This is a false choice. Think of your government in terms of a criminal enterprise. It’s the most powerful mafia the world has ever known. You have been given two choices by these criminals. The right answer is none of the above. The one you promote will line the pockets of the criminals just as much as TARP. The one you promote will not help the people. And when it doesn’t you’ll have a lying fool like Krugman telling you that it failed because it wasn’t enough. No amount is enough because it is not actually designed to help the people.

I had a talk with someone who was more of a centrist GOP while on vacation and we both agreed that stimulus was a logical step because it pays for itself in the long run. It evolved into a discussion about the pros and cons about privatizing government and we found ourselves agreeing that there are sectors of our government we should have never privatized from a national security standpoint. We also realized that stimulus is actually just an arm of privatizing government. We also agreed that our government has an obligation to stabilize the economy because of how the economy is tied to national security.

Thus, these stats do not surprise me.

Our longest aspect of the conversation was focused on brain drain and how that would be a terrible blow to the economy longitudinally.

Your “Selzer & Co. poll for Bloomberg News” link seems to be broke.

Here’s that crazed Krugman:
REDO THAT VOODOO

And I think the masters want that real bad. it will help them convince US that doing away with the final safety nets are “for our own good” or make us feel guilty about “future generations” who will be their slaves in future generations.

gotta LOVE you libertarians!

We’ve got the smallest, most ineffective government ever now, due to privatization of all it’s services…even war, but you people scream for more. I guess you think someday you won’t have to pay any taxes at all. HA!
You’ll always pay The Man,one way or the other.

Wait’ll the disaster no one dare mention hits the states from the cut to state aid. Let’s see how the jobs market shapes up then, my friend

I’m going to use a few “big words” here, so put on your thinking cap and try to keep up:

Infrastructure.

Multiplier Effect.

If those concepts are too much to grasp in one dose, then my advice is for you to read a little bit, take a nap, then repeat the process.

I’m much more interested in what the voters think about restoring unemployment benefits to those still unemployed. I want to know, specifically, how voters will view the Rethuglicon’s, et al, just saying no to unemployment compensation.

My own view on the Tarp is not a philosophical objection to it, but that it was so poorly implemented that it was an early sign of how bad the executive branch was likely to be at negotiations. My first clue was when Hank Paulson came up with a 2 1/2 page ransom note to Congress: Pay up or we crash your economy. Congress didn’t go nearly far enough to set safeguards in or deal with the matter of 7 digit bonuses and higher, they didn’t see to it that they weren’t paying perpetual ransom to the very offenders that caused all the problems to begin with. It’s gotten to the point that I don’t think the financial sector thinks it needs consumers anymore now that they’ve made the stock market into a casino.

Right now the multiplier effect on infrastructure and other government spending is VERY LOW or has a negative effect.

For example, take the battery plant Obama visited in Michigan this week. The purpose of the trip is to highlight the “success” of the President’s economic stimulus package. This factory is being subsidized by $151 million of stimulus funds from an even larger $2 billion honey pot of stimulus money set aside for electric car battery investments. This one plant is expected to employ 300 workers. That works out to more than $500,000 per job created. $500,000 per job. This plant,explains why the President’s stimulus plan has been an objective failure.

Or how about the program to weatherize homes:
“After a year of crippling delays, President Barack Obama’s $5 billion program to install weather-tight windows and doors has retrofitted a fraction of homes and created far fewer construction jobs than expected.

In Indiana, state-trained workers flubbed insulation jobs. In Alaska, Wyoming and the District of Columbia, the program has yet to produce a single job or retrofit one home. And in California, a state with nearly 37 million residents, the program at last count had created 84 jobs.”

Meanwhile we are in the midst of a ‘capital strike’ where business that have cash on hand are holding on to it because the regulatory and tax burdens coming in the near term are creating so much fear and uncertainty.

Government spending can have some benefit to the economy, but only if it spurs the private sector, by creating demand and instilling confidence in consumers. Neither of which are happening.

David Dayen has a fresh cross-post available: Unlike Obama, Baucus, Democratic Party, Greenspan Wants Bush Tax Cuts to Expire

Your insult to Krugman completely undermines any credibility you may hope for. You may not like him and his ideas, but liar or “fool”…come on. Those words do not even belong in the same sentence with Krugman. Now you, on the other hand….think it over.

