"Opportunity Center" by {Guerrilla Futures | Jason Tester} on flickr
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It is an article of faith among Republicans (and far too many Democrats) that all those pesky “regulations” are to blame for the lack of jobs today and the ongoing economic slowdown. Just the first of this month, McClatchy had an article where they had surveyed small business owners across the country and the consensus was that in fact regulations are not the problem for small business but lack of demand is:
When it’s asked what specific regulations harm small businesses _which account for about 65 percent of U.S. jobs — the Chamber of Commerce points to health care, banking and national labor. Yet all these issues weigh much more heavily on big corporations than on small business.
…snip…
None of the business owners complained about regulation in their particular industries, and most seemed to welcome it. Some pointed to the lack of regulation in mortgage lending as a principal cause of the financial crisis that brought about the Great Recession of 2007-09 and its grim aftermath.
…snip…
Other small firms say their problem is simply a lack of customers.
My bold and I think we see where the folks complaining about regulations are really coming from. While the small businesses are struggling to make traction and find customers, the big businesses are squeezing every penny out of their operations in order to meet the quarterly demands of Wall St. Read the rest of this entry →
Technically speaking, the U.S. economy is recovering right now. GDP growth has been positive since the summer of 2009. Employment is growing. If you like, you can say the recession is over.
But don’t say it too loud. With 13.5 million people out of work — 6.1 million out of work for 27 weeks or more — the odds are high that one of them may hear and take offense.
The recovery is weak, and job creation is slow. Everybody knows that. But here’s something that we don’t know, or anyway don’t think about enough: Isn’t it weird that in this dismal economic situation, neither of the two great U.S. political parties is offering a plan to do anything about the job situation?
Frum goes on to note that the Republicans at least have a “plan” (Rep Paul Ryan’s “budget”), even though the “plan” does nothing to help the unemployed, nor does it actually do anything on the budget. He also notes that the Democratic “plan” consists primarily of blasting the Ryan plan.
The administration does however have a political plan: Blast the Ryan plan. Since the Ryan plan is highly politically vulnerable, the blasting will likely hurt the GOP and help President Obama. The blasting will not, however, do much for the unemployed. But then we’ve all sort of given up on them, haven’t we?
I have to give credit when it is due and right now, Frum seems to be one of the few members in presumably good standing of the Village who is actually seeing something close to the reality faced by millions of us within the US today. Annie Lowrey of the Washington Post almost got it correct yesterday before reverting to Beltway cheerleading. The rest of the Very Serious People though are ever so serious as they toil away in the alternative world where the budget deficit is the ultimate problem in the world today. From Robert Samuelson at the Washington Post we get this. Of course in Samuelson’s world, everything is the fault of social spending. How else to explain these two little ‘nuggets’?
Who deserves government subsidies and how much? About 55 percent of spending goes to individuals, including the elderly, veterans, farmers, students, the disabled and the poor.
How much, if at all, should social spending be allowed to squeeze national defense?
Social spending is squeezing national defense? Seriously? I guess if you believe that we need a few more aircraft carrier groups, more nuclear submarines, more advanced fighter jets costing billions each, all relics of the Cold War, then I guess taking care of “the elderly, veterans, farmers, students, the disabled, and the poor,” that’s a squeeze. Enjoy life in that bubble Mr Samuelson. Read the rest of this entry →
Have I mentioned recently that I NEED a FREAKIN’ JOB?
Whew. OK, now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s move on to the top stories of the day.
It seems there were some elections yesterday of the Primary type nature with the results being a confounding mess primarily to those Beltway Villagers who sit and talk amongst themselves about how wonderful all their fellow eaters of cocktail weenies are but have no clue about life out here in the rest of America.
So we get to read the "analyses" from the pundits who latch onto the easiest theme that reinforces what they already felt, regardless of reality (such an unreal concept reality is). Hint: the elections in KY, PA, and AR were NOT purges from the left or right.
Let me see if maybe a few headlines from today’s news sites on the web can maybe explain a bit of the disconnect. From the NY Times we have this
Bill Halter’s no raging liberal. But he is a Democrat, whereas Lincoln is a corporatist. Those looking to interpret the race’s results on a strict right-left continuum are going to miss the relevant dynamics entirely.
It’s not that voters had any knowledge of this when they went to the polls yesterday. It’s that they’ve seen shenanigans like this consistently for the last five years. They’ve seen it on the Military Commissions Act and the Iraq funding bill in 2006, the FISA bills in 2007 and 2008, TARP in 2008, the health care bill in 2009, and now FinReg in 2010. They’ve seen defeat grabbed from the jaws of victory over and over and over again, and they simply have lost all trust in this crop of elites to do the job. And it’s hard to argue with the public on this one.
We are not stupid. We are not mushrooms. Many of us get our news from multiple sources specifically to avoid being sucked into the single source spinmeisters. We make informed decisions. We are angered by politicians who attempt to use wedge issues. We are angered when we see science ignored then see political and corporate talking heads saying "But no one could have anticipated…" while the next article quotes the scientists who did in fact anticipate something.
I don’t particularly care to be angry all the time. It is decidedly counter-productive. Yet, it is almost unavoidable when folks in power are lying to me and I know that they are lying and they know that I know and do it anyway.
The politicians who won races yesterday are not perfect. Most of them are no where near as liberal or progressive as I am. But so far, most of those politicians have not lied to my face. They aren’t p*ssing on my leg and telling me it’s rain. And they haven’t (yet) crawled into bed with the corporatists and lobbyists.
At one time, there were leaders at all levels of politics in the United States and it wasn’t that long ago. Now, we see ads for folks running for office proclaiming that they are not professional politicians but just concerned citizens (who happen to be millionaires/billionaires able to self fund) What a world and nation we’ve become where the rich become viable candidates because they can self fund their campaigns and buy elective office.
Forgive me for ranting but right now there are far too many problems facing us as a nation and world where business as usual in the beltway does nothing for us but exacerbate the mess.
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