Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, April 30, 2013


Welcome to Tuesday's Newsbites...

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16 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2013/04/tsarnaev_family_received_100g_in_benefits

The Tsarnaev family, including the suspected terrorists and their parents, benefited from more than $100,000 in taxpayer-funded assistance — a bonanza ranging from cash and food stamps to Section 8 housing from 2002 to 2012, the Boston Herald has learned.

(*CLAP...CLAP...CLAP*)

April 30, 2013 at 1:06 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.sessions.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressShop.NewsReleases&ContentRecord_id=5b3c7d36-e658-937d-e098-5048118b251f

The Gang of Eight’s proposal would grant green cards and citizenship to millions of illegal immigrants, providing them with guaranteed access to all welfare and entitlement programs.

Sponsors of the legislation have not denied this fact, but simply replied that illegal immigrants will not become officially eligible for taxpayer-funded aid for 13 years.

However, several loopholes have been identified that reveal many illegal immigrants will gain access to public benefits far sooner than the 13-year timeframe advertised.

Therefore, in addition to the enormous long-term costs, the proposal promises to impose substantial short-term costs as well:

Illegal immigrants granted registered provisional immigrant (RPI) status could immediately become eligible for state and local public benefits in many states. This is because state laws frequently extend benefits to anyone “lawfully present” in the U.S. The legislation explicitly forbids DHS from considering whether an illegal immigrant is financially self-sufficient when that alien first applies for RPI status. Therefore, when those here illegally who are unable to support themselves are legalized, much of the immediate fiscal burden will fall on state and local governments.

Those granted RPI status will be immediately become eligible for federal benefits through citizen and permanent resident dependents, with no requirement that they support their household as a condition of receiving or maintaining legal status.

The expansive DREAM Act provisions are open to illegal immigrants of any age and provide citizenship in as little as five years to potentially 2–3 million individuals who will become eligible for nearly all federal assistance.

Agriculture workers will get green cards in five years and become citizens in 10. Due to income and education levels, legalized [farm] workers would likely have higher rates of welfare use and will receive more in net benefits from Medicare and Social Security than they contribute.

Households headed by illegal immigrants will quickly become eligible for benefits through chain migration as well. And, because DREAM beneficiaries will be able to bring in parents, children, and spouses not subject to caps, net household benefits will increase substantially.

* GEEZUS... FRIGGIN'... CHRIST...

* FOLKS... UNDERSTAND... THE DEMOCRATS WANT TO OVERWHELM THE SYSTEM SO AS TO CREATE A CRISIS THAT "WON'T GO TO WASTE." IN OTHER WORDS, THE MORE THEIR TACTIC CUT THE GROUND OUT UNDER OUR CAPITALISTIC RIGHTS/RESPONSIBILITIES DRIVEN SOCIETY THE STRONGER THEIR ARGUMENT THAT "FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE" MUST OCCUR... THE CHANGE THEY'VE WANTED ALL ALONG... THE CHANGE WE'RE ALREADY SEEING...

April 30, 2013 at 1:06 PM
William R. Barker said...

* THREE-PARTER... (Part 1 of 3)

http://www.humanevents.com/2013/04/30/buchanan-their-war-not-ours/

* BY PATRICK J. BUCHANAN

“The worst mistake of my presidency,” said Ronald Reagan of his decision to put Marines into the middle of Lebanon’s civil war, where 241 died in a suicide bombing of their barracks.

(*NOD*)

And if Barack Obama plunges into Syria’s civil war, it could consume his presidency, even as Iraq consumed the presidency of George W. Bush.

* AND THE FUCKING RINO WAR PARTY RIGHT BEHIND HIM...

Why would Obama even consider this? Because he blundered badly. Foolishly, he put his credibility on the line by warning that any Syrian use of chemical weapons would cross a “red line” and be a “game changer” with “enormous consequences.”

Not only was this ultimatum unwise, Obama had no authority to issue it.

* PRESIDENT OBAMA DIDN'T. BUT "PRESIDENT" IS SIMPLY HIS OFFICIAL TITLE. FOR ALL PRACTICAL PURPOSES, WHEN IT COMES TO FOREIGN POLICY AND ISSUES OF WAR AND PEACE, BOTH PARTIES AND INDEED THE SHEEPLE AS A WHOLE LOOK UPON A PRESIDENT AS "KING."

