Political Economy category archive

What happens when Republican economic theory, created to sound good and bamboozle voters, meets real life? Watch and learn.

Slightly better:

Jobless claims declined by 11,000 to 304,000 in the week ended July 5, the fewest in more than a month, a Labor Department report showed today in Washington.

(snip)

The four-week moving average, a less volatile measure than the weekly figures, dropped to 311,500 last week from 315,000. . . .

The number of people continuing to receive jobless benefits rose by 10,000 to 2.58 million in the week ended June 28.

Bloomberg’s headline focuses on the figure’s being lower than “forecast,” conveniently ignoring the execrable record of Bloomberg’s “forecasters.”

Cenk uses facts (gasp!) and numbers (horrors!) to expose the duplicity.

I have never been a fan of states’ choosing to raise money through gambling. I have nothing against a friendly game of poker (though I will not participate–I spell “gamble” “L-O-S-E”), but I’ve always considered state-sanctioned lotteries, casinos, and slots to be legislators’ pusillanimous strategy to avoid facing up to doing their jobs, to avoid their responsibility to “govern.”

Taxes are the price of life in a civilized society. (One could go further and argue that those who oppose all taxes on “principle” ipso facto oppose civilized society, but that’s another post.)

Establishing state-run lotteries and authorizing slots parlors and casinos with the justification that they raise revenue to pay for essential public services such as schools, pensions, roads, and the like is, at best, a dodge, and, at worst, a scam. It is legislators’ and governors’ admission that they are too cowardly to govern.

It is fundamentally dishonest.

In Pennsylvania, the scam is starting to fail.

Slot machine revenue in Pennsylvania dropped 6 percent in June compared to figures posted last year. Overall gross slot machine revenue for the fiscal year has slipped 4.5 percent, according to figures released today by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board.

In New Jersey, it’s been failing for years.

Atlantic City started the year with 12 casinos. By Labor Day, it could be down to nine.

For years, economists and analysts talked in theoretical terms about “casino saturation” in the northeastern United States. But there’s nothing theoretical about what’s happening in Atlantic City now.

Buy your Powerball ticket if you must, but, as you do, remember two things: You have a better chance with Publishers Clearing House and you are suborning fundamentally dishonest governance.

Despite the hype, no real change: Still well above 300k.

Job creation surged beyond expectations in June and the unemployment rate fell to an almost six-year low (the hype–ed.), underscoring the strength of a U.S. labor market that will help spur a rebound in growth.

(snip)

Jobless claims rose by 2,000 to 315,000 in the week ended June 28. The median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for 313,000 claims. Economists’ estimates ranged from 305,000 to 325,000 after an initially reported 312,000 in the week ended June 21.

In June, applications for jobless benefits ranged from 313,000 to 318,000. Fewer firings typically foreshadow an acceleration of job growth.

No difference.

Jobless claims fell by 2,000 to a one-month low of 312,000 in the week ended June 21, the Labor Department reported today in Washington.

(snip)

The four-week average of claims, a less-volatile measure than the weekly figure, rose to 314,250 from 312,250 the week before.

The number of people continuing to receive jobless benefits climbed by 12,000 to 2.57 million in the week ended June 14. The unemployment rate among people eligible for benefits rose to 2 percent during that period from 1.9 percent, today’s report showed.

Cowgirl Up conjures up a Randian paradise.

Just read it.

Slightly better:

Jobless claims fell 6,000 to 312,000 in the week ended June 14, the Labor Department reported today in Washington.

(snip)

The four-week average of claims, a less-volatile measure than the weekly figure, declined to 311,750 from 315,500 the week before.

The number of people continuing to receive jobless benefits dropped by 54,000 to 2.56 million in the week ended June 7, the fewest since October 2007.

The astounding thing was that Bloomberg’s experts were, for all practical purposes, right on the money. I think it’s time to buy a lottery ticket.

Just read it.

I spent almost a quarter of a century in the railroad industry.

I never saw a strike last more than a day or two. This sort of stuff is routine. It’s part of the dance.

It’s called “regulation.”

“Regulation” helps make stuff work in an orderly fashion.

No great, but not horrible.

Applications for unemployment benefits in the U.S. rose to 317,000 last week, holding below this year’s average and signaling sustained progress in the labor market.

(snip)

The four-week average of claims, a less-volatile measure than the weekly figure, climbed to 315,250 from 310,500 in the prior week.

The number of people continuing to receive jobless benefits increased by 11,000 to 2.61 million in the period ended May 31. The unemployment rate among people eligible for benefits held at 2 percent during that period, today’s report showed.

