My God, you are an idiot.

[sgtclub]

Originally Posted by Adder

You said it was $850 million (ignoring that 40% of that is tax cuts).

Are there other costs you have in mind? Or are you arguing that there private investment is being crowded out despite interest rates at zero and all indications being that the market clearing rate for loanable funds, if there is one, should be negative?

I'm arguing that the ROI is not sufficient to justify the spend given our balance sheet.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Adder

I thought Club said something similar, but if he did I can't find it right now.

But you should both know that this is an inherently Keynesian critique. Fresh water types and Austrians would see this as a good thing, making more money available to borrow, driving down interest rates, and magically returning us to growth.

Rest assured that I will remember your statist tendencies and remind you of them when next you advocate cutting taxes as stimulative policy.

reading the board the last few days I realized the solution to all the country's ills. Tax porn. You log onto youporn there is a $10 Federal tax (we'd have to come up with some way to make the billing not appears on guy's credit card bill- and somebody run the idea by atticus to look for constitutional questions). They would be some stimulus right there.
And, the beauty of it, The republicans would have to support it. For all their craziness the one constant is they all claim to be agaisnt porn.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sgtclub

I'm arguing that the ROI is not sufficient to justify the spend given our balance sheet.

We can currently borrow at negative real interest rates. Any ROI is justified in those terms.

And, of course, we disagree on the health of our balance sheet.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sgtclub

Yes, but at what cost? That is the question that the left never asks or answers.

To the contrary, it is Democrats who are for Pay-Go and Republicans who jettison it.

We are suffering massive, massive costs from >9% unemployment and from factories and other resources going unused right now, and there is just this massive myopia about those costs. Those are the costs we ought to be concerned about. Meanwhile, government revenues as a proportion of GDP are lower they they have been since you were born. "What cost?" The reason we have budget deficits is that taxes keep dropping.

This is hogwash at every level. Forget about patriotism and just doing the right thing. Most members (other than the ultra safe districts) of congress are more vulnerable the worse the economy is. We have seen massive shifts in congress over the last 6 years because of this.

You have an entire crew of Republicans in the House who are playing Russian Roulette with the naiton's credit rating and the economy. Give me a break. None of them are saying, yes, we ought to stimulate the economy but we must find the most efficient way to do it.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sgtclub

I'm arguing that the ROI is not sufficient to justify the spend given our balance sheet.

You're arguing that it's too expensive to do what Larry Summers wants to do, but I still can't figure out whether you disagree with what he thinks the problem is.

[LessinSF]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

We are suffering massive, massive costs from >9% unemployment and from factories and other resources going unused right now, and there is just this massive myopia about those costs.

Suicide centers. Death panels. Arsenic in McDonald's.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by sgtclub

They probably would have done a better job. And the Lehman BK was very stimulative to the economy (or so Ty would probably argue). Look how many jobs it created.

In all serious, I wasn't thinking just about investment professionals. I was thinking about people who deploy capital based on qualifications other than economic (cronyism, social engineering, etc.)

I understand and in many ways agree with you on the inefficiency of goverment. But, I think you frequently overstate the efficiency of private business.

In this context, moreover, you overstate the value of efficiency, as if that were the only relevant consideration. The most cost-efficient way to build a project is often not the best way to create jobs in the US. The Bay Bridge created a fuckload of jobs, but the majority of those are in China where, for cost-efficiency reasons, the steel is fabricated. That's fine -- the purpose of that project wasn't to create jobs, but to fix a bridge vital to an economic sub-region. But the purpose of the stimulus was different.

As for the stimulus, yes -- the per-job cost was ridiculously high. I would argue that this is largely due to the amount of stimulus that was in the form of tax cuts. Targetted spending on real infrastructure projects would have been much better, but the political clusterfuck of DC prevented that.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

You're arguing that it's too expensive to do what Larry Summers wants to do, but I still can't figure out whether you disagree with what he thinks the problem is.

Clubby is dead set against these tax cuts we can't afford, and you should be too.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

As for the stimulus, yes -- the per-job cost was ridiculously high. I would argue that this is largely due to the amount of stimulus that was in the form of tax cuts. Targetted spending on real infrastructure projects would have been much better, but the political clusterfuck of DC prevented that.

Question: how are people determining the per-job cost of the stimulus bill? Perhaps someone can send me to a cite or site where that calculation is made.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by LessinSF

Suicide centers. Death panels. Arsenic in McDonald's.

Seriously, if Obamacare actually HAD called for "Death Panels" -- in other words, a group of people who could say "it is not worth spending $1 million of public money to give a 90-year old woman an additional year of life hooked up to a dialysis machine" -- could any rational person argue that this would be a bad thing?

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Question: how are people determining the per-job cost of the stimulus bill? Perhaps someone can send me to a cite or site where that calculation is made.

Sorry, I'm not your google-bitch.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

Sorry, I'm not your google-bitch.

Look, you're the one concluding the cost per job was extraordinarily high, a conclusion neither you nor Michele Bachmann nor Clubby seem to be giving me a source for - I understand why Michele and Clubby don't want to think about the question.

And what is this google-bitch bitch - are you getting lazy on a Friday?

[Adder]

Originally Posted by LessinSF

Suicide centers. Death panels. Arsenic in McDonald's.

Your view is that the Black Death was stimulative? I believe that's at odds with historical economic understanding.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Adder

Your view is that the Black Death was stimulative? I believe that's at odds with historical economic understanding.

Actually, it was pretty good for the survivors. Things were down for a while, but there is an argument that the economic surplus caused by the rapid population drop was one of the causes of the European Renaissance. There are a lot of historians who would argue (and have argued) that it was, in the long term, stimulative.

Of course, the drop in population was worldwide, so maybe it's not really the best explanation.

Do you actually read history?

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Actually, it was pretty good for the survivors. Things were down for a while, but there is an argument that the economic surplus caused by the rapid population drop was one of the causes of the European Renaissance. There are a lot of historians who would argue (and have argued) that it was, in the long term, stimulative.

You are talking about a very long term.

Do you actually read history?

Yes, and the near and mid-term effects were devastating. Which should be obvious.

ETA: Alternate answer: I like to get all my medieval history from Ken Follett.