If Syria does not threaten or attack us, Obama would need congressional authorization before he could constitutionally engage in acts of war against Syria.

* IN THEORY. IN PRACTICE THE MILITARY WOULD DO WHAT THEY WERE TOLD AND HARRY REID AND INDEED 95% OF DEMS IN BOTH THE HOUSE AND SENATE WOULD SUPPORT OBAMA - AS WOULD MANY... PERHAPS EVEN MOST... ELECTED REPUBLICAN FEDERAL OFFICE-HOLDERS.

* TO BE CONTINUED...

April 30, 2013 at 5:13 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 3)

[T]here is no proof Syrian President Bashar Assad ever ordered the use of chemical weapons. U.S. intelligence agencies maintain that small amounts of the deadly toxin sarin gas were likely used. But if it did happen, we do not know who ordered it. Syrians officials deny that they ever used chemicals. And before we dismiss Damascus’ denials, recall that an innocent man in Tupelo, Miss., was lately charged with mailing deadly ricin to Sen. Roger Wicker and President Obama. This weekend, we learned he may have been framed.

(*PURSED LIPS*)

It is well within the capacity of Assad’s enemies to use or fake the use of poison gas to suck us into fighting their war.

(*NOD*)

Even if elements of Assad’s army did use sarin, we ought not plunge in. And, fortunately, that seems to be Obama’s thinking.

* LET'S HOPE SO!

Why stay out? Because it is not our war.

(*SINCERE APPLAUSE*)

There is no vital U.S. interest in who rules Syria. Hafez Assad and Bashar have ruled Syria for 40 years. How has that ever threatened us?

(*STANDING OVATION*)

Moreover, U.S. intervention would signal to Assad that the end is near, making his use of every weapon in his arsenal, including chemical weapons, more — not less — likely.

(*NOD*)

U.S. intervention would also make us de facto allies of Assad’s principal enemies, the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Nusra Front, Syria’s al-Qaida.

* YEP...!!!

As The New York Times reported Sunday, “Nowhere in rebel-controlled Syria is there a secular fighting force to speak of.” Do we really wish to expend American blood and treasure to bring about a victory of Islamists and jihadists in Syria?

* B*E*N*G*H*A*Z*I...!!!

* TO BE CONTINUED...

April 30, 2013 at 5:14 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 3 of 3)

If Assad’s chemical weapons threaten any nation, it is Israel. But Israel knows where they are stored and has an air force superior to our own in the Med. Israeli troops on the Golan are as close to Damascus as Dulles Airport is to Washington, D.C. Yet Israel has not attacked Syria’s chemical weapons. And if Israel does not feel sufficiently threatened by Syria’s chemical weapons to go after them, why should we, 4,000 miles away?

Then there is Turkey, with three times Syria’s population, NATO’s second-largest army and a 600-mile border. Why is ridding the Middle East of Assad our assignment and not Ankara’s? Surely the heirs of the Ottomans have a larger stake here.

And if we get into this war, how do we get out? For the war is metastasizing. Hezbollah is sending in fighters to help the Alawite Shia. Other Lebanese are assisting the Sunni rebels. The war could spread into Iraq, where the latest clashes between Sunni and Shia are pulling the country apart. Young Muslims are coming in from Europe. Iran and Russia are aiding Damascus. Qatar and Saudi Arabia are aiding the Islamists. The United States, Jordan and Turkey are aiding the secularists. Syria could come apart, and a sectarian and ethnic war of all against all erupt across the region. Do we really want the U.S. military in the middle of this?

* NOT ME!

Because his “red line” appears to have been crossed, Obama is being told he must attack Syria to maintain his credibility with Iran and North Korea. Nonsense. To attack Syria would compound Obama’s folly in drawing the red line. Better to have egg on Obama’s face than for America to be dragged into another unnecessary war.

* AGREED! THAT SAID...

* OBAMA IS SUCH AN ASSHOLE... SUCH A DOUCHE BAG... COULDN'T KEEP HIS FUCKING MOUTH SHUT...

Obama would not be alone in having his bluff called. George Bush proclaimed that no “axis of evil” nation would be allowed to acquire the “world’s worst weapons.” North Korea now has those weapons.

* YEP! BUSH HAD A BIG FUCKING MOUTH TOO!

