Math and Rage: Obama update

[Josh_Kablack]

So the local paper had this Small puff piece you probably missed

HOLLAND, Mich. -- President Barack Obama said Thursday that a large new automotive battery plant under construction here, with help from a $151.4 million federal grant, demonstrates a manufacturing comeback in the United States.

The new Compact Power plant is expected eventually to employ at least 300 people.

151,400,000 / 300 = $504,666

So that's half a million of our tax dollars spent per job created? Seriously?!?

Why couldn't we just you know HIRE PEOPLE at say 50 grand a year? Call me a commie, but funding such positions for a 5-year plan would only be a quarter million per job. Even allowing for taxes insurance, overhead and the now inevitable corruption here, that's only another 50% or so for $375,000 per job to give folks decent pay for long enough to get out of the Great Recession.

Seriously, why not?

Oh, here's why:

The president said while government cannot create jobs,

My paychecks from the Census Bureau and the NIH funded studies at the Unversity beg to differ there, chief, but go on:

it can lay the foundation for businesses to build and expand, and for families to receive training for those new manufacturing jobs. "Our goal has never been to create a government program, but to unleash private-sector growth,"

Uh, if this is "private sector" then why is it costing the taxpayer half a mil in public money per job created?

Compact Power is a subsidiary of Korean-owned LG Chem, based in Troy, Mich.

Oh. Call me a protectionist, but apparently it's costing that much just so that our public money can subsidize large foreign conglomerates who are already highly profitable with large capital surpluses

Sure, maybe this plant will create jobs that last for longer than 5 years - but given the trends in manufacturing that's a gamble, compared to the guarantee of job creation that HIRING PEOPLE is.

Furthermore the weasel language in the article "is expected eventually to employ" leads me to think that it may not even employ the 300 advertised.

At least to me, it seems that the guarantee of job creation now at a lower cost is worth the risk of those jobs being temporary when compared to a higher cost for a chance of job creation that might result in less-temporary jobs.

And at least to me, it seems that if we are going to be using our public money to subsidize large privately-held companies, it would be more effective stimulus to subsidize companies who are both domestic and not already sitting on large capital surpluses.

[erik]

But can people really live on just $50k/year?

I say just hire me at $500k/year and call it a success.

[Username17]

Basically, yes. There's a little bit you're missing though.

Capital outlays for things like power, road building, and plumbing create infrastructure that can employ lots of people. Also, the power plant itself will employ a considerable number of people who do not actually work on it.

But the fact is: there isn't nearly enough total stimulus money, and the stimulus money that there is is not being spent on nearly enough immediate make-work programs. We have 30 million people out of work. For a trillion dollars, we could employ all of them at $33,000 dollars a year to do various bullshit menial things. It would be expensive and we couldn't do it forever, but it would solve the shit out of our recession in the immediate term, and then presumably companies would like to sell things to those people and hire them away to do other things and so on and so forth.

We don't actually have a problem that we couldn't solve for a trillion dollars a year for five years. We have a problem that the Democrats are too spineless and the Republicans too ass backwards and evil to do anything meaningful about at all. Prepare for the Third Depression. Grab your ankles.

-Username17

[Crissa]

A manufacturing plant needs lots of machines and raw material. It's not giving a man a fish (or 500K this year) but teaching a man how to fish and giving them the pole.

Right now, it's really easy for big companies - oil companies - to capture investment in things like battery factories, and make it not happen. Think about what happened to the poor bloke who invented the battery in the second-gen EV1s, and the Volt.

-Crissa

[Maj]

The nice thing about using the money to build a battery factory is that when you're done paying people, you get batteries.

It's kind of like Girl Scouts... You really could just donate $4 to the girls sitting outside the grocery stores in March. Or, you can donate $4 and get a box of cookies.



Besides, the government money is probably an "incentive" based on the difference in cost between having Chinese people make batteries and having Americans make batteries, divided by the next 100 years of doing business in this country.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

But can people really live on just $50k/year?

