Media Appearance: Dylan Ratigan Show (9/13/10)
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I will be swinging by Dylan’s place this afternoon about 4:20pm to discuss the stimulus, tax cuts and infrastructure spending.
A few bullet points:
• Why has “Stimulus” become a dirty word?
-Might it be blowback for the reviled TARP and Bank Bailouts ?• What was the impact of stimulus spending?
-Surowiecki notes Unemployment was reduced by 1-2%, GDP boosted by 2%, G.D.P. would have been half a trillion dollars lower/• Can Infrastructure spending improve the Economy?
-The government can do what the private sector cannot — namely, longer projects and basic science• Do not underestimate the new Capital Spending Business Tax Credit!
- When we last did a more modest version of this tax credit, it had a big impact (More on this later this week)
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UPDATE: September 13, 2010 6:27pm
Video is here
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September 13th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
be sure to mention things like solar roadways…
also BR…why doesn’t anyone talk about the churn in labor stats? e.g. nobody talks about labor with respect to the fact that every week 450k new people are out of work…yet at the end of the month…we net out at 50k jobs lost….to me that means nearly 2 million jobs are churning through the economy every month….this has been happening for many many months now.
anyway potential foder for future post? Or am I just an idiot?
September 13th, 2010 at 4:09 pm
Rather than say ‘basic science’, I would characterize it better as “pure research” (as opposed to directed or applied research for a particular product). The sort of stuff that goes into this category would be research that has no applicable, direct product application in the near-term future.
An example would have been computer networking research in the early 70′s. Sure, making computers talk to each other back then could be applied – between government labs or research school locations. There was no way a cisco or Juniper were going to start making coin on the research, however, until much later.
September 13th, 2010 at 4:17 pm
I just flipped the channel from the Doosh’s show…he’s in the same category as Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, IMO. All three trade in simple-mindedness.
I’ll flip back for you, Barry, but no guarantees that I’ll be able to keep my lunch down if Doosh talks too much.
September 13th, 2010 at 4:22 pm
Great comments, Barry. I agree that Obama inexplicably disappeared at a time when he needed to communicate what was going on to the American people. Also agree on the value of infrastructure–I’m so sick of hearing idiots take the price of a bridge, divide it by the number of jobs created, and then say “we spent $500k per job!!!” As if the materials used didn’t cost anything and the bridge was blown up at the end of the project!
September 13th, 2010 at 4:41 pm
1) F411: You have grown grasshopper. Pardon my sarcasm. I don’t need to rehash old postings (heaven forfend someone rehashes mine) but you are now an independent thinker. Someday you may even be as bad as me.
2) Here’s some insight of how bad the govt manipulation of all things financial has messed up all the reference points: I was thinking about investing a few percent of my stash in a nice, safe govt bond income fund. The current and long term history looks OK, but the past few months has jumped a lot in NAV, and the rate (current and long term) is about 6%. All I could think about was “how is the Fed going to screw this up?’ I’ll watch it for a few weeks to see if there is any correlation of returns with current events. If it still looks OK, then maybe 5% to 10% will go there. A few years ago, this would have been a savings account.
September 13th, 2010 at 5:21 pm
Infrastructure spending – Where’s Lyndon Johnson when you really need him? The Dems have no one close to LBJ that knows how to get stuff built. Or Robert Moses to write the bills.
September 13th, 2010 at 5:26 pm
Question: “…Why has stimulus become a dirty word?”
Answer: Advertising.
“…Republican-oriented organizations that are set up so that they can accept donations of unlimited size from individuals and corporations without having to disclose them. The situation raises the possibility that a relatively small cadre of deep-pocketed donors, unknown to the general public, is shaping the battle for Congress in the early going…”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/14/us/politics/14money.html
September 13th, 2010 at 6:38 pm
@BR: Man your site zipped along nicely for about two days, and now it’s clearly bogged down again. I try to capture the links you’re going to but they spin by so fast in “small chunks” ; mostly “googleads”, “… yield…” . Your site is struggling desperately.
@BR and F411: Infrastructure investment. Sorry. Not going along. Fifty years ago, spectacular investments.
Today, entirely too top-loaded. What recently cost a million now costs a billion.
We are evolving way beyond Russia and other corrupt countries, like Afghan. Why not just put cash on pallets?
Just another form of pumping taxpayer dollars into fat cat pockets.
I wish it weren’t true, but it is. We’re cooked.
Find another way to juice the liberal party and the stock market if you can.
Don’t think you can.
So BR, the “libertarian” is looking for fed dole.
September 13th, 2010 at 6:41 pm
1) The adverts are the issue — I have the tech team looking at them.
(I checked the Twitter stream, and its new FM code — bad mojo )
2) Alternative to good policy is bad policy. No politician will sit around and do nothing (Deficits !) and lose a race – so they do something bad.