Congressional war hawks, led by Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham, are cawing for air strikes and no-fly zones, which would mean dead and captured Americans and many more dead Syrians.

Time for Congress to either authorize Obama to lead us into a new Middle East war, or direct him, in the absence of an attack upon us, to keep America out of what is Syria’s civil war.

* THE ONLY MISSILES I FAVOR LAUNCHING OR BOMBS I FAVOR DROPPING WOULD HAVE MCCAIN'S AND GRAHAM'S (TEMPORARILY) LIVE BODIES ATTACHED TO THEM!

Before we slide into another war, let the country be consulted first.

* AS IF THE SHEEPLE CARE... PARTICULARLY THE NON-FEDERAL INCOME TAX PAYING SHEEPLE... PARTICULARLY THOSE WITH NO SONS, DAUGHTER, NIECES, NEPHEWS, GODCHILDREN, OR SPOUSES SERVING IN UNIFORM AND IN LINE TO BE SENT TO FIGHT!

April 30, 2013 at 5:15 PM
William R. Barker said...

* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/04/30/special-ops-benghazi-whistleblower-tells-fox-news-government-could-have/

A military special ops member who watched as the deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi unfolded last September told Fox News the U.S. had highly trained forces just a few hours away, and said he and others feel the government betrayed the four men who died in the attack.

* OF COURSE WE HAD FORCES HOURS AWAY... PERHAPS LESS IF YOU COUNT ALLIES! I SAID THIS ALL ALONG! IT'S BASIC COMMON SENSE! AGAIN, FOLKS... IMAGINE... IMAGINE AIRFORCE ONE WITH OBAMA ABOARD HAD CRASHED IN BENGHAZI... OR A PLANE WITH MICHELLE AND THE KIDS...

Speaking on condition of anonymity, and appearing in a Fox News Channel interview with his face and voice disguised, the special operator contradicted claims by the Obama administration and a State Department review that said there wasn’t enough time for U.S. military forces to have intervened in the Sept. 11 attack in which U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, an embassy employee and two former Navy SEALs working as private security contractors were killed.

“I know for a fact that C-110, the EUCOM CIF, was doing a training exercise in … not in the region of North Africa, but in Europe,” the operator told Fox News' Adam Housley. “And they had the ability to act and to respond.”

The C-110 is a 40-man Special Ops force capable of rapid response and deployment specifically trained for incidents like last year’s attack in Benghazi. During the night of the Sept. 11, 2012, attack in Libya, in which U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed in Libya, the C-110 were training in Croatia, just 3 ½ hours away.

“We had the ability to load out, get on birds and fly there, at a minimum stage,” the operator told Fox News. “C-110 had the ability to be there, in my opinion, in a matter of about four hours…four to six hours.”

Being so close, C-110s would have been able to respond had there been a second attack, the source added.

“They would have been there at a minimum to provide a quick reaction force that can facilitate their exfil out of the, out of the problem situation. Nobody knew how it was going to develop. And you hear people and a whole bunch of advisers say, 'We wouldn’t have sent them because the security was a unknown situation.'”

The source says the government could have at least sent the C-110s there as backup.

“If it’s an unknown situation, at a minimum, you send forces there to facilitate the exfil, or, or, um medical injuries,” he said. “We could have sent a C-30 to Benghazi to provide medical evacuation for the injured.”

* TO BE CONTINUED...

April 30, 2013 at 5:27 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

The source says many people connected to the Benghazi bombing feel threatened and are afraid to talk.

“The problem is, you got guys in my position, you got guys in special operations community who are still active and still involved,” the source said. “And they would be decapitated if they came forward with information that would affect high level commanders,” he said.

* I DON'T TRUST AMERICA'S HIGH LEVEL MILITARY COMMANDERS. I JUST DON'T. I BASE THIS UPON THE FACT THAT THIS ARTICLE CONCERNS A GRUNT (OR PERHAPS LOW-MID-RANGE OFFICER) SPILLING THE BEANS... NOT A GENERAL OR ADMIRAL.

Despite the concern, the source who spoke to Fox News says there’s a feeling of betrayal in the community that the government left people on the ground in Benghazi to fend for themselves.

“You know, it’s something that’s risky, especially in our line of profession, to say anything about, anything in the realm of politics, or that deals with policy,” the source said.

