Lying-nothing new

[rwguinn]

As usual, politicians are lying again. the worst part:
These folks were directed to lie, by the Obama white house:

Quote:

The inflated job count is at least partly the product of the administration instructing local community agencies that received money to count the raises as jobs saved.

reminds me of the days when a $15 million increase in budget instead of a $20 million increase was called a "25% cut"...

[parky76]

Originally Posted by rwguinn

As usual, politicians are lying again. the worst part:
These folks were directed to lie, by the Obama white house:


reminds me of the days when a $15 million increase in budget instead of a $20 million increase was called a "25% cut"...

Obama lies about jobs, Bush lies about weapons of mass destruction and takes us to war with a country that never attacked us.

[Random]

Presidents lie about jobs all the time. Defining people who have not looked for a job in six months as outside the labor market as opposed to discouraged, trying to relabel fast food jobs as “manufacturing”, etc.

My personal favorite was some statistical magic under Regan. Military employees were considered outside the labor pool for statistical purposes. Regan moved them to employed. Not a single new job was created, no one was hired or fired, they didn’t even shuffle anybody around, but by moving hundreds of thousands of military personnel in the statistics, the official unemployment rate took a slight dip.

[Careyp74]

Right, with all of the workers from the top down having to put all of this policy into play and collecting the data, etc..... It isn't understandable that somewhere down the line mistakes are going to be made and someone is not going to understand what to do?

How does this compare to GWB himself standing in front of the cameras and lying to the world about the surity of WMDs?

[rwguinn]

Originally Posted by Random

Presidents lie about jobs all the time. Defining people who have not looked for a job in six months as outside the labor market as opposed to discouraged, trying to relabel fast food jobs as “manufacturing”, etc.

My personal favorite was some statistical magic under Regan. Military employees were considered outside the labor pool for statistical purposes. Regan moved them to employed. Not a single new job was created, no one was hired or fired, they didn’t even shuffle anybody around, but by moving hundreds of thousands of military personnel in the statistics, the official unemployment rate took a slight dip.

Ah, but that was different!
(I had a job during the Regan Administration. Both times Democrats (Clinton, Obama) came into office, I was in the ranks of the unemployed within 6 months!) See how different that makes it?

[Puppycow]

Quote:

At Southwest Georgia Community Action Council, director Myrtis Mulkey-Ndawula said she followed the guidelines the Obama administration provided. She said she multiplied the 508 employees by 1.84 — the percentage pay raise they received — and came up with 935 jobs saved.

"I would say it's confusing at best," she said. "But we followed the instructions we were given."

What you have here is a person who is really, really bad at math or has no common mathematical sense. She was supposed to multiply by 1.84 percent and instead multiplied by 1.84.

She doesn't know how to follow instructions!
Stupidity, not lying.

[Beerina]

It's laughable that the government has the audacity to claim a pay raise average lower than the rate of inflation as a saving of jobs.

If they were going to lie truthfully, they should first adjust that for the rate of inflation, then declare that they actually lost some jobs because the increase was less than inflation.


If'n they were going to be truthful liars. However, they wanted to be lying liars instead.

[Brainster]

I'm also amused at this:

Quote:

Last week's stimulus report claimed 640,000 jobs saved or created by the economic recovery plan so far. Those jobs came from 156,614 federal contracts, grants and loans awarded to more than 62,000 recipients, worth a total of $215 billion.

Let's see, $215 billion divided by 640,000 jobs = $335,000 per job.

[Grizzly Bear]

Originally Posted by rwguinn

As usual, politicians are lying again. the worst part:
These folks were directed to lie, by the Obama white house:


reminds me of the days when a $15 million increase in budget instead of a $20 million increase was called a "25% cut"...

Obviously he's going to claim this isn't his fault; that it's STILL Bush's economy... It seems you haven't learned yet! <.< >.>

[Newtons Bit]

Originally Posted by Brainster

I'm also amused at this:



Let's see, $215 billion divided by 640,000 jobs = $335,000 per job.

You have to remember that there's more to it than just jobs. The person that is employed is supposed to be providing some sort service or product. If the job + service is worth $335,000 then great. If it's not, then there's a serious problem.

[Tricky]

Originally Posted by Brainster

I'm also amused at this:

Let's see, $215 billion divided by 640,000 jobs = $335,000 per job.

Right. Because, as you know, all the contracts pay for is labor. All the materials for building bridges, etc. is free.

[Newtons Bit]

Originally Posted by Tricky

Right. Because, as you know, all the contracts pay for is labor. All the materials for building bridges, etc. is free.

