Category: Media Laziness

Letter From London

The Daily Escape:

Suite, Bloomsbury Hotel, London England – October 2022 iPhone photo by Wrongo

This isn’t how Wrongo and Ms. Right usually travel. We landed in London after a two-hour delay taking off from Newark Airport in NJ. So we were pretty tired when we got to the Bloomsbury, our favorite hotel over here. That led to another two-hour delay because they didn’t have the room we had specified. So after a few curt words from Wrongo, and support from our friends at Goodspeed, we got this spectacular upgrade above. It’s about three times the size of the room we thought we were getting. We plan to enjoy it to the fullest.

The Bloomsbury Hotel began life in 1928 as a YWCA. It is located in the Bloomsbury district of London, on the same block as the British Museum and a short walk from the theaters in London’s West End. The Irish poet Seamus Heaney was a long-term resident of the hotel. He donated many first edition books to what is now named the hotel’s Seamus Heaney library. Our suite has a portrait of Heaney painted by Ann Witheridge in its entrance.

By the time you are reading this, Rishi Sunak is the UK’s newest Prime Minister. He’s the youngest UK PM since Napoleonic times. He is also the first PM of color in UK history. Nobody misses the departed Liz Truss, and most feel a sense of relief with Sunak, although it can be difficult to see much ideological difference between them. He’s a Brexiteer, and a pro-growth fiscal conservative at a time when inflation is rampant, and economic growth is low. Most citizens are shaking their heads about how they came to have a series of incompetent governments.

Sunak is also a laissez-faire true believer. He’s wealthy, and a solid Tory Party company man. We’ll see if a company man can turn his country around in the face of the ideological splits within the Tory Party, and the need to help the faltering UK economy.

Soaring inflation and increased government borrowing usually means a government must tax more. But the Torys are like the US Republican Party, believing that tax cuts resolve all economic problems. As expected, Sunak’s economic improvement plan relies on cutting the country’s debt while not lowering taxes. Their austerity plan won’t add jobs or cut inflation, so hang on for another wild neoliberal ride.

Our purpose in visiting London is to see plays. Sometimes they illustrate interesting social differences between Broadway and the West End. First, we saw “Get up, Stand up, the Bob Marley Musical”. The music was great as expected, but one difference was that the audience in the expensive seats in the front rows of the orchestra (called the stalls in England) was about 20% Black, something that you would rarely see on Broadway. Make of that what you will.

The second show we saw was “Marvellous”, a play about a person with disabilities who has an improbable and successful life. Neil Baldwin is a person who transcended learning difficulties to be awarded a British Empire Medal by HRH Queen Elizabeth II in 2019 and an honorary degree from a prestigious university.

With all the laughter and slapstick, you almost don’t notice the questions Marvellous raises about the terrible treatment of people with learning disabilities. We have the same problem in the US.

If you think we’re farther ahead, please consider the media’s reaction to stroke victim Democrat John Fetterman after his debate with Republican Dr. Oz. Axios delivered the conventional wisdom about someone who’s different:

”Capitol Hill’s reaction to the Pennsylvania Senate debate was brutal for Democratic nominee John Fetterman, from Democrats and Republicans alike.”

Axios went on to say that Fetterman struggled at times to respond to the moderators’ questions. So the narrative became someone with a career as a glib television star vs. a big bear of a guy who is recovering from a stroke.

A snake-oil salesman vs. a guy who actually has experience in governing and politics. And who does our worse than shit media say looked bad? The guy with aphasia.

Obviously, because he isn’t like the rest of us.

Our media, which normally covers debates solely to promote the zingers, managed to overlook the one good zinger in the Fetterman/Oz debate. From Fetterman:

“Why don’t you pretend that you live in Vermont, instead of Pennsylvania, and run again against Bernie Sanders? Because all you can do is talk about Bernie Sanders.”

Because of Fetterman’s aphasia, there were times when he didn’t answer questions very well. Because of Oz’s dishonesty, there were times when he didn’t answer questions at all.

Fetterman can overcome his aphasia and serve PA well in the US Senate. Oz will never be anything but a con man.

From 3,500 miles away, it increasingly looks like the fate of American democracy rests on a few contingent events coming out the right way on November 8.

Sure would be helpful if the media played it straight.

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – October 23, 2022

(Today we’re leaving for London. Regular columns will resume on 11/1. In the meantime, if turbulence occurs, keep your tray tables in their upright and locked position and your hands inside the blog.)

