Tag Archives: jobs

Republicans and Talking to Folks

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Neil King and Victoria McGrane have some thoughts.  They cite various conservatives, for instance:

[A]ctivists—including tea-party activists but also some mainline Republicans—say the party should adopt a more populist tone, one that places more emphasis on ways Republican policies would help the middle class.

And

The critique from these Republicans suggests that the party should change some policies—such as adopting a more skeptical posture toward big banks—as well as the way it talks about economic issues.

And

Mr. Romney’s lopsided loss among the country’s expanding universe of minority voters has fanned fears within the party that its main challenge is demographic, though others dismiss that worry as secondary.

But these are short-sighted and outright wrong.  The “others” are right; the problem is Republicans’ and conservatives’ general failure to talk to all Americans, regardless of ethnicity.  Republicans and conservative need to get out and talk to people in the neighborhoods in which they live—all of those neighborhoods—as I pointed out here and here.

Ex-Mississippi Governor and erstwhile GOP Chairman Haley Barbour has the right of it.  He understands that conservative policies aren’t the problem.

We do very well when our policies for economic growth and job creation are put in place.  But we often don’t talk about those policies in ways that the middle class and working class see as in their interest.

And they don’t talk at all about those policies where Americans physically live.

The other critiquers, though (the ones who are concerned with the content of the message as well as where it’s delivered), also have a point—apart from attempts to change those policies.

The Republicans’ approach to dealing with the nation’s largest financial firms illustrates the tension.  GOP leaders oppose the Dodd-Frank financial-overhaul law as regulatory overreach and want it scrapped, partly because they say it codifies certain institutions as being too big to fail.  But so far, they haven’t rallied around an alternative means to reining in the big banks.

Or establishing the need for government to “rein in” the big banks.  Which points up another aspect of message content.  In addition to their failure clearly to articulate what they would do differently vis-à-vis Dodd-Frank, their mantra concerning Obamacare is woefully inadequate:  “Repeal and replace.”  Replace with what?

An Empirical Demonstration

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Investor’s Business Daily provides one.

Renting a 20-foot truck one-way from San Francisco to San Antonio, for example, will cost $1,693. But the U-Haul tab to go in the opposite direction is just $983.

Hmm….

This figure compares, across just a few parameters, the outcome of big government, high taxes, and profligate spending—California—with the outcome of limited government, low taxes, and (more) disciplined spending—Texas.  Texas has many faults, but the routine of government interference with its citizens’ wallets and businesses isn’t among them.

California has become a state that people are increasingly trying to escape, and Texas a state people are increasingly migrating to.

…

A study by the Manhattan Institute found that Californians have been leaving for states with better job prospects, lower taxes and better business climates.

In other words, states that are pursuing the kind of low-tax, limited government, free market policies [President Barack] Obama typically rejects.

The public may have voted to give Obama a second term.  But many people in California are voting with their feet, leaving the state that’s already put in place policies Obama has promised to keep pushing for four more years.

Obamanomics, as California demonstrates—its economy actually shrank sharply in the last four years—are an utter failure.  RTWT.

A Market Parallel

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Amity Shlaes has noted some interesting parallels between today’s economic situation and that of 1937, post reelection of another Progressive President (she’s politer than I am).

In this case, “1937” means a market drop similar to the one after the re-election of another Democratic president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, in 1936.

…

[T]he parallels are visible enough to be worth tracing.  They have to do with the danger of big government, and can be captured in a few categories.

Here are those parallels [emphasis added]:

Pre-election spree that sets records.  In the old days, federal spending amounted to about 19 percent or 19.5 percent of gross domestic product. …[from that] federal spending would have dropped back once the worst of the 2008 economic crisis passed.

…even in 2012, when the crisis was long past, the government went on a spree, spending the equivalent of 24.3 percent of the economy, more than the 24.1 percent for the year earlier.

Up until 1936, federal spending flowed at smaller levels than the spending by states and towns combined, with wartime being the exception.  Roosevelt slowly ratcheted up the outlays, and in 1936, Washington spent more than the states and towns.  This shift was dizzying for a country based on the principle of federalism, of strong states.

 

Fearsome attack on the status quo.  In his first news conference on Nov 14, Obama went out of his way to make clear his tax increases would fall on the rich: “What I’m concerned about is not finding ourselves in a situation where the wealthy aren’t paying more or aren’t paying as much as they should.”

Roosevelt was also ferocious, telling the old guard: “I should like to have it said of my first administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second administration that in it these forces met their master.”

When Roosevelt followed through in 1937, both with high taxes and his effort to pack the Supreme Court with more progressives, markets shivered.

Shlaes concludes with

The obvious question is why an announcement by Obama or Roosevelt to cut back just after the election doesn’t reassure those who dislike government expansion.

The answer is that the markets, which observe a giant march forward and then a step backward, don’t believe the step back is permanent.  Giants are giants.  Expansionists tend to revert to expanding government….

In the end, FDR’s Treasury Secretary, Henry Morgenthau, learned that lesson:

We have tried spending money.  We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work.  I want to see this country prosper.  I want to see people get a job.  I want to see people get enough to eat.  We have never made good on our promises.  I say after eight years of this administration, we have just as much unemployment as when we started.  And enormous debt to boot.

