Bravo!Originally Posted by cbailey
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Bravo!
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.
Two peas in a grumpy pod!Bravo!
My Party owns a majority in all three branches of the federal government, a majority of the state governorships and legislators, and it is I who is in denial because I was happy to see the unemployment numbers go down?
You people have an aversion alright, an aversion to anything but misery and gloom!
Well, here are the facts on how awful it is today.
And even if facts don't sway you (which they never do), here is a glimpse of how people lived when it was as bad as it can possibly be.
And last, but not least, do your grandkids a favor sometime and have this movie ready to play in your VCR, the next time they visit. Maybe, just maybe it's not too late to save them from certain baby boom "aversions."
Be optimistic!
Don't you be a grumpy
When the road gets bumpy
Just smile
(Smile and be happy!)
Your troubles can't be
As bad as all that
When you're sad as all that
No one loves you
Be optimistic!
Don't you be a mourner
Brighten up that corner
And smile
Don't wear a long face
It's never in style
Be optimistic
And smile!
p.s. What the hell are these two munchkins gonna be like when it really gets bad...?
Re: Rich People LIKE the Income Tax
No it's not. Deflation is one of the corrective mechanisms in a market economy.
A consumption tax in the US is not really an option for national security reasons.
Re: Rich People LIKE the Income Tax
Just curious. How?
Mission to Nowhere
I'm afraid you are all missing the point. No matter what form of taxation you have, Income Tax, VAT, National Sales Tax whatever, it doesn't make any difference. ALL COSTS will be passed on to the guy who can't pass them on (the bill stops here), in other words the Middle Class wage slave.
The real problem is bloated government. The government commandeers about 40% of GDP and uses that money to enforce rules and regulations that control about another 40% of GDP. Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman says we have about an 80% socialism in this country and he's right. Most of this money is simply wasted on Keynsian spending to produce artificial demand.
An excellent example is the Space Shuttle. It costs about 2 Billion a shot to go up and perform 8th Grade Science Fair experiments in orbit. The real issue is the 50,000 government employees who support the Space Shuttle Program, no politician has the intestinal fortitude to step up and cancel this useless governmant program.
Until you have real cuts in Government at ALL levels new tax schemes will do little good.
Re: Mission to Nowhere
Actually what we need is to step up our spacefaring efforts and go back to the Moon, to Mars, and mine the asteroids. Step one in that effort would be to develop a fully reuseable spacecraft that doesn't require 50,000 specialists and $2 billion per shot to launch and return to earth. Unfortunately space exploration beyond earth orbit won't happen until the next High and Awakening. In the meantime, the space shuttle missions should continue if only so that our spacefaring expertise can be passed down to younger people who will go to the planets in another 20-30 years. If we do not, we shall have to reinvent the wheel when the time comes for us to reach back out into space again.
Re: Rich People LIKE the Income Tax
I should have been clearer. I was referring to what David '47 called endemic deflation.No it's not. Deflation is one of the corrective mechanisms in a market economy.
A consumption tax in the US is not really an option for national security reasons.
Why do you say that consumption taxes aren't compatible for national security reasons? In the Civil War and both World Wars income taxes were increased substantially because they were the quickest source of revenue. They could always be instituted in a national emergency again if needed. The problem ias that after World War II the income tax was kept high and helped lead to the disasterous tax system we now have.
Here's New York Times Bob Herbert's (Silent) take on that dreaded unemployment news:
How one could possibly compare the current unemployemnt rate to that of the 25% experienced during the Great Depression is beyond my ability to understand. The closest I can come is the "If only one child is saved," this new fill-in-the-blank federal government agency/law/etc... will all be worth it.The first arrivals showed up well before dawn. By 7 a.m. more than 2,000 people had lined up outside Truman College, and the hopefuls kept coming throughout the morning. They shivered, and tears from the cold ran down some of their faces. It was like a scene out of the Depression.
The rumors were false. No job applications were being accepted. City officials said an "orientation" session was being held at the college to identify candidates who might be qualified for relatively low-paying jobs that might materialize in the distant future ? next year, maybe ? at a supplier of parts for Ford.
This is what the jobs picture is like in the U.S. in 2003. And no one thinks it will get much better soon.
A front-page headline in The New York Times last Thursday said, "Hiring in Nation Hits Worst Slump in Nearly 20 Years." Two million jobs have vanished in the last two years.
Joblessness is right up there with war and terror as an ingredient contributing to the high national anxiety. If you want to see desperation close up, look at the eyes of the increasing numbers of breadwinners who can't find work.
