Time to Conduct Some Semiconductor Business At Home

If anybody's waiting on an order for a new Atari VCS microconsole, you might have to wait awhile. There seems to be a massive shortage of semiconductors required for... practically every electronic device we have. Per David Atkins at Washington Monthly:

But there’s increasingly an argument to be made that a just-in-time lowest-cost supply system may not just be bad for the climate or for domestic employment. It may also in many cases be bad for business. The semiconductor crisis tells an exemplary tale. As information technology becomes essential to daily life in developed countries, semiconductors are essential for making the world go round. Phones, computers, gaming consoles and automobiles all require increasingly sophisticated semiconductors. And most of them are made by a single company: Taiwan Semiconductor. Indeed, Taiwan Semiconductor is so dominant in the field that few competitors can match them, and they’re falling farther behind...

We've got a hundred different manufacturers putting together a 1001 different electronic devices, and NOBODY seemed to notice they ALL relied on ONE supplier for a required component to their devices???

The semiconductor shortage is harming vehicle production lines. It’s why the next generation gaming consoles that were supposed to be available last Christmas are still in vanishingly short supply. It is starting to impact smartphones and personal computers as well.

There are many correlated aspects to this problem. It’s partly a matter of national security: what does the global economy do when it relies so heavily on a single actor in a location of geopolitical instability? It’s partly a problem of monopoly: is the market truly free or stable if so many essential products depend on the fate of a single company? How can there be genuine competition if the cost of entry makes establishing new competition prohibitive? It’s partly a matter of the pandemic: Taiwan Semiconductor and other manufacturers have been struggling to meet production targets due to reduced capacity from COVID restrictions.

An over-reliance on global trade and shipping, combined by corporate eagerness to find the cheapest labor instead of reliability and location, have led us to this bloody mess. The Pandemic merely highlighted our vulnerabilities.

At no time in the past 20 years it seems - as the Internet revolution exploded the computer tech industry into the behemoth it is today - anyone planned far enough ahead to plan for possible shortages or cuts to supply lines. It never occurred to anybody relying on tech parts like semiconductors that it would help to establish their own manufacturing to compete for that key part in more than one country/continent so that they didn't rely on Taiwan Semiconductor Inc itself. That company could have branched itself out, using its expertise in its manufacturing techniques to build more factories in other places to maintain a stranglehold on its monopoly of semiconductors while improving its supply chain to ensure availability. Apparently nobody - even the company aware of its own situation - wanted to spend the money to do that.

I'm not a businessman, don't have a degree in economics, but even *I* know it's foolish to rely on one provider of one product from one location that just happens to be so needed for almost everything out there.

But monopolizing practices don't seem to breed expansion or competition, only complacency. Nobody wants to spend profits on improving service or supply. Until it's too late.

If the United States wants to respond properly to this crisis, our own government ought to push for business start-up funds to get semiconductor manufacturers up and running here (and to hell with the local CEO mindset against hiring workers in the U.S. because they might ask for living wages). We've got manufacturing towns dying out because they've been abandoned: This could be a good time to reinvest in those places that can handle the semiconductor industry.

Sort of what Atkins says at the end of his article:

The world has a mutually invested interest in distributing production of goods like semiconductors–and it’s not clear that the private sector should be wholly responsible for taking on the burden. (To say nothing of the leftist critique that the benefits of successfully adding semiconductor production should not redound merely to the shareholders.)

The governments of the world have both a competitive and cooperative interest in ensuring that resources like semiconductors are not at the mercy of geopolitical conflict, and that production can be ramped up as needed even if problems should arise in one company, country or corner of the globe.

What say ye, President Biden? Care to invest America in much-needed semiconductors to generate much-needed jobs?

Job Hunting In Florida 2014: Still A Nightmare

Remember the noise over Obamacare's website woes?

At least Healthcare.gov eventually got fixed within two months.  We've got a situation here in Florida where the state's unemployment benefit claims site has been broken for a full year since it got revamped (via Tampa Bay Times):

Despite promises from Gov. Rick Scott's administration that the state's new online unemployment system is fixed, unpaid claims keep mounting and Florida now ranks last in the nation at providing timely relief for jobless workers...

