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PoliGAF 2012 Community Thread

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G

GhaleonEB

Member
Averon said:
What pathetic spin. The GOP really has nothing going into November, assuming the jobs pictures stays as it is.
Click to expand...

Yeah. Cantor, Boehner and the RNC all have their statements out, all with variations of the same. Thing is, the US economy added 734,000 jobs in the last three months alone. It's hard enough to make the case that things aren't getting better now, much less if that holds up as the year goes on.
 
R

RustyNails

Member
GhaleonEB said:
Yeah. Cantor, Boehner and the RNC all have their statements out, all with variations of the same. Thing is, the US economy added 734,000 jobs in the last three months alone. It's hard enough to make the case that things aren't getting better now, much less if that holds up as the year goes on.
Click to expand...
I was hoping for the UE rate to tick down a point. Assuming the hiring numbers stay above 200k, will we see a change in the rate next month?
 
S

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
Republicans at this point, at least the serious ones, should just apologize and go into conference for a year until they figure out how to fix their broke, unsustainable, morally corroded excuse for a party. They can't even tell the truth by accident, or pick a candidate, never mind run the country.
 
M

Manmademan

Member
RustyNails said:
I was hoping for the UE rate to tick down a point. Assuming the hiring numbers stay above 200k, will we see a change in the rate next month?
Click to expand...

well, the thing that kept the rate from ticking down is more people trying to get back into the workforce and actively looking. As college (and high school) seniors finish the semester and become grads as well, I only expect this to increase in the next couple of months.

I'd look for this to tick up or stay stable, not go down in the near future.

Republicans at this point, at least the serious ones, should just apologize and go into conference for a year until they figure out how to fix their broke, unsustainable, morally corroded excuse for a party. They can't even tell the truth by accident, or pick a candidate, never mind run the country.
Click to expand...

we all know what's REALLY going to happen is a circling of the wagons and doubling down on the excuse that they simply weren't conservative enough to appeal to american voters.
 
F

Flying_Phoenix

Banned
So has Scott Walker helped Wisconsin?

I came across Wisconsin's unemployment rate chart and it seems to be going down.

G4mtY.png
*

While I'm sure some credit could be delivered to him, Doyle had the unemployment rate lowered as well. Could he just be continued something down the road that Feingold did prior Walker taking office? Like if Doyle past a stimulus and its still encouraging job growth similar to Bush's taxcut rolling on Obama's debt.

Walker assumed office in January 3rd, 2011. But than again it was stagnant for a few months prior to that.

* Walker assumed office where the red line is. I know weird but 2011, doesn't start at the 2011 mark with it...
 
I

Invisible_Insane

Member
Flying_Phoenix said:
So has Scott Walker helped Wisconsin?

While I'm sure some credit could be delivered to him, Feingold had the unemployment rate lowered as well. Could he just be continued something down the road that Feingold did prior Walker taking office? Like if Feingold past a stimulus and its still encouraging job growth similar to Bush's taxcut rolling on Obama's debt.

Walker assumed office in January 3rd, 2011. But than again it was stagnant for a few months prior to that.
Click to expand...
...what does Feingold have to do with anything?

Also, holding governors/presidents responsible for the economic conditions they co-exist with is by and large a fool's errand.
 
G

Gruco

Banned
Flying_Phoenix said:
So has Scott Walker helped Wisconsin?

...
While I'm sure some credit could be delivered to him, Feingold had the unemployment rate lowered as well. Could he just be continued something down the road that Feingold did prior Walker taking office? Like if Feingold past a stimulus and its still encouraging job growth similar to Bush's taxcut rolling on Obama's debt.

Walker assumed office in January 3rd, 2011. But than again it was stagnant for a few months prior to that.
Click to expand...
I am assuming you mean Jim Doyle, the previous governor, rather than Feingold?

At any rate, it's likely a conterfactual problem. How was Wisconsin different from the natural trend at that time, did it have any factors under way that would have affected its trend anyway, etc. There is basically no inference to be had out of a graph like that on its own.
 
R

RustyNails

Member
ok boys, here's your lulz news story of the week

Plaintiff challenging healthcare law went bankrupt – with unpaid medical bills
Reporting from Washington—
Mary Brown, a 56-year-old Florida woman who owned a small auto repair shop but had no health insurance, became the lead plaintiff challenging President Obama's healthcare law because she was passionate about the issue.

Brown "doesn't have insurance. She doesn't want to pay for it. And she doesn't want the government to tell her she has to have it," said Karen Harned, a lawyer for the National Federation of Independent Business. Brown is a plaintiff in the federation's case, which the Supreme Court plans to hear later this month.

