Larry Summers: Corporate Greed Apologist

Sunday Reading

How one institution keeps claiming math’s highest award

Wisconsin Supreme Court Backs GOP Scheme To Rob Dem Governor Of Appointment

Reiki: still stupid after all these years

Blame the Fed For Everything!

Inflation, Unemployment, Mortgage Rates: Here's What History Tells Us About the Economy

The Inefficient Market Hypothesis

How the Fed Bailed Out the Investor Class Without Spending a Cent

No evidence that violent video games are causing mass shootings, despite politicians’ claims

Video Games Aren’t Why Shootings Happen. Politicians Still Blame Them.

How will we know if we’re in a recession?

The Most Pathetic Men in America

The Supreme Court’s Gone Rogue — And This is a Judicial Coup

The Supreme Court's Partisan Divide Hasn't Been This Sharp In Generations

The Supreme Court has pushed America to the brink.

The Dangerous Mythology About The US Labor Shortage

The dangerous mythology about the US labor shortage

In explaining the unimpressive quarterly jobs data recently, there is a dangerous mythology surfacing, a common refrain among pundits, that people don’t want to work because of stimulus checks and extended unemployment benefits.

Some argue that unemployed low-wage workers make more from these benefits than from their previous employment. This may be true, but in my nearly 10-year tenure as CEO of what has become the nation’s largest publicly funded workforce development system, where we have facilitated training and employment of over 70,000 people, I have never once heard anyone say they didn’t want to work.

This is a harmful, corrosive narrative rooted in class, gender and race bias; it is a fallacy meant to demean and stigmatize.

The truth underlying what’s being touted as a “labor shortage” is far more nuanced than glib jabs at the working class. Examining reality invites us to reassess our beliefs about work and workers in this country.

Low Pay, No Benefits, Rude Customers: Restaurant Workers Quit At Record Rate

Weekend Reading

Jen Psaki Bombs Peter Doocy For Absurd Unemployment Claim

High-speed rail may hurt intermediate places: The role of long-haul economies

Housing and the Rising GDP

What to Look for In the First Quarter 2021 GDP Report

Why are American workers becoming harder to find?

There’s No Labor Shortage. Pay Workers What They Deserve.

U.S. labor shortage? Unlikely. Here’s why

Low Wages and Crappy Jobs Gave Us the Labor “Shortage”

U.S. Labor Shortage? No, We Have a Crisis of Low Wages.

WILL lawyer, Wisconsin farmer appear on Tucker Carlson Show to allege racism against white farmers

Esquire ranks Milwaukee among five domestic cities that are 'unexpectedly awesome'

Lumber mania is sweeping North America

For Conservatives, Government Is The Problem and The Solution

Inspired by all the recent flurries we’ve had in Wisconsin, John Torinus is back shoveling the yellow snow of economic policy. He begins with two head-scratchers.

“Congress should think twice before getting too generous with weekly unemployment compensation. That’s because manufacturers are already having a hard time finding enough workers to man their factories.”

First, what is “too generous” for weekly unemployment compensation? Recent compensation has been bolstered by the fact that we’re living through a global pandemic. It’s part of a stimulus package to keep workers and businesses afloat. It’s not meant to exist into perpetuity.

Second, it’s been pretty clearly and universally established that manufacturers are having a hard time finding workers because the work is grueling and worth more per hour than the amount they are willing to pay.

Tornius alerts, “The labor shortage is real.”

Again, this is wrong. Pay that is not commensurate with the work that is being asked to be done is real. We have a compensation problem, not a skills shortage or a labor shortage.

Torinus then pretends that stimulus money distributed during the ongoing pandemic has left many just sitting at home collecting checks, and many others just planning to do this forever. This is classic Republican bullshit. They’ve been claiming this garbage forever. Poor and working class are lazy and will stay home if given then chance. Yet, conservatives will bend over backwards to cut taxes and provide incentives to the rich. Remember, The Haves are the job creators and something will eventually trickle down to the poor and working class.

He then talks of the plethora of living wage jobs available for any willing worker. “Employers have also raised starting wages in this area to $14 to $16 per hour.” $15 per hour results in a yearly income of just over $30,000.

Torinus continues with even more drivel, “Yes, it is a noble goal to want a minimum level of income for every adult in the United States. But the better way to get there is through good-paying jobs in the private sector. Government jobs, which always seem to keep growing in number, may be necessary, but they do not propel the economy.”

