Most Important Story of the Day

Yes those tax breaks the Grand Obstructionist Party is proposing is gonna help all those unemployed people, you betcha. Seems the GOP also seems more interested in nitpicking the stimulus program than they were three months ago when the banks were getting handouts without any conditions on how to use the money.

If the GOP manages the economy the same way the manage peanut butter inspections then we are all in trouble.

http://thefiresidepost.com/2009/01/29/republican-peanut-butter/

I agree, it is the most important story of the day. Second most important story of the day would be this -

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/06/gop-opposes-pay-limits-on_n_164544.html

So they do they or don’t they want to punish the greedy execs who helped precipitate this crisis? It’s time that you and the rest of your colleagues start asking the Republicans some questions I think…I would have thought that capping exec pay would be one measure to get total bipartisan support. It’s obvious that Republicans, for all their talk of caring about the little guy (tax cuts will solve all your problems!), could care less about public opinion. Also, non-sequitar, but as a young (22 year old) person who doesn’t see her generation represented in Congress at all, one thing I’ve always wanted a reporter to ask of Republican leadership is the following: Why are you so against family planning when a) it would save the government money in the long-term and b) you don’t want to provide unemployed people health insurance (this is obvious, but when people have babies, those kids and moms need health care)? Isn’t this contradictory to your position on fiscal discipline?

Krugman had a pretty good column that I missed yesterday
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/06/opinion/06krugman.html?_r=1
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A not-so-funny thing happened on the way to economic recovery. Over the last two weeks, what should have been a deadly serious debate about how to save an economy in desperate straits turned, instead, into hackneyed political theater, with Republicans spouting all the old clichés about wasteful government spending and the wonders of tax cuts.
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Go to Columnist Page » Blog: The Conscience of a Liberal It’s as if the dismal economic failure of the last eight years never happened — yet Democrats have, incredibly, been on the defensive. Even if a major stimulus bill does pass the Senate, there’s a real risk that important parts of the original plan, especially aid to state and local governments, will have been emasculated.
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Somehow, Washington has lost any sense of what’s at stake — of the reality that we may well be falling into an economic abyss, and that if we do, it will be very hard to get out again.

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It was amazing listening to Scarboough this morning trying to argue economic with a Nobel Prize winning economist. But thats where journalism is today

KT– Do you make up these headlines? Because the most important story is the one that’s not being written.

Some of that 7.6% is us.
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Speaking of which — Friar, if you’re out there, how you doin’?

Dee: Yes, I do write the headlines. I do these “of the day” postings for two reasons: 1. to call attention to the story itself 2. to get commenters discussing what they think the story should be. sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t.

OUCH

… …

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/05/AR2009020502766_pf.html

Is there somewhere a clear chart showing what percentage of jobs are in which sectors and another one showing what percentage of lost jobs are in which sector. It seems to me that if we are writing legislation designed to throw money at the problem, then the legislation itself should be guided by that information. It also occurs to me that since it was a housing boom that led to our troubles in the first place, then infrastructure constuction would indeed target the people who’s skillset is most affected by lower demand.
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KT, I already posted a link to an article saying Republicans are not in favor of capping bank exec pay. Could you do your job and figure out WHY this is? The public (conservative and liberal) is united on this issue – and I thought the GOP was all about “average Joe six-packs”?

PD:
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http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

Joe, thanks for asking!
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I’m now working as a temp for the company that let me go. Ironically, it turned out that they needed my expertise to finish closing out the facility that’s being shuttered.
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I’m good until April 30th.

friar: good luck.

Yes, I do write the headlines. I do these “of the day” postings for two reasons: 1. to call attention to the story itself 2. to get commenters discussing what they think the story should be.
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Thank you so much for that explanation, KT.
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Sometimes I can’t tell whether or not some of the posters here have editors making headline decisions or not. I’m so happy that you do not.

Good luck Friar!
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I’m good till June 31, then I’m half time.
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I hope…

Thanks KT.
Unfortunately what this tells me is that a huge percentage of total employment is in just the sort of activities that Republicans like to bash as money waster’s. The largest sector is Government followed immediately by Education and Health.

