On this day, let us all be proud of America

Um, you mean those terrorists who killed all of 3,000 people on our soil? Come off it man. We were a bigger threat to the native americans that these terrorists are to us, you know, by wiping out 95% of the native population.The British killed more americans in the revolution and war of 1812 than terrorism has.Terrorism is not a formidable stealth threat. Stealth threat, yes. But I think Israel and Ireland have/had more to worry about than we ever did/do.Seriously, if you don't feed terrorism, it dies out in a couple of generations. Terrorist movements are unsustainable.

I know argument by link is not generally accepted. Anyhow, here is a sampling of liberal media that is not happy with Obama:Obama on nationalization - The New York Times
Adjustments downward - The New York Times
Appeasing the centrists - The New York TimesOpinion | What About the Census? - The New York Times
Opinion | The Travails of Tom Daschle - The New York TimesThis is all from the new york times. That oft cited "librul rag". Other opinion page columnists have been calling out Obama (and no, not just David Frum) as well.The last link may have been one of the things to defeat Tom Daschle, as the NYTimes called for his head. The same day, I think, Tom Daschle had resigned his nomination. This, of course, was after the senate had predicted he would eventually be confirmed.The Daily Show is unabashedly liberal. And yet, it has not been kind to Obama either. Not technically news media, but certainly liberal media.I'm sure there are numerous other examples of liberal media taking Obama to task. I just don't have the time to read every paper in the country.

This, of course, is absurdly false. Most terrorists probably aren't concerned with how or what you think. Nor are they doing it so they can gain a rather ephemeral reward in the afterlife. Tell me, would you die for a cause because it would ensure a spot in your heaven? Most likely not. You would die for the cause, not the reward.As to why they are fighting against us, a good long look at what we did in afghanistan in the 80s would be good. Also seems that bin Laden was never very happy about infidels setting foot inside of Saudi Arabia. It's not because we're free and they want to take it away. It's because we're the occupiers, the meddlers, the people who screwed them over time and time again. That's a basic theme you will find in all terrorist organizations--the other side did something to them, and they see only terror as the method to achieve their aims.Is this really so hard for people to understand? Or does it stem from the "US can do no wrong" attitude?

Demonstrably false. All the economic growth we experienced was essentially false, based on the housing bubble. Incomes did not grow (we have been poorer than we were in 2000 for some time now). Job growth was anemic, when it did grow. Look through the data on nber.org. Bush's economy just blows, quite frankly.

What? Do you think before you type? You're not making any sense.

He was the man in charge. He was the "decider". As Truman said, "the buck stops here". Ultimately he will take the blame or credit for the events of his administration. This is true of every administration. Or are you suggesting that the captain of the football team isn't responsible for the failure of his team? It can be, yes. WWII is the oft-cited example. But WWII is an unusual, extreme case. We did not slide back into a recession or depression afterwords because of the relative elimination of private debt (it shrank to roughly 50% of GDP, which meant once the rationing was lifted we could spend the money we had saved).But war is not an effective stimulus overall. It is ultimately destroys what it creates. What good is that bomb after the war? What good is that school after the war? What good is a tank after the war? What good is the hospital after the war?To ensure future growth, the stimulus has to invest. A large part of the current stimulus is a stop-gap measure designed to prevent or at least ameliorate a hell of a lot of suffering. And increasing money for food stamps provides more bang for the buck than spending that money on weapons acquisition. After that, the stimulus is an attempt at investing in our future, something we've put off for far too long. For some silly reason, and you better hope this holds true, investors around the world like to buy US debt. It's the best rated debt in the world, which means we can borrow cheaply (which, of course, is precisely how we borrowed the money that doubled are national debt and why it hasn't destroyed us). So while the world is crashing, people want to find a safe place for their money . . .and US debt is just the mattress they're looking for. As are tens of millions of people. If we do absolutely nothing, this correction will go on until we have a spontaneous recovery, which is dependent upon a backlog of desired capital stock is created. Krugman explains it very well (Slumps and spontaneous remission (wonkish) - The New York Times). Personally, I'd rather we not wait for such a recovery.

Unfortunately, there are economists and other financial advisers who argue by the Treasury View. That is, for every dollar spent by the government, one dollar is removed from private spending. This theory, of course, was debunked by the Great Depression. But like a broken record, they really haven't learned anything and keep proffering it as a reason why the stimulus, or really why any stimulus will fail.

