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Forums - General - Obama's stimulus will cost more than the entire Iraq war.

patjuan32 on 24 August 2010
fighter said:
patjuan32 said:

I am not going to read the article because it seems that the argument is Illogical.

The cost of transporting soldiers to and from Iraq and shipping equipment like guns, tanks, and others.

Then their is also medical supplies for the 'tent hospitals' and the cost of treating soldiers and transporting the severly wounded to Hospitals in other conuntries that can care for the soldiers. Then there is the outpatient care for the Soldiers.

The cost of food, lodging, and basic necessities like bathing, using the bathroom, and drinking water. All that has to be maintained.

There are so many cost to mainting a fighting force in another country, it's like running a city, that I doubt this guy or the CBO will ever take the time to calculate everything.

Therefore this guys argument is false on all accounts. Especially since we will not no the true cost of the war until years later. When the Pentagon decides to tell us.

 

 

 

Incremental military budgets require public funding (validated by the congress), the cost of the war is known. As you suggest, there might be some blurring due to reallocation of ressources and general confusion between the maitainance costs of the army and the incremental cost of the war, but military budget at war-1 and military budget at war x are perfectly known.

I doubt that the budget for the War is known. There are things that cannot be accounted for. There is also post care for service men  and women at VA hospitals that are probably not included in the War budget but should be.



If Nintendo is successful at the moment, it’s because they are good, and I cannot blame them for that. What we should do is try to be just as good.----Laurent Benadiba

 

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richardhutnik on 24 August 2010
HappySqurriel said:
Rath said:

Ok without checking whether the statistics actually hold up or not (so assuming he is correct) he misses two important points I believe.

1) The stimulus helped the economy recover, therefore the costs of the stimulus are at least to some point offset by the stronger economy.

2) The stimulus spending wasn't a straight up loss. The GM deal is a good example of this, $50B outlay and now the govt owns about $100B of GM.


First, the obvious question, if the stimulus helped the economy recover why is unemployment so high and why are so many people convinced that we will face a double dip (or more appropriately that we never left the initial recession)?

Secondly, I would just like to point out that since the stimulus was funded through deficit spending when the spending slows down or stops it will act as an overall drag to the economy because you will have to pay interest on it; and, being that it is unlikely that the US government will every pay down any of the principle, the total negative effect from the stimulus will inevitably be several times larger than the total positive effect from the stimulus.

I can ask  the same about Bush tax cuts.  If they were so great for economic growth, why was job creation so poor and why didn't they sustain any growth and we had the meltdown?

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/01/09/bush-on-jobs-the-worst-track-record-on-record/

What you said about deficit spending doubles for tax cuts to regarding the deficits.  Creating jobs in China doesn't help the United States.



rocketpig on 24 August 2010
SamuelRSmith said:

Just looking at the raw cost isn't everything. You have to also consider what the net effect will be to the economy in the long run. The Iraq War is paving the way for a secure oil pipeline, an allied state in the Middle-East, and (eventually) another nation of wealthy citizens embarking upon international trade. Over the decades, this will easily offset the financial cost of the war.

The stimulus package... well, it's kept a few inefficient companies afloat, it hasn't really corrected any of the fundamental flaws (and a stimulus package never will), and is causing prolonged economic turmoil. What's more, the long run inflation caused by the deficit is going to be crippling, and tending to the debts will cause decades of austerity.

I firmly believe that if we had let everything run its course naturally, we would be in the midsts of one of the strongest recoveries ever seen.

Indeed. I love how people assume the Iraq war has been an unmitigated disaster when we have no idea what the longterm consequences/rewards of involving ourselves in the conflict are going to be in 20 years.




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voty2000 on 24 August 2010
heruamon said:

I thought you had left the US?!?!  Darn, I guess I was hoping for too much...giving tax cuts to 90 % of americans is a bad thing I guess...


You can't give tax cuts to 90% of Americans because only like 40% of Americans pay taxes.

Edit:  40% pay no taxes and many more only pay some of the taxes.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/1410.html



Kasz216 on 24 August 2010
Wonktonodi said:
Kasz216 said:
Rath said:
TheRealMafoo said:
Rath said:

Ok without checking whether the statistics actually hold up or not (so assuming he is correct) he misses two important points I believe.

1) The stimulus helped the economy recover, therefore the costs of the stimulus are at least to some point offset by the stronger economy.

2) The stimulus spending wasn't a straight up loss. The GM deal is a good example of this, $50B outlay and now the govt owns about $100B of GM.


A point he makes:

When Obama was pushing the stimulus, he said,

Then you get the argument, "well this is not a stimulus bill, this is a spending bill." Whaddya think a stimulus is? (Laughter.) That's the whole point. No, seriously. (Laughter.) That's the point. (Applause.)

So spending $572B in two years stimulates an economy, but spending $554B over six years ruins one?