Last I checked, the private sector has been around a while. We’ve deregulated, cut taxes and genuflected to their omnipotence for decades. Yet, the economy has been a roller-coaster of recessions alongside declining wages and benefits for most workers. And, despite Torinus saying so, the number of government employees has been declining, not increasing. As Fiona Hill, of the Brookings Institution, found, “Contrary to popular belief in the bloated growth of the U.S. public sector, the size of the federal government proportionate to the total U.S. population has significantly decreased over the last 50 years.”

Torinus’ article seems, in the end, to be an elaborate smoke and mirrors, which concludes, somehow, that the government is preventing the private sector from employing more people and also responsible for helping the private sector to employ more people.

He concludes, “We don’t need excessive unemployment compensation if there are lots of open jobs with good pay and benefits. Congress and the president have to get the incentives right. We can’t afford disincentives for working.”

Again, what is “excessive unemployment compensation”? What and where are these “open jobs with good pay and benefits”? Funny, too, that, with Republicans, “We can’t afford disincentives for working.” Yet, the subsidies, tax cuts and giveaways to corporations and billionaires can’t be considered anything but a disincentive and/or welfare. Somehow, in the twisted Republican logic, giving incentives to The Haves is sound economic policy, but giving incentives to those who really need it, is bad for business.

Stop Measuring Life According To The Stock Market

The Misplaced Priorities Of Conservatives or Republicans Are Full Of Shit

Sunday Reading

Lobbyists Working To Undermine Medicare For All Host Congressional Staff At Luxury Resort
Donald Trump Proves Tax Code Spawns Risk, Debt & Speculation For Which Everybody Else Pays The Price
The "We're Overstating Inflation!" Story Is Back
Traditional Measures Of Unemployment Are Missing The Mark
The World's Biggest Electric Vehicle Company Looks Nothing Like Tesla
As World's Scientist Raise Extinction Alarms, Trump Guts Endangered Species Act
Warren Earned Her Wonk Reputation
What Does CBD Do? Mostly, It's Just Expensive
The Disappearance Of The Ruffed Grouse
How Volkswagen Has Gotten Away With Union-Busting
Our First Instinct Is Far Too Often Wrong

Scott Walker Is A Creep

Scott Walker Boasts About the Sun Coming Up in the Washington Post

Politicians like to take credit for things they have little to do with it. Serious newspapers point this fact out when it happens. 

The Washington Post fell down on the job in a piece that quoted Wisconsin governor Scott Walker saying, "There are more people in the workforce in Wisconsin than ever before in the history of the state." 

This is an pretty empty claim since it will be true most of the time (except recessions) for most states. Since populations generally grow, unless there is a downturn, in most months the state will have more people in the workforce than ever before. 

A more serious analysis would look at the percentage of the population in the workforce. This is not at an all-time high. In June, 54.6 percent of Wisconsin's population was in the workforce. This compared to more than 55.0 percent in 2000. 

It is possible that this drop is explained by demographic changes (more older people and children today), but the percentage of people in the workforce would be the real question, not the number. The Post should have pointed this out to its readers so they would not be deceived by Walker's nonsense boast.

Unemployment

The U-6 rate is the unemployment rate that includes discouraged workers who have quit looking for a job and part-time workers who are seeking full-time employment.

[source]

For Further Reading:

Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers plus total employed part time for economic reasons

Alternative measures of labor underutilization

Skills Shortage, Labor Shortage, Skills Gap ... All Bullshit

The dutiful parrots of the media continue to push the "labor shortage" myth. Unemployment is near an all-time low. Yet, we still hear the cries of "labor shortage" and "skills shortage" in the media.

CNBC recently wrote The U.S. Labor Shortage Is Reaching A Critical Point. Employers are supposedly having trouble finding qualified employees to fill 6.7 million job openings.

Lacking self-awareness, the article stated, "Employers are going to have to start doing more to entice workers, likely through pay raises, training and other incentives."

Just as basic economics would predict.

As Dean Baker wrote, "We aren't seeing large-scale increases in pay despite near-record profit shares. This suggest that either employers are really not short of workers or that they are too incompetent to understand the basics of the market."

Baker continued, "The implication of the CNBC piece that claims that hiring is down because businesses can't find qualified workers. If this really is the problem, then the solution, as everyone learns in intro economics, is to raise wages. For some reason CEOs apparently can't seem to figure this one out, since wage growth remains very modest in spite of this alleged shortage of qualified workers."

