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780 BILLION dollar stimulus package

DanMa1156

Is it baseball season yet?
pilot
Contributor
I'm not sure why everyone is afraid of hyperinflation all of a sudden. Inflation is the least of our problems. Right now, the economy is on the brink of deflation. Commodity prices are dropping (have you seen the price of oil lately?) and there's an overstock of durable goods like cars and housing, which are driving down the price of goods. The one tool the Fed has to reignite demand (and counter deflation), the discount rate, is effectively at 0 percent. The federal reserve is running out of monetary tools to fight the recession, that only leaves fiscal tools (like the stimulus) to deal with the recession.

Many of these statements are exactly what many academic Economists are thinking themselves. With the first spending bill we were worried about deflation as people delay purchases and prices spiral downward, causing only more delayed purchases as people anticipate lower prices, causing job losses, which again causes delayed purchases now that people don't have expendable income. As you can see, it's a nasty downward spiral. Our situation ought to be more likened to the Japanese recession throughout the entire decade of the '90s than Zimbabwe. The Japanese refused to do government spending fearing inflation, yet this ended up being one of the main reasons they finally got out of their deflationary spiral.

And also, the countries who own our debt aren't looking for monetary payments. That's not how it works, it's not like the American government is like "uh yeah, we'll give you some money." It's about production capability. By owning our debt, they own our products we produce when they choose to purchase them. This isn't necessarily a bad thing per se, as we get their cheaper products (seriously imagine the market devoid of Chinese goods) and they will get our products they want that we can produce cheaper/more effectively. The silver lining there is that means they will keep Americans employed.

Look, obviously, we're not in a great economic state at all. But I really think the fallout from all of this will be a lot of learned lessons and better policy in the long run. Look how much we learned from the Great Depression. I'm not a supporter necessarily of where the money is going, but it seems like there is a lot of confusion about how foreign debt and inflation works. Another thing to keep in mind is the government often "monetizes" the debt on purpose (sometimes up to 12% a year or more)... the basic theory is that if you inflate money, the debt effectively is worth less and then is easier to pay off. Obviously there are pluses and minuses to it, but, yes we do it.
 

The Chief

Retired
Contributor
... worth less and then is easier to pay off. Obviously there are pluses and minuses to it, but, yes we do it.

Thoughtful post.

Old school I guess, but it all seems counter-intuitive, somehow.

We as taxpayers are horribly in debt. Then we as taxpayers, say we should go horribly more in debt, spend ungodly amounts of money that we do not have thinking that will get us out of debt, money that we must borrow from the Japanese and Chinese?

Further, a large portion of our crews currently working on the so call infastructure projects are illegals from south of the border, at best quasi-legals as we have about, by some accounts, 20 million illegals here looking for work.. It does not seem we are addressing the problem.

Deflation? Seems I see prices going up, mostly. Bought a bunch of celery this morning cost me over $3.00. Yup, housing is down, but what did you think would happen? When a short time ago we had whole bunch of folk buying condo's in SOCAL (substitute any metro area samo samo) for a million $$$, their true worth about $200K, tops. And we want to bail those folks out?

The depression of the 1930s? Hey, news flash, we no longer have the same economy as we did in 1930. The dynamics have changed, many old solutions, which many did not work anyway, certainly will not work here.

Yes, negative view, I know. But I believe we are in for a shock, I do not think that after spending over a TRILLION dollars in money we do not have, we will be any better off than we are now. Just trillion dollars deeper in debt.

I pity the folks that have actually saved money and are on the brink of their assets becoming worthless. Yes, post stimulus, we will try to inflate our way out of debt. That is all we will have left.
 

DanMa1156

Is it baseball season yet?
pilot
Contributor
Master Chief, don't get me wrong, I'm not a huge fan of what we're doing in this stimulus bill, mostly because I don't think many of the places the money is going are "stimulative," though I admit I'm not chock full of ideas either.

Nonetheless - my previous post was to clarify some misconceptions I think people have with current events and things they hear. I'm not saying inflation is impossible as a result of this, just that, deflation I think would be much worse off. It's a downward spiral that America has really never had too many harad bouts with. The Japanese of the '90s certainly can speak about it and we're trying to avoid that.

What about balancing the budget? Hoover tried to do just that to serve as an example to the American people and that only deepened the depression for several reasons (which would still be applicable today).

