February 25, 2004
Robert Samuelson on the Jobs Situation
Robert Samuelson in his column notes the following,
The jobs rhetoric captures politics' casual cynicism. John Kerry and John Edwards must grasp a president's modest job-creating powers; otherwise, they wouldn't be fit for the White House. Their jobs obsession is dishonest expediency. They know President Bush is vulnerable. To be fair, the deceit is bipartisan. The Bush administration is ready to claim credit for almost any good economic news.
This is exactly right, IMO. If there was a sure fire way to lower unemployment/increase employment the President (any President) would use. Especially now during an election year. The truth is that the policy tools available to the President are imprecise and clumsy at best. There isn't much that Democrats could do that would be different.
For example, one claim is to put more money in that hands of those with lower incomes. Okay fine, then what? They spend it right? Fine. But how come the guy in the upper portion of the income distribution wont "spend" it. By spend I mean in very broad sense. Sure he might not go out and buy a loaf of bread and a bag of chips, but he might buy new equipement for his company. He might invest it. Or he might go out and redecorate his house (which employes people). All of these things are generally speaking, good for the economy. Unless the money is being stuffed in a matress alot of it is probably filtering back into the economy. So would simply transferring money have made such a big difference that we'd have 2,000,000 more jobs now? I seriously doubt it. This is why you wont find serious alternative proposals from the Democrats on this. There aren't any. Everybody is wondering why unemployment is seemingly stuck above 5%.
But of course, since unemployment is stuck above 5% the loyal opposition is going to use it as an issue. Bush sucks because unemployment sucks (well not really by historical standards, but lets ignore that). Elect us and well fix the problem (nevermind that they don't have a viable plan). And completely ignore the question of why is unemployment remaining "so high" despite all the efforts to reduce it. I mean actually getting to the bottom of such a problem is not good politics.
Update: This animated gif from John Kerry's web site is a perfect example.
"Bush sends jobs over seas..."? Sure, that has been Bush's secret agenda all along, to send jobs overseas.
Update II: More lies from the Kerry Campaign,
Under President Bush’s watch, this country has lost 3 million jobs and our manufacturing workforce is at a more than fifty year low. We've gone from the biggest surpluses to the biggest deficits in our history. He inherited the strongest economy in the world - and brought it to its knees. --emphasis added
Actually, Bush inherited an economy that by many indicators was weak and getting weaker. Another version of blame the recession on Bush.
And then there is this part,
This President promised that his tax cuts would create 3.9 million new jobs. So far he’s lost 3 million. Now, after promising to create 2.6 million jobs this year, even his own Cabinet is telling us not to believe him.--emphasis added
Yes, Bush lost those 3 million jobs. Don't you see that was his grand master plan all along.
It is regretable that the Administration keeps cranking out these employment gain numbers that are so large, but that doesn't mean that Bush is purposefully sending jobs overseas or trying to destroy jobs.
Posted by Steve at February 25, 2004 11:36 AMSteve,
But there are "sure-fire" ways to generate jobs. You could do the FDR route, and engage in massive public works. Dam rivers, build highways, etc.
There's the Marion Barry approach: Expand the bureaucracy and the public trough. DC has a government that, by most accounts, is one of the largest per capita in the country, and as a past resident, I can assure you it don't get much done.
There's the Nazi approach: Start a war, and absorb the bodies through a draft.
Now, the last won't be too popular, the second is probably not palatable, but there are still quite a few Democrats around who believe that the answer would be some kind of WPA.
Also, I'd note that the very wealthy rarely "save," in the sense of putting money into a passbook savings account. Rather, they seem to invest (although that's a guess, and no, I've no figures on that). If you're investing, be it in stocks or bonds, that money's probably being put to some use. It's the poor, I'd venture, who when they save, save it into a bank account.
And I thought that the Left would LIKE savings of ANY sort, since they used to decry that this was symptomatic of what was wrong w/ the American people, all consuming and not saving, etc., etc.?
Posted by: Dean on February 25, 2004 02:39 PMThe President can easily cut unemployment. Just cut unemployment benefits. Why did the Democrats want to extend them? To raise unemployment in an election year.
Posted by: Ron Hardin on February 25, 2004 02:50 PMMoney stuffed in mattresses simply disappears and is promptly replaced by the Fed in meeting its interest rate target automatically. That really targets the money supply at some constant (unknown but constant); so if you burn a dollar, they print one. If you unmattress your dollars one day, they print less or buy back some dollars with debt to soak them up.
When they add up the wealth of a nation, they don't count money.
Posted by: Ron Hardin on February 25, 2004 02:54 PM4 years or so after the bubble economy ended, I don't think that we have learned anything.
Here is a clue to every programmer out there complaining about Indian competition: that salary you were earning in 1999 WAS NOT REAL! It was due to the bubble in IT. It was a result of companies burning through capital (money, more than likely, from MY 401K!!!).
The only way that you can spin 5.6% unemployment as bad is if you are comaring it to 3.9% unemployment from 1999.
Well, we aren't in a bubble now, so why on earth should unemployment be that low? Why on earth would we WANT it to be that low? Bubbles are unsustainable.
Bush should emphasize that we are recovering from the Clinton bubble. It took FDR 13 years to get us out of the bubble from the 1920s. It may take many years for there to be real job growth in this country, and stupid ass programmers complaining that they aren't making as much as they were in 1999 just make it take that much longer.
Posted by: Eric Krieg on February 25, 2004 02:54 PMY'know Dean I think most people don't really care where the money comes from as long as its in their pocket. The Nazi way? They'll take it as long as they have the money and their not the Jews. As you can guess I have no faith in the "common man." Nothing will change until it has to change.
Posted by: Richard Cook on February 26, 2004 08:26 AMSamuelson's right, but he neglected one thing. While there is little that government can do in the short run to create jobs, there's a lot they can do to kill them. Take the luxury tax on boats and airplanes from years ago. Lots of job-killing in the name of class envy. In fact the costs were easily a factor of ten greater than the piddling revenue the surtax generated -- yet the people who promoted and passed it were NOT tarred and feathered, as they should have been.
Note to Eric on IT salaries: You're right, and it's worse than that. The ridiculous salaries at the height of the bubble taught a lot of people that they don't want to get caught in that wringer again, so they began exploring alternatives. I know. I was with an IT consulting firm at the time. Outsourcing now is a rational response to the labor price shock then.
Posted by: Dave Sheridan on February 26, 2004 05:15 PM