Senator Bunning’s Universe, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times: So the Bunning blockade is over. For days, Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky exploited Senate rules to block a one-month extension of unemployment benefits. In the end, he gave in, although not soon enough to prevent an interruption of payments to around 100,000 workers.
But while the blockade is over, its lessons remain. ... I want to focus on ... the incredible gap that has opened up between the parties. Today, Democrats and Republicans live in different universes, both intellectually and morally.
Take the question of helping the unemployed in the middle of a deep slump. What Democrats believe is what textbook economics says: that when the economy is deeply depressed, extending unemployment benefits not only helps those in need, it also reduces unemployment. That’s because the economy’s problem right now is lack of sufficient demand, and cash-strapped unemployed workers are likely to spend their benefits. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office says that aid to the unemployed is one of the most effective forms of economic stimulus, as measured by jobs created per dollar of outlay.
But that’s not how Republicans see it. Here’s what Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, had to say...: unemployment relief “doesn’t create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work.”
In Mr. Kyl’s view, then, what we really need to worry about right now — with more than five unemployed workers for every job opening, and long-term unemployment at its highest level since the Great Depression — is whether we’re reducing the incentive of the unemployed to find jobs. To me, that’s a bizarre point of view — but then, I don’t live in Mr. Kyl’s universe.
And the difference between the two universes isn’t just intellectual, it’s also moral. ... Consider, in particular, the position that Mr. Kyl has taken on a proposed bill that would extend unemployment benefits and health insurance subsidies for the jobless for the rest of the year. Republicans will block that bill, said Mr. Kyl, unless they get a “path forward fairly soon” on the estate tax.
Now, the House has already passed a bill that, by exempting the assets of couples up to $7 million, would leave 99.75 percent of estates tax-free. But that doesn’t seem to be enough for Mr. Kyl; he’s willing to hold up desperately needed aid to the unemployed on behalf of the remaining 0.25 percent. That’s a very clear statement of priorities.
So, as I said, the parties now live in different universes, both intellectually and morally. We can ask how that happened... More important, however, what are the implications of this total divergence in views?
The answer, of course, is that bipartisanship is now a foolish dream. How can the parties agree on policy when they have utterly different visions of how the economy works, when one party feels for the unemployed, while the other weeps over affluent victims of the “death tax”?
Which brings us to the central political issue right now: health care reform. If Congress enacts reform in the next few weeks — and the odds are growing that it will — it will do so without any Republican votes. Some people will decry this, insisting that President Obama should have tried harder to gain bipartisan support. But that isn’t going to happen, on health care or anything else, for years to come.
Someday, somehow, we as a nation will once again find ourselves living on the same planet. But for now, we aren’t. And that’s just the way it is.

Posted by Mark Thoma on Friday, March 5, 2010 at 02:34 AM in Economics, Politics, Unemployment Save to del.icio.us Tweet This Permalink Comments (104)

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Lafayette said...
THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON'T THEY?

This guy is symptomatic of what is wrong in LaLaLand on the Potomac. A troglodyte from another day and age.

The Senate is supposedly a repository of sagacity to balance the heady populism of the House. It was not a bad idea.

We, the voters, just got the habit reelecting people we thought were "nice". Maybe because of the colour of their eyes? The way they part their hair. The fact that they made a "beautiful family".

And now we witness the real unimportance of just such criteria in an important legislative role.

POST SCRIPTUM

No ill will is meant towards Senator Bunning. He's just out of his depth.

Prior to the days of modern veterinary science, it was common practice (and considered merciful) to shoot a horse with a broken leg to "put it out of it's misery." It was considered almost impossible to successfully heal the broken leg bone of a large heavy horse, and even today it often requires surgery, metal implants and much care.

Reply Mar 04, 2010 at 11:41 PM

Mark in SF said in reply to Lafayette...
I'm not sure if your horse metaphor is reference to Bunning of the unemployed.

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 01:40 AM

paine said in reply to Lafayette...
laff
why fire your cannon at a sick floating carp like kyl

save your rounds for the close calls the decisive sell outs like .....the dem's
congressional progressive caucus
or if your a blubbery
conscience prog like krug
for the blue dogs

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 05:58 AM

ilsm said in reply to Lafayette...
Senate not equal to sagacity.

The Senate was created to ensure the mob (populism, or any idea that hoarding might not best serve the social contract) would not hinder the accumulation of huge wealth by the few.

A banana republic could be no better served.

That said: I am boycotting any thing from Kentucky. Good thing Jack Daniels is from Tennessee!

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 06:40 AM

paine said in reply to ilsm...
"Good thing Jack Daniels is from Tennessee"

god bless ya !!!!

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 08:21 AM

Joe T. said in reply to Lafayette...
"Maybe because of the colour of their eyes? The way they part their hair. The fact that they made a "beautiful family"."

Do you really think voters are so shallow? Of course not.

He was voted in because he is an ex-jock. Once a very successful major league pitcher. Apparently, he's still throwing curveballs.

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 10:00 AM

Noni Mausa said in reply to Joe T....
"...Do you really think voters are so shallow?..."

Um, I hate to tell you this...

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 03:58 PM

psychohistorian said...
Unless some of this social morality is hammered out in Congress or the courts the flagrant greed will continue unabated.

We need public clarity about the class war that we are the victims of. Equal application of rule of law is the example that comes to mind. Bankruptcy is only for the little people while those deemed too big to fail get bonuses for immoral behavior.

Reply Mar 04, 2010 at 11:46 PM

paine said in reply to psychohistorian...
"flagrant greed '
as dobbsy points out ab nauseum
many stake holders of the rentier kind are barely making it thru the middle class hurdles
they see any threat to their portfolio as poison

is that per se
their personal greed ???
or simply a system that produces hideous
social roles we all in our bounded wisdom
and self interest
get to play out ???

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 08:32 AM

Fred C. Dobbs said in reply to paine...
You talkin' to me? If so,
'Did you mean: AD nauseum'?

Further, I make no such complaints.
Investors take risks & tough 'it' out.

It may well be true that if I am a
'rentier' then I am merely a parvenu.

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 03:37 PM

Michael Turner said...
Jon Kyl: UI exension " .... doesn't create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work..."

Strictly speaking, there's a smidgen of truth to these claims.

In the face of inadequate stimulus, extended UI is more likely only *preserving* some existing jobs, not "creat[ing] new jobs."

And I confess, when I was young, living frugally, with no dependents, and on UI, I sometimes used to put in little more than pro-forma effort on my job searches, during some periods of unemployment, being at the time more interested in pursuing my own shoestring projects.

