The Weekend Economists Star in J.B. (job, Job, get it?) October 5-7, 2012

[Demeter]

So, the big story (or rather, the Big Spin) is the hot-off-the-Internet jobs report.

Is it real or is it Memorex? Or cooked like a Christmas pudding?

(We all know it's cooked. We just cannot admit it to the Other Side, who would be doing the cooking if their continued grasp on the levers of power depended on it. We may not know how or where, but it's cooked. You can bank on it. It's so damn unsubtle, too. Rather like what W would do, every time he spoke with that patented sincerity which signaled that he was lying through his teeth. If you are going to fake the statistics, do it sooner than one month before the election! Give the People some credit for smarts. Even better, get off the pot and DO SOMETHING THAT MAKES A DIFFERENCE!--Demeter)

JB, a play in free verse by Archibald MacLeish, tells the story of a twentieth-century American banker-millionaire whom God commands be stripped of his family and his wealth but who refuses to turn his back on God. MacLeish wondered how modern people could retain hope and keep on living with all the suffering in the world and offered this play as an answer. J. B. learns that there is no justice in the world, that happiness and suffering are not deserved, and that people can still choose to love each other and live.

MacLeish had been earning his living as a poet for fifty years before this, his third verse play, was published. Shortly after the publication of the book, the play was produced on Broadway and underwent substantial revisions. There are, therefore, two versions of the play available for readers: the original book published by Houghton Mifflin and the acting script available from Samuel French. Both were published in 1958, and neither has ever gone out of print. J.B. won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1959 (MacLeish's third Pulitzer), as well as the Tony Award for best play. More important, the play sparked a national conversation about the nature of God, the nature of hope, and the role of the artist in society.

J. B. Summary

Prologue

The first characters to appear on stage in J. B. are Mr. Zuss and Nickles, a balloon seller and a popcorn seller in a run-down circus. They approach and then mount a sideshow stage in the corner of a circus tent to play out the story of Job from the Bible, with the stage as Heaven, the ground as Earth, and the lights as the stars. Zuss (whose name sounds like "Zeus,'' the god of Greek mythology) will play God. From the beginning, he is as arrogant as one might expect a man who believes he is right for the role to be, and he is indignant at the idea that Job would dare to demand justice.

Nickles, on the other hand, understands Job's suffering and does not accept that God would cause that suffering just to prove his authority and power. Nickles sings a song that includes the play's central paradox: "If God is God He is not good, / If God is good, He is not God.’’ Nickles, whose name is a variation of "Old Nick,'' a slang term for the devil, will play Satan. As the two men point out, there is always someone to play Job...

http://www.enotes.com/j-b

So, the play's the thing wherein we'll catch the conscience of the King...

Post what you got.

[Demeter]

1. No Banks Failed Yet

Guess the play has yet to begin...

[Demeter]

2. Money Masters, Created by: ForensicAccounting.net

[bread_and_roses]

13. great graphic -

is it online? I didn't find "forensicaccounting.net" on a search?

[Demeter]

18. RIGHT CLICK ON IT, SHOULD BE ABLE TO COPY

http://www.nationofchange.org/money-masters-1348932950

I FOUND IT AT LINK

[bread_and_roses]

49. I don't get the penny graphic

it looks like share of upper 1% has shrunk - or i'm not reading the color code correctly or it's unclear or something - oh, and THANKS for the link!

[Fuddnik]

3. JeB

The trials that poor man has been through.

The humiliation of being upstaged by a moron brother.

[Demeter]

6. You've got to get a duzy for that

since you aren't close enough to slap.

If Jeb ever inhabits the WH, this rat will leave the ship. In flames.

[Po_d Mainiac]

4. A Supreme Court case could limit the resale of goods made overseas but sold in America

CHICAGO (MarketWatch) — Tucked into the U.S. Supreme Court’s busy agenda this fall is a little-known case that could upend your ability to resell everything from your grandmother’s antique furniture to your iPhone 4.

At issue in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons is the first-sale doctrine in copyright law, which allows you to buy and then sell things like electronics, books, artwork and furniture as well as CDs and DVDs, without getting permission from the copyright holder of those products.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/resell-own-stuff-peril-040302428.html

Getting rid of iShit could be a problem

[Demeter]

5. A clear case of the law as an ass

The case stems from Supap Kirtsaeng’s college experience. A native of Thailand, Kirtsaeng came to the U.S. in 1997 to study at Cornell University. When he discovered that his textbooks, produced by Wiley, were substantially cheaper to buy in Thailand than they were in Ithaca, N.Y., he rallied his Thai relatives to buy the books and ship them to him in the U.S.

He then sold them on eBay, making upwards of $1.2 million, according to court documents.

Wiley, which admitted that it charged less for books sold abroad than it did in the U.S., sued him for copyright infringement. Kirtsaeng countered with the first-sale doctrine.

In August 2011, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld a lower court’s ruling that anything that was manufactured overseas is not subject to the first-sale principle. Only American-made products or “copies manufactured domestically” were.

“That’s a non free-market capitalistic idea for something that’s pretty fundamental to our modern economy,” Ammori said.

Both Ammori and Bland worry that a decision in favor of the lower court would lead to some strange, even absurd consequences...

YA THINK? THE ATTEMPTS TO PROSECUTE ALONE COULD BREAK THE GOVERNMENT.

THAT'S THE CONSEQUENCE OF GOUGING YOUR CASH COW--THE US CONSUMER. SUCK ON IT, WILEY.

THEY TRIED THIS SAME TRICK WITH REIMPORTING DRUGS FROM CANADA.

[Demeter]

7. Where did the mammoth US budget deficits come from?

IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN, PAKISTAN, YEMEN, LIBYA, SOMALIA....

http://news.yahoo.com/where-did-mammoth-us-budget-deficits-come-211927495.html

Let's go back about a decade, when budget surpluses were predicted for the foreseeable future. Somehow, the math went terribly wrong, by trillions of dollars. Here's an accounting of what happened....

...JPMORGAN, GOLDMAN SACHS, WELLS FARGO, CITICORP, GMAC, AIG...

One big problem was that CBO isn’t magical. Unblessed with the ability to predict the future, it didn’t accurately foresee the economic troubles of coming years, including the crash of the Great Recession. This meant that less tax money came in than anticipated. Overall, CBO says that about $3.3 trillion of its $11.7 prediction error can be attributed to “economic and technical changes” to projected revenues.

Then there were the tax cuts. President George W. Bush instigated most of these, but President Obama also pushed through Congress a payroll tax cut intended to pump money into a moribund economy. Tax cuts accounted for a further $2.8 trillion of the $11.7 trillion discrepancy. (Yes, the big kahuna here is Mr. Bush’s 2001 reduction in income-tax rates, which alone accounts for about $1.2 trillion in revenue foregone over the decade.)

Finally, there are the increases in outflows unpredicted by CBO. Between 2001 and 2011, increased discretionary spending amounted to about $3 trillion. This category includes defense spending related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, homeland security upgrades in the US, spending on food stamps and other hard-times safety net programs, and other general budget categories that are supposed to be approved annually by Congress.

Mandatory spending – a category that includes the Medicare prescription-drug program approved under Bush, the TARP bank bailout, and Mr. Obama’s economic stimulus package – went up by about $1.4 trillion during the period in question. (This type of outflow is called “mandatory” not because we had to do it, but because it results from formulas established by Congress instead of appropriated dollar totals.)

...DRONES, AIRPLANES, EXTRAORDINARY RENDITIONS, AIRCRAFT CARRIERS, GAS SUBSIDIES VIA THE MILITARY BUDGET....

....“where did the $11.7 trillion go?” is this: 27 percent went away due to projection inaccuracy; 24 percent went to tax cuts; and 49 percent can be accounted for by various forms of increased spending...

ADVANCED FINGER-POINTING FOR AFICIONADOS....MORE AT LINK

[Demeter]

8. J.B. Plot summary (WIKIPEDIA)

The play opens in "a corner inside an enormous circus tent." Two vendors, Mr. Zuss and Nickles, begin the play-within-a-play by assuming the roles of God and Satan, respectively. They watch J.B., a wealthy banker, describe his prosperity as a just reward for his faithfulness to God. Scorning, Nickles challenges Zuss that J.B. will curse God if his life is ruined. The two observe as J.B.'s children and property are destroyed in horrible accidents and the former millionaire takes to the streets. J.B. is visited by three Comforters (representing History, Science, and Religion) who offer contradicting explanations for his plight. He declines to believe any of them, instead calling out to God to show him the just cause for his punishment. When finally confronted by the circus vendors, J.B. refuses to accept Nickles' urging toward suicide to spite God or Zuss' offer of his old life in exchange for quiet obedience to religion. Instead, he takes solace in his wife Sarah and the new life they will create together.

[Demeter]

9. J.B. THE AUTHOR

http://www.rcwalton.com/JB.pdf

Archibald MacLeish (1892-1982) was born into a prosperous family in Glencoe, Illinois. He attended private schools, then went on to Yale, where he majored in English, then entered Harvard Law School. When the United States entered World War I, he served in a field hospital and later captained an artillery unit. After the war, he returned to Harvard to complete his law degree, finishing first in his class. The life of a lawyer dissatisfied him, however, and he resigned from his law firm on order to devote his life to his poetry. In 1923 he moved his wife and children to Paris, where they remained for five years as part of the expatriate literary community there. Here MacLeish befriended such writers of the era as Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald. His attempts to adopt the modernist style of poetry current at the time were largely derivative, but it was also during these years that he wrote what are considered his greatest lyric poems, such as You, Andrew Marvell and Ars Poetica.

Upon his return to the United States, he took a job on the editorial staff of Fortune magazine while continuing to write poetry. He won the first of three Pulitzer prizes for his long poem Conquistador (1932). Unlike the modernist poets of the era, MacLeish was convinced that poetry had to speak to the conditions of society, and in the years that followed he used his gifts to speak out against the dangers of the fascism that was rising in Europe. In 1939, he entered a period during which he laid his poetry aside to serve his government. Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed MacLeish as librarian of the Library of Congress, and during the five years in which he occupied the post he reorganized the archaic structure of the library. He also served as director of information in the Office of Facts and Figures, assistant director of the Office of War Information, and Undersecretary of State for Cultural Affairs.

He left government service in 1949 to return to Harvard University as a professor of rhetoric, where he remained until his retirement in 1962. While at Harvard, he received two more Pulitzers, one for a volume of collected verse (1952) and one for his verse drama J.B. (1958). He also spoke out against McCarthyism, and sought to support publicly those who had become its victims. During the twenty years following his retirement, MacLeish continued to write both lyric poetry and drama. He stands apart from the modernist poets because of his insistence that
art be relevant to society rather than existing for its own sake (ironically, his reputation is thus quite contrary to the sentiments expressed in his most famous lyric, Ars Poetica).

Archibald MacLeish’s J.B. is a retelling of the story of Job from the Bible, and it reflects both the suffering experienced by many as a result of the Depression and World War II and the sense of the meaninglessness of life emphasized by the mid-century existentialists. His final affirmation that only love can bring meaning into a meaningless universe reflects a departure from the conclusions of the existentialists, but affords little hope of transcendent justification for man’s existence...

[Demeter]

11. J.B. NOTES

Prologue - Two circus vendors, Mr. Zuss and Nickles, enter an empty stage, and begin to discuss the story of Job. They are to play the parts of God and Satan, respectively. Zuss from the beginning seeks to defend God, while Nickles sarcastically offers wisecracks about the human condition. When they climb a ladder to the platform above, they find two masks - a God mask, white and unseeing, and a Satan mask, eyes wide open, sarcastic and angry. As the Prologue
ends, they begin to read the opening lines from the book of Job.

Scene 1 - It is Thanksgiving, and J.B., Sarah, and their children are gathered at the table to enjoy the feast. Sarah reminds them to be thankful, but J.B. and the children seem to take their blessings for granted. J.B. sees God’s goodness as a matter of grace, unearned and undeserved, while Sarah fears that if insufficient gratitude is shown it might all be taken away in God’s wrath.