John Dick, CEO of Civic Science, has a weekly newsletter that is worth your time. This week he asks:

“What if we’re just talking ourselves into all of this? Admittedly, I partied too much in college to get good enough grades to go to a respectable grad school to become an economist. I’m out of my league here.”

Dick wonders why economists are so sure that we can’t escape inflation unless we head into a deep recession. He also wonders (as does Wrongo) if currently, there’s a doomsday loop at work. It’s true that there are times when regardless of the news, the stock market goes down. More from Dick:

“Oh no! The job market is too good. Wages are growing too fast! Employees have too much leverage in the workplace! The dollar’s too strong! People’s homes are worth too much! We’re all screwed!!!”

The news media dutifully reinforces the doomsday loop. And who proffers answers? Very few. So, around we go, blaming the politicians in one Party for something they cannot solve, and neither can the other Party. And thus, the prophecy fulfills itself. On to cartoons.

This passes for an answer from the elephant:

How to solve a problem like Hershel:

When you weren’t worried about democracy:

The GOP’s scariest story:

There are waay too many political ads:

Turkeys are where you find them:

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Ukraine Update

The Daily Escape:

Cowee Mountain Overlook, Blue Ridge Mountains, NC – 2022 photo by Jordan Hill Photography

The Washington Examiner posted this shocking number:

“More than 50,000 Russian service members have been killed in the more than six months since the war in Ukraine began.”

They are quoting from a tweet by the Ukraine Ministry of Defence that says 50,150 Russian soldiers have been killed. That doesn’t mean that the figure is accurate, but it’s a stake in the ground by Ukraine.

A separate tweet by someone who is difficult to verify, translates what purports to be a document from the Russian Ministry of Finance. It provides some backup to the claim of deaths, assuming it’s both accurately translated and authentic: (Brackets by Wrongo)

“The doc[ument] from the Russian Ministry of Finance, which is distributed online, says that as of Aug 28, the families of the dead soldiers were paid 361.4 bill[ion] rubles, 7.4 mill[ion] for each [soldier]. The division would give 48,838 CONFIRMED deaths. This does NOT include those LDNR”

LDNR is an abbreviation for the breakaway Ukrainian provinces under Russian control. This comes a month after a senior Pentagon official said it believes that roughly 70,000-80,000 Russian forces have been killed or wounded in action.

If the number of deaths was correct, one would expect the number of wounded to be substantially higher than the Pentagon estimate, assuming the 50,000 was subtracted from the 80,000 number.

Even if these numbers are exaggerated, and the reality is more like half the number of deaths vs. what Ukraine has reported, few governments can survive losing ~25,000 troops in six months in what amounts to a war of choice.

By contrast, the US lost 2, 456 military in the 20-year Afghan War, while the Soviet Union lost 13, 310 in its 10 years there.

Meanwhile CNN is reporting on Russian President Putin’s combative speech at the Eastern Economic Forum in the Russian Pacific city of Vladivostok, where he claimed that Russia is gaining influence on the global stage. This from a transcript posted on the Kremlin website:

“We have not lost anything and will not lose anything….the entire system of international relations has recently undergone irreversible…tectonic shifts,”

It makes Wrongo wonder if the families of the reported 50,000 Russian soldiers killed feel the same way.

Further, there have been several reports in Western media that support Putin’s claims that the sanctions aren’t really that successful. Western countries are trying to cripple Russia’s $1.8 trillion economy, and the effectiveness of our sanctions is a key ingredient in the outcome of the war in Ukraine.

The Economist reports that the sanctions are not going as well as expected, and Russia’s GDP will shrink by 6% in 2022. But Bloomberg, citing information from planners inside the Kremlin, says that the Kremlin planners’ base case sees the economy bottoming out next year at 8.3% below the 2021 level. That would be a severe economic impact, felt in all corners of the Russian Federation.

On top of that, if Putin carries through on his threat this week to cut off all natural gas exports to Europe, that could cost as much as 400 billion rubles ($6.6 billion) a year in lost tax revenues. And Putin’s touted new export markets wouldn’t fully compensate for the lost European sales, even over the next 3-5 years.

Sanctions won’t win the war. They are having the effect of weakening Russia, when what they thought would be a short war with acceptable costs has turned into a long war with costs that are potentially dangerous.

The high human death toll coupled with the burgeoning economic costs may mean sadder times in Moscow.

