Job Growth
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-06-13/job-growth
Candidates vying to be the Republican presidential nominee for 2012 square off tonight in a debate in New Hampshire. They’ll cover a wide range of topics, but for many voters the economy remains the key issue. Last week the stock market took another plunge, the sixth consecutive week of decline, and in many parts of the country the number of people looking for work remains alarmingly high. There are some relatively bright spots: Texas, for instance, leads the country in the net number of new jobs created over the last two years. A look at the kinds of jobs being created today, where and why.
Guests
Richard Fisher
president, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
Mark Zandi
chief economist of Moody's Analytics and author of "Financial Shock" and the forthcoming book, "Paying the Price."
Jim Tankersley
reporter, National Journal
Susan Lund
director of research, McKinsey Global Institute
Comments
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thrashertm on June 13, 2011 @ 1:16 pm wrote: "It completely baffles me why Diane and NPR keep going back to Mark Zandi for his commentary. He was part of the same economist establishment that completely missed the financial crisis; they promoted all of the policies that caused the bubble."
Well said! Let's not forget that Moody's was busy giving its highest ratings to those credit default swaps, derivatives, and other "innovative financial products" that did so much to create our current wonderful economy!
(And to meangreen and monte: I'm sure the "experts" at Moody's had plenty of "real world" business experience!)
Etaoin Shrdlu's ideology is that he'd hardly change a thing about the United States except to make it "more so". This kind of blind patriotism so common to immigrants is very close to classic conservatism, the type now purged from the Republican Party and taking hold with the O-ministration and the Democratic party. Shrdlu may not understand that his positions are a form of rhetoric alone with no content. How can faith in the system have meaning in a condition of Oligarchy?
The immature nihilists he also criticizes, as typified today by monte, are obviously of a 20 to 30ish generation brainwashed in corporatist economics, and who expect their irrationality and cruelty to be rewarded with oligarchic recognition. Some may even be paid. Some may be computer generated figments.
I really wonder how most people have the time to post here unless they are idled, for whatever reasons. I'm staying in because the heat kills me as I'm a fair and soft middleaged woman with fragile health. I could do a few farm things if this scorching would break. I'll go out in my straw hat and pick some squashes now before they bake.
I'm not your enemy Etaoin. I'm trying to warn people we have no viable political choices before us. Obama is offering to cut taxes and deregulate, do degrading trade deals for corporate advantage right here in NC today. He knows it is a lie, but he says it. You couldn't squeeze a piece of paper between the pro-corporate positions of Obama and Romney. They are twins. (I mostly mean the environment when I say deregulate.)
There are two reasons Texas is doing better than other states in job creation.
First, unlike most of the other states, Texas law did not permit a speculative real estate bubble. Therefore, the Texas economy is not suffering the drag on growth from the bursting of the real estate bubble.
Second, Texas is a gas and oil region, and is benefiting from that growing area.
The so called "business friendly" policies (low taxes, light regulation, etc.) in Texas play only a minor role. There are many states that have similar "business friendly" environments, but still have poor economies and poor job creation.
Also, Pennsylvania and New York, two states with relatively high taxes and heavier regulation, are 2d and 3d in job creation.
So the low tax and light regulation policies in Texas cannot be the factors driving the current Texas economy and record on job creation.
--Carlos
North Bergen, NJ
All this show did is increase my distaste for people who try to predict the future, especially economists!
According to the guests, Texas has no income tax, so that helps explain it's "economic miracle".
But, according to those same guests, New York (with a fairly high income tax) not only had second best job growth but also (unlike Texas) is enjoying a boom in state revenue (contrary to what "voodoo economics" proclaims should happen).
Or, look at the following facts from the conservative Tax Foundation:
New York's State and Local tax burden is second-highest in the nation, its 2011 business tax climate ranked 50th (dead last), and its property taxes ranks 5th highest. (http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/topic/46.html)
Texas' State and Local tax burden is among the nation's lowest (45th nationally), while its business tax climate ranks 13th (way higher than New York’s), it has no personal or corporate income tax, and its property tax ranks 13th highest (lower than New York’s). (http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/topic/60.html)
Yet, once again, New York ranks second in job growth! I’d say something else is involved than just differences in tax rates, government spending, or political philosophy. But unlike the “experts”, I don’t pretend to know what it is!
