It's Time to Stop Digging

Well, the Republican Congressional Arson Committee was out-voted Wednesday and the government shutdown has ended and the debt ceiling has been raised. At least for a few months. Now come the analyses striving to set the Conventional Wisdom.

First up we had this from McClatchy on Tuesday, before the shutdown had been ended:

WASHINGTON — It may be one of the most serious missteps of the federal government shutdown.

After weeks of planning, the nation’s spy chief sent home nearly three-quarters of the workers at the government’s intelligence agencies when faced with the partial shutdown. The move, James Clapper later admitted himself, put the United States at greater risk of terrorist attacks. He then reversed course and brought thousands of employees back to work.

Of course, as I noted in this post the other day, when there is a shutdown, the managers are almost required to make things as painful as possible for the maximum numbers of people to show the people pushing for the shutdown what happens. For myself, I would have preferred more oversight people kept working than those within the NSA and other members of the so-called "Intelligence Community" being allowed to spy on average citizens within the US, but that's just me.

Tiger Beat On the Potomac (h/t Mr Pierce) offers up an "Anatomy of a Shutdown."

Bloomberg reports on the "Republican Civil War":

A battle for control of the Republican Party has erupted as an emboldened Tea Party moved to oust senators who voted to reopen the government while business groups mobilized to defeat allies of the small-government movement.

CNN's article on the ending of the shutdown was a bit pessimistic:

The debt cushion now extends through February 7, with current spending levels being authorized through January 15.

That means a few months of breathing room, but little more. After all, the bill doesn't address many of the contentious and complicated issues -- from changes to entitlement programs to tax reform -- that continue to divide Democrats and Republicans.

Ah yes, our old friend "entitlement reform." What a hoary old chestnut that is turning out to be. Why just yesterday the folks at "Fix the Debt" (Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles's attempt to stay relevant and invited on talking head shows) held a "Twitter chat." As Business Insider noted, it did not go well:

"Fix the Debt" just felt Twitter's sweet, trollish wrath.

Championed by Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, Fix the Debt — which The Nation magazine called a "fearmongering campaign to convince Americans that the deficits the United States has run throughout its history have suddenly metastasized" — held a Twitter live chat this afternoon to discuss next steps in America's ongoing fiscal squabble.

And it didn't go so well, with the #fixthedebtqa soon teeming with jokesters and those very much against Fix the Debt's message.

My phrase of choice for people such as Simpson and Bowles and the rest of the austerity freaks is "willfully obtuse." Between the shutdown, sequester, and overall fear-mongering of the last few weeks, the general economic consensus is the US economy took a $24B hit. Now, anyone who has read my posts these past few years is aware that I am not a big fan of most CW spouting economists but given how often they are surprised at the end results of things, my WAG is the $24B figure is probably conservative.

A note for the Fix the Debt folks (and Paul Ryan who used a Wall St Journal opinion piece to push for "entitlement reform",) Harry Reid is quoted as saying, it ain't happening. Now, Reid has backed off some of these type statements in the past, so we just have to make sure to hold him to his words.

I continue to be dumbfounded at the words and actions of people who think nothing of cutting funds for the elderly and the poor in order to throw more money at the DoD or Banksters or BigAg or Big Pharma or Big Insurance. As I noted here a few months ago, most people receiving Social Security are getting what amounts to less than a minimum wage. For many that is the only income they have. And as Forbes notes yesterday, minimum wage workers are not getting rich (though businesses that rely on them are and sticking the taxpayers with the bill.)

So all of you Beltway Village Idiots Pundits, Politicians, and Courtiers, why don't we do something unique from these last half dozen year. Let's create some decent paying jobs, build the economy in the US, send a few economic criminals to jail rather than giving them multi-million dollar bonuses, and see what the result is for the economy and those "entitlement" programs. You might be surprised that jobs would mean people paying in would extend the life of these programs with no action required to fiddle and fuck with them.

Besides, if the Russian astronomers are correct, we might be hit with an asteroid in August of 2032, making things moot.

And because I can:

August 2013 Jobs Report: "Good" News That Isn't

Well the August Jobs Reports are in, and, as usual, the numbers were not as expected. From Reuters:

U.S. employers hired fewer workers than expected in August and the jobless rate hit a 4-1/2 year low as Americans gave up the search for work, complicating the Federal Reserve's decision on whether to scale back its massive monetary stimulus this month.

