Thursday, March 16, 2017

The Fed’s rate hike is not surprising, but it is disappointing [feedly]

The Fed's rate hike is not surprising, but it is disappointing
http://www.epi.org/blog/the-feds-rate-hike-is-not-surprising-but-it-is-disappointing/

The Federal Reserve's announcement today that it would raise short-term interest rates is not surprising, but is disappointing. As always, the issue is less about the direct impact of today's 0.25 percentage point hike, and more about what this hike means, especially given that it has come relatively hard on the heels of a hike in December. Today's hike seems to signal that Fed policymakers think that we're currently at or very near full employment, and that failing to slow the pace of economic growth in coming months would soon lead to accelerating wage and price inflation. They could be right, of course, but it is important to note that there is little in actual economic data to indicate this.

Even the headline unemployment rate (today's healthiest economic indicator) remains significantly higher than what it reached in 1999 and 2000, when we saw 4.1 percent unemployment for a full two years without accelerating inflation. The share of adults between the ages of 25 and 54 with a job hasn't even recovered to pre-Great Recession levels, which were, in turn, far below the peaks reached in the late 1990s. And, most importantly, no durable and significant acceleration of wage growth to healthy levels has happened yet. Finally, the Fed's preferred price inflation indicator—year-over-year growth in "core" (excluding food and energy) prices for personal consumption expenditures— remains stubbornly below the Fed's professed target and shows no upward trend at all.

The risks regarding the Fed's interest rate decisions remain deeply asymmetric, and point strongly to erring on the side of continuing to prioritize further improvements in the labor market rather than forestalling possible future inflation, which would mean not raising rates. If the Fed is wrong and raises rates enough in coming months to keep unemployment from falling to the low 4s, this implies millions of potential workers who can't find jobs or the hours they want, and likely implies tens of millions of workers who will receive lower wage increases than they otherwise could have had. This is especially important for low and middle-wage workers, who need low rates of unemployment before they have any serious chance to bargain for higher wages.

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Does Alexander Acosta still think undocumented workers deserve protection? [feedly]

Does Alexander Acosta still think undocumented workers deserve protection?
http://www.epi.org/blog/does-alexander-acosta-still-think-undocumented-workers-deserve-protection/

Next week, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions holds its hearing on the nomination of Alexander Acosta to be secretary of labor. While Mr. Acosta has had several confirmation hearings in the past, and is expected to do well next week, it is important that he receive a thorough and tough vetting. In the context of an administration that has shown itself to be remarkably anti-worker, it's more important than ever that the labor secretary be prepared to enforce our labor laws and advocate for all working people.

Senators should ask Acosta specifically about his views on labor and employment laws as they pertain to undocumented workers. For example, it's been reported that a spate of raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement have left undocumented workers—who are already easily exploited—unwilling to report wage theft and labor violations. Now more than ever, we need a labor secretary who will argue for a fair economy and a labor market that works for all workers.

As a member of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), Acosta once voiced his adamant belief that undocumented workers deserve the protection of our country's labor laws. In Double D Construction Group, 339 NLRB No. 48 (2003), the board found the company's owner had unlawfully terminated an employee, Thomas Sanchez, for his participation in union activity. Not only did Acosta join the board majority overruling the judge's contrary finding, Acosta wrote a separate concurrence chastising the judge, who had discredited Sanchez's testimony at the trial on the ground that Sanchez had once knowingly used a false Social Security number to obtain employment. The administrative law judge reasoned: "If Sanchez demonstrated a willingness to use a false government document to obtain work… he may also be willing to offer false testimony" at the trial.

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Trump’s budget proposal plans a disaster for public investment [feedly]

Trump's budget proposal plans a disaster for public investment
http://www.epi.org/blog/trumps-budget-proposal-plans-a-disaster-for-public-investment/

Today the White House laid out its priorities in its first budget blueprint. And these priorities are simple enough to describe: paying for increased spending on defense and border security with cuts across the board to nondefense discretionary spending (NDD). Among other reasons why these are bad decisions, they would have devastating consequences for public investment.

It's worth looking at one specific cut that seems fairly telling. Despite campaigning on a $1 trillion infrastructure program, the president's budget actually cuts the Department of Transportation's funding by 13 percent. Coupling this cut with the fact that the campaign's original proposal was simply not a serious plan, and the rumors that the president and Congress are punting infrastructure to next year, it starts to become increasingly clear that increased infrastructure investment isn't a promise that the Trump administration is taking seriously.

