Political Economy category archive

Is “fewer governments” the same as “less government”:

City leaders have been using the “D” word (disincorporation–ed.) for a few weeks now as they try to persuade voters to pass Measure K, a one-cent sales tax increase that would help the city balance its budget with an extra infusion of $1.4 million per year for the next seven years.

Dissolving Half Moon Bay — handing the city’s budget, operations and services to San Mateo County — would be an absolute last resort, but the city may not have many other options left, City Councilman John Muller said.

I’ve never been to Half Moon Bay, though I have been to Santa Cruz, just down the coast from it (CA-17 is one scary road, especially in a rental car at dusk after a five-hour flight).

Nevertheless, I suspect Half Moon Bay needs more in the way services than do the mountain ranges that make up most of San Mateo County.

This is another result of taxpayers wanting to want without wanting to pay.

The days when you could go over the next ridge, build a cabin, and hitch up Old Dobbin to the plough, and be self-sufficient are long gone.

Get foreclosed:

The number of homeowners in Hampton Roads who owed more on their mortgages than their homes were worth slid to just below 70,000 at the end of June, according to a new report.

That’s still more than one in five local mortgage borrowers – 21 percent – who are “underwater” on the loans, according to CoreLogic, which is based in Santa Ana, Calif., and tracks mortgages across the country.

Although the number of underwater homes has fallen by about 2,000 since the end of 2009, the firm attributed the decline to lenders foreclosing on previously underwater properties rather than home values stabilizing or going up.

There. Problem solved.

Republican congressional candidate Scott Rigell agreed to sign a seven-part pledge today that was developed by local Tea Party activists and includes promises to vote against any tax or fee increase, to oppose amnesty for illegal immigrants and to work to overturn the recently approved health care overhaul legislation.

I wouldn’t have bought a used car from him anyway, even before he signed up with the forces of living in a past that never was.

Rigell’s running to the right because the incumbent is thunderingly moderate and he has an independent challenger who is resoundingly teabaggish.

The incumbent, Glenn Nye, is certainly more moderate than he would be if I got my druthers.

In fact, the incumbent is so moderate that some of my more leftie acquaintances are threatening not to vote, rather than to vote for him.

I can’t understand their position. Not voting for someone who is okay-not-great while giving someone who is definitely not okay an advantage mystifies me.

This is Virginia, for Pete’s sake, not Vermont.

In a story which looks into the background of the egg saladmonella story (follow the link to read it–it finds a common ingredient in all the different salads), appears this line:

“You have to wonder where the USDA and FDA inspectors were.”

Paul Waldman answers the question, citing this article from 2007–they fell victim to the Republican campaign against “the dead hand of regulation.”

Between 2003 and 2006, FDA food safety inspections dropped 47 percent, according to a database analysis of federal records by The Associated Press.That’s not all that’s dropping at the FDA in terms of food safety. The analysis also shows:

• There are 12 percent fewer FDA employees in field offices who concentrate on food issues.
• Safety tests for U.S.-produced food have dropped nearly 75 percent, from 9,748 in 2003 to 2,455 last year, according to the agency’s own statistics.
• After the Sept. 11 attacks, the FDA, at the urging of Congress, increased the number of food inspectors and inspections amid fears that the nation’s food system was vulnerable to terrorists. Inspectors and inspections spiked in 2003, but now both have fallen enough to erase the gains. “The only difference is now it’s worse, because there are more inspections to do — more facilities — and more food coming into America, which requires more inspections,” said Tommy Thompson, who as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services pushed to increase the numbers.

Because, as Republicans tell us, regulations are unnecessary overhead because no business person would ever do anything improper.

I have to go now. Pigasus, my flying pig, is ready to take off for his daily flight to Washington via Richmond.

Will Bunch considers the legacy of Republican Economic Theory. A nugget:

But earning power for middle-class Americans has barely budged since the dawn of the Reagan era. So in order to take part in the great festival of materialism that Ronald Reagan called “Americanism,” people borrowed. The 40th president tried to make that easier by deregulating the savings-and-loan industry — which proved to be a massive boondoggle that cost taxpayers $160 billion even as policy makers failed to learn the lessons of the S&L debacle. Still, people found many ways to borrow and buy, mainly on credit cards. In 1980, the typical American saved 10 percent of what he or she earned, but by 2004 that plunged to zero. Household and consumer debt went from 100 percent of the U.S. GDP in 1980 to 177 percent today. If you’ve been around for the last 25 years, you saw how this was accomplished through the chasing of bubbles, first on Wall Street and then in the housing mania of the mid-2000s. Now, with falling home prices and record foreclosures, there are no more bubbles to inflate, which is why the Reaganist chickens of our unsupported spending binge are finally coming home to roost.

Read the whole thing.

And buy Will’s new book.

Warning: Mild (well, these days it’s mild) language.

Back up to half a mil.

We don’t need no stinkin’ stimulus:

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 12,000 to a seasonally adjusted 500,000 in the week ended August 14, the highest since mid-November, the Labor Department said on Thursday.

Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast claims slipping to 476,000 from the previously reported 484,000 the prior week, which was revised up to 488,000 in Thursday’s report.

“Feral canola“:

The so-called feral canola is the first report of a genetically modified crop found in the wild in the U.S., although another genetically engineered plant designed for putting greens, creeping bentgrass, was found in Oregon in 2004. Feral modified canola has also shown up in the past decade in Canada, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Japan and Australia.

In the U.S., 90 to 95 percent of commercially grown canola is genetically modified to be herbicide resistant; the researchers said 80 percent of the wild canola identified in the most recent discovery had at least one of two herbicide-resistance genes.

