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On January 30 2009 11:20 ToSs.Bag wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2009 07:53 Savio wrote:
So essentially what you (oneofthem) are saying is that in the long run, we would benefit from subsidizing education more. That may be true, but for the short term (getting out of the current recession, which is what this is all about), I think that you will not see effects from higher education spending. Bush doubled the federal government spending on education and that had no measurable positive effect.
What I say is that we should be clear about what bills the government is passing. If we want to just set up a long term education infrastructure, then lets do it, but don't call that a stimulus bill that will get us out of the current recession. Pass a stimulus bill that makes jobs NOW, and then when things have calmed down, and government revenues are rising again due to economic growth, then lets build the long term infrastructure. Or you could do it earlier, but keep the bills separate so the American people know what they are getting. It is obvious that with teachers unions with no effect, the lack of choices and incentives for good teachers, the American economy will take forever to come around unless something is done. It all comes down to where the motivation comes from.... Why does America have shitty public schools: Bad incentives for good teachers, bad incentives for schools to get enrollments, and bad incentives for students to do well on the whole. However, America does have great Universities, as do most countries, but why do they do better? Their incentives to be the best are to be highly accredited professionals and contributors to their subject are a lot higher. Professors make decent money, but This however can make instructors seem distant and too busy to help their students (huge class sizes) So we are "getting there" but throwing money at a school to not have good education incentives and not giving it to the important people (teachers). Budget isn't a huge concern, but reform in the education system to be more like countries such as Finland and other EU states is what it will end up being about.
Teachers Unions are to blame for the lack of incentives to teach well. Think about what the "job" of a union is....It is to "protect" its members right? Unions inherently seek to:
1. Raise salaries of current teachers
2. Inhibit the firing of union members
3. Lighten the teaching load or burden (make life easier)
4. Raise members benefits
But because of #1, schools can't afford to hire more teachers so the teacher/student ratio rises. Because of #2, bad teachers can not be easily replaced by better teachers. Because of #3, school systems (who already can't fire bad teachers), lose the ability to pressure teachers into improving.
So because of our unions we end up with lower quality, expensive teachers...and not enough of them.
American universities do better than our grade schools because GUESS WHAT...there are no unions messing up the system! That is also one reason why foreign car companies are doing better than our "big 3".
Unions were needed once, but their time is over and they are only holding our car companies back, and our education.
My biggest fear from this new democratic administration is that they will pass laws trying to strengthen unions. Its good politics for them since unions are democratic powerhouses, but it is bad for America.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
now that i've read that wsj article, it is clear that wsj people dont take subways to work. along with the usual anti-labor rhetoric, we have gems like "Most of the rest of this project spending will go to such things as renewable energy funding ($8 billion) or mass transit ($6 billion) that have a low or negative return on investment." yea, low return is precisely why they are underinvested privately.
of course, with interest groups you will have political budgets. surely republicans are guilty of this too. at least democrat interest groups are more tolerable. i'd rather see the nea getting money than ethanol. however, the nea does associate with damn hippie artists. those unproductive leeches!
it is also rather surprising that wsj does a tricky job of only talking about growth stimulus, rather than simple economic activity. surely aid to the poor would be spent quickly. if anything they need to complain that this is not enough aid. the lower middle class goes through money rather quickly, and banks are doing it rather reluctantly right now.
teacher unions are not driving potential teachers away. without them you'd have less people wanting to become teachers, especially in bad areas, unless you increase teachers' pay drastically. but i do not see why teacher unions are impeding that particular effort.
tying performance incentive into pay for teachers is rather tricky. a messed up attempt at universalised performance indicator would not only fail to deliver promised accountability but also discourage teachers, especially in schools with far more problems than what goes on in the classroom. if anything, put more focus on early childhood education.
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Wow this thread grows really rapidly.
Why does everybody INSIST that the poor should be getting all the money? Growth cannot be created by giving the poor money. Even for all the liberals out there, you should know about Marx's basic tenet of surplus value. It's the additional profit from spending on big screen tvs, cars, etc that creates growth because there is profit to be made. Extra cash = extra investment = growth. Poor people don't have the extra cash to spend on these high profit overpriced items, so that will create no growth. Almost all cash that gets into the hands of the poor will be spent on day to day sustenance like rent, food, bills, etc. These markets are already saturated with low profit margins and thus will not create growth. Of course, in classical theory, this is only short term and long term growth can only be created from new technologies/ideas. But even then, the impoverished themselves do not contribute that much to new technologies and ideas.
