The American Dream! 43 million on food stamps! 30 Million Unemployed (Full Version)

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Real0ne -> The American Dream! 43 million on food stamps! 30 Million Unemployed (5/8/2011 7:23:01 AM)

WASHINGTON, Feb. 3 (UPI) -- More than 43 million Americans receive food stamp assistance, or about 14 percent of the population, officials of the U.S. Department of Agriculture say.


The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program formerly known as the Food Stamp Program serves about one in seven Americans -- about half are children -- over the course of a year, USDA officials say.

As of last month, 43 million Americans had been using SNAP resources -- average monthly benefit for one person was $133.57 or average household monthly benefit of $285.64 -- up from 40 million in 2010, 33 million in 2009 and 30 million in 2008. Many of the recipients of the food benefit are employed, but have suffered salary reductions.

SNAP benefits, which are provided to recipients electronically, also provide an economic stimulus that strengthens communities, USDA officials say.

Research shows that every $5 in new SNAP benefits generates as much as $9 in economic activity, the USDA says. SNAP benefits are administered by states, but they are federally funded and move quickly into local economies, with 97 percent of SNAP benefits redeemed within a month, officials says.
http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2011/02/03/USDA-43-million-on-food-stamps/UPI-56301296757657/#ixzz1Llo5ZrF5




Now lets add that to the present unemployment which in the most populated areas are running 12%:

http://www.policymap.com/LandingPages/unemployment.html?gclid=CNqa-b_F2KgCFUMUKgodYmwIDQ


Welcome to "The American Dream"













Musicmystery -> RE: The American Dream! 43 million on food stamps! 30 Million Unemployed (5/8/2011 7:33:27 AM)

Given the unemployment numbers (I'll take your cherry picked one rather than argue about it), that's not at all a bad food stamp number, considering that unemployed/underemployed people have families. It also means that with a pick-up in the economy (i.e., to the point of returning workers to employment), we can expect the food stamp numbers to fall as well.

I'd say the program is doing exactly what it's designed to do.



Sanity -> RE: The American Dream! 43 million on food stamps! 30 Million Unemployed (5/8/2011 7:44:35 AM)


Going by that very highly paid bureaucrats logic, if everyone quit working the economy would take off like a rocket.

I wonder how much economic activity that five bucks sucks away when the government takes it out of circulation to begin with, in order to give it away. And how much bureaucracy it takes to administer giving it away... what the cost of that process is.

quote:

Research shows that every $5 in new SNAP benefits generates as much as $9 in economic activity, the USDA says.



willbeurdaddy -> RE: The American Dream! 43 million on food stamps! 30 Million Unemployed (5/8/2011 8:18:47 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Real0ne

Research shows that every $5 in new SNAP benefits generates as much as $9 in economic activity, the USDA says.




Economics (and plain old logic for the non-brain dead) shows that $5 taken out of the economy is not a net generator of economic activity.



Musicmystery -> RE: The American Dream! 43 million on food stamps! 30 Million Unemployed (5/8/2011 8:42:28 AM)

Except that it's also put back into the economy.

I do understand this can affect the multiplier (and hence your point about net generator).




willbeurdaddy -> RE: The American Dream! 43 million on food stamps! 30 Million Unemployed (5/8/2011 9:01:07 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Musicmystery

Except that it's also put back into the economy.

I do understand this can affect the multiplier (and hence your point about net generator).




Even Obama's own advisor Rohmer has published analyses showing that the multiplier on taxes/tax cuts is about double the multiplier on government spending (about 2.5 vs 1.25 to make the math easy) . Hence $5 in food stamps costs the economy a NET of (2.5 - 1.25) x $5.

(Posted before I saw your edit).



EternalHoH -> RE: The American Dream! 43 million on food stamps! 30 Million Unemployed (5/8/2011 9:06:22 AM)

Investing is 'food stamps' for the rich.  People there, too, sit on their ass and expect money to fall from the sky. It is viewed by most people as 'good welfare', as opposed to the 'bad welfare' that actual food stamps and abortions for poor women represent.

