Joseph Stiglitz - Will the Economic Stimulus Package Work?

[PissedFechtmeister]

Over two years since this video was posted, and Obama has been extending unemployment benefits. The economy is still in the tank despite this alleged "strong stimulus". Anyone who thinks that government spending stimulates the economy hasn't been paying attention for the past hundred years.

[ParrhesiaJoe]

The answer to any economic downturn is to get producers making what consumers want them making.

Economic downturns are resource allocation problems, and stimulus can only help if it creates jobs in the NEW areas that the global economy demands.

However, stimulus always goes to old economy projects. They prop up the same industries which should freeing up people for more productive work. They delay the inevitable at enormous cost.

[rickbar123]

Sure, to bad the producers are all in China.

[rickbar123]

DO YOU WANT A JOB ?????

SHUT THE DOOR ON IMPORTS

VOTE OUT ALL THAT WANT THE DOOR OPEN

FUCK THE CEOs AND FUCK WALL STREET

SHUT THE DOOR ON IMPORTS

GO BACK TO WORK TODAY

[bearstearn3]

if shutting doors to import were that easy. please stop being a oversimplified idiot

[rickbar123]

It is easy. 96% of all clothing comes from China. We set a limit, starting in June only 65% of clothing is let in. Done deal.

China in 2006 let us import to them 55 billion. We let them import to us 256 billion. Its worse now. Dont be an idiot, whats going on now, will not last.

[bearstearn3]

and you realize china is one of the biggest debt holder of the US. you dont think theyll retaliate if the US enacts a protectionist policy

[rickbar123]

China's gov is shiting its pants. China's low cost labor and money has screwed workers in the EU. Workers in the EU are much more proactive than we are. The first country that starts to clamp down on cheap imports will have job growth. That could spead and backlash could develop.

China can be forced to change. We dont have to beat up on China. 55 - 256 must change or we will default on our bonds.

[rickbar123]

Did you ever hear of the term HAIRCUT??

It means that a country defauts on some bonds and the holders of the bonds must take new terms(lower payback). China is headed towards a haircut with our bonds.

Thats real bad for China as well.

[TheProgressistViewer]

YES!!!! The United States should start a trade war with the country that keeps their economy afloat... Stop trading with the country to wich you owe TRILLIONS of dollars...

[rickbar123]

China has stoped buying our paper. We will not be the first country to give a haircut on its bonds. We dont need to stop trading, we do need to set limits.

If a dollars worth of goods comes into America then dollars worth must leave. Coal and other raw goods do not count in the math.

[TheProgressistViewer]

There are limits, those are set by the demand, the market through prices. But you somehow know better than millions of peoples making hundreads of decisions everyday what is good for the country? The amount of goods that comes in is excatly the right one. How would you set the limit anyway? Besides, where do you get the moral right to decide if humans are gonna be alowed to trade of not?

[rickbar123]

Bla Bla Bla Yada Yada Yada.

Listen- The worker in America IS THE CONSUMER. If he is out of work, He does not spend. How much longer do you think your little bullshit Neo/Con game is going to be in play??? The people of South America are rejecting your game, others around the world see how the Neo/ Cons do nothing but destroy. Change yor name.

[TheProgressistViewer]

I know the worker has to work what on earth are you talking about? What I'm saying is that there is not aq single connection between trade and employement. Just look at the figures! Trade did not make unemployement go up, trade barriers will not make it go down. Its that simple. I'm not a neocon I'm a libertarian. Neo cons are not generally in favor of complete free trade. The people of South America rejecting what game? Wat are you talking about?

[rickbar123]

Free Trade for America is all bullshit.

In 2006 we sold 55 billion to china, most of that was freaking coal from Pa. They sold us 256 billion in goods. How can you say- trade and unemployment dont connect???????????????????????­??????????????????????????????­??????????????????????????????

Every industry that ever paid a good wage is now in China paying nothing.