Hmmm, and here I though the most important story was that the structural unemployment rate is nearly double the percentage you offered.
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Or perhaps the most underplayed, nay ignored, story of the day is that Repuglicans don’t actually know that the word stimulus means, or how it works. Failing chapter 2 of Econ 101. As Obama said last night (via Steve Benen):
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"[Y]ou get the argument, ‘Well, this is not a stimulus bill, this is a spending bill.’ What do you think a stimulus is? That’s the whole point. No, seriously. That’s the point."
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Or perhaps the most utterly underplayed story, perhaps because it would be so embarrassing to mention, is that the media is enabling the nonsensical talking points from repuglicans who failed Econ 101 while ignoring anyone who actually knows something about economics.
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Or perhaps it’s that the repuglicans are the ones who have failed at bipartisanship.
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Or maybe it’s this: http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/02/06/underplayed-story-of-the-day-5/#comment-41047

4% of which are unemployable (malcontents, druggies, criminals, predators, in-laws excluding any imbibed Kennedy) making the actual rate about 4%.

Not good — but not close to a human crisis. Zimbabwe would be a human crisis. Rwanda would be a human crisis. Somalia would be a human crisis. North Korea would be a human crisis. Marin County would be a humus crisis.

This is an opportunity for people in poor industries (duplicate autos, duplicate mega banks, duplicate retail, duplicate guvment) to Move On to places where there will be work in 30 years: Medicine, rehab (see CALISTAN), medical rehab, Indian dentistry, homicidal nursing, fish oil injections, transcontinental pneumatic tube building, roach clip phlegm removal, rich AIDS patient NBA stretch mark removal, anything off Broadway, Mexican dentistry, Russian journalist alley jumping, bong water recycling, Peruvian orthodontia, Blackberry e-mail erasing, legacy rehab at Trader Vic’s (extended Happy Hour only), union busting, and proud Americanizationersezzizzezzezzfashizzlin.

= LET’S ROLF =

And yes, I am very angry at the media/RW noise machine complex.

With sentiments like hulagate’s, who needs terrorists…

I think hulagate is just bitter ’cause he doesn’t get any.
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Money, I mean (tongue firmly in cheek)…

DKOS: Unemployment Soars Again. Official Rate Softens Reality

I just saw the headlines this morning. I’m actually kind of relieved to see that 7.6% of the population was still employed.

As one of the legions of unemployed, yes this is an important story. To me even more important are the antics of Nelson and his gang of “centrists” trying to strip out funding from the stimulus/recovery bill. Do they not listen to economists who are worried that the $800 billion was not enough? Do they not understand that money for education will help school districts avoid massive layoffs and shortened school years? It’s time for the Democrats to stop kowtowing to the idiots and get this bill passed. We need the money NOW.

Sorry to beat a dead horse, but I was under the impression that KT directly replied to provocative concerns/queries. I realize I’m a newbie on this blog, but surely she and the mainstream media want to pursue a lead suggesting that Republican leadership is not in favor of bank exec caps, especially in light of the failures with the first batch of TARP funding? It’s one thing to allow conservatives to share their opinions, but you have to be fair about it. Calling them out on the origins of our deficit would be a start.

Continuing ruthinor’s thought on the centrists who want to cut “wasteful spending”, here’s Elena at TPM:
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One thing that bears repeating throughout today’s Senate drama: This debate over trimming the stimulus is spending little time on what it means to cut as much as $13 billion in state education aid and $5.5 billion in surface transportation funding. The process is just moving too fast.
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To the best of my knowledge, any spending that creates jobs that serve some public good is, at this moment in time, with a $1 trillion hole in our economy, good spending. To the best of my knowledge, there are no programs proposed that pay people to dig holes and fill them in again, as Keynes said you should do lacking any constructive jobs to perform, simply to get people working and spending.
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THIS IS NUTS!.