As Tuesday's fiasco in Chicago demonstrated, the situation is much worse than official unemployment statistics would indicate. The government reported on Friday that the jobless rate had slipped to 5.7 percent in January, but few economists believed that was the beginning of any substantial improvement.
In other words, the right of the one trumps the rights of the many.
Sorry, folks, but that ain't no triumphant fourth turning theme song. Which make sense, we ain't in a 4T, yet. :wink:
Well, check this chart, and see how desparate the liberals are. Playing fast and loose with the truth is never a good idea. It has a way of ruining a perfectly good reputation. The recession of 1990/91, with unemployment rates close to nine percent makes this slowdown look like a walk in the park. Basically, the Times is lying in attempt to further their political agenda. Namely that of getting that "radical conservative," George Bush out of Washington.A front-page headline in The New York Times last Thursday said, "Hiring in Nation Hits Worst Slump in Nearly 20 Years." Two million jobs have vanished in the last two years.
This brings to mind the old charge of Useful Idiot. Something the New York Times is quite familiar with:
"As Stalin exiled untold numbers of Soviet citizens to die in Gulags, the Soviet propaganda machine glossed this over, never expecting to get a reasonable hearing, but prepared to deny everything. Duranty's acceptacnce of the official line exceeded even Stalin's wildest expectations. Taylor's book is a tour de force on the vile, brutish, and nasty life that was Duranty's. His fall in this book is as if from a skyscraper. That his own paper, the New York Times, refuses to acknowledge his perfidy only makes the read all the more savory. Readers now know that the "paper of record" knows that we know. When this story is added to yet another media icon crash, H.L. Mencken and his anti-semitic, booboisie racism, the liberal downfall is complete. Not only are we able to see liberalism's clay fee; we are now treated to the certifying papers of its alleged dementia."
Hmmm. :wink:
Saw a story on television about Maytag relocating its factory to Mexico-cheaper labor, you know. But will the newly unemployed be able to afford washing machines now?
Perhaps we should amend our Constitution to include a "right" to a "chicken in every pot, a car in every garage," and a washing machine in every home, huh? The pot, garage, and home not included, of course.
My wife is a property manage for several apartment complexes. Move outs, she tells me, are a real pain. Seems they can't find anyone willing to clean up the mess these folks leave behind. If fact, it's so bad that an enterprising young turk can easily make up to six figure$ a year doing this work (nobody else wants to do), at the going market rate. One lady, my wife hired, pulls up to the dirty mess in a BMW everyday. Go figure, huh?
Ah, capitalism! Ya gotta love it. :wink:
And excellent excerpt from Mona Charen's new book, Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got It Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First.
She takes us back to the 80's, and reminds of us of the silliness that went on. I remember it oh, so well. Boy, how things change... only to remain very much the same. :wink:
Anticipation
No, it's not the name of a Carly Simon song. Anticipation is the stage of a financial assets mania when the market has fallen about forty to fifty percent and "investors" get some idea in their heads "if only this or that or the other thing happens" then eveything will be all right and the market will go up again. Right now that "this or that or the other thing" is Iraq. Investors figure once the Iraq Attack is successfully concluded, everything will be okay and the bull market will be back with a vengence. Unfortunately the present state of the markets is the result of the excesses of the past 20 years and Iraq has absolutely nothing to do with it. There may be a victory rally if the thing goes well but the bear will resume shortly thereafter.
By the way Friday's uptick was a typical short covering rally, nothing has changed.
No more laughter?
I am curious, Robert: given this typical negative tone of your posts, are you of the mind that doom is "just around the corner" and such a gloomy karma is big bucks fodder for those that "preach it"? After all, even in the darkest night life does go on, hence a belly must be filled, an aspiraton must be met.Investors figure once the Iraq Attack is successfully concluded, everything will be okay and the bull market will be back with a vengence.
Or are we just awaiting the end.
Given that your negative apocalypse shall surely be forthcoming... When it arrives... what then? Shall we then bow down in unison before the apocalypic foe and just give up the ghost? It's over, after all. It is now time to "give up," cry uncle and just "get it," man.
In 1928, Robert, a politician won a big election preaching the gospel of "a chicken in every pot, a car in every garage." Four years later that same gospel looked like a big joke... Forty years later, certain members of this same congregation became famous preaching a "new gospel" in an "affluent society" with too many chickens, pots, cars and garages. Their's were a message to "Mr. Jones," and his new found wealth in the pursuit of "keeping up with the Jones'." "Money," the new preachers cried, "is the root of all evil."
