Channel-surfing we can believe in...

More people watched President Obama's jobs speech Thursday evening than tuned into the NFL's season kickoff game that followed.



Via Balloon Juice

Mark Zandi, founder of Moody's and an '08 advisor to John McCain, does the numbers on the Obama Jobs Act

This is useful analysis, given the "non-partisan," "business elite economist" resume of Moody's Analytics' chief Mark Zandi.

Jared Bernstein has it:

Here’s (Zandi's) projected impact of GDP and jobs:

–President Obama’s jobs proposal would help stabilize confidence and keep the U.S. from sliding back into recession.

–The plan would add 2 percentage points to GDP growth next year, add 1.9 million jobs, and cut the unemployment rate by a percentage point.

Source: Zandi, Moody’s Analytics

The view from a moderately liberal Keynesian economist of good intentions who is filling in for "the Left" on America's bizarre, Tea Party-tilted political spectrum

Paul Krugman, long a leading liberal critic of the President on economic strategy, was both impressed by the jobs plan Obama laid out before Congress and depressed by a toxic political landscape that is likely to kill the legislative proposals:

I was favorably surprised by the new Obama jobs plan, which is significantly bolder and better than I expected. It’s not nearly as bold as the plan I’d want in an ideal world. But if it actually became law, it would probably make a significant dent in unemployment.


Of course, it isn’t likely to become law, thanks to G.O.P. opposition. Nor is anything else likely to happen that will do much to help the 14 million Americans out of work. And that is both a tragedy and an outrage...

(I)t’s worth noting just how much that opposition has hardened over time, even as the plight of the unemployed has worsened.

President Obama's Jobs Speech - 9/8/11

I was impressed with the speech and appreciated the fact that the package was about 50% larger than had been anticipated in early reports.  The proposal falls short of the ideal, i.e. what is needed to recover quickly from the unemployment crisis - but the President was clearly trying to put a concrete legislative challenge to Congress on the table that would be realistic if a significant segment of the Beltway GOP was serious about anything other than sinking his chances for re-election.  He was asking his opposition to put country before petty politics.  Bitter experience, of course, suggests that they won't.

The speech was a substantive appeal to reason that could persuade moderate and/or confused voters that Obama is serious and his opposition is not, as well as offering the Democratic base some plausible agenda around which they can rally. The tone was passionate and convincing.  It represents a turning point, both for uniting Democrats and setting a marker for the coming campaign.

"Taking the temperature" among restive Democrats, here's one early reaction from economist Mark Thoma, who has been an outspoken liberal critic of the President on these issues: "(T)he speech was bolder than expected, showed political savvy (though it will still face stiff resistance), and there appears to be a commitment to keep pushing new legislation until the unemployment problem is eased."

FDR on Unemployment

No country, however rich, can afford the waste of its human resources.  Demoralization caused by vast unemployment is our greatest extravagance.  Morally, it is the greatest menace to our social order...

I stand or fall by my refusal to accept as a necessary condition of our future a permanent army of unemployed. On the contrary, we must make it a national principle that we will not tolerate a large army of unemployed and that we will arrange our national economy to end our present unemployment as soon as we can and then to take wise measures against its return.       FDR - 9/30/34


(Thoughts for a much-anticipated speech tonight by President Obama. Via "Freakonomics.")

"Republicans are crazy..."

"We're all Bozos on this bus!"

In the wake of Willard "Mitt" Romney rejecting Governor "Good Hair" Perry's nutty Ponzi Scheme rhetoric regarding Social Security during last night's GOP debate, Romney is getting kudos from the Beltway punditry as the "not crazy" candidate hoping to hustle his way to the Republican Presidential nomination.

Unfortunately, that's not true. Romney's crazy too...

Kevin Drum at Mother Jones:

Jared Bernstein notes that if he's elected president, Mitt Romney has promised to "immediately move to cut spending and cap it at 20 percent of GDP." That's crazy with the economy so sluggish, but in fact, it's even crazier than that. Here are budget projections for 2013 from the OMB:

The public supports, by large margins, a strong federal jobs program and tax increases on the economic elite

Whether they recognize it as such, the public supports a strong liberal economic agenda on key issues, according to major polls. Beltway politicians of both parties would do well to pay attention.

Think Progress:

President Obama will lay out his latest jobs plan before a joint session of Congress on Thursday, in the wake of a report that showed zero net jobs were created last month. Unemployment has remained above 9 percent, while unemployment amongst African Americans is at a 27-year high...

