Tag: Jobs Growth

Why The Polls Are Wrong

The Daily Escape:

Belle, a water taxi in Camden, ME – September 2023 photo by Daniel F. Dishner

Happy Saturday, hopefully, you are getting a great start to a restful Labor Day weekend! This past week, we had friends from Los Angeles stop by the Mansion of Wrong. We had a few bottles of a delightful wine, and the question that never goes away came up again: “Why is Biden doing so badly in the polls?”

There really isn’t a good answer. The economy is doing fine, much better than the pundits expected it would be in the third quarter of 2023. But as Dan Pfeiffer points out:

“…somehow — against all common sense — the 2024 election between a competent President and an incompetent criminal — will be incredibly close. The Real Clear Politics polling average has Biden up by only 1.4%. Biden won the popular vote in 2020 by 4.5%. Given the strong Republican lean of the Electoral College, a Biden popular vote win of this size would likely mean that Trump ends up with 270 electoral votes.”

Now, Wrongo never relies on Real Clear Politics’ average of polls, but they’re not alone in offering up grim polling data, and the one thing Trump beats Biden on in surveys is running the economy, a very scary number :

While the actual economic numbers are good, people mostly look at how much money is in their pockets, asking: “What can I buy, given what I’m earning”? The August jobs report showed continued solid gains in aggregate pay for nonsupervisory workers even after inflation is taken into account. From the Bondad blog:

“Average Hourly Earnings for Production and Nonsupervisory Personnel increased $.06, or +0.2%, to $29.00, a YoY gain of +4.5%….”

YoY is year over year. By comparison, the most recent Consumer Price Index for July was 3.3%. Pay increases have been outpacing overall CPI inflation this year. So wages are creeping up, inflation is almost under control, and there’s no recession on the horizon.

A helpful statistic is that spending on pleasure boats is near previous highs, Axios reports:

“Why it matters: You don’t buy a boat unless you’re feeling fairly confident the economic wind is at your back. So this is a good sign for the economy. The ongoing boat-buying binge — which began during COVID shutdowns — is another strike against the once dominant “looming recession” narrative.”

One million used boats sold in the last 12 months! One guess as to who’s buying all of these boats: It isn’t the antifa-BLM Marxist globalists from big cities and blue states. Florida and Texas are in the top three states in revenues from boating.

And you won’t buy a boat unless you’re fairly confident that the economic wind is at your back. That means despite what people are telling pollsters, people are feeling pretty good about the economy.

Pfeiffer notes that all isn’t lost. As of now, Biden is in better shape politically than Obama was at this juncture. August of 2011 was the first (and only) time Obama’s approval dropped below 40%, and he was losing to a generic Republican. More:

“The primary reason for the statistical tie in the race is that Trump is holding onto more of his 2020 vote than Biden. In a NYT poll, 91% of Trump’s 2020 voters are supporting him again while only 87% percent of Biden’s voters plan to vote for him in 2024.”

More:

“Among Biden’s 2020 voters, only 77% percent of Democrats in the poll have a favorable opinion of Biden, compared to 80% of Republicans for Trump.”

But Pfeiffer says we shouldn’t panic, because convincing people who have already voted for Biden to vote for him again is doable, and easier than convincing a Trumper to vote for Biden. But despite that, given the Reddish tilt to the Electoral College, we should assume that 2024, like the 2020 presidential election, will depend on a number of voters smaller than the number of attendees at a Taylor Swift concert.

A second point we talked about was Biden’s age. There are two referendums that will be a part of the 2024 presidential election. First, on Trump and his 91 counts. Second, on Biden’s age and whether he seems up to the task going forward.

It’s one thing for Biden to tell us about all that his administration has accomplished in 3 years. His results should be pitched to turn his vulnerability as an older person into a perception of wisdom. He needs to convince voters that the country is on a good path and that Biden, our captain, with his age and experience, has steered us to where we’re starting to see success.

Charlie Sykes suggests the pitch should sound like this:

“We’ve done the hard work. We took the punches. We had a plan and now it’s starting to turn around. So the question is, as we come back, who do you want in charge for the next four years?”