In December, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen told lawmakers the U.S. did not have personnel close enough to have responded to the siege at the consulate, even though the State Department had been repeatedly warned by embassy staffers concerned about security in Libya.

“It is not reasonable, nor feasible, to tether U.S. forces at the ready to respond to protect every high-risk post in the world,” Mullen said.

* I BELIEVE MULLEN IS A LIAR. EITHER THAT OR A TOTAL INCOMPETENT. EITHER WAY... (*SHRUG*)

April 30, 2013 at 5:28 PM
William R. Barker said...

* TWO-PARTER... (*Part 1 of 2)

http://m.usatoday.com/article/news/2122235

* BY KIRSTEN POWERS

"If I talk, maybe people will make sure it won't happen again." That's what 20-year-old Desiree Hawkins told me last week as she recounted the horror of visiting abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell in December 2009.

The jury in Gosnell's trial for the alleged murders of multiple babies and one woman heard closing arguments Monday afternoon, but they won't hear from Hawkins.

Hawkins was forced to relive the nightmare of Gosnell's house of horrors when she was contacted by a Drug Enforcement Administration agent this year. The agent told her that one of the severed feet found in jars at the clinic belonged to her aborted baby. She was set to testify as a rebuttal witness against Gosnell until he chose to not take the stand.

When she was 16, Hawkins sought an abortion at a National Abortion Federation-certified abortion clinic, Hagerstown (Maryland) Reproductive Health Services.

The clinic told her she was 19 weeks pregnant and referred her to Gosnell.

When she recently retrieved her file in anticipation of testifying, she was shocked that her sonogram showed she had in fact been at 21 weeks, which meant she would have been 23 weeks pregnant by the time Gosnell performed the abortion. "I was so overwhelmed and hurt," said Hawkins. "If I had known I was 23 weeks, I would have (chosen) adoption."

She also would have avoided the trauma visited upon her by Gosnell. (Hawkins described the licensed medical professional as laughing at her during the procedure as she cried and begged him to stop because of the pain. "Stop being a baby," he said.)

Hawkins experienced betrayal anew when she read the grand jury report replete with testimony of government officials admitting they ignored repeated complaints about Gosnell because they didn't want to limit access to abortion.

Said Hawkins, "What really got me was when the (health department official) just said, 'People die.' They just decided to look the other way."

Hawkins is passionate that "someone needs to make sure all states' departments of health ... are preventing this from happening."

* TO BE CONTINUED...

April 30, 2013 at 6:37 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

Abortion rights advocates have asserted that Gosnell was an "extreme outlier" and opposed legislation to increase regulation of Pennsylvania abortion clinics as they have in other states. But how could they possibly know that this is an aberration? Last week, Ohio officials shut down an abortion clinic after inspectors found that a medical assistant administered narcotics to five patients, that narcotics and powerful sedatives weren't properly accounted for, that pharmacy licenses had expired and that four staff members hadn't been screened for a communicable disease. This month, a Delaware TV station reported that two Planned Parenthood nurses resigned in protest over conditions at a clinic there. One nurse, Jayne Mitchell-Werbrich, said, "It was just unsafe. I couldn't tell you how ridiculously unsafe it was."

Last month, Maryland officials shut down three abortion clinics, two for failings in their equipment and training to deal with life-threatening complications.

Last year, an Associated Press investigation found that Illinois hadn't inspected some abortion clinics for 10 to 15 years.

* I REMEMBER NEWSBITING THAT ARTICLE!

After state health officials reinvigorated their clinic inspections in the wake of Gosnell, inspectors closed two clinics, including one fined for "failure to perform CPR on a patient who died after a procedure," according to AP.

* GEEZUS...

Such problems wouldn't be a shock to Pennsylvania state Rep. Margo Davidson, the only member of the Democratic black caucus to vote for the abortion-regulation bill passed there. She told me, "We don't know how many (Gosnells) there are. I'm not trying to overturn Roe v. Wade, but if a woman makes this difficult choice, she should at least be afforded the highest level of care." She said the choice community knew what was going on and did nothing.

Davidson concluded that for the choice community, "the institution was more important than the individual lives."

(Davidson knows firsthand what can happen when people choose to look the other way: Her 22-year-old cousin died after an abortion at Gosnell's clinic.)

