Bob Herbert: "Anyone who believes the Obama stimulus will turn this jobs crisis around is deluded"

[brentspeak]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/11/opinion/11herbert.html?_r=3&ref=opinion

By BOB HERBERT
Published: July 10, 2009
Vice President Joe Biden told us this week that the Obama administration “misread how bad the economy was” in the immediate aftermath of the inauguration.

Puh-leeze. Mr. Biden and President Obama won the election because the economy was cratering so badly there were fears we might be entering another depression. No one understood that better than the two of them. Mr. Obama tried to clean up the vice president’s remarks by saying his team hadn’t misread what was happening, but rather “we had incomplete information.”

That doesn’t hold water, either. The president has got the second coming of the best and the brightest working for him down there in Washington (think of Larry Summers as the latter-day Robert McNamara), and they’re crunching numbers every which way they can. They’ve got more than enough data. They understand the theories and the formulas as well as anyone. But they’re not coming up with the right answers because they’re missing the same thing that McNamara and his fellow technocrats were missing back in the 1960s: the human equation.

The crisis staring America in its face and threatening to bring it to its knees is unemployment. Joblessness. Why it is taking so long — seemingly forever — for our government officials to recognize the scope of this crisis and confront it directly is beyond me.

There are now five unemployed workers for every job opening in the U.S. The official unemployment rate is 9.5 percent, but that doesn’t begin to tell the true story of the economic suffering. The roof is caving in on struggling American families that have already seen the value of their homes and retirement accounts put to the torch.

At the present rate, upwards of seven million homes can be expected to fall into foreclosure this year and next. Welfare rolls are rising, according to a survey by The Wall Street Journal. The National Employment Law Project has pointed out that hundreds of thousands of unemployed workers will begin losing their jobless benefits, just about the only thing keeping them above water, by the end of the summer.

Virtually all of the job growth since the start of the 21st century (which was nothing to crow about) has vanished. If you include the men and women who are now working part time but would like to work full time, and those who have become so discouraged that they’ve stopped actively searching for work, you’ll find that 16.5 percent of Americans are jobless or underemployed. Nearly everyone who is fortunate enough to have a job has a spouse or a parent or an in-law or a close friend who is desperate for employment.

Anyone who believes that the Obama stimulus package will turn this jobs crisis around is deluded. It was too small, too weakened by tax cuts and not nearly focused enough on creating jobs. It’s like trying to turn a battleship around with a canoe. Even if it were working perfectly, the stimulus would not come close to stemming the cascade of joblessness unleashed by this megarecession.

I’d like to see the president go on television and, in a dramatic demonstration of real leadership, announce a plan geared toward increasing employment that is both big and visionary — something on the scale of the Manhattan Project, or the interstate highway program or the Apollo spaceflight initiative.

My choice would be a “Rebuild America” campaign that would put men and women to work repairing, maintaining, designing and rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure in the broadest sense — everything from roads and schools and the electrical power grid to innovative environmental initiatives and a sparkling new mass transportation network, including high-speed rail systems.

One of the ways of financing such an effort would be through the creation of a national infrastructure bank, which would provide federal investment capital for approved projects and use that money to leverage additional private investment.

There was a time when Americans could think on such a scale and get it done. We used to be better than any other nation on the planet at getting things done. It would be tragic if the 21st century turns out to be the time when that extraordinary can-do spirit disappears and we’re left with nothing more meaningful and exciting than lusting after tax cuts and trying to pay off credit card debt.

The joblessness the nation is experiencing is crushing any hope of a real economic recovery. With so many Americans maxed out on their credit cards and with the value of their homes deep in the tank, the only money available to spend in most cases is from paychecks. The best and the brightest in Washington may have a theory about how to get the economy booming without dealing with the employment crisis, but I’d like to see that theory work in the real world.

[Telly Savalas]

1. Yes. We fucking get it. You hate the president.

With respect to this particular issue, do have a constructive proposal for what he could have done that could have made it through the Senate, or are you just going to whine?

[TankLV]

33. I did not come away from reading that with that conclusion at all..quite the opposite in fact...

I think your jumping to conclusions or have your mind made up BEFORE you read...

What was written in the article is SPOT ON, I believe...