I think the clinker in the New York stew may be NYC.There has been some job growth around the Metropolitan region. It's still depressed in the rust belt.
You're doing a heck of a job Etaoin.
I agree too about Diane's thin address book. Why call back Mark Zandi/ And others of similar elite financial connection?
This does not imply I dislike Diane, but I do have suspicions about her staff and home station.
Pancake Rankin on June 13, 2011 @ 2:30 pm wrote: “Etaoin Shrdlu's ideology is that he'd hardly change a thing about the United States except to make it ‘more so’. This kind of blind patriotism so common to immigrants is very close to classic conservatism, . . . . I'm not your enemy Etaoin. . . . Obama is offering to cut taxes and deregulate, do degrading trade deals for corporate advantage right here in NC today. . . .”
PART ONE
You do share traits with monte and meangreen, the most appalling is your need to create a “straw man” to knock down by “putting words in my mouth”. Furthermore, you continue your practice of making statements that are contrary to fact (another trait you share with them), and the fact that your writings are the product of pure ideology is apparent. You are simply their mirror image.
When did I say I’d “hardly change a thing”? I recall no such statement.
“Blind patriotism”? Remind me when I started shouting: “USA, USA, USA!”
“so common to immigrants” - I’m a third generation American, thank you, and I even have my short-form New York State “Certificate of Birth Registration” to prove it. (Just don’t tell Orley Taitz or “the Don”. I might go insane and run for President some day, and they’d claim I’m a Kenyan!)
As for what Obama is offering, please provide some proof for your assertions. Last time I checked he wanted to increase taxes last December, but the Republi-Cons filibustered and stopped him. Deregulation? You mean like the new consumer finance regulatory agency he created, or the crackdown on the Wall Street behavior that helped to create our current mess?
Funny, you see him as an ardent capitalist, monte and company call him a Socialist (and sometimes a Communist). What’s wrong with that picture?
TO BE CONTINUED
PART TWO
I am not a mindless supporter of Obama. As far as I’m concerned he’s on “probation”, because while there are some things he’s done I approve of, there are other things I disapprove of. However, the chances of his being primaried are slim to none, and the chances of the Republ-Cons offering someone better (barring a miracle) are zero, so we may be stuck with him.
(For me the most important issue is the Supreme Court. Care to gamble on who a President Romney, Pawlenty, Palin, Cain, Paul, etc., will chose to replace Kennedy or Ginsburg - two likely vacancies in the next six years? I’m not!)
No, you are not “my enemy”, and neither are monte, meangreen, hainc, or cicero. My enemy is the mindless partisanship and ideology that infects too much of the “political debate”, and which has clearly infected you!
Carlos998 on June 13, 2011 @ 2:31 pm wrote: “. . . unlike most of the other states, Texas law did not permit a speculative real estate bubble. Therefore, the Texas economy is not suffering the drag on growth from the bursting of the real estate bubble.”
Sir, you anticipated a comment I was going to make, so let me just say: Amen! (To your whole comment, not just the part I quoted.)
As for that quote, I just want to point out that it pretty much demolishes “laisezz-faire” economics. Oh No! Texas avoided the worst of the “meltdown” precisely because it employed “the heavy hand of government” to interfere with “freedom” and “personal responsibility” by limiting how much the “pure, perfect, sacred, and holy” free market could do in the field of mortgage loans? Gee, it’s almost as if Reaganomics (a.k.a. “voodoo economics”) and economic libertarianism aren’t laws of nature!
Unfortunately, I am in Alaska and I don't get to post when this airs. I would like to add / respond to Marissa's comments toward the end of the hour.
I too am of the younger, under 30 generation. I graduated in 2009 at the height of the recession with a Master's in Architecture. I applied to every firm in the Chicago area with no luck and very few call backs. I also applied to grocery stores, coffee shops, Best Buy, and many other places. The problem that I faced at the time was that even if I had gotten one of these lower paying jobs it would have barely paid for my student loans each month; which brings me to my point. Theses jobs did not pay enough for the amount of personal investment that I put into my education.
Pancake Rankin on June 13, 2011 @ 2:58 pm wrote: "You're doing a heck of a job Etaoin."
(Thanks, I think.)
And I've never even been to New Orleans!