And when Republicans spew their litany of racial hatred, and class warfare, Biden should be saying:

“Working folks like you need cheaper prescription drugs, you need to be able to spend more time with your family by getting better wages for your labor…”

Ultimately 2024 will be about voter turnout. Convincing younger voters and those who aren’t fired up about Biden to come out to the polls will decide America’s fate.

Now take a beat and forget about the many crises we face. Let’s focus instead on our Saturday Soother. We’re expecting beautiful weather in the northeast, and much of our time will be spent outside. So join Wrongo in pulling up a comfy chair in the shade and spend a few minutes watching this lovely video of a Loon family swimming on a lake in a thunderstorm. It’s guaranteed to improve your outlook. You may want to bookmark this video to use whenever our politics are driving you nuts:

Facebooklinkedinrss

Two Data Points That Say Much About Our Economy

The Daily Escape:

Another Alaska pic: Wrongo was in a kayak about 20 yards from this big guy asking himself whether he could out-paddle a charging grizzly. June 21, 2023 photo by Kristina Rau for the cruise line.

Today let’s talk about two interrelated economic issues. First, with more than 200,000 jobs created in the US economy in June, nearly 4 million more people are now employed than just before the pandemic.

Heather Long at the WaPo looked at who’s getting them. Along the way, she busts a few Right Wing myths:

“The mistaken notion that Americans don’t want to work can now be put to rest. Nearly 81% of Americans ages 25 to 54 are working, the highest share since 2001.”

Long reminds us that in March 2022, Fed Chair Powell argued the labor market was “unhealthy”:

“There was a misguided belief that it would take a recession to get supply and demand for goods — and workers — back to more normal levels. But what many experts missed was how many workers of color and immigrants wanted to work and were still looking for opportunities.”

Long provides the demographic breakdown for our recent job gains:

“Fewer White people are employed now than pre-pandemic. In contrast, over 2 million more Hispanics are employed now, over 800,000 more Asian Americans and over 750,000 more African Americans.”

Before the pandemic, companies were complaining that they couldn’t find workers, while the experts were saying the nation was at “full employment.” However, every month, Black and Hispanic people (largely women) kept entering the labor force and getting jobs.

Also, more than 2 million more foreign-born people are employed now than before the pandemic. This means that more than half of the new workers have been immigrants.

This is partly a result of low unemployment. Blacks and Hispanics often do not get hired until late in an economic recovery. In the past year, there’s also been a strong uptick in jobs in government and health care, two sectors in which women of color have historically found employment opportunities.

Employers have also loosened their hiring criteria, offering improved pay and benefits, and removing requirements for college degrees for many positions. Long says:

“This past spring, for the first time, Black Americans were as likely to be employed as White Americans.”

What a change! Hard to see much “socialism” in this new jobs analysis.  This is good news that disputes the old Right wing bromides about how “these folks don’t want work; they want to sit back and get free stuff”.

Second, the WaPo’s Department of Data, a new statistical analysis feature, answered the question:

“Which states contribute the most to the federal budget in taxes, and which get the most back in terms of benefits?”

They start by reminding us where tax revenue comes from:

“The vast bulk of the $4 trillion in revenue the federal government received in 2021 came in the form of income taxes and payroll taxes for Medicare and Social Security. Most of the rest comes from corporate income taxes and excise taxes on goods such as gasoline and alcohol.”

And just 4.5% of that income (customs duties and earnings on Federal Reserve deposits) cannot be traced to individual states.

But let’s get to the good stuff. Just eight blue states, (CA, NY, NJ, MA, CT, WA, NH, and CO) pay more in taxes to the federal government than they receive in federal benefits. They therefore subsidize all other states. Every other state receives more federal money than they pay in taxes.

And unsurprisingly 9 of the 11 top recipients of federal benefits are red states (KY, WVA, MS, AL, AK, LA, OK, AK, SC).

Nine of the 10 states that sent the most to the federal government, per person, voted for Biden in 2020. Nine of the 10 states that sent the least voted for Trump. So who’s got the bigger stake in socialism?

Its important to remember that when Republicans complain about “out of control” federal spending, most of them live in a state that receives more from the federal government than they contribute.

