Back on Feb. 16, I suggested a stake in the ground for measuring the success of Team Obama’s stimulus spending –- namely, the 8% to 8.5% unemployment rate that economists were predicting under a “do nothing” scenario.
Well, now that unemployment has blown past 9%, the “saved or created” math is getting pretty creative to say the least … and the shaky argument “it would have been even worse” is taking center stage.
Below is a reprise of the original post.
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Obama’s team sets the stimulus bar at limbo level …”,
Obama says the trillion dollar pork-laden, faux stimulative program will “save or create up to 4 million jobs”.
Last week, I pointed out that “up to” provides mucho definitional cover by itself, but that the serious wiggle room comes from “jobs saved” — a comparison against some fabricated “what if” number.
Well, the fabricated “what if” number is already being planted:
Austan Goolsbee, one of Obama’s chief economic advisers, says he’ll consider the effort successful if the worst scenarios don’t come to pass, “if by the end of 2009 we aren’t looking at GDP numbers that are huge negatives, if unemployment rises to the 8% range rather than the 11% that some are predicting.”
I can’t find any non-Obama paid economist saying 11%. Most economists are saying that the unemployment rate will peak in the range of 8 to 8.5% if we do nothing. Apparently, Team Obama is prepared to declare success (i.e. claim millions of jobs saved) is the stimulus plan does about as well as doing nothing. The jobs saved will be calculated against a disaster scenario that they’ll specify, thank you.
In other words, a victory party is guaranteed …
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Reference for Goolsbee quote:
http://money.cnn.com/2009/02/13/news/economy/easton_economicteam.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2009021310
Original post:
https://kenhoma.wordpress.com/2009/02/16/obamas-team-sets-the-stimulus-bar-at-limbo-level/
The Homa Files 
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