The Obamanation

Originally Posted by classicman

Would those jobs really be lost? How many other profitable automakers would have hired at least some of those workers? How many properly run companies would have bought or leased some of the facilities? There are as many unknowns there as there are knowns.
You cannot state that another 500,000 jobs would be lost and leave it at that. That too is as simplistic as my statement. Take into account the BILLIONS that company was given as a bailout and how much potential good that could have done as well as helped innovation in other areas. Not that anyone suggested that or it would have happened, but there were other options. Heck we still don't know if those jobs aren't going to be lost anyway. We may have just thrown away billions and just prolonged the problem. GM still sucks and so does Chrysler.

Granted the 1/2 million job loss is an estimate, but probably a conservative estimate.

Who would hire those workers? Ford has increased profits by CUTTING expenses....not by significantly increasing production or output.

I guess they could move to Tennessee or Alabama and work for Honda or Toyota (even if both were also temporarily cutting US production). Of course, they couldnt sell their house in Detroit because of the depressed housing market.

And, then with the overall decreased output of a significantly smaller US auto industry...that means other companies/factories producing auto parts would produce less and as a result face layoffs....and more trickle down, dealerships closing across the country if you reduce the Big Three to the Big One.

As to those empty factories? What company could buy or lease without credit?

And much the same applies to TARP and the bank/financial institutions bail-out.

Without the TARP bank bail outs, credit dries up completely because remaining banks can only leverage so much credit.

What that would have meant is that tens of thousands of small businesses or businesses looking to start-up, just maintain existing operations, or expand would have lost access to existing and/or new lines of credit....to pay employees, buy inventory, etc.

More jobs lost.

IMO, the risk to the economy was too great to do nothing. Perhaps you were willing to take the risk (would those jobs really be lost? .....who knows if those jobs wouldnt be lost anyway?), but I am sure glad we didnt. Its not that I like it, but rather that I thought it was necessary to stabilize what at the time was a very fragile economy.

There are no guarantees, but I still havent seen a better alternative. "Who knows" and "What if" certainly dont offer more or better assurances of economic stability and recovery.

[classicman]

Here is an interesting piece on where OUR stimulus money is going.

In a letter Thursday to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) urged the department not to use any federal stimulus money to support a $1.5 billion wind project in Texas, unless the project relies on U.S.-built turbines and other components. The project -- which involves a Chinese manufacturer of wind turbines, Shenyang Power Group -- calls for the installation of 240 Chinese-made wind turbines across 36,000 acres in West Texas, in a partnership with Cielo Wind Power LP of Austin, Texas.

"The purpose of the Recovery Act was to jump-start the economy to create and save jobs—American jobs," Mr. Schumer wrote in his letter to Dr. Chu. Mr. Schumer added that he fears most of the jobs created by the project will be in China. "American taxpayer dollars should not be used to finance those Chinese jobs," he wrote.

Shortly after Mr. Schumer released his letter, Rep. Brad Sherman (D., Calif.) said in an interview that he intended to send a similar letter to the Obama administration. "We have a stimulus bill, and we seem to be oblivious as to whether we're stimulating our economy or China's", Mr. Sherman said.

However ...

The U.S. Renewable Energy Group, a private-equity firm involved in the 600-megawatt Texas project, said last week that the partnership would seek tax credits and support from the federal stimulus package. The company said the project should create 300 U.S. construction jobs and 30 permanent maintenance jobs. The project also would support 800 jobs in China at a new factory built by Shenyang Power.

Then again...

"This is just the beginning," Lu Jinxiang, chief executive of A-Power Energy Generation Systems Ltd., which controls Shenyang, said in an interview last week. He said that the "the U.S. is an ideal target" for his sector.

Link
I'd like more of this money to go toward building and expanding the factories here in the US. I'm sure that would also lead to more innovation and greater competition.

[TheMercenary]

The project also would support 800 jobs in China at a new factory built by Shenyang Power.

Great job at over sight Dems. Really great. Not.

[classicman]

Who said it was the D's fault? I think part of this was the concessions that the Chinese made. There is more to this.

[TheMercenary]

They are in charge of the taxpayers dollars in this "stimulus" economy. How about that great job with CIT Group? We lost 2.3 billion dollars of tax payers money in that deal.

Originally Posted by classicman

Here is an interesting piece on where OUR stimulus money is going.


However ...

Then again...

Link
I'd like more of this money to go toward building and expanding the factories here in the US. I'm sure that would also lead to more innovation and greater competition.

There has been NO stimulus funds committed to this project. From the WSJ story:

In a letter Thursday to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) urged the department not to use any federal stimulus money to support a $1.5 billion wind project in Texas....

Rep. Brad Sherman (D., Calif.) said in an interview that he intended to send a similar letter to the Obama administration....

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Great job at over sight Dems. Really great. Not.

Democrats, as well as Republicans have opposed providng stimulus funds.

This is a private-joint venture between US and Chinese companies.

[TheMercenary]

From The Economist.
KAL's cartoon
Oct 29th 2009

[TheMercenary]

Why won't Obama give you a job?
The White House thinks the stimulus is working, and it doesn't want you on its payroll

Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 8, 2009

To hear President Obama tell it, he's been busy creating jobs since taking office. The $787 billion stimulus package, he said last winter, would "save or create 3.5 million jobs." The White House is touting reports from recipients of stimulus funds asserting that they have created or saved 640,000 jobs so far.

