Morris forwards dubious figure for total TARP repayments
In a New York Post column, Dick Morris and Eileen McGann wrote that President Obama should "[r]efund to the Treasury the $500 billion in TARP funds repaid by the banks." But according to the Treasury Department, Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) repayments have totaled $165 billion as of January 6, a third of the figure offered by Morris and McGann.
Morris, McGann claim banks repaid "$500 billion in TARP funds"
From the February 5 New York Post column:
Obama's announced intention to freeze 13 percent of the budget for three years is a relatively minor cut. It will trim the deficit by only 3 percent over the decade.
But if the president really wanted to get serious about reducing the deficit, he's got two easy steps to take:
1) Stop the remaining $500 billion of last year's $800 billion stimulus package.
2) Refund to the Treasury the $500 billion in TARP funds repaid by the banks.
Instead, he's merrily spending the remaining stimulus cash -- even though the first round failed to curb the recession, doing little more than protecting the jobs and pay of state and local government employees. The remaining money would do more of the same -- while also funding pork-barrel projects all over America.
Morris previously made this claim in a Hill column and on Fox News' Fox & Friends.
But Treasury Department reported significantly lower figure for TARP repayments
As of January 6, 2010, government received $165.18 billion in TARP repayments. From the Treasury Department's monthly TARP report:
The report also stated that "Treasury has received a total of approximately $12.89 billion in dividends, interest and fees through December 2009."
BusinesssWeek: "Bank repayments have totaled $165 billion." From a February 1 Bloomberg BusinessWeek article on a recent report by the TARP inspector general:
The Treasury, which administers the TARP, had planned to spend about $500 billion of the total amount to support financial firms, auto companies, purchase mortgage-backed securities and help homeowners. Bank repayments have totaled $165 billion and exposure was further cut by another $5 billion, leaving almost $370 billion available in TARP at the end of 2009, the report said.
This is why we always say "take a G-D economics course, will ya?"
Even if this were 100% true, it would STILL be false. Why? Because all of those people having jiobs, means that many more people spendign money at OTHER people's businesses, which in turn supports THEIR incomes. The money doesn't just hit the gov't workers bak accoutn and DISAPPEAR. It's get spent. And that spending supports companies which thus employ more people, who thus spend more, etc... Rinse Repeat.
Only useless wastes of breath like Dick Morris who gets paid to spew ignorance, acting like cheap whore for Billionaires like Alies and Murdoch, don't benefit from every stimulus dollar spent, even if we never got a single penny from dirsctly from the Gov't, and wouldn't be hurt by a ciut in spending (ANY spending) and by the discontinuation of the stimulus.
If you WORK for a living, you need a customer base with an INCOME and MONEY TO SPEND at YOUR BUSINESS in order to continue to DO business. If all your customers are out of work... YOU'LL SOON BE OUT OF WORK! DUH!
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They try to bash Keynes, without even knowing that's what they're doing, or that they're demonstrating a complete lack of understanding of Keynes AND Economics in general in doing so!
Government jobs are part of the equation - they can't NOT be.
That's not true. Government indirectly creates wealth when its activities enhance the ability of private enterprises to create wealth. The national highway system contributes more to private commerce than the public costs to build and maintain it. Regulations that prevent unfair trade practices enhance competition and innovation, creating greater wealth. Environmental protections prevent future squandering of wealth beyond the costs of those protections. The public education system creates a skilled workforce on which private industry can draw, therefore creating wealth.
I could go on and on, citing the economic benefits to the private sector from State Dept. activities, agencies that help small business, even the economic benefits to the broad economy from so-called welfare programs and the military. The fact is that these things make it easier and more profitable for private sector businesses to operate and create wealth that they otherwise couldn't. Government is definitely NOT only a consumer and redistributor.
Those actions further enrich private enterprise and further enrich the country's populace. Both pay taxes on their further enrichment. In that way, they are helping create the money needed to implement those programs. Again, it's indirect, but undeniable.
That's pretty much why no one in power, Dem or Pub, wants to go anywhere near the ideas you're expousing. They (and I and Sci-Buff) know how economies work and YOU (and every other tea-bagger out there) don't.
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And THAT'S a fact.
No, you're not defining it, you're narrowly restricting it. Indirect wealth creation is still wealth creation. There is wealth created that otherwise would not have been. That makes it wealth creation regardless of whatever arbitrary restrictions you wish to place on it.
While you're correct about over-regulation and over-taxation, the same thing applies to under-regulation and under-taxation. Market forces have NEVER been good at self regulation. Lack of regulation leads to monopolies, dangerous working conditions, child labor, subsistence level wages, environmental degradation and many, many other ills. All of those things hurt overall wealth creation. Regulations must be adequate to prevent them and taxes must be adequate to support enforcement of those regulations. The proper balance provides the best return in wealth creation for our tax dollar.
