Mr. Obama's stimulus plan may look good on paper, but the devil is always in the details. Let all buyers beware!
Only a week ago, the Fed cut its bank rate to a historic low, the new range being — can you imagine? — from 0% to 0.25%, while the credit crunch and pressures on the dollar continue unabated. And this rather significant development followed right after the Madoff debacle and so-called “Ponzi scheme,” allegedly defrauding investors worldwide, including banks, hedge funds and financial institutions, to the tune of $50 billion and counting.…
Article comments
26 - Baritone
Bar,
Have a good time in NY. Are you going to the big "C?"
My son just flew into Indy from LaGuardia. The big city is getting him down. Well, not really, but I think he does appreciate seeing grass when he looks out the window - even if its covered with an inch of ice.
I'm one atheist who will enjoy christmas despite my heretic ways. :-)
B
27 - Ruvy
There ain't much to add to what Roger, Brunelleschi, Baritone, Cindy, Glenn, and even Kenn have said here.
We're all in trouble worldwide because of the stupid policies of the United States ruling elite, and what you're whistling past, Dave, could soon be a very bloody graveyard.
If I were you, I would look away from economics for a while - you obviously have gotten it wrong - and pay real close attention to the movements of the Russian fleet. The slightly burnished "world revolution" of the USSR has been replaced by a far smellier beast, the renewed bear of the Russian Empire. It smells blood and it is coming in for the meat....
28 - Cindy D
Merry Christmas Baronius! Though I missed you by now. You'll be about an hour away from me.
29 - Glenn Contrarian
Cindy -
I agree that Wikipedia has some wonderful advantages, but it's a pain-in-the-butt sometimes, particularly for those of us who belong to religions with whom others strongly disagree. But even then, the good Wiki people usually step in and moderate things to a reasonable degree.
30 - Dave Nalle
I think you're resorting to a bogus argument, Dave, and bogus figures. It's the same kind of argument that the editors of The Economist use to justify present crisis in view of the prosperity that had been created. They say the gains are unlikely to get wiped out. I'll provide you with exact references shortly.
I'm using the figures which are generally accepted to represent unemployment and which have been for generations. It would be more bogus to pick different figures which are not standard and accepted because they serve my purposes more.
But if you don't like that figure, let's look at some others.
We had net gains in employment for 52 months, followed now by 11 months of losses. The 52 months of gains still far outweigh the 11 months of losses. Looking back to the last period, the Clinton recession produced 27 months of losses adding up to far more job loss than we've seen in this period. The Carter recession produced 21 months of job loss with a larger total number of jobs lost than the Clinton recession. We're not in the league of either of those recessions yet in terms of job loss. Were you crying doom and gloom like this in the fall of 2002? At that point we were at the end of a downward trend in employment which had cost 2.7 million jobs.
Employment like other aspects of the economy goes through up and down cycles. If we panic at every one of them it's counterproductive, and panicking in the middle of one which is still modest in proportion to others of recent memory is particularly insane.
And if you don't like the way unemployment is calculated, we can look at how employment is calculated, by comparing total employment with population on a historic basis.
Right now employment is at 45.3%. In 2000 it was at 47%. In 1990 it was at 43.7%. In 1980 it was at 39.8%. In 1970 it was at 35%. Now since 1970 the workforce has grown substantially, mainly because of women leaving the home and getting jobs, but it's quite clear that right now, even if we have less employment than we did 10 years ago we have substantially higher employment than we have had historically. These figures also show that despite your claims that the unemployment figure is innacurate, we have seen only a small decrease in employment, not some dramatic decline.
Doesn't the fact that 533,000 have lost their jobs in November, and that we're about to match this figure this month, mean anything to you?
Well sure. It means that more people are unemployed than were two months ago. However, 533,000 is less than 1/2 of 1% of the workforce. Unless that kind of job loss goes on for a lot longer than 2 months I'm not going to call it an epic disaster. Irrational panic serves no purpose.
We are in the Depression, however hard many economics and believers in the market economy would like to deny it.
You need to read up on what happened in the ACTUAL depression for comparison with the current situation. We do not currently have a 40% bankruptcy rate, 4000 bank failures or a near total shut-down of the economy.
A General Motors stock trading barely over $4.00 per share - like some penny or over-the-counter stock of old? Years ago, that would be unthinkable.
