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Trickle down economics is the phrase that has often been supplied to describe whatever current flavor of economics theory being propounded that says cutting taxes for the well-to-do is the quickest path to an economic nirvana. Supply-side is just one of the variants of this from over the years.
While what I just described is the most commonly used version of "trickle-down," we are now seeing examples of true trickle-down, i.e., the trickle-down of pain through the economy from all the various budget cuts at all levels of government. The past two days the Tampa Tribune has had articles showing the affects of cuts. First up is this one from yesterday on cuts for caregivers of the disabled:
The state Agency for Persons with Disabilities needs to slash about $90 million in services this year to meet its budget. The cuts not only affect contract workers like Davison, but employees in group homes who coordinate training programs, community outings and other activities for the disabled.
About 33,000 people in Florida with developmental disabilities like Cherta go through the agency to find companions who will not only care for them but also find ways to make them a part of their communities.
The agency serves about 50,000 people with autism, cerebral palsy, spina bifida and intellectual disabilities.
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Code of Ethics: A code of ethics is a set of guidelines which are designed to set out acceptable behaviors for members of a particular group, association, or profession. Many organizations govern themselves with a code of ethics, especially when they handle sensitive issues like investments, health care, or interactions with other cultures. In addition to setting a professional standard, a code of ethics can also increase confidence in an organization by showing outsiders that members of the organization are committed to following basic ethical guidelines in the course of doing their work.
I am not currently a member of the American Society for Quality (ASQ) but since I do consider myself a Quality Assurance professional, I have no problem adhering to the ASQ Code of Ethics. When I got my first QA position back in the early '80s, ASQ was known as the American Society for Quality control (ASQC) but the Code of Ethics was then as it is now. One of the many technical books I have read and used to help me in business is Ethics in Quality, which I found an interesting read, if only because the case studies used were not all black and white but showed the nuance of everyday life where sometimes there is no right or wrong answer nor are there always good choices available to folks.
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Talk about getting it from all sides. Economists want Americans to cut down on debt and boost spending all at once, even as home values tumble and gasoline prices soar.
It may all be a bit too much for the average U.S. household, particularly with an already sluggish labor market stuttering again.
From the second Reuters piece:
The big mystery in the United States today is why the job crisis is not at the center of the political and economic debate. After all, the numbers — and the human tragedies they reflect — could not be bleaker.
Nearly 14 million Americans — 9.1 percent of the working population — are unemployed. That’s just a couple of a million shy of the populations of Greece and Ireland, Europe’s two problem children, combined. Another 8.5 million would like to work full time, but can only find part-time jobs. A further 2.2 million have been so discouraged by the grim labor market that they have given up looking for jobs altogether.
It is hard to blame them — those still actively looking for work have been unemployed for an average of 39.7 weeks. These are cruel numbers, and they depict an unemployment crisis that is deeper and more sustained than at any time since 1948, when records first started to be kept.
Meanwhile from the Washington Post piece:
Washington politicians are flailing for job-creation ideas like a drowning man lunging for a life preserver. President Obama probably remembers Ronald Reagan’s setup and punch line: “A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his.”
So it’s no surprise that rumors of new payroll-tax cuts and dreams of a new infrastructure bankhave followed the miserable jobs report released June 3. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman seems to be scavenging Grandma’s attic for old Works Progress Administration signs to put up again.
Here’s a simple idea to cut unemployment that won’t cost the government any more money and won’t require devaluing our currency: Turn unemployment benefits into a signing bonus.
...snip...
After 26 weeks of receiving benefits, a job-seeker would be eligible for a “signing bonus” equal to three additional months of benefits if he or she took a full-time job. It wouldn’t matter whether the job paid more, less or the same as the worker’s old one. We don’t want the logistics mess of a “cash for clunkers” type of program, in which the government had to figure out which clunkers really clunked.
The author of the Post piece was an economic adviser to the Bush I White House. Of course, he fails to explain just how his "bonus" idea would help folks to get jobs when there are still four to five applicants for each and every job opening out there today. He must have missed that McDonald's had over a million applicants during their "McJobs Fair" back in April.
Today, we also have President Obama meeting with his "Jobs Council" in North Carolina. Once again from Reuters this morning before the meeting:
Washington should streamline permitting for construction projects and make it easier for tourists to visit the United States to help boost hiring and spur the economy, a top adviser to President Barack Obama said.
Jeff Immelt, chief executive of General Electric and head of Obama's jobs and competitiveness council, said his panel's "progress report" outlined ways to increase hiring in manufacturing, construction, healthcare, and tourism sectors.
Somehow, I don't think we will find much support with DHS in easing the way for tourists to come to the US. And as I and others have also noted, minimum wage tourism jobs are not really going to go very far in building a long term sustainable economy.
