Asked why he later backed down from emploment predicitions in a report he signed, Bush reportedly said
“I’m not a statistician. I’m not a predictor.”
He’s not someone who can run an effective campaign on the job-creating effects of his tax-cut program either, obviously.
U.S. employers added just 21,000 positions in Feb.
Pertinent paragraphs:
America’s unemployment rate remained stuck at 5.6 percent in February as the economy added a paltry 21,000 positions.
The latest snapshot of the employment climate released by the Labor Department Friday depicted the painfully slow job growth the country has been enduring. The net gain in payrolls in February fell well short of the 125,000 jobs that economists had been forecasting.
Despite the outrage (manufactured or otherwise) generated by his ads with 9/11 imagery, Bush may be hard pressed to find anything other than 9/11 to talk about in this campaign.
“America’s unemployment rate remained stuck at 5.6 percent in February as the economy added a paltry 21,000 positions.”
Dealt with deeper in the article, but lead here gives too much of an impression of flat, staus quo, lack of gains. With a constant population increase and productivity increase, this is an obvious decline in employment and increase in middle-class overwork and stress
Worst president ever, proven by mathematics
Worst president ever, proven by mathematics
[eyes roll]
5.6% under the circumstances inherited? Whatever.
macallan, you should know better than to use that misleading stat. And I give you the benefit of the doubt that you don’t know better.
Just spent 15 minutes at DeLong’s where a Bush supporter (tbrosz) honestly admitted there was a problem, and the Bush detracters honestly tried to find a bi-partisan solution. It was a pleasure.
This is why you are gonna lose, if not this year, then soon. And this is why Repubs were not in control of Congress for forty years.
“5.6% under the circumstances inherited? Whatever. ”
People stop screwing in 1979 and I did’nt notice?
20-30k job creation a month is all we need because no babies were born, no new immigrants?
Admin forecasting 300K job creation, we get 21K… must have been a rounding error by those brilliant economists
Circumstances inherited may have worked for Reagan in 82, may have been partly true; won’t work for Bush in 2004…anyway, glad to know we have entered the era of personal responsibility
And I give you the benefit of the doubt that you don’t know better.
Oh well I guess I got all those degrees in Economics for no reason. Thanks for letting me know.
Forget the 9/11 images in the ads, maybe we should be outraged by the false portrayals of happy people getting jobs.
Yeah, but your degrees in Pretending Bad News Doesn’t Exist trump the no doubt impressive economic degrees every time.
bob,
I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. You have no idea how dangerously poised the the economy was in the late ’90’s. Privately, nearly every economist I know was worried about the real possibility of an absolute collapse. I didn’t want a republican to win in 2000 because I knew what foolish idiots people could be on the economy. I’ve been watching it for decades.
Harley,
Stick it.
Well, Mac, if nothing else we’ve moved you a little closer to actually responding to today’s jobs news and admin. forecasts. (BTW, eye rolls don’t count.) True, we’ve only nudged you toward the end of the last century. But progress is progress.
Privately, nearly every economist I know was worried about the real possibility of an absolute collapse.
And now?
And why was it “private”?
And why was it “private”?
Edward,
The short answer is the self-fulfilling prophecy issue. If a prominent economist came out and said, “The Sky Might Fall”, people will act as if the sky might fall. They’ll stop investing, they’ll put off the new car, they’ll put off hiring, and so forth — the sky falls.
And now?
Short answer: Fundamentals are significantly better, but there is global weakness. The outlook remains uncertain, but that’s like saying the sun continues to be hot.
The outlook is always uncertain it’s why most economists talk like Greenspan. If you ever hear one speak with absolute certainty, that usually a good sign that they are talking out their ass.
“The outlook remains uncertain”
When something tells me that I flip it over and shake it a bit and check again.
