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  #1  
Old 08-13-2009, 09:47 AM
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Grumpy Grumpy is offline
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Stimulus working ?

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php...show_article=1


PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - How much are politicians straining to convince people that the government is stimulating the economy? In Oregon, where lawmakers are spending $176 million to supplement the federal stimulus, Democrats are taking credit for a remarkable feat: creating 3,236 new jobs in the program's first three months.

But those jobs lasted on average only 35 hours,
or about one work week. After that, those workers were effectively back unemployed, according to an Associated Press analysis of state spending and hiring data. By the state's accounting, a job is a job, whether it lasts three hours, three days, three months, or a lifetime.

"Sometimes some work for an individual is better than no work," said Oregon's Senate president, Peter Courtney.

With the economy in tatters and unemployment rising, Oregon's inventive math underscores the urgency for politicians across the country to show that spending programs designed to stimulate the economy are working—even if that means stretching the facts.

At the federal level, President Barack Obama has said the federal stimulus has created 150,000 jobs, a number based on a misused formula and which is so murky it can't be verified.

At least 10 other states have launched their own miniature stimulus plans and nine others have proposed one, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Many of them, like Oregon, have promised job creation as a result of the public spending.

Ohio, for instance, passed a nearly $1.6 billion stimulus package even before Congress was looking at a federal program. When Gov. Ted Strickland first pitched the idea last year, he estimated the program could create some 80,000 jobs.

In North Carolina, a panel authorized hundreds of millions of dollars in new debt to speed up $740 million in government building projects. According to one estimate, the move could hurry the creation of 25,000 jobs.

As the bills for these programs mount, so will the pressure to show results. But, as Oregon illustrates, job estimates can very wildly.

"At best you can say it's ambiguous, at worst you can say it's intentional deception," said economist Bruce Blonigen of the University of Oregon. "You have to normalize it into a benchmark that everybody can understand."

Oregon's accounting practices would not be allowed as part of the $787 billion federal stimulus. While the White House has made the unverifiable promise that 3.5 million jobs will be saved or created by the end of next year, when accountants actually begin taking head counts this fall, there are rules intended to guard against exactly what Oregon is doing.

The White House requires states to report numbers in terms of full-time, yearlong jobs. That means a part-time mechanic counts as half a job. A full-time construction worker who has a three-month paving contract counts as one-fourth of a job.

Using that method, the AP's analysis of figures in Oregon shows the program so far has created the equivalent of 215 full-time jobs that will last three months. Oregon's House speaker, Dave Hunt, called that measurement unfair, though nearly every other state that has passed a stimulus package already uses or plans to use it.

"This stimulus plan was intentionally designed for short-term projects to pump needed jobs and income into families, businesses and communities struggling to get by," Hunt said in a statement. "No one ever said these would be full-time jobs for months at a time."

Still, critics say counting jobs, without any consideration of their duration, isn't good enough.

"You can't let them say, 'Well, we never said it was going to be full-time,'" said Steve Buckstein, a policy analyst for the Cascade Policy Institute, a free-market think tank. For the price of Oregon's $176 million, lawmakers could have provided all 3 million state residents with a one-hour job paying about $60, he said.

"By their definition, that's 3 million jobs," Buckstein said. "Is anybody gonna buy that?"

Oregon's 12.4 percent unemployment rate surpasses the national average of 9.4 percent. To supplement the federal stimulus, the state sold bonds to pay for everything from replacing light bulbs to installing carpet and finishing construction of a school in the farming community of Tillamook.

The "Go Oregon" program is still new. According to its latest progress report, 8 percent of the money has been spent and hundreds of projects have yet to be completed. More paychecks are bound to be written as construction continues.

If Oregon's dollars-to-jobs ratio remains steady, the program will create about 688 full-time, yearlong jobs. So far, it's generated only enough hours to employ 54 people full-time for a year.

Still, contractor Deborah Matthews of Pacificmark Construction, based in Milwaukie, Ore., is happy for any work. Her company picked up three contracts for painting, installing a water filter system and refurbishing a maintenance building. Prior to those contracts, which lasted about six weeks, she had laid off nearly all her construction workers. She brought back three full-time and hired a part-time worker.

"It was a little bit," she said, "to just keep us going."
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  #2  
Old 08-13-2009, 09:59 AM
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stereocuuple stereocuuple is offline
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I don't see the stimulus package trickling down to the american consumers in my part of the country at all. I don't see an increase in jobs, unless you count riduculous amounts of road construction. This is never focused on the areas where it's needed. It seems impossible to me to stimulate our economy by piling on more and more debt, isn't this how we got into this mess in the first place? Let's face it, out of control spending for the sake of spending is no sound economic policy. You can't even blame Obama for it, he is an idiot but this stimulus package is being driven by panicked congressmen praying to be reelected by a grateful public. All we have done is to simply leverage our childrens' future opposite an astronomical debt to China, a nation which boasts a predator economy to our own, and for referees, all we have is the criminal advertising agencies in america that continue to sell imported goods to undereducated americans for the sake of Wal-Mart's bottom line.

Be a patriot, buy a mcintosh Jeesus Christ..

Oh wait, they are owned by a Chinese management company.

Better yet, buy an SKS, the only chinese product worth having right now.

Sorry for the rant, just haven't had my morning coffee yet.

Eric

{typed by erin}

Last edited by stereocuuple; 08-13-2009 at 10:02 AM.
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Old 08-13-2009, 01:31 PM
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Twodogs Twodogs is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by stereocuuple View Post
{typed by erin}
I could tell.
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Old 08-13-2009, 02:53 PM
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stereocuuple stereocuuple is offline
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thanks alot i try i want me some voice to text software
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Old 08-13-2009, 03:06 PM
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Twodogs Twodogs is offline
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thanks alot i try i want me some voice to text software
Just hackin on ya buddy.
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  #6  
Old 08-13-2009, 05:12 PM
Charles Charles is offline
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Tell me who got the money, then maybe I can tell you if it's working or not.

I do imagine with that kind of dough that somebody's doing better.

Chas
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Old 08-13-2009, 05:15 PM
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stereocuuple stereocuuple is offline
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Quote:
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Tell me who got the money, then maybe I can tell you if it's working or not.

I do imagine with that kind of dough that somebody's doing better.

Chas
answer the bankers
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Old 08-13-2009, 05:46 PM
Charles Charles is offline
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answer the bankers
THIS man wins a cigar!!!

Chas
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