Tag: unemployment

Nice of him to notice, and Economic Bonus Round

I am glad to see someone with a high profile speaking out on this, and I sincerely hope other journalists start talking about it.

Now, about that economy.

The nicest thing I can say about the United States economy right now is that unemployment isn’t as bad as it is in much of Europe. Our economy lost jobs last month — and only partly because some of those temporary Census workers were let go — but the really awful part is that the number of workers went down. It isn’t that we had an abnormal number of people die or retire or anything like that, it’s just that over a half million people gave up on trying to find work. And that’s why the official unemployment rate went down.

Of course, if you just happen to have the right set of highly technical job skills, there are plenty of jobs. But — as Jill so ably points out — somehow or another businesses don’t think they should actually have to train employees to use very specialized equipment. I guess they are waiting for the “Qualified Employee Fairy” to stuff resumes under the door.

It’s also worth pointing out that the SBA is running out of money again, which means it will be even harder for small businesses to get money to ramp up operations and create jobs. I am no supporter of the SBA — everyone I’ve ever known that has ever talked to them has ended up with an application for a second mortgage — but this is crazy.

So when all is said and done, I think that more than being “still in the gravitational pull of the Great Recession” and perhaps headed for a “double-dip recession,” it is more intellectually honest to say that from the standpoint of the typical American, there is no recovery: we still aren’t finding jobs, we still are having trouble paying the mortgage, we are still declaring bankruptcy at an alarming rate. Fine, maybe our largest corporations are still making plenty of money, but without the American consumer having money in pocket to buy goods and services, GDP growth can only be somewhere between shaky and an illusion.

In Closing: Uncle Shelby; turns out the kids are bored and not learning the things they should; on the newly revised dietary guidelines; fun with Google auto-complete; biggest banks in the world (and the ones that don’t exist anymore; and please, please drive safely this weekend.

The Internet Ate My Homework

In the last 24 hours I have switched cell phones and had my RSS reader suddenly stop working. As a result, I’ve spent much of the last day digging out and trying to organize things — and that’s no easy task. So as much as I would like to write something deeper, I’ll be talking briefly about the group of cowards and self-centered blow-hards in Washington DC who are our elected Representatives and Senators.

Thanks to our elected officials preferring the company of insurance company lobbyists to that of citizens that can actually vote for them, we still have a health care system that costs too much and does too little. At least we will soon have certain “rights” when dealing with these companies, but some warn that these “rights” will translate into even higher costs. The House of so-called Representatives did get up off their collective asses to fix a looming slashing of what doctors would be paid under Medicare. Why is this important? First, your doctor’s costs of doing business have not gone down. Second, most major insurers base what they will pay on what Medicare pays. So this would within a year put some doctors out of business.

The House also managed to pass a campaign finance reform bill that would force candidates and political parties to disclose the identities of most big donors. Except of course for the biggest and most powerful donors. They are still free to own their own Congresscritters. Now the bill is ready for slaughter in the Senate.

A couple of Senators are actually trying to do something for children — odd in an election year since they can’t even vote. It seems that an unintended result of some immigration raids is that there are kids whose parents have been taken away. Those kids are often American citizens thanks to the clarity of the 14th Amendment. The bill in question would allow the parents to arrange care for these little Americans, make sure that they have resources and can report abuse, and prevents authorities from involving the kids in interrogations. Think what you want about the parents, but the kids did nothing wrong and deserve the protections of law. The end.

But what could our elected officials not be bothered to do? They couldn’t be bothered to protect servicemen from predatory car salesmen, not even for Mrs. Petraeus. They couldn’t be bothered to extend unemployment benefits for a million people, despite the fact that there are at least 5 unemployed Americans for every available job opening. And no, Sharron, people aren’t living a life of luxury in Las Vegas on unemployment benefits.

So Remember Come November. Vote for those few who have been taking care of your business in Washington, and against those who have been trying to obstruct your business. In the meantime, click here to figure out how to contact your Senators, and here to find your Representative. You’ll need to know your Zip+4, so dig out some mail first.

In closing: fat people don’t walk (an essay on urban design); a “silly” lady who desperately needed the 911 operator to listen (need help? these people can help); they hate us for our electricity; what would Jesus do?; it’s not your typical state dinner — don’t tell Michelle they split an order of fries; and your dose of Japanfilter, the Pepsi Strong Shot.

