In the past I’ve mentioned that there are a number of different reasons for blog posts. Likewise, blog posts, at least my blog posts, have a number of different sub-genres. The most common of these sub-genres for me is the newspaper column. In length, style, and tone, the newspaper column is a very natural one for me. Other sub-genres I have employed from time to time have been the journal article, the lament, and what this post will be: the riff. This time I’ll be riffing on a post of Steven Taylor’s over at OTB. I have no interest in Roger Simon’s post which Steven takes as his point of departure. I’ll just use Steven’s numbered points.
- Contrary, apparently, to Mr. Simon’s opinion of President Obama, I think that he is, unfortunately, the most successful president we’ve had in decades.
- I disagree that Americans are polarized. I think that they are sorted. The Congress is polarized.
- What is the trend in employment? Are we, as Steven contends, moving “in the right direction”? In my view and using the graph CR graph that Steven reproduces the trend I see is no trend. If anything, employment is trending downwards. Is that “the right direction”? Not to me. In a bit more nuanced analysis, I think that since about the second quarter of 2010 jobs have been increasing in a bounded fashion, between roughly 100,000 and 300,000. That is not the right direction. Characterizing that as “far more gradual than we would like” drastically understates the nature of the problem. At that rate, anybody who was over 50 when he or she lost his job and has been unemployed for more than 99 weeks will never be employed again. That’s wholly unacceptable.
- The United States of today is no more the United States of 50 years ago than the United States of 1963 was the United States of 1913. In some ways that’s a good thing. The most notable way in which that’s a good thing is that the United States of today is so much better if you’re black than it was 50 years ago there is really no comparison.
However, there are some ways in which the United States of today is very much worse than it was 50 years ago and, sadly, I think those ways are very debilitating. The United States of today is much, much more bellicose than the United States of 50 years ago with practically no reason for being more bellicose. Fifty years ago there was a sort of boundless optimism here. That has, sadly, largely been replaced with a kind of facile, sophomoric cynicism.
Fifty years ago, most people were reasonably confident that their kids’ lives would be better than their parents’ lives. Such confidence has very little basis now.
Finally, the confidence in science and engineering that was so prevalent in the United States fifty years ago has been replaced by either know-nothingism or a sort of fetishism. I don’t think that bodes well for the future.
In conclusion, Steven comments on the primacy of structures in our political problems. I agree. Beyond here lie dragons. I would prefer a much more limited government of enumerated powers than we have today. I recognize that in such an environment there are some things that you might want very much to accomplish that simply cannot be accomplished.
The alternative is increasing tyranny and I suspect that’s the direction in which we’re heading.
In the 50s and 60s government actually set the prices for many things that we now regulate. This may mean more regulations, but I think the actual setting of prices was closer to tyranny. The finance sector was much more heavily regulated. It was harder to move money around the country or around the world.
3) We have not created jobs for over 30 years w/o increasing debt. We werent really as rich as we thought. We dont know if we are capable of adequate job growth absent resuming a growth in debt again. I hope we are, but I fear that we are a different country and that it may take quite a while to do so again.
Steve
It would be hard to beat Nixon’s wage and price controls for tyranny. That’s a bit less than my “fifty years ago” dividing line.
In many ways I think we’re still paying the price for that particular debacle.
Characterizing that as “far more gradual than we would like†drastically understates the nature of the problem. At that rate, anybody who was over 50 when he or she lost his job and has been unemployed for more than 99 weeks will never be employed again. That’s wholly unacceptable.
Not to Steven Taylor. He has to know what you know, and he finds this acceptable. Obama doesn’t see much urgency to the situation either, which is why he wants to talk about gun control and gay marriage. (And his busted brackets, of course.) The only thing that matters is that their side is winning. And this employment situation is actually to their benefit long-term, so all they need to do is manage expectations downward in the meantime.*
And I have no idea what you are saying in point one. Really? Perhaps my perspective is skewed by the fact that come Thursday it will have been five years since I had employment. And I’m just one of millions in the same boat. Imagine how long that LTUE number would be if millions of us hadn’t been disappeared by the Administrations math geniuses.
* Should a Republican be elected in 2016 (which I find entirely improbable), come January 21, 2017 the Steven Taylors and steves and Reynolds of the world will be howling that President Hypothetical hasn’t done enough to fix employment and should be executed immediately, a;long with everyone that voted for him. It will be as fast a turn-around as the American Communists had back in 1941 when they were on the side of the Nazis one day and on the side of the Communists the next, just as soon as the Non-Aggression Pact was voided. At no point were a goddamned one of them on the side of the American people, just as none of these Obama loving Dems are on the side of anyone but their party today. Fuck them all with chainsaws.
That has, sadly, largely been replaced with a kind of facile, sophomoric cynicism.
My cynicism is driven by the fact that I’ve been out of work for years, personally know many other PROFESSIONALS in the same boat, know of millions more people in that boat via statistics – and the Administration doesn’t care. They just don’t fucking care. Neither do any of the other elites of the country. And then assholes like steve and Reynolds and Steve Taylor tell me, “Well, that’s just the way it is. Plus, I got mine, and besides, this is better for the Party.”
