More stimulus?

inlet13

So, let's see...

can we have a straight MT vote on:

....... more stimulus or not?


(seriously, can you not troll this thread and just vote yes or no, please?... I'm really curious of the answer).

brianlux

I'll stick my neck out and say no. I don't see stimulating an unsustainable way of living and doing business the answer to anything other than the very, very short-term. True green/local economy coupled with learning to live with less... that kind of stimulous I would definitiely vote for.

Oh wait, were you talking about that morning cup of coffee stimulus thing? Oh, hell yes!

markin ball

Define stimulus.

gimmesometruth27

more stimulus?

yes.

inlet13

markin ball wrote:

Define stimulus.

This could be defined a large government approved stamp on government spending in various ways (to individuals, other governments or maybe even corporations) with the goal to create jobs.

unsung

Never

81

depends....on what it is....

we need to cut the military to pay for it

usamamasan1

no.

tired of paying for others stims. Government can't "create" jobs. they can only create an environment conducive to do so for the private sector. I never got a single "stim" check. Didn't get any first time homebuyer credit. Nada. I pay in and I get shit back. I guess I pay too much to get any of my money back...



wtf is that? Ass backwards if you ask me.

OP, what's your vote?

RFTC

usamamasan1 wrote:

no.

tired of paying for others stims. I never got a single "stim" check. Didn't get any first time homebuyer credit. Nada. I pay in and I get shit back. I guess I pay too much to get any of my money back...

I think I have never got a tax refund, or whatever those are...

wtf is that? Ass backwards if you ask me.

eh, check your paystub, i.e. payroll tax cut (check politifact) or your brokerage statements (tarp by W). if you think the stimulus did nada you have a short memory.

tarp had a shit ton of problems but it can already be viewed as a factual boost to the market from the bottom of 2008. if you cashed out and missed the 'recovery' to 12k i am sorry...

having said that, i am short the market but mainly due to ECB shitting the bed right now, i.e. dealing with what we had in 2008.

usamamasan1

You didn't answer the op question smarty pants

Payroll tax.,.lol

RFTC

usamamasan1 wrote:

You didn't answer the op question smarty pants

Payroll tax.,.lol

i know :? , but i bet you have $ in the market and have benefited from the 1st round of stim, no?

Prince Of Dorkness

My gut says yes.

But I want to make sure that it's to the right places.

I want infrastructure. I want new bridges, I want high-speed rails, I want more jobs that can't be out-sourced like fixing things that need to be fixed and building things that will improve American lives. We need to stop patting ourselves for being the "greatest country in the world," admit we're not even close and do something about it. Maybe bring highest-speed internet to the whole country, invest in inner-city schools and projects that mean something.

Not just gifts to huge corporations with nothing to stop them from just donating it back to lobbyists.

RFTC

RFTC wrote:

usamamasan1 wrote:

You didn't answer the op question smarty pants

Payroll tax.,.lol

i know :? , but i bet you have $ in the market and have benefited from the 1st round of stim, no?

further response as i did not anwer op per my buddy mamasan, i would be ok with a targeted stim for job growth. in particular tax credits for hiring, as an SMB owner, that would accelerate my hiring efforts beyond current. heard perry talk about cutting offshore tax from 35% to zero if they 'promised' to hire, fk that, make it real. you hire a FTE you get the tax credit. SMB would lead the way, don't count on fortune 500 to do as much.

keeponrockin

Prince Of Dorkness wrote:

My gut says yes.

But I want to make sure that it's to the right places.

I want infrastructure. I want new bridges, I want high-speed rails, I want more jobs that can't be out-sourced like fixing things that need to be fixed and building things that will improve American lives. We need to stop patting ourselves for being the "greatest country in the world," admit we're not even close and do something about it. Maybe bring highest-speed internet to the whole country, invest in inner-city schools and projects that mean something.

Not just gifts to huge corporations with nothing to stop them from just donating it back to lobbyists.

This.

satansbed

what should, but can't be done is to cut spending and increase taxes a bit until the debt crises is sorted, once that is sorted you can then start rebooting the economy, however, this is politicly impossible, so some tax cuts that boost job creation such as a payroll tax cut etc. and infrastucture spending would be needed to kick start the economy, this should be followed by closing tax loopholes and and increasing tax on people who make over a mil a year

butterjam

No stimulus. It does not work. Why do we have to cut our spending when times are tough, but our gov't gives itself a larger budget and raises? That is just bad economics.

The stimulus just falsely props up businesses that would otherwise fail. My company will grow when there is a real demand, and not false money, making it grow.

MotoDC

Just say no to fiscal drugs.

mikepegg44

No. The government should not be propping up failing businesses. No company is too big to fail.