...Complaints like that are nothing new for CONNECT, the state's online filing system for unemployment benefits that 1.1 million workers rely on every year. Upon its launch — one year ago — it wrongly withheld payments from thousands of job seekers because of more than 100 technical defects. But after a series of emergency measures, a Scott appointee in March vowed that problems had been fixed.

"The bottom line is that we have resolved the delays caused by CONNECT's launch," Jesse Panuccio, the executive director of the Department of Economic Opportunity, told state senators in late March. "Service is now better than it was prior to CONNECT."

Federal labor statistics say otherwise.

In the year before CONNECT launched, Florida paid 78 percent of initial claims of up to $275 within two to three weeks, a federal benchmark that measures timeliness, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

The claims Florida paid on time dropped to 48 percent, however, in the year since CONNECT launched, making it last in the nation.

And it could be getting worse. Based on preliminary data, only 27 percent were paid on time over the last three months...

I can tell you from my own perspective at the library where I work the CONNECT system is still a major headache.  There's been a good number - about six or seven new people in the last two weeks - of people trying to get into CONNECT only to run into roadblocks such as the database not confirming data or having their determination still on hold because a certain form hasn't been faxed or emailed to the main office.

Meanwhile, the county's employment offices - renamed CareerSource Polk - are still packed and overwhelmed with people needing help with filing claims and job-hunting.  I try to help as much as possible at the library, but since I'm not fully tied into the employment system there's only so much I can do, and I'm forced to refer our library users to those career offices where they'd have to wait for hours to get any help.  We had a mobile bus service that stopped by once a month (it'd be nice if CareerSource could set up offices in more cities around here) but the manager for that changed jobs two months ago and they haven't found a replacement yet (if ever).

And these people need help.  They are not for the most part tech-savvy.  I've had two of them confused by odd wording on their options.  They end up clicking menu choices that detour them from where they need to go.  We need a cleaner, more concise website.  Hell, we need more people to help out navigate these sites: we need to recognize that not everything can or should be all self-serve online, that our job-seekers need help.

And for all of this, the fact that the government is delaying their payments must be maddening.  No wonder that Times article notes that our real unemployment numbers - where work-capable people simply opt out - are worse than the official 6.2 percent in-state.

What's maddening for me is how this isn't a bigger story.  We're talking about a system's state-wide failure that's been going on for a full year now, and yet it's barely made a beep on the radar until now.  Here's hoping this story gets picked up and promoted as we head into the election, because this needs to be one more nail in Rick "What Part of FRAUD Did You Republican Voters Keep Overlooking" Scott's electoral coffin.  One big reason the CONNECT system hasn't been fixed is that the damn company paid to implement it is still getting money they haven't earned:

Despite the growing backlog, Deloitte's relationship with Florida did improve. In June, it negotiated a contract extension that pays the company another $1.5 million to fix its own errors.

Deloitte's contract extension ends Nov. 20, but gives the company the option to remain on the project another six months for up to $2.4 million... In all, Deloitte's total payday could be $49.6 million for the CONNECT job, 30 percent more than the contract's 2011 price...

Want a better working system, Florida?  Vote for Crist.  If Scott is in office by Nov. 20th, I guarantee you he'll sign Deloitte to a contract extension that will screw us Florida residents for even more money for bad service.

Rage: The Long-Term Unemployed Are STILL SCREWED

From Five-Thirty-Eight:

Laurusevage, 52, is one of more than a million Americans who lost payments when Congress allowed the Emergency Unemployment Compensation program to expire at the end of last year. The program, which Congress created in 2008, extended jobless benefits beyond the standard 26 weeks provided by most states; at its peak, the federal government provided an unprecedented 6 million workers with up to 73 weeks of benefits. The Senate earlier this year voted to renew the program, but House Speaker John Boehner (personal note: you sonofabitch!) hasn't allowed the measure to come to a vote in the House.

