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Friday, July 10, 2009
Does U.S. need more stimulus $?

UPDATE: Sunday Inquirer column here. Obama said this weekend he's against a second stimulus, first needs time.

EARLIER: "The U.S. needs another stimulus package because President Barack Obama’s initial $787 billion plan hasn’t been implemented fast enough," markets scholar and Nobel laureate Robert Shiller of Yale tells Bloomberg LP here. New York University economist Nouriel Roubini, who takes credit for predicting the credit market blow-up, thinks "more spending is necessary to avoid stagnation like Japan’s in the 1990s."

"Obama may need to aim directly at reducing joblessness, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com in West Chester, Pennsylvania," in this story. Also in that article: "Among options: enhanced job training, tax credits for businesses that take on new employees or a temporary cut in payroll taxes.

"Hundreds of thousands of lost jobs in industries such as autos and construction haven’t been replaced with new ones, shrinking payrolls by 6.5 million since the recession began in 2007, Labor Department figures show. The June jobless rate reached 9.5 percent, the highest since 1983. 'We are going to have a huge pool of unemployed, second only to the Great Depression,' said Allen Sinai, chief economist at Decision Economics in New York...

"Obama tried to tackle prolonged joblessness in the $787 billion stimulus package Congress passed in February by lengthening and expanding aid to the unemployed. As many as 650,000 workers may exhaust even their extended benefits within three months...

"The U.S. traditionally hasn’t had to deal with long-term joblessness. During the last 30 years, Americans who were thrown out of work took an average 15.8 weeks to find new positions. In June, the average duration of unemployment was 24.5 weeks, the longest since records began in 1948. The number of people collecting unemployment benefits reached a record 6.88 million in the week ended June 27."

Posted by Joseph N. DiStefano @ 11:21 AM  Permalink | 9 comments
Comments   
Posted 12:22 PM, 07/10/2009
david wayne
We started out with $750 billion in stimulus funds. There has been absolutely no verifiable beneficial result to the taxpayer. AIG of course gave lavish bonuses and exotic junkets to their employees.
Posted 03:25 PM, 07/10/2009
hexyscores
Absolutely, Someone wake up our President and Congress! Just what we need, spend more money they don't have! That will help! What they need to do is set up tariffs to force companies to produce products inside this country to put people back to work! Then they need to cut the size of goverment in half! Then WE need to vote every incumbent out of office because OUR goverment is completely corrupted and controlled by Wall St. Outlaw lobbist and campaine contributions & install term limits! Then investigate the cause of this economic meltdown and throw them all in jail! That's my stimulus package!
Posted 03:30 PM, 07/10/2009
hopster
AIG's bonuses were written into the "stimulus" package by democratic senator Chris Dodd from Connecticut. Why are you not complaining about the bonuses that were paid to the executives from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Those are the people who more directly responsible for the economic mess we are currently suffering through, not AIG. Oh, wait, that would mean that democrats would actually own up to making a mistake. And please explain to me why we need a second "stimulus" package if the first one hasn't been "implemented fast enough"? Its just another left wing excuse to bankrupt our country ever further
Comment removed.
Posted 05:22 PM, 07/10/2009
John Scanlon
Surely President Obama needs to widen his pool of advisors beyond academic economists. We evidently are treading water here, but down in South Florida 6,000 construction workers assembled looking for 1,000 jobs building the new Marlins stadium and a new W hotel on South Beach hired 3% of applicants. A W hotel is more selective than Harvard. My children tell me that classmates frim highest tier colleges are looking for work. Where is the political sense of urgency?
Posted 05:29 PM, 07/10/2009
Shabba Rommel
Since only 1/3rd of the original stimulous (which I opposed anyway) has been spent, therefore I say NO NEW STIMULUS. Communists Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Nancy Pelosi, and the puppet Obama are driving this country right into the hands of the Chinese, Russians, and foreign investment bankers who love purchasing our debt. Not saying Bush and his idiots were any better, but the track we are on now will lead to MASSIVE debt, massive taxation increases, significantly less jobs, and stagflation beyond reproach.
Posted 03:19 PM, 07/11/2009
kelprod1
Barack Obama is the biggest economic idiot in the history of mankind. One cannot support his all out assualt on our free market & American industry, and then also expect the free market and American industry to bear the fruits of employment, investment, growth, wealth creation and prosperity. The stimulus was/ is "historical" stupidity, and Obama's economic agenda & policy are "historical" stupidity X 1,000.
Posted 03:42 PM, 07/11/2009
beeron
Zandi has some good recommendations. Put more money in people's pockets and they will start spending, at least the ones that have jobs. In all seriousness Obama seems utterly clueless about the economy. We were told with this package we would never get above 8% unemployment. We now stand at 9.5, and it would be a miracle if we were not looking at 10% by the fall. The only thing this "Stimulus' seems to be stimulating is democratic special interest groups and bureaucrats. Vote out every incumbent in 2010. They have all failed us. Whoever runs against Obama should pledge to cancel the rest of the stimulus after they take office.
Posted 01:56 PM, 07/12/2009
PhillyTrue
I feel like the recent "stimulus" package was the biggest ripoff of US tax-payers in history. Obama spent something like $60 billion to "save" GM which of course went bankrupt anyway. GM will end up employing around 40,000 workers so do the math on how much it cost per job "saved". Unless the trend of out-of-control government spending is stopped the US will go bankrupt. Arrogant politicians believe they make the economy go when the exact opposite is true. As a nation, we are in serious trouble.
9 comments
About Joseph N. DiStefano
Joseph N. DiStefano writes this blog to feed his PhillyDeals column, which is printed in the business pages of The Philadelphia Inquirer every Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Joe has worked at the Inquirer, mostly, since 1988. He has also written for Bloomberg and Gannett, authored the book Comcasted, majored in economics at Penn, and fathered six children. Reach Joe at 215-854-5194 and JoeD@phillynews.com

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