Too bad your too busy hating the messenger to really LISTEN to what he is trying to say...

[Zavulon]

48. +1.

There's too much "any criticism of the current administration's bills automatically means hatred of Obama" on this board. There's no chance for honest discussion or debate when the "Why are you so full of hate?" crowd pipes up with their standard blather.

[debbierlus]

40. Yes, every article critical of the President is about how much the author hates the President

:sarcasm:


Five individuals for every job opening.

Employment close to 10% (and if that is the official number add another 5 - 10 %).

And, major economists warning before the stimulus was even signed that unless the majority of monies went directly into job creation, it would fail.

Incidentally, Bob Herbert was a BIG Obama supporter during the campaign and he has since written several positive articles about him.

The kill the messenger thing from the Obama fans is getting really old.

[Zavulon]

49. Why are you so full of hate?

;) (Kidding, kidding).

I couldn't agree with you more. If I were in charge, I'd cancel the unspent portion of the so-called "stimulus" right now. All it means is a lot more debt with no apparent benefit. The administration warned us that if the so-called "stimulus" weren't passed IMMEDIATELY, unemployment could rise to - EEK! - 8%!

It hasn't worked and is not going to. I don't even believe it was designed to stimulate the economy - if it were, the amount spent so far would far exceed what has been, which is less than 10% of the total package so far.

[Hawkowl]

65. What's your problem?

He posts constructive opinion by a respected source and you react like a two year old with a dirty diaper?

[Champion Jack]

2. And Bob Herberts economic credentials are...?

Oh that's right

Nothing.
Herbert isn't even a decent writer he's a typist.

[mnhtnbb]

3. FDR did it. WPA for 2010 is what's needed.

[jefferson_dem]

4. Kicked and Unrecommended.

Generally, I like Herbert and he makes some good points in this ed.

However, the OP's insufferable Obama-hate has grown way tiresome. :thumbsdown:

[Vinnie From Indy]

7. Herbert is right about the jobs issue

I actually think that Herbert is trying to help Obama with this piece. No jobs - no recovery.

[jefferson_dem]

10. I actually think Herbert is one of the columnists the President would turn to for a "sanity check"..

Along with Lynn Sweet of the Chi-Sun Times, who has offered doses of "tough love" to Obama for years.

Henny penny outlook aside, let's give the current economic policy more of a chance to work.

[Oregone]

12. "Let's give the current economic policy more of a chance to work."

How long? It wont be more than half done working for another year and a half (at which point, a second stimulus would take another year to really kick in). In the meantime, there is a lot of suffering and jobless folk.

We know now that a corrective adjustment to the stimulus funds wouldn't be uncalled for, based on an objective measure of reality vs prediction. What does anyone have to gain by waiting and letting the suffering persist among the people?



Look, its going to "work". We don't need time to see that. It just won't work enough to close that gap and prevent the economic fallout. We know that already.

[jefferson_dem]

15. More than five months.

Geeze. Chillax with the demand for instant gratification. We hear enough of that from the idiots on the other side.

We're already seeing some progress. Did you read Obama's editorial in the WaPo today?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=8524332&mesg_id=8524332

[Oregone]

16. Whether is "working" yet is not relevant to the discussion of a corrective adjustment to the funds

Its not about instant gratification. We instantly know, as of now, before it really starts working, that it was designed to be effective in a much more mild recession.

We are 1.5% points past the predicted peak of unemployment. That is an objective measure to know the predictions were wrong. These were the predictions used to design the stimulus.

Do you understand this? Of course it will work to some extent, but it will not fill the gap between the predicted drop in GDP compared to the real drop in GDP. The economy is in much worse shape, and frankly, we will be lucky if it just keeps the GDP from dropping further rather than stimulating it back to baseline.

[jefferson_dem]

19. "We are 1.5% points past the predicted peak of unemployment."

I know. Hannity and the right wing scumbags use that bogus talking point every day.

By the way, the 8% number was only one plausible forecast and never a formal prediction. Sorry.

