The American Jobs Act OR Stimulus 2: The Stimulating

iTunesIsEvil

Vanguard wrote:

TheNomadicCircle wrote:

I personally just love how this capitalist market is falling. Once its over and Capitalism dead forever, I'll be one proud person.

Capitalism isn't going anywhere. Just the US economy. Try again when you have something sensible to say.

Keeping Circle's posting history in mind, methinks we'll be in for a bit of a wait.

WMain00

iTunesIsEvil wrote:

Vanguard wrote:

TheNomadicCircle wrote:

I personally just love how this capitalist market is falling. Once its over and Capitalism dead forever, I'll be one proud person.

Capitalism isn't going anywhere. Just the US economy. Try again when you have something sensible to say.

Keeping Circle's posting history in mind, methinks we'll be in for a bit of a wait.

But we need an answer! He can't just leave us waiting!

Grey Paladin

Cyberpunk is, strangely enough, quickly becoming the most accurate piece of speculative fiction (minus the 'I DON'T KNOW HOW COMPUTERS WORK IS IT MAGIC').

ronya

I don't know, I missed the part where Japan took over the world.

Grey Paladin

They overshot China. Close enough.

rockrnger

Grey Paladin wrote:

Cyberpunk is, strangely enough, quickly becoming the most accurate piece of speculative fiction (minus the 'I DON'T KNOW HOW COMPUTERS WORK IS IT MAGIC').

What about trenchcoats? Are they cool yet?

Mblackwell

Only to cover up your cybernetic augmentations.

Also, I really liked this speech. It really stuck it to the Pubs, and at the same time was the kind of plan that you would only not pass if you were completely ridiculous. The entire thing hammered Tax Cuts, Tax Credits, Small Business, Unemployed, etc etc etc over and over. Its a very Republican tactic actually, not only does the content put people that vote against it in a political trap, but the title itself - The American Jobs Act - makes it a trap to vote against. Obama's finally doing what he should have done before which is hand over ready made legislation with executive influence and political gamesmenship behind it.

I hate that that's the case (that the latter statement is what has to be done), but I feel better about Obama doing it than most people because he's so pragmatic about everything in general.

Huxley

We're all going to look super dumb when Republicans gut the bill down to its least-effective parts, pass it, then run on it when it flops.

Blech.

MKR

I am thinking 300B in a stalled economy will do more than 900B in an economic death spiral. It's only smaller in raw numeric terms, not necessarily impact.

Synthesis

ronya wrote:

I don't know, I missed the part where Japan took over the world.

The situation is more post-cyberpunk, though that means China would just happen to own everything anyway.

Oh wait...

Unknown

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azith28

MKR wrote:

I am thinking 300B in a stalled economy will do more than 900B in an economic death spiral. It's only smaller in raw numeric terms, not necessarily impact.

... That doesnt really make sense. Firstly due to us printing so much money, devaluing our own currency money is worth less on the open market, add that with a massive trade imbalance and your money is worth less now then it did when we did the first stimulus. Next, MORE people are unemployed now then before, so less money is not even going to have the negliable effect the first one had.

Finally, while the tax breaks for hiring more workers is actually a good idea, the benefits of hiring is being offset by the higher taxes hes trying to claim on the same people doing the hiring. The only people benefitting from his infrastructure building are construction workers....which speaking generally might be good, but after his open backing of Jimmy Hoffa's tirad last week (Of which makes his call for bi-partisanship look mighty funny), looks more and more like a political payoff to the unions then actually trying to create jobs.

Construction jobs arent really a bad thing in itself. But they are specifically due to the nature of this kind of stimulus a temporary boost. When the projects done, they go out of work again. They only help the current administration for the duration of the project...hes continuing to play politics instead of giving any kind of long term solution.

Derrick

azith28 wrote:

MKR wrote:

I am thinking 300B in a stalled economy will do more than 900B in an economic death spiral. It's only smaller in raw numeric terms, not necessarily impact.

