On Sun, 20 Feb 2011 13:35:53 -0500, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Sat, 19 Feb 2011 20:12:27 -0800, wrote:

most if not all of the money from an unemployed person who
receives benefits is SPENT IMMEDIATELY.

No argument that it is spent immediately. The question is whether or
not it provides any long term benefit to the economy which is what
"stimulus" is supposed to do. If it doesn't create jobs and/or
create useful new infrastructure, there is no long term benefit.

It's not about "long term benefit." Stimulating the economy isn't a
long term solution. The economy should run without stimulation by
things like gov't payments to individual. It's not a long term
solution and nobody is claiming it is (except people - like you? - who
don't understand how it works). It's strictly short term.

It does create jobs in the short term.

Useful new infrastructure is/was part of the stimulus plan... fix
roads, etc. But, yet again, that kind of stimulus doesn't really
create long term jobs. It's short term that we need to concentrate on.
After the economy really gets moving, then long term solutions (e.g.,
deficit/debt/SSI/MC) need to be phased in.