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We’re going to get more jobs/unemployment numbers today, and as soon as they’re out, the first question everyone is going to ask is "where’s the Administration’s jobs program?" It’s not as though no one saw this coming.
[Update: US unemployment hits 10.2 percent; highest in 26 years.]
For that matter, where’s the White House on the big questions that need strong leadership?
Steve Benen started an interesting discussion about the direction/priorities Democrats should be pursuing following Tuesday’s elections. More from Yglesias. He follows up in this post, posing three possible strategies:
* Go Big: These are Dems who want to generate excitement within the party’s base, and run in 2010 on a lengthy record of accomplishments. They envision a scenario in which Dems can pass health care reform, a climate change bill, financial reform, an education bill, immigration reform, and a repeal of "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" before the end of next year. It’s ambitious, but doable, and would prove that Dems know how to get things done.
* Go Home: These are center-right Dems, generally from "red" states and districts, who believe every one of the votes the Go Big crowd wants is like a nail in the proverbial coffin. They’ll drive "independents" away; reinforce negative stereotypes of the party; and motivate the right wing. It’s better to scale back, the Go Home contingent believes, slam on the brakes, and focus on issues like deficit reduction.
* Take A Detour: These Dems don’t want to crawl into a hole, but they say it’s time to reshuffle the party’s priorities. The wish list can remain long, just so long as Democrats limit their ambitions, keep issues like the economy on top, and relegate issues like DADT repeal to the bottom. If Dems focus on job creation, the elections will take care of themselves.
Go Big strikes me as the smart course, but I’m not unsympathetic to the Take A Detour crowd. . . .
I’d reverse that and redefine the third strategy. I agree the "go home crowd" should do us all a favor and get out of the way; they’re not helping the Democrats or the country, and as Yglesias notes, they have no solutions, for all the hand wringing they’re doing. On the other hand, "take a detour" isn’t a choice; it’s a necessity.
We simply have to do much more to put Americans back to work. Getting unemployment well below it’s projected 10 percent [effective rate may be 19 percent] as rapidly as we can is a moral imperative. It’s simply unacceptable to leave things at that level, but that’s what we’re probably looking at for the next year without a major effort to change it. And is there any debate that it’s a political imperative for Democrats in 2010?
Go Big may sounds attractive, but I honestly don’t know what "go big" even means, given the lack of strong leadership (or worse) coming from this White House. The list of things that need major overhaul is daunting. [To be sure, Obama inherited most all of it,] but so far, the White House has been at best compromised on diagnosis and even weaker on follow through. Who is to lead this "go big" strategy?
The remaining strength of the health reform bill depends largely on how far Nancy Pelosi and fellow progressives can push the Blue Dogs and on whether Harry Reid can manage his opportunistic colleagues, none of whom are "go big" types. If there’s any meaningful help coming from Rahm/Obama, it’s well hidden.
Yesterday, the Republican leadership embraced their party’s extremism at a Bachmann rally on the Capitol steps. It was an astonishing, frightening spectacle that proved beyond doubt how (1) crazy, (2) dishonest (3) detached from reality and (4) irresponsible the party has become.
I don’t know whether Obama ever believed he could work with a party that has sought to demonize and delegitimize him since January, told him they want him to fail, and is now recklessly toying with an angry, manipulated populist insurrection. But there’s no excuse for such delusions now.
With the Republicans now completely irrelevant (see their "health reform plan") and running from all governing responsibility, all the President’s attention should be directed at helping Congressional Democratic leaders hold their caucus together and improve the health reform bill. It’s not about Obama’s agenda; it’s about their platform for 2010.
The next jobs/stimulus bill should be drafted now and signed before Christmas, even as they push to get a better health reform bill out as soon as they fix the political mess that Baucus/Rahm left Reid. A financial regulatory reform bill should be right behind, one strong enough to convince Geithner and Summers to resign. Perhaps Congress now understands what a liability they’ve become.
If the House can’t find enough weatherization, renewable energy, healthcare, teacher, infrastructure, reclamation and conservation jobs to fund, just ask the governors and mayors. They’ve had their lists for years, and their worsening budgets are killing the recovery.
More:
Paul Krugman, Obama’s Faces His Anzio (and why we need more jobs/stimulus):
If the Democrats lose badly in the midterms, the talking heads will say that Mr. Obama tried to do too much, this is a center-right nation, and so on. But the truth is that Mr. Obama put his agenda at risk by doing too little. The fateful decision, early this year, to go for economic half-measures may haunt Democrats for years to come.
James Galbraith was right: No Return to Normal
But Republicans are wrong: Bruce Bartlett, The New American Economy
Dean Baker reviews the details
131 Comments
Much of the current stimulus money still has yet to be spent. What are they waiting for, an election year to dribble it out? By then it may be too late. Robert Reich has been right on lately about job creation at his blog http://robertreich.blogspot.com/ . You have to take it easy on the “mainstream” economists, after over a generation of making Keynes an unperson, it’s hard to admit you were so wrong for so long in spite of so much evidence.
The month by month payments on the current stimulus is not the problem, but as Dean Baker and others have repeatedly explained, the impact of an additional $30+ billion/month is already at its maximum, even though more payments are coming. The problem is the focus and size — it needed to be about twice as large — and the fact it will dwindle out later, even though additional stimulus will still be needed.
Thanks. Interesting. This is a great website.