Aren't these also the same folks who tell us how well JFK and LBJ ran the economy back in the roaring '60s? During the eight years of 1961-69, 46% of all federal spending was on national defense. During President Bush's eight years, defense spending did not even average 20% of federal outlays. Under JFK/LBJ, defense spending was 8%-9% of GDP. Under Bush, it was about 4%.

Uh. Spending $572B in two years on stimulating the economy stimulates the economy.

Also comparing now to the cold war on defense spending is obviously going to stuff comparisons up.

I dunno.  I mean... look at the Great Depression.  FDR's stimulus spending didn't really do shit except prolong the problems and set up for a second dip.

Which a lot of people are predicting now.

The second dip ended during WW2.  Quite possibly a coincidence... and the problem was finally fixing itself naturally, but current economic history tends to favor war as the better economic booster then stimulus spending.

The double dip happed when the stimulus spending stoped and stome taxes increased.  The second dip ending durring ww2 was when the government took even more control over the economy.  Since WW2 the government hasn't really had that control over the economy again.

Not to forget that the low in uneployment before the double dip was like 14% so still higher than we've had with our high

You are kinda missing the point.   There is ALWAYS a double dip with stimulus spending.  Always will be, because stimulus spending will stop.  Stimulus spending is artificial, and people KNOW it's artificial.

So peoples confidence never fully returns.  Stimulus spending actually hurts confidence.

What helped in WW2 was the creation of demand for new products and services... after WW2 there were new products, new services, and lots of demand.

Stimulus simply spend money to prolong the negative effects.  Possibly making everything worse.



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fastyxx on 24 August 2010

CBO said that stimulus added or saved between 1.4 and 3.3 million jobs and lowered unemployment by as much as 1.8% in the 2nd quarter.

How much is that worth at this point in time?  Where would consumer confidence be now if unemployment were in the mid 11% range?  Where would we be with another 1.5%- 2.5% of the workplace out of jobs?  Where would businesses be without an additional couple million out there spending as employed individuals?

We've used the CBO to throw stones at the stimulus.  (Though as I pointed out, this was somewhat baseless, though Mafoo chose to not respond to that critique.)  So are we now going to accept the CBO's analysis that the stimulus was indeed successful if not perfect?



Can't we all just get along and play our games in peace?

axt113 on 24 August 2010


Rumors indicate that it is planning on following the first approach, sticking a new, motion-sensitive controller onto an existing console. Our perspective is that this is the worst of the three options.

-Clayton Christensen back in 2007 already knew Move would be a bad idea

HappySqurriel on 24 August 2010
fastyxx said:

CBO said that stimulus added or saved between 1.4 and 3.3 million jobs and lowered unemployment by as much as 1.8% in the 2nd quarter.

How much is that worth at this point in time?  Where would consumer confidence be now if unemployment were in the mid 11% range?  Where would we be with another 1.5%- 2.5% of the workplace out of jobs?  Where would businesses be without an additional couple million out there spending as employed individuals?

We've used the CBO to throw stones at the stimulus.  (Though as I pointed out, this was somewhat baseless, though Mafoo chose to not respond to that critique.)  So are we now going to accept the CBO's analysis that the stimulus was indeed successful if not perfect?


What methodology does the CBO use to determine that a job was saved? It is up to the individual (or group) who makes a claim to prove that it is true rather than force someone to demonstrate that their statement is untrue; otherwise an idividual could argue that Emo music has prevented countless terrorist acts because there has not been a terrorist act since Emo music became popular.

 

The reality of the stimulus is this, being that the stimulus did not employ individuals to do work to produce a good or service that people would willingly pay for, as soon as the stimulus spending is removed any job created through the stimulus will disappear; and any of the money that cycled its way through the economy and (supposedly) "Saved" jobs will be gone. Since there is little valuable infrastructure produced from this stimulus, the only lasting effect it will have is expanding the national debt by $7,200 per household; and increasing the yearly interest payments on the national debt by tens of billions of dollars every year.



HappySqurriel on 24 August 2010
richardhutnik said:

I can ask  the same about Bush tax cuts.  If they were so great for economic growth, why was job creation so poor and why didn't they sustain any growth and we had the meltdown?

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/01/09/bush-on-jobs-the-worst-track-record-on-record/

What you said about deficit spending doubles for tax cuts to regarding the deficits.  Creating jobs in China doesn't help the United States.


No true fiscal conservative would argue for cutting taxes without proportionate cuts in spending, so an increased deficit from tax cuts isn't a justified act.

With that said though, after the dot-com bubble the liberal pundits waited (about) 6 months before bashing Bush for not repairing the economy; and while his actions were short sighted, when his administration claimed that there was an recovery underway there was actually a recovery underway.



axt113 on 24 August 2010

You either have guns or butter, can't have both, more military spending means less domestic, military spending isn't as good a stimulus, because it takes away from domestic production and consumption



Rumors indicate that it is planning on following the first approach, sticking a new, motion-sensitive controller onto an existing console. Our perspective is that this is the worst of the three options.

-Clayton Christensen back in 2007 already knew Move would be a bad idea