Twofer Thursday: This is Your Economy and Warren Buffett Redux

This is Your Economy:

The ADP payroll report is out today. They’re the people who print paychecks, so they have a very good idea how many private sector jobs there are. And in May, they say there were 55,000 more private sector jobs. All the gains came from the “service” sector: jobs that often begin with “how can I help you” and end with “is there anything else” (or alternatively, “would you like fries with that”). No new manufacturing jobs; no new construction jobs; no jobs doing anything that won’t be gone or irrelevant in 6 months. Tomorrow the Bureau of Labor Statistics will come out with their own numbers, which include government jobs. And since there are roughly 400,000 extra Census workers on the job right now, they are expected to announce something like 540,000 new jobs. Because those Census workers will be unemployed by Christmas, we should really call this 140,000 new and possibly permanent jobs. Once more, we haven’t added enough jobs to account for people entering the workforce (sorry, class of 2010!) let alone put the unemployed to work.

Speaking of the unemployed, the percentage of them who have been out of work more than half a year is at record levels. Sadly, unemployment is higher among parents, who have families to feed. Let’s not forget that the biggest reason for unemployment benefits is that those kids didn’t do anything wrong and still deserve roof-over-head and dinner-on-the-table. And in an unconscionable move, at least one employer is advertising that they won’t consider your application if you are unemployed! On what planet is it desirable to hire people who you know will jump ship for a better gig, when there are thousands of unemployed people desperate to work for you? Even without the public relations nightmare unfolding, how can this possibly be good business?

No wonder personal bankruptcy filings are up.

This is your economy. And now, in the face of a consumer revolt that threatens to turn into a voter revolt, Congress is actually considering doing something about the people who got us here. It sure sounds like too little too late, if it happens at all.

Warren Buffett Redux (a follow up):

Yesterday was the big day for the Oracle of Omaha. He had to sit down in front of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission and explain how the 3rd richest man in the world let a ratings agency he had partial ownership of overlook the real estate bubble. Well, he didn’t want to “look foolish” by sounding the alarm. After all, everybody was trying to make a buck in real estate. Nobody could have seen it coming, especially the company that was paid to see it coming. Which is it: he didn’t want to be the first to say anything, or nobody could have foreseen it?

Kind of unimpressive testimony. It’s almost like he was trying to invoke his right to remain silent.

In Closing: Androids don’t play Tetris; Wal-Mart’s lawyers warned the company not to be misogynist prigs in 1995; obligatory Gulf of Mexico oil spill items; Congressional slap-fight may make it hard to buy a home anywhere floods are a remote risk; Driving While Black (I feel certain that “brown” is close enough in many areas); cooking is hard; health insurance limbo; vaccine refusal puts everyone at risk; National Association of Evangelicals might actually be ready to face reality, that birth control prevents abortions; farewell Mercury; the 50 year “anomaly”; Governor Gibbons made the Real ID Zombie walk again, but the ACLU’s got a boomstick; and Star Trek insignia. Yes, I do try to always make the last item fun.

Learning By Osmosis

It took University of Nevada researchers 20 years to figure out that kids who live in homes where they own books — as few as 20 books — have higher academic achievement. The shocking realization was apparently that it had little to do with the parents’ educational level: “Books in the homes of even the barely literate were found to further a child’s education by an average of 3.2 years. In fact, children of parents with less education had more to gain by having books in their homes.”

Well gee whiz.

You don’t suppose it could be that when parents own books, they are showing that reading is a valid activity and education is a valuable thing? Even if those books are all picture books, even if they are all religious books, even if they are all trashy romance novels, the precedent that they are worth having around influences what the kids will think is important by the time Kindergarten rolls around.

Sorry, sending a box of books to the families of “at risk” kids isn’t going to magically make their test scores better.

In closing: Tropical disease hits Sub-Tropical Florida (but no, global climate change is a hoax! All that snow last winter proved it!); the Social Security system is at risk (remember, it has never ever been a savings program so anybody who talks about “returns” on it is an idiot or a thief); just a few miscellaneous oil spill items; miscellaneous medical items; some choice financial “reform” items (Banking index didn’t crash? We’re still screwed then); unemployment and mortgage delinquency (gee, whoda thought those were related??); why we can’t take true libertarians seriously; and help out an animal shelter.

Left Behind: The Jobpocalypse

Even though officially, the Great Recession is over and the economy is no longer contracting, most people believe the recession is still ongoing. They believe this because as the saying goes, “Things are tough all over.”

