussed regularly so they're only elephants in the sense that they're a HUGE part of the budget.

The third elephant is, of course, often considered sacred by those who continually complain about the other 2 elephants. There are various reasons for this. If one was cynical, one might think that this is because the 3rd elephant supplies the pensions for those who complain regularly about the other 2 elephants. In other words, the complainers don't want to bite the hand that feeds them. This is understandable and somewhat hypocritical.

Ah, but we are not cynical. This is not a political post. It's simply curious that, when considering the debt and deficit and taxes, one of the major budgetary items is ignored. It's like being hungry in India and wondering where to get the next meal...as a cow strolls by the hut.

[BigNick]

Picking the total cost of something - which is rarely the cash outlay, then dividing it by some essentially arbitrary number to come up with some scary-sounding other number, is a standard bit of entry-level political discourse. Everyone does it, whether it's people on the right demonstrating government waste or people on the left complaining about how much Goldman Sachs executives make.

I find that it rarely adds much to the debate. As others have pointed out, we don't know what the alternative would have been.

I remember when the bailout was being discussed in Congress, some members were against the whole thing for purely ideological decisions. They gave the impression that they were so principled that they were prepared to let the economy collapse, if necessary, so that no federal intervention would sully their voting record. I would bet money that they had all carefully checked first that the measures would in fact pass, thus enabling them to appear as mavericks without actually taking the risk. Again, a common tactic of politicians, allowing them to be right after the event.

See also financial pundits who say "Buy IBM" in January, "Sell IBM" in February, and "See, I was right about IBM last winter" in October.

[lets-retire]

Quote:

Originally Posted by donheff Great math. The problem is that evaluating the value of the stimulus program as a function of the cost per job created/saved is an artificial measure. If I remember correctly, back in the fall of 2008 virtually everyone from right to left believed that absent the stimulus the entire financial system would have locked up tighter than a drum causing an absolute collapse far worse than what we have experienced. I don't know whether that is true -- but neither do any of you! Whether you agree that we needed a stimulus or agree that it was the first step on the way to socialist madness is essentially just that -- a matter of belief. Yes, this thread belongs in the political/religious section.

I believe what most people supported was the TARP program, not the stimulus package. The right for the most part didn't want the stimulus passed, but they did support TARP.

[FinanceDude]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lets-retire I believe what most people supported was the TARP program, not the stimulus package. The right for the most part didn't want the stimulus passed, but they did support TARP.

I was not in favor of either. Regardless of the hype posted on by a few posters here, I doub the credit markets were going to collapse under the weight of leverages CDOs..........