Speaker Pelosi "If you want to create jobs, the quickest way to do it is to provide more funding for food stamps and hav

[$tevie]

I didn't say you were lying, Trouble. I said you were obeying your Overlords.


PS: Any time you want to post a quicker way (not better, not longer lasting, not more pleasing to right wingers: quicker) to create jobs, feel free.

[Trouble]

$tevie wrote:
I didn't say you were lying, Trouble. I said you were obeying your Overlord.

My bad then. I edited it, but still, you were wrong.

[michaelb]

I will just throw out a lifeline here to Trouble, since he/she is getting pummeled. A quicker way to create jobs could be for the government to hire people directly, like the WPA. I am not sure if the Goverment could do that practically, quicker than passing out money to poor people, but it is maybe plausible.

[$tevie]

I might be wrong that that is what inspired you, but I am NOT wrong that it is on Rush's web site today.

[$tevie]

michaelb wrote:
I will just throw out a lifeline here to Trouble, since he/she is getting pummeled. A quicker way to create jobs could be for the government to hire people directly, like the WPA. I am not sure if the Goverment could do that practically, quicker than passing out money to poor people, but it is maybe plausible.

How could it be quicker to try to write the legislation required, and to set up the bureaucracy required, then it would be to utilize already existing programs that require virtually nada in terms of time to reach people?

That said, I'd be all for a WPA for the New Millennium. Especially if they'd include funding artists and writers as the original did.

[Grace62]

michaelb wrote:
I will just throw out a lifeline here to Trouble, since he/she is getting pummeled. A quicker way to create jobs could be for the government to hire people directly, like the WPA. I am not sure if the Goverment could do that practically, quicker than passing out money to poor people, but it is maybe plausible.

Sorry micheal that is not quicker. It is effective in that it will add to GDP, but it's not quicker than direct, immediate cash payments for basic necessities. The stimulus was passed in early 2009 for just those sorts of projects, yet it was projected then that most of those jobs would not kick in until 2010-2012. And until the projects start and the jobs begin, there are no paychecks and no cash infusion into the economy.

[Ted King]

Trouble wrote:

http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/hannity/in...t_id=86924 and go to 1:45 in the video.

Okay, I tried to track down a transcript of the hearing she was talking about but especially because she didn't mention a particular date I haven't had any luck. Based on the context of what she said, I would guess that, at worst, she was sloppy in implying that those conservative economists on the panel agreed with other economists about the effectiveness of food stamps as economic stimulus if those economists did not, in fact, agree with that assessment; and what could just as easily be the case (at least to the extent we know about it here), what she said was something those conservative economists would agree to. It is not implausible because, as I pointed out in an earlier post, Reagan's economic advisor, Martin Feldstein, has been arguing fairly strenuously that we need a good second stimulus package so it would seem that there are conservative economists who do think government spending has an important role to play in an economic turn-around.

[Grace62]

$tevie wrote:
Straight from Limbaugh's "Stack of Stuff Quick Hits Page" for October 7, 2010:
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/s...guest.html

Oh BARF! This guy has so little respect for his audience. He must assume they have zero knowledge of basic economics and finance.

[michaelb]

So possible options so far for creating jobs quickly:

a) give money to poor people;
b) gov't hiring folks directly;
c) passing a law that "creates jobs"
d) tax cuts for the rich

I get a, b, and d, particularly why d is the wrong answer. What I can't get my head around is c. But this gets talked about all the time, why isn't the Obama administration doing anything to "create jobs", so I must be missing some magical solution that is obvious to everyone else. Trouble, help me out?

[Grace62]

So Republicans, or at least Newt Gingrich and other conservative talkers, reject the widely accepted macroeconomic concept of the "multiplier effect" when it comes to the short term economic benefits of government spending to support the poor, yet that very same economic concept becomes their best friend when they want to advocate for tax cuts. Why is that?
Can't have it both ways Newt. Increasing the amount of money that is in the economy either stimulates the economy, or it doesn't. And the rate of the multiplier effect has everything to do with how quickly the money gets spent. Newt knows this, he is not a dumb person. He just assumes that most of his audience never took college Econ 101, and he's probably right.