Ah, shit. Damn it all. We forgot, that.
So what's it all about, Alfie, er, Robert? Have we, now, too much, or too little for your tastes? Or is your vision just one of permanent lack, a void never filled, a winter wherein the laughter of children are never to be heard from again?
I can't believe you used this, Marc. Aren't you a bit young to remember? I'll bet you've got some love beads tucked away somewhere. :wink:
What's It All About Alfie?
What's it all about, Alfie?
Is it just for the moment we live?
What's it all about when you sort it out, Alfie?
Are we meant to take more than we give
or are we meant to be kind?
And if only fools are kind, Alfie,
then I guess it's wise to be cruel.
And if life belongs only to the strong, Alfie,
what will you lend on an old golden rule?
As sure as I believe there's a heaven above, Alfie,
I know there's something much more,
something even non-believers can believe in.
I believe in love, Alfie.
Without true love we just exist, Alfie.
Until you find the love you've missed you're nothing, Alfie.
When you walk let your heart lead the way
and you'll find love any day, Alfie, Alfie.
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." -- Theodore Roosevelt
Somewhat off the topic.....but interesting. Mona Charen was my next door neighbor in Newark/Weequahic, NJ from 1964-66. I actually e-mailed her back in September, 1999; she still remembered my family and I after over 30 years. That was really cool.And excellent excerpt from Mona Charen's new book, Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got It Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First.
She takes us back to the 80's, and reminds of us of the silliness that went on. I remember it oh, so well. Boy, how things change... only to remain very much the same. :wink:
From the Food Research and Action Center web site ( http://www.frac.org/html/news/fsp/02nov.html )
You gotta be hurting to apply for food stamps!
Food Stamp Participation Jumps in November 2002 to 20.3 Million Persons; is 1.8 Million Persons Higher than One Year Earlier
Participation in the Food Stamp Program in November 2002 (the latest data available) increased by 180,075 persons from the previous month, to 20,331,881 persons. The November 2002 level represented a rise of more than 1.8 million persons compared to the November 2001 level, and about 3.2 million persons compared to November 2000.
I want people to know that peace is possible even in this stupid day and age. Prem Rawat, June 8, 2008
Wholesale prices soar
Gain in producer prices biggest in 13 years; jobless claims jump, while trade gap also rises.
February 20, 2003: 12:12 PM EST
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Wholesale prices in the United States posted their biggest gain in 13 years in January, the government said Thursday, while the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose above 400,000 last week.
The Labor Department said its producer price index (PPI), a measure of wholesale prices, rose 1.6 percent -- the biggest one-month jump since January 1990 -- after falling 0.1 percent in December, while "core" PPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, rose 0.9 percent after falling 0.5 percent in December.
Economists, on average, expected just a 0.5 percent gain in PPI and a 0.1 percent gain in core PPI, according to Briefing.com.
"This is a continuation of a trend that's already been in place," said Arnhold & S. Bleichroeder economist James Padinha. "We don't have a huge inflation problem, but it seems to me that people don't give enough weight to the possibility something like that is brewing."
Separately, the Labor Department said initial claims for unemployment benefits surged to 402,000 for the week ended Feb. 15 from a revised 381,000 the prior week. Economists, on average, expected 385,000 new claims, according to Briefing.com. Any number of claims above 400,000 is considered by many economists to represent a weakening labor market.
Meanwhile, the Commerce Department said the U.S. trade deficit rose to a record $44.2 billion in December from $40.1 billion in November.
On Wall Street, stock prices fell after the reports, the dollar lost ground and Treasury bond prices were mixed.
Inflation has been a distant memory in an economy that suffered through a recession in 2001 and a slow and sluggish recovery in 2002. In fact, some economists have been worried for some time about the possibility of deflation, when falling prices undercut corporate profits and lead to further economic weakness.
But while some goods-producing sectors have experienced deflation for several months, most prices have continued to climb, and Thursday's PPI report indicates inflation might be more of a threat than previously thought.
Much of the gain in headline PPI reflects a 4.8 percent jump in energy prices. Oil prices have surged in recent months as an oil workers' strike in Venezuela, the world's No. 5 oil producer, undercut global crude supplies, and traders have added something of a "war premium" to oil prices in anticipation of a U.S.-led war in Iraq.
As a result, consumer gasoline and fuel-oil prices jumped 13.7 percent and 19.7 percent, respectively, while crude oil prices paid by wholesalers rose 20.4 percent.
But higher motor vehicle prices also pushed up the "core" PPI figure, with car prices rising 3.5 percent and light truck prices up 4.1 percent.
