Precious few actual statistics here, or any kind of proof beyond opinion. He does admit the economy did improve, though: "The economy is growing (slowly) now and adding jobs (modestly) whereas neither was happening back in early 2009." But he blamed working people saving rather than spending and mismanagement of stimulus funds by state governors to say it didn't help at all.
Good points, I grant you, but not exactly proof.
Another opinion piece short of facts and proof, but long on theory. While I don't deny the stimulus could have been a heck of a lot more helpful, the fact remains: spending money to put people to work does help the economy in a recession. Case in point is the OPA and lend/lease during the 1930s and early 1940s, as well as war production during WWII.
Also an opinion piece that doesn't contain any actual proof, but the author does his level best to dismiss any and all statistics that try to prove how well the stimulus worked. Problem there is if you dismiss the figures, you're left with just as much proof for it as against it: none.
You also need to consider the fact that the "Saved Jobs" statistic is a completely made up number and one shouldn't consider it to have any validity.
I didn't cite it personally, but the fact remains that some of the stimulus money was specifically geared toward saving jobs, specifically public sector jobs like teachers, so to that extent at the very least, it clearly did save jobs.
Also,
the CBO reported a couple of million jobs added, due to the stimulus. You gonna claim the CBO just makes stuff up?
You mean like funding things like Solyndra?
If you mean funding research into new technologies that may pay off in the future, yes.
Seriously, the government is rather incompetitent in certain areas, and all spendulous did was spend money that we didn't have to run up more debt.
No one ever claimed the government perfect at determining which investments fail or which succeed, certainly they're no better than anyone else.
About the only thing that the government can do a decent job is when they spend money on military hardware, or if they actually tried to gear up to send an Astronaut back to the moon...
So you're saying the government
can be effective.
We, the people need to hold them to that standard and expect more.
There is a serious flaw in the study, which I'll explain later in the post.
That is assuming employers are underpaying people, which the study may not be giving an accurate assessment.
That's irrelevant to the point I was making, you do realize that, right?
Fact of the matter is that different companies pay people different amounts based on the value of their work. Look, while I'd imagine someone whom works as a Sales Associate in Retail would like to get $15.00 an hour, the fact of the matter is that the work they contribute isn't exactly worth that amount.
I also wonder if this survey takes into account benefits that people may be getting from their companies. Companies in the past 40 years would offer workers healthcare benefits, retirement packages, vacation time, and other perks in the place of more dollars up front, since those benefits weren't necessarily taxed. So their paychecks might be smaller, but they get side benefits that don't show up on their paychecks.
None of which addresses my point.
The fact remains: if people got paid more, they could spend more. That's an incontrovertible fact.
If Corporate America wanted to help the economy, they'd pay people more money. Not like they can't afford it, since corporate profits are at record levels.
I guess the question is...does Corporate America want to help America?
How so? If a company is providing side benefits like paying for an employee's health insurance, that would lessen the expenses an employee has to deal with, particularly if they have a family.
Sure. And paying them more would help them even more!
There is more to this issue than many people realize.
Not really.
Fact: higher wages would increase consumer spending, and aid the economy.
Fact: corporations are making record profits.
There is a clear conclusion one could come to from these facts, and it all hinges on whether or not corporations want to help the US economy or not.
-- A2SG, the government can't legislate responsible economic behavior....