For Further Reading:
The Washington Post Really Really Hates Markets When It Means Higher Pay For Ordinary Workers
Americans Need To Stop Obsessing Over The Unemployment Rate

Weekend Reading

Born-Again Fiscal Hawks Turn Into Doves
The Economy Is Soaring, And Now So Is The Deficit.
GOP Abandoning The Free Market
Kimberly-Clark Proves Tax Giveaways Don't Stop Layoffs
Wisconsin's Public Sector Is Smaller Than Most States'
Jeff Bezos' Quest To Find America's Stupidest Mayor
Foxconn Package Cost Wisconsin Eight Times As Much Per Job As Similar 2017 State Jobs Deals
Let's See How Low The Unemployment Rate Can Go
How Progressives Can Criticize Trump’s $7 Trillion Deficit Without Preaching Austerity
Why American Workers Aren’t Getting A Raise: An Economic Detective Story

17 WTF Items From Donald Trump's Budget

'Morally Bankrupt' Budget: After $1.5 Trillion Gift to Rich, Trump Demands $1.7 Trillion in Safety Net Cuts

Not In My Backyard

Bay View is in a tizzy over a recent outbreak of burglaries and vandalism.

Smashed windows, stolen goods, and on and on. None of that is fun or fair. But life's not fair. Being born into and living in poverty isn't fair. (Yes, I know, this isn't all impoverished youths. Some of it is, no doubt, dirtbags being dirtbags for entirely different reasons.)

The answer to increased crime isn't "we must cut everything except for the police." Yet most of what passes for discussion on this matter is - "more police!"

The police and fire departments in the City of Milwaukee already garner nearly 90% of the entire City budget!

Milwaukee also has twice as many police officers as similar sized cities.

The answer isn't more money for police and more police.

Why don't we try policies that benefit education, health care, infrastructure and those most in need? Rather than giving millions and billions to the Brewers, the Bucks, Foxconn, Harley Davidson, Mercury Marine, etc. How about the ridiculously rich of the community help to teach the under-educated, provide transportation options to available jobs and arrange gainful employment? Having such a privileged place in society, how about helping to be part of the solution, rather than just pointing fingers, screaming about the problem and only seeing "lock 'em up!" as the solution.

How can we ask working-poor and working-class people to pay taxes for Foxconn billionaires and then lose our shit when some poor kid steals or ruins something nice? Can we devalue life any more? Oh, such a lovely, caring Christian country. Give to the rich, take from the poor and then get all bent out of shape when the poor person decides they'd like a piece of the pie, too. If you think this is making American great again, you're a fucking idiot!

The other sad part of this drama (as it plays out on neighborhood groups on Facebook among the victims of robbery or vandalism) is how the same people decrying the increase in crime, didn't give a shit when it was happening in other parts of town. Then, it was somebody else's problem.

But now that their shit is getting stolen, we all need to pitch-in to buy more police to protect their shit...no matter the cost. Suddenly these bastions of conservatism, low-taxation and a hands-off government, now they're full-blown socialists dependent on the government to protect their property. Costs no longer matter. Spend whatever it takes!

Are we under some delusion that we can hire a police officer - without any increase in taxes - for every street, every alley, every block and that, somehow, we're going to eliminate all bad things?

Too much of my taxes already go toward the Pentagon and the local police presence. More men (88% of officers are men) walking and driving around carrying guns doesn't solve any of these problems. It just squeezes budgets with increased police costs.

If you don't solve why people aren't working, why the jobs aren't there, we're just continuing a cycle of crime and incarceration. If you don't give a person something to live for, a reason, something to have some sense of self about, what do you expect from that person? How do expect that person to function in society?

All we ever hear about is how high taxes are. Taxes must be cut. They are such a burden. Politicians get elected promising to cut taxes.

Yet, somehow more money needs to appear so we can police our way out of the problem. How much are you willing to have your taxes raised?

Those of you that feel more police are the answer, start sending those checks to the City. The tax return you're about to get - send it to the City. The next raise you get at work - fork that amount over to the City. You get the point - put your money where your mouth is. Services (like the police...especially the police) cost money.

We already pay too much and have too many police. If you'd like to double-down on this always-more-police experiment, you know where to send the money.

Sunday Reading

How Milwaukee Shook Off The Rust
Mark Cuban Rips Trump As The Zoolander President
Scott Walker's Promise To Create 250,000 Jobs In Wisconsin Remains Elusive
One Way To Counter Job Killing Robots: Stop The Federal Reserve Board From Raising Interest Rates
What Is Unemployment?
Trump's Industrial Rebirth Is A Dead End
The Truth About Obama's Economic Legacy And Trump's Inheritance
That $1.9 Trillion Cost Of Regulation

Barack Obama's and The Democrats' Accomplishments

THE LIST OF 371 OBAMA ACCOMPLISHMENTS SO FAR, WITH CITATIONS

Barack Obama is officially one of the most consequential presidents in American history

Obama Accomplishments

Walker's Grasp On Reality Even More Tenuous Than Previously Thought

In an article for the Journal Sentinel, The Wisconsin Comeback, Scott Walker repeated familiar talking points and platitudes. According to Walker, Wisconsin is flourishing.