If we ever called their bluff, Republicans would scramble to decide what federal benefits their home states would be willing to give up in order to cut federal spending.

But of course, they would simply bluster on about socialism in the cities.

Maybe we should divide America into the MAKER states and the TAKER states. It’s nice to see that the data again shows Blue states are far more productive. Maybe another question for the Department of Data is:

“Why is higher income so closely aligned with support for Democrats?”

Facebooklinkedinrss

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – May 7, 2023

(The Monday Wake Up Call will be published on Tuesday this week.)

America has been waiting for more than a year for the Federal Reserve to get control over inflation. In that time, they’ve jacked up interest rates to over 5%. A year ago, raising rates that high seemed unthinkable, but here we are. Wages have also risen.

There was some damage: A few horribly managed banks collapsed. A couple of auto dealer-lender chains that specialized in selling overpriced used cars to subprime customers collapsed. And there were some fiascos in commercial real estate.

All of that has led the Fed to indicate that there could be a “soft landing” for our economy. But with the latest jobs growth numbers, maybe the Fed will have to keep circling the airport. In April, 253,000 jobs were created. There are now a record 155.7 million payroll jobs. Over the past 3 months on average, 222,000 jobs were created per month. So is a soft landing ahead?

Please raise your seat tables to the upright position and pass your trash to the attendant. On to cartoons.

Coronations aren’t just for the Brits:

(Wrongo watched the coronation of King Charles III yesterday. Seventy years ago, he also watched the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II  on a 9″ black & white Philco television. Yesterday’s was on a 55” Samsung.)

The reality about the GOP:

What to expect after the GOP talks with Biden about the Debt Ceiling:

Proud Boys found guilty, but who pulled the strings?

Kremlin complains:

Justice Thomas needs to be taller to take the ride:

Time to buy more cards:

Facebooklinkedinrss

Saturday Soother – October 16, 2021

The Daily Escape:

Sunset paints a Truro barn and marsh – October 2021 iPhone photo by Wrongo

Following on Wrongo’s article about the missing people who economists say should be looking for jobs in what is otherwise a vibrant economy, comes the news that there is a huge and sustained explosion of new businesses being launched in America.

This means that many individuals are striking out on their own. From Wolf Street:

“New business formations, based on applications for an Employer Identification Number (EIN) with the IRS, exploded in June and July last year…then this year exploded again and remained far above the historical range.”

In September 2021, 431,381 EIN applications were filed with the IRS, 49% above September 2019, according to data released by the Census Bureau. For the first nine months of the year, EIN applications were up by 58% from the same period in 2019. Here’s a chart:

These are monthly totals! We seem to be forming a ton of start-up companies since 2020, way above the historical trend. These new businesses surely must reduce the total number of people looking for work as reported by the Department of Labor.

More from Wolf Street: (parenthesis and brackets by Wrongo)

“…the historic high level of new business formations every month is part of the bizarre puzzle that this economy has become: The strange phenomenon of labor shortages, the enormous stimulus payments that went out, the federal unemployment payments that are now ending, the $800 billion in forgivable PPP loans (Paycheck Protection Program loans) that went [out] earlier this year, the 3.2 million people who still haven’t returned to the labor force
”

Some commentators felt that last year, EIN applications were spiking because fraudsters were creating businesses to try to get their hands on those forgivable PPP loans. But a quick check would have shown that an EIN wasn’t required for PPP loans. Further, businesses had to have been “in business” for some time to qualify. And while the PPP ended in May, business applications have continued to be strong every month since then.

Most new businesses create at least one job for the owner and maybe a few for other people, but most never become large employers. Even though many new businesses eventually fail, the number of new business formations seems to be large enough to explain the puzzling numbers on job participation rates, unemployment and job quits that we’ve been seeing since the pandemic started.

That’s something to think about.

It’s Saturday, and time to kick back and forget about whether Steve Bannon will ever see justice. It’s time to spend a few moments contemplating Wrongo’s Saturday Soother.

Here at our temporary (and rented) global headquarters for the Mansion of Wrong in Truro on Cape Cod, we’ve had a busy week. Several family members live on the Cape, and we’ve had family from off-Cape come and stay for a few nights, so it’s been a busy and rewarding time with family.