LOL

Ain’t this the same poll that says 61 percent oppose repealing the HCR that John Walker told us the other day Americans despise?

Right now the multiplier effect on infrastructure and other government spending is VERY LOW or has a negative effect.

And the reason for that is because the original “stimulus” plan was full of tax cut bullshit, instead of massive infrastructure investment. (This ain’t exactly brain surgery.) Had the dogshit package been designed correctly in the first place (along with the bank bailouts), the economy would be starting to hum. Nor am I going to waste any further breath arguing with you about it. It would be far more productive reading Voltaire to a cage full of hyenas.

The problem with this poll is that it does not ask the key question: Do you believe that the ‘stimulus’ has created jobs?

The public doubts the effectiveness of the stimulus program. Unemployment is hovering at just under 10 percent, the job creation promises used in part to sell the stimulus have never materialized.

You have no proof that IF the package had been bigger the economy would be beginning to ‘hum’. Truth be told, when $1 of government spending creates $.70 to $1.10 growth will be slow to non existent, no matter how large the influx of federal $$.

Government spending comes from three sources: debt, new money, or taxes. In other words, the government can’t inject money into the economy without first taking money out of the economy.

Overall, government spending doesn’t boost national income or standard of living. It merely redistributes it—minus the share it spends on the bureaucracy that collects and spends our tax dollars. The pie is sliced differently, but it’s not any bigger. In fact, it’s smaller.

Sure, lets have the government pay out billions to people hired to dig holes and then pay out billions more for people to come along and fill up those holes.
Maybe a better idea is to give every American unemployment benefits for no longer than 40 years. We’ve got to impose some meaningful limits.

Indie, there you go again….making perfect sense.

Meanwhile we are in the midst of a ‘capital strike’ where business that have cash on hand are holding on to it because the regulatory and tax burdens coming in the near term are creating so much fear and uncertainty.

“Capital Strike” is completely idiotic. Business invest when there is a clear set of customer to serve. You are inferring that the regulatory and tax burdens are creating uncertainty in their customers, consumers.

1. The fear in the consumers is caused by falling real wages and potential loss of a job.
2. Investment in not driven top down (centrally planned), it responds to customer buying stuff (bottom up). You seem to believe in central planning, which is socialism.
3.Regulations are part of the cost transfer from the commons to business. Pollution, worker health, injuries, safety, child labor, etc. Taxes pay for the commons, roads, bridges, airports, etc. Which of these don’t you want business to pay for their use?

Behind this stupid argument is the dogma of “free trade,” which is a rush to create jobs in the worst possible environment for workers, where there is poor pay and no safeguards. This is a rush to the bottom for workers, which includes you.

Poor pay = No customers = Oh shit.
Bad Environment = Sick workers, = No customers = Oh shit.

Why are you so determined to damage yourself, your family and your friends?

God damn it Indie, Go and read some Dickens. The social condition were not fiction.

IF the stimulus spending had encouraged consumer confidence,thereby stimulating demand, businesses would be encouraged to hire and invest in their companies. Obama basically nullified ANY positive effect the stimulus may have had by pushing HCR at a time when the public wanted the administration to focus on unemployment. The fear and uncertainty created by the passage of this MASSIVE entitlement program that ADDS to the deficit and creates LAYERS of NEW regulation and bureaucracy are making it VERY DIFFICULT for families and businesses to predict and plan for the future.

The rabid desire of the Democratic majority to not ‘let a crisis go to waste’ and push a largely progressive agenda on a center-right country has at best paralyzed us, prolonging this recession.

Government spending comes from three sources: debt, new money, or taxes. In other words, the government can’t inject money into the economy without first taking money out of the economy

The Federal Government (Federal Reserve) can create money. It can inject money into the economy without taking it out.

That might create inflation. Might, because the loss of value in property is deflationary. Transfer of wealth, yes. The property crash has transferred wealth from the property owners to the bond holders.

Another way of stating this is that property owners were asset stripped.

In other words, you are wrong.

The fear and uncertainty created by the passage of this MASSIVE entitlement program that ADDS to the deficit and creates LAYERS of NEW regulation and bureaucracy are making it VERY DIFFICULT for families and businesses to predict and plan for the future.

Loss of jobs is causing fear for families.

Loss of equity in their homes is causing fear for families.

High levels of unemployment and foreclosure, are the irrefutable proof of the two points above.

Post some links that prove this ENTITLEMENT program is causing the fear to which you allude.