But this is all beside the point -- *of course*, on net, extending UI benefits during times like these is going to at least preserve many jobs. Very few people now on the breadlines match the description of my misspent youth (or parts thereof). And people like Kyl and Bunning can't possibly be so stupid as to not understand this, when told. Furthermore, since they are in public office, engaging in debate for a living, they have certainly been told.

Ergo, they lie. Krugman is too kind, in imputing mere delusional tendencies. And the Dems are just too polite to shout "You lie!" during GOP speeches in Congress. But can't they at least shout, "What planet do you live on!?"

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 12:04 AM

paine said in reply to Michael Turner...
mt

the point is you can't put 5 pounds of unemplyeds in a one pound bag no matter how hard you try

we got a 5 seekers to each job set up these days that that isn't noticing mismatches

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 08:29 AM

Bruce Wilder said...
digby at Hullabaloo makes the point that we are listening to the sound of the social fabric tearing.

digby:

"we always find these attacks startling and somewhat paralyzing when they happen because they go against our instinctive belief in a certain national moral consensus. They are radical propositions that seem so outrageous that we can't believe we have to argue the point until it's too late.

"I used the issue of torture as a previous assault on the social contract and I think it's been born out that as a nation we no longer believe in an absolute prohibition on torture. You'll recall that at one time President Bush very scrupulously insisted "the United States doesn't torture," an odd turn of phrase which was later adopted by President Obama as well. Aside from the legal exposure, I think it was the old tribute vice pays to virtue in that they at least paid lip service to the idea that torture was wrong (even if they winked and nodded to the bloodthirsty sadists while they did it.) Today what we hear are full-throated defenses of torture. They've successfully defined this deviancy down."

It is always a three-way conversation, and the referees in the middle are centrists, who would not know a fact if it hit them over the head, or a principle even if driven where their brains should reside. He said, she said, rules the day.

In this 3-way discourse, the problem on the Right might be too little empathy, and on the Left, but in the middle, it's just dumbness. The idea that curtailing unemployment compensation might actually increase unemployment -- that's just too much to compute. Too much to compute for the centrists, not for the Right (the Right doesn't care; they can still do the sums.) These are the folks, who advocated for the home buyer tax credit.

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 02:23 AM

paine said in reply to Bruce Wilder...
"In this 3-way discourse, the problem on the Right might be too little empathy, and on the Left, but in the middle, it's just dumbness"

break it down..
"the problem on the Right might be too little empathy.."

horse shit
"...and on the left..."

meaning ????

too little empathy too ???

or words not typed
as in "..on the left -blank-"

if its too little empathy on both wings

horse shit squared eh ??

the center is where " dumbness" goes to relax ??

that may sound sensible but
the media is into smoke mirrors double talk distraction
sugar coated cynicism etc etc

that is the voice of the "system"
nit wits
the center simply means
stay with the establishment you got
the center aisle the strip down the middle of party amerika
where class quislings and diabolic covert nuncios from wall street meet
to make everything stay the same old same old

its a good enough gig
if you own a piece of the casino

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 05:31 AM

ilsm said in reply to paine...
It is psywar.

Make an outrageous, fallacious statement long enough........

Goebbels was a duffer compared to the US media blitz.

Psywar and the few are using it to huddle the masses.

Serf nastion.

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 06:43 AM

paine said in reply to ilsm...
this "psywar"
with its inconsistencies exceptions contradictions and miss steps
is what my generation
of pink easter egg heads
liked to call
a spontaneous generation
of the existing social super structure

aka
bourgeois hegemony

its a shame it comes off
sounding like a collective conspiracy
it isn't and it will crack apart now and again
maybe soon

and even if it were a share conspiracy
totalitarian systems
ie
1984 systems can't really exist anyway...
errr for long

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 08:27 AM

Bruce Wilder said in reply to paine...
paine: "meaning ????

too little empathy too ???"

Meaning that the trope (he said, she said binaries) is the problem.

The center doesn't have to be dumb.

In a healthy society, the center is moderate, balanced. In our society, the center is idiotic.

In a healthy society, the center is considered in its judgments, serious, sober. In our society, the center is corrupt in its judgments, "serious" and "sober" -- George F. Will, for example, has the form down perfectly. David Broder only has form. The substance of balanced judgments is gone -- there's no judgment, no balance.

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 04:19 PM

reason said...
I can't understand why this isn't explained to every voter as clearly as Krugman explains it here in every election. There wouldn't be a contest anymore.

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 02:38 AM

bakho said in reply to reason...
There is a class of voter who believes themselves morally superior and who want to punish others. They understand this very well and are happy to belong to a party that shares their "kick the dog" philosophy.

Republicans want to use recessions to get rid of large chunks of the social safety net. That has been their goal for decades.

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 04:03 AM

kharris said in reply to bakho...
I think this is an excellent opportunity for confirmation bias, as well. I've been involuntarily unemployed just twice. On both occasions, I was back at work within 4 months. On both occasions, I was under 30. I offer this anecdote as a suggestion of how easy it is for college educated white males to get a job. College-educated white males tend to vote Republican.

When we look around at other sorts of folk - non-white, non-male, no college degree, can see more frequent and longer periods of unemployment. But we clever white guys know how easy it is to find work (except right now, or once we pass 50), an can easily jump to the conclusion that those other folks are less motivated, less willing to work - happy living on the dole. We mistake our experience for theirs, and then use that mistake to confirm our bias about who's naughty and nice.

By the way, it ain't just the Bunnings and Lyls who repeat and repeat the business about jobless benefits undermining incentives to work. Megan McArdle, in predictable fashion, opened her criticism of Bunning's obstructionism with a big old "well, of course jobless benefits are the tool of the labor market devil" blah, blah. Once she had done what was necessary to hold on to her her cred as a libertarian trog, she got around to Bunning.

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 04:54 AM

paine said in reply to kharris...
hey
if u got a job and fringes
that looks sea worthy enough to survive this squall
how will upping the dole help u ???
u can play mr nasty mr spite mr tough guy

do white jobless folks vote republican ??

prolly not in big percentages
but most of us votin' whites have a job still
or are retired
and many or maybe now the tides turned
most of us jobbled whites
don't figure on losing it
anytime soon

so how is a donky congress ... my cup of tea ???

facing two packages
of conflicting "offers"

weighing the contents of each
as opposed exclusive bundles
can lead to some fairly complex
even chaotic "internal " results

unless some veteran sorting rule
made up of a maxim or two
can force a personal decision

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 05:43 AM

ilsm said in reply to paine...
Had a similar conversation with step sons who are 30 something, professionally employed, on the corporate dole in the military industrial complex.

