Month: September 2011

Losers the Pink Collar Ghetto

by digby

On labor day I wrote a little post featuring my recollections of recessions past as a worker in the pink collar ghetto. I’ve been wondering how such workers have fared this time and E.J Graff has a good piece up today on the subject. Unfortunately it’s not looking good:

Men lost more jobs and are still disproportionately out of work when compared to women. At the same time, men are starting—albeit just barely—to regain those jobs. Jobs disproportionately held by women, on the other hand, are not coming back. The Center for American Progress’s interactive graphic shows this by industry; click on “job losses” and then “play the timeline.” One reason: many “women’s jobs”* are government-funded. That includes teachers but also home health aides, nurse’s aides, child-care workers—all the jobs that make it possible for working families and single parents to show up for their swing shifts without locking the kids in the car for eight hours or leaving grandpa alone at home with a bedpan. Those jobs are paid for by state and local governments, which are still laying off workers. As Parramore puts it, “Women are the shock-absorbers for government budget cuts.”

There’s another reason, according to Bryce Covert and Mike Konczal at the Roosevelt Institute, that men are getting rehired and women are not, not just in the public sector but across private industries as well: office-support jobs are disappearing. Covert and Konczal say “support staff” positions often held by women—call them secretaries, office managers, administrative assistants—are being eliminated and not replaced. It’s part of the great speed-up: The rest are supposed to book our own travel, answer our own e-mails, schedule our own meetings. That leaves many office workers frantic—and a lot of women out of work.

That’s a double whammy — government jobs with decent pay, benefits and worker protections are being cut at the same time that many private sector jobs that are traditionally held by women are being eliminated.

Some of this could be alleviated by the Jobs Bill, which featured at least some money for states and localities to pay for government jobs that are often held by women. But it’s probably unlikely that the pink collar ghetto jobs will come back. My recollection of the 92 recession was that the support jobs stayed consolidated and when the economy came back they just hired more high paid executives. I would imagine it’s even worse now.

And yes, this leaves office workers frantic. But in a corporate world in which executive boards pay failed CEO cronies many hundreds of times more than the average worker, cutting labor costs to please Masters of the Universe has to come from somewhere. And it’s only women for the most part so who cares, right?

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Indecent and Irresponsible

by digby

Seeing as even most liberals are on board with the whole “Stimulus now, but deficit reduction in the future” formulation (leading, unfortunately, to rash proposals to cut Medicare and Social Security in exchange for short term stimulus) this bracing dose of the truth from economist Richard Koo is very welcome:

Arguing need for longer-term fiscal consolidation is irresponsible
The insistence that fiscal consolidation is necessary in the longer term is like the doctor who, faced with a patient who has just been admitted to the intensive care ward, repeatedly questions the patient about his ability to afford the treatment. This is both lacking in decency and irresponsible.

If the patient loses heart after learning the cost of the treatment, he may end up spending even longer in the hospital, leading to a larger final bill. Completely ignoring the policy duration effect of fiscal policy and constantly insisting on longer-term fiscal consolidation was what prolonged Japan’s recession.
For instance, it was because Japan’s policymakers refused to give up the medium-term fiscal consolidation target of achieving a primary fiscal balance by 2011 that the government stumbled from fiscal stimulus to fiscal retrenchment and back again and, ultimately, was unable to meet its fiscal targets even once in the last 20 years.

That is why Japan’s recession lasted as long as it did and why the nation’s debt has risen to some 200% of GDP.

With some notable exceptions, most people still believe that that there will be a hangover of debt which will have to be dealt with at some point. But the confidence fairy died some time back and the only other reason for worrying about it at this point is to get some Shock Doctrine benefits out of the current situation. But as Koo points out, this actually hurts the economy even more.

If there is any psychology involved in economics, and one has to believe there is, then this constant fearmongering about the debt makes people even more nervous about the future than they already are — and cutting government spending on programs they will need makes it worse. The government should just keep it simple. They just aren’t all that good at finessing all these messages and policies about “sacrifice” and “stimulus” and are turning this situation into a massive case of free floating anxiety. So perhaps they should just return to the old fashioned “first things first” — stimulate the economy and get people back to work. When that’s done, the government can take a fresh look at revenues and spending in a healthy economy and make whatever decisions need to be made. Selling off tomorrow’s security in exchange for today’s prosperity is what got us into this mess in the first place.

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Balloons flying everywhere

The president’s fiscal plan is also expected to draw on options the White House had put on the table in talks with John Boehner, House speaker, over a “grand bargain” on fiscal reform. Those discussions eventually fell apart.