Thanks for the comment.

As well.

Synoia at 19. Asset stripped is spot on. And it will continue and spiral if we do not address increasing the multiplier effect.

In order for your assertion to be true, we would have to be in the midst of a depression, where there is NO disposable income available to interject into the economy. This is simply not the case. There is demand, note the success of the iphone. The fact is, that those with cash to spend are holding on to it for fear for higher taxes and fear of unemployment. Many have the ability to start home remodeling projects or take a family vacation but they must balance these desires with the need to save for retirement or college. Many still feel guilty about the ‘displays’ such expenditures would create, especially when their neighbors or family members are having a harder time.

Secondly, creating money DOES have serious long-term implications for inflation.

What we have here is cyclical argument that will have us chasing our tails if we adhere to a strict ideology. I am not saying that government stimulus is not an effective tool, but in this set of circumstance, any benefit has been outstripped by the other policies of this administration, that have DISCOURAGED consumers with cash to spend and businesses with cash to hire and invest.

Look to the recent comment by the business community at large, including the letter sent jointly by the Chamber of Commerce, NFIB and the Business Roundtable. Many Obama supporters in the business community are pointing specifically to HCR as a reason for their concerns.

The government can only go so far in creating public sector jobs, because ultimately these public sector jobs will be paid for by PRIVATE capital obtained through taxation. Best to encourage the private sector that the administration will create an environment where the private sector can expand and thrive. Right now this administration is choosing the public sector OVER the private sector while hoping that the private sector will spend and invest IN SPITE of it’s hostile anti-business actions.

How do you increase the muliplier effect? How is the cash on hand being held by individuals and businesses who are weathering this recession and preserving their capital going to be released into the economy?

With every progressive screaming TAXES! REGULATION! SOAK THE RICH! And the Obama administration encouraging the demonization of business and profit, is it any wonder we are in the midst of a ‘capital strike’?

In order for our country to grow and prosper, government must encourage, not supplant the private sector. The private sector is more important than the government for creating jobs and wealth. The growth of the private sector is the rising tide that lifts all boats.

How many of those stripped of their assets were ill-equipped to retain those assets?

Look to the recent comment by the business community at large, including the letter sent jointly by the Chamber of Commerce, NFIB and the Business Roundtable.

Like any of these hacks, clowns, whores and fools have any remaining credibility, whatsoever. A good rule of thumb is to do exactly the opposite of what these business idiots recommend. If they’re bitching about something, there’s a pretty good chance you’re moving in the right direction.

We are in a depression. Even in a depression there is disposable income. The single data point of iPhone sales is no indicator of a broad consumer spending boom, as is also a rounding error on the US’ GDP.

Those with cash are not consumers. They are investors. They will invest when there is profit to be make, which requires consumers to spend.

Creating money in a deflationary period doe not have serious long term inflation effects. If it did the experts in the 10 and 30 year bond market would be raising rates, and they are not. 30 Bond yields are at all time lows.

Be specific, how has this administration discourage consumers to spend?

The policies that are exacerbating the fall in consumer spending include the huge expense of two wars, money better invested on infrastructure at home, and the continual invalid application that tax cuts improve he economy for all, which they do not.

All tax cuts achieve at this point in time is to encourage speculation in the popular asset class of the day.

You seen to misunderstand Taxes. In a modern fiat currency system taxes are not revenue. Taxes form the policy for investment returns, and force investment to the best return. Wars and commodity speculation presently. 4 years ago it was Wars and land speculation.

Neither of these are recent, tax policy driven investment scenarios are investment in items that may be used for the next 30 years,

Look at their motivations.

Are they trying primarily enrich themselves?

Are they willing to invest in roads and bridges, mass transit, and elimination of a carbon based energy system through paying taxes?

To pay for these investments by ending war expense?

We know those are the major issue facing us. Those entities you cite, seem uniformly opposed to these strategic items required for our future.

Tax policy is our social policy. Those entities appear to be our enemies, and are firmly rooted is perpetuating the past.

Time to look to the future. Not revel in the past, their lies complete failure, because conditions have changed.

Because condition have changed, so must the people, all of us, affected by the change, peak energy.

Lead, follow, or get out of the way. These people are in the way.

Personally attaching those who lost equity in their homes, seems remarkably stupid.

And is not the point of the discussion.