College educated, caucasian males are the new serfs.

They see their little improved, insecure cottage as having bought in to the manor/maisson system and their feudal lords' well being as their pitiful privilege.

It is them against the needy generated by psywar.

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 06:56 AM

paine said in reply to ilsm...
i think id call em vassals not serfs

the serfs or smurfs
the mcjobbled millions i think
can be won to rising against their corporate masters "state"
if the two pparty ballot system continues
to refuse to produce
their kinda "results"

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 08:19 AM

paine said in reply to bakho...
"There is a class of voter who believes themselves morally superior and who want to punish others'
indeed but they can't swing elections

why

because suddenly let em have a scrooge conversion
and they still might vote conservative
charity is the enemy of complusory
tax borrow and pay out
type transfer systems

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 05:48 AM

Linda R. said...
"Someday, somehow, we as a nation will once again find ourselves living on the same planet. But for now, we aren’t. And that’s just the way it is."

when I think of Kyl's remarks, Bunning's actions, and the ability of some people to see the two of them as heroes, despite their own precarious positions, I worry about which planet that will be.

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 04:05 AM

Linda R. said in reply to Linda R....
I'm also beginning to worry about how bad things will have to get if people can't figure out what it's like in other people's shoes until they find themselves wearing them.

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 04:05 AM

paine said in reply to Linda R....
linda they don't even know how they got into their own shoes for god sake

ascribing accurate agency to ones own
present social condition is nearly beyond the reasonable to expect of oneself
to ascribe such agency accurately
to "the other"'s condition
is an act of fiction

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 05:46 AM

Fred C. Dobbs said...
It's not as if the Unemployed are incapable of creating
new jobs for themselves. We (they?) could profit
dearly by the establishment of new enterprises.
Why not a Banana Stand on every street corner?

The Republicans are mandated to look out for the
interests of all the wealthy folk in the US (and
all those who want to be wealthy), which is still
a whole lot of wealth, if not as many people. Are
they not entitled to their 'still, small' voice?

Anyway, I want to see more Republican banana stands,
to remind me why this is a shining, city on a hill,
if not exactly still a great 'country'.

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 04:08 AM

paine said in reply to Fred C. Dobbs...
fred

the sarcasm can get a bit shop worn here

give us your plan of action
if you were macro czar

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 05:51 AM

Fred C. Dobbs said in reply to paine...
Um, we get lucky? Al Gore III shows
up and invents A Better Internet?
Til then, I'm drawing inspiration
from 'Arrested Development'.

No sarcastic intent at all in
pointing out that the GOP is
the party of all wealthy folk,
real, would-be & otherwise.

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 07:08 AM

paine said in reply to Fred C. Dobbs...
fred
i'm not suggesting a way out using only present
meme trends and agencies manned by the incumbent trolls

czar means autocrat

i'm curious what you understand
to be presently economically possible
and preferable
not feasible

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 08:09 AM

Fred C. Dobbs said in reply to paine...
I'm too much of a realpolitiker to speculate much.
If forced to fingo a hypothesis, I'd get the
rich to put more capital at risk, to create jobs at home; back away from massive defense expenses; fund education, in sci/tech especially; move toward Single Payer, to get costs down & make care more available; reduce energy $$$ transfers. Failing enough of this, more belt-tightening.

Or, we could just go do some asteroid mining.

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 01:42 PM

ken melvin said...
Krugman's best bud, George Will, said the same things afore these two on Sunday Talkingheads TV.

Funny, you hear this guy (usually an older quite well off white man) in the coffee shop say, "they could do better ..." type stuff, and, realizing those around him find it distasteful, recant. But, he doesn't really. In his darkest of hearts, he believes that it is only a matter of them needing to try harder and that he deserved everything he might have heired or accumulated (mant times, he's retired from a well paid civil service job).

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 04:39 AM

paine said in reply to ken melvin...
ken
we out number these voters
forget em
focus on the swingers

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 05:53 AM

Alinsky Rules said in reply to ken melvin...
So you discount their opinion based on their age, economic status, gender, and race. Very progressive.

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 11:12 AM

paine said...
not living on the same planet ???

who isn't ???
two wings of the elite are battling here
neither lives on OUR planet

the two elites are battling over the kulack soul
of white pleb amerika

one like mephisto understands us
and the other like wonder woman wants to help us

both are space aliens

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 05:18 AM

run75441 said...
kharris:

While the distribution may be skewed heavily towards ethnic background and age and I do not have the charts at hand to look at the data, Laurent Guerby's chart on 25-54 males unemployed or nilf reflects 1 of 5 males on the side lines out of work. The days of being <30 and finding an opportunity equal to or better than the last opportunity quickly are pretty much a part of history. As for minorities? Double the unemployment rate for the white populace with a history of occurring since WWII.

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 05:29 AM

archilochusColubris said...
Come on Krugman, we all know that taxes distort incentives! With this onerous estate tax, no one will want to die, and then how will we get anywhere on the overpopulation problem? We're the ones tackling the important issues here while you try to give free handouts instead.

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 06:15 AM

anne said...
http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cesbtab1.htm
http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cpsatab1.htm

The Bush-Obama experience in monthly job loss has been,

- 26,900 x 110 months = - 2.96 million jobs lost in all;

enough job creation to keep up with civilian work force growth would have meant,

140,500 x 110 = 15.46 million jobs created in 110 months;

the Clinton experience was,

240,310 x 96 = 23.07 million jobs created in 96 months.

[We have lost 2.96 million jobs through the last 110 months, when 15.46 million jobs were needed simply to keep up with population growth. We are then 18.42 million jobs short of where we need to be for the economy to be considered healthy.]

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 06:16 AM

anne said...
http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cesbtab1.htm

The Bush-Obama experience in monthly private job loss has been,

- 42,050 x 110 months = - 4.63 million jobs lost in all;

the Clinton experience was,

220,250 x 96 = 21.14 million private jobs created in 96 months.

[A loss of 4.63 million jobs over 110 months is simply astonishing and only comparable to a Depression experience.]

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 06:18 AM

paine said in reply to anne...
anne compare to fdr results
that is what's comparable here
not clinton boom numbers

look toward spending induce pri sec jobs

and of course the pwa job explosion

that is the real bonanza

harry hopkins put millions to work cheaply

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 07:57 AM

anne said...
http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cesbtab1.htm

The Bush-Obama experience in monthly government jobs created has been,

15,150 x 110 months = 1.67 million jobs created in all;

the Clinton experience was,

20,060 x 96 = 1.93 million government jobs created in 96 months.