I've lived off of 5-8k a year for some time now. I could live very well of 50k, thank you .

[mean_liar]

Holy shit, Count.

[virgil]

Have to agree with Count. I've essentially been living off ~8k a year, and it's only the oncoming need to get a car and start paying student loans that's going to screw me hardcore. Even with those, 50k/year would be awesome and I'd have more disposable income than I've ever had before.

[Username17]

I live for 10 months of the year on about 100,000 Korun. Which is about 5,000 US dollars.

-Username17

[Starmaker]

I get $12k/year, which is just enough for unexpired* food**, rent*** and an occasional device (electronics costs 2 to 3 times their U.S. retail price).

*Walmart owns two chains of stores that create an illusion of competition. They sell unexpired but decidedly unhealthy food - no go. And then there are seedy marketplaces where everything that didn't sell in time gets a second chance. My former neighbors bought all their food there and called me a greedy fuck for complaining about them taking my food and medicine from the common fridge, "WTF? We are sharing our food with you, it's your problem you're a tightass." I moved out eventually.

**I follow Frank's guide on healthy food. The numbers are not even close, but it's a good guide.

***I buy stuff for the people I live with and call it "rent".

[Crissa]

As pointed out earlier, you guys don't live in California.

-Crissa

[fbmf]

I live in the DFW area of Texas. I (okay, the bank) own a house, make a car payment, go on two vacations a year (average of last five years, counting GENCON as a vacation), and have a $60.00 a month alcohol habit.

Excluding my house and car, I have less than $1000.00 in debt.

I make $48K a year.

It can be done.

EDIT: No, I don't live in California. I'd rather urinate powdered glass.

Game On,
fbmf

[fbmf]

**I follow Frank's guide on healthy food. The numbers are not even close, but it's a good guide.

Where can this be found?

Game On,
fbmf

[Clutch9800]

I live for 10 months of the year on about 100,000 Korun. Which is about 5,000 US dollars.

-Username17

Medical students are supposed to starve. It's part of the curriculum.

Clutch

[Crissa]

Admittedly, that means we just drank a bottle of 90+ class wine last night at 33% of the price it would go for in the valley...

-Crissa

[Count Arioch the 28th]

As pointed out earlier, you guys don't live in California.

-Crissa

Nothing personal, but California is an entity unto itself. I'm not saying that's good or bad, but I am saying that it is so far removed from the rest of the American experience that it might as well be a different nation entirely.

Not to say that I wouldn't love to visit one day, I totally would. I have heard great things about Callie.

(And my older brother went to callie, told the people at the welfare office he was homeless, and they gave him $300 a month in food stamps, and made about what I make at walmart collecting old bottles. As opposed to Virginia, where the Tea Party has been running the show for 20+ years and single adults don't get food stamps for any reason.)

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Have to agree with Count. I've essentially been living off ~8k a year, and it's only the oncoming need to get a car and start paying student loans that's going to screw me hardcore. Even with those, 50k/year would be awesome and I'd have more disposable income than I've ever had before.

American? You don't have to pay unless you make 150% of the poverty level for your area. It's part of the Obama stimulus. You have to set it up before you start paying, but they base your payments on your income, and after 25 years whatever you have left to pay is forgiven. I can get more info from my GF (who is doing this) and send it to you if you like.

EDIT: Note that I said I am ABLE to live on about $5-$8k a year. I don't recommend it.

[Ganbare Gincun]

We don't actually have a problem that we couldn't solve for a trillion dollars a year for five years. We have a problem that the Democrats are too spineless and the Republicans too ass backwards and evil to do anything meaningful about at all. Prepare for the Third Depression. Grab your ankles.

1) Do you really think that it will come to a Third Depression?
2) If so, what do you suggest that we do to prepare for this event?

[Count Arioch the 28th]

We don't actually have a problem that we couldn't solve for a trillion dollars a year for five years. We have a problem that the Democrats are too spineless and the Republicans too ass backwards and evil to do anything meaningful about at all. Prepare for the Third Depression. Grab your ankles.