Scene 2 - The scene moves to the platform, where Zuss and Nickles discuss the action, the latter mocking J.B. and the former defending him. They continue to discuss the meaning of suffering, and at the end of the scene, they resume their masks, and Satan challenges God to allow him to take away Job’s blessings. God agrees, but insists that Job himself should not be harmed.

Scene 3 - Two soldiers arrive to tell J.B. and his wife that their son David has been killed in an accident after the war was over.

Scene 4 - Two reporters and a girl tell J.B. and Sarah that their son Jonathan and daughter Mary were killed in a car crash when the driver of their car, who was drunk, smashed into a bridge abutment. Sarah begins to question the ways of God, but J.B. does not.

Scene 5 - At the beginning of the scene, Mr. Zuss and Nickles discuss the action. Then we move to earth, where two reporters are informing J.B. and Sarah that their youngest, Rebecca, has been found dead behind the lumberyard, having been molested and murdered by a teenage junkie.

Scene 6 - Ruth has been killed in an explosion that destroyed the bank and plant owned by J.B., leaving him both childless and penniless. He continues to bless the Lord, but Sarah accuses God of being a murderer.

Scene 7 - Mr. Zuss claims victory for God, but Nickles insists that the story is not yet over, that Job must suffer pain and agony in his own flesh. They put their masks on again, and God agrees to let Satan touch Job’s body, but not his life.

Scene 8 - J.B. lies in agony, his wife at his side. His skin is covered with boils, the result of what may have been a nuclear bomb destroying the city. A group of women surround them, gaping at the pain of those who had been rich. J.B. insists on his guilt, but Sarah will not hear of it, blaming God instead. At the end of the scene, she leaves, unable to endure the pain.

Scene 9 - J.B.’s comforters appear, and try to deprive him of his guilt by arguing that it is psychological or societal. J.B. insists that he is guilty, but doesn’t know what he has done. He cries out to God to know his sin. The voice of God then speaks lines from the book of Job, questioning Job’s right to question Him. As the scene ends, J.B. proclaims that he has seen God, and repents.

Scene 10 - Nickles congratulates Mr. Zuss on God’s victory, but Zuss is dissatisfied because J.B., in his repentance, accepted God’s refusal to answer his request for a justification of his suffering, and thus in a sense forgave God. Nickles then goes down to speak with J.B., telling him that God will restore all he has lost, but that any self-respecting man would refuse it, choosing to take his own life instead. But as the scene ends, J.B. hears someone coming.

Scene 11 - Sarah returns, and she and J.B. start over, alone in the world with nothing but their love to sustain them.

AND I AM MINDED OF LLOYD BLANKFEIN, DOING GOD'S WORK....

HOW IRONIC, THAT J.B. SHOULD BE A BANKER....

[AnneD]

86. Achiebald McLeash....

Happened to be Cary Grant's real name. I had some confusion there for a few nanosecs. The book of Job is one of the oldest books in the Bible and one of the hardest for most folks, especially Christians, to grasp. As I have gotten older, and lived my life, I have come to new understandings and appreciation of Job. It is a story of hope, in the worst of circumstances.

[Ghost Dog]

10. Mitt Romney promised America 12 million new jobs "with growing wages".

... I guess he thinks that while the rest of the planet stays mired in the morass, the US can reach for the skies. And you know, I must admit I did catch myself thinking that if the US could play the role of Bain Capital, vs the rest of the world in the role of the companies that Bain took over and sucked dry, sure, that might have worked. And he does have that experience.

But unlike companies, you can't bleed dry, bankrupt and wholly obliterate entire nations that are part of the UN, NATO, the EU, the eurozone. For more reasons than I care to get into detail about...

...And besides, when it comes to those 12 million jobs Romney was talking about, if you take the real unemployment rate of anywhere from 12-15%, and add the millions of Americans who don't count in any official stats anymore, those 12 million are not an impressive number. But can still be presented as such because math seems to have become an un-American activity. Put another way: 12 million jobs in 4 years is 250.000 a month, while, just to name an example, initial jobless claims have been hovering at or above 350.000 a month for years now. At least 6 million jobs are needed in the next 4 years just to play even. Today's report announced 144,000 new jobs and markets go skywards. Beam me up, Scotty.

But hey, in the present day global economy the US is not the most interesting party (sorry!). That role is still firmly embedded someplace in Europe, even though it's hard to say exactly where. Granted, the Syrian-Turkish border has a shot at first place, but that's black swan territory. For now.

There's so much zombie capital fleeing to America that stateside reality can remain hidden for a while longer...

/... http://theautomaticearth.com/Finance/the-imf-inadvertently-condemns-the-eurozone.html

[Demeter]

12. I don't think it will go on.

I'm praying it won't. These guys need to be handed their heads.

[Demeter]

14. "...organized greed always defeats disorganized democracy." - Matt Taibbi

[Demeter]

15. Appeals Panel Undermines Free Speech Victory Over NDAA By Nick Pinto

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2012/10/appeals_panel_u.php

The government is still allowed to lock up American citizens indefinitely inside military facilities, thanks to a ruling this week by a panel of three 2nd-circuit appeals judges, who granted a stay against a lower court ruling that a controversial section of the National Defense Authorization Act is unconstitutional.

Soon after the law was signed on New Year's Eve last year, it was challenged in federal court by seven journalists and activists, including Chris Hedges, Noam Chomsky, and Daniel Ellsberg, who argued that the vague and sweeping language of the law violates their freedom of speech and right to due process. Judge Katherine Forrest agreed, and struck down the law in a lengthy opinion last month, but government lawyers immediately sought and received a temporary emergency stay on the ruling. This week's ruling extends the stay until the government can appeal Forrest's ruling, likely in the next three or four months.

The appeals panel listed several reasons for granting the stay this week: Firstly, the explicit confirmation by the government in its motion for a stay that "based on their stated activities," plaintiffs, "journalists and activists[,] . . . are in no danger whatsoever of ever being captured and detained by the U.S. military." That explicit commitment had been conspicuously absent in arguments before the lower court. The panel reasoned that though the NDAA allows for the indefinite detention of citizens without civil trial, it doesn't affect our rights, because it says it doesn't. OH, THAT'S ALL RIGHT, THEN.

Lastly, the panel writes that Judge Katherine Forrest's original ruling goes beyond overturning the NDAA provisions to actually affect the original Authorization for Use of Military Force, signed the week after 9/11. Government lawyers have argued all along that the NDAA and the AUMF are functionally identical. Judge Forrest had taken pains in her ruling to distinguish the two, noting critical language that's brand-new in the NDAA: it's application to people who have "substantially supported," or, later, "directly supported," Al Qaeda, the Taliban, or "associated forces."

MORE, FOR MANY MONTHS TO COME....

[Demeter]

16. Iceland’s Economy now growing faster than the U.S. and EU after arresting corrupt bankers

http://americanlivewire.com/world-economic-news-icelands-economy-now-growing-fas/

So Iceland decided not to follow the rest of the world by bailing out the bankers. Instead, they chose to arrest them. Now their economy is recovering faster than the EU and the United States. Hmmmm.

Remember when the United States government told the American people that immediate action was required to save the banks, and save our nation from complete collapse? An action in the form of Billions of dollars of National Debt? Yeah, we remember that! Now Trillions of dollars in National debt later, we are in the same position we were in 4 years ago, just more debt. As a matter of fact Federal Reserve Chairmen Ben Bernanke has called for yet another stimulus that will add more debt onto the mountain we already have.

At the start of the world wide 2008 economic collapse, Iceland was in worse shape than almost any other country in the world. Now they are one of the fastest growing economies in the world.

Imagine what America would be like today if we bailed out the victims of poor banking practices, while punishing the bankers who were responsible?

VIDEO AT LINK

[mbperrin]

85. Punish malefactors and reward the virtuous?

Sounds like a gateway to communism or somethin'

[Demeter]

87. I know. It sounds so crazy--it just might work!

Rule of law, and all that.....

[Demeter]

17. Police stakeout bill for Assange tops £1m: £11,000 / DAY to ensure he doesn't flee Ecuadorian Embass

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2211530/Police-stakeout-Assange-tops-1m-costs-11-000-DAY-ensure-doesnt-flee-Ecuadorian-Embassy.html#ixzz28TYs9w1o

At least four Met officers stand guard around the clock

William Hague admits there is 'no sign of breakthrough'

...Officers have been watching the property in Knightsbridge, west London, since Mr Assange breached his bail and claimed asylum in June. They have been told to arrest him if he puts ‘one toe’ outside.

Ecuadorean foreign minister Ricardo Pinto has warned Mr Assange he could be in the embassy for a decade if he is not allowed to leave Britain...

[Demeter]

19. US, Allies Wage Economic War On Iran By Finian Cunningham

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/10/03/264778/west-economic-war-on-iran-doomed-to-fail/

The havoc hitting Iran’s national finances should leave no-one under any illusions. The country is facing economic warfare from the US and its European allies. In financial terms, it is equivalent to attacking the country with a weapon of mass destruction.

The disruption and hardship being inflicted on Iranian citizens is criminal and unspeakably callous. But let’s make no mistake: the suffering of Iranian people is the direct result of conscious decisions being made in Washington, London and Brussels. These sanctions on Iran’s oil and banking industries are outrageous acts of aggression based on specious and malicious claims about the country’s legally entitled civilian nuclear development. The sanctions are unwarranted, criminal acts of war and crimes against humanity, initiated by Washington and its Western lackey governments.

It is important to understand the source of aggression. Recently, some commentators and analysts have overplayed the rift between Washington and Israel with regard to Iran. Some have taken delight at the rebuffs issued to Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from the White House. When US President Barack Obama declined to grant Netanyahu a personal meeting at the White House during the UN summit last week, some commentators interpreted this as another slap from Washington to Israel over its belligerence towards Iran. There was even a hint of hope that the White House is as last coming to its senses about Netanyahu’s nuttiness.

Other commentators have lamented the supposed excessive influence of Tel Aviv on American government foreign policy. In this view, the reason why America is so hated around the world is because of Zionists hijacking Washington’s foreign policy in general and towards Iran in particular.

Yes indeed, Zionist lobbyists, corporate media and presidential fundraisers do have huge influence on American government. But let’s not kid ourselves. The tail does not wag the dog. American imperialist aggression is a function of America’s position as the executive power overseeing global capitalist domination. The state of Israel was set up historically as a garrison of American military power projection in the Middle East to augment the imperatives of capitalist control. In this role the Zionist state still serves as a subcontractor of American imperialism, in the same way as Britain, France and other Western lackey powers perform.

[Demeter]

20. Insurers, Some States and Co-op Plans Moving Forward with Obamacare

More than half the states say they can't figure "it" out. But that does not appear to be the case with co-op plans in a number of states and with insurance companies. "It" is the PPACA (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2012 - aka Obamacare). As summarized in a GEI News story yesterday (03 October 2012), 26 states are not taking actions required by the law to implement Obamacare by October of next year. A common complaint from those states is that they "have not had their questions answered by Washington" or have received "inadequate guidance on what is required under the law."

Follow up:

Some states (24 in number), insurance companies and co-op plans do not appear to have the "insurmountable barriers" that the 26 states not moving forward have encountered. The 26 states that have not been able to take action on how to implement insurance exchanges are shown in gray on the following map from the NCSL (National Conference of State Legislatures), updated as of 02m October 2012:





MORE AT LINK

http://econintersect.com/b2evolution/blog1.php/2012/10/05/insurers-some-states-and-co-op-plans-moving-forward-with-obamacare

[Demeter]

21. If anyone is wondering

It's drizzling, and cold: 45F. Yesterday was glorious. Today was November.

Sic transit gloria autumn.