A typical construction project (bridges, buildings, etc) usually breaks down to 50% labor and 50% materials/equipment. The materials require labor to produce as well. The equipment requires labor to produce. To really get an accurate amount of "jobs saved" you need to look deep into the supply chain.

For example:

Suppose a small bridge (which there really aren't many in the stimulus package) costs 2,000,000 to build (let's ignore design fees). The labor cost is $1,000,000. The average construction worker costs about $50,000 a year. Suppose the bridge takes exactly one year to construct. That's 20 job-years right there.

You can then trace the materials used on site back to labor required by manufacturing employees and maybe pick up another 5 job-years.

If you do the math on this typical type of job, you'll see the economy of using construction jobs as stimulus. One job = $80,000 and the public gets a bridge in the process which also helps the economy, assuming that the bridge was placed someplace useful.

Unfortunately, the stimulus package did not include much in the way of construction projects. Which is why, as Brainster pointed out, it's costing $335,000/job according to the most biased-in-favor-of-more-jobs: the White House.

[stevea]

Originally Posted by parky76

Obama lies about jobs, Bush lies about weapons of mass destruction and takes us to war with a country that never attacked us.

OK Iraq did have some weapons that exceeded their treaty limits, they did have 300 tons of yellowcake uranium ore, but they did NOT have actual WMD. It would certainly have been far better if we never went to Iraq IMO.

OTOH why does it make Bush a "liar" to accept intelligence report from US, UK, France and Russia ? Congress's intelligence committee, including Dems had the same info and unanimously voted to go to war.

Perhaps you don't understand the meaning of the word "liar". Is there actual evidence of purposeful deception, or are you merely namecalling b/c you can't pose a coherent argument nor provide evidence ?

I didn't/don't like Bush either but making up irrational accusations only appeals to knuckle-draggers. There are plenty of good, well evidenced reasons to hate Bush, from his campaign's dirty tricks against McCain, to his ridiculous budgets & spending, to signing the Patriot Act, to the refusal to provide due process to gitmo detainees, his unwillingness to exit Iraq quickly when the lack of WMD became clear.

What is Obama's excuse for continuing virtually all of these bad policies and Constitutional violations ?

[AvalonXQ]

Originally Posted by parky76

Obama lies about jobs,

I'm glad we agree.
Excuse me if I'm not as concerned about lies from the last administration as I am about lies from this one.
I promise I'll be less concerned about Obama's lies when he leaves office in 2013.
(I predict you'll still be talking about Bush's.)

[stevea]

Originally Posted by Newtons Bit

A typical construction project (bridges, buildings, etc) usually breaks down to 50% labor and 50% materials/equipment. The materials require labor to produce as well. The equipment requires labor to produce. To really get an accurate amount of "jobs saved" you need to look deep into the supply chain.

For example:

Although there is *some* truth in your statement your argument is undermined by your overly simplistic thinking about basic economics.

All economic activity must be evaluated with respect to alternative uses for the same resources. When you build a bridge you need steel & concrete, but that same materials might be in demand for other private building projects which will either have to bear a higher price or get cancelled. When you offer $50k per man-year for a stimulus construction project, then people who would otherwise be painting houses or pushing telephony fiber willl change jobs and the cost of labor for those other jobs and the resulting projects increases.

The thinking that you can just introduce money and count the resulting jobs completely ignores the obvious market distortion that results from this activity. Now if you only use otherwise unused materials and otherwise unemployed workers for these jobs that it would be true, but the actual gain of the stimulus is only a fraction of the amount you have calculated. Most of the "stimulus advantage" is destroyed by "stimulus disadvantage" such as increased pricing elsewhere in the economy.

Hopefully you can see that if your society is 100% employed and 100% of materials are in demand (no excess capacity), then stimulus is impossible - you are just diverting labor & materials from one project to another.

My guesstimate is that in something like cash for clunkers (the auto stimulus program) or public construction projects that might tap under utilized construction workers would be lucky to get a 40% effectiveness on labor costs and at most 20% on materials. If your 50/50 spit is accurate then you might hope to see 30% of the spending result in net stimulus Certainly the correct figure is far short of the 100% you calculate.

This is really an econ101 issue and I'm often surprised at how few people recognize this obvious fallacy in thinking.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable..._broken_window

[Newtons Bit]

Originally Posted by stevea

Although there is *some* truth in your statement your argument is undermined by your overly simplistic thinking about basic economics.