During those discussions in July, the White House had agreed to $425bn in cuts to Medicaid and Medicare – with $150bn extracted from Medicare providers such as doctors and hospitals, $150bn coming from Medicare beneficiaries, and $125bn coming out of reforms to Medicaid, administration officials said at the time. Among the menu of policy ideas to reach those targets were an increase in the eligibility age for Medicare.

Allowing Medicare more flexibility to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical groups and preventing special deals delaying the entry of generic drugs into certain markets could also be part of the plan.

Mr Obama’s plan could also feature a change in the way the US government measures inflation, switching to a less generous chained-consumer price index. The biggest impact of this measure – which could save between $250bn and $300bn over ten years – would be felt by recipients of Social Security, the retirement scheme.

During the failed July talks, the White House agreed to put that change in place starting in 2015, but with protections for low-income workers.

I hadn’t heard that they were thinking about adding SS to this particular mix, so maybe this reporter is just adding that in on the basis of the July debacle. Let’s hope so.

Aside from the utter foolishness of the policy, on a political level I think they’d do much, much better as the staunch protectors of the programs. The image is of someone who is willing to trade away long term benefits for short term gain and I don’t think that helps. But it may be working, at least a little bit, to soften up Democrats. I’m hearing chatter from various supporters about how this is a “good trade” if the president can get his jobs program through and that raising the eligibility age isn’t all that bad etc.

It would appear that after a few months of exposing people to the idea, what would have been considered inconceivable just a few months ago is now considered reasonable among quite a few people.

And here I thought the President didn’t have any power to change minds.

Update: See that bully pulpit do its magic:

Which of the following approaches is more likely to be successful in growing the U.S. economy and creating jobs?

Spending cuts and tax cuts will give businesses more confidence to hire — 57%

Government needs to keep spending at current level now because the job market is so weak — 13%

Government needs to spend more to stimulate the economy — 23%

Not sure — 7%

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k.d Lang for Ed Potosnak

by digby

Howie wrote a good post yesterday about his days in the music business and his affection for k.d. Lang. And then he announced a new Blue America contest:

Aside for my love for k.d. and for her music, why am I bringing this up now? Glad you asked. k.d. is also one of Ed Potosnak’s favorite all-time artists and, as you probably know, Blue America has endorsed Ed for the New Jersey congressional seat currently held by anti-health care reactionary Leonard Lance. See that platinum award disc up top? k.d. gave that to me after her album sold a million copies. This week she agreed to personally autograph it, not to me, but to whomever wins our Ed Potosnak contest. She’s playing at the Mayo Performing Arts Center in Morristown, NJ on September 22. So… we’ll pick a lucky random winner on September 20 and Ed will personally take the plaque backstage so k.d. can sign it to the winner. So, the obvious question: how do you enter?That’s easy: just donate to Ed’s campaign here— any amount; after all, we’re not Republicans– and one winner will be chosen at random to get this very special Thank You from Blue America. We did a similar kind of contest for a signed Green Day guitar and raised over $5,000 although the winner just gave $10. Make sure you contribute between now and September 20th, either on the linked ActBlue page or by check to Blue America PAC, PO Box 27201, Los Angeles, CA 90027.But, apart from wanting a memento of k.d.’s incredible career, why donate to Ed’s campaign? We’ve written about him many times before but you can get to know more about him from thisguest post he wrote in July. Ed’s a science teacher and yesterday he told me that “our future is in today’s classrooms. All across our nation great disparities exist between the educational experiences of some students and others. Not only is it not fair, these inequities hurt our future. Republicans have shown their disregard for our future time again by slashing aid to schools, teacher bashing, and cutting support for our colleges. For America to remain economically competitive in the global economy, Congress needs educators like myself to make sure every child is treated fairly and has access to a high quality education.” Equality of all kinds is a hallmark of Ed’s campaign. He also said that “our nation’s diversity is one of our greatest strengths and in Congress I will work every day to ensure every American is treated equally. It is not acceptable to allow discriminatory policies to be on the books. As an openly gay man, I have experienced institutional discrimination and am committed to making sure it ends for all our communities.”Again, you can contribute to a stalwart and dedicated New Jersey progressive, Ed Potosnak,here at the Blue America page, and we’ll enter you in the running for the k.d. lang RIAA platinum award for Ingénue.

If you like progressive candidates and k.d. lang, throw a couple of bucks toward Ed Potosnak. You literally can’t lose.

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Changing the Rules
by David Atkins (“thereisnospoon”)

If the GOP is looking to ignite riots and a 2nd American civil war, this would be one way to do it:

Republican state legislators in Pennsylvania are pushing a scheme that, if GOPers in other states follow their lead, could cause President Barack Obama to lose the 2012 election—not because of the vote count, but because of new rules. That’s not all: there’s no legal way for Democrats to stop them…

Each state gets to determine how its electoral votes are allocated. Currently, 48 states and DC use a winner-take-all system in which the candidate who wins the popular vote in the state gets all of its electoral votes. Under the Republican plan—which has been endorsed by top Republicans in both houses of the state’s legislature, as well as the governor, Tom Corbett—Pennsylvania would change from this system to one where each congressional district gets its own electoral vote. (Two electoral votes—one for each of the state’s two senators—would go to the statewide winner.)