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 169,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department said on Friday, falling short of the 180,000 Wall Street had expected and adding to signs that economic growth may have slowed a bit in the third quarter.

CNN points out that the growth for June and July was revised downwards by 74K jobs but they also highlighted:

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate fell to 7.3%, but the decline came for the wrong reasons, as 312,000 people dropped out of the labor force. Only 63.2% of Americans now participate in the labor force -- meaning they have a job or are looking for one. That's the lowest rate since August 1978.

My bold

Reuters also notes the drop in participation in the workforce in a sidebar article here:

The share of Americans aged 25 to 54 who had jobs or were looking for work dipped to 81 percent in August, the lowest level since 1984, a time when fewer women were in the workforce. In another worrisome sign, the share of these prime-age workers who actually had jobs has stagnated at around 76 percent since early last year, well below its 2003-2007 average of around 79 percent.

Most of the reports in TradMed outlets have also commented on the impact of the (lack of) jobs reports on the Federal Reserve "stimulus" (from McClatchy):

The Fed has been purchasing, at a pace of $85 billion a month, government and mortgage bonds in a bid to drive down lending rates in the economy and force risk taking by investors. They must seek better returns than they have been getting on bonds, thus juicing the stock market and commodities such as crude oil and a range of farm products. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, who is concluding his term, wants to begin weaning the economy off of this support before his successor takes over.

Of course, this "stimulus" has not really helped the millions of long term un and underemployed, even though a large part of the Federal Reserve "mission" is maximizing employment.

The stock market continues to show its disconnect with most of the economy as it has gone up in response to the jobs report number (via Bloomberg):

U.S. stocks rose to a two-week high as slower-than-forecast jobs growth eased concern about reductions in Federal Reserve stimulus, overshadowing an escalation in tension between America and Russia over Syria.

So, because the Fed may not be able to stop its "stimulus" (read: easy money for the banksters and Wall St), stocks are going up in celebration. Yeah, that makes sense. After all, the casinos always like to show their appreciation for the marks customers.

Bloomberg has an opinion piece up by a Justin Wolfers, who says to concentrate on the revisions. Of course, he also seems to think public sector jobs are not "real" jobs when it comes to the economy:

There is one further detail worth emphasizing. While there were 74,000 jobs revised away this month, more than half were in the public sector, suggesting that we shouldn't be too hasty in marking down expectations of ongoing private-sector employment growth.

Now, I am one of those who refuses to give up my search for full time employment, preferably in my chosen field of Software Quality Assurance. I am a stubborn SoB and even when I keep receiving discouraging results, I will not fold. I'm sure many people would claim that I am being unrealistic in my desires to find work in my field. But am I any more unrealistic than the CEO of Morgan Stanley who declares:

...there’s almost no chance of another financial crisis like the one that endangered his firm five years ago.

Am I any more unrealistic than Cass Sunstein who sings the praises of a recently deceased economist who:

... has also helped reorient thinking about regulation in general, in part by emphasizing the importance of private flexibility, cost-benefit balancing, and careful, dogma-free empirical analysis (for which Coase made many pleas).

Ah, good ol' "cost-benefit balancing." Make the earth uninhabitable, pay a "cost-of-doing-budiness" slap on the wrist fine and everybody's happy, right?

I have a headache from the stupid we ALL display. It's just that some folks' stupid has a wider audience than others and their wrongness impacts millions whereas my stupid affects me and my cat.

And because I can:

Regulations Are an Opportunity for Job Creating Innovation

Author's Note: Please take a few minutes and Join the Firedoglake Membership Program today. FDL provides the tools that help me and others extend our reach with our rants so we need to support FDL when we can.

It is an article of faith among Republicans (and far too many Democrats) that all those pesky "regulations" are to blame for the lack of jobs today and the ongoing economic slowdown. Just the first of this month, McClatchy had an article where they had surveyed small business owners across the country and the consensus was that in fact regulations are not the problem for small business but lack of demand is:

When it's asked what specific regulations harm small businesses _which account for about 65 percent of U.S. jobs — the Chamber of Commerce points to health care, banking and national labor. Yet all these issues weigh much more heavily on big corporations than on small business.