But court records reveal that Brown and her husband filed for bankruptcy last fall with $4,500 in unpaid medical bills. Those bills could change Brown from a symbol of proud independence into an example of exactly the problem the healthcare law was intended to address.

"This is so ironic," Jane Perkins, a health law expert in North Carolina, said of Brown's situation. "It just shows that all Americans inevitably have a need for healthcare. Somebody has paid for her healthcare costs. And she is now among the 62% whose personal bankruptcy was attributable in part to medical bills."

Brown, reached by telephone Thursday, said the medical bills were her husband's. "I always paid my bills, as well as my medical bills," she said angrily. "I never said medical insurance is not a necessity. It should be anyone's right to what kind of health insurance they have.

"I believe that anyone has unforeseen things that happen to them that are beyond their control," Brown said. "Who says I don't have insurance right now?"

In August, the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta agreed. Florida and 25 other states were suing, but they needed an individual to contest the mandate. "Mary Brown has standing to challenge the individual mandate," the judges said, and "as long as at least one plaintiff has standing to raise" the claim, the court can rule. The Obama administration appealed, and the Supreme Court said in November it would decide the constitutional challenge.

But by then, Brown's small auto repair shop near Panama City, Fla., had closed, and she and her husband had filed a Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition. Brown said in the petition that her only income was $275 a month in unemployment benefits.
Click to expand...
The entire thing is a comedy. The last line is simply the punchline.
 
W

Wolfgunblood Garopa

Member
OuterWorldVoice said:
Republicans at this point, at least the serious ones, should just apologize and go into conference for a year until they figure out how to fix their broke, unsustainable, morally corroded excuse for a party. They can't even tell the truth by accident, or pick a candidate, never mind run the country.
Click to expand...

After the incessant bitching and poisoning the well in this country about HCR, wasting so much time and energy in their singular purpose to make Obama a one term President, to then go on to nominate the Governor who in his state enacted what would the blueprint for that HCR... they should be disqualified from the election.
 
B

Black Republican

Member
oh dear

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - South Carolina Lt. Gov. Ken Ard resigned Friday amid a criminal investigation into whether he spent campaign money on personal items.

Ard stepped down at 10 a.m. Friday in a letter given to Gov. Nikki Haley and state Senate leaders. He also issued a statement, saying he was sorry and it was his responsibility to make sure his 2010 campaign money was spent correctly.

"There are no excuses, nor is there need to share blame. It is my fault that the events of the past year have taken place," Ard said in the statement.

By state law, the Senate President Pro Tem will become lieutenant governor. It was not clear if Charleston Republican Glenn McConnell still holds that post. Neither McConnell nor the Senate clerk returned phone calls Friday morning.

The state grand jury began investigating Ard in July. The 48-year-old Republican has already paid a $48,000 ethics fine for using money from his campaign to pay for personal items, like clothes, football tickets and a flat-screen TV.

Attorney General Alan Wilson, who oversees the grand jury, has called a news conference with State Law Enforcement Division chief Mark Keel for 1 p.m. Friday. Wilson's office refused to say what Wilson would discuss.

Ard easily won election in 2010, and then freely spent campaign cash on tickets to the 2010 Southeastern Conference title game where South Carolina's football team played, as well as iPads, clothes, a flat-screen television and video game system. One spending spree at a Best Buy emptied $3,056 from his account.

Ard paid the $48,000 fine in July after being hit with 107 civil counts of using campaign cash for personal expenses that also included a family vacation, clothes and meals. He also had to pay $12,500 to cover the costs of the state Ethics Commission investigation and had to reimburse his campaign $12,000.

Within two weeks, Wilson set up a task force to review the ethics findings and referred the investigation to the state grand jury to determine whether it merited criminal prosecution.

Ard promised full cooperation with the investigations and said he, too, had sought a full review on the day the grand jury news broke. However, the attorney general's office said Ard had only sought a State Law Enforcement Division investigation - something that would have delayed the grand jury's work.

The lieutenant governor is paid $46,545 for the part-time job. He presides over the Senate when it is in session and also is in charge of the state Office on Aging.
Click to expand...

http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_15980/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=O3F6IBSc

So whos gonna be the next lucky Lt to Gov. Haley?
 
