Oh the Oppression! Oh the Tyranny! Oh the doG-awful Whining With No Reason!

I was looking through various "news" web sites this morning when I came across this article from Tiger Beat On the Potomac (h/t Mr Pierce). The headline alone made me shake my head, "Wall Street gets misty as Bloomberg departs" then it just got worse as I read the "article":

Michael Bloomberg isn’t leaving office until January but Wall Street is already beginning to miss the New York City mayor — and bracing for a possible backlash from his replacement.

In his 12 years leading the city, Bloomberg has been a vocal champion of New York’s business and banking communities. When the knives have come out, he has time and again come to the defense of the financial services industry without batting an eye at the political reality that advocating for Wall Street is a highly unpopular move for public officials.

Awwww. Da poor widdle babies have their fee-fees hurt by those big bad people, led by a politician who thinks they might do a bit more to pay for services:

Many in New York’s business and financial elite, stung by the abrupt ascent of Bill de Blasio, an unapologetic tax-the-rich liberal, are fixated on a single question: What are we going to do?

The idea that someone like DiBlasio might replace Bloomberg as NYC Mayor seems to set alarums blaring among the power elite and rich in New York.

Give. Me. A. Fucking. Break.

A couple of years or so ago, I wrote a diary after reading some whines from JP Morgan/Chase CEO Jamie Dimon. Now we have more of the rich 1% from Wall St whining about how their taxes might go up and how dare he! From Raw Story:

New York City, like much of the nation, is living with a vast divide between rich and poor. In appearances leading up to Tuesday’s primary election, Brooklyn-based Democrat di Blasio decried these inequalities, saying, “We are not, by our nature, an elitist city. We are not a city for the chosen few,” statements that have set off alarm bells among the city’s top tier of business leaders and the well-to-do.

Oh those oppressed Titans of Wall St and Masters of the Universe! They are so oppressed, just like the Fundamentalist Christians and straight white men, they never get things their way. Why, they just might have to go on Food Stamps after they pay their taxes in a DiBlasio administration:

When it comes to average per capita wealth, New York City has been eclipsed by a handful of other locales, but the city that never sleeps still holds sway in the public imagination as the capital of capital, the center of the financial industry, and a place where a $235,000 salary still only counts as middle class. But, as a couple of recent articles show, New York isn't just a center of American wealth: it's also a center of American wealth inequality, a place where the divide between the very rich and the very poor is sometimes only a matter of a few hundred feet ... as the crow flies.

I'm sure you'll pardon me if I shed no tears for these members of the Clueless Class.

And because I can:

The Concern Trolls Very Serious People Are Out

Damn but just when I reach a point where I think things can't get any stoopider inside the Beltway, we have a week like this one with the release of President Obama's "budget" and once again the reality of stoopid is even worse than imagined.

Word leaked last Friday (April 5) that Chained CPI was going to be part of President Obama's budget, prompting me to point out a simple truth, "A Bad Idea Is a Bad Idea, No Matter Who Proposes It." Of course, starting Monday, all the usual suspects and even a few somewhat surprising suspects started pushing the idea as a wonderful thing, maybe even as good as sliced bread.

The first cheers I saw, came from the Wall Street Journal. It is difficult to detail all the errors in this piece but it starts with the idea that Social Security has any bearing on the Budget in the first place the goes on to "explain" why Chained CPI is just such a good idea:

The chain-weighted CPI registers slower inflation than the usual CPI because it allows for the substitution effect of price changes. When the cost of one item rises, consumers switch to a similar product that has not risen in price (or not increased as much). The substitution can occur intra-item (whole wheat bread instead of white bread) and inter-item (beer versus wine). The chained CPI takes the shifts into its calculation; the traditional CPI does not.

Of course, these types of discussions never point out how the folks who are already "substituting" are supposed to pay for price increases, just as it fails to recognize the basic facts of Social Security, including the fact that the average monthly benefit is $1,264 per month, which is barely more than a minimum wage job pays and we all know how richly you can live on minimum wage. (Yes, that's snark.)

The Washington Post also is on the bandwagon and loving them some Chained CPI, once again pretending that Social Security is a part of the overall Federal Budget:

Most important, the president committed himself in writing to more than $100 billion in Social Security spending restraint over the next decade, along with $400 billion in health program reductions.