...snip...

None of the business owners complained about regulation in their particular industries, and most seemed to welcome it. Some pointed to the lack of regulation in mortgage lending as a principal cause of the financial crisis that brought about the Great Recession of 2007-09 and its grim aftermath.

...snip...

Other small firms say their problem is simply a lack of customers.

My bold and I think we see where the folks complaining about regulations are really coming from. While the small businesses are struggling to make traction and find customers, the big businesses are squeezing every penny out of their operations in order to meet the quarterly demands of Wall St. And the anti-regulations crowd show an incredible level of short-sightedness. Instead of a knee-jerk "regulations bad" approach, they should be looking on regulations as an opportunity for innovation and building new businesses.

Political Posturing Versus Reality

Author's Note: Please take a few minutes and Join the Firedoglake Membership Program today. FDL provides the tools that help me and others extend our reach with our rants so we need to support FDL when we can.

This morning (Wednesday, June 22) David Dayen at FDL News reports that the entire Senate Democratic leadership is getting behind a jobs/stimulus push:

The Senate Democratic leadership – all of them, Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin, Patty Murray, Debbie Stabenow and Mark Begich – planned a morning press conference today where they will call for job creation measures, or stimulus, to be included in any debt limit deal.

This follows a report from Politico on Sunday:

Fearing the economy may be getting worse, Democrats plan to soon unveil what they’ll call a “Jobs First” agenda — and the stakes are high. A bleak economic outlook, like the May jobs report, could cost Democrats their thin Senate majority and even the White House if they can’t make a strong case to an anxious electorate that their policies will create jobs.

Senate Democrats are now grappling with ways to gain an edge in the economic debate dominated by budget talk. For instance, in an attempt to woo Republicans, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and the White House are open to extending a payroll tax break to stimulate the economy, but that has spawned unease from Democratic senators such as Maryland’s Ben Cardin who worry that it would drive up the deficit and unnerve liberals such as Vermont’s Bernie Sanders, who are concerned it would deplete the Social Security trust fund.

While the Politico piece reinforces for me the idea of the Dems actions as just so much posturing, so does this, also from the Dayen piece:

There’s a sense that this is mainly rhetorical. Democrats have seen Republicans obstruct even the most piddling of jobs bills in the Senate. Yesterday the reauthorization of the Economic Development Administration, an old Great Society program, failed to break a filibuster.

The Spin Begins To Lessen

Author's Note: Please take a few minutes and Join the Firedoglake Membership Program today. FDL provides the tools that help me and others extend our reach with our rants so we need to support FDL when we can.

After having bounced up to 474K a couple of weeks ago, the Initial Unemployment Claims for last week dropped for the second week in a row, falling back down to 409K after falling last week to 434K (revised back to 438K today). From Reuters:

First-time claims for state unemployment benefits fell 29,000 to 409,000 last week, the Labor Department said.

The bigger-than-expected drop eased fears that a large increase last month reflected a fundamental deterioration in the jobs market, buttressing the view that the run up was due to auto plant shutdowns and other one-time factors.

...snip...

While the initial claims decline was more than economists' expectations for a fall to 420,000, they remained anchored above the 400,000 level that is normally associated with stable job growth for a sixth straight week.

While any drop in Initial Unemployment Claims is a positive, it is only a faint ray of light within otherwise dismal economic news. Tuesday, CNN had an article on new graduates struggling to find jobs in their chosen career fields, even when coming "highly credentialed."

Results of Middle Class Destruction

I would like to start today by pointing out an error I made yesterday. I assumed that since March was not finished with us, that the ADP jobs report for March would not be issued until next Wednesday. I guess ADP figures the last few days of the month don't matter so long as they get a report out two days prior to the BLS report for the overall economy issued on the first Friday of the new month.

From Reuters on today's (Wednesday, March 30) ADP report:

(Reuters) - Private employers added 201,000 jobs in March, while February's figure was revised down slightly, a report by a payrolls processor showed on Wednesday.

The data was largely in line with expectations. Economists surveyed by Reuters had forecast the ADP Employer Services report would show a gain of 203,000 jobs. The report is jointly developed with Macroeconomic Advisers LLC.

February's figure was revised down to 208,000 from 217,000.