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Consider that the number – 7.6% – is the average across all states.
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There are states that have worse unemployment rates.

ilehas – that would be a no. The media is far too busy enabling stoopid RW talking points and questioning Michel Phelps to address your issue.

The fundamentals of our economy are strong
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Thats what John McCain said at a point when our country had already been in a recession for at least 9 months.
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The fundamentals of our economy are strong.
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Thats what John McCain said on the day Lehman Brothers collapsed
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The funadmentals of our economy are strong.
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That was the statement that James Carville predicted would signify the end of John Mccain’s campaign.
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The fundamentals of our economy are strong.
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Even after September 15th John McCain still repeated that phrase but just tried to change the focus of what he meant.
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The fundamentals of our economy are strong.
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Now every newspaper and talking head show is reporting on what John McCain thinks about the stimulus plan.
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THE FUNDAMENTALS OF OUR ECONOMY ARE STRONG.
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Why in the phuck are we giving this clueless ass hole any kind of platform when he has PROVED he is clueless about the economic health of our nation?

Never fear! The republican party has Joe the Plumber on the job!!!
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The other Klein on KT’s headline:
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TWO HEADLINES.
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First, in bold type blasted across the top of WashingtonPost.com: Unemployment Rate Hits 7.6% in January. It’s the largest one-month job loss since December of 1974 and the highest unemployment rate since the fall of 1992. Meanwhile, "In addition to the rising number of unemployed, about 7.8 million are working part time even though they would like fulltime work." And no one thinks this is the last month of losses or the peak of the recession.
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A few inches down the page we get another headline, this one from a seemingly different universe: "Senators Call for Stimulus Cuts." Not "changes." Cuts. Not programs that deliver their economic shock more rapidly. Cuts. Not a trillion dollar stimulus with more of it going to an instant payroll tax rebate and expanded Social Security checks. Cuts. Because what we need right now is to err on the side of less action for the economy.
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Television booking thought: It would be interesting to see Susan Collins or, for that matter, Eric Cantor, sit down and debate this issue with Martin Wolf, no?

sgw, are those same “newspaper and talking head shows” reporting on Obama’s two, powerful speeches yesterday where he made the case for spending clearly and forcefully, based on actual prevailing economic theory? Versus policy based on “Nation of whiners” Gramm?
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Speaking of Gramm, does anyone here doubt that he would have been McCain’s Treasury secretary?

I stopped watching Morning Joke and because my computer was down I watched a lot of it this amm. I think Joke thinks all the important problems were solved by him when he was in Congress. Mika turns out to be a clown. The two guys on the side looked like over aged schoolboys/pranksters. After Krugman showed Joke that he was “stuningly superficial” a la Mika’s father’s observation I did not have to wait before he came up with some snippy stuff with Tweety on board.

How come these two guys, who have all the answers are not in Congress?

Here’s some red meat from the Pol Animal for sgw: There are 43 senators who tried to change the stimulus bill because a TV preacher’s lawyer got confused and lied about what’s in the bill. And just to top this off, among the 43 were four Democrats — Evan Bayh, Kent Conrad, Byron Dorgan, and Ben Nelson — plus Joe Lieberman.

@friar, 53_3, hang tough. Our little band of unemployed/underemployed grows stronger each day. At least we’ll be in good company.
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That’s a terrible number! My husband was unempoyed full-time for 15 months. Every time I hear the number of new people seeking unemployment compensation I say a prayer for the families. It’s tough.

I’ll get a part time job. Not total disaster, because I’ll still be putting into my PERS II, which is by today’s standards, a pretty good retirement plan.

“That’s a terrible number!”
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Maybe the numbers will be awful soon.
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Read Doughlas Adams’ Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy for further information on what happens when the numbers get awful…

OK, here’s a question. Is there anything an individual with a well-thumbed thesaurus and some free time can do to counter the misinformation and misdirection that seems to have taken over the media? I’ve told my congressfolks to hang tough, but they’re wearing the white hats already. I could complain to CNN, ABC, NPR et al, but do they listen?

