More economic pain coming

(Austrian) Economics, Business, Corporatism
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In the chart below, provided by chartoftheday.com, one can see how grim the job situation has become. The long term-trend experienced since 1961 has been abandoned for what can only be described as stagnation in job creation. As jobs remain flat, of course, the size of the job force will continue to grow as more young people graduate from college and secondary school.  This is partly why unemployment among teens and twentysomethings is now about 25 percent.

According to chartoftheday.com:

Today, the Labor Department reported that nonfarm payrolls increased by 431,000 in May. It is worth noting that a large majority of last month’s gain in payrolls was due to the hiring of temporary workers for the 2010 census. Today’s chart provides some perspective on the US job market. Note how the number of jobs steadily increased from 1961 to 2001 (top chart). During the last economic recovery, however, job growth was unable to get back up to its long-term trend (first time since 1961). More recently, nonfarm payrolls have pulled away from its 40-year trend (1961-2001) by a record percentage (bottom chart). In fact, the number of US jobs is currently at level first reached in early 2000.

So far, the current “recovery” has produced a net loss of 133,000 jobs. During the same point in the last recovery (2003), the economy was adding 200,000 to 300,000 jobs per month. Calling the current situation a recovery is risible to anyone who is out looking for a job right now, especially since workers are now experiencing the longest periods of joblessness experienced in decades.

We can add to this the fact that the debt crisis in Europe has now spread to Hungary.  So now, Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Spain and Hungary are all now facing serious debt crises and even risk of default. The European economy is in disarray, and investors were not pleased as the Dow plunged more than 300 points to below 10,000.

The homebuyer tax credits are gone, the stimulus is beginning to wear off, and there is nothing left that the feds can do to stave off another crisis since interest rates are already effectively zero and the federal government is more more broke than ever. State and local governments are in even worse shape.

Needless to say, this does not bode well for the “recovery.”

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Clinton Compares Tea Party Members to Timothy McVeigh

Anti-Statism, Private Crime, The Right
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Bill Clinton has recently implied that modern Tea Party activists are all potential Timothy McVeighs:

Former President Bill Clinton on Friday said that “legitimate” comparisons can be drawn between today’s grass-roots anger and resentment toward the government and the right-wing extremism that bubbled up prior to the bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City 15 years ago.

True, this probably isn’t as bad as the Bush administration’s claim that citizens who don’t support the Bush administration are “with the terrorists,” but it is fairly bold fearmongering. I doubt that Clinton mentioned the motivation for the OKC bombing. McVeigh, who was trained to kill and trained to make bombs by the United States Army, planned the bombing with his accomplices as retaliation for the Clinton Administration’s mass murder of women and children at Waco. The OKC bombing was carried out on the April 19 anniversary of Waco.

Clinton did say one true thing during his speech: “…be careful with what you say and do not advocate violence.” The state always considers itself exempt from this advice of course.

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America’s ‘Lost Decade’ continues

Business Cycles, Statism
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I was looking at the new earnings data released by the BLS this morning, which shows real average income for all workers declining 0.6 percent year over year. Realistically speaking, this means that earnings are flat for people with jobs. People without jobs, who aren’t included in the survey, are likely much worse off in general.

We might also keep in mind that when making year over year comparisons, that March 2009 was just a few months after the panic of 2008, so to have had so little improvement compared to the early months of 2009 is a grim commentary indeed.

Also, when thinking about household debt, unemployment, and continued increases in the price of gasoline (which rose 15 percent over the last 6 months), household budgets in America are in extremely dire straits.

If this were only a short term phenomenon, it would be one matter, but when looking at what has happened over the past decade, the continued malaise is really just more of the same in spite of the fact that it was masked by a brief bubble in the middle of the decade.

For example, American median household income in 1998 (adjusted for inflation) was $51,295. Ten years later, in 2008, it was $50,303. Over the same period, household debt increased 139 percent.

Now come the years of de-leveraging with stagnant incomes, which will be painful.

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Obama Does One Decent Thing: Cuts Space Budget

Science, Taxation, Technology, War
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Obama has done one decent thing and moved to cut funds to the space program. Neil Armstrong has condemned Obama for it. There are two thoughts that immediately come to me as a result: 1. “So what?” and 2. “Who cares what Neil Armstrong thinks?”

Arguments in favor of the space program are based on two things: sentimentalism and militarism. The militaristic argument is the more sophisticated one. The space program, behind its veneer of civilian purpose, has always been a military program founded to improve rocket technology, and eventually, to provide the United States with military superiority over space itself. The sentimentalism is the rationale that most Americans subscribe to as they get misty eyed over fantasies about “the human spirit” and “destiny” and all those other concepts from Hollywood adventure films.

From a pragmatic point of view, the space program is nothing more than a massive socialist spending program with militaristic intent, but which benefits handsomely from hysterical and maudlin appeals to hope in the government’s ability to accomplish anything provided enough time and taxpayers’ loot. …

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America’s love affair with generals

Democracy, Vulgar Politics
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Foxnews, The Associated Press and the UK’s Telegraph are all hinting that General David Petraeus may run for President. Foxnews and the Telegraph are actively promoting the idea. The Drudge Report spread the rumor as well. Petraeus was the architect of the “surge” which the government says was a towering success, although the exact nature of this success has never been explained or defined. Obviously “success” has nothing to do with a peaceful or orderly or prosperous Iraq.

So, we’re told that Petraeus is a grand phenom as a general.  We’re also told that he is a brilliant mind, fearlessly independent, a man of few words, and an evenhanded weigher of facts uncolored by the ideological battles of the day.

Never mind the fact that this description could be applied to every single other general put forward as the nation’s next greatest president whether it be Norman Schwarzkopf or Colin Powell or Douglas MacArthur. Americans eat this stuff up, although the idea that high-ranking generals aren’t politicians firmly entrenched within the beltway is based on nothing resembling reality whatsoever.

Toby Harnden, writing for the Telegraph nicely recycles some fanciful American ideas about generals:

Many voters yearn for an outsider, someone with authenticity, integrity and proven accomplishment. Someone who has not spent their life plotting how to ascend the greasy pole, adjusting every utterance for maximum political advantage. …

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