"Basically the number was very much in line with expectations and shows that the labor recovery continues at a reasonable pace," said David Katz, chief investment officer at Matrix Asset Advisors in New York.

Of course, Mr Katz is not accounting for the loss of jobs in the public sector. And there have been job losses in the public sector this past month.

But there have been a few articles I've seen during my daily surfing of the toobz, from today and earlier, that tell us a bit more about the state of the economy than the ADP report and the words of Mr Katz can tell us.

First up is this article from today's Hartford Courant on New London, CT schools that are now providing free suppers (to go with free breakfasts and lunches) for students from low income families. From the article:

While many schools across Connecticut provide free or reduced lunch and breakfast to students from low-income homes, New London was the first to provide supper, too. Bridgeport recently launched a similar program, and Norwich is considering it.

In New London, where 85 percent of students live in poverty and 60 percent come from homes with single parents — some working multiple jobs — the free supper has already proven popular. Since it started a month ago, the number of diners has doubled to as many as 120 on some days.

...snip...

Besides Connecticut, the federally funded program is offered in 11 other states and Washington, D.C. It is aimed at schools where at last 50 percent of students qualify for free or reduced lunch programs. In Connecticut, 33 school districts have schools fitting that description.

My bold. Note that these are children where parents are working - and still not making enough to be considered above the poverty line. From the 2011 HHS guidelines, for poverty, a family of three (a single mother and two children), the poverty line is $18.5k per annum. This works out to $8.90 per hour for a 40 hour week, 52 week year. The current federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour (Connecticut's minimum wage is $8.25) for the math challenged. Since New London, CT is also the home of the Naval Submarine Base New London, I wonder if there are any active duty families affected here?

Trying to Avoid Incoherent Rage

As I read news sites across the toobz and see the occasional cable talking heads populated by the Beltway Village Idiots Pundits, it is often difficult to keep myself from dissolving into a mass of protoplasm due to simple rage.

First up today is this article from Reuters on Sunday, March 27:

(Reuters) - The U.S. labor market is finally improving, just when many of the other economic indicators are wavering.

Jobs are considered a lagging indicator. They typically recover many months after the economy comes out of a recession, and this cycle was no exception. So will troubles in Japan, Libya and elsewhere push up U.S. unemployment later this year?

...snip...

Friday brings the March employment report, and economists polled by Reuters are looking for growth of about 188,000 jobs, with the unemployment rate holding steady at 8.9 percent.

Any bets on how the headlines Friday will include some variant of "economists surprised"? I'm betting right now that the 188K figure will be way high for the entire economy. Of course, since the BLS jobs numbers will be first out this month ahead of the ADP Jobs reports on private sector jobs created for the previous month which appears the first Wednesday of each month, my bet will also be that the ADP report will be more positive than the BLS report so that will get all the good publicity next week and folks will forget the reality of the BLS report.

More Republican "Respect" for the Workers

On Wednesday (February 16), I wrote a post with the (admittedly rhetorical) title "Is Cutting Jobs Programs to Create Jobs Like Cutting Taxes to Increase Revenues?"

Today, I'd like to offer up a few more examples of how the new governors' of Florida, Ohio, and Wisconsin are treating workers within their states as they "create" jobs.

To begin with, we have yesterday's report of Initial Unemployment Claims for last week. After falling to a 2 1/2 year low the week before, yesterday's report showed an increase once again in the initial claims:

There were 410,000 initial jobless claims filed in the week ended Feb. 12, according to the Labor Department. That was up 25,000 from the week before, and slightly more than the 408,000 claims economists surveyed by Briefing.com had expected.

Continuing claims -- which include people filing for the second week of benefits or more -- rose by 1,000 to 3,911,000 in the week ended Feb. 5, the most recent week available.

Of course, the economists interviewed looked on the sunny side of life because the trend "is still pointing downward." I'm sure that is bringing a warm feeling to the nearly 15 million unemployed and the 25 to 30 million un and underemployed. Why at the rate things are trending downwards, we might once again reach full employment in, oh, maybe in the year 2525?

January Jobs Report(s)

Well, the January Jobs Report that is issued by ADP each month, detailing the number of private sector jobs created the month before is out. Last month, the ADP report had this number at 297K new jobs. When the official Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics report came out a couple of days later, the real number of jobs was pegged at 103K new jobs for the month. Of course, the difference is because ADP only evaluates private sector jobs while the BLS report details all jobs, including those in the public sector where a lot of state and local governments have been cutting jobs.