The Journal Sentinel has their own editorial, Another Lousy Wisconsin Jobs Report and Little Action on Job Creation.

A new government report shows that our state ranked 32nd in private-sector job growth among the 50 states in the five-year period that ended in June. That's the entire recovery period since the last recession. 

Private-sector hiring in Wisconsin grew just 7.6% during those five years, far behind the national growth of 11.2% and behind nearby Midwestern states. Michigan, Indiana, Minnesota, Ohio, Iowa and Illinois all did better.

Joel Rogers (the Sewell-Bascom Professor of Law, Political Science, Public Affairs and Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and director of the Center On Wisconsin Strategy) added:

According to a recent report from the Pew Research Center, Wisconsin now leads the nation in destroying its middle class. Defining "middle-class households" as those with income 67% to 200% of their state's median, Pew showed Wisconsin leading all other states in the 2000-2013 period in its rate of loss...

Median worker wages here, for example, are now $17.38 an hour. In inflation-corrected terms, that's up only 71 cents from 35 years ago — equivalent to an increase of only 2 cents a year — despite a near doubling of worker productivity over the period. Job growth has been pathetic, among the worst in the nation. If Wisconsin had merely kept pace with the rest of the country's recovery from the Great Recession, we'd have 90,000 more jobs today than we do.

And job quality is through the floor. More than a quarter (27%) of Wisconsin workers now make $11.55 or less an hour. A full-time year-round job at that wage is not enough to keep a four-person family out of poverty, even on America's distinctively stingy definition of the poverty line.

In the sense that 'comeback' usually has a positive connotation, I don't think 'comeback' means what Scott Walker thinks it means. Hopefully Wisconsin can comeback from the Walker 'comeback'.

Americans Voters Defy Reason

[source]

Many of us Canadians are confused by the U.S. midterm elections. 

Consider, right now in America, corporate profits are at record highs, the country's adding 200,000 jobs per month, unemployment is below 6%, U.S. gross national product growth is the best of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. 

The dollar is at its strongest levels in years, the stock market is near record highs, gasoline prices are falling, there's no inflation, interest rates are the lowest in 30 years, U.S. oil imports are declining, U.S. oil production is rapidly increasing, the deficit is rapidly declining, and the wealthy are still making astonishing amounts of money. America is leading the world once again and respected internationally — in sharp contrast to the Bush years. Obama brought soldiers home from Iraq and killed Osama bin Laden. 

So, Americans vote for the party that got you into the mess that Obama just dug you out of? This defies reason. 

When you are done with Obama, could you send him our way? 

Richard Brunt
Victoria, British Columbia

The Worst & Slowest U.S "Recovery" Since The Great Depression

[source]

Private Employment Slowly Reclaims Pre-Downturn Peak

Rich Man’s Recovery

A Sick Job Market -- and How to Cure It

Fiscal Austerity Is Undermining Long-Term U.S. Economic Prospects

Hundreds of Wall Street Execs Went to Prison During the Last Fraud-Fueled Bank Crisis

The Last Mystery of the Financial Crisis

Memo To Republicans: The ACA War Is Over

The Journal Sentinel really needs to do a better job with their "reporting."

The top story in their Sunday Editorials & Opinion section was Life In The Land Of Make Believe by Kathleen Parker.

Another misconstruction from the right-wing completely misreading data points to claim, again, that the Affordable Car Act (aka Obamacare) is a failure and is destroying America. Anyone with the ability to do a google search, or if you just happen to get your news from somewhere other than FOX News, can quickly dismiss these false, incendiary claims.

Why did the Journal deem this article newsworthy?

Here's just two of Parker's debunked talking points:

Only about 3 million people have signed up for health insurance through the new marketplaces, well below expectations.

A Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report issued earlier this month estimates that by 2017, the workforce will be reduced by the equivalent of 2 million full-time jobs and 2.3 million by 2021 — because of Obamacare.

Parker's 3 million signup number is only the private insurance plan signups. Including Medicaid and CHIP, the minimum estimate for total Affordable Care Act signups is 8.8 million, with a maximum of 14.4 million, thus far. The program got off to a rough start, yet signups are only marginally below expectations. Are Republicans unhappy that more people now have health insurance?

Destroying jobs is quite different from people having the choice of whether to work or to raise a family. People no longer need to stay at horrible job to have insurance. This actually opens up jobs for those looking for work.

