If we are creating jobs, why is unemployment so high?

Workout note
Yoga, then an easy 1:07 run (I’ll call it 10K): the river course near the riverplex plus 3 goose loop laps and the out and back under the I-74 bridge. I tried to keep a reasonable turn over but my legs were a bit heavy. Cool and damp.

Economy
The jobs report shows that we are adding jobs.

(from here)

Still, unemployment is stuck at 9 percent or so. Why? Answer: the population is growing and we need enough new jobs to keep up for new work seekers.

For comparison, look at the jobs chart over a long period of time (starting at January 1990):

You can see the job loss periods and what healthy growth looks like. The fact is that we had a huge period of job losses that the stimulus stopped but…not enough of a rebound to make up for all of the jobs that we should have been adding.
The Bonddad blog presents this chart:

If this seems confusing to you: the first two charts show the jobs added or lost per month; the bars above the zero axis indicate jobs are being added; bars below the axis mean that they are being lost. In mathematical language: these are the graphs of the derivative of jobs at a given time.

The last chart is the total number of jobs. We see that the number of jobs drop (this is where the jobs created/lost graph shows a bar below the zero axis) then a jobs gain…but the job gain doesn’t get us to the previous peak (strike one). The next strike is that the number of job seekers have also gone up during this time (strike two). So, for a good employment situation, we need to be ABOVE where the previous peak was…and we are still pretty far below.

Theist FAIL

Yeah, right. Let’s see: “I can’t figure out what happened, so “goddidit”. Yep, that’s a “reasonable” answer!

Look:
1. It is more honest to say “I can’t answer this question and I’ve yet to see an answer that is satisfactory to me” than to just make something up or to ascribe some supernatural cause. Personally, I am glad that many others before me didn’t settle for “god/the devil did it” type answers.

2. Yes, some factual things (e. g., pair production in which a particle and an anti-particle pop into existence from nothing, or quantum phenomena) are counter-intuitive. You might not understand it…and frankly some things…well, nobody really understands..yet. But that doesn’t mean that they are wrong…in fact, quantum effects have been observed and have to be taken into account in some types of technology. And yes, non-directed evolution has been observed in the laboratory.

Woos, Republicans and other topics

Woos: This is why I don’t take you seriously
P. Z. Myers lets Deepak Chopra have it:

Shorter Deepak: “Richard Dawkins didn’t endorse my quantum bullshit, therefore The Magic of Reality sucks!”

Deepak Chopra actually sounds quite upset — his review of the book reads more like the indignant squawk of a charlatan furious that the presence of a skeptic might cut into his take. It’s largely an exercise in name-dropping and the profession of bleary, vacuous misinterpretations of science on his part, which he then turns around and uses to accuse Dawkins of error because he doesn’t share his inoculation of the ideas with pseudoscience. Like this:

What is obnoxious about Dawkins’ version is his tone of absolute authority about matters that he shows complete ignorance of. Respected physicists like John Archibald Wheeler, Sir Arthur Eddington, Freeman Dyson, Hans-Peter Dürr, Henry Stapp, Sir Roger Penrose, Eugene Wigner, Erwin Schrodinger, and Werner Heisenberg suggest a fundamental role for consciousness in quantum theory and a mental component at the level of biological organisms and the universe itself.

I notice that 56% of the people he names are dead, that none of them are biologists or psychologists, and that several of them, while authoritative in their fields, aren’t actually known for their views on consciousness. This is a common pseudo-scientific con, roping a few famous corpses into agreeing with wacky interpretations.

One bit of caution: if you write in to a right wing news program to complain about their coverage, they might selectively edit your letter…and be within their legal rights to do so!

Politics and Social Statement on Facebook

I read a few right wing sources just too see what they are “thinking” (or whatever mental process they have). Here is one example:

The NBA just canceled the first two weeks of its season because rich owners and …players can’t agree on a deal, ignoring fans who have to pay inflated ticket prices while suffering in a recession. “LIKE” if you think this sounds a little like the liberals’ failure to cut spending while taxpayers suffer in a jobless economy.