If you Assume that those with real power don’t care about the fate of the average person, the country, the world, or anything other than their own wealth which they rightly believe grows, as all else sinks;
And, If you think of Republicans and Democrats as two branches of one party, Republican extremism makes good sense. It may not be good for the Republican party, but,
The farther right,the republicans move, the farther right moves the “centre”.
For example, I keep hearing on American news, that the Democrats who are opposed to public health care, are “moderates”, “moderate Democrats”.
and, the official unemployment rate in Detroit was 30% over the summer.
the congressional progressive caucus is to the RIGHT of the american public.
Most of Congress, including most of the Democrats in it, is to the right of the public. (The Rs are so far to the right, they’re falling off the edge.)
I think they’re doing a crappy job of trying to fix the country, too. They can’t go big enough – they keep buying into the idea that more of a stimulus and more health care coverage and more unemployment benefits are part of the problem, not part of the solution, and so they do half the job and wonder why nothing is improving.
Selise,
ALthough I agree with you about killing THIS bill and standing firm in our support of those who took the pledge. I have to disagree that the states can do a better job.
There HAS TO BE national health care reform or else people cannot move to one state from another iwthout coverage disruptions. You cannot have different standarsds all over the place.
Health is either a basic human right or it is not. I think it is.
Very clearly written. Thanks.
oh, i agree absolutely that healthcare is a human right, and also about the end point – national health insurance or some other national program for universal healthcare (i’m open to ideas other than single payer, if they make sense policy-wise, which the po in a weakly regulated multipayer market most certainly does not).
it’s just that i now think the best way to get there is to let the states experiment and provide the demonstration effect. there is a lot of grassroots work going on at the state level. do give a listen to the short t.r. reid youtube if you can, he is definitely advocating for national universal healthcare – but using the states, as canada did, to get there.
I agree in principle. But, I also think that we can make progress with the State Laboratory idea, and that it is better than lousy hcr across the country. As long as other States are not disadvantaged by some States adopting single-payer, why isn’t it all to the good?
they have put themselves in a difficult position — they are trying to create policies that will please their corporate masters while convincing us they are solving problems. unfortunately the policies that please their corporate masters do not. paul rosenberg wrote something about this a little while ago:
we’ve got to change what is politically acceptable.
Saving the planet might be a noble effort but if it means scrapping bipartisanship, well, that’s beyond the pale.
An interesting question is why don’t they draw that conclusion from the polling? Could it be that their framing is designed not to explore the possibility that the progressives and all the other politicians are to the right of the public?
You nailed it mafr. This is exactly what the prominence of the right wing extremes in the public arena, intentionally or not, has bee doing. Also I don’t fully understand why, perhaps their stridency, has turned many democrats into quivering masses of Jello. They have indeed moved conventional wisdom. It has been an awful thing to see.
“Conventional wisdom” = Village chatter
You folks really need to get out in red states more. The Republicans are not shifting opinion, they are rallying the small minority of people who have been saying these things privately to say them publicly. In fact the national argument is moving against Republicans on policy. Why do you think that they have to send out well-financed astro-turf buses to hammer home their message again and again and again–in the red states? They know that fewer people are buying it and they are upping the intensity of the propaganda.
The situation trends not for a Republican return but for the rise of a populist third party that either moves libertarian or moves lefty libertarian. Dissatisfied conservative non-teabagging Republicans are moving toward Ron Paul. Dissatisfied business-class Republicans are moving independent, and Obama is making great efforts to bring them into the Democratic Party. Dissatisfied Democrats are moving independent and exerting pressure on the left. And then there is what is happening in blue states.
But don’t expect these trends to show up at the state and local level. State and local Republicans are not yet pandering to the teabaggers on state and local issues.
I fully understand the tax anger. The trend has been for fewer taxes on corporations (in many states, an inventory tax has been repealed), increases in more regressive taxes (especially sales taxes), shifting of burdens to the local level (regressive property taxes because of “economic development” exclusions for corporate relocation), and flattening of income taxes. Ordinary folks are bearing more of the burden than in 1949. And they are very upset, as we are, by the way the Wall Street and auto industry bailouts were handled, and are still rightly concerned that neither will result in the reform of those industries needed to actually help the economy and restore jobs. And they don’t yet realize that a lot of this happened because of the Republican seduction of them with “tax cuts” and “cutting spending”.
A perfect opportunity for Democrats to be populist.
john emerson has been writing about his over at openleft. problem is the democratic party establishment (and the people influenced by them) HATE populism (the real thing, not the faux kind they can control). you might be interested in reading a couple of his posts:
http://www.openleft.com/diary/15579/what-is-populism-part-ii
http://www.openleft.com/diary/15774/h-l-mencken-cultural-elitism-and-the-democratic-party
Actually I think it is a great moment for progressives to go populist. We really need to choose good progressive populist candidates, primary incumbents in the Democratic party (since it is easier to run as a Democrat than a third party candidate because of the way the election process is set up to discourage third parties), and use this as a way to elect real progressives who will stand for, fight for, and not compromise (pre- or post-) for progressive and populist ideals.
oh, i’m all for a bottom up, grassroots, progressive populist movement. i just don’t want it to have ANYTHING to do with deecee dems, media personalities, etc. we can amplify the message of grassroots efforts on the blogs, but national blogs are not bottom up grassroots organizations.
howie has been doing great work in identifying candidates, and i hope he continues in that effort. but it doesn’t work as you describe. candidates can run as progressive populists, but usually don’t stay that way after they get to deecee. people are not unchanging and fixed. systems matter. situational effects matter. and so long as the system remains so profoundly toxic, a few better candidates are not going to change that (which is not to say we shouldn’t do all we can on the candidate front — it is necessary work, but it is nowhere near sufficient).