The case against extending unemployment benefits essentially boils down to two arguments. First, the economy has improved, so the unemployed should no longer need extra time to find a new job. Second, extended benefits could lead job seekers either to not search as hard or to become choosier about the kind of job they will accept, ultimately delaying their return to the workforce.

But the evidence doesn't support either of those arguments. The economy has indeed improved, but not for the long-term unemployed, whose odds of finding a job are barely higher today than when the recession ended nearly five years ago. And the end of extended benefits hasn't spurred the unemployed back to work; if anything, it has pushed them out of the labor force altogether.

Of the roughly 1.3 million Americans whose benefits disappeared with the end of the program, only about a quarter had found jobs as of March, about the same success rate as when the program was still in effect; roughly another quarter had given up searching. The rest, like Laurusevage, were still looking...

With chart from the article:

It's that "Stopped Looking" that should break your heart.  It's more than the ones who found a job in time.  It's the number of people dropping out - despairing - and most likely not coming back.  For bad and for worse.

Regarding Laurusevage:

Laurusevage didn't expect it to be this hard. She had been her family’s primary breadwinner, earning roughly $60,000 as a health and safety officer for a Philadelphia-area heating and air conditioning company. Her husband, David, earns less than $35,000 a year selling truck parts. When her position was outsourced in April of last year, she thought that as a college graduate with a three-plus-decade history of steady work, she would find a job relatively quickly. But in many ways, her experience is typical. The long-term unemployed — typically defined as those out of work more than six months — are slightly more educated on average than the broader population of job seekers. And older workers like Laurusevage face a particularly tough time: The typical job seeker in her 50s has been out of work 26 weeks, versus 17 weeks for the typical 20-something.

There has been, continues to be, massive age discrimination against the unemployed.  Part of it involves the practical issues of re-training someone to new work, part of it the refusal of companies to invest in a worker who'll retire in 10-15 years compared to a worker they can control for 20-30, part of it the irrational fear of hiring someone who lost a job, like as though there was something wrong with that person rather than a problem with the down-sizing company who slashed and cut with haphazard panic.

There's also the problem of the education.  Normally having a college or graduate degree gets you hired right quick.  In this recession, it's two strikes against you.  If you seek a job in a profession unrelated to your degree, your would-be employer is afraid you'll bolt for that other profession the moment you get a chance (this really hurts when you're a graduate-level job-seeker looking for part-time work in anything).  Other would-be employers would fear you would be too experienced, someone less malleable in terms of training and inter-office politicking.

And so, into all of this, we still have a sizable population of the United States struggling to stay afloat, struggling to keep a roof over their heads and food on their tables.  We have a situation that calls on Congress to provide help as they've provided help before: with emergency aid funding, and laws to fix the discriminatory hiring practices against the long-term unemployed.

And Boehner, that coward that crook that SONOFABITCH, refuses to get the House to act.  Because it's against the Far Right ethos of helping "the lazy".  Because it's too Keynesian for their ideological obsession with austerity and "small government".  Because it's not something that will embarrass or impeach Obama.  Because it's not #Benghazi or tax cuts or repealing Obamacare for the 58th time.

Goddamn them.

WILL YOU PLEASE AMERICA FOR THE LOVE OF GOD VOTE THE REPUBLICAN PARTY OUT OF CONGRESS?!  PLEASE?!  GET THE DAMN VOTE OUT.

Dear Unemployed: Time To Get Your RAGE On

This continues to piss me off, even though - THANK GOD - I am now employed.

...Republican senators on Thursday blocked a three-month revival of long-term unemployment compensation for 1.7 million Americans out of work.

Democrats fell just one vote short of the 60 needed to break a filibuster. Four Republicans voted with Democrats -- Sen. Dean Heller (NV), Kelly Ayotte (NH), Lisa Murkowski (AK) and Susan Collins (ME). Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) changed his vote at the last minute to preserve the option of bringing up the bill in the future. The final vote was 58-40...

...The reality is a large number of Republicans want the program to end but don't want to say so because it's popular. First enacted in 2008, amid economic free-fall, it provides insurance to Americans who are looking for work for up to 99 weeks. It expired on Dec. 28.

