Why does nobody complain about the banks not lending or about businesses which won’t raise pay or employ more people? This is supposed to be a free country isn’t it? Why so much whining and complaining about gov’t instead of what will get us out of this…business expansion.

Sure sure, a lot of the gov’t stimulus stuff is (what’s the word?) half-assed. What else could gov’t do? It shoves money out the door to as many well-meaning hopefully useful projects as it can. This is not exactly what gov’t is originally designed to do and it’s unfair to blame them for how well it works.

A lot of people complain it’s not stimulating the economy. Well, now we see it actually is. But, does that stop the complaining? No. Give it a break folks. This takes time and requires the private sector to participate and so far they’ve been very hesitant to do so.

You want to blow stuff up, call on gov’t (military). You want to build things look to the private sector. The gov’t is just trying to keep the boat afloat until the financial sector is better regulated and the private sector can regain it’s feet. In an economy this big to expect gov’t to re-inflate it or somehow make it go for long is a fantasy.

As Hugh said, the stock market is hoping and praying the economy catches up. I think we should all hope for that. After a 6% decrease it has produced +3% this qtr and if you erase part of that created by the gov’t there’s still a bit of private growth. Let’s hope that continues to grow. Remember too, there is (I think) a bit more stimulus money going out the door to keep things propped up for some time to come.

Get off the “we’re all doomed!” bandwagon. That leads nowhere.

The indicators she cites clearly show we are in about up to our necks in a swamp and that there is nothing we will be willing to do to fix that mess. Why is our government lying to us about this yet again?

Nobody has said we WEREN’T up to our necks. That’s where Bush left us.

How can you say “there is nothing we will be doing to fix that mess” after the trillions loaned, guaranteed or stimulus spent?

I think she was being quite precise. We’re still in trouble, we’re working hard to get out of it, the first sign of recovery was the stock market and now the GDP looks good, but there is a long way to go.

What’s hard to understand about that?

We are in a “less bad” mode at this point, but that’s not necessarily going to come as comfort to anyone facing this labor market.

As someone facing this labor market, thanks for this reminder.

FunnyWheelieDiva
highly educated, very experienced, unemployed.

In America, if it does not please the financial services industry, it is no good.

IMHO the program should be expanded and made permanent until unemployment falls below 10% in all of the states. The money spent is actually spread throughout the economy and multiplies.

If you are concerned that the cars bought were not quite environmentally a “Good” as you would like, I would posit that ANY new car is less-polluting than many old cars.

But as I said, this does not really please the banksters, so. . . .

IF what is stated above is true and the Cash for Clunkers program was responsible for nearly half of the economic growth, then logic would tell a person that such a program should not only be restarted, but expanded.

Not here I guess.

Oh well.

Have a nice day: :)