When I first read this, I thought that this was a “poe” statement designed to embarrass conservatives. It isn’t. Note: the photo is NOT designed to be flattering to President Obama, but I happen to like it!

Also from Facebook: this map is circulating. Note: this is NOT a left-right issue; whereas many liberals (who can afford it) travel, many members of the military have also traveled.

I certainly agree that liberals and conservatives have a different view of the world; liberals want us to be good global citizens whereas conservatives are content to be jingoistic bullies. No, it wasn’t always that way. But it appears to be true now.

Economy
I’ve been following some of the 99 percent movement. I see it as a blowback to this:

It sure appears to me that accountability is only for “little people”. When rich people screw up, we pay. When ordinary people screw up, we pay.

One example: you often hear about the so-called poor “lucky duckies” who end up owing no Federal Income tax. Oh, how the conservatives hate them! But, when it is the wealthy Republicans who pay no income tax, well, that is different! Yes, it happens:

UNFORTUNATELY…
Yes, Paul Krugman thinks that the financial elite are clueless (here and here)

Yes, I think that the conservative economists are dead wrong and delusional:

But the main thing wrong with Roberts’s piece is the assumption that people like me are just mirror images of people like him:

Krugman is a Keynesian because he wants bigger government. I’m an anti-Keynesian because I want smaller government. Both of us can find evidence for our worldviews.

This is wrong on multiple levels. First of all, while conservatives see smaller government as an end in itself, liberals don’t see bigger government the same way. Think about it: while you often see conservatives crow about, say, reducing discretionary spending as a good thing just because the number is down, do you ever see liberals crowing about a rise in spending, never mind what on? Liberals want government to do certain things, like provide essential health care; the size of government per se isn’t the objective.

Second, Keynesianism is not and never has been about promoting bigger government. Outside the US, this is obvious: there have been Tory Keynesians in Britain, the Germans favor both a big welfare state with heavy regulation and balanced budgets. Even in the US, when the political heat isn’t so intense, you find conservative economists promoting quite Keynesian views of stabilization policy — Greg Mankiw is the editor of two volumes on New Keynesian Economics, and the Bushies were quite happy to argue for tax cuts as a way to boost spending.

What is true is that some conservatives in America have always opposed Keynesian thought because they believe it legitimizes an active role for government — but that’s not what Keynesianism is about, and not the reason I or others support it.

Which brings me to the final point. Russ Roberts may choose his economic views because they support his political prejudices. I try not to. Maybe I sometimes fall short — but I try to analyze the economy as best I can, never mind what’s politically convenient, and indeed to bend over backward to avoid believing things that make me comfortable, to avoid turning everything into a morality play that confirms my political values.

Krugman is dead on there. What we should remember about conservatives is that at times they appear to be morally and emotionally warped. They have this huge fear that if we “enable the slackers” that our society will deteriorate and they have a fetish for “punishing the slackers”; this clouds out all else including mountains of statistical evidence. Their principles are really religious dogma; they are unfalsifiable. Think of their steadfast belief in the “magic of the market” as a religious belief.

And yes, they are dead wrong about us too. I am not in favor of “big government” per-se, but rather in favor of “effective government”. I am not hostile to inequities; some will be more successful and some will be luckier than others. Example: If someone wants to use their own money to prolong life until the very end and die on silk sheets, fine. But I also want a society in which everyone has access to a reasonable level of care. But the “free market” won’t ensure that; after all it is highly unprofitable to insure someone with a pre-existing condition. So, I see that government has a role to play here.

Unfortunately, I think that Krugman is wrong about what the rest of the country wants. Read some of the utterly stupid stuff written by some “53 percent” people. As to these idiots who are bragging that they are not complaining even though they don’t have health insurance: what will happen if you get sick? What if it is your kid who gets sick? This disgusts me. And yes, the number of people like this are legion. I know some….these are people on disability who think that Obama is a socialist.

More on economic issues
This Salon article traces the rise of the income gap.

Krugman shows why he believes that the Keynesian models are valid. He then gives us a Venn diagram of the various economists and where they stand on the current economic situation (not a Venn diagram that he came up with).

Surf to the link to the article to read what he has to say.