You are definitely showing that you have no grasp of what I'm saying. I'm making the case for the necessary sized government with proper levels of tax and regulation. We do not agree.
No it isn't. It's FALSE. It's WRONG. The gov't cannot "consume" wealth, nor can they "redistribute" it. You pay taxes out of INCOME, not WEALTH. Your income tax rate could be 95% and that alone wouldn't "redistribute" a single penny of your "wealth" because it doesn't even take into account what you already have.
"Redistribution of wealth" is nothing more than nonsense RW propaganda and a blatant lie.
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There is nothing factual about your post here. At all.
Government spends what others have produced.
If you can't follow, or don't understand, forget it.
WORNG! That's how INCOME is created. WEALTH is created when someone with income makes a consious act of non-consumption! IOW: They SAVE some of their INCOME.
Or they take one dollar and make two dollars, they create wealth.
WORNG! They make a PROFIT. That becomes INCOME, and whatever they DON'T SPEND out of their INCOME becomes WEALTH. Get your terms right, because that's important!
And what YOU do not understand is that someone's willingness (or indeed ABILITY) "to pay more for it than what it costs to produce" is dependant on HAVING AN INCOME. Which bring us right back to SPENDING. Which supports incomes, which support demand, which allows a $1 product to be sold for $2.
If you cut taxes and spending, you might keep more of that $1 Profit, but that assumes that you'll still be able to SELL IT for $2. YOU WON'T. Demand will fall due to the negative income impact of cutting spending, and you're selling price (and thus profit, and thus income, and thus potential for wealth) will fall in unison with that tax break.
Then government takes that one dollar and redistributes it, but because of the cost of running government they distribute less than that one dollar. In other words, the government's one dollar investment results in less than the one dollar benefit
WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! The "cost" of "runnign gov't" occurs in the form of PEOPLE'S INCOMES. They PAY PEOPLE! DUH! And these incomes get SPENT at the very business that you're TAXING! Without that "cost of gov't" there would be that much less consumption, that much less demand, and thus that much less INCOME for the people you're giving the resulting tax break to! Once the new equalibrium is reached, they're no better off, and everyone else is worse off!
The only way you'll get to KEEP your tax break is if you DON'T REDUCE SPECNDING after you cut taxes. And, as I'm sure you'll happily agree at this point: You can't keep doing that! (Deficits, and the Debt that keeps piling up!)
The dollars that the gov't "redistributes" ALL generate more than $1 in collective, resulting income. That's becasue nobody's taking their dollars and putting them ALL in the bank. They're SPENDING THEM. And one person's speding is another person's income. How can you not understand this is you want to sell a $1 product for $2? Where do you think that $2 cames from? SOMEONE ELSE'S SPENDING, which came from SOMEONE ELSE'S INCOME!
The only dollars collected by the gov't in the form of taxes that DON'T support income in this manner are those that get used to pay the interest on the national debt. THOSE expenditures are not value-added as far as the economoy is concerned. So yeah: You've got to reduce the deficit, and untimately that debt. But if you go about it as recklessly and ignorantly as what you are describing, you will DESTORY the economy, and NEVER achieve that goal!
With each post, you further demonstrate how little you understand economics.
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But then... while you were watching Bewitched, I was getting my MBA. So what should I expect?
Let me take just this from your rambling nonsense above "If you cut taxes and spending, you might keep more of that $1 Profit, but that assumes that you'll still be able to SELL IT for $2. YOU WON'T. Demand will fall due to the negative income impact of cutting spending, and you're selling price"
Are you telling me that if you cut people's taxes that demand will fall? That is insane. People will keep more of their own money to buy what is being sold, so demand rises. You must be on drugs.
So let's break it down, shall we?
You lower taxes. FINE. Great. Income goes up, demand goes up, everyones happy. THAT'S not the problem, schmuck. The problem is that if you don't CUT GOV'T SPENDING in usinson with cutting taxes, then you increase the deficit. You'll agree that the deficit is pretty high and sould be reduced, jah? Otherwise more and more of the budget each year goes to INTEREST on that debt. And THAT'S truly "wasteful" spending because no baody makes any money of it, no one's income is supported by it. So... if you don't want an ever increasing deficit the only way to justify TAX CUTS is to CUT SPENDING in unsions with it. And THAT'S what lower people's incomes, nimrod, not the TAX CUT, but the resulting, necessary SPENDING CUT. Because every penny of gov't spending that doesn't go to pay the debt, or the interest on it, ends up as SOMEONE'S INCOME. And that income supports DEMAND, which is why you can sell you $1 widget for $2.
I never said "reducing taxes will reduce income," you putz. That's a b*llsh!t strawman that you just made up. I said: "reducing taxes AND reducing spending IN UNSINON will reduce our collective income." AND. IT. WILL. AND. YOU. CAN ASK. ANY. ECONOMICS. PROFESSOR. IN. THE. WORLD. AND. HE. WILL. TELL. YOU. THE. SAME. THING. MORON.
And if you want to just cut taxes and leave spendign alone (or increae) then FINE... just stop b!tch!ng about the debt/defiict.
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And take it easy on thsoe strawmen, will ya? You're really nailing them.
;)
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Actually, it's called SPELL CHECK or EDIT FUNTION, MMFA!
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
First of all WEALTH is a function of INCOME. Of course the gov't doesn't create WEALTH, because it can't tell people what to do with their after-tax income. WEALTH is basically generated over a period of time of people making consious acts of non-consumption. IOW: SAVINGS. Those savings can be inversted, or whatever, but the resulting WEALTH comes from INCOME.
And the government cannot actualy REDISTRIBUTE wealth either. WEALTH isn't taxed. INCOME is. And WEALTH is a function of (among other things) income. To the extent that income is a fuction of wealth, it is still a % the INCOME that is being taken in, not the WEALTH.
Likewise they don't (can't) "consume" WEALTH. They consume TAX REVENUE which derrives from INCOME. And in "consuming" it - you make it sound ssound like they're eating people money! (Or just burning it.) That's baloney. They're SPENDING it. And that act of consuption on their part supports people incomes both directly - not just the gov't workers, but the companies that the gov't buys goods and services from - and indirectly, in that every dollar SPENT by the direct benificiaries, supports a private sector worker's income.
You keep acting as if the economy is a static thing. And that a dollar just hits someone and disappears. It doesn't matter how much you PRODUCE, if you can't SELL anything. And you cann;t SELL anything if no one can afford to BUY IT. So creating 1 gov't job, can save 1 private sector job. Which, in turn, saves 1 other private sector job, and so on...
And as for this whole redistribution idea, it's nonsense. After that $1 "governement" dollar goes from hand to hand to hand, diminissing a little each time as companies retain profits and people save (although it passes though many hands before anyone starts saving any of it in any significant amount), but at the end of all that, WHO ended up with the bulk of it? Various company shareholders. The very people (the rich) that you'd be accusing the government of trying to redistribute the "wealth" of. B*llsh!t. Their incomes get taxed, and they get it all back in the form of greater income that they wouldn't have had if all the consumption result from gov't spedning hadn't happened.
Their "wealth" isn't negatively impacted one bit. But EVERYONE ELSE'S standard of living and, in a few cases, WEALTH, is increased as those dollars make their way through the economy, supporting people's incomes along the way, saving jobs and continuing the consumption that keeps it all going. Nothing has ANY value if nobody can BUY it.
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Until you understand the truth of John M. Keynes that even Pigou and Friedman couldn't dispute - that the balanced budget multiplier = 1 - you'll never really get what's going on.
The rest of your post makes no sense either.
That you can't follow the rest of it only proves my point that you don't understand Keynes, or general Macroeconomics. But I'll put it succintly:
1) If you raise taxes (collectively) by $1B and raise gov't spending by $1B you raise the collective income of Americans by $1B.
2) If you reduce taxes (collectively) by $1B and reduce gov't spending by $1B you reduce the collective income of Americans by $1B.
Now if you do JUST ONE: Lower taxes or Raise spending, then you actually get a much BIGGER effect: $1B in tax reduction or Spending Increases on their own might produce $5B in additional income. (The exact multplier can be debated, but it's always going to be more that 1.) Likewise, if you raise taxes or cut spending by themselves, the result on income will always be negative, and will be more negative than -1. And if you Lower Taxes & Raise Spending (Reagan) or Raise Taxes and Lower Spending (Hoover) the result is greater still, positive or negatve as the case may be.
BUT... it should be pretty clear that you can't keep lowering taxes and increasing spending forever. That where the debt and the deficit's get you. But the effect on our income of cutting spending will actually be WORSE than that of raising taxes.
Ideally they should go up or down in unison, but that's what makes deficit reduction so difficult: No mater how you do it, you WILL hurt the economy. And yet... you HAVE to do it! Otheriswe the increasing interest each year, as your debt increases, keeps further reducing the gov't's ability to spend - which means icnomes will go down. Because paying interest on the debt does not result in increased income the way regular spending does.
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It would all make sense if you understood Keynes. I took (aced) the class, so I know it, but I never said I could TEACH it.
So, where do the taxes come from? Endora or Samantha?