The Obama administration, unfortunately, has no Treasury Secretary, or anyone else, capable of (re)learning that lesson.

Why should we care about the stock market, though?  The problem with significant drop in overall market stock prices isn’t just one of hammering rich investors and any workaday American with an IRA, a 401(k), or a 403(b) retirement account.  It’s that selling shares in a company is one of two ways in which businesses raise money (the other being borrowing) for product development or business expansion, either of which means prosperity for the company and, oh by the way, more jobs.  A significant market drop, then, closes off one more avenue for business expansion, jobs, and economic recovery.

Union Above Public Welfare

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The Daily Caller, in a weekend article, reported [emphasis added]

In a two-page Oct 29 contract, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) local 1049 demanded union dues, pay hikes and benefit contributions from Florida electric utilities before its workers would be permitted to help reconnect power to Long Island communities.  The demand came as Hurricane Sandy was bearing down on the Northeastern United States, stranding tens of millions without electricity.

That…contract…was sent to Florida’s nonunion power companies; it can be found at the above link and here.  Below are some of the eleven different financial “demands” the local required as a precondition to allowing these volunteer, and non-union, workers to help the Long Islanders devastated by Sandy.  Never mind the welfare of those residents.  They’re just useful hostages for the collection of the union’s vig.

  • UTILITY shall contribute 22 ½ % of each employee’s gross salary into the “IBEW Local 1049 Craft Annuity Fund”
  • UTILITY shall contribute 3% of each employee’s gross salary into the “IBEW Local 1049 Craft Division Skill Improvement Fund”
  • UTILITY shall contribute 3% of each employee’s gross salary to the local collection agent for the “National Electrical Benefit Fund”
  • UTILITY shall contribute 0.5% of each employee’s gross salary to the “National Electrical Industry Fund.”
  • UTILITY shall contribute 1% of each employee’s gross salary to the “Northeastern Joint Apprenticeship and Training Trust.”

Notice that—just these money grabs alone would have forced the UTILITY(s) to pay into union coffers nearly 30% of these volunteers’ (post-raise) pay, beyond that pay itself.  Taking into account all the money demands,

TheDC calculated that for a nonunion crew foreman normally earning $40 per hour in Florida, the mandated higher wages [also demanded in the “contract”] plus union contributions and dues would force a utility to pay $67.74 per hour for each worker completing power restoration tasks in New York.

For work performed on weekends or after 4:00 pm on weekdays, that overall rate would jump to $70.38.

All so these Florida volunteers could have the privilege of being Good Samaritans and trying to help out fellow Americans in their hour of need.

Florida Municipal Electric Association Executive Director Brent Moline said

The word we were getting all week was that New York was short by hundreds of [electric] linemen.  Well, okay.  We’ve got them.  Florida is two days away, so you need a head start.

No thanks, said the IBEW.  Only union workers are needed.

Moline added,

[I]t was only in New York where the union had to give their blessing.  It just made me sick that you’ve got people who have no power and you hear about a lot of people dying.

Finally, one of thirteen clauses in the “contract” specified its overall period of effect—29 Oct to 29 Nov.  Eleven of the clauses dealt with money for the union.  There wasn’t even anything in document about work conditions, worker safety, and so on.  Just that money for the union.

Only after the hue and cry did the union say it had withdrawn the demand letter.

Isn’t this display of union greed, using the citizens of Long Island as hostages for the collection, reason enough to pass a right to work law in New York?  Governor Cuomo (D)?  President of the Senate Duffy (D)?  Speaker of the Assembly Silver (D)?

As and aside, if this is what the IBEW charges its local UTILITYs, no wonder LIPA’s electricity rates are so high (the lowest non-Household Assistance rate Long Islanders pay—water and home heating by other means than electricity and assuming no more than 250 KWh of use in a month—is 51.9¢/KWh, which compares with 10¢/KWh where I live in northern Texas—and I heat, and air condition, my home with electricity, for which LIPA would charge a higher price).

Unemployment

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The last Labor stat on the unemployment rate is out, and as usual, there are some interesting underlying numbers, also, as reported by Jeff Cox of CNBC.

First, the headline number: overall unemployment rose to 7.9% in October.  It’s important to note that due to problems related to the impact of Sandy, New Jersey and DC data are not included in this estimate; BLS says they estimated these missing data.

The underlying numbers:

  • 171,000 new jobs
  • the number of those employed part-time who would rather work full-time and those discouraged and so dropped out decreased to 14.6%
  • labor force participation rate, which consists of those working or looking for jobs (which includes the above underemployed), edged higher to 63.8%

But it wasn’t all even as “good” as those tepid numbers.  From the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

  • black unemployment rose to 14.3%—nearly twice the national average
  • Hispanic unemployment rose to 10%—25% above the national average
  • unemployment duration rose to 40.2 weeks
  • average work week showed no change
  • average hourly earnings for private nonfarm employees dropped by 1¢
  • number of unemployed rose by 170,000

Cox notes this, also:

President Barack Obama has touted the more than 4 million jobs created [sic] since the 2009 economic nadir, though the number is much lower—less than 200,000—when compared to the jobs lost.

As someone once said, this isn’t what a recovery looks like.