1) Do you really think that it will come to a Third Depression?
2) If so, what do you suggest that we do to prepare for this event?

All four of my Grandparents survived the Great Depression pre-WWII. All of them said that they were already dirt poor and it didn't seem any worse to them than things had always been for them (My Maternal Grandmother, who grew up in an impoverished area not far from the impoverished area I live in currently didn't even realize there was a Great Depression until it was over for a very long time, things never got any worse or better.)

So if you're poor, expect more of the same, except my experience has been I have to now deal with a lot of former middle-class people that bitch CONSTANTLY about how horrible being poor is. Hey dipshit, you didn't give a dead moose's last SHIT about poor people when you were wiping your ass with 20's, munch on my taint.

[mean_liar]

We don't actually have a problem that we couldn't solve for a trillion dollars a year for five years.

I agree that the stimulus wasn't enough for the reasons you cite (spinelessness and ignorant contrariness) but there's no way the US would be able to float $1T/yr for five years in stimulus. The non-catastrophic upper ceiling on debt levels are the subject of argumentation between people better at this than me, but maxing it the fuck out in a game of economic chicken is pretty risky by any measure.

Though I thought the amount of the stimulus was paltry, my bigger gripe was that it wasn't epic at all: it's allocation sucked. Totally redoing the American electrical grid with stimulus money would've been fantastic, or plowing through the ASCE infrastructure assessment... but tax breaks? Ugh.

Maybe the $1T/yr was rhetorical flourish, but I think the ASCE number for bringing everything in the US up-to-date was something around $2.2T over five years. Toss in a smart electrical grid for another $1T, some fundamental research grants for $500M over five+ years and I think you're golden.

[Zinegata]

I live on around $10K a year (single guy with his own studio under a 15-year mortgage plan), but I live in the Philippines where cost of living is considerably lower.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I live on around $10K a year (single guy with his own studio under a 15-year mortgage plan), but I live in the Philippines where cost of living is considerably lower.

I looked up the cost of living. According to a website I consulted, an apartment similar to what I have costs the equivalent of $20 a month. I pay $425 a month. And that's considered a deal in my area (it eats up about half my monthly income).

[Koumei]

After rent (around $6K a year), I get by on $7K (Australian money) a year.

It will get worse once I move, what with more expensive rent, and bills not being included under the rent, but a friend owes me $900 and is able to start repaying, and I hope to get work soon. If I can find a place to hire me full-time then even on a low adult wage ($15/hour) that will more than double what I get now, and I'll even be able to start saving up again. I miss having over nine thousand dollars piled up in the bank as spare funds I didn't need to do anything with. I could even donate to charity again.

[erik]

For the record, my comment about not being able to live on $50k was the necessary setup for my following punchline.

In Indianapolis. I have a stay at home wife, a mortgage, car payment (other car is paid off), wife's student loans, a 18 month old and another baby on the way. Am doing fine with well under $50k/year. On the other hand many of my co-workers have family incomes double to what mine is and they still live paycheck to paycheck (in fact, my family income is less than any of my coworkers since they are all two-income families). *facepalms*

Seems like people live within their means, or beyond them in some cases, no matter what those means may be.

We're actually trying to sell the house so we can get into a larger home... though selling it seems to be quite the feat right now. We're probably gonna be stuck here for a while thanks to the craptastic market or until we decide to practically give it away.

My wife has done charity work doing free taxes for people and she often would be doing taxes for people who are getting by with more kids on less money. Definitely doable.

If wife started working as an accountant again then I could pay off the car and house in a few years and have essentially no debt. My dream is that in a few years time she will go back to work, I will either go part time or quit and get to take care of kids and home school and what not.

[RandomCasualty2]

In Indianapolis. I have a stay at home wife, a mortgage, car payment (other car is paid off), wife's student loans, a 18 month old and another baby on the way. Am doing fine with well under $50k/year.

Wow, that's some nice budget balancing there.