Someone at DeLong attributed this confusing jobs picture to a 20 yr government policy of increasing the marginal utility of capital while decreasing the marginal utility of labor. Taxes on labor have increased (starting in 1982 with FICA increase) while the cost of capital has decreased.
Gov’t policy aside, increasing health care costs probably have had the same effect.
Since for some reason I can’t create links at this site, go on over to TNR and read Noam Schreiber on jobs, etc.
Sorta splits the difference. Kerry is lying if he thinks he can stimulate short-term job growth better than Shrub. On the other hand — and I’m extrapolating here, but fairly — Shrub is lying if he thinks his tax cuts can stimulate short term job growth either.
Which returns us to the political calculus. Where the issue feels like a net plus for Kerry.
When something tells me that I flip it over and shake it a bit and check again.
The magic 8 ball is sometimes more accurate. Contrary to the description of economics as the “Dismal Science” once someone goes to forecasting the science part gives way to conjecture, the further out one goes the more likely the conjecture turns to bullcrap. (Sorta like Climate… OK, I’ll leave that alone).
(Sorta like Climate… OK, I’ll leave that alone).
You don’t have to audition anymore, Mac…the “Snark Consultant” job is yours!
Ahh, crap. At least look at my C.V.!!
Harley, there are two positions, and you’re definitely the other…
only question is Who will be “Grand Boobah Snark Consultant”?
Any gloating over low job creation numbers is pure partisan balderdash.
I’m hard pressed to think of how else the president could be stimulating the ecomony since:
1. the Fed is keeping rates down
2. tax cuts are putting more money in consumer pockets and keeping businesses on the edge solvent by lowering their overhead
3. deficit spending is widely considered to be a short term stimulus
Bush is the one who suggested his tax cut would create jobs, Mike P. He called it a Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003
The gloating is fair.
Add Mac to the list of people upset at the Bushies for jawing down the economy 3-4 years ago.
The gloating is fair.
Shouldn’t that be the criticism is fair? Surely I shouldn’t accuse Democrats of desiring poor job creation numbers just to prove themselves correct, should I?
snark off
The gloating is fair.
OK, Edward what would be the job figures today if there had been no tax cut?
What? You don’t know?
What would be the job figures today if a Tuesday in September 2001 was just a regular day?
What? You don’t know?
What would be the job figures today if taxes were raised to pay for all costs related to 9-11 and WOT?
Don’t tell me you don’t know the exact figures, because one would need to those wouldn’t they to deem gloating “fair”?
OK, so it’s “fair” to say that you have no idea whether you should be gloating or thanking God that there were tax cuts.
Add Mac to the list of people upset at the Bushies for jawing down the economy 3-4 years ago.
Sorry I must have been asleep that day. Which one of the “Bushies” predicted a cataclysmic crash and worldwide depression?
Mac,
Well done destroying the economically ignorant…what, I only have a BA in Economics? Well that may be, but that makes me one step less ignorant than most.
Seriously the thing I fail to get is the implied explosion in productivity we are seeing? It’s staggering.
Did we somehow in the last 2-3 years figure out how to use information systems, CAD/CAM etc. that much more efficiently?
I still think job growth is being understated. Otherwise productivity is literally off the charts.
Insights anyone?
Round my parts (software sales) we’re working longer and harder and literally too hard to take the time to interview people. Hence, some serious pent up demand.
I haven’t look closely at the numbers, and it’s been waaaaaaaaaay too long for me to remember the author or the name of the theory. But there was a theory about lagged hiring and voluntary productive gains. That if you looked at a micro level to a company that had laid off lots of workers (for instance airlines after 9-11) there is lag effect where both the management is reluctant to assume risk of new employees and the employees are focused on making themselves invaluable to the company. The downturn tends to make employees act more like stockholders because they no longer view the company as cash cow that will fund fluff.
I’m on the board of a company that is experiencing this right now, and management was surprised when they wanted to hire a team for a new project, but had an internal group ask to take on the project on top of their current load. Whether the micro extends to the macro I can’t say.
