You’re attempting to make the case that if you feel that the American government subsidizing goods for the purpose of economic stimulus and getting the money injected back into the US economy is less effective when that subsidized money goes to foreign owned companies, then you must be protectionist and anti-free trade and think that any foreign competition is TAKING UR JOBZ.
The positions are not logically related.
This is just Elvis doing his usual schtick of creating straw men, creatively parsing sentences so he can attack the point he wants to attack rather than the one which was made, and in general debating using sophistry rather than actual facts.
At some point, you just have to ignore him.
Bad news for American wealth: Senate likely to approve $2B extension of C4C
Kindly cut the crap about being “protectionist and free trade”, willya? :rolleyes: You do have at least Sam convinced that the purveyor of straw here is someone other than you, but it doesn’t work on most adults.
If you really think that a less-active economy does not involve loss of jobs, then you really need to go learn the true meaning of “logically related”. M’kay? :rolleyes:
The usual Sam Stone style of response to seeing his arguments blow up in his face. Well, either this, or claiming to be the victim of personal attacks, that is.
Ho, hum.
It doesn’t make sense to borrow money to fund foreign products when there is a substantial trade deficit. At best any return of money from Japan to the United States will be in the form of purchased notes. That means we will be paying the interest on the money borrowed to Japan. The multiplier of wealth will be a negative in this case.
You repeatedly change the topic in an attempt to both refuse to admit your points are bous and attempt to paint your opposition as inconsistent or hypocritical. And then you declare victory and celebrate.
The original point he raised is that the effect of a potential multiplier is reduced if the government money is being used in a way that it goes into foreign economies as opposed to the US economy. Without changing the argument, do you agree or disagree?
Voyager said “Anyhow, I thought those guys were for free trade”, implying that there was something somehow inherently contradictory about the idea that injecting the money into a foreign economy reduces the fiscal multiplier while at the same time advocating for free trade. Obviously Sam is both against this subsidy and pro-free trade. In fact, he specifically refutes the idea that “My sole point about this was that the ‘multiplier’ expected of this program will not be as big as simple theory would indicate, for many reasons including the fact that a certain percentage of the money will be spent overseas, and therefore not multiply in the U.S. economy.”
He did not say “we shouldn’t buy foreign products” or “foreigners are taking our jobs” or anything even remotely close. People in this thread defend this spending on the assumption that it has a theoretical fiscal multiplier. He’s pointing out why the real world multiplier is likely far less.
And then you say that if he’s saying the multiplier will be reduced if foreign companies profit from the subsidy that "And therefore “American jobs” are lost. QED. "
You are attempting to give him the position that any money spent on foreign products is American jobs lost and therefore bad, implicitly implying that he must be for protectionist policies because he points out that injecting money into a foreign economy with our tax dollars reduces the fiscal multiplier effect for our economy for that money. This is a straw man made out of whole cloth.
And then, when I point this out, you pull this out of nowhere:
“If you really think that a less-active economy does not involve loss of jobs, then you really need to go learn the true meaning of “logically related”.”
What? I would call this moving the goalposts, but it isn’t. It’s completely redefining the argument, out of the blue, to something it had nothing to do with. No one was saying that a less-active economy does nto involve the loss of jobs, or anything relating to it. This is obvious. You essentially want to declare something obvious and then say “see! I win!”
You are doing nothing but creating strawmen and redefining the argument when it has been demonstrated that you’ve created strawmen. You are intentionally deceptive and are not arguing in good faith.
No, you repeatedly fail to digest what you are being told, and substitute your own imagination instead. I do what I can, but you need to do your part, too. You long ago left behind anything I’ve said here.
Remember to clean up your straw when you’re done, okay? This room gets pretty messy with it sometimes.
Fine, now what’s a “foreign product”? :dubious: Is a Toyota Camry made in Kentucky, or a Chevy Aveo made in Korea, “foreign”?
Kindly tell us what other hands it passes through on the way there, okay?
No one is denying some of the money is staying in this country. It’s a function of return on investment.
a trade deficit is a trade deficit. Sending money overseas as a tax funded stimulus program doesn’t make sense.
Hey, SeniorBeef, you wanna respond to my response? You know, the one that tore your argument to shreds? 
You’re evading the questions.