But while the GOP may be firmly against progressive job creation measures, the public is assuredly not. According to two polls released today, the public supports government-backed measures to bring down the unemployment rate.

"Should Democrats play by Republican rules?"

At NYTs "Economix" Former Reagan Treasury official Bruce Bartlett - a long-time Republican and moderate conservative who has defected from the reactionary radicalism of the GOP - offers some good advice to Democrats to counter The Crazy, i.e. ideological dominance of Tea Party fundamentalism:

Republicans are predisposed to blame government for every problem regardless of the circumstances, and Democrats tend to view government as necessary to deal with economic and social problems...

Right now, it is clear that the right side of the political spectrum is dominant. Virtually all policy debate these days is based on the premise that the conservative position is at least valid. For example, we have heard for months from Republicans that government regulation is a major, if not the primary, factor holding back economic expansion and employment growth.

Just last week, the House majority leader, Eric Cantor of Virginia, posted a memo to House Republicans detailing specific regulations whose repeal would create jobs.

President Obama's Labor Day Speech in Detroit

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Detroit! (Applause.) Thank you, Michigan! (Applause.) Oh, this is a --

AUDIENCE: Four more years!

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you, everybody...

I am honored, we are honored, to spend this day with you and your families -- the working men and women of America. This day belongs to you. You deserve a little R&R, a little barbecue -- (laughter) -- little grilling -- because you’ve been working hard. (Applause.) You’ve been working hard to make ends meet. You’ve been working hard to build a better life for your kids. You’ve been working hard to build a better Detroit. (Applause.) But that’s not all I’m going to talk to you about.

I also want to talk about the work you’ve been doing for decades: Work to make sure that folks get an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work. (Applause.) Work to make sure that families get a fair shake. The work you've done that helped build the greatest middle class the world has ever known. (Applause.) I’m talking about the work that got us a 40-hour workweek and weekends, and paid leave and pensions, and the minimum wage and health insurance, and Social Security and Medicare -- (applause) -- the cornerstones of middle-class security. That's because of your work. (Applause.)

If you want to know who helped lay these cornerstones of an American middle class you just have to look for the union label. (Applause.)

The ozone regs: job-killer or job-creator?

There has been a lot of political controversy over the White House killing the new ozone regulations that had been prepared by the EPA. I don't like this decision at all on the merits, since groups keyed into the issue ranging from the American Lung Association to the National Resources Defense Council have protested the delay of any action to enforce stricter limits.  The science points to real health dangers.  But the most interesting and persuasive critique of the timing of this decision, given that the administraion rationale was economic - i.e. to lessen the burden on businesses, with the jobs equation implicit - is Paul Krugman's blog post arguing that the failure to implement kills potential jobs in a bad economy:

Let’s talk about the economics. Because the ozone decision is definitely a mistake on that front.

The GOP has devolved into a dangerous, deadly cult

Reflections of Mike Lofgren, a recently-resigned, 28-year staffer for the Congressional GOP:

Barbara Stanwyck: "We're both rotten!"

Fred MacMurray: "Yeah - only you're a little more rotten." -"Double Indemnity" (1944)

Those lines of dialogue from a classic film noir sum up the state of the two political parties in contemporary America. Both parties are rotten - how could they not be, given the complete infestation of the political system by corporate money on a scale that now requires a presidential candidate to raise upwards of a billion dollars to be competitive in the general election? Both parties are captives to corporate loot. The main reason the Democrats' health care bill will be a budget buster once it fully phases in is the Democrats' rank capitulation to corporate interests - no single-payer system, in order to mollify the insurers; and no negotiation of drug prices, a craven surrender to Big Pharma.

But both parties are not rotten in quite the same way. The Democrats have their share of machine politicians, careerists, corporate bagmen, egomaniacs and kooks. Nothing, however, quite matches the modern GOP.

"Is austerity killing Europe's recovery?"

The Washington Post:

After more than a year of aggressive budget cutting by European governments, an economic slowdown on the continent is confronting policymakers from Madrid to Frankfurt with an uncomfortable question: Have they been addressing the wrong problem?

The campaign to reduce government deficits has come in response to a European debt crisis that could endanger the global banking system. And the budget cutting has been coupled with a reluctance by the the European Central Bank to stimulate economic growth like the Federal Reserve has in the United States; the ECB has instead raised interest rates twice this year to contain inflation.