Find out how:

James Howard Kuntsler seems to be auditioning as Cassandra; he thinks we need to start paying attention to what’s really going on. A nugget:

Now we’re in the early stage of expensive oil, and a lot of things that seemed to work wonderfully well before don’t work so well now. The conveyer belt of cheap manufactured goods from China to the Wal-Marts and Target stores doesn’t work so well when the American customers lose their incomes and have to spend their government stipends on gasoline because they were born into a world where driving everywhere for everything is mandatory, and because central-bank meddling adds to the horrendous inflation of food prices.

Now there’s great fanfare over a “manufacturing renaissance” in the United States, based on the idea that the work will be done by robots. What kind of foolish Popular Mechanics porn fantasy is this? If human beings have only a minor administrative role in this set-up, what do two hundred million American adults do for a livelihood?

All I need to do to know he’s on to something is look at the rise in sea level in the past 50 years just over there near where I live.

Afterthought:

“Popular Mechanics porn fantasy.” Heh.

Mildly encouraging.

The four-week average for jobless claims fell to 310,250 in the period ended May 31, the lowest since June 2007, a Labor Department report showed today in Washington.

(snip)

The number of people continuing to receive jobless benefits dropped by 20,000 to 2.6 million in the week ended May 24, the fewest since October 2007.

Jobless claims fell by 27,000 to 300,000 in the week ended May 24, a Labor Department report showed today in Washington. The median forecast of 50 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for 318,000. The four-week average declined to the lowest level since August 2007, before the last recession began.

(snip)

The four-week average of claims, a less-volatile measure than the weekly figure, decreased to 311,500 from 322,750 the week before.

There is a lesson here: Play the percentages. Always bet against Bloomberg’s experts.

Via Bob Cesca’s Awesome Blog.

Afterthought:

The last time I wrote “antidisestablishmentarianism,” I was in school and I had to write it 500 times.

With a little practice, you can hold four pencils in your hand . . . .

Back above 300k.

Jobless claims increased by 28,000 to 326,000 in the week ended May 17, after 298,000 filings a week earlier that were higher than initially reported, . . . .

(snip)

The four-week moving average, a less volatile measure than the weekly figures, fell to 322,500 last week from 323,500.
Total Beneficiaries

(snip)

The number of people continuing to receive jobless benefits dropped by 13,000 to 2.65 million in the week ended May 10.

Bloomberg’s headline was Jobless Claims in U.S. Increased More Than Forecast. Given the track record of their forecasters, that their forecasters got it wrong is hardly headline news.

Wall Street’s fascination with “forecasters” is a blight and a plague. If a company makes a profit, but it’s not as great as “forecasters” forecast, the stock tanks. If that same company makes a loss, but the loss is less than the forecasters forecast, the stock soars. This shows, more than anything else, that “high finance” is mostly three card monte in three-piece suits.

In what other area outside of “reality” television is the work of what are essentially mediums minus turbans taken so seriously?

Under 300k for the first time since I started following them here.

Jobless claims dropped by 24,000 to 297,000 in the week ended May 10, less than any economist projected in a Bloomberg survey and the least since May 2007, figures from the Labor Department showed today in Washington. The median estimate of 49 economists surveyed was 320,000.

(snip)

The four-week average of claims, a less-volatile measure than the weekly figure, dropped to 323,250 from 325,250 the week before.

The number of people continuing to collect benefits declined by 9,000 to 2.67 million in the week ended May 3, the fewest since December 2007.

Unchanged: The track record of Bloomberg’s “experts,” who couldn’t pick the winner in a one-horse race.

In the middle of a response to one of George Will’s typically muddled attempts to make contemporary conservatism to appear to have some foundation other than greed and bigotry, Allen Starbuck delivers this gem:

That was an example of affirmative action prior to the 1970s, when it became well-known, and notorious in some circles.

Affirmative action was then known as segregation (less euphemistic than affirmative action), and protected whites from competition by blacks, not only in the educational world, but the job market. There were always a few blacks who achieved professional status and well-paid jobs, but they were always a small minority because of segregation, whether legal or merely customary.

Think about it.

Full Disclosure:

I stopped reading George Will regularly a long time ago. After a while, watching someone repeatedly putting lipstick on a succession of pigs gets old.

A little better. We’ll see what happens when the schools let out.

Jobless claims fell 26,000 to 319,000 in the week ended May 3 from a revised 345,000 in the prior period, the Labor Department reported today in Washington.

(snip)

The four-week average of claims, a less-volatile measure than the weekly figure, climbed to 324,750 from 320,250 the week before.

(snip)

The number of people continuing to collect benefits dropped by 76,000 to 2.69 million in the week ended April 26.