The sad truth is that many of the jobs that were lost in the first decade of this century are not coming back. Ever. They’ve been replaced by computers and cheap overseas labor. Some of them did what they were told is the “smart thing” and trained for other jobs in the “new economy.” And while a few of them have been fortunate, many of them merely end up with a pile of student loan debt and not nearly enough experience to get a job. The only “good news” — if it can be called that — is that while they were students, they did not actually count as unemployed. And some of them have discovered that regardless of the law, many employers consider them too old to bother hiring. It isn’t that they did anything wrong. They’ve just not been fortunate. No wonder there’s been a sharp rise in Social Security disability claims!

So in the middle of this truth, FactCheck.org insists that immigration doesn’t cost American jobs. In fact, the economic papers they cite tell us, their existence creates jobs and raises wages for “native” workers. They admit that illegal immigrants performing unskilled labor do drive wages (and opportunities) down for those at the very lowest end of the employment scale. Otherwise, the distinction between legal and illegal immigrants is largely glossed over.

Now let me make one thing perfectly clear. I have no problem whatsoever with the fact that people continue to come to the United States to create a better life for themselves and their families. My son has ancestors who arrived in this nation in the last hundred years; some of them did not speak English and some were fluent in multiple languages when they arrived. But you know what they all did? They followed the law. They did what was necessary to stay legal and become citizens.

Everyone benefits when the playing field is level: immigrants benefit when there is a clear and possible path to citizenship, and they benefit when they get minimum wage and a safe work environment; law abiding businesses benefit when unscrupulous employers are not allowed to undercut them with illegal laborers; communities benefit when there is not a group of people who are trying to be invisible to authorities, and when human trafficking is not tolerated (yeah that’s right, not all the illegals pick veggies and clean toilets); families benefit when a living wage and reasonable hours are the standard; everyone’s health benefits when agricultural workers have proper sanitary conditions; everyone’s safety benefits when construction workers are paying attention to their work instead of looking out for La Migra.

But the flipside of a level playing field is that the companies that employ us must be made to follow existing law, and they must respect that their profit depends on Americans having money to purchase their goods and services. We can only run our economy so long on selling cheap foreign made goods to one other. We have got to produce something of more lasting value than a cappuccino.

If you are so inclined, here are two bloggers who could use some monetary help, both long term unemployed. Just hit the “Donate” button.

In Closing: Doesn’t this look peaceful?; Doesn’t this look suspicious?; Government says there’s only a risk of “price pressure” (not inflation!) but Gold prices say **** that!; the truth about offshore drilling; Congress looking into whether it’s fair to use credit history for employment and insurance purposes (gee, I can’t imagine why somebody with no job might have lousy credit!!); Fannie and Freddie, too big to reform; Shinkansen; GOP to hold convention in Florida during hurricane season; Common Ancestor; next time some asshat talks about “tort reform” when they mean “damage caps,” just remind them of the Gulf Oil Spill; last word (I hope) on the aptly named TARP; the Maine idea; car dealers want to be exempted from proposed financial rules (waaah); duh, insurers stand to make a lot of money on health insurance reform; and history of the slider.

Stupid Republican Tricks

Seriously, there has been so much stupid that I don’t know where to start.

I could start close to home with Senate candidate Sue Lowden, who thinks we should be able to barter with our doctors and pay with, for example, chickens!

I could go down the road a bit to Arizona’s new racial profiling illegal immigration law, which “requires state and local police to determine the status of people if there is ‘reasonable suspicion’ that they are illegal immigrants and to arrest people who are unable to provide documentation proving they are in the country legally.” By the way, “reasonable suspicion” means the cop doesn’t like you and/or you’re brown. I don’t think most people appreciate that most people don’t carry proof of citizenship in their pockets — NO a Driver’s License is NOT proof of citizenship! Never has been, shouldn’t ever be.

But wait, maybe that’s what Senator McCain was getting at when he said that illegal immigrants are deliberately causing car accidents! I certainly can’t think of any rational reason that anybody — particularly someone here illegally — would cause accidents. Insurance fraud?? What a dangerous way to make money!

It’s OK though, because Representative Bilbray says a cop can tell if somebody is illegal just by looking at their clothes! So tell me, what exactly is the difference between the shirt I buy at Target and the shirt that an illegal immigrant buys at Target? I don’t want to accidentally get the wrong one. And certainly you’d better not dress up for any ethnic festivals in Arizona without sticking your birth certificate or naturalization papers in your pocket!