A follow-up vote Thursday to extend the unemployment benefits for three months, without a pay-for, also failed 55-43...

I guarantee this continues to piss off millions of long-term unemployed Americans who've been stuck like I had been for years: unable to convince HR departments to hire us, unable to find money to start our own businesses, unable to get into a job market that's biased against anyone with a high-level college degree or is over the age of 40...

In a just world, every damn Senator who just voted to block this emergency extension should stand in the unemployment lines for six straight months and see how THEY like it.  No, better, make it six straight YEARS...

The g-ddamn filibuster needs to go for ALL non-appointee bills coming to the floor.  THIS OBSTRUCTION IS KILLING OUR ECONOMY AND OUR NATION.  I know Dems fear the possibility that they'll find themselves in a minority in the Senate, but DAMMIT we shouldn't have our government stuck on STALL all the time!

Every unemployed person needs to find the nearest Republican Senator's office and start a sit-in protest.  DAMN THESE SENATORS.  They gonna arrest you?  So?  No jury in the nation - unless it's a jury made up of hedge fund managers - will convict you.

RAGE.

Congress Still Not Getting It, Pt. DCCIV

that's the Roman numeral for Pt. 704, by the by, yeah I'm exaggerating but I'm trying to make a point here...

It took some doing, but the Senate passed a resolution today to get some benefit extensions to the long-term unemployed:

The move means that lawmakers are now wrangling about whether -- and how -- the cost of the $6.4 billion program should be offset.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters Tuesday afternoon that the White House has indicated it will "run the traps" on "reasonable" proposals to pay for the jobless aid extension but that Democrats believe the program should be extended without offsets. His Republican counterpart, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, said "there may be a way forward here" if Democrats allow some GOP amendments to be considered.

The bad news: it's for just a measly three months.  We're talking about long-term unemployed who are having a difficult time finding work after six months no wait two years no even worse five years of getting overlooked by HR departments for being too old, too overqualified, too dusty.

The worse news: the House - oh yeah, them - still has to take up this issue.

If the final bill does pass the Senate, it's not clear that the GOP-led House will take it up. House Republican leaders have painted the current proposal as fiscally irresponsible.

In a statement, House Speaker John Boehner said that any extension of the program must be paid for and contain House-backed job creation plans.

"One month ago I personally told the White House that another extension of temporary emergency unemployment benefits should not only be paid for but include something to help put people back to work," he said. "To date, the president has offered no such plan."

By the by, the "House-back job creation plans?"  To ease regulations on onshore and offshore oil and gas drilling (with no guarantees it will create more jobs), to cut regulations overall, and cut taxes on small businesses that economists note won't do much to encourage any increase in hirings.

And when Boehner claims Obama isn't offering any jobs bill, just remember Boehner is lying through his ass.

The worser news: the most obvious way to pay for this - reforming the tax code to close tax loopholes for the uber-rich, or raising the tax rate on capital gains which most rich people live off of and which rates are lower than income tax rates - will be off the table because God Help Us the modern GOP will NEVER raise taxes as long as Grover Norquist and the Club for Greed crowd are around to throw their goddamn hissy fits.

There's a good amount of talk about how income inequality and GOP failure to take unemployment seriously is making the Republicans look bad.  That's not the issue.  The issue is that GODDAMMIT we need to make job creation a top priority in our nation, and that involves getting government (Congress, HELLO WAKE UP) to pass the economic programs we know create jobs: construction and bridge repair, to top the list.  But if we're stuck with a House GOP that refuses to do a damn thing to help the lower classes (this is including what's left of the middle class), then by all means let's make the Republicans look as bad as they deserve, so that when November 2014 rolls around we can get Americans to vote the bums out and vote in people who WILL do something about creating good jobs at good wages.

Unemployment Emergency Funding Set To Expire as 2013 Ends. Happy F-cking New Year To You Too, Congress

Pardon my Swedish for the blog title.  Still and all.

