"Economic Stimulus" checks coming early

[Matt]

The MGM Grand in Detroit is licking its chops right now.

"Slot machines will now take your economic stimulus check directly!"

[Uncle Mxy]

I wish peeps knew what to blame the Prez for.

I agree. There's a lot to blame the President for, especially with some aspects of how we got into this mess in the first place. But this so-called "economic stimulus" package, in which we:

- borrow money we don't have
- throw it back at people in a scattershot way, and
- hope it helps with a problem caused by borrowing money we don't have

is a boondoggle with bipartisan support.

Just call me unstimulated.

[DrRay11]

BOONDOGGLE

[Glenn]

I'm guessing that it only has bipartisan support because of the political ammo that would be provided if the Dems opposed it.

DO YOU REALLY WANT TO VOTE FOR THE GUY THAT DIDN'T WANT TO PUT CASH IN YOUR POCKET??

[Fool]

I don't mind paying down my own debt with the governments.

[UxKa]

On average, the ware in Iraq costs each US household $100 per month. That's not taking into account anything indirect such as gas prices or other countries hating us, just a literal math figure of we spend X dollars and there are X households in the US. So after years in Iraq, the gov says "Here's six months of the war back in your pocket." Fuck off Bush.

[xanadu]

Here is graph of debt as a % of gdp by president.



So, repub presidents are far from the responsible stewards of the economy that they claim. Debt per GDP has not declined in any year of Reagan, Bush1 or Bush2. In addition, the GDP measure in the US has a far different meaning now than in the 50s. In the 50s, most of the GDP was represented by infrastructure and manufacturing output. In theory, these types of outputs have inherent value. As our economy has transformed, GDP has increased via paper wealth and investments. If Worldcom stocks drops from $80 to $0, you have nothing to show from the supposed GDP. In comparison, if you had manufactured tractors and went bankrupt, you would still have the manufactured tractors existing somewhere in the economy. We are in currently in highly uncharted territority. The deregulation of the economy by republicans makes the water even murkier because business are essentially for regulating themselves and outsiders have almost no oversight of the accounting practices. In addition, a large portion of GDP growth had been mortgage equity, which resulted from skyrocketing housing and property costs. In fact, if it you wondered why reported economic data seemed better than actual conditions, now you know.



Nonetheless, this rebate will stimlate the economy some. Supply side tax cuts have very diffuse effects, especially now that we have global stock and currency markets. The greater the income disparities the less stimulated the economy is as the super rich spend much smaller % of income on consumer goods.

Perhaps, the bigger problem in the US is private debt. While always high, it shot up around Reagan's preidency and it has shot through the roof during the bush presidency, partly because of the extremely artifically low interest rates and the deregulated banking industry.



Another type of debt, which is not included in any of the above graphs is the deterioration in our physical infrastructure (roads, bridges, dams, water and sewer infrastructure). Most of this was built 50 years ago or more and in dire need of costly repairs. (imagine tearing out the streets of Manhattan to fix the sewer underneath.)

All in all, we are at the precipice of a debt cliff looking down into an abyss. Our economic indicators are out of whack because the rapid increase in debt has masked the stagnation in houesehold wage rates. The national debt is very concerning, but private debt is the real sword of Damocles hanging above our heads IMO. we'll see.

(by the way, yes I have had way too much time on my hands lately.)

[DrRay11]

tl;dr

jk I'll get back to it later

[Uncle Mxy]

I've always been uncomfortable with "debt to GDP" ratio. It's hard to discern much GDP exists as a function of debt and how much is despite the debt. It's hard to discern whether we're really getting good bang for the collective debt. It's sort of the "assists to turnover" statistic of global economics. I don't have nearly the time or motivation to go into such matters as Xanadu has. (I'm more worried about our point guard with a decent assist-to-TO ratio actually not playing like a total fucking fucktard at the moment!)

[Zekyl]

Xanadu, you just made a boondoggle of my mind.