There is a long list of stimulus programs. If you Google, I'm sure you'll find them. Of course large amounts of money had to be raised very quickly for TARP and QE was useful there too, because without QE there would have been undesirable upward pressure on rates. Most of the TARP funds have been recovered at this point with a taxpayer profit. (Do you recall, "cash for klunkers"? -- klunkers had to be crushed, couldn't use them for parts!-- cash for broken washing machines , whatever that was called??? High speed rail, Republicans killed much of it, but couldn't kill it entirely; endless grants to cities for infrastructure improvements, and on and on. You'll find them if you do a little research. Do you recall Krugman calling for still more stimulus, and all the ET anti-intellectuals -- you know, the ones claiming a college education is useless -- jumping on him??, I do!) Apparently you really were sleep the last six years! Maybe it is for the best. I know I'd rather not know about some of this stuff!
So stimulus programs, to you, are inclusive of bailouts, as well. How convenient. Last I checked, giving AIG or GM money in order to keep them from going bankrupt isn't a stimulus program. Cash for clunkers is rather silly as well, as all it did was encourage more buying on credit, which merely moved consumption forward, and pulled GDP forward as well (evidenced in significant drops that occurred after the program expired). Remember "shovel ready" projects? LOL! You could argue that extending 99 weeks of unemployment was stimulus, as it gave cash to people without debt, but it also encouraged them to stay out of work longer. That just private $$ for government $$, though. Stimulus packages aren't the government forcing consumers to go more into debt, because that merely brings spending forward at the expense of lower consumption later on. And even if you added them all up (831 Billion from the American Recovery Act - or whatever it was called)...where's the other 2.7Trillion $$?
Ooooh, you got me there. I can't answer , because I never considered monetary stimulus in the case of a really bad recession without the accompanying "fiscal stimulus". That combination has certainly been proven to work. Nazi Germany! Late 1930's U.S., and of course almost endless other smaller examples -- google it.
I didn't say that. You did. (just edited in the smile for your benefit!) But now i realize I haven't been giving you enough credit. Those bailouts, some of them anyway, we're sort of the equivalent of stimulus, I'll allow you that much, if they prevented hundreds of thousands of folks from being thrown out of work. Good call!
I'm not saying that fiscal stimulus doesn't work if applied correctly. I never said that. But don't you think it might have been remotely wise to work out on the political side what the stimulus package would be, and then put in place a QE to fund it? If QE always accompanies fiscal stimulus, then why was QE funding the entire debt issued in, say 2013? Are you saying the entire US Debt issued went to a stimulus package? So either the Fed was negligent in it's fiduciary duty, or QE had another intent than what you profess. Which is it? Incompetence or maleficence?
I don't believe I specified employers and specific employees. The total number of employees that could have been potentially affected was very large when you consider all of the companies in potential financial trouble and how they were all interconnected. Just GM and its many suppliers had collectively a huge number of employees..
Well actually your saying it backwards, but that's the right idea. QE doesn't always accompany fiscal stimulus, but fiscal stimulus virtually always accompanies QE. Actually the politics were worked out first, and continued to be worked on as the program went along. Not everyone was happy. . When QE programs are implemented in Heaven, they don't get underway until everyone agrees on everything. But, in Heaven, that only takes a few nanoseconds. It seems to take forever to get agreement on planet Earth. So the President sits down with Ben, Hank, Nancy, Harry, John and Mitch and while John and Mitch are out of the room, and the President thinks he has a consensus, he just picks up a pen and moves on. Things roll on with a lot of bellyaching, and Congress always threatens to sue him, but they can't. To stop him they have to get rid of him entirely by impeaching and convicting him. But they don't even try that, because they don't want to look like fools, anymore then some of them already do, that is. . Some of the older ones remember Henry Hyde and what happened to him when he tried to get Bill impeached because of the cigar (hope it was like a Dutch Master, and not a Joya de Nicaragua!) and Monica. Then after the chip dip turned up on Monica's dress, someone had the temerity to point out poor Henry's, well, "youthful indiscretion" I think is what Henry himself termed it. " Are you saying the entire US Debt issued went to a stimulus package?" answer: No. Dollars arriving at the Treasury Department from bond sales are fungible. One dollar looks the same as another. "Which is it? Incompetence or maleficence?" Answer: Neither.
So should the government always bail out failed companies just for the sole purpose of keeping everyone employed? Why not just skip the middle man and pay everyone a salary direct from the government?
What a load of bollocks. 3.5 Trillion "printed" and a laughable stimulus package of 830 or so billion that mostly went to bring future consumption forward. And Fed cheerleaders like you still can't figure out why we're under "emergency measures" 6 years later, with no end in sight to deteriorating macro.