Let no one claim that economists are boring; for after attending the Stimulus SmackDown here at UC Davis on Wednesday night, I can certifiably say that while economics may make Rachael Ray look interesting by comparison, economists make Rachael Ray look, well, like Rachael Ray.

For those of you who missed it, the Stimulus SmackDown was a loosely moderated intellectual brawl between economists Brad DeLong of UC Berkeley and Michele Boldrin of Washington University of St. Louis. Boldrin is known most recently for being a signatory on the Cato Institute’s (Read: Republican Party’s [Further read: Corporation‘s]) full page advertisement in The New York Times notifying the president that the stimulus won’t work and that tax cuts will solve all our problems. DeLong is known most recently for saying that Boldrin is an idiot. Literally.

So it was a fun talk. What’s interesting though is that reasoning behind the stimulus underlies much of Obama’s budget proposal and, equally important, the very same neo-Hooverites like Boldrin who got their feelings hurt over the stimulus are pushing hard against that proposal.

So if for no other reason than an intellectual exercise in beating a dead horse, let’s take a look at what went down at the smackdown.

The argument advanced by Boldrin after much backtracking from his Cato ad eventually amounted to the claim that he wasn’t against a stimulus per se; he was just against this stimulus. The usual talking points ensued: the tax cuts are too small, the spending too slow, the tax cuts aren’t for businesses or capital gains, the spending projects don’t target the sectors in need of stimulus, etc.

Naturally, I firmly disagree, as did DeLong. Here’s why.

On the tax cut argument, economist Mark Zandi’s widely used research shows that for each dollar the government forfeits by cutting the capital gains tax, corporate tax and keeping Bush’s tax cuts in place just 37 cents, 30 cents and 29 cents of economic activity are generated, respectively. This is paltry.

Tax rebates, as we saw in the spring of 2008, and tax cuts, as we saw for the past eight years, are terrible at generating long-term demand. I will say this, and I will only say this once: Milton Friedman had a good idea; people don’t act based on what’s in their pockets now, they act based on what they think will be in their pockets in the future. If you give them jobs they can count on, they’ll spend that first paycheck like they expect another one. But if you just throw Benjamins at them or cut their taxes, they’ll sit on Ben’s face with the knowledge that it might be the last cash they’ll get in a long while (unless they’re really poor: Food stamps have a $1.73 boost for every $1 spent).

Contrast that with government spending. Again according to Zandi, $1.59 of economic activity gets generated for every dollar the government spends on infrastructure and $1.36 for every dollar you give to states. That’s why you spend instead of cutting taxes.

The notion that government spending doesn’t work is garbage; it does work, and if you put that money in the right places it will keep working for generations. We know this empirically; spending by firms using borrowed money to meet demand is basically how the economy grows. As DeLong put it in the debate, “Why should the government’s money be any different than anyone else’s?”

The Great Depression also played a central roll in the D-Town SmackDown. But those who appeal to the 1930s to knock government spending totally miss the point.

Groups like Cato and people like Boldrin basically make the following argument: “The New Deal only cut unemployment from 25 percent in 1933 to 19 percent in 1938, and World War II was the only thing that got us out of the depression. Therefore, New Deal spending was a failure.“

Well, yes and no.

Back in 1937 FDR stopped his spending programs in the name of a balanced budget, and, OMFG, the more than 10 percent improvement in unemployment from 1933 to 1937 regressed.

So yes, it took WWII to get us out of the Depression; by 1948 unemployment was just 3.8 percent. But what was World War II but a giant, deficit-driven stimulus package? The national debt went from 50 percent of GDP in 1942 to 123 percent in 1945, but it’s important to note that if the debts were created to fund investment. They were paid off thanks to the increased revenue generated by high employment, a large middle class and high taxes on the rich (88 percent on the highest bracket until 1963 when Kennedy lowered it to 70 percent; currently it’s 35 percent and capital gains are just 15 percent), and the decades that followed were the most broadly prosperous in our history.

So, what about this time around? Obama thinks he can create or save 3 to 4 million jobs, but lets look at the figures.