And, deflation has occured, though in manageable amounts. Last year, October saw the largest drop in prices (1%) that had occured in American products since the 1960s. There was a deflationary period from September through December as well (a lot of this coincided with the price of oil falling off the table). May not sound like much, but it's not a good indication and you need to keep in mind that it's being compared to a historical monthly rise. Sure, individual products will continue to have their peaks and valleys in pricing, especially in seasonable agricultural products, but overall, prices are/have been going down in America. If it leads to aggregate deflation... that's some bad news.
 

MasterBates

Well-Known Member
Any if anyone want to say we spent our way out of the great depression, it's not that true.

WWII got us out of the depression. Big gov't policies like the CCC and TVA did not.
 

navy09

Registered User
None
Any if anyone want to say we spent our way out of the great depression, it's not that true.

WWII got us out of the depression. Big gov't policies like the CCC and TVA did not.

You've been watching too much Fox News. You're absolutely wrong.

That said- you're on the right track- the markets are different now...way different, and we can't spend our way out of this one. Everything is on a much larger scale, and with that, the dynamics have changed too much to blindly apply a 70 year old economic policy to today's problem.

It's one of those times where you can't take a lesson from history because the game has changed too much.
 

HercDriver

Idiots w/boats = job security
pilot
Super Moderator
The fact that Obama is attempting to make money available to ACORN and contributors in Hollywood through this bill is proposterous. There's just way too much crap in it. I was watching his speech on how people are calling this a "spending" bill and that's what a stimulus is. Which is true, but when you're just spending money on a millions things that might create a few jobs here and there (how will funding for hybrid gov cars make more jobs?) makes the price per job that the government is spending absolutely ridiculous.

Was watching a senator speak on C-SPAN the other day about one part of the bill in which the projected job creation was so low that each job was costing the government over $5 million.

I'm glad that most republicans aren't supporting this (why would they?). So when this fails and the bill lands on its face, there won't be any "bipartisan" blame be spread around.
Where in the world do you get your information? No where does it mention ACORN in the bill. This bogus claim is based on a misrepresentation of a provision that would appropriate $4,190,000,000 "for neighborhood stabilization activities related to emergency assistance for the redevelopment of abandoned and foreclosed homes as authorized under division B, title III of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008." This provision requires that money will be distributed through competitive processes (a good thing, right?) It states that "not less than $3,440,000,000 shall be allocated by a competition" to "States, units of general local government, and nonprofit entities or consortia of nonprofit entities." It also provides that "up to $750,000,000 shall be awarded by competition to nonprofit entities or consortia of nonprofit entities to provide community stabilization assistance." The ACORN claim is a Republican talking point that has somehow floated through portions of the media.

I would love to see the "facts" that Senator was talking about regarding the $5 mil per job. Realistically, dividing the est number of jobs created by the cost of the bill is stupid (and $5 mil is a number pulled from his bum, I would guess as most republicans are saying $217,000), as it disregards infrastructure improvements, and investments in education and health care.

Not sure why the majority party feels like they need to get to 60 votes (trying to make the bill "bipartisan", I suppose), as they should let the minority party filibuster. Corporate tax cuts are not as effective as other provisions in the bill (attachment from McCain economic advisor Mark Zandi in his written 2008 Congressional Testimony). Enormous tax cuts helped get us into this massive debt, so it is highly unlikely that it will get us out.
 

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DanMa1156

Is it baseball season yet?
pilot
Contributor
You've been watching too much Fox News. You're absolutely wrong.

That said- you're on the right track- the markets are different now...way different, and we can't spend our way out of this one. Everything is on a much larger scale, and with that, the dynamics have changed too much to blindly apply a 70 year old economic policy to today's problem.

It's one of those times where you can't take a lesson from history because the game has changed too much.

How is he wrong? Most Academic Economists agree that many of the public works programs just put a pause or delay at best on the Great Depression while not doing much to solve it. Just wondering where you're coming from.
 

MasterBates

Well-Known Member
I was going to ask the same question myself. WWII gave the economy the huge shot in the arm it needed, but at the expense of a huge (for the time) debt.

Most of FDRs programs were feel-good "hey we are doing SOMETHING" programs. TVA may be the exception to that, but that would have been normal infrastructure upkeep.
 

skidkid

CAS Czar
pilot
Super Moderator
Contributor
You've been watching too much Fox News. You're absolutely wrong.

Actually he is spot on, as soon as the Fed stopped spending on make work projects the economy shrank. WW II namely selling arms to the the combatants then buying them for us to use did what the new deal couldnt. By the way those weapons were manufactured by the private sector. After the war we were the only nation whose industry hadnt been bombed into rubble so we were manufacturers to the world. Now if you want to argue the civic virtue of young men going to work any work fine but not as a economic recovery.

said- you're on the right track- the markets are different now...way different, and we can't spend our way out of this one. Everything is on a much larger scale, and with that, the dynamics have changed too much to blindly apply a 70 year old economic policy to today's problem.

