David Stockman's excellent op-ed on the failing American economy

At the NYT of all places:

Since the S.&P. 500 first reached its current level [above 1,500], in March 2000, the mad money printers at the Federal Reserve have expanded their balance sheet sixfold (to $3.2 trillion from $500 billion). Yet during that stretch, economic output has grown by an average of 1.7 percent a year (the slowest since the Civil War); real business investment has crawled forward at only 0.8 percent per year; and the payroll job count has crept up at a negligible 0.1 percent annually. Real median family income growth has dropped 8 percent, and the number of full-time middle class jobs, 6 percent. The real net worth of the "bottom" 90 percent has dropped by one-fourth. The number of food stamp and disability aid recipients has more than doubled, to 59 million, about one in five Americans.

Less than 5 percent of the $800 billion Obama stimulus went to the truly needy for food stamps, earned-income tax credits and other forms of poverty relief. The preponderant share ended up in money dumps to state and local governments, pork-barrel infrastructure projects, business tax loopholes and indiscriminate middle-class tax cuts.

via American Thinker, which has more links and comments, including this:

Using the numbers from recovery.gov, the website that explains, sort of, how the ARRA stimulus money was spent, we find that the state of New York had created 5,856 "recipient reported jobs" at cost of $14.321 billion. That's about $2.4 million per job.

California had 14,079 "recipient reported jobs" at a cost of $27.254 billion. About $1.9 million per job.

The state of Washington used $3.3 million for each job. Ohio ran $1.7 million per job, and thrifty Florida spent only $1.1 million on each job created with the ARRA stimulus funds. Will you be remembering these numbers as you pay your Federal taxes on April 15th this year?