I can claim to know that if you add 2 and 2, that you will always get 4. You'd have us believe that there's a chance, a good chance even, that the result will be 5.
The warnings were there.
Financial Reckoning Day is just one example.
Once again, how will that help us in the recession now? Are we currently unable to produce and move enough goods to match the output of just a few short years ago? Has the infrastructure crumbled so rapidly; and if so, why should we trust government rebuild it when it did such an awful job in the first place?
Oh, I'm sorry, I thought we could pick and choose which points to respond to. I was just following your example. Seriously, though, they were embedded in the quote and I didn't feel like taking the time to parse them. However, if you insist:
So you consider ad hominem to be a valid response to an argument. I'll keep that in mind when you accuse me of being irrational again.
You said that you'd go on record as saying, in your words: "not being for the parts of the stimulus which do not have a positive effect." I'm not sure how that is an argument for action over inaction. It sounds to me like you are willing to make subjective value judgments, since the massive transfer of wealth done through the stimulus leaves many losers.
I'm sorry, is that supposed to be a rational response? Dismiss the argument rather than refute it.
Oh gosh, now you want *me* to back up a claim when you aren't even willing to lift a finger to rationally defend any of your assertions. Your entire defense of the stimulus has so far been "it's this way because I say it is and anything you say against it is ludicrous and one-sided." Well here are your links:
Personal Savings rate:
http://www.bea.gov/briefrm/saving.htm
Households and businesses reduced their outstanding debt. Total private-sector debt fell at a 0.4% annual pace in the quarter, the first time that private-sector debt had declined since the Fed's records began in 1952.
I see, so getting people to buy houses (and build them), and cars, and other goods is not part of the stimulus? You said that you'd go on record to support stimulus spending on manufacturing; if consumers don't want to buy those goods, why is it positive for government to prop up the producers of what no one wants to buy?