Comments on: Did it Work?

By: ProfSwitzer

ProfSwitzer — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 05:42:18 +0000

Nik – While I share your cynicism, the second half of the paragraph you quoted is my belief that at some point we’ll have to stop borrowing so much and start paying. Our debt/GDP ratio is projected to top 100% in the next few years, and that’s reaching dangerous territory when you consider all the other liabilities we have that aren’t even on the books (SS and Medicare primarily).

You’re right though — we are in for a rude awakening. Send me a postcard from wherever you end up.

By: Nik Drescher

Nik Drescher — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 04:11:07 +0000

Dave, while I agree with you on many aspects of your post there is one fatal flaw. You seem to think that the government (just like the American People) borrows money to pay it back.

” Our children lose because we’re borrowing most of this money and will have to pay it back. Previous generations have been able to pass debt onto their kids and they’d pass it onto their kids, but now the debt/GDP ratio is starting to fall into very dangerous territory. Future generations, perhaps even this current generation, won’t have that option and will have to make cuts.”

Don’t you know that now, just like yesteryear, you do not have to pay back your debt? It is not a new paradigm is the same old same old. (and yes I am being sarcastic)

Honestly, when a generation can no longer “pass the buck” onto the next one American consumerism is going to have a very rude awakening. And I hope to be somewhere warm with plenty of non-cash based assets in my possession.

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 04:06:40 +0000

This writing on “Did it Work” is an especially insightful article. Thank you for writing it. I don’t know how you find time to do all this reseach!! It was very helpful to me. Tom

By: Benjamin Seghers

Benjamin Seghers — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:12:03 +0000

Some of these things Obama addressed in his appearance to the Republican retreat last month. For example, when he entered office, unemployment was around 8% and was expected to stay around there. But it happened that unemployment continued to raise, even before any of his policies went into effect, before any stimulus. So is it fair to call the higher unemployment a failure of his policies? Maybe, maybe not.

As for the Republican proposal that “would have created even more jobs at almost half the cost,” Obama says, “And the notion that I would somehow resist doing something that cost half as much but would produce twice as many jobs — why would I resist that? I wouldn’t. I mean, that’s my point, is that — I am not an ideologue. I’m not. It doesn’t make sense if somebody could tell me you could do this cheaper and get increased results that I wouldn’t say, great. The problem is, I couldn’t find credible economists who would back up the claims that you just made.”

Maybe the stimulus that was passed was not the best thing to pass. But was the Republican alternative really so much better? Apparently Dr. Romer says it would, and I don’t know why Obama wouldn’t consider her a a credible economist, but other estimates also showed the proposed permanent tax cuts would be much more expensive over the next decade, over twice the cost of Obama’s plan. There were alternatives, but it’s not always easy to say which ones were necessarily better.

The stimulus probably wasn’t as great as it was expected by some people. But we’re still left with the question, “how can we alter the policy to improve the outcome”?