Obama: Too much debt could fuel double-dip recession

[Bigsmc]

Originally Posted by joeydb

OK, I don't doubt you, however, let me ask -- unless you did the accounting yourself, would you have a number on how much it benefitted, both in terms of increased profits and any "jobs saved"?

In the simplest case, let's say you owned the company. You were planning to lay off people, because you had to and the balance sheet was in the red. Then you get a shot in the arm from the government and no longer need to lay people off. That's obviously a legitimate case where you could say jobs were saved. You knew you had to lay people off, you knew how many, you're obviously not deceiving yourself -- that's all real.

Now, go to the more common case where you can't be sure of the validity of any information from the bookkeeping, management or legal arms of the company. Many would argue that the potential for deception is high, saying "Oh yeah, we had jobs saved as a result of the stimulus." That's where a lot of the skepticism comes from on this issue.

I don't have numbers, but I know we are much busier in the fourth quarter of this year and steadily hiring. The only thing that has changed from the first three quarters is that we have several stimulus funded (or stimulus assisted) projects.

Increased profits have nothing to do with the package, they have to do with our performance. Also, the bidding for these projects is ravenous so you have to anticipate that the margins will be slightly lower.

*regrets entering the politics/society room*