But even Wrongo needs some downtime, so let’s all settle back and grab a comfy chair by a big window. Now, listen to Fauré’s “Cantique de Jean Racine” performed with a large choir that is conducted by Sofi Jeannin, and recorded in October 2016, at the Auditorium of Radio France.

This composition based on Jean Racine’s poem, won FaurĂ© a prize before he was twenty. If you watch the video, the choir is a perfect mix of adult and young voices.

Facebooklinkedinrss

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – August 8, 2021

The Commonwealth Fund’s August 4 report says that the US health care system ranked dead last among 11 wealthy countries, despite spending the highest percentage of GDP (17%) on health care.

The report considered 71 performance measures in five categories: access to care, the care process, administrative efficiency, health care equity and health care outcomes. The countries analyzed in the report include Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the US.

America ranked last on access to care, administrative efficiency, equity, and health care outcomes. We performed well in rates of mammography screening and influenza vaccination for older Americans, as well as the percentage of adults who talked with their physician about nutrition, smoking and alcohol use. But we had the highest infant mortality rate and lowest life expectancy at age 60, compared with all the other countries.

Eric Schneider, the lead author and senior vice president for policy and research at the Commonwealth Fund:

“The US has two health care systems. For Americans with the means and insurance to have a regular doctor…reported experiences with their day-to-day care are relatively good, but for those who lack access, the consequences are stark.”

Our poor performance is nothing new. The US has been in last place in all seven of these studies that the Commonwealth Fund has released since 2004. This is another failure of our political system. Our politicians talk but never act.

On to cartoons. There were lots of Cuomo cartoons, little on Covid, the Olympics or infrastructure this week.

Someone should tell Cuomo the “I Grope Everybody” defense is a terrible defense. A good rule in life is not to touch people you’re not supposed to be touching. Keep your hands to yourself:

Gov. DeSantis explains Florida man’s definition of how to end Covid hesitancy:

The GOP also predicted Sharia law in America, the end of Christmas and death panels:

Remember when Obama wore a tan suit and Republicans went nuts? This week, Biden wore a tan suit to announce the big jobs increase. It was also Obama’s birthday week. It’s an obvious attempt to troll conservatives:

The summer of our discontent:

Facebooklinkedinrss

Monday Wake Up Call – November 25, 2019

The Daily Escape:

Delicate Arch, Arches NP, Moab UT – 2019 photo by rallymachine

Wrongo learned last week that the GOP thinks he’s just another agent of Soros, like most other non-Republicans. Sadly, the mailbox didn’t contain his weekly globalist payoff check, so we’re still stuck writing this blog.

We should be framing the debate about 2020 not in terms of policies, but by asking the question Ronald Regan asked: “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?” For the Evangelicals who wished for a right-wing Supreme Court, the answer is “yes”. For the 1%, and corporations who were awarded a gigantic tax cut, their answer is a strong “yes”.

But for most Americans, after four years, the answer isn’t yes, it’s a hard “no”.

Yes, the unemployment rate in the US is the lowest it’s been in 50 years. More Americans have jobs than ever before. Wages are climbing, but people tell a different story: Of long job hunts, trouble finding work with decent pay, or predictable hours.

How do we square the record-long economic expansion and robust labor market with the anecdotal stories we all hear? Quartz reports on a new jobs index that shows a way to make sense of both stories. Researchers at Cornell, the University of Missouri, Kansas City, the Coalition for a Prosperous America and the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity, working together:

“…..unveiled the US Private Sector Job Quality Index (or JQI for short), a new monthly indicator that aims to track the quality of jobs instead of just the quantity. The JQI measures the ratio of what the researchers call “high-quality” versus “low-quality” jobs….”

They developed a ratio of higher-wage/higher-hour jobs versus lower-wage/lower-hour jobs, and tracked it back in time using federal data. The Index reveals that job quality in the US has deteriorated substantially since 1990, and even more so since 2006.