We’ve lost 3.6 million jobs since the start of the recession and by Obama’s numbers we would lose another 5 million jobs in 2009 without the stimulus. Now, 8.6 million jobs is a big number, but it gets bigger. We need over 100,000 new jobs each month just to keep up with population growth, so really we’re down at least 5 million jobs right now and would be down by 11.2 million without the stimulus.

This is reflected in the employment to population ratio, which currently stands at a 22-year low.

So Obama’s 3 to 4 million figure is pretty weak, but it gets weaker; it was based on the original stimulus, and the actual law is expected to generate just 2.2 million jobs from now through December 2009. So really this plan will at best cover one quarter of the 2008-2009 hole. And with commercial real estate starting to implode, threatening to bring hundreds of regional banks down with it, plus the $750 billion of adjustable rate mortgages getting ready to recast, that hole could get even deeper.

That said, I’d rather see some of that hole get filled than none of it. As DeLong pointed out, the success of this package and of this budget will be evident not by what happens, but by what doesn‘t happen. It’s not a matter of “dropping the unemployment level two-tenths of a percentage point over the next two years,“ as my coworker James Noonan stated a while back, it’s a matter of keeping it from going up another five.

Furthermore, it completely misses the point to claim that the stimulus is an attempt to “claw our way out of debt.“ The national debt is a problem, but it’s not the problem and it’s certainly not this problem.

Finally, I’m trying to understand how things like the electric grid, public transit, schools and Medicaid are “failed entitlement programs.“ It seems to me that having teachers, subways, a healthy population and electricity have been pretty successful.

Even Boldrin was in support of these sorts of provisions; he just didn’t seem to think that they’re in the stimulus. To be fair to Boldrin, there are aspects of this bill that aren’t at all simulative; the $8,000 housing tax credit and the AMT patch among them. But that doesn’t detract from the genuine benefits, however inadequate, the stimulus will have.

Given the neglect of the past 30 years, rebuilding this country won’t be accomplished by the stimulus alone, and even what’s in the budget isn’t going to cover the $2.2 trillion in infrastructure spending the American Society of Civil Engineers says we need to fix our shit.

But it’s a start, and it’s a start that’s long overdue.

K.C. CODY thought the best part of the debate was the “Swedish model“ comment. That or the holocaust joke. He told you economists aren’t boring. Ask for details at kccody@ucdavis.edu.

Super Senior,

Are you getting pressure from your parents to graduate? Are they disappointed that you haven’t finished college yet? What would you say your biggest reason for staying a fifth year would be? If you had the opportunity to stay a sixth year, would you?

Future Super Senior

I’ve been in a particularly rare situation that’s allowed me to press my luck and my parent’s wallets for an extra year; namely, I’m a student athlete. However, I didn’t get here by being one; I was a walk-on that had to make the cross country and track teams via multiple time trials. But since my freshman year, what with me being such a badass, I’ve been put on a little money. That’s helped defray the cost of a fifth year, though it hasn’t totally compensated. Thankfully, though, my parents have been absolutely supportive in my decision to compete, and therefore be enrolled, for a fifth year.

Before you lambaste me for being a lazy jock who’s just stretching out his time here majoring in communication or doing “independent study,” let me remind you that 81 percent of UC Davis student athletes graduate by five years, whereas only 73 percent of non-student athletes do.

That said, I must confess that I am taking a sixth year. And a seventh. In graduate school.

Now, if you were really asking about your parents, not mine, I suggest taking on more responsibility for other areas of your life besides the funding of your education. Get an internship or a job, do some career research, take the GRE, just do something to show them you’re serious about your future.

They’ll feel better parting with their salary if they think it’s going someplace more productive than Citi.

Super Senior,

If you could do one thing differently at UC Davis, what would it be?

Inquiring Mind

I’d go to another country and study a broad. I know there’re plenty of broads to study here in Davis, but I always pictured a foreign setting being much more elucidating.

No but seriously folks, if I could do it over again I’d definitely spend a quarter in another country. We’re excessively myopic and insulated here, not just as Americans in general but as Californians specifically, and getting outside of your cultural, social and economic comfort zones is an essential part of understanding the world.