C

cartoon_soldier

Member
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...overy/2012/03/09/gIQADJ8B1R_blog.html#excerpt

We know the job numbers, some information on the internals

The employment-to-population ratio is up one-tenth of a percentage point to 58.6 percent. The number of people who are “long-term unemployed” — that is, who have been out of work for more than 27 weeks — fell from 5.5 million to 5.4 million. (Although that’s still an enormous number by any metric.) Over the past year, average hourly earnings are up 1.9 percent. And temporary hiring has surged, which usually precedes an increase in permanent hiring.
Click to expand...

One reason we could sustain the recovery? Government is not shedding jobs as badly as 2011.

Ever since the recession ended in 2009, the U.S. private sector has been consistently adding jobs at a decent clip. It’s just that the public sector has been absolutely hemorrhaging workers — around 500,000 since Obama took office. In 2011, governments at all levels were shedding 22,000 jobs each month. That’s a lot of extra unemployment. But in January and February, governments cut just 7,000 jobs total — a negligible amount. Austerity has taken its toll on states and municipalities, and it’s no longer holding back the labor market.
Click to expand...

Money Quote

But, for now, the economy looks to be in decent shape. As Justin Wolfers sums it up, “Let’s call it a recovery.”
Click to expand...

This is important as Ezra and his comrades have been reluctant till now to call this an actual recovery.

Here's hoping the direction continues.

Other interesting stuff,

New attempts to help Housing:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...using-market/2012/03/07/gIQAJLB3zR_story.html

WH ramping up HCR defense

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/09/u...rks-to-shape-debate-over-health-law.html?_r=1

And...a threat to recovery?

Failure to agree on Highway Bill

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...-highway-bill/2012/03/08/gIQArZcezR_blog.html
 
S

sc0la

Unconfirmed Member
OuterWorldVoice said:
Republicans at this point, at least the serious ones, should just apologize and go into conference for a year until they figure out how to fix their broke, unsustainable, morally corroded excuse for a party. They can't even tell the truth by accident, or pick a candidate, never mind run the country.
Click to expand...

This assumes effective governance is one of their goals. They have not demonstrated that it is.

Flying_Phoenix said:
G4mtY.png
*
Click to expand...

Haha I was reading the chart as if it went with timeline on the bottom. I was like "WTF happened in Wisconson in 1996!" took a second.
 
P

PhoenixDark

Banned
Participation rate increased, which might suggest early predictions about it dropping aren't true. Which means the unemployment rate could increase over the next few months. We might have close to 9% UE this summer

Overall good report/revisions
 
T

ToxicAdam

Member
The summer economy is going to be choppy. I'm seeing some weakness (from my view) ahead.

I think the U3/U6 number is a bad metric to predict Obama's chances of re-election. You should look to Consumer Confidence instead. As long as that stays where it's at (and doesn't dip to early 2011 levels), he has a really great chance of being re-elected.
 
R

RustyNails

Member
PhoenixDark said:
Participation rate increased, which might suggest early predictions about it dropping aren't true. Which means the unemployment rate could increase over the next few months. We might have close to 9% UE this summer

Overall good report/revisions
Click to expand...

Ok, I'm not even an armchair economist but I do believe that in order to reach 9% UE in just a couple of months, we'd have to start losing 200k jobs per month instead of gaining them.
 
H

Hop

That girl in the bunny hat
ToxicAdam said:
I think the U3/U6 number is a bad metric to predict Obama's chances of re-election. You should look to Consumer Confidence instead. As long as that stays where it's at (and doesn't dip to early 2011 levels), he has a really great chance of being re-elected.
Click to expand...

Yea, but if the UI is anything that Repubs can portray as high (regardless of the reason for it), you know they're gonna hammer on it and blame it all on Obama. I would imagine that could induce consumer confidence drops, even if only minor ones, as people are led to think things are worse than they actually are.
 
G

gcubed

Member
RustyNails said:
Ok, I'm not even an armchair economist but I do believe that in order to reach 9% UE in just a couple of months, we'd have to start losing 200k jobs per month instead of gaining them.
Click to expand...

depends on what you believe the true participation rate is, and how good the news is. Good news and good feelings of a labor market rebound causes a bump in the unemployment rate due to people who previously gave up looking for a job coming back into the market.
 
P

Plumbob

Member
RustyNails said:
Ok, I'm not even an armchair economist but I do believe that in order to reach 9% UE in just a couple of months, we'd have to start losing 200k jobs per month instead of gaining them.
Click to expand...

The other way would be that more people to enter the labor force than are getting jobs, which is already happening (just barely).
 
A

Averon

Member
The UE going up doesn't matter in regards to Obama's re-election chances. If people feel they can go back into the job market and find a decent job in a reasonable amount of time, Obama will do fine in Nov regardless of where the absolute UE number is at that time.
 