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Partisanship is Dragging Down Consumer Sentiment

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, Smugglers Beach, Yarmouth, MA – July 2022 photo by Sue Frageau

We all hear the negative news, and fewer of us hear what’s positive. Bloomberg’s Matt Winkler says that the measures that track confidence in the economy are being skewed downward by politically disgruntled Americans, mostly people on the Right. Here’s a chart:

There’s plenty of evidence that the Democrats are terrible at political messaging. But, even though inflation is at 40-year highs, we need to ask why consumer sentiment seems so low when the economy is doing pretty well.

Winkler’s point is this level of negativity makes little sense economically but as the chart above shows, it’s consistent with partisanship. And he makes a compelling case that the current sentiment levels are disconnected from the overall state of the economy relative to historic levels. More from Winkler:

“Never mind that the deaths related to Covid-19 plunged 78% from the first to the second quarters, that 10 million new jobs have been created, that unemployment at 3.5% represents a 53-year-low, that corporate earnings rose to a record and that the confidence of chief executive officers remains above its long-term average. Not to mention that total household net worth soared by $18.1 trillion in 2021, the most under any president…”

Here’s a different chart from Barry Ritholtz showing the University of Michigan Sentiment Index going back to 1978, annotated to show previous economic turndowns:

The chart shows that the current sentiment readings are worse than:

  1. 1980-82 Double Dip Recession
  2. 1987 Crash
  3. 1990 Recession
  4. 9/11 Terrorist Attacks
  5. 2000-2003 Dotcom implosion
  6. 2007-09 Great Financial Crisis
  7. 2020 Pandemic Panic

Does it make any sense that today’s consumer sentiment would be worse than it was for all of those previous economic crises? It does not.

It seems that Republicans are indifferent to the positive developments. The University of Michigan’s national Consumer Sentiment Index has plummeted 50% under Biden to an all-time low, primarily due to Republicans’ disapproval of an economy led by a Democratic President.

Bloomberg found that Democrats also aren’t as approving when their Party isn’t occupying the White House. But in contrast to Republicans, Democrats’ confidence correlates closely with rising and falling gross domestic product and unemployment trends.

To be sure, the highest inflation level in 40 years, as measured by the Consumer Price Index at 9.1%, for June (although July measured a lower 8.5%) is punitive to the least affluent voters, the traditional base of Democrats.

Republican are amplified by FOX News in their views that the economy is in terrible shape. When the Commerce Department said on July 28 that the economy contracted for a second consecutive quarter, the Fox Business channel declared, “We are officially in recession.”  But, as Wrongo and many others have said, there is no “official” recession until the nonpartisan economists of the National Bureau of Economic Research declare it.

It’s a perplexing time for economists. Overall activity as measured by GDP has contracted, but it doesn’t feel like a recession. The economy has added 2.74 million jobs this year through June. This earnings season has shown that members of the S&P 500 Index are on track to post record profits for the second quarter.

But none of this is apparent in the Michigan Sentiment Index, perhaps because Republicans running for office across the country in 2022 are saying the economy is terrible. They are the same people who are still denying the results of the 2020 election.

Paul Krugman asks why Biden isn’t getting any credit for the 10 million new jobs created in his first two years in office:

“Some polling suggests that the public may not be aware that we’ve been creating jobs at all, let alone at a record pace. And we’re in a partisan environment where politicians…can make obviously false assertions and have their supporters believe them. The other day Trump told a crowd that gas in California costs $8.25 a gallon, and nobody laughed. (It was actually $5.43 at the time.)”

Meanwhile, Biden is doing exactly what he promised when he got elected. And he’s succeeding against the odds with only occasional bipartisan support. His success shows that what’s hurting the consumer sentiment polling is partisanship and disinformation.

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Monday Wake Up Call, Recession Edition – August 1, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Monopoly, Revere Beach, MA – From the 2022 Revere Beach International Sand Sculpting Festival. July 24, 2022 photo by Jack Daryl Photography.

From Paul Krugman:

“The US economy is not currently in a recession. No, two quarters of negative growth aren’t, whatever you may have heard, the “official” or “technical” definition of a recession; that determination is made by a committee that has always relied on several indicators, especially job growth.”

Nonetheless, Wrongo predicts that over the next few months, the Big Brain News Pundits will spend mucho time arguing among themselves while we watch, about the meaning of the word “recession“. They will ensure that the word “recession” is said at least once every 30 seconds.

