brainiac conspiracy

Failure

Here's a record they can be proud of:

Payrolls in the U.S. climbed less than projected in August and gains in the prior two months were revised down, indicating companies are being deliberate in their hiring as they wait for a pickup in demand. The unemployment rate unexpectedly fell as more people left the labor force . . . The rate was driven lower as the share of working age people in the labor force declined. The so-called participation rate, declined to 63.2 percent, the lowest since August 1978, from 63.4 percent.

There were policies our elected leaders could have implemented---and still could lobby for now---that would have gone a long way to alleviate the jobs crisis. Unfortunately, they didn't recognize that the policy they did implement was only a down payment, not a complete transaction, because four years later, we still have a jobs crisis. So, failure.

---Baron V

Jobs II

Still better, but still also shit.

Lucky for us, there's a policy fix for this, and our leaders are on it!

Snark aside, income inequality in this country is not simply an economic policy crisis, it's a moral-existential crisis, too. Because a few hundred white men have come to the conclusion that they are entitled to all of the money, and they're literally being allowed to turn us into a nation of 300 million tenant farmers because our political leadership class is either too timid and feckless to do anything about it, or because they are in concurrence with the oligarchs. But either way, it's hard to see how the existing social order endures for much longer if all it is capable of producing is a few hundred billionaires and tens of millions of poor people.

---Baron V

TJ's

Like many of you, I've been patronizing them for years, and no matter which particular branch I visit---and I've hit dozens of them across the country over the years---one thing that seems common to them all is their employee esprit de corps: Particularly, the decidedly upbeat mood that most of them are in, even in the face of crowded and often-hectic work conditions. I've occasionally wondered how they manage to stay in such relatively good cheer before I'm reminded of the fact that workers who get paid a decent wage generally tend to enjoy their jobs more than workers who, well, aren't. So why don't more of our job creators take the hint?

---Baron V

Today's Worst Person

Casey Mulligan.

Because nothing drives aggregate demand quite like stealing from the poor. Are there no prisons?

---Baron V

Nine Bucks an Hour

It's an improvement, but not enough. Even some of our job creators realize this:

On Tuesday, Costco CEO and President Craig Jelinek came out in support of the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013, which aims to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour, then adjust it after that for inflation.

"At Costco, we know that paying employees good wages makes good sense for business," Jelinek said in a statement. "We pay a starting hourly wage of $11.50 in all states where we do business, and we are still able to keep our overhead costs low."

"An important reason for the success of Costco’s business model is the attraction and retention of great employees," Jelinek added. "Instead of minimizing wages, we know it's a lot more profitable in the long term to minimize employee turnover and maximize employee productivity, commitment and loyalty. We support efforts to increase the federal minimum wage."

Costco has a reputation for paying its employees above market rate, with the typical worker earning around $45,000 in 2011, according to Fortune. Walmart-owned Sam's Club, in contrast, pays its sales associates an average of $17,486 per year, according to salary information website Glassdoor.com.

They also have a higher percentage of unionized employes than Walmart. Imagine!

It's really not difficult: pay people more money, and offer them decent benefits, and they'll work harder to hold onto their jobs. They might even find that they like their jobs, and stick around until they get to be really good at them, which leads to increased productivity, reduced waste and overhead, and greater profitability. Heck, with all that extra money they're earning, they might even be able to afford to buy stuff from their employers! Since our leaders in their wisdom have already decided that the wage-earners at the top of the pay scale can't be troubled to part with any more of their incomes, the next best thing we can do is to use labor law to give more money to people at the bottom end of the scale. That is, if our leaders are genuinely interested in stimulating greater economic activity and output. Giving people more money to spend is likely to yield that outcome, after all.

---Baron V

The Leveraged Buyout of You

We all know that in our rapidly evolving global economy, there's more pressure than ever on us as workers to acquire the new job skills that will empower us in the marketplace, and make us more valuable to our employers than a robot, a computer, or a call-center customer-service guy in Mumbai. Education is key, of course, as is increased connectivity with the wireless world, and a mastery of the technologies that will drive growth in the 21st century. Finally, we need to reassess the fluid and changing nature of the workplace itself, and disabuse ourselves of the antiquated notion that we should ever expect full-time jobs with benefits again. Because robots don't need a living wage, and therefore, neither do you.

