Originally Posted by Sidd Finch (Post 455972)

Depends what the money is used for. In this stimulus, a lot went to tax breaks that went in turn to savings accounts, or to paying off debts. Not much job creation there. In some gov't spending -- not the Obama stimulus, to any great extent that I'm aware -- money goes off-shore. For example, how much has been spent on the SF Bay Bridge, and how much of that has gone to creating jobs in China?

There is also the issue of "creating" versus "saving" jobs. I already commented on this, and I believe that you have done so before. Those who want to puff the "$/jobs" figure look only to new jobs created, not old ones that would have been lost.

I've registered my skepticism of the $250k/job figure, so the above is not meant to support that.

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan (Post 455971)

Anyhow, isn't $250K middle class?

Originally Posted by Cletus Miller (Post 455974)

But Obama himself talked about a $1T stimulus and creating or saving 4mm jobs, and asking anyone to do more than divide those two numbers is asking too much of a nation of the functionally innumerate.

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch (Post 455977)

Huh. So he said what he planned to do, Congress voted for his plan, and it accomplished what he said it would?

No wonder people are pissed off.

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch (Post 455972)

Depends what the money is used for. In this stimulus, a lot went to tax breaks that went in turn to savings accounts, or to paying off debts. Not much job creation there. In some gov't spending -- not the Obama stimulus, to any great extent that I'm aware -- money goes off-shore. For example, how much has been spent on the SF Bay Bridge, and how much of that has gone to creating jobs in China?

There is also the issue of "creating" versus "saving" jobs. I already commented on this, and I believe that you have done so before. Those who want to puff the "$/jobs" figure look only to new jobs created, not old ones that would have been lost.

I've registered my skepticism of the $250k/job figure, so the above is not meant to support that.

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski (Post 455979)

plus when you put $x Million into fixing roads you have to buy some cement too.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 455981)

No cement jobs created there.

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski (Post 455982)

i wasn't being my normal snide self, i was just saying looking dollars/jobs is somewhat simplistic. There are goods involved. although I suppose the bulk of cost in every good is labor? but those manufacturing of goods jobs aren't centered in Peoria iykwimaittyd.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 455983)

In the cement case, it's probably not coming from offshore. With the Bay Bridget, Sidd has a point.

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski (Post 455985)

how about the steel embedded in the cement? how about the cement cracking machines that break up the cement to be replaced? etc.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 455986)

Not to be all Timmy and shit, but I believe you are thinking of concrete rather than cement.

Anyhoo, there are surely some material costs in any construction project, and some proportion of those may go overseas.

Originally Posted by Cletus Miller (Post 455969)

What's incredible? You take the total amount spent and divide it by the total jobs created or saved. Wahlah, $250k per job!

And it's been a meme since the SOTU in 2009, without any revision that I've seen.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 455970)

Let's go back to this for a minute. Suppose the cost per job was something like $250K. Where does that money go? Do you think the government is hiring new bureaucrats to administer stimulus grants, and that you have three bureaucrats making $75K each for each construction worker making $25K? That doesn't work, since that's four jobs for the $250K, not one. But if it did, wouldn't that be stimulating the economy? Those people can now pay for food, and housing, and entertainment, so the money gets spent, and that's what the economy needs. How do you make sense of this $250K/job business?

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch (Post 455972)

Depends what the money is used for. In this stimulus, a lot went to tax breaks that went in turn to savings accounts, or to paying off debts. Not much job creation there. In some gov't spending -- not the Obama stimulus, to any great extent that I'm aware -- money goes off-shore. For example, how much has been spent on the SF Bay Bridge, and how much of that has gone to creating jobs in China?

There is also the issue of "creating" versus "saving" jobs. I already commented on this, and I believe that you have done so before. Those who want to puff the "$/jobs" figure look only to new jobs created, not old ones that would have been lost.

I've registered my skepticism of the $250k/job figure, so the above is not meant to support that.

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch (Post 455977)

Huh. So he said what he planned to do, Congress voted for his plan, and it accomplished what he said it would?

No wonder people are pissed off.

