But this is irrelenat because reality is illusioon and economics is only for libruls and history is what I say it is...

Inciting delayed inflation is an intentional Republican tactic. It won't matter diddly-squat that they caused it; it'll only matter that they'll have the ultimate talking point: Does your dollar buy as much as it did when the Republicans were in charge of Washington?

That's all they'll ever need---and if it gains traction, the only "out" for the Republic will be to drive the GOP vermin into the sea.

And all that that implies....

Did you expect more from a Congressman named Jerry Lewis?

The words "foresight" and "Bush" should not be used in the same sentence.

6-months ago...

"I don't see America having problems." - President Bush in China 8/10/08

All too little, to late, and too wedded to the broken and unfixable old system.

They are focused PRIMARILY on propping up Wall Street and extant banks as is. Everything else is secondary to this.

They will fail.

Best bet: guns, ammo, food, canning equipment while you still have an income to do so, then save, save, save until you lose your job.

3 weeks ago....

President George W. Bush said Friday...he believes steps taken by his administration have "laid the groundwork for a return to economic growth and job creation" early in the administration of President-elect Barack Obama.

Just three weeks ago that toad was congratulating himself on a job well done and taking preemptive credit for any success Obama might have.

Are we talking about the $150 Billion Second Stimulus that would have been much like the first one?

They could have saved a lot of money, a lot of time, and a lot of jobs with more forethought in the fall.

Probably could have saved a handful of fellow GOPers' jobs as well had they chosen to act semi-responsibly. Too bad for them.

Which brings up the most obvious question,

Why should we have to live in the same country with these people?

Apparently Sarah Palin would like to be Queen of Alaska, why not let her?

If all conservatives and Republicans would move there, I think we could do without Alaska.

The further down the spiral you go, the more aggressive you need to get to reverse the vicious cycle and the bigger the threat that eventual recovery will be accompanied by inflation.

That's the story. A large body of evidence "might" be welcome.

Had it been passed and implemented then, money would now be flowing and the precipitous drops in monthly employment that we are now enduring might have been significantly softened.

And the drops might be unchanged. The borrowing entailed in the stimulus might already be crowding out current investments, those ongoing at any rate. Indeed, much of the money, especially that for infrastructure, might not be running yet. Most of the stimulus money won't even flow within the next 6 months.

How many recently laid off workers would be hired for the projects listed in the stimulus bill anyway? It looks like most of the projects require almost exclusively workers who still have their jobs.

At least there is a bright side to this stimulus bill nonsense. Once it goes through, including the huge chunk of tax cuts the Republic party wanted, and the reductions the dumbass bluedogs and republic party wanted, and only three republic party senators vote for it (and zero reps), Obama and the Dems can effectively, at that time, ignore them, showing how they worked hard to placate the republic party and yet the republic party, children to the end, refused to even vote for the bill. Obama held his hand out, and the republic party pissed all over it. From that point on, he and the Dems should govern as if there is no other party. They can authorize most of the eliminated spending through mechanisms that do not require 60 votes in the senate. And they should take full advantage of that. Enough. The republic party got a fair shot to work with Obama and they chose failed ideology over the country. Shut them out.

They could have saved a lot of money, a lot of time, and a lot of jobs with more forethought in the fall.
------

Supposing that saving a lot of money, time, and jobs was what they wanted to do.

Somehow I doubt it.

Yglesias . . . hmmm, name rings a bell . . . isn't he the guy who links to Megan McArdle all the time, and doesn't seem to realize that she's an idiot?

Posted by: marketeer on February 7, 2009 at 5:03 PM | PERMALINK

I must say, "marketeer" is a funny name for a theologian.

Any time I get confused about how these idiot GOP Congressman get elected, I think back to an article I read before the election about this guy who said,

"I didn't vote for Kerry because I was afraid he would take my guns away. But now I've lost my job, my son lost his job, my wife has cancer and we don't have any health care....so I'm thinking about voting for Obama, but I'm just not sure."

The GOP has done a remarkable job of making relatively unimportant issues seem important, like guns, cutting taxes, etc., while somehow getting these people to vote against their own economic self-interest.

It's truly remarkable when you think about it. Perhaps as we come out of this recession one day and Obama is successful, they will see the light.

Perhaps I'm just being naive.....

Praedor: then save, save, save until you lose your job.

Reportedly, we Americans have responded to the crisis by increasing our savings. Hopefully we can save enough to lend the government the entire amount of the stimulus. That way we'll be borrowing from ourselves, so when we have to pay it all back we'll be paying ourselves.

Supposedly we are supposed (Krugman, for one, recommends this) to keep shopping, but it is hard to argue that, in this environment, we really need more toys from China, more oil from Venezuela, etc. than what we already have. And if we do continue to spend, who will lend to the federal government?

