[rambler]

This doesn't have anything to do with homesteading.....

Wind chill is 8 degrees today, I've been farming non stop for over a month, so just sitting in the house today. Need a down day.

Been watching a Twin Cities PBS station, 15 minute segments on rebuilding some run down places in the Twin Cities mostly this afternoon.

Interesting stuff.

They covered the Ford plant, and the Willies plant making autos, Montgomery Wards and Sears (the Amazon of their day!). The warehouse district where many goods were stored and shipped. Auto sales lots. More manufacturing buildings than I can remember.

All this gets turned into affordable housing, artist lofts, many restaurants, a library.

They talk of all the jobs that were created!

But - seems it is all govt subsidized for lofts or low income living, and low pay service jobs. Govt jobs at the library.

Not a single thing is manufacturing or growing something. There was one became office space, but looked to be offices supporting service businesses.

How does any of this revitalize an area, how does it really improve long term?

Govt grants get the buildings rebuilt, and that is an influx of money for sure.

But service businesses like nail solons or food restaurant need people walking in the door with money in their pockets.

Where does that money come from to keep the ball rolling?

time and again, they talk of keeping manufacturing out of the beautiful old area..... Don't want smelly old businesses there when we can have these old manufacturing buildings renovated into artist lofts......

Seems like it would be a self fulfilling disaster that way. There is no planning to create any wealth there? And I'm using the term -wealth- loosely, not making people filthy rich, I mean making jobs that add an extra $10,000 a year to long term employees so they can spend more on nails, and housing, and cars, so the whole thing keeps growing.

Just strikes me as backwards.

Paul

 

[plowjockey]

Not a lot of choice. larger sucessful businesses have moved out for good.

Either revitalize and maintain downtown with Government money, or bulldoze it down.

Exact same thing in my small home town.

The elementary school was changed to low income senior housing - at about $250k per unit. Same thing happening across the street now with 100 year old factory. The downtown still is shabby and with half of stores closed permanently, Walmart Supermarket, Doctors, and all the drug stores etc are on the North edge of town, requiring transportation, for the Seniors.

 

[where I want to]

There is a mind set in the public grant people - you always hear things like 'for every dollar spent on food stamps, it creates two dollars of business income.' Yet I can't get anyone to tell me how paying for a benefit actually creates anything. They only take money from someone and shift it to another but the taking part seems to be always left out of the calculation.

 

[mmoetc]

There is a mind set in the public grant people - you always hear things like 'for every dollar spent on food stamps, it creates two dollars of business income.' Yet I can't get anyone to tell me how paying for a benefit actually creates anything. They only take money from someone and shift it to another but the taking part seems to be always left out of the calculation.

You could ask Walmart, Target or any of the large and small groceries what impact a program like SNAP had on their bottom line. All of that increased spending of program dollars creates jobs in those stores and everywhere down the supply chain that gets that box of macaroni and cheese to their shelf. Here's a simplified explanation of how the multiplier effect works. http://education-portal.com/academy...nding-multiplier-definition-and-examples.html. You can argue whether its an appropriate use of tax dollars but it's hard to argue that it doesn't work.

 

[where I want to]

Need something written and not video and not requiring a charge.

But as to Target and Walmart- wealth redistribution only effects who ends up with the money, not creating more money. Yes, those business get profit from welfare dollars but maybe the guy install kitchen cabinets has less business because of taxed away money, while his wood and tool supplier feels the pinch too.

Hmmm..... Maybe welfare is a contributing cause in more ways than just eliminating the pool of workers. Maybe welfare takes enough money by taxing that only cheap overseas goods can sell in the first place.

 

[mmoetc]

Need something written and not video and not requiring a charge.

But as to Target and Walmart- wealth redistribution only effects who ends up with the money, not creating more money. Yes, those business get profit from welfare dollars but maybe the guy install kitchen cabinets has less business because of taxed away money, while his wood and tool supplier feels the pinch too.