Indeed, the grand jury found that the National Abortion Federation inspected Gosnell's clinic, refused to certify him, but didn't tell anyone.

* NICE...

Pennsylvania Planned Parenthood representative Dayle Steinberg has admitted that its officials knew the clinic was unsafe after women complained. What did they do? "We would always encourage them to report it to the Department of Health."

April 30, 2013 at 6:37 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/346942/surprise-stimulus-money-misspent

What kind of project pays a couple of politically connected people hundreds of thousands of dollars for producing next to nothing?

An Obama stimulus project, of course.

(*CLAP...CLAP...CLAP*)

More than four years after President Barack Obama signed the $787 billion stimulus package into law, troubling details continue to emerge. Earlier this month, for example, the nonprofit news site WyoFile reported that a $10 million stimulus project in Wyoming has been suspended and referred to the U.S. Attorney’s office for an investigation into possible fraud.

* HERE'S THE BACKGROUND:

Between 2009 and 2010, the federal government awarded two stimulus grants totaling more than $9.9 million to Colorado-based North American Power Group (NAPG). The funding was designated for a “characterization” study to determine whether a river basin near the Two Elk Energy Park in northeast Wyoming had potential as an underground site for carbon storage.

* NEARLY $10 MILLION... JUST FOR A "STUDY"...

However, as WyoFile has extensively documented, the project appears, at best, to have been a questionable use of taxpayer dollars. The project created zero jobs, according to Recovery.gov, and many of the study’s primary components, including the drilling of a deep “characterization well,” were never completed — or even formally initiated.

* ONE... MORE... TIME...

Records show nearly $3 million in dubious invoices from North American Land & Livestock, a company managed by NAPG CEO Michael Ruffatto.

(*PURSED LIPS*)

Federal records also reveal that at least $1.1 million in stimulus funding went toward paying the salaries and benefits of two NAPG employees: Ruffatto and Wyoming representative Brad Enzi, the son of U.S. Senator Mike Enzi (R., Wyo.).

* FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT...!!!

Ruffatto was reportedly compensated with taxpayer funds at a rate exceeding $500,000 a year, while Enzi earned nearly $130,000 for his work on the project between September 2009 and July 2011, at a rate of about $80 per hour.

* OK... SO RUFFATO IS THE PIECE OF SHIT... ENZI (BOTH FATHER AND SON) "MAY" BE PIECES OF SHIT... WE'LL SEE...

Ruffatto received more than $73,000 in salary and benefits in October 2010 alone, after he reported working 76 hours per week on the project, in addition to his other responsibilities as NAPG chief executive. Enzi earned as much as $17,363 in one month.

Enzi told WyoFile he was unaware of the accounting details of his work on the project, and he denied receiving any special treatment owing to his father, a stimulus opponent.

* AND WHAT WAS ENZI'S ACTUAL POSITION...? AND HIS QUALIFICATIONS FOR THIS POSITION...???

In contrast, a similar stimulus-funded characterization study conducted by the University of Wyoming has made considerable progress and avoided exorbitant salary and benefit costs. The highest-paid worker on the project was a research scientist who earned $110,000 in salary and benefits.

Ruffatto, a millionaire philanthropist and socialite with homes in Colorado and California, has not contributed extensively to federal politicians, but his donations have been mostly to Democrats. He gave $4,800 to the successful campaign of Senator Michael Bennet (D., Colo.) in 2010 and contributed $2,300 to Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid in 2007. Ruffatto also donated to Senator Jon Kyl (R., Ariz.) in 2005.

The Department of Energy (DOE) ultimately suspended the NAPG project in January 2012, and the project is currently under review by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Pittsburgh. The attorney in charge of the case, Paul Skirtich, specializes in fraud and public-asset recovery.

April 30, 2013 at 6:53 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2013/04/30/the-myth-of-the-manufacturing-renaissance/?mod=WSJ_hps_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsThird

Morgan Stanley has firmly joined the “Where’s the beef?” crowd when it comes to America’s supposed factory renaissance.

In a 125-page “blue paper,” the bank concludes there’s “little real evidence” of a revival.

Some domestic producers will certainly benefit from the dual force of breakthroughs in domestic energy production and rising costs in China. But not so fast, says the bank. “Outside of the chemicals sector, low natural gas prices will likely have limited ramifications on capacity decisions.”