As the Economic Policy Institute explains, "In December, the number of job seekers was 10.4 million (unemployment data are from the Current Population Survey and can be found here). Thus, there are 10.4 million job seekers and only 4.0 million job openings, meaning that there are only enough job openings for 38.5 percent of job seekers."

Based on their history of being all about the family-unit and saving our children, along with their supposed intense interest in helping the unemployed, one would think the Republicans would support a program that accomplishes both of these goals.

But, in fitting with their typical prescription, Republicans are more interested in power than policy. Facts be damned! There are actual specifics of the Act that can be improved, efficiencies to be gained, by working with Democrats and constructively analyzing and implementing adjustments and/or improvements to the program. But, instead, Republicans are still raging on, spinning fanciful yarns and lying through their teeth, in the (health care) war they've already lost.

For Further Reading:
Health, Work, Lies
Bette In Spokane Blogging
CBO Says Obamacare Will Raise Wages
Obamacare Attacks Failing

Give Reality Back To Taxpayers

Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch took to the Journal Sentinel to boast about all Scott Walker has done for Wisconsin and to propose giving the budgetary "surplus" back to the taxpayers.

If you consider borrowing, increasing long-term debt, as a "surplus," then Scott Walker has really been on point. Yet, as most can see, this is merely kicking the can down the road. A bit of smoke and mirrors for Mr. Walker, so he can present the illusion of positive policy outcomes. But in reality, he's just burying Wisconsin is debt so he can advance his own political career.

To come up with her rosy picture, Kleefisch compares the Walker administration's tenure with the peak of the recession. One would expect improvement after hitting rock bottom. They could have taken office and done nothing and things would have shown some improvement. For a truer test, we need to see where we were at before the recession. To show real gains one would expect improvement above and beyond the norm, and improvements that rank near the best among states, especially if one is going to claim his or her policies are doing so much good.

Kleefisch crows about the improvement in the unemployment rate. "Four years ago, the state's unemployment rate was 9.2%. In fact, Wisconsin lost more than 133,000 jobs and lost 27,000 businesses during Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle's final term in office. After Gov. Walker and I were sworn in, we took aggressive action to get Wisconsin working again. Now, the unemployment rate is the lowest it has been in more than five years at 6.2%."

As you can see from the graph below, its awfully convenient to choose 2010 for comparison, rather than any other time before that. When we look back just a bit further, we see Wisconsin still has a way to go to reach full employment. Our current unemployment rate ranks us 22nd among the states. In 2011 and 2012, although we had higher unemployment rates (6.9 and 7.5), we ranked 19th among the states for both years. As far as the state is doing compared to others, we've actually gotten worse.

[source]

Kleefisch talks of turning a deficit into a surplus. "We also took necessary steps to get our fiscal house in order over the past few years. We inherited a $3.6 billion budget deficit when we took office and turned it into a $759 million surplus by the end of the 2011-'13 budget."

As Media Matters commented, "Fox News hyped Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's economic record, claiming that the governor's economic plan generated a nearly $1 billion budget surplus while ignoring that the current surplus is built upon a projected structural deficit and that the state ranks 28th in the nation for job creation under Walker's tenure." From the same article, "The Legislative Fiscal Bureau: Under Walker's Budget, Wisconsin's Structural Deficit Would Grow To $725 Million. A non-partisan analysis of Walker's most recent budget concluded that the Governor's proposed tax cuts would increase the state's budget shortfall over the coming years. Walker's tax plan hyped by Fox would in fact cost the state $180 million and would ultimately turn the touted surplus into a deficit by 2017."

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin also notes, "When Scott Walker was running for governor, he promised to balance budgets Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP); however, the budget he claims as balanced is anything but when using GAAP. By gutting public education to the tune of $2.6 billion and slashing more than $500 million from public healthcare, along with skillfully kicking the can down the road with accounting tricks that pass debt onto future budgets, Walker has given the appearance of a balanced budget. But when using the GAAP that Walker promised to use, Wisconsin’s deficit will actually be more than $3 billion at the end of the biennium – a larger deficit than Walker inherited."

Kleefisch continues, "And some 100,000 jobs and nearly 13,000 new businesses have been created since we took office." Again, as we can see from the graph below, all this "job creation" has only gotten us back to 2004 levels. Oddly, I remember some politician promising 250,000 new jobs in his first term. 

[source]

Republicans always talk about "putting money back into taxpayers pockets." Although Kleefisch didn't mention it in her op-ed, lets take a look at the real median household income in Wisconsin. Are those wonderful Walker policies fattening your wallet? As the graph below shows, the median household actually has less now than they did during the peak of the recession. 

 [source]

Kleefisch and Walker are giving Wisconsin taxpayers a bigger debt burden, meaningless promises and a false reality.