You know you are sounding like starting the kind of purge the Republicans are in the throes of. Do you really want to go there?
I figure we can try to purge the Democrats or run third party. Neither of which would be easy. It is probably best for us politically if we split up a bit and do both. Some progressives should try to reform the Democrats and some should strike out on their own.
When the Democrat, Republican and Independent candidates in a race are all vying to see who is the most progressive, then we will start to get somewhere legislatively.
Yes, the Democratic establishment like all establishments hate populism. But they either hold their nose and jump altogether or some other party picks up a populist base. In the 1930s, the Democratic establishment hated Labor (and successfully suppressed the labor movement in the textile South). But by the end of that period, Labor was a key ally outside the South.
What they are suppressing now is marijuana freedom. It is iconic.
There is a tremendous amount of political energy available to anyone who promises to improve the economy and reduce crime by legalizing pot.
It is a key political issue because it so galvanizes not only the far, far right and corrupt interests against it, it also inspires young people and minorities for it. It is like what abortion does for the right except for on the left.
Great pick up Selise. Yes that stubborn elitism is the Achilles’ heel. And it fuels a simmering, sometimes boiling, resentment among ordinary folk. It was FDR’s capacity to lay that down that united the country at a time of similar pain and anxieties.
I know that, that is why we have to just start a new party.
I agree with just about all you say…. Certainly about needing to get out of the red state more!
However the conventional wisdom, “village chatter.” I am referring to is in the AJC., New York Times, WaPo, NPR etc. Also I have watched great swaths of moderate to liberal constituencies gradually shifting further and further right. Personally I think as you suggest it is by moving the arena for much of the discourse into money and money getting.
I also agree there is a vibrant progressive community of younger folks after being activated by the Obama campaign, who are ready to sustain that enthusiasm and activism…. if the Jello kneed Democratic leadership will do it.
this is a great topic for discussion and one i’ve been wrestling with as i try to get off the fence regarding the health insurance reform bill coming out of congress.
for four reasons, one directly related to this post, i’ve come down on the side of “kill the bill.”
first, this congress and this administration has show themselves to be wholly incapable of producing something other than a corporate boondoggle. stripping the kucinich amendment is about as pure an piece of evidence of that fact as i can imagine. universal healthcare is not their goal and i was wrong to think it might be.
second, the same can not be said of the states. there are many states with single payer citizen movements and legislation in the pipeline. perhaps states, will come up with other solutions. let them experiment. t.r. made an excellent statement on this point recently — the youtube clip is in djfourmoney’s diary and i highly recommend everyone give it a listen. “washington is not going to get this done,” “i’ll bet you next january there will be bills in 25 state legislatures,” “let’s have the policy laboratory,”"my guess is that we will get there state by state,” “demonstration effect.”
third, some of our problems require federal action and some can be left to the states. whereas healthcare is probably better left to the states, a massive jobs program can not be — because unlike healthcare it will take massive deficit spending (the bigger, the better imo) to get the job done. i don’t know if the fed gov is up to the task (see letsgetitdone’s latest diary on deficit hawkism), but we have no other options for this one. so, given the number and severity of our problems — i think it makes sense to ask the fed gov to focus on the ones that can’t be done elsewhere. take healthcare off their plate.
fourth, 57 members of the cpc pledged to vote against this bill (it does not meet the criteria of their july 30 letter) and jane helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in support of them for that promise. i don’t think any of the pledge criteria were very meaningful, but there’s the matter of what little progressive credibility may remain — theirs and ours. we have to support any signers who live up to their pledge to vote against the bill, and we have to hold accountable those who do not.
…..
getting back to the other economic issues. in addition to the need for a massive jobs program (which btw, should come with full coverage healthcare benefits), there are other pressing issues which you mention: financial regulation, climate and a plan for economic restructuring going forward (no return to normal).
the only other point i want to make, besides the need for the fed to focus on the things no one else can do, is that we can not depend on the democratic party or think tanks associated with them to come up with policy solutions that will work. this leaves a really really big void (for example, the little i’ve read of the recent economic thinking coming from dems, looks profoundly and stupidly flawed). this is where i think we come in…. there are a lot of good ideas out there — ones that have been proposed by real experts (single payer by pnhp, carbon tax and dividend by hansen, and a lot more). maybe we can work on identifying the best of them, giving a platform to their experts and helping to explain the issues and solutions to a wider audience? it’s just an idea, and it would require educating ourselves, but it’s one i think we can do — and one i don’t see being done by anyone else. real solutions to real problems (instead of the corporate bailouts that have been focus tested and polled to see what the politicians can sell we are now getting from deecee).
Great comment selise. I think a forum for ideas about the economy and jobs is terrific.
i will say this that may shock some but shouldn’t
most businesses are own by republicans. even if they could and needed to would they hire people?
or did they get the memo i heard during the campaign that if obama is elected then they wont hire anyone?
they couldn’t be that scornful and calculating. could they?
Of course they could, and it’s not that shocking. It’s what’s known as a capital strike, and was made infinitely easier by the Republicans’ program of Globalization – which allows capital to be moved to another country much more easily. Those programs have never benefited anybody but the ultra-rich, and never will.
