Why all these new guns laws and no economy cares? (2015, unemployment rate)

[STLviaMSP]

At least my flattery is an honest representation of what has become of the once-great Republican party.

[MUTGR]

Massachusetts Health Stats: Will Obama Explain Obamacare "Deductibles" and "OOPs" at Faneuil Hall?


Massachusetts health care reform - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[MUTGR]

Originally Posted by STLviaMSP

So if the private sector isn't producing jobs, it's better to just let the unemployed rot than to tax the wealthy that aren't investing or corps that are sitting on record piles of cash than to use tax policy to pull enough of this money into the economy to make a dent as stimulus? What? What?!!!?! What!??!?! And we also shouldn't give the poor/unemployed money to spend, since that will, you know, mess up their self esteem (even though that money will all get spent, in the process creating, you know, those j-things)? Where do you get this stuff? It's comedy gold.


Oh, and I got my insurance information for the new year: 35% ($2300) decrease in our premiums, $500 increase in deductible - $1800 net savings. Same coverage. Oooohhh, that meddling Obama! And I had no increase last year for pretty much the first time ever.

You might want to have the DNC make a commercial out of you, because most people are getting totally screwed by Obamacare and polls say they are rightly blaming only one party for it.

2014 could be shaping up as a bloodbath.

[Flyover_Country]

Originally Posted by STLviaMSP

So if the private sector isn't producing jobs, it's better to just let the unemployed rot than to tax the wealthy that aren't investing or corps that are sitting on record piles of cash than to use tax policy to pull enough of this money into the economy to make a dent as stimulus? What? What?!!!?! What!??!?! And we also shouldn't give the poor/unemployed money to spend, since that will, you know, mess up their self esteem (even though that money will all get spent, in the process creating, you know, those j-things)? Where do you get this stuff? It's comedy gold.

Take a look around and you have all of the evidence you need since 2008-2009 to tell you that Keynesian stimulus programs do not work. There was over a trillion in stimulus payments but the labor participation rate still dropped from 65.7% in Jan 2009 when Obama took office and continues to fall to 63.0% today (BLS figures and graph.) Taxes on people who have money have increased as well. If Keynesian policies really worked, wouldn't you expect this graph to look a bit different?

Oh, and I got my insurance information for the new year: 35% ($2300) decrease in our premiums, $500 increase in deductible - $1800 net savings. Same coverage. Oooohhh, that meddling Obama! And I had no increase last year for pretty much the first time ever.

How much of that premium decrease is due to subsidies?

[STLviaMSP]

None of it is from subsidies - this is employer-sponsored coverage. I can't do a perfect 1:1 versus the exchanges since I only pay 25%, but if I were on the exchanges there are options available such that the total cost of the policy, including likely oop expenses, would be similar to the total cost of my current policy.

Re stimulus, don't confuse stimulus with near-zero-interest Fed money. The stimulus package that got passed was less than half the size of what most serious economists thought it should have been to have an effect. This was general consensus at the time it was going through Congress. Furthermore, since much of the stimulus spending was contingent on the states applying for or initiating stimulus projects, rather than the certainty of well-defined Federally-driven projects - which would have been much more effective, but also impossible to get through the House - much of the stimulus money, though approved, was never put into the economy to begin with. So we got a "better than nothing, but still not much" stimulus. Thus the Fed initiated QE in the face of weak stimulus to ensure at the very least that there is not a liquidity freeze in the overall economy, and ensure inflation through expansion of the money supply to encourage lending and spending. But Fed Reserve policy can only go so far (make lending attractive) compared to the what a completely enacted stimulus directed by the Feds rather than the states would have done, as the Fed Reserve cannot initiate spending projects or directly pay people.

If Keynesian policies really worked, wouldn't you expect this graph to look a bit different?

If Keynesian policies had been enacted, that chart would look different. But they were not.

[MUTGR]

Originally Posted by STLviaMSP

None of it is from subsidies.

Re stimulus, don't confuse stimulus with zero interest Fed money. The stimulus package that got passed was less than half what most serious economists thought it should have been to have an effect. This is at the time it was going through Congress. Furthermore, since much of the stimulus spending was contingent on the states applying for or initiating stimulus projects, rather than the certainty of well-defined Federally-driven projects - which would have been much more effective, but also impossible to get through the House - much of the stimulus money was never put into the economy to begin with. So we got a "better than nothing, but still not much" stimulus. Thus the Fed initiated QE in the face of weak stimulus to ensure at the very least that there is not a liquidity freeze in the overall economy, plus inflation through expansion of the money supply to encourage lending and spending. But Fed Reserve policy can only go so far compared to the what a completely enacted stimulus directed by the Feds rather than the states would have done, as the Fed cannot initiate spending projects or directly pay people.



If Keynesian policies had been enacted, that chart would look different. But they were not.

Ah, the Krugman response: we just didn't spend enough money.

[STLviaMSP]

How does spending less money put more money into the economy if those with the cash to spend aren't spending it?

[MUTGR]

Originally Posted by STLviaMSP

How does spending less money put more money into the economy if those with the cash to spend aren't spending it?

Personally, I subscribe to the work of Harvard Economist Robert J. Barro and others who've studied the actual multiplier effect on GDP of government spending and have found it is less than one and approaches zero. In other words, you simply do not get more than a negligible, if any, increase in GDP from government spending. This is particularly true when you have to borrow to spend the money - you have to figure in the cost of borrowing and the crowding out effect it has on personal investment. Keynesian models always assume highly unrealistic multipliers that simply aren't borne out by empirical evidence, but it looks good on chalkboards in academia and of course to liberals who accept it as dogma. Of course it didn't help to ram through a massive government takeover of 1/6 of the economy under the guise of "reform" that created all sorts of incentives for businesses to not hire pending implementation of said reform.

The better approach is to provide incentives to private individuals and businesses to invest and otherwise put money and capital to productive uses.

There's a reason there are about 9 million fewer people in the workforce than the day Obama took office.

[STLviaMSP]

That multiplier effect varies according to underlying economic conditions such that a dollar of stimulus isn't always a dollar of stimulus. Timing is everything, and there is a place for austerity. Spend hard and creates deficits when the economy is tanking and the private sector is twiddling its thumbs, and cut deficits/debt when the economy is roaring and federal intervention is not needed.

As for the gov "taking over" 1/6 of the economy, that idea is the biggest load of horse s h i t you guys are trying to sell right now. Establishing standards and a more transparent marketplace is hardly the stuff of takeover. Oh. The. Horror. Oh. My. Waah.

[bler144]

Originally Posted by Flyover_Country

Take a look around and you have all of the evidence you need since 2008-2009 to tell you that Keynesian stimulus programs do not work. There was over a trillion in stimulus payments but the labor participation rate still dropped from 65.7% in Jan 2009 when Obama took office and continues to fall to 63.0% today (BLS figures and graph.) Taxes on people who have money have increased as well. If Keynesian policies really worked, wouldn't you expect this graph to look a bit different?

Your graph is a bit cherry-picked. The trend since 1998 is generally down.

Given the way labor participation is calculated (all adults over 16), a decline in that rate is to be expected regardless of economic conditions. The boomers are a statistical elephant moving through the python. As they slide into retirement the number has to come down, just as the rate spiked up around 1966 as they entered the labor force.