[Oregone]

22. You know where the graph I posted originally came from? :)

Try: http://otrans.3cdn.net/45593e8ecbd339d074_l3m6bt1te.pdf for a copy of the report from the Council of Economic Advisors to the POTUS

[brentspeak]

25. Why would he need to have anybody to turn to for a sanity check?

Why not, in the first place, simply surround himself with sane, honest people instead of Wall St. representatives like Larry Summers and Tim Geithner?

[jefferson_dem]

26. "Why would he need to have anybody to turn to for a sanity check?"

No surprise that you are the one posing that question.

[brentspeak]

27. It's really more of a non-surprise that you refuse to answer the question

or address the issue of Geithner and Summers. Which is also not surprising, because it's not possible to defend Obama's appointment of either Wall St. stooge.

[nonsequitur]

57. I have to agree.

[masuki bance]

69. LOL! That's perfect. Agree with Bob Hebert and the points

he makes, but unrec because you don't like the DU member who posted it in its entirety without comment. Beautiful.

[paulk]

5. key paragraph

"Anyone who believes that the Obama stimulus package will turn this jobs crisis around is deluded. It was too small, too weakened by tax cuts and not nearly focused enough on creating jobs. It’s like trying to turn a battleship around with a canoe. Even if it were working perfectly, the stimulus would not come close to stemming the cascade of joblessness unleashed by this megarecession."

---------------

There was a large number of people saying this when the stimulus was being written up - but under the bus they went, and judging from the replies I see on this thread so far, Herbert will soon follow...

[jwirr]

20. And Herbert is not saying anything that Krugman, Reich, Kuntsler

and others are not saying. This is not FDR's recession. We no longer have the manufacturing base that FDR built nor the ability to rebuild due to the lack of credit. Further this recession is being led by the debt that ordinary people have accumulated due to easy credit. We are not able to buy the way we used to. Also FDR had plenty of cheap oil to base his rebuild on - we do not. All these writers and economists are saying is that this one is deeper and hitting at the foundation of economics because the only solution is bringing jobs that do not exist anymore back and at a bigger rate.

It always amazes me how fast DU can turn a otherwise liberal spokesperson into the enemy if they dare to suggest there might be some problem with what is happening. Do we want "yes" men like the pugs have?

[brentspeak]

24. Thanks. An excellent post to bookmark re. the differences between FDR's time and now

[ProSense]

44. Well, Krugman and others

have become far less critical in the face of an obvious turnaround. So currently, Herbert is the one who is delusional.

[Prism]

55. More misuse of articles

From the Krugman piece you linked:

The problem, instead, is that the hole the stimulus needs to fill is much bigger than predicted. That — coupled with the fact that yes, stimulus takes time to work — is the reason for a second round, ASAP.

I don't think saying we need a second stimulus is calling Herbert delusional. In fact, quite the opposite. He agrees the current stimulus is not adequate.

And, of course, Roubini has a lot of criticisms that are being discarded in favor of one sentence out of thousands of words.

I don't understand this practice. Why link articles with no intention of reading them, or worse, mischaracterizing them to the point of claiming they say the opposite of what they so obviously do? It's just plain dishonest.

[ProSense]

56. Nonsense.

The point wasn't who wants more stimulus, it's who is still claiming the stimulus will fail. Krugman was right there with the other doomsayers predicting the stimulus would fail because it was too small. He now qualifies his call for additional stimulus, and he did it in the quote you cited:

The problem, instead, is that the hole the stimulus needs to fill is much bigger than predicted. That — coupled with the fact that yes, stimulus takes time to work — is the reason for a second round, ASAP.

Which is the reason he's calling out the Repubs.

[NYC_SKP]

6. I prefer Facts to Bob Herbert's opinions. I'm funny that way. Here's a chart:

Props to Clio the Leo. And the Bureau of Labor Statistics.



http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=8517981

[Oregone]

14. Graphs are neat

[jefferson_dem]

17. Do you even know the source of that graph?

That blog is chuck full of Obama-hate, Palin-love, tea party pics. Yuk.

I wouldn't trust those numbers for shit ... and wonder why you would even promote them.