Hmmm..... Maybe welfare is a contributing cause in more ways than just eliminating the pool of workers. Maybe welfare takes enough money by taxing that only cheap overseas goods can sell in the first place.

If I click on the link and scroll down the explanation is presented.

The same theory applies to trickle down economics and tax cuts for high income earners. It's all a matter of whether you think that money will create more economic activity from the top down or the bottom up.

 

[unregistered358967]

I live near there. It's a short-term fix. 99% of the slow death imvho started when families moved out of Mpls/StP into the suburbs during the 1940s-50s..after the war, many husbands commuted into Mpls-wives stayed at home and went to the new suburb shopping malls. The weather here is cold 50% of the time. Skyways were a great fix to keep people warm as they traveled around the city on foot, but street traffic suffered.

The big buzz lately is building affordable housing within walking distance of everything. It's great for singles and empty nesters, but not so much for families who want a little bit more space. We have some high paying jobs in the cities, but nothing like Silicon Valley..not enough to support people going out and spending a ton of money on a regular basis night after night after night. To keep families IN the city, you need good schools, and there are a few..but most of the city public schools are iffy.

During the summer, restaurants do really well..but in the winter, not as well as few people (me included) feel like driving into the city to go out to eat. There's pockets in Mpls that do well, people live nearby and it's easy for them to catch the bus or walk.

Most of the big companies seem to put their warehouses/headquarters out into the suburbs - more land and probably some sort of tax incentive. As the river and trains isn't the only way to ship goods (as it was when many of those downtown warehouses were built), companies are able to put their headquarters in other places. There's a book and I think it was a TV show on PBS too called "Lost Twin Cities". It was a good read..lots of interesting architecture that was eventually torn down in the name of progress. ooh, found it~ http://video.tpt.org/video/2258262175/

Besides, this is really a moot point..their current obsession is the new Vikings stadium!

 

[Sawmill Jim]

There is a mind set in the public grant people - you always hear things like 'for every dollar spent on food stamps, it creates two dollars of business income.' Yet I can't get anyone to tell me how paying for a benefit actually creates anything. They only take money from someone and shift it to another but the taking part seems to be always left out of the calculation.

Another mind set is that all this free money comes from taxing the people ,which is just what TPTB want the common people to think .That we pay for things threw taxes is a diversion ,only . Not many even know why a income tax was put in effect . People refuse to get the concept that all this printed out of thin air money will never be paid back . They refuse to accept we have had the biggest scam in the history of the world pulled on us .

 

[where I want to]

Multiplier effect of welfare- what a hoot of selected statistics.

The theory seems to be that if you give money to a poor person, then they spend it and all the people they buy from get a share and then they can use the money themselves.

Now to edit back in some of the missing details. The theory seems to be that (after you hire someone and create the infrastructure to collect taxes) if you give money to a poor person (after you create the infrastructure and pay someone to administer the program) they then spend the money (at businesses who have to pay to have special equipment and train their personnel who also spend much time using the various expensive government systems to get this money) and all the people they buy from get a share (that costs either themselves or the government more money that if someone hands them cash) and they can use it themselves.
I suspect that it costs the government at least $1.25 to hand out a dollar. And I suspect the value of a welfare dollar is about 94% of a cash dollar to the business that collects it But then the government can tax that same dollar everytime it makes a trip around the drain, even if they keep having to print more and more of it to do so as more and more is clipped off supporting people and machines that serve no other purpose than to take money from one person and send to another.

The only multiplier involved is the one that makes more government.

 

[Sawmill Jim]

The only multiplier involved is the one that makes more government.
Well now you are getting closer to the true Illusion of Money .And to add to your above statement to make wealth for the owners of the Fed. Those people just turn their worthless paper into real assets like gold and other hard assets while we play the our tax money waste game :hammer:

 

[arabian knight]

No mater what the government does they are not going to save Sears, nor will they save K-Mart no matter how much a city tries to vitalize some area.
That makes 3 K-Marts in the last 3 years now i am not even sure how far a person has to go to find another one. 80 miles, 90 miles, something like that. And Sears is already on the downward spiral to a bottomless pit of being no more.

