Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Stimulus math
In the cause of stimulating the economy, a motive that seems to justify just about any tomfoolery these days, the State of Oregon has spent $176 million to create a minuscule number of jobs. Warren Mayer asks the essential and obvious question that never occurs to the credulous or at least innumerate reporters who write these silly articles.
4 Comments:
By 
JPMcT, at
Wed Jul 29, 12:22:00 AM:
Since the "Stimulus" was never intended to create jobs, I am not surprised that it didn't create much...with the exception of considerable wealth amongst Democrat syncophants.
The other issue is the "fuzzy math" inherent in the reporting of the new jobs created.
This is typical of government plans, particularly in totalitarian regimes that control public information. The government defines the problem, raises the level of perceived personal threat, provides the "solution" and then, the coup de grace, provides the statistics to prove success.
The statistics are, of course, tortured and manufactured...but still provide relief for the party loyalists.
Whether it be Economics, War, Global Warming or Education...the plan is always the same.
It was harder to pull this off back in the days when we had a free press.
Now it's relatively simple.
By 
, at
Wed Jul 29, 09:10:00 AM:
Even the AP isn't buying this BS about the Democrat stimulus any more. You talk about the jobs in Oregon, pointing out how expensive they were to "create". What about the fact that they are only temporary! They last a week. Yup, that's right: Potemkim jobs. It's just like the town in the Mel Brooks movie, Blazing Saddles.
By , at
Wed Jul 29, 09:21:00 AM:
Sorry- reading problems. Coyoteblog makes the same point!
Anyway, Democrats are starting to worry about the political effects of the evident failure of their policies, according to Politico. One thing the article cites is the fading candidacy of Corzine in New Jersey, including the first speculation I've seen in print echoing our speculation here that he might be replaced on the ticket.
"“What’s hurting the Democrats badly is that people are afraid of the deficit and spending. They don’t see signs of economic growth, and people are worried,” said GOP pollster John McLaughlin. “If you look at the economy right now, voters gave the Democrats benefit of the doubt, they thought the stimulus would work, employment would recede — and they’re finding out now it’s not the case.”
By Elijah, at
Wed Jul 29, 06:22:00 PM:
Not hearing much these days about the Keynesian economic model and job creation...
"The administration's primary technical explanation for how spending these hundreds of billions revives an economy is in a paper prepared during the transition by Mr. Obama's economic advisers Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein. To arrive at the number of new jobs the bill would create, the Romer-Bernstein paper attempted to "simulate the effects of the prototypical (stimulus) package on GDP." The multiplier, as they explain, is applied to a given amount of federal spending to arrive at the likely effect on GDP. Then using a "rule of thumb" that 1% of GDP equals 1 million jobs, they come up with a total jobs figure of 3,675,000. They said their multipliers "are broadly similar to those implied by the Federal Reserve's FRB/US model" and leading forecasters."
