Category Archives: political economy

Furloughs and Redundancy

Posted on by
Reply

If the government is partially shut down by Progressive-Democratic Party Congressional politician obstructionism, millions of federal employees could face furloughs, some federal offices may close or work shortened hours.

Those furloughs and closures would give us some interesting data on the usefulness/criticality of those furloughees and offices. Here’s what Slate found regarding these items during the Obama “shutdown” some 10 years ago:

Notice a couple of things here regarding Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden’s threat to stop paying our military members and Party politicians’ threats regarding the VA (right click on the graph and select Open Image in New Tab to get a bigger image). One is the Veterans Affairs level of furloughing: all of 4%. That’s not importantly different from the ordinary absentee rate due to illness, vacation, and so on.

Then look at the Defense line and the Note at the bottom of the graph, the latter which says Department of Defense total includes military personnel. Half of civilian personnel have been furloughed. The civilian furlough rate of 50% is a strong indication of how many of those civilians really are needed in the Pentagon and elsewhere in DoD. The military side of DoD can easily continue being paid out of current tax law-driven revenues flowing in to the government.

Finally, notice the furlough rate at so many of those Federal Agencies. That’s also a very strong indication of how many employees are truly unnecessary. Certainly, short-term furloughs overstate the degree of redundancy, but they give a very good index into how many truly are excess.

Bidenomics

Posted on by
Reply

It’s terrific, or so claims our Progressive-Democratic Party President, Joe Biden. Here are some examples of how well it’s working.

  • He [Mark Zandi, Chief Economist at Moody’s Analytics] estimates that the typical American household would need to use 42 weeks of income to buy a new car, as of August, up from 33 weeks three years ago.
  • New 30-year fixed-rate mortgages today carry rates around 7%, up from 3% two years ago.
  • The typical credit card carried a 20.7% interest rate in May, up from 14.6% in February 2022….

That’s Bidenomics’ inflation, which drives the Fed’s moves on interest rates. That’s also Bidenomics’ inflation, which drives prices higher. That last pushes the need to borrow, whether to buy a home, buy a car (new or used), or via credit card debt to buy daily and monthly necessities.

Sure, Bidenomics is working. And maybe I know of some beachfront property north of Santa Fe….

Featherbedding

Posted on by
Reply

It’s not just for railroads, or auto unions. It seems to have come to the Writers Guild of America. The WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers appear to have reached a tentative agreement, wanting only fleshing out the details and then a WGA rank and file vote.

The tentative agreement appears to include these items:

  • a minimum number of writers per television show
  • guaranteed employment for those writers from conception to postproduction

If those really are included, they would be just naked featherbedding. Not even TV and movie production needs a guaranteed, fixed numbers of writers, or of any other type of employee, nor should these businesses need to provide guaranteed employment, whether or not the employees are needed at one time or another.

Instead, those items should be matters agreed in contracts between employee groups or their representing unions and the particular television and movie production company.

This wastefulness—and increased cost to consumers—is part of the price a union shop inflicts on the rest of us.

Student Debt and Savings

Posted on by
Reply

The lede’s lead sentence leads into it.

Everybody knows that US households’ savings soared after the pandemic struck, as the combined effects of checks from the government and fewer opportunities to spend swelled wallets.

Increasing household savings is, in almost all cases, good since we Americans don’t keep a big enough cash cushion against unexpected exigencies, anyway. There was, though, one key area, one Critical Item, that did—and does—represent quite a large opportunity legitimately to spend: paying down the student debt held by one or more members of a household.

Sure, the Federal government, with questionable legality, initiated a pause on student debt payment and associated interest accruals. However, that pause was on lenders’ ability to demand payment. That pause in no way blocked the ability of the student borrowers to continue making payments of their loans.

Where we stand today is indicated by the San Francisco Fed (keep in mind that they say their estimate is pessimistic):

They calculate that excess savings peaked at about $2.1 trillion in August 2021, but by the second quarter of this year less than $190 billion remained, putting them on pace to be depleted in the current quarter.

Now (assuming arguendo, the estimate is accurate), in the face of those vastly depleted and rapidly disappearing savings, those student debtor households will have to resume student loan payments, whether they want to or not, next month. That represents a sequence of problems for our economy and for them: student loan debtors must make loan payments from shrunken resources, which means they’ll spend less in the consumer economy. Less consumer spending slows our economy. In a slowing economy, employers hire fewer employees or employ fewer folks outright—furloughs and layoffs. That tightening, even shrinking, labor tightens even further the economic condition of those student debt-laden households.

Lying or Hostage-Taking Threat?

Posted on by
Reply

Our Progressive-Democratic Party President, Joe Biden, is at it again. On the possibility of a Federal government partial shutdown due to a lack of a budget—which Biden distorted as being a complete shutdown—he had this threat regarding our military:

Let’s be clear. If the government shuts down, that means members of Congress and members of the US military are going to have to continue to work and not get paid….

This, of course, is false, or should be. There is plenty of revenue coming in to the Federal government under existing tax law to continue paying the Federal debt, Medicare and Social Security outlays, DoD expenses and military salaries, and on and on.

Biden knows this full well. The only interpretation to his claim is that he’s lying outright, or he intends deliberately to withhold our military members’ pay, taking them hostage against his demand to get his way.

You decide.