My God, you are an idiot.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

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.

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.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

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.

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?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

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?

I'm in the 21st century. Try to keep up.

[sgtclub]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

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.

No, I don't. It's just abundantly obvious to anyone with have a brain that the government does not deploy capital efficiently. Had they taken the $850B and let professionals invest the money, it may have actually be deployed in a manner that would have been worth the cost. You are on the other end of the spectrum. As long as the money is spent, it is "good" and if it doesn't work, it must be because we didn't spend enough. That is assinine.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sgtclub

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.

So someone is getting 8 times the normal flagman wage?

Or, what do you mean by waste? Paying too much for good thus resulting in extra profits for "job creators?". That trickles down, right? Paying higher than market wages? Oh, wait, more trickling.

Unless they are burning piles of cash, the waste you are talking about is no different from a tax cut for people who are pocketing the cash.

Originally Posted by sgtclub

Had they taken the $850B and let professionals invest the money, it may have actually be deployed in a manner that would have been worth the cost.

Ah, the investment professionals. I seem to recall some issues with them and their money deployment skills, but that was from like two years ago so I don't really remember what happened.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sgtclub

No, I don't. It's just abundantly obvious to anyone with have a brain that the government does not deploy capital efficiently.

I guess those brainy types never drive on federal highways. Or fly anywhere. They never take drugs or use treatments developed at NIH or with NIH grants. They never make use of universities, or use products developed from research done at federally sponsored universities.

All I can say is that these brainy people don't go out much, and must live sick and boring lives.

if it doesn't work, it must be because we didn't spend enough.

Is it really that hard to see how it isn't going to be enough if it's more than offset by state budget cuts?

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

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.

My fiscal reform plan proposes taxing billionaire democrats and republicans alike for the good of the nation, no matter whether their billions came direct from the government teat through wasteful stimulus giveaways, or through the miracle of free market financial wizardry such as selling distressed debt to the government and taking 0% loans from the Fed. Hence I am above this partisan squabble and have triangulated you all. Check. Mate.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sgtclub

No, I don't. It's just abundantly obvious to anyone with have a brain that the government does not deploy capital efficiently. Had they taken the $850B and let professionals invest the money, it may have actually be deployed in a manner that would have been worth the cost. You are on the other end of the spectrum. As long as the money is spent, it is "good" and if it doesn't work, it must be because we didn't spend enough. That is assinine.

Of course, much of the stimulus and just about all of the TARP essentially did invest in private enterprise. It is vastly easier to add teachers, for example, and generate more jobs per million invested than to invest in private enterprise and get the same bang for the buck on job creation.

The only situations where I've seen where I think there was more than one job for every $250K of federal investment were nonprofits hiring at pretty low wages or some (but not all) of the biotech mini-grants given out as part of the therapeutic discovery tax credit/grant program, where the funding went to startups who were desperately understaffed.

Otherwise, yeah, to create the jobs companies needed things like capital on their balance sheet, equipment for someone to use or operate, etc. We no longer live in a labor intensive economy.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by ironweed

Ah, the investment professionals. I seem to recall some issues with them and their money deployment skills, but that was from like two years ago so I don't really remember what happened.

you know, I'm sure at Enormous State U, then Florida Coastal and now amongst your ambulance chasing partners, you were/are seen as having a sparkling knack for satire, but that ties back into the IQ and education of your audience.

You may want to drop the act in the presence of Ivy leaguers, because you do not pull it off at our level.

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

you know, I'm sure at Enormous State U, then Florida Coastal and now amongst your ambulance chasing partners, you were/are seen as having a sparkling knack for satire, but that ties back into the IQ and education of your audience.

You may want to drop the act in the presence of Ivy leaguers, because you do not pull it off at our level.

Look, I know your unresolved resentment issues about working on Dorm Crew make you lash out and lose friends here, but as one who believes in the dignity of all labor I can assure you that I'm not judging you, ok?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by ironweed

Look, I know your unresolved resentment issues about working on Dorm Crew make you lash out and lose friends here, but as one who believes in the dignity of all labor I can assure you that I'm not judging you, ok?

I actually did that job. No scarves for me but about $100 in returnable bottle deposit fees! cha-ching!

The hottest girl in the dorm, like could have been in the BYU dance group hot, walked by me one morning as I was mopping the hallway. She gave me a look like you and I will give Adder if the three of us ever get together and he tries one of his jokes, her look was like "I wish they would make these people finish cleaning before I need to walk to the cafeteria." I had no chance with her, but still it was piercing, and the real fear was maybe some girls on my level feel the same, but hide it better?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sgtclub

No, I don't. It's just abundantly obvious to anyone with have a brain that the government does not deploy capital efficiently. Had they taken the $850B and let professionals invest the money, it may have actually be deployed in a manner that would have been worth the cost. You are on the other end of the spectrum. As long as the money is spent, it is "good" and if it doesn't work, it must be because we didn't spend enough. That is assinine.

Larry Summers and I probably both agree with you that the government does not deploy capital efficiently relative to private enterprise -- I'm pretty sure about Summers and very sure myself -- although there are some times when government actually is more efficient.* But that isn't an answer to what Summers is saying. Because in the current economy, government spending isn't crowding out other forms of spending. In usual circumstances, the fear about government spending is that it displaces other economic activity. As he explains, times are different right now. If you disagree with that, you have to actually engage with the point.

Whether or not the government deploys capital "efficiently," that capital stimulates the economy. If it takes three bureaucrats to process the paperwork for a construction loan, and those are three bureaucrats who otherwise wouldn't have jobs (if they would then that's not a cost), then you have three more people working, receiving a paycheck, and spending money on things. (Hank understands this, so he's trying to be difficult by imagining that government stimulus disappears into bank accounts of Democratics fatcats, never to be spent, except he then forgot that he understands this and started imagining that they spend it on Opus, which also would stimulate the economy.)

It is certainly true that federal expenditures can stimulate the economy in different ways, more and less effective, and that the stimulus bill has some less effective channels, thanks to Congress (and particularly to conservative hostility to some of the forms of spending with higher multipliers). But that's not a question about whether it works at all, that's a question about how best to do the sort of thing Summers is talking about.

Most Republicans are very happy not to stimulate the economy because they don't want to see Obama get a legislative victory, and they have a fundamental philosophical objection to anything the government does that doesn't involve putting people in prison or killing people in foreign countries. If people are unemployed, it's their fault for losing a job. But they know that this doesn't go over well, so they contrive economic theories to explain why those are the best outcomes.

* E.g., in healthcare spending or student loans, the government covers enough people that it can strike a better deal with providers when the Republicans let it.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

"Look. he's buying Opus!" guy what numb nuts, he would be anyway.

Were you drunk when you wrote that sentence?

Would it have mattered?

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by sgtclub

No, I don't. It's just abundantly obvious to anyone with have a brain that the government does not deploy capital efficiently. Had they taken the $850B and let professionals invest the money, it may have actually be deployed in a manner that would have been worth the cost.

Professionals like Lehman Bros?