Here’s why:

In the larger scheme of things, labor and energy make up a relatively small slice of the costs for most U.S. manufacturers. Much more important is raw material and component purchases. Transportation costs are big and the bank acknowledges more U.S. companies are increasingly looking for ways to shorten their supply lines. But that could easily mean moving production from China to Mexico — or vice versa, if enough end customers for a given product are in China.

As part of their research, the bank surveyed 266 manufacturers in seven industries about how they saw their production footprint changing over the next five years, compared to the last five:

“Our survey work indicates that larger manufacturers expect to allocate a stable proportion of global capex budgets to the U.S. over the next five years,” the report says, noting that the current level of U.S. investment in manufacturing is “still at depressed levels.”

There is good news though. While Morgan Stanley doesn’t see a stampede back to the U.S., it does conclude that the “draining away of manufacturing capacity to China” and emerging markets has halted.

* LET'S HOPE SO!

April 30, 2013 at 7:13 PM
William R. Barker said...

* THREE-PARTER... (Part 1 of 3)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323798104578450651084576338.html

Americans are leaving the labor force in unprecedented numbers. But the trend has more to do with retiring baby boomers than frustrated job seekers abandoning their searches.

* "MORE TO DO," NOT "EVERYTHING TO DO." NOT EVEN CLOSE.

The share of the population either working or looking for work in March hit its lowest level since 1979. The measure, known as the participation rate, now stands at 63.3%, down from 66% when the recession began. That represents close to seven million workers who are now "missing" from the labor force.

The April jobs report, coming Friday, probably won't repeat March's historic decline, when the labor force shrank by nearly half a million workers. But it likely won't show much improvement, either. The participation rate has trended downward through both the recession and the recovery, continuing to fall even as other measures of economic well-being have improved.

The falling participation rate raises two main fears among economists. First, it could suggest that the labor market is even weaker than it appears.

* YEP.

The unemployment rate, for example, fell to 7.6% in March, its lowest level since late 2008. But that figure only includes people who are actively looking for work. Add back the missing millions and the unemployment rate would be 11.4%.

* YEP!

The second fear is that if unemployed workers are giving up on finding jobs, they could drift so far from the labor market that they will be unlikely to return even when hiring picks up. They will go on disability insurance — 8.9 million Americans were receiving federal disability payments in March, up from 7.1 million when the recession began — or other government benefits, retire earlier than planned, or work for cash in the gray economy. That could create deeper structural problems that could persist long after the rest of the economy heals.

* AND ALL THIS HAS INDEED BEEN HAPPENING...

* TO BE CONTINUED...

April 30, 2013 at 10:53 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 3)

A close look at the numbers suggests both fears, though real, may be exaggerated.

* DOUBTFUL... BUT LET'S KEEP READING.

For one thing, the participation rate was falling long before the recession, and that drop would almost certainly have continued even if the downturn had never happened. The main reason is demographics: Americans are much more likely to work between the ages of 25 and 54 than when they are older or younger.

* FAIR ENOUGH...

But with the baby boomers aging, and many of their children now at least 16 years old but not yet into the prime of their working lives, it is the older and younger ends of the working-age population that are growing most quickly. Adjust for the changing population, and the "missing" workforce shrinks to about 4.3 million.

* 4.3 MILLION IS A HUGE NUMBER. INDEED IT'S MORE THAN HALF OF THE "ALMOST SEVEN MILLION WORKERS WHO ARE NOW MISSING FROM THE WORKFORCE" - TO CITE THE AUTHOR'S OWN FIGURES!

Moreover, even as young people make up more of the working-age population, they are becoming less likely to work. That is partly the result of rising rates of college attendance and partly of declining rates of employment among high schoolers.

* AND BOTH TRENDS ARE BAD! HIGH SCHOOL KIDS SHOULD BE WORKING. COLLEGE KIDS SHOULD DEFINITELY BE WORKING. I WORKED DURING HIGH SCHOOL. I WORKED ALL DURING COLLEGE. AND IF ANYTHING, THE STATS SHOW THAT HIGH SCHOOL AND COLLEGE KIDS TODAY SPEND LESS TIME STUDYING AND EVEN ATTENDING CLASSES THAN MY GENERATION DID!

