How has the Stimulus really helped?

I know there are stories in the hundreds and even thousands of how the Stimulus has helped individual people.  I am very glad that those people, who desperately need help, are receiving it.  However, what I cannot get my head around is how the government is presenting the data in a format that shows that each job saved is costing us much as five hundred thousand dollars. 

Now this is just me being a pessimist and taking free shots at our nation's progressive welfare agenda, but I don't see how giving someone a temporary job that pays 30-50k (although I rather inflated this number to sound a little less condescending) and that only stays in place for as long as government intervention in the market continues at a cost of the times more than the job is "worth" really helps.  The number of jobs saved when compared with unemployment overall is barely significant.  I am not saying that a program that creates or saves permanent jobs is not a good program, but I have yet to see anyone talk about permanent job creation.  Why is this?

The types of jobs created by artificially stimulating the economy can never be permanent.  When the funding that created (or saved) the job goes away, then so does the job.  This does not even take into account the fact that many of these alleged "saved" jobs that have been falsely claimed. 

The moneys given to many organizations are actually used to buy computers or give raises to current employees.  Couple this with the reported reluctance and refusal of many companies to share information with the media about where the stimulus money actually goes, and you are led to the conclusion that the Stimulus program is likely suffering from more fraud and abuse than Medicare/Medicaid.  Along those same lines, do you know where your cash-for-clunkers money ended up?  A good portion of it went to purchase fuel efficient cars that were traded-in within a week for cars that were less eco-friendly than the cars they replaced.  I am not joking; there was one car lot in Florida that actually advertised this program!

Simply that we are spending ten dollars for each dollar that goes to someone's salary is insane.  Would it not be more efficient to give that person two dollars for each dollar they are receiving right now?  Even that would save the tax-paying populace of this nation 80%.  Is it any wonder that our government is facing huge deficits?

When will our government learn that their welfare (socialist) programs will always be abused?