Please stay on subject, which is your, unfounded assertions, that Obama’s government programs are causing the fear to freezes investment, and not the damage done to consumers so the consumer have no means to spend.

In this case their should be there. I apologize in advance to the grammar police.

And Synoia hasn’t even mentioned yet that a lot of soon-to-be pensioner’s 401Ks were raped and left bleeding in the aftermath of the financial crisis!

I am not personally attacking anyone, but merely pointing out that individual responsibility and the ‘fear of failure’ are powerful motivation and part of the equation for prosperity. “Too big to fail” and other such policies that remove moral hazard from that equation will actually PROMOTE more risky behavior.

As for my assertion, they are not unfounded and shared by and ever increasing portion of the business community and investor class.

Like I said, contrary to your assertion, there ARE consumers who are able to spend, but as of yet, unwilling. This is a very, very bad recession NOT a depression. There is private capital sitting on the sidelines.

The stock market IS and always has been a risky proposition. Investing in the stock market should be done cautiously and with vigilance as the waters are filled as much with sharks as they are with oysters containing pearls. Poor pensioners have a choice in how their assets are allocated with in their 401k plans. Diversification and balance is the key to a successful investment portfolio. Those who thought that the housing and stock markets would go nowhere but UP were ignoring reality. Timing is key to investing in the stock market and those who were not vigilant were unable to minimize their losses.

If you think that government action alone can bring us out of the recession and if you believe that only government or progressives or Democrats know best about the way forward, we can never have a reasonable debate. You seem to be saying that there can be no balance between regulation/taxation and pro-growth policies that allow individuals and businesses to retain more of their profits and spend them in ways that will enrich themselves AND our society at large.

Our federal government is part of the problem here, seeking to gain greater and greater control over more and more of the private economy, consolidating power and influence in Washington to protect and reward their favorites and ‘cronies.’ The rest are threatened,intimidated, and/or demonized,in hopes of submission, in the true spirit of the “Chicago Way”.

The Fineg bill that is to be one of Obama’s big accomplishemnts does NOTHING to end “Too big too fail” and IN FACT, gives the government MORE power to use TAXPAYER dollars to bailout ANY entity it wants.

I seem to recall that “overwhelming majorities” of Americans also supported a public health insurance option (opening Medicare to everyone the most popular variant), the right to import pharmaceuticals from Canada and Mexico, extending unemployment benefits, prosecuting the banksters, completely ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and investigation & prosecution of probable war crimes of the last Administration, including torture and secret, illegal prisons.

We got none of those either.

That was not the point we were discussing.

No where have I stated that only the Federal Government can get us out of the problem

I stated it would be consumer demand that would cause growth. And due to “free trade” pressures, consumer wages and hence consumer spending were under downward pressure.

I also stated that tax policies are social polices and steer investment by regulating return, or tax to invest the taxes on the commons, or waste the taxes on wars.

Our government is hopelessly corrupt. I doubt it can set the appropriate social policies, because is is bought by money that wishes for the conditions in the past to continue (conservatism), and that’s hopeless.

Hopeless because change is inevitable. Either our business leaders embrace change or change will crush our businesses.

ZIRP and other backdoor mechanisms like Primary Dealers and market maker designations have cost significantly more than TARP. TARP is just the shine object used to distract the crowd while the magician does his next trick.

The rabid desire of the Democratic majority to not ‘let a crisis go to waste’ and push a largely progressive agenda on a center-right country has at best paralyzed us, prolonging this recession.

Let’s see . . . where’s that “progressive agenda” in the Health Insurance Industry and Big PhRMA Windfall Profits Act. I know it must be here somewhere. Indie said it is, so it must be true. Uhm, 23 million people still won’t have any health insurance after the law goes into effect four years from now, so that means thousands of people will still be dying unnecessarily every year because they can’t afford to see a doctor and they wait to go to the ER until they’re too sick to be saved. I don’t see anything progressive there. That’s just heartless, stupid, and more costly in the long run.

There aren’t any cost controls, so the insurance companies can charge anything they want. Drug reimportation? No, he was opposed to that too. Damn, I must be really stupid because I can’t find anything progressive in this law.

Maybe Indie was referring to the public option, but Obama was opposed to that. But there is a mandate to buy insurance. Oh, I see it now. The government is going to subsidize or basically pay for the insurance for the poor who make less than $15,000 per year . . . but everybody else has to pay, which means no one making less than $60,000 per year can afford the mandate. Wow, that’s like making it illegal to be alive and those are the people who will be dying before their time. Hmn, that’s brutal. Nope, this law doesn’t seem very progressive to me.

