Prairie Weather

Grim jobs report (or maybe just fresh meat for the media)

... For the third straight year, the economy has fallen into a spring slump.

Over the last three months, the economy has added an average of only 96,000 jobs a month, down from a three-month average of 252,000 in February. The growth of the last three months is the weakest since August. It’s weaker than the three-month growth in most of 2011 and half of 2010.

Job growth in the private sector has slowed, while the federal government and local governments are cutting workers. (State governments are no longer cutting, but they are not adding many, either.)

What happens now? Don’t expect much action from Congress, despite the talk you will hear on Friday. The jobs numbers will certainly raise the odds of further action by the Federal Reserve, but it’s not clear by how much. Perhaps most important, the decisions of European policy makers loom even larger now. ...David Leonhardt, NYT

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“This morning’s jobs report shows that Congressional Republicans’ do-nothing, confrontation-over-compromise approach to jobs isn’t working,” said Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the Democratic whip.

“Republicans continue to avoid addressing serious job creation in favor of ideological bills,” he said. “This is deeply disappointing, as we were able to work together in May to pass a bipartisan reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank.”

The White House issued a statement from Alan B. Krueger, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, calling on Congress to “continue the president’s economic policies that are helping us dig our way out of the deep hole that was caused by the severe recession.”

“This includes eliminating tax incentives to ship jobs overseas, cutting red tape so responsible homeowners can refinance, giving small businesses that increase employment or wages a 10 percent income tax credit, investing in affordable clean energy, and helping returning veterans find work,” he said — a litany that Mr. Obama has been calling his “to-do list.” ...NYT

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I hate to ruin your weekend, but let’s be honest: Mitt Romney now has a good chance of being the next President.

How good is good? Your guess is worth as much as mine, but we both know that the likelihood of a Romney victory went up considerably this morning with the release of a shockingly bad jobs report. According to Intrade, an online betting site, it jumped six per cent, and is now more than forty per cent. Obama is still the favorite, but the gap is narrowing.

Yes, it’s just one month of job figures, and things could look better a month from today. But, from President Obama’s perspective, this was a truly horrible jobs report. ...John Cassidy, New Yorker

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... Might such short-term bad news mask America's underlying capacity to remake and rebuild its economy?

That's the argument made by Daniel Gross in his terrific new book Better, Stronger, Faster: The Myth of American Decline ... and the Rise of a New Economy. The book focuses on the underlying adaptability, flexibility and resiliency of the American economy, arguing that rather than weakening America's economic hand, the crisis has strengthened it. ...

"...As for jobs, we are clawing back jobs slowly. The private sector has added about 4.3 million jobs since early 2010. The problem is that the public sector has cut one million positions in the past two years. We need sustained demand, sustained growth, and an absence of austerity to get closer to full employment. [Gross]"...Richard Florida, The Atlantic

Solyndra backfires; Robme injured

The US government poured money into a failed solar energy business and Mitt Romney hoped he could raise the issue from the dead and blame Obama for the failure.  Of course, the US government invests seed money -- or guarantees loans -- for business start-ups whose success would solve a problem and benefit all of us, not least with job opportunities.  The government does this often, but not with the belief that every single penny of seed money will put out roots.  Ultimately, Solyndra failed.  Obama was blamed for spending half a billion's worth of government money on a failed company.

Solyndra declared bankruptcy in August 2011 after having received $528 million in federal loan guarantees, and its fate has been seized on by Republicans as symptomatic of big government waste in the stimulus program and the futility of clean energy subsidies.

Mr. Romney accused the president of steering taxpayer dollars to his friends and “cronies,” and of stifling free market competition by picking economic winners and losers. ...Caucus, NYT

Romney staged a campaign event in front of the Solyndra factory yesterday even as most cameras were clicking on George W. Bush at the White House.  By the end of the day, the Romney campaign's effort to pin Solyndra on President Obama had kind of backfired.  It gave the Obama campaign the opportunity, once again, to put the spotlight on Romney's poor economic record as governor of Massachusetts. 

Oops.

“The reality is that Solyndra received funding through a Department of Energy program created under the Bush administration – a program that has supported tens of thousands of jobs across the country and is moving forward with investments in innovative projects like the first nuclear plant built in the U.S. in decades and the world’s largest wind farm,” said Lis Smith, a spokeswoman for the Obama campaign, in a statement. “In fact, both Republican and Democratic administrations advanced Solyndra’s application, and the company was widely praised as successful and innovative both before and after receiving the Department of Energy loan guarantee.

Ms. Smith added, “As governor, Mitt Romney’s record was one of dismal job creation, outsourcing, increased spending and the highest per capita debt in the nation. Now, he’d cede the clean energy industry and the hundreds of thousands of jobs that come with it to China in order to please his Big Oil campaign donors, including keeping massive tax cuts for the oil industry on the middle class’s dime. Massachusetts couldn’t afford Romney Economics, and America can’t either.” ...Caucus, NYT

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NPR added up Governor Romney's week in the headlines.  Or weak in the headlines, maybe...

