tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post705718576127277693..comments2024-03-28T17:53:43.541-04:00Comments on DarwinCatholic: Politics and PerceptionDarwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08572976822786862149noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-59240118236838152522016-03-24T01:47:59.612-04:002016-03-24T01:47:59.612-04:00I agree that the numbers mean something, but the q...I agree that the numbers mean something, but the question is why do people on the bottom end of the economy believe it is about to crash. I think the answer is that many people have had a very long, Depression-like experience and have only just now begun to see any improvement in their situations at all. They don't trust it. Experiencing seven years--or more--of setbacks makes one hesitant to believe that any positive movement is anything more than a fluke. They have decided the economy is in chaos, even if their personal situation is improving, and it will take more than a handful of months of job growth to change their minds. But I think it is likely we will have another recession (just by the nature of the beast) before the ones at the bottom will have had enough positive reinforcement to believe the economy isn't on the brink of imploding. Jennyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13472686909226073213noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-21417453539781217402016-03-22T23:13:18.208-04:002016-03-22T23:13:18.208-04:00Jenny and Sarah,
I certainly agree that the unemp...Jenny and Sarah,<br /><br />I certainly agree that the unemployment rate, GDP growth, etc. don't cover everything, or signify that in some way there aren't any problems. Even with unemployment being lower or growth being higher, there are areas, groups and individuals for whom things are very bad. Just as my own last eight years have been far above the mean, for other people they have been far below the mean. <br /><br />What I would argue, though, is that when the mean changes it usually means something. So while there are clearly problems with our economy, with one of the major pain areas (though I fear possibly an unavoidable one) being the transition to a much smaller manufacturing workforce than we had 30 years ago, I think that in general the unemployment rate going down over the last eight years is a sign of improvement, just as the unemployment rate going up would be a sign of things getting worse. <br /><br />FWIW, although the workforce participation rate for people 23-55 has been slower to improve, it has flattened and started inching up over the last year and a half.<br /><br />https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/LNU01300060<br /><br />And the number of people involuntarily working part time has gone down by a third:<br /><br />http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12032194<br /><br />Again, I don't think any of this is to Obama's credit. I strongly agree with Jenny that the president has very little ability to influence these things. Darwinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08572976822786862149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-46357384632640588032016-03-19T11:03:35.395-04:002016-03-19T11:03:35.395-04:00I agree that the U-3 unemployment rate is not very...I agree that the U-3 unemployment rate is not very useful except as a general trend. The fact that it ignores those who have been totally left behind, and yet still vote, obscures what is really going on at the bottom of the food chain. I think a more useful number is the Labor Participation Rate and examining who is making up the unemployed section of that number. In the past, that number was largely made up of the elderly and mothers of young children. Except now something like 70% of mothers work so there are a lot of men who, in the past, would have been working and now are not. I'll bet many of them are voting for Trump. Jennyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13472686909226073213noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-3249636406581597982016-03-19T10:24:52.411-04:002016-03-19T10:24:52.411-04:00One thing I want to quibble with is the use of une...One thing I want to quibble with is the use of unemployment rates as an indicator of success. As I'm sure you know, those don't include people who've given up. It also doesn't include people like me, who have part time work and need more. Since I graduated in 2009 from college, I can tell you it's been a long rough road with little to show for it, not just for me but for most people I know around my age. "The dream" for us would be to pay all our bills (not just the most urgent), have full time work with benefits that's not a short term contract job (pie in the sky), and be able to build some savings. That sounds like economic heaven, even if I were still sharing a two bedroom apartment. I don't mean to sound irate, just wanted to give a glimpse of what it looks like down the food chain. (For what it's worth I loath Trump). Sarahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08112924098753896966noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-57550511066000575142016-03-18T12:57:13.098-04:002016-03-18T12:57:13.098-04:00When they engage in shenanigans to prop up the sto...When they engage in shenanigans to prop up the stock market and create ridiculous amounts of money, thing can look very good for a particular group of people. Meanwhile, people outside of that stream constantly find their money is worth less and they can't get the bump in salary that ameliorates that because their industry isn't the one money is going to. <br /><br />We've seen discrimination in the name of diversity. We've seen plenty of environmental (and other governmental) regulation that removes American blue collar jobs overseas. Instead of Maine having logging and jobs you can raise a family on, it has heroin, thanks to the bumper crop our military helped raise in Afghanistan.<br /><br />It isn't just economic, it is justice. This stuff is unjust.