In The News 10/27/08

Could waves (from storms or even tsunamis) pass by off-shore drilling platforms or even very small islands?  French and British physicists think so.  Their work needs to be taken from the lab to a more realistic situation before viability can be assessed.

Companies are going to make the recession deeper and longer.  They’re cutting wages and jobs as the economy continues to weaken.  It protects shareholders and executives, but prevents short- to medium-term economic growth.  You want consumption to pick back up?  It’s easy: increase wages.  When lower- and middle-class workers earn more, they buy more.  The past 8 years have clearly shown that when the upper-class makes more, they save more.  They don’t spend their money.  They don’t increase the size of business or create enough jobs.

The Bush doctrine is still in full effect.  U.S. commandos executed a strike into Syria over the weekend.  A couple of questions spring to mind.  First, don’t we have a Secretary of State?  Or is she too busy shopping for shoes to actually do her freaking job?  Second, do Americans realize that these kinds of actions solidify our wrecked image abroad?  The U.S. strikes with impunity into sovereign countries that it considers weak.  Actually, I think Americans do understand what’s going on: it’s one reason why Obama continues to lead McCain.  Unfortunately, this insane policy ensures that there will be future tension between the U.S. and interests in and around the Middle East. Anything to justify the War budget.

Corrupt Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens has been found guilty of lying about gifts he received and never reported.  An interesting facet of this case: if Stevens wins his re-election campaign this year, he can serve in Congress even though he is a convicted felon.  Why is that interesting?  Republicans have passed laws around the country denying convicted felons voting rights because they tend to vote Democratic.  The hypocrisy is disgusting, though unsurprising.  Stevens should be allowed to serve again once he pays his debt back to society, just like voters should be allowed to vote again once their debts have been repaid.  Stevens certainly shouldn’t be allowed to take part in any further Senate proceedings until his sentence has been served in full.  [Update]: Irony strikes in this case.  According to Alaska state law, Sen. Stevens can’t register to vote due to his felon status.  Which means he can’t vote for himself.  It’s only one felon, but it is interesting to see a Republican get caught up in conservative voter suppression strategies.

Corporate Media Cheers Slightly Less Worse Economic News

Initial inflation numbers are out for August.  I’ve argued for years that the focus should be on the larger inflation numbers, the one that includes food and energy prices since real people have to pay for them.  For the first time that I can remember, a corporate media article writing about inflation spends more time on that number than the core inflation number.  This demonstrates to me that the corporate media will present whatever numbers it thinks will support their “economy is good” story.  I’ve always concentrated on the larger inflation number, and this post will be no different.

For the first time in two years, inflation edged slightly down in August, compared to last year, by 0.1%.  Core inflation was up 0.2%.  Fuel price declines were the reason the larger inflation number was down.  Everything else is up.  And the only reason fuel prices are down is Congress’ threat to initiate regulation of speculators’ actions.  Huh.  Markets without responsible oversight chase down profits to an extreme and its real Americans that suffer.  Republican John McCain realizes how upset Americans are and now wants to introduce more regulation.   Riiiiight.

Buried in the news story above is very bad news for workers and the economy.  Wages for most of us dropped 2.5% in August versus last August.  So the majority of Americans have 2.5% less purchasing power than last year.  And that’s if they have a job.  Unemployment (calculated too low) stands at 5.9%.  And the wage drop isn’t an isolated incident.  Wages have decreased for 11 straight months now.  And Republican John McCain spent the last week talking about how the fundamentals of the economy are strong.  Which fundamental is he talking about?

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Here is some additional detail about those unemployment numbers:

When the unemployment rate for women went from 4.6 percent in July to 5.3 percent in August, it was the largest one-month spike in the jobless rate for women in more than 33 years.

Black women were hit even harder, as their unemployment rate jumped 21 percent, from 7.5 percent in July to 9.1 percent in August.

Among single mothers and women with families, unemployment climbed to 9.6 percent in August — the highest level in 15 years.

Economy Is Bad; Elitist McCains & Palins Don’t Care

We’ve seen nothing but bad economic news for the better part of a year or more now. The housing market is collapsing, foreclosures continue to set records, inflation is at 20-year highs, wages haven’t gone up for the majority of Americans in 8 years, now unemployment is once again more than 6% and I’m probably forgetting some measures. Who brought us this horrible economy? Republicans! This is what deregulation and tax cuts for the rich produce. It happened in the late 1980′s, early 1990′s after Reagan and Bush I wrecked it and it’s happening now that Bush II has screwed things up for 7 years.

What issue did McCain not substantively address during his acceptance speech last night? The economy. Do you know why? Because he and his rich, elitist pals are doing just fine. They can absorb 9% inflation because their incomes have increased at a higher rate in the past seven years, unlike 99% of the rest of Americans. They’re not losing their jobs or their houses. Cindy McCain wore $300,000 outfits to the RNC. Sarah Palin has her choice of $500 designer glasses to wear every day. The economy that they live in every day is obviously doing just fine. They can’t fix a problem if they don’t see it.

Unemployment is now at 6.1%, the highest reading in 5 years. 84,000 jobs were lost during August alone, bringing this year’s total to 605,000. 605,000 is 10% of the jobs gained in the past 6 years. The “recovery” from the 2001 recession has produced the fewest number of jobs since any recovery since the end of WWII. And that’s considered a success by Republicans. Here’s why: the only mention of the economy during McCain’s speech revolved around globalization. Sure, the fewest jobs on record were put on the rolls during the Bush-II era. But thanks to economy wreckers like NAFTA, GATT and CAFTA, many more jobs were created overseas. Corporations have continued to make profit and more and more of it has been directed at people who are already rich. The rest of us are on our own.

I’ve written before that the reported unemployment rate doesn’t include everybody who really are unemployed. It’s a false measurement of the state of workers in this country. So conditions are actually worse than what the Labor Department is reporting today.

The economy is the number one concern cited by Americans and has been for months now. What solutions to the malaise did McCain describe last night? None. McCain and Palin want to continue and strengthen the failed Bush economic policies. Instead, McCain (and every other speaker this week) kept trying to scare Americans into voting for them again. Terrorism, Iran and Iraq were major talking points. Isn’t it interesting that the economy, health care and Afghanistan weren’t? Fear, fear, fear. Fight, fight, fight. Those were the themes of the RNC.

More of the same for the next four years? America can’t take it. Our middle class is being devastated. We need elected officials who have a better understanding of the economy the majority of us are facing and who possess the empathy to do something to change things that obviously aren’t working. Barack Obama and Joe Biden have that understanding and that empathy. More than that, instead of being bought off by corporate interests like McCain and Palin, Obama is more beholden to the millions of campaign donors and workers. If he doesn’t enact policies that benefit those millions, do you really think they’ll let him get away with it? If McCain doesn’t enact policies that benefit those millions, what recourse do they have? All he has to please are his corporate benefactors.

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[Update]: With the economy in tatters and getting worse, plenty is being written about it.  I found this while perusing the tubes.  The total U6 (defined as total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of all civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers) is higher today than it was during any point of the 2001-2003 recession.  The U6 value has actually been increasing since January of last year and it hasn’t peaked yet.  That’s why the economy is the #1 issue on voters’ minds.  And that’s why McCain, Palin and the rest of the Republicans responsible for the economy’s bad shape don’t want to talk about it on the campaign trail.  Since they don’t want to discuss middle class economic issues (they brought up the estate tax during the RNC!), McCain and Palin aren’t likely to do anything about it once they get in office either.  Pay attention to who these candidates are now.  They won’t change if elected.