The stimulus Package in simple terms.

Ray eMailed and said: The Stimulus Bill in Simple Terms Shortly after class, an economics student approaches his economics professor and says, "I don't understand this stimulus bill. Can you explain it to me?" The professor replied, "I don't have any time to explain it at my office, but if you come over to my house on Saturday and help me with my weekend project, I'll be glad to explain it to you." The student agreed. At the agreed-upon time, the student showed up at the professor's house. The professor stated that the weekend project involved his backyard pool. They both went out back to the pool, and the professor handed the student a bucket. Demonstrating with his own bucket, the professor said, "First, go over to the deep end, and fill your bucket with as much water as you can." The student did as he was instructed... Then professor then continued, "Follow me over to the shallow end, and then dump all the water from your bucket into it." The student was naturally confused, but did as he was told. The professor then explained they were going to do this many more times, and began walking back to the deep end of the pool. The confused student asked, "Excuse me, but why are we doing this?" The professor matter-of-factly stated that he was trying to make the shallow end much deeper. The student did not think the economics professor was serious, but figured that he would find out the real story soon enough. However, after the 6th trip between the shallow end and the deep end, the student began to become worried that his economics professor had gone mad. The student finally replied, "All we're doing is wasting valuable time and effort on unproductive pursuits. Even worse, when this process is all over, everything will be at the same level it was before, so all you'll really have accomplished is the appearance of doing something when all we did was the destruction of what could have been truly productive action!" The professor put down his bucket and replied with a smile, "Congratulations. You now understand the stimulus bill."

Ray has funny friends.

You've summed up the Democrats in one short little story.

It's all smoke and mirrors rather than substance.

carguy123 wrote: You've summed up WASHINGTON in one short little story. It's all smoke and mirrors rather than substance.

Fixed. They're both guilty of their own greed/pride.

Bobzilla wrote:

carguy123 wrote: You've summed up WASHINGTON in one short little story. It's all smoke and mirrors rather than substance.

Fixed. They're both guilty of their own greed/pride.

I have a hard time listening to someone of either party. If they claim strong ties to a party, they are full of crap.

Joey

If you can read off a teleprompter you are a great president

DirtyBird222 wrote: If you can read off a teleprompter you are a great president

Don't forget look different and good. Then stare up at a 45 degree angle ( like your looking for devine guidance ) Just like Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, FDR Someone needs to compile a gallery...

And have a good slogan.. CHANGE, yes we can ....

. leave you with only change in your pocket.

As I speak, California has a 10.5% unemployment rate and we just raised our sales tax substantially to make up for the fact that 3,000 tax payers leave the state each day to escape the most oppressive business tax rate in the nation.

Now, we’ve got a special vote coming up for proposition 1-A & 1-B.

1-A is being sold as a spending cap but in fact, it’s a spending increase. Basically, it simply mandates that we don’t spend more than the revenue taken it. Great, wonderful, who wouldn’t support that??? Well, the truth of the matter is that there’s absolutely NO provision for limiting spending, only that we must by law, go collect enough revenue to cover our expenses. So, the actual effect is to mandate tax increases.

Should 1-A pass, 1-B will be voted on which calls for a “rainy day fund”. Again, sounds wonderful…set money aside during good times to cover bad times. Um, the money has already been allocated to the Teachers Union so it’s just a money laundering scheme to increase taxes to put money into an account that’ll immediately be spent.

I’m so disappointed with my state.

RX Reven' wrote: I’m so disappointed with my state.

Just now.. Like you weren't before?

It'll be a good day when the fault line sends Cali away from the other 47 continuous states :) Did you hear they are trying to ban black cars there as well?

BTW I say a decently humorous bumper sticker on a rapist van the other day: "I'll keep my guns, ammo, and freedom...you can keep the CHANGE."

I'm cool with the stimulus package. It's going to save me over $800 a month on COBRA and the tax credit for first time home buyers helped me sell my house. Yeah I'm thinking short term.

I guess it's all perspective.

That pool example is pretty lame and really has nothing to do with the concept of an economic stimulus. If you are going to go through the trouble of making this great analogous story, how about including some analogy in it!

Here is a one that I found with a quick search that is actually somewhat relevant! (what a concept):

For an analogy, let’s consider an independent roofing contractor:

• Let’s say he charges $4,000 to replace a roof ($3,000 for materials and $1,000 for labor) and that it takes him five days to do the work. For simplicity, we’ll say he never takes a day off so over the course of a year, he’ll replace 73 roofs (365/5) and generate a total income of $73,000/yr.
• He can’t change the cost of materials, but with new tools and a special truck with a lift, he can cut the labor time to 4 days/roof.
• He buys the truck and tools at a cost of $54,000.
• He now can replace 91 (365/4) roofs per year and generates an annual income of $91,000/yr.
• The increased productivity generates $18,000 ($91,000-$73,000) more income per year. This allows the roofer to pay back the loan in three years ($54,000/$18,000).

Maybe this kind of borrowing makes sense. However, if the truck and tools wear out before they’re paid-off the roofer is back to the old income with increased debt. Not good! Will there be an increase in this country’s productivity from this stimulus package to pay off that debt? If not, then what is the point of having the stimulus package?

If you want my idea of a stimulus package? Build about 20 modern nuclear power plants. That's pretty much it. The result of that would have a profound effect on our economy and country, both in immediate jobs as well as long terms jobs and energy benefits.