I know that I'm going to get flamed for posting this, but I also know that social justice comes at the cost of growth. That is not to say that I don't think we should sacrifice some growth for social justice, but the only question is to what degree.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
how about negative growth, as in people getting laid off because their employers are not selling as much stuff. do you think increasing spending would at least alleviate some of that.
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On January 30 2009 08:15 MoltkeWarding wrote:Show nested quote +Right now is an excellent time to invest primarily because the value of many assets are artificially depressed. Speculation is a real factor, but I highly doubt that the speculation of the last several years
was enough to drive the stock market up 75% over its real value. I'm not going to argue in a situation where correct forecasts are self-rewarding. If you think that US stocks are now undervalued, you would take appropriate action, although the very DOW projections for 2009's dividend yields http://www.indexarb.com/dividendYieldSorteddj.html suggest that prices are still too high, and above equilibrium. Nonetheless, your private actions are one thing, and public action is another. Your argument that government should step in and replace the private investor in the market, apart from all attendant hazards legal, economic and moral, assumes that the government can more rationally determine the value of assets than public. It's therefore all the more ironic that someone who begins a thread with the hope of stimulating public awareness, advocates its supersession when they fail to reach the same conclusions. P.S. The projected average dividend yields in a nutshell for all three major US indices. http://www.indexarb.com/dividendAnalysis.html
You've completely ignored my argument that the private sector is equally capable of inaccurately estimating the value of an asset in times of recession. What makes you believe otherwise? Would you similar argue that the Great Depression was simply a giant price correction?
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Looks Europe is having protests again.....1 million go on strike in France an Germany.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article5614520.ece
I really wonder what will happen in the United States, a country full of guns. They will probably be traded for food.
Here is some interesting information about cyclical observations in world economies. This guy says he can predict major world events, starting from hundreds of years ago, because they always come in very predictable cycles. His theory is called the Economic Confidence model, and it's main idea is that waves combine in a cyclical fashion to regularly produce the type of crash we are now seeing. It isn't based off anything except observations, and I really wish he could put it into a more clear mathematical model because its pretty confusing to try to understand some of the stuff he says.
Here is the document:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/8813084/Martin-Armstrong-October-2008-Its-Just-Time-77p
Of course it flies in the face of most of what is posted in this thread, but hell, its not like the financial establishment predicted the current crisis would happen.
(it looks like it was typed on a typewriter because it was written in prison.....yea you may say the credibility immediately breaks down, but who spends 7 years in prison for contempt of court? Then after pleading guilty spends another 5 years for conspiracy to commit fraud?)
My main problem with the theory is that I'm not educated enough to determine if the events he chooses truly are significant "turning points" which are more significant then other events not listed. Good read though.
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On January 30 2009 16:50 fight_or_flight wrote:
Looks Europe is having protests again.....1 million go on strike in France an Germany.
Atleast in germany there was just a small strike, nothing special. Had nothing to do with the economic situation.
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On January 30 2009 12:12 Savio wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2009 11:20 ToSs.Bag wrote:On January 30 2009 07:53 Savio wrote:
So essentially what you (oneofthem) are saying is that in the long run, we would benefit from subsidizing education more. That may be true, but for the short term (getting out of the current recession, which is what this is all about), I think that you will not see effects from higher education spending. Bush doubled the federal government spending on education and that had no measurable positive effect.