Both are long-term trends that were likely accelerated by the recession, as young people went to college in part to avoid the brutal job market, and as employers spurned teenagers for more experienced employees. No doubt many of those teens and 20-somethings would rather be working, but they aren't sitting idle waiting for the job market to rebound. All but about 350,000 of the missing young people are full-time students.

* I'D LOVE TO SEE THE UNDERLYING STUDY DATA DEMONSTRATING THIS. FRANKLY... I DON'T BUY IT. (AND AGAIN... EVEN IF THEY ARE FULL-TIME STUDENTS... THEY SHOULD BE WORKING AS WELL - AT LEAST FROM JUNIOR YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL AND BEYOND.

* ALSO, FOLKS... NOTE... THESE NUMBERS HIDE (DON'T COUNT) CURRENT FULL-TIME STUDENTS WHO WILL NEVER METRICULATE. NOR DO THEY ATTEMPT TO FIT DEBT ASSUMPTION INTO THE EQUATION... COST/BENEFIT ANALYSIS THAT IS.

Lastly, the financial crisis and recession — along with longer-run trends such as improved life expectancy — have led many older Americans to postpone retirement, although a far smaller share of them work than people who are in their prime working ages. That adds about 1.2 million additional older workers to the labor force, offsetting some of the decline among other age groups.

* OH, PLEASE... NOT A STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT POPULATION - PARTICULARLY COMPARING APPLES TO APPLES. THERE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN PEOPLE WHO WANT TO WORK BEYOND RETIREMENT AGE. MY GUESS IS THAT MORE PEOPLE NEED TO WORK AFTER RETIREMENT AGE AND THAT'S WHY THEY'RE WORKING. BUT IN ANY CASE THE NUMBERS ARE WHAT THE NUMBERS ARE.

* TO BE CONTINUED...

April 30, 2013 at 10:54 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 3 of 3)

Put it all together, and the labor force is missing about three million workers who aren't in school or retired.

* THAT'S ASSUMING ALL THE AUTHOR'S ASSUMPTIONS AND CLAIMS BEAR OUT. AND EVEN THEN... (KEEP READING...)

That is still significant: Add those workers to the unemployment rolls and the jobless rate would jump to 9.3%.

* WHAT'S THAT... DOUBLE THE TRADITIONAL PRE-OBAMA RATE... MORE THAN DOUBLE...?

But it suggests the decline in participation is about more than a weak economy. Ray Stone, an economist at Stone & McCarthy Research Associates in Princeton, N.J., notes that the number of "discouraged" workers — those who quit looking for jobs because they don't think any are available — has actually been trending down for the past two years.

* TRENDING DOWN FROM A HIGH! (ALSO NOTE THAT DATA IS COMING FROM POLLING... SURVEYS... SELF-IDENTIFICATION. PEOPLE LIE. PEOPLE TRY TO PUT THE BEST FACE ON BAD SITUATIONS.

"The general view is that the labor-force participation rate is falling because loads of unemployed workers are becoming discouraged and dropping out," Mr. Stone said. "That's overly simplified."

* "OVERLY SIMPLIFIED." NOT WRONG. NOT INCORRECT. JUST... er... NOT THE WHOLE STORY. (WELL... NO ONE EVER SAID IT WAS! MILLIONS HAVE NO DOUBT MADE A CONSCIOUS CHOICE TO ACCEPT A SLIGHTLY LESSER LIFESTYLE UNDER THE WELFARE STATE THAN WORK SIGNIFICANTLY HARDER FOR NOT A SIGNIFICANTLY IMPROVED LIFESTYLE.

Even if workers aren't all giving up, however, the shrinking labor force is still significant. Many older Americans are retiring with much less in savings than they had planned. Many younger ones are taking on huge debt loads to stay in school.

* AH... NOW THE AUTHOR NOTES WHAT I'VE BEEN NOTING AS WE GO!

And even as the number of officially discouraged workers has been falling, the ranks of those who are out of work for other reasons, such as raising a family, have been rising. Mr. Stone argues that could be a sign that the jobs that are available don't pay well enough to cover the cost of child care — a possibility supported by other evidence that many of the jobs created in the recovery have been low-paying or part-time.

Indeed, the focus on the labor force can obscure what's really missing from the economy: jobs. Nearly four years into the recovery, the U.S. still employs close to three million fewer people than when the recession began in December 2007. Nearly 12 million people remain unemployed, two-fifths of them for more than six months. Those people haven't dropped out of the workforce, but they're still a long way from finding work.