Then again I could go to the horse’s mouth — Washington D.C. — and examine the party of NO!’s “Just scrap it and maybe start over” strategy on almost every initiative. Oh, and let’s not forget that it is at least partly thanks to the Republicans that the newly passed health insurance reform bill still allows rescission and still has no way to control wild increases in premiums.

Not that the Democrats are innocent, but certainly no wonder people are “fed up with political incivility.” Anybody who wants to be re-elected had better pay attention to public sentiment now.

In Closing: Freezing a 787 for science; look, putting twins in different homerooms to see which one learns to read better doesn’t prove that reading skills are 82% genetic, just that the teacher and classroom aren’t 100% to blame/praise for the results!; Homelessness, it’s not just for addicts and the mentally ill anymore (sadly, for some people, it’s what’s for dinner); a scathing truth about “successfully” parenting a crowd; high schools preparing kids for college without a thought of preparing them for work; if the Fed is going to print money, do you suppose they could send some my way?; congrats to GM on paying back the TARP money to the Feds; green Navy vessels on the ocean blue; the various watch lists and no-fly lists aren’t just an annoyance, they divert attention from real threats; on long term unemployment; oh waah, companies are having a hard time raising prices; let’s see how far the rotten banking practices extend; and school lunches have officially become a matter of national security.

Musings of a Part-Time Feminist

I’m not very good feminist. I’m happily married and there’s very little I can’t do because of mere gender stereotypes. I’m no Amanda Marcotte. However, I know when I have to stand up for the fact that I am human even though I have no penis.

I recall being at work and a supervisor informing me that I should wear high heels. I politely asked if the guys would be wearing them as well. He made no reply and I never heard another word about it.

I do bristle when I get the “honey” and “little lady” treatment (it’s ShortWoman, Mrs. Magnus if you’re nasty!). I don’t like being told I’m a “smart cookie” and that “you’ll figure something out” when I ask for advice. I can detect a virtual pat on the head from a patronizing tone whether it is written or vocal. (Yeah, I’m talking to you, Senator Ensign’s office!)

Nevertheless, I am reluctant to ascribe to patriarchy what might just be stupidity.

However, that being said, I have to call stuff out when I see it. Consider this: in one week, two different men were arrested for making threats against two different members of Congress that both happened to be female. First, it was Senator Patty Murray — for whom I have had the pleasure of voting. Then mere days later it was Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

Anybody see a pattern here? Anybody? Bueller?

I am forced to concede that the rambling idiocy of the ultra-conservative, far right wing, “wing nut” and/or “teabagger” communities can only be explained by misogyny and racism. It isn’t particularly that they have a problem with health insurance reform, or taxes, or “freedom”, or gun rights, or the global climate change “myth”, or whatever they are on about this week. If it was ever about those things, those days are gone. Their problem is that there’s a negro in the White House and that a damn broad is the Speaker of the House. And to be honest, I don’t know which pisses these highly insecure people off more.

Consider also the double standard about what women are allowed to discuss publicly, including on their blogs. A great number of normal, natural things are NSFW. Discussion of breast feeding — the most natural way to feed a baby, even condoned in the Bible — even becomes about sex and gender. We can’t show that! We can’t even discuss that! “Can’t baby have his dinner in the toilet??”

Variations of this also permeate every discussion of “pro-life” ideals that condemns contraception. When you scratch the surface, it rapidly turns into “if you don’t want babies, don’t have sex, slut!” Or in this case, “How dare poor women on public assistance want to have sex but still control the size of their families.” Indeed, shame on them for wanting contraceptives, then double shame on them for bringing children into this world that they can’t afford to feed.

As I said, I’m not much of a feminist, but when the bullshit is heaped this high, even I can smell the attitude of men who think women aren’t as good and certainly don’t deserve nice things like recreational sex and seats in Congress.

In Closing: $200,000,000 per air marshal arrest; I hope you never need the first contact help sheet; for that matter I hope you never need these emergency tips; many of us were Pheobe Prince; Cash for Clunkers worked??; and the Jobs Report has nothing to do with that new operating system for the iPhone.

Flint and Steel

What happens when you strike flint and steel? Fire.

In this case, lots and lots of fire.

