Wednesday, February 9, 2011

An ode to porkulus...

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... or how statism eventually swallowed itself whole.



Let's hit the way back machine, shall we, to just over two years ago when Congressional hearings were being held with respect to just how Porkulus (or in more civil circles, the American Recovery Act, was going to be shaped.


Dr. Robert Reich and Rep. Chuckie Rangel, the floor is yours:
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So, what do we have: "high social return"... "white male construction workers" (not so much)... "the long-termed unemployed, minorities and women"... "formulas and criterias" (i.e. mandated wealth redistribution), etc., etc...

And let's not forget this:
Last November, President-elect Obama addressed the devastation in the construction and manufacturing industries by proposing an ambitious New Deal-like program to rebuild the nation's infrastructure. He called for a two-year "shovel ready" stimulus program to modernize roads, bridges, schools, electrical grids, public transportation, and dams and made reinvigorating the hardest-hit sectors of the economy the goal of the legislation that would become the recovery act.


Women's groups were appalled. Grids? Dams? Opinion pieces immediately appeared in major newspapers with titles like "Where are the New Jobs for Women?" and "The Macho Stimulus Plan." A group of "notable feminist economists" circulated a petition that quickly garnered more than 600 signatures, calling on the president-elect to add projects in health, child care, education, and social services and to "institute apprenticeships" to train women for "at least one third" of the infrastructure jobs. At the same time, more than 1,000 feminist historians signed an open letter urging Obama not to favor a "heavily male-dominated field" like construction: "We need to rebuild not only concrete and steel bridges but also human bridges." As soon as these groups became aware of each other, they formed an anti-stimulus plan action group called WEAVE--
Women's Equality Adds Value to the Economy.

Taken in toto and given the apparent stated priorities in crafting the legislation for Porkulus, is it any wonder it failed spectacularly? This was never really about jobs or maybe it was but only in as much as those jobs were created for the purpose of a "high social return", whatever the hell that means.

Listen again to Rangel: he isn't interested in job creation but rather kickbacks to his constituents.

Porkulus will forever stand as a near $1 trillion monument to tax-payer-funded give-aways from the ruling class to the favored-status class.

It's interesting to note both Rangel and Reich whining about those pesky state legislators. State legislators and a dense and complex web of bureaucracies and regulations set up by the same that are blocking the money from getting to where Rangel and Reich, er... the formulas and criterias determine.


Imagine that: the statists' dream of "stimulating" a recessed economy via demand-side Keynesian economics completely choked off by a bureacratic and regulatory regime built-up over the years by the very same statists.





* The photo was taken while traveling through southern Colorado last fall. If you enlarge it you can make out a signal man on the right hand side of the road and a signal man in the distance for traffic coming in the opposite direction. One problem: there was no work going on. Zip. Zero. Nada. Two dudes slowing traffic down for no reason whatsoever. Right before we came up on them, we were greeted by one those Porkulus road signs.

In our mind, this picture remains the enduring image of Porkulus.

6 comments:

steve said...

Given how bad the crash was, I am surprised that the stimulus worked as well as it did. I thought it more likely we would see a much longer recession.

Steve

Dean said...

Steve, by Team O's own standards (with Porkulus, Christine Romer promised us unemployment would not go above 8%), Porkulus was a failure.

It may have saved a few public-sector jobs (teachers, fire-fighters, etc.) but wealth redistribution does not "create" jobs in the private sector.

Additionally, when Porkulus runs out, what happens to those public-sector jobs that were propped-up by Porkulus? Instead of being forced to make tough decisions with respect to spending and pension reforms, Porkulus merely strung-out states and municipalities like a junkie.

I know it wouldn't have been politically-popular, but I would have much preferred Team O to do nothing rather than pursue Keynesian gimmickry like Cash for Clunkers or HAMP that attempted to prop up the housing market with the illusion of a recovery when in reality Fannie and Freddie are still holding god-knows-what in toxic assets that were never permitted to be properly wrung out of the system.

Up for a double-dip?

steve said...

"(with Porkulus, Christine Romer promised us unemployment would not go above 8%), "

This gets pretty old. The recession was worse than first forecast. his has been shot down by several of the big macro forecasters. The forecast was made before they took office. However, if you want to anoint Romer as an infallible forecaster, then we can make her forecaster in chief.

"what happens to those public-sector jobs that were propped-up by Porkulus?"

If you follow the unemployment reports, we are gaining private sector jobs, but losing public sector jobs.

"attempted to prop up the housing market with the illusion of a recovery when in reality Fannie and Freddie are still holding god-knows-what in toxic assets that were never permitted to be properly wrung out of the system."

The GSEs, after lagging on subprime loans until late in the subprime run-up were used as a dumping ground by Treasury and the Fed. I am not really sure what else they could do at the time. I would agree with making the investment banks and commercial banks take them back if that could be done legally. If you are advocating for just letting everything fail, you should at least address the meaning of record TED spreads with just one investment bank going under.

Steve

Dean said...

No, Steve, what gets old is "we didn't know how bad the recession was going to be". That's a miserable cop-out for such a horribly-crafted piece of legislation. I think Reich and Rangel made that point quite well.

You promise your pork project won't let unemployment get above 8% and then it gets to 10, it means you didn't know what the hell you were talking about.

Team O had two years to prove the point - now they own the results. Perhaps Team O should've had some of those "big macro forecasters" on the squad instead of the hacks they did to keep them all out of the deep end.
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Anemic gains in private sector jobs (not enough to keep up with population growth) and losses in public sector jobs precisely because Porkulus spending was to peak (by design, for the midterms) in 2010 which makes my point.

Again, where is the money going to be coming from now to save those public sector jobs?
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Fannie and Freddie... still holding a boat load of toxic assets. Team O... still concocting ways to prop up a bubble-icious housing market. What could possibly go wrong?

You like sugar cones?

steve said...

"You promise your pork project won't let unemployment get above 8% and then it gets to 10, it means you didn't know what the hell you were talking about. "

I hope you dont really mean this. You are much too smart. How could anyone ever really predict an unemployment rate with certainty, especially at a time when no one yet knew the extent of bad assets held by the banks. If you would like a literate, non-partisan explanation, which I would hope to be the case, go to this link, written by one of the big 4 economic forecasters. If you prefer snark, dont bother.

http://macroadvisers.blogspot.com/2010/02/ma-on-fiscal-stimulus-definitive-answer.html

Steve

Dean said...

Steve, I believe we are in violent agreement vis a vis the ability to predict unemployment figures.

It completely baffles me then as to why you simply refuse to hold the administration accountable for relying on some figure most likely picked out of thin air as the main justification for a near-trillion dollar poltical-favorites boondoggle. Why are you covering so hard for these guys?

And I do resent the implication of the partisan nature of my stand against Porkulus. I've been doing this blog since the middle of '07. Please check out the archives - I spared Bush absolutely no quarter, most particularly on domestic policy, when I believed he strayed off course. In fact, I may have been even harder on Bush because he was, you know, a Republican "who should know better" and a "compassionate conservative" at that (whatever the hell that term was supposed to mean).

I am a pro-free market fiscal conservative and see the world from that perspective. If that be "partisan" that will have to be your issue not mine.

Re: "snark". It was not intended to be so but point taken.