“I am confident that this economic recovery will now be sustained and will produce loads of new jobs. Everything we know about economics indicates that the sort of economic growth expected for next year, 3.8 to 4 per cent, will translate into two million new jobs from the third quarter of this year to the third quarter of next year. That’s an average of about 200,000 new jobs a month … What gives me confidence? Everything we know about economics and history. Consumption and housing remain strong. Now capital spending is clearly coming back and inventories are at astonishingly low levels. Jobs are always a lagging indicator which follows economic growth. I would stake my reputation on employment growth happening before Christmas. I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that we are going to see a pick-up in employment in 2004.”
Treasury Secretary John Snow
interviewed in July 2003
quoted in the London Times
October 20th, 2003
I’m taking his dollars. Who wants his donuts?
Oh, and as for degree measuring — degree envy? — Delong has a bigger C.V. than either of you. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
So does Krugman.
B
F
and the always popular…
D!
Delong has a bigger C.V. than either of you.
Than me at least. Of course so does Krugman. So that may not mean much.
Damn Mac,
Great minds and all.
Heard Snow being interviewed about this on CNN today. Was all Kerry’s fault because he voted for 320 tax increases. Or something.
Woodruff: But you promised jobs!
Snow: Kerry will increase taxes!
A very enlightening interview.
“Insights anyone?”
Try Tom Friedman in today’s NYT on a productivity paradigm shift
the “invisible jobs” is bs tho; at least DeLong thinks so, and most people he cites (he has decent cites)
consumer debt has risen from 110% of income to 113% in the last few years; Sawicky thinks that is important, since consumer spending is driving the economy
conservative economists thought we were going to create 300k jobs this month, so who cares what they think
Bob,
Do you know what you call an economist who can predict the future accurately?
“Sir”. Because if one existed he’d be richer than Bill Gates. There’s a reason that Mr. DeLong and Mr. Krugman work at universities, someone has to pay for their rent and ill-fitting clothes, since their “skills” aren’t out making a killing in the markets.
Seriously the thing I fail to get is the implied explosion in productivity we are seeing? It’s staggering.
Did we somehow in the last 2-3 years figure out how to use information systems, CAD/CAM etc. that much more efficiently?
Productivity is a ratio (output per worker-hour). So if worker-hours go down faster than output does (say, because you lay off the least-productive members of your workforce), productivity itself will go up. At least that’s one explanation I’ve heard.
OK, so it’s “fair” to say that you have no idea whether you should be gloating or thanking God that there were tax cuts.
Well, Mac, I’m also not the one who said my tax cuts would be creating 300,000 new jobs each month…that was, only that’s right, the President…who would have access to the best predictors in the world, and still got it ridiculously wrong.
and still got it ridiculously wrong.
Nobody got it ridiculously right either. If they did, it falls into the “even broken clocks are right twice a day” thing. Don’t believe me that we are actually doing extraordinarily well under the circumstances, it’s OK. You don’t believe me on anything else. 🙂
“Do you know what you call an economist who can predict the future accurately?”
Heck, I don’t see too many economists I would trust to predict the past.
Point: margins and pricing power are dead. With zero, or less than zero (who really knows) inflation, the only possible profits lately have come from increased productivity and decreased costs. Course laid off dudes don’t buy anything.
“Deflationary spiral” is a whisper heard for the first time in decades.
Take it back, the words describe Japan, 15 years after a real-estate crash.
I’m gonna plug Econopundit again.
He used to teach econ and now runs a factory. Recently he said in his own factory they could use some help but are doing OK with temps. He expects to hire again in Q3/4 2004.
Course, we in SF are in a different boat. The city taxes the size of our payroll, not our profits. Hell of a stimulant, wouldn’t you say?
You don’t believe me on anything else. 🙂
Not true…I totally believed your rationale for not mentioning the Red hair observation to your fellow travellers…
🙂