Chuck Shumer says American's don't care about pork

Chuck's wrong. Americans do care about pork. Specifically, they like it. That's how an avowed racist can remain a Senator for 100 years. If half of the roads, bridges, schools, prisons, locks, dams, telescopes, office buildings, and all of the Federal Buildings in West Virginia weren't named after Robert Byrd, he'd have been thrown to the curb decades ago.

 

What's the difference between "pork" and stimulus spending.

Hint: as an economist said last week, it's the same as the difference between money and cash.

 

"They give you cash, which is just as good as money!"

I didn't realize Yogi Berra was an economist!

 

I know this is a common line that's going around, but it's not entirely accurate. There are plenty of pork projects that do not stimulate the economy in any way.

 

The handling of the financial crisis is Obama's Katrina.

 

What a deep analogy even though there are almost no similarities between the two at all.

 

Please explain using specific examples. Even things like Sarah Palin's pet project, the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere" by definition provide some degree of short-term economic stimulus - the demand for construction services etc is increased by such a product (and hence aggregate demand as a whole). The argument against is that the utility returned is not going to match the cost of it in the long term.

 

Give me a break. If a politician gets a few million dollars thrown into a bill to go to an institute of some sort to do some study, that is not stimulating the economy.

 

If the institute takes those millions of dollars and does nothing with them - you are correct it would provide no boost to aggregate demand and hence no stimulus effect.

If the institute spends them on goods and services (such as people, software, etc to conduct the survey) it does boost aggregate demand and produce a stimulus effect.

This is pretty simple, black and white stuff- the fact that Republican flat earthers have been arguing against it being true really destroys their credibility, as if they had any to begin with.

 

Of course it does - what do you think happens to that few million dollars? It may not be a good or smart use of money, but it certainly flows into the economy.

 

Not so, according to the party line of the Grand Regional Party the last few weeks as Economic Know-Nothingism has been the theme of the talking points.

They are denying the basic tenets of supply and demand and repeating flat-earth style drivel to their fanbase to win short term political victories, in order to score vital points in the punditocracy.

It would be somewhat defensible if they simply opposed the concept of a stimulus and simply said that outright, instead you get looney-tunes style arguments that "spending is not stimulus!" which is like saying "green is NOT a color!" from people who should be smart enough to know better.

 

When it is called pork then I would think you lose all of your multipliers.

For instance say they spend cash to get a new freeway open. The business builds around the freeway due to the traffic and your multipliers come in.


Instead of that say they use the cash to build a nature building in a national park somewhere. It has all of the hi tech computer interactive teaching tools. If in 3 years it is shut down due to lack of funds to maintain it or say hardly anyone goes there, there are no multipliers.

If both projects cost the same the "pork" project (like bridge to nowhere) will possibly have less than 1:1 payback due to all the bureaucratic waste.

 

You might as well be talking to a wall.

 

Dude are you r****ded?

Who do you think is doing the R&D for technologies that are to far in the future for corporations to do? I think pumping more cash for scientific research is about the best thing they could do for long term economic stability.

How about battery chemistry research or solar or geothermal research?

Corporations have all but taken over battery due to huge demand but they often join in on research. If you pump a million for a good group and get some big names Sony would be all over jumping in with more cash to be involved.

 

This can be the case, but it's not necessarily so. Remember, pork is basically just congresspeople trying to get the federal government to spend on a project that has relatively little national merit, but local benefits. A smart congressperson would always make their pork have long term multiplier effects, because they would benefit their region more. But I agree that that not all of the projects are like that.

The ideal would be to drive every dollar spent to be something that has a long-term return of more than a $1 to the government, though that's just a pipedream.

 

That could be true - but that's a different debate than the one that sadly is in the public discourse - even a useless project provides some measure of demand stimulus.

Also I think it's incorrect to say there's NO multiplier, but it's just a smaller one.

Sorry but you are the one taking a position contra that of what is universally agreed to be a basic tenet of economics. Talking to a wall would be a polite way of putting it.

 

when I think of pork I don't think of that.

I think of some short term "I created jobs" project

If it has local benefit long term benefit that's fine with me.

 

Economist universally agree on nothing. You are the biggest left winger on this board. Taking a dollar from one person to give it to another is not really stimulus.