[How little understanding of the New Deal job creation experience there is, can be seen in comparing Clinton and Bush-Obama government job creation experiences. Where 1.93 million government jobs were created in 96 months through the Clinton Presidency, this with a continually declining government budget deficit and increasing surplus, only 1.67 million government jobs have been created through the 110 Bush-Obama months no matter the continually increasing government deficits.]

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 06:22 AM

paine said in reply to anne...
bad numbers here anne
clean em up

these include state county and local (scl) jobs

we want only to see here
fed on fed
plus fed grant induced scl jobs

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 07:54 AM

anne said...
http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cesbtab1.htm

March 5, 2010

Employment Growth Summary, 1992-2010

(Thousands) *

December 1992 ( 109,415)
December 2000 ( 132,485)
December 2008 ( 134,328)
February 2010 ( 129,526)

Clinton ( 23,070) (+ 21.1%) Total jobs created
Bush-Obama (- 2,959) (- 2.2%) Total jobs lost

(Actual averages)

Clinton ( 240,313) Monthly jobs created
Bush-Obama (- 26,900) Monthly jobs lost

* Establishment data, seasonally adjusted.

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 06:23 AM

anne said...
http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cesbtab1.htm

March 5, 2010

Total Nonfarm Private Employment, 1992-2010

(Thousands) *

December 1992 ( 90,537)
December 2000 ( 111,681)
December 2008 ( 111,767)
February 2010 ( 107,056)

Clinton ( 21,144) (+ 23.4%) Total private jobs created
Bush-Obama (- 4,625) (- 4.1%) Total private jobs lost

(Actual averages)

Clinton ( 220,250) Monthly private jobs created
Bush-Obama (- 42,045) Monthly private jobs lost

* Establishment data, seasonally adjusted.

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 06:23 AM

anne said...
http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cesbtab1.htm

March 5, 2010

Total Nonfarm Government Employment, 1992-2010

(Thousands) *

December 1992 ( 18,878)
December 2000 ( 20,804)
December 2008 ( 22,561)
February 2010 ( 22,470)

Clinton ( 1,926) (+ 10.2%) Total government jobs created
Bush-Obama ( 1,666) (+ 8.0%)

(Actual averages)

Clinton ( 20,063) Monthly government jobs created
Bush-Obama ( 15,145)

* Establishment data, seasonally adjusted.

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 06:24 AM

anne said...
http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cesbtab1.htm

March 5, 2010

Employment Loss & Growth Summary

December 2007 - February 2010

Total Nonfarm Private Employment Loss = (- 8,518,000)
Total Nonfarm Government Employment Growth = (+ 93,000)

Total Employment Loss = (- 8,425,000)

[The recession labor market experience.]

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 06:31 AM

anne said...
http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cesbtab1.htm
http://wwwdev.nber.org/cycles/cyclesmain.html

March 5, 2010

Recessions and Employment Cycles, 1973-2010: Decline

Private employment has declined for 26 months since the recession of 2007, from December 2007 to February 2010.

Private employment declined for 31 months around the 8 month recession of 2001, from December 2000 to August 2003.

Private employment declined for 23 months around the 8 month recession of 1990-1991, from March 1990 to February 1992.

Private employment declined for 17 months around the 16 month recession of 1981-1882, from July 1981 to December 1982.

Private employment declined for 4 months around the 6 month recession of 1980, from March 1980 to July 1980.

Private employment declined for 12 months around the 16 month recession of 1973-1975, from June 1974 to June 1975.

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 06:40 AM

anne said...
http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cesbtab1.htm
http://wwwdev.nber.org/cycles/cyclesmain.html

March 5, 2010

Recessions and Employment Cycles, 1973-2010: Recovery

Recovery in private employment from the 8 month recession of 2001, coming in June 2005 or 54 months.

Recovery in private employment from the 8 month recession of 1990-1991, coming in May 1993 or 38 months.

Recovery in private employment from the 16 month recession of 1981-1982, coming in November 1983 or 28 months.

Recovery in private employment from the 6 month recession of 1980, coming in February 1981 or 11 months.

Recovery in private employment from the 16 month recession of 1973-1975, coming in June 1976 or 24 months.

[How severe the job loss has been since the recession began in December 2007 is understood by realizing that we have experienced 26 months of private sector job loss, where complete recovery in private employment came in 28 months from the beginning of the Reagan recession in 1981.]

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 06:44 AM

paine said in reply to anne...
your stat comp

reagan break point to recovery 28 months

our present break point till now
where we're still heading DOWN !!!
26 months !!!!

nice numbers anne

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 07:49 AM

Richard H. Serlin said...
Absolutely awesome column.

Good even by the standards of the great Nobel Prize winning economist, one of history's best.

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 07:16 AM

paine said in reply to Richard H. Serlin...
what ???

why it's like naming your dog spot

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 08:05 AM

paine said...
great article
till here :

"If we could revive private lending, should we do it? "

the answer is NO

NOT
"Well, yes, "

"up to a point there is good reason to have a robust private lending sector."

details:

" Government is by nature centralized and policy driven. It works by law and regulation. Decentralized and competitive private banks have much more flexibility."

to suggest the public sector couldn't de centralize lending while retaining its publicalwhole people owned status
ie a functional credit system with a pure
public utlity structure
is to be ...well...massively mis informing jamie

"A good banking system, run by capable people with good business judgment who know their clients, is good for the economy. "

ya ya yya
why must these agents by private profit pool mangers
their personal individual and group incentives are the key
not what abstract body of stake holders they perform for or answer to..right ??

"The fact that you have to pay interest on a loan is also an important motivator of investment over consumption"

none sense
the public credit system in a fronteer hi tech economy
like ours can set any optimal rate of productive investment it wants and fund it internally

spontaneous "accumulations" by firms and households
can be subsumed and fund household credit ops

and if total initial social accumulation
is too small
taxes like a value added tax could insure adequate investment without relying on scotch virtues

the next bit as politics go however is fine:

" right now, we don't have functional big banks. We have a cartel run by an incompetent plutocracy, with its long fingers deep in the pockets of the state. "

yup yup double yup

"For functional credit to return, we'll have to reduce the unpayable private debts now outstanding, to restore private incomes (meaning: create jobs) and collateral (meaning: home values), and we'll have to restructure the big banks. "

yup again times a zillion

"We need to break them up, shrink the financial sector overall, expose and prosecute frauds,"

bingo baby bingo !!!!!