"Trump, Romney's surrogate, goes on 'birther' offensive" — The Hill

"Trump overshadows Romney with 'birther' talk" — Bloomberg Businessweek

"Romney appears with 'birther' Trump" — UPI.com

"Obama campaign goes after Romney for Trump connection; should Romney speak out against birther issue?" — Fox

There was this, "Romney Campaigns at Failed Solyndra Factory," in the New York Times politics blog, and similar headlines elsewhere Thursday.

But there was also this: "Romney's Solyndra Show=Poor Political Theater" on Bay Area's NBC station's website, which detailed the secrecy surrounding the Solyndra events, and its timing — starting at the moment former President George W. Bush began to speak at the portrait unveiling.

"Opinion," it read: "A campaign trump card may have been misplayed." ...NPR

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Andrew Sullivan finishes Romney off with this quote from the Boston Herald (a right-leaning, not to say servile Boston paper):

When Romney was governor, the state handed out $4.5 million in loans to two firms run by his campaign donors that have since defaulted, leaving taxpayers holding the bag.

The two companies — Acusphere and Spherics Inc. — stiffed the state on nearly $2.1 million in loans provided through the state’s Emerging Technology Fund, a $25 million investment program created while Romney was governor in 2003 that benefitted 13 local firms.

Acusphere, a biotechnology firm headed by a Romney campaign donor, got $2 million in 2004 that it was supposed to put toward a $20 million manufacturing facility in Tewksbury, which never became fully operational...

The loans were approved by a seven-person advisory board that included two Romney appointees and three Romney campaign contributors, a Herald review found.

Is Romney deliberately, for some unfathomable reason, deliberately setting himself up?  Either that or he's really, really stupid.

The Bible loses, thank god!

The federal appeals court in Boston struck down the Defense of Marriage Act on Thursday, ruling that the federal statute violates the constitutional rights of gay and lesbian married couples to equal treatment under the law.

The action by a unanimous three-judge panel of the First US Circuit Court of Appeals sets the stage for a much-anticipated showdown at the US Supreme Court over same-sex marriage.

Declaring that tradition alone was not enough to justify disparate treatment of same-sex couples, the appeals court said DOMA failed to pass constitutional muster. ...CSM

You might want to stop trying to use that 1968 VW Beetle manual as a guide to your 2022 RAM 3500 pickup, too.  

Achtung!  Next stop, Supreme Court.  Where five men think all they're god.

The left has a very big Fox on its side

It's called Univision. It's the main Hispanic network and it's said to corral votes for Obama.  Given the Hispanic populations in swing states (and given the Republican staggers, farts, and burps in discussions of immigration) there's plenty to make Plouffe and Co. to think this will help the Obama campaign find 270 electoral votes pretty easily.

For more on this and other reasons why the Obama campaign is optimistic (and for why they shouldn't be), check out John Heilemann's article at New York Magazine, and listen to his interview from WBUR this morning.

For Republicans, it's buy votes or suppress them.  They're doing both. Their super PACs have the money to buy the presidency -- no question about it.  And they're working, state by state, on targeting probable Obama voters for disenfranchisement.  Between those corporate billions and the swathes of erasures on voter rolls in Florida, Wisconsin, and elsewhere, it'll be tough going for Democrats, even with El Zorro fighting alongside.

And optimism persists within the campaign.  Heilemann writes:

“The natural gravity of this race is such that Romney will be close or a little bit ahead very soon, and it’s going to be like that through the convention,” says a Democratic strategist. “Romney doesn’t have idiots working for him; they’re going to run a safe, smart, tactical campaign.” And they have proven adept at one thing: “They kill well,” admits a senior White House official. “And that’s not unimportant.”

Amid all the chatter from the peanut gallery, the Obamans are keeping their eyes on the prize. In 2008, their campaign’s motto was “Respect, Empower, Include.” In 2012, at the direction of the president, a fourth word has been appended: “Win.” For all their brio, Obama’s people know their campaign could be derailed by myriad events outside their control: dismal job numbers, a spike in fuel prices, hostilities in Iran, an economic shock from Europe, the overturning by the Supreme Court of health-care reform.

Are the Obamans nervous? Healthily so, but they are also buoyed by a firm conviction. As Plouffe puts it, “This is going to be a very close race, but I’d rather be us than them.” ...NYMag

Robme foogs

Stephen Colbert cleans up after the persidental candy date.

Suit may put Occupy Wall Street out of business

A law suit.  But not the kind you may be thinking of.  A suit who's a graduate of Harvard Law.

Mr. Kelleher, a Harvard Law School alumnus and a former partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom — is a wisecracking, fast-talking operator who just happens to think that banks would devastate the economy if given the chance. ...NYT

Kelleher is one of DC's most effective (and powerful) lobbyists.  He "does not work for banks. He works against them."

... Mr. Kelleher is the president of Better Markets, a nonprofit organization that pushes for a stringent interpretation of the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory law, which passed in 2010 but whose specific rules and regulations are currently the focus of an intense, complex and expensive behind-the-scenes battle.