<br /><br />Finally, how long before whatever surplus we have is used up? How much production will be left in a system where production isn't rewarded? It is somewhat odd to watch Japan, which probably a few years ahead of us in retard central banker behavior- they want to use negative interest rates, yet, at the same time they don't seem to understand why people are not having children. Can nobody make the connection? People had a lot of children when gold was money. Augusthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08758314961163692341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-61031446735288253562016-03-18T12:31:36.358-04:002016-03-18T12:31:36.358-04:00"Now, people's perceptions are often shad..."Now, people's perceptions are often shaded by their own personal fortunes,..."<br /><br />Yes. What's the saying? When your neighbor loses his job, it's a recession. When you lose your job, it's a depression.<br /><br />Since 2008, I have had one significant raise, which was under $10000, but mostly my wages have been frozen. The number of my children has also doubled proving there isn't a cause and effect there. :) Year after year with the same salary, but prices of everything I buy going up. If I had continued working this year, I would have received a 2% raise, the first one since 2012. Woot. But at least I was employed by a long-standing, well-established institution and didn't have a lay-off constantly hanging over my head.<br /><br />We did take advantage of the absurdly low mortgage rates and put the house on a 15 year mortgage which wasn't a possibility before. But because we chose the 15 year route, which is better in the long term, we didn't see any short term payment relief. <br /><br />Gas got extremely expensive very quickly and stayed there a long time. I am darkly annoyed that gas is so cheap now because think of how much money I might be saving! But really gas only dropped into the reasonable range about a year ago. That's not exactly years of recovery.<br /><br />It's true that my 401(k) has done pretty well over the course of these years and overall inflation has been low, but in the immortal words of the guy at the townhall meeting, "I can't eat an iPad." <br /><br />The inflation on food, conveniently ignored in the calculations, has been staggering. In an example of your snapshot idea to concretely document changes, grocery shopping has been that for us. I was the food shopper before I began working in 2006. My husband took over that function at that point and retained it until just this year. I knew that food prices had soared over this period of time, but I did not really keep up with individual price points.<br /><br />When I go grocery shopping I still have my 2006 price list bouncing around my brain. I am stunned by how much everything costs now. The only item that is close to the old price is milk. Almost everything else has nearly doubled. I will spend my shopping trips shocked and appalled by the prices until my mind adjusts to the new normal. For example meat. Oh. My. Goodness. The price of meat! Are they kidding? No, they aren't kidding. I used to be able to get lean hamburger for $3 a pound. Not anymore. Now it's $6 or $7 a pound and I get excited when I find it at $5.<br /><br />So while it's true I have seen economic benefits during the Obama presidency, I won't realize them in my bank account for another twenty years or more. The day to day is still tight without much prospect for improvement if I had stayed in my previous position.<br /><br />And this is where Trump voters live. Wages frozen at sub-median levels or laid off on unemployment where it doesn't matter that you can get twice the computer for half the price because there's nothing left after food, rent, and utilities. Their mistake (among several) is in thinking a president is going to change this environment. Jennyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13472686909226073213noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-74728663798133042742016-03-17T20:44:49.398-04:002016-03-17T20:44:49.398-04:00From Darwin's 2008 post-election post:
"...From Darwin's 2008 post-election post:<br /><br />"I strongly suspect that Obama has now heard all that he wants to hear out of his pro-life supporters until around August, 2012. If Obama takes any positive act specifically towards reducing abortion (other than coincidental factors like the economy starting to improve in late 2009 -- which is roughly when I would expect a recovery regardless of who won) I will happily eat a hat of your choosing."<br /><br />He will not find himself obliged to eat any chapeax.MrsDarwinhttp://darwincatholic.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-84738397775082229562016-03-17T20:27:19.258-04:002016-03-17T20:27:19.258-04:00BenK,
Fair point. This was a post on a pretty nar...BenK,<br /><br />Fair point. This was a post on a pretty narrow topic: whether our economy was in such dire straights after eight years of Obama that we needed to support Trump as some sort of emergency measure. In the social media conversations that got me thinking about this over the last couple weeks, it was asserted to me a couple times by other Catholics that while Trump might not be Christian, might be personally immoral, and might have no respect for our moral beliefs, that it was necessary to support him anyway because he was a businessman and only he could fix the economy which was on the brink of destruction.<br /><br />To which I have to wonder: How in the world did we get to thinking the economy is on the brink of destruction?<br /><br />I do think that there has been significant moral degeneration in our country over the last eight years, that it has become even more than before a post-Christian country. But it would seem to me a really odd argument that Trump would help with that since, he's pretty clearly not someone who shares our beliefs anyway.Darwinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08572976822786862149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-68233754042700633822016-03-17T20:00:06.303-04:002016-03-17T20:00:06.303-04:00Strange for a Roman Catholic to focus on economics...Strange for a Roman Catholic to focus on economics alone as an indicator of how the nation is doing. BenKhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16784998250207335412noreply@blogger.com