Political Poll

[rowyn]

I've been reading here and there about the economic stimulus bill in Congress, but not very much about it in LJ. Which made me curious what my friends think of it. Hence, a quickie poll!

[Poll #1346426]

Also, if any of you are so inclined, I'd be happy to hear your thoughts in detail. :)

Comments

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

I don't really know much about the specifics, except that it's full of pork of course. But then, a stimulus bill is essentially a whole bunch of pork on purpose...

So, normally, it's a waste of money, but when the economy actually needs it because private sector spending is contracting (which is a vicious positive feedback cycle) it's probably the right choice.

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

I know almost nothing about the specifics of the current bill, so I can't comment on it intelligently. As far as I can make out, the apparatchik has decided that there can and must be this huge thing and no little thing like the will of the people is going to get in the way. As such, I haven't bothered to look at it because it's going to happen no matter what I think about it.

Same reason I don't generally follow weather reports, if that makes sense.

Overall, I'm against Big Brother sticking its paws into anything if it can be avoided; but that's certainly not the current trend of things in the post-9/11 world.

-The Gneech

[seraphimsigrist.livejournal.com]

I think my response would
be along the lines of --how would
I know and again what differnce does
it make what I think about it? we will
all hope it works.
of course it has a downside, pork in it...
snowballing defecit, and yet something is
necessary and this is (with some adjustment
a little one way or the other) what we will
have so lets hope it helps!

in general I am confident that as with other
recessions we will survive. the economy will
recover a bit down the road...

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

Didn't Japan already try something similar to this? I vaguely recall that it went badly.

In general, I figure that spending money we don't have (conjuring up money from nowhere) is a very bad thing. It makes the existing money worth less. Maybe diverting spending from one place to another could work; who knows?

I am not so strong in my opinion on this as I am on certain other issues, but I am worried that we will end up paying for this - and that even if this IS the cause of later woe, the mechanics of an economy are messy enough and subject to enough interpretation that we'll never know with absolute certainty. (At least, nobody is ever going to 'fess up to being responsible if it goes badly, if there's an alternative explanation in circulation.)

We Need a Placebo -- Just Don't Call It That

[telnar.livejournal.com]

I don't see much in this bill which is likely to help unless it improves confidence. There is about an even mixture of short term spending (some of it through the tax code) and long term spending. The historical evidence that Keynesian stimulus works well is so weak that it's not rediculous to argue that it doesn't exist at all (as long as you have a way to say that World War II doesn't count as stimulus spending in the US).

The reason that I was only as negative as "more harm than good" is that a lot of the reason we got here in the first place is because of 2nd and 3rd order effects of the original problems (in subprime and elsewhere). Those indirect effects can be very sensitive to consumer and investor confidence, so I'll imagine the scene where Tinkerbell was injured in "Peter Pan" and encourage everyone to say "I believe in wasteful government stimulus." :)