[Oregone]

23. No, I google searched for a large one. Its posted everywhere, including Krugman's site

Why wouldn't you trust those numbers? The curve comes from the council of economic advisors (http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/cea/) and the added numbers come from the government unemployment numbers. Thats silly.

http://otrans.3cdn.net/45593e8ecbd339d074_l3m6bt1te.pdf

[Oregone]

36. BTW, forgive the link/url to the crap source

This is cleaner:

[NYC_SKP]

51. I checked that myself, source of graph from blog is the blogger him or her self.

Very Scientific. :eyes:

[Oregone]

58. The original source of the graph is from the Council of Economic Advisors to the POTUS

Some people have graphed, all over the internet, the real unemployment numbers on it.

Maybe the problem is that it wasn't scientific at all. Maybe they "guessed" the numbers (wrong, as Biden said)

[bertman]

53. jefferson_dem, would you please lose the "Obama-hate" modifier. It is inaccurate,

insulting, and Republican in its repulsiveness. This is a democratic system, which means that all of us are free to criticize our politicians, including the President, if we think they are doing the wrong things.

Thank you for your cooperation on this.

[polichick]

8. Originally the stimulus was supposed to be a "Rebuild America" project...

...but, like everything else in DC, it got derailed.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Oregone]

11. "Mr. Biden and President Obama won the election because the economy was cratering so badly there we"

That's really fine point. There seems be some disconnect here.

Its possible the Obama administration was only pretending the economy would only reach 8% unemployment, as to portray a positive image. Otherwise, how could they of been so wrong? Did they just surround themselves with economic idiots?

[DCBob]

13. Herbert is deluded..

"something on the scale of the Manhattan Project, or the interstate highway program or the Apollo spaceflight initiative" -- Those would be expensive and limited in overall impact.

[seabeckind]

18. As someone who witnessed the transition

from an industrial society to a "service economy", I think Mr Herbert is dead-on.

We need jobs...we need the textiles, the electronics, the automotive parts, the foundries, the heavy durables.

Everywhere you go, every item you look at comes from somewhere else. Find an american refrigerator. They are there, struggling to get floor space in Lowes next to all the ones from china. No wait, what's that new yuppy one that's all the rage?

Our local gov't's are an absolute joke. Give them a few million and they'll slap up a new highway to their buddy's strip mall development 5 miles from his previous strip mall development. The last thing we need is to give them money. It's like loaning money to your BIL's kid.

We need bold leadership at the national level taking us toward progressive, no wait that's the bulls--t term we were forced to use by the raygunites, liberal goals. I've been hearing lots of rhetoric about what direction we need to go. Great! That's what I voted for. Now how about we take off the microphone and start DOING something? Other than handing a bunch of crooked bankers money we need down here.

As I said before: How about Obama standing in front of an empty GM or Ford or Chrysler plant surrounded by the unemployed saying: "Now that we own it, we're going to build high-speed railroad cars RIGHT HERE!" Then the luddites who are in the pocket of the bankers can try to defend their f--king position.

Many strategists learned long ago that sometimes the best defense is a good offense.

[alcibiades_mystery]

21. In the middle of a crisis of overproduction

We need more inventory. Brilliant.

[seabeckind]

28. Sorry, tex, losing me on that one

Maybe to you it is the greatest argument since socrates but it don't make a lot of sense to me.

Sounds a lot like the lady in my local newspaper who says we shouldn't drive fuel efficient cars cause we'll lose tax revenue.

The problem isn't over-production -- it is where the overproduction is occurring, ie, other than here. A south korean doesn't need to have a tariff on a US car to keep him from buying it. He would rather his cousin have a job.

But I guess that all falls by the wayside in the US when there's a sale at Walmart.

[Jennicut]

60. Reich says manufacturing is dead and it is. It went the way of agriculture.

"Any job that's even slightly routine is disappearing from the U.S. But this doesn't mean we are left with fewer jobs. It means only that we have fewer routine jobs, including traditional manufacturing. When the U.S. economy gets back on track, many routine jobs won't be returning--but new jobs will take their place. A quarter of all Americans now work in jobs that weren't listed in the Census Bureau's occupation codes in 1967. Technophobes, neo-Luddites and anti-globalists be warned: You're on the wrong side of history. You see only the loss of old jobs. You're overlooking all the new ones.