Originally Posted by Cletus Miller (Post 455978)

And, if the "spending crisis" is so awful, how is a ten year budget with a $400B deficit in year 10 some how deemed a serious proposal?

Originally Posted by sgtclub (Post 455992)

Put it the other way. If we are only cutting 4B over 10 years, how is the lack of spending so awful?

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski (Post 455987)

I grew up working construction.

Originally Posted by sgtclub (Post 455989)

Oh, where does the money go? The age old question. I don't know what's so difficult about the math. You spend X. Net jobs created (or saved).*

*this whole "or saved" stuff is dubious. We never used that metric in every day political discourse until the DEMs came in.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 455997)

Seriously. Where does it go? The government spends it on what? How do you explain this?

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 455997)

Seriously. Where does it go? The government spends it on what? How do you explain this?

Originally Posted by sgtclub (Post 455999)

They overpay. I have a client whose main customer is a fed agency. The client (a smaller company in the industry), can do projects for a 10th of what the big industry players charge. The numbers are astounding. We are talking hundreds of millions per project of waste.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 455996)

I'm sure the concrete/cement thing was just a slip. Sorry to mention it.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 456000)

The point of stimulus is to stimulate the economy. What you are calling waste may not be the most efficient way to spend the money if all you are concerned about is getting the most bang for the government buck, but it does not explain how it takes $250K to create a job. Obviously, the money is going somewhere, which means it's stimulating the economy.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 456000)

The point of stimulus is to stimulate the economy. What you are calling waste may not be the most efficient way to spend the money if all you are concerned about is getting the most bang for the government buck, but it does not explain how it takes $250K to create a job. Obviously, the money is going somewhere, which means it's stimulating the economy.

Originally Posted by sgtclub (Post 456002)

Really? Are you really saying this?

Originally Posted by sgtclub (Post 456002)

Really? Are you really saying this?

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski (Post 456001)

Forgot. You had a senior seminar in "things working class people know."

But before I remembered I was dumbing it down for you..........and Sidd.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 456005)

Yes. I still don't understand where you think that money is going. You're telling a Just-So Story that explains why the government is less efficient than business. Fine: I agree with point, more or less. But in the current economic circumstances, businesses aren't investing, and there's no reason to think government spending is displacing private spending. That's why we need stimulus.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 456006)

Just because I don't blow my own horn about it doesn't mean I didn't experience like yours.

Originally Posted by sgtclub (Post 456007)

Where it's not going is to anything creating jobs, which was the point of this exercise.

Originally Posted by sgtclub (Post 456007)

Where it's not going is to anything creating jobs, which was the point of this exercise.

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski (Post 456008)

not to brag, but I have a really long tongue and can lick my own horn, not blow it, but still, I'm kicking you lot's ass. no offense.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 456010)

Which is where?

Never mind. You obviously have an ideological commitment to the idea that it's ineffective, rather than some sort of view about what is actually happening.

I'm also curious about how it is that you think that cutting deficits now will improve the economy, but I suspect it's more of the same.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 456011)

So this is what having my ass kicked is like? Good to know.

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski (Post 456009)

it's going into the pockets of some Dem fatcat, who will be the equivalent of the Joe Kennedy for our grandkids. meanwhile teachers are being laid off. Sad.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 456015)

So many billions are going into the pockets of Dem fatcats -- how odd that you see no sign at all of this. Yes, that must be what's happening.

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski (Post 456016)

find 1930s articles that show the New Deal money was going into Joe Kennedy's pocket. Can't find any? still believe the media isn't left-biased?

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 456010)

Which is where?

Never mind. You obviously have an ideological commitment to the idea that it's ineffective, rather than some sort of view about what is actually happening.

I'm also curious about how it is that you think that cutting deficits now will improve the economy, but I suspect it's more of the same.

Originally Posted by sgtclub (Post 455999)

They overpay. I have a client whose main customer is a fed agency. The client (a smaller company in the industry), can do projects for a 10th of what the big industry players charge. The numbers are astounding. We are talking hundreds of millions per project of waste.