UGB it is not a cop out to want a legitimate source of information from the opposition, and storm i looked in two different economics text books and asked my economics prof. They all three said that the multiplier effect is a largely untested theory. and that it can work both ways. IE 1.00=>1.73 or 1.00=>0.67. Also only one study has shown that food stamps would be a productive way to stimulate the economy. However there have been several studies that suggest this kind of behavior can actually hurt an economy in recession. give me some time ill try to see if they are on the internet, unfortunately the 2 in particular i am reffering to are in one of my tesxtbooks.

as far as Bush is concerned. his first 4 years where great. he created homeland security and we saw less terrorist incedents during his presidency then we did during any of the last 3 (excluding events in iraq and afghanistan which i can see why some people will call this bull shit but im gonna lump those in with the two wars)
Also he did very well at rallying congress together for a while. in his first 4 years in office he got a lot accomplished as far as law making and legislature are concerned.
his immigration and energy policies where both sound but the then liberal congress resisted them and they never came into effect. his education policies where average.
as where his economic policies. not saying he was a saint by any means because he wasnt. but he was by no means a bad president i would put him in the middle of the pack.
i would say his weakest points where his handling of Katrina (although i would say that was more the governor of lusianna who failed on that one) and his decision to enter Iraq as soon as he did. he should have made sure he had the support of congress and the funding and man power to do it before he went in. as a result we had too few troops in Iraq to keep order in the post war days.

as an adendum. I do believe that the war on Iraq was justified and in this countries best interests. i just think that we should have finished in afghan first, or at the very least make sure our allies where committed for the post war reconstruction. as militarily superior as we are to any other country in this day you cant do things alone.

That being said now that we are in Iraq we need to stay there until Iraqi forces are able to maintain order without our help. pulling out now will create a very bad situation.

I am an economist by profession and I have looked over the Wikipedia article on the spending multiplier. I find it an accurate description of how the multiplier is calculated. In general, I find Wikipedia reliable on things mathematical.

Keep in mind that a necessary condition for the multiplier to operate is the existence of workers available to be called back to work.

I am not in agreement with all the suggestions made the speech by Zandi (that is cited in the Wikipedia article). A gasoline tax holiday will not work if the supply of gasoline is perfectly inelastic (as it is in the short run).

A further comment on multipliers involving creation of new capital goods. The capital will start to depreciate and the capital consumption will have a negative multiplier effect that will eventually wipe out, over the useful life of the capital, all of the original multiplier effects.

RIP MJ I LOVE YOU SO MUCH

When I saw that this thread had been bumped I was hoping for a new installment on economic analysis, but we get a cryptic post about MJ, whoever that is.

But, since I am an economist by profession, and the thread had been bumped, I thought I would put a new spoke in.

The downturn seems to be bottoming out, but the tricky job for the Fed (U.S. Federal Reserve System) is to soak up all the money it pumped into the economy to prop up financial institutions. If it does so, it has to sell assets which will force bond prices down (interest rates up) which will slow down the economy. If it doesn't, private holders of dollar denominated assets will start dumping them to avoid being wiped out. The dollar will fall on the world markets, creating inflationary pressures.

He wasn't even born in the US! I bet next he'll cheat on his wife. This guy can't run for president. Put this shit on CNN as breaking news.

Oops. [/sarcasm]

Even if Obama doubled the deficit... he wouldn't have spent as much money as Bush and his Republican cronies did in their time controlling the legislative and executive branches, Thraxle.

So, while I don't foresee Obama getting us out of the Red any time soon I think we should blame the people who got us there in the first place, as opposed to the people that are supposed to get us out.

GGkthnx


PS: I forgot to mention how every Republican President since the 70s has left us in the Red, whereas every Democratic President has left us a surplus after their time in office.

I await your retort to that fact.

i bet obama would pga at kdice.