And once again straight from the faux noise list of things to tell fowler:
Fox News Still Pushing Myth That Stimulus Failed | Media Matters for America

When you stop attacking the messenger, maybe I'll pay attention to your posts.

"passing the cost on to generations yet unborn?" I could say the same about the Bush tax cuts.

It is very hard to prove economic theory. It is widely accepted that increasing the money supply is inflationary. No one can prove it.

Gov stimulus is the same.

You are assuming that the money spent to stimulate the economy will result in more debt than would a depression. Questionable assumption, IMHO.

I think there are plenty of economists who aren't at all surprised by what is happening. Krugman, for example: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/03/opinion/03krugman.html?_r=1

The problem is with the policy makers who keep repeating the same mistakes.

I really love this whole 'unknown' aspect causing a fear of doing business. If you are too stupid to function in an ever changing landscape then you don't need to be in business.

Understanding the system is the key and it always has been. Sitting around and waiting for the right people in Washington to change the laws so you no longer have to think is just being lazy.

A joke from the 1940's:

Three businessmen are having lunch at a high class place. The bill comes. It is $30.

The first businessman offers to pick up the check saying, "I am in the 53% tax bracket, so the government is picking up 53% of the cost of this lunch."

The second man says, "I am in the 90% tax bracket, so let me get it and the Feds will pick up 90% of the cost of this business lunch."

The third man says, "No, let me get it. I sell to the Government with a Cost-Plus Contract, so at my contract profit of 10% I will make $3 on the deal!"

The point is: You have to understand the lay of the land and know that it changes daily. If you can't live with that then you are in the wrong business no matter what business you are in.

What I saw with my boots on the ground helping spend the stimulus money and from what I saw all around, the stimulus money was spent fixing infrastructure that needed fixing. When government spends money on infrastructure like road improvements, university buildings and bridges it allows the nation to conduct business.

Therefore it is good.

In my experience, generally it appears that when Ds control the government money gets spent on infrastructure. When Rs control money gets spent on tax breaks for upper income entities.

For myself I prefer spending money on infrastructure.

If those are the only two choices, I might agree.
I might prefer not spending on either, especially if its money we don't have. Does your definition of "infrastructure" includes the fledgling "green energy" field?

You must have seen different stuff than I did. "Shovel-ready" meant that the project was ready to go with no further engineering etc. In this area, that limited it to repaving of roads period. No repair/replacement of bridges, no added lanes to crowded highways. Mill and repave only. I spent a lot of nights testing on such projects.

I only know what it was spent on at PU. I guessed that it funded a whole host of other highway projects and so forth. The Shovel ready qualifier was spoken of two years ago. When we got the big surge of ARRA money it did not require any sort of Shovel ready qualifiers but did require additional paperwork to show it was done with prevailing wages.

I am in favor of the government investing in alternative energies too in general but am not very hot on the ethanol component since it is proven that it requires more energy to produce than it provides when burnt.

I'll certainly agree with you on the ethanol thing! It not only makes for expensive fuel, it makes food more expensive at the same time. Lose-lose.

After thinking about it, I'd probably revise that to one we could get by without rather than two.

Unless it's a last-ditch effort to keep things afloat (and these past few years it may very well be), I'd bet most companies (of all sizes) are carrying employees they could get by without. And it could very well be in middle or upper management (and probably that's often the case-look at some of Fulcrum525's posts on that matter). When times are good it's easy to overlook it, when they're bad the focus changes.

In our case (and I would imagine for many small/family businesses), it's mostly conscience that keeps them employed. I'd bet the majority of family businesses are employing a family member that they could do without but won't since they're family. I'd like to think it's not me, though. :uhoh: :)

Probably not. Our benefits package is better than they're going to find anywhere else (we're currently paying 75% of their premiums but in the face of a 20% HC increase we may have to shift 2.5% more to them) and their pay is still in the neighborhood if not higher than they're going to find elsewhere. Keep in mind, I'm talking about our general labor crew. Some never graduated high school, some have GED's. We've offered to pay for GED classes for those who don't have them and continuing education for those with GED's and have gotten none...zero...of them to take us up on the offer. I would love to move them up on the ladder (on the pay and the responsibility scale). But there are no signs of initiative from them to do so. So as a result, we hire qualified candidates with room to grow and the others get left behind. The days of longevity raises are gone. I'm more than willing to pay well for taking on more responsibility and independence. They want the "paid well" but don't want to do anything more for it. I have one who is sharp enough to handle it and will take it upon myself in the coming year to push him a bit harder, convince him that he is more than capable and reward him for it.

On the other side of the equation, there's a strong disincentive in the state of CT to firing or laying off employees. Get one or two and the unemployment reimbursement goes through the roof. And just to give you an idea of how the system here works, we had an employee retire after the summer of '10. All of the paperwork was filled out and filed in a timely fashion. The former employee filed for unemployment this spring. Our HR manager attended the hearing, provided all of the required paperwork, there was no question the employee left on good terms and of their own volition. They were still awarded unemployment compensation. Sometimes it's easier to put up with some of them than it is to get rid of them.

Overall, we are well positioned for the recovery when it happens. We've hired a new sales rep to cover an comfortably-expanding territory for us (thanks to the big national distributors dropping the ball) and two mid-level managers (much to the chagrin of the hourly employees-however it's due to the impending retirement of one of the principals who has decreased his hours and compensation by half, thereby increasing the hours and compensation of everyone below him). We are diversified enough so that even though things are not great right now, we're still employing everyone, paying all of the bills and making some money. A lot of folks are hurting right now so the last thing I want to sound like I'm going is complaining. If it does, it's absolutely not my intention.

Everyone should be preoccupied first and foremost with what fowler thinks before hitting the submit reply button!:confused:

POS knows how it works. Maybe because it appears that he is an entrepreneur. For those of you who have never been in these shoes, these are guys and gals that have the guts to put their butts and their money on the line. Without them, there is NO money or jobs generated for ANYBODY.

Thanks POS for your spirit and guts.

Larry

Re: Uncertainty - anecdotal evidence only
 

I work for a large Electric utility in an Engineering office.

I usually dont get the whole company picture, but from my region (the midwest) I could specifically name about $1Billion in capital projects that my company is considering - they all center around pollution controls at existing power plants. This situation is very uncertain. So uncertain the utilities are rushing to get into contracts with the large construction firms (Shaw...) so that they can 'lock-in' prices on these large projects IF they decide to do them.

analogy:
I would never go to a car dealership, and pay the car salesman a few $hundred just to stick around near his phone in case I call needing a car. I would only do this if the supply of cars was very uncertain and there was a chance that if I needed a car in a year, I wouldnt be able to find one.

Luckily I have peachparts if I need a decent car quickly :)

Please don't doubt the uncertaintly claim. The nice thing about companies is that thier motives are transparent - making money. If they are spending money to hedge risk (locking in price contracts) then they are pretty convinced that the risks/uncertainty is real.

-John