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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (853270)	4/30/2015 1:15:31 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1576323

Yes, stimulus is good when everyone is cutting back In theory (or at least certain theories) yes. In practice not quite as much. For one thing there is a delay to recognize the downturn, then a delay to develop and pass a political response, a delay to get programs rolling, and then a delay before they actually start spending much of the money. By the time significant amounts of extra money get spent (other then the "automatic stabilizers like unemployment insurance that are already in place and don't need political decisions and new program creation) the deepest part of the recession, and sometimes the whole recession, is past. Another problem is that you get a push for stimulus, but then when you get good economic times there isn't the equivalent push to roll back spending.

To: tejek who wrote (853270)	4/30/2015 1:49:29 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1576323

And once you go tbeyond "when everyone else is cutting back its not time for gov't to cut back as well" to "stimulus is good when everyone is cutting back" then its best to look at supporting the idea, and the analysis of possible multipliers from the spending becomes very relevant, even important. It is not the case that there has been clear and convincing evidence of such an idea. There is some evidence (which you deem unnecessary complication) of modest to minimal short term benefit (probably at a long term cost), with that benefit being smaller in relatively open countries, and those with high levels of government debt (both of which apply to the US)