Today's ADP report (via Reuters):

The private sector added 187,000 jobs in January, compared with a downwardly revised 247,000 jobs in December, a report by payrolls processor ADP Employer Services showed on Wednesday.

The ADP figures come ahead of the government's more comprehensive January labor market report on Friday, which includes both public and private sector employment.

But ADP figures for December -- both initial and revised -- turned out to be much stronger than the government report showed, adding to doubts about the reliability of ADP as a predictor of payrolls.

It's Not Just Jobs That Are Needed

While I write mostly about the need for jobs and long term un and underemployment, there are always a number of related issues bubbling just below the surface for me. The past couple of days, I've seen a few articles that are seemingly unrelated but are probably more closely related than most folks realize.

The first article was from today's (Friday 1/28/11) NY Times on Standard & Poors downgrading Japan's Long Term Sovereign debt.

S.& P. lowered its sovereign credit rating for Japan to AA- from AA. That is three levels below the highest possible rating, and S.& P.’s first downgrade of Japanese government debt since 2002. With the lower grade, Japan’s debt rating is now on par with China’s, which last year overtook Japan as the world’s second-largest economy, after the United States.

S.& P.’s move came just weeks after both it and its rival ratings agency, Moody’s, cautioned that they might take a more negative stance on the United States. It highlighted just how deeply indebted many of the world’s developed economies remain — despite concerted efforts on the parts of governments to improve their balance sheets.

Yesterday was this from Reuters on Moody's considering downgrading the ratings for states:

(Reuters) - Some U.S. states face so much pressure to fund pensions for public employees that it could hurt their credit ratings, Moody's Investors Service said on Thursday.

As concerns grow over the financial health of many states after the 2007-2009 recession and how they will cut spending to cope, the ratings agency combined pension and debt data to rank the liabilities of each state.

In the past, Moody's evaluated credit risks from pensions and debt levels separately. Lower credit ratings could raise the costs to states of borrowing money.

Interesting isn't it how suddenly Moody's has to change how they figure things for rating the states and combine debt AND pension liabilities all of a sudden. One might think they have an ulterior motive in doing so.

So Much for Those 297K New Jobs

Today's report on jobs creation for December 2010 is out and the numbers are not particularly good. While Wednesday's report from ADP declaring that there were 297K new jobs in the private sector in December (discussed in yesterday's post here), today's report says there were a net new jobs of 103K for December with the "official" unemployment rate falling to 9.4% and the Un and Underemployed number at 16.7% (Table A-15 here). Of course, the economists were surprised at the figures reported.

Here's the NY Times on the jobs report:

Federal, state and local governments continued to shed jobs — cutting another 10,000 last month after trimming 8,000 in November, revised from 11,000 mostly on the local level. States and municipalities dealing with tighter budgets may be faced with further cuts as they try to shrink their deficits.

While the overall picture showed improving job growth, the additions in the private sector in December were not enough to significantly reduce the ranks of the unemployed or keep pace with people entering the work force. The outlook remains bleak for many workers. More than 14.5 million people were out of work in December.

Still, economists noted that the jobs data is a lagging indicator and pointed to other signs of a turnaround, though their outlook for 2011 remained varied.

Jobs: The Spin Continues

Well the December Jobs and Jobless reports are coming in and while there's still the big one from the US DoL's Bureau of Labor Statistics due tomorrow (Friday, 1/7/11), we can already see the spinmeisters in operation.

First off is the monthly report from ADP that is released on the first Wednesday of each month (yesterday) detailing the job growth or shrinkage in private sector employment for the previous month. Via McClatchy:

WASHINGTON — Private businesses hired new workers at a surprisingly energetic pace in December, according to a widely tracked job-tracking report released on Wednesday.

The ADP National Employment Report showed that private-sector employment rose by 297,000 in December. That's the highest monthly gain since the report's inception in 2000, and it's double or triple what was expected by mainstream economists.

Most important, job gains that high are what's needed to knock down the stubbornly high unemployment rate, which has been stuck at just under 10 percent for more than a year. Currently it's at 9.8 percent, with a new official BLS report on December employment due on Friday.