Wrongo brought this up a few weeks ago. Recessions are determined not by pundits but by a committee of economists at the National Bureau of Economics (NBER). The two measures that have had the most weight are real personal income and non-farm payroll employment. So, despite what you’re hearing, it boils down to income and employment. If income and employment turn south, there’s a good chance economic output will be lower. From Robert J. Shapiro:

“Start with employment, which normally contracts in the first two quarters of recessions. Over the first six months of the 1990–91 recession, employment fell by 690,000, or 0.6%. Similarly, over the first two quarters of the recessions of 2001 and 2007–09, employment fell respectively by 761,000 and 426,000 positions, or 0.6% and 0.3%.”

But in the first two quarters of 2022, employment actually grew, increasing by 2,740,000, or 1.8%.

The main factor behind the lower GDP in the second quarter was business inventories. Businesses generally finance increases in their inventories. So as interest rates rose in the second quarter, inventory purchases fell sharply, subtracting 2% from GDP. GDP growth in the second quarter was -0.9%, so inventories accounted for all of the loss of GDP.

Inventories grew. but at a slower pace, bringing about the negative GDP performance. But this change in the rate of growth in inventories is not tied to either employment or to income, so we’re not in a recession, even though GDP fell.

But our bigger economic problem is inflation. Back to Krugman:

“Obviously gasoline prices are down — almost 80 cents a gallon from their mid-June peak. (Remember those scare stories about $6 a gallon by August?)”

We all know that the Big Brain Pundits only really care about how much it costs to fill their gas tanks compared to what it may have cost when some other guy was president. Expect that they will ignore our record low unemployment, and the growth in median wages.

Despite growing slower than inflation, wages are growing at about 5.4% annually. That’s good, although it could be better. Yet, the Big Brains want us all to be worried about the possibility of recession and inflation occurring at the same time. They’re worrying about that old 1970’s bugaboo, stagflation, which is highly unlikely to occur, despite how much Republicans are rooting for it to happen.

If America really wants to stop inflation in its tracks, we know how to nudge prices in the right direction: Implement a windfall profits tax on oil and food companies, whose profits are off the charts, along with their prices. Also, we could pass the corporate minimum income tax that is a part of the proposed Inflation Reduction Act.

How well the Federal Reserve addresses inflation will decide how soon the current economic expansion ends, and a recession begins. Although the economy’s fundamentals are sound, there’s a danger that the Fed’s interest rate hikes may dampen demand and employment too much. That’s a 50/50 call right now.

Time to wake up America! We’re not in a recession, although we may see one in 2023. We don’t have inflation under control yet, although that’s likely to happen within the next year.

To help you wake up, watch and listen to Sir Elton John from his “Farewell Yellow Brick Road” tour. Wrongo and Ms. Right got to see him in Foxborough, MA last Wednesday, courtesy of daughter Kelly and her partner Bob.

It was Wrongo’s second time seeing Sir Elton, the first was at the Budokan in Tokyo in 1974.

Last Wednesday was a great night with an adoring audience for what seems to be near the end of his touring career. Here’s his final encore from last week’s performance, “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” performed on the night we were there:

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Is Garland On the Right Track?

The Daily Escape:

Moulton’s Barn with Tetons and clouds in background, Jackson WY – July 2022 photo by Peter Mangolds

Lots of bees buzzing around AG Merrick Garland because they’re concerned that he won’t indict Trump before Trump announces a re-run for president. From Marcy Wheeler at Emptywheel:

“Yesterday, Rachel Maddow reported the exciting news that Merrick Garland released the same memo that Attorneys General always do during election years….the memo requires Garland to do what everyone has long assumed: that Garland would have to approve any investigation into Trump”

The pundits concluded immediately that by releasing the memo, Garland had nixed any further indictments before the election, including of Trump and his coup henchmen.  But that’s not true, Wheeler says: (brackets by Wrongo)

“….that’s not true is because after Garland released this memo, DOJ arrested…[Republican] candidate for Governor of Michigan, Ryan Kelley [for Jan. 6 activities]….in addition to charging him with entering restricted grounds (that is, entering inside the barricades set up around the Capitol), DOJ also charged him with vandalizing the scaffolding set up in advance of the Inauguration. The charging documents also cited some of his other efforts to undermine democracy in the lead-up and aftermath of the 2020 election.”

All of this concern about Garland occurred after a Rolling Stone report that Trump sees an early announcement of his candidacy for 2024 as a shield against possible investigation/prosecution. That prompted Harvard’s Laurence Tribe to tweet words of caution to his former pupil, Merrick Garland, warning against letting Trump play him in any decision about investigating Trump:

Whether the DOJ has already opened an investigation into Trump’s activities or not, Marcy Wheeler says: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“….I’m also confident that if the investigation isn’t open now or soon, Trump’s campaign roll-out would do nothing to thwart opening an investigation. It would require the same Garland approval that would be obtained in any case. Trump wouldn’t even be affected by the DOJ policy on pre-election actions, because he’s not on the ballot this year.”