Hardly. I wouldn't have paid $4 a share for it 5 years ago. The company produces a crap product on a terrible business model with incompetent management and has for years. It's ridiculous that it was ever valued highly. They deserve to go bankrupt, and regardless of the fact that they are one of the 'big three', they're still just another large industrial company and one of many of comparable size in a variety of industries. Building crappy cars doesn't actually make them that special.
Don't you think that this world is coming to an end?
No.
Dave
31 - Roger Nowosielski
I'll need a little time to respond to this, Dave,
so bear with me for a little while, please!
RN
32 - Dave Nalle
The recent surge in unemployment should wake people like Dave up, but apparently not. There is no reason to believe that it is about to slow down. There is a ripple effect running through the country that is gaining momentum. Some predict unemployment levels will reach and perhaps exceed 10% by late spring or early summer.
Paul Krugman predicts all sorts of crazy shit and is usually wrong. Even if our job loss is as strong and as sustained as the worst periods in recent memory, based on what has happened so far we are unlikely to lose more than another 2 million jobs, resulting in a rise of unemployment to about 8%.
I hate to break this news to you, but as far as employment goes, this recession looks very much like the standard recessions we've had every decade or so, except for the higher level of irrational panic.
Further, the reduction in tax revenues for all levels of government owing largely to high unemployment and the consequent curtailing of market participation will have the effect of reducing government programs and services, in turn causing further unemployment and on and on.
If only I could believe that the government would cut services in response to losses in revenues. Prior experience suggests that they will just increase debt to compensate.
Also, it is true that reported government unemployment numbers do NOT reflect those still out of work, but no longer collecting unemployment compensation. There are always a number of people who just give up and no longer actively seek employment.
As I pointed out in my previous comment, if you make this argument you then have to explain why our level of actual employment is not down that dramatically, expecially in the longer term historical context.
What Dave describes as "meaningless makework" proposed by Obama is a mis-characterization. There are literally hundreds of significant and badly needed infrastructure projects virtually everywhere in the country. Many are set to go, but simply don't have the funding.
If Obama deals with this by helping to fund those projects and they are then contracted out to private enterprise and dealt with on that basis, then it will be a net positive. But Obama has talked about forced labor conscription and massive makework armies put to work to do some of these jobs, cutting out the private sector, as FDR did. If he takes that route it will be disastrous.
The country could definitely benefit from a rebuilding of our passenger rail system.
Here I have to disagree. No one uses it. Why rebuild it?
But on the whole I agree with the desirability of infrastructure improvement.
These would hardly come under the heading of "meaningless makework" projects.
"meaningless makework" is determined by how the projects are undertaken, not by what they are. Remember, FDR put millions to work catching crickets and raking leaves and planting trees and painting murals. If that's Obama's approach then we have a problem.
Dave
33 - Glenn Contrarian
Dave -
I think you may have exposed your partisanship in your most recent post by using the phrase, "Clinton recession".
Searching around, I found several references showing the recession began in 1990 and had its roots in the October 1987 stock market crash, and at least two references (Wikipedia and a Connecticut state government site) indicating that the recession ENDED in late 1992, BEFORE Clinton ever took office.
But you are calling it the 'Clinton recession'. Isn't that sorta like Rush Limbaugh calling the current economic situation the 'Obama recession'? Just as the Republicans wanted to blame the 1990-92 recession on Clinton even though he wasn't sworn in until 1993, they are wanting to blame the current recession on Obama even though he won't be sworn in until next year.
Do you really think that such blatantly false accusations are honorable conduct? Or do you think that the end (tearing down Democrats for the sake of the Republican party) justifies the means (posting outright falsehoods)? I sincerely hope that you subscribe to neither of the above.
Please don't take this as a personal attack - I am pointing out a falsehood that you posted, but I do not know your level of knowledge - you may not realize that you posted a falsehood.
So please either PROVE that the early-90's recession was caused in ANY way by Clinton...or post a retraction.
And remember - being wrong's one thing. Refusing to own up to it when someone else proves one is wrong...is hubris.
34 - Holly Bowse
Glenn, don't blame Bushy for not enforcing regulations. Isn't that the Senate's job?
35 - Glenn Contrarian
Holly -
A lesson I learned a long time ago in the military: it all comes from the top.
(apologies to BC for repeating a sea story)
When I was on the USS Ranger back in '84, we couldn't do anything right. We failed safety and operating inspections right and left, and we were at each others' throats blaming each other for every little thing.