Think of Better Markets as Occupy Wall Street’s suit-wearing cousin. ...NYT

The money that keeps Dennis Kelleher in business comes from inside the banking industry -- "from millions contributed by Michael Masters, an Atlanta-based hedge fund manager who believes that the markets are as imperfect as the people participating in them, and therefore need stricter rules." 

Kelleher and Masters aren't particularly optimistic.

The odds remain against Better Markets and fellow public-interest advocates, Mr. Kelleher concedes.

“It’s a battle in which the Wall Street lobbying and public-relations machine will have a decisive advantage,” said [Ted] Kaufman, the former Delaware senator. “With the regulators, you don’t have to win. You just have to gum them up. And that is exactly what Wall Street has done.” ...NYT

Proposal for a radical change in America. Please.

An op-ed piece the other day in the Times proposes lowering our productivity, not much, just enough. 

Shock?  Dismay?  No. Sanity, finally.

... Low productivity is seen as a disease. A whole set of activities that could provide meaningful work and contribute valuable services to the community are denigrated because they involve employing people to work with devotion, patience and attention.

But people often achieve a greater sense of well-being and fulfillment, both as producers and consumers of such activities, than they ever do in the time-poor, materialistic supermarket economy in which most of our lives are spent. And here perhaps is the most remarkable thing of all: since these activities are built around the value of human services rather than the relentless outpouring of material stuff, they offer a half-decent chance of making the economy more environmentally sustainable.

Of course, a transition to a low-productivity economy won’t happen by wishful thinking. It demands careful attention to incentive structures — lower taxes on labor and higher taxes on resource consumption and pollution, for example. It calls for more than just lip service to concepts of patient-centered care and student-centered learning. It requires the dismantling of perverse productivity targets and a serious investment in skills and training. In short, avoiding the scourge of unemployment may have less to do with chasing after growth and more to do with building an economy of care, craft and culture. And in doing so, restoring the value of decent work to its rightful place at the heart of society. ...Tim Jackson, New York Times

Trump this!

That's from InTrade 5/30/12.   Obama, 57.6% to Robme's 39.2%. 

Is Trump trying to destroy Romney?

Mitt Romney has been backing away from identification with the birther movement.  Donald Trump, apparently, wants to tie him close to the crazies on the right. 

While the Obama campaign actively works to tie Mitt Romney to the controversial “birther” assertions of Donald Trump, the real estate mogul and reality show host is ramping up his focus on the purported conspiracy ahead of a campaign fundraiser for Romney in Las Vegas on Tuesday.
 
“@BarackObama is practically begging @MittRomney to disavow the place of birth movement, he is afraid of it and for good reason,” Trump tweeted on Tuesday. “He keeps using @SenJohnMcCain as an example, however, @SenJohnMcCain lost the election. Don’t let it happen again.”
 
An Obama campaign Web ad released Tuesday, called “Two Republican nominees,” shows then-presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) rebuffing statements from those who questioned then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama’s citizenship while on the campaign trail in 2008.
 
“As the Republican nominee, John McCain stood up to the voices of extremism in his own party,” text from the ad reads.
 
“Why won’t Mitt Romney do the same?” the ad says, before launching into a montage of Trump questioning the president’s birthplace and citizenship. ...
 
... Romney told CNN over the weekend that he shouldn’t be held accountable for everything his surrogates say. ...The Hill

Someone ought to put out a contract on The Donald, and maybe Romney will.  But not too soon, please.  What Trump is doing to the candidate is just fine with many of us.

The cowardice of the right

This time it's about the US Chamber of Commerce pouring money into highly misleading political ads.  The New York Times lets 'em have it today on the kisser with both fists, and the commenters at the site, on after another, lift their knees to give the US Chamber some serious pain and finish off the job. 

The Chamber is skirting the new law which requires them to reveal their donors.  They don't.  Bill, a midwesterner and commenter reacted with this:

I've always wondered how many small businesses in small towns throughout the Midwest are both loyal members of the Chamber of Commerce, yet are completely unable to link the disappearance of their customers' buying power and their own waning prosperity with the Chamber's incessant efforts in providing workshops to facilitate their former customers' jobs being sent to China. Did they think that factory owners were the only ones keeping their businesses afloat?

The delusional need of a wide swath of this country to really, deeply believe that they're part of a club that will never grant them membership is baffling. Perhaps things need to get much, much worse before they gain any sense of awareness of where they really stand in the eyes of Wall Street, The Fortune 500 or The US Chamber of Commerce. ...Chicago

The "what happened to Kansas?" delusion is still very much in control of many minds.

Gilson, writing from here in South Texas, adds:

What is wrong with the Chamber of Commerce? The rising cost of health care for workers put U.S. companies at a disadvantage compared with other industrialized countries, where governments relieve businesses of that burden. And we lose more productivity due to sick, uninsured workers because our system depends on the employers to provide health care. By opposing the shift of health care costs to a wider base, the Chamber is directly opposing the interests of small and large businesses alike. ...San Antonio

We're well aware that many donors don't want  to have to look anyone in the eye, or answer for statements that range from "misleading" to "outright damned lies."  But they will have to.  That means they'll have to learn how not to be cowards.