From Krugman’s column cited above:
It’s as if the dismal economic failure of the last eight years never happened — yet Democrats have, incredibly, been on the defensive. Even if a major stimulus bill does pass the Senate, there’s a real risk that important parts of the original plan, especially aid to state and local governments, will have been emasculated.
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And who is front and center of this effort to strip the bill of essential spending? Ben Nelson, a Democrat, that’s who.
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Obama needs to rethink his “bipartisan” schtick, and at least switch it from trying to be nice to everyone, to being an equal-opportunity a$$-kicker, and go after Nelson with both barrels.
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It feels like we’re heading towards double digit unemployment.
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BTW, I saw that Drudge had Obama playing the fear card. I agree that he is and I think it’s a great idea. He needs to counter the right-wing noise machine with something even more attention-grabbing. A prime-time Presidential address could be effective.
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joyomama, I have to agree with KT that turning off the TV is a good first step. I wonder if sending letters to media sponsors could have some effect, even a miniscule one. Financially supporting TV programs that communicate inaccurate information during a national crisis seems pretty unpatriotic.

I take the injunction “Give us this day our daily bread” seriously and try not to think too far ahead.

PD: Please see update.

“KT, I already posted a link to an article saying Republicans are not in favor of capping bank exec pay. Could you do your job and figure out WHY this is?”
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No, she can’t or rather she won’t. At least not until the RNC emails her about it or a siren goes up at Drudge about that very subject…both very unlikely.
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For you unemployed, my heart goes out to you. There may be positions in the angry mob sector opening up in the coming year however, so buck up.

Sorry for the link to the chart, rather than the chart itself. I couldn’t figure out how to do that, and couldn’t raise the high sheriffs for their advice. will fix later, if i can figure out how.

wvng
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I am over being mad about Lieberman, now I am just into saying I told you so.
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I told you so.

joyomama, by all means, send those letters and emails. When people called with complaints about news coverage, I always told them to let the bosses know.
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A word of caution: Don’t phrase it as “you’re in the tank for…” Conservatives, liberals, libertarians, Christians, atheists, et al, they all think the media is in the tank for the other guys. Be specific.
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Cite the report by date, time & reporter/commentator and give specific reasons why you think it is unfair, untruthful or whatever. Explain how you think the report is in variance with the media standards of fairness and honesty in reporting. Differentiate between those who report and those who opine.
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Be firm but polite. As a model, look at how cincy formulates his media criticism, then do just the opposite.
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Will it help? It won’t hurt. I doubt you’ll see immediate results – retractions or somebody demoted. But if enough people complain about the deteriorating quality of reporting and the blurring of the line between news and opinion, who knows?

davemc
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Hey did you ever get that update from Joke Line about his “rookie mistake”? Inquiring minds want to know.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again- boycott cable news propaganda. Drop your PayTV and buy some decent groceries. The rise of cable news has only encouraged gossip and misinformation, and made stars of fools and prigs.

If the stimulus fails to pass and the economy falls as quickly as most reality-based economists predict, the republicans will in the crosshairs of a lot of irate citizenry. They will hope they can escape to wilderness with their scalps intact.

The GOP seems bent on starting a new Civil War. I know I consider them the enemy of the masses.They stand in the way of progress and are anathema to the common good. When Jeff Sessions said the GOP needed to take lessons from the Taliban he revealed the true spirit of the GOP. They are kindred spirits.

Sorry to beat a dead horse, but I was under the impression that KT directly replied to provocative concerns/queries.
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ilehas – KT is usually good about that but I think she got wore out yesterday dealing with us savages.
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KT – in all honesty, thanks for this post.

sg, nope. Apparently I’m not on JK’s Friends list.

