You Cannot Win An Election With Strong Disapprovals Like This

[WillK]

Why pay $50k in government expenditure to create a new job when you could create a job for only $5k in expenditure? You wouldn't.

A hypothetical statement laden with assumptions.

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Rubbish.  This conclusion doesn't magically follow from the hypothetical given previously.

[WillK]

See I think one of the things people don't realize is that by themselves stock market losses don't destroy wealth and stock market gains don't create wealth. You see it written up all of the time in news articles by halfwit journalists("the US markets lost $200 billion this week"), but they just fundamentally do not understand the basic functioning of markets.

The rest of your post suggest you dont understand the basic functioning of markets either.

[WillK]

Why pay $50k in government expenditure to create a new job when you could create a job for only $5k in expenditure? You wouldn't.

A hypothetical statement laden with assumptions.

Please enlighten us!

Examples:
Assumption -- "you could create a job for only $5k"
Assumption -- job B ("create a job for only $5k") is at least equivalent to job A  (created by government expenditure).

If true, this sounds like a wonderful proposition.  But one has to buy into the assumptions to go along with this argument.

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Rubbish.  This conclusion doesn't magically follow from the hypothetical given previously.
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It doesn't magically follow anything, but it does logically follow it.
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I used the word 'magically' since logic seemed absent from your statement. 

[WillK]

See I think one of the things people don't realize is that by themselves stock market losses don't destroy wealth and stock market gains don't create wealth. You see it written up all of the time in news articles by halfwit journalists("the US markets lost $200 billion this week"), but they just fundamentally do not understand the basic functioning of markets.

The rest of your post suggest you dont understand the basic functioning of markets either.

Well feel free to point out where then, instead of copping out!

See I think one of the things people don't realize is that by themselves stock market losses don't destroy wealth and stock market gains don't create wealth. You see it written up all of the time in news articles by halfwit journalists("the US markets lost $200 billion this week"), but they just fundamentally do not understand the basic functioning of markets.

The rest of your post suggest you dont understand the basic functioning of markets either.

Well feel free to point out where then, instead of copping out!

You wrote "by themselves stock market losses don't destroy wealth and stock market gains don't create wealth".   In economic terms, wealth is a measure of net worth or the difference between assets minus liabilities.  The value of assets and liabilities are typically measured using a money price.  Stocks are an asset.   If the price of stocks goes down, the value of that assets owned goes down, and unless there is an equal or greater decrease in liabilities, then wealth goes down.

[WillK]

So your argument is that a $50k job created by the government and a $50k job created by a private individual, I'm making an assumption that one created by a private individual may not be as personally fulfilling to the person as the one created by government, is that what your saying? Or what are you saying?

I didnt write anything about a job being "personally fulfilling to the person".  
My argument is that you are presenting an either our -- either "50K" or "5K"  expended to create a job -- with an assumption that the two scenarios have equivalent outcomes.

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How are you not following it? Its pretty clear cut. If someone agrees that with the idea of a job only 10% funded by the government and 90% by an investor all you have to do is just flip the person who is the one deciding on the need for the job(the private individual instead of the Gov.) and the by product is a tax credit for hiring and the rest is payed for by the private individual. $45k funded by investor and $5k funded by government = approximately the same thing as entrepreneur hires $50k worker and receives $5k tax credit. There is 0 difference in those two things. I just phrased it in a language that pro-government stimulus people would understand.
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The originally phrase was "tax cuts are a much more efficient way to create jobs than government expenditure" with no qualifier that the tax cut was linked to hiring.  

If your point is giving a company a tax credit is essentially the same as giving that same company an equal direct expenditure, then sure.   But so?

[WillK]

In the absence of the creation or destruction of money or goods an overall stock market decline must result in another asset increasing in value.

One could argue, as you seemed to be, that a decline in stock market prices indicates that value of cash has gone up as measured in shares since #ofshares/$ is the reciprocal of $/#ofshares.  But we measure the economy in $ not in  # of shares of stock.

I have to go to work now.  Will check in later in the day.

[WillK]

Okay, now I see. You just misunderstood. In the example, $50k gets spent in both cases.

I understood the construct of your scenario.  But it seems to me that there have to be a lot of assumptions or agreements or even regulations to ensure that the 5K from the public sector is actually matched by 45k from the private sector and actually leads to creation of an equivalent or better job.    If such a scenario exists, then sure, it would be an effective way for the public sector to leverage its resources.     But this hypothetical scenario doesnt prove that "tax cuts are a much more efficient way to create jobs than government expenditure" since it is based on criteria (such as the 45K match from the private sector that leads to creating a job) that are not universally inherent in tax cuts.

[WillK]

Look the situation that created this topic was the S&P downgrade of US Treasuries. Bryan made the argument that it had done damage to the economy because the stock market fell ...

I saw Bryan make an argument about the "debt ceiling fiasco".  In your responses you seemed to  twist his argument to make it about the S&P downgrade.

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I didnt see Bryan make that specific argument.

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If during those 5 days, the price of XYZ dropped relative to ABC, then wealth would have been destroyed as at the end of the two transactions, the investors would hold less ABC than they had originally.   
 
Clipped the discussion of purchasing power dynamics since its beside the point to the question of whether changes in asset values result in changes in wealth.

[WillK]

In the case of both infrastructure spending and private sector hiring the government isn't going to be able to set wages.

The wage rate is irrelevant to what I am saying.   My point of contention is the assumption that the mechanism will produce the result -- that the tax cut will lead to hiring, that the hypothetical X% public contribution will be met by a (100-X)% outlay by the private sector. 

[WillK]

Well essentially he did I just summarized it. Saying that minor stock price decreases and bond price increases caused consumer confidence to deteriorate leading to less buying and the less hiring is essentially the same thing as the statement I provided above except the one above is a summary position.

You do not seem to have grasped Bryan's argument, since you restatement of it is off.  

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I can.  Clipping text from a dialogue box is something I can do.   Your diatribe on purchasing power is all well and good, but its is an attempt to shift the discussion away from what it was about since you have already essentially had to walk back your initial statement.  

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This kind of remark suggests you are feeling insecure about your arguments.  
I dont need to trip you up; your falling on your own.