 

[TraciInTexas]

There are no K-Marts around here, and haven't been for a decade or two... We do have El Mercados, though.

 

[rambler]

If I click on the link and scroll down the explanation is presented.

The same theory applies to trickle down economics and tax cuts for high income earners. It's all a matter of whether you think that money will create more economic activity from the top down or the bottom up.

I can understand both trickle down or trickle up working, and it would say we end up needing some of each.

Seems the trickle down plans have a short term duration, a kick start.

The trickle up plans like Snap, which used to be food Sta,ps, seems to have started in the 1940s and after 70 yeas are not kick starting anything, but just get bigger and bigger of their own.

If the trickle up plans kick started something, and then let business work on its own.....

But it doesn't work that way.

Perhaps we would be better off with less govt, less trickling in either direction, and let business and workers work, with a much smaller safety net for those who truly try but hit a bad patch.

I can dream......

Paul

 

[plowjockey]

There is a mind set in the public grant people - you always hear things like 'for every dollar spent on food stamps, it creates two dollars of business income.' Yet I can't get anyone to tell me how paying for a benefit actually creates anything. They only take money from someone and shift it to another but the taking part seems to be always left out of the calculation.

You are only making an assumption, that all people who are on SNAP, do not have income from elsewhere, which they will usually also spend, not save. Those who take snap to Walmart, buy a bunch of other stuff there also.

SNAP helps create profits, for businesses who accepts it and for food product manufactures. That why they lobby for more.

Is it fair? Doesn't matter, to those who benefit from it one way or another.

 

[unregistered358967]

Yep - my Papa Murphy's accepts SNAP. I don't necessarily agree with it but I'm sure it brings in more business for them..

 

[where I want to]

You are only making an assumption, that all people who are on SNAP, do not have income from elsewhere, which they will usually also spend, not save. Those who take snap to Walmart, buy a bunch of other stuff there also.

SNAP helps create profits, for businesses who accepts it and for food product manufactures. That why they lobby for more.

Is it fair? Doesn't matter, to those who benefit from it one way or another.

But they would have spent the money they worked for anyway, so adding money taken away from taxpayers simply means a shift in location of the money. You take from some people who would have spent it at one business and give to another who spent it at a different business.

You raised the issue of fairness yourself- I just said the so called multiplier effect is silly.

 

[Nimrod]

The multiplier effect is very real.

The truth is that you are taking money (taxes) from someone that would spend it anyway, using some of the money to administer the SNAP program, and giving the reduced amount to a poor person that will spend it. Assuming that the people administrating the SNAP program spend their cut then the amount of money spent is the same and the results of the multiplier effect is the same. The multiplier effect makes no difference. It is not a valid argument for food stamps.

What you are doing is redistributing the wealth from someone that makes enough to pay taxes to someone that doesn't. Please show me where in the Constitution this power is granted to the federal gooberment.

 

[BlackFeather]

I heard an economist (Bill Bonner I think) explain the multiplier effect, I hire my neighbor to mow my lawn and pay 20 dollars, he hires his neighbor and pays him 20 dollars, and so on down the street, then finally I go and mow the last neighbors lawn, was any wealth created? According to the example my 20 dollar made hundreds of dollars, but obviously it didn't. If the multiplier effect was good why do we charge kids with vandalism? They break a window, I have to replace it so I buy one from the store, he buys glass from the supplier and so on how have I grown richer? True wealth comes from the ground. Whether it is mined, grown, raised or refined. Gold or silver, pork bellies, coffee beans, or finished products like glass windows. It all starts from the earth. The labor to dig, plant, or herd is converted into wealth. The raw product from the earth is refined into hamburg, bread, or the stove you cook or bake it in. Wealth comes by adding labor to what comes from the earth. Follow everything back and it comes from the earth with our labor added. Anything else is just printing money and has no true wealth.