Then we got a new captain...and all of a sudden, everything started to happen as they should. We started kicking butt in everything we did. It took me a long time to realize how that happened, because the ONLY thing that changed was the captain!
The captain - CAPT Tony Davis - had the SAME crew with the SAME complement of officers as his predecessor. So how did he do it?
He set standards and set the example, and expected his department heads to follow his standards and example. In other words, he was a leader. Under his leadership, the Ranger went from worst-to-first.
That's why I believe in Truman's statement: "The buck stops here!" because it does. With few exceptions, the president by and large receives - and deserves - ALL credit and ALL blame for everything that goes right or wrong on his or her watch.
So why can't we blame the Senate? While they do bear the blame and receive credit to be sure, the the REASON the president MUST be the ultimate recipient of the credit and the blame is that he or she is in a position of leadership, and it is therefore incumbent upon him or her to use every tool at his or her disposal to do what must be done.
Success demands and deserves the accolades of generations to come. Failure receives the disdain, even the contempt of posterity.
Such is the nature of the beast of leadership.
36 - Baritone
There is no indication that Obama intends to have people "paint murals" although for some who may harbor such talents, it couldn't hurt.
The major difference between earlier downturns in employment that you have cited since the great depression, is that we did not have the melt down of the housing, banking and investment sectors with which we are now faced. The possible failure of the US auto industry which is one of the last major manufacturing entities in this country, was not a factor in earlier recessions.
There have been a number of recent warnings that further substantial hits are coming for both residential and commercial real estate. Other retail markets are also falling significantly.
I don't believe what is being laid out before us constitutes "panic," but rather a fair warning that things may well get a lot worse before they get better. The only real panic came from Paulson who wound up duping Congress and the rest of us into handing the banks and securities outfits bundles of taxpayer money with no strings attached and no accountability.
Then Congress does an about face and refuses to aid the auto industry unless management and especially labor agree to give huge concessions for what amounts to a pittance as compared to that given the bankers.
While the "big three" clearly have screwed the pooch for several years, it is not wholly their fault. They produced the autos that American's demanded. American's generally don't take to sub-compacts, and generally, with only periodic exceptions, have not given a rat's ass about fuel economy. Americans want "big" and they want "fast." Neither of those lend themselves to economy nor efficiency. Anyone who drives a Hummer or monster SUV or other full size, gas guzzling "boat" share in the blame.
I disagree about the railroads. They are in fact used a great deal, primarily along the east coast. Fast commuter trains making relatively short runs - say between Chicago and St. Louis, or Cincinnati, Louisville and maybe Memphis, etc. could be far more economical and just about as fast if not faster than flying. Post war Europeans were not as stupid as we Americans who trashed the railroads in favor of interstate highways and the airways.
My younger son used to live in Chicago. A number of times he flew home to Indy and back. Whether he used Midway or O'Hare, the travel time to and from his residence to the airport far and away exceeded the flight time. Add to that the fact that passengers are required to check in at least a half hour before the scheduled departure time of their flights, and owing to having to brave the "security gauntlet," it is wise to arrive an hour or more before any flight is scheduled to leave. Then, of course, there is the wait for any checked luggage, and then the time to and from the Indy airport of about 30 minutes. We live only about 10 minutes from the downtown railroad terminal.
The actual flight between Indy and Chicago is around 35 minutes. Add in travel time to and from the airports, early check-in, getting through security and waiting for luggage, you can be talking 3 hours or more. Hell, I have driven from our home in Indy to Evanston in three and a half hours.
Catching a train in downtown Chicago to downtown Indy could be much quicker than either flying or driving - say around 2 hours, perhaps less, if the trains can run at a good clip. Unfortunately, for years there has been only 1 passenger train between Chicago and Indy and it leaves Chicago at around midnight and arrives in Indy at around 5AM. The return trip is similarly scheduled. Really handy!
Good passenger rail service serving relatively short runs all across the country could significantly ease the pressure on both our highways and airways. To me, it's a no brainer. Costly? Yes. But doable? Indeed.
B
37 - Roger Nowosielski
Right on, Baritone. When Dave says that GM makes a lousy product, or that the GM stock should trade at $4.00 or so, he's off his rocker. If GM and others go (I don't believe IBM is any longer "ours," what's left? Practically everything these days is made in China - Black & Decker, Stanley, you name it. If that's not a sign of the economic decline of US, then what is and what else are we waiting for. As far as I'm concerned, all these so-called US companies are so in name only - nothing more than a middle man. What's left are service industries (i.e., security guards, etc) and hamburger floppers. Robert Reich had talked all about it long time ago, before he served in the Clinton Administration, in "The Work of Nations." It was prophetic, come to think of it. Perhaps Dave should read it or re-read it as the case may be.