" create incentives for profitable lending in energy conservation, infrastructure and other sectors."

okay

but then damned if jamie doesn''t trace his finger over the other way

the way he refused to sett up against wall street in toto
above

" we could create a new parallel banking system.. "

exactly mr austin awesome exactly
and the following is apple pie advocacy right thomatons
and macro-phytes ??

"... until we have effective financial reform, public budget deficits are the only way toward economic growth."

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 07:43 AM

anne said...
On alternate universes:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/05/opinion/05krugman.html

March 5, 2010

Senator Bunning’s Universe
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Someday, somehow, we as a nation will once again find ourselves living on the same planet. But for now, we aren’t. And that’s just the way it is.

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/beat_the_press_archive?month=03&year=2010&base_name=david_brooks_is_worried_about

March 5, 2010

David Brooks Is Worried About the Invasion of Martians

Okay, he said "runaway federal spending," but as long as you're making stuff up, you might as well make it invading Martians. It's no less true and a hell of a lot more exciting.

As those of us here on planet earth know, there is no credible story of runaway federal spending. The budget deficit exploded because of the recession, which in turn was caused by the collapse of an $8 trillion housing bubble. But, Brooks needed copy for his New York Times column, so runaway federal spending it is. I still think he should have talked about invading Martians.

* http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/05/opinion/05brooks.html

-- Dean Baker

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 07:59 AM

paine said in reply to anne...
"as long as you're making stuff up, you might as well make it invading Martians. It's no less true and a hell of a lot more exciting."
i wish dear dean zinged like that more often
he needs to show his manic side more

and
maybe let his hair grow long and stringy

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 08:03 AM

paine said...
obviously i was refering to jamie gals column not pk's boring recap of antique truisms
why i miss posted is my secret

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 08:01 AM

Amit Chokshi said...
What else is necessary to say? Why doesn't Obama go out with a megaphone that these scumbags like Bunning are responsible for these things. If I was Obama I'd have used the bully pullpit to come out against Ben Nelson, indicate how much of a prostitute he is to Nebraskan healthcare to get the voters to rattle his cage back in the summer.

Problem is there is no justice in this world for men like bunning and kyl. We really have the scum of the earth when it comes to Republican legislators in the Senate and House. And of course not far off are the Ben Nelson, Byah's, Lincoln's, Landrieau's, Conrad, Baucas, etc.

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 08:05 AM

anne said...
Paine:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100322/galbraith/print

March 4, 2010

In Defense of Deficits
By James K. Galbraith

Public deficits and private lending are reciprocal. Increased private lending generates new tax revenue and smaller deficits; that's what happened in the 1990s. A credit collapse kills the tax base and generates more spending; that's what's happening now, and our big deficits are the accounting counterpart of the massive decline, last year, in private bank loans. The only choice is what kind of deficit to run--useful deficits that rebuild the country, as in the New Deal, or useless ones, with millions kept unnecessarily on unemployment insurance when they could instead be given jobs.

If we could revive private lending, should we do it? Well, yes, up to a point there is good reason to have a robust private lending sector. Government is by nature centralized and policy driven. It works by law and regulation. Decentralized and competitive private banks have much more flexibility. A good banking system, run by capable people with good business judgment who know their clients, is good for the economy. The fact that you have to pay interest on a loan is also an important motivator of investment over consumption.

But right now, we don't have functional big banks. We have a cartel run by an incompetent plutocracy, with its long fingers deep in the pockets of the state. For functional credit to return, we'll have to reduce the unpayable private debts now outstanding, to restore private incomes (meaning: create jobs) and collateral (meaning: home values), and we'll have to restructure the big banks....

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 08:08 AM

anne said...
Comparison of the Bush-Obama job creation programs to New Deal job creation is simple and saddening. Bush stimulus efforts began in February 2008 or 2 years ago, while the Obama stimulus effort began a year ago. Beyond the formal stimulus programs, there has been a continual increase in what was already massive military spending since the recession began in December 2007. The result has still been a loss of 8.43 million jobs in all and 8.52 million private sector jobs even though stimulus programs were decidedly focused on creating private sector jobs.

Franklin Roosevelt created 3.5 million New Deal jobs for a population of about 127 million, with relatively far less government spending but with ever so much more of the New Deal spending focused on directly employing men and women.

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 08:36 AM

paine said in reply to anne...
"Franklin Roosevelt created 3.5 million New Deal jobs for a population of about 127 million,"

so obama oughta have a quota in mind'
starting around 3 times that number
10 million more public sector jobs sounds nice to me

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 09:29 AM

anne said...
As for a focus on education through the recession and time of such severe loss of jobs, as a measure of how little effect the several stimulus programs have had, since July 2008 there have been what to me is an astonishing 136,300 public education jobs lost. There has been no remotely comparable loss of public education positions since such record keeping began in 1955.

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 08:47 AM

anne said...
Also as far as New Deal programs and focus are concerned, the New Deal period would become and sustain the most profoundly productive years of the century. * A soft and hard infrastructure base was developed that allowed for the quickest productivity growth of the century, while 3.5 million New Deal jobs were created for a far smaller population at so critical a time. **

* http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1105628

** http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=259399

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 09:03 AM

anne said...
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/05/debt-is-a-political-issue/

March 5, 2010

Debt Is a Political Issue
By Paul Krugman

[Public debt as a percent of Gross Domestic Product in Great Britain, 1700-2009]

Earlier this week I gave a talk about the state of the crisis at Princeton’s Plasma Physics Lab, and one audience member asked a really good question: if the problem is that interest rates are at the zero lower bound, why should we worry about government borrowing? After all, doesn’t that mean that the government can borrow at a zero rate?

Now, part of the answer is that you really don’t want governments financing themselves largely with very short-term debt — that makes them too vulnerable to liquidity crises. But even long-term rates are low — the real interest rate on 10-year bonds is below 1.5 percent.

And if you do the arithmetic of debt service, that really does seem to suggest that debt isn’t a problem. To stabilize the real value of debt, all the government has to do is pay the real interest on it. So suppose that we add debt equal to 100 percent of GDP, which is much more than currently projected; servicing that debt should cost only 1.4 percent of GDP, or 7 percent of federal spending. Why should that be intolerable?

And even that, you could argue, is too pessimistic. To stabilize the debt/GDP ratio, all you need is to pay r-g, where r is the real interest rate and g the economy’s real growth rate; and right now r-g looks, ahem, negative.

And this benign view of debt isn’t just hypothetical: countries have, in reality, run up immense debt/GDP ratios without going insolvent: see the history of Britain, above.

So what’s the problem? Confidence. If bond investors start to lose confidence in a country’s eventual willingness to run even the small primary surpluses needed to service a large debt, they’ll demand higher rates, which requires much larger primary surpluses, and you can go into a death spiral.