Republican program? No – that was a truly bipartisan effort.
Absolutely.
It looked to me like big business interests did a bunch of deliberate layoffs just to crash the economy. I had never seen anything like it before.
I have read about such actions before. The tulip craze is instructional economic history when it comes to unfettered markets and their resulting cycles of crashes.
Krugman just nails it
I would like to put additional figures up but I cannot find them. My understanding is that the “part-time work by those over 65″ group has reached record levels of part-time employment. And that those working over the age of 70 is at an all time high.
Let’s fire up the draft, take women an quit pussyfootin around in Afghanistan!
You have to like a man with a plan.
Now, to augment your plan, we should consider drafting seniors.
Just consider the savings for Social Security and Medicare.
Baby, that makes me a twofer!
Hell, why are we letting our kids get fatter and fatter when we could be sending ‘em to basic training…gets ‘em good exercise, and out in the fresh air. ;)
I wake up every morning wondering what would have happened if Obama had not squandered his narrow window of opportunity to move us forcefully in the direction of a New-New-New-Deal where America takes care of its sick, provides a fair environment for employment, protects its manufacturing base, supplies the needed subsidies to educate everyone including the middle class and the poor, sets out a bold course toward green energy independence, restores the rule of law where the rich are held responsible just as the poor and middle class are, that re-institutes and updates the regulations on the financial industry, that forces lenders into usury limitations and fair financing regulations, that takes significant strides to reverse the ill-effects of global warming, that pushes back against the military-industrial complex’s continuous war economy and puts Americans back to work for the government doing useful things just like was done by the CCC and the WPA. All of this was URGENTLY needed yet Obama was less in a rush, I think because he didn’t understand that opportunities like the one we had in January are rare and fleeting. He may also have not realized what form change had to take for it to be believed in. He has not shown that he is up to the task and now his opportunity may have been frittered away while he goofed off picking a dog and chumming around with Goldman-Sachs. I can agree that jobs should be the priority, but unless the government makes jobs right now there will not be a significant turn-around in unemployment by the 2010 elections and the Democrats will suffer. But they won’t suffer nearly as much as most Americans, who will have voted for a party that squandered the best opportunity since the Depression to make significant changes to the quality of life in this Country and in the rest of the World. That will be a lasting and nightmarish legacy for the once proud Obama Movement, of which I used to belong.
What are you? A socialist?
Is that what I described? Shucks, I’ve been a socialist all my life and I just didn’t realize it. I hope my evangelist Christian relatives don’t hear about it, they’ll slap me down and put the curse of the Anti-Christ on me! Oh yeh, Christ talked a good socialist game too and look what happened to him. Don’t tell anybody, I don’t want the IRS looking into it.
Oh, for crying out loud. All this time, I thought “the hill” meant capitol hill, not Golgotha. /s
barbara,
I was hoping for a more positive association, perhaps the Mount in Galilee.
Blessed are the half-step-backers who weigh all the data for they shall be called peacemakers (or rabble-rousers) amongst the faithful.
(brother in hospital again, so I’m more cranky than usual.)
Sorry to hear that barbara,
A lot of people don’t realize how hard it is to slog through hospitalized illnesses of loved ones. It seems that it never ends and there is always some new situation to contend with. Hopefully you have others for support.
Thanks. I do have some support. My brother has mental retardation, so his default place is vulnerable, and illness only serves to ramp that up. We are blessed in MN with some exceptional medical care options, at least when providers accept Medicare and Medical Assistance (as is my brother’s case). Always a learning experience.
This is a huge, lurking, unacknowledged problem [the inability, even when covered by Medicare, to find someone who will accept it as payment].
you be as cranky as you need to be. we’ll understand.
(((barbara)))
(((selise)))
Welcome to the club.
send them to my page, why I hate socialism, see what they say
Great Read! It never ceases to amaze me how many words some people can hide behind so they don’t have to admit that they just like being selfish pigs. You know, the fire department is a direct threat to the American Way of Life.
A gree with you BUT
Big chunks of the adminsitration still have not been confirmed.obama is trying to run his government w/o key people, lots of them, in place.
Hard to move fast when you don’t have the peeps to do the work
Unfortunately, the ones he has put in place are from Goldman-Sachs. But please don’t let Obama skip out on this with this type of excuse. He can turn anything around with a speech, or at least he could until his base realized the change he was talking about was only spare.
This just restates the problem in a different form. Why didn’t Obama have a complete team ready to go from day one? Roosevelt did. Why hasn’t he made it a priority to get them confirmed? Why has he tolerated Republican obstruction on the few nominations he has sent up? The country needs action. What you are saying is that Obama is even further behind the curve than most think he is. I agree.
Oh, Hugh, I’m with you there brother.
I totally think the failure to get his team in place right off the bat, is the root cause or a contributing cause to many of the other problems.
Isn’t gettinghte team in place Rahm’s job? Wasn’t Rahm made Chief of Staff becauuse Rahm was supposed othave so much juice onthe Hill and know how to get things done onCongress?
Where is the performance by the Chief of Staff?
Someone asked the other day what was the difference between Obama’s effective campaign and Obama’s somewhat effective administration?
The answer: Rahm.
We should feed what we don’t like about him to FOX righties in such a way that they will bite on the story. Rahm will be fired if enough people start to complain about him from the left AND the right.