The reason they're so easy to overlook is that so much of the new value added is invisible. A growing percent of every consumer dollar goes to people who analyze, manipulate, innovate and create. These people are responsible for research and development, design and engineering. Or for high-level sales, marketing and advertising. They're composers, writers and producers. They're lawyers, journalists, doctors and management consultants. I call this "symbolic analytic" work because most of it has to do with analyzing, manipulating and communicating through numbers, shapes, words, ideas."


http://www.forbes.com/2009/05/28/robert-reich-manufacturing-business-economy.html

Per wiki we are a service sector economy:
In 2005, 155 million persons were employed with earnings, of whom 80% had full-time jobs. The majority, 79%, were employed in the service sector. With about 15.5 million people, health care and social assistance is the leading field of employment.

Now, I do think we may be up a creek because we have nothing to replace them with. I am not as optimistic as Reich is but I don't think we can get these kinds of jobs back without throwing technology and knowledge out the window.

[Better Believe It]

29. The Senates Republican written "stimulus" plan was designed to fail

Leading economists, Noriel Roubini called it "puny", pointed out how weak the plan was for actual job creation when three Republican Senators gutted the House plan during conference.

And now we are paying the costs of a "bi-partisan" stimulus agreement.

A powerful job stimulus plan that could have created several million useful public works/infrastructure jobs this year was not proposed the President Obama or the Democratic leadership in Congress. The sound job creation plan proposed by the U.S. Conference of Mayors was not even considered by President Obama and the Democratic congressional leadership! For less than 200 billion dollars, the federal government could have finance over 18,000 useful infrastructure and public works jobs that would have employed 2 million people. All of those projects would have been started and completed before the end of next year.

The economy needed that kind of a powerful economic jolt. This will not happen under the Republican written stimulus plan. A job creating stimulus could have been passed by the Democratic controlled congress without any Republican votes. Any real Republican "filibuster" in the Senate against an economic recovery would have ended quickly with a cloture vote. And all we needed was 50 Senate votes to pass it with Biden passing the tie-breaker.

Now it will be very difficult to pass a badly needed second stimulus bill, especially when President Obama says he opposed to one!

As the saying goes, the Democrats "blew their wad" with the first bill.

If President Obama and the Democratic Party leadership doesn't get their act together and function as if they had won the 2008 elections, and do this soon, the Republicans will regain their control of Congress and the White House by 2012 with major congressional gains in the 2010 election.

Of course, the Republicans never did lose their control of Congress .... at least it seems that way.

ONCE AGAIN SOME HARD FACTS ON WHERE THE STIMULUS MONEY IS GOING

Only 101 billion of the 787 billion in stimulus money is for infrastructure!

And only a small fraction of that will be spent this year!

Out of 787 billion dollars in job "stimulus" funding here is what will be spent for actual infrastructure and energy job creation projects:

Infrastructure - $101 Billion
$30B - Highways
$20B - School Renovation
$17B - Health Information Technology
$13B - Transportation Projects
$8B - Water Projects
$7B - Military and V.A. Construction
$6B - Accelerated Deployment of Broadband

Energy Efficiency - $59.5 Billion
$22B - Federal Energy Efficiency Grants
$19B - Other Energy Efficiency Grants
$11B - Smart Electric Grid
$8B - Renewable Energy Loan Guarantees

Tax Cuts - $314 Billion
$99B - Payroll-Tax Holiday
$90B - Business Expenses Tax Breaks
$25B - Earned Income Tax Credit
$20B - Renewable Energy Tax Credit
$10B - Tuition Tax Credit
$70B - AMT Tax Cut


That's pretty much it.

The three Republican Senators who wrote the stimulus bill took out 40 billion dollars for badly need school construction, tens of billions of dollars in other infrastructure funding and added the annual alternative minimum tax (AMT)fix to the bill in order jack up the amount of the stimulus bill without actually increasing any jobs! It was a non-stimulative addition to the bill. The 70 billion dollar tax cut was going to get passed by the Senate, as it has been every year, without including it in the stimulus package! Senator Grassley proposed adding the AMT fix.

The rest of the stimulus money is mainly for badly needed economic relief such as unemployment compensation and economic assistance to state/local governments. But, those monies won't create very many jobs for the unemployed while they will enable some government workers to keep their jobs for awhile.