So what determines confidence? The actual level of debt has some influence — but it’s not as if there’s a red line, where you cross 90 or 100 percent of GDP and kablooie; see the chart above. Instead, it has a lot to do with the perceived responsibility of the political elite.

What this means is that if you’re worried about the US fiscal position, you should not be focused on this year’s deficit, let alone the 0.07% of GDP in unemployment benefits Bunning tried to stop. You should, instead, worry about when investors will lose confidence in a country where one party insists both that raising taxes is anathema and that trying to rein in Medicare spending means creating death panels.

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 09:05 AM

paine said in reply to anne...
"So what’s the problem? Confidence."
nonsense is nonsense no matter how much
good sense preceeds it

confidence ??

really why ???
"..If bond investors start to lose confidence ...they’ll demand higher rates,"

but why suggest they can get em just cause they want em ?? as if the fed can't pin the nominal rate on t issues

so what if commodities become the store of wealth for private hoards

we have a corporate system here
and
corporations live on credit flows
as the recent crisis proved

have a functioning credit system
and all else will adjust in time
if not in good order to the price dynamics
that credit system makes happen ..eh ??
to add in fast and in good order
requires collateral institutional and procedural changes of course
ie "revolutionary reformation

but is krug assuming we want to preserve the present system ??
say so then paul
and justify it
do a better job then jamie did while you're at it

as for the real value hoarders
that will emerge at the human base of this brave new system::

let em over pay for golden bricks

in sum
why play by wall street rules pk ???

a negative real rate of interest
on safe issues is still better then
cash in such a secularly inflation regime

pishwah like the following needs to be
put thru a club fest

"..If bond investors start to lose confidence in a country’s eventual willingness to run even the small primary surpluses needed to service a large debt... "

and what does it mean anyway
what state would min its elf so ??
certainly not one with the social mission that propells deficits in the first place
how could such a fear reasonabnly be expected
to susyainably impact
the agenda we face today ??

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 09:49 AM

anne said...
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/5/headlines#1

March 5, 2010

Students, Teachers Take Part in Nationwide Protests Against Education Cuts

Hundreds of thousands of students and teachers took part in protests Thursday as part of the National Day of Action to Defend Public Education. Much of the day’s focus was on the university and state college campuses of California, where students face a 32 percent tuition hike. Thousands of California students staged a one-day strike and took part in rallies from San Diego to Sacramento to Humboldt County. Actions were held in at least thirty other states, including here in New York, where protesters rallied outside the offices of Governor David Paterson. It was the largest day of coordinated student protest in years.

[A loss of 136,300 jobs in public education since July 2008 may actually have been noticed by students and teachers, as the pronounced increases in costs at selected but critically important public colleges may have been noticed, but there has been strikingly little notice by economic analysts even in public school areas or at colleges most effected.]

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 09:15 AM

anne said...
Paine:

bad numbers here ----
clean em up

these include state county and local (school) jobs

[Where 20,060 government jobs were created monthly through the Clinton years, there have been 87,000 government jobs lost since July 2008. I would suggest such numbers are especially good and especially telling, when there have been 136,300 jobs lost in public education since July 2008 and we have a President so little understanding of what that means that satisfaction can be expressed when all the teachers at the only high school in the poorest school district in Rhode Island are dismissed because the overwhelmingly poor and limited English speaking students are not testing as well as, say, students at Beverly Hills High School.]

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 09:43 AM

paine said in reply to anne...
anne
where is the direct federal expenditure link to the rise in public employment during the clinton era

that is my point
general rising tax revenues at the scl levels
may account for most of this
call em 50 little states of clinton
or what ever but these are independent decisions eh ??

seriously

use fdr you'll get more traction

then tales of the legendary billary give u

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 12:33 PM

Stephen Kriz said...
Professor Krugman is one of the few intellectual points of light shining in these dark times. He is correct, of course - bipartisanship is a sad dream. However, when we can't even agree on matters of fact, how can we possibly agree on matters of opinion?

In the United States, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. However, they are NOT entitled to their own facts!

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 10:15 AM

paine said in reply to Stephen Kriz...
"Professor Krugman is one of the few intellectual points of light shining in these dark times"
that is more a result of editorial policy at the major news outlets
then the existence of shining lights
that unfortunately lack pk's
paramonut position and broadcasting wattage

frankly guys like
texas jamie g
dani rodrik
and joltin joe stiglitz
often shine a brighter light
on certain issues
then st paul
but they only get
occasional exposure
thru the carefully doled out
big time open mic nights

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 12:39 PM

anne said...
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/5/headlines#15

March 5, 2010

AIG Units Settle Allegations of Discriminatory Lending
By Amy Goodman

Two units of the insurance giant AIG have settled claims around allegations they systematically discriminated against African American borrowers. AIG Federal Savings Bank and Wilmington Finance have agreed to pay up to $6.1 million to African Americans who were charged higher fees on loans than white clients.

[Repeatedly there were studies done and published reports in the New York Times about the studies of lending abuse of Blacks, but even when researchers at the Federal Reserve showed just such abuse of Black homeowners, even when the Fed study was reported in the Times there was never a response by Fed executives. So much so far for the protection of borrowers by the Fed.]

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 11:14 AM

Eric said...
Most discussion of Bunning's hold on this legislation seems to deal primarily with Kyl's comments. Bunning's critique, at least as far as I could tell, was that the extension cost money and no other priorites seemed to be equivalently diminished to free up the funds to accomplish this. Switching gears, I lived from 1996 to 2001 in France, which is a great country in many, many ways. At that time their unemployment saftey net seemed shockingly robust to my eyes. My French colleagues felt that one of the major purposes of the various supports was to limit the size of the employment pool for available jobs. They specifically wanted to avoid competition for jobs that had the potential to shift the leverage in the employee-employer relationship towards the employer. Benefits were deliberately quite substantial and of lengthy duration, with the intention of finding a sizeable cadre that would agree to stay out of the labor market. There were many benefits, not just an income replacement. It was possible to get reduced train tickets, even subsidized holidays were possible if you understood the system well enough. My impression was that employed French workers actually agree with Kyl's general analysis, but are comfortable that the results of disincentives contained in the saftey net were good because it made their jobs more secure. I have no clue what the sitation is in France today - it may be much different.