Overall, the JQI found a shift from US high-wage/high-hour jobs to low-wage/low-hour positions. Since 1990, the US has been creating an overabundance of lower-quality service jobs. The JQI reveals that 63% of the production and non-supervisory jobs created over the past 30 years have been in low-wage and low-hour positions. That’s a marked change from the early 1990s, when nearly half of these jobs (47%) were high-wage.

Since 1990, America has cumulatively added some 20 million low-quality jobs, versus around 12 million high-quality ones. We now create more bad jobs than good. This helps explain why our GDP growth isn’t nearly what economists say we should expect from a full-employment economy.

Also, the poor jobs come with fewer hours worked. People in low-quality jobs clock 30 hours a week. Compare that to an average 38 hours a week for high-quality jobs. That seven-hour gap doesn’t sound like a lot, but it adds up to about 480 million hours per year.

Those unworked hours represents the equivalent of about 12 million jobs forgone each year. A key reason is that employers limit worker’s hours to keep from having to pay benefits.

Overall, the growing total of jobs that offer lower-than-average incomes means that job growth, as reflected by a super-low unemployment rate, provides less spending power than in the past. The economy is getting a lot less bang for its buck.

Maybe the Democrats’ presidential candidates should base the campaign on asking the Ronald Regan question again in 2020.

Time to wake up America! Look behind the headlines. Ask the candidates what they plan to do about the fact that our economy isn’t providing quality jobs. The $15/hour wage, although useful, isn’t enough to grow the economy.

To help you wake up, listen to Tones and I, a 19 year-old Australian singer-songwriter who has the number one global hit “Dance Monkey”. Today we’re featuring her song called “The Kids are Coming”. This song is sending an important message and portrays the reality of our time, that young people believe we’ve been poor stewards of their futures:

Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

Facebooklinkedinrss

Current and Future Job Growth Will Be In Cities

The Daily Escape:

Breezewood, PA – 2008 photo by Edward Burtynsky. Each year, 3.5 million passenger vehicles and 1.5 million trucks drive the half-mile Breezewood strip on Route 30. That’s because a law in the 1950s prohibited spending federal funds to connect a free road to a toll road. So, highway planners designed an interchange that routes drivers onto Route 30 for a half-mile.

An interesting article from Market Watch shows how nearly all job growth is in big cities, while rural America is being left behind:

“Since the economy began adding jobs after the Great Recession nine years ago, about 21.5 million jobs have been created in the United States, the second-best stretch of hiring in the nation’s history, second only to the 1990s. But….Most of the new jobs have been located in a just a few dozen large and dynamic cities, leaving slower-growing cities, small towns and rural areas — where about half of Americans live — far behind.”

MarketWatch cites a July 2019 study by McKinsey forecasting that 25 cities that are home to about 30% of Americans will capture about 60% of the job growth between 2017 and 2030, just as they did between 2007 and 2017. In typical McKinsey fashion, they break cities and towns into many categories. Please read the report for full details. Here are their top-line findings about where the largest growth is happening:

  • Twelve mega-cities (and their extended suburbs) top the list: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Francisco and Washington.
  • Another 13 are high-growth hubs in or around smaller cities: Austin, Charlotte, Denver, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, Nashville, Orlando, Portland (Ore.), Raleigh, San Antonio, San Jose, Seattle, and Tampa.
  • Smaller, fast-growing cities and a few privileged rural counties will also add jobs, while vast swaths of the South, Midwest and Plains will lose jobs.
  • The New York metro area, home to 20 million people, added more jobs over the past year than did all of America’s small towns and rural areas, with a population of 46 million people, combined.

McKinsey’s forecast reinforces concerns about persistent economic inequality in America. Inclusive growth is a must, or it is likely that our society will fall apart. The problem: No one, and certainly not Republicans, have a magic wand that will bring back jobs to rural and small-town America.

Anyone who’s been paying attention knows that job growth is mostly occurring in places that vote for Democrats, while the stagnation is mostly in places that vote for Republicans. In 2016, Trump was smart to tailor a pitch to those parts of America, but their situations haven’t improved since his election.