To my mind, there’s no better way to do that than to put your ass on a plane to China, Costa Rica, France, wherever, just so long as you end up someplace that tests and enlightens you.

Besides, Davis is depressing over the winter, brutally hot over the summer and boring year round. So take advantage of the opportunity to find some less offensive conditions and import a little culture back to Davis … we’ll thank you for it.

Super Senior,

Tonight my friends and I were eating at the DC in Segundo and we saw this guy at the end of the table. We started talking about him and my friend thought he was attractive (she likes facial hair). Let’s call her Kate. Anyhow, as we left I noticed that he had a track and field backpack on, so when we got back to the dorms we (Kate and I) checked the team roster and looked at their pictures. I think we may have found the right person, but when we checked Facebook, he didn’t have a picture. What should Kate do now? My friend really liked him and his mustache.

The girl with a facial hair loving freak of a friend.

Before I respond, let me first say that your friend has impeccable taste. It’s rare indeed that a woman is able to perceive the unbridled masculinity that is the 70s porn-star ‘stash, and even more exceptional that she would also have the same name as my cousin.

Anyhow, you bring up an interesting and fruitful topic; that of online stalking. Back in the before time, in the long-long ago, during the era before the internets, there was something called the “missed connections” section in the classifieds of what were once “newspapers.” This is where desperately lonely people cried out for affection to other desperately lonely people and also attempted to sell used lawnmowers.

Thanks to Facebook and it’s developmentally disabled half-brother MySpace, this phenomenon has become obsolete; we no longer need to scream into the darkness of print media, but are instead able to send e-mails to people in whom we’re interested in less than 45 minutes after we first see them without being distracted by a GREAT DEAL MOWER 5.5HP LIKE NEW!!! $70 OBO!!!

This is a good thing for everyone. There’s little inhibition, less fear of judgment and rejection isn’t nearly as harsh. Besides, you can flirt online in your whitie-tighties and a sweat-stained sports bra without any repercussions, and that’s pretty sweet.

Back when I was a freshman, the vast majority of my pursuits played out on Facebook for those very reasons (don’t judge the sports bra … it’s a long story). And based on your inquiry, it appears little has changed for the current crop.

Obviously, the most important aspect of Facebook is the pre-operational intelligence gathering, i.e. the stalking. This allows you to enter into courtship with a full arsenal of essential information. What kind of music does she like? Is she actually as hot as her profile picture? Does she have a big brother or an ex-boyfriend? Maybe a current boyfriend? Is he in the military? Are her friends more attractive than her? Can you use her to get to them? If you are a bad kisser cheat on her say the wrong name in bed make a tactical error, would the other girls you’re trying to date find out? Does she live in the same house with one of those other girls?

You know, the basics.

Information in hand, goals prioritized, risks understood and calculated, the Internet allows you to then actively manage your persona; you control what information she has access to; when, where and how you make contact; and the context, frequency and content of conversations. She has of course done the same research and is doing the same farcical Photoshopping you are. But it’s a mutually accepted farce, and so long as you meet when it’s somewhat dark out, no one’s the wiser.

Now, although Kate has done an admirable job gathering information outside of Mr. Zuckerberg’s Neverland Ranch, it sounds like she’s hit a roadblock. My sympathies for her are heartfelt, for I understand the frustration generated by a profile set to private to keep grad school admissions committees and the NCAA in the dark.

So here’s your next move:

Tell Kate I say hi.

K.C. CODY would like to point out that if a guy had written that last e-mail to a girl, he would be in prison. Keep ’em coming to kccody@ucdavis.edu.

Dancing off the jeebies of a recent police scare at a Sound Tribe Sector 9 show, I stumbled upon what could be one of the greater truths of our era. Modern American culture places a premium on being watched. To be seen or heard about through an artifice of media – be it Newsweek, Facebook, YouTube or a karaoke bar – is a desirable thing. Through repeated mass exposure, one stands to increase social stature. To live a more public, that is, less private, life is to be a person of covetable significance. The more strangers know of you, the better.