There’s no more social contract.
From Taylor:
Note the dishonesty in failing to mention that the 7.6% number is only that low because of a collapse in participation rates. Surely he knows this. Surely he fails to mention it because, hey, he’s still working! And all those unemployed people are just more fodder for the Party. Really, there’s a dishonesty to this that is simply sickening. There is nothing they won’t forgive so long as a Democrat is in office.
I think I can explain my first point. President Obama has
That’s enormously successful. I say “unfortunately” because I think his priorities have been wrong. The stimulus funds were squandered. The priority in healthcare reform should have been cost reduction. We should never have increased troop strength in Afghanistan. I think that removing Qaddafi has been destabilizing in North Africa. And so on.
And when you had the chance to tell us all how you’d “create” jobs, Ice you admitted you don’t know.
As Steve points out, we’ve been creating jobs with deficits and bubbles for decades. Europe is no better. Japan is no better, they just carry the dead weight rather than let people go.
Which means that something has changed. I suspect it’s some combination of the endless pursuit of “productivity,” combined with a willingness of corporate boards to ruthlessly steal any money not nailed down in the form of executive compensation, a societal shift away from mindless consumption and of course globalization.
But you can add China to the list of countries not likely to create enough jobs. So, something has changed, and it isn’t regulation or welfare or any of the rest of that in my opinion. This isn’t government, this is capitalism being its efficient self.
Reynolds, you state over and over and over again that Bush destroyed the economy. You state over and over and over again that Obama saved the economy. So you admit that Presidents can have positive and negative impacts on the economy.
I maintain that Obama hasn’t done all that much good, and has done much that is bad. Is that so goddamned hard for your allegedly brilliant, though completely innumerate, self to grasp?
Schuler, by that metric Bush was also enormously successful. I can think of two big misses, Social Security reform and immigration reform. he also missed on Harriet Myers. Given everything else W did, that’s a pretty long list of getting what HE wanted.
What he got: To run the war in Afghanistan the way he wanted;
the Iraq War;
the long occupation of both;
the major reshuffle of intelligence and security agencies, the ultimate result of which was the Department of Homeland Security;
the Patriot Act, which included law enforcement goodies that Presidents since at least the first Bush had been trying and failing to get;
the “troop surge” in Iraq, when it seemed unpopular and his Presidency seemed spent;
Medicare Part D;
TARP;
large farm and transportation spending bills (largely forgotten today);
education reform.
I’m sure I’m forgetting other things.
And Reynolds, YOUR President (because that son of a biotch surely isn’t my President) keeps saying that he CAN create jobs. He’s been saying that since 2008. So where are they? By HIS metrics he has failed.
“The priority in healthcare reform should have been cost reduction. ”
No country has achieved lower costs w/o having people in the same system.
Steve
I think Taylor’s strength is on Latin America, everything else seems like he is reporting from a different country, that he tunes into now and then.
As an example of Obama claiming he could create jobs with government action, he claimed his stimulus package would create four million jobs. It was passed in February of 2009. By February of 2010 another 3.6 million jobs had been LOST.
…
Speaking of other things Bush got passed, he also pushed for at least one stimulus package as the crisis was unfolding (but before the collapse of Lehman) and he got that. In fact it was under the Bush Administration that UE benefits were first extended.
And of course I forget a huge Bush program that he pushed through in his first term: His tax cut proposal.
Bush also pushed through a set of initiatives designed to push Hispanic home ownership rates up. Those programs succeeded, after a fashion. Of course when the crash happened Hispanics got hit pretty damned hard for having bought near the peak.
Bush muscled through a tremendous amount of stuff that he wanted. As I said, I can only think of three big items that he didn’t get: Immigration reform, SS reform and Harriet Miers (incorrectly spelled before) on the Supreme Court.
No large, diverse country has ever done so without authoritarianism, either. In 1950 Britain’s population was 50 million. And they had some semblance of social cohesion. And a significantly smaller territory.
There are all sorts of ways we could reduce healthcare costs without a unified system. None of them are politically acceptable.
However, I’ve been in favor of a single system for the last 30 years. That’s not what the PPACA did. The PPACA is an attempt at preserving the present disunified system.
” That’s not what the PPACA did. The PPACA is an attempt at preserving the present disunified system.”
It puts us headed in that direction. With almost everyone covered, with exchanges set up, we can work on getting everyone onto the same system. While I would also like to see sweeping change an d having it done, in our sorted/polarized country, I dont see that happening. Once the ACA is up and running there are lots of things we could do to cut costs that we could not really do without it. Look at how similar Ryan’s plan for Medicare is to the ACA, which really isn’t that far from the PCA.
Steve
The only thing that matters is that their side is winning.