Now you should understand why Roubini and other leading economists said the stimulus plan was totally inadequate for the task. Roubini was a little less diplomatic calling it "puny".

And now the Republicans have been put into the position where they can attack "the Obama stimulus" for not creating the millions of jobs promised!

Nice set-up. President Obama and Democratic Party Senate leaders fell for this Republican trap in their quest for a unnecessary and self-defeating "bi-partisanship".

The three Republican Senators (one now a Democrat) gutted the House stimulus plan. Mission accomplished!

Here's the rest of the stimulus breakdown:

Aids For State and Local Gov - $217 Billion
$87B - Medicaid Cost Sharing
$79B - State Grants
$42B - State and Local Bond Tax Credit
$5B - Community Development
$4B - Rural Development

Relief - $120 Billion
$42B - Expanded Unemployment Insurance
$40B - Health Insurance for Unemployed
$20B - Expanded Food Stamps
$11B - Housing Assistance
$4B- Supplemental Social Security Income Payments
$3B - Welfare

Human Capital - $45.5 Billion
$25B - Education Programs
$15B - Federal Pell Grants
$4B - Job Training
$2B - Scientific Research

[Oregone]

31. And the Democrats with all the power decided to go with a plan designed to fail

This isn't really a proud talking point.

[Better Believe It]

32. And now the Republicans are using that hammer against Democrats

The Republicans are pretending that they really wanted a strong job creating stimulus program since this stimulus isn't creating very many jobs, not the millions needed.

[Better Believe It]

30. Bob Herbert's article is absolutely right and in agreement with the most credible economists.

Sorry he's not an Obama cheerleader but we need objective economists and writers who tell it like it is and don't just issue talking points and fantasy tales to make us feel good.

President Obama would be wise to listen to what they have to say rather than Republican and Democratic "moderates" who want to see President Obama fail.

[seabeckind]

34. It isn't that we're impatient about the stimulus

I understand that this isn't something we can turn around in just a couple of months. It is the direction and the total lack of movement. That whole business of "shovel-ready" was absolute bulls--t and guaranteed to be a failure. The only shovel ready projects around here were a road to a future industrial park (as if), a bunch of berm-widening highway projects and a washed out bridge. Great! We can use those things -- but they don't make us jobs -- long range, sustainable jobs.

Example: I was promised a broadband backbone. (and don't play some semantics, what's a promise crap) I don't need to see some guy pulling cables but it'd sure be nice to see an outline and task list of how it's going to be done. No wait -- we have a luddite senator from bumf--k Kansas we have to get on board before we can do it. He likes his people ignorant and we don't want to mess that up.

But even if we started moving toward that backbone -- where's the cable made? Where're the routers made? For crists sake, where are the f--king hardhats the workers wear. Hel, where's every piece of clothing he's wearing come from?

Is this starting to make sense? Sure FDR had an industrial base to help him out on the recovery. Great! How about that's the FIRST thing we start on. Bring that back.

That is if it doesn't bother our chicago boys bankers too much.

So as you wave your f--king pom-poms, look at the little tag on the bottom to see where it comes from. Sorry about my french and ranting but this is really starting to p--s me off.

[cornermouse]

41. If I remember correctly.

Congress already passed and paid for a national network of high speed internet which the communication companies took and spent without establishing coast to coast national high speed internet in rural areas. Instead we got a watered down "high speed internet within reasonable expectations or boundaries", or something like that. And as you say, everything is now manufactured overseas. The "white color" world that people were told would materialize, did indeed materialize... Overseas.

We've been left with basically nothing.

[ChimpersMcSmirkers]

35. The unemployment problem is serious, but it's not to the levels

of the 1980 recession yet, and we came out of that fine. I'll agree and say the stimulus bill wasn't that great. I think Obama a)wanted to give bipartisanship a try, and b)didn't want a failure on his first initiative. I don't think that our creditors are in much of a mood to give us the cash, even is Obama wanted a second stimulus. We're basically maxxed out.

