Monthly Archives: September 2017

Some Labor Day Questions

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First published in 2015, I’ve updated it for today.  In an ideal world, I’ll be able to update it again next year, with a more optimistic tone.

The Wall Street Journal asked some questions on Labor Day 2012, and supplied some answers.  Here are some of those questions and answers, which remain as valid this Labor Day.

  • Q: How are America’s workers doing? Not good. Over the past decade, over the ups and downs of the economy, taking inflation into account, the compensation of the typical worker — wages and benefits—basically haven’t risen at all. … The Labor Department recently said that 6.1 million workers in 2009-2011 have lost jobs that they’d had for at least three years. Of those, 45% hadn’t found work as of January 2012. … Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Friday that unemployment is still two percentage points higher than normal….
  • Q: Things ARE getting better, though. The US economy is creating jobs, right? Back in December 2007 when the recession began, there were about two jobless workers for every job opening.  When the economy touched bottom in mid-2009, there were more than six unemployed for every job.  At last count, the BLS says there were 3.4 jobless for every opening.
  • Q: How much of this elevated unemployment is because the unemployed just don’t have the skills that employers are looking for right now?  …the bulk of the evidence is a lot of the unemployment really is the old-fashioned kind: the kind that would go away if the economy was growing at a stronger pace. Mr. Bernanke said as much at the [2012] Jackson Hole conference….

The Democratic Party President has taken a bad situation and done little to improve it, even though he’s had four more years in which to do so.  He has, though, actively attacked businesses—the hirers—demonizing them, (over)regulating them, demanding to raise taxes on them.

At least as importantly, the current Democratic Party Presidential candidate has vowed to continue these Democratic policies, and to extend them.  Even with nearly eight years of empirical data demonstrating the bankruptcy of these policies.

Under the new Trump administration, the jobs situation seems, at least superficially, to be improving, although still too slowly.  The headline unemployment rate is at an historic low; however, the labor force participation rate—the denominator in that headline rate—remains at an historic low, also.  And, wages aren’t growing as they would in a normal, more robust economic recovery.

Further, the Federal Reserve Bank management, aided and abetted by the Progressive-Democratic Party Representatives and Senators, are highly resistant to removing job- and job growth-restricting regulations that were emplaced 10 years ago (under Dodd-Frank, for instance) with the ostensible purpose of mitigating the Panic of 2008.  With that dislocation long behind us, those regulations no longer serve a useful purpose.

Happy Labor Day.

Chips and the PRC

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The Committee on Foreign Investment in the US seems to be preparing to block the purchase of Lattice Semiconductor Corp, a maker of chips for civilian electronics, by Canyon Bridge Capital Partners, a company backed and funded by the government of the People’s Republic of China.  This is upsetting the deal’s backers.

Lattice management and other deal backers think we should all be “satisfied with their efforts to address national security concerns,” and they’re preparing to appeal to President Donald Trump to overrule the expected CFIUS decision.  This is nonsense.  Canyon Bridge is an arm of the PRC government; it isn’t possible to address successfully national security concerns when the government of an enemy is involved in buying one of our technology companies.

CFIUS is correct, if expectations of its ruling prove accurate, and Trump would be wise to decline to overrule.

Update: President Trump has, in fact, declined to overrule, on national security grounds.

“Credible evidence leads me to believe” the buyers of Lattice “might take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States,” Trump said in his order.

Iran and the Nuclear Deal

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Somalia has written our State Department asking for help since al Shabaab, in concert with al Qaeda, has seized and is operating some of Somalia’s surface uranium mines, with a view to sending the output to Iran.

This issue can be summed up in a single word: uranium.  Al-Shabaab forces have captured critical surface exposed uranium deposits in the Galmudug region and are strip mining triuranium octoxide for transport to Iran.

That customer is somewhat speculative on Somalia’s part, but neither terrorist organization has much use for yellowcake except as a money-raising item for sale.  Beyond that, there aren’t many customers in the pool, either, and only Iran and northern Korea have much interest in illicitly obtaining the ore.

I speculate that Iran, at the least, influenced al Qaeda or al Shabaab in target selection, and may even have funded some portion of the operations that led to capture of the mines.

If Somalia is right, or if I’m right, it’s just one more indication of the uselessness of the Obama-Iran nuclear “deal” and one more indication of the usefulness of tossing it, even if we must do so unilaterally.

The UN’s Irrelevancy

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Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein, the United Nations’ top human rights official, said US President Donald Trump’s relentless attacks on news outlets like the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, ABC, CBS and others could be seen as incitement to violence against journalists.

And he said that with a straight face, too.  Never mind that Trump has never threatened a journalist with violence; although, journalists have questioned his sanity and called for his elimination.

Deutsche Welle‘s own piece carrying the UN statement contributes to the distortion.  Their own link demonstrates the lie of DW‘s contention.

In February, he dubbed many mainstream media outlets “enemies of the American people.”

Here’s the tweet Trump actually sent.

I understand that American English is not the primary language of the translator of either DW piece, but surely he understands the nature of noun modifiers—after all, the German language uses them, too.  FAKE NEWS clearly fills that role and thereby limits the noun media to that subset that are purveyors of fake news.

Maybe DW is becoming irrelevant along with the UN.

The VA Strikes Again, Again

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After two bills enacted into law that require the Veterans Administration to let our veterans get appointments outside the VA rather than wait interminable time periods to see a VA doctor, the problem has gotten worse.  Now there’s a wait period at the VA to get those outside appointments—because the VA must give permission for the outside appointment rather than standing and delivering.  It’s especially bad at the Shreveport, LA, VA hospital, but it’s not unique to that place.

The VA requires a referral to see an outside doctor and the process is cumbersome—a request goes back and forth several times between the VA and Tri-West, the program administrator. Part of the chain requires someone to send Tri-West the veteran’s medical history and no one is assigned to that job at [Overton Brooks VA Medical Center, the Shreveport place]….

Why there needs to be the back-and-forth between the VA and Tri-West is as much a mystery as is the requirement for VA permission to go elsewhere to get the health care the VA will not or cannot provide.

Naturally, the VA ain’t talkin’ about this.  It is being cynically evasive, though.

The VA declined several requests by Fox News to comment on why Overton Brooks had this latest wait-list and why the VA requires numerous layers of approval to create each appointment. Instead, spokeswoman Jessica Jacobsen stated, “Improving patient access to care is a priority for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). And while there are pending Care in the Community appointments for some Shreveport-area Veterans, Veterans requiring urgent care receive priority appointments.”

Weasel words.  And: on what basis, given VA failures, failure rate, and continued lack of transparency, should anyone conclude that “priority appointments” mean anything other than being bumped to first in line to be delayed?

Veteranos Administratio delende est.