;-)
One final point for the day. A caller mentioned a drive to have Ayn Rand taught in the schools. The next hour of this show does an admirable job (among other things) of showing why Ms. Rand’s “philosophy” is utterly false, and why Atlas Shrugged deserves to be mocked, and should be ignored. (If you want to read a better and more profound work, try The Lord of the Rings!)
The heroine of her novel runs a trans-continetal railroad company. I don’t know if Ms. Rand explains where that company came from, but I doubt it had anything to do with the "real world", or the history of the actual trans-continental railroads. As next hour’s guest states, in the real world those railroads received tremendous government assistance and subsidies, including the dreaded “bailouts”! Rand, of course, ignores all that in her philosophy of “rugged” (and phony) individualism - where the only role of government is to “get out of the way”. In short, like most ideologues, her prescriptions for society are not based on either fact or reason, and frequently are contrary to both!
Let me give you a “heads up” about another author whose highly fictional work the same “conservatives” want used to teach our kids. I’m referring to The 5,000 Year Leap by W. Cleon Skousen. I don't have time to go into specifics, but let’s just say his book is filled with errors, irrelevancies, illogic, and outright deliberate lies and/or deception. Yet this is the work, and the author, “conservatives” want to use to teach children “American values” and the Constitution.
I shall retire to Bedlam.
Ciao!
I can tell by the comments posted here from big government liberals you have never had the responsibility of making a payroll or depending on yourselves for your own livelihood. Etaoin you take the cake for intellectual dishonesty. Truly I have never heard anyone come up with such flimsy arguments and believe that you scored big time. When I was young and foolish like you I thought for a short while the liberal way was the best and fair way, alarms were ringing in my head when I exaggerated facts to bolster my beliefs. Your head should be ringing off the hook.
Pankake, try 50ish, you seem to be a mixed up combination of hate and envy, possibly penis envy.
I find it interesting that so many people seem to comment on the "values" by which the country was founded but only emphasize "individual" values and don't comment on the "communal" values that were fundamental to the original colonies. Individual responsibility is by no means incompatible with communal sharing and obligations - and that is the basis on which successful colonies were able to survive and thrive.
The stereotypes of 'Democrats' and 'Republicans' also don't seem particularly thoughtful, helpful, or even meaningful; as they are uttered as if one need not present real evidence, but only invoke a term or phrase 'obvious' to all. It is not at all obvious absent real evidence.
An examination of how the economy was really built in America shows that public and private sectors had to work together (by intent or accident). Business did not magically produce all growth, and assuredly benefited from the largesse of government in myriad ways: land, education, laws, and various other means of support.
Perhaps the critics of the Job Growth segment might have learned a thing or two if they had listened through to the second half of the Diane Rehm's show, which addressed the great myth of how the transcontinental railroads were built.
It seems when the citizenary's back was turned, government political lackies and big business decided to rape and pillage this country. Deregulate, cut taxes, and downsize government, outsource jobs, and let private companies run schools instead of having public ones, etc. because we all known government cannot do anything right.
To buy this argument you have to ignore the history of our country. A history that allowed child labor, no minimum wage or workers rights, no safety regulations on the job, no regulation of food and drugs, no protection of the environment, no social safety net, no insurance for you bank account in case there was a run on the bank, etc. The regulations were responses to terrible conditions; they did not evolve in a vacuum.
I wish for once we could have a legitimate conversation where we realistically look at the facts and create an environment that is pro-people and pro-business, a much longed for win-win for all parties. I am getting down right hostile to being forced onto a Texas-like downward, dog-eat-dog path to the bottom as I am not fortunate or greedy enough to have massed a large fortune in the corporate world or Wall street.
I really wanted to hear Mark Zandi's response to Jim Tankersley's recommendation on importing high-skilled immigrants into America. Tanskerslye says high-skilled immigration may be "a real key to America's economic resurgence".
Mark Zandi was trying desperately to respond to Tankersley's suggestion. Zandi actually tried 3 times to get Diane's attention. However, for some reason -- perhaps because Zandi was participating via phone instead of in the studio -- Diane didn't give him the opportunity to respond to this specific issue. Interesting.
Anyway, importing high-skill labor into America is certainly one way to cut America's cost of educating and developing her own children.
monte on June 13, 2011 @ 3:36 pm wrote: “I can tell by the comments posted here. . . . Etaoin you take the cake for intellectual dishonesty.”