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 12:17 PM

paine said...
eric
u miss the key here
we do not have supply and demand balance
we have 5 unemployed for every open job

if say three of the 5 stay home that doesn't change employment
only the pressure to knucle under to a low ball offer
by the 2 out chasing the 1 job

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 12:27 PM

anne said...
Paine:

where is the direct federal expenditure link to the rise in public employment during the Clinton era

that is my point

[A President and Congressional leaders should surely respond to needs of the time, and among the easily understood needs from the recession on has been a protection and encouragement of students. That evidently with a loss of 136,300 teachers since July 2008 and a repeatedly expressed concern for education, the President finds it more important to applaud the firing of all the teachers in the only Rhode Island high school in the poor city of Central Falls than to support the need for teachers is quite telling.]

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 12:51 PM

paine said in reply to anne...
i agree entirely
but
clinton never faced these conditions eh ??
so why drag him in save
a knee jerk need
even without sober pretext
for yey another
public display of misguided adulation

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 01:54 PM

anne said...
Paine:

frankly guys like
texas jamie g
dani rodrik
and joltin joe stiglitz
often shine a brighter light
on certain issues
then st paul
but they only get
occasional exposure

[Then the others need to write more, and more often, and in more accessible ways.]

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 01:01 PM

paine said in reply to anne...
anne u miss my point

the big media quota for these views is fixed at a very low level
there simply is neither space or time provided for these folks views

instead we get 60% of the media opining by pundits that hog the space and time the same way
and 30 % occasionals that sound pretty much like the regular pundits

now this consensus scrum rumbles about some of course within a certain well trod arena
and the scrum contains a few
like pk and his opposite there
what's his name ...itchy george... will
that demonstrate a certain distance
between them exists

but when the smoke settles
that leaves 10% for all the marginals
both left and right of the consensus scrum
that includes jamie and joe

the lack of multiple hits in a close time interval
a certain density of a certain views broadcast
--as any marketer will tell you--
essentially nullifies the impact

and if the message is unusually
all the more so

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 01:50 PM

Bruce Wilder said in reply to paine...
PK, himself, got in there, by accident. The New York Times hired him, expecting on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand econ shading, from their idea of the slightly-right-of-center fellow PK largely is.

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 05:50 PM

paine said in reply to Bruce Wilder...
bw

pk to his great credit has moved quite some distance since the 80's and early 90's

the chorus of bully boys that tried to move him back to the vitalis center
acutally made him all the more terrier like
i hit him with as much iron as my little paws contain
but i admire him none the less

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 05:57 PM

anne said...
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100322/galbraith/print

March 4, 2010

In Defense of Deficits
By James K. Galbraith

The Simpson-Bowles Commission, just established by the president, will no doubt deliver an attack on Social Security and Medicare dressed up in the sanctimonious rhetoric of deficit reduction. (Back in his salad days, former Senator Alan Simpson was a regular schemer to cut Social Security.) The Obama spending freeze is another symbolic sacrifice to the deficit gods. Most observers believe neither will amount to much, and one can hope that they are right. But what would be the economic consequences if they did? The answer is that a big deficit-reduction program would destroy the economy, or what remains of it, two years into the Great Crisis.

[Enough excuses, here is the plan of the President for dealing with a need to create more than 18 million jobs and even the idea of a spending freeze only refers to a spending freeze on the sort of program that could support public school students and teachers while making sure military spending will be in no way be frozen.]

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 01:15 PM

Michael Cain said...
It would be interesting to know how much of the work force in these Senators' states falls into the categories for which unemployment insurance doesn't apply. Farmers, many rural services providers, building trades in many states, and such are more often independent contractors and subcontractors rather than employees. As such, no UI taxes are paid for them and they are not eligible for UI benefits. As the fraction of constituents falling into those categories increases, one might expect the Senators to be increasingly hostile to extended UI benefits paid for with _federal_ general tax revenue dollars.

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 01:34 PM

anne said...
President Obama has $5 billion that could be used to support public school students and teachers, and could easily have supported tens of thousands of public school staff who have lost jobs. Rather the billions are being used to run a "race to the top" contest, in which states are methodically eliminated as the race goes on so that even before the final race only 15 states and the District of Columbia are still eligible for federal help for public schooling. California, a state in fierce need of help for public schooling has already been eliminated from the race for federal funds. *

What sort of New Deal program is this supposed to be? What sort of nutty education program, even?

* http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/04/AR2010030402372.html

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 01:47 PM

eric said in reply to anne...
You're right, Anne, the RTTT is BS, and many local teacher's unions, including my own, have called it so. The Ed Sec is bad news--he believes in doing what he did in Chicago and what (as you sharply described) BHO talked about in RI, firing lots of teachers and closing schools. A lot of supposedly decisive action, but without, amazingly enough, any good results to speak of. Yet another reason to be wary of BHO, although why you continue to carry a torch for Bill the Economically Lucky I still don't understand. Anyway, thank you for paying attention to these important matters.

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 05:24 PM

anne said...
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/5/protests

March 5, 2010

DIANE RAVITCH: Well, unfortunately, the Obama administration has adopted and is building on the foundation of No Child Left Behind. And as I explain in this book, * I believe that No Child Left Behind has been a failed policy, that it’s dumbed down the curriculum, narrowed the curriculum. Our kids are being denied a full education, because so much time is being spent on test prep and on tests that are really not very good tests and, in some cases, even fraudulent scoring of the test. The kids are getting a worse education as a result of No Child Left Behind.

The Obama administration, however, has bought into this rhetoric of accountability and choice, and they’re actually taking the Bush policies to a greater extreme. There is more support from the administration, this administration, for choice, because they have no opposition in the Congress, because it’s a Democratic president and because they had all this money, this $5 billion, to use as play money with no authorization, no oversight from Congress.

They’ve said to the states in the “Race to the Top,” this competition that was just held, that the requirements to be considered are, first of all, that the states have to be committed to privatizing many, many, many public schools. These are called charter schools. They’re privatized schools. The Bush administration would have never gotten away with that, because Congress would have stopped them.

They’ve also required states to commit to evaluating teachers by the test scores of their students, which means that that will put even more emphasis on standardized testing, more drill down of test prep, more emphasis on basic skills. And also, it’s a very unfair measure, because it means that the students who live in poor communities, that they’re likely to get small gains, whereas the kids in the affluent communities will get big gains. And so, we’ll see the third emphasis of the Obama plan, which is close low-performing schools.

And Obama has said that he wants to see 5,000 low-performing schools transformed or closed, as we saw just recently in Rhode Island, where the only high school in a desperately poor community is supposed to fire all the teachers, close the school. And I think this is a terrible thing for public education. And I think we’re going to see a devastation of public education over the next—however long this president is in office, unless he changes course, which I hope he will, and doubt that he will....