You bet it is a terrible statistic and doesn’t include the millions who are not counted in the published numbers…those who went from 40 hours a week plus benefits to 20 hours a week without benefits! (I am intimately familiar with this statistic.)Someone needs to start looking at that KT since UI numbers are only HALF the story. How’s about changing that to “Today, the labor department reported that UI rose to 7.6% and when added to those who are now underemployed, 15.2% of Americans our on their keister.” You still think this is a run of the mill recession?

cliff:

i am indeed feeling pretty beat-up, so i may pull back a bit out of the comments section for a while, for the sake of my own sanity.
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also, ilehas, welcome to the swamp. i do like to engage, and have come to view our commenters here as a great reporting resource. but, as in any relationship, mutual respect is important. comments that tell me to “do your job” don’t really lend themselves to that.

davemc
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That is such a shame, especially since you do such a good job of defending the journos here and carrying their water. You know not all of us give a sh*t about their excuses on why they don’t do their job better. And a lot of us don’t think we have to be nice about expressing our disapproval. Being polite doesn’t always get people to change their behavior. Sometimes its appropriate to get in their face. Now you might not appreciate cinci or me or other folks on this thread who complain FORCEFULLY when we are shoveled bullsh*t here everyday but I don’t exactly see your platitudes and “nice talk” changing the product here either. So maybe just maybe you ought to just do you and work it YOUR way instead of complaining about others who are doing it there’s because from where I’m sitting you for damn sure aren’t any kind of authority on how to make journos do their job better or else we all would have seen that change here wouldn’t we?
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Just thought.

And some commenters (you know who you are) wonder why other Swampland bloggers don’t engage more. As a veteran of leading discussions in online classes, I can tell you it’s exhausting work – and my students were only rude to each other!

KT — I’ve been posting less frequently here because I needed a break. I love this discourse here and the people who come here to post. I appreciate every time a jounralist interacts with the commenters (even when I disageee with them).
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I think there are many here that would like to see something done to turn this country around around. When Congress and some journos (present company excepted)are interested in changing their behavior, it has a lot of people frustrated and upset. I’m afraid it’s going to get worse before it gets better. Thanks for the interaction. I feel like you really listen to what we say.

No joyomama. Its not that we don’t know. We just really don’t care. If the only way they will engage is if we are all nice to them even if they are wrong then whats the use? Thats not to say that we necessarily have to be nasty but most of the time just disagreeing with them is enough for them to disengage. As for Karen, there is maybe one commenter and we all know who he is, that consistently tells her to do her job. The other commenters when we don’t agree with her just push back at her hard. If you can’t debate someone on the merits of your work and or your only comeback is “If George Bush did it…” then you are going to get creamed. I don’t know if you noticed but thats what blogs are all about save a few like Andrew Sullivan that don’t have the courage to open comments or Open Left where they expell dissenting voices. If you can’t stand the heat don’t step into the kitchen because the commenters here many times are informed and won’t be swayed by bullsh*t arguments.
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Now why does that matter? I will tell you why, because in the year 2000 we let our media frame the Presidential campaign in such a way that made everyone forget what a dumb ass George Bush was and focus on Al Gore sighing because of Bush giving dumb ass nonesensical answers. Then the media framed the recount story as a situation wher the eountry would some how be harmed by actually waiting to see who actually really got elected. Which led to us having a President to phucking dumb to read or pay attention to his own PDB. So then just to show they could trump themselves they decided to buy the administration WMD line hook line and sinker and help push this country to war by framing the “need” to attack Iraq in response to 9-11. And of course who could forget the media’s complicity in painting John Kerry as a liar and playing up the Swift boat stories as if they had even one shred of truth in them. For all of htose that think its as simple as the sane people turning off THEIR Tee Vees you better pull your head out of the sand and notice what drives public opinion which drives legislations and that is the talking head shows, the radio shows, the chain emails and the print media. And you can either learn the game and try to master it or stand on the sidelines while others help to decide your fate. Personally I am getting in the game and I plan on holding journos accountable just like elected officials.

that should be “AREN’T interested in changing their behavior.

bitterpill8 at 11:13am
Thanks for describing Morning Joe this morning so well and my thoughts as I watched.
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How come these two guys, who have all the answers are not in Congress?
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I think the President answered this well this morning.
He said it seems like everyone is and economist now.