This could cost Obama dearly. The GOP controls both houses of the state legislature plus the governor’s mansion—the so-called “redistricting trifecta”—in Pennsylvania. Congressional district maps are adjusted after every census, and the last one just finished up. That means Pennsylvania Republicans get to draw the boundaries of the state’s congressional districts without any input from Democrats. Some of the early maps have leaked to the press, and Democrats expect that the Pennsylvania congressional map for the 2012 elections will have 12 safe GOP seats compared to just 6 safe Democratic seats.

Under the Republican plan, if the GOP presidential nominee carries the GOP-leaning districts but Obama carries the state, the GOP nominee would get 12 electoral votes out of Pennsylvania, but Obama would only get eight—six for winning the blue districts, and two (representing the state’s two senators) for carrying the state. This would have an effect equivalent to flipping a small winner-take-all state—say, Nevada, which has six electoral votes—from blue to red. And Republicans wouldn’t even have to do any extra campaigning or spend any extra advertising dollars to do it.

Nebraska and Maine already have the system the Pennsylvania GOP is pushing. But the two states’ small electoral vote values mean it’s actually mathematically impossible for a candidate to win the popular vote there but lose the electoral vote, says Akhil Reed Amar, a constitutional law professor at Yale University. Pennsylvania, however, is a different story: “It might be very likely to happen in [Pennsylvania], and that’s what makes this something completely new under the sun,” Amar says. “It’s something that no previous legislature in America since the Civil War has ever had the audacity to impose.”

And it’s not just Pennsylvania.

It doesn’t necessarily end there. After their epic sweep of state legislative and gubernatorial races in 2010, Republicans also have total political control of Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin, three other big states that traditionally go Democratic and went for Obama in 2012. Implementing a Pennsylvania-style system in those three places—in Ohio, for example, Democrats anticipate controlling just 4 or 5 of the state’s 16 congressional districts—could offset Obama wins in states where he has expanded the electoral map, like Virginia, North Carolina, Colorado, or New Mexico. “If all these rust belt folks get together and make this happen that could be really dramatic,” says Carolyn Fiddler, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which coordinates state political races for the Dems.

Democrats would not be able to retaliate. The only states that John McCain won where Dems control both houses of the state legislature are Arkansas, Mississippi, and West Virginia. West Virginia is too small for splitting the electoral votes to have much effect, and Mississippi has a Republican governor. That leaves Arkansas, another small state—and one where McCain won every district handily in 2008.

For now, the Democrats’—and Obama’s—only real way of fighting back is political. “The political solution if there is one is going to have to come from getting people outraged about this,” Amar says. “This is not American fair play, it’s a partisan steamroller changing the fundamental rules of the small-d democratic game for purely party advantage. Trying to structure the world so that even the person who wins the state loses the state’s electoral vote: that is new under the sun.” He adds, “This is big.”

The article is actually incorrect on one point: there is a way for cooler heads to fight back from a legal perspective, and that way is to push for the National Popular Vote act to be ratified in states totaling at least 271 electoral votes.

But beyond that, the Republicans know their goose is cooked long-term, from a demographic perspective. Most of the tea party and Fox News base will be gone or senile within a generation. With Latino population growth and unabated GOP racism, Texas will be a blue state within 10-15 years or even sooner. That by itself spells doom for the Republicans at the Presidential level as they are currently constituted. Congress won’t be quite as problematic for them and yes, it’s true as I have argued before that that doesn’t mean permanent majorities for Democrats in a binary system. But the basic demographics do make the road that much tougher for Republicans to take the White House now and on into the future.

Increasingly, the GOP is going to need to turn to blatantly dishonest gimmicks like this to remain viable at a presidential level. But there’s a big problem.

If the GOP-controlled “blue states” do this, and if President Obama wins the popular vote by a few million votes and would have won the election under the current rules but “loses” to Rick Perry under the GOP rules, I can practically guarantee mass civil disobedience. It would ignite hot flashes in what is already a cold civil war. In 2000 Democrats took the theft of the election lying down, mostly because the 1990s had been a fairly comical time politically speaking, political tensions except among the activist classes didn’t run nearly as high as they do today, and even most Democrats figured that Bush wouldn’t be so bad. The sort of acquiescence we saw in 2000 won’t happen again. It would be the beginning of the end of the current system.