The broader cuts in the budget blueprint foreshadow an even worse fate for overall public investment. NDD is only about 16 percent of all federal spending, but fully half of it is public investment. The Trump budget essentially puts a long-run decline in NDD spending on overdrive. NDD budget authority fell from almost 7 percent of GDP in 1977 to about 3 percent by 1990. It has hovered around 3 percent since then, beginning a slow decline in recent years. The administration's budget intends to accelerate this decline, reducing NDD spending swiftly and sharply from 2.8 percent of GDP in 2016 to 2.3 percent by 2018.

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Fwd: [socialist-econ] Abridged summary of socialist-economics@googlegroups.com - 8 updates in 7 topics

from a post by Joe Sims

On Thursday, March 16, 2017 at 8:21:45 AM UTC-4, Joe Sims wrote:

I was surprised and dismayed by John Case's recent rebuke of John Bachtell's article and more broadly the Communist Party.  Allow me a brief personal reply.
First it is absolutely untrue that the Communist Party downplays austerity now or in the past. I, for example, essayed an extended critique of this very subject, its influence on GOP and Democratic neoliberal politics and on the Clinton's in particular. Combating the fascist danger as Case correctly emphasizes was its point of departure. So too with various articles in peoplesworld.org by many writers including Bachtell.  His most recent, taken to task by John Case, is no different, albeit its consideration of how to conduct this fight in the current dispensation, an issue that's ignored at our collective peril.


What's the basis of this fight? Clearly it will not be giving up on the fight for 15, Obamacare, acceptance of national stop-and-frisk, approval of right to work, etc.  In a phrase, we cannot stop saying no to neoliberal austerity.  These demands have had much room for initiative and setting the agenda - even for the most advanced elements of the political center.  This fact is suggestive of the danger of getting stuck in the middle of constricted phrases and formulas. My own view is that we've entered an unprecedented period where the defeat of fascism may well require radical radical reforms: or as John Case puts it,  a defeat of austerity, a moment when for a time,  the anti-right and anti-monopoly stages of struggle could combine.


It's all the more curious then why John Case critiques  challenging the basis for Trump vote. Doing so does not necessarily undermine the anti-austerity motives behind sections of the vote.  An understanding of this vote is not written only in black and white, but also in many shades of grey.  A denial of one leads necessarily to a misunderstanding of the other. Not seeing the greys may obscure all.  Hence my complete disdain for the "identity politics" critique as if people of color, women, lgbtq people do not have the same economic claims and anxiety as working-class whites. In fact we have more. John Case knows that and in fact has written eloquently on it himself, which makes me wonder as to why the tenor, tone and content of his attack, a fusillade that goes beyond the present moment but dates a half a century back into the dark corners of the Cold War.


Speaking now as the son of a steelworker at Youngstown Sheet and Tube and coming of age in the direct shadow of Joe McCarthy and Roy Cohn I have to directly challenge Case's allegations about the Communist Party, its working class influence and its source.  Coming from a party family in a  small industrial town in the 60s I witnessed the daily work of my mom and dad from a unique vantage point. I saw first hand their daily work on school reform, model cities, welfare rights, police violence, union rights, even questions of war and peace. I heard the phone ring and watched their grassroots defense of our class, work which won them respect and even election to community organization and union positions. And all of this was after having been twice hauled before HUAC. Dad was a grievance man for Local 2163; mom an activist and trustee in AFSCME, both members of the NAACP, CBTU, SANE FREEZE and many other organizations. When dad died the then USWA sent Oliver Montgomery from the Pittsburgh International to speak at his funeral. Montgomery reflected on dad's work on the consent decree and importantly on the issue of black white unity urging him at a difficult time not to give up on his white union brothers.  Tributes were also brought from other community and religious leaders, including Ron Daniels. The same can be said for my mom, who twice ran for city and countywide office and was an elected leader in her union. Even today when dining out her lunch and dinner are bought by community figures who on occasion happen upon us - an offering of admiration and respect.


Here's what I came here to say: this respect was not bought with  Moscow gold. Not in Youngstown, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago or any other town were communists worked and struggled. And these  tales are not unique but are the stories of Frank and Bea Lumpkin, George and Denise Edwards, Wally Kauffman, George Meyers, Lorenzo and Anita Torres and hundreds if not thousands of communist trade unionists  who labored in the factories and mines of our country.