Yeah but he is still better at the job than anybody else would be. Could you do it? I know I couldn’t. The corporatists are throwing everything they have at him and he is only human.
I think a lot of us can do a better job than he’s doing. No need to put him on a pedestal.
Wow, cb, you are so right on.
I posted this in a thread above, but it’s equally applicable here:
bgrothus @ 21
I totally agree, as you can see.
The weatherization rebates need to be higher. If it was set at $3000, we could take care of tightening our home. $1500 has not gone very far in motivating us.
I’m game and while we are doing it, since the banksters like to move to the head of the line, can we reserve space at the front of the line for them.
Why not just have a training program so everyone can work on Wall Street? Let the Europeans, Chinese, Brazilians, and Japanese do all the manufacturing and Americans can shuffle paper. Europe and China are leading the way in green technology already.
The EU has bumped up their timeline on being fully reliable on renewable energy. They are bumping from 2021 to 2012. Absolutely amazing and will make the EU quite competitive internationally. Where are we?
Nowhere close.
Obama team = Herbert Hoover Redux. Not good news.
By 2012 with the U.S. economy stagnating if not sliding backwards there is a real possibility that Obama will face a serious primary challenge.
Did anyone hear the McClatchy reporter on Democracy Now talk about the insider trading that GS was involved with in at least 2006 and beyond the other day? I’m afraid that bailing out the banks was a costly gamble that will be the ultimate undoing of the administration and congress.
Honestly, I do think that something had to be done, but without any caveats or regulation, our “investment” in saving the banks is hard to swallow with each job lost in the mean time.
The bank bailout without a concomitant jobs program is a real bummer. Where is the money going to come from with all the bankster money tied up in bonuses and such.
Haven’t you heard? Erin Burnett assures us the wealthy have much money and we can all count on them to be big Christmas spenders and that’ll create jobs.
*wink* *wink*
There needs to be a tax on stock transactions. I can go to the store and buy a loaf of bread and pay tax but I can go to a broker, buy a bakery, pay no tax then go to the bakery and get my bread for free.
My point of view is greatly affected by my own experience. New feedback I get is that I am not hireable because I have not had paid employment for too long. So my panic is real to me. I do not presume to read the Republican mind. I do read anything that is tagged “Poverty” and “Jobs” and “Economy”. And I do love my brothers and sisters at FDL.
(((TomThumb)))
your dilemma is a common one. when a jobs program (a la warren mosler) was instituted in argentina, they found that many of the participants moved to the private labor market pretty quickly. and it was because just as you describe, people like to hire people who are currently working. makes sense on the micro scale, killer on the macro.
imo, we need a massive national jobs program, with health benefits, yesterday.
(((TomThumb)))
would you consider telling your story in-depth as a diary? It just might help people who lurk here to understand reality.
Thank you for sharing. You are in my thoughts
There is a war going on within and it has been for many years. The elites and corporatists have taken over all three branches of government and until there is marches in the streets by everyone who is getting screwed, which is everyone but the elites, there will be no ‘change’ that Obama promised. Obama and Rahambo and their crowd are failures for everyone but the corporatists and elites. This ‘war’ is just not widespread, it is all inclusive. Fighting a fight like healthcare is nothing more than playing ‘whack-a-mole’ as it is with every other fight going on. The big war needs to be fought by taking on the system. It takes a lot of energy to fight these individual issues and while those are being fought we are losing on all the other fronts. Just one person’s opinion.
Part of the problem is that people like Rush, Bachman, Palin etc. are jumping to the fore and channeling much of the anger towards things like taxes, freedom, and other BS.
And exposing what frauds most of the media is while they are at it.
i agree we’re not going to get far if we aren’t willing to fight corporate power. so long as we pre-concede to their demands, real solutions will be beyond our grasp. my 2 cents.
Corporate power is very focused on a singular goal. They want to make us into their slaves. One by one, they strip us of all of our rights.
Not too long ago I heard one of the FOX bimbos mention people didn’t complain about losing their privacy. Just as breezy as can be.
I know what they are doing. When she said that, she laid it in the public record. I complained of course, but FOX ownership is not into hearing me or honoring my complaints. FOX ownership is interested in owning slaves. Lots and lots of slaves.
I don’t see why you think marching in the streets is going to get us anything.
I guess the real question is “Is our Democrats learning?” WHAT are they learning? Cynicism has its value, but we seriously need some kind of jobs. I am afraid that manufacturing, like journalism in our country, can’t make the global the shift right now. We have seen the best days of our country. What can now be done?
you have hit the nail on the head scarecrow, (as you always do)
I have said from long before Obama took office, that all we need is a help wanted sign
this administration has the nerve of taking advise from the people who caused the problem, people who cannot possibly solve the problem since they either believe their “economic philosophy” is not wrong or they know it’s wrong but they can steal with it
this president got just about everything wrong, he gave free money to the banks, he did not put back the regulations that once prevented these problems, he did not set aside a fund for lending, rather he left it to the criminals to either lend or steal, the chose stealing
and he is relying on “the private sector” to create jobs with public money
can you believe that?
and he doesn’t even say those jobs need to be living wage or union jobs, he just says, “here’s some money, please hire someone so I don’t look bad
I am not happy with what this man thinks is “stimulus”, I am not happy with his taking my kids money and giving it to the wealthiest people on the planet and in general, I believe he is far less equipped, far less capable, far more corruptible then I ever imagined
I think, Perris, that there are many who agree with you.