Construction of any kind is not stimulus. Yes it is billions of dollar injected into the pockets regionally but in reality they are short sighted jobs and the bridge/power station/new home construction market will fall off.

Build me an economy based around a regenerative product.

Money is evil.

If you want my idea of a stimulus package? Build about 20 modern nuclear power plants.

+1....I mean: "DIDN'T YOU SEE THE CHINA SYNDROME!?!?!?"

John Brown wrote: Construction of any kind is not stimulus. Yes it is billions of dollar injected into the pockets regionally but in reality they are short sighted jobs and the bridge/power station/new home construction market will fall off. Build me an economy based around a regenerative product.

Like child labor? You can always make more when they wear out or get too big to fit in the machines. Plus, you can pay them with the candy you keep in your van (which also makes a convenient signing bonus for them).

really?...

We just bought a van...

I don't know why we are using American tax payer's money here. From the email I got this morning apparently Nigeria has TRILLIONS of American money just rotting in banks over there. Now I'm not supposed to tell anyone about this, but I figure it's a sure thing so once they can process my check to cover the transfer fees I'll be stimulating the local economy plenty with my millions. What we really need to do is focus on recovering all this abandoned money. Now if you don't mind, I have to make a phone call to Major General Yomo Kinyata......

John Brown wrote: really?... We just bought a van...

Does it have windows?

thatsnowinnebago wrote:

John Brown wrote: Construction of any kind is not stimulus. Yes it is billions of dollar injected into the pockets regionally but in reality they are short sighted jobs and the bridge/power station/new home construction market will fall off. Build me an economy based around a regenerative product.

Like child labor? You can always make more when they wear out or get too big to fit in the machines. Plus, you can pay them with the candy you keep in your van (which also makes a convenient signing bonus for them).

Works for China. We buy plenty of cheap E36 M3 from them. Hell, when Obamer starts rounding up Ron Paul and Bob Barr voters, we can have free political prisoner labor too! w00t!!! (jk.)

Even the uber-liberal Krugman has some doubts about the stimulus.

His thoughts are not so much the government spending but the government bailouts are saving the wrong people.

Building infrastructure isn't a temporary fix, in fact, it makes perfect sense for us to build that stuff now while materials and labor are cheap. Good long term investment for the country.

Atomic Power isn't exactly the best solution because I'd imagine that it would only really employ only skilled labor and require lots of global products.

Wind and Solar can be manufactured and installed by normal people right here in the U.S.

Give Ford GM and Chrysler $250bn between them* to develop wind farm generator manufacturing facilities, solar panel manufacturing facilities, residential battery facilities (The actual hardware to be used) in all of the closed plants sprinkling the US. Build more nuclear facilities and those cool hybrid deals Hess brought up last year, sprinkle in regional biomass and geothermal facilities. Make them work the money off by supplying the units to regional power suppliers "at cost". This profitless exemption will also cover any local, regional or federal tax breaks for their main corporation as well. Get the people working in the areas that have 10%+ unemployment. Yes build bridges, but invest in the GEN2 underground electrical grid and get the country self powered.

• This would be a single company owned by the big 3. The company would also be partially owned by North American Airplane manufacturers as well as Pennsylvania Steel and Honeywell/GE etc.

PHeller wrote: ...Atomic Power isn't exactly the best solution because I'd imagine that it would only really employ only skilled labor and require lots of global products. Wind and Solar can be manufactured and installed by normal people right here in the U.S....

Interesting. So what is wrong with employing skilled labor? Welders, concrete workers, electricians to build and maintain, engineers to run? They aren't "normal"? Hell, you might even inspire students to study things a bit more advantageous to society than investment banking!

Hell, they will need security guards and janitors. You think the US workforce is up to that?

Solar and wind are nice, but the amount of labor, land and maintenance for the amount of power you get will be radically different. They could probably work to turn things around, but it would mean a huge reduction in power needs (if you want to get rid of foreign oil use) and you could kiss the concept of an electric car good by.

I think a solar and wind solution would be great, I just don't see it in a practical sense.

Power (in whatever form) is a VERY basic part of this country and it's economy, it is a part of almost every thing that is done. Build that, make it cheap, things will blossom.

PHeller wrote: Building infrastructure isn't a temporary fix, in fact, it makes perfect sense for us to build that stuff now while materials and labor are cheap. Good long term investment for the country.

I don't know if I agree.

30 years in the construction industry might give me a different perspective.

What the government generally refers to as a "shovel ready infrastructure project" is typically a road, bridge, or government building. These projects are not cheaper now, they are just being manned with fewer people. They do not create real jobs, they create temporary jobs. They do not use large numbers of people, they use small numbers of operators using big expensive machinery owned by large companies. And they are not managed effeciently, they are beaurocratic nightmares of taxpayer funded waste.

I know of several medium to large scale companies who are just waiting on their little piece of the government handout pie. There are thousands of ways to cook the books on projects like these. I strongly suspect many of them will start and never get completed, spending years in litigation trying to recover money that was put in the hands of companies who then disappeared without completing the project. It's the closest some of these guys will ever get to a golden parachute.

Miniscule compared to the tragedy of the banking industry handout, but still gonna have a lot of loss as we throw money toward these projects.

You can't spend your way out of a recession/depression. Never worked before, won't work now.

And this new spending spree isn't coming from increased taxes OR borrowing from China again. This time around, they're just printing more money.

Yeah, that'll help the situation.

You better watch yourself Chris…a case could be made that you’re using your mind rather than blindly following the party rhetoric.