According to the Conference Board:

"Says Ken Goldstein, Economist at The Conference Board: “The leading economic index increased for the second consecutive month. The coincident economic index is still declining, but the declines are less intense. The recession is losing steam. Confidence is rebuilding and financial market volatility is abating. Even the housing market appears to be stabilizing. If these trends continue, expect a slow recovery beginning before the end of the year. However, employment will take longer to turn around.”

http://www.conference-board.org/pdf_free/economics/bci/hooded.pdf

Unemployment is a lagging indicator. Given that a majority of the stimulus spending is yet to come, any talk of it failing are premature as are calls for a second round. As crappy as it is out there, folks are just going to have to be patient.

[zalinda]

37. It isn't the 1980 recession yet?

I've got news for you, this isn't 1980. In 1980, we still had manufacturing jobs, we still had customer service jobs, we still had mom and pop stores in about every downtown city, big or small. This is NOT the climate of 1980. In 1980, businesses were trying to save money by not hiring, today, those business are OUT OF BUSINESS. We don't have jobs to replace the ones that have been off shored, and that's the problem. Unless jobs are CREATED, this "recession" will not be over very soon at all.

zalinda

[seabeckind]

38. You go zalinda!!!

When I moved to Indy in 1967 there were factories all along the road to work...Chrysler plants, western electric. RCA had a really big electronics plant. Delco was a really big employer in Anderson.

During the late 80's the Western Electric factory was being used for paintball.

As I drive there now for a visit, all I see are For Lease signs -- and Lowes, Home Depot and Walmart. F--king walmart.

[jeanpalmer]

62. The loss of jobs to China and Japan

problem is not being corrected. I don't see how this economy can turn around without bringing many of those jobs back. At the peak, the trade deficit was ~$850 billion. About half of that was caused by oil imports and the other half by importing goods mainly from China and Japan. That $400 billion sent to China and Japan = about 3% of GDP and represents a lot of lost jobs. And the sad thing is, not only are the politicians not working to bring some of those jobs back, but they're not stopping the export of still more jobs. It goes on daily, you read about it all the time.

The money going out for oil is also a problem. Oil producers, like the Chinese and Japanese, are not purchasing equivalent amounts of American goods with the money they receive. Again, it amounts to another 3% loss of GDP.

It's easy to see how the economy can stay in recession and job losses can mount when we're losing 6% of GDP through trade. How can the economy recover without getting those jobs back? I'm thinking it can't. Stimulus is just a stop gap measure.

[redqueen]

39. So he's still the same.

So unsurprising to see this kind of thing from him.

[LWolf]

42. Thanks for the article.

He's right.

The gang warfare at DU doesn't devalue your post for me.

[ProSense]

43. Strong words from Herbert with little to back them up. Maybe he should read

this

Anyone can claim the stimulus isn't working or speculate that it will not, but we'll see who is deluded when the recession ends and the recovery begins.




edited word.

[Better Believe It]

45. When do you think the real rate of unemployment will drop down to 10%?

Or when do you thinkthe "official" rate of unemployment, which doesn't include people who have exhausted their unemployment benefits and have given up finding work, will drop down to 6% or even 8%?

Remember the "jobless" recovery we had under George W. Bush?

This will appear like "jobless" recovery #2 in 2010-2011 if a real job creating stimulus plan is not proposed and adopted.

[jesus_of_suburbia]

46. I just think we need to wait and see... 6 months is not nearly enough time to determine economic

indicators.


2 years is PLENTY of time.. 6 months is nothing. Let's wait and see.

[Zavulon]

47. The problems with that are obvious:

a.) Lots of people can't wait two years, and b.) because the economy goes up and down in cycles, we'll never really know what effect the so-called "stimulus" had once the economy is back on track.

Less than 10% of the funds have been spent so far,w hich really makes me wonder why there was such a rush to pass a bill that so few voting on it actually had a chance to read.

I hate to say it, but I believe Herbert's right. It seems to me that the lion's share of the "stimulus" is being held for next year, an election year, which I think really sucks and shows a real disregard towards those who are truly suffering.

[ProSense]

50. Well there is a problem with this argument:

Lots of people can't wait two years...

The people who lost their homes two years ago couldn't wait two years either. Every month since this crisis began, someone crossed that two-year mark. The problem exists and no amount of wishing is going to to turn it around faster than possible. I doubt those calling for more stimilus actually believed that more meant the problem would have been resolved by now. It's going to take time, no matter what.