So no John I can never agree with your charge that the U.S. working class doesn't give a damn about the Communist Party.


No, respect cannot be bought. This I know. But I've learned something else. Lies come cheap, especially big ones.  And that's what troubled me more than anything else when reading your critique.  We live in an age of the Big Lie, in a time when facts give way to unbelievably dangerous flights of fantasy. We cannot in any way accommodate them.  The facts I offer instead are small ones, grains  of truth really, anecdotal sure, but taken together they weave an undeniable pattern of struggle, one that challenges your narrative John, then and now. These same truths obtain today as the CP experiences an uptick in membership brought about in response to the Trump election. Just last weekend we phoned some 5000 of them several hundred of whom joined since November 8th.


Winter is here and we must huddle together to avoid the cold. And for that reason I will end by reminding of you of my father's lesson upon dying learned through the tears of  Oliver Montgomery's eulogy: no matter how difficult the time or how low the blow I will not give up on you my erstwhile comrade but remaining class brother.  Let's not give up on each other.


Joe Sims


On Mon, Mar 13, 2017 at 2:46 AM, <socialist-economics@googlegroups.com> wrote:
John Case <jcase4218@gmail.com>: Mar 12 08:17PM -0400

Neil Gorsuch and Religious Liberty: Class Dismissed
https://workingclassstudies.wordpress.com/2017/02/20/neil-gorsuch-and-religious-liberty-class-dismissed/
 
President Trump's nomination of Judge ...more
John Case <jcase4218@gmail.com>: Mar 12 08:15PM -0400

Delong can be a pain...but this article is worth it simply for the breadth
of topics and themes on globalization now being debated...
 
 
Reading: Richard Baldwin (2017):The Great Convergence: ...more
John Case <jcase4218@gmail.com>: Mar 12 08:12PM -0400

Economic Update - "Questions about Capitalism" - 03.12.17
http://economicupdate.podbean.com/e/economic-update-questions-about-capitalism-031217/
 
-- via my feedly newsfeed
...more
John Case <jcase4218@gmail.com>: Mar 12 08:09PM -0400

Proposed Changes to Medicaid Would Reduce Funding for W.Va.
http://www.wvpolicy.org/proposed-changes-to-medicaid-would-reduce-funding-for-w-va/
 
 
On Monday night, members of the U.S. ...more
John Case <jcase4218@gmail.com>: Mar 12 08:07PM -0400

Higher Interest Rates – Oh, Goodie!
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/higher-interest-rates-oh-goodie_us_58c5c224e4b0ed71826d54c1>
18 Robert Kuttner ...more
John Case <jcase4218@gmail.com>: Mar 12 08:04PM -0400

International GDP per capita comparisons
http://mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2017/03/international-gdp-per-capita-comparisons.html
 
As I have noted before, it is one of the great ironies of UK politics ...more
John Case <jcase4218@gmail.com>: Mar 12 04:18PM -0400

With the best of intentions and sentiments, CP leader Bachtell delivers a
typically impotent CP rebuke to fascism. The fascist threat will be rebuked
when its driving cause, 40 years of Austerity, ...more
Stewart Acuff <acuff.stewart@gmail.com>: Mar 12 07:32PM -0400

Thanks, John for this critical focus on austerity and 40 years of stagnant wages.
 
Sent from my iPhone
 
...more
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To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it send an email to socialist-economics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.


On Thursday, March 16, 2017 at 8:21:45 AM UTC-4, Joe Sims wrote:

I was surprised and dismayed by John Case's recent rebuke of John Bachtell's article and more broadly the Communist Party.  Allow me a brief personal reply.
First it is absolutely untrue that the Communist Party downplays austerity now or in the past. I, for example, essayed an extended critique of this very subject, its influence on GOP and Democratic neoliberal politics and on the Clinton's in particular. Combating the fascist danger as Case correctly emphasizes was its point of departure. So too with various articles in peoplesworld.org by many writers including Bachtell.  His most recent, taken to task by John Case, is no different, albeit its consideration of how to conduct this fight in the current dispensation, an issue that's ignored at our collective peril.


