 |
 |
   Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Gnter Grass still thinks reunification was a bad idea.
 Forty years of writing from Taylor Branch, James Fallows, Katherine Boo, Marjorie Williams, Joshua Micah Marshall, and more.
 With help from Washington, the for-profit college industry is loading up millions of low-income students with debt they'll never pay off.
 The best recent memoir from republican Washington is a hoax. That should tell you something.
|
   |
|
|
July 31, 2009
THE SUCCESS OF THE STIMULUS.... When the second quarter GDP numbers were released this morning, the data showed the economy faring slightly better after six months of deep and painful contraction. It wasn't consumer spending that led to progress, however, but rather government spending that "helped economic activity in the spring." Now, that in and of itself, is probably uncomfortable news for conservative Republicans, who've spent the better part of the year, if not the better part of their adult lives, arguing that government spending is incapable of helping economic activity. Indeed, let's recall that earlier this year, at the height of the economic crisis, the congressional GOP insisted that a five-year spending freeze was the responsible course of action. But more to the point, these conservatives failed, and Democrats passed a stimulus package. The Economic Policy Institute's Josh Bivens reviews the numbers from the second quarter and concludes that the recovery efforts made a real difference. (via Kevin Drum)
Kevin added, "The argument that the stimulus bill has 'failed' because times are still tough has always been dimwitted. There was never any chance that it was going to miraculously end the recession, only that it might make it a little shallower than it otherwise would have been. So far, it appears to have done exactly that." In recent months, the Republicans have worked hard to convince the country that the recovery efforts were not only misguided, but can already be deemed a "failure." That said, slowly but surely, we're not only seeing improvements in the economy, we're even seeing far-right Republicans concluding that the stimulus may not have been so bad after all. For about a quarter-century now, conservative Republicans have been wrong about every major economic turning point. They said Reagan's tax increases would hurt economic growth, but they didn't. They said Clinton's tax increases would produce devastating recessions, but they didn't. They said Bush's tax cuts would generate vast wealth and balanced budgets, but they didn't. And they said Obama's recovery plan would be (and has been) a disaster, and that's proving to be wrong, too. I'm beginning to think these guys should just stop making economic arguments. They're always wrong. —Steve Benen 3:50 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (20)Comments
Keep an eye on the interest rate as you borrow all that money to stimulate things. Unless you have invented a perpetual motion machine, trouble is coming, big time, as Cheney would say. Posted by: Mike K on July 31, 2009 at 3:53 PM | PERMALINKFirst quarter results were revised downwards quite a bit. One could look at that and say the stimulus did extremely well or that revisions in the future may make the second quarter look worse. Posted by: CarlP on July 31, 2009 at 4:02 PM | PERMALINKDon't forget the granddaddy of all idiotic republican arguments: That Reagan's tax cuts would not only pay for themselves, they doubled revenues. Posted by: martin on July 31, 2009 at 4:10 PM | PERMALINKThis reminds me of the moment, on election night, on Fuxnews, when Karl Rove was begining to make an argument for how Johhn McCain was about to turn it all around, and Brit Hume interupted him to say that Barack Obama was the newly elected POTUS. Delicious. Posted by: Winkandanod on July 31, 2009 at 4:14 PM | PERMALINKI'm beginning to think these guys should just stop making economic arguments. They're always wrong. Which is why I am comforted by Mike K's comment. Posted by: Danp on July 31, 2009 at 4:15 PM | PERMALINKKeep an eye on the interest rate as you borrow all that money to stimulate things. Unless you have invented a perpetual motion machine, trouble is coming, big time, as Cheney would say. Firstly, there is no "the interest rate." There is a term structure. For example, the current rate on the 10-year Treasury is 3.5%. Moreover, the current 10 year-TIPS is about 1.7, which is an accurate expectation of future inflation. We are in an environment of low interest rates and low inflation. Put differently, the current 10-year Treasury rate is approximately 100 basis points lower than when Cheney suppported the Great Iraq Stimulus Plan with money from the Chinese. Posted by: ISLM on