Ruth Marcus yesterday earned her WaPo0 money by being oh so very concerned with how the Republicans react to the President:

The conundrum of President Obama’s budget is that he has produced a “come let us reason together” proposal aimed at a Republican Party that has demonstrated no interest in being reasonable.

On Tuesday, Jared Bernstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities wrote a blog post comparing Paul Ryan's "budget" with the President's by stating that if Ryan's budget is (self-described) as visionary, then the president's is "strategic." Bernstein quotes his colleague, Robert Greenstein (President of CBPP) who produced a statement in favor of President Obama's budget, and specifically, in favor of Chained CPI.

I can't begin to detail all the errors in Greenstein's statement but will try to address the most egregious ones. First off:

As it stands, the package makes tough policy choices while largely adhering to the principle, as enunciated by the Bowles-Simpson commission, that deficit reduction should not increase poverty or inequality. Nevertheless, the budget’s substantial spending cuts, both in entitlements and discretionary programs, would have real-world consequences for millions of individuals and families.

While there was a Bowles-Simpson commission, there was nothing "enunciated" by the commission as there was no report since the recommendations could not achieve the necessary vote count to be accepted as official. And once again, we have someone who should know better (and most likely does) trying to conflate Social Security as part of the overall Federal Budget.

Then there's:

Experts widely regard the chained CPI as a more accurate measure of inflation for the population as a whole. It may well be, however, less accurate for elderly individuals and many low-income people and, thus, understate the inflation that they face.

What experts are saying this? The best I have found is that the NY Times had an article claiming this that they would later correct as Dean Baker points out here.

Reuters presents it as The Grand Bargain while the Christian Science Monitor presents it as a great idea because liberals are angry so that must mean it is bi-partisnay or something.

Tiger Beat On the Potomac (h/t Mr Pierce) of all people, actually gets to the nut in their lede:

President Barack Obama says he’ll protect the most vulnerable seniors from his “chained CPI” proposal – but he’s not going to protect everyone. Not even all seniors.

The White House, fighting back against liberal critics who say he’s giving away too much, released details Wednesday of the protections Obama would include to make sure older seniors and low-income people don’t get hurt by lower benefits.

There it is. As I said the other day and will say many more times I'm sure, IF YOU HAVE TO MAKE SPECIAL PROVISIONS TO ASSURE PEOPLE ARE NOT HURT, YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG.

Such a simple damn concept. But of course, with all the people doing the cheerleading, none of them are people who actually have to live on Social Security so for them, it is only an intellectual exercise, not reality.

And because I can:

Today's Anti-Social Security Propaganda

Well, it looks like there is a new push on in the long term destruction of Social Security today. Now, I usually write about the plight of the long term un and underemployed but I am getting close to Social Security eligibility so decided I would discuss the anti Social Security effort today.

I'll start with Fact Free Fred Hiatt's Concern Troll op-ed in today's (Monday, January 28) Washington Post. It seems Mr Hiatt wants to offer his advice to President Obama on "entitlement reform" using the guise of how Democrats and Republicans view the past four years:

To achieve a fiscal compromise, Obama agreed in 2011 negotiations with House Speaker John Boehner to changes in Social Security that would be anathema to liberals, but Boehner walked away from the talks.

...snip...

Both histories are factually correct. That coherent accounts can be written either way ought to suggest to partisans that neither version is quite the slam-dunk they imagine.

At a minimum, it ought to propel the White House to continue acting in the national interest, whichever party that seems to serve. And for a long time, Obama has said the national interest requires both revenue increases and reform of entitlement programs.

Once again, Mr Hiatt and the Post are pushing the myth that Social Security is a part of the overall Federal Budget and needs to be "controlled" to "fix the deficit" when in fact, Social Security loans to the Genera Fund have been propping up the Federal Budget for decades, allowing for the tax cuts over the years.

While I expect this type of nonsense from the Washington Post, today's Tampa Bay Times had a decidedly misleading headline ("US spends far more on seniors than on kids.") How is it misleading?

In 2008, all government (local state, and federal) spent $26,255 on average for each person 65 or older, most of which is Social Security and Medicare.

The blurb on children spending:

Conversely, the federal government spends relatively little on children and Medicaid is the largest single item. State and local governments spend much more n children because they pay for schools. But overall, governments spend far more than double on seniors than they do on children 18 and younger.

