Political Economy category archive

Round and round she goes and where she stops nobody knows.

Via Bob Cesca’s Awesome Blog.

Another step forward in capturing customers when they are too young and inexperienced to realize they are being brainwashed:

In what administrators say is a first in the Philadelphia area and probably the state, the Pennsbury school board signed a contract with a national advertising agency that could boost the district’s battered budget by as much as $424,000, while giving the firm’s clients access to the habitat of 10,950 children, tweens, and teens.

The ads must relate to health, education, nutrition, or student safety, and may not directly endorse products. They tout, among other things, reading and outdoor activities (the U.S. Library of Congress and the Ad Council); organizational skills (Post-it Notes), and concussion awareness (Dick’s Sporting Goods).

Other districts are selling ads on school buses.

Still over 400k:

Applications for unemployment insurance payments decreased 1,000 in the week ended Oct. 8 to 404,000, Labor Department figures showed today. Economists forecast 405,000 claims, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey. The number of people on unemployment benefit rolls dropped to the lowest level in six months.

While U.S. employers hired more workers than anticipated in September, elevated firings signal companies may be slower to expand payrolls in the next few months. Political gridlock in Washington, with the Senate this week blocking the advance of President Barack Obama’s jobs plan, is another sign that any improvement on the job front will be slow to develop.

The mind-twisting thing is that Hartman said,

. . . stepping away from the absurd for a moment

then proceeded to discuss Rick Perry.

It blows up the economy.

Consider this from Asia Times:

Consider this statistic: between 1999 and 2009, the net jobs gain in the American workforce was zero. In the six previous decades, the number of jobs added rose by at least 20% per decade.

Then there’s income. In 2010, the average middle-class family took home US$49,445, a drop of $3,719 or 7%, in yearly earnings from 10 years earlier. In other words, that family now earns the same amount as in 1996. After peaking in 1999, middle-class income dwindled through the early years of the George W Bush presidency, climbing briefly during the housing boom, then nosediving in its aftermath.

In this lost decade, according to economist Jared Bernstein, poor families watched their income shrivel by 12%, falling from $13,538 to $11,904. Even families in the 90th percentile of earners suffered a 1% percent hit, dropping on average from $141,032 to $138,923. Only among the staggeringly wealthy was this not a lost decade: the top 1% of earners enjoyed 65% of all income growth in America for much of the decade, one hell of a run, only briefly interrupted by the financial meltdown of 2008 and now, by the look of things, back on track.

The swelling ranks of the American poor tell an even more dismal story. In September, the Census Bureau rolled out its latest snapshot of poverty in the United States, counting more than 46 million men, women, and children among this country’s poor. In other words, 15.1% of all Americans are now living in officially defined poverty, the most since 1993. (Last year, the poverty line for a family of four was set at $22,113; for a single working-age person, $11,334.) Unlike in the lost decade, the poverty rate decreased for much of the 1990s, and in 2000 was at about 11%.

Michael Shank, writing at the Guardian, sums it up:

It may come as no surprise to some that America has the highest income inequality among the entire rich world. It was developed largely in the last 30 years, exacerbated by tax policies that benefited the rich at the expense of the poor. It became increasingly difficult for Americans to get ahead, get insured, get educated and get a job, all of which helps with getting respect. Consequently, the bulk of America’s economic growth over the last 30 years has gone to the top one-100th of 1%, who make $27m annually per household, leaving 90% of American households to subsist on roughly $30,000 a year.

Name a rich country and our inequality rates beat them by a long shot – though it’s hardly something to brag about. We also have the highest rates of homicide, infant mortality, teenage births, drug addiction, mental illness, incarceration, social immobility and illiteracy. Name the social ill and we excel at it.

October 7, 2011 | Posted by: Frank | Posted in: Political Economy | Bookmark this post

Back over 400,000. Republican obstructionism continues to obstruct.

Applications for jobless benefits increased by 6,000 in the week ended Oct. 1 to 401,000, Labor Department figures showed today. Economists projected 410,000 claims, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey. The monthly average dropped to the lowest level since the end of August.

Reductions in firings may set the stage for bigger gains in payrolls needed to bring down the unemployment rate, signaling more confidence among companies that demand will hold up. Employers added 59,000 workers to payrolls in September and the unemployment rate held at 9.1 percent, according to the median forecast of economists before tomorrow’s jobs report.

