Phony Jobs Claims

The Media Fall for Phony 'Jobs' Claims
06/09/09 - Online.WSJ by William McGurn

The Obama Numbers Are Pure Fiction.

[edited] "Saved or created" has become Barack Obama's signature phrase. Obama declared yesterday that the stimulus had already saved or created 150,000 American jobs.

He announced faster stimulus spending so he could "save or create" an additional 600,000 jobs this summer. Obama promised earlier that his recovery plan would "save or create three to four million jobs over the next two years."

Tony Fratto was a senior member of the Bush administration communications office. He sees a double standard at play.

We would never have used a formula like "save or create". To begin with, the number is pure fiction. The administration has no way to measure how many jobs are actually being 'saved.' If we had tried to use something this flimsy, the press would never have let us get away with it.

The inability to measure Mr. Obama's jobs formula is part of its attraction. Never mind that no one actually measures "jobs saved". Neither the Labor Department, the Treasury, nor the Bureau of Labor Statistics does it. The New York Times delicately reports that Mr. Obama's jobs claims are "based on macroeconomic estimates, not an actual counting of jobs." Nice work if you can get away with it.

Harvard economist and former Bush economic adviser Greg Mankiw writes:

The expression "save or create" is political genius. You can measure how many jobs are created between two points in time. There is no way to measure how many jobs are saved. Even if things get much worse, the President can say that there would have been 4 million fewer jobs without the stimulus.

My Fantasy Beats Your Reality

Reality Versus Leftist Fantasy
06/03/09 - ChicagoBoyz by Shannon Love

[edited] Leftists claim that every economic crisis shows the failure of the free market, and assume that they would never have economic crises. Leftists have a wildly exaggerated sense of their own understanding of the economy and everything else.

The left doesn’t actually have a developed system of thought regarding the economy. They can’t actually explain why the real world political process will make better decisions than the free-market. Instead, they point to any reversals in the real economy, regardless of cause, and assert that in their imaginations leftist politicians could have done better.

Leftists create elaborate fantasies. Then everyone else must argue for reality against the fantasies. The real-world system always comes out worse.

Alternative-energy advocates feel entitled to paper over any shortcomings of their favored technology by evoking future technological breakthroughs. But, they won’t let you postulate future technological breakthroughs that would make current energy sources even more attractive.

If you point out that wind and solar power is unreliable to the point of near uselessness, proponents will breezily respond that future technological breakthroughs in power storage or distribution will overcome the problem.

However, if you point out that developments in nuclear technology could create power systems that would completely recycle their waste, they respond that we should not plan for nuclear power unless we have absolutely proven that the technology works. And, let’s cut funding for the research that would prove it works.

There are More Ways to Go Wrong Than to Go Right
06/19/09 - ChicagoBoyz by Shannon Love

Many leftists debate in this style: “I have an idea and you don’t, therefore I must have the best plan”.

I see this in debates about energy. Some believe fossil fuels cause global warming and nuclear power is too dangerous, so solar and wind power must be viable technologies. Unfortunately, the fact that one specific technology has problems has nothing to do with whether another unrelated technology will work.

The urge to do something, anything, to solve a problem can backfire badly. People immersed in politics begin to think that because there are only two major divisions in our politics, there must be only two altnerate solutions to any problem.

They begin to think that if the idea of one side is bad, then the idea of the other side must be good. If we think that any idea is better than no idea at all, we are more likely to do more harm than good. There are more ways to go wrong than to go right.

Will universal healthcare control costs?
06/16/09 - The Atlantic by Meang McArdle

There have been promised cost reductions for Medicare in the past. Why haven’t they happened, and what has changed to make them feasible now? When I ask this question, I get angry demands that I put forward my plan for cost control, rather than merely critiquing everyone else’s. This seems rather like demanding that I put forward my design for a perpetual motion machine before I am allowed to point out problems in the US energy market.

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Magic Power
Could the nerds give us cheap power if they wanted to?

Problems With Green Energy
"Honey, please go up on the roof and sweep off the solar panels."

More on Energy choices ...

Stimulus Shrinks Economy

Stimulus Package Shrinks Economy, Destroys Private Sector Jobs
05/31/09 - OpenMarket by Hans Bader

This is only the last part:

[edited] A provision in the stimulus package that blocked a mere 97 Mexican truckers from U.S. roads "caused Mexico to retaliate with tariffs on 90 goods affecting $2.4 billion in U.S. trade", destroying 40,000 American jobs.

