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Cash for clunkers question for the Keynesians


               
2013 Nov 25, 7:50am   7,696 views  50 comments

by CL   follow (1)  

When the economy collapsed, we obviously propped up the auto sector as best we could. It has become the received wisdom that C4C was a failure, largely due to pulling sales from future months.

In the Keynesian sense, wouldn't it be a success though? The cash that was "saved" could be spent on other goods or services (almost BECAUSE the recipients might not have needed it but had the ability to spend). Mainly though, it would have served as a kickstart to consumption. Wouldn't an extra 3 billion used directly to spur citizens to spending be a good thing, regardless of whether or not autos were helped by that program?

The 3 billion didn't just disappear. That might not seem "fair" but in terms of economics I can't see how it would not be right on target.

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36   control point   @   2013 Nov 26, 3:12am  

Reality says

You are kidding yourself if you think Walmart overhead organization has
200,000-300,000 employees!

I said 195k non-store employees. This includes home office AND distribution center, truckers, IT, etc.

Reality says

The report is utter nonsense, as it compares walmart jobs to high end department
store jobs for all employees. Walmart has much more efficient and proportionally
smaller headquarters

This is your biggest fault. You glance something, have a preconceived idea on its validity, and just dismiss and attack. You never learn anything I am sure.

Read down to table 1 where is shows all general merchandise is $11.36 if Walmart is excluded vs $9.68 (walmart reported, $8.81 independent).

Walmart is 55% of all general merchandise workers. The rest of the 45% is going to be Target, Sears, etc. They compare.

37   control point   @   2013 Nov 26, 3:16am  

Reality says

No you are not using math. You are making up numbers. 7th grade math should
have told you that your conclusion can never be more accurate than your input
numbers. Since your input numbers have zero accuracy, your conclusion is null
and void.

Walmart itself reports $9.68 per hour in 2005. I said $10 bucks in 2012.

Independent source says $8.81.

Amazing how my pulling numbers out of thin air is so close to these. I must have gotten lucky.

38   Reality   @   2013 Nov 26, 3:18am  

control point says

Reality
says



You are kidding yourself if you think Walmart overhead organization
has
200,000-300,000 employees!


I said 195k non-store employees. This includes home office AND distribution
center, truckers, IT, etc.

What is 10-15% of 2.2 Million?

control point says


Reality
says



The report is utter nonsense, as it compares walmart jobs to high end
department
store jobs for all employees. Walmart has much more efficient and
proportionally
smaller headquarters


This is your biggest fault. You glance something, have a preconceived idea on
its validity, and just dismiss and attack. You never learn anything I am
sure.


Read down to table 1 where is shows all general merchandise is $11.36 if
Walmart is excluded vs $9.68 (walmart reported, $8.81 independent).


Walmart is 55% of all general merchandise workers. The rest of the 45% is
going to be Target, Sears, etc. They compare.

I'm a speed reader. Speed being necessity, especially for those trash paper reports. Walmart has a much leaner top structure than Target and Sears. Sears is a department store combined with repairmen operation. How door-to-door repair technicians at Sears can be compared to floor associates at Walmart . . . only happens in those trash paper reports generated for specific polical purpose.

39   Reality   @   2013 Nov 26, 3:22am  

control point says

Walmart itself reports $9.68 per hour in 2005. I said $10 bucks in 2012.


Independent source says $8.81.


Amazing how my pulling numbers out of thin air is so close to these. I must
have gotten lucky.

Starting pay at $8/hr at Walmart can quite easily lead to the assumption that the average pay there beign around $10. That's why I have been saying the numbers you are pulling were a waste of time for all of us. You probably had to back fill in order to cook your numbers; i.e. the $10/hr conclusion came first, the other numbers were just cooked to lead t o the $10/hr.

40   control point   @   2013 Nov 26, 3:33am  

Reality says

I'm a speed reader.

Speed Reader and self appointed expert on everything. Got it.

Except latin.

10-15% of 1.3 million US employees.

41   Tenpoundbass   @   2013 Nov 26, 3:53am  

marcus says

I paid a little over 16K for a honda Civic in 2003 (it was the EX ).

You should have waited 5 years you could have saved a grand or so.

Honda Civic $15,010 26/34 Stable, comfortable, and quiet ride; chipper interior; good handling Minimal storage space

Sure but there were still plenty of 1976 buicks to be had, or 1996 compact cars to be had all for under $1200 a pop.

Been to a car lot or did a craigslist search lately, a car with a faded paint job and is prone to over heating starts at $3500.