What I say is that we should be clear about what bills the government is passing. If we want to just set up a long term education infrastructure, then lets do it, but don't call that a stimulus bill that will get us out of the current recession. Pass a stimulus bill that makes jobs NOW, and then when things have calmed down, and government revenues are rising again due to economic growth, then lets build the long term infrastructure. Or you could do it earlier, but keep the bills separate so the American people know what they are getting. It is obvious that with teachers unions with no effect, the lack of choices and incentives for good teachers, the American economy will take forever to come around unless something is done. It all comes down to where the motivation comes from.... Why does America have shitty public schools: Bad incentives for good teachers, bad incentives for schools to get enrollments, and bad incentives for students to do well on the whole. However, America does have great Universities, as do most countries, but why do they do better? Their incentives to be the best are to be highly accredited professionals and contributors to their subject are a lot higher. Professors make decent money, but This however can make instructors seem distant and too busy to help their students (huge class sizes) So we are "getting there" but throwing money at a school to not have good education incentives and not giving it to the important people (teachers). Budget isn't a huge concern, but reform in the education system to be more like countries such as Finland and other EU states is what it will end up being about. Teachers Unions are to blame for the lack of incentives to teach well. Think about what the "job" of a union is....It is to "protect" its members right? Unions inherently seek to: 1. Raise salaries of current teachers 2. Inhibit the firing of union members 3. Lighten the teaching load or burden (make life easier) 4. Raise members benefits But because of #1, schools can't afford to hire more teachers so the teacher/student ratio rises. Because of #2, bad teachers can not be easily replaced by better teachers. Because of #3, school systems (who already can't fire bad teachers), lose the ability to pressure teachers into improving. So because of our unions we end up with lower quality, expensive teachers...and not enough of them. American universities do better than our grade schools because GUESS WHAT...there are no unions messing up the system! That is also one reason why foreign car companies are doing better than our "big 3". Unions were needed once, but their time is over and they are only holding our car companies back, and our education. My biggest fear from this new democratic administration is that they will pass laws trying to strengthen unions. Its good politics for them since unions are democratic powerhouses, but it is bad for America.
So its because of the unions schools are in a bad shape? got nothing to do with the Republicans dramatically reducing education spending then I suppose.
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On January 30 2009 12:56 gchan wrote:
Wow this thread grows really rapidly.
Why does everybody INSIST that the poor should be getting all the money? Growth cannot be created by giving the poor money.
You are missing the point. It is not that we should give all the money to the poor, nor should we give it all to the rich but there must be balance. The impact of spending from a poor person is different compared to the spending of the middle class or the rich. The rich provide investment but investment is very different to demand and impacts on the economy in different ways, you need both. Will I invest in a factory if there is no demand for the goods I will be producing?
It is the masses that create demand. Income and wealth inequality has gotten really quite bad over recent decades resulting in deficiencies in demand as the poor and middle class people no longer have as much money to spend. There is a significant lack of productive investment out of the private sector today but this is not because the rich don't have enough money (obviously). Bush gave the mega rich over $300 Billion in extra tax cuts per year and did it help the economy at all?
You must give more money to the poor to bring things back into balance.
Edit: Put simply growth can be created by giving the poor money.
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On January 30 2009 18:32 Choros wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2009 12:12 Savio wrote:On January 30 2009 11:20 ToSs.Bag wrote:On January 30 2009 07:53 Savio wrote:
So essentially what you (oneofthem) are saying is that in the long run, we would benefit from subsidizing education more. That may be true, but for the short term (getting out of the current recession, which is what this is all about), I think that you will not see effects from higher education spending. Bush doubled the federal government spending on education and that had no measurable positive effect.
What I say is that we should be clear about what bills the government is passing. If we want to just set up a long term education infrastructure, then lets do it, but don't call that a stimulus bill that will get us out of the current recession. Pass a stimulus bill that makes jobs NOW, and then when things have calmed down, and government revenues are rising again due to economic growth, then lets build the long term infrastructure. Or you could do it earlier, but keep the bills separate so the American people know what they are getting. It is obvious that with teachers unions with no effect, the lack of choices and incentives for good teachers, the American economy will take forever to come around unless something is done. It all comes down to where the motivation comes from.... Why does America have shitty public schools: Bad incentives for good teachers, bad incentives for schools to get enrollments, and bad incentives for students to do well on the whole. However, America does have great Universities, as do most countries, but why do they do better? Their incentives to be the best are to be highly accredited professionals and contributors to their subject are a lot higher. Professors make decent money, but This however can make instructors seem distant and too busy to help their students (huge class sizes) So we are "getting there" but throwing money at a school to not have good education incentives and not giving it to the important people (teachers). Budget isn't a huge concern, but reform in the education system to be more like countries such as Finland and other EU states is what it will end up being about. Teachers Unions are to blame for the lack of incentives to teach well. Think about what the "job" of a union is....It is to "protect" its members right? Unions inherently seek to: 1. Raise salaries of current teachers 2. Inhibit the firing of union members 3. Lighten the teaching load or burden (make life easier) 4. Raise members benefits But because of #1, schools can't afford to hire more teachers so the teacher/student ratio rises. Because of #2, bad teachers can not be easily replaced by better teachers. Because of #3, school systems (who already can't fire bad teachers), lose the ability to pressure teachers into improving. So because of our unions we end up with lower quality, expensive teachers...and not enough of them. American universities do better than our grade schools because GUESS WHAT...there are no unions messing up the system! That is also one reason why foreign car companies are doing better than our "big 3". Unions were needed once, but their time is over and they are only holding our car companies back, and our education. My biggest fear from this new democratic administration is that they will pass laws trying to strengthen unions. Its good politics for them since unions are democratic powerhouses, but it is bad for America. So its because of the unions schools are in a bad shape? got nothing to do with the Republicans dramatically reducing education spending then I suppose.
