Category: Economic Stimulus
The analysis published under this category are as follows.Friday, October 08, 2010
No Economic Recovery, Stimulus Spending and Intended Consequences? / Economics / Economic Stimulus
As was generally expected, this morning’s employment situation report gave another bundle of evidence to suggest that there is in fact no recovery, never was, and that several trillion dollars of ‘stimulus’ has disappeared down a rat hole of greed. In typical fashion, the mainstream press tried yet again to put a positive spin on a negative reality, pointing to the fact that we should rest easy; the Fed is going to buy government bonds to save the day. It is in total wonderment that I listen to these happy expectations and can only guess if these people know what they’re even wishing for. Let’s look at a few examples.
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Friday, September 17, 2010
Does the U.S. Economy Need Another Economic Stimulus Package? / Economics / Economic Stimulus
Despite the massive fiscal stimulus package of nearly $800 billion approved by Congress early last year and trillions of dollars pumped by the Fed, the rally in various key economic data seems to be coming to an end.
After falling to 32.5 in December 2008, the ISM manufacturing index peaked at 60.4 in April of this this year.
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Thursday, September 09, 2010
Economic Stimulus? Yet Again? / Economics / Economic Stimulus
This week the Obama administration lays out its plans to further "stimulate" the economy. In particular, the president unveiled his proposals for $50 billion more in infrastructure spending, and a $100 billion extension to a tax credit on research and development.
Unfortunately these ideas range from misguided to downright harmful. If the federal government really wants to promote economic recovery, it should cut spending and taxes in general, and basically get out of the way.
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Monday, August 23, 2010
Why Hasn't the U.S. Economic Stimulus Been More Stimulative? / Economics / Economic Stimulus
Talk of the economy slipping back into a recession is rampant. The American Recovery and Reconstruction Act (ARRA) of 2009, aka the stimulus package of approximately $790 billion, was, as its title suggests, supposed to put the economy firmly into a recovery trajectory. But as Obama administration economic guru has said, the economy is having trouble reaching recession-escape velocity. Why hasn't the 2009 stimulus package been more stimulative?
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Sunday, August 15, 2010
Time for a New, New Deal? / Economics / Economic Stimulus
What are people thinking?
It is interesting to see so many of the same people calling for a "double dip" recession while at the same time railing against government spending. The US Government is spending $3.5Tn this year. Admittedly that's $1.5Tn more than they have, but it's quite a lot of money no matter how you look at it. Conservative, born-again deficit hawks (they were born-again the day Obama was elected) will tell you the solution is to cut taxes and let corporations trickle their wealth down on the bottom 99%, well over 20% of whom are unemployed or under-employed.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
The Economic Stimulus is Dead - Long Live the Stimulus / Economics / Economic Stimulus
A trillion dollars still hasn't fixed the jobs problem. Washington's solution: change the name to "deflation fighting" and print even more!
How do you know when an idea has failed?
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Monday, August 09, 2010
Are Democrats Plotting Surprise Election Economic Stimulus? / Politics / Economic Stimulus
Jon D. Markman writes: Data last week showed a job market that’s careening down a steep street with no breaks. Yet investors were able to shrug off employment concerns, as the stock market actually ended the week up 1.5% due to that rockin’ Monday on the first day of the month.
That’s because there is growing speculation that the Democrats are plotting a surprise stimulus in the run up to November’s mid-term elections.
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Friday, August 06, 2010
A Wealthy Economic Stimulus Needed / Politics / Economic Stimulus
Just when things seem like they can't get any worse, we receive the distressing news that the wealthy are starting to cut back. An Associated Press article earlier this week As Spending by Wealthy Weakens, so does Economy detailed the sad plight of the wealthy. Economists say the economy is slowing because the richest 5% of Americans — those earning at least $207,000 — are buying less. They account for about 14% of total consumer spending. According to the article:
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Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Large Scale Government Economic Stimulus, Why Not Another World War? / Politics / Economic Stimulus
There is overwhelming agreement among economists that the Second World War was responsible for decisively ending the Great Depression. When asked why the wars in Iran and Afghanistan are failing to make the same impact today, they often claim that the current conflicts are simply too small to be economically significant.
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Monday, July 19, 2010
DeLong on Bigger Budget Deficits / Economics / Economic Stimulus
In a recent blog post, UC Berkeley economist Brad DeLong made an arithmetic case that, "We need bigger deficits now!" As an Austrian economist I naturally find his conclusion horribly mistaken, but it will still be useful to go through DeLong's argument and identify exactly where he goes astray.