[one of those times where you can't take a lesson from history because the game has changed too much.


Take a breath and read that one more time is that what you truly wish to say?
 

navy09

Registered User
None
Check out GDP and employment numbers for the time period (pre-crash to just before we entered the War).

You'll see a full recovery in both of those indicators. GDP is ~20% higher in 1940 (pre-WW2) than in 1929/30 right after the crash. That's a fact. What exactly did that is a cause for speculation. The New Deal played a major role in the recovery, no doubt.

Now I guess we'll never know for sure what would have happened if WW2 hadn't started. WW2 definitely elevated us to superpower status economically, but we *probably* would have been OK without it (my opinion, obviously).

Again there were a lot of factors at work, and it WOULD NOT work now. But Master, your original quote was incorrect.
 

MasterBates

Well-Known Member
And what do you think was driving our numbers up in 1940.

Hint- Certain countries were buying a lot of stuff from us, and the re-armament of the US Military seeing war on the horizon is a good chunk of that.

The CCC did not pull us out. The REA did not. The TVA did not. In fact, the TVA probably cost more jobs than it made, but the flood control and power plants were aruably worth it.
 

navy09

Registered User
None
Actually he is spot on, as soon as the Fed stopped spending on make work projects the economy shrank.

OK...

WW II namely selling arms to the the combatants then buying them for us to use did what the new deal couldnt. By the way those weapons were manufactured by the private sector. After the war we were the only nation whose industry hadnt been bombed into rubble so we were manufacturers to the world. Now if you want to argue the civic virtue of young men going to work any work fine but not as a economic recovery.

All you're saying is that WW2 helped us- I'm not arguing that. I was great for our economy. Saying that it's the sole reason our economy bounced back after the Great Depression is wrong.
 

navy09

Registered User
None
And what do you think was driving our numbers up in 1940.

Fair enough. Assume that militarization associated with WW2 started in mid-1939 and probably didn't really get going until 1940. GDP had returned to 1929 boom levels by 1936.
 

The Chief

Retired
Contributor
.... Enormous tax cuts helped get us into this massive debt, so it is highly unlikely that it will get us out.

Correct me if I am wrong but ...... enormous spending got us into massive debt, enormous tax cuts prevented us from paying for that spending. Just think we need to understand that we are going to need to pay a whole lot more in taxes if we keep spending a whole lot of money. A spending drunk congress with a Pres with a rubber stamp caused the huge spending in the last 8 years. I do not recall one single spending program that Pres Bush rejected, could be wrong.

Where is the vodka?:eek:
 

SkywardET

Contrarian
I think massive deflation will happen before we suffer Zimbabwe's fate... but I'm no reputable economist.

Skyward, that's why men and women like us took oaths to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. The Constitution includes the Bill of Rights, let us be reminded.
If our government was overthrown, we would be SOL trying to get our rights or Constitution back. It isn't usually "certain inalienable rights"-conscious people who take over countries during collapses, catastrophes, and/or violence; they are usually rather psychopathic, selfish, and greedy. But, like I said, that's why hundreds of thousands of Americans like us have taken those oaths, to prevent such a catastrophe and to defend our country, even if it is unpopular to do so.
You are right, but I wasn't implying that our nation would have some sort of revolution. I don't think that's plausible because of the huge integration of our military for one thing, and the militarization of our police forces for another. If it just so happens that some other nations have violent overthrows of government and the wrong types of people come into power, then...

As for deflation versus inflation, I think the events will play themselves out in the coming years and everyone without assets or jobs will be devastated. Since American companies/institutions have previously liquidated numerous assets such as landmarks and countless skyscrapers and so forth, that leaves us up a creek after having sold the paddles.

Any comparison between the current situation and the Great Depression isn't valid. Despite the crash of 1929, we still had a real economy then. We don't have a real economy right now; or at least the proportion of fake economy is huge now compared to then. Our recent economy has been adding cost to things (i.e.: real estate) without adding any value, hence the bubble that ultimately burst and all the losses incurred from it. Where will that missing "economy" come from? We're knee deep in trying to revive our fake economy via the Federal Reserve's actions (btw, PLEASE look into what I mean by that; look at the video below at least until the 90 second mark) and TARP and so forth, so what's left for a real economy?


I've been looking into this stuff perhaps too deeply, but I've only scratched the surface and I'm terrified by it.


 
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