Dude, what are you even talking about? I already stated in this thread that Bush doubled federal spending on education. He increased it more than Clinton did. So what are you even talking about?
Its like you have these preconceived ideas in your head and cling to them regardless of what you learn. See my quote...
EDIT: Also, Bush's education spending increase is something that I disagree with him on. He doubles federal spending and there was no measurable benefit as far as I am aware. It just goes to show that throwing money at schools does not make them better. Private schools on the other hand have always outperformed public schools...but then again....private schools generally aren't unionized. That's a big difference, just like the difference between American car manufacturers and Japanese ones operating in the US.
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If the government had taken that $400 and just given it to the family, they would have recienved $400 worth of benefit. Or 400$ worth of booze and drugs. Food stamps aren't designed to provide maximum economic stimulus, they're designed to put food on the table and keep kids from starving, which in turn makes them less likely to kneecap people for their daily bread, which in turn makes them less likely to suck up a gigantic wad of tax dollars sitting in prison.
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On January 31 2009 02:57 L wrote:Show nested quote +If the government had taken that $400 and just given it to the family, they would have recienved $400 worth of benefit. Or 400$ worth of booze and drugs. Food stamps aren't designed to provide maximum economic stimulus, they're designed to put food on the table and keep kids from starving, which in turn makes them less likely to kneecap people for their daily bread, which in turn makes them less likely to suck up a gigantic wad of tax dollars sitting in prison.
The liberal assumption is always that government knows better than you what you need. It is also that government loves your children more than you do and will take better care of them.
Under these assumptions, policies like this are created.
Also, the idea the food stamp users are generally crack heads or drunks is simply false.
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You've completely ignored my argument that the private sector is equally capable of inaccurately estimating the value of an asset in times of recession.
If the private sector and government are equally incapable of gauging value, then why give private money to the government to spend? Government speculation has all the disadvantages of private speculation with the added disadvantages of:
-Lack of direct incentive or risk
-Power to tax their capital and dump losses and debts on taxpayers
-Power to inflate their way out of any losses
-Power, through rebates and vouchers, to favour certain sectors of the economy
-Power to outcompete rivals through loss-making subsidization
-Power to enact legislation and regulation to restrict market entry, fair competition, and establish monopolies
-Power to disregard their own regulations
-Non-accountability for waste, corruption or fraud
-Tendency to paint unrealistically optimistic scenarios to maintain popularity
-Tendency to be influenced by lobbyists
Therefore if you argue that the government should buy derivatives and assets, you ought to at the very least successfully make the case that the government can estimate market value better than the market, OR that the market really is underpriced.
Or if you're speaking from an abstract philosophical perspective, I would agree that the market is psychologically-driven, and often bad decisions are made on the basis of faulty information or judgement, but the Federal Reserve and Government have been in the practice of providing the market with faulty information for a long time. The lowering of interest rates during recessions is an act of providing the market with false information. The purpose of manipulating interest rates is to attempt to force the market to behave irrationally by providing excess liquidity in periods when they need to contract. They are the cause of bubbles and upward speculation. If the Fed raised interest rates to 30%, you may have a case there. As is it, the government is making loans free and people are still hesitant to lend.
