Germany Calls U.S. Plan To Save Euro “Stupid”

German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble left little question about his view of the wisdom of the economic policies of the Obama Administration. Schauble called the U.S. plan to pour trillions of dollars into the bailout fund “stupid” and said it would destroy the AAA ratings for the members — precisely what occurred to the U.S. this year. There is rising criticism of the economic views of Timothy Geithner, who some view as steering the U.S. into massive and unproductive spending.

It is rare to see such a public rebuke in diplomatic circles and highlights the lingering questions of the Administration’s policies of pumping huge amounts of money into the market and into jobs programs.

The Obama jobs plan has received little support on the Hill where critics are charging that the plan will cost $200,000 a job — an assertion defenders have called misleading. ABC News reported “Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner didn’t dispute a Harvard economist’s estimate that each job in the White House’s jobs plan would cost $200,000, but said the pricetag is the wrong way to measure the bill’s worth.”

I tend to be a bit skeptical of the government being able to prime the pump with huge bailouts and stimulus handouts. Similarly, the last stimulus fund created for shovel-ready projects appears to have been largely a failure from a cost-benefit perspective. That perspective is not helped with President Obama now saying that there is “no such thing” as shovel-ready jobs after using the pitch to sell the last massive fund.

What do you think?

Source: Telegraph