[TheProgressistViewer]

No it is not bullshit. I can say so because unemployement was lower 10 years after nafta than is was before nafta. We spent decades out sourcing jobs over sees and umemployment stayed under 10%

[rickbar123]

Have you been under a rock????

We have had bubbles, the economy was being held up by fake markets.

Dot com bubble

Housing bubble

[sysopkc]

@TheProgressistViewer I think you should examine how unemployment calculations are computed, and how the calculation ratios have been changed over the last decade. If any competent investor acted based on Govt. economic data they would all be bankrupt. This is common knowledge in the investment world. Those numbers are lies.

[TheProgressistViewer]

@sysopkc What's ur point? (pardon my ignorance) Nafta good or bad?

[sysopkc]

@TheProgressistViewer I think the problem here is a lack of understanding of ISI and the wave of import substitutions that took hold of S America in the 80's. People are idiots.

[ParrhesiaJoe]

Trade barriers between countries are like trade barriers between states. Very bad ideas.

Economics in one lesson. Henry Hazlitt

Applied Economics - Thomas Sowell

Wealth of nations - Adam Smith

Meltdown - Thomas woods

Fuck, even Keynes and Marx weren't avid fans of trade barriers.

They are a tool of special interests and have no place in economic theory.

[rickbar123]

Dear Joe,

In 2006 we sold 56 billion in goods to China, they sold us 255 billion. We now have a trade imbalance with Mexico, It runs 13 to 21 billion a year.

Hazlitt, Sowell, Smith, Woods, Keynes ,and Marx would all ask: How could we be so stupid to offshore all of our good paying production jobs???

[TheProgressistViewer]

And what do the Mexicans do with the money we exchange for the goods they sell us? Do they burn it? Put it under the matress? No, they spend it, and through free trade it finds its way back the the united states. Until the great recession began, unemployement was lower in all 3 NAFTA countries than it was before NAFTA was put into effect. We spent a decacde outsourcing jobs to China, yet somehow unemployement kept low. Because they money corporations save thanks to Chinese labor is (TBC)

[rickbar123]

The money the Mexicans make stays in Mexico. Before NAFTA we sold them more goods than they sold us. Now we have a trade imbalance with them. More Americans out of work. Your math is way off. Mexico lost plenty of jobs to China, many of the out of work came to America. The money Corp. America saves comes from the middle classes pockets in lost wages. Low unemployment ?? 6% is not low. Most new jobs are shit jobs.

[TheProgressistViewer]

No it doesnt, its is eventually spent all the way back to the united states in other sectors of the economy. Why don't support protectionism with other states than ur own? Or with the city next to urs? Think about it it makes no sense! You fail to answer my main point, unemployement kept going down as free-trade expanded.

[TheProgressistViewer]

Then used by those same corporations to create jobs in other sectors (higher wages sectors) in wich americans can then work (for higher wages). The Chinese make our clothes, so we can have desk jobs in manhattan sky scrapers. Fair deal? HELL NO. Study your history, protectionism has been a complete failure everywhere at everytime it was tried. It actually played a big part in prolonging the great depression. Think of cheap foreing labor as if it were machinery. A foreigner will do ur job (TBC)

[rickbar123]

The truth is each year more of those desk jobs in Manhattan are being sent to China as well. Protectionism is serving the Gov. in China very well. In addition, it had nothing to do with the depression. The so called Free Market caused the depression. It was the closed borders of war that rebuilt our industry and our economy. Take your fake name and your Beck/Rush bullshit and go pump some stupid ass that cant read, like yourself.

[TheProgressistViewer]

Closed borders of war? What on earth are you talking about? Protectionism caused the depression along with intervention. The united states was trading arms with allied nations massively.

[TheProgressistViewer]

Trade does not take place unless both parties benefit. How can you believe that allowing people to voluntarily cooperate is a bad thing?

[TheProgressistViewer]

Elaborate please? Why do we have to shut ¸the door on imports?

[rickbar123]

We to set limits now. 96% of our clothing comes from China. Make it 40% and Americans go back to work.

[TheProgressistViewer]

Then why was unemployement low before the 2008 meltdown genius?