Unfortunately, the only thing scarier than contemplating riots and a potential 2nd civil war, is what the reaction of a President Rick Perry would be to such a scenario. You don’t exactly have to guess.

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From the “with friends like these” files

by digby

Amato caught another example of the allegedly liberal Democrats joining the hissy fit because Paul Krugman deigned to speak the truth on the holy day of 9/11:

I realize that women are a discrete special interest group as they only represent half the population. But this seems like something even the people who count should be concerned with:

The poverty rate among women climbed to 14.5 percent in 2010 from 13.9 percent in 2009, the highest in 17 years. The extreme poverty rate among women climbed to 6.3 percent in 2010 from 5.9 percent in 2009, the highest rate ever recorded. Over 17 million women lived in poverty in 2010, including more than 7.5 million in extreme poverty; extreme poverty means income below half the federal poverty line.In addition, the percentage of women under 65 without health insurance increased from 19.2 percent in 2009 to 19.7 percent in 2010, the highest rate recorded in more than a decade.

“Behind today’s grim statistics are real people who are finding it harder than ever to keep a roof over their heads, feed their families, get the health care they need and give their children a chance at a better life,” said Joan Entmacher, NWLC Vice President for Family Economic Security.

The numbers are all bad but this was particularly startling:

Among women who head families, 4 in 10 (40.7 percent) lived in poverty (up from 38.5 percent in 2009).

The child poverty rate, already high at 20.7 percent in 2009, jumped to 22.0 percent last year. More than half of poor children lived in female-headed families in 2010.

Violating Godwin
by David Atkins (“thereisnospoon”)

Vacations are good for gaining perspective. I’ve been on the big island in Hawaii for the last week or so, which has done wonders for remembering what’s important in life, as well as looking at the big picture rather than the petty immediate fracases that so often define politics.

So yesterday I was blissfully swimming off the green sand beach at South Point and hiking Kilauea Iki instead of watching last night’s tea party debate. But when I checked my tweets, news stories and blogs about the event, I was struck by how rapidly the rabid rightwing extremes have taken over the mainstream Republican party. I know it’s cliche to talk about this and it’s been covered at great length before, but even so it’s really stunning.

Last night America was treated to a spectacle of mass cheering for executions, laughing exhortations to allow 30-year-old accident victims to die on the street, the implication that vaccines against cancer-causing viruses are “government injections” harmful to little girls because they might lead to increased sexual activity, and rabid applause for accusing the Chairman of the Fed of treason, a crime which of course carries the death penalty these people so heartily support.

I must say that my reaction to this from out here in terrestrial paradise has been one of motivated anger, yes, but also gut-wrenching fear. At the risk of violating Godwin’s law, never before in my 30-year lifetime, not even during the Bush years, have I felt this country was more keenly teetering on the precipice of totalitarianism than it is today. The people on that stage last night, and more especially the people in the audience, have murder on the mind. They have been whipped into a state of near frenzy against their perceived liberal, “freeloader” and “big government” enemies, and the bloodlust is running at a fever pitch. One of the candidates even openly advocated for eliminating social security based on the model adopted by Chilean mass murderer and fascist Augusto Pinochet.

There can be little doubt that if America were in the hands of these people, the country would already be locked in a pseudo-theocratic totalitarian death spiral. That’s not the hallucinatory fantasy of a hysterical progressive blogger. That’s just reality on its face. If these people manage to gain control of all levers of American power, it could very well mean the end of our nearly 250-year experiment in representative democracy.

There is reason to hope, however: first, most tea partiers are older and whiter than the general population. There is little in the way of a fascist youth movement that often accompanies such national descents into tyranny. In 25 years, most of the people clamoring for the blood of the innocent in that audience will already have shed this mortal coil, replaced with the much browner and much more progressive population they desperately fear.

Second, it is difficult to imagine that most deep blue states would walk willingly arm-in-arm with Rick Perry and friends to that bitter end. More than likely, we would see a rapid embrace of federalism on the part of both parties to let each state make its laws as it sees fit–a situation that may be the ultimate result of our ongoing political civil war, anyway.

Still, the warning signs are apparent about the bloodthirsty totalitarian direction conservatives are moving toward at breakneck speed. One wonders if the traditional media will ever take notice. Maybe they need to take a brief vacation (would America even miss them?) and look back at the situation with the clarity only fresh eyes can provide.

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This shouldn’t be a surprise, but apparently it is. As anyone with even a modicum of common sense could have predicted, austerity, it turns out, is contractionary. Whoddathunkit?

Channeling Sally Field, better late than never

by digby

You know, it’s really sad that I didn’t know about this. It just goes to show you that I need to get out more.

But anyway, here’s a belated thanks to the LA Weekly. This is a big town with a lot of great bloggers and I’m extremely flattered to be named.

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