... That doesnt really make sense. Firstly due to us printing so much money, devaluing our own currency money is worth less on the open market, add that with a massive trade imbalance and your money is worth less now then it did when we did the first stimulus. Next, MORE people are unemployed now then before, so less money is not even going to have the negliable effect the first one had.

Finally, while the tax breaks for hiring more workers is actually a good idea, the benefits of hiring is being offset by the higher taxes hes trying to claim on the same people doing the hiring. The only people benefitting from his infrastructure building are construction workers....which speaking generally might be good, but after his open backing of Jimmy Hoffa's tirad last week (Of which makes his call for bi-partisanship look mighty funny), looks more and more like a political payoff to the unions then actually trying to create jobs.

Construction jobs arent really a bad thing in itself. But they are specifically due to the nature of this kind of stimulus a temporary boost. When the projects done, they go out of work again. They only help the current administration for the duration of the project...hes continuing to play politics instead of giving any kind of long term solution.

Well everything you said is pretty much completely wrong.

If you want to talk trade imbalance, lowering the worth of the dollar is a GOOD thing, because it makes your products cheaper. It's also smart to do with debt, because your debt just became smaller.

The people (not currently) doing the hiring are small businesses, which are not getting tax increases. Corporations don't push the job market even when sitting on record levels of profit (like right now).

Infrastructure is an investment in and of itself. Construction work is the bonus; Infrastructure rebuilding is the main goal.

Modern Man

override367 wrote:

TheNomadicCircle wrote:

I personally just love how this capitalist market is falling. Once its over and Capitalism dead forever, I'll be one proud person.

Wait really? The capitalists are getting stronger and the socialists are getting weaker - labor in the west is being systematically purged while corporate interests are given unlimited power and the content providers are buying the content producers, sidestepping the law with naked bribes. I really wish it was like you said, Capitalism's iron gorilla grip on the psyche of America (probably Canada too if Harper is any indication) is probably our single greatest problem.

People will gladly be unemployed and have no medical care if it means someone somewhere else gets to own their own chain of private islands, although I do agree this is unsustainable, eventually the poor will eat the rich.

Shit, even as a money-grubbing Republican, I'm nervous about what this economy is doing to the middle class. It's not like the wealthy have been really harmed by the recession. We spent hundreds of billions bailing out bankers (for good reason, granted) while the middle class is getting crushed between rising food and energy costs on the one hand and falling income on the other.

iTunesIsEvil

Did I miss Obama's "open backing" of what Hoffa said?

Or did you mean "... after his failure to denounce Jimmy Hoffa's tirade ..."?

MKR

300B today is not worth so much less than 300B in 2009 that it's negated.

azith28

Derrick wrote:

azith28 wrote:

MKR wrote:

I am thinking 300B in a stalled economy will do more than 900B in an economic death spiral. It's only smaller in raw numeric terms, not necessarily impact.

... That doesnt really make sense. Firstly due to us printing so much money, devaluing our own currency money is worth less on the open market, add that with a massive trade imbalance and your money is worth less now then it did when we did the first stimulus. Next, MORE people are unemployed now then before, so less money is not even going to have the negliable effect the first one had.

Finally, while the tax breaks for hiring more workers is actually a good idea, the benefits of hiring is being offset by the higher taxes hes trying to claim on the same people doing the hiring. The only people benefitting from his infrastructure building are construction workers....which speaking generally might be good, but after his open backing of Jimmy Hoffa's tirad last week (Of which makes his call for bi-partisanship look mighty funny), looks more and more like a political payoff to the unions then actually trying to create jobs.

Construction jobs arent really a bad thing in itself. But they are specifically due to the nature of this kind of stimulus a temporary boost. When the projects done, they go out of work again. They only help the current administration for the duration of the project...hes continuing to play politics instead of giving any kind of long term solution.

Well everything you said is pretty much completely wrong.

If you want to talk trade imbalance, lowering the worth of the dollar is a GOOD thing, because it makes your products cheaper. It's also smart to do with debt, because your debt just became smaller.

The people (not currently) doing the hiring are small businesses, which are not getting tax increases. Corporations don't push the job market even when sitting on record levels of profit (like right now).