Yet the national unemployment rate has now hit 10.2 percent, helping explain why Republicans won the governors' races in Virginia and New Jersey last week, just a year after the party's 2008 drubbing. And Obama declared Friday that more action is needed.

"History tells us that job growth always lags behind economic growth, which is why we have to continue to pursue measures that will create new jobs," he said. "And I can promise you that I won't let up until the Americans who want to find work can find work."

It was a strong vow, but it raises a question: Why has a White House that talks so much about boosting employment steered clear of the most direct strategy that could keep Americans on the job?

Since taking office, the Obama administration has studiously avoided paying people to go to work, which could be accomplished by subsidizing workers' private-sector employment or by creating new government-paid jobs. There are programs in a handful of states that financially compensate employees who cut their hours to prevent broader layoffs at their companies -- an approach that costs relatively little, since it results in lower payouts of unemployment benefits, and that has helped Germany keep unemployment under 8 percent despite the deep slowdown there. But the Obama administration has so far opted not to expand this initiative. And aside from a small summer employment program for young people, it has not sought to create jobs on the public payroll, something the country did in the 1930s and 1970s.

Instead Obama's team has taken a more indirect approach, a prudence that critics on the left say is misplaced. If you're spending hundreds of billions of dollars on stimulus, why not do it with conviction? Engaging in more forthright job creation could invite some political pitfalls (such as those constant accusations of socialism), but is double-digit unemployment any less a political risk?

The administration is "scared of [any plans] seeming like old-fashioned make-work, but that's what it is: You're giving [people] jobs because they have nothing left to do," said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a left-leaning think thank. "Giving people a shot at a job has to be worth a little bad publicity . . . but as in a lot of areas, they proved more cautious."

White House officials express confidence in the steps taken, saying the stimulus is spending money and creating jobs ahead of schedule, and forestalling far higher unemployment. They say they opted against direct jobs programs not for political reasons but because they thought such efforts would not produce long-term value. And they have not pushed the private-sector job-sharing idea -- being promoted by Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) -- because they want to build real demand for workers, not just spread work among more people.

"I think we got the Recovery Act right," Larry Summers, the president's chief economic adviser, said in an interview. "The primary objective of our policy is having more work done, more product produced and more people earning more income. It may be desirable to have a given amount of work shared among more people. But that's not as desirable as expanding the total amount of work."

Two-thirds of the stimulus went toward tax cuts, fiscal aid to states, and expanded unemployment benefits and food stamps. These efforts helped cushion the recession's blow, saved public jobs and, by injecting demand into the economy, bolstered employment indirectly. On Thursday, Congress buttressed these efforts with an extension of unemployment benefits and an expansion of the tax credit for homebuyers.

The remaining third of the stimulus, however, was expected to be the real jobs generator: $250 billion for infrastructure -- roads, transit, water treatment -- and for investments in energy efficiency, broadband access and other areas. But it is becoming clear that much of that spending is not producing many new jobs. Highway funds have put repaving crews to work, but $6.5 billion flowing to states and cities for energy projects has only just arrived and has created virtually no private-sector jobs yet.

The jobs impact is also paltry so far for the $3 billion in National Science Foundation grants and the $10 billion for the National Institutes of Health. And much of the $19 billion for health information technology will not be spent until 2011.

continues:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...110601900.html

[Urbane Guerrilla]

And another view.

. . .the Obama administration claimed 640,000 jobs were "saved or created" with $159 billion of the "stimulus," many "news" outlets blithely "reported" this. Do you know that comes to $250,000 per job?! And the administration claimed half the jobs were teachers. How many teachers make $250,000 per year?

There are folks out there who... aren't as good at journalism as Jayson Blair.

[TheMercenary]

Yep.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

And another view.

There are folks out there who... aren't as good at journalism as Jayson Blair.

A simplistic view for ideological simpletons who dont understand or are unwilling to acknowledge the concept that work provides value well above and beyond just dividing dollars spent by jobs created.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Great job at over sight Dems. Really great. Not.

For 7 years the pubes couldn't oversee the trillions being poured into Iraq and Afghanistan. Now you speak up? Fail.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

For 7 years the pubes couldn't oversee the trillions being poured into Iraq and Afghanistan. Now you speak up? Fail.

Nope, win. I wasn't here 7 years ago.

[dar512]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Nope, win. I wasn't here 7 years ago.

You're six?

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by Redux

A simplistic view for ideological simpletons who dont understand or are unwilling to acknowledge the concept that work provides value well above and beyond just dividing dollars spent by jobs created.

One ends up just wondering why the 250K per capita shouldn't simply be transferred to each of those capita -- if, say, you wanted to buy some votes.

And Redux, how does it not leave you vulnerable to being charged a simpleton yourself when you leave out the apostrophe? Tw's appalling copyediting is already enough for one site without additions from you.

No, simplistic is expecting the public sector to increase the wealth or to be a jobs agency. That simply never happens -- government is part of the administrative overhead, not the wealth engine. Economists understand this, Democrats presently ignore it. Dumb.

P.S.: Anyone else think Mister Jobless in the pic looks an awful lot like a rear view of Michael Moore? UG