Producers have faced higher commodity prices for some time, but have been largely unable to pass those higher prices on to consumers. For that and several other reasons, companies have been cutting jobs and keeping work forces lean to keep costs low.
In the Labor Department report, the four-week moving average of jobless claims, which irons out weekly fluctuations in the volatile data, rose to 394,750 from a revised an increase of 4,750 from a revised 390,000 the prior week.
Continued claims, the number of people drawing benefits for more than a week, rose to 3.44 million in the week ended Feb. 8, the latest data available, from a revised 3.29 million the prior week.
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." -- Theodore Roosevelt
I found this Washington Post article striking.
In U.S. Plants and Wallets, The Other Iraq Standoff
By Alec Klein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 25, 2003; Page A01
It is the afternoon shift, and the factory floor should be shaking to the rhythm of hulking steel machines that tear metal apart. And yet, all that Arthur "Don" Wainwright can hear is the deafening roar of silence.
"There's nothing running out on the plant today. It's almost eerily quiet out there," the chairman and chief executive of Wainwright Industries Inc. said one recent workday.
The St. Peters, Mo., manufacturer of parts for planes, cars and trucks is operating at about 70 percent capacity, and things have gotten worse lately. Battered by competition overseas and a tough economy at home, Wainwright is now feeling the effects of another elusive threat: war in Iraq. Customers, leery of spending millions on big-ticket items with so much uncertainty in the air, have been slow to place new orders. Official hostilities haven't begun, but the prospect of military action is already damaging the U.S. economy.
Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan recently warned that concerns about a looming war are prompting a slowdown in corporate spending just as the nation tries to pull out of a prolonged slump. Companies are retreating across the landscape. Manufacturers, many of which have been struggling for years, are now even more unwilling to purchase expensive capital goods. Hotel owners are putting off hikes in room rates, some retail chains are unwilling to make expansion plans beyond a few months, oil operators are holding off on drilling new wells, and automakers are scaling back production and advertising.
"Nobody in their right mind would buy a factory or buy a car if someone is going to drop anthrax on your head," said John Rutledge, chairman of Rutledge Research, an advisory firm in Greenwich, Conn. What is happening, he said, is tantamount to U.S. companies stashing away money in the mattress, awaiting the end of a war that hasn't happened. "Monetary policy is essentially being run by Saddam Hussein," Rutledge said.
In the Fed's latest economic survey, it found anecdotal evidence from Boston, Dallas and Atlanta that war jitters were taking a toll . Economists, gathering the latest figures, say it may be too early to assess the damage. And many businesses, to be sure, aren't panicking. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., for example, said it's on course to spend as planned, and why not? Customers, alerted to the potential of a terrorist attack, have been leaving the retailer's shelves barren of such necessities as duct tape and plastic sheeting.
But in many other cases, businesses are holding back on spending, leaning on the lessons of the first Persian Gulf War. After Allied forces started bombing Baghdad in January 1991, consumer confidence spiked and the markets immediately soared, with the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index jumping 20 percent in the first three months. Corporate interests are hoping for a replay, a brief and decisive victory -- and a resumption of business as usual.
"If there is going to be a war, the hope in our industry is that it would not last long and this era of uncertainty would be done away with," said Joseph M. McGuire, president of the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers.
Economists, however, are mindful that a short war could also lead to short-lived euphoria, another effect of Operation Desert Storm. When the smoke cleared, U.S. companies were left to grapple with the hangover from those times, including a weak economy recovering from the savings-and-loan debacle. It took two more years before the economy developed a full head of steam.
"The Gulf War triggered a relief trade in equity markets and a brief surge in consumer business confidence, but in the final analysis, we didn't have a normal, self-sustaining recovery until '93," said David Rosenberg, chief North American economist at Merrill Lynch & Co. in New York.
A Catch-22
Tony Raimondo doesn't need to be reminded. Things were rough in the early '90s for his company, Behlen Mfg. Co., a maker of livestock and horse-stall equipment and steel buildings. "The last time this happened, in 1991 with Desert Storm, people got in a wait-and-hold and were not doing the kind of capital spending that keeps our business going," he said.
Raimondo, chairman and chief executive of the Columbus, Neb., company, thought he had survived the worst of the manufacturing recession over the past two years. He laid off about 20 percent of his workforce, which now stands at about 1,250 employees at plants in Nebraska, Alabama, Indiana, Oregon and Tennessee. But Behlen hit a wall in the past few months. Sales have fallen about 12 percent from the same period of last year. Customers, he said, are not in the mood to buy the kind of big-ticket items, such as airplane hangars, that his company makes.