All economic activity must be evaluated with respect to alternative uses for the same resources. When you build a bridge you need steel & concrete, but that same materials might be in demand for other private building projects which will either have to bear a higher price or get cancelled. When you offer $50k per man-year for a stimulus construction project, then people who would otherwise be painting houses or pushing telephony fiber willl change jobs and the cost of labor for those other jobs and the resulting projects increases.

The thinking that you can just introduce money and count the resulting jobs completely ignores the obvious market distortion that results from this activity. Now if you only use otherwise unused materials and otherwise unemployed workers for these jobs that it would be true, but the actual gain of the stimulus is only a fraction of the amount you have calculated. Most of the "stimulus advantage" is destroyed by "stimulus disadvantage" such as increased pricing elsewhere in the economy.

Hopefully you can see that if your society is 100% employed and 100% of materials are in demand (no excess capacity), then stimulus is impossible - you are just diverting labor & materials from one project to another.

My guesstimate is that in something like cash for clunkers (the auto stimulus program) or public construction projects that might tap under utilized construction workers would be lucky to get a 40% effectiveness on labor costs and at most 20% on materials. If your 50/50 spit is accurate then you might hope to see 30% of the spending result in net stimulus Certainly the correct figure is far short of the 100% you calculate.

This is really an econ101 issue and I'm often surprised at how few people recognize this obvious fallacy in thinking.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable..._broken_window

You don't work in the construction industry, you don't know how bad it is.

My projects are consistently bid 25% under the estimated construction cost. Construction budgets have yet to take advantage of depressed costs.

Structural steel used to cost $1.25/lb delivered and installed. It's currently running at $0.75/lb.

Small jobs which used to only pull in bids from 2 or 3 local contractors now have 10 or more bids from local and big-time national contractors.

The construction industry is starving for work.

There is a huge glut of people being laid-off, from construction workers to Architects (the unemployment rate for Architects in Las Vegas is 50%). No amount of federal stimulus will get all of them back to work. However, these are people that could go back to work if there was any work to do.

Econ101, indeed.

[icerat]

Originally Posted by stevea

OTOH why does it make Bush a "liar" to accept intelligence report from US, UK, France and Russia ? Congress's intelligence committee, including Dems had the same info and unanimously voted to go to war.

This is a bit of a myth, it was an echo chamber effect. The CIA supplied intelligence to the President. The CIA supplied the same intelligence to the UK and French intelligence services who reported it to their heads of state. Not sure where you got the Russians from? You may have meant the Germans, who went through the same echo chamber

You can't then claim that as 4 separate sets of intelligence. Indeed IIRC all of the European intelligence services were notably skeptical of the CIA reports.

[The Painter]

Originally Posted by parky76

Obama lies about jobs, Bush lies about weapons of mass destruction and takes us to war with a country that never attacked us.

Well thank goodness that Bush lied!! Otherwise Obama would be in trouble for lying. Bush kept Obama from getting in trouble. What a nice man.

[rwguinn]

Originally Posted by stevea

Although there is *some* truth in your statement your argument is undermined by your overly simplistic thinking about basic economics.

All economic activity must be evaluated with respect to alternative uses for the same resources. When you build a bridge you need steel & concrete, but that same materials might be in demand for other private building projects which will either have to bear a higher price or get cancelled. When you offer $50k per man-year for a stimulus construction project, then people who would otherwise be painting houses or pushing telephony fiber willl change jobs and the cost of labor for those other jobs and the resulting projects increases.

The thinking that you can just introduce money and count the resulting jobs completely ignores the obvious market distortion that results from this activity. Now if you only use otherwise unused materials and otherwise unemployed workers for these jobs that it would be true, but the actual gain of the stimulus is only a fraction of the amount you have calculated. Most of the "stimulus advantage" is destroyed by "stimulus disadvantage" such as increased pricing elsewhere in the economy.

Hopefully you can see that if your society is 100% employed and 100% of materials are in demand (no excess capacity), then stimulus is impossible - you are just diverting labor & materials from one project to another.

My guesstimate is that in something like cash for clunkers (the auto stimulus program) or public construction projects that might tap under utilized construction workers would be lucky to get a 40% effectiveness on labor costs and at most 20% on materials. If your 50/50 spit is accurate then you might hope to see 30% of the spending result in net stimulus Certainly the correct figure is far short of the 100% you calculate.

This is really an econ101 issue and I'm often surprised at how few people recognize this obvious fallacy in thinking.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable..._broken_window

You might try looking at the real world, and get out of the classroom.
NB has it pretty close to what I know, and he is in construction in a management (as opposed to labor) perspective.