What's the basis of this fight? Clearly it will not be giving up on the fight for 15, Obamacare, acceptance of national stop-and-frisk, approval of right to work, etc.  In a phrase, we cannot stop saying no to neoliberal austerity.  These demands have had much room for initiative and setting the agenda - even for the most advanced elements of the political center.  This fact is suggestive of the danger of getting stuck in the middle of constricted phrases and formulas. My own view is that we've entered an unprecedented period where the defeat of fascism may well require radical radical reforms: or as John Case puts it,  a defeat of austerity, a moment when for a time,  the anti-right and anti-monopoly stages of struggle could combine.


It's all the more curious then why John Case critiques  challenging the basis for Trump vote. Doing so does not necessarily undermine the anti-austerity motives behind sections of the vote.  An understanding of this vote is not written only in black and white, but also in many shades of grey.  A denial of one leads necessarily to a misunderstanding of the other. Not seeing the greys may obscure all.  Hence my complete disdain for the "identity politics" critique as if people of color, women, lgbtq people do not have the same economic claims and anxiety as working-class whites. In fact we have more. John Case knows that and in fact has written eloquently on it himself, which makes me wonder as to why the tenor, tone and content of his attack, a fusillade that goes beyond the present moment but dates a half a century back into the dark corners of the Cold War.


Speaking now as the son of a steelworker at Youngstown Sheet and Tube and coming of age in the direct shadow of Joe McCarthy and Roy Cohn I have to directly challenge Case's allegations about the Communist Party, its working class influence and its source.  Coming from a party family in a  small industrial town in the 60s I witnessed the daily work of my mom and dad from a unique vantage point. I saw first hand their daily work on school reform, model cities, welfare rights, police violence, union rights, even questions of war and peace. I heard the phone ring and watched their grassroots defense of our class, work which won them respect and even election to community organization and union positions. And all of this was after having been twice hauled before HUAC. Dad was a grievance man for Local 2163; mom an activist and trustee in AFSCME, both members of the NAACP, CBTU, SANE FREEZE and many other organizations. When dad died the then USWA sent Oliver Montgomery from the Pittsburgh International to speak at his funeral. Montgomery reflected on dad's work on the consent decree and importantly on the issue of black white unity urging him at a difficult time not to give up on his white union brothers.  Tributes were also brought from other community and religious leaders, including Ron Daniels. The same can be said for my mom, who twice ran for city and countywide office and was an elected leader in her union. Even today when dining out her lunch and dinner are bought by community figures who on occasion happen upon us - an offering of admiration and respect.


Here's what I came here to say: this respect was not bought with  Moscow gold. Not in Youngstown, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago or any other town were communists worked and struggled. And these  tales are not unique but are the stories of Frank and Bea Lumpkin, George and Denise Edwards, Wally Kauffman, George Meyers, Lorenzo and Anita Torres and hundreds if not thousands of communist trade unionists  who labored in the factories and mines of our country.


So no John I can never agree with your charge that the U.S. working class doesn't give a damn about the Communist Party.


No, respect cannot be bought. This I know. But I've learned something else. Lies come cheap, especially big ones.  And that's what troubled me more than anything else when reading your critique.  We live in an age of the Big Lie, in a time when facts give way to unbelievably dangerous flights of fantasy. We cannot in any way accommodate them.  The facts I offer instead are small ones, grains  of truth really, anecdotal sure, but taken together they weave an undeniable pattern of struggle, one that challenges your narrative John, then and now. These same truths obtain today as the CP experiences an uptick in membership brought about in response to the Trump election. Just last weekend we phoned some 5000 of them several hundred of whom joined since November 8th.


Winter is here and we must huddle together to avoid the cold. And for that reason I will end by reminding of you of my father's lesson upon dying learned through the tears of  Oliver Montgomery's eulogy: no matter how difficult the time or how low the blow I will not give up on you my erstwhile comrade but remaining class brother.  Let's not give up on each other.


Joe Sims


On Mon, Mar 13, 2017 at 2:46 AM, <socialist-economics@googlegroups.com> wrote:
John Case <jcase4218@gmail.com>: Mar 12 08:17PM -0400

Neil Gorsuch and Religious Liberty: Class Dismissed
https://workingclassstudies.wordpress.com/2017/02/20/neil-gorsuch-and-religious-liberty-class-dismissed/
 
President Trump's nomination of Judge ...more
John Case <jcase4218@gmail.com>: Mar 12 08:15PM -0400

Delong can be a pain...but this article is worth it simply for the breadth
of topics and themes on globalization now being debated...
 