Infrastructure is an investment in and of itself. Construction work is the bonus; Infrastructure rebuilding is the main goal.

1) You misunderstand....we sell less then we buy from other countries. So the trade imbalance that way means our money is worth less and it takes more money to buy the same thing. Prices go up HERE for foriegn goods. our goods are cheaper elsewhere but thats not helping us other then to improve competition for people buying our goods.

2) Profit is not the same as revenue

3) No...Jobs should be the main goal here. Obamas claim that we have terrible infrastructure is bull. Yes for americans who have gotten use to perfectly paved roads going everywhere its degraded...But its still one of if not the best damn system in the world. Go drive around in mexico or even canada and compare. Light rail in this country is inefficient and only is viable to the obama administration because its more eco-friendly and gets the 'green' crowd all excited.

Modern Man

azith28 wrote:

[1) You misunderstand....we sell less then we buy from other countries. So the trade imbalance that way means our money is worth less and it takes more money to buy the same thing. Prices go up HERE for foriegn goods. our goods are cheaper elsewhere but thats not helping us other then to improve competition for people buying our goods.

Maybe I'm misreading what you're saying here, but the relative value of the dollar to other currencies has nothing to do with the trade deficit, in of itself. In a lot of ways, a high trade deficit is a sign of a healthy economy, since it shows that Americans have the money to buy foreign goods, which include a lot of luxury items.

3) No...Jobs should be the main goal here. Obamas claim that we have terrible infrastructure is bull. Yes for americans who have gotten use to perfectly paved roads going everywhere its degraded...But its still one of if not the best damn system in the world. Go drive around in mexico or even canada and compare. Light rail in this country is inefficient and only is viable to the obama administration because its more eco-friendly and gets the 'green' crowd all excited.

Infrastructure is becoming a problem for the economy. Creaking bridges and disintegrating roads make commerce more difficult. But, I agree with you that more passenger rail is mostly a waste of money in large chunks of this country. There are only a few areas in the US where population density is high enough to make passenger rail viable. If Amtrak was allowed to shutdown a lot of their money-losing routes out West and in the Midwest, it would likely end up profitable.

ronya

Low inflation rate contradicts the currency-devaluation thesis; in real terms the dollar has not devalued. Rather the US economy is in a worse shape than that in many other parts of the world. Think of it as apples instead of money; there hasn't been an unexpectedly abundant harvest of apples; rather the demand for apples has fallen because people want non-apples. You should reduce the price of apples to achieve all potential sales.

re: #1: no, Derrick was right. If reducing the trade deficit is your concern, then unexpectedly devaluing the dollar would help that. Prices indeed rise for foreign goods, so people substitute to local ones. And foreigners substitute from foreign goods to US exports. Then the trade deficit falls. But this should not, of course, be the primary objective (that it boosts local aggregate demand would be the objective).

Modern Man

ronya wrote:

re: #1: no, Derrick was right. If reducing the trade deficit is your concern, then unexpectedly devaluing the dollar would help that. Prices indeed rise for foreign goods, so people substitute to local ones. And foreigners substitute from foreign goods to US exports. Then the trade deficit falls. But this should not, of course, be the primary objective (that it boosts local aggregate demand would be the objective).

What I meant to say was that the size of the trade deficit does not increase nor decrease the relative value of the dollar to other currencies. But exchange rates do impact the size of the trade deficit, for the reasons you outlined.

ronya

Modern Man wrote:

ronya wrote:

re: #1: no, Derrick was right. If reducing the trade deficit is your concern, then unexpectedly devaluing the dollar would help that. Prices indeed rise for foreign goods, so people substitute to local ones. And foreigners substitute from foreign goods to US exports. Then the trade deficit falls. But this should not, of course, be the primary objective (that it boosts local aggregate demand would be the objective).

What I meant to say was that the size of the trade deficit does not increase nor decrease the relative value of the dollar to other currencies. But exchange rates do impact the size of the trade deficit, for the reasons you outlined.

Yeah.

