Wait, there are TWO POSTERS? Because one just isn't enough?! Double the inanity, double the fun, I guess.
Gosh darn it, I just can't get behind infrastructure spending, btu you know what I'M gonna spend taxpayer money on? The dumbest effing poster on the planet! No, wait, MAKE THAT TWO DUMB EFFING POSTERS.
Dude, seriously. The guy could have stood up on the senate floor with a legal pad and written with a Sharpie, "that's a lot of fucking $100 bills".
1) What if I'm not particularly confident that a Keynesian stimulus will do anything for the economy? Or for that matter, confident that macroeconomists know what they're doing? Am I allowed to complain about it then? (And point out that it looks to me as if politicians are using a 'stimulus package' as an excuse to do what they wanted to do anyway, just like Bush did with his tax cuts back a year or two ago.) I confess that my understanding of Keynesian economics is not perfect, but I find myself highly skeptical of its proposed policies.
2) Just because the government is spending so-and-so much money on something that could be useful doesn't mean that that money will not be wasted. OK, so they're planning on spending $500 million on flood-reduction projects on the Mississippi. My post-facto evaluation of whether that spending is wasteful or not would start with calculating how much flood damage that spending will prevent
( ... )
OK, so suppose that Keynesian economic models are perfectly valid, and it really is possible to shock ourselves into higher total productivity through massive government spending, and that the shock effect of this spending is completely independent of the actual output from that government spending. So we could put together a Federal Department for the Copying of Encyclopedias and hire 500,000 people at $100,000 a year to hand-copy the Encyclopedia Britannica and we get some Keynesian stimulus effect from that.
That money is still wasted, because it tied up resources that could have been better used elsewhere. For $100,000 a year, I'd be pretty tempted to apply for a job as an encyclopedia-copier producing absolutely nothing of worth, when I could have been employed doing something productive: writing software code, doing scientific research, etc., etc. That opportunity cost of mine, and every other encyclopedia-copier's time is a real cost, and then same applies to material: concrete and steel used to build empty buildings or
( ... )
So we could put together a Federal Department for the Copying of Encyclopedias and hire 500,000 people at $100,000 a year to hand-copy the Encyclopedia Britannica and we get some Keynesian stimulus effect from that.
That money is still wasted, because it tied up resources that could have been better used elsewhere.
Not really. The opportunity cost argument is an argument for a better stimulus, which I agree with. But remember that we're deficit-spending here. That money would not be spent otherwise. So hand-copying encyclopedias would not be wasting the money. It would give some stimulus effect - just not very much, and if we're gonna deficit-spend, we may as well get something good out of it. So I agree with you that the stimulus would be better if the waste were replaced with more useful programs. However, a stimulus bill with 2.5%, even 10%, waste in it is better than no stimulus bill. It's even better than a slightly smaller stimulus bill with no waste.
when I could have been employed doing something productive: ...
( ... )
Their implementation is not dependent on whether we need economic stimulus. They're going to get done anyway. The question is whether we need them to provide economic stimulus. If we want them to, we finance it with deficit spending. If not, we tax so we can pay for them. The fact that they are programs we need anyway is a demonstration that they are useful stimulus if financed by the deficit, rather than wasteful.
Exactly! This is precisely my argument that --- if we're going to have economic stimulus from the government --- we should be doing it by changing taxation levels rather than by changing government consumption. There's no reason why we can't provide whatever stimulus amount we decide is necessary through adjusting taxation amounts, into the negative if necessary.
I'm really not trying to argue against the stimulus as such, nor am I arguing against these government programs as such. (Mostly because I don't know much about Keynesian economics, and I don't know much about the proposed government programs.) What I am arguing is that the sort of 'stimulus' bill that's going through Congress is an unnecessary conflation of two completely separate policy proposals
( ... )
As I've pointed out above, government spending on productive work results in a higher net gain to the economy than tax cuts or unproductive work. In other words, a plan of raising taxes $400B to pay for new spending and then cutting taxes $800B will be far more effective at stimulating the economy than simply cutting taxes $400B and not doing any new spending.
So because both $800B in tax cuts and the $400B in new spending stimulate the economy, they're both included in the economic stimulus bill, as a net $400B tax cut and $400B in spending.
I don't know much about the proposed government programs.
What I'm irked about is not that there's a stimulus bill, it's that I think unscrupulous politicians are conflating these two proposals... to get funding for their dumbass programs ....You're making a judgment that the programs are dumbass, even when you admit that you don't know much about the proposed programs themselves. If the programs contain productive work, they will stimulate the economy more than tax cuts or unproductive
( ... )
You're making a judgment that the programs are dumbass, even when you admit that you don't know much about the proposed programs themselves.
Yes, I have a prejudice against government programs. I assume that they're dumbass unless I am given evidence to the contrary. And the text of the bill does not give me any confidence in how the money is going to be spent.
An example randomly chosen from the house bill: For an additional amount for "Periodic Censuses and Programs", $1,000,000,000: Provided, that Section 1106 of this Act shall not apply to funds provided under this heading.
Section 1006 says: Unless other provision is made in this Act (or in other applicable law) for such expenses, up to 0.5 percent of each amount appropriated in this Act may be used for the expenses of management and oversight of the programs, grants, and activities funded by such appropriation, and may be transferred by the head of the Federal department or agency involved to any other appropriate account within the department or agency for that purpose
( ... )
That money is pretty much for the 2010 census, which people have been estimating will run overbudget by about $1B. I'm frankly not sure how that stimulates the economy (though it may, somehow), and I'd be willing to say that that's something that could be debated at a separate time.