Bloomberg has a couple of articles this afternoon that seem to fall on the same side as the Washington Post piece above - mainly in the "are you kidding me with this" style. First up is this one on the Jobs Council meeting:
The president is seeking to convince the business community as well as voters that his economic policies will help restore long-term growth even as data indicate the recovery is slowing.
...snip...
Immelt said in an op-ed article in today’s Wall Street Journal that the panel is recommending five “fast-action” steps to create more than 1 million jobs in five specific areas.
...snip...
Obama has spent this year seeking to repair relations with the business community, and the administration is still working to overcome criticism from Republicans and some executives that its regulatory policies are creating uncertainty for companies.
The Immelt-led board was formed in January to build a bridge to the country’s major employers. The same month Obama appointed former JPMorgan Chase & Co. executive William Daley as his chief of staff. Last month, the White House proposed revising and trimming regulations to reduce reporting requirements and cut compliance costs.
Yeah. There are nearly 14M unemployed and 25M to 30M un and underemployed and the MOTU on this jobs council can come with ideas for 1M jobs. I've got an idea - why don't they bring a few million jobs back to the US that they've sent overseas?
Profits at American companies are poised to be one of the few bright spots in the U.S., helping to steady the faltering recovery.
Earnings will climb an average 10 percent a year through 2013, more than three times quicker than the economy, after what has already been the fastest rebound since the late 1940s, JPMorgan Chase & Co. projects.
...snip...
The recent spate of weak economic data, capped by news that payrolls grew in May at the slowest pace in eight months, is sparking concern about the expansion’s sustainability. Even so, private employers have added 2.14 million workers since job creation resumed in March 2010, nine months after the recession ended. That’s about a quarter of the 8.8 million positions lost during the 18-month slump.
Once again they present numbers without context. 2.14M private sector jobs since March 2010 works out to be 142.6K jobs per month on average. In an economy that needs to create roughly 100K to 150K jobs per month just to maintain the status quo. And the numbers do not include all the lost public sector jobs in the same period.
I'm going to end this post with a link to an AP (via Yahoo) article on a "survey" taken of economists by the AP. Best I can tell, the economists surveyed are telling us all to click our heels three times and wait for the miracle to happen. I wonder how Scarecrows feel about that.
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The economic reports are starting to come out for May and while there are those economists and Beltway Village Idiots Pundits who are making "gee, everything is just fine" predictions, the verifiable numbers easily refute this attitude.
First up is the monthly report from payroll processor ADP on the private sector jobs creation for May (via Reuters):
The ADP report showed private employers added a scant 38,000 jobs last month, falling from a downwardly revised 177,000 in April and well short of expectations for 175,000. It was the lowest level since September 2010.
The report boded poorly for the key U.S. non-farm payrolls report at the end of the week. Credit Suisse lowered its estimate for Friday's employment number to 120,000 from its previous forecast of 185,000 and its private payroll estimate to 135,000 from 200,000.
ADP's number has been weaker than the government's private payrolls figure for 12 of the last 14 months, making Friday's government numbers likely to come in above ADP's report, Credit Suisse said.
There is a reason that ADP's number has been different from the government's numbers (I will not say ADP's number is weaker though), since the government numbers cover all of the economy and not just the private sector.
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I'm not going to act like an economist and claim to be "surprised" that folks are spinning various education pieces today. No, I am not at all surprised that it is happening, but I am a little frustrated when I see something like this from today's (Sunday May 22) NY Times where the headline uses "grassroots" and "Bill Gates" together. The idea of anything funded from the coffers of a billionaire being considered "grass roots" is beyond ludicrous. But then, we are talking about a TradMed that willfully overlooks the funding of folks like the Koch Brothers and Dick Armey to proclaim various astro-turf organizations as "grass roots."
To be fair, the Times article does point out a few of the problems:
INDIANAPOLIS — A handful of outspoken teachers helped persuade state lawmakers this spring to eliminate seniority-based layoff policies. They testified before the legislature, wrote briefing papers and published an op-ed article in The Indianapolis Star.
They described themselves simply as local teachers who favored school reform — one sympathetic state representative, Mary Ann Sullivan, said, “They seemed like genuine, real people versus the teachers’ union lobbyists.” They were, but they were also recruits in a national organization, Teach Plus, financed significantly by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
...snip...
In some cases, Mr. Gates is creating entirely new advocacy groups. The foundation is also paying Harvard-trained data specialists to work inside school districts, not only to crunch numbers but also to change practices. It is bankrolling many of the Washington analysts who interpret education issues for journalists and giving grants to some media organizations.
...snip...
Given the scale and scope of the largess, some worry that the foundation’s assertive philanthropy is squelching independent thought, while others express concerns about transparency. Few policy makers, reporters or members of the public who encounter advocates like Teach Plus or pundits like Frederick M. Hess of the American Enterprise Institute realize they are underwritten by the foundation.
