$160,000 Per Stimulus Job? White House Calls That 'Calculator Abuse'

"Money is the root of all evil." Who better to appreciate that statement than the religious right? Can't we come up with a compassionate, thoughtful solution to all this partisan economic guessing?

"Good for the goose is a liar."

DannyK, go to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and look it up. When Ronald Reagan took office, the unemployment rate was 7.5%. At the end of the following year, it was 10.8%.

I eagerly await your apology.

And how many jobs created were government jobs" You know, non-wealth producing jobs?

Doesn't anyone remember when at the begining of this fiasco, there were some economists and mathmaticians who calculated that the stimulus package could be divided up into amounts of $250,000/per person. This estimate was supposedly a lowball one. It was originally much higher. Of course, the idea was imediately squashed. The last thing the govt. would want to do was implement a program that would pull us out of recession with the benefits of a)allowing homeowners to pay their motgages/depts, w/out losing homes to foreclosure. b)keep the banks solvent due to the fact that they would no longer be holding bad credit/mortgages, c) stimulate spending for local business, and in turn create jobs, and the list goes on. But no can do, the money would actually bypass the many hands taking a cut along the way, big business wouldn't get all that neat cash, banks would only be paid what was owed them (no billions handed to them w/no strings attached)The auto industry? They wouldn't get all that cash and then go out of business,either they would have to make cars that sell, or close down (a novel idea?). Imagine the possiblilities if we used the "trickle up" effect? The "trickle down" isn't working. No water reaches the bottom!

And how many jobs created were government jobs" You know, non-wealth producing jobs?

Good for the goose is a liar.

$160,000 per job saved or created. That's kind of a bummer.

I hereby declare that 64 million jobs were created or saved. That's $1,600 per job.

There, that's better :)

Posted by: Good for the Goose | Nov 1, 2009 5:08:48 PM

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Solid evidence like you don't give $250,000 + houses to people making $25,000 a year? How about people with credit scores in the mid 500? How about people that can't put ANY money down?

The CRA FORCED banks to do all of the above!

Before the CRA people actually had to be able to either a: afford to make mortgage payments and have decent credit or b: have somewhat shaky credit and be able to put 20% down to help protect the lenders.

With the CRA millions of people who should be renting due to insufficient annual income and credit scores to afford a house were granted access to homes with NO money down and even worse 2nd "home equity lines of credit" with no money down.

Not hard to see how people who previously couldn't get their crap in gear to have a decent credit rating or job to previously qualify for a house would seriously over extend themselves which eventually would cause the tax payers to have to bail the Government out.

Unless your a lib that thinks the Government can do no wrong O_o

"Hey Jake, great job. You gave them the benefit of the doubt when coming up with the $160,000 per job mark. Using Recovery.gov's 640,000 jobs created or saved number (instead of the White House's guess of a million jobs) ... each job cost about $250,000." - Paul
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I just started a small business. I have one employee ... me. Give me $250,000 and I'll hire three or four people.

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"So more than half the jobs created or saved were in education. My wife is a special education teacher for mild-to-severe behavioral children. She has a Masters degree from the country's top special-education college. She makes around 40K a year. If more than half the jobs are in education, what job does she need to get to earn $160K to $250K a year? Please find out!" - Paul
_________

Sounds like someone's putting money in a Swiss bank account somewhere. Obama will end up the richest man in the world by end-of-year. Welcome to Chicago politics!

"Ronald Reagan inherited a 7.5% unemployment rate and took it to 10.8% by the end of the following year. Borrowing more conservative phraseology, “He owned it!”"

Reagan didn't have to be told he was responsible for the economy when he was elected. He took the proper steps to fix Carter's mess and turned the economy around within two years to preside over the longest recession free period in US history. Obama, OTOH, is digging us deeper and deeper into debt and destroying the free market. Meanwhile, most economists are telling us that unemployment will stay high for years to come. If Obama doesn't pull this out in a real way by year three of his administration in a big way he better start packing his bags because he will be unelectable.

"No, Jimmy Carter (Barack Obama`s long lost twin) caused a 10.8% unemployment rate. Reagan fixed it with tax cuts to stimuluate jobs and growth."

Isn’t it conservatives who always say you can’t blame the prior president, no matter how much he sucked?

Ronald Reagan inherited a 7.5% unemployment rate and took it to 10.8% by the end of the following year. Borrowing more conservative phraseology, “He owned it!”

Reagan spreading the manure got us to 10.8% unemployment in the early 80s.

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No, Jimmy Carter (Barack Obama`s long lost twin) caused a 10.8% unemployment rate. Reagan fixed it with tax cuts to stimuluate jobs and growth. obama is stimulating neither. He IS stimulating Government and massive amounts of debt and entitlement programs to be paid for by the productive. Spreading the wealth. Other peoples wealth.

Look at this story. $1.5 BILLION spent in WV in stimulus to save or create (whatever that means) 5000 Jobs according to the numbers provided by Robert Byrd. That comes to $300,000 spent PER JOB.

“Government 'spreading the wealth' got us where we are today. 10% unemployment.”

Reagan spreading the manure got us to 10.8% unemployment in the early 80s.

"Community Reinvestment Act, make the loans or we will shut you down. And nobody saw a problem with this."

The CRA was based on solid statistical evidence that banks were discriminating against people when making home loans, but no right-wingers saw a problem with this of course.

"What is your point about this statement, which does not show that lehman ever wrote a single mortgage but went bankrupt because their assets ( mortgage securities) declined so much they were insolvent. Owning something does not mean you created it.

Most of those toxic mortgages were written by firms like countrywide and indymac who did not care about credit standards because they knew that fannie and freddie would pretty much by it regardless and then securitize it."
Posted by: Econ 101

Well the same should go for Freddie and Frannie then, right? They didn't write the toxic mortgages either. -"Owning something does not mean you created it."

So you have again failed to demonstrate that Freddie and Frannie are any more to blame for the financial crisis than any of these other firms that you conspicuously fail to mention when discussing the matter. -And I don't recall tierra claiming to be a financial expert.

Hey Jake, great job. You gave them the benefit of the doubt when coming up with the $160,000 per job mark. Using Recovery.gov's 640,000 jobs created or saved number (instead of the White House's guess of a million jobs) ... each job cost about $250,000.

So more than half the jobs created or saved were in education. My wife is a special education teacher for mild-to-severe behavioral children. She has a Masters degree from the country's top special-education college. She makes around 40K a year. If more than half the jobs are in education, what job does she need to get to earn $160K to $250K a year? Please find out!

Government 'spreading the wealth' got us where we are today. 10% unemployment.

Hey ECON 101. Private enterprise failed in this Country because Government stepped into business and demanded, no forced lending to lend money to people that they previously would not lend to. That is what caused this recession. The more the Govenment interferes with private enterprise the more problems we are going to have. Community Reinvestment Act, make the loans or we will shut you down. And nobody saw a problem with this.

Question: What percentage of the stimulus money was scheduled to be expended within the 18 months after passage? Business cycles are not decades long, yet the stimulus money was defined to pay out over a decade, with the bulk being doled out prior to elections (seriously, I'm sure that's a coincidence).

Any rational human being can't call it a stimulus package. It can only be called what it was: political payoffs with a smidge of stimulus to give the whole pile of excrement an acceptable title.