But criminal prosecution by Georgia’s Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is a more proximate threat to Trump. The recordings of Trump pressuring Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” 11,000 votes seems clear-cut enough to justify a criminal indictment.

Willis has already warned several high-profile Georgia Republicans they could face charges over Trump’s fake electors scheme in her state. She subpoenaed Rudy Giuliani and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who is fighting a Georgia subpoena to answer questions about his calls to Georgia officials about 2020 election results.

Trump’s pondering of an early announcement may have more serious objectives than avoiding prosecution. He’s seeing polls that show him trailing badly in his home state of Florida. Allahpundit gathers Florida polling data:

”For the second time in five days, a pollster from Florida with whom I’m unfamiliar sees DeSantis leading the former guy comfortably in their mutual home state. Last week Blueprint Polling had the race 51/39 there. Today Victory Insights has it 61/39 if “leaners” are included and 51/33 if they aren’t.”

Maybe Trump is trying to clear the field of primary rivals. But Dems think an early (before the mid-terms) announcement by Trump would be a gift. The GOP wants to keep voters focused on Biden, rather than transforming the contest into a referendum on Trump.

Many pundits underestimate what Garland is doing. They’re after a quick legal fix. He’s moving deliberately, gathering evidence. There’s an abundance of low hanging fruit (the fake electors, Eastman, Giuliani, Powell) and many others. The strategy of the DOJ following behind the J6 hearings will create a groundswell of public support.

We now know the story about the build up to the attempted coup, and we’re seeing who was involved at all levels. When Garland indicts, the majority of the voting public will say “it’s about time.”

Calm down Dems.

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Monday Wake Up Call, Abortion Editon – July 18, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Barn with cotton candy clouds, Allegre, KY – July 2022 photo by Fuller Perspective Photography

The Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe has opened a Pandora’s Box of ethical and legal issues. The infamous story about the pregnant 10 year-old Ohio rape victim who was forced to travel to Indiana to receive an abortion is the best example. It was reported in the Indianapolis Star on July 1.

After the Dobbs decision, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine (R) had issued an executive order putting in force a 2019 law that had banned nearly all abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. The 10-year-old was reportedly six weeks and three days pregnant.

Then we saw a Right-wing smear campaign:

  • A WSJ editorial called the Indianapolis Star’s report a “fanciful tale“, and claimed that there is “no evidence the girl exists.”
  • Tucker Carlson said that the story of the 10-year-old girl who had to travel to Indiana to get an abortion was “not true.”
  • Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said in an interview with USA Today, that the story was likely a “fabrication.”
  • The New York Post, which, like Fox News and the WSJ, is owned by Rupert Murdoch, published an opinion piece by law professor Jonathan Turley under the headline “Activist tale of 10-year-old rape victim’s abortion looks like a lie.”

All of those shouts and murmurs soon disappeared when a 27-year-old man from Columbus, Ohio, Gershon Fuentes, was arrested and charged with impregnating the 10-year-old Ohio girl. Apparently, Fuentes “confessed to raping the child on at least two occasions.”

Subsequently,  the WSJ recanted and published a different editorial correcting the record. Why would they accuse the Star of fabricating a story? From Judd Legum: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“There is a reason why so many people, particularly on the right, were eager to push the idea that Bernard’s story was a lie. If they acknowledged the story was true they would have to answer this question: Do you believe that a 10-year-old rape victim should be forced to give birth?”

By the way, Covid appears to have increased early-onset puberty around the world. Getting your period “early” now means when you’re younger than 8. People who think a pregnant 10-year-old strains credulity should bear this in mind.

The Nieman Lab, a Harvard-based group focused on journalism on the Internet, took the WaPo’s Glenn Kessler, author of their “Fact Checker” column to task for not checking his facts about the Star’s reporting. One of Kessler’s so-called “facts” was: (brackets by Wrongo)

“An abortion by a 10-year-old is pretty rare,” Kessler notes…..[but] The Columbus Dispatch reported that in 2020, 52 people under the age of 15 received an abortion in Ohio.”

Your mileage may vary, but if one under-15-year-old gets an abortion every week in Ohio, it can’t be thought of as “pretty rare”. The press needs to wise up and get the data before diving headfirst to a conclusion.