The vague "buy American" provisions of the stimulus, doing little to promote purchases of U.S. products, managed to ignite a trade war with Canada.

Obama's policies echo those of Herbert Hoover, who helped spawn the Great Depression through his protectionism and tax increases.

One of Obama's advisers admits that “the barrage of tax increases proposed in President Barack Obama’s budget could kill any chance of an early and sustained recovery.” Even the Washington Post, which endorsed Obama and once supported his auto bailouts, now has soured on them and their waste of taxpayer money.

Treasury Recalls All Dollars (smile)

Treasury Issues Emergency Recall of All U.S. Dollars
05/04/09 - Reason by Katherine Mangu-Ward

See the short video by The Onion. Very funny, if it doesn't become true. "Just put all of your money into the plastic bag and mail it in. Don't worry, in time you will earn it back."

There is a link to actions by the Federal Reserve that are somewhat similar.

A Quick Explanation for the Recession

An Explanation for the Great Recession
03/25/09 - The Angry Economist

Warning. You will need some self confidence to read this explanation. It is short and understandable. You may tend to believe complicated presentations that you don't understand. Really, if you don't understand something, they haven't explained it very well, or they are hiding their own ignorance.

[edited] Austrian Economists can explain this recession in the same way that all the other ones are explained:

[ Sorry, you will have to go to the original article to find out. ]

What is Krugman (the moron) telling us that we need to do? Spend, spend, spend, don't save!

Every REAL economist will tell you that's stupid. Everyone believes Krugman only because he got a Nobel Prize back before his brain failed.

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Cargo Cult Economics
Obama's economic team says "Spend, Spend, Spend". They claim that government spending multiplies wealth. Actually, private spending AND SAVING has the same effect in creating a vibrant economy. Savings don't sit around being lazy at the bank. They provide the means to build businesses, employ people, and buy commercial goods.

The Fake History of the Depression

The Fake History of the Depression
04/20/2009 - Mises Daily by Robert P. Murphy

His new book is "The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Great Depression and the New Deal".

[edited] Nobel laureates and presidential advisors proclaim that it was Herbert Hoover's free-market penny pinching that exacerbated the Depression. They say that the economy was saved only when FDR boldly ran up enormous deficits to fight the Nazis. But, this official history is utterly false.

Contrary to what you have heard, Hoover was a textbook Keynesian after the stock-market crash. He cut income tax rates for 1929 by one percentage point and increased federal spending by 42% from 1930 to 1932.

This enormous jump in spending occurred while tax receipts collapsed, due to the decline in economic activity and the price deflation of the early 1930s. This combination led to unprecedented peacetime deficits under the Hoover administration — something FDR railed against during the 1932 campaign!

Hoover spent $4.6 billion against only $2 billion in tax receipts. The 1932 deficit would translate into an astounding $3.3 trillion deficit in 2007 (instead of the actual deficit of $162 billion for that year). Hoover's 1932 deficit was 4% of GDP.

GDP is Gross Domestic Product, or total national income. The official government measures of rising GDP during the war years is misleading. Massive military spending was included in GDP, even though producing tanks is hardly the same measure of prosperity as producing consumer goods.

Normally, when the Fed prints money to buy massive quantities of goods (such as war supplies), the price level and cost of living goes through the roof. The price level is expressed as the CPI, the Consumer Price Index. The government applied price controls during the war. [ Price controls were either ineffective or produced shortages. -AG ]

Say that your salary goes up from $30,000 to $33,000, a 10% increase. But, the cost of what you buy goes up 10% also because of inflation. Your "inflation adjusted" income is still $30,000. The same applies to GDP, which is supposed to measure total income.

Statisticians would normally adjust for the price level to compute the "inflation adjusted" GDP. This adjustment couldn't occur, because the government made it illegal for the CPI to go through the roof. Official measures showing "real GDP" rising during World War II are as phony as the Soviet Union's announcements of industrial achievements.

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Building tanks and bombs doesn't make you rich. Building new infrastructure (bridges, roads, and railroads) only increases prosperity if it is highly useful. Just the building of the structures doesn't do a thing.

A Tested Stimulus Plan
The housing crisis is the result of our last stimulus plan. How do we like it?

Cargo Cult Economics
Spending and saving by individiuals is more "stimulative" than taxing and spending by government.