I sure do.
First of all {{{Applause}}}
Note that very few of the domestic policy appropriation bills have been passed by both houses. Appropriate amendments to those bills could implant a second stimulus program. This will require armtwisting the “Go Home” crowd. Making the tax code even more progressive, indexing tax brackets, and closing more loopholes could undercut the pearl-clutching deficit worriers and expose them for what they are — business tools.
The Democratic Party in Congress better recover their populist instincts in a hurry. If the Republican Party convince folks that they are the populist party, you can see from the rally yesterday what the policies will be.
And Cynthia is right about the holdup in confirmations. The Democrats are just going to have to kick Joe Lieberman in the butt and move those confirmations through.
Is Harry Reid beginning to see his great peril? Can he communicate that to the Go Homers so that they see that they are the ones most at risk from doing nothing? And what about Max? Tune in tomorrow for another episode of All My Congressmen/Congresswomen.
The Democrats need to do more than kick Joe in the butt. They need to get rid of the filibuster Here’s a post talking about the relationship of the filibuster to the first stimulus bill.
I kind of view this differently. We are coming out of the greatest global depression ever. The job losses have gotten less and less each month.
January and September are usually the best time to find a job.
As said most of the stimulus money has not been spent yet.
I predict that we will finally add jobs in the February 2010 report.
Since late 2007 this is the best job report we have received.
We are moving in the right direction.
I fear you will be marched to the hill for this opinion, with which I tend to agree (she said carefully).
that’s because there are fewere and fewer jobs to lose not because of some kind of effective strategy
the president did everything wrong, first he rewarded the theifs who caused the problem by giving them more money and the keys to the store
then he did not reinstitute the regulations absolutely neeeded
then he did not put money aside for small business loans, instead he gave away money and said “please use it to loan but if you want, take vacation with it
then he did not get any help wanted signs out at all
this is NOT the right direcetion by any measure
Sorry. Best Job report since August 2008.
no. we are still moving the wrong direction but less quickly.
and unfortunately none of the underlying problems have been addressed.
Some people see the slowing of the decline as signs of Obama’s transformational awesomeness. The fact remains, however, the trends are still going in the wrong direction, for most people, but of course not for the elites.
Most economists are projecting unemployment to remain at or above 10% through most of next year, and possible beyond. That’s simply unacceptable. The stimulus impact is already aborbed by people adjusting to the current level of payments — See Dean Baker on why the fact much of it hasn’t been spent yet does not change it’s effect.
Krugman and others have noted that in order to start reversing the employment levels in any meaningful way, GDP growth means to be twice a large as the 3.5% bump last quarter, be sustained at higher levels for a couple years or more, and even then unemployment only gradually comes down. We need another stimulus.
Sure, we may add a few jobs by February, but not enough and we’re 10 million jobs behind — that’s the problem that needs to be addressed, and now, not later.
And just to remind folks. In addition to jobs which need to be createdfor those lost, we also need to create jobs for natural increases in the population. Since the recession began in December 2007 through October these came to 2,760,000 (120,000 a month). Again this is over and above jobs lost.
It is amazing to me that so much needs to be done in this country and yet we have such a knee-jerk reaction to organizing a civilian work force to get things done. The most efficient strategy for getting jobs is to let the government make them. Its the same principle as not letting the insurance companies suck off the health care dollars when they could be better spent on patients. Stimulus money already violates the Free Market theory, so why all the pretense? It is unfortunate that Obama-Rahma is so enmeshed in normative thinking about the economy in this country that they don’t yet realize that their very political survival hinges on creating a lot of jobs quickly enough to have the general population feel it. We know one thing, Wall Street is intent on keeping financing to small businesses as low as possible to stifle job growth precisely so that the cataclysm you portend will come true in 2010. Obama needs to wake up, smell the coffee and figure out who his friends and, just as importantly, his enemies are. He has apparently not been able to differentiate and now I think he has a growing enemies list as a consequence.
Might I suggest looking closely at this statement that you made, and then apply it to yourself regarding your characterization that somehow Obama is either exceptionally inept, or exceptionally naive; either of which would be required for him to have this purported awakening. Then ask yourself why you put any faith at all in the leadership of a person so astoundingly inept, or naive? Then ask yourself, “Is he really inept and naive, or should I take my own advice and realize who my friends and enemies really are?”
I never ceased to be amazed at the undertones of apologetics for Obama’s failures, by ascribing to him constant benefit of the doubt based on no pretext for doing so. The flip side to almost every narrative (he’s helpless to do anything, he’s a consensus builder, etc. etc.) is that, if true…
Obama is either an idiot or a scoundrel. Feel free to choose.
Time will tell, and very soon, grasshopper. I am not really an Obamaite, though. I have been a constant critic of his ever since his FISA vote, with a small moment of hope right after the election. When he bailed out the banksters and put no obstacle of regulation in their way I resumed my diatribes and have shot into a tail-spin of constant criticism since. But you are right about one thing, I am perplexed about how transparently pro-corporatist his policies have been, but I cannot bring myself to believe that he is that sinister. I think he is well intentioned, but he is out of his league because he is unaware of how urgently massive change is needed. He thinks he can skip along 7 more years incrementally shifting toward the New Deal or something like it. I think his alignment with corporations is a function of his fear that they will bring the country down if they don’t get their way. Ultimately, though, you and I are on the same side. We want action and we want it now. If we don’t get it Obama and the Democrats will pay dearly. I don’t really care if I have to shoot off my foot to spite my nose if the foot is spiting me anyway. I get tired of his apologists as well.