Are we supposed to believe that there is an extra $800 billion lying idly about somewhere and that it will appear as the visible money is borrowed and spent?

Didn't y'all (USA) have government-guaranteed, long-term, bonds during the war? I know we had them in Poland, shortly after the war (there being no Poland *during* the war itself), for reconstruction. The yield wasn't all that great and they were very long term (so, of course, there was the risk that, buy th time they matured, they'd be worth about the same as when you bought them), but they did produce a big shot of money to the government.

Why couldn't we have bonds like that, for the economy-reconstruction? I know I'd be willing to buy some.

Are we supposed to believe that there is an extra $800 billion lying idly about somewhere and that it will appear as the visible money is borrowed and spent?

One dollar, if Vt is high enough, would do it.

i just finished a little research of what the new deal did for the state that mitch mcconnell "represents" in the senate -- kentucky.

he is not very familiar with the history, or the current employment situation, of his own state or he wouldn't be whining about the president's requested stimulus bill.

http://knowyourgovernment.wordpress.com/2009/02/07/hey-mitch-mcconnell-are-you-sure-youre-from-kentucky/

Obama held his hand out, and the republic party pissed all over it. From that point on, he and the Dems should govern as if there is no other party. ... Shut them out.

Amen!

The classic definition of insanity is the rote repetition of obvious failures of the past, coupled with an unrealistic expectation that long-elusive success will finally be presently attained.

To wit, we get more tax cuts for the rich and well-off -- again.

Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) today denounced an Executive Order signed by President Obama that repeals Executive Order 13202, that prohibited federal agencies and recipients of federal funding from requiring contractors to sign union-only project labor agreements (PLAs) as a condition of performing work on federal and federally funded construction projects.

"Today's decision to repeal Executive Order 13202 opens the door to waste and discrimination in federal and federally funded construction contracts," said ABC President and CEO Kirk Pickerel. "This action removes the safeguards that prohibited discrimination based upon union affiliation in the awarding of federal contracts.

With that, every job "created" by the stimulus will cost 1.1 - 1.2 jobs in the private sector. Your estimate of the opportunity cost of all that borrowing may be different, but there is a large opportunity cost.

The classic definition of insanity is the rote repetition of obvious failures of the past, coupled with an unrealistic expectation that long-elusive success will finally be presently attained.

That applies as well to the repeated efforts to "stimulate" economies by borrowing and spending. They all failed, and some economics mythology is devoted to just-so stories of why they failed.

Tax cuts don't work -- they just create debt; large public expenditures funded by borrowing don't work -- they just create debt. It's as though the economy isn't created by government borrowing in the first place.

Most of the Democrats in Congress are doing the right thing; they're just going about it the wrong way.

The Bush administration knew very well that their $50 billion price tag for the Iraq invasion was bullshit. They also knew that 'couch potato' Americans would shrug their shoulders at $50 billion. Imagine the uproar if Bush would have been honest and asked for $200 billion as a down payment for his "war on terror"

The Rove and Bush strategy was to misuse the 'emergency funding request' method. Every so many months you ask for $50-100 billion and talk about fire and brimstone if not getting it, and labeling anybody opposed as un-patriotic.

Now, the Bush Admin got pretty much every single request, which has totaled more than what Obama is asking for today. The big difference: Obama is asking for it as a lump sump instead of a little bit at a time.

A better strategy would have been for Obama to stay very specific and introduce several bills that had individually smaller amounts attached to it, but non the less indispensable for solving the economic problems.

It would have taken away a bunch of the Republican / conservative stupid arguments. Sure they always have arguments, but they wouldn't be focused on 2% of a giant bill. they'd have to debate the pros and cons of the subject at hand, without distractions.

Interesting point, bruno.

However, there is drama (and urgency) in the Big Bill approach. It certainly highlights the Republican priorities, doesn't it?

Krugman's blog today is really depressing. Too little, too late and no more to come is his take.

Oh, c'mon. The GOP did exactly what it intended to do months ago. Delay. So that they could blame everything on the Democrats and Obama.

The GOP wants to destroy government's ability to do anything but fund the military, foreign wars, the ability of their pals on Wall Street to raid our tax-money, and funding for law-enforcement.

That's it. Otherwise, they WANT to destroy the country. That's their entire raison d'etre. So, that delay in congress wasn't incompetence, it was calculation.

Bush's entire administration was about stimulus, i.e., bankrupting the country with borrow-and-spend.

Don't you remember Cheney? "Deficits don't matter." Cheney and Obama must be economic twins. The Bush stimulus package:

http://www.russellbeattie.com/notebook/1008125.html