And I made it clear that some of the jobs being created by the stimulus are private sector. [distraught frown-y face]

“I have already posted material about how government jobs are created as government functions are expanded “

I'm not arguing that government expansion doesn't create government jobs; I'm arguing that government jobs still count as “jobs”. [grumpy mournful moan]

“How much GD remedial ed”

I graduated in the top 1% of my class, but hey, keep calling me stupid if you'd like. Maybe your favorite game of ad hominem will actually become a valid method of political argument some day. I'll not hold my breath.

I made it clear that the real distinction is being made between government and private sector jobs when “jobs” is mentioned. Oh, and I have already posted material about how government jobs are created as government functions are expanded (or when the public replaces the private sector). [sigh]

But you prefer to ignore what is, and remain with what you wish, or what you choose to believe about people as well as things.

How much GD remedial ed — enough — I don't need to revert to trying to teach Two plus Two are Four…

If that's not what you're talking about, please let me know what it is that I'm “making up”.

It's certainly easy when you're making up out of thin air what you're seeing, or posting.

Your comment made me think of this Lewis Black segment. It's got strong language, but if that's not offensive to you, I think you'll find it quite funny, and quite in line with what you're saying.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6eh9R8F260

My own father once tried to get a rent-to-own man to help him find people for a money management course his church was sponsoring. The owner politely refused, explaining quite frankly that his business depended on these people's inability to manage their money. Check advance chains are the lowest form of business that I can imagine. The debt problem is huge, but is still being pushed as if it were a normal, positive way of life. I can see how the financiers love it, since there's really no product, small overhead, and unbelievable returns. Sears, for instance, makes more money off of credit card interest than it does off of merchandise profit. It's no wonder that every store bugs you to get their credit card, and prices all larger merchandise as $xxx/month along with, and often without, the real price.

What bugs me about the real estate bubble are the laws that intentionally created it, and are being slowly restored. There have always been small bubbles, like the tech bubble, throughout history. But the real estate bubble was purposely created using government funding, which allowed it to get larger than anyone could handle. Just another example of bipartisan insanity.

I agree that there are a lot of projects, particularly infrastructure projects, that help the economy. There's also a lot of pork and paperwork that help no one. In an ideal government, such projects would weigh the costs and benefits to make sure that people were really getting a “good bang for the buck” before they were started; programs would be reevaluated from time to time to make sure that they were really working, and revised, reformed, replaced or removed if they didn't; and all branches of government would go through periodic reorganizations and audits to keep them efficient and honest.

I also have a problem with the savings comment, which traces back to my Economics 101 course in college. Old fashioned economics said that savings were supposed to go into banks, which would loan them to people and businesses which would buy the equipment needed to expand or to improve their efficiency. That Econ class basically said that savings were little pools of dead water in a flowing economy and the government could stimulate the economy by sucking the water out of the pools through taxation, and force it back into the stream. Since I always assumed that savings led to investments (and I still believe that it does), that was just a way of sacrificing investments in new buildings and machinery, in order to make the economy look better. In other words, it's simply another way to borrow from future growth, to make the economy look bigger today.

I am not an economist and will gladly learn, but I am not sure the above is a fair way to characterize the system. At a minimum, you'd have to make the argument that the loss from government is always indeed more than it would be in private industry. As much waste as there is in government (and there's tons), Dilbert is read by so many for a reason. Large corporations can have bureaucracies as bad as a government and small businesses can be phenomenally run or horribly run. You also would have to argue (going to ProfElwood's comment) that all the government takes in taxes would indeed go into the economy if not taken. However, some money might sit in savings and never get used if left private, but will be used by the government. (I'm not arguing that this is always good, just that you have to account for it.)

Finally, I'm just not sure that simple redistribution through maximally efficient means is the best description of an economic system. One critical concept will be the classic “public good”. No company could have built the interstate system yet it is critical to the growth of our economy. The military is another. No company can provide security to a nation of 300 million, but the security it provides again lets our economy grow. Money used for these public goods might in fact create lots of jobs, while money the government takes for something that the private sector could do might not.

Like I said a few days ago, it's just a shell game.

WHAT? Let me clue you in. As an employer. I don't hire ANYBODY that can do ANYTHING I can do or have the time to do. Why should I? As an Employer, it's like hiring a baseball team. This person is good at this and that person is good at that.

To think I am good at everything is stupid.

Careful — that's introducing an equivocation risk.

Actually, PWT was probably referring to private sector jobs, and the Detroit Free Press article I have referred to before shows the effect (or lack of it!) of stimulus measures to date on (private) job growth. (The article quotes Morici, who is always good for a source and as a critic on issues like this, BTW.)

And yes, of course, to the extent people want government (public sector) to replace the private sector, that means the growth of public sector jobs at the expense of private sector jobs, and the creation of new government functions means new government jobs (at some loss of other private jobs, if growth of government constrains the private economy).

Well, private sector jobs — for Vey and Roro and others who insist on more detail.

The Detroit News story I quoted from and posted a link to provides a current real-world example.

More precisely, which one? He was dead, had no respect whatsoever, from 1994-1996. He was doomed; it was GOP stupidity and the Old Guard resisting reform that gave us Bob Dole and Clinton II. Clinton gained what is commonly agreed to be the upper hand on his conservative opponents (especially after failure of the impeachment), even if he retained a poor personal and official reputation afterward. (Part of his improvement in his second term in office was due to concessions to reality after 1994, the Dems' “Third Way” softening of their leftism, flirting with governmental and fiscal reform, earning him enmity on the Left for his betrayal and for acting almost like a Republican if you believe some lefties.)

High inflation and unemployment destroyed the Phillips curve in the 1970s. (Before then, little was thought of the notion of a federal goal of full employment; the real world had already made that fantasy.)

Even there, you give him too much credit. You do not have the burden to disprove it. Here is how things work — if you make an assertion, and someone challenges it, you have to prove it. That's a simple thing. After all, why would someone make an assertion they couldn't prove (let's pretend talk radio does exist for a minute)? To do so would to lose anye credibility.

So sad that with the 24/7 news cycle and having to fill time the “rules” I am citing are no longer in effect. But they can still be here at TMV if people want them to be.