You know, monte, an insult from you is like a compliment from almost anyone else. The rest of us can tell from the comments you posted here that you have nothing to offer anyone except mindless ideology, combined with invective and now pornographic references. (Please don’t Twitter pictures of your “appendage” to any of us.)
How about identifying which of my arguments you consider “flimsy”, and where they lacked “material strength or solidity” or were “weak, inadequate, not carefully thought out”? [The definition of that word according to The American College Dictionary (Random House, 1967).] I don’t really expect an honest response, since that would require you to employ facts and reason - which you avoid like the plague.
In contrast, when responding to your first ridiculous Comment about how “real world” business experience was so vital to being a good President, I compared the experience of some real “winners” (Bush the Second, Hoover) with successful Presidents who had far less “real world” experience (FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, and JFK). Perhaps you care to prove members of the latter group actually had more business experience than the former, or that the economy under the former fared far better than under the latter? If you could do that, I would have to seriously consider your charge that my arguments were “flimsy”. (But of course, you can’t, which is why you didn’t.)
But, since character assassination is the order of the day, along with phallic references, I wouldn’t worry about anyone envying that particular part of your anatomy. Given what you produce using it for thinking, I can only conclude it’s minuscule!
Dear Omnist (writing on June 13, 2011 @ 4:41 pm):
Amen!
By the way, I referenced the second hour show in one of my earlier Comments, and I believe others have as well.
brwstac on June 13, 2011 @ 7:57 pm wrote: "To buy this argument you have to ignore the history of our country."
Or simply be completely ignorant, while simultaneously believing themselves to be an expert on the subject. Sadly, many of the people who "buy this argument" are the same people who believe Lexington and Concord are in New Hampshire, and that the purpose of Paul Revere's ride was to "warn the British".
They usually get defensive when their errors are pointed out, and blame either the media, or "elitist" liberals.
(And sometimes, they make references to envying the male appendage.)
Lee Black
"Texas - Highest rate of job growth? Yes, BUT, hourly pay is the 44th lowest in the country. Don't forget that in this 'right to work' state the meaning of 'right to work' means no unions, no workers rights. Texas is also poor in education below the college level, poor health benefits and social services. Texas is one of the highest states in poverty and the gap between the wealthy and poor."
Lee
Our cost of living is a lot less expense than the NE or east coast. We have no state income tax so people can live pretty well even being 44th in hourly wages.
Some of the problems that we have in education under the college level and poor health coverage has a lot to do with the illegal population. I know this because I used to be a delivery man taking product to schools in the Valley.
This is one of the reasons we need comphensive border security. The Supreme Court stated that we need to provide education for illegal aliens .
By the way McAllen is seeing alot of Health Service growth due to the winter Texans that flood our state in the winter months from the North.
accountant wrote:
I was a young CPA at the time of the Regan tax cuts. They ceertainly did stimulate the economy then - business people with moeny available bought a lot of new cars - you could deduct the entire business cost over four years. What really stimulated the economy though was the decrease in interest rates. the prime rate hit 22% prior to the tax custs and mortgages were in the 14 - 16% range. Once inflation had been wrung out of the economy by the high interest rate, everything was in place for great economic growth. However, when the deficits were greater than what was predicted, Rregan did not hesitate to raise tax rates and did so in 1983, 1984 and had the biggest tax increase and overhaul of the tax code (including today's nemisis the alternative minimum tax ). The changes were so great they renamed the tax code from the 1954 code to the 1986 code.
Accountant:
I think you got it wrong because I too graduated from college in 1981. One of the reasons Jimmy Carter lost the election was that inflation was around 18% and interest rates were around 21% or vice versa. He did not turn it around overnight.
The tax increase that were voted into office were to keep S.S. solvent in 83. I believe private job growth under Reagan was somewhere around 5 million new private sector jobs. He froze Federal Jobs when he took office.
Interest rate decrease are not soley what stimulates business or the economy as we are presently seeing rightnow where interest rates are what 3 or 4%. What stimulate growth is people that have jobs but also the confidence that the economy will continue to grow. This was what Reagan was able to sell the public and the 5 million new private jobs proved that.
"" Texas is a miracle all right. The short-sightedness of these same business people who are at the root of the wrong path our schools took, with juiced up data found only years later to be untrue, are now the very same greatest critics! What gall!
