The "stimulus" package was a complete success in what it was meant to do by the people who put it together: it was a big hand out to all the leftist causes and dinosaur Democratic leadership's dream projects they've had for decades. It successfully paid back campaign donors and Obama assistants, it successfully bribed various companies to help Democrats win power, and it sent money to every goofy leftist scheme in the country. Success.

Posted by Mike_M
2009-10-23 08:36:25

Obama and co see it coming too. And they will no doubt use it as the latest emergency to inflict another horrible healthcare/stimulus/cap-n-tax type idea on America. Which of course, will set the stage for yet another emergency down the road. Wash Rinse Repeat until the voters have been soaked for everything and America is no better off then France or Sweden.

The Fed needs to be rapidly and very publicly taking as much bailout money out of the economy as possible. The economy is deflationary right now because people aren't spending a lot of money. But once the recovery starts, inventories decline, and new orders and imports are made, the transmission is going to fall right out of the economy with a huge inflation spike.

Everybody seems to be able to see it coming a mile away except Obama and Timmy Geithner.

Another factor to be considered: how many of those jobs that were created are actually government jobs and thus dependent on the sipohoning of wealth rather than the creation of it? I know that while Kansas has gained jobs in the last month or two, most of them have been government jobs. And, howmany of those created jobs are temp positions?

The number of people who work for cash is amazingly high. And I am not just talking about laborers now, I am talking about professionals all the way from plumbers, mechanics, and hairdressers. Now they will quote you one price, and then another lower price if you pay cash and do not demand a receipt.

Sounds like Sweden. Back in the 80's when Sweden's tax rates were at their highest, there was a whole underground economy of bartering and off-the books transactions taking place. Most highly paid professionals, were willing to barter services with other "like-minded" professionals without any money changing hands - just in order to cut the greedy government tax collectors right out of the picture legally. It only took a couple of years of that for the government to get the clue and start their walk back from the pinnacle of socialism.

You think it might get worse??? I hope not, but I'm not counting on it getting much better with this administration.

Well inflation is very likely to get a whole lot worse. The only way we could have avoided heavy inflation was if the government was able to rein in the money supply as the economy recovered. But the recovery has been so weak and spotty, and new unemployment claims so high that they can't rein in the money supply yet and that's going to trigger inflation within the next year to eighteen months. The other indicator to watch is new employment figures. Many economists are predicting that this will be a jobless recovery with only a minor rebound in employment. That will continue to suppress tax revenues and the government, in the face of all their spending and in light of the fiscal problems with Medicare and SS, is going to have to come after the taxpayer much sooner and more broadly than they had thought they would.

If you have money invested, you might well want to consider moving some of it into an investment vehicle which is tied to precious metals, specifically gold. You won't really be growing your money as the price of gold rises, but at least you'll be preserving the value of your money as inflation devalues the dollar.

But other than that, as the old Timbuk 3 lyric goes, "The future's so bright I gotta wear shades."

I think there must be a note of caution in all of those figures.

My state Texas has reported losing almost a quarter million jobs, but our economy is still strong compared to other states and there are people moving into the state for jobs.

My guess is that more jobs have simply gone under ground, or off the books if you will to escape all the tax and other regulations.

The number of people who work for cash is amazingly high. And I am not just talking about laborers now, I am talking about professionals all the way from plumbers, mechanics, and hairdressers. Now they will quote you one price, and then another lower price if you pay cash and do not demand a receipt.

I don't think unemployment has much further to go, but when the over printed dollar finally catches up to how much it is really worth (its already been replaced as reserve currency for many nations by Euros), we'll see serious inflation hit. There are a lot of people mumbling about recovery from recession but they're going to look like fools by the end of this year, I am afraid.

To be fair, the estimates state December 2010, so maybe they expected to get worse before it gets better?

Still, I'm curious how it will look a year from now, seeing how off their estimations have been already. You think it might get worse??? I hope not, but I'm not counting on it getting much better with this administration. Of course, everything so far is exceeding their expectations. Talk about lip service, these people are talking out of their ass and some people are still eating it up

But didnt Biden say that it has worked out great...on several occasions?