Leave it to the Washington Post, of all places to counter some of the anti-teacher/anti-teachers unions noise today with Five myths about America's schools
There are times that I begin to despair a bit about all the crap going on all over. I can't do anything about earthquakes, tsunamis, and nuclear disasters (all in one) but I can address some of the reporting I've seen in the TradMed the last couple of days.
Apparently the Beltway Village Idiots Pundits are anxious to stop writing all those bummer articles about the un and underemployed and the destruction of the global economy. I guess it's just too Debbie Downer for them. So they've started the "Everything's Getting Better" articles. The NY Times and Floyd Norris started with this headline:
Crisis Is Over, but Where’s the Fix?
Of course, without anything being fixed, it's rather difficult for the "crisis" to be over. And to be fair, Norris does address some of this in the article:
When the financial system began to crumble more than three years ago, the world rushed to rescue it. Country after country went deeply into debt to keep banks afloat and prevent a deep recession from turning into something worse.
...snip...
But the world has changed since then. The economic recovery in most developed countries is stuttering at best, and governments are struggling with their own finances. It is time for remorse and second-guessing.
A surprising citadel of that second-guessing is at the International Monetary Fund, where researchers this week concluded that the rescues “only treated the symptoms of the global financial meltdown.”
The researchers, Stijn Claessens and Ceyla Pazarbasioglu, warned that “a rare opportunity is being thrown away to tackle the underlying causes. Without restructuring financial institutions’ balance sheets and their operations, as well as their assets — loans to over-indebted households and enterprises — the economic recovery will suffer, and the seeds will be sown for the next crisis.”
...snip...
In retrospect, it is clear that the bailouts came with too little pain for those responsible. Bondholders who financed banks that failed largely escaped pain. That was true even in Ireland, where the bailout would have led to a default of government debt had Europe not stepped in. It is still not clear how Ireland will pay its national debt, but the bank bondholders did fine.
Norris goes on to point out that one of the problems is the lack of accountability. Imagine that?
So here we are on the last day of 2010. Because New Years Day is on Saturday this year, a lot of people have the day off, joining all of us who are members of the long term un/underemployed in watching the world go by. I have the Kentucky-Louisville game on in the background and all I will say about that is "Go Hilltoppers!"
But I can't let the day go without highlighting a couple of end of the year news dump articles in today's NY Times. First up is this article on discussions on creating an Ethics Code for Academic Economists. After opening the article with a short list of some fairly well known political economists who also are in the university world and their undisclosed conflicts of interest the article goes on:
Academic economists, particularly those active in policy debates in Washington and Wall Street, are facing greater scrutiny of their outside activities these days. Faced with a run of criticism, including a popular movie, leaders of the American Economic Association, the world’s largest professional society for economists, founded in 1885, are considering a step that most other professions took a long time ago — adopting a code of ethical standards.
Now from my vantage as a professional in the field of Software Quality Assurance, the types of disclosure that are being discussed are an absolute bare minimum of an ethical code. I always go back to my first meeting with my new supervisor when I was just starting in the QA program at the Defense Contract Administration Services Plant Rep Office (DCASPRO) who said straight out "If it appears to be a conflict of interest, then by definition it IS a conflict of interest."
As I tend to do most morning after I've checked the jobs sites in my attempt to find full employment, I came across this piece of gibberish written by Arthur Laffer for the Wall St Journal (via Google). For those too young or too memory impaired, Laffer was the "author" of the "Laffer Curve" which was used by the Reaganauts and subsequent Republican politicians to justify massive tax cuts for the rich.
It's hard to know where to begin in tackling the various strawman and out right fallacious arguments Laffer uses in this opinion piece.
On the face of it, the idea that higher unemployment benefits won't lead to more unemployment doesn't make much sense. Imagine what the unemployment rate would look like if unemployment benefits were universally $150,000 per year.
First off, few people are actually calling for higher Unemployment compensation, although with an average weekly payment of $293 per week, with only a few states maxing out their Unemployment payments over $500 per week, it surely would not be a bad thing to raise the compensation a bit.
So I was doing my daily surfing for news stories of interest to myself and some friends when I started seeing the current week Jobless Reports. CNN reported it with this headline:
Jobless claims down for 3rd straight week
But then the lede is:
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The number of Americans filing initial claims for unemployment insurance fell for the third straight week, according to weekly government data released Thursday.
There were 444,000 initial jobless claims filed in the week ended May 1, down 7,000 from a revised 451,000 the previous week, according to the Labor Department's weekly report.
Maybe it's just me, but I don't see a whole lot to be cheering about with this, although it appears, the TradMed is reporting it as a sign the economy is getting better. I guess in some fashion, fewer folks being laid off is a positive but we're still talking over 440K people losing their jobs last week.
The numbers for continuing unemployment claims also seems to be nothing to brag about:
