OT: not really political_ stimulus packages?

Do you think they do any good? I personally spanked our families right into a 12 months CD. If I hadnt done that It would have been spent on gas, property taxes. Very few people I know bought anything other than gas or put the money towards there current or behind mortgage payments. A few bought electronics, but very few. I really do not think these packages help. I think they need to promote low gas prices and try to even the playing feild for employers to return to USA so there are more $"s going into households which eventually will start to return to the economy. What do you guys think? All party politics aside, please.

Is it effective? I don't know, but it won't hurt. Gov't is giving our money away to corps./financial sector by the billions, why shouldn't we get some? After all, its OUR money.

Studies have shown that if you put money into the hands of the masses, they're most likely to spend it, rather than save it. So the point of the stimulus packages, as I understand them, is to get that spending rolling again, so that demand for products is up and employers have to hire more people to increase production, in order to meet the new demand.

But looking at this another way, maybe the stimulus packages are too little, too late. The stimulus money used to pay past-due payments on mortgages, cars, and credit cards does little to actually increase consumption and create new jobs. It simply goes back into the banking community, to finance CEO bonuses and such. And money put into savings simply goes to the banking community as well, to only resurface as new debt...which, with employers laying off more workers, fewer are qualifying for new borrowing because they don't have a job to pay back those loans. Then credit tightens, and interest rates in general go up...discouraging new borrowing, and tightening lines of credit for existing businesses...as we've already seen in recent weeks and months.

In our mass-market oriented society, only when the masses feel that the can freely spend, and that they have--or will have--the means to cover what they spend [call that "consumer confidence"], will our economy recover significantly. If people decide to be prudent and cut or eliminate their non-mortgage debt, it'll take longer for the economy to recover...but the economy will be healthier in the long run.

Debt and credit are--and have been for a long time--the most heavily-marketed product in America. When/if things turnaround, for our economic proisperity to be sustainable, cash will of necessity have to be king once again...JMHO.

I really dont know. Most of the people I know spent theirs. Just doing the rough math though, 65 million individual tax returns last year give or take a few, divided into the 700 billion congress allocated to bail out the economy. Roughly 10 grand for each return. I dont know about anyone else but looks to me like an extra 10 grand going into peoples hands would do more to help the economy than what I've seen. Personally, I dont like any of it, more government meddling.

It is not really our money it is all on the card so to speak.
Bailing out bad credit with more credit. Makes sense to me

yep some of you got a small pittance compared to what the people that proved they couldn't handle money in the first place got. I didn't get anything due to owing taxes on a business that closed thanks to these wondeful times we are in. Just think if they had giving us all the 15,000 it works out to be or even 5,000 or whatever (just as long as it was big enough to actually help then we could have handed it over to the "big guys" but at least we'd be even. Only time government knows how to cut out the middle man is when its us!!!

Did it do any good? Depends. If you're a politician that voted for and and got re-elected, I'd say it did that feller some good. And face it, that's what it was all about anyway.

I think that a person should have 3 main places of where to put their money.

1. A home, that they pay the principal on.

2. IRA's or 401ks, (long term, retirement)

3. CASH----CD'S in FDIC insured banks + savings accounts.



Maybe collectables too, like Guns and rare items.


I agree with you that the stimulus packs are a joke. We need a REAL stimulus package that is long term, like, jobs-rebuild the USA instead of these BS countrys like Iraq. Can you imagine the great things that would have occured if all the money spent in Iraq were to have been spent building roads, rebuilding bridges, etc in the USA. I am not Saying that external_link is the answer either. Or either political party.

It does not help if you don't get it, like me and most everyone i know.

I agree Nancy, it's ours to begin with, we earned it, they took it. GIVE it back. We need it.

I agree with you Dave. These stimulus packages are temp fixes to the real problem. What you're seeing is the results of being "Bent Over" for the last eight years by all the "Crooks". The average consumer can not recover because the jobs have left the country; Can you say NAFTA. I don't see a turn around in site, and neither do they. At the same time, I see people all over the place, doing everything, and anything they want. Play, play, play. No worries about the economy. Why would they worry? They have steady incomes; Welfare, disability/comp claims, SSI, etc.. Good Day

I hated receiving the stimulus check. I wish they had sent the money to Somalia , or to the scholarship fund for children of deposed third world dictators or the project to assist Nigerians in making new internnet business deals. There are a lot of worthy causes out there. They also could've mailed it to a troubled financial institution , unable to meet their holiday bonus obligations to highly compensated employees. That the Fed had the nerve to mail money to me , an honest taxpayer without my permission is an agregious assault on the system and an embarrasment to our country. Please no more checks to my PO box. I can't wait for the new administration to assume office guaranteeing there will be no refunds or further payments to US citizens of any kind.

FDR did the same thing spent tons of money trying to stimulate the economy, guess what it didn't help one Damn bit, it took WWII to get us out of the depression. Maybe external_link needs to start a war with Germany or Japan someone who can really fight back.

Not Kidding
Walt

The old saying is, give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach him to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. The stimulus is good for about a day, and besides that, they have to take it from one of your pockets to put it in the other.

I think that is all ready in the works, only external_link, and us, will be on the defense, more than likely we"ll be getting hit from 3 sides at once.

Economic contraction ended by 1933, and had already started to dramatically reduce the downfall in 1932 (the year of the election, before FDR took office). By 1935 economic output had reached the level of 1929 again.

There was a second, smaller recession in '37/38 when government spending was contracted to quickly in an effort to eliminate budget deficits.

One of the major economic impacts of WWII on the U.S. was a period of nearly forced savings -- not many consumer goods to buy, gas ration stamps, sugar stamps, rubber rationing, etc combined with war bond drives. The combination of savings and demand for goods from having forgone broad consumer spending for so long is what in turn fueld the economic expansion of the 50s and 60s.

We're now experiencing the hangover from a period of prolonged government policies that encouraged easy credit instead of frugal savings to achieve goals.

Yeah! He can hire GW. He loves to invade countries.