I'm not certain, however, what's your position on UAW. As far as I'm concerned, it's a plague and these people should never be identified with our workforce, real parasites.
Anyhow, may your voice carry loud and clear.
RN
38 - Cindy D
Roger,
Thanks for another brilliant article! I am becoming an avid fan! Merry Christmas.
39 - Dr Dreadful
The problem with most passenger rail services in the US at the moment is that they run on tracks owned by the freight rail companies (Union Pacific, BNSF, Norfolk Southern etc) - and the freight trains have priority. This means that passenger services get shoved over onto a siding, stopped short of their destination or even cancelled altogether if a freight train or trains need to use that particular segment of track at that particular time. (Our local San Joaquins service, which uses the BNSF tracks between Bakersfield, Oakland and Sacramento, is habitually up to two hours late by the time it reaches its destination.) I suspect that this is the principal reason why the Chicago-Indianapolis service runs in the middle of the night - there's less traffic about.
The advantage of fast, dedicated passenger lines is that they deliver you directly into the heart of a city, not to the outskirts where most airports are. The Eurostar from London to Paris takes about three hours; the flight from Heathrow to Charles de Gaulle about one. However, once you factor in - as B-tone observes - commute times to and from the airports, check-in, security, walking to and from the gate, the boarding process (much longer and more involved than boarding a train), taxiing and baggage claim, the point-to-point journey time on Eurostar is much faster.
40 - Roger Nowosielski
Thanks, Cindy. I tried to make it as fluent and cogent as possible; and at least it had generated a spirited debate. I see, however, that's I've got to hit my economics books and do some more research to put Dave away. Although it's good he's hanging in there. Everybody needs a foil - just kidding!
The interesting thing is the extent to which our economic views spring from political ideology(ies) and deeper yet, perhaps, our emotional makeups. Perhaps the best way to destroy these arguments is to show that.
Roger
41 - Dave Nalle
Glenn, just so you know, I'm mostly ignoring your comments because they're such complete nonsense. I may have time to laugh at them later.
Searching around, I found several references showing the recession began in 1990 and had its roots in the October 1987 stock market crash, and at least two references (Wikipedia and a Connecticut state government site) indicating that the recession ENDED in late 1992, BEFORE Clinton ever took office.
That's the Reagan recession. I specifically did not include that one in my brief set of examples. The Clinton recession started right at the end of his term and carried on into the first two years of Bush's term.
Do you really think that such blatantly false accusations are honorable conduct? Or do you think that the end (tearing down Democrats for the sake of the Republican party) justifies the means (posting outright falsehoods)? I sincerely hope that you subscribe to neither of the above.
You need to get over this partisanship bullshit. It's a waste of time and of no interest to me.
Please don't take this as a personal attack
Except that it makes no sense as anything else.
- I am pointing out a falsehood that you posted, but I do not know your level of knowledge - you may not realize that you posted a falsehood.
Because I didn't post a falsehood. You just made a foolish assumption about what I posted based on your own partisanship and the assumptions it caused you to make about me.
So please either PROVE that the early-90's recession was caused in ANY way by Clinton...or post a retraction.
No need. I never posted anything about that recession.
And remember - being wrong's one thing. Refusing to own up to it when someone else proves one is wrong...is hubris.
And making foolish assumptions just makes you look like a fool.
For the record, here are the recessions from the last 30 or so years.
Carter Recession: 1979-1983
Reagan Crisis: 1985-1987
Reagan Recession: 1990-1992
Clinton Recession: 2000-2003
Bush Recession: 2008-?
A couple of things to note. I've included the Reagan banking/real estate crisis because while it wasn't a recession it had many of the characteristics of the current situation. And as far as defining recssions I'm using a combination of unemployment and negative economic growth. Each recession is a period where prolonged declines in employment and negative economic growth coincided.
Dave
42 - Dave Nalle
Practically everything these days is made in China - Black & Decker, Stanley, you name it. If that's not a sign of the economic decline of US, then what is and what else are we waiting for.
This is like saying that when a worker gets promoted from the production floor to management he has failed as a worker. Pure rat-brained craziness.