[Hugin]

22. Aw, I was hoping for a Muppet retrospective this weekend.

:pout:

[Demeter]

23. You should have said so!

I'll put it on the list...now I have two future weekend topics!

[DemReadingDU]

37. Big Bird!

[Demeter]

24. Jobs Report: Cooked or Correct? By JOE NOCERA

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/06/opinion/nocera-jobs-report-cooked-or-correct.html

“Unbelievable job numbers,” tweeted Jack Welch, the iconic former boss of General Electric on Friday morning, moments after the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its September jobs figures. “These Chicago guys will do anything,” he continued. “Can’t debate so change numbers.”

The jobs numbers, unquestionably, gave a boost to the Obama campaign, still reeling from the president’s poor debate performance. While the bureau’s survey of businesses showed a ho-hum rise of 114,000 in nonfarm employment, the unemployment rate had somehow dropped from 8.1 percent in August to 7.8 percent, far exceeding expectations. Thus, a month before the election, and for the first time in Obama’s presidency, unemployment was under 8 percent. Welch smelled conspiracy. And he wasn’t alone. “Total data manipulation,” tweeted a writer at Zerohedge, a financial news blog. “Such a farce.” Fox News spent much of Friday morning piling on...It’s worth pointing out that the last time anyone accused the Bureau of Labor Statistics of being politically motivated was when Richard Nixon did so in 1971. Upset that the bureau was releasing figures showing higher unemployment during his re-election campaign, he asked his hatchet man, Charles Colson, to investigate the bureau’s top officials, including its chief, Julius Shiskin.

So Point No. 1: the idea that a handful of career bureaucrats, their jobs secure no matter who is in the White House, would manipulate the unemployment data to help President Obama, is ludicrous. Jack Welch knows it, too; when I called him Friday afternoon, he quickly backpedaled. “I’m not accusing anybody of anything,” he protested. But he went on to add that everything he’s seen suggests that the economy remains in the doldrums, and it just didn’t seem possible that the unemployment rate could have dropped so drastically, and so quickly.

Hence, Point No. 2: there is, indeed, something a little strange about the way the country derives its employment statistics. It turns out that the statistics the bureau releases each month are generated by two different reports. One, called the establishment report, is a survey of businesses. That’s where the 114,000 additional jobs comes from. The second is a survey of 55,000 households, where people are asked about their employment status. Extrapolating from the survey, the bureau concluded that an additional 873,000 people had found work in September. It is that number that brought the unemployment rate from 8.1 percent to 7.8 percent. When I asked a bureau spokeswoman why there was such divergence between the two numbers, she said she had no idea. “The reports are totally separate,” she said. When I put the same question to economists, they shrugged. Maybe it was because an additional 582,000 Americans were working part time, which doesn’t show up in payroll statistics. Maybe it was because of increased government employment. For some unexplained reason, there is always an uptick in September. (“Maybe it has something to do with going back to school,” said Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics, who quickly added, “I’m just guessing here.”) In any case, it wasn’t anything economists hadn’t seen before. Sometimes the two surveys delink, though over the long term they tend to reinforce each other. In the short term, however, the household survey is considered the more volatile — and less reliable — of the two numbers.

Which leads to Point No. 3: there is something truly absurd about having the presidential race hinge on the unemployment rate. Even putting aside the reliability of the short-term numbers, the harsh reality is that no president has much control over the economy. That is especially true of President Obama, whose every effort to boost the economy these past two years has been stymied by Republicans. Again and again, they have shown that they would rather see the country suffer than do anything that might help Obama’s re-election...There is rough justice in the way things are playing out. Having spent the last year wrongly blaming the president for high unemployment, Republicans can only stand by helplessly as the unemployment rate goes down at the worst possible moment for them. Fox News scoured the data Friday, looking for signs that the economy wasn’t improving. They found some: high unemployment for African-Americans, for instance, and fewer manufacturing jobs. But the data were largely overwhelmed by positive signals. In its revised figures for July and August, for instance, the bureau said that more jobs had been created than it originally estimated. People with only high school degrees were finding jobs. The number of people who had been out of work for six months or more was at its lowest point in three years.

Whether the Republicans like it or not, the economy is slowing getting better.

Awful, isn’t it?

[Demeter]

25. Taming Volatile Raw Data for Jobs Reports By CATHERINE RAMPELL

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/05/explaining-the-big-gain-in-job-getters/

...the household survey — the survey that the unemployment rate comes from — showed that the number of people with jobs rose 873,000 in September, though the gain had averaged 164,000 each month earlier this year. These numbers are always tremendously volatile, but the reasons are statistical, not political. The numbers come from a tiny survey with a margin of error of 400,000. Every month there are wild swings, and no one takes them at face value. The swings usually attract less attention, though, because the political stakes are usually lower.



The numbers, by the way, are especially imprecise (and prone to revision) when the economy is making a turn, or when regular seasonal patterns start to change. And there is reason to believe that one particular seasonal pattern — the start of the college school year — may be partly responsible for the big swing in September. One of the biggest sources of volatility in the last couple of months (and one of the major contributors to the big bump in job-getters in September) was the group of workers between 20 and 24 years old. Historically, the employment levels for that group have dropped sharply in September, probably because many people in their early 20s are leaving summer jobs and going back to school. For each year since 1948, the average level of employment for this group has fallen by 398,000 from August to September. In fact, before this year, employment for this age group had risen just two times in that period: 1954 (a gain of 5,000), and 1961 (a gain of 22,000). This year was the third time on record that the number of people in this age group gained jobs in September, and the gain was big: 101,000.



How to explain this major deviation from the historical trend, other than conspiracy theories?

If you look back at August, an unusually high share of this age group stopped working, compared with past employment patterns in August. From 1948 to 2011, the number of those 20 to 24 who had jobs fell by an average of 98,000 from July to August. This past August, it fell by 530,000, the biggest loss on record. Over the last couple of decades, in fact, the job losses for this age group have been growing each August, suggesting that over time young people have been leaving their summer jobs earlier and earlier.



In other words, seasonal patterns might be evolving — people starting school and leaving their summer jobs earlier in the summer — which has big implications for how the Labor Department digests and reports the monthly employment data. The Bureau of Labor Statistics adjusts its raw survey data to correct for seasonal patterns, and since a decline in employment is expected for those 20 to 24, the economists at the bureau increased the level of employment for this group in the seasonally adjusted numbers. Changes in seasonal patterns like this one can introduce more error into the headline numbers, and can at least partly explain why the overall change in household employment looked so much bigger in September than seems plausible. After seasonal adjustment, the increase in employment among those 20 to 24 was given as 368,000. That’s about 42 percent of the overall increase in employment growth for people of all ages. (After making seasonal adjustments on the August figures, the employment level for 20- to 24-year-olds was reported as declining by 250,000.) All of which is to say the bureau aims to release the most informative numbers it can. But it is seeking to measure the state of the American job market quickly, based on surveys that are inherently incomplete — and the adjustments that are meant to fill in the gaps have their own shortcomings, particularly when seasonal trends change.

In case you still believe that the models the bureau uses are being manipulated to put President Obama in a better light, note that there are no political appointees currently serving in the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The employees are all career civil servants who have worked under both Republican and Democratic administrations. (The commissioner of the bureau is supposed to be a political appointee, but that position is vacant. The acting commissioner, John M. Galvin, has held the position since January, and he is a career civil servant.)

MORE

[Demeter]

53. Another Phony Employment Report By Paul Craig Roberts

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32665.htm

Today’s employment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows 114,000 new jobs in September and a drop in the rate of unemployment from 8.1% to 7.8%. As 114,000 new jobs are not sufficient to stay even with population growth, the drop in the unemployment rate is the result of not counting discouraged workers who are defined away as “not in the labor force.” According to the BLS, “In September, 2.5 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force.” These individuals “wanted and were available for work,” but “they were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.”

In other words, 2.5 million unemployed Americans were not counted as unemployed. The stock market rose on the phony good news. Bloomberg’s headline: ““U.S. Stocks Rise as Unemployment Rate Unexpectedly Drops,”

A truer picture of the dire employment situation is provided by the 600,000 rise over the previous month in involuntary part-time workers. According to the BLS, “These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.”

Turning to the 114,000 new jobs, once again the jobs are concentrated in lowly paid domestic service jobs that cannot be offshored. Manufacturing jobs declined by 16,000. As has been the case for a decade, two categories--health care and social assistance (primarily ambulatory health care services) and waitresses and bartenders account for 53% of the new jobs. The BLS never ceases to find ever growing employment of people in restaurants and bars despite the rising dependence of the US population on food stamps. The elderly are rising as a percentage of the American population, but I sometimes wonder if employment in ambulatory health care services is rising faster than the elderly population. Whether these reported jobs are real, I do not know. The rest of the new jobs were accounted for by retail trade, transportation and warehousing, financial activities (primarily credit intermediation), professional and business services (primarily administrative and waste services), and state government education, where the 13,600 reported new jobs seem odd in light of the teacher layoffs and rise in classroom size. The high-tech jobs that economists promised would be our reward for offshoring American manufacturing jobs and tradeable professional services, such as software engineering and IT, have never materialized. “The New Economy” was just another hoax, like “Iraqi weapons of mass destruction” and “Iranian nukes.”

While employment falters, the consumer price index (CPI-U) in August increased 0.6 percent, the largest since June 2009. If the August rate is annualized, it means bad news on the inflation front. Instead of bringing us high tech jobs, is “the New Economy” bringing back the stagflation of the late 1970s? Time will tell.

********************************************************

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following.paulcraigroberts.org/

[Demeter]

55. Let’s test Romney’s claims about the 47% by offering the unemployed jobs By William Black

http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2012/10/lets-test-romneys-claims-about-the-47-by-offering-the-unemployed-jobs.html

I have explained how Governor Romney and Representative Ryan have self-destructed because they have followed Charles Murray’s demands that the wealthy denounce working class Americans’ supposed refusal to take personal responsibility for their lives by refusing to work. Murray is the far right’s leading intellectual. Murray’s Myth is that the wealthy are rich because they are morally superior to the lazy poor and that the poor are not employed because they are lazy. Murray’s explanation for his support for Governor Romney says it all: “Who better to be president of the greatest of all capitalist nations than a man who got rich by being a brilliant capitalist?”

Consider the missing aspect of Romney’s famous denunciation of the 47% — jobs. A careful reading shows that Romney implicitly embraced Murray’s Myth.

“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it.

“That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax.”

“Romney went on: “My job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.””

I propose that America test Murray, Romney, and Ryan’s claims about the supposed refusal of the 47% to take “personal responsibility.” Romney says “I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.” I think that Murray, Romney, and Ryan’s claims that the 47% are unwilling to take personal responsibility are false. I think that the issue has nothing to do with Romney’s persuasive abilities. I also know how to test the validity of their claims...In his rant against the 47%, Romney implicitly adopted Murray’s claim that the unemployed lack jobs not because of the Great Recession, but because they are shiftless and refuse to work and take personal responsibility. (Romney and Ryan often make inconsistent claims that unemployment is caused by regulation, or taxes, or whatever is their complaint de jour against Obama.)

Testing Murray’s Myth

We can test the claim that unemployment is high because the unemployed are shiftless. My colleagues at UMKC have detailed how to create a job guarantee program that offers a job to everyone who wishes to work. Our experience is that such jobs prove very attractive to the unemployed. A jobs guarantee program creates many winners. The public gains from the services provided by the newly employed. The unemployed gain not only income but far greater psychological well-being. The government gains greater tax revenue. Businesses see increased demand for their goods and services...Americans overwhelmingly seek to take personal responsibility for their lives. Indeed, Americans work extraordinary hours. American mothers with young children frequently work outside the home. So let’s put the vicious abuse that Murray urged the wealthy to heap on the purportedly shiftless unemployed a rest and actually test his claims through a job guarantee program.

