Where is the US economy headed?

The bias here towards government programs is profound and fundamental, and because Democrats have created so many such programs, Cyclo is simply playing a game only he can win. The problem of course is that most of these programs not only fail to achieve their intended purpose, but also add enormously to our public debt and creade a host of adverse side effects.

If you want to talk about "jobs" and "work" Cyclo you should know what those terms mean in terms of people. You are on the scientific side of the general argument after all.

There is no need for you to define them for people who already take for granted the same meaning you do as to their meaning but I am not one of those and I have asked you to define them for me so that I can maybe understand what the **** you are talking about apart from your own ideas.

If those who understand the terms as you do know what you are talking about it has nothing to do with me.

And I asked the question, more than a few times. And each time you have avoided answering with some sort of blurt you think clever.

The 'fair tax' is a tax cut. It's designed to cut the amount of taxes you pay.

When you corner a rat, they run away. Thats nature.

They don't need me to speak for them, George. They have been saying the same thing themselves, but you simply ignore it.

Viz:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2010-08-30-stimulus30_CV_N.htm

"I think it was important for confidence. ... But fiscal stimulus was the least important of the three planks of the government's strategy."

It's no surprise that the administration would proclaim its own policies a success. But its verdict is backed by economists at Goldman Sachs, IHS Global Insight, JPMorgan Chase and Macroeconomic Advisers, who say the stimulus boosted gross domestic product by 2.1% to 2.7%.

Earlier this month, Zandi and co-author Alan Blinder, former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, released the most detailed assessment of the government's efforts to combat the so-called Great Recession. Neither economist is regarded as a partisan firebrand. Zandi, for example, backed John McCain in the 2008 presidential campaign and has advised members of both parties.

Their conclusion: The fiscal stimulus created 2.7 million jobs and added $460 billion to gross domestic product. Unemployment would be 11% today if the stimulus hadn't been passed and 16.5% if neither the fiscal stimulus nor the banks' rescue had been enacted, according to Zandi and Blinder. "It's pretty hard to deny that it had a measurable impact," Zandi said.

Not everyone is convinced. "I can't find in my analysis that the 2009 stimulus package had much effect at all," says economist John Taylor of Stanford University.

I don't understand why you say I'm on the 'scientific' side of the general argument. Is it because I have a white-collar desk job? I haven't always.

the concepts of 'work' and 'job' are so elementary as to need no explanation to another adult.

Quote:

I don't understand why you say I'm on the 'scientific' side of the general argument. Is it because I have a white-collar desk job? I haven't always.

Am I mistaken in thinking you appeared on the "teach evolution" threads in the liberal interest?

Quote:

the concepts of 'work' and 'job' are so elementary as to need no explanation to another adult.

You don't seriously expect me to take that as a satisfactory answer do you?

Using this data the average cost of each job created was somewhere between $220,000 and $320,000,

As the descriptions above make clear, none of the studies are flawless. But while the optimistic studies do, in fact, support the conclusion that the stimulus worked, there is some reason to doubt that the pessimistic studies support the conclusion that it failed. Conley and Dupor found a negative effect on employment and output but, as they concede and critics of the study have emphasized, their results are not statistically significant. Taylor found that the stimulus did not increase government purchases significantly but, as Noah Smith argued, this result could be consistent with the stimulus increasing employment and output. Oh and Reis found a small multiplier for tax transfers of the kind found in the stimulus package, but as they concede, their model produces estimates for key figures that are empirically implausible. Using more plausible figures produces a significantly larger multiplier, meaning the package was more effective than the model initially suggested. Due to these issues, I’m inclined to believe that the preponderance of evidence indicates the stimulus worked.

Yes, you are mistaken. I haven't posted in one of the evolution threads for years, precisely because I have no interest in your bullshit.

You never really address this point in your various criticisms of the programs, which is sort of telling.

The $787 billion stimulus package was a good for the economy, but the Federal Reserve played the biggest role in rescuing the U.S. economy from the financial crisis, according to the majority of economists in the latest Wall Street Journal forecasting survey.

"A much worse result would have occurred if nothing had been done," said survey participant Allen Sinai of Decision Economics, co-author of a paper examining the effects of government intervention with colleague Paul Edelstein. But "the absence of monetary policy easing [by the Fed] would have resulted in a much worse economy than the absence of the fiscal policy stimulus."

Thirty-eight of the 54 surveyed economists, not all of whom answered every question, said the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act boosted growth and mitigated job losses, while six said the legislation had a net negative effect.

And you won't address the point I'm making.

Thirty-eight of the 54 surveyed economists, not all of whom answered every question, said the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act boosted growth and mitigated job losses

Quote:

Thirty-eight of the 54 surveyed economists, not all of whom answered every question, said the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act boosted growth and mitigated job losses

38 of 54 said that what was bought was better than nothing.....this does not mean that 38 of 54 thinking that we got value for our money.

But the American people have little faith that the elites know their ass from their elbow, and demand their democratic right to their own mind....the American people have overwhelming decided that the stimulus was a bad idea, which makes the fact that Obama is pinning his reelection hopes on a new round of stimulus an interesting gamble.

You are again evading the issue and altering your earlier assertions to hide your retreat. No one has asserted the stimulus had no beneficial effect. Instead we have asserted that the administrations about benefits and jobs created were exaggerated and that the costs of this poorly designed and badly executed program far exceeded its realistically estimated benefits.

I don't think that anyone could fault the Obama Administration for failing to put forward a plethora of "new ideas" for "solving" the challenges before us and many other problems we didn't know we had as well. The problem is their nostrums and remedies are generally worse for our economy than the problems they are desiigned to solve.

Why don't you respond to the specific points I raised concerning your last "proof".

Yeah, this is nothing but the typical anti-intellectualism that I see coming from the right wing all the time.