There are other ways the Dobbs decision will impact lives. Unsure doctors in Texas are already turning away ectopic pregnancies, fearing legal liability. According to The Lily (a WaPo newsletter):

“…a South Texas woman diagnosed with an ectopic pregnancy was refused an abortion by her doctor…..she was advised to seek help out of state.”

Under the unclear Texas law, a doctor who removes an ectopic pregnancy that is not actively causing the patient to bleed to death may face legal consequences.

It doesn’t end there. The laws surrounding in vitro fertilization (IVF) could also be facing threats of lawsuits even though these women aren’t seeking abortions. Slate reports:

“Fertilizing eggs in a Petri dish often results in extra embryos, which are usually frozen….Leftover embryos are frequently discarded or donated to research….In some abortion-restrictive states, this may no longer be possible. Louisiana defines “a viable in vitro fertilized human ovum” as a “juridical person which shall not be intentionally destroyed,” and at least five states have introduced bills establishing fetal personhood.”

States probably won’t ban IVF outright, but as some countries have done, they may limit the number of embryos that can be created in an effort to prevent embryo destruction. All of this would make IVF far more difficult and expensive than it is, and it could possibly reduce the number of IVF clinics in those states.

This is the tip of the iceberg of the issues women will have post-Dobbs. Technology will always be ahead of our laws and ethics. Just as will some men’s (and religions’) need to control women.

Time to wake up America! Elect a filibuster-proof Senate this fall. To help you wake up listen to Willie Nile, perform his ode to Covid, “The Day the Earth Stood Still”:

Sample lyric (that could be about the end of Roe instead of Covid)

So if you feel some heartache
And if you feel some pain
And if you see some lonely soul
Standing in the pouring rain
Offer up some kindness
Compassion if you will
And remember well the way it was
The day the earth stood still

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Monday Wake Up Call – July 11, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Penstemon and Paintbrush, with Mt. St. Helens in background – June 2022 photo by Edwin Buske Photography

There are two big economic issues that the media and pundits say will influence the 2022 mid-terms: inflation, and the possibility of a recession.

Let’s start with the scare of a looming recession. Most Americans have been told that a recession occurs when real GDP contracts for two consecutive quarters. Sounds easy to figure out, but this definition wasn’t met in two out of the last three recessions. Some facts: The 2020 downturn lasted just two months, not two quarters. And during the 2001 recession, real GDP didn’t contract for two quarters in a row either.

The difference is that recessions are determined not by pundits but by a group of economists at the National Bureau of Economics (NBER), and they use several measures beyond GDP to make it official. Here’s how they explain it:

“A recession is a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, normally visible in production, employment, and other indicators…”

They go on to say that:

“There is no fixed rule about what measures contribute information to the process or how they are weighted in our decisions.”

In recent decades, the two measures that have had the most weight are real personal income and non-farm payroll employment. So, despite what you’re hearing from pundits about GDP, it basically boils down to income and employment. If income and employment turn south, there’s a good chance economic output will be lower.

But after two quarters of 2022, while output is slowing, income and the labor market are both still solid. The WSJ quotes Robert Gordon a Northwestern University economics professor and member of the NBER’s committee that decides on recessions:

“We are going to have a very unusual conflict between the employment numbers and the output numbers for a while…”

The US economy added 1.6 million jobs in the first quarter, and another 1.1 million jobs in the second quarter. Those numbers certainly don’t look recessionary, despite what the media is trying to tell us. U6, which is a measure of underemployment declined -0.4% to 6.7%. This is a new all-time low for U6, which has been tracked since 1994.

It may seem like splitting hairs to talk about the definition of a recession. But we need to be prepared for the coming political scenario where some argue we’re in a recession while others will refute that idea vigorously.

In this mid-term season, things are going to get weird.

Let’s turn to the scourge of inflation. It is among the first stories on the local news every night, but you might not know that as Paul Krugman says:

“The wholesale price of gasoline has fallen about 80 cents a gallon since its peak a month ago. Only a little of this plunge has been passed on to consumers so far, but over the weeks ahead we’re likely to see a broad decline in prices at the pump….what are the odds that falling gas prices will get even a small fraction of the media coverage devoted to rising prices?”

That seems to point to profit taking by the petroleum corporate interests. Have you noticed how much profit they have made lately? ExxonMobil plans to buy back $30 billion of stock this year with the extra money that we all paid at the pump.

Last Friday, PBS talked about a looming wage-price spiral, a neoliberal concept that says rising wages drive prices. But the annualized rate of wage growth, comparing the last three months (April, May, June) with the prior three months (January, February, March), was 4.3%,down from a previous annualized rate of 6.1%.