Finally, at the very bottom of this post, the Times offers a couple of caveats to offset the misleading nature of their headline and opening:

And boiling it down to a zero-sum game between young and old can make it seem as if those were the only choices. Indeed, other portions of the federal budget could be targeted instead, from defense spending to interest on the debt. Or people might be willing to pay higher taxes for government to do more.

Perhaps most crucially, if you spend dollars on the old, that can indirectly aid the young, and vice versa.

...snip...

Finally, some experts suggest that the issue isn't spending on the elderly versus spending on children. Rather, it's a question of what policies can promote high employment and growth versus policies that promote consumption today.

This brings us to Politico which offers this article titled "The quiet liberal plans for entitlement reform." Of course, the first "liberal" plan is the Chained CPI:

This new formula — a tweak to the consumer price index — would assume that people switch their buying habits when prices rise, rather than just buying the same things over and over. So, for example, if the price of ground beef goes up, someone might buy chicken or fish instead.

...snip...

But a lot of Democrats and liberals aren’t on board. They say seniors are already having a hard enough time with the current cost-of-living increases without dialing them back.

...snip...

That’s why liberals want any chained CPI agreement to be balanced out with measures to ease the burden on the seniors with the lowest incomes. For example, Paul Van de Water, a senior fellow at the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, suggests exempting people on Supplemental Security Income — which pays benefits to the lowest-income seniors — and making a special payment to seniors who have been on Social Security for 20 years because they get poorer as they get older.

Note to Politico and inside Beltway Villagers: if you have to make special provisions for the poorest and lowest income on the scale to avoid the bad impacts of a policy, that should by definition tell you the policy is bad for everyone.

For what it is worth, Politico does mention lifting the cap on Social Security earnings but limits this to:

Lift the cap so 90 percent of all Americans’ earnings are taxed — it’s only about 83 percent now — and a Social Security deal could raise about $550 billion in revenues over the next 10 years, according to estimates by Third Way, which has endorsed the approach. It would also wipe out Social Security’s deficit through 2020.

Of course, this is also misleading as "...wipe out the Social Security deficit through 2020..." discounts the loans Social Security has made to the general fund for 30 plus years and the surplus that was built up that was used to fund tax cuts.

There is a large amount of cluelessness across the board with the policies being discussed. A week and half ago, the "Business Roundtable" proposed raising the Social Security and Medicare eligibility ages to 70. Jon Walker at FDL Action made a rebuttal on this level of idiocy here. I would just like to ask these CEOs where the jobs are that allow folks to keep working until age 70? The BLS information for December 2012 shows the Unemployment Rate as 7.8 and the rate for the long term un and underemployed and those who have given up at 14.8% (a figure that I believe is much too low than actual). But of course, they don't actually have to do anything that might mitigate the problems they have helped to create.

And because I can:

"Good News" but Not that Good.

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In this post I wrote Tuesday, I predicted that the ADP Jobs report for June would come in at around 50K private sector jobs versus the economists prediction of 100K. Well the report is out (via Reuters) and I was way wrong while the economists were also under:

Payrolls processor ADP said on Thursday private sector employment increased 157,000 after a modest 36,000 gain in May, and beating economists' expectations for a 68,000 rise.

The original report in May (as I quoted and linked to Reuters in this post) was actually at 38K jobs so 36K is a downward revision. For what it's worth, I do like when I am wrong on these points, especially when I'm wrong and the numbers come in far better than I thought.

Now 157K jobs sounds like something to cheer about and I guess in a way it is but we shouldn't get all giddy with excitement quite yet. After all, the economy needs to add 100K to 150K jobs each month just to absorb new folks coming into the work force each month so 157K jobs does not dent the long term un and underemployment numbers by much. Tomorrow's numbers from the BLS for June will include public sector as well as private sector and it is likely the public sector jobs lost will push the 157K number down significantly. And I'll say right now that July will be worse. How can I say that? Many states start their fiscal years on July 1 and the budget axes will be showing the results as Politico discusses here:

New budgets from 24 states will impose severe cuts, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

To make ends meet, Arizona will drop Medicaid coverage for 130,000 childless adults. Michigan will slice public school funding by $470 per student. New York will reduce education aid by $1.3 billion. Wisconsin plans to chop into the Earned Income Tax Credit, which hurts household budgets of the working poor.

And Minnesota? Its government shut down after state lawmakers failed to pass a budget.