And the divide is getting larger. Over the past year, only 12% of 389 metro areas had any significant job growth, according to an analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data by Aaron Sojourner, a former White House economist, now an associate professor at the University of Minnesota:

So, after 17 years of significant and broadly-spread growth, fewer towns and cities are now doing so well. And, of the 47 metros that gained significant numbers of jobs over the past year, 21 were on McKinsey’s top 25 list.

Meanwhile, the regional jobs data from the BLS shows that non-metropolitan areas, which account for 18% of jobs, had just 5% of job growth over the past year.

OTOH, income inequality is greatest in those cities with the highest jobs growth. But, we can’t write off one quarter of the US population simply because they live in low-growth areas. And politically, it’s essential. Rural America is overrepresented politically — we can’t ignore them.

But, what to do? Sanders and Warren have addressed this by trying to raise tax revenues from corporations, and funding free college. They along with others, believe in some form of Medicare-for-all, which could help address the fact that rural America is older, sicker, and poorer than ever before.

Yang proposes a universal basic income of $1,000/month for everyone.

Trump proposes tax cuts for the wealthy, tariffs and weakened environmental regulations, but despite all three, the situation has gotten worse since his election.

McKinsey suggests that communities that are being left behind ought to try almost everything: improved transportation to get residents to jobs, rural broadband, and lifelong job training.

Building consensus about how to address job growth and income inequality is the key to America’s future. This is what the 2020 presidential election should be about.

Facebooklinkedinrss

Saturday Soother – January 5, 2019

The Daily Escape:

Bryce Canyon NP, looking down at the Wall Street trail – this photo was taken on New Year’s Eve by natsmith69. The photographer says he didn’t hike down because of the government shutdown.

Two topics for today: First, the December jobs report, which was encouraging in the face of a roller-coaster stock market. Employment rose a very strong 312,000 jobs in December, bringing the full count of jobs added for 2018 up to 2.6 million, the strongest year for job gains since 2015.

Unemployment ticked up to 3.9%, largely because more people were drawn into the labor market as measured by the civilian labor force participation rate. It moved up two-tenths to 63.1%, its highest level since 2014. That’s a reminder that the job market still has capacity to expand.

Wage growth accelerated slightly, and tied cyclical highs. Weekly hours worked edged up, job gains for the prior two months were revised upwards, and a very high 70% of private industries added jobs.

It seems that low unemployment has finally started to lead to pressure to raise pay.

Despite all of this positive labor market news, there are economic headwinds in the volatile stock market, Trump’s trade war, and slower economic growth abroad.

Some economists are forecasting a grim outlook for near-term US economic growth. OTOH, low unemployment, job gains, and higher wages should boost consumer spending, which accounts for almost 70% of the US economy.

Try to keep calm about the stock market. There isn’t much definitive economic news that should make you decide to bail out of stocks just now.

Item two: The shut-down. On Friday, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) after another meeting about the shut-down, said that Trump threatened to keep the government closed for “months or even years” until he gets his desired wall funding.

Speaker Pelosi (D-CA) described the meeting as a “lengthy and sometimes contentious conversation with the president.” She said both sides agreed to continue talks. She then said: (brackets by Wrongo)

 We cannot resolve this until we open up [the] government…

So far, most Republicans are keeping a stiff upper lip, saying just what Trump says. But there are a few cracks, notably Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) and possibly, Susan Collins (R-ME), who are asking to re-open the federal government without a deal on funding the border wall.

Clearly there is a deal to be had. It probably looks like funding Trump’s wall, which is a rounding error in the federal budget, in return for passing a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) relief bill as part of immigration reform. Lawmakers in both parties are sympathetic to immigrants who entered the country illegally as children.

The Hill reports that Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), a member of GOP leadership, said that while he hasn’t been involved in overall immigration discussions, expanding the scope of negotiations could be one way to break the logjam:

You know, sometimes the best way to solve a problem is to make it bigger, and that’s always one of the options here…

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) is urging Trump to strike a deal on comprehensive immigration reform:

Why would he not agree to such a thing…We could go small, we could go a little bigger
 but I’d like to see the president say, ‘OK, we’ve got a new Congress. We’ve got divided government. I’m the president who can actually make this happen.’

Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) is pitching his proposal that would establish a $25 billion border trust fund and codify protections for DACA recipients. Remember that Trump rejected a similar offer from Senate Democrats last year, so it isn’t clear where the goalposts for such a deal are today. We’ll have to watch the drama unfold.

Time to let go of the news and settle into a Saturday soother, maybe while taking down ornaments. Start the process of soothing by brewing up a yuuge cup of Panama Ninety Plus Perci Lot 50 coffee ($60/8 oz.) from Birdrock Coffee of San Diego, CA. Coffee Review rates it at 97, with tastes of fruit while being giddily brandy-toned. Maybe that’s a rave.

Now settle back in a comfy chair and listen to the “Adagio for Oboe, Cello, Organ and Strings” by Domenico Zipoli. Zipoli was an Italian Jesuit priest who lived much of his life in what is now Argentina. He studied with Scarlatti, became a Jesuit, worked as a missionary and died in 1726 in Argentina at age 38:

If fate had granted Zipoli another 20 to 25 years, he would be regarded today as a major composer.

Facebooklinkedinrss

Saturday Soother – December 16, 2017

The Daily Escape:

Central Park NYC, December 12th – 2017 photo by Rommel Tan

Long-time readers know that Wrongo has a very low opinion of Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI), who he considers an intellectual joker. He is often given a pass by the main stream media, who suggest that he is a thoughtful and principled Republican. But once again, he looked like a partially-informed hack on Thursday when he said that Americans need to have more babies or risk a collapse of Medicare and Social Security.

His concern is about the declining US birth rate. The Boston Globe reports that:

Ten years ago, the typical American woman had about 2.1 children. Today, it is about 1.77, representing a collapse in fertility on par with the declines in other countries that yielded Japan’s rapidly graying population in the 1990s, or Canada’s massive present-day demand for immigrants.

From Ryan’s news conference: (parenthesis by Wrongo)

People — this is going to be the new economic challenge for America. People…I did my part, (Ryan has three kids) but we need to have higher birth rates in this country. Meaning, baby boomers are retiring, and we have fewer people following them in the work force…We have something like a 90% increase in the retirement population in America, but only a 19% increase in the working population in America…

It is true that birth rates in the US have declined, but that’s not necessarily bad news. For example, birth rates for teenagers hit a record low last year. Also, Wrongo recently described McKinsey’s report on jobs lost to automation that showed 75 million jobs are at risk in the US by 2030.

Perhaps we already have too many workers for the jobs revolution that is occurring all around us.

And there’s an obvious solution to the problem that Ryan ignores: Allowing more immigrants into the country, either to fill the jobs being vacated by retiring baby boomers, or as necessary to meet tomorrow’s job requirements. But Ryan shows that he’s all in with Trump’s hard line anti-immigration positions.

Should American women become brood mares? This isn’t a new concept. The fear of being outnumbered by racial and ethnic minorities is the driving force behind today’s alt-right, and the view was around in earlier white nationalist movements. HuffPo interviewed Kelly J. Baker, author of “Gospel According to the Klan”. Baker says that the need to ensure that white women were having more white babies was a key part of the Ku Klux Klan’s platform during its resurgence in the 1920s: (emphasis by Wrongo)

Baker said that the 1920s Klan was “nervous” about the possibility of widespread birth control for white women…To push back against the rising availability of effective birth control, the Klan told white women that having as many white children as possible is your job and it matters for your family and your race and for America.

And now, Ryan makes this a mainstream GOP idea. For all of the political empowerment of women in today’s headlines, the Ryan argument lands in the same place as today’s alt-right, and yesterday’s KKK.

Ryan and the GOP want to see more babies, but they won’t support young kids with health insurance through the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Quartz reports that next month, 600,000 American children will lose their CHIP coverage. CHIP has been instrumental in ensuring health care coverage of children in US families that aren’t poor enough to qualify for Medicaid, but cannot afford any other form of insurance.

Republicans talk a lot about the cost of healthcare. The cost of not providing healthcare to children in an America with failing schools is impossible to calculate. It is very high, it lasts lifetimes and possibly, generations.

Yet, Ryan is saying that American women need to have more babies to Make America Great Again.