September 13th, 2010 at 7:06 pm
>> Why has “Stimulus” become a dirty word?
>> Might it be blowback for the reviled TARP and Bank Bailouts ?
Consider this alternate timeline: If government had *first* hired unemployed construction workers for a Pickens Plan, gave the FDIC enough money to close the insolvent banks, etc., then any later attempt to bail out bondholders and bank equity holders would’ve faced the “uphill battle” — instead of the other way around.
Deliberate? Was this “do-the-wrong-thing-first” tactic discussed in any of the usual literary references that unfortunately seem to serve as “guidebooks” for how our politicians run government? (The Prince, 1984, Brave New World…To Serve Man…) Just wondering.
September 13th, 2010 at 7:46 pm
I’ve been watching some road building and repair projects here in Northern Virginia. The stimulus would go a lot further if we required a large percentage of the work be done with picks and shovels instead of earth-moving equipment. I can’t help but think that the guy driving the bulldozer will be out of a job in a matter of months, while the Corporatist fuck who owns the company with the construction contract will end up with an asset he won’t need (the bulldozer), and an unfair share of taxpayer money lining his bank account when the project is completed.
We need a new WPA and CCC.
September 13th, 2010 at 7:51 pm
franklin411 Says:
September 13th, 2010 at 4:17 pm
I just flipped the channel from the Doosh’s show…
_______
Doocy was a lightweight correspondent here in the DC area in the ’80s (covering things like a bake sale at the local down-and-out high school). That experience must have been pivotal in unleashing the world class douchebag we now see on Fox.
I’d like to kick his ass.
September 13th, 2010 at 8:14 pm
Speaking of Virginia, public works and persistent value, here is a brief exercise in compare and contrast:
Douthat State Park vs. McGuffey Park- Charlottesville- guess which one is in better repair.
From the website (http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/state_parks/dou.shtml)
HISTORY: Douthat was one of six state parks planned by the Commonwealth in the early 1930s. The initial 1,920 acres of the present-day park was donated by the Douthat Land Company, a consortium of Virginia businessmen. The rest of the land was purchased with a portion of the $50,000 in funds allocated by the General Assembly in 1933 for park land acquisition. The establishment of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) as part of the emergency Conservation Works by President Roosevelt in 1933 provided the means for development of the parks. An estimated 600 men lived and worked at the three camps responsible for building Douthat’s facilities…….
McGuffey (http://www.charlottesville.org/index.aspx?page=360)
“The last major renovation of a city park was McGuffey Park, the little 1.1-acre park and playground next door to the McGuffey Art Center on Second Street NW. That park improvement cost the city $400,000 (the total cost of the project, thanks to $300,000 in private donations, was a whopping $700,000), a price tag some felt was too high for such a small park serving a select downtown demographic. At the time, former Parks & Rec director Mike Svetz repeatedly defended the focus on the tiny McGuffey project by mentioning the plans for Forest Hills.”
http://www.readthehook.com/blog/index.php/2009/09/22/sprayground-breaking-forest-hills-park-project-underway/
September 13th, 2010 at 8:17 pm
PW-
“while the Corporatist fuck who…”
It is as if you’ve read my business card:
Otto P. Muckerfuss
Chief Corporatist Fuck & Comptroller
September 13th, 2010 at 8:42 pm
louis Says:
September 13th, 2010 at 5:21 pm
Infrastructure spending – Where’s Lyndon Johnson when you really need him? The Dems have no one close to LBJ that knows how to get stuff built. Or Robert Moses to write the bills.
_____________
Could you imagine Obama doing this:
http://www.presidentialpetmuseum.com/photos/Pets/Him-Ears-Lifted.jpg
or this:
http://images.visualeditors.com/apple/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/0801charlestasnadi3.jpg
September 13th, 2010 at 8:51 pm
Moody’s Blows Up RightWing Galt Theory:
RICH AMERICANS SAVE TAX CUTS INSTEAD OF SPENDING
(Bloomberg) – Hand the wealthiest Americans a tax cut and history suggests they will save the money rather than spend it.
Tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 under President George W. Bush were followed by increases in the saving rate among the rich, according to data from Moody’s Analytics Inc. When taxes were raised under Bill Clinton, the saving rate fell.
The findings may weaken arguments by Republicans and some Democrats in Congress who say allowing the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans to lapse will prompt them to reduce their spending, harming the economy. President Barack Obama wants to extend the cuts for individuals earning less than $200,000 and couples earning less than $250,000 while ending them for those who earn more.
MORE:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-13/rich-americans-save-money-from-tax-cuts-instead-of-spending-moody-s-says.html
September 13th, 2010 at 9:14 pm
Joe Friday:
Trickle down does not work. Ever. Why the hell would anyone do anything but keep free money? Trickle down is the false utopia, zero velocity is the reality.