This cultural more extends from the bloggers and booty-shakers of Internet 2.0 to the fake, tanned surgery junkies of Hollywood to the ‘underground cities‘ of domestic surveillance – the NSA, CIA and FBI.

We like being watched – and we are.

It’s essentially instinctive. The first time a sentient brain recognized itself on a still pond’s surface, it was fascinated to see its self where its self was not. America, the land of (imported) plenty, has the singular potential to take human instinct to the utmost extreme. Of course, this manipulation of human nature is used for political ends.

The cult of celebrity starts small and innocently enough, at school plays, talent shows and spelling bees. As we mature, we come to know faces on television and on the glossy covers of supermarket tabloids. Later in life, this gradual inoculation evokes in us a ceaseless hunger to be seen to the point where we voluntarily share the minutiae of our lives with an anonymous public. After this, the conditioning is complete. To emulate the celebrities we’ll never meet and always be told to revere, we welcome the sacrifice of our freedoms.

On personal profile sites Facebook and MySpace we freely reveal who we know and how we spend our time. Thirteen million Facebook users update their ‘status‘ message every day. Seventy-six million unique visitors pass through MySpace every month. As much as we value our right to privacy, it seems young Americans will voluntarily waive it if it means people will look at us. The eye in the sky certainly won’t need to strain itself if citizens casually drop their exact whereabouts, attire and likely illicit behavior on Twitter.

“Goin out wit da homiez to central park. gonna burn some chronic!!“ may be the last you hear of an unlettered classmate in the future.

As we live and function as consumers in daily life, we leave behind a trail of information about ourselves. We punch time clocks, commute monitored roadways, swipe personalized credit cards, relay phone messages, check into airports and leave the digital fingerprint of our IP addresses on every webpage we browse. This information is tangibly created and recorded. If you had the inclination, you could trace every step of an individual’s existence. Anonymity has left America.

Pundits will have you believe that this information is sought after by ‘cyber-terrorists‘ and identity thieves, but what they really mean is the NSA. The National Security Agency, or ‘No Such Agency‘ to its employees, is the most technologically sophisticated, socially penetrating and fiscally wasteful eavesdropping machine ever devised. Its Maryland headquarters lies behind cement barriers and electrified fences lined with barbed wire, watched by motion sensors and patrolled by attack dogs and guards toting assault rifles. It’s a 30,000-employee city, one of the largest municipalities in the state. It imports raw data by the terabyte and exports 80 percent of the federal government’s so-called intelligence. Following September 11, the NSA and similar redundant agencies were expanded to an authoritarian degree that would make Orwell’s head spin.

Their job, see, is to identify, locate and capture dangerous anti-establishment terrorists. But how do they know where to look? Just pick anyone suspicious. How do they know who’s suspicious? That’s anyone’s guess. The federal government sure doesn’t know, as the NSA is capable of refusing to disclose sensitive files as it did in the 1999 Echelon case. What do they monitor? Any form of information – phone calls, e-mails, faxes, traffic footage, security footage, footage from those weird little black domes. Have they ever watched you? No one can know. And that’s the whole point.

The scheme is sold under the premise of ‘security,‘ which is a dumbfounding example of doublespeak. ‘Security‘ in America means to be constantly at risk of arrest with the government the only witness.

Our mental defenses against a surveillance culture are weakened by the aforementioned cult of celebrity. Gradually we forget the importance of keeping things to ourselves, forget the importance of holding things private, forget the importance of taking personal power over others‘ knowledge of our lives. All this we forget, and think: Well, if I’m being watched, at least I’m important to somebody.

As I jogged to the Filmore lobby to take a 15-second leak between hour-long sets of funky techno rock, there loomed a massive plasmascreen blaring advertisements. Attractive, porcelain-skinned faces swam over the screen’s mass, hocking pharmaceutical products with big fake smiles and long lists of side effects. Through their manic testimonials, I wondered if any of them would ever see MY face. The abyss peered also into me.

If the government could read CHEYA CARY’s mind, they’d know he’s thinking of you. Send him comments, rebuttals or haikus at cheya.cary@gmail.com.