---Baron V

Got an Easy Answer For That

Of course not. Because ensuring that poor people stay poor is better for the economy than helping them stay not-so-poor. But because opinions differ, it's time once again to hop on board the hamster wheel and debate more problems that aren't really problems. We Americans are exceptional at that!

---Baron V

The Magic Number

It's amazing how often it repeats itself in our policy discussions:

President Obama's proposal to raise the minimum wage from its current level of $7.25 an hour to $9.00 an hour has widespread public support, a new Pew Research Center/USA Today poll finds. Really widespread: 71 percent of people polled were in favor of increasing the minimum wage, while just 26 percent were opposed. Yup, 26 percent.

Naturally this means we will need to engage in a televised debate for several months' worth of Sunday talk shows between Nobel economists seated at one end of the table, and a bunch of guys from Cato and Club For Growth at the other end, on whether or not giving poor people more money will create more poor people, even though we know that it won't, because liberal bias and you know who else raised the minimum wage too. At least, we can reasonably expect this to unfold if history repeats itself---which, in official Washington, it seems to have a habit of doing.

---Baron V

Always Two Sides

That's their story and they're stickin' to it:

An Obama administration proposal to raise the minimum wage may not help as many low-wage earners as estimated, although some economists argue that the policy will reverberate positively through the economy.

Keith Hall, a Mercatus Center scholar at George Mason University and former head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, said the only real avenue to increasing wages and assisting those with incomes below the poverty level is to create jobs.

"It's probably not going to affect that many people," Hall told The Hill. "Putting it into context---those who are trying to support families are not who are making minimum wage."

"If you force employers to pay more than they want, they are less likely to hire teens and low-skilled folks and, instead, will cut workers hours and benefits," Hall said.

It's a novel argument! Raise the wages of poor people, you'll create more poor people. Even though it's been well established that this is clearly not the case, and that it is being pushed the hardest by the usual glibertarian cranks. But in our time, you simply cannot have a policy discussion that's based on the assumption that the policy in question works---when it has demonstrably proven over time that it does---but instead you must must frame the debate as a difference of equally valid opinions competing in an ahistorical void. You could just as easily call this "Yellowcake economics" since the forensic methodology employed by its practitioners is basically the same as the people who sold us on WMDs in Iraq. But that would require us to call out people who are wrong for, well, being wrong, and that would be lacking in fairness and balance.

---Baron V

#SOTU, STFU, Etc.

Any major political address in which the most ambitious and far-reaching policy specific is a proposal to raise the minimum wage to $9 an hour is pretty thin gruel, at least from this corner. Sure, it will help, but it barely keeps up with inflation since the 1970s (I earned $9.25 in today's dollars at my first minimum-wage job, in 1974), so it's hard to say there's much more to this pledge than a promise to elevate millions of Americans from a state of poverty to a state of almost-but-not-quite poverty, and even if enacted, it will do next to nothing to arrest/reverse this nagging social trend.

I also found it telling that this drew some of the loudest applause of the evening from the Democratic side of the aisle since it was indicative of what may be the Obama administration's---and the modern Democratic Party's---most singularly notable political accomplishment, i.e., its success in lowering the bar of expectations over what political liberalism can realistically be expected to achieve within the confines of our contemporary corporation-state. "Fundamental transformation" may rouse the faithful to the polls, but when formulating policy in official Washington, the kind of robust liberal interventionism advocated by FDR and LBJ has been relegated to the margins---except in the realm of national security, where, as always, it's bombs away.

---Baron V

Full Employment

While it should be one of our policymakers' most desired goals, it should also be noted that full employment per se is reduced to a mere numbers game unless "employment" means being able to work for a livable wage that allows people to afford housing and health care, college for their kids, and maybe a little leisure time on holiday every now and then, as well as some disposable income to spend on things like durable goods, automobiles, etc. Because if tens of millions of workers are denied that kind of purchasing power, your greater macro-economy simply isn't going to grow:

Britain’s economists are also puzzling over why the economy remains moribund even though more and more people are in work. There are still about half a million fewer people working as full-time employees than there were before the 2008 crash, but the number of people in some sort of employment has surpassed the previous peak. Economists think the rise in insecure temporary, self-employed and part-time work, while a testament to the British labour market’s flexibility, helps to explain why economic growth remains elusive.

