So do we need more stimulus or not?

Where does Barlett get his numbers from? The dollar menu rise in GDP seems to nice of a round number to be from some sort of actual statistical analysis, but maybe I'm wrong.
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And what are government purchases? Does GM count or is he talking the Louisiana Purchase type purchases?
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I only ask you because I can't figure out where to ask him in the hopes he might read your blog too.

I can't immediately find the Romer-Bernstein paper from January, but the multipliers in this CEA paper are the same.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/documents/Estimate_of_Job_Creation.pdf

Oh yeah...WTH! The first trillion did so stinkin' well...whadaya say we rape the taxpayers for another trillion or so. Taxpayers? Ah...I'm sorry, I meant to say our children, their children, etc, etc. Silly me. Isn't our gov great? I mean, c'mon... need some money? Just pass some legislation that says it's against the law if you don't give it up! Oh, and vote yourself a raise while you're at it. Seriously... does it really matter where all this money comes from? It's not like we have a choice in paying it. Don't get me wrong, I would willingly pay it...if it were going to the right places. Paying for illegal aliens, ghetto rats and lazy white trash...oh...and to the big-a$$ed pockets of our politicians...I'm sorry. That's all welfare. Something else our illustrious representatives can't get a grip on. Can you say, "line my pocket"? I hope all you lefties sleep easy tonight, cuz 2morrow yer gonna have 2 get a second job...just like the rest of the nation. Silly rabbits....

Need more stimulus? Is it a joke? Why all the haste?

#1: Let the earlier stimuli bear fruit for everyone to see first. Otherwise, how could the public be convinced that it was the right move?

#2: More stimulus means more money. As I have said before, where would all the moneys come from? Not from thin air for sure. Please do not keep printing – it is not plausible.

#3: Take care of the immense national debt which, if neglected, may turn out to be the eventual giant exterminator.

THINK hard and think clear.

(btt1943)

Cool, thanks Justin and bartlettb.

As an tax-payer in the US who basically lives off of USD, I'd be really happy if the government said no to printing any more money.

I mean, we had an 18-month timetable for the money we did print (yes @tanboontee, Quantitative Easing = Inventing Money, so new money would come from thin air). Why water down currency even more?

I guess the choice quote from the WSJ is this bite from Biden: Mr. Biden, in an interview with ABC News's "This Week," said the 9.5% jobless rate is "much too high"

Which really cuts to the heart of the matter.
What jobless rate is not too high?

@Justin do we have an idea about that number?
You get to talk to economists a lot, is there a general agreement on a good jobless number?

Is managing the jobless rate really the goal of the money we're printing? Is that the acknowledged metric?

Did we really expect it turn around this year?

This whole argument sounds like a lot of tire-spinning unless there are some more details that I'm missing.

@gatesvp

Thanks.

Somehow, I suspect people-in-the-know (for some perhaps not so obvious reasons) often do not want to give the public the true picture, leaving most people-not-in-the-know rather helpless and hapless.

The unemployment rate has not reached its ceiling. I expect in three weeks time, it will touch the sensitive double-digit barrier. What would Biden say then?
(btt1943)

@tanboontee: though I agree that unemployment is far from the celing, I'm particularly curious about what constitutes healthy.

It's easy to write off Biden as being pragmatically political. Something needed to be said and he said it. But people are going to keep apologizing until it hits some really big number and then turns around.

Honestly, I don't care about that whole cycle, b/c it doesn't really matter Biden or Obama or Barney Frank or anyone apologizes for "the problem". What matters is "when is the problem over"?

That's really the most important number. What percentage of the US population are supposed to be working?

The average unemployment rate since 1948 is 5.6%. Is that the target?

Does 5.6% represent a "turnaround"?
Are we going to be happy with 10% at some point?
What if we get back to 5% unemployment next year, but median purchasing power is down 10%?
Is that healthy?
Or does it all just end when "the media" stops complaining?

@Justin: is there anyone we can really ask to answer these questions?
Aren't these the questions we should be asking? Shouldn't we begin with the end in mind?