Those cuts can reverberate through the private sector, since contracts with vendors and payments to businesses also get slashed.

According to this article from Reuters on the Initial Unemployment Claims report for last week, the Minnesota shutdown is already hitting the numbers:

Political Posturing Versus Reality

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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.

"Are Ya Gonna Believe Me or Yer Own Lyin' Eyes?"

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So what makes today any different from any other day? Not a thing. It's a day ending in "y" so that means we are treated with a mix of articles and opinions where the headline doesn't actually match the story or the lede is buried or the cheerleaders try for the misdirection.

One of the first articles I saw this morning in my surfing of the news sites was this one from CNN on jobs returning to the US from overseas:

It's still only a trickle compared to the flood of jobs that America lost to overseas outsourcing in recent decades. But some American businesses are bringing jobs home again.

...snip...

This trend of reshoring or insourcing is likely to grow in the coming years, as the cost gap between building overseas and building at home narrows. It's an encouraging sign in a job market where hiring has stalled in recent months.

...snip...

According to BCG, Chinese labor costs are rising about 15% to 20% a year. That makes producing goods in China not nearly as cheap as it used to be. For many manufacturers, that narrowing is enough to tip the balance back to U.S. plants.

...snip...

What's more, countries such as China and India that have profited from U.S. offshoring won't stand pat and lose the potential jobs without a fight.

"It's not as if the Chinese government is helpless is to offset this rising wage trend," Tonelson said.

Anyone else find it interesting that the Chinese government isn't helpless on jobs but the US government is? Apparently, repression is good for business in all ways.

Could the Cable Industry Have a Clue?

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The weekly report on Initial Unemployment Claims came out earlier today and while the numbers did fall a bit, they are still over the 400K threshold that seems to be the cut off for declaring that things are going to get better. From Reuters:

The Labor Department said on Thursday new jobless claims fell to 414,000 in the week ended June 11 from an upwardly revised 430,000 in the prior week.

Economists polled by Reuters had been looking for a smaller decline, to 420,000. Claims have been above 400,000 for two months, reflecting a rough patch in the recovery that has led to renewed weakness in an already anemic job market.

Just as they did last week, the reporter just brushes right on by how the figures for the week before had been revised upwards. Last week it was reported as 427K now revised up to 430K - the week before it had originally been reported as 422K but then revised up to 426K. I would not be surprised if next week's report revised this week's numbers upwards again, closer to the original figure from the economists of 420K.

An Unusual Source Speaks the Truth

Today (Monday, April 25) CNN has an opinion piece from former George W. Bush staffer David Frum that shocked me, and not in a Capt Renault kind of way.

Technically speaking, the U.S. economy is recovering right now. GDP growth has been positive since the summer of 2009. Employment is growing. If you like, you can say the recession is over.

But don't say it too loud. With 13.5 million people out of work -- 6.1 million out of work for 27 weeks or more -- the odds are high that one of them may hear and take offense.

The recovery is weak, and job creation is slow. Everybody knows that. But here's something that we don't know, or anyway don't think about enough: Isn't it weird that in this dismal economic situation, neither of the two great U.S. political parties is offering a plan to do anything about the job situation?

Frum goes on to note that the Republicans at least have a "plan" (Rep Paul Ryan's "budget"), even though the "plan" does nothing to help the unemployed, nor does it actually do anything on the budget. He also notes that the Democratic "plan" consists primarily of blasting the Ryan plan.

The administration does however have a political plan: Blast the Ryan plan. Since the Ryan plan is highly politically vulnerable, the blasting will likely hurt the GOP and help President Obama. The blasting will not, however, do much for the unemployed. But then we've all sort of given up on them, haven't we?

Will the Gang of Six Receive the Gang of Four Treatment?

I won't say that great minds think alike but I had to laugh when I saw a link to this from HuffPo's Ann Stark. Beyond Teddy Partridge's Firedoglake post from Sunday night "Anti-gang Enforcement Needed On Capital Hill," Ms Stark's tweet about the Gang of Four rather crystalized for me some thoughts about how easily the Beltway Village Idiots Pundits fall into their usage of short hand terms without really any apparent understanding of the genesis of those terms. Whether it is the "Gang of Fourteen" or either of the two "Gang of Six" in the US Senate, I wonder if they want to remind people of the fate of the "Gang of Four."