I bet that the 'good welfare' will tank this country faster than the 'bad welfare'.






willbeurdaddy -> RE: The American Dream! 43 million on food stamps! 30 Million Unemployed (5/8/2011 9:14:18 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: EternalHoH

Investing is 'food stamps' for the rich.  People there, too, sit on their ass and expect money to fall from the sky. It is viewed by most people as 'good welfare', as opposed to the 'bad welfare' that actual food stamps and abortions for poor women represent.

I bet that the 'good welfare' will tank this country faster than the 'bad welfare'.






I bet that you have no clue what you're talking about. Safest bet Ive ever made.



EternalHoH -> RE: The American Dream! 43 million on food stamps! 30 Million Unemployed (5/8/2011 9:20:13 AM)

Your entire premise is that tax cuts actually end up in the economy.

I say it ends up in someone's vault.



willbeurdaddy -> RE: The American Dream! 43 million on food stamps! 30 Million Unemployed (5/8/2011 9:21:50 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: EternalHoH

Your entire premise is that tax cuts actually end up in the economy.

I say it ends up in someone's vault.



Read my signature, wrt to my wager.



Edwynn -> RE: The American Dream! 43 million on food stamps! 30 Million Unemployed (5/8/2011 10:17:51 AM)





quote:

ORIGINAL: willbeurdaddy

Even Obama's own advisor Rohmer has published analyses showing that the multiplier on taxes/tax cuts is about double the multiplier on government spending (about 2.5 vs 1.25 to make the math easy) . Hence $5 in food stamps costs the economy a NET of (2.5 - 1.25) x $5.

(Posted before I saw your edit).




Completely inappropriate and incoherent nonsense. This deals with MPC, not any 'tax/tax cut multiplier' or 'government spending multiplier' as regards government purchases. Food stamps are not purchases, they are transfer payments. Not all government spending is the same. When the government buys a jet fighter, e.g., workers, engineers, managers, etc. get paid, stock holders get dividends. Being that all the above are making decent money, the data show that they will not spend all of it; they will save a portion. The greater the amount obtained, the greater percentage will be saved.

This is referred to as 'the marginal propensity to consume' (MPC), the ratio of the amount of earnings spent to the amount saved, a number between zero and one. The lower the income, the higher the MPC; the greater the income, the lower the MPC.

Food stamps are a transfer payment, not a 'government purchase,' and those receiving it spend all of it, as the poor spend all or almost all they have in any case.



Of course the far better situation would be to have fewer poor people, but incessant deregulation has put a serious crimp in that effort.









willbeurdaddy -> RE: The American Dream! 43 million on food stamps! 30 Million Unemployed (5/8/2011 10:26:32 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Edwynn






quote:

ORIGINAL: willbeurdaddy

Even Obama's own advisor Rohmer has published analyses showing that the multiplier on taxes/tax cuts is about double the multiplier on government spending (about 2.5 vs 1.25 to make the math easy) . Hence $5 in food stamps costs the economy a NET of (2.5 - 1.25) x $5.

(Posted before I saw your edit).




Completely inappropriate and incoherent nonsense. This deals with MPC, not any 'tax/tax cut multiplier' or 'government spending multiplier' as regards government purchases. Food stamps are not purchases, they are transfer payments. Not all government spending is the same. When the government buys a jet fighter, e.g., workers, engineers, managers, etc. get paid, stock holders get dividends. Being that all the above are making decent money, the data show that they will not spend all of it; they will save a portion. The greater the amount obtained, the greater percentage will be saved.

This is referred to as 'the marginal propensity to consume' (MPC), the ratio of the amount of earnings spent to the amount saved, a number between zero and one. The lower the income, the higher the MPC, the greater the income, the lower the MPC.

Food stamps are a transfer payment, not a 'government purchase,' and those receiving it spend all of it, as the poor spend all or almost all they have in any case.



Of course the far better situation would be to have fewer poor people, but incessant deregulation has put a serious crimp in that effort.










No, it doesnt, and the problem is incessant WRONG regulations that accompish nothing but raising the cost of doing business.



Edwynn -> RE: The American Dream! 43 million on food stamps! 30 Million Unemployed (5/8/2011 10:29:16 AM)



That is as much horse feathers as your previous display of incomprehension.