Barbara from Flint, MI
Education profBarbara
Barbara:
Wish you could mention all the urban plight in Flint. Not much of a city since all those plants left and nothing to replace it like what happened in Texas.
Detroit alone has something like 43 miles of urban plight. I've seen that beautiful Opera house that was once was and now the shell of that building is now a parking garage. Bet Flint is the same situation.
Oops double post.
Etaoin
(And to meangreen and monte: I'm sure the "experts" at Moody's had plenty of "real world" business experience!)
Perhaps Obama isn't any different from those guys or gals from Moody's with "real world" experience as we are presently seeing. Proof is in the pudding Etaoin.
Etaoin,
Have not the time to comment lately, but reading through the posts today I just wanted to say, I really appreciate your comments.
It's nice to know there is intelligent life on Earth, because there are days I have my sincere doubts.
Mac wrote:
Mac; There is an enormous demand for new energy sources for our economy. While Germany is developing and employing solar and wind power we ignore this potential gold mine and militate against such development with an obstinate right wing
mind set. It has been estimated that we could employ 15 million citizens to create 100 sq. miles of solar farms that would by itself supply all the energy needs of the U.S. and eliminate our need to fight wars to secure energy production. The right wing oligarchy would of course crush any such effort. War and oil drives their existence.
Mac do you know that Texas has the largest concentration of wind farms in the continential US. They are all over the place and I do alot of driving thru South , Central , & coastal Texas. Lots of miles. Wind farms do not employe people. Never see them out there. But at this time natural gas and oil are making these small town like Carrizo Springs overnight into booming economy. Working on a rig requires manpower 24/7. Those solar farms south of San Antonio are run by computer. They automatically shift when the sun does. Don't believe that BS that 100sq miles is going to employ 15 million people.
A True Texan
meangreen on June 13, 2011 @ 11:21 pm wrote: "He did not turn it around overnight."
I don't intend to intervene in your debate with “accountant”. (I assume you are both far more knowledgeable about the situation in Texas than I am.) But I have a compliment, a request for clarification, and a question.
Compliment: It appears that for once you have made a cogent and (to all appearances) informed response to another’s Comment, one that appears to be based on fact and reason. Keep it up!
Request for clarification: In the quote I employed from your Comment, I assume the “He” is Reagan and the “it” referred to the inflation and interest rates. Am I correct?
Question: If so, since you clearly did not think Reagan a failure because he “did not turn it around overnight", do you condemn Obama for failing to turn around “it” (the mess Bush left behind) overnight?
Texas does have some positive fundamentals-low housing prices being the most helpful in preventing the major crash shared by the west/east coast--the other unspoken fundamental is the large military expenditures. Besides having one of the largest bases in the nation (Ft Hood) as a stable & growing economic force-two other bases (Ft Sam Houston & Ft Bliss) have benefited enormously from BRAC (realignment) funding during the past three years. Mr Fischer is a smart man, but ignoring the impact of billions of extra federal dollars taken from citizens outside Texas to fund the DOD/Texas machine is not honest.
Etaoin:
Question #1. I think you have complimented me more than once, "informed response to another's Comment". Remember the Arab discussion 2nd hr a few weeks ago.
Question#3. Yes I do think Obama is a failure even what he inherited from Bush. Bush unemployment rate was 8% vs Obama's over 9% even with his trillion dollar stimulas. Fourteen Trillion dollar deficit and printing paper money to pay foreign creditors with causes inflation. A person that has no idea how small business creates jobs? Is this what "Hope and Change" is about. Reagan reduce interest rate from 21% when he took office to around 15% in 1985. This is from the top of my head.
Etaoin, I hope this is another "informed response to another's comment".
I think you make an excellent point and I know about Texas and their wind farms having lived their for awhile. I commend Texas. So tell me. You basically said that these facilities run with little maintenance. Given that the sun and wind are free and require little human effort to generate electricity wouldn't that eventually translate into less energy cost for everyone if our economy was more heavily dependent upon these green sources? And if we were utilizing green sources and not fighting wars to secure petroleum from the Middle East couldn't we spend a little less on an over bloated military and save taxpayers money there also? The cost of oil must be calculated not just cost per barrel, but its cost in blood and treasure to our nation.
Why is Texas growing faster? $4.00 gas!
Can't find people suited for a job? Try offering a higher wage. This is how capitalism is supposed to work.
Couldn't you find an economist who passed econ 101?