[rwguinn]

Originally Posted by icerat

This is a bit of a myth, it was an echo chamber effect. The CIA supplied intelligence to the President. The CIA supplied the same intelligence to the UK and French intelligence services who reported it to their heads of state. Not sure where you got the Russians from? You may have meant the Germans, who went through the same echo chamber

You can't then claim that as 4 separate sets of intelligence. Indeed IIRC all of the European intelligence services were notably skeptical of the CIA reports.

Can we not derail to Parky's favoriter subject, on which he is ignorant but vocal? Please?

[Newtons Bit]

Originally Posted by rwguinn

You might try looking at the real world, and get out of the classroom.
NB has it pretty close to what I know, and he is in construction in a management (as opposed to labor) perspective.

Indeed. I should add to most post above:

There are no new private sectors construction projects. The only jobs currently being bid and designed are public sector: schools, hospitals, roads, bridges, college dorms etc.

The idea that the government might edge out the private sector is hogwash. The private sector isn't even in the game anymore.

[stevea]

Originally Posted by icerat

This is a bit of a myth, it was an echo chamber effect. The CIA supplied intelligence to the President. The CIA supplied the same intelligence to the UK and French intelligence services who reported it to their heads of state. Not sure where you got the Russians from? You may have meant the Germans, who went through the same echo chamber

You can't then claim that as 4 separate sets of intelligence. Indeed IIRC all of the European intelligence services were notably skeptical of the CIA reports.

So your belief is that these intelligence services are completely ignorant and foolish, and the various agencies pass around rumours like a gaggle of schoolgirls ? That's nonsense. Where is your evidence for this ridiculous statement ?

This discusses the British Intelligence and suggest many of the propositions were supportable, It also demonstrates your echo chamber argument is false in this case.
http://archive.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/...ort/report.pdf

You'll find many reports on the web that France supported the idea about Iraq buying Niger (and may have manufactured the supporting documents). Also they supported the idea of Iraqi biological weapons, particarly airborne anthrax.

The CIA is a no-brainer. These are the reports that cause Congreess, including most Dems to vote for the war.

RUSSIAN intelligence is exactly what I mean. Try reading a news source sometime.
http://forums.canadiancontent.net/in...rance-wmd.html
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/FF24Ag01.html

I wish the US could produce something as clear and objective as the Butler report, but instead the US pre-war intelligence reviews are politically driven hatchet jobs filled with out of context fragmentary quotes.
====

You can certainly say that Bush favored war, presented the available intelligence with the most pro-war spin and used 911 for it's "urgency" effect. BTW I was listening carefully at the time and the Bush admin never stated in any way that I heard that Iraq was related to 911. They did purposefully mix the two issues saying the Iraq was supporting terrorism. Whether wrong or deceptively presented I don't think "lie" applies.

Please recall too that at the time Iraq was not abiding by it's Desert Storm agreements, was shooting at US/UK aircraft in it's no-fly zone and had admitted, then refused to allow the nuclear inspectors under Hans Blix. Iraq certainly had a nuclear program, they had hundreds of tons or raw ore and ...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25546334/
Any reasonable observer would have to agree they were taking actions consistent with developing WMD.

These reasonable extrapolations were wrong for whatever reason. Perhaps Saddam was too looney to realise the programs weren't moving forward. Perhaps the Russians spitrited the WD away. Clearly "not worth the cost" applies.

Bush was a maroon for not stopping as soon as Saddam was captured. But to the current point - Obama is just as big a maroon for not leaving ASAP. Creating a democracy by force is irony at it's best, and has little hope of lasting 2 decades.

[stevea]

Originally Posted by Newtons Bit

You don't work in the construction industry, you don't know how bad it is.

My projects are consistently bid 25% under the estimated construction cost. Construction budgets have yet to take advantage of depressed costs.

Structural steel used to cost $1.25/lb delivered and installed. It's currently running at $0.75/lb.

Small jobs which used to only pull in bids from 2 or 3 local contractors now have 10 or more bids from local and big-time national contractors.

The construction industry is starving for work.

There is a huge glut of people being laid-off, from construction workers to Architects (the unemployment rate for Architects in Las Vegas is 50%). No amount of federal stimulus will get all of them back to work. However, these are people that could go back to work if there was any work to do.

Econ101, indeed.

Nothing you have said changes or detracts from any point I made. If there is 50% unemployment in the construction trades then there is also 50% employment. This means that the cost of employing the 50% is going to be substantially higher than the cost of the currently employed 50%.

I can empathize with your plight, but your statements are not part of a solution. Instead you want to ignore the reality you face, so you object to the fact that the stimulus gets a poor return.