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On January 31 2009 03:28 MoltkeWarding wrote:Show nested quote +You've completely ignored my argument that the private sector is equally capable of inaccurately estimating the value of an asset in times of recession. If the private sector and government are equally incapable of gauging value, then why give private money to the government to spend? Government speculation has all the disadvantages of private speculation with the added disadvantages of: -Lack of direct incentive or risk -Power to tax their capital and dump losses and debts on taxpayers -Power to inflate their way out of any losses -Power, through rebates and vouchers, to favour certain sectors of the economy -Power to outcompete rivals through loss-making subsidization -Power to enact legislation and regulation to restrict market entry, fair competition, and establish monopolies -Power to disregard their own regulations -Non-accountability for waste, corruption or fraud -Tendency to paint unrealistically optimistic scenarios to maintain popularity -Tendency to be influenced by lobbyists Therefore if you argue that the government should buy derivatives and assets, you ought to at the very least successfully make the case that the government can estimate market value better than the market, OR that the market really is underpriced. Or if you're speaking from an abstract philosophical perspective, I would agree that the market is psychologically-driven, and often bad decisions are made on the basis of faulty information or judgement, but the Federal Reserve and Government have been in the practice of providing the market with faulty information for a long time. The lowering of interest rates during recessions is an act of providing the market with false information. The purpose of manipulating interest rates is to attempt to force the market to behave irrationally by providing excess liquidity in periods when they need to contract. They are the cause of bubbles and upward speculation. If the Fed raised interest rates to 30%, you may have a case there. As is it, the government is making loans free and people are still hesitant to lend.
What I am saying is that a recessionary environment instills a new logic whereby the private sector determines a new equilibrium altogether. For prices to correct themselves, deflation must kick in. But deflation discourages spending, so demand falls, lowering the price still further. The expectation of lower prices ensures that the equilibrium price in a recession won't be the same as an economy at full production. The only way out of such a spiral is a boost to demand so that these expectations can be broken.
Anyway, I think it's a little inane to argue just on theory and ignore the empirical evidence, so I'll repeat the fact that since the inception of the fed and monetary policy, the severity and duration of recessions in the US have been considerably weaker. Refer to the chart posted earlier of GDP growth during the past century, and you get the gist. If the free market were so accurate, why has government intervention considerably accelerated the rate of growth? Or are those decades of growth based solely on speculation? Your argument is only true if we were to ignore the short run costs of volatility and other corrective forces.
It's debateable whether the economy is done correcting itself currently. In fact, you've made the (probably true) argument that PE ratios are still too high. And the housing market continues to plunge. I don't know. But contrary to your assertion that government, or rather, Fed intervention which is politically independent, is inaccurate, there is plenty of empirical evidence that monetary policy has helped us out of recessions in the past.
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Anyway, I think it's a little inane to argue just on theory and ignore the empirical evidence, so I'll repeat the fact that since the inception of the fed and monetary policy, the severity and duration of recessions in the US have been considerably weaker. Refer to the chart posted earlier of GDP growth during the past century, and you get the gist. If the free market were so accurate, why has government intervention considerably accelerated the rate of growth?
Empirical evidence would be taking the living standards of a middle-class American family in the 1950s and comparing it with today. The cardinal question is: are American households that much wealthier than they were fifty years ago? By looking at GDP per capita numbers, one would be under the impression that the living standard of the average American has been raised twenty-five fold since 1950, and one hundred and sixty-fold since 1908. Empirically, this would be nonsense.
The GDP growth you represented depends on 1) Government accurately calculating inflation, which is inherently problematic even if we gave them the benefit of the doubt. The US government, for example, factors in qualitative deflators when calculating its rate of inflation, whereas the German government does not, hence giving Germany a higher figure vis-a-vis the US every year. The basket of goods against which inflation is measured is arbitrarily chosen by the government, and is modified when necessary to produce target numbers 2) GDP does not calculate the productive value of an economy. If an American lives an unhealthy lifestyle, and smokes and eats in McDonalds every year, his spending in those industries are added to the GDP, and then when he is treated for heart disease and lung cancer, those are again added to the GDP. If Americans spend a trillion dollars on military spending, this is added to the GDP despite it having zero or a negative effect on the living standards of the American people. 3) GDP figures can bubble like the present US GDP based on the US dollar, a currency which is overvalued in the marketplace. If the USD falls 50% in value, the US's GDP falls in terms of every other currency, and every other country's GDP rises in proportion to the USA's. Hence nearly every country recorded vast gains in their GDPs measured in USD in the year 2008 despite many having no growth.
Therefore let's take the reports of the US' growth valued in dollars with a grain of salt.
Let's take a history the US's GDP valued in Gold as a point of comparison:
US average wages valued in Gold:
US Home prices valued in Gold:
Crude Oil prices valued in Gold:
The historical value of the DOW valued in Gold:
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DAMN HE BUSTED OUT THE GRAPHS ON YO FACES!
