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Yes, love it or hate it, spending creates jobs.
thenewgreen · 4828 days ago · link ·
But does "hootsbox" have a valid (posted above) point that much of the spending that has occurred has only introduced "temporary" job growth via short-term employment? The stimulus package hasn't had the sort of impact I had hoped for. Is this due to the type of jobs created? If so, should we be allocating more "stimulus" jobs to different sectors like R&D?
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There has been some criticism about which projects were targeted with that stimulus. If you want to delve into the Stimulus spending, ProPublica has an amazing resource: http://projects.propublica.org/recovery/ -you can see how much was spent in your county, and on what. (There is still 150B left to spend, I believe) But, just because jobs were lost in that period doesn't necessarily mean that the stimulus jobs were temporary. If more jobs were lost than jobs created by stimulus, you'd see the same effect. I'd like to see some numbers regarding the permanence of stimulus jobs.
I do have to say that GWB's bailout of the auto industry was very smart, and Obama's handling of the GM bankruptcy was also. Those companies are profiting, hiring, and paying the government back. It's not hard to find a job if you are an engineer in MI. I have an uncle that owns a supplier. His primary customer was GM. He would have had to lay off everyone if it weren't for the auto bailout. Of course, you can criticize GM for getting into that position, but at least there were significant structural and contractual (labor made real concessions) changes made as a part of the auto bailout, -unlike the banking bailout.
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I would agree with the administrations' call on the auto industry; not to act would have been very detrimental with hundreds of thousands of jobs and related jobs lost. We will gain more by helping those industries out in the short run. By the way, the major cause of the debacle was the faucet was "shut off" in the credit markets. With 98% of all auto transactions requiring some type of credit, it was a death toll; it was NOT caused by the lack of hybrid production. Even foreign auto companies lost billions.