I predict that the Republicans will fight ferociously to prevent us from testing the truth of their abuse of the poor. They cannot allow a test because they know they are slandering many millions of Americans. Their first nightmare is a job guarantee program that leads to television images of millions of Americans eagerly signing up to jobs. Murray’s Myth would be destroyed in full public view. Their second nightmare is that the job guarantee would speed the recovery and provide useful projects and services that Americans would love. The slander is despicable, but the fact that they will do anything to prevent a test of Murray’s Myth compounds the slander with a toxic mix of cowardice and hypocrisy.

*********************************************************

Bill Black is the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He spent years working on regulatory policy and fraud prevention as Executive Director of the Institute for Fraud Prevention, Litigation Director of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board and Deputy Director of the National Commission on Financial Institution Reform, Recovery and Enforcement, among other positions.

[Demeter]

56. Constant-demography Employment (Wonkish But Relevant) PAUL KRUGMAN

DR. KRUGMAN STRAINS AT GNATS...SEE LINK

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/06/constant-demography-employment-wonkish-but-relevant/?smid=tw-NytimesKrugman&seid=auto

WHILE HIS THESIS MAY IN FACT BE TRUE, AND RELEVANT, THAT'S NOT WHAT WE ELECTED OBAMA FOR...TO SIT ON HIS ASS WHILE PEOPLE SUFFER. THERE'S NO HOPE, AND NO CHANGE.

[Demeter]

57. What have the economists ever done for us?

THEY PROVIDE GOOD COVERING FIRE FOR THE LOOTERS...

http://www.voxeu.org/article/what-have-economists-ever-done-us

This column is a lead commentary in the VoxEU Debate "What's the use of economics?"

There is a long list of culprits when it comes to assigning blame for the financial crisis. At least in this instance, failure has just as many parents as success. But among the guilty parties, economists played a special role in contributing to the problem. We are duty bound to be part of the solution (see Coyle 2012). Our role in the crisis was, in a nutshell, the result of succumbing to an intellectual virus which took hold of the body financial from the 1990s onwards. One strain of this virus is an old one. Cycles in money and bank credit are familiar from centuries past. And yet, for perhaps a generation, the symptoms of this old virus were left untreated. That neglect allowed the infection to spread from the financial system to the real economy, with near-fatal consequences for both. In many ways, this was an odd disease to have contracted. The symptoms should have been all too obvious from history. The interplay of bank money and credit and the wider economy has been pivotal to the mandate of central banks for centuries. For at least a century, that was recognised in the design of public policy frameworks. The management of bank money and credit was a clear public policy prerequisite for maintaining broader macroeconomic and social stability.

Two developments – one academic, one policy-related – appear to have been responsible for this surprising memory loss. The first was the emergence of micro-founded dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DGSE) models in economics. Because these models were built on real-business-cycle foundations, financial factors (asset prices, money and credit) played distinctly second fiddle, if they played a role at all. The second was an accompaying neglect for aggregate money and credit conditions in the construction of public policy frameworks. Inflation targeting assumed primacy as a monetary policy framework, with little role for commercial banks' balance sheets as either an end or an intermediate objective. And regulation of financial firms was in many cases taken out of the hands of central banks and delegated to separate supervisory agencies with an institution-specific, non-monetary focus.

Coincidentally or not, what happened next was extraordinary. Commercial banks' balance sheets grew by the largest amount in human history. For example, having flatlined for a century, bank assets-to-GDP in the UK rose by an order of magnitude from 1970 onwards. A similar pattern was found in other advanced economies. This balance sheet explosion was, in one sense, no one’s fault and no one’s responsibility. Not monetary policy authorities, whose focus was now inflation and whose models scarcely permitted bank balance sheets a walk-on role. And not financial regulators, whose focus was on the strength of individual financial institutions. Yet this policy neglect has since shown itself to be far from benign. The lessons of financial history have been painfully re-taught since 2008. They need not be forgotten again. This has important implications for the economics profession and for the teaching of economics. For one, it underscores the importance of sub-disciplines such as economic and financial history. As Galbraith said,"There can be few fields of human endeavour in which history counts for so little as in the world of finance." Economics can ill afford to re-commit that crime. Second, it underlines the importance of reinstating money, credit and banking in the core curriculum, as well as refocusing on models of the interplay between economic and financial systems. These are areas that also fell out of fashion during the pre-crisis boom. Third, the crisis showed that institutions really matter, be it commercial banks or central banks, when making sense of crises, their genesis and aftermath. They too were conveniently, but irresponsibly, airbrushed out of workhorse models. They now needed to be repainted back in.

The second strain of intellectual virus is a new, more virulent one. This has been made dangerous by increased integration of markets of all types, economic, but especially financial and social. In a tightly woven financial and social web, the contagious consequences of a single event can thus bring the world to its knees. That was the Lehman Brothers story...

MORE

References

Coyle, Diane (2012), “What’s the use of economics? Introduction to the Vox debate” VoxEU.org, 19 September.

[Demeter]

26. Foxconn denies China iPhone plant hit by strike

http://news.yahoo.com/foxconns-iphone-plant-paralyzed-thousands-strike-report-033405936--finance.html

Foxconn, the Taiwanese made-to-order electronics giant that assembles Apple Inc's products, denied reports that a plant in China was crippled by a strike, saying on Saturday that its production is on schedule at an important time for Apple.

The report of a strike issued by China Labor Watch, a New York-based advocacy group, came weeks after Apple kicked off its largest-ever global rollout for the new iPhone 5 smartphone. Apple is already struggling with tight availability of the phones in stores, analysts say.

The labor group said 3,000 to 4,000 workers struck at Foxconn's Zhengzhou complex in central China on Friday afternoon, angered by over-exacting quality controls as well as demands they work through the week-long National Day holidays, which began on Monday.

But Foxconn Technology Group, which has its headquarters in Taiwan, denied the report and said the plant suffered only two brief and small disputes several days earlier....

[Demeter]

30. Wal-Mart workers on strike

http://www.salon.com/2012/10/04/walmart_workers_on_strike/

Today, for the first time in Wal-Mart’s 50-year history, workers at multiple stores are out on strike. Minutes ago, dozens of workers at Southern California stores launched a one-day work stoppage in protest of alleged retaliation against their attempts to organize. In a few hours, they’ll join supporters for a mass rally outside a Pico Rivera, Calif., store. This is the latest – and most dramatic – of the recent escalations in the decades-long struggle between organized labor and the largest private employer in the world.

“I’m excited, I’m nervous, I’m scared…” Pico Rivera Wal-Mart employee Evelin Cruz told Salon yesterday about her decision to join today’s strike. “But I think the time has come, so they take notice that these associates are tired of all the issues in the stores, all the management retaliating against you.” Rivera, a department manager, said her store is chronically understaffed: “They expect the work to be done, without having the people to do the job.”

Wal-Mart is entirely union-free in North America, and has worked aggressively to stay that way. Today’s strike is an outgrowth of a year of organizing by OUR Walmart, an organization of Wal-Mart workers. OUR Walmart is backed by the United Food and Commercial Workers union, but hasn’t sought union recognition from Wal-Mart; its members have campaigned for improvements in their local stores and converged at Wal-Mart’s annual shareholder meeting.

They say their efforts have won some modest improvements, but also inspired a wave of illegal retaliation by the retail giant, which they charge is more concerned with suppressing activism than complying with the law. I reported in July on three workers’ allegations that Wal-Mart retaliated against them for their activism. Since then, OUR Walmart has filed many more Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) charges with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging further punishment of activists...

MORE

[Demeter]

27. Monetary Mystification Joseph E. Stiglitz MUST READ

Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics and University Professor at Columbia University, was Chairman of President Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers and served as Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank. His most recent book is The Price of Inequality: How Today’s Divided Society Endangers our Future.

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/quantitative-easing-3--qe3--and-the-problems-of-the-fed-and-ecb-s-expansionary-monetary-policy-by-joseph-e--stiglitz

Central banks on both sides of the Atlantic took extraordinary monetary-policy measures in September: the long awaited “QE3” (the third dose of quantitative easing by the United States Federal Reserve), and the European Central Bank’s announcement that it will purchase unlimited volumes of troubled eurozone members’ government bonds. Markets responded euphorically, with stock prices in the US, for example, reaching post-recession highs. Others, especially on the political right, worried that the latest monetary measures would fuel future inflation and encourage unbridled government spending. In fact, both the critics’ fears and the optimists’ euphoria are unwarranted. With so much underutilized productive capacity today, and with immediate economic prospects so dismal, the risk of serious inflation is minimal. (WHAT ABOUT COMMODITY INFLATION?)

Nonetheless, the Fed and ECB actions sent three messages that should have given the markets pause. First, they were saying that previous actions have not worked; indeed, the major central banks deserve much of the blame for the crisis. But their ability to undo their mistakes is limited. Second, the Fed’s announcement that it will keep interest rates at extraordinarily low levels through mid-2015 implied that it does not expect recovery anytime soon. That should be a warning for Europe, whose economy is now far weaker than America’s.
Finally, the Fed and the ECB were saying that markets will not quickly restore full employment on their own. A stimulus is needed. That should serve as a rejoinder to those in Europe and America who are calling for just the opposite – further austerity. But the stimulus that is needed – on both sides of the Atlantic – is a fiscal stimulus. Monetary policy has proven ineffective, and more of it is unlikely to return the economy to sustainable growth.

[Demeter]

28. MATT STOLLER ANALYZES THE FIRST DEBATE

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/10/post-debate-analysis-the-media-can-now-get-the-electoral-horse-race-it-wants.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29


...The reason Obama did poorly is simple. He is bad at governing America. He hasn’t solved the foreclosure crisis, the jobs crisis, the climate crisis, the energy crisis, the financial crisis, the debt crisis, the health care crisis, or really, anything. He can’t point to very much that Americans broadly like, except killing Bin Laden and the auto bailout. His second term agenda is to cut Social Security, Medicare, frack, cut corporate taxes, bust more teachers unions and pass more neoliberal trade agreements. He is proud of this record. So are his people. But he knows he can’t run on it because it’s unpopular, so instead, he presented himself as a nice likeable guy...

...He tried to present himself as a fighter for the middle class, but he doesn’t actually respect people he perceives have less strength than he does. Obama believes in pity for the middle class, not respect. Nor does Obama like Romney. So Obama came off passive and unpersuasive, making a case he didn’t believe in. It’s like George W. Bush, who couldn’t put two words together fluently unless he was talking death and destruction, and then he was a virtuoso rhetorician. Obama is at his best when he is talking about himself and his family, because that’s what he likes and believes in. That’s why his 2008 campaign worked, because it was all framed around Obama The Savior. It was mass narcissism (and even then, he only narrowly beat John McCain). If you’re wondering why Obama is a bad speaker now, where the old Obama went, just recognize that he’s only a great speaker when it’s all about him, because that’s where his interest is. The talent is there, the character, not...

...Obama is the weakest incumbent since Jimmy Carter, but Romney’s inept campaign was reaching legendary status. The underlying demographic numbers are bad for Romney – he is doing horrifically with Hispanics, and Democrats are fairly energized (though the Democratic Party is smaller than it was in 2008). He is also still a bad candidate, running a bad campaign, and the Bain stuff hasn’t gone away.

Obama is usually pretty good with his back to the wall, so I’m guessing he’ll reevaluate what happened and shift his strategy to frame the issues more favorably. He might bring up social issues, he’s comfortable on foreign policy questions, and he won’t have to deal with the economy as much in future debates. And Romney isn’t particularly persuasive on foreign policy. This race is still Obama’s to lose.

WOW! JUST WOW! MORE AT LINK

[Demeter]

29. Corporate CEOs Unveil Obama’s 2nd Term Agenda: Cutting Entitlements, Endless Fracking Matt Stoller

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/10/corporate-ceos-unveil-obamas-second-term-agenda-cutting-entitlements-and-endless-fracking.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

In July, I pointed out that Obama’s second term agenda was to cut Medicare, Social Security, and/or Medicaid. And here comes the cavalry to make that a reality. This passage is from Politico’s Morning Money, which is a newsletter that spans the nexus between financial services lobbyists in DC and the financial sector in New York.