This is big since the Fed’s plans for aggressive interest rate hikes is based on its concern about a 1970s-type wage-price spiral. It is impossible to have a wage-price spiral when wage growth is slowing. The current 4.3%  wage growth is less than one percent higher than the 3.4% rate in 2019 when inflation was comfortably below the Fed’s 2.0% target.

Retailers are now stuffed to the gills with merchandise. What happened was that all of the product that was stranded at sea has finally reached store shelves. They will hold massive sales this fall to get rid of it, and that will lower prices.

The lockdowns in China are mostly over, last year’s fiscal stimulus has worked its way through the economy, and the Fed has begun sharply raising interest rates.

Krugman feels that as the economy weakens, the prospect for sustained inflation is receding.

Time to wake up America, don’t get demagogued by the scary economic terms that the politicians will throw at you. To help you wake up, let’s listen to Barenaked Ladies – “If I Had a Million Dollars” Live in Michigan in 2007:

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America’s Homicide Policing Paradox

The Daily Escape:

Lupine, Steptoe Butte SP, WA – June 2022 photo by Francisco B. Aguilar Photography

German Lopez in the NYT writes about how urban gun crime is very concentrated, saying that a small number of city blocks often account for most of the gun violence in US cities. He says that just 4% of city blocks account for the majority of shootings in Chicago:

“The violence is so intensive that a few neighborhoods, blocks or people often drive most of the shootings and murders in a city or county. And this is true in both urban and rural areas, said Patrick Sharkey, a sociologist at Princeton.”

Let’s pick up on the comment that this is true in both urban and rural areas. The WSJ has an article that says there’s been a big spike in murders in rural America:

“Homicide rates in rural America rose 25% in 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It was the largest rural increase since the agency began tracking such data in 1999. The CDC considers counties rural if they are located outside metropolitan areas defined by the federal government.”

That’s pretty close to the 30% increase in urban areas. But the WSJ points not to a lack of tough-on-crime policies causing the spike in rural homicides, or a lack of social services, safety net, or investment in anti-poverty measures. Instead, it says that the primary culprits are Covid lockdowns and a lack of “pastoral care” from churches.

As Adam Johnson, who writes on media and politics, points out, in January, the same WSJ said the culprits of increasing urban crime were:

“Progressive prosecutors take the approach of not prosecuting some low-level offenses like drug possession. In Philadelphia, for example, cases brought by the district attorney’s office from 2018 through 2021 dropped by nearly 30% compared with the prior four years. This week, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner defended progressive prosecutors while promising to tackle gun violence at the swearing-in ceremony for his second term.”

The Conservative formula is simple: When crime increases in liberal cities, the cause is: reformist prosecutors, bail reform, and defunding the police movements.

But when murder spikes in counties coded as white or rural, and controlled largely by Republicans, the causes are societal and therefore blameless —namely the fraying of the social fabric brought about by the pandemic. They fail to mention the persistence of drugs in rural America, or how corporations have hollowed out the economies of rural America by moving abroad.

Johnson says that we’re caught in a “Narrative” by leaders in both Parties, that the Covid-era surge in crime was the result of lax DAs, bail reform, and other far-left measures. And the only way to combat it, was to remove the reforms, fund more police, and to effectively sunset the Black Lives Matter movement.

And Johnson says:

“…data very clearly indicates that crime—namely, murder rate—increases appear to be entirely divorced from the policies of the prosecutors and police budgets of the affected areas. Despite the widespread, casual lie that radical, far-left reform prosecutors or defunded police budgets have caused a spike in crime…”

Despite everyone knowing that socio-economic problems are also at the heart of the homicide rates in urban areas.

Still, the “Narrative” is having an effect on Democratic politics. We saw the recall of the progressive DA in San Francisco last week, and the NYT had an article about how Maryland’s Democratic primary for governor is now focused on better solutions to urban crime:

“In Democratic strongholds like Maryland, a rise in violent crime has pushed the party’s candidates to address the issue of public safety in newly urgent terms….Long seen as a political wedge for Republicans to use against Democrats, crime is increasingly a subject of concern within the Democratic Party and the big cities that make up much of its political base.”

The homicide spike is transforming the Democrat’s playbook on law and order. It’s forcing the Party to seek ways of balancing its determination to overhaul the criminal justice system with the imperative to protect some of its most loyal voters from a rising tide of violence.

The challenge is to walk a fine line: How can urban Democrats make the police more responsive but not militarized or heavy-handed; how to move police departments away from the often discriminatory tactics favored by the law-and-order mayors.