E

Ecotic

Member
Most election models (including Alan Abramowitz's famously accurate model) factor in GDP growth instead of the unemployment rate, considering how imperfect the UE number is anyway. It'd probably go up temporarily in a healthy economy as hopeless people re-enter the job market.
 
B

Bulbo Urethral Baggins

Banned
RustyNails said:
Ok, I'm not even an armchair economist but I do believe that in order to reach 9% UE in just a couple of months, we'd have to start losing 200k jobs per month instead of gaining them.
Click to expand...

You can do the calculations here.
http://www.frbatlanta.org/chcs/calculator/index.cfm
Not a bad guess.
To reach 9% in 3 months, it's more like 250k assuming things stay relatively the same (like the labor force participation rate). Just playing around, if you increase the participation rate just slightly, you don't need to lose many jobs to reach 9% in 3 months.
 
G

GhaleonEB

Member
PhoenixDark said:
Participation rate increased, which might suggest early predictions about it dropping aren't true. Which means the unemployment rate could increase over the next few months. We might have close to 9% UE this summer

Overall good report/revisions
Click to expand...

I just read an article at The Economist that had some useful context. The participation rate went up 0.2 this month, which is what held the unemployment rate steady. But the raw numbers are huge:

The survey of household employment was similarly positive. The unemployment rate held fast at 8.3%. That, however, was due to a surge in workers into the labour force, of nearly 500,000, which offset the rise in employment entirely. Over the past few months, however, the household employment numbers have been, if anything, more bullish than the payroll figures, suggesting that the underlying trend toward improvement is very much the real thing. The employment-population ratio rose a tenth of a point to 58.6%, up from a low of 58.2% last summer. And alternative measures of unemployment are also getting better in a hurry.
Click to expand...

Given that we are seeing job gains, we'd need something like 6 million people (or more) to join the labor force over that time to push up the unemployment rate to that level. Not happening.

(The household survey from which the rate is derived has been showing much faster job growth than the establishment survey, which is why 227k seemingly offsets 500k.)

Edit: Obama is about to speak on the jobs report.
 
K

Karl2177

Member
T

thekad

Banned
250k flat growth through to the election is unlikely. Recoveries are self-perpetuating; we should be getting much higher (or much lower depending on Euro/gas/Iran).
 
E

eBay Huckster

Member
thekad said:
250k flat growth through to the election is unlikely. Recoveries are self-perpetuating; we should be getting much higher (or much lower depending on Euro/gas/Iran).
Click to expand...

Based on the raw data for the past three months I really can't see this decelerating based on anything other than gas at this point, and that's assuming it hits $5. (Though that's because I don't feel the Euro and Iran situations are going to get appreciably worse than they are now, not because I feel they aren't going to be factors, period.)

Also,

PhoenixDark said:
Participation rate increased, which might suggest early predictions about it dropping aren't true. Which means the unemployment rate could increase over the next few months. We might have close to 9% UE this summer
Click to expand...

Judging from that Atlanta Fed link posted above: assuming another 0.4% uptick in the participation rate by June we'd need job growth to slow to an average of 30,000 to hit 9.0% U3. 8.6% is more realistic, arguably 8.4-5% if all else remains equal (and NYMEX stops trolling)

Though even with a 0.6% uptick (0.2% per month) you'd still need a 25% slowdown in job growth to hit 9.0% in June, and I can't see the participation rate moving more dramatically than that (if only because the biggest Feb-Jun change in the BLS labor force participation rate hasn't exceeded +0.5% since 1984).
 
J

Jackson50

Member
Invisible_Insane said:
Imagine where we'd be if we'd had the sense to try to keep public sector employment from contracting like it has over the past year.
Click to expand...
I read a recent paper which used Medicaid outlays as an instrument for the effect of ARRA aid on state government spending; as an aside, an intriguing instrument as funding is fungible. And although I'm a bit skeptical of the magnitude of the multiplier, the failure to enact, or even consider, stronger countercyclical stabilizers for state and municipal governments was a costly mistake.

Averon said:
The UE going up doesn't matter in regards to Obama's re-election chances. If people feel they can go back into the job market and find a decent job in a reasonable amount of time, Obama will do fine in Nov regardless of where the absolute UE number is at that time.
Click to expand...
The public does not fixate on a single statistic. Some may be more consequential, but the effect of a single measurement is not going to dupe the public if the preponderance of data indicates growth. If the UE rate increases because despondent workers are entering a healthy labor market, they'll discern the difference. It may be a bit noisy, but the message will trickle through.
ToxicAdam said:
I've often decried gerrymandering and how it can rob people of real choice. Making them apathetic to politics in general and further dividing this country into polarization. I've frequently used Rich Iott and Joe the Plumber as prime examples of the kinds of candidates that gets passed off as an option due to this.