July 31, 2009 at 4:18 PM | PERMALINKHey, Mike, what finally ended the Great Depression? Massive government spending and the most socialist economy we've every had, aka WWII. Posted by: Personal Failure on July 31, 2009 at 4:20 PM | PERMALINKWhy stop at economic arguments? What have they ever been right about? Posted by: Elbows on July 31, 2009 at 4:22 PM | PERMALINKI would note that I believe that the stimulus should have been larger. Unfortunately, the incremental votes in the Senate were controlled by Senators who represent less than 0.5% of the US population. Posted by: ISLM on July 31, 2009 at 4:25 PM | PERMALINKWaiting... Why stop at economic arguments? What have they ever been right about? Posted by: koreyel on July 31, 2009 at 4:26 PM | PERMALINKtrouble is coming, big time, as Cheney would say. Actually, what Cheney said was "deficits don't matter". Posted by: qwerty on July 31, 2009 at 4:31 PM | PERMALINKWhat Government spending? It was all Bobby Jindal's private stash that got plowed into economy. Didn't you see the checks he issued? They were *huge* Posted by: exlibra on July 31, 2009 at 4:35 PM | PERMALINKNo doubt their next argument will be that recovery would have happened anyway, and could have been even faster if we'd followed their suggestions :( I'm not usually in favor of third political parties, but if we had one, journalists would have a good reason to ignore the current Republicans as fringe nutcases. Posted by: N.Wells on July 31, 2009 at 4:43 PM | PERMALINKTo a rational voter, this economic news would tend to make Obama /dems look better, Bush even worse, etc. But so many now, esp. Southern whites (fact, not putdown) are not rational anymore it hardly matters to them. Mark Levin will keep saying Obama is destroying the country, Beck will keep exhaling to show carbon dioxide is not from burning oil, birthers will keep saying that where Obama was born etc. is "the real issue" and so on ad nauseum. If the nation's voters get too degraded and idiotic, rational news and appeals just won't work anymore. Then what? Posted by: Neil B ♠ on July 31, 2009 at 5:00 PM | PERMALINKLook, I'm all for the stimulus - other than the fact that it wasn't big enough - but because we haven't dealt with the toxic assets, we still have a boat anchor weighing down the economy. This means the "recovery" will amount to a long, slow motion escape from a deep recession. Years long. Unemployment will be at least in the high single digits, businesses will be slow to invest and growth will be very low. The work is only half done. We've got to get a bigger stimulus (no matter what it's called) package and we have to deal with the toxic assets, which will likely mean that some banks go into receivership. We're fooling ourselves if we think this is done, or that we're going to go back to business anything like normal! Posted by: MichMan on July 31, 2009 at 7:05 PM | PERMALINKActually, they have been wrong about everything, not just about economics. Civil rights, consumer protection, the environment, foreign policy, labor laws, you name it - wrong, wrong wrong. One wonders how they keep on going. Posted by: craigie on July 31, 2009 at 7:36 PM | PERMALINKwhat i favor at this point is a 1-year state sales tax holiday, funded by the federal government. it would run around $250B and would promote consumer spending, in that it suddenly puts everything on which a given state charges sales tax on sale. i am, in general, a little hopeful about the construction-related components of the stimulus that are still to come, since there could be some nice multiplier effects coming with them. Posted by: howard on July 31, 2009 at 7:41 PM | PERMALINKWhy stop at economic arguments? What have they [ Republicans ] ever been right about? ditto! Posted by: MarkH on July 31, 2009 at 8:01 PM | PERMALINKMike K: "Keep an eye on the interest rate as you borrow all that money to stimulate things. Unless you have invented a perpetual motion machine, trouble is coming, big time, as Cheney would say." How odd (she said sarcastically) that neither Mr. K, nor Mr. Cheney, nor any other right-winger was making this argument while their boy Bush put his illegal war-of-choice on the national credit card. Posted by: Shade Tail on July 31, 2009 at 9:06 PM | PERMALINKTerminating the stimulus now would be a colossal error, repeating the big mistake of the 30's. I believe Obama's attitude is that he will do what is right for the country despite the polls, and that if the public doesn't like it he will go back to writing books for a living. Posted by: bob h on August 1, 2009 at 6:39 AM | PERMALINKPost a comment
November 2009
October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 |
|
|
    |
|
||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