And we know that he’s asking for more white babies.

OK, it’s Saturday, and we need a break from toxic politics, and maybe from obsessing about shopping for gifts. Hanukkah began this week, so Wrongo looked for a soothing piece of music that was inspired by the celebration of the Festival of Lights. Here is “Hanukkah Overture for String Orchestra and Clarinet” by Adam Shugar.

If you look at the YouTube video, you will see that it has just 5,000 views. It should have many more. You should watch it because the music is good, and unlike most orchestral pieces, this string orchestra performs while standing. The video is shot from a high angle, and looking down allows you to see them all as they play together, almost like a choreographed dance. Here is “Hanukkah Overture for String Orchestra and Clarinet” played by the Orchestre Nouvelle GĂ©nĂ©ration under the direction of Airat Ichmouratov, with Mark Simons on clarinet:

Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

Facebooklinkedinrss

Saturday Soother – October 27, 2017

The Daily Escape:

Fall at Crested Butte – photo by mellowrapp

The economists at Indeed’s Hiring Lab say that the areas of the country that voted for Donald Trump in 2016 face the smallest job growth in the decade ahead.

Indeed uses new projections by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to project the winners and losers in the American job market for the period 2016-2026:

The occupational projections suggest faster growth in urban areas than in suburbs, and slowest in rural areas. The two sectors projected to have no or negative growth — production and agriculture — are more concentrated in small towns and rural areas. Many technical, scientific, legal, financial, and healthcare jobs are clustered in big, dense cities.

The fastest growing occupations are projected to be in clean energy: solar photo-voltaic installers and wind turbine service technician jobs are expected to double. Four of the 10 fastest growing occupations pay at least $100,000 a year, according to the BLS: physician assistants, nurse practitioners, software developers, and mathematicians.

Indeed combined the BLS projections with 2016 US Census Bureau’s American Community Survey data to show where the faster-growing occupations will be located. That suggests faster growth will be in coastal urban areas, and slowest growth will be in rural areas:

Indeed then overlaid voting patterns on the BLS job growth projections. It is clear that Blue America has a more favorable forecast for future jobs growth than Red America:

So what does this chart tell us? In places that voted for Trump by a 20-point margin, 16% of workers are in occupations projected to shrink, versus 13.2% of workers in places that voted for Hillary Clinton by a similar 20-point margin.

The next decade’s jobs growth could also increase inequality. The fastest growing jobs include several with the highest average wages, including healthcare, computer, and mathematics occupations. Occupations with the lowest average wages are also projected to grow fast, such as home health aides and personal care aides. Middle-wage job growth is projected to lag, at about half the rate of the highest- and lowest-wage jobs.

It seems that a big slice of Trump’s supporters will be losers when it comes to jobs and income growth over the next 10 years. Will they stick with the Republican Party when the job situation gets even worse for them? Of course!

Now, here comes the weekend!

This week we watched Jeff (I’m not a) Flake give a valedictory speech that excoriated the leader of his party. Catalonia succeeded from Spain, and the GOP pushed their tax cut agenda forward. The Trump administration tried to deny a young illegal immigrant woman an abortion, and Hillary Clinton was implicated in paying for the Steele Dossier.

But the worst was that Paul Newman’s Rolex wristwatch sold for $17.75 million. File this under: Idiots with too much money.

Plenty of hits to the system for a single week, so it’s time to take a break from the reality known as Trumpmerica.

Time to brew a very large mug of Celestial Seasons Bengal Spice tea, put your feet up, and put on the Bluetooth headphones. Now listen to Aaron Copland’s “Quiet City” from the 1989 album “Works by Husa, Copland, Vaughan Williams, and Hindemith”, performed by Wynton Marsalis with Phillip Koch on English Horn along with the Eastern Wind Ensemble.

Copland said the piece was an attempt to mirror the troubled main character of an Irwin Shaw play, who had abandoned his religion and his poetry in order to pursue material success. He Anglicized his name, married a rich socialite, and became president of a department store. But he continually returns to his guilty conscience whenever he hears the haunting sound of his brother’s trumpet.

See if Marsalis can take you inside your conscience:

Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

Facebooklinkedinrss