Back on March 25, the City of Flint, Michigan made the decision to lay off 23 of 88 firefighters and 46 of 150 police officers. Almost immediately, the fires started. Several fires, every night. Sometimes, 8 or 9 fires. Mostly, they were among the 3000 vacant structures in need of demolition. Two were apartment buildings. A couple have been occupied homes. All have been called “suspicious.” In fact, the Mayor calls them a series of “coordinated criminal attacks.”

The remaining firefighters are understandably exhausted, and this makes them prone to making mistakes that can maim or kill themselves or their co-workers. Citizens are not happy at all, because there is always the fear that their homes could be next — either as a primary fire or as fire spreads from the vacant houses that dot their neighborhoods. One interesting detail is that only 6 of the structures are specifically known to be bank-owned.

Not surprisingly, many are blaming the Mayor, who had to do whatever it took to close an estimated $8,000,000 to $10,000,000 budget shortfall. A recall effort is underway to get him out of office, but that won’t change the fact that the city needs millions more dollars than it has. The Mayor has proposed a $13,000,000 bond sale to both cover the shortfall and help the city get its financial house in order. Some say that just won’t be enough to do the job, but the Mayor’s budget for the next fiscal year projects a surplus.

The surprising thing — shocking in fact — is how little attention the mainstream media is paying to this. When Colorado Springs turned off the streetlights to save money, CNN and all the rest were there to make sure we all knew about it. But when a city in Michigan starts slowly burning to the ground, block by block, because they can’t afford enough firefighters? Only a bit of coverage from the local paper, a couple of firefighter groups, and the local ABC affiliate. It isn’t even a story in the newspapers down in Detroit, a mere 66 miles away.

Shameful.

Cross-Posted at The Moderate Voice

In Closing: unemployed workers per job opening (and remember, that’s the narrow, Department of Labor definition of unemployed); hell has a special place for people whose job is to find reasons not to pay unemployment benefits; relationship red flags (if I had limitless time and energy I’d add to this list); Should the Vatican have adopted the sorts of reforms already in place in the United States? Does the CSM really need to ask this question?; on school lunches; on “too big to fail” (um, yeah); So you call the cops to report a crime, do you really want his first question to be whether you can prove you’re a citizen?; if only there weren’t some truth in this letter from the Baby Boomers to their children; and one doctor tells us how she thinks Health Insurance Reform may cost everyone more money.

Survival of the Shorties

Just so you know up front: I’m not big on April Fools jokes. The only thing I ever did was send a new maintenance guy to fix a toilet in a non-existent apartment. My boss was more amused by it than I was. Anyways, on to the Shorties!

Unemployment is Certainly No Joke: It’s high. There’s no sign that it will get better soon. We’re still losing jobs in this economy, and Spring Semester doesn’t end that long off now.  Tim Geithner calls it “unacceptable” but hasn’t really offered a plan on what to do about it. Well then, as long as he’s clear on that! Perhaps we could have some sort of, I dunno, public job creation plan? Well, here’s an “ugly truth” about how you can buff your resume.

Something Approaching Justice: The terrorist who killed a doctor in the middle of a church because he happened to perform a medical procedure he didn’t like (and couldn’t have in any event) has been sentenced to life in prison. The soonest he could possibly get parole is 50 years.

Something Light: Barack Obama Looking at Awesome Things.

Doing Something: It’s better than doing nothing. School tries new ways of stopping bullies that don’t involve platitudes to the victims.

Maybe Doing Nothing Would Be Better?: A doctor talks about unnecessary tests. No, not because a doctor is covering his ass.

Something to do when you grow up: Perhaps something that begins with a K.

Something Old: a little history lesson regarding our nation’s banking issues.

Something Serious: It’s Autism Awareness Month.

Something you probably already suspected: Asset Forfeiture Laws can be horribly abused.

Something that will either horrify or amuse you: Scarface, as performed by pre-schoolers. Come on, it’s only 2 minutes and 11 seconds!

And finally, Something I Totally Do Not Need!: Hello Kitty Message Watches. Price, $620-800.

Just another day in Vegas

I took this picture yesterday from the third floor of the Clark County Courthouse, around noon. It was a beautiful day.

In Closing: “And the recess appointment power doesn’t work why?”; common sense; keeping their priorities straight; yeah, I think many of us would have bought the T-shirt; NY Times catches up to the end of private practice (they’re only about a decade late); now can we work on the unemployment problem?; and as much as I hate to even think about it, lessons from the Baby Sitter’s Club.