---Baron V

Everybody Loves Chris

Because he's just a regular guy, a plain-spoken mensch who worships The Boss. And because he doesn't instinctively hate Muslims, and because he once said nice things about Obama. And because he thinks some types of gun control are okay, and because he goes to hockey games like a regular Joe. But he is also a Republican, which means that at heart he's a vindictive little bastard.

Then again, maybe that's why everybody loves him.

---Baron V

Compromising With Crackpothood

At this point in our history, I'll never understand how anyone still believes this shit:

Doesn’t compromise mean setting aside one’s principles? It can, but it need not. The core responsibility of every representative is to support only those initiatives that he or she conscientiously believes will promote the good of the country. During times of deep division, compromise is especially hard: it will require each individual to endorse a package that includes elements that he or she regards as bad public policy. A compromise becomes possible when all parties conclude that despite its defects, it represents an improvement over the status quo and helps solve a pressing problem.

That is the core of the change of new attitude we need among committed partisans of all stripes: it is not unprincipled, but on the contrary honorable, to accept a hard compromise that promotes the national interest and the common good.

If you can tell me how you can compromise with people who believe that a zygote is the same thing as a baby, that the planet is less than 10,000 years old, that global warming is a liberal hoax, that rapists are incapable of impregnating their victims, that Barney Frank and poor black people caused the housing bubble crisis, that public schools are socialist indoctrination camps, that single-payer health care promotes euthanasia, that the solution to mass shootings is to hand every American an AR-15 at birth, and that the President of the United States is a closet Muslim who is conspiring with the United Nations to confiscate all of their guns so he can impose a North Korean-style dictatorship upon them, well, fine, just tell me how it's done and we'll try to cut a deal. There's just one caveat: our current President has been trying to do exactly that for the last two years. It hasn't gone over well.

Honestly, I don't know what it is with these American Unity Theater 3000 types---why they can't bring themselves to acknowledge that one of our major political parties in Washington has gone collectively insane over the last four decades and can never be bargained with rationally as it is currently constituted because it is not being run by rational-thinking people. There is an alternative, of course, and that is for the non-crazy people to ignore the crazy people altogether when formulating policy. No, it would not be "bipartisan"---if bipartisanship means consulting crazy people for bad advice---but it would promote smarter policy. And isn't that what serious persons like Bill Galston want?

---Baron V

Pas De Deux

It's a familiar two-step by now. But for those of you at home, let's review:

1. Problem: People dying needlessly in preventable industrial accidents.
2. Solution: Government proposes regulatory half-measures to prevent needless deaths.
3. Wingnut Randians scream Hitler Stalin Pol Pot Mao.
4. Government walks back regulatory half-measures.
5. ???
6. Freedom!

Nearly 20 percent of all serious grain bin accidents involve workers under the age of 20.

Last year, the Labor Department proposed new regulations aimed at tightening protections for children doing farm work.

The proposed federal regulations would have prohibited children under 18 from working in large commercial grain bins, silos or other enclosed spaces. But the Obama administration, sensitive to Republican charges that it was choking the economy with expensive regulations, pulled back the proposed rules this year in the face of furious farm-state objections.

---Baron V

Back to The Salt Mine

So minimal blogging until this afternoon. Go bone up on your vocabulary while I'm away.

---Vitelius

In Uruguay, They Don't Tax Income Earned Abroad

Riffing off a previous post, another reason why the job market is booming:

A decade ago, Wal-Mart had little involvement in politics and lobbying, reflecting founder Sam Walton’s policy of shunning politics. As the company grew both in the U.S. and globally, its political interests expanded into issues involving labor, trade and other matters.

Its campaign giving has also broadened and changed. In the early 2000s, checks from its employees and political action committees went mostly to Republicans. Today, it donates almost evenly to Democrats and Republicans, according to an analysis by the Washington-based Center for Responsive Politics.

Yes, yes, I know, now's not the time to grumble about regulatory capture, and we need to circle the wagons for Team Democrat because the Teabillies are coming and Supreme Court Ryan Plan unborn babies, etc. Not that those things aren't important, but we should also not disabuse ourselves of the gritty reality that what was once a two-party adversarial system that revolved around the twin poles of capital and labor at more-or-less equal rates of oscillation is now a single-party corporate-sponsored entity which employs two distinct aliases to suggest a divergence in ideology that really doesn't exist in point of actual policy anymore other than at the cultural fringes. To be fair, one faction of the duopoly capitulates out of rational calculation; the other side, out of unhinged religious zealotry. But think "Wal-Mart" and "Sam's Club," and you get the drift. I'll keep voting for Team Democrat because there's no other viable option, but in the more distant future I may be doing it from overseas.