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Capital gains made up 63 percent of the richest 400 Americans’ adjusted gross income in 2006, or a combined $66.1 billion, according to the data. In all, the 400 wealthiest Americans reported a combined $105.3 billion of adjusted gross income in 2006, the most recent year for which the IRS has data.
The richest 1% of Americans earned $1.3 trillion in 2004, an amount greater than the total national income of Canada. Further the top 1% of Americans has 33% of the country's wealth.
Article
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
On January 31 2009 03:21 Savio wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2009 02:57 L wrote:If the government had taken that $400 and just given it to the family, they would have recienved $400 worth of benefit. Or 400$ worth of booze and drugs. Food stamps aren't designed to provide maximum economic stimulus, they're designed to put food on the table and keep kids from starving, which in turn makes them less likely to kneecap people for their daily bread, which in turn makes them less likely to suck up a gigantic wad of tax dollars sitting in prison. The liberal assumption is always that government knows better than you what you need. It is also that government loves your children more than you do and will take better care of them. Under these assumptions, policies like this are created. Also, the idea the food stamp users are generally crack heads or drunks is simply false.
hahahhahaha are you serious
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On January 31 2009 05:21 MoltkeWarding wrote:Show nested quote +Anyway, I think it's a little inane to argue just on theory and ignore the empirical evidence, so I'll repeat the fact that since the inception of the fed and monetary policy, the severity and duration of recessions in the US have been considerably weaker. Refer to the chart posted earlier of GDP growth during the past century, and you get the gist. If the free market were so accurate, why has government intervention considerably accelerated the rate of growth? Empirical evidence would be taking the living standards of a middle-class American family in the 1950s and comparing it with today. The cardinal question is: are American households that much wealthier than they were fifty years ago? By looking at GDP per capita numbers, one would be under the impression that the living standard of the average American has been raised twenty-five fold since 1950, and one hundred and sixty-fold since 1908. Empirically, this would be nonsense. The GDP growth you represented depends on 1) Government accurately calculating inflation, which is inherently problematic even if we gave them the benefit of the doubt. The US government, for example, factors in qualitative deflators when calculating its rate of inflation, whereas the German government does not, hence giving Germany a higher figure vis-a-vis the US every year. The basket of goods against which inflation is measured is arbitrarily chosen by the government, and is modified when necessary to produce target numbers 2) GDP does not calculate the productive value of an economy. If an American lives an unhealthy lifestyle, and smokes and eats in McDonalds every year, his spending in those industries are added to the GDP, and then when he is treated for heart disease and lung cancer, those are again added to the GDP. If Americans spend a trillion dollars on military spending, this is added to the GDP despite it having zero or a negative effect on the living standards of the American people. 3) GDP figures can bubble like the present US GDP based on the US dollar, a currency which is overvalued in the marketplace. If the USD falls 50% in value, the US's GDP falls in terms of every other currency, and every other country's GDP rises in proportion to the USA's. Hence nearly every country recorded vast gains in their GDPs measured in USD in the year 2008 despite many having no growth. Therefore let's take the reports of the US' growth valued in dollars with a grain of salt. Let's take a history the US's GDP valued in Gold as a point of comparison: US average wages valued in Gold: US Home prices valued in Gold: Crude Oil prices valued in Gold: The historical value of the DOW valued in Gold:
Granted, I'm just taking potshots now, but how exactly do you go about calculating GDP in the weight of gold if you don't use the dollar value to begin with? Even if your GDP graph were adjusted for changes in the price of gold, it's telling me that GDP has been halved during the last decade. That would require reductions of about 5% a year. Yet no other indicator reflects this downturn. Moreover, the climb in GDP correlates with a period where the Fed Funds rate was at a steady 5%.
Maybe i'm misreading your information.
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On January 31 2009 03:21 Savio wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2009 02:57 L wrote:If the government had taken that $400 and just given it to the family, they would have recienved $400 worth of benefit. Or 400$ worth of booze and drugs. Food stamps aren't designed to provide maximum economic stimulus, they're designed to put food on the table and keep kids from starving, which in turn makes them less likely to kneecap people for their daily bread, which in turn makes them less likely to suck up a gigantic wad of tax dollars sitting in prison. The liberal assumption is always that government knows better than you what you need. It is also that government loves your children more than you do and will take better care of them. Under these assumptions, policies like this are created. Also, the idea the food stamp users are generally crack heads or drunks is simply false.
You are a fool.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://pricedingold.com/charts/gdp-1947.png)
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