Obama is either an idiot or a scoundrel. Feel free to choose.
Good one.
I think shorter still and you have a good catchphrase,
I think it is progressives who can never see their real enemies — including Obama himself.
Totally agreed. Iran for #1. Chavez for #2. Putin for #3. I would hope Obama can recognize those are the people working very hard to hamstring us, weaken us and generally make sure nothing the US favors advances. Quit fighting other people in this country.
He’s great at slapping down Fox News, but when is he going to stand up to anyone with real power?
Maybe the people could figure out a way to increase employment without going through big business.
What about small businesses and starting new ones. What if we did a micro loans business training program and put people back to work within their own communities by them hiring each other and such. Is it possible?
I think that’s very practical. Big Business won’t create jobs here anyway. They’ll do that in China.
Reich’s “Net Job Creation Tax Credit” idea has merit.
The job losses are getting less and less because there are only so many people you can let go before you just have to close doors.
There are so many problems out there it is impossible to address each one of them. The rethugs that you mention and the rest of them have an agenda that is inconsistent with good governance or helping the masses. They, like the elites, are after the $$$ and anything that benefits them personally. They could care less about their fellow citizens, no matter what the party affilation is.
The paradigms that all economists use are wrong. It starts with the purpose of an economy. There will be no significant improvement until the paradigms are thrown out.
Krugman has focused on infrastructure from the standpoint of renewable energy. I think that is great economic purpose.
Me too. How can we do it in the communities that need the jobs without waiting for Congress to act?
Could we develop a new local non-profit banking system and beg some overly rich dudes to back it up with donations and then do micro loans to locals to pay for retrofitting? If we could rebuild our communities without big business’ help, imagine how empowering that would be politically.
That is why I try to get people to think about things in a girl scout way. There is an economic model that is not based on greed. But not only do we have to dig it out and polish it up, we also have to train it to several million people.
The current health reform bills fall far short of affordable, universal coverage. But it’s illogical and just plain nuts to join the crazies on the Capitol steps and start chanting “kill the bill.” If there were a scenario in which putting it aside, and waiting another year or two and we would get everything that needs to be done, that risk would be worth considering; but there is zero evidence that such a scenario is even remotely plausible.
We should push for as much as we can get now — improve the House bill as much as possible — then pass it. Not doing so would be incredibly irresponsible. If political conditions improve that allow its defects to be closed, fine, but you don’t sit on your hands waiting for perfect conditions.
that’s not the point. this congress and administration have proven that healthcare is not their priority, corporate welfare is. a bill that blocks good efforts that are now in the works at the state level is worse than nothing.
just my 2 cents and understand that your mileage may vary, but wanted to be clear that i’m not assuming anything about this administration’s ability or even desire to do a better bill in a year or two.
Me neither. On the other hand, if this bill is killed by progressives, they’ll be required to take hcr up again early next year, and to produce a better bill.
I profoundly disagree with this. At this point, it is largely irrelevant if a bill passes or not. Even if passed, it will not work. We already know this. But depression is an increasingly likely event for 2011. That and the threat of civil unrest will do more than anything done or said so far to create meaningful universal healthcare.
If that scenario occurs, then I’d agree no health care strategy may be relevant, although some of the measures that strengthen the safety net would be needed (e.g., expanding Medicaid to 150% of FPL). If it doesn’t, then I stand by what I said.
I don’t think it’s irrelevant. If passed, this bill will serve as an excuse not to do anything more about health care reform. This excuse won’t be effective against a depression, but it will be against anything less serious than that. Since the bill condemns roughly 31,000 Americans to death due to lack of insurance for the next 3.5 years or so. It is an immoral bill that must not be allowed to pass.
As you know there’s a lengthy discussion on this very point here. And from my point of view your argument, repeated here, didn’t carry the day. Regardless, it’s certainly an appropriate supplement to the statement you just made.-:)
Oh, btw, You’re certainly “normative” in this post.
I assume your use of “normative” has something to do with a reply I made about the Obama-Rahma economic “plan.” Anyway, its a good word that I dredged up from my anthropology training where it was used to characterize the old approach to method and theory that was rapidly being replaced by a new paradigm. Anyway, it appears you have picked it up to nudge Scarecrow on the inevitable cave on HCR that all of the progressives in congress and about half of FDL is going to take in the next two weeks. It would seem that Obama and the Blue Dogs need HCR more than the progressives do to get re-elected. What I don’t understand is why that fact should not be immediately known to the progressives? Clearly this is their opportunity to shove a real PO down the throats of the corporatist Democrats, but, as usual, they would rather cave than fight. HCR reform in its present form is a sad statement on the level of corruption that is allowed to go unfettered in this Country.
Thanks for the comment cbsunglass.
My use of the term normative was intended to highlight a tendency I think I’ve seen in Scarecrow’s diaries on health care. He and I had a discussion about this issue and others here. One of my interests is value theory so I’m very alive to the distinction between the normative and the descriptive.
On this comment:
I very strongly agree and have been making that point for quite some time now, in most detail probably in this diary. I’m really amazed at the lack of nerve shown by the progressives. With 87 people progressive enough to co-sponsor HR 676, the enhanced Medicare for All bill, they should have had the rest of the caucus over a barrel. Instead, they’re afraid of getting blamed if there’s no bill at all.