COMING POST-ELECTION: CEOs TO PUSH ON FISCAL CLIFF - In multiple conversations recently, top corporate executives have indicated to M.M. that following the election (and no matter the outcome) they will push hard for a broad tax and spending deal in Washington that will take the threat of the fiscal cliff off the table even if it means significant new revenues. The executives have said their efforts could help offer cover to Republicans afraid of signing onto any deal that might anger hard-core tea party leaders or anti-tax advocates such as Grover Norquist. “We don’t really care if our taxes go up a little if we can just get this done and take this threat away from the economy,” one top executive at a Fortune 100 company told MM this week.

These executives say either an Obama II or Romney administration could enlist them to sell a deal both inside and outside the Beltway. They all suggest the final package will look something like Simpson-Bowles. And many believe that coupled with a recovering housing market, a domestic energy boom and a lessening threat from Europe, a functional Washington could finally open the door to a significant economic expansion that would cut the jobless rate and slice into short term deficits and long-term debt.

So that’s the plan for 2013.

Simpson-Bowles includes cuts to Social Security, cuts to Medicare, and cuts to corporate taxes. As Obama puts it, he doesn’t want to “cut entitlements in any way that would hurt vulnerable populations.” In other words, certain types of cuts, like means-testing, or cuts for the middle class, are coming. And then there’s the fracking boom, which can significantly crimp water supplies. Interestingly, Simpson-Bowles also includes ending tax breaks for charity, the mortgage interest tax deduction, and the tax deduction for employer provided health care. The wealthy like these tax breaks for a variety of reasons, so it seems unlikely they’ll be included in the final bill. It’s unclear if the plan can work. The problem with any recovery is that oil prices, already at pre-recession levels during a time when demand is slumping, will spike if employment goes back up. Fracking is meant to keep the price of oil dampened even if there’s an increase in demand.

There’s a lot of risk here. Let’s say that boosting the housing market by restricting supply doesn’t work. Or that the fracking boom doesn’t pan out the way that CEOs think it will. Or that Europe isn’t contained. Or any number of other possible problems come to pass, such as crop failures, climate shocks, a Chinese slowdown, a pandemic, a supply chain shock, etc. Then we may be heading to what’s going on in Spain and Greece, which is massive protests and an authoritarian crackdown in response to brutal austerity. And if the plan works, then we’ll get there eventually, it’ll just take a few more years. As Obama put it, according to Bob Woodward, “I’m a blue dog. I want fiscal restraint and order.”

It’s still the liquidation of society versus the global labor revival.

[Demeter]

35. OR AS DOGBERT ILLUSTRATES

[Fuddnik]

59. What You Need to Know About Obama and the Social Security Sell-Out

http://www.alternet.org/election-2012/what-you-need-know-about-obama-and-social-security-sell-out



What You Need to Know About Obama and the Social Security Sell-Out
The Raiders of Your Lost Retirement are busy laying plans in Washington. Will Obama help them if re-elected?
October 5, 2012 |


By Lynn Parramore


Watching Wednesday night’s presidential debate, you’d have to be a crack political code reader to know what Obama was really saying about Social Security. It was quick. It was subtle. But it was one of the most telling moments of the debate.

First, let’s get a few things straight. Social Security is solvent. It’s America’s most successful retirement plan to date. It’s extremely popular across party lines . Social Security adds not a penny to the deficit. And, as Nancy Altman has argued , it's “the poster child for fiscal responsibility.” The program is prudently managed, cost-effective, and carefully monitored.

Obama could have mentioned these facts and cheered the success of a program that Democrats – and all Americans -- should be proud of. Instead, the discussion went like this:

“Lehrer: Do you see a major difference between the two of you on Social Security?

Obama: You know, I suspect that, on Social Security, we've got a somewhat similar position. Social Security is structurally sound. It's going to have to be tweaked the way it was by Ronald Reagan and Speaker -- Democratic Speaker Tip O'Neill.”

Ladies and gentleman, that was the sound of your president offering to screw you on your retirement. This revealing exchange was followed by some politically strategic talk by both candidates about how current retirees shouldn’t be worried, because, as we all know, their votes are needed in the short term. But the rest of us? Be very, very worried.

(snip)

[Demeter]

31. New York Times Profile of London Whale Boss, Ina Drew, Camouflages Dimon’s Risk Management Failures

YVES SMITH DISSECTS JPMORGAN

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/10/new-york-times-profile-of-london-whale-boss-ina-drew-camouflages-dimons-risk-management-failures.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

GO READ IT! IT'S ENLIGHTENING

[Demeter]

32. Randy Wray: The World’s Worst Central Banker

NO, IT'S NOT BERNANKE, OR MONTE, OR....

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/10/randy-wray-the-worlds-worst-central-banker.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

[Demeter]

33. The above should give you enough for Saturday

I'll be back in the evening. Enjoy your weekend! Don't let the blood pressure get too high!

[hamerfan]

34. JB! Musical Interlude

[Demeter]

36. KULULA AIRLINES, SOUTH AFRICA--ONLY WAY TO TRAVEL!

WHAT A PITY KULULA DOESN'T FLY INTERNATIONALLY - WE SHOULD SUPPORT THEM IF ONLY FOR THEIR HUMOUR - SO TYPICALLY SOUTH AFRICAN.
Kulula is an Airline with head office situated in Johannesburg . Kulula airline attendants make an effort to make the in-flight "safety lecture" and announcements a bit more entertaining.
Here are some real examples that have been heard or reported:

On a Kulula flight, (there is no assigned seating, you just sit where you want) passengers were apparently having a hard time choosing, when a flight attendant announced,
"People, people we're not picking out furniture here, find a seat and get in it !"
---o0o---

On another flight with a very "senior" flight attendant crew, the pilot said,
"Ladies and gentlemen, we've reached cruising altitude and will be turning down the cabin lights. This is for your comfort and to enhance the appearance of your flight attendants."
----o0o---

On landing, the stewardess said,
"Please be sure to take all of your belongings.. If you're going to leave anything, please make sure it 'S something we'd like to have."
----o0o---

"There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but there are only 4 ways out of this airplane."
---o0o---

"Thank you for flying Kulula. We hope you enjoyed giving us the business as much as we enjoyed taking you for a ride."
---o0o---

As the plane landed and was coming to a stop at Durban Airport , a lone voice came over the loudspeaker:
"Whoa, big fella. WHOA!"
---o0o--

After a particularly rough landing during thunderstorms in the Karoo, a flight attendant on a flight announced, "Please take care when opening the overhead compartments because, after a landing like that, sure as hell everything has shifted."
---o0o---

From a Kulula employee:
"Welcome aboard Kulula 271 to Port Elizabeth . To operate your seat belt, insert the metal tab into the buckle, and pull tight. It works just like every other seat belt; and, if you don't know how to operate one, you probably shouldn't be out in public unsupervised."
---o0o---

"In the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, masks will descend from the ceiling. Stop screaming, grab the mask, and pull it over your face. If you have a small child traveling with you, secure your mask before assisting with theirs. If you are traveling with more than one small child, pick your favorite."
---o0o---

"Weather at our destination is 50 degrees with some broken clouds, but we'll try to have them fixed before we arrive. Thank you, and remember, nobody loves you, or your money, more than Kulula Airlines."
----o0o---

"Your seat cushions can be used for flotation; and in the event of an emergency water landing, please paddle to shore and take them with our compliments."
---o0o---

"As you exit the plane, make sure to gather all of your belongings. Anything left behind will be distributed evenly among the flight attendants. Please do not leave children or spouses.."
---o0o---

And from the pilot during his welcome message:
"Kulula Airlines is pleased to announce that we have some of the best flight attendants in the industry. Unfortunately, none of them are on this flight!"
---o0o—

Heard on Kulula 255 just after a very hard landing in Cape Town : The flight attendant came on the intercom and said,
"That was quite a bump and I know what y'all are thinking. I'm here to tell you it wasn't the airline's fault, it wasn't the pilot's fault, it wasn't the flight attendant's fault, it was the asphalt."
---o0o—

Overheard on a Kulula flight into Cape Town , on a particularly windy and bumpy day: During the final approach, the Captain really had to fight it. After an extremely hard landing, the Flight Attendant said,
"Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to The Mother City. Please remain in your seats with your seat belts fastened while the Captain taxis what's left of our airplane to the gate!"
---o0o—

An airline pilot wrote that on this particular flight he had hammered his ship into the runway really hard. The airline had a policy which required the first officer to stand at the door while the passengers exited, smile, and give them a "Thanks for flying our airline". He said that, in light of his bad landing, he had a hard time looking the passengers in the eye, thinking that someone would have a smart comment. Finally everyone had gotten off except for a little old lady walking with a cane. She said,
"Sir, do you mind if I ask you a question?"
"Why, no Ma'am," said the pilot. "What is it ?"
The little old lady said,
"Did we land, or were we shot down?"
---o0o—

After a real crusher of a landing in Johannesburg, the attendant came on with,
"Ladies and Gentlemen, please remain in your seats until Captain Crash and the Crew have brought the aircraft to a screeching halt against the gate. And, once the tire smoke has cleared and the warning bells are silenced, we will open the door and you can pick your way through the wreckage to the terminal.."
---o0o—

Part of a flight attendant's arrival announcement:
"We'd like to thank you folks for flying with us today.. And, the next time you get the insane urge to go blasting through the skies in a pressurized metal tube, we hope you'll think of Kulula Airways."
---o0o—

Heard on a Kulula flight:
"Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to smoke, the smoking section on this airplane is on the wing.. If you can light 'em, you can smoke 'em."

[Tansy_Gold]

48. Humor can be found in US airlines as well

Attendants on my flight last week used similar comedy "routines" to hold everyone's attention through the obligatory safety lecture.

We'll see what happens in a few days when I head home.

[xchrom]

38. it's WEE! party at fuddnik's! Love Train, Baby!

[xchrom]

39. THERE IS NO HYPERINFLATION IN IRAN – The Real Story Is Much More Interesting

http://www.businessinsider.com/actually-there-is-no-hyperinflation-in-iran-2012-10



Contrary to reports, there is no hyperinflation in Iran right now at all.

In fact, the Western sanctions imposed on Iran's oil trade are failing miserably to meet their objectives.
And a regime collapse – or even, coming short of that, another popular uprising reminiscent of June 2009 – seems further away from Iran than ever.

Meanwhile, the Iranian regime is using the current sanctions imposed against it by the West as a weapon to weaken its own fiercest domestic threat – the educated, relatively pro-Western Iranian constituency that comprises the middle class.

In this way, the economic warfare the West has waged against Iran to weaken the regime is actually amplifying the regime's control – and the oil sanctions appear to be sending Iran down the same path that saw Saddam Hussein rise to power in Iraq in the early 1990s.


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/actually-there-is-no-hyperinflation-in-iran-2012-10#ixzz28Vxf533H



***no, i don't believe this -- but there is so much misinformation re: iran in western media -- who knows what to think.

[xchrom]

40. Greek PM: society will disintegrate without urgent financial aid

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/05/greek-prime-minister-society-disintegrate


The Greek prime minister, Antonis Samaras, who highlighted the rise of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party. Photograph: Yorgos Karahalis/Reuters

Greece is teetering on the edge of collapse with its society at risk of disintegrating unless the country's near-empty public coffers are shored up with urgent financial aid, the country's prime minister has warned.

Almost three years after the eruption of Europe's debt drama in Athens, the economic crisis engulfing the nation has become so severe that democracy itself is now imperiled, Antonis Samaras said.

"Greek democracy stands before what is perhaps its greatest challenge," Samaras told the German business daily Handelsblatt in an interview published hours before the announcement in Berlin that Angela Merkel will fly to Athens next week for the first time since the outbreak of the crisis.

