Political Economy category archive

Via Coarse Cracked Corn

I was in a binder this morning and forgot to check the weekly unemployment data. Slightly worse:

Jobless claims increased by 46,000 to 388,000 in the week ended Oct. 13 from a revised 342,000 the prior period that was the lowest since February 2008, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The median forecast of 49 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for a rise in claims to 365,000.

(snip)

The four-week moving average, a less volatile measure than the weekly figures, rose to 365,500 last week from 364,750. The average number of claims over the past two weeks was in line with the four-week average, indicating little change in the pace of firings outside the seasonal swings.

(snip)

Payrolls rose 114,000 in September after a 142,000 increase the prior month, according to Labor Department figures released earlier this month. The unemployment rate dropped to a three- year low of 7.8 percent from 8.1 percent.

Today’s report showed the number of people continuing to receive jobless benefits fell by 29,000 in the week ended Oct. 6 to 3.25 million.

Oh, my.

Mark Sanford should have stuck to hiking the Appalachian Trail.

Afterthought:

In an environment tolerant of bigotry, ethnic and racial slurs become so ingrained that the persons uttering them don’t realize that that they are doing so.

That’s why they get taken aback when someone calls them on it, leading to responses such as “You’re being too sensitive,” “I was just making a joke,” or “No racism/sexism/etc was intended.”

They don’t notice it just as we don’t notice the nitrogen in the air we breathe, but, by God, it’s there.

Empty nests.

North Carolina Democratic Congressional candidate Deb Butler shows Republican toys.

Warning: Video shows Actual Medical Device that Republicans don’t want you to see.

Read more »

Noz gets to the truth behind the let’s-panic-over-the-deficit curtain.

Under 350k for the first time since Bush’s crash:

Applications for jobless benefits dropped 30,000 to 339,000 in the week ended Oct. 6, the fewest since February 2008, Labor Department figures showed today. Economists forecast 370,000 claims, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey. One state accounted for most of the plunge in claims, a Labor Department spokesman said as the data were issued to the press.

(snip)

The four-week moving average for jobless claims, a less- volatile measure, fell to 364,000 from 375,500.

The number of people continuing to collect jobless benefits dropped by 15,000 to 3.27 million in the week ended Sept. 29. The continuing claims figure does not include the number of workers receiving extended benefits under federal programs.

Concert today: I hear the sound of the wingnut wurlitzer cranking up . . . .

At one time, California had one of the best public education systems in the world.

No more. At Asia Times, Andy Kroll takes a look at what happened.

Then California bled that system dry. Over three decades, voters starved their state – and so their colleges and universities – of cash. Politicians siphoned away what money remained and spent it more on imprisoning people, not educating them. College administrators grappled with shriveling state support by jacking up tuitions, tacking on new fees, and so asking more each year from increasingly pinched students and families. Today, many of those students stagger under a heap of debt as they linger on waiting lists to get into the over-subscribed classes they need to graduate.

California’s public higher education system is, in other words, dying a slow death. The promise of a cheap, quality education is slipping away for the working and middle classes, for immigrants, for the very people whom the University of California’s creators held in mind when they began their grand experiment 144 years ago. And don’t think the slow rot of public education is unique to California: that state’s woes are the nation’s.

For all practical purposes no change. Bloomberg:

Applications for jobless benefits increased 4,000 to 367,000 in the week ended Sept. 29, Labor Department figures showed today. Economists forecast 370,000 claims, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey. The prior week’s reading was the lowest in two months.

(snip)

The number of people continuing to collect jobless benefits also was unchanged at 3.28 million in the week ended Sept. 22. The continuing claims figure does not include the number of workers receiving extended benefits under federal programs.

Those who’ve used up their traditional benefits and are now collecting emergency and extended payments increased by about 1,400 to 2.16 million in the week ended Sept. 15. The number of people receiving extended benefits climbed by 18,800 after an increase in New York’s jobless rate allowed dismissed workers in that state to again become eligible, a Labor Department spokesman said.

The Ryan Plan to sell the government to Wall Street and offshore all employment will, no doubt, alter these numbers.

I haven’t watched a Presidential debate in years and decided that now was not the time to start. They turned into kabuki long ago.

I gather that Romney was glib and assured. So was Vanilla Ice.

(It’s my comment. I can rescue it.)

Gotta loosen up to zing those zingers.

Via Bartcop.

I said it then and I say it now.

Republicanism equates wealth with virtue; therefore, the gaining of wealth by any means possible is the acquisition of virtue; and that virtue in turn magically washes clean sins committed in acquiring the wealth that begot the virtue.

It’s a touching “Heads I win tails you lose” canon: Their rewards on Earth ensure their rewards in Heaven. Q. E. D.

Leonard Pitts, Jr., points out that it is to demonize those who struggle.

Romney’s remarks, then, are of a piece with a narrative — poverty as character defect — favored by many who know exactly jack about the reality of poverty, but who have discovered that demonizing the faceless poor, giving us someone new to resent and blame, is good politics.

They wrap their attacks in rags of righteousness and pretensions of pragmatism, but there is something viscerally wrong, morally shrunken, in a nation where the most fortunate are encouraged to treat the least fortunate as some enemy race.

So the big story here is not about what damage Romney did to his campaign. Yes, the fact that he used condemnation of the poor as a lever of political advantage shames him.

This deserves to be in Bartlett’s.

Pass it on.

Nice seven per cent solution–whoops, my fault, Sherlock drop, but still in the same general more that 350k range:

Applications for jobless benefits decreased 26,000 to 359,000 in the week ended Sept. 22, the lowest since July, Labor Department figures showed today. Economists forecast 375,000 claims, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey. There was nothing unusual in last week’s data, a Labor Department spokesman said as the figures were released to the press.

(snip)

The four-week moving average for jobless claims, a less- volatile measure, dropped to 374,000 from 378,500.

The number of people continuing to collect jobless benefits fell by 4,000 to 3.27 million in the week ended Sept. 15. The continuing claims figure does not include the number of workers receiving extended benefits under federal programs.

In other news, Bloomberg’s experts were farther off the mark than usual.

It’s the job creators.

They ain’t.

Jobless claims decreased by 3,000 in the week ended Sept. 15 to 382,000, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The median forecast of 49 economists surveyed by Bloomberg projected 375,000.

(snip)

“The problems are more on the hiring side than the layoffs side,” said Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody’s Analytics Inc. in West Chester, Pennsylvania . . . .