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Politics : The Obama - Clinton Disaster -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GROUND ZERO™ who wrote (15848)	7/22/2009 1:36:19 AM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 103300

TV Runs Wild With Insane Bailout Cost Estimate yglesias.thinkprogress.org When you hear something that sounds like nobody could possibly be so crazy as to do it, one thing worth considering is that possibility that nobody is actually doing it. Thus when you find yourself, as Politico did, with the headline “Bailouts could cost U.S. $23 trillion” it’s worth asking: Really? $23 trillion? The total value of all goods and services produced in the United States is $13.8 trillion. So pretty clearly the government could not, in fact, spend $23 trillion on bailouts. As Pat Garofalo explains, the number $23 trillion is the result of an extremely crude tallying method, “To arrive at $23 trillion, Barofsky simply added together every financial rescue program that has been proposed, including those that were discontinued or never even started.” In particular, it involves totaling up the nominal value of every single loan guarantee. Think back to before the financial crisis. You could have totaled up the value of every single FDIC insured bank account in the United States and come up with a fantastical sum that deposit insurance “could” cost the American taxpayer. In the real world, however, a big part of the point of these guarantees is precisely to prevent runs and make failure relatively unlikely. Universal failure is not going to happen. Floyd Norris breaks it down: It also assumes that every home mortgage backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac goes into default, and all the homes turn out to be worthless. It assumes that every bank in America fails, with not a single asset worth even a penny. And it assumes that all of the assets held by money market mutual funds, including Treasury bills, turn out to be worthless. It would also require the Treasury itself to default on securities purchased by the Federal Reserve system. On the one hand, there’s no way for this to happen. On the other hand, were it to happen there would be no way to pay. And on the third hand, the money would be worthless anyway so who cares? As Pat observes, none of this stopped cable news from running with an alarmist story: I got into writing about politics because I like the idea of trying to improve people’s understanding of the issues. I wonder sometimes what gets people who cover politics on TV motivated.

To: GROUND ZERO™ who wrote (15848)	7/22/2009 1:39:05 AM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 103300

MAYBE THE STIMULUS ISN'T SO BAD AFTER ALL?.... The Washington Monthly Political Animal by Steve Benen July 21, 2009 washingtonmonthly.com I've lost track of all the labels Republican lawmakers have used to described the administration's stimulus package, but perhaps the most common is "failure." To hear the right tell, the recovery initiative just hasn't done much of anything, and it certainly hasn't created any jobs. It's an argument that might be more persuasive if it were true. Greg Sargent, for example, flags this item from House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence's home state of Indiana. More than 2,400 people are now at work on federal stimulus-funded roadway projects in Indiana, according to a state report being released today. Covering 83 projects and listing a total payroll of $2.8 million, the Indiana Department of Transportation report details only a small fraction of the hundreds of projects so far selected for funding using the $440 million the agency received under the American Relief and Recovery Act. Economists say it's too early to tell whether the long-term value of President Barack Obama's economy-boosting effort will justify its $787 billion cost. But construction executives say stimulus-funded projects certainly have created jobs and spared layoffs within the industry. Remember, as far as Pence is concerned, those jobs shouldn't exist. (He argued earlier this year that government spending couldn't possibly create jobs, suggesting these jobs in Indiana must come as quite a surprise.) In fact, they wouldn't exist for quite a long while if Pence had his way, since he inexplicably insisted the best way to deal with the economic crisis is with a five-year spending freeze. What will be especially interesting to see, though, is how many opponents of the stimulus package suddenly discover how much they like the projects the recovery funds financed. Louisiana Gov. Gov. Bobby Jindal (R), for example, was an ardent critic of the stimulus effort, who now feels comfortable bragging to local Louisiana communities about money made possible by the recovery bill he opposed. Indeed, this happens quite a bit. House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) hates the stimulus, except for the transportation money it brought to his district. Other House Republicans have bragged about recovery funds headed for their communities, thanks to a bill they voted in lock-step against. So, how long until Pence starts claiming credit for some of the thousands of jobs brought to Indiana through this "failed" legislation? —Steve Benen 4:35 PM