In principle a very large trade deficit should encourage attacks on the exchange rate that would, by itself, force the dollar to devalue - but people want to hold a lot of dollars for reasons other than buying US goods, and Americans don't correspondingly want to hold a lot of foreign currencies, so Americans buy more foreign goods than they would otherwise. That is, in a sense, having your consumption be subsidized by a foreign country.

Derrick

Additionally-

"There is no correlation, Mr. O'Reilly, between tax rates on millionaires and people above that level, billionaires, and the growth of the economy... Higher taxes have historically correlated with more growth."

"Mr. O'Reilly, there is no correlation of raising taxes and unemployment. If you can show it to me, I'll eat your shoe."

--Ben Stein

http://www.nerve.com/news/tv/ben-stein-offers-to-eat-bill-oreillys-shoe-during-tax-debate

So let's not get distracted over concerns about what taxing the super rich will have on the economy. History shows that taxing them highly is actually better for the economy if anything.

nexuscrawler

the people who don't want to devalue the dollar are those sitting on mountains of them

Its a good thing for pretty much everyone else especially since inflation is very low right now

rockrnger

nexuscrawler wrote:

the people who don't want to devalue the dollar are those sitting on mountains of them

Its a good thing for pretty much everyone else especially since inflation is very low right now

Would this even effect the value of the dollar?

nexuscrawler

rockrnger wrote:

nexuscrawler wrote:

the people who don't want to devalue the dollar are those sitting on mountains of them

Its a good thing for pretty much everyone else especially since inflation is very low right now

Would this even effect the value of the dollar?

Well generally speaking the biggest downside of pumping money into the system is you risk devaluing the currency too much which can cause over-inflation.

TheCanMan

Does anyone have a link to a transcription of the speech? I'm interested in what was said, but not interested enough to watch it instead of play with my son before he went to bed.

rockrnger

nexuscrawler wrote:

rockrnger wrote:

nexuscrawler wrote:

the people who don't want to devalue the dollar are those sitting on mountains of them

Its a good thing for pretty much everyone else especially since inflation is very low right now

Would this even effect the value of the dollar?

Well generally speaking the biggest downside of pumping money into the system is you risk devaluing the currency too much which can cause over-inflation.

But people are buying Tbills with dollars and the government is paying in dollars. The amount of dollars is unchanged.

Fallout2man

Well I'm dissatisfied with the lack of stimulus but was very pleased with Obama's messaging. He was very on target and hammered us like Pavlov with "Pass this jobs bill!" I really think this is going to make the Republicans uncomfortable. Because they're going to have a hard time fighting the "Puppies and Kittens want Jobs Act" while still looking good to the populace, but if they endorse it, and it helps the economy, that goes against their meme that government can only make things worse, never better.

I jubilantly await the schadenfreude-filled headlines of the future regarding this bill.

Captain Carrot

They'll just say it's full of failed government spending and job-killing tax hikes.

ronya

The pundits will fight it anyway and then deny that the bill cut taxes a few months later, and the House will fight it by taking something else hostage and then blaming the Democrats if the Democrats fail to fold on the hostage.

At least, I think it is reasonably likely that these will be the methods tried. How successful they would be depends on how politically adroit assorted people are.

enlightenedbum

iTunesIsEvil wrote:

Did I miss Obama's "open backing" of what Hoffa said?

Or did you mean "... after his failure to denounce Jimmy Hoffa's tirade ..."?

Jimmy Hoffa's we should vote out people trying to destroy our livelihoods statement, would be more accurate. Oh noes, someone you're trying to destroy doesn't like you. He's an evil meanie who wants to kill you.

This is why listening to Fox News (granted, CNN, the LA Times, and the Washington Post all also edited the FUCK out of this quote) makes you a goose, azith.

President Obama this is your army. We are ready to march. And president Obama we want one thing: Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. That's what we’re going to tell him. He’s going to be - and when he sees what we’re doing here he will be inspired. But he needs help and you know what? Everybody here's got to vote. If we go back and keep the eye on the prize, let's take these sons of a bitches out and give America back to America where we belong! Thank you very much!