From Time Magazine Gang of Four On Trial:

After many delays, the "evildoers "finally enter the dock

The long parade of limousines and buses knifed through Peking's wintry smog just before 3 p.m. As police and soldiers kept away curious bystanders, sober-faced men and women emerged from the cars, strode through the gates of the public security compound at No. 1 Zhengyi (Justice) Road near Tian'anmen Square and entered a large, brightly lighted courtroom. After taking their seats, the 35 judges and 880 "representatives of the masses" looked on impassively as the ten defendants were led into the court by bailiffs to hear the charges against them.

Thus began the long-awaited trial of China's notorious Gang of Four and six other high-ranking "evildoers." The carefully orchestrated courtroom drama, which is expected to last for several weeks, is the most important show trial to take place in the 31 years that the Communist Party has ruled China. The most celebrated defendant is Jiang Qing, 67, the widow of Mao Tse-tung, who, along with her allies in the Gang of Four,* led Mao's reckless and violent Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976. They were arrested four years ago, shortly after Mao's death in 1976. Also on trial are a group of senior military officials who allegedly plotted with the late Defense Minister Lin Biao to assassinate Mao in 1971 and seize supreme power for themselves.

Now I am not advocating that the current "Gang of Six" from the US Senate be subjected to a "show trial" for their zeal in dismantling the social safety net under the guise of "saving" it. But when these men have to next face the voters, they probably will not want to highlight their participation in cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, all while preserving tax cuts for the top of the income chain.

How Many Suicides Will There Be?

While I was surfing through the various news sites this morning (Friday, March 18), I came across this story from the Los Angeles Times about the apparent suicide of a maintenance worker for Costa Mesa, CA. It seems that Costa Mesa is laying off nearly half of its employees and intending to outsource the work. Of course, the layoff notices have gone out, even though the city is still trying to figure out exactly what they are doing.

Costa Mesa has sent layoff notices to nearly half of its employees in a dramatic austerity program being closely watched by other cities struggling with ballooning pension obligations.

The move was sharply criticized by union leaders, and it stunned city employees, one of whom apparently committed suicide by jumping off Costa Mesa City Hall hours after layoff notices went out Thursday.

City officials said the cuts were the first step in a plan to outsource many services to the private sector and significantly reduce the number of workers at City Hall.

...snip...

The man reported to have committed suicide, a 29-year-old maintenance worker, was expecting to receive a layoff notice, authorities said. His identity has not been released pending notification of relatives.

Employees were shell-shocked upon receiving the notices Thursday, even before news of the suicide spread.

This article is on the heels of this one from Wednesday's NY Times on the unemployment rate in El Centro, CA:

Good News and Bad News on the Economy and Other Things

Let's see how broadly I can stretch the definition of "Good News" today. The weekly report of Initial Unemployment Claims was the lowest it has been since May of 2008:

There were 368,000 initial jobless claims filed in the week ended Feb. 26, the Labor Department said Thursday. That was down 20,000 from the week before, and the lowest since May 2008.

Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had expected initial claims to rise to 400,000 in the latest report.

The 4-week moving average of initial claims, which aims to smooth out volatility, also improved, falling to 388,500 from the previous week's revised average of 401,250. That's the lowest since July 2008.

Of course, this is before any of the threatened lay-offs due to federal and state budget cuts and the overall official unemployment rate is still stuck at 9% or higher so there are still roughly 15 million unemployed and 25 to 30 million un and underemployed.

Another bit of information in today's news that can be considered "good" news is from today's (Thursday March 3) NY Times is how the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Justice Department, Postal Inspectors, and 11 state Attorneys General had investigated, fined, and seized assets of firms preying on the unemployed:

The investigation focused on businesses that lured financially unsophisticated retirees and the unemployed with opportunities to start businesses or gain access to job listings, often with little personal effort but hefty upfront fees, the authorities said.

...snip...

The commission announced more than 90 civil actions, including three lawsuits against companies the agency said defrauded consumers of more than $49.5 million. The F.T.C. said it had obtained judgments and levied fines totaling $14.6 million in six other cases.

The Justice Department said it had taken 48 criminal actions, most in conjunction with the Postal Inspection Service. In 36 criminal cases presented Wednesday, officials said there were 16 guilty pleas, three convictions and seven cease-and-desist orders. Nineteen sentences handed down to defendants total more than 56 years.

Now for the bad news.