Still, when crime goes up in urban areas, it’s the reform efforts that are to blame. When crime goes up (by roughly the same percentage) in rural places where no such reforms exist, the “Tough on Crime” approach and the lack of robust social services can’t be blamed.

Both Democrats and Republicans want police budgets to grow. But neither have any answers as to how incremental dollars will reduce homicide rates, or make the police more effective at their jobs.

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Some Factors Affecting The Mid-Terms

The Daily Escape:

Before dawn, Kennebunkport, ME – June 2022 photo by Eric Storm Photo.

Even though the first public hearing about the Jan. 6 attempted coup happened last night, Wrongo doesn’t intend to write about them for a few days. The hot takes are all over the media, and it’s doubtful that we will know much about how the public is reacting for a few weeks. Once again Wrongo cautions that the media will cover this like a political contest when it isn’t. It really is about the health of our democracy.

And did you realize that only 21% of Americans over 18 read a newspaper every day? Cheryl Russell of Demo Memo has statistics from the General Social Survey showing how precipitously newspaper readership has fallen. She says that in 1972, 69% of the American public read a newspaper every day:

“Now, the share of adults who never read a newspaper (40%) is far greater than the share who read a newspaper daily. Fully 57% of the public reads a newspaper less than once a week…”

This also has implications for how broadly the findings of the Jan. 6 committee will be shared. As does the fact that FOX won’t be airing the hearings and plans to counter-program with GOP members of the House and Senate presenting real-time disinformation as the facts are aired.

Speaking of not knowing the facts,  YouGov reports on an economic survey showing that seven out of 10 Republicans think we’re currently in a recession. More than half of all independents and 43% of Democrats also think the same. They sampled about 1,500 US adults online between May 28 – 31, 2022, with a margin of error of ± 3%. Here are the results:

How can we be in a recession when our unemployment rate is at 3.6%? When wages are up 5.6% over the past year, and consumers still are spending money like crazy?

People may believe we’re in a recession, but the US economy added 1.2 million jobs in the past three months. Yes, inflation is the highest it’s been in 40 years, but higher gas and food prices don’t mean we’re in the midst of an economic slowdown. Maybe the survey was poorly worded, or maybe, since people really never read in depth about what’s really going on in America, they never learn what’s really happening. This will be very damaging to the Democrats’ mid-term chances.

Next, you may have heard that there was a “political earthquake” in the California primaries, that Dems did poorly because of the “crime” issue, and that will hurt Democrats all across the nation.

A recalled San Francisco District Attorney didn’t cause an earthquake, and neither did a Republican-turned-Democrat’s advancing in the LA Mayor race. Former Republican and billionaire Rick Caruso spent $40 million on his mayoral primary! His opponent, Karen Bass, spent $3 million on her campaign. He won the primary by 3 points, although she is the likely winner in November.

What WAS an earthquake was the anemic voter turnout. Only about 19% of California’s registered voters actually voted.

There was no sign of an anti-Democratic wave in CA. Candidates from both parties that were expected to make the general election did so. Probably the weakest performances by incumbents were posted by Republicans David Valadao and Young Kim, who struggled to defeat challengers running to their right. In particular, Valadao, who voted to impeach Trump, appears to have advanced to the general election.

And in CA-41, moderate Democrat Will Rollins advanced to the November election against Republican incumbent Ken Calvert, who voted to overturn the 2020 election results. Rollins has a decent chance to win in November in what is a 50-50 district.

Finally, Larry Sabato reports on the redistricting landscape now that most state redistricting is complete:

  • The total number of competitive districts has declined from 84 to 75.
  • The number of super-safe Republican districts (those where Biden won 40% or less) increased from 112 to 131.
  • The number of super-safe Democratic seats, 127, while similar to the Republican total, is down slightly.
  • There are 211 seats where Biden received 49% of the vote or less, and 202 seats where he won 53% or more.

Sabato’s Crystal Ball rates Republicans having 214 seats as safe, likely, or leaning Republican. That means that if they hold those seats, they are just four additional seats from controlling the House. They rate the Democrats as having 193 seats as safe, likely, or leaning Democratic.

That means if both Parties hold serve, there are just 28 seats in play in the 2022 mid-terms. For the Democrats to retain control of the House would require them to win 25 of those 28 seats.

If the Dems want to retain control of the House, what message should they be telling voters who: a) Don’t read newspapers; b) Think the economy is crashing; and c) Fail to turn out in Democratic and Independent-leaning Congressional Districts?

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