I can’t help but agree, as that is where most of Obama’s time is spent —campaigning for the next midterm or general election. Look where he was going when Benghazi happened — Las Vegas for a fund raiser. Where has he been during all these budgetary delays? Oh yes, last week flying out to CO for an orchestrated gun control rally, and then off to another fund raiser for 2014. It’s pathetic, but nonetheless very acceptable to his base, to have him so preoccupied with future political wins and social matters impacting future wins, when the real crucial problems all fall within the realm of jobs and the economy.
Should a Republican be elected in 2016 (which I find entirely improbable), come January 21, 2017 the Steven Taylors and steves and Reynoldsa of the world will be howling that President Hypothetical hasn’t done enough to fix employment and should be executed immediately, a;long with everyone that voted for him.
Another example of the left’s hypocrisy. When Bush’s deficit was far lower than it is today, and Cheney made that much-maligned comment about ‘deficits not mattering,’ the left and MSM were on the horn all day long about the sad plight of the economy, and how cavalier that comment was. Today, with much higher negative stats, a more turbulent and uncertain economy, from the left there are only kudos for what they term a “recovery,” and crickets regarding the unabated and increasing debt and deficits. As for Cheney’s remark, it has morphed into another overused talking point for the left, in somehow validating the reckless increase of the deficit under Obama.
As for Taylor — he is reminiscent of so many professors having their heads in an intellectual cloud. Everything is based on ideology and theory. Other factors and differing opinions are simply ruled out as irrelevant and non-scientific.
t puts us headed in that direction. With almost everyone covered, with exchanges set up, we can work on getting everyone onto the same system.
I find that a crock, Steve! By covering ‘everyone,’ with such a convoluted, confusing, and disliked array of rules and regulations, it will dilute medical care, not improve it. The exchange plans are also in disarray, with some states falling in line, others not, and still others with a wait-and-see kind of position. We are biting off more than we can handle with the way the ACA was formulated. The last I heard there were 20,000 pages of regulations — 60+ added just to address the HC Navigators, adjusting the federal expense upwards even more, as it increases the public sector at the expense of private sector jobs. Who is going to pay for all this????????
I think NPR had the best line on the common misunderstandings of the Calculated Risk chart:
The Scariest Jobs Chart Ever Isn’t Scary Enough
The chart looks like we are getting back to recovery, but it doesn’t account for population growth that occurs in the meantime. This is not new information to people that pay attention. Its the point where Reynolds usually talking about robots.
Speaking of charts, does this one lay to rest the ‘old people retiring earlier’ meme?
Are you kidding? Anybody who’s committed to the idea that policy has nothing to do with the employment situation just twists the demographic argument around a bit.
Old demographic argument: the Baby Boomers’ retiring explains the decreasing labor force participation rate
New demographic argument: people aged 20-24 staying in school longer explains the decreasing labor force participation rate
I actually think there’s a kernel of truth in each of those explanation but even in combination they don’t fully explain the decrease in the LFPR.
Similarly, there’s a kernel of truth in automation as an explanation for sluggish job growth but it doesn’t explain most of it.
My candidates for additional factors: low wages for the jobs being created (immigration contributes to this), extension of benefits, multiple job families, Chinese currency manipulation, underwater on houses, taking care of elderly parents, “sticky wages” across too broad a swathe of the economy (I’m working on a post on this one), and uncertainty.
@jan- I assume you have read the PCA and Ryan’s plan since you speak so definitively. Exchanges are a common component of GOP plans. If you are ever going to try to use market mechanisms , you need to have markets. They dont really exist right now. There is no transparency. If you put plans on exchanges, in an apples to apples comparison, you can actually use market competition to, hopefully lower costs. What we have now is buyers going through individual brokers or small businesses going through them. No transparency and no purchasing power, plus paying broker’s fees. No wonder small businesses pay 15% more for the same insurance larger businesses provide.
With the framework set up, the GOP can do what it wants to modify it, if they win an election and actually care about health care. There are provisions for HSAs in the ACA, but they are somewhat limited. They can expand them. There are high deductible programs. The GOP can raise those deductions. Many Republicans, it is in Ryan’s plans, think the tax exemption for health insurance should go away. The ACA limits the deduction. The GOP could eliminate it. The ACA encourages individual states to experiment with different plans. The GOP could expand upon that. The ACA encourages plans to try selling across states. The GOP could expand that if they think it is really important (I doubt they really do, since it mostly just means docs will make a ton more money). The GOP could add in malpractice reform.
There is lots the GOP could do, if they want. With the ACA they have a framework.
Steve
Ok, for the first three his party controlled both houses of Congress.
For the fourth he basically ignored Congress.
The fifth is debatable though the numbers are small. Regardless, any major deployment would require the consent of Congress.
For the last, I’m not sure he really got what he wanted.
The common theme here that a President’s “success” is entirely dependent on Congressional approval or the ability to bypass Congress entirely.
Thus it’s interesting that Congress was only mentioned once in the post and not at all in the comments. Congress needs to be present in any debate on Presidential responsibility since, in reality, Presidential power is actually pretty limited when it comes to domestic policy and the economy. IMO the main problem is Congress, not this or any other President.