Hey look, there's the full quote.

Unknown

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Unknown

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Cantido

electricitylikesme wrote:

TheNomadicCircle wrote:

What I hope to see is a new definition of middle class and stratification which will result in the generalized end of the so called "lower" middle class and a specialized formation where they aren't allowed access to easy money.

I don't agree with the principles of socialism either, though I do tend to ascribe to some of the teachings of Islamic Socialism.

Wow. WOW.

So hooray feudalism I suppose?

Do I get a Samurai sword?

Forar

Maybe it's a communication thing, but I find the wording "the end of the so called 'lower' middle class" to have rather chilling implications.

I'm getting a feeling that it's not going to be done through hugs and helping hands and assistance...

Urcbub

Cantido wrote:

electricitylikesme wrote:

TheNomadicCircle wrote:

What I hope to see is a new definition of middle class and stratification which will result in the generalized end of the so called "lower" middle class and a specialized formation where they aren't allowed access to easy money.

I don't agree with the principles of socialism either, though I do tend to ascribe to some of the teachings of Islamic Socialism.

Wow. WOW.

So hooray feudalism I suppose?

Do I get a Samurai sword?

Depends on how you want it. Handle in your hand or blade through your heart...

enlightenedbum

So, if macro is right, this would knock unemployment down somewhere between .6 and 1 percent. Not bad for a year. Still a bad situation, but hopefully that would start making things self-sustained.

And coincidentally, re-elect the President.

P.Y.T.

I hope the President continues to do what he's doing in Virginia today by going around the country campaigning/pimping this bill, putting more pressure on Congress to pass a bill so they don't look like job-killers before an election. I think this bill is expansive enough to be effective in the short-term like it's supposed to be and be something that Congress can hopefully pass without neutering too much, especially since paying for it likely isn't going to be a concern since all of the costs are already covered in the Bill itself.

Styrofoam Sammich

With the advent of these middle class, credit was abused till hell and America was in a situation where even the poorest of the poor could afford a house that was beyond their means. This is really the beginning of the end of Capitalism (at least the version that produced the middle class) and showed that in the end they do not have any ability (the middle class) to manage their fiances (as a group, I'm sure there are more better minded individuals) and should not have been able to get a free hand like this.

I for one welcome my new feudal overlords.

ALL HAIL THE LANDED GENTRY

SyphonBlue

azith28 wrote:

3) No...Jobs should be the main goal here. Obamas claim that we have terrible infrastructure is bull. Yes for americans who have gotten use to perfectly paved roads going everywhere its degraded...But its still one of if not the best damn system in the world. Go drive around in mexico or even canada and compare. Light rail in this country is inefficient and only is viable to the obama administration because its more eco-friendly and gets the 'green' crowd all excited.

Long famous for its top-notch highways and passion for cars, the United States is letting bridges rust as traffic chokes overburdened roads, threatening a pillar of its economic strength.

A prime example of this neglect is the Brent Spence Bridge over the Ohio River. It worked well when it opened in 1963. Now it handles twice the traffic it was designed to support. Gridlock often stretches for a mile beneath a thick haze of smog.

"As you're coming across the bridge into Cincinnati you can tell when traffic has slowed because you can see the cloud," said Margaret Drury, an engineer at United Parcel Service.

UPS (UPS.N) trucks avoid the bridge as much as possible but that adds time to its routes, pushing up costs, Drury said.

Two interstate highways come together at the river crossing, with a UPS distribution centre to the north and the company's global air shipping hub to the south.

The bottleneck is just one example of the decline of American infrastructure that is already hurting the economy. The trend shows little sign of being reversed.

The United States has fallen sharply in the World Economic Forum's ranking of national infrastructure systems. In the forum's 2007-2008 report, American infrastructure was ranked 6th best in the world.

The 2011-2012 report due in September will show America at No. 16, with South Korea overtaking the United States during the last year, according to a copy of the rankings obtained by Reuters.

Yup! Sure is bull, alright!