More than 1 million Americans are bracing for a post-Christmas jolt as extended federal unemployment benefits come to a halt this weekend, potentially impacting the recovering economy and setting up a battle when Congress reconvenes.
For families dependent on cash assistance, the end of the federal government's "emergency unemployment compensation" will mean some difficult belt-tightening as enrollees lose their average monthly stipend of $1,166.
Jobless rates could drop, but analysts say the economy may suffer with less money for consumers to spend on everything from clothes to cars. Having let the "emergency" program expire as part of a budget deal, it's unclear if Congress has the appetite to start it anew.
An estimated 1.3 million people will be cut off when the federally funded unemployment payments end Saturday. Across Florida, 73,000 recipients of federal emergency unemployment compensation stand to lose their benefits.
The average Florida benefit is about $230 per week, which is tied to the amount of wages earned over two weeks at a worker’s last job.
An additional 850,000 people nationwide will also lose state unemployment benefits over the next three months...

I'm a bit upset with not only the Republicans but also the Democrats in Congress, who both failed to recognize the serious issue we've got in this nation with the long-term unemployed.

While the overall unemployment rate has fallen to a nearly healthy (emphasis on the nearly) 7 percent (personal edit: a truly healthy unemployment rate is below 4 percent) – long-term unemployment has been more stubborn. The long-term unemployment rate, at 2.6 percent, remains as high as any previous recession since the end of World War II, reports the LA Times...

The long-term unemployed tend to be higher-educated and older, which are two strikes against them when the only jobs left open to them would be lower-wage service economy jobs that will not hire anyone with a college degree and an expectation of a pension plan.  Trust me: I've been in that boat for 4 years, where applying to places like Target and Wal-Mart led to either rejection or silence.  I swear, Target emailed back the fastest rejection notice I ever got (clocked in at 10 minutes, I sh-t you not).

My problem with the Republican leadership who think ending these benefits would force the long-term unemployed to "get off their asses and take any job they can," they're overlooking the fact that HR departments get their pick of the litter in this jobless recession and those HR departments are under no obligation to hire the better-educated, better-experienced.  HR departments will hire those who work the cheapest and will be the easiest to train (re-training older workers is harder than training fresh minds), and HR departments won't hire someone with education and background in other fields because those employees may bolt for an opening they do qualify for and pay better.

When I got into a shouting match with my twin brother two years ago, he thought much like the GOP did, that I was just loafing about and living off the unemployment benefits (and my parents' financial help).  He never sat with me during my daily job hunts, he never saw the rejection slips I'd occasionally get from some of these companies, he never saw the statistics I'd sometimes get from the HR departments telling me there were 60, 75, 120 applicants for one opening, he never listened in to the phone call interviews I'd have with some firms who politely point out that I'm not really the best fit for what they're looking for...  This is a problem: people don't get it, they don't get the fact that it's not our fault we're unemployed for so long...

There was a reason I was out of full-time employ for 4 years, and why I had a hard time finding or keeping any part-time employ: I was over-qualified for what was available on the local - Florida - job markets.  That was the big reason dad insisted last year I needed to get shipped to Maryland and try up where my educational/research skill sets would be more attractive.  Thank God for Bartow Public Library.  But I have to admit: I lucked out at the right time with a decent job.  The other long-term unemployed out there?  What luck are they gonna find, Republican Congresscritters, when there's no money left to keep them afloat while they look?

My problem with the Democrats is that they're not taking this unemployment problem as seriously as they need to.  For the love of God, the GOP was willing to shut down government and default on our nation's debts just for the lulz of it back in October: the least we should expect from a party like the Dems - who WANT government helping people survive and get out of this economic malaise - to fight harder, like force their own threats of cutting off something the GOP prize above all else, force Congress to stay open this holiday season, force the GOP to stand up there and get brow-beaten by the fact there are still too many unemployed Americans out here.

At what point will our own government wake up to the fact that the number one problem in our nation is that we do not have enough good jobs at good wages?  At what point will we the voters put into office elected officials who will get off their asses and get us the jobs and high wages we need?

Anniversary: It's Been Five Years...

...and four of them a long long struggle to recover, but still...