I’ll wait for the numbers to see if this made a dent in used car sales. The reduction in cars might be balanced by reduced inventory making the cars the dealers have more valuable. As I said, they have more than likely been doing very well in the past 6 months as people turn to used cars instead of new. As for reduced spending on other things, ordinarily that would be true, which is why a program like this is only appropriate in extraordinary circumstance. At the moment, I’d bet the money comes out of savings, and represents a real increase in consumer spending, which is what we need at the moment.
For free trade. If anyone did a cost benefit analysis on this, they would have included the foreign car aspect - it would be pretty stupid to ignore it. I head a prediction on Marketplace yesterday that the market share of cars bought in C4C would match the shares of the companies before the program. So, only the most simplistic of forecasts would neglect this. The attempt to get a Buy American clause in shows that even Congress understands it. I agree with you that this would be a bad idea.
So, my question is this. Tax cuts in the higher brackets are supposed to increase investment, right, and improve the economy? When supporting this, do you take into account that much of this investment will be made overseas, and not in the US? Is this as big a problem for you as the fact that some of the benefits from C4C go overseas is?
I ask because you try to economically justify your positions, and you aren’t a “Taxation is Theft” kind of guy. Those people don’t care about economics, as far as I can tell.
Tax cuts to inspire investments will also go in some part to foreign countries, to hire their workers, not ours. Are you as upset by this as you are for the car case?
Who me? Did I miss some?
I would like to formally apologize for including the statement about losing American jobs. I’ve watched too much Lou Dobbs and as a result I associate “money to foreign companies” to mean “loss of American jobs overseas.”
When I hear/read statements like, “this is a bad stimulus package because money went to foreign companies,” I miss the part about the multiplier effect and and I only hear protectionist jargonism.
Not you, the guy before you.
Dammit, people, will you *please *refrain from posting while I’m still typing? 
Tax cuts and rebates can and are used for foreign purchases and investment. However, the current program targets a specific industry and the metric used was fuel efficiency which in this case favors foreign purchase. It’s a function of the best return on investment. Tax cuts across the board will theoretically affect domestic spending and investment in the same ratios as before. When a program includes conditions to affect purchase choice (in this case mpg) then those ratios change.
I disagree.
Does that mean I think the multiplier is INCREASED? No, it does not. Disagreeing with one side does not mean agreeing with the other.
I believe there is a case to be made that money sent to Japan is bad (reduced multiplier) because they invest less in the US. At least this was true traditionally as there was a trend for the Japanese to export heavily and only purchase domestically. Money in the US paid to a Japanese company will go to Japanese employees who will by Japanese products–the multiplier fails.
On the other hand, consider Canada: The US is our largest trading partner by a huge margin. Here I think there is a strong case to be made that money sent to a Canadian company like RIM or the auto industry will result in salaries for Canadian workers, that will in turn buy American products. I’m not even joking when I say the bulk of our products are from the US, I think even the stuff labeled “made in China” is distributed from US suppliers. So here there is an enhanced multiplier effect.
My conclusion here is that the inclusion of “money going to foreign companies” is a wash. That portion of the money either goes to a country that responds by increasing US investment, or it’s a dead end.
But it’s just a portion of this aspect of the stimulus bill. The C4C program had a 100% required that you buy the car domestically. You couldn’t drive up to Canada and expect the $4,500 to go with you.
So can we agree that it had a positive impact on domestic dealerships? And is that a good thing or a bad thing?
To me, the “money to foreign companies” simply represents the entropy of the system. Just like the administration costs of the program. You just can’t expect 100% of the spending to result in 100% stimulus. There have to be natural and expected losses along the way. BUT that doesn’t mean you can have silly and inefficient systems.
The $600 cash bonus to people with a SSN given out was that sort of failure. To me C4C was a success*. Money was targeted for a specific sector, and it got there. No one was able to save the $4,500, pay debt with, lose it, smoke it, or ship it to family members oversees. But the people that did take advantage of the program have an extra $4,500 (or $3,500) to spend that they didn’t before the program (assuming they were planning to buy a new car). Or they were able to buy a slightly more expensive car than they planned.
*In hindsight it seems the $4500/3500 was too high and the government could have gotten away with a lower figure.
Why is that necessarily the case? Because Honda, Toyota, and Hyundai make more fuel efficient cars? Or more desirable cars?
I’d like to also take issue (problem?) with the term “foreign purchase.” All the cars were bought domestically at local dealers. I’m not aware of the program allowing you to buy the car from another country.
So what do you think is better for as an economic stimulus, a cash rebate up front or a tax rebate at the end? Or is that not your point? Would you rather have seen a $9.35 tax rebate go to everyone (3billion by 320million)?