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Sunday, July 18, 2010
Total Failure of Bush’s “Bail-Outs” and Obama’s “Stimulus” / Economics / Economic Stimulus
Philip Szlyk writes: The Bush and Obama bail-outs and "stimulus" plans have been a total failure. The evidence? While "official unemployment" hovers around 9.6%, this figure excludes those formerly-employed people who, for now, have given up looking for work. It also excludes the large numbers of the formerly-employed who have opted to retire at age 62, allowing them to receive federal Social Security payments. When these two groups are included in the calculations, true unemployment has been estimated between 18% and 25%. If one further considers the large increases in government hiring (e.g., 700,000 temporary U.S. Census workers; increases in Dept of Homeland Security workers), it becomes clear that the true private-sector unemployment rate easily exceeds 25%.
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Tuesday, July 13, 2010
How to Fix the U.S. Economy? / Economics / Economic Stimulus
There are remedies for recession, and the remedies are well known. But fixing the economy requires special medicine, fiscal stimulus, and if the patient does not take the medicine, he will not improve. It's not enough to have the medicine sitting on one's nightstand. It must be ingested before recovery can begin.
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Friday, June 25, 2010
The Case for a Second Round of Economic Stimulus / Economics / Economic Stimulus
Alan Greenspan has joined the ranks of the deficit hawks and is calling for austerity measures to reduce government spending. In an op-ed in last Thursday's Wall Street Journal titled "U.S. Debt and the Greece Analogy", Maestro Greenspan made the case for fiscal belt-tightening and disputed leading economists, like Nobel prize winners Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz, who believe that the Obama administration should provide a second round of stimulus. In the opening paragraph, Greenspan dismisses the idea that cuts in government spending will push the economy back into recession. Here's an excerpt:
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Thursday, June 24, 2010
U.S. Fears Economic Stimulus Measures Will Choke on Europe’s Drastic Budget Slashing / Economics / Economic Stimulus
Kerri Shannon writes: While U.S. President Barack Obama will be gunning for more economic stimulus measures at this weekend's Group of 20 (G20) meeting in Canada, European lawmakers continue drastic efforts to rein in spending.
The coordination of global efforts to promote economic recovery will be the main issue at the weekend's meeting, which was set to spotlight the value of China's currency before Beijing announced Saturday that it would allow the yuan to appreciate. The United States and Europe's differing views on the most effective strategies to maintain global economic growth and slash bloated government budgets are increasing tensions between leaders.
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Friday, May 21, 2010
Dodge Possible Debt Debacle With These Economic Stimulus Plan Safety Plays / Economics / Economic Stimulus
Martin Hutchinson writes: U.S. President Barack Obama's $862 billion stimulus plan, passed in great haste after his inauguration, has now revealed its true costs and benefits. It didn't revive the U.S. economy - that bottomed about May 2009, before a dollar of it had been spent. Further, combined with the mad wave of similar "stimulus" outlays across the planet, it has destabilized global bond markets - which may end up being very expensive indeed.
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Thursday, April 29, 2010
Gold Stocks Sector, Get Prepared For Massive Launch / Commodities / Economic Stimulus
We have been looking at global trends and the debt markets very carefully this year so as to remain prudent about our views on the direction of gold and the Australian gold sector. This may seem like a long bow to draw however the thigh bone is connected to the knee bone when it comes to global markets and capital flows.
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Friday, March 12, 2010
The Economic Stimulus Scam / Politics / Economic Stimulus
Antony P. Mueller writes: The recent improvement of the global economy, with particularly high economic-growth numbers for the United States, is just one more deception in a long series of deceptions that have plagued policy makers and investors. While official statistics register a rising gross domestic product, the long-term production potential of many economies around the world is actually contracting. The present economic expansion is brought about by massive stimulus policies. This kind of economic expansion does not constitute genuine economic growth.
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Friday, February 26, 2010
Economic and Social Crisis in America, Burglarious Stimulus / Politics / Economic Stimulus
Paul Volker has recently said, "Well, we’ve got a problem in governing in this country…, our inability to deal with very large evident problems is apparent."
Indeed we do, and the problem is not new. The problem became evident to many long before Mr. Volker's term as Chairman of the FED, and he, along with many others, are complicit in perpetuating it.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
The Criminal Economic Stimulus Package / Politics / Economic Stimulus
Wilt Alston writes: "It [the stimulus package] prevented things from getting much worse than they otherwise would have been. I think everyone would have to acknowledge that’s a good thing." ~ Nariman Behravesh, Global Insight’s Chief Economist
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Monday, February 22, 2010
Government Stimulus, One Year Later / Economics / Economic Stimulus
Last week marked the one year anniversary of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, or the stimulus bill, passing into law. While the debate over its success has been focused on whether or not it is stimulating the economy and on various questionable uses of funds, in my estimation this legislation is accomplishing exactly what it was intended to accomplish - grow the government.
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