There's nothing inherently desirable or indespensible about low-level manufacturing jobs. If we give those jobs up while growing other more desirable sectors of the economy we're better off, not worse off.
Dave
43 - Glenn Contrarian
Hm.
Time for another serving of crow.
Please accept my sincere apology, Dave - I assumed that you were referring to the early-90's recession and I stuck my foot in my mouth up to the kneecap.
I'll accept the description of the 2000-2003 recession as the 'Clinton recession', for although many rightly see it as a correction of wildly inflated stock prices particularly in the tech sector, it was at least in part enabled by deregulation during the Clinton administration.
I'm not afraid to be wrong - I'm only afraid of refusing to admit it when someone shows me I'm wrong.
44 - Roger Nowosielski
What sectors on earth are you talking about, Dave? Who gets promoted? Even in Silicon Valley - presumably our greatest strength - all the middle management positions are imported by from India and Asia. Only the CEOs are true-blue Americans. Of course, there's still the Wall Street elite and the like. But an average worker? Come on! The jobs out there are getting more and more menial except for the specialized cadre. You really ought to re-read Reich's book.
45 - Dave Nalle
It's convenient to stick a president's name on a recession, but I wouldn't attach too much blame to their policies in most cases. Recessions usually come from forces which are outside of the president's ability to control. And I think it's significant that they're spaced out so evenly, about every 9 years.
Oh, and regarding my earlier comment on jobs. I recommend this video from The Onion. Sometimes there's a lot of truth in their humor.
Dave
46 - handyguy
Perhaps Dave knows better than all of us -- it's hard to determine whether he actually is a megalomaniac or only plays one on the Internet -- but it is not only the Paul Krugmans of the world who see the current financial situation as especially dire and frightening.
Many economists, right left and center, have been shaken by the freezing of the credit markets. Using unemployment figures in isolation from the banking and credit crisis to label this a run-of-the-mill, average recession is either tunnel vision or propagandistic foolishness.
The situation has been enough to shake up Republicans like Bernanke and Paulson [and Bush], and Mark Zandi, lead economist for Moody's and an advisor to the McCain campaign, has urged Obama to err on the side of spending too much rather than too little for an economic stimulus.
The need for a Keynesian stimulus is in fact almost universally accepted, by everyone except the usual rightist know-nothings.
We can and should have a discussion about the best ways to spend the money...but spend it we must.
From Fox News [!!]:
Among those whose opinions Obama sought were Lawrence B. Lindsey, a top economic adviser to President George W. Bush during his first term, and Harvard professor Martin Feldstein, an informal adviser to John McCain and the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Ronald Reagan.
Feldstein recommended a $400 billion investment in one year, Obama aides said, and Lindsey said the package should be in the range of $800 billion to $1 trillion. The aides revealed the discussions on condition of anonymity because no decisions had been reached.
"I do recommend $400 billion in year one and expect a similar amount in year two," Feldstein said in an e-mail. "The right amount depends on how it is used."
47 - Roger Nowosielski
I happen to agree with everything you say, Handyguy. Dave won't give up until the ground shakes under his feet. I have reservations, however, about people like Lindsay. We certainly don't need another bubble.
RN
48 - Dave Nalle
Believe me, the ground has shaken under my feet, but it's done it a few times before. Unlike some of you I remember the Ford and Carter years and the Reagan crisis in 85 and the tech bust. Seen in perspective what seems to distinguish the current crisis is the level of irrational panic, not the actual level of genuine crisis.
Dave
49 - Roger Nowosielski
I'm far from panicking, Dave. And I don't believe I was ever whining, as you said God knows how many entries ago. As a matter of fact, I kind of welcome - though I don't want to shock the reading public - the coming of the dawn. This system, unsupervised and unregulated, had had it and yes ... pure greed took over and showed the rest of the world what unstable foundations it really rests on. Am I a socialist?
I don't think so. I remember JKF years, and Bethlehem Steel, the the first sign of the collapse. But American corporations were still responsible more or less, or at least pretended to be. They all wanted to bear the banner of "good corporate citizens." Pensions and vacations were a rule, not an exception.