Originally Posted by rwguinn

You might try looking at the real world, and get out of the classroom.
NB has it pretty close to what I know, and he is in construction in a management (as opposed to labor) perspective.

So what ? I agree with what you and NB "know". Yes the construction industry is "starving". What you ignore that that the painful period in the construction industry does not change the fact that stimulus is not very effective.

Perhaps you are too innumerate to understand my argument. From a monetary POV it would be cheaper to pay the unemployed their full wage to stay home rather that subsidize un-economic projects.

Your emotional response to the issue is exactly what politicians use to create boneheaded wrong programs that don't address the problems. "It's URGENT" is exactly the wrong attitude needed to solve any problem.

NB - do you also believe that the Government should pay you to build new homes of buildings and then bulldoze then down so you can build another ? When there is 50% unemployment in an industry it is a strong clue that you are either in a declining or highly volatile business. There are ways to handle either which doesn't involve the government forcing me to pay tax money to you to produce un-economic projects. Get on your big-boy pants and find a way to make money in the current market by competition or else diversify into another marketspace. Same advice for personal or business (and yes I've run a small business).

WTR construction - yes the mortgage financing scandal is an issue, but despite that we've already seen the peak baby-boom demographic build their last homes. For the next ~20-30 years there will be a glut of homes. There will always be some new home construction, but a lot less. I'd expect that commercial construction will also be in decline for the same demographic reasons. You can certainly find a detailed market study if you search. Perhaps there are some niches in vacation, resort or elder-hostel or ... construction. Perhaps there are some reasonable categories of home renovation/additions that would appeal to the demographics. Energy improvement, adding elderly-friendly features or subdividing MacMansions for the gen-x'ers. I don't know what would work but I can certainly tell you this - if you think the market is going to return to home construction you are like the cargo-cults
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult
you are waiting for the good times to return based on a faulty understanding and voodoo belief system.

The market is telling you quite forcefully to change. I suggest you heed it's advice.

[SezMe]

Originally Posted by Brainster

Let's see, $215 billion divided by 640,000 jobs = $335,000 per job.

But how do you know that the $215B has finished generating new jobs?

I'm not trying to defend the crap cited in the OP, but criticism of that crap should be well grounded.

[rwguinn]

Originally Posted by stevea

Nothing you have said changes or detracts from any point I made. If there is 50% unemployment in the construction trades then there is also 50% employment. This means that the cost of employing the 50% is going to be substantially higher than the cost of the currently employed 50%.

I can empathize with your plight, but your statements are not part of a solution. Instead you want to ignore the reality you face, so you object to the fact that the stimulus gets a poor return.



So what ? I agree with what you and NB "know". Yes the construction industry is "starving". What you ignore that that the painful period in the construction industry does not change the fact that stimulus is not very effective.

Perhaps you are too innumerate to understand my argument. From a monetary POV it would be cheaper to pay the unemployed their full wage to stay home rather that subsidize un-economic projects.

Your emotional response to the issue is exactly what politicians use to create boneheaded wrong programs that don't address the problems. "It's URGENT" is exactly the wrong attitude needed to solve any problem.

NB - do you also believe that the Government should pay you to build new homes of buildings and then bulldoze then down so you can build another ? When there is 50% unemployment in an industry it is a strong clue that you are either in a declining or highly volatile business. There are ways to handle either which doesn't involve the government forcing me to pay tax money to you to produce un-economic projects. Get on your big-boy pants and find a way to make money in the current market by competition or else diversify into another marketspace. Same advice for personal or business (and yes I've run a small business).

WTR construction - yes the mortgage financing scandal is an issue, but despite that we've already seen the peak baby-boom demographic build their last homes. For the next ~20-30 years there will be a glut of homes. There will always be some new home construction, but a lot less. I'd expect that commercial construction will also be in decline for the same demographic reasons. You can certainly find a detailed market study if you search. Perhaps there are some niches in vacation, resort or elder-hostel or ... construction. Perhaps there are some reasonable categories of home renovation/additions that would appeal to the demographics. Energy improvement, adding elderly-friendly features or subdividing MacMansions for the gen-x'ers. I don't know what would work but I can certainly tell you this - if you think the market is going to return to home construction you are like the cargo-cults
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult
you are waiting for the good times to return based on a faulty understanding and voodoo belief system.

The market is telling you quite forcefully to change. I suggest you heed it's advice.

Your polysylabic addressing of and apparent scholarly language on the issue completely masked the fact that you and I, and probably NB, are in total agreement as to what the stimulus package does--very little...