Not likely.
A Dark Age of macroeconomics (wonkish) - The New York Times
Time to Bang My Head Against the Wall Some More (Pre-Elementary Monetary Economics Department)This is Eugune Fama's response:
http://www.dimensional.com/...us-plans---addendum-12809.htmlThis is from less than a month ago!A different economic fallacy, but with the same conclusion: stimulus will not work:
EconoSpeak: Ricardian Equivalence Does Not Imply That Obama’s Fiscal Stimulus Will Be IneffectiveYet another bad fallacy:
Another temporary misunderstanding - The New York TimesThese people are not arguing from the Friedman school of economics (which they apparently don't understand either). They are not even arguing rationally. Thinking that they might eventually grudgingly accept that fiscal stimulus will work is probably as realistic as thinking that republicans would use more intelligent arguments than "if we spent a million dollars a day since jesus was born we still wouldn't have spent 800 billion dollars" to counter the pro-stimulus argument.

Regarding food stamps, this is what the government allows you to buy (and what it prohibits you from purchasing)
Page or Content Not Found | Food and Nutrition Service

quote:

---

Households CAN use SNAP benefits to buy:
Foods for the household to eat, such as:
-- breads and cereals
-- fruits and vegetables
-- meats, fish and poultry; and
-- dairy products
Seeds and plants which produce food for the household to eat.

​

Households CANNOT use SNAP benefits to buy:
Beer, wine, liquor, cigarettes or tobacco
Any nonfood items, such as:
-- pet foods;
-- soaps, paper products; and
-- household supplies.
Vitamins and medicines.
Food that will be eaten in the store.
Hot foods

---

SNAP is essentially the new name for food stamps. Apparently the agency changed its name in october.The next faq has some interesting information as to how they limit fraud. Guess what? Unless you're an authorized retailer, you can't accept SNAP coupons or cards. Hm.Why are food stamps so effective? Well, the money basically has to be spent, and it has to be spent on food. And while the food bought might not be grown in the US, it helps pay the wages and salaries of the store. It helps pay the wages of the farm owner and the field laborers (and if this is outside of the US, trade is a key part of their economic health, and if that laborer is getting paid he or she is less likely to try and immigrate to the US perhaps). It pays the wages and salaries of the people involved in shipping and processing the food. All those people then spend the money themselves (the velocity of money then rises, which helps the economy).From a different view, it also means one less family is going to starve (even if they still might be quite hungry), which helps improve social cohesion and stability. Socially stable places are more attractive to invest in. And as pointed out clearly here (The eschatology of lost decades - The New York Times) it will likely have to be investment that pulls us out of this recession, as we can't rely on exports or increased consumer spending. But the investment has to be real.

Once recovery.gov is fully up and running, we should be able to find out just how much money has been included for food stamps. This is what wiki has to say on it:
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 - Wikipedia20.25 billion total for all food program assistance, with food stamps receiving 19.9 billion. RR's $250 figure assumes 79,600,000 people/families will be on the government's roll call. So I don't think each entity will be getting one $250 coupon. I do not know how much they plan to increase each coupon, or rather the total benefits by.That said, as it is money for food stamps, the only things that can be purchased with the stamps are what I posted earlier. Naturally, that doesn't preclude people from trading their stamps for real cash, although the card you mentioned (the coupons themselves are being phased out I believe) is supposed to reduce/eliminate such fraud. But if you bought that stamp from its intended receiver, are you not going to try and spend it or sell it to someone else? Eventually that coupon will be spent, or someone is willing to take a loss on it.

Do you mean to imply the crack dealer just sits on his money?So long as money is spent, money is in the economy. Velocity of money, remember? If I'm a crack dealer, I need to buy more crack when stock is low. Since I'm running a profit (or else I'm an inefficient crack dealer and should go under and find something else to do), I won't be spending my money solely on crack requisition. I'll use it to expand my operations. Which means I now hire other people, creating jobs. Or I can use it for personal expenses, which means I'm buying stuff that other people produce and sell. Which means my expenditures are keeping other people employed. Which really is why spending is one way out of recessions and depressions. When people don't spend money the economy collapses.Long story short:unless that crack dealer sits on his money, the money you spend buying crack will enter into the economy, because it is an economic transaction.

In normal times, the two would indeed be interchangeable. That's because the bank, which is holding your money, is spending that money. In the form of giving out loans. Loans which then prime economic development (financing home purchases, car purchases, new factories, new stores, etc).Obviously, these aren't normal times. So a better replacement would be
"spending money on drugs and prostitutes" or "spending money on food at the grocery store".The only difference is that one transaction is illegit (generally) and one is almost always legit.So, how is buying drugs or prostitutes different from buying food at your local farmer's market?