No doubt firing more sanitation workers will help.

Via Balloon Juice.

Via Brendan.

Under 400k for the first time in weeks:

Applications for jobless benefits dropped by 37,000 in the week ended Sept. 24 to 391,000, the fewest since April, Labor Department figures showed today. Economists forecast 420,000 claims, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey. An agency official said the data probably reflected a “slight mistiming” in the seasonal factors used to modify the figures.

The pace of firings has remained little changed this year while companies are reluctant to hire at a time when the economy is slowing and concerns of a European default rise. Federal Reserve policy makers last week announced more unconventional measures to boost jobs and the economy.

No doubt this could be easily cured by laying off more wprkers.

Via Bob Cesca.

Big whoop.

Still well over 400k.

Applications for jobless benefits decreased 9,000 in the week ended Sept. 17 to 423,000, Labor Department figures showed today. Economists forecast 420,000 claims, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey. The average number of claims in the past month rose for a fifth straight week, to the highest level since July 16.

An elevated level of dismissals raises the odds U.S. companies may put off plans to increase employment, making it difficult for joblessness to fall below 9 percent. Citing ongoing weakness in the labor market, Federal Reserve policy makers announced yesterday they would use another unconventional monetary tool to spur economic growth and job gains.

Lay off more highway workers to fix this.

There’s irony somewhere in this little story: a person who makes her living managing foreclosed properties can’t get enough work.

You’d think there would be a lot of work for someone like Hughes, given the economic times, but you have to factor in the politics. And right now, banks are holding back on foreclosures, even though many, many mortgages are in arrears. Maybe they don’t want the bad publicity. Maybe they’ve been stopped from acting, as they were for awhile in Philadelphia. Maybe they don’t want to show the bad results on their books. Whatever the reason, they are slowing up on the foreclosures.

“The flow of foreclosures is not big enough” Hughes said, unwilling to speculate on why. “If I wanted to move to Dallas, or to San Diego, I could get a job easily in this business. There are a lot of REO (real estate-owned-ed.) shops there.”

Lay off more garbage collectors immediately so as to fix this:

The Labor Department says weekly applications rose by 11,000 to a seasonally adjusted 428,000.

The week included the Labor Day holiday. Applications typically drop during short work weeks. In this case, applications didn’t drop as much as the department expected, so the seasonally adjusted value rose. A Labor spokesman says the total wasn’t affected by Hurricane Irene.

Still, applications appear to be trending up. The four-week average, a less volatile measure, rose for the fourth straight week to 419,500.

After all, isn’t that how “austerity” works?

Meanwhile, up the road a piece.

The city’s (Philadephia–ed.) ability to help families without homes is getting weaker.

“The city is very blatantly turning away folks,” said Marsha Cohen, a lawyer for the Homeless Advocacy Project, which provides free legal help to individuals without homes. “It’s never been like this.”

Bushonomics has made homelessness a growth industry. Cities can’t supply the necessary infrastructure to support it.

Meanwhile, J. M. Ashby sums up the Republican position:

Overlord Cantor may be open to passing a jobs bill as long as the bill does not contain any language that could actually lead to creating, ya’ know, jobs.

This would transform the bill into a self-fulfilling prophecy of a “second failed stimulus.”

. . . There is absolutely no element of good-faith at work on the conservative side of the aisle. They aren’t interested in your jobs. Only their jobs.

Republicans will not stand for tax relief for the poor.

Image via Bob Cesca’s Awesome Blog.

Job creators at work:

Bank of America Corp. officials have discussed slashing roughly 40,000 jobs during the first wave of a restructuring, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the plans.

The number of job cuts are not final and could change. The restructuring aims to reduce the bank’s workforce of 280,000 over a period of years, the Journal said.

Robot killing machines, the new engine of economic growth:

Satellite operators SES SA (SESG) and Intelsat SA, dubbed “market darlings” for some of the highest profit margins in the technology industry, are pushing services such as military drones in preparation for the biggest increase in satellite capacity in at least 10 years.

More than 200 commercial communication satellites will be launched by 2020 as a surging number of television stations boosts demand for broadcasting services, Euroconsult estimates. The increase in capacity will accelerate to 7 percent annually in the next three years, from 3 percent in the five years through 2010, said Chief Executive Officer Pacome Revillon.