It is the advance guard for the killer tomatoes.

Afterthought:

All joking aside, this is not good. The creature has escaped.

We need good old-fashioned traditional values, like breadlines.

Initial jobless claims rose by 2,000 to 484,000 in the week ended Aug. 7, the highest level since mid February, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The number of people receiving unemployment benefits dropped, while those getting supplemental benefits surged by 1.34 million reflecting the government’s extension of eligibility.

Shamelessly stolen from Balloon Juice.

Dave Johnson:

This is the Reagan Revolution home to roost: the social contract is broken. Instead of providing good wages and benefits and paying taxes to provide for the general welfare and reinvestment in infrastructure and public structures, the bounty of our democracy is being diverted to a wealthy few.

We, the People built this country’s prosperity and this built wealth. We reinvested that wealth, building the world’s most competitive economy. Now a few people are gaming the system and breaking the formula, taking for themselves vast riches, leaving the rest of us to clean up the mess.

It’s worth a read.

Via Skippy.

Politicians of all persuasions love to complain about government waste. It’s this great big shadowy thing that is always there, even if it’s not.

Except, of course, when it’s their waste. The Department of War Defense wants to eliminate what it considers to be a wasteful and redundant command headquartered in this part of the world.*

Oh noes.

Not surprisingly, elected officials across the state and region lambasted Gates’ announcement and said they would fight it, but it’s not clear what they can do to halt the process. Unlike the Navy’s plan to relocate an aircraft carrier from Norfolk to Jacksonville, Fla. – which requires Congress to approve funds to make Mayport Naval Station ready to host a nuclear carrier – Gates indicated this bureaucratic reshuffle doesn’t require legislative approval.

It is noteworthy that many of these pols, especially on the state and local level, have willingly eliminated teachers, garbage collectors, police officers, and highway repair persons because they couldn’t figure out how to pay them.

It reveals how much of the caterwauling about government “waste and bureaucray” is just so much cant.

“Cut his waste,” they say’ “but don’t cut mine.”

_____________

*I don’t have a position on this particular command, but I do believe the government spends far more than needed on ways of ending lives and far less than needed on ways of improving them.

Addendum, Later That Same Day:

Noz points out the inconsistency:

(Conservatives claim that) government money can never stimulate the economy because when the government spends money there are all these hidden “costs” that end up choking off private investment.

(snip)

but if that’s the case, how to they explain the bipartisan outcry whenever something like this (base closure–ed.) happens?

Writing at the Guardian, Peter Wilby discusses Warren Buffet’s and Bill Gates’s efforts to persuade billionaires to give away the bulk of their fortunes upon demise. While applauding their efforts,* he suggests

If the rich really wish to create a better world, they can sign another pledge: to pay their taxes on time and in full; to stop lobbying against taxation and regulation; to avoid creating monopolies; to give their employees better wages, pensions, job protection and working conditions; to make goods and use production methods that don’t kill or maim or damage the environment or make people ill. When they put their names to that, there will be occasion not just for applause but for street parties.

Never happen.

_____________________

*The efforts are worthy of applause. Whatever you may think of how they got rich–and I have no love of Microsoft’s business practices, which can best be summarized as “copy, co-opt, and crush“–Buffet and Gates both seem determined to use their riches to accomplish something more than more riches.

Not good. Bloomberg:

Initial jobless claims climbed by 19,000 to 479,000 in the week ended July 31, the most since April and exceeding the highest estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The number of people receiving unemployment benefits dropped, while those getting extended payments rose.

(snip)

Economists forecast claims would fall to 455,000, according to the median of 43 projections. Estimates ranged from 444,000 to 470,000. The government revised the prior week’s total to 460,000 from a previously reported 457,000.

Who are these economists and why does anyone pay attention to their forecasts?

Congressman Kantor stumbles over a bit of truth. From TPM:

Appearing on MSNBC this morning, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor reiterated his support for renewing the Bush-era tax cuts for all income brackets, including high-income earners. But he was also forced to admit, with apparent reluctance, that doing so will balloon the deficit, at a time when deficits are the GOP’s supposed cause du jour.

He should get some positive credit for the admission. The article goes on to list big-name Republican congresspersons who are denying the obvious.

Karen explains:

I talked to a lady from church a couple of weeks ago. She wants to replace her old 3.5 gallon toilets with 1.6 gallon models, to get the credit. But since she’s been out of work for a year & a half, she wanted to know how much she was looking at if she got regular, plain jane toilets that aren’t name brand. If she wants to do it, she’ll buy them & call to get them installed.

Joe was at a woman’s house the other day. She has leaks on all 3 toilets she has in her house. He was able to repair 2 of them, but the 3rd has to be replaced. She’s going to check with her neighbor to see if they have an old toilet they changed out, that she can have. Her house has been on the market for 18 months, with no serious offers. And she’s in prime area, in Golden.

More at the link.

Why more stimulus is needed:

U.S. local governments may cut almost 500,000 jobs through next year to cope with sliding property taxes, a decline in state and federal aid and added need for social services, according to a report released today.

The report, a result of a survey by the National League of Cities, the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the National Association of Counties, showed local governments are moving to cut the equivalent of 8.6 percent of their workforces from 2009 to 2011. That suggests 481,000 employees will lose their jobs, according to the report, which said the tally may yet rise.

Balloon Juice. Scroll to the list of bullet items in the bottom 2/3rds of the post.

We err when we let ourselves be convinced that the only measures of economic success are stock prices, dividends, and bonus payments to executives.

Important, maybe, at least the first two; the last should be eliminated and replaced with salary increases (or decreases, as warranted); only, no.