Why the "Stimulus" Didn't Work as Well as Hoped

Most experts without a horse in the race agree it did work, but not nearly as well as it might have, because most of the money went to the wrong people – those at the top, who are hoarding it rather than spending it. Now those same hoarders and their muppets claim we must cut public entitlements like Social Security in order to address the deficit. But as Corrente explains:

"Jamie Galbraith is 100% correct . . . ; modern money is a spreadsheet:

[M]oney is a spreadsheet! It works by computer! When government spends or lends, it does so by adding numbers to private bank accounts. When it taxes, it marks those same accounts down. When it borrows, it shifts funds from a demand deposit (called a reserve account) to savings (called a securities account). And that for practical purposes is all there is. The money government spends doesn't come from anywhere, and it doesn't cost anything to produce. The government therefore cannot run out.

"(So much, therefore, for the ideology underlying the Cat Food Commission [the Deficit Commission appointed by Pres. Obama and headed by Alan Simpson, notorious opponent of Social Security], which is, in short form, that 'We're running out of money ZOMG!' and so the [Masters of the Universe, a.k.a. the "MOTU"], in order to continue to live the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed, must -- Must, I tell you! Must! -- strategically default on their obligations to elders under Social Security, and use that money for themselves.)

So, was Julie's program a success? The answer, too, NPR hides in plain sight, right in the lead:

In the face of the financial crisis, the Federal Reserve decided to buy $1.25 trillion of mortgage-backed bonds as part of its effort to prop up the economy . . .

Whenever you read "the economy," ask yourself "Whose economy?" And the answer to that question couldn't be more clear. [See chart at right {and click on it for a larger version}; via The Big Picture; sorry, no link provided to the exact post.]

"The stack on the right is money used for public purpose: The New Deal, for example. The stack on the left is money handed to the banksters in the bailouts. Different, aren't they? Like, the public stack is a lot smaller, and spread over 200 (two hundred) years. And the bankster stack is a lot bigger, and took place all in 1 (one) year. Any questions? [And the stack on the right gets a lot smaller if you consider the wars to have been more for the benefit of the military-industrial-oil complex than for a "public" purpose.]

"So, indeed, the program was a 'success.' The banksters and the MOTU put the rest of us peasants on the hook for $22 trillion dollars, kept their jobs, kept their bonuses, never did the perp walk in orange jumpsuits on the teebee for accounting control fraud, and are still too big to fail. Mission accomplished!"

The Big Picture's also got a great post-with-charts on the Bush tax cuts, showing just how much more massively the rich would benefit from extending the cuts than the rest of us would.