Back to your fairy tale then.









willbeurdaddy -> RE: The American Dream! 43 million on food stamps! 30 Million Unemployed (5/8/2011 10:31:21 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Edwynn




Back to your fairy tale then.







Coming from someone who doesnt know the difference between GDP multipliers and MPC, thats a laugh riot.



Jeffff -> RE: The American Dream! 43 million on food stamps! 30 Million Unemployed (5/8/2011 10:32:26 AM)

That coming from someone who claims supply side works is ironic.



Edwynn -> RE: The American Dream! 43 million on food stamps! 30 Million Unemployed (5/8/2011 10:38:34 AM)



quote:

ORIGINAL: willbeurdaddy

Coming from someone who doesnt know the difference between GDP multipliers and MPC, thats a laugh riot.




From someone who has not the first clue about the difference between government purchases and transfer payments, much less MPC, all your groping there is great comedy. It was you that actually spelled out your ignorance of GDP or MPC or anything else.


But you could always display for us the components of GDP, if you think you've got even that much down.









willbeurdaddy -> RE: The American Dream! 43 million on food stamps! 30 Million Unemployed (5/8/2011 10:51:13 AM)

Cliff notes for the casual reader, from a recent peer reviewed Harvard study:

The first question, namely whether tax cuts or spending increases are more
expansionary is a critical one, and economists strongly disagree about the answer.
It is fair to say that we know relatively little about the effect of fiscal policy on
growth and in particular about the so called fiscal multipliers, namely how much
one dollar of tax cuts or spending increases translates in terms of GDP. The issue is
very politically charged as well, since right of center economists and policymakers
believe in tax cuts and the left of center ones believe in spending increases. While
the differences are often rooted in different views about the role of government and
inequality, not so much about the size of fiscal multipliers, both sides also wish
to "sell" their prescription as growth enhancing and more so than the other policy.
Unfortunately both sides can’t be right at the same time!


When we turn to the sample of fiscal adjustments (Tables 9 and 10), our results
still point in the same direction: namely, the composition of the fiscal adjustment,
more than its size, matters for growth and fiscal adjustments associated with higher
GDP growth are those in which a larger share of the reduction of the primary
deficit-to-GDP ratio is due to cuts in current spending, to the government wage
and non-wage components, and to subsidies. All this evidence is consistent with
the previous literature on fiscal stabilizations and is robust if we introduce among
the regressors the change in the short-term interest rate as a control for the stance
of monetary policy or the rate of change of the nominal exchange rate to control
for exchange rate devaluations that can occur at the same time of large changes in
the fiscal stance (results are not shown but are available upon request).


The regressors the study developed for the OECD countries as a whole are very consistent with those developed by my company based strictly on US data.




Real0ne -> RE: The American Dream! 43 million on food stamps! 30 Million Unemployed (5/8/2011 10:55:50 AM)

fr

the biggest problem that I see is the gaps.

when people lose the unemployment benefits they go off the list, so unemployment numbers are deceiving.

compile that with the delay before they are literally starving and break down to sign up for assistance and there are many unaccounted for in these numbers.

now combine that with the high inflation which has driven prices up to insane levels, the wage earner whos wages have not and never will catch up that is one hell of a lot of americans with little to nothing coming in and becoming charges of the system lords.

I would wager that taking an exhaustive study would jack those numbers considerably over 30% combined meaning

1/3 of the country that is one third of 300,000 three hundred million or nearly 100 million is in dire straights.

Now is that healthy "General Welfare" of the people?   or do we need to ask which People?   It seems welfare rather than being a means to be independent and work your way to success has become keeping the impoverished alive.








Edwynn -> RE: The American Dream! 43 million on food stamps! 30 Million Unemployed (5/8/2011 11:04:49 AM)



The OP is about food stamps.


Food stamps are transfer payments.




Neither your first nor your latest post has anything to do with that.


Do note though that the latest post mentions subsidies, a flow of tax dollars to large corporations, something strenuously and incessantly argued for from your camp.









Termyn8or -> RE: The American Dream! 43 million on food stamps! 30 Million Unemployed (5/8/2011 11:12:01 AM)

FR

One in three people in this country are unemployed. Ten percent my ass.

T^T



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