I will waste my time with some suggested reading:

Presimetrics: What the Facts Tell Us About How the Presidents Measure Up On the Issues We Care About

How Keynesian Policy Led Economic Growth In the New Deal Era: Three Simple Graph

The Romney campaign says stimulus doesn’t work. Here are the studies they left out.

Fiscal Stimulus Works

Don’t Tell Anyone, but the Stimulus Worked

Leon, you’re still thinking about the current Fed policy in terms of the macro-economic environment from years ago, because you obviously think that the Fed’s current actions must inevitably create inflation. And while it could in the economic context of the several decades prior to 2008, and the threat isn’t entirely gone, it’s a very different environment today. Just a couple days ago, I tried to explain this to Another Chuck, and the very next day, Bernanke gave more specifics about the employment and growth metrics that the Fed is using to calibrate its’ monetary easing.

So Leon, here’s a recap of the basic reasons why your alarm about inflation is at this point, well, inflated:

The basic idea is that the Fed is only replacing value that was lost in the hollowing of the markets by the 2008 crisises, not adding extra inflationary liquidity.

The Fed’s QE programs have been done in the context of severe deflationary pressures, not inflationary, so while managing the aftermath of those easing decisions will have challenges, it’s a different set of problems than is faced in a war on inflation.

The 2008 credit crisis hardly gave the yield curve on U.S. treasury debt time to predict the recessionary aftermath of the crisis, which made the first easing necessary and gave subsequent easing plenty of room too, and the yield curve still has not shown a substantial reversion to a highly inflationary curve yet.

Remember, we don’t want to go back to the falsely inflated pre-2008 bubble, but those price levels had to kept from completely collapsing for there to be a feasible path to recovery, and some demand maintained. While anemic job growth in a slow recovery is painful, it’s preferable to the wage and price pressures from a too rapid expansion. Done right, the management of recovery will leave us with an economy at 2008 levels (or better) that actually deserves its’ valuations.

Keep in mind the adage about pushing on a string: Monetary policy is asymmetric; i’s easier to stop an expansion than to end a severe contraction.

This is a ridiculous statement. The stimulus measures succeeded. Without the first one, many companies would not have been able to make payroll. Since round 2, the economy has created at least 4.5 million private sector jobs.

Leon, you really need to quit that steady diet of Tea Party dogma you’re feeding your mind.

Comment by Sandi Saunders — December 14, 2012 @ 11:28 am

Stimulus 1 failed, so did 2, then 3. Can’t stimulate the economy and payoff your cronies and political favors at the same time. QE 1 failed,
QE 2 failed, now we have QE 3 with the Fed creating $85.0 billion a month in new currency. . .making every dollar in circulation go down in value each time one is printed. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results defies common sense yet this administration (and Sandi) keep on and on with the same mantra. Obama owns the economy and is going down as fast as Bernanke can print dollars for Obama to give
to bankrupt green energy sham companies owned by his political cronies.
This is truth Sandi, even you cannot deny it.

As to what I understand; it really is none of your business. IMO, you could not pour whiz out of a boot even if the instructions were written on the heel.

Percent of the US population on welfare 4.1%

US Population: 311,591,917 (2011)

It is not even possible for the Obama administration to be responsible for what you list and it is people like you who are perpetuating the division and class warfare, not Obama. The recession hit this nation (and the world) hard, but nothing Obama has done has made any of that worse. It simply and literally has not. The more people on “welfare” and food stamps, as well as the unemployed and struggling businesses are ALL because of the recession and the slow recovery. It would have been the same (only with dumber quotes) had McCain/Palin been in charge and why you and others believe the President has such authority and power over our economy, even in the face of the obvious right wing obstruction at every turn, will remain a mystery for the ages.

1) Half of the country is not on “some sort of government aid.” That’s a lie, propagated by the Republicans during the last campaign.

2) The past 30 years have indeed pushed many “working people” from the middle classes into lower income classes. It’s largely because of tax policies that have benefited the wealthy classes, which widened the income gap, while spending continued. Now conservatives are trying to dump all that debt on the middle and lower classes, who haven’t gained much in the past 30 years, while making sure the wealthy don’t have to pay anything more to help fix the problem.

3) In your letter you mischaracterized the facts of the article. You had to do that to make your point. You wrote, “I was surprised that you would include their own words that this has started in the last four years.” That is not what Mr. Millner said in the article, or what he told me. He told me the decline started 6 years ago, and that he hasn’t made any money in the past four. Those facts undercut your point.

That’ll learn me, dern me, to do payroll and blog at the same time. Too many numbers.