* "The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education"

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 01:50 PM

anne said...
http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cesbtab1.htm

March 5, 2010

Local Government Education Employment, 1992-2010

(Thousands) *

December 1992 ( 6,137)
December 2000 ( 7,360)
December 2008 ( 8,085)
February 2010 ( 8,012)

Clinton ( 1,223) (+ 19.9%) Total jobs created
Bush-Obama ( 652) (+ 8.9%) Total jobs lost

(Actual averages)

Clinton ( 11,115) Monthly jobs created
Bush-Obama ( 5,931) Monthly jobs lost

* Establishment data, seasonally adjusted.

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 02:16 PM

anne said...
http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cesbtab1.htm

March 5, 2010

The Bush-Obama experience in local government education jobs created has been,

5,931 x 110 months = 652 thousand jobs created in all;

the Clinton experience was,

11,115 x 96 = 1.22 million local government education jobs created in 96 months.

[Wow.]

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 02:23 PM

anne said...
Correcting:

http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cesbtab1.htm

March 5, 2010

Local Government Education Employment, 1992-2010

(Thousands) *

December 1992 ( 6,137)
December 2000 ( 7,360)
December 2008 ( 8,085)
February 2010 ( 8,012)

Clinton ( 1,223) (+ 19.9%) Total jobs created
Bush-Obama ( 652) (+ 8.9%)

(Actual averages)

Clinton ( 11,115) Monthly jobs created
Bush-Obama ( 5,931)

* Establishment data, seasonally adjusted.

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 02:33 PM

Hal said...
This is what happens when a nation is bit by bit transformed from a democracy into a plutocracy. Politics in the US is ruled by money today without doubt. This is clear from the fact that virtually nothing has been done even now, after a colossal economic catastrophe, to pry Wall Street's hands off the levers of power and give some of that back to the poeple. Unseating the plutocrats will not be easy; they also dominate the media and the public mentality. In fact, it just may be impossible without a violent revolution, and that simply isn't in the cards.

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 03:13 PM

Reality Bites said...
Thank God Obama is not bending to special interests when it comes to education. When a school has repeatedly failed to educate its students again and again, drastic actions have to be taken, especially when other schools in the same area are able to produce results with less money.

Why are some so fearful of school choice? I'd think that allowing children to attend a school where they might actually have a chance at learning something would be supported by all. I'd think that people would want teachers, who can't teach and who have less than 10% of their students pass adequacy exams, fired immediately. In Los Angeles, a poorly performing school is firing all the teachers and making them reapply for their positions. Not all will be rehired at the school, but thanks to the Teachers' Union, all will remain on the district's payroll. The stats that led to this move? How about only 7% passing the math exit exams, that's right 7%!!! That's beyond shameful, and something has to be done immediately to correct the situation, we can't allow class after class to go through this school and not learn basic math. The firings should be supported by all.

As for teaching to the exam, well if the exam tests for basic reading, writing, and math ability, then I suppose teachers will have to teach basic reading, writing, and math to "game" the exam. In other words, they'll have to teach exactly what the students need to be taught, how to read, write, and do basic math. Now who could be against that, other than bad teachers who can't do their jobs? Obama is completely right to demand results from our educational system. it's either shape up or close down. And if public education, now dominated by unions that care more about job security and pay raises than educating our youth, is replaced by better performing private education, then so be it. All the better if private education can do the job for less money. The real difference is that private education isn't controlled by Teachers' unions yet and so are able to educate.

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 03:14 PM

eric said in reply to Reality Bites...
"All the better if private education can do the job for less money."

It can't. You are living in a dream world. Edison and others have failed, and no one has succeeded where the public schools couldn't. Charter Schools should, by your lights, have enormous advantages--but charter schools have never been shown to be better than regular public schools in a broad comparison. Teacher's unions are distasteful in some ways, I know, despite being a member of one myself, but bad teachers are NOT the main problem, not even close. The problem is the larger society. The excellent public school at which I teach is excellent not because of the teacher's union, and not despite the teacher's union--it is excellent because the students are mostly from stable homes and have highly educated parents.

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 05:33 PM

anne said...
"Thank God, Obama is not bending to special interests when it comes to education."

No question, the University of California is far too cheap.

http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/prospect/budget.htm

November 20, 2009

University of California at Los Angeles

2010-2011 Estimated Undergraduate Student Budget
Per Academic Year (9 months)

University Fees ( $10,911)
Health Insurance ( 885)
Books and Supplies ( 1,599)

Living with relatives: Room and Board ( 4,278)
Transportation ( 1,947)
Personal ( 1,857)

Total Resident Budget ( $21,477)

2010-2011 Estimated Undergraduate Student Budget
Per Academic Year (9 months)

University Fees ( $10,911)
Health Insurance ( 885)
Books and Supplies ( 1,599)

Residence halls: Room and Board ( 13,314)
Transportation ( 909)
Personal ( 1,551)

Total Resident Budget ( $29,169)

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 03:21 PM

anne said...
"Thank God, Obama is not bending to special interests when it comes to education."

No question, there are still far too many public school teachers.

http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cesbtab1.htm

March 5, 2010

The Bush-Obama experience in monthly local government education jobs created has been,

5,931 x 110 months = 652 thousand jobs created in all;

the Clinton experience was,

12,740 x 96 = 1.22 million local government education jobs created in 96 months.

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 03:22 PM

anne said...
"Thank God, Obama is not bending to special interests when it comes to education."

No question, there were at least 73,000 too many local public school jobs when Obama became President. No matter though, the jobs are gone while public school children are all "racing to the top."

As for children from terribly poor homes, with little English skill, the answer is to fire all the teachers who are trying to teach them. Fire every public school teacher,, every last teacher, for the sakes of the students.

Thank God, thank God, thank God for such firings.

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 03:30 PM

anne said...
"The firings should be supported by all...."

God would have it so, and I support firing every public school teacher in America struggling with any child then sewing a scarlet A to dresses or jackets so that all will know of such well deserved firings. Thank God, thank God.

Reply Mar 05, 2010 at 03:41 PM

anne said...
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/5/protests

March 5, 2010

DIANE RAVITCH: Well, this is the great legacy of No Child Left Behind, is that it has left us with a system of institutionalized fraud. And the institutionalized fraud is that No Child Left Behind has mandated that every child is going to be proficient by the year 2014. Except they’re not, because no state and no nation has ever had 100 percent of the children proficient. Kids have all kinds of problems. And whether it’s poverty or a million things, there’s no such thing as 100 percent proficiency.

But every year we get closer to 2014, the bar goes up, and the states are told, “If you don’t reach that bar, you’re