---Vitelius

All The Serious Persons II

Are basically in agreement that while our current economic conditions pose structural challenges that we will need to confront via smart entitlement reforms, they also pose an opportunity for people who can invent, adapt and reinvent their jobs every day:

Whatever you may be thinking when you apply for a job today, you can be sure the employer is asking this: Can this person add value every hour, every day---more than a worker in India, a robot or a computer?

Meanwhile, robots:

"The issues aren’t just with public benefits. We have some deep problems in the economy,” said Peter Edelman, director of the Georgetown Center on Poverty, Inequality and Public Policy.

He pointed to the recent recession but also longer-term changes in the economy such as globalization, automation, outsourcing, immigration, and less unionization that have pushed median household income lower. Even after strong economic growth in the 1990s, poverty never fell below a 1973 low of 11.1 percent. That low point came after President Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty, launched in 1964, created Medicaid, Medicare and other social welfare programs.

“I’m reluctant to say that we’ve gone back to where we were in the 1960s. The programs we enacted make a big difference. The problem is that the tidal wave of low-wage jobs is dragging us down and the wage problem is not going to go away anytime soon,” Edelman said.

---Vitelius

Enhancing Shareholder Value

It's the ultimate goal of every job creator, and while there are many ways to accomplish it, one method in particular is foolproof: Don't pay the employees a living wage, and don't offer them any benefits.

---Vitelius

Suggestion II

After our leaders finish spending a bunch of money to buy up some houses, cars, durable goods, etc., perhaps they'd consider spending even more to put some people to work---repairing roads, fighting fires, teaching schoolchildren, whatever---so they can, well, stimulate the economy by spending their paychecks on the things they need. Because:

Only 23 percent of the firms polled in June plan to add to staff in the next six months, the National Association for Business Economics said on Monday.

NABE's prior survey, conducted in late March and early April, had shown 39 percent of companies planning to add workers.

A July 6 Labor Department report, showed companies asked employees to work longer hours last month, even though they slowed the pace of hiring.

Among companies that produce goods rather than provide services, the impact was even greater, with nearly four in five reporting a Europe-driven decline in revenues.

---Vitelius

Regressing Toward the Mean

You know, if you really think about it, our 200-year-plus experiment in self-rule has been something of an aberration. For most of humanity's existence, our governments operated on a very crude principle of reciprocity where you, as subject, swore fealty to some unelected emperor, priest-king, warlord, etc., who usually claimed to be operating under some divine or Papal mandate. In exchange for loyalty, you received personal security. Failure to swear fealty was seen as an affront to the sovereign's divine authority, and was met with harsh punishments to rid society of dangerous doctrines. You, the subject, had no rights per se, other than a right to exist in filth and squalor so long as you paid some measure of tribute to the sovereign---and for centuries, knowing that your lands wouldn't be overrun by hostile hordes of Visigoths and Vandals was apparently sufficient to satisfy the meager expectations of the peasantry.

This was, basically, a model of governance based on fear, with all power and wealth concentrated in the hands of a single bloodline or tribe.

It's only been very recently in the grand timeline of history that our collective philosophy of government has changed, and while many of us have heralded our civilization's post-Enlightenment optimism, with its democratization of wealth and its accompanying material progress, as a harbinger of a new day where moral arcs of history are ever bending toward justice, we shouldn't be surprised to discover that the older, fear-based Authoritarian Impulse has never completely gone away, that its hierarchical, top-down command structure holds great appeal to a great many people, and if we're not mindful and vigilant, we can easily revert to a nastier, more brutish time where the masses simply could not be trusted to govern themselves and must be punished should they deign to do so.

In a way, you can make a pretty good case that this has already happened to us over the past 40 years, and that it is happening now across Europe, the main difference between the Old Authoritarianism and the New Improved version being that our sovereigns no longer claim divine authority but instead portray themselves as humble servants dedicated to allaying "market uncertainty" and bolstering "investor confidence". Our punishments, likewise, are no longer inflicted with the intent of ridding society of heretics, but to improve the moral fiber of the lower social orders; our punishment is actually good and uplifting for us, and we should welcome it as a virtuous shareholder welcomes a quarterly dividend check---as just rewards for our appalling moral deficiency.

---Vitelius