April 30, 2013 at 10:54 PM
William R. Barker said...

* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2013/04/30/debate-over-labor-force-participation/?mod=WSJ_hps_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsThird

To review: In Monday’s Outlook column, I set out to determine how much of the historic decline in the U.S. labor force was due to short-term (“cyclical”) factors, and how much was the result of longer-term (“structural”) factors. My conclusion: It’s mostly structural.

Mr. Tankersley’s retort: “You’re wrong! It’s mostly structural!” As diss tracks go, this wasn’t exactly “Ether.”

* SEE: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/04/30/wonkfeud-part-2-the-labor-force-participation-debate-gets-real/

Mr. Tankersley and I agree that overall labor-force participation (the share of the population that’s working or looking for work) was bound to decline from its late-90s peak due primarily to the aging of the Baby Boom generation. That’s worrisome, because rising participation, particularly among women, was a major driver of economic growth in the second half of the 20th century. Losing that engine was bound to hurt. But Mick Jagger’s boundless energy notwithstanding, the wave of retirements was always inevitable.

To the extent we have a genuine disagreement, then, it’s over how worried we should be about the concurrent but less easily explained decline in participation among so-called prime age workers, typically defined as those between ages 25 and 54.

As Mr. Tankersley notes, prime-age participation peaked at 84.1% in 1997 and has since fallen all the way to 81.1%. If the participation rate had remained the same, the U.S. would have some 3.7 million more workers than it does. If the rate had kept rising and hit 85%, we’d have 4.9 million more workers.

But those numbers are almost certainly exaggerated by the weak economy. In my original column, I concluded that the labor force was about 3 million workers smaller than it “should” be based on longer-run trends. Prime-age workers make up about 2.5 million of that gap. Creating jobs for all those “missing” workers has proven to be an enormous challenge — just ask Ben Bernanke — but there’s no reason to think many of those workers won’t return to the labor force when the economy improves. (I’ll leave discussions of “hysteresis” and structural unemployment for a future feud.)

If we focus just on the pre-2007 decline in participation, we’re missing somewhere on the order of 1.5 million prime-age workers. The true gap may be a bit bigger, because the bubble-fed construction boom may have temporarily inflated participation, particularly among young, less-educated men. But even if we’re missing 2 or even 2.5 million prime-age workers, that decline is dwarfed by the far larger exodus of retiring Baby Boomers.

* TO BE CONTINUED...

April 30, 2013 at 10:56 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

This is a WonkFeud, so let’s take the wonk to the next level: Overall labor force participation peaked in 1997 at 67.1%. Based on that, we’re now missing some 9.4 million workers. But if we instead look at the age-specific participation rates (that is, the participation rate of each separate age group) and apply them to the current population, the labor force is "only" missing about 3 million workers. In other words, demographics alone account for two thirds of the post-1997 decline in participation. Cyclical factors account for a significant chunk of the remaining gap.

Lastly, Mr. Tankersley’s focus on prime-age workers obscures another long-term trend: the gradual, outward creep of people’s working lives. As more Americans attend college, people are starting their careers later, often not until their mid-20s. And at the same time, a confluence of factors (better medicine, worse pensions, less physically demanding jobs) are leading people to work later. In 1993, two thirds of young people (those 16-24) worked, compared to a bit over half (56%) of those aged 55 to 64. A generation later, those numbers have flipped almost exactly.

These are seismic changes, with significant implications not just for growth but for society as a whole. “Prime age is stagnant and young is down,” reader D.A. noted in an email to me yesterday. “Why does this not point to the 55+ boomer crowd not getting out of the way to open the ladder for their own kids?” (Mr. Tankersley can add that to his list of grievances against his father’s generation.)

But I stand by my original point: All this focus on labor-force participation, whatever its causes and consequences, is a distraction from the far more pressing threat of high joblessness.

Nearly four years into our supposed recovery, the U.S. still employs nearly 3 million fewer people than when the recession began.

Nearly 12 million workers are officially unemployed, 4.6 million of them for more than six months.

That, not a comparatively mild decline in prime-age participation, is the true crisis.

Cas out.

April 30, 2013 at 10:56 PM

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