Resorting to highly unusual language for a man who weighs his words carefully, the 61-year-old politician evoked the rise of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party to highlight the threat that Greece faces, explaining that society "is threatened by growing unemployment, as happened to Germany at the end of the Weimar Republic".

[Demeter]

44. Samaras Can't Seriously Think Germany Cares

or the banksters. After all, they have the bloodlust.

[xchrom]

45. he's blowing smoke up folks ass. i'm not even sure HE cares.

like most other politicians around the world.

[xchrom]

41. Foxconn workers on iPhone 5 line strike in China, rights group says

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/oct/05/foxconn-apple-iphone-china-strike


The strike comes just weeks after Foxconn was forced to close a plant in Taiyuan. Photograph: Bobby Yip/Reuters

Thousands of workers at Foxconn in China have gone on strike over working conditions related to production of the iPhone 5.

Three to four thousand employees walked out of Foxconn's Zhengzhou factory on Friday, according to China Labor Watch. It said Foxconn and Apple had "raised overly strict demands on product quality" without providing adequate training.

The strike comes just weeks after Foxconn was forced to close a plant in Taiyuan, when a brawl involving as many as 2,000 workers left a number of people needing hospital treatment.

China Labor Watch, a labor rights group which monitors factory conditions in China, said Friday's strike came after Foxconn and Apple introduced new quality controls, while at the same time Foxconn forced employees to work during a public holiday.

[xchrom]

42. World food prices near crisis levels

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/oct/04/world-food-price-rise


A failed cornfield in Kansas. The US drought has been blamed for much of the increase in the price of food worldwide.

World food prices rose in September and are moving nearer to levels reached during the 2008 food crisis.

The United Nations food agency reported on Thursday that the worst drought in more than 50 years in the United States had sent corn and soybean prices to record highs over the summer, and, coupled with drought in Russia and other Black Sea exporting countries, raised fears of a renewed crisis.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation's (FAO) price index, which measures monthly price changes for a food basket of cereals, oilseeds, dairy, meat and sugar, rose 1.4% in September, mainly due to higher dairy and meat prices.

"It's highly unlikely we will see a normalisation of prices anytime soon," said FAO senior economist Abdolreza Abbassian.

[xchrom]

43. Billionaire Businessman Stirs Up Austrian Politics

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/austrian-billionaire-frank-stronach-starts-new-political-party-a-859432.html



Frank Stronach always has to have the upper hand, even when the cameras are rolling. "You want to argue with me?" the Austrian-Canadian billionaire demands of one brave reporter from Austrian television channel ORF 2, the moment she attempts to pose a question.

Then he lets loose, pelting the reporter with allegations about European policies that run up debt and about the media's willingness to play along. And he takes aim at ORF, where the reporter herself is the wife of the editor-in-chief and, in Stronach's view, helps "keep people from learning the truth."
After 148 seconds of this primetime tongue-lashing, Stronach relents and condescendingly turns the floor back over to his host with the words, "Now you can ask me questions."

It would be easy to mock a man who demands perfection while speaking imperfect German, a man who -- at the inaugural convention of his new political party this September at Schönnbrunn Palace in Vienna, three weeks after his 80th birthday -- made boisterous promises to change the country's political landscape. "This September 27, 2012, is a day that will go down in the history of Austria and of the world," he declared.

[xchrom]

46. Central Bank urges further pay cuts {ireland}

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2012/1006/1224324959599.html

PAY REMAINS high in both the public and private sectors in Ireland and needs to fall further, the Central Bank has said in its latest quarterly bulletin.

It also called on the Government to do more to front-load its budgetary adjustment in order to lessen the uncertainty that has plagued the economy. There should be no “procrastination”, the bank’s economists said yesterday.

In its latest economic forecast, contained in the bulletin, the bank’s economists predicted that gross domestic product would grow by 0.5 per cent, lower than the 0.7 per cent forecast three months ago.

The bank also said that gross national product, which excludes the impact of multinationals on the economy, will shrink by 0.4 per cent, slightly less than the 0.3 per cent contraction predicted in the last quarterly bulletin.

[Demeter]

47. 38 Frigid degrees out

but at least the precipitation has stopped. In other words, it didn't snow....yet.

[Demeter]

50. Went around to the community yard sale

People seemed in good mood. I chat them up, trying to get them to come out for things--dinner, game, meeting, whatever....and I buy too much stuff. But the Kid got some DVDs, so she's happy for a while...

[Demeter]

58. Two nights of frost

and tomorrow promised to be just as November as today. Just lovely--not.

[Demeter]

51. How a rogue appeals court wrecked the patent system

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/09/how-a-rogue-appeals-court-wrecked-the-patent-system/

In 1972, the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals (CCPA) got a new chief judge named Thomas Markey. At Markey's investiture ceremony, patent attorney Donald Dunner spoke of the "anguish of the patent bar about the treatment of patents in various federal courts." The CCPA, a DC-based court that heard appeals from the US Patent & Trademark Office, was considered to be relatively pro-patent—but other federal appeals courts had jurisdiction over actual patent lawsuits and tended to be friendlier to patent defendants. Even worse, in Dunner's view, the Supreme Court itself seemed unfriendly to patent holders. This sad state of affairs made it a bad time to be a patent attorney. Because patents were frequently invalidated by the courts, companies filed many fewer applications for them than they do today. Patents were seen as a backwater in the legal profession. Dunner urged Markey to inspire "his associates on this bench to spread the patent gospel to their sisters and brothers on the other federal benches."

A decade later, the patent bar's anguish would turn to joy as Congress merged the CCPA with another court to create the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The Federal Circuit would be just as patent-friendly as the CCPA, but unlike its predecessor, the Federal Circuit was handed jurisdiction over all patent appeals, including the lawsuits that had previously been handled by other courts. On October 1, 1982, Judge Markey became the chief judge of the new court and set to work to remake patent law. No institution is more responsible for the recent explosion of patent litigation in the software industry, the rise of patent trolls, and the proliferation of patent thickets than the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The patent court's thirtieth birthday this week is a good time to ask whether it was a mistake to give the nation's most patent-friendly appeals court such broad authority over the patent system.

The patent lawyers' court

Patent scholars Adam Jaffe and Josh Lerner tell a story in their 2004 book Innovation and Its Discontents that illustrates the problem Congress was trying to solve with the creation of the Federal Circuit... Every Tuesday at noon, a crowd would gather at the patent office awaiting the week's list of issued patents. As soon as a patent was issued, a representative for its owner would rush to the telephone and order a lawyer stationed in a patent-friendly jurisdiction such as Kansas City to file an infringement lawsuit against the company's competitors. Meanwhile, representatives for the competitors would rush to the telephone as well. They would call their own lawyers in patent-skeptical jurisdictions like San Francisco and urge them to file a lawsuit seeking to invalidate the patent. Time was of the essence because the two cases would eventually be consolidated, and the court that ultimately heard the case usually depended on which filing had an earlier timestamp. By 1982, concerns about the lack of uniformity in patent law had become widespread. Observers were also worried that generalist judges lacked expertise to handle the complexities of patent law. And so Congress combined the CCPA with the Court of Claims (which handled lawsuits against the federal government) to create this new court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The new court had exclusive jurisdiction over patent appeals. Patent lawsuits were still heard by trial courts across the country, but when the trial courts' rulings were appealed, they would no longer go to one of the 12 geographically-based appeals courts that handle most other appellate issues. Instead, all patent cases would be heard by the Federal Circuit. By definition, this accomplished Congress's goals of making patent law more uniform and bringing greater "expertise" to patent issues. But it had an important side effect—making the law more favorable to patent holders.

Theoretically, the pro-patent leanings of the Federal Circuit should have been checked by a more skeptical Supreme Court. In practice however, the patent court had a great deal of autonomy. "It is not common in the life of the law in America for a lower court and a major segment of its bar to take on the nation's highest court, effectively reversing some major precedents or at least substantially mitigating their impact," notes Steven Flanders in a recent history of the patent court. "Yet this was done." The Federal Circuit, he said, also took on "the quieter and subtler effort to re-educate trial judges throughout the judiciary, to make them friendlier to patent-holders (or at least to the system of patents) as well." (Flanders, it should be noted, is an avowed supporter of the Federal Circuit and its efforts to reshape patent law). This dismissive attitude toward Supreme Court precedents apparently survives to this day among patent lawyers. In the wake of this year's decision limiting patents on the practice of medicine, patent attorney Gene Quinn wondered, "How long will it take the Federal Circuit to overrule this inexplicable nonsense?" Obviously, the Federal Circuit can't "overrule" a Supreme Court decision. But with enough persistence, it can, and often does, subvert the principles enunciated by the nation's highest court. And when it does so, it almost always works in the direction of making patents easier to obtain and enforce....The Federal Circuit also effectively overruled the Supreme Court on the question of which types of inventions were eligible for patent protection. As we've written before, software was generally considered to be ineligible for patent protection based on a trio of Supreme Court decisions handed down in the decade before the Federal Circuit was created. Yet the Federal Circuit gradually reversed the rule against patenting software. The process culminated in the infamous 1998 decision of State Street Bank v. Signature Financial Group, which held that a strategy for managing a mutual fund using a computer was eligible for patent protection. The ruling made it clear that, in the Federal Circuit's view, no practical boundaries existed on software patents. It also opened the door to patents on "business methods," which had previously been seen as off-limits. These decisions opened the floodgates for patents on software. Microsoft received just five patents during the 1980s and 1,116 patents during the 1990s, for instance. Between 2000 and 2009? The company received 12,330 patents, more than ten times the amount...

[Demeter]

52. The Mortgage Settlement's Big Day posted by Katie Porter

http://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/2012/10/the-mortgage-settlements-big-day-tomorrow.html



Today, October 2, is the last day for the nation's five largest mortgage companies to implement the servicing reforms in the National Mortgage Settlement. As California Monitor, I issued my first report to highlight one of the most important changes--restricting dual tracking. Dual tracking is the name given to the race between foreclosure and loan modifications. Because banks control both processes, beyond some specified waiting periods by state law, many families lose the race to get a decision on whether they can save their home with a loan modification. Restrictions on dual tracking are key to avoiding preventable foreclosures and creating fundamental fairness in the foreclosure process. The report gives some data on dual tracking to bring visibility to this issue. After the jump, I report some bad news and good news on how the Settlement implementation reforms are going.

The California Monitor Program received 224 complaints about dual tracking since the Settlement was announced. The bad news is this clearly understates the degree of the problem. Most families do not file a complaint, and even among the 1,482 total complaints received, some may focus on confusing communication from their banks, meaning my staff doesn't realize dual tracking is occuring into well into its work to help the family. The good news is the trend line is sharply downward in September. As the chart shows, dual tracking complaints were half as frequent last month.

http://www.creditslips.org/.a/6a00d8341cf9b753ef017c3247554d970b-400wi

I am going to continue to monitor dual tracking complaints in the upcoming months. If the mortgage servicers are honoring their promises in the Settlement, the number of complaints should fall sharply. The National Monitor, Joseph Smith, will use the metric set out in the Settlement to formally measure the mortgage servicers' compliance with the dual tracking rules. Behind the complaint numbers are families dealing with uncertainty, fear, and frustration. My report features the stories of California homeowners who were dual tracked and faced imminent sale dates, despite submitting complete loan modification applications. While the California Monitor Progrm worked successfully with mortgage companies to stop dozens and dozens of sales during the Settlement implementation period, the point of the Settlement reforms is structural change. Homeowners shouldn't need a law professor as their ally to receive fair treatment.

The next few months are an important test for whether mortgage companies were successful in their efforts to retool their operations. The Settlement holds the promise of change, and I'm very eager to see the degree to which those changes reduce challenges of families struggling with their mortgages.