Be as rude as you wanna be, sg. I’m just saying that running off at the keyboard on a political blog isn’t affecting much change either. If you think being FORCEFUL equates to name-calling and generalizing about journalists and journalism, then, by all means, have at it. Just plan on being ineffectual.
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I came here before the election and found some lively and diverse talk about candidates and issues. I’ve watched it begin to evolve into just another partisan board of political orthodoxy. And that’s a shame.

That should be an economist now.

davemc
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You know whats funny, even with the regular commenters here there isn’t a consensus usually EVER on big issues. But somehow you label it as “partisan”. Well hey if you don’t like it I am sure there are better things you can do with your time but just like you can say whatever you want to here, so can we. I don’t see anyone calling you out for kissing ass. So when you feel the need to call someone out because they express themselves differently than YOU would have you can expect yes the name calling and generalizing. Like you and Karen point out, respect is a two way street. And labeling someone as wrong or dismiss their argument as partisan just because YOU don’t agree with what they aay or how they say it to me smacks of a lack of respect. Always remember when you point the finger at someone else you are poinging three back at yourself.

KT – It would be sad if the commenters (mea culpa) drove you out of Swampland. I do think the actual real reporters such as yourself are one of the last bastions against the punditocracy.
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So far the punditocracy is winning. I disagree that your remedy (turn off the TV) will actually help, but that’s neither here nor there.

Good thing they’re using union stats.

Sponsored by GM.

You may have gotten your headlines switched, KT. “7.6″ itself is “underplayed” as a measure of unemployment – perhaps by half:

“In June, Barry Ritholtz had this to say at The Big Picture:
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[The official unemployment rate] has, over the years, slowly excluded many of the factors that USED to go into how the US reported unemployment. Hence, there has been a gradual decrease in the Unemployment rate that has occurred regardless of what was happening in the Jobs market.
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U3 is now comprised in a way that merely repeating it without a slew of caveats borders on fraud.
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The BLS definition of U3 is “Total unemployed, as a percent of the civilian labor force.” The BLS categorizes U6 as “Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers.”
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Employed part time for economic reasons covers workers who would love to have a full-time job – who may need full-time work to pay all the bills – but can only find something part time. Marginally attached workers are those available for work, who have looked for work sometime in the past 12 months, but who aren’t included in the unemployed count because they have not searched for work in the four weeks preceding the most recent BLS survey.
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Paul Krugman is one of many economists who say that U6 measures far more accurately than U3, and is closer to the historical measure than U3. But some economists say that somewhere in between U3 and U6 is the most accurate measure. For instance:
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Peter Morici, an economist at the University of Maryland, estimated that if the labor force participation rate today was as high as it was when President Bush took office, the unemployment rate would be 9.4 percent.
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But even the U6 figure undercounts, according to other observers, including John Williams, who runs the subscription-only electronic newsletter Shadowstats.com. Williams hasn’t yet posted his January calculations, but last month he put the jobless rate at 16.5 percent — more than double the official rate. His figures include unemployed workers who have been left out of the overall count since “discouraged workers” were dropped during the administration of Lyndon Johnson and other downward adjustments were made in 1994. Those changes mean the official rate can’t be fairly compared with the official rate in the 1980s, much less the 1930s.”

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Sorry about your fatigue, Karen. There isn’t really a more brutal medium for a writer. Well, there’s the whole professor and editor thing and they can inflict real pain, eh? Anyway, if you care about my opinion, you’re doing great.

…the blockquote above: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/2/6/3937/16074/727/693886

This is one of the most interesting blogs around. I love that KT interacts with her readers and that there’s so much affection for her work and for each other (with a few exceptions, Hula–what are you doing here?)

I like the sense of community here, too momkat. That’s why I decided to pitch my tent here for a while. KT’s blog on Swampland is a great example of what participatory journalism can look like. While I wish the other pros on the masthead interacted more, I also understand that doing so can be time-consuming and risky to the ego. That KT continues to do so speaks volumes about her character.
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As for Hula and other resident trolls, their comments are generally mild compared to what I’ve seen on other blogs. I’ve even seen some Hula posts that nearly make sense; would like to see more.