"They sure as hell don't want to buy a building if there's a war," Raimondo said.
As a temporary measure, Behlen has cut wages by 10 percent in February and March for its 250 office workers. If things don't improve, Raimondo said he might have to trim the workforce again. As it is, the manufacturer is holding the line on costs. Just as its own customers are delaying big purchases, so is Behlen. Raimondo is holding off on buying new capital equipment to replace older models on the factory floor. But he calls it a Catch-22. The more he tries to conserve in cash, the more he loses in productivity. Older machines can't produce as fast or efficiently as newer equipment. Productivity, as a result, has dropped to $120,000 in shipped orders per worker, down from $135,000 last summer, he said. All the while, his goal of $150,000 per person continues to recede.
"The free-market system, while the best in the world, is a cruel system," Raimondo said. "What we're all looking for is a reasonably quick resolution [to the Iraqi standoff] and confidence being gained in economic conditions."
? 2003 The Washington Post Company
I want people to know that peace is possible even in this stupid day and age. Prem Rawat, June 8, 2008
This was a front page story in my hometown rag, today:
Brother, don't spare that dime
Campaign aimed at Downtown panhandlers
Wednesday, February 26, 2003
Brian Williams
Handling panhandling.
Some tips for turning down street beggars:
Make eye contact or acknowledge the person with a nod.
Politely say ''no'' or ''sorry.''
Offer to buy the person a sandwich or cup of coffee.
Call the Columbus police nonemergency number (614-645-4545) to report aggressive panhandling. In the Capital Crossroads Special Improvement District, you can call its hot line at 614-228-5718.
Source: Capital Crossroads Special Improvement District
New fliers in Columbus hotels, office buildings and shops are urging people to not give money to beggars. But the tone is sensitive -- even to panhandlers.
"It's not that bad,'' Frank King said as he read the flier -- one of 100,000 the Capital Crossroads Special Improvement District had printed -- and begged for quarters near Broad and 3rd streets.
Rampant panhandling affects the quality of life, said Cleve Ricksecker, director of the district. "It makes people not want to come Downtown.
"We have to make the sidewalks feel hospitable and safe.''
Gosh, these people must be Republicans! :wink:
Tough times in the Pacific Northwest
Kevin Parker isn't going back to Seattle anytime soon, but he knows that already.
Standard Fair Use disclaimers apply.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/03/national/03PULS.html
NEW ECONOMY RECEDES IN PACIFIC NORTHWEST
by Timothy Egan -- NEW YORK TIMES, Monday 3/3/2003
SEATTLE, March 2 ?€” When President Bill Clinton came to Seattle 10 years ago
as the host of a Pacific Rim economic summit, this city was his stage and his
symbol. Looking to the next century, he held Seattle up as a New Economy role
model for the rest of the country.
After all, coffee, music, apples, wine, software, airplanes, even potential
cancer cures, were sailing out of the Puget Sound area ?€” the most
trade-dependent part of the country, with particularly close ties to Asia.
Microsoft, the hometown company, was minting fresh millionaires by the month,
and the entire region was pulsing with creative energy from technology
spinoffs.
At the same time, Seattle was still holding onto some of the highest-paying
factory jobs in the world.
For much of the 1990's, national magazines touted Seattle as the best place
for business, and Portland, Ore., as the most livable city in the United
States. The Puget Sound area economy was growing at twice the national rate,
and per capita income was 20 percent above the national average.
But now the very attributes that made the Pacific Northwest look like the
vanguard of the new-century economy have come back to haunt this region. A
staggering Asian economy, the worldwide downturn in the airline industry and
the dot-com bust dealt a triple blow to the area.
"The upside of getting ever more connected to the global economy is you can
really ride that wave when things are going well," said Eric Liu, who was a
domestic policy adviser to President Clinton and who now lives in Seattle.
"The downside is that the ripple effects tend to get magnified."
Over the last year, no place in the country has had higher unemployment than
this region. Washington, Oregon and Alaska have all posted unemployment rates
of about 7 percent. While only a few years ago the Northwest was the nation's
top new job producer, it now ranks among the leaders in job losses. The
Seattle area alone stands to lose about 80,000 jobs before the economy here
turns up, projected for late next year.
And in Oregon, which had almost no unemployment at the height of its
mid-1990's transition to a "silicon forest" of computer chip factories, state
revenues are so anemic that the school year has been cut by three weeks to
five weeks in places and prisons are releasing some felons early.