Those steps have sucked hundreds of billions of dollars out of a European economy that may be edging towards recession.

The mortgage mess marches on...

New York Times:

The federal agency that oversees the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is set to file suits against more than a dozen big banks, accusing them of misrepresenting the quality of mortgage securities they assembled and sold at the height of the housing bubble, and seeking billions of dollars in compensation.

Gov. Good-Hair: "Government doesn't create any jobs!"

Except under his watch in Texas,  where government jobs have grown faster than any other state, according to Think Progress:

Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) has built the early stages of his presidential campaign on his state’s ability to create jobs during the last two years of his governorship. The “Texas Miracle,” Perry often says, is responsible for 40 percent of the net new jobs created in America since June 2009. The “Miracle” is no miracle at all — Texas has the nation’s worst job creation record when adjusted for labor force growth — but Republican voters have lapped up the message, pushing Perry to a double-digit lead in early primary polls.

Annals of the economic elite

"Twenty-five of the 100 highest paid U.S. CEOs earned more last year than their companies paid in federal income tax..."

Via Huffington Post

Let the sun shine - a solar success story...

Some good news for a change, via Think Progress:

With all the stories about China dominating the solar photovoltaics (PV) manufacturing sector, you might not think that America is a net exporter of solar products. But it is — to the tune of $1.8 billion. That’s a $1 billion increase over net exports documented in the solar sector last year.



In fact, a report released this morning from GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association found that the U.S. has a $247 million trade surplus with China.

U.S. imports in 2010 were estimated at $1.4 billion, while exports were estimated to be between $1.7 billion – $2.0 billion based on the availability of data for capital equipment sales. This made the U.S. a net exporter of solar goods to China by $247 million to $539 million. Imports came predominantly from modules ($1.2 billion), while exports were driven by capital equipment ($708 million to $1 billion) and polysilicon ($873 million).

Solar isn’t just about the module. When looking at polysilicon production, equipment for manufacturing lines, power electronics, solar hot water tanks, and any number of other domestically-produced products, the U.S. actually offers a good-sized contribution to the global market.

The 2011 Solar Energy Trade Assessment is a follow up from last year’s report, which found U.S. net exports in 2009 were worth $723 million.

The $1 billion surge in net exports came during a year when the U.S. solar market grew by over 100%. Due to the successful Treasury Grant Program and Loan Guarantee Program that made it easier for developers and manufacturers to finance facilities, the solar sector grew faster than ever before.

And all that solar — particularly solar PV — brings immense value to the domestic economy.

Setting the record straight: "Three Charts to E-Mail To Your Right-Wing Brother-in-Law"

From David Johnson at Campaign for America's Future

Spending

Government spending increased dramatically under Bush. It has not increased much under Obama. Note that this chart does not reflect any spending cuts resulting from deficit-cutting deals.

Our 21st Century Working Class

Ted Rall via Balloon Juice

More from David Weisal at WSJ:

There are 13.9 million unemployed people in the U.S. – and that just counts those looking for work.  That works out to 9.1% of the labor force, the widely publicized unemployed rate.

But here are a few more ways to look at it.

"The Mind of the Fed"

David Leonhardt of the The New York Times dissects the limits of debate within the Federal Reserve Bank. (Hint: It has to do with the power of the banks in choosing board members - who could have guessed?):

IF you were to conduct a survey of the country’s top economists, you would find a fair number who did not believe that the Federal Reserve should be taking more aggressive steps to help the economy. Some would worry that injecting more money into the economy might unnerve global investors or set off uncontrollable inflation. Others would wonder whether, with interest rates already so low, the Fed even had much power to lift economic growth.

But you would also find a sizable group of economists who thought the Fed could and should do far more than it was doing. This group, known as doves, tilts liberal, though it includes conservatives as well. If anything, it can probably claim a larger number of big-name economists — J. Bradford DeLong, Paul Krugman (an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times), Christina D. Romer, Scott Sumner and Mark Thoma, among others — than the camp that believes the Fed has done too much.

You would never know this, however, from listening to the public debate among Federal Reserve officials. That debate is much narrower.

Work Sharing as a stop-gap to extreme unemployment

Dean Baker at Bloggingheads offers an innovative idea to keep the workforce engaged during periods of persistent unemployment.