Do you really want to tell me that the average worker, whether white or blue collar, had been worse off 50 years ago? If you go back that far, you should remember that in the good old days only the head of the family had to work and the women worked only part-time. It wasn't till the mid 60s that the influx of women into the workforce assumed significant proportions, so much so that it had become necessary for them to work full time from that time on in order to make ends meet: understandably, the employers had access to cheaper labor and the salaries and wages started to take a dive. Another required reading for many - John Kenneth Galbraith, although many may not remember. So I don't want to hear about the benevolence or hidden advantages of the invisible hand. It's always been a dog-eat-dog world out there, let's not have any illusions.
Of course the Reagan era of deregulation and mergers and acquisitions had put an end to illusion. It was no longer necessary for corporations to pretend. They were free to become global conglomerates and do practically as they pleased. Many had seen the signs of the end even then, and finally it's coming back to haunt us.
The problem seems to be - many don't have a large enough horizon - or of the past, if you will - from the vantage point of which to correctly assess the events of the present.
Do I really wish for this to happen? Not at all! For all its faults, this system still provides the greatest kind of freedom - especially in creative endeavors, arts, etc. - for it lets you do what you want even if you starve to death (I'll bring up the relevant passage from "Howards End" by E. M. Forster shortly once I organize my argument better). So no! I hate to see the demise of the West because any replacement is not likely to guarantee the kinds of freedoms we've all been brought on and learned to enjoy. But do I see it coming to some definite and irrevocable climax? Definitely!
To be continued.
50 - Baritone
"There's nothing inherently desirable or indespensible about low-level manufacturing jobs. If we give those jobs up while growing other more desirable sectors of the economy we're better off, not worse off."
This is a nation of around 300 million people. Just what "more desirable sectors of the economy" would you be talking about? Actually, most manufacturing jobs are NOT as menial as many others. About the only other "industry" which offers any real volume of employment opportunities outside of manufacturing is the service sector - low end retail, fast food, convenience stores, etc.
Manufacturing jobs certainly can be boring and repetitive, but the trade off for many has been better pay and benefit packages often not available from the service sector. Much of the service sector doesn't even offer full time employment which in many cases allows the employer to avoid offering any benefits at all.
I only half agree with the case against unions or the UAW in particular. I do believe they have, over the years, overstepped their bounds as it were. However, were it not for unions, we would not have a blue collar middle class. Union workers make better money, buy better housing, purchase higher end consumer goods and pay more taxes than many non-union workers. Workers without any organization behind them are totally at the mercy of their employer and are, consequently, far more vulnerable to job loss and unfair labor practices.
Dave won't give it up unless and until they come and start tearing down his castle walls.
B
51 - bliffle
Roger, #49 is right.
Conditions have deteriorated over the past 50 years. Job-wise and economics-wise, my kids have a much harder time than me, and my fathers end-life condition was better than mine, and granddads conditions were better than any of us.
The only descendant of granddad (never more than a carpenter) who made it really big was Uncle E, a huge success in the advertising business, whose wife G committed suicide messily in his Arizona Ranch. And then his beautiful daughter L committed suicide in deep depression.
Hey, onward and upward every generation in the USA, right?
52 - Roger Nowosielski
I hope no one is mad at me. please! Perhaps I shouldn't be resurrecting ghosts like Galbraith or speak of conditions so long ago, but it is true in any area of history that the greater the span, the sharper the perception. Ultimately, I believe that all economics-related arguments are at bottom moral arguments (and by "moral" I'm including politics, naturally). Way way back, they used to call is "political economy."
I'm checking out for the rest of the day.
Merry Xmas and/or Happy Holidays everyone!
53 - Cindy D
I think John Galbraith is my favorite economist. Please resurrect him regularly, I do.
54 - Arch Conservative
I wonder if there's a market for "If Only Fred Were Pres" bumper stickers.
Probably not as someone once described Fred Thompson during the campaign as "campaigning from a hammock." Thompson's lackluster completely effort during the campaign has forfeited his right to be taken seriously on these matter now.
However in about 3 years time I plan on becoming a millionaire by selling "Don't blame me I learned my lesson after the first Jimmy Carter," bumper stickers for a dollar a piece.
55 - Dave Nalle
Probably not as someone once described Fred Thompson during the campaign as "campaigning from a hammock." Thompson's lackluster completely effort during the campaign has forfeited his right to be taken seriously on these matter now.
Ah, but Plato tells us that the Philosopher who doesn't really want to be our leader is the one we should draft - even against his will - to run the state. Fred fits that description perfectly.
Dave
56 - Cindy D
Plato shmato...
57 - Dave Nalle
This is a nation of around 300 million people. Just what "more desirable sectors of the economy" would you be talking about?