Those who flocked to Seattle in the high-flying 90's cannot believe the
turnaround. "When I moved here four years ago from Los Angeles, I had no
trouble getting a job, just like that," said Lashawn Baldwin, 33, a mother of
three. She took a maternity leave from her health care clerical job, which
paid $13 an hour, and then the job disappeared.
She has not been able to find a job nearly as good since trying to return to
the work force. "I've had resumes out for two months, but no one's called,"
Ms. Baldwin said. "I'm thinking of moving back to L.A."
The entire picture is certainly not grim. Some of the area stalwarts are
still going strong and have managed to ride out the storm. Starbucks, started
in the early 1970's in Seattle's Pike Place Market, last month reported the
most profitable quarter in its history, selling more than a $1 billion of
lattes and other coffee confections.
The world's biggest software company, Microsoft, is still hiring new
employees while sitting on nearly $40 billion in cash at its global
headquarters just across Lake Washington. And the airplane company born in a
barn along the Duwamish River, Boeing, is still turning out planes, although
its world dominance is gone.
Starbucks attributes its good fortune in a time of economic sickliness to
being ingrained in the daily routine of millions of people. A $3 latte,
Starbucks says, is "an affordable luxury." Microsoft, though still looking
for the next golden goose on a par with its money-making operating system,
generates enough sales of software for personal computers and games so that
it weathered a storm that reduced many other software companies to a fraction
of their value.
But most other smaller New Economy companies ?€” and even some former giants ?€”
are floundering. The dream of a world hooked to a virtual market by a
computer click persists, but it no longer generates thousands of new jobs or
Wall Street investment capital.
"Seattle did get caught up in that mid-1990's frenzy," said Susannah
Malarkey, executive director of the Technology Alliance, a private group that
promotes New Economy companies. "The fundamentals are still there. We've got
an awful lot of talent and smart people in the area. But perhaps we now need
the rest of the world economy to lead us out of the hole we're in."
The economic drop-off has left state governments reeling. Washington has no
state income tax, Oregon has no sales tax and Alaska no statewide general tax
at all. But these tax structures, which have been so attractive to companies
that could locate anywhere in the world, are now a drag on these states, as
it does not give them a way to make up their deficits quickly.
Facing a $2.4 billion shortfall, Gov. Gary Locke of Washington, a Democrat,
has called for slashing of state services while deferring raises for
teachers, which voters approved in the boom years.
Oregon has been the hardest hit because of budget shortfalls, in large
because of a series of voter-approved measures that cut taxes and required
surpluses to be returned to taxpayers. Now, to make up a $740 million
deficit, Oregon plans to cut up to a third of all state police employees. The
state already has the shortest school year in the nation because of cuts.
The first warning sign of ripples from Asia hit the shores of Puget Sound in
1998 at a moment when money seemed to come out of thin air. Boeing was so
desperate for workers it was flying them in from around the country, and an
economist calculated that one in every five workers at Microsoft was a
millionaire, on paper.
Even Boise, Idaho, long known as sleepy burg run by potato magnates, became a
New Economy darling, attracting thousands of educated workers to its tech
companies like Micron. Amazon.com, selling books at first, and then nearly
everything else from a virtual market with a real headquarters in Seattle,
made old-shoe economists believe that many brick-and-mortar stores would
follow Hula Hoops into the retail museum.
"It was hard to imagine a better time for any place," said Dick Conway, an
economic consultant in Seattle who puts together a regional forecast for
business and political leaders.
But even as starter castles proliferated on Lake Washington, as Amazon clerks
counted down the days until they could cash out stock options, the roaring
economies of Asia retreated. Japan, South Korea, even parts of China, paused,
stumbled and crashed.
For Seattle, it meant that orders for airplanes built in factories around
Puget Sound were canceled. For farmers, it meant markets that were supposed
to be their salvation turned cold. By 2000, Washington apple growers, once
proudly independent, were accepting government handouts and subsidies, like
so many other American farmers.
For fishermen in Alaska, who had flourished with global sales while the
fishing industry all but disappeared elsewhere in the country, it was the
same story. Japan still wanted wild Alaskan king salmon. But once trade
barriers fell, the Japanese market was flooded with Alaskan salmon and prices
plunged.
Even timber, a Northwest trading staple since 19th century railroad barons
laid eyes on the carpet of green west of the Cascade Mountains, slumped
because of a worldwide glut in wood. The biggest complaint from Northwest
timber owners these days is not about the spotted owl, a tiny bird whose
imperiled status forced a major retreat from logging of public lands, but
Canada, which is flooding the market with competitively priced wood ?€” even
with a stiff tariff on top of it.