Yeah, back on Dec. 17 2008 I lost my employment with Pasco County Libraries.

Between then and now was a long struggle: filing for unemployment, filing for WIA re-training funds, taking more computer classes, job-hunting, tweaking resumes, job-hunting, not getting interviewed, never getting interviewed, not even getting looked at by the retailers for part-time (the sins of getting a Masters degree education, you make yourself overqualified for a sh-tload of part-time jobs) work...

It was hard as hell on my family, especially my parents who helped out financially as best they could, and they couldn't understand why no one would even interview me for office work or anything like that.  My twin brother once chewed me out (on our birthday no less), accusing me of being a lazy-ass living off our parents' largess.  They couldn't understand I was up against 60, 100, 150 (!) applicants for every job opening (it wasn't just the unemployed I was competing with, it was employed people looking for something stable during uncertain times), and that I was going up against HR departments being finicky with who they interviewed (younger and cheaper were better, less educated and less prone to look elsewhere were better, etc.).

I found a part-time job in 2009, but it was will-call... By 2010 I put in for the Census work, but that turned out to be shorter than I expected... 2011, nothing, not a peep.  Things picked up by 2012 with 5 different libraries and computer-oriented workplaces interviewing, but I ended up not making the cut...  I finally got a part-time with a tech firm doing contractual installs for offices, but that was will-call as well... by Christmas 2012 Dad threatened and began plans to ship me up to my older brother's in Maryland (WINTER?!) to look for work in what he felt was a better employment environment.

Thank God this January I had three libraries interview me one right after the other... with Bartow, GOD BLESS THEM, offering me a job as their Reference and Computer training librarian.

I'd like to think I'm doing well here, that I'm fitting in (truth be told, my struggles losing a job and then trying to find one has left me with a bad case of "Oh GOD Don't Let Me Eff Up" that's got me more jumpy about how I'm doing than usual).

But in the meantime, while I've gotten out of unemployment purgatory, there's still Seven percent of Americans (and that's just the official numbers, the real numbers are far worse) stuck in unemployment, with clear evidence that the long-term unemployed (those out of work for more than six months) are really screwed by HR offices and companies who won't take in experienced older workers or anyone viewed as a hire risk.

We need a Jobs bill in this country.  We need to force companies to turn their record profits into more jobs or at least better wages for existing employees.  We need to make the economy based on employment, not stock options.

To everyone out there still looking for work, I hope and pray the best for you.  If you need help looking, check at your libraries for job-hunting help and resume tips.  Stay active in politics to vote the right people - the ones pushing for REAL JOBS, not tax cuts for companies already rolling in profits - into office at the state and federal level.  Hell, GO to the local political (okay, go Democrat, because I honestly think the Republicans would ignore this issue or defame it) offices and sign up to run for state office on a Jobs-Jobs-Jobs platform.  The more candidates we've got out there pushing for real job creation, the better our chances.

Good luck.  Here's hoping your anniversaries for firing fade quick and for hiring come quick.

Indulging In a Little Fantasy Here

The thing about sitting on the outside looking in, to be honest, is that this makes you a critic.

It's easy to sit on the sidelines and complain about the stupid moves your football team makes.  To be fair, today for the Tampa Bay Bucs was a stupid "why the hell did you waste everyone's time with this crap" day.  Anyway.  It's easy to look at the political circus inside the Beltway and go "What.  The.  F-CK."  Criticizing is easy: you just point and mock.

But there's gotta be something more than that.  Mockery doesn't do much other than generate laughs and make the targets unhappy, if they even care about your opinion.  The best type of critique is the constructive critique: recognizing an honest attempt and building on it, noting a flaw that can be fixed and suggesting how that fix can be made.

When I started this blog 499 posts ago, it was designed to be a place to provide something constructive: suggested amendment ideas that would reform the flaws in government and law that had been weakening our system and letting things fall apart.  Of course, things being what they were this place quickly revolved around the "things p-ssing me off" at the state, national and global level to where I changed the title and intent.  (That was Post 400, just in April of this year.  I'd been blogging like crazy since then... )

But I'd like to think I can still do some constructive work here.  Something of importance.  Something that could get a dialogue going.  Something to stroke the ego... wait no, even better the SUPEREGO!  ...what do you mean, I've gotten that confused with my Id?  Dammit...