[Demeter]

54. Poverty rises dramatically in Michigan

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/oct2012/pove-o05.shtml

Poverty in Michigan has increased a staggering 66 percent since 2001 according to the US Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS) released in September. This is the largest increase in poverty in any state in the country. Three-fourths of this rise occurred before the recession began in 2008. Michigan’s poverty rate continued to rise sharply through 2011, to 17.5 percent up from 16.8 percent just a year earlier, and well above the national average of fifteen percent. The climb in the poverty rate only partially measures growing social distress because state and federal governments are at the same time cutting safety net programs once available to the most economically vulnerable populations.

Almost 1 in 4 children in Michigan lives in poverty. Child poverty rose to 24.4 percent in 2011, up from 23.1 percent in 2010 and 14.2 percent level in 2001. Michigan is in the worst third of the nation for child poverty. Thirteen other states, all in the US south or southwest and the District of Columbia, had child poverty rates even higher. Mississippi continues to have the highest child poverty rate in the nation at 32 percent. North Carolina recorded 25.6 percent, and West Virginia had 25.8 percent. The city of Detroit has a child poverty rate of 57.3 percent. Partly this reflects the abandonment of the older, disabled and otherwise vulnerable population that makes up a growing part of the population. The proportion grew when factories closed and families left the city over the past decades. Household poverty in Detroit is now 41 percent. Partly this is a symptom of decades of lost jobs in the industrial state and across the Midwest as a whole. Nine other Michigan cities with populations over 65,000 saw increases in poverty. A decline in median income and growing income inequality were exacerbated by the onset of the recession in 2008.

The state’s median household income fell to $45,981 in 2011, a nearly 20 percent drop in inflation-adjusted dollars—that is, a $7,000 decline over the decade. Median income fell 1.5 percent between 2010 and 2011 alone. Michigan lost over 400,000 manufacturing jobs between 2000 and 2010. The continuing decline in median income attests to the fact that most of the jobs opening up in the past few years have been in traditionally low-paying sectors such as retail. Though manufacturing jobs in the state now comprise 17 percent of the state civilian workforce, up from 16 percent in 2009, there has been a decline in manufacturing wage packages. New hires in auto and related industries confront jobs paying only $9-$14 an hour.

The unemployment rate remains over 9 percent, even though the state has lost half a million residents over ten years and the labor force participation rate has declined from 69 percent to just 60 percent. Income inequality continues to grow, and while the percentage of households making $150,000 or more increased by 5 percent over the decade, middle-income households declined. Low-income households making less than $35,000 a year increased by well over 10 percent, confirming the downward spiral in the living standards of working class families. The largest increases were in the lowest income cohort, households with income under $15,000, according to an analysis by the Michigan League for Human Services (MLHS), an advocacy group for low-income households. This is well below the official poverty threshold for a family of four of $23,000 per year. Charities and social service researchers regularly consider income adequate for basic needs to actually be closer to two times the official poverty level.

Along with falling wages for those who do find work, one source of growing poverty is the army of long term unemployed in the US. According to the National Employment Law Project, close to 6 million people have exhausted their unemployment benefits since the onset of the recession in 2008.

“While unemployment insurance kept 2.3 million Americans from falling into poverty last year, it kept 3.2 million from falling into poverty the year before,” they note. “[T]wo million unemployed job seekers will be stripped of unemployment insurance between Christmas and New Year’s. That number is expected to climb to three million by April 2013.”

But help for these unemployed workers is being cut at the state level too. Last year Michigan cut state unemployment benefits from 26 weeks to 20 weeks. In the face of expanding social distress, Michigan is gutting, not expanding, other last-resort safety net programs. As more and more states cut assistance programs, the official poverty rate, though climbing, misses declines in real income that result from budget cuts. This is because certain assistance to low income households, or transfers, are not considered income for purposes of the Census counts. Thus the official poverty level fails to reflect the growing distress that low-income families are experiencing as benefits like food stamps (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP) and housing and utility assistance are cut. States are throwing whole categories of people off of these benefits. In Michigan the Michigan Earned Income Tax Credit has been cut by 70 percent, which will lower real income for the low-income families with jobs. Asset limits for SNAP, along with more difficult application procedures, has eliminated this program for thousands of recipients in the state over the past year.

Cash welfare assistance is also under assault. By imposing absolute time limits for children and their parents under both federal guidelines and state law, tens of thousands of families with children who are unable to work or who cannot find jobs are being barred from help in Michigan. Though some families who lost cash welfare in the initial wave of cuts imposed last September have been temporarily re-instated, the Michigan Supreme Court is expected to rule soon on a reversal of the lawsuit that got them back. Ten thousand families who were exempted from federal time limits because of the most difficult personal circumstances could abruptly lose income support once again, perhaps before the end of the year.

Also starting immediately in October, families on welfare must prove their children did not miss more than ten days in a school year. If documentation is lacking, they lose their benefit. They cannot be reinstated until they prove 21 consecutive days of school attendance. This will force welfare recipients into an humiliating process to get paperwork from the child’s school addressed to the welfare office. It has nothing to do with truancy and everything to do with finding ways to disqualify recipients, further shredding the social safety net.

[kickysnana]

61. Many people in the welfare system have sick kids.

It is already hard enough to deal with the adversarial welfare system, school systems and medical systems. This will end up forcing sick kids into foster care where people do not love them and do not have the same incentive to do the most that can be done for them.

Undiagnosed Lyme Disease can leave up to 25% of the population totally disabled before the end of two years. Disabled to the the same degree as congestive heart failure. It interferes with both the physical and mental and getting diagnosis and treatment is a crap shoot at best. I predict suicides will increase in teens as it has in adult male Lyme victims in our broken system.

Excellent case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

[bread_and_roses]

62. OMFG

We are insane. This is insane. What the hell are the kids missing school supposed to do for food? How much school will they miss when the electric is turned off? Why am I even saying these self-evident things? We all know what this is about. I hate being so crude and inarticulate but what can one say except fuck, fuck, those fuckers, those monsters, and we are all monsters for allowing this while the bloodsucking vampire ghouls suck the life from the entire earth - I am speechless.

[Demeter]

60. What's an Opinion for?

[Demeter]

69. Well, it didn't frost, didn't drop below 40F, it appears

but it's still only 45F at 11 am. I'm dressing for late November. It's windy.

[xchrom]

63. sunday - time for to get ready for church...

Tammy Faye Bakker Sings Don't Give Up You're on the Brink of a Miracle

[Demeter]

70. I didn't know you were into voodoo, X!

The Unitarians wear jeans--if they want to dress up, they don't wear the cutoffs....

[xchrom]

72. i like to look nice for the Eucharist.

and you should see my Genuflection -- and people duck when i cross myself.

[Demeter]

76. I'll bet they do

That doesn't sound like the Old Mass to me....

[kickysnana]

83. Where did you find the picture of my third grade Sunday School teacher?

Her beauty was matched by her tom cat like voice singing loudly and enthusiastically every Sunday while accompanying herself on the tinny upright piano that was slightly out of tune.

[xchrom]

84. GASP!11 that's me I'll have you know.

In all my wondrous religious & sanctimonious beauty.

Admittedly - I was a little younger when that was taken.

[kickysnana]

88. I didn't know that you went to my church...

very good place for a budding liberal at the time. (My Mom said I had to forgive her/you for her/your singing." It wasn't easy as I had perfect pitch as a child. With my MS I now sing like her, so I don't sing.)

Wow, googling the original name was transferred to a downtown St Paul storefront Church and then I found this for the building that was my church:

"Wheelock Parkway United Methodist Church, Saint Paul, Minn., will discontinue as a church on June 30, 2012.

Wheelock Parkway United Methodist Church will have a final worship service on June 3, 2012."

My kids did pre-school day care there too.

My schools are all gone, the Church I my parent's married in and I was Baptized in downtown has been torn down and a medical office building is on the site..

Life steamrolls on.

[xchrom]

64. Europe’s Richer Regions Want Out

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/sunday-review/a-european-union-of-more-nations.html?ref=world&_r=0

CATALONIA may be the catalyst for a renewed wave of separatism in the European Union, with Scotland and Flanders not far behind. The great paradox of the European Union, which is built on the concept of shared sovereignty, is that it lowers the stakes for regions to push for independence.

While a post-national European Union may be emerging out of the euro zone crisis, with a drive for more fiscal union and more centralized control over national budgets and banks, the crisis has accelerated calls for independence from member countries’ richer regions, angry at having to finance poorer neighbors.

Artur Mas, the Catalan president, recently shook Spain and the markets with a call for early regional elections and promised a referendum on independence from Spain, although Madrid considers it illegal. Scotland is planning an independence referendum for the autumn of 2014. The Flemish in Flanders have achieved nearly total autonomy, both administrative and linguistic, but still resent what they consider to be the holdover hegemony of the French-speakers of Wallonia and the Brussels elite, emotions that will be on display in provincial and communal elections Oct. 14.

There are countless things that hold unhappy countries, like marriages, together — shared history, shared wars, shared children, shared enemies. But the economic crisis in the European Union is also highlighting old grievances.

Many in Catalonia and Flanders, for example, argue that they pay significantly more into the national treasury than they receive, even as national governments cut public services. In this sense, the regional argument is the euro zone argument writ small, as richer northern countries like Germany, Finland and Austria complain that their comparative wealth and success are being drained to keep countries like Greece, Portugal and Spain afloat.

[Demeter]

71. I can't say I blame them

The Eurozone as presently imagined is a bankster's empire, not a people's republic. And all the little people are serfs without land to be tied to.

So much for the modern German idea of Unity. Same as the old one: sig heil!

So far we haven't come, in 60 years....

[xchrom]

73. the austrians and the germans won WWII after all. nt

[hamerfan]

65. JB! Musical Interlude II

[xchrom]

67. ...

[xchrom]

66. The Muni Bond Market, Mired in Its Past

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/business/municipal-bond-market-mired-in-its-past.html?ref=business&_r=0

THE $4 trillion market in municipal bonds, which finances American life where it gets lived, is stuck in the Dark Ages. It has been for decades.

In yet another attempt to pull this market into modern times, regulators put states, cities and municipal issuers on notice three years ago. No longer would they be allowed to stint on disclosing basic financial information — the kind that investors in, say, public corporations, have long relied on. With an expanded and accessible Web site designed by regulators, municipal bond investors could finally find out what was going on.

Or not.

Some issuers of municipal bonds don’t seem to have gotten the message. More disturbing, regulators don’t seem to care.

[xchrom]

68. Too Broke for Babies: US Birth Rates Drop Because Money’s Tight

http://www.alternet.org/economy/too-broke-babies-us-birth-rates-drop-because-moneys-tight



In addition to the unemployment rate , the US birth rate is also down. The rate has been dropping for four years; this year’s decline is more modest one percent. Previous years have seen declines in the two to three percent range.


Why are women not birthing more babies? Because the economy makes it prohibitive.

“The theory is that many women or couples who are out of work, underemployed or have other money problems feel they can’t afford to start a family or add to it,” writes The Washington Post .

The report, courtesy of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also found that the birth rate for single women fell by three percent, the rate for married women is up one percent, and the rate for African Americans is down two percent. That last figure is far less than the six percent drop for Latinos, but the figure for whites stayed the same and for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders went up.

[Demeter]

74. Ironically, Sanctions Success Strengthens Iran’s Strait of Hormuz Trump Card

Military strategists appear to have missed a foreseeable outcome in their efforts to pressure Iran. As the temperatures are rising in the Mideast, as reader chatter about Turkey’s involvement in Syria attests, a Financial Times article describes how the success of economic sanctions against Iran have strengthened its ability to make credible threats to restrict oil shipments. Market participants have long discounted the idea that Iran would restrict the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, a comparatively narrow channel though which 35% of the world’s oil supplies pass. Threatening cargo ships would also interfere with Iran’s own oil shipments, far and away its biggest source of foreign exchange, and critical food imports. But that dynamic has now changed. As the Financial Times notes (hat tip Scott):

Sanctions imposed over Iran’s nuclear programme have grown tighter, and the effects are being felt across the country. Fears are rising that Iran’s leadership, facing increasing domestic unrest over spiralling inflation, has less and less to lose through brinkmanship in the channel now that its own oil income is being squeezed to a trickle. For years, oil traders were inured to rhetoric from Iran that it stood poised to shock world energy markets by blocking the seaway in retaliation for sanctions or an Israeli attack. They were sceptical it would engineer a crisis in a region so critical to its own economic survival. But Iran’s plummeting oil exports mean that a cornered Tehran could see a confrontation in the strait as less an act of self-immolation and more a calculated gamble.

