SLATE
More from the kausfiles Continuous News team. ... If you believe the LAT poll, the current drive to recall Gray Davis is clearly Arnold Schwarzenegger's best and perhaps only chance to become governor of California. Why? a) 53 percent of registered voters are "not inclined" to vote for him. In a head-to-head matchup against a Democrat, that number would normally be fatal. In a recall "replacement" election, where there might be no Democratic opponent and where you can win with only 25 percent or so of the vote, it might not be. b) Schwarzenegger needs as short a campaign as possible to prevent all the Democrats' potential dirt on him from sinking in with the electorate. Not only would a recall election campaign be short, it would also dilute the dirt--the Democrats would have to worry about tarring all the Republican replacement candidates, not just Schwarzenegger. ... Is there enough time, even in a rushed, chaotic recall campaign, to effectively trash Schwarzenegger? The Feiler Faster Thesis says yes! ... Otherwise, Schwarzenegger could be Governor of California by Halloween. ... 4:48 P.M.
"It's hard to put a positive spin on this report," says an economist quoted in Daniel Altman's NYT lead story on the June unemployment stats. Actually, it's not that hard. Here goes. ...
The numbers aren't good, but
a) You have to read Altman's story very carefully to realize that, in one of the two Labor department surveys, total employment rose by 251,000 (sorry, make that "only 251,000"). The problem seems to be that many more people (more than 600,000) entered the work force to look for work, meaning the unemployment rate for those looking for work rose. Call the new job-seekers "encouraged workers." Bush gets routinely (and fairly) bashed by the left when a favorable unemployment rate ignores the "discouraged workers" who leave the work force; shouldn't he get a commensurate break when the unemployment rate rises mainly because workers have been encouraged to reenter the job market? (As Altman reports, in the Labor department's other survey, the payroll survey, the total number of jobs did fall by 30,000--no "only" this time. Altman himself suggests one possible positive explanation: the payroll survey lags and is reporting job losses from earlier this year.)
b) The unemployment rate for blacks rose steeply because blacks didn't leave the labor force despite the poor job market. In contrast with previous slowdowns, Altman notes (paraphrasing one of his experts) "blacks who lose their jobs seem less likely to drop out of the labor force and more likely to look for new ones ." That's a good thing! It means black attachment to the labor force is growing. You want to bet that a lot of the new, less-easily-discouraged job-seekers are single mothers who, now that welfare is being reformed, see their future as workers?
Altman's near-panicky gloom-and-doom Times story seems to have convinced some of my e-mailers that the economy is "spiraling downward." It's not. The news still isn't good mainly because the lesson of the '90s is that it's not enough to have economic growth, and it's not enough to have rising employment or even falling unemployment. To get the good things that started to happen in the late '90s--decreased poverty, rising unskilled wages, dramatic strides into the middle and upper classes by blacks (who really do seem to be last-hired, first-fired, as the lefties have always said), a transformed urban culture, and a general shift of respect toward anyone who is willing to actually show up and do a job--you need a very tight labor market for an extended period of time. Democrats are right to hold that out as a standard for Bush to meet--and we're still a long ways away from it. ... Eliminate the middleAltman: The Labor department's June employment report can be found here. ...
P.S.: This is the second confusing, badly-edited Bush-bashing story by Altman in 48 hours. Is he just overworked? Maybe the NYT needs more troops! ['Badly-edited'? Ex. pls-ed. Is the "gap" Altman tries to explain in paragraph 10 the gap between those looking for work and those finding it, or the gap between the two Labor department surveys? Who the hell knows! Altman seems to be talking about both "gaps" at once.] .... 2:06 P.M.
Trade Story Needs Editor, Critics Say: What exactly is the complaint implicit in this prominent NYT piece, "Trade Pact With Pakistan Reflects Politics Not Economics, Critics Say"? That a) Bush is giving Pakistan too much because he's "putting political back-scratching [such as Pakistan's cooperation against terrorism] ahead of economic considerations"; b) Bush is giving Pakistan too little for fear of opposition in the Carolinas and India; c) Bush may be doing the right thing but it's for the wrong reasons--"political expediency rather than the familiar economic motivation;" d) Bush is doing the right thing for the right reasons but they aren't the reasons his trade officials said would be the reasons! ... It goes without saying that Bush must be screwing up--this is the NYT--but we loyal readers need to be told more clearly why he's screwing up, with criticisms that don't contradict each other! .... P.S.: I would tend to make criticism b) myself, though the Times ' multiple cancelling-out complaints actually make it appear as if Bush is doing a pretty good job balancing all the various competing interests. ... But if quotas on textile imports (from Pakistan and elsewhere) are scheduled to disappear in 2005 anyway, why not get some bonus points from the struggling Pakistanis by relaxing them a few years early? These are people we don't want rooting for the Taliban comeback. ... 3:21 A.M.
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