The second major blow was the worldwide bust in high tech and all its
peripheral bubbles. With that burst, many companies disappeared, selling back
office furniture for 10 cents on the dollar. The companies that survived,
like Amazon.com, saw their net worth reduced to a fraction of what it had
been. Only Microsoft, whose stock was cut in half from its high, has survived
relatively intact, and has continued to hire, with a job base of about 25,000
workers in the Seattle area.
Finally, the attacks of Sept. 11, while particularly brutal to the New York
economy, also hit this region hard, hammering the airplane industry.
And nobody is predicting a quick recovery. If anything, the Northwest is
projected to lag behind the rest of the country, said Chang Mook Sohn, the
chief economist for Washington State.
While other states can recover as the normal economic cycle becomes more
robust, the trade-dependent Northwest will have to wait for the rest of the
international economy ?€” particularly that in Asia ?€” to rebound in order to
see a big upturn, economists say.
The prolonged downturn may be causing lasting damage, especially at Boeing,
which is still the region's largest single employer, with about 60,000
workers. The concern is that so many jobs have been lost that the skills
needed to make airplanes are disappearing.
"The average Boeing machinist is 47 years old," said Connie Kelliher, a
spokeswoman for the International Association of Machinists, which represents
airplane assemblers. "They've literally skipped a generation. And that's a
huge concern to us."
The machinists' local here has gone from a high of 39,000 members in 1999 to
17,000 now, said Ms. Kelliher. The average wage is $26.50 an hour.
Increasingly, Boeing contracts out large portions of its airplane assembly
jobs to cheaper sources overseas.
At the same time, the company that once called itself "plane maker to the
world" has suffered a steep loss in market share to its European rival,
Airbus, and now books barely 50 percent of new airplane orders. This year,
for the first time, Airbus could deliver more planes than Boeing.
Boeing moved its corporate headquarters out of Seattle to Chicago in 2001,
but still makes most of its commercial airplanes here. Its officials say they
are in the airplane business for the long haul, but that they have been
developing a new business model, with airplane assembly scattered around the
world. Also, Philip M. Condit, the president of Boeing, says that half the
company's revenue now comes from space and defense contracts.
Still, many machinists in Seattle are nervous that the company is phasing out
its airplane business altogether. "Are they going to be making airplanes in
15 years?" Ms. Kelliher asked. "If so, where will that next generation of
machinists come from ?€” here in Seattle, or overseas?"
Others are happy that they never went to work for the company, which once
seemed so stable it was part of the landscape. Dave Mayer works a 40-hour,
three-day-a-week job as a forklift operator, but has been seeking work during
the other four days. At the height of the Boeing boom, he thought of taking
training course that would have allowed him get on at the company. "Now I'm
glad I didn't take the training," said Mr. Mayer, 36. "I have a of friends
who did it and got laid off. They made really good money, but now they're
going to have to take these $8- and $9-an-hour jobs."
Still, there is little sign that people are fleeing the way they did in the
past. In 1971, for example, after Boeing laid off nearly 70,000 workers, a
sign went up in this city reading, "Will the last person leaving Seattle turn
out the lights?"
This time around, despite having the highest unemployment rates in the
country, the Northwest is not losing population. Economists attribute this to
a cushion of wealth left over from the recent boom, and to a belief that the
fruits of the global economy will come around again soon.
In December, Alaska posted the highest unemployment rate in the nation, 7.6
percent. Yet its economy is still adding jobs and people. The state has the
nation's highest minimum wage, $7.15 an hour, and residents, rather than
being taxed, are paid to live there ?€” about $6,000 a year for a family of
four. This money comes from North Slope oil royalties, which drive the state.
Tourism has grown considerably in Alaska, with cruise ships plying coastal
waters from May through September. But what was once the healthiest segment
of Alaska's economy, fishing, has taken a dive because of a global glut of
farmed fish from places like Chile, which compete with Alaska's wild product.
"Quite a few people with permits to catch salmon didn't even fish this year
because prices were so low," said Dan Robinson, a state economist. But even
with the troubles, he said, more people are moving to Alaska than are leaving
it. The population is 634,892.
In Oregon, the timber-driven recession of the 1980's sent about 20,000 a year
out of the state, a time when unemployment reached 12 percent. Then Oregon
restructured its economy. The timber industry shrank, and $13 billion in
high-tech investment in the Willamette Valley, from Portland south, brought
record prosperity. The state grew by 580,000 over the last decade, to 3.4
million people.