It’s a bit disingenuous to put responses to sanctions in the same boat (no pun intended) as a military attack. Israel and the US have been saber-rattling at Iran for years; it’s hard to imagine that Iran would not engage in an aggressive retaliation, and either blocking the strait or launching strikes on cargo ships is a blindingly obvious move (it’s not as if Iran’s enemies aren’t going to be interfering with its shipments at that point). Readers have also pointed out that Saudi refineries are within easy strike distance.

Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi have opened new pipelines that will considerably reduce the importance of the Strait of Hormuz, but they won’t be operating at full capacity for 18 months. And even then, the new facilities don’t neuter the Iranian threat, but merely make the effects somewhat less severe. So Iran still has considerable leverage as well as motive to act. And remember, even though Iran has always insisted it would respond fiercely to an onslaught, as opposed to be an aggressor, it has means for applying pressure that fall short of an attack. Again, from the FT:

Fearing Mr Ahmadi-Nejad could seek a diversion through international sabre-rattling, policy makers say that Iran could easily find ways to disrupt world energy supplies without a direct attack. Some argue it could board every supertanker transiting its territorial waters under other pretexts, such as inspecting for weapons smuggling. Others fear it could even use proxies to fight its war, with terrorist organisations carrying out attacks. Those actions would both slow oil flows and push up prices. Tehran would win a double victory: continuing its own remaining oil sales while benefiting from higher prices. Amrita Sen, senior oil analyst at London-based Energy Aspects, says that domestic pressure and economic collapse could force Tehran back to the negotiating table over its nuclear programme. “But, on the other hand, it also makes more likely a provocative action by Ahmadi-Nejad.”

Since the West does not have a good direct response to this basic problem, it is sending more men and material into the region:

Seeking to counter Iran’s influence, many nations are building up their military presence in the Gulf. September’s drills involved dozens of warships from, among others, the US, the UK, Japan, France, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Italy, Australia and Canada. Lieutenant Greg Raelson, a spokesman for the US fifth fleet, which often keeps one of its aircraft carriers in the Gulf, stressed the Strait of Hormuz was critical to “fuel economies around the globe”.

And protection does not come cheap:

It is almost impossible to calculate the cost of policing the Gulf but Sherife AbdelMessih, chief executive of Future Energy Corporation, provides a back-of-the-envelope approximation: that the US spends roughly $90bn on its Bahrain-based fifth fleet or about $15 per barrel that crosses Hormuz.

Now we know why Obama is so keen to talk about fracking. It solves more than one problem.

Read more at http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/10/ironically-sanctions-success-strengthens-irans-strait-of-hormuz-trump-card.html#DdJiuC4rpkAmWtAC.99

[Demeter]

75. U.S., Europe Nowhere Close to Ending Crisis, Krugman Says

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-03/u-s-europe-nowhere-close-to-ending-crisis-krugman-says.html

The U.S. and the European Union are “nowhere close to ending” the financial crisis and German-led austerity efforts may lead to a 1930s-style economic depression, Nobel laureate Paul Krugman said. Five years into the crisis, the U.S. needs “another round of stimulus” and Federal Reserve officials “should be doing whatever they can” to aid the recovery, while Europe needs a fiscal union to save its single currency, Krugman said in a speech in Belgrade today.

“Europe must accept there are limits to austerity and that additional austerity won’t do anything but bring societies on the verge of collapse,” said Krugman, an economics professor at Princeton University. “No country will have prosperity until Germany and the ECB have decided that too much pain has been inflicted.”

The European Central Bank and the Fed have unveiled plans to fight the crisis and reduce borrowing costs. ECB President Mario Draghi last month announced an unlimited bond-buying program for distressed euro-area nations, while Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke has committed to another round of so-called quantitative easing.

Stabilizing Yields

Europe needs to “contain immediately the financial threat to troubled countries and stabilize yields on their borrowing, which in the end requires the ECB to be ready to be the lender of last resort and buy sovereign bonds,” Krugman said. “And that is now sort of happening,” he said, adding “there are 60 percent odds that they’ll save the euro.

”

In the U.S., where the recovery is struggling to gain traction, new fiscal stimulus should be “directed to distressed individuals” rather than companies, Krugman said.

In Europe, the risk of protracted and extreme austerity measures may lead to “political upheavals, radicalization” and “terrible things happening,” he said. “It’s not difficult to see the decades ahead looking like the 1930s.”

[Demeter]

77. How the G.O.P. Became the Anti-Urban Party

...But the fact is that cities don’t count anymore — at least not in national Republican politics. The very word “city” went all but unheard at the Republican convention, held in the rudimentary city of Tampa, Fla. The party platform ratified there is over 31,000 words long. It includes subsections on myriad pressing topics, like “Restructuring the U.S. Postal Service for the Twenty-First Century” and “American Sovereignty in U.S. Courts,” which features a full-throated denunciation of the “unreasonable extension” of the Lacey Act of 1900 (please don’t ask). There are also passages specifying what our national policy should be all over the world — but not in one American city. Actually, that’s not quite true. Right after “Honoring Our Relationship With American Indians” and shortly before “Honoring and Supporting Americans in the Territories,” the Republican platform addresses another enclave of benighted quasi-citizens: the District of Columbia. Most of what it has to say is about forcing the district to accept school vouchers, lax gun laws and the fact that it will never be a state. It also scolds the district for corruption and “decades of inept one-party rule.” Only a city would get yelled at. The very few sections that address urban concerns contain similar complaints about cities’ current priorities — not to mention the very idea of city life. The Republican platform bitterly denounces the Democrats for diverting some highway fund money to Amtrak and harrumphs that it is “long past time for the federal government to get out of the way and allow private ventures to provide passenger service to the Northeast corridor. The same holds true with regard to high-speed and intercity rail across the country.”....

The Republican Party is, more than ever before in its history, an anti-urban party, its support gleaned overwhelmingly from suburban and rural districts — especially in presidential elections. This wasn’t always the case. During the heyday of the urban political machines, from the Civil War to the Great Depression, Republicans used to hold their own in our nation’s great cities. Philadelphia was dominated for decades by a Republican machine. In Chicago — naturally — both parties had highly competitive, wildly corrupt machines, with a buffoonish Republican mayor, “Big Bill” Thompson, presiding over the city during the ascent of Al Capone. In the 1928 presidential election, the Republican Herbert Hoover swept to victory while carrying cities all across the country: Philadelphia; Pittsburgh; Chicago; Detroit; Atlanta; Birmingham, Ala.; Houston; Dallas; Omaha and Los Angeles. With the possible exception of Houston or maybe Omaha, it’s all but inconceivable that Mr. Romney will carry any of those cities. And that’s due in good part to the man Hoover defeated, more than 80 years ago. The rise of Alfred E. Smith to the top of the Democratic Party confirmed a sea change in American life. Smith was not simply the first Catholic to lead a major-party ticket. He was also a quintessentially urban candidate, like no one who has ever seriously contended for the presidency before or since. Born in 1873 on Oliver Street, on the edge of Manhattan’s Chinatown, he was forced to leave school after the death of his father. He never went back, toiling at the Fulton Fish Market for $12 a week. Elected to the New York State Assembly by Tammany Hall’s political machine, he worked his way up to speaker, then governor. In Albany, Smith pushed through some of the most important social legislation in our history. Yet everything about him remained unacceptably “ghetto” to much of America: the way he dressed; the stogies he smoked in public; his heavy New York accent; and the way he enjoyed singing old Bowery tunes while enjoying a beer with the boys. It was almost as if today a candidate from the projects — a high-school dropout who still dressed in hip-hop fashion and liked to occasionally drop in to a club to D.J. for a couple of hours — were to become a serious presidential candidate.

...Franklin Delano Roosevelt made the cities showcases for the New Deal — especially New York, under the liberal Republican reformer, Fiorello H. La Guardia. Federal money poured in, but in the end the New Deal was about more than building new bridges or getting people off the bread lines. Contrary to Mr. Romney’s contention that government aid automatically turns people into “victims” and “dependents,” Washington’s intervention turned urban Americans from subjects into citizens who could claim the necessities of life as a right, not a favor. In so doing, it began to shrivel the urban political machines, though it would take decades before they disappeared completely. The cities, which had been places of horrible suffering during the early years of the Great Depression, became alluring again, attracting a dynamic if volatile new mix of the rural poor, black, white and Hispanic. By 1950, almost two-thirds of all Americans lived in urban areas. Save for mavericks like La Guardia, Republicans had little to add to this battle for the soul of the city. Increasingly, a Republican mayor of a major city became a curiosity. In presidential elections, big cities went Republican only during landslides. This didn’t seem to matter in the postwar years, as demographic trends began to shift sharply away from the city. Newly prosperous whites and eventually blacks pursued the American dream out to the suburbs. The urban industrial base left too.

FOR Republicans, cities now became object lessons on the shortcomings of activist government and the welfare state — sinkholes of crime and social dysfunction, where Ronald Reagan’s “welfare queens” cavorted in their Cadillacs. The very idea of the city seemed to be a thing of the past, an archaic concept — so much so that Gerald R. Ford seriously considered letting New York go bankrupt in 1975. This probably cost Ford the 1976 election — much as Mr. Romney’s opposition to “saving Detroit” may yet cost him this one, thanks to all the votes of auto-parts workers he stands to sacrifice in Ohio. Tragically, once-great cities like St. Louis or Newark never fully recovered from postwar deindustrialization. But urban living was far from dead. Instead, the American economy began to reinvent itself in cities, as they became cleaner, greener, safer, more prosperous, more fun. As the demographic wheel turned again, both new immigrants and a generation of Americans born and raised in the ’burbs moved back in. Today, four-fifths of the population lives in an urban area — the highest percentage in our history. Although the country remains largely suburban, one in 12 Americans lives in a city of over a million people. More than ever, they are stakeholders, owning where previous generations rented, creating their own jobs and opportunities. Traditional liberal bastions like the Upper West Side of Manhattan are now filled with the owners of co-ops and condominiums worth hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars. Over 140,000 New Yorkers in all — or nearly 4 percent of the labor force — work out of their homes. The percentages are even higher in Los Angeles and Chicago. Most of these individuals are skilled, highly educated “job creators” for themselves and others — the very demographic that Republicans claim to want to attract....There is a terrible arrogance here that has ramifications well beyond the Republicans’ electoral prospects. There wasn’t so much as a mention of cities in the debate on domestic issues the presidential candidates had last week. Nor did the Democrats have much to say about cities at their convention in Charlotte, N.C. They didn’t have to. Politically, Democrats don’t have to say anything about the urban experience; they embody it. But in too many cities this allows them to keep running corrupt and mediocre candidates...Republicans may not want to go to the cities. But that doesn’t much matter. The cities are coming to them.

***********************************************************

Kevin Baker is the author of the “City of Fire” series of historical novels: “Dreamland,” “Paradise Alley” and “Strivers Row.”

[hamerfan]

78. JB! Musical Interlude III

[hamerfan]

79. Musical Interlude

One for the economy!

[Demeter]

80. Thank you hamerfan for the music! I'm calling it a wrap.

I am still musically impaired (among other failings).

See you all on SMW!

[Fuddnik]

81. Are the markets open tomorrow?

I think it's Hedgehog Day or something like that. Anyway, I think the banks are closed.

[Demeter]

82. Yes, they are...I checked Friday