The production of clothing went from 0% to 96% without unemployement going up...

[Seedr0]

No.

[mlkovach01]

"US has one of the worst health care system of the developed country and - ops - US health care is an example of free market"

There is no free market in health-care. Each state has its own, often contradictory, regulations of health-insurance/care. The government's regulations have pushed the cost for each new drug to over $8 Billion.

Despite this regulation, the US is still the world leader in drug development and research. In a ranking of the world's hospitals, the top 20 were in the US.

[mlkovach01]

"And US schools both pubblic and private aren't much better..."

Actually, it is primarily the public schools that are poor performers. The only section of education that privates schools really operate in is at the college level. US Private colleges are the BEST in the world. Harvard, Stanford, MIT, etc

[riddler03]

I went to MIT and it is a great school. But Harvard, Stanford, and most of the other ivy league schools are a joke. Everyone gets a 4.0.

[jjlinert]

How was Bush's stimulus package supposed to give new life to the US economy?

Laura's bush was probably the only thing that got stimulated

[ElFrankus]

By destroying Government, the U.S population now has no Mattress in which to fall back on...u dont see that neither in Europe nor in the third world...its uncanny

[blacksilverjose]

he talks to slow

[guitarguyfrank]

The reason they are cut is because we DONT have a free market! Ever heard of Dept. of Education? The GOV'T is in control..THATS why so many schools get funding cuts, they get the money, and choose where it goes. If we had a true free market..you'd see probably 15% of all schools being private schools or tutors..not 95% of school gov't funded, and UNDER funded.

[shineR80]

You and your Libertarian friends can laugh as much as you want about confusion and bad grammar. At least there's people out there that believe in the right PRINCIPLES despite confusion and bad grammar.

US has one of the worst health care system of the developed country and - ops - US health care is an example of free market. And US schools both pubblic and private aren't much better...

[freesk8]

The US system is half socialized. Medicare, medicaid, the VA, government employee's medical coverage, the Republican's medicare drug benefit... All of these are socialized medicine, not the free market, and together they make half of health care payments in the US.

The health care cost problems we have are mostly due to inefficiencies of the socialized half of the system.

The private part of the US health care system is bad, unless you compare it to health care in other nations...

[freesk8]

The US has incredibly LOW unemployment compared to Europe exactly BECAUSE we have low taxation on the rich. High taxation slows economic growth, and this tends to hurt the poor much more than the rich because when you are poor, your life is affected more by a percentage cut in income than a rich person is. For a Nobel prize-winner, this guy is out of touch with how economies tend to work.

[illinoisgrad]

Oh, how many galaxies of data do Nobel Prize winning economists need to have in order to realize that the free-market works?

You're a boob Joseph Stiglitz

[4ourthofjuly]

It's always interesting to hear some nobody put up there opinion against an expert.

Only on the internet.

[kimmus122]

If the free market works, then why are our schools in such bad shape? Why are arts organizations being cut? Why did they just cut funding for Math and Science in school? Why do we have the deficit we have? I ask you...do it work, or is it robbing our society of a much deeper need?

[illinoisgrad]

You don't realize it, but your response is packed with unintentional comedy.

I'm going to show this to all of my Libertarian friends.

How does it feel to know that somewhere in Chicago a group of strangers are laughing at your hopeless confusion and bad grammar?

[illinoisgrad]

You don't realize it, but your response is packed with unintentional comedy.

I'm going to show this to all of my Libertarian friends.

How does it feel to know that somewhere in Chicago a group of strangers are laughing at your hopeless confusion and bad grammar?

[hifimonkeykong]

Ohh god not Chicago schoolers, bunch of up themselves dimwits who think that because they've unquestioningly read a few economics text books by people from only one side of the economics debate that they can transmute that into universal laws without any experience of what actually happens in a special place they're kept separated from called 'reality'.

[freesk8]

It's the Keynsians who meet your description better than the Austrian or Chicago schoolers.

Milton Friedman has been proven right, and Keynes wrong, by the passage of time.