I guess I’m too stupid to pound sand.

In order for your assertion to be true, we would have to be in the midst of a depression, where there is NO disposable income available to interject into the economy. This is simply not the case. There is demand, note the success of the iphone. The fact is, that those with cash to spend are holding on to it for fear for higher taxes and fear of unemployment. Many have the ability to start home remodeling projects or take a family vacation but they must balance these desires with the need to save for retirement or college. Many still feel guilty about the ‘displays’ such expenditures would create, especially when their neighbors or family members are having a harder time.

Secondly, creating money DOES have serious long-term implications for inflation.

Demand for the iphone does not prove your point and there is no inflationary threat.

People lost all of their investments, IRAs, and 401(k)s in the stock market crash and they are saddled with debt. With 578,000 mortgage foreclosures in the first 6 months, we’re looking at over 1 million mortgage foreclosures this year. That’s a new record. The average household is also struggling to pay off $113,000 in credit card debt.

You’re just making stuff up.

With every progressive screaming TAXES! REGULATION! SOAK THE RICH! And the Obama administration encouraging the demonization of business and profit, is it any wonder we are in the midst of a ‘capital strike’?

Wow, where do you get your information? You say “the Obama administration [is] encouraging the demonization of business and profit.?

There is absolutely no evidence that supports your statement.

None, Nada, Zero.

Obama is doing everything possible to cater to the rich and maximize corporate profits at the expense of the poor and the middle class.

Indie,

You need to stop repeating mindless and false right-wing talking points. You are embarrassing yourself.

The Federal Government (Federal Reserve) can create money. It can inject money into the economy without taking it out.

Synoia –

You need to read up on a few things. First, the Federal Reserve is not government. Don’t be fooled by the fact that the Pres appoints the Fed Chairman. The Fed is a privately owned, for-profit entity. Among its owners are foreign banks.

Second, contrary to the fact the Constitution invests the power to print money in the Treasury Dept, that power was transferred to the Fed by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913.Dollars used to say Treasury Note or Silver Certificate at the top. Look at the ones in your wallet. They say Federal Reserve Note.

The government has to pay interest to the Fed for the money it borrows. Yes, you read that right: when the government wants to have more money printed, it’s got to get the Fed to approve it, then pay the Fed interest. That’s why bank and financial institutions that have access to the Fed borrowing window can now borrow at zero interest rate, then turn around and lend that money back to the Treasury by buying T-bonds, and make a nice, safe, risk-free, no-work 4%.

Center Right? More fiction… The MMS and the Political Debate in Washington has been pushed so far RIGHT that Ratigan sounds like a flaming liberal when he’s a Capitalist to the ultimate. People like Alex Jones make sense at times, other Capitalist Gerald Celente and Max Keiser are outraged at the direction of country and have no faith in the system to be self-correcting.

The problem is Wall St, Wall St and Wall St. They have so much “shit” on their books they can’t unload it and the Government lost money trying to help them unload it. This was the main problem with bailouts, there never should have been a Bank Bailout. They should have been allowed to fail, other companies would have picked up the pieces and bookmaking tacticians should have sent to jail.

How do you explain the slap on the wrist to Goldman by the SEC? They made it all back and then some in overnight trading!

What the Government should have done is BAILOUT THE HOME OWNERS, the CONSUMER!

By taking the toxic assets out of the system, credit will flow, wow that was hard wasn’t it?

We likely wouldn’t have needed a Stimulus, why call it that? Call it the Rebuilding America Act and throw $800 Billion at the Infrastructure!

These are easy things to do, if you had political will. The problem is there is no will and no incentive to “Do The Right Thing”

The Dems from a idealogical standpoint are the best people for the job.

The problem is MONEY CORRUPTS and CORRUPTS COMPLETELY, take it out of the Political System and you might have a glimmer of hope.

Wrong only people spending money are the people that have too to survive and the people that want too because they have stock in Goldman Sachs or some other bank that came out of this smelling like a rose.

After all, roughly 80% of the work force is still working. But while Germany is increasing manufacturing and exports, we are decreasing manufacturing and exports.

We export mind numbing media and war, that’s it.

Economically there is no difference between the Fed & the government.

All Fed profits flow back to the treasury.