I assume that they're dumbass unless I am given evidence to the contrary.
But the reality is that the Democrats are going to do what they want to do unless they are convinced otherwise. Since they are in power, they have no obligation to you to provide evidence (ie, they don't need Republican support to pass it). The onus is on the minority party to ask for evidence on specific programs. They aren't going to be convinced by images of $1T, nor by you calling them dumbasses.
And see, by bringing up a specific item, you got a Democrat to strip $1B from the bill! How easy was that?
I'm here, although I haven't read pretty much any of the previous 64 posts on this thread. This is mostly because I really didn't want to get sucked into a marathon debate. See my problem is that if I write something down, even just a simple blog post, I want it to be as complete as possible with as few loose ends as possible. For a blog this approach is probably a bit naive, but nonetheless there it is
( ... )
Comments 69
Gosh darn it, I just can't get behind infrastructure spending, btu you know what I'M gonna spend taxpayer money on? The dumbest effing poster on the planet! No, wait, MAKE THAT TWO DUMB EFFING POSTERS.
Dude, seriously. The guy could have stood up on the senate floor with a legal pad and written with a Sharpie, "that's a lot of fucking $100 bills".
Reply
1) What if I'm not particularly confident that a Keynesian stimulus will do anything for the economy? Or for that matter, confident that macroeconomists know what they're doing? Am I allowed to complain about it then? (And point out that it looks to me as if politicians are using a 'stimulus package' as an excuse to do what they wanted to do anyway, just like Bush did with his tax cuts back a year or two ago.) I confess that my understanding of Keynesian economics is not perfect, but I find myself highly skeptical of its proposed policies.
2) Just because the government is spending so-and-so much money on something that could be useful doesn't mean that that money will not be wasted. OK, so they're planning on spending $500 million on flood-reduction projects on the Mississippi. My post-facto evaluation of whether that spending is wasteful or not would start with calculating how much flood damage that spending will prevent ( ... )
Reply
That money is still wasted, because it tied up resources that could have been better used elsewhere. For $100,000 a year, I'd be pretty tempted to apply for a job as an encyclopedia-copier producing absolutely nothing of worth, when I could have been employed doing something productive: writing software code, doing scientific research, etc., etc. That opportunity cost of mine, and every other encyclopedia-copier's time is a real cost, and then same applies to material: concrete and steel used to build empty buildings or ( ... )
Reply
That money is still wasted, because it tied up resources that could have been better used elsewhere.
Not really. The opportunity cost argument is an argument for a better stimulus, which I agree with. But remember that we're deficit-spending here. That money would not be spent otherwise. So hand-copying encyclopedias would not be wasting the money. It would give some stimulus effect - just not very much, and if we're gonna deficit-spend, we may as well get something good out of it. So I agree with you that the stimulus would be better if the waste were replaced with more useful programs. However, a stimulus bill with 2.5%, even 10%, waste in it is better than no stimulus bill. It's even better than a slightly smaller stimulus bill with no waste.
when I could have been employed doing something productive: ... ( ... )
Reply
Exactly! This is precisely my argument that --- if we're going to have economic stimulus from the government --- we should be doing it by changing taxation levels rather than by changing government consumption. There's no reason why we can't provide whatever stimulus amount we decide is necessary through adjusting taxation amounts, into the negative if necessary.
Reply
Reply
So because both $800B in tax cuts and the $400B in new spending stimulate the economy, they're both included in the economic stimulus bill, as a net $400B tax cut and $400B in spending.
I don't know much about the proposed government programs.
What I'm irked about is not that there's a stimulus bill, it's that I think unscrupulous politicians are conflating these two proposals... to get funding for their dumbass programs ....You're making a judgment that the programs are dumbass, even when you admit that you don't know much about the proposed programs themselves. If the programs contain productive work, they will stimulate the economy more than tax cuts or unproductive ( ... )
Reply
Yes, I have a prejudice against government programs. I assume that they're dumbass unless I am given evidence to the contrary. And the text of the bill does not give me any confidence in how the money is going to be spent.
An example randomly chosen from the house bill:
For an additional amount for "Periodic Censuses and Programs", $1,000,000,000: Provided, that Section 1106 of this Act shall not apply to funds provided under this heading.
Section 1006 says:
Unless other provision is made in this Act (or in other applicable law) for such expenses, up to 0.5 percent of each amount appropriated in this Act may be used for the expenses of management and oversight of the programs, grants, and activities funded by such appropriation, and may be transferred by the head of the Federal department or agency involved to any other appropriate account within the department or agency for that purpose ( ... )
Reply
I assume that they're dumbass unless I am given evidence to the contrary.
But the reality is that the Democrats are going to do what they want to do unless they are convinced otherwise. Since they are in power, they have no obligation to you to provide evidence (ie, they don't need Republican support to pass it). The onus is on the minority party to ask for evidence on specific programs. They aren't going to be convinced by images of $1T, nor by you calling them dumbasses.
And see, by bringing up a specific item, you got a Democrat to strip $1B from the bill! How easy was that?
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
:-)
although probably in my own post as this one is getting crowded
Yeah, that's probably a good idea at this point, this thread crashed Firefox on my computer a couple hours ago.
Reply
Leave a comment