Guy Benson reports on the president’s latest press conference, so you don’t have to have had to suffer through it:
In summary: Pass this bill. It’s paid for. Republicans have no ideas. Mitch McConnell controls Congress. Independent economists love it. Millionaires and billionaires. Fair share. Not my fault. Japanese Tsunamis. I didn’t know. Bush. Pah-kee-stahn. Pass this bill.
What is it he wants us to do with the bill again?
I’m reminded of the conversation the doctor had with the 450 pound man. It goes something like this:
Doc: Eat less and exercise more.
Patient: You always say that!
D: That’s because I’ve got bookshelves full of studies that support my position.
P: But how do you know it will work for me?
D: Remember when you were 500 pounds?
P: Yes.
D: And then we got you to not have a second slice of pie after dinner, and take a walk after lunch. You lost 50 pounds, right?
P: Yes.
D: And you didn’t get out of breath walking from the recliner to the easy chair. So a modest reduction in food intake and a modest increase in exercise worked for you. Why do you think additional steps on the same lines wouldn’t work?
Substitute “stimulus” for “eat less and exercise more” while contemplating this graph.
Cool chart but the stimulus went to create/save mostly government jobs.
In any case, the chart doesn’t show the number of people who are unemployed or underemployed. The bar wouldn’t fit.
Chris, here is some actual data from the bls.gov site:
2001 – 63.7
2002 – 62.7
2003 – 62.3
2004 – 62.3
2005 – 62.7
2006 – 63.1
2007 – 63.0
2008 – 62.2
2009 – 59.3
2010 – 58.5
2011 – 58.5
These numbers are the “Employment-population ratio”. In other words, the percentage of people employed.
Note that it was at 66% for basically all of Bush’s time. Note that it has been steadily dropping ever since Obama started.
I believe basically everyone not drinking cool-aid knows this intuitively, and no pretty charts are going to change that. Current job growth is not even matching population growth!
It’s interesting that in Gerrib’s graph (good charting usually includes a legend on the graph explaining what it means); the first chart shows rate of job loss/creation by month. Note, that the second graph supposedly shows the same thing (don’t really know because again, lack of legend), but revisions were made showing that some job growth in May 2010 was revised to job loss.
Further, the first chart was supposedly from March 2011 with the second chart being more current as of August 2011; but why would a revision to May 2010 occur sometime between March 2011 and August 2011?
So in comtemplating the graphs, I find they are inconsistent. Somebody is not using the data correctly. Further, if the second chart is the accurate one, the first stimulus lasted 3 months (about the time of census worker hiring), then job creation corrected. The idea that the business cycle was changing shouldn’t be surprising to anyone, but the question is whether the stimulus positively or negatively affected the cycle. The second chart suggests it was a negative as we have declining job growth again. Some might call it the double dip, but then we already see a second dip after the first stimulus bill. Perhaps a third dip?
So the new unemployment data is out. Before Gerrib runs back to spin it with his chart, lets look at some a prevoius claim by David:
Current job growth is not even matching population growth!
What does the article written today tell us:
Employers have added an average of only 72,000 jobs in the past five months. The economy must create about twice as many consistently just to keep up with population growth.
The problem with Gerrib’s doctor analogy is Doctor Obama told us if only we passed ARRA; we’d never go past 8% unemployment. Now with sustained 9% unemployment, the same doctor wants us to try another dose of his treatment.
Why do you think additional steps on the same lines wouldn’t work?
Well, my other doctor says that since my blood pressure is 1760/1254 I have a life expectancy of 6 months. He says the 50 pounds I lost added 4 days to that estimate. I don’t go to him anymore since I decided to stop paying my health insurance premiums and rely on the free health care I’ll be recieving from Obamacare any-day-now. Sooo, if I eat only 2 donuts every morning instead of 3, what’s my prognosis?
Chris would like us all to regard Obama’s prescriptions as legitimate — but in reality they amount to burnt offerings on the altar of Hermes.