[ElFrankus]

Huh...ur wrong: with this disaster in Wall street, not only will everyone realize the crimes of a terrible thinker like Friedman, but Keynes will not be enough: read book 3 of Das Kapital and u will Sh&%t ur pants

[freesk8]

Ah the old idea that Marx was an economist...

How did his economic principles play out in the old USSR, China, N. Korea or Cuba? These are the places where they were implemented with the most fidelity. It seems to me that the collapse of these socialistic systems proves that they do not generate as much wealth for the poor as do Friedman's free markets. But did you miss the collapse of the USSR? Did you miss the market reforms in China that are lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty?

[infokemp]

With nano technology & Fusion power the end of the stumbling block for social democracy will be achieved as there is no need for a unequal labor class.

Marx was an asshole he can burn in hell, if there is such a place. Nor am I with anarcho-capitalist they only wish to get rid of the state so that they can have their way will the poor.

We are either nations or not so we must look out for all our citizens find a middle way, thats why I like Scandinavian social democracy.

Long live the west.

[freesk8]

I'm a minarchist.

I believe in supporting the minimum government that is necessary to defend our equal, individual rights to life, liberty and property. The Constitution of the US has some minor flaws, but overall it does a great job of limiting the power of government in the interest of achieving that goal.

If only the people still understood the value of the Const. Then perhaps our politicians would not violate it with impunity.

That's the middle way. Limited, constitutional govt.

[infokemp]

I have read the United States constitution and it is a beautifully written document, there are times where there needs evolution in policy while taking account of the constitution. Jefferson made progress by getting the natural rights into the constitution. I also believe in economic rights to create the enabling equality to assert natural rights, if there is no assertion the natural rights cannot be enforced thought they still intrinsicly exist. Ie poor people are'nt powerful thats a problem.

[freesk8]

The Constitution allows for evolution. All you have to do is pass an amendment. The evil happens when politicians don't bother to do this, but merely ignore the plain language of the Const.

Economic rights ARE natural rights because the basic natural rights are life, liberty and property. Liberty and property yield the right to free trade.

I love the fact that you see that rights exist BEFORE governments! Most are ignorant of this.

Property rights are most important for the poor.

[cheddyrod]

You are a contradiction. First you say the constitution limits the power of the government and then you say the politicians ignore it. If the politicians ignore the constitution how did it limit their powers? If a sign says the speed limit is 60 mph and you ignore the sign and there is not consequence in ignoring the speed limit sign how did the speed limit sign limit your speed to 60 mph?

[freesk8]

You are right, I wrote unclearly. The Constitution does contain words that, if acted upon as the supreme law of the land requires, would limit government power. But since we have allowed our politicians to ignore large swaths of the Constitution, it no longer effectively limits their power.

The Constitution, if ignored, can not have any power.

Sad state of affairs.

The Constitution SHOULD have the effect of limiting the size, scope and growth rate of govt power and thus defend liberty.

[freesk8]

Schools are not free market. They are government monopolies. They are examples of socialism, not freedom. Private schools are examples of the free market. And they tend to be much better than the government schools.

The deficit is created by too much government spending. High government spending is socialistic. Free market policies involve lower government spending. So everything you decry above is a result of government and socialism, not the free market.

[kimmus122]

Please forgive me for making a typo, I must be an idiot. Please forgive me for caring for other things than money, I must be an idiot. Please forgive me for not being like you, I must be an idiot. Please forgive for not laughing back at you, I just can't see the point.

[freesk8]

What I don't forgive you for is missing the point that the government-owned educational system we have now is NOT free market, it is a socialistic monopoly. The deficits we have are examples of excessive government, not the free market. Most of us don't care about your typos; we care about your "thinkos." You confuse society with government. You confuse corporate welfare with the free market. You confuse money with a measure of moral worth. You confuse intolerance for compassion.

[lexiustia]

cant wait to see this guy t the LSE!!

[agitcam]

I guess people who loss their job can join the army and fight in Iraq.