[Zavulon]

52. Then why

has less than 10% been spent so far? We were told that we'd be facing crisis, collapse, catastrophe and so on if the so-called "stimulus" weren't passed right away. It was so crucial that most of those voting on it had no chance to read the bill. When it got passed on a Friday, Obama didn't sign it right away - it was President's Day weekend, so he just said "I'll sign it Tuesday" and went off to Chicago.

We were warned that if it weren't passed right away, unemployment could get as high as 8%. It's double digits now. There are two possibilities that I see here: either the plan was a bad one concocted by people who didn't understand the problem or how to solve it, or it's a good plan and yet most of the funds are being held back for next year, and election year. If the former, then the unspent portion should be canceled because we don't need to rack up more debt for no real benefit. If the latter, it sucks and shows a real disregard for constituents. Either way, the so-called "stimulus" in its current form is something that I don't approve of at all. If the government is capable of fixing things, let's see some more of that money out there now instead of this slow drip accompanied by excuses and pleas for patience.

[ProSense]

54. Why are

states and institutions exploring ways to find projects that best fit the funding priorities?

It was virtually impossible to pass a bill and simply dump the money onto states and institutions. It's inevitable that spending will pick up.

[spanone]

59. well, it did turn around goldman sachs profits

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/13/business/13goldman.html?hp

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

61. As much as I hate to admit it, Herbert and Krugman are right. The stimulus was too small...

but that's NOT Obama's fault. He was hampered by obstructionist Republicans and milquetoast, weak-kneed Democrats. Everyone knows that more money needed to be put into the stimulus for it to work, but it may not because the first package was simply not enough. Now any attempt at a second stimulus will surely fail because we can rest assure that cowardly Democrats will join with the Repukes to stop any attempt at passage.

By the same token, it has only been 5 months since ARRA and not all the stimulus money has been allocated yet. The Repuke governors are deliberately sitting on that money or using it to balance their state budgets, rather than its intended purpose. They make me so sick! :puke:

[earth mom]

63. Proving once again that Hope & Change was just a catchy slogan.

People thought this is what they were getting:

"A “Rebuild America” campaign that would put men and women to work repairing, maintaining, designing and rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure in the broadest sense — everything from roads and schools and the electrical power grid to innovative environmental initiatives and a sparkling new mass transportation network, including high-speed rail systems."

Instead they got:

"Five unemployed workers for every job opening in the U.S. The official unemployment rate is 9.5 percent, but that doesn’t begin to tell the true story of the economic suffering. The roof is caving in on struggling American families that have already seen the value of their homes and retirement accounts put to the torch.

At the present rate, upwards of seven million homes can be expected to fall into foreclosure this year and next. Welfare rolls are rising, according to a survey by The Wall Street Journal. The National Employment Law Project has pointed out that hundreds of thousands of unemployed workers will begin losing their jobless benefits, just about the only thing keeping them above water, by the end of the summer.

Virtually all of the job growth since the start of the 21st century (which was nothing to crow about) has vanished. If you include the men and women who are now working part time but would like to work full time, and those who have become so discouraged that they’ve stopped actively searching for work, you’ll find that 16.5 percent of Americans are jobless or underemployed. Nearly everyone who is fortunate enough to have a job has a spouse or a parent or an in-law or a close friend who is desperate for employment."


What a fucking joke...
on ALL of us peons.

:puke:

[scheming daemons]

66. Psst... hey, earth mom... this thread is on the Greatest Page

Just sayin'....

[Better Believe It]

67. Without over 100 "unrecommends" it would have appeared on the front page

[billyoc]

64. It wasn't designed to turn the jobs situation around, and I should hope that it *wouldn't*.

It was designed to save Wall St., which it will do. Another stimulus will be needed to address unemployment.

The LAST thing I want is a Wall St. bailout to create jobs.

[DemocracyInaction]

68. Amurekan people--where's the responsiblity?

Had the American people not been so tired of Al challenging the FL count 'cause "any old" president would do; and had they stopped waving their flags long enough to get their heads out of their asses; and had they stopped watching reality TV long enough to see REALITY around them; then maybe they wouldn't be in this economic mess. Ignorance always comes with a heavy price to pay.........and it's "pay the Piper" time, Amureka!