Obama keeps saying that several hundred billion dollars of new “stimulus” are needed to fix roads and bridges, allow states to hire teachers, cops and firefighters (which are local employees) and do all sorts of other good things. Why doesn’t anyone ask him what they did with about $800 billion of “stimulus” they allocated just 2 years ago to fix infrastructure and “create or save millions of jobs”? If twice as much “stimulus” didn’t fix those problems two years ago, how will half as much fix them now? Just what did they do with all that money, especially considering how Obama has admitted there’s no such thing as “shovel ready” projects?
Are there people actually stupid enough to believe him, I mean besides Chris?
We did fix stuff with the last stimulus (including the road outside my office) and prevent layoffs. Those local government employees are facing layoffs because the last stimulus ran out.
Another note regarding infrastructure – a huge chuck of it (like the Interstate system) got built in the 1960s, with 30-year designed lifespan. We’re going on 50 years since that was built. No matter what, we need to rebuild infrastructure.
I have a somewhat dented can I can sell you…
We are spending the same 2.5% percentage relative to GDP that we were spending back in the 50’s when the Interstate Highway System was being built. In fact, 2.5% is the highest level we’ve spent on infrastructure at any other point in our nations history. Nevermind the fact that our economy is 7 times larger now than it was in the 50’s. I don’t think it would be fair to say our current levels of spending are subdued to historical levels. But I’m totally shocked to hear Obama demand that we do less with more.
I mean to say, “I’m not totally shocked…”
In my area, the stimulus built sidewalks, not interstate. Most of the interstate bridges around here were already less than 20 years old, many of them much less. The highway construction done here was on U.S. highway, not interstate. I think it was funded by ARRA, which was the Bush stimulus, and would have probably been done anyway, as it was already scheduled. At least it was shovel ready!
Imagine if the private sector received the stimulus that went to government employees at the state and local level. Perhaps the jobs created would have generated the taxes to keep the government workers employed.
For the money multiplier to be effective it needs to be highly targeted. What part of the equation the money is directed at will greatly effect the outcome.
What is the best way to generate funding for government jobs, create more government jobs? Highly inefficient.
He’s right. The stimulus was used to put new roofs on buildings at JSC. About 5,000 less people work there, but the roofs don’t leak.
If he wants us to pass this bill, were going to need a lot more laxatives.
Hal Duston +2
random wordsRead a number of articles about this today from the AP, Rueters, ect.
There was barely a mention that the Democrats in the Senate are refusing to vote on the bill. An AP article had a single sentence about the Senate out of several thousand words bashing Republicans.
We did fix stuff with the last stimulus (including the road outside my office) and prevent layoffs. Those local government employees are facing layoffs because the last stimulus ran out.
Thank you Chris for making two very important points. Let’s start with the second… the money ran out. Why? Because it was spent by the wrong arrogant bastards on the wrong things. Those that would have spent the money if it wasn’t taken away from them would have done so, so that it would result in a continuous new level of spending. All companies do that. All government don’t.
The first point is the difference between a good economist and a bad one. The good one looks at BOTH SIDES of the equation. Not just that which is seen but the unseen result as well.
When you say did fix and didn’t layoff you are being deceitful. You may not mean to be (and to be generous you probably don’t) but to point out only one side of an equation, repeated, often and after others have shown you the other side has meaning.
Have you any idea what meaning (and there are a few possibilities?)
I used the March chart because that’s what I could quickly find. here’s October. Key takeaway:
Businesses added 137,000 jobs in September, while 34,000 jobs were lost in the public sector at the same time, thanks to budget cuts at the state and local level.
Again, Chris – the amazing Obama administration has magically summoned 137,000 new jobs! Let’s ignore the government job losses, as I believe that is a net gain to society.
The US gained about 250,000 new people in October!
In other words, after that amazing month brought to us by the Obama administration, we have more people out of work than we did before. And Obama is celebrating this as his greatness!
Really? Did you need to consult Sherlock Holmes to figure that out?
Having said that, gaining 137K beats the hell out of loosing 500K. The stimulus stopped the bleeding – now we need to infuse some blood.
You really believe that the longest recession and slowest jobs recovery in the modern era is a sign that Obama’s administration is doing the right thing? That they just need to do more?
Recession Data
Jobs Data