High tech, healthcare, assembly, packaging, technical management, customer support, shipping, receiving and fulfillment.
Actually, most manufacturing jobs are NOT as menial as many others. About the only other "industry" which offers any real volume of employment opportunities outside of manufacturing is the service sector - low end retail, fast food, convenience stores, etc.
Absolutely and fundamentally untrue. Service industry jobs only account for 10% of the workforce. Manufacturing jobs are only about 6% of our total workforce. Our nation has overwhelmingly become a nation of managers and technicians and you seem to have missed it.
Some data from the BLS can be very revealing about the real nature of our workforce.
Service Industries: 14.7 million
Manufacturing/Production: 8.3 million
Management and Supervisory: 11 million
Business and Financial: 5 million
Professional/Science/Legal/Computer: 12 million
Education: 6.5 million
Healthcare: 5 million
Sales: 10.5 million
Office/Administrative: 15 million
Construction: 7 million
Installation/Maintenance/Repair: 4.5 million
Transportation/Shipping: 7 million
So by no possible criteria could we be considered a nation of manufacturers.
Also significant is the rate of growth (or shrinkage) of these occupations in the last 5 years.
Here are the top growing areas:
Management and Supervisory +10%
Education +10%
Healthcare +10%
Service +10%
Manufacturing employment has remained stable or gone down slightly.
Dave
58 - Roger Nowosielski
I'm not sure whether you're addressing this comment to me, Dave. I haven't made any references to Plato (yet).
I agree that we're not a nation of manufacturers, nor should we aspire to be. Besides, I thought we'd already put this argument to rest. There was a two-day moratorium on this site and now you guys are resurrecting it.
So you say we're rapidly becoming a nation of managers and technicians and that I missed this fact. First off, I haven't. That's the cadre that Reich is referring to in "The Work of Nations," as best 10 percent of the population. Who and where are people getting the kind of education to qualify them for these positions? At Heald's College or any other vocational school? They're springing up every day, you know.
My next piece, coming up any time now, addresses if only marginally the educational crisis in this country. You're really looking through rose-colored glasses. Even in the best case scenario, the Bell curve argues against any such proposition. We may be equal under the law, but none of that applies to genetic differences, aptitudes, natural abilities, etc. - especially for a nation of $300 million. 90 percent of the population will always be peons in a matter of speaking. This has been true historically and no amount of democratization is going to change that.
We'll have to wait until the Kingdom of God comes.
59 - Dave Nalle
Roger, the first comment was directed at Arch and the second which you responded to was addressed to Baritone who I quoted at the beginning of it.
And topics get ressurected all the time. It's the nature of the format.
Dave
60 - Roger Nowosielski
Thanks for the stats, anyway. They always come handy.
61 - Arch Conservative
"Ah, but Plato tells us that the Philosopher who doesn't really want to be our leader is the one we should draft - even against his will - to run the state. Fred fits that description perfectly."
Yes and history also tells us that when our leaders find things more interesting than us to preoccupy themselves, we pay the price, such as Nero in Rome.
Fred seems like he'd be much more interested in staying home and groping the fake ta tas he bought his young trophy wife than flying all over the nation/world to help solve our problems. Who can blame him? Stay home and squeeze some melons or send the wek at THE UN being lectured too by a bunch of snooty Europeans....gee that's a tough one.....
62 - Roger Nowosielski
I know this is addressed to Dave, but I can't resist butting in, Arch Conservative (no doubt because my would-be article had been placed on hold for what I deem unnecessary corrections so I am on pins and needles).
You're right about Plato except that I don't think that Fred fits the bill. He comes awfully close to a buffoon,in my opinion. But then again, perhaps I'm suffering here from a TV syndrome. It's all about image.
63 - Clavos
He comes awfully close to a buffoon,in my opinion.
Being a buffoon is the first and most important qualification for american politics, especially the presidency.
64 - Roger Nowosielski
You may well be right, Clavos. I doubt, however, whether Arch Conservative thinks so.
65 - Arch Conservative
To this day I still can't figure out what motivated Thompson too run. But I don't care either.
We're stuck with Barry now. Daily I'm told that I'm supposed to abandon my beliefs so that I may support this man who, from everything I've seen of him thus far, believes the federal government is the only agent capable of solving our problems and that private enterprise must be vilified at every opportunity.