 
Reading: Richard Baldwin (2017):The Great Convergence: ...more
John Case <jcase4218@gmail.com>: Mar 12 08:12PM -0400

Economic Update - "Questions about Capitalism" - 03.12.17
http://economicupdate.podbean.com/e/economic-update-questions-about-capitalism-031217/
 
-- via my feedly newsfeed
...more
John Case <jcase4218@gmail.com>: Mar 12 08:09PM -0400

Proposed Changes to Medicaid Would Reduce Funding for W.Va.
http://www.wvpolicy.org/proposed-changes-to-medicaid-would-reduce-funding-for-w-va/
 
 
On Monday night, members of the U.S. ...more
John Case <jcase4218@gmail.com>: Mar 12 08:07PM -0400

Higher Interest Rates – Oh, Goodie!
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/higher-interest-rates-oh-goodie_us_58c5c224e4b0ed71826d54c1>
18 Robert Kuttner ...more
John Case <jcase4218@gmail.com>: Mar 12 08:04PM -0400

International GDP per capita comparisons
http://mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2017/03/international-gdp-per-capita-comparisons.html
 
As I have noted before, it is one of the great ironies of UK politics ...more
John Case <jcase4218@gmail.com>: Mar 12 04:18PM -0400

With the best of intentions and sentiments, CP leader Bachtell delivers a
typically impotent CP rebuke to fascism. The fascist threat will be rebuked
when its driving cause, 40 years of Austerity, ...more
Stewart Acuff <acuff.stewart@gmail.com>: Mar 12 07:32PM -0400

Thanks, John for this critical focus on austerity and 40 years of stagnant wages.
 
Sent from my iPhone
 
...more
You received this digest because you're subscribed to updates for this group. You can change your settings on the group membership page.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it send an email to socialist-economics+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.

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Wednesday, March 15, 2017

EPIC Radio Podcasts:Are You Crazy? Dr John Aldis and Dr McGill discuss setbacks in fighting the opioid epidemic

John Case has sent you a link to a blog:



Blog: EPIC Radio Podcasts
Post: Are You Crazy? Dr John Aldis and Dr McGill discuss setbacks in fighting the opioid epidemic
Link: http://podcasts.enlightenradio.org/2017/03/are-you-crazy-dr-john-aldis-and-dr.html

--
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Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Re: [CCDS Members] Chart of the Week: The Productivity Puzzle [feedly]

Maybe productivity depends on energy, mostly oil. Conventional oil peaked in 2006, unconventional in 2015.
I sent separately an article by oil analyst Art Berman. Check it out.
 
Per Fagereng
 
From: John Case
Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2017 5:48 AM
Subject: [CCDS Members] Chart of the Week: The Productivity Puzzle [feedly]
 
If you are thinking through the challenges of better and more sustainable economic management with shared prosperity, this knotty problem of evaluating productivity in service and intangible products may be the most important currently UNSOLVED problem. It shows up now as a panel at every economics conference. And, there is no consensus.
 
Chart of the Week: The Productivity Puzzle

https://blog-imfdirect.imf.org/2017/03/13/chart-of-the-week-the-productivity-puzzle/
 

By iMFdirect

Technological change seems to be happening faster than ever. The prospect of driverless cars, robot lawyers, and 3D-printed human organs becoming commonplace suggests a new wave of technological progress.

These advances should raise our standard of living by producing more goods and services with less capital and fewer hours of work—that is, by being more productive. But, to paraphrase Nobel laureate Robert Solow, we can see it everywhere but in the productivity statistics.

The vexing truth is that output per worker and total factor productivity—which measures the overall productivity of both labor and capital, and reflects such elements as technology—have slowed sharply over the past decade.

What is going on? Some believe that aging populations in advanced economies has gradually become a drag on productivity. Others blame a fading information and communications technology boom. And the global financial crisis has played a decisive role, say the authors of Gone with the Headwinds: Global Productivity, an IMF paper due out on April 3.

Read more about why productivity is falling and what can be done about it in the March issue of Finance and Development:

Stuck in a Rut by Gustavo Adler and Romain Duval

Also watch this space for the April release of their IMF Staff Discussion Note.

*****

 

-- via my feedly newsfeed

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