"Anything is better than nothing!!!"

[dclary]

That was the rallying cry of the bastards who sold us the stimulus package. Who said our insurance companies and car companies were 'too big to fail.' That doing what we were doing (i.e, letting the market right itself, as markets always do), was far worse than leaping out blindly and throwing money at the problem.

So shitloads of money they threw.

To the tune, it seems now, of a quarter million dollars per job saved.

http://blogs.reuters.com/james-pethokoukis/2009/12/07/cost-benefit-analysis-of-jobs-stimulus/

Ouch.

[AMCrenshaw]

This also what people are saying about military action in Afghanistan. But I digress.





AMC

[defcon6000]

http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee2/wickedwicka/sims2%20stories/bailout-mechanism-south-park-margar.png

BAIL OUT!!

[BradyH1861]

I've been waiting for the government to come and stimulate me, but it hasn't happened yet. Oh well.

[BradyH1861]

The figures in the article are very interesting though. I have always tried to follow the old saying "Never throw good money after bad." I don't think the government necessarily follows that advice.

[clintl]

Is $246K in spending per job saved really a bad deal? Let's compare this to the expenses per job at Hewlett-Packard, a company that actually had a very good year in 2008, and pretty much regarded as one of the top companies in the world.

Annual report. Check out Page 87 for information on expenses. HP had $108B in expenses in 2008.

http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/irol/71/71087/HewlettPackard_2008_AR.pdf

According to Forbes, in 2008, HP had 172,000 employees.

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2008/snapshots/206.html

By my calculation, that turns out to be $628K per job.

And don't come back with the lame excuse that it's different because HP was buying stuff with that money. So was the stimulus package. It wasn't all going to salaries. The truth is that you can't tell from the information whether the stimulus has been an underperformer or not, but $246K per job saved is not necessarily a bad deal.

[MGraybosch]

I've been waiting for the government to come and stimulate me, but it hasn't happened yet. Oh well.

I get it up the pooper from the IRS whether the economy's in a recession or booming, and it stopped being stimulating years ago. These days I just close my eyes and think of America every payday.

[MattW]

Is $246K in spending per job saved really a bad deal? Let's compare this to the expenses per job at Hewlett-Packard, a company that actually had a very good year in 2008, and pretty much regarded as one of the top companies in the world.

Annual report. Check out Page 87 for information on expenses. HP had $108B in expenses in 2008.

http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/irol/71/71087/HewlettPackard_2008_AR.pdf

According to Forbes, in 2008, HP had 172,000 employees.

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2008/snapshots/206.html

By my calculation, that turns out to be $628K per job.

And don't come back with the lame excuse that it's different because HP was buying stuff with that money. So was the stimulus package. It wasn't all going to salaries. The truth is that you can't tell from the information whether the stimulus has been an underperformer or not, but $246K per job saved is not necessarily a bad deal.
Not a great comparison, because HP has to invest in R&D (probably a big ticket), and the fact they they turned a profit with their outlay.

But a good effort.

[princessvessna]

Not a great comparison, because HP has to invest in R&D (probably a big ticket), and the fact they they turned a profit with their outlay.

But a good effort.

Simply because I like to see how much I can find in Google :

HP spends $3.6 billion annually on R&D and advanced research to improve the way people live and work in developed and developing economies.

http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/abouthp/government/ww/gib_competitiveness.html

[clintl]

Well, HP's R&D investment is listed right there on page 83. $3.5B of the $108B, less than 3.5% of the total expenses. So that doesn't things much.

And it doesn't change the point I am making, either. The fact that HP turned a profit is irrelevant - that's not what the stimulus package intended to do. My point is that $246K per job may or may not be good deal, but it's almost certainly not outlandish compared to the private sector.

[SPMiller]

Please stop putting things into perspective, clintl. You're spoiling my righteous outrage.

[dclary]

Is $246K in spending per job saved really a bad deal? Let's compare this to the expenses per job at Hewlett-Packard, a company that actually had a very good year in 2008, and pretty much regarded as one of the top companies in the world.

Annual report. Check out Page 87 for information on expenses. HP had $108B in expenses in 2008.

http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/irol/71/71087/HewlettPackard_2008_AR.pdf

According to Forbes, in 2008, HP had 172,000 employees.

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2008/snapshots/206.html

By my calculation, that turns out to be $628K per job.

And don't come back with the lame excuse that it's different because HP was buying stuff with that money. So was the stimulus package. It wasn't all going to salaries. The truth is that you can't tell from the information whether the stimulus has been an underperformer or not, but $246K per job saved is not necessarily a bad deal.


That's an interesting comparison, Clintl, and thought-provoking.

My company spends about 1.5 million dollars a year, and employs about 60 people, so based on that, we spend about 25K per employee. That makes sense, because we don't manufacture anything and have only a few small office leases.

HP, however, is a manufacturer. With the additional costs of having to host significantly larger facilities, plus absorbing the costs of materials involved in manufacturing, the perceived cost per employee will be significantly higher.

So is 250K a good number or a bad number?

Who knows? The government is neither manufacturing nor leasing huge buildings to house these people in. They're simply passing money out in the hopes that folks will get hired. It still seems high to me.