But not all the laid-off timber workers became computer chip factory workers.
Of the 18,000 who were forced out of the industry, those who found new jobs
also found their wages had declined by 1 percent, said Ted Helvoigt, the
co-author of a study on what became of Oregon's former timber workers.
Idaho, with 1.3 million people, is a similar story. The state went from a
resource-based market to one built around high tech and processed
agricultural products, all tied to the new global economy. The population
grew by 20 percent in the 1990's, as companies and workers fled Southern
California for the cheaper business environment around Boise.
Still, even though Idaho unemployment was the worst in a decade last year,
just under 6 percent, and job creation lagged behind the rest of the nation,
state officials say there is no turning back to the old economy.
Indeed, Northwesterners have not stopped dreaming, nor is there a sense of
panic or retreating from the global economy. About $15 billion in stock
options went to Microsoft employees over the last 15 years, and that has
provided a cushion for many during the downturn.
"People's stock portfolios are certainly worth a lot less, but there was such
a big pile to begin with," said Paul Sommers, a professor at the University
of Washington.
Portland is going after a major league baseball team. Seattle is building a
new city hall, a new central library and two transit systems. Alaska still
plans to construct a natural gas pipeline to send energy south, while a new
governor, Frank H. Murkowski, a Republican, talks of a huge new road-building
program, stitching distant outposts of Alaska to its handful of cities. And
all of them look west, beyond the sunset, even in the worst economic times in
a generation. They say there is no other way.
"We have introduced a generation of people to the idea that the global
economy is the future," said John Mitchell, a Western economist for US
Bancorp in Portland. "For a while it was all up. Now they see what a down
cycle is like. The amazing thing is that people are staying put. They like
this part of the country and are not going anywhere."
"Dans cette epoque cybernetique
Pleine de gents informatique."
Thanks for the post about the Northwest, Vince. The only thing that I would dispute would be the statement that no one is moving away because of the recession. Its not massive here in Seattle, but it is noticeable and has been mentioned often in local media. Our traffic congestion has eased off, I think the reduction has been said to be about 7-10 % during rush hours.
Also, something which you never saw during the Bubble were for rent signs. Now they're all over the place for apartments and houses and they often stay up for over a week or more. Lately I've been seeing houses with for sale signs up with "Price just reduced!" One sign said "50,000$ reduction!"
My own personal indicator is daytime parking on my block. During the boom people would dump their cars here every week day, totally jamming our neighborhood, and ride the bus into downtown. Free Parking! But now, we have lots of room, all day long.
It is an ill wind that blows no good.
Indeed. That's why I'm back in Delaware where I grew up. It wouldn't surprise me if the 13th seat in the U.S. House that North Carolina squeaked out in 2000 (including another 5-4 Supreme Court ruling) it gives up in 2010. I was one of the last to arrive and one of the first to leave but things are really falling apart there, too. The textiles industry is getting hit hard by NAFTA, and the tobacco industry isn't what it used to be, while the tech industry that put Raleigh-Durham on the map, well, you know.It is an ill wind that blows no good.
Meanwhile, there was an interesting juxtaposition on today's Op-Ed page.
First, David Broder, speaking about the 4T as a whole:
(The usual fair use disclaimers.)
Then Bonnie Erbe talks about what's right in front of us:
"Those estimates do not take into account the new tax cuts proposed by Bush in January and now beginning to make their way through the House of Representatives. "All told, the new budget proposals, if enacted, would raise the 10-year deficit by about $2.7 trillion and annual deficits 10 years from now by about $500 billion," the report says. And none of this, by the way, factors in the costs of a possible war with Iraq and its aftermath."--David Broder
From another exchange:
Furthermore, Bush is operating on the same principle that worked so well for Reagan: Tax cuts create growth in the economy. We'll just have to wait and see...In fiscal year 1940, defense expenditures accounted for just 17.5 percent of total federal government spending, or 1.7 percent of GDP. Defense-related spending skyrocketed to a peak of 89.5 percent of federal spending in fiscal year 1945, 37.9 percent of GDP, before dropping back to 30.6 percent of total spending in 1948.
Bush?s proposal to spend $379 billion on defense programs (3.4% of the GDP) during fiscal year 2003 represents 17.8 percent of total spending and is an 8.9 percent increase over estimated national defense spending in fiscal year 2002.
We ran deficits during WWII and we are running them now (to the tune of $159 billion). But with an economy on the rebound that number should decrease, not increase to $500 billion.
But deficits are not the big evil they are commonly portrayed as, as history clearly shows.
