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Any fool knew the stimulus would fail, as it failed in the Great Depression and 1990s Japan. History had already proven that such a plan would not work, but Obama had to put us through this mess in order to understand himself.
The dems and obama didn't care about the FACT that stimuli like porkulus had failed in the past.
It was all about control and payback to supporters.
The failure of the stimulus will only increase calls for a more centralized and planned economy. Observing how China acts like the Borg and is able to channel money without the nasty side effects of a democratic nation will tempt citizens to sign away their freedoms in order to secure economic stability by the planners.
And he was right, along with James Galbraith, Dean Baker, Eileen Appelbaum, Nobel laureates Joseph Stiglitz, Kenneth Arrow, Eric Maskin, Daniel McFadden, and Robert Solow just to name a few.
Now I am all for firing Obama's economic team, especially Larry Summers IF, the Republicans will either decide to lead, follow or get the **** out of the way!
Earth to ovcatto:
The Republicans are out of the way. They are not in power. They hold neither the House nor the Senate. They certainly do not hold the White House. They failed to block either stimulus. They are basically a nonfactor.
Stop looking to the government to save us. It didn't work in 1929-1934 and it won't work now.
The more government gets involved, the worse it will be for us.
Ah, the economist listed above including Krugman argued that the stimulus would fail. So what is your point?
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Why would they follow obama and the dems down another disastrous spending trail?
Who is they? If you are referring to the Republicans, they got their tax cuts and it failed as most economist predicted. As for the "disastrous spending trail" the stimulus has not, I repeat, has not effected the economy negatively. If it has perhaps you can explain why the federal discount rate is still damn near zero? And when you get done with that, trying explaining how the stimulus has depressed demand for goods and services?
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And the GOP did get out of the way of the stimulus, obamacare, cap&tax, etc,etc.
Oh, puleeze! They yelled and screamed until the administration put in tax cuts amounting to 42% of the total stimulus package. Anyone who honestly thought that $528 billion was going to totally reverse an economy hemorrhaging $1.2 trillion can't add.
The stimulus wasn't big enough. It needed to be 100 million billion trillion dollars.
Love,
Prof. Krugman
While I generally disagree with Krugman's position too, I think you are way to tough on the guy. I think that a smaller and well targeted package could have had some meaningful benefits for the unempolyed. I significantly disagree with the current program in that the stimulus is too large and erroneously focused, I think that some projects could have been beneficial to the unemployed and society as a whole.
Frankly, I think that a well placed stimulus package with immediate projects that are well justified and "shovel ready" could have had a decent impact on getting some jobs started.
The issue comes down not just to amount of the stimulus package, but also the projects and potential sources of incremental funding.
Also in the linked article though:
House Republicans do not plan to unveil a detailed policy agenda until late September, and Boehner's speech did not expand the GOP's existing economic proposals in any significant way.
So, I guess we'll have to wait and see before we critique the counterproposal. But firing current economic advisors while not having a specific alternative plan seems a bit shortsighted.
I never was of the opinion that a bunch of hardhats on the side of road pouring concrete would be the savior of this nation. Apparently President Shovel Ready did, though.
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