So the people who sent money to progressives to get them to promise to vote down any bill without a robust public option — including Jane Hamsher — were all “just plain nuts”?
So true.
We progressives keep fantasizing that Obama has lost his way and the man we voted for is naive or incompetent and this is why he has been such a dissapointment. We might have to accept the fact that Obama is just another corrupt politician who gives pretty speeches but fleeces everyone he comes into contact with. In every incidence his decisions have benefited the rich and the powerful over the small and disadvantaged. He has turned his back on small businesses and still allows big businesses to take government contracts designed solely for small businesses,he made a promise to end this practice while campaigning but his promises as we have seen dont mean jck sht. He took the side of the government and telecompanies over the citizens with his FISA vote, again something he promised not to do while campaigning. He got caught making backroom deals with big pharma and the insurance companies and promised big pharma no competition or demands from the government to lower its prices, again something he promised not to do while campaigning. He has given billions of dollars to Wall Street but he negotiated away 200 billion dollars in infrastructure (jobs) funding in the stimulus package in order to get 3 republican votes. His administration just recently pushed to have small cap publicly traded companies exempted from Sarbanes Oxley despite numerous pleas from small investors and community groups not to. His track record is obvious, he isnt some poor guy that needs to toughen up he is a corrupt and dishonest politician that will always side with the powerful against the people.
That is another nightmare I have, and all of the evidence points to the validity of your conclusion. The only caveat I have is this: if he is a dishonest politician, he’s still a politician, and while he is flailing about because he can’t find a formula for winning again it is possible that he will run into the road map of the New Deal and see that it can work for him. As we know, most of congress and the supreme court are wholly bought subsidiaries of the Corporate States of Amerika. Obama will have to become the change we seek if we ever want to turn the country around. Unless, of course, everything collapses and we storm the Bastille, which I am not opposed to do.
There are days when only being called disingenuous is a good day. However, the headline is admittedly “rhetorical.”
As the Stranger observed in the Big Lebowski: “Well, a wiser fellow than myself once said, sometimes you eat the bear And much obliged, sometimes the bear well, he eats you.” Thanks for all the work and thought you put into FDL daily.
OT
I’ve need to get this out of my system…
I do not like Amy Walter’s journalistic approach.
Jane has a new post up…
11/6/09
The headline here seems a little disingenuous. Of course there is an economic team and they are the best money can buy. And jobs, yes there are jobs. Looks like another 40,000 needed to kill or be killed for nothing in a place nobody cares about and then of course we need more laborers to carry the bags of cash over to the banksters on Wall Street.
So yes there is a jobs program and it appears to be working out just fine.
Thank you,
Conrad C. Elledge
thanks scarecrow for a great thread. lots of food for thought…..
In Europe? Mexico? Canada?
If I recall correctly, some stimulus money was sent to other countries, so their workers would have jobs? Trouble is, in countries such as France and UK and Canada, if they don’t have a job, they still have access to healthcare.
We don’t even have that.
But I’m a “protectionist”…what do I know.
so now the dems are split into three main camps, liberal, right wingers and not-liberals-but not-quite-right-wingers-totally. 2010 will be a disaster for dems. just shows how worthless(for working people) are American political parties, and how good at dividing and conquering the american people,are the corporate class. a year ago the real issues were becoming clear; there was hope for class war, but now they’ve suceeded in muddying the water again and nothing’s clear. too bad that when we needed a revolutionary, we got a hack who thought we wanted bill clinton back.
This was quite predictable when the phony stimulus plan passed. It was not well thought out. It was more or less a giant earmark bill. I don’t have a problem with getting some stimulus out there, but there was only a bill to cram as much spending as possible into one bill regardless of the stimulus effect or no effect.
Aside from that, the real source of the big down turn was the failure to pass the bank bailout last September the first time. The atmosphere before that first failure was that we had troubles, but they were solvable. No one was wigging out. Then, the HOuse didn’t pass it the first time, the stock market dumped 700 points and the atmosphere changed dramatically. It didn’t matter that it eventually passed. The die was cast. At that point, it was everyman for himself. Companies dumped people as quick as they could anticipating a huge downdraft. Financial crisis turned to coming depression and people and companies acted accordingly.
Calm has now returned, and I expect employment will begin to rise next year and at least we won’t see any further big layoffs.
At first glance, I thought the post meant Matt Yglesias wrote the three straw man choices. I was surprised, it seemed more like something he would pick apart. I was relieved when I reread the post and clicked on the links. Matt Yglesias did not write that.
A substantial jobs program would be the best thing for the economy, and would even help a bit with some of the issues surrounding health care, e.g., additional jobs might come with a health care benefit, and anything that shores up the tax base is certainly to the good.
Obama is going to give a speech & solve unemployment.But then look for him to then quietly cave on what he champion in the speech.
You could go HUGE on green infrastructure, to the immense benefit of your nation and the world. Sigh. The idea of America ever being a leader in anything but killing people is just a dream.
He has an economic team of idiots. They don’t know how to create jobs, because they learned economics from books. Books teach therory and figures, not how to create anything.
On top of that many of them were part of the problem.
I tried deperately to get some advise to HIM, but you can’t get passed these guy’s.
So what YOU got, IS WHAT YOU GET.