OH-2 comes to my attention today. It's a district that lies just outside of Cincy, alongside the Ohio/Kentucky border. It was historically pretty even until it was redrawn in 1980 and then redrawn again last year. It is now a district that has been solidly (unfairly) Republican for three decades.

What is the effect of having a district so uncompetitive? Well, the Democrats of this district elected William R. Smith to run in November. Why is that bad? Because he is a candidate that has never made an appearance, never raised a dollar to campaign and has never even met the regional chairman of the Democrat party. When the media tried to contact him after he won, he didn't return phone calls. Instead he had his mother tell the media that he will be back home by the weekend.

So, that's the choice people will have in the Fall. The Republican and the Invisible Candidate.
Click to expand...
Not to defend the practice, but partisan redistricting is speciously blamed for numerous political infirmities. There's negligible evidence it engenders polarization or diminishes electoral competition. Now, it's incumbent I qualify the last statement as aggregate evidence as opposed to individual observations. Certainly, gerrymandering has reduced competition in select districts. Indeed, the district you highlighted may be such a case. But on the whole, it has a marginal independent effect. Again, I'm not defending the practice. I support nonpartisan methods of redistricting as gerrymandering seems to erode trust in political institutions.
 
S

speculawyer

Member
Karl2177 said:
Neil DeGrasse Tyson talks to the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation on the future of America's space program.

Near the end he remarks on the half of the penny being spent towards space exploration, and what doubling it could do. I know Gingrich while in Florida made a bold statement saying that an American man will be back on the moon. Now I haven't been following much since the Iowa Caucuses, but what are the general viewpoints on spending on space exploration?
Click to expand...
Forget a penny. End the Afghan war and take 3 cents away from defense and give 2 of them to NASA.
 
Guileless

Guileless

Temp Banned for Remedial Purposes
OuterWorldVoice said:
Republicans at this point, at least the serious ones, should just apologize and go into conference for a year until they figure out how to fix their broke, unsustainable, morally corroded excuse for a party. They can't even tell the truth by accident, or pick a candidate, never mind run the country.
Click to expand...
I am rooting for a Mondalesque wipeout so the grownups can tell the Tea Party people and the current congressional leadership to go jump in a lake.
 
S

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
speculawyer said:
Why isn't this bigger news? I guess they are saving it for when the case gets argued?
Click to expand...

Ironically in a lower court, a judge might ignore the obvious hypocrisy, but the Supreme Court LOVE this shit. There might even be lulz from Scalia, especially if some portion of the 5 has already made up it's mind that it IS constitutional. Although they might just go full retard.
 
T

ToxicAdam

Member
Oblivion said:
Blast from the past!

http://i.imgur.com/4NtUL.gif[/QUOTE]


Fitting since Democrats recently argued that ending these tax cuts would do this very thing (send the economy back into recession, lose more jobs, negatively effect the poorest.) You don't hear them talking about revenues anymore either.

Funny how a shift in power can change a party's tune.
Click to expand...
 
P

PhoenixDark

Banned
ToxicAdam said:
Fitting since Democrats recently argued that ending these tax cuts would do this very thing (send the economy back into recession, lose more jobs, negatively effect the poorest.) You don't hear them talking about revenues anymore either.

Funny how a shift in power can change a party's tune.
Click to expand...

Same thing happened when decent jobs reports happened on Bush's watch; dems still pounced. It's all a big game.
 
A

AndyD

aka andydumi
ToxicAdam said:
Fitting since Democrats recently argued that ending these tax cuts would do this very thing (send the economy back into recession, lose more jobs, negatively effect the poorest.) You don't hear them talking about revenues anymore either.

Funny how a shift in power can change a party's tune.
Click to expand...

To be fair there's a difference in doing tax cuts during a period of boom (for fear of going into a recession) vs. ending tax cuts during a period of recovery from a recession (for fear of stunting the recovery). Even if the tax cuts at issue are the same package.

But party tunes do indeed change.
 
A

AlteredBeast

Fork 'em, Sparky!
PhoenixDark said:
Same thing happened when decent jobs reports happened on Bush's watch; dems still pounced. It's all a big game.
Click to expand...

Politics. makes me shake my head. If only all of these groups could come together to activate change and growth instead of grandstanding, filibustering, and shenanigans.
 
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