Dude - the only difference bewteen a hard-core Keynsian and hard-core Supply Sider (Friedman) is that the one will exagerate the multiplier and the other dimishes it. But the DIRECTION things move in each case is not in dispute.
Pigou and Friedman were Keynes' most prominent critics. And what they attacked in Keynes' economic models had nothing at all to do with the part I'm using here. They can argue over the amount over 1 (or under -1) that the multiplier will be, but they never did anything but ACCPET the balanced budget multipler being 1. That part of the model was accpeted by Economists far more knowledginble, and every bit to the Right, as you.
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Leave the issue of economics to those who know how thing work.
Endora or Samantha?
Who the hell are they? What the hell are you talkign about? You want me to answer the question?
Fine: Samantha.
She's a wealthy dept store magnate. So she'll pay more in taxes. And you know what? Let's say the gov't just GIVES it to about Endora who's on welfare. (That worst-case enough for you?)
And as Endora still has to EAT and DRESS, she'll go and buy her stuff at Samathna's store. So the taxes that Samatha paid, essentially came out of income she wouldn't have had, if Endora had NO income to shop at her store with!
If you DIDN'T do that taxing and spedning? At the end of the day, Samanatha has no more money in her pocket. What she gained by paying less in taxes, she lost from reduced sales. So she's no better off. What's more, Endoras now living on the street, broke, atarving and half naked.
But improving Endora's lot, didn't harm Samantha one bit.
And who knows? Mayve Samantha doesn't even realize it. Maybe she knows no more about John M. Keynes & Macroeconomics than you do. Most people don't. Hence the tea-baggers out there, screaming "Wreck the economy! Please!"
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Are you getting this yet?!
And there's not an economics professor anywhere in world who will contradict me on this, no matter how conservtaive s/he is. 100% of them will tell you that (1) the balanced budget multiplier is 1; which mean that: (2) if you +taxes and +spedning, you +income; and also that (3) if you -taxes and -spending, you -income.
You should try asking one. Or a hundered. Or a thousand. It won't matter. They'll all tell you the same thing because it's a FACT. But go ahead anyway. You'd be surprised. And you might even learn something. (Like how to made a decent economic argument against Keynes, for example.)
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You're done. Come back when you have some knowledge, and maybe then I'll give you some respect.
That is insane. If you reduce taxes you keep more money in people's pockets, they will spend this money and jobs will be created which in turn increases revenues to the government. You have everything exactly backwards.
Because you're ignoring the fact that government spending SUPPORTS PEOPLE'S INCOMES. You RW'ers always ignore this! If you lower taxes and leave spending where it is? YEAH, THEN you do a WHOLE LOT of good that way - just as I said you would! (Like $5B instead of just the $1B.) But you can't do this long-term, beacuse of the ever-increasing cost of financing the resulting debt. You can't INCREASE SPENDING leaving taxes where they are, which would have an even greater positive effect, for the same reason: The edfecit eventually catches up with you.
And the FACT. FACT. FACT is that if you reduce taxes (collectively) by $1B and reduce gov't spending by $1B you WILL reduce the collective income of Americans by $1B.
It's called the balanced budget multipleier.
And you can ask (or google) any Economics professor in the WORLD this, and I guaren-god-damn-tee you he will tell you I'm right. Maybe along the way s/he'll give you a better counter-argument as well: there are some out there, but you're sure as hell not anyhere near any. (But if you DID try to throw Pigou or Friedman at me, if you even understood them, I can still make an effective counter-argument.)
I don't "have it backwards." I didn't ace Macro_Econ 501 by "having it backwards." And no one who has displayed so many fundamental misunderstandings about the subject, as you have here, and in so many of your past posts, is in any position to tell me that I do.
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Take the course. LEARN something. And then come back. Because what you've said here is like saying the Earth revolves around the Sun, or that the world is flat. It's not only wrong, but no one who's knows the difference has failed to accpet the new model.
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For their sake, no matter what you do, DON'T go and get yourself educated.
"WISH" for it? What planet do you live on? Are you like 12?
If so? Welcome to the board. It's nice to see someone so young interested in politics.
If not? WHAT THE HELL IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?! WISH FOR IT?! That don't fly in either the public OR private secor. NOTHING happens by WISHING for it.
Why don't you try PRAYING instead? That might help. </sarcasm>
As for you first question? Uh... NO. How would we pay for "these things"? Well... YEAH, we can BORROW to pay for it. (Largely what we've done for the past 30 years.) But you still need taxes, to pay the interest on that debt if nothing else.
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I'm going to stop. I hope you're either very young, or very joking. These things shouldn't have to be explained.
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Anyway, if he WAS being sarcastic, I'm sure he's amused that I fell so hard for it! LOL
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LMAO