Infrastructure investment should not be considered stimulus. It should be considered the cost of being a government.

inlet13

Right now, looks like the majority (at least in this thread) side with "no".

I am also a "no" voter.

Godfather.

keeponrockin wrote:

Prince Of Dorkness wrote:

My gut says yes.

But I want to make sure that it's to the right places.

I want infrastructure. I want new bridges, I want high-speed rails, I want more jobs that can't be out-sourced like fixing things that need to be fixed and building things that will improve American lives. We need to stop patting ourselves for being the "greatest country in the world," admit we're not even close and do something about it. Maybe bring highest-speed internet to the whole country, invest in inner-city schools and projects that mean something.

Not just gifts to huge corporations with nothing to stop them from just donating it back to lobbyists.

This.

and 3rd this ! :thumbup: ....except the greatest country thing cause we are


Godfather.

markin ball

mikepegg44 wrote:

No. The government should not be propping up failing businesses. No company is too big to fail.

Infrastructure investment should not be considered stimulus. It should be considered the cost of being a government.

Can infrastructure investment act as a stimulus, though? Surely those projects put people to work and then the workers have money to create demand for goods and services, and the snowball begins. Business and production are very dependent on efficient infrastructure so aren't there longer term benefits as well?

inlet13

markin ball wrote:

mikepegg44 wrote:

No. The government should not be propping up failing businesses. No company is too big to fail.

Infrastructure investment should not be considered stimulus. It should be considered the cost of being a government.

Can infrastructure investment act as a stimulus, though? Surely those projects put people to work and then the workers have money to create demand for goods and services, and the snowball begins. Business and production are very dependent on efficient infrastructure so aren't there longer term benefits as well?

Even if what you said was true, where does the original money come from?

mikepegg44

markin ball wrote:

mikepegg44 wrote:

No. The government should not be propping up failing businesses. No company is too big to fail.

Infrastructure investment should not be considered stimulus. It should be considered the cost of being a government.

Can infrastructure investment act as a stimulus, though? Surely those projects put people to work and then the workers have money to create demand for goods and services, and the snowball begins. Business and production are very dependent on efficient infrastructure so aren't there longer term benefits as well?

what I am saying is simple...infrastructure should be an on going investment. We shouldn't need stimulus packages to keep interstates in workable condition. It shouldn't be looked at as a stimulus to the economy, these are the kinds of things that the federal government should be concerning itself with. These are the things that the government should worry about, not whether someone wants to smoke a J or buy a pack of cigarettes...and so that we aren't getting ripped off, we should really think about repealing the laws like the davis-bacon act...

mikepegg44

inlet13 wrote:

markin ball wrote:

mikepegg44 wrote:

No. The government should not be propping up failing businesses. No company is too big to fail.

Infrastructure investment should not be considered stimulus. It should be considered the cost of being a government.

Can infrastructure investment act as a stimulus, though? Surely those projects put people to work and then the workers have money to create demand for goods and services, and the snowball begins. Business and production are very dependent on efficient infrastructure so aren't there longer term benefits as well?

Even if what you said was true, where does the original money come from?

if I understand you correctly are you getting to the point that money should not be borrowed to pay for a stimulus? Is that the bigger question?

Godfather.

inlet13 wrote:

markin ball wrote:

mikepegg44 wrote:

No. The government should not be propping up failing businesses. No company is too big to fail.

Infrastructure investment should not be considered stimulus. It should be considered the cost of being a government.

Can infrastructure investment act as a stimulus, though? Surely those projects put people to work and then the workers have money to create demand for goods and services, and the snowball begins. Business and production are very dependent on efficient infrastructure so aren't there longer term benefits as well?

Even if what you said was true, where does the original money come from?

we can stop with the aid to other countrys and use it to get started.

Godfather.

markin ball

inlet13 wrote:

markin ball wrote:

mikepegg44 wrote:

No. The government should not be propping up failing businesses. No company is too big to fail.

Infrastructure investment should not be considered stimulus. It should be considered the cost of being a government.

Can infrastructure investment act as a stimulus, though? Surely those projects put people to work and then the workers have money to create demand for goods and services, and the snowball begins. Business and production are very dependent on efficient infrastructure so aren't there longer term benefits as well?

Even if what you said was true, where does the original money come from?

The same place all money comes from in a central bank/fractional reserve system...thin air.

So yes, I say if a heavy investment in infrastructure is properly analyzed and targeted wisely, and is not done half-assed and is an earnest attempt at growth for the entire economy, I say go ahead and put it on the credit card. Gotta spend money to make money.

inlet13

mikepegg44 wrote:

inlet13 wrote:

Even if what you said was true, where does the original money come from?

if I understand you correctly are you getting to the point that money should not be borrowed to pay for a stimulus? Is that the bigger question?

