'The people who are always wrong about fucking everything maintain power. '

[BurtWorm]

Atrios:

http://www.eschatonblog.com/2010/08/dont-listen-to-girlymaths.html


Oh well.

Romer had run simulations of the effects of stimulus packages of varying sizes: six hundred billion dollars, eight hundred billion dollars, and $1.2 trillion. The best estimate for the output gap was some two trillion dollars over 2009 and 2010. Because of the multiplier effect, filling that gap didn’t require two trillion dollars of government spending, but Romer’s analysis, deeply informed by her work on the Depression, suggested that the package should probably be more than $1.2 trillion. The memo to Obama, however, detailed only two packages: a five-hundred-and-fifty-billion-dollar stimulus and an eight-hundred-and-ninety-billion-dollar stimulus. Summers did not include Romer’s $1.2-trillion projection. The memo argued that the stimulus should not be used to fill the entire output gap; rather, it was "an insurance package against catastrophic failure." At the meeting, according to one participant, "there was no serious discussion to going above a trillion dollars."

The people who are always wrong about fucking everything maintain power.

[Greyhound]

1. K&R. And sadly typical for the agenda being shoved down our throats. n/t

[sandnsea]

2. Things she's learned, in her words

Ms. Romer's academic work focused, among other things, on the causes of and recovery from the Great Depression and the impact of monetary, spending and tax policy on the economy. Her 19 months in Washington has confirmed some of her prior beliefs and altered others. "The first thing we have learned that policy does matter dramatically," she said.

"Where we are today is certainly not good. But in the absence of the actions taken by the Fed, the actions taken by the regulators and the Recovery Act , the economy would have been even more terrible."

One thing she says she hadn't realized previously: "The degree to which you often only get one shot at something like the Recovery Act."

"An economist's natural instinct is to do things in stages. You take one action, see what it does and see if you need more," she explained. But with the Bush administration Troubled Asset Relief Program to shore up the banks or the Obama fiscal stimulus, that proved wrong. "I didn't realize the degree to which you have only one shot."


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704657504575411973910324964.html?mod=WSJ_economy_LeftTopHighlights

[Blue Owl]

3. Just more proof it's really about money in the end

The GOP doesn't have a shred of credibility, honesty, or decency -- yet their lies continue to outshine truth in the M$M.

[Bonhomme Richard]

4. I'm not sure it is wrong for them in the short term.

They always seem to come out ahead on the "I make a ton of money" curve.

[laughingliberal]

5. Yep. Posted about this earlier today. It's a damned shame Summers isn't leaving. nt

[damntexdem]

6. Well, actually, fucking everthing is often the one thing they do know about.

And it's what they spend a lot of their time doing -- not the least of it being to fuck over the rest of us.

;-)

[laughingliberal]

7. K & R nt

[Lorien]

8. I guess that Trillions are only on the table to fund wars and bankster bailouts

bailing out the other 99.5% of us is far less important. x(

[glitch]

9. Wrong? Or very, very Right?

Some would say Far Right.