I want there to be millions of new jobs for Americans in the next four years just like I'm sure many liberals would like to see. Unlike them however I know this will not be made possible by taxing businesses even more, regulating them more and generally making it harder for them to do business.
66 - Roger Nowosielski
I agree with you in essence. I had most serious reservations concerning Barack all along (see my own website, especially at the inception) though now I feel I must embrace him as a matter of good form to say the least. I also agree that Federal Government shouldn't be the answer. In light of the corruption, however, at all levels of government - merging politics and business into an unholy alliance - we need a major cleanup, but I doubt that Obama will be the one to do it. It's just too pervasive, the way of the world. (You must check solari.com site referenced in my article!)
As to regulation, we certainly need it with respect to the Wall Street elites. They had practically taken all of us to the cleaners, you must admit that!
67 - Arch Conservative
Of course we need some regulation and oversight of private industry Roger. My point is that we cannot tie business' hands behind it's back, hand over the keys to the federal government and then expect the economy to recover.
What makes anyone think a Senator or a president is any more altruistic than a CEO?
What makes one think that because a few CEO's/businesses are corrupt they all are?
What makes a person who is already making millions upon millions of dollars a year legitimately decide that they just don't have enough and engage in illegal and ammoral business practices to even further pad their wallet?
Although I'm a earn it yourself, pro business kind of guy, my zeal for business as the only solution pales in comparison to those zeal of those on the other side claiming that the federal government has all the answers. In fact I don't believe at all that unrestrained capitalism is good for this nation.
The fact is that both the government and the failed egotistical captains of industry that we're now seeing looking for handouts have failed us. We have also failed ourselves. We have become a society of greedy materialistic consumers. The deadly combination of ubiquitous advertising and easy credit is responsible for this.
There was a time when a man didn't know he needed 2 cellphones, 3 ipods, 2 laptops, an 87 inch plasma TV, a fancy car with all the bells and whistles, a different colored Rolex for each day of the week, a DVD player in his refrigerator, 37 pairs of designer Italian shoes and a set of of gold clubs that's ten times better than the crappy old titanium ones the other guy's play with because they're made out of some new kind of alloy that was developed through research done by NASA from their moon landing data, to be happy.
But thanks to 24-7 advertising that is pretty much everywhere but in our dreams, now he knows that his life would be boring, meaningless and not worth living at all unless he possesses these items.
And with 30 or so years of easy credit he has been able to obtain those things. He hasn't always been able to pay for them but he has them nonetheless and that's all that counts right?
It's not just the economy that we should be worried about but our changing social fabric, which is necessarily interwoven into our economic concerns.
68 - Roger Nowosielski
Very well said: the entire social fabric had gone array.
I am, by the way, addressing this issue in my next piece, "To Fellow Bloggers: a memo" (still held up by an overscrupulous editor) though only marginally at first. It concerns the subject of "mass consumption" society - the counterpart and negative (self) image as it were of a system which prides itself on having perfected the concept of mass production. I argue that by and large we have produced a nation of morons and that re-education of the American public is a must or we're going it to go down the drain. That's where our responsibility as bloggers and fellow writers comes in - to reach the forgotten women and men. If our enterprise is limited to the pages of Blogcritics, a self-contained community of peers, we will have failed.
69 - Roger Nowosielski
Spelling correction: "awry."
Sorry
70 - Arch Conservative
"I argue that by and large we have produced a nation of morons and that re-education of the American public is a must or we're going it to go down the drain."
So true.
All one needs to do to see how scary the future is going to be is turn on MTV to get a brief glimpse of what kinds of things that appeal to our young people and the things that they value.
71 - Roger Nowosielski
So your pen name "Arch Conservative" is a misnomer. Actually, you're a rational human being.
72 - Dave Nalle
Sometimes being a rational human being can lead you to being an arch conservative, or at least to considering yourself one.
Dave
73 - Roger Nowosielski
No disagreement there. Winston Churchill definitely thought so. I was referring, however, not so much to a state of mind as to one's psychological/emotional makeup in a more vulgar sense. It's full of contradiction - akin to a kind of fundamentalism. I'm writing a piece on it, so perhaps we can discuss this later.
74 - El Bicho
"for what I deem unnecessary corrections"
You deem incorrectly. btw, great idea to ingratiate yourself with the editors by bad-mouthing them in a public forum.
75 - Roger Nowosielski
I already took this matter with the editors.
I apologize for having offended your sensibility.