I was trying to hint at this:

Government can't fund anything by itself. It needs tax money in order to do anything. The reality is when you're in a recession tax revenues are very, very low. In order to spend money on anything now, the government would have to tap the ol' credit card. Therefore, they'd pay interest on a loan to obtain money to give a guy a job for a few months working on infrastructure. It's the equivalent of you paying someone with cash advances off your credit card to mow your lawn and claiming that you "created" a job. I'd say you created debt and a "chore" for some poor soul that will be out of work again in 30 minutes.

My logic is simple: Government (all parties involved) should stop saying they can "create jobs". First, if a job is created via stimulus its normally a very short term job (because the reality is it's not a necessity). Second, government only creates jobs by taking money away from the private market which could potentially otherwise support real sustained job growth. Sure, the private sector is not experience rapid job growth... but, I'd argue there's a f'ing reason for that, they don't want to F over more people down the line. I'd instruct the government to cut back their own expenses, bit their lip and suck it up for a bit like the rest of us have been doing for 3+ years.

markin ball

mikepegg44 wrote:

markin ball wrote:

mikepegg44 wrote:

No. The government should not be propping up failing businesses. No company is too big to fail.

Infrastructure investment should not be considered stimulus. It should be considered the cost of being a government.

Can infrastructure investment act as a stimulus, though? Surely those projects put people to work and then the workers have money to create demand for goods and services, and the snowball begins. Business and production are very dependent on efficient infrastructure so aren't there longer term benefits as well?

what I am saying is simple...infrastructure should be an on going investment. We shouldn't need stimulus packages to keep interstates in workable condition. It shouldn't be looked at as a stimulus to the economy, these are the kinds of things that the federal government should be concerning itself with. These are the things that the government should worry about, not whether someone wants to smoke a J or buy a pack of cigarettes...and so that we aren't getting ripped off, we should really think about repealing the laws like the davis-bacon act...

I agree. We have to have the political courage to start making better long term policy decisions in local, state and federal governments.

inlet13

markin ball wrote:

inlet13 wrote:

]

Even if what you said was true, where does the original money come from?

The same place all money comes from in a central bank/fractional reserve system...thin air.

So yes, I say if a heavy investment in infrastructure is properly analyzed and targeted wisely, and is not done half-assed and is an earnest attempt at growth for the entire economy, I say go ahead and put it on the credit card. Gotta spend money to make money.

Printing money comes with a very large price tag and the type of job you speak of will be short-lived with no real triggers to grow the economy. Moreover, those who took the government stimulus job will be right back out of work once the project is completed.

The harsh reality of all this is jobs are created when they are needed. Not the other way around.

markin ball

inlet13 wrote:

markin ball wrote:

inlet13 wrote:

]

Even if what you said was true, where does the original money come from?

The same place all money comes from in a central bank/fractional reserve system...thin air.

So yes, I say if a heavy investment in infrastructure is properly analyzed and targeted wisely, and is not done half-assed and is an earnest attempt at growth for the entire economy, I say go ahead and put it on the credit card. Gotta spend money to make money.

Printing money comes with a very large price tag and the type of job you speak of will be short-lived with no real triggers to grow the economy. Moreover, those who took the government stimulus job will be right back out of work once the project is completed.

The harsh reality of all this is jobs are created when they are needed. Not the other way around.

I agree. Demand creates jobs. So, two questions...

How do we "stimulate" demand?

How did the U.S. economy get out of the Great Depression?

inlet13

markin ball wrote:

I agree. Demand creates jobs. So, two questions...

How do we "stimulate" demand?

How did the U.S. economy get out of the Great Depression?

I don't agree necessarily that "demand" creates jobs. I think in some cases, it's a chicken and an egg type situation between supply and demand. In a sense, ideas create jobs, I'd argue... and with that the supply aspect is probably more important.

As far as demand goes, I don't think we should stimulate it. I believe our government has tried to "prop-up" demand with the past stimulus, and although it may work temporarily, it always crashes back. On net, I think it makes matters worse.

The goal on the demand side should be to set the table and make it easy for consumers to spend again, once they feel comfortable. Not to try to force them to. I think the former makes consumers actually feel more comfortable and I do think psychology matters here.

For the Great Depression my answer would be that it took a hell of a lot of time. In my opinion, more time than it should have due to our policies.

I believe during a recession like the current one, the best move is to do what companies did. Our government should have done the same. The goal should be to cut back severely once the recession sets in, not expand. That way, you decrease spending with the recession.... will this hurt more? Yes. But, the duration of pain will be lessened. Look at the Great Depression for proof that Keynesian stimulus only prolongs recessions.

I'd rather be punched hard in the face and maybe even knocked out "once", then be repetitively punched in the stomach for years and years.