42   Tenpoundbass   @   2013 Nov 26, 4:00am  

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2013/04/24/cheapest-cars-price-mpg-disappointment-nissan-versa-smart/2110083/

http://money.usnews.com/money/business-economy/cars/articles/2007/12/05/best-cars-2008-the-thrifty-50

But by the way, Cash for clunkers wasn't about just raising the price, it was about getting rid of the cheap used car market, to bolster the Car industry and car loans. Spite Warrens best efforts, if you have great credit, I got 0% interest, but if you got spotty credit, they are sticking people with 14%+ loans. on top of outrageous late fees.

43   Robert Sproul   @   2013 Nov 26, 4:07am  

Blah, blah, blah.
This kind of rhetoric gives me agita.
Walmart is a shitty job that doesn't provide a living wage.

Join the Army or work for Walmart, I hope middle America's youth spits it back in their face.

44   marcus   @   2013 Nov 26, 4:55am  

CaptainShuddup says

marcus says

I paid a little over 16K for a honda Civic in 2003 (it was the EX ).

You should have waited 5 years you could have saved a grand or so.

No, as I said, it was the EX. Bigger engine than the LX, with sun roof too. That's why I used 19K for current price (which is a little high).

45   Bellingham Bill   @   2013 Nov 26, 4:59am  

Robert Sproul says

I hope middle America's youth spits it back in their face.

gotta stop voting for the plutocrat party, LOL.

But "Team Republican" still has a good brand, fighting the l-l-l-liberal gun-grabbing, god-hating, nigger-loving, flag-burning traitorous left.

The GOP still has enough buttons to push in the lizard brain to stay relevant this decade and next. They didn't fail with Romney by all that much and that alone scares the crap out of me.

What we got here now is a neo-Confederacy, basically. Impervious to facts, reason. Functioning on ignorance, fear, and bullshit beliefs.

Buried deep, deep in the national cognizance is the reality that taxes have to go up a lot, on everyone. We can't throw $4T away on military crap and cut taxes to pay for it.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/FDEFX

($4T is all spending over $400B/yr, 2001-now)

$4T over 30 years is $1000/yr per worker.

On top of that is the boomer retirement and health care burdens that are steadily looming into view, several thousand per year on top of that.

What we have now is unsustainable; yet we lack the maturity to actually move things to a more responsible basis.

The plutocrats defend their wealth thanks to the millions of useful idiots on the right. The left has been largely dismantled in this country, outside of Democracy Now, a couple of websites and shows on MSNBC etc they don't have much presence in the debate any more, if they ever did.

This nation is so fucked, and it's going to have to get a lot worse for millions before it gets any better, policy-wise.

We're so far gone we can't even see the problems any more.

46   marcus   @   2013 Nov 26, 5:15am  

Bellingham Bill says

uried deep, deep in the national cognizance is the reality that taxes have to go up a lot, on everyone. We can't throw $4T away on military crap and cut taxes to pay for it.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/FDEFX

Good graph. Hard to blame Obama for that doubling in defense spending since 2000, but I'm sure there are those who will try.

47   thomaswong.1986   @   2013 Nov 26, 9:47am  

Bellingham Bill says

Buried deep, deep in the national cognizance is the reality that taxes have to go up a lot, on everyone. We can't throw $4T away on military crap and cut taxes to pay for it.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/FDEFX

If you want to complain .. perhaps you should find a Islamic terrorists to vent over..
not our fault for being attacked by a bunch of inbred retards...

48   thomaswong.1986   @   2013 Nov 26, 9:51am  

marcus says

Good graph. Hard to blame Obama for that doubling in defense spending since 2000, but I'm sure there are those who will try.

Dont you want to thank Reagan-Bush for busting up the USSR and
earning a peace dividend watching military spending declining since 1990.

all you need to worry about now is some hand full of terrorists and not 20
Soviet Divisions crossing Europe in the first wave... or the Baltic fleet running
Missile drills 15 minutes off the Atlantic Coast...

49   Robert Sproul   @   2013 Nov 26, 10:20am  

Hey, thomaswrong, the 5 Trillion dollars that Bush/Cheney wrongheadedly took over to the M.E. and blew the hell up, to no conceivable benefit of anyone but the parasitic defense industry, isn't on your graph.

50   Robert Sproul   @   2013 Nov 26, 11:02am  

When Barack Obama became president, there were 32,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. He escalated to over 100,000 troops, plus contractors. Now 5 years later, there are 47,000 troops in that shithole, in 9 huge bases, and they project out to “2024 and beyond”.

But, 2013 was a record year for the Opium crop, so that's going good.

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