So, here now, if you can indulge in my fantasies a little bit, is Post 500:

Let's just say, just humor me for a moment here, that on Nov. 8, 2016, through no fault of my own I'm able to convince 60 million of my fellow Americans with enough Electoral pull into voting for me as the 45th President of the United States.  In a three-way race between myself, Democratic Martin O'Malley, and Republican Rick Santorum 60 million would be more than enough to win the popular vote (O'Malley having earned the Dem nomination when Hillary Clinton bowed out to health issues and Santorum surviving a brutal 50-way primary fight between every Tea Partier rabblerouser on the circuit), and the Electoral count for me getting Florida as a Favored Crazy Resident, winning over moderates in the Midwest states, and a surprise win in California when my roast of Kevin Smith turns into a laugh riot highlight of the year (O'Malley comes in second with key wins for Texas and New York, Santorum a distant third getting only South Carolina and Mississippi).

If I've won over 60 million voters I'd like to think it was because of my key platform position of Jobs Jobs and JOBS.  Hell, this would be my bumper sticker:

I admit I will need a graphics design office when I campaign...

Our economy is still weak on job creation.  It's even worse when it comes to fair, affordable wages.  Unless there's a massive turnaround with a jobs stimulus bill between now and 2016, the need for "Good Jobs at Good Wages" is going to be high.

That blue line is CEO pay.  See those flat lines at the bottom?  That the minimum wage and also workers' wages.

With regards to other platform issues I'd run on, it'd mostly be the amendment ideas I've been hawking over the years, with a focus on making Congress more accountable to their ethical requirements (i.e. STOP LYING) and a focus on ensuring fair regulation of businesses to ensure workplace safety and consumer protection.  I'd have a foreign policy platform of diplomacy over military action, a domestic program to reform the NSA to require more stringent warrants and strict oversight, and a requirement to stop Hollywood from making unnecessary movie remakes.  Seriously, we're at the point the studios are going to remake a movie released two months ago...

Can I get any of my platform enacted by a Congress riven by partisan strife?  Sure.  Of course.  Dear reader, please note: this is my fantasy.  Let me indulge in the belief that I would march right into the halls of Congress and get every critter in office fainting over my mere presence.  With my State of the Union speech in hand, I will parade before the nation and say for all to know... (gets shouted down by wingnuts crying all "Liar!" "Socialist Fascist HitlerStalin!" "Smelly pants!" "Booooooggggggeerrrrrrrrrrrrr...")

Wow.  Even in my fantasy, they're not gonna let me get a word in...

What say you, people?  Do I have a shot in 2016? Anybody?

We Need More Than Encouragement, We Need Assistance If We're Relocating People To Where the Jobs Are

The sluggish economy is still a big issue, despite Congress' and the media's inertia on the matter.

One problem has been the fact that some regions of the nation are free of the ravages of the Great Recession, and have healthy employment numbers with sizable job markets... but lack the numbers of people willing or able to live in those markets and fill those jobs.

Yglesias' article on the matter jumps straight into the numbers:

In the metropolitan area centered around Yuma, Ariz., the Bureau of Labor Statistics believes that the unemployment rate is a terrifying 31.8 percent. Just a bit west is El Centro, Calif., with America’s second-highest jobless rate—23.6 percent. Yuba City and Merced, both also in inland California, come next, with unemployment rates of over 14 percent.

Drive about 800 miles north of Yuma and you’ll come to another small metropolitan area, centered around Logan, Utah, where conditions are very different. In the Logan area, the unemployment rate is just 4.6 percent. It’s as if the full employment economy of the late 1990s were still in swing, while Yuma’s joblessness is worse than the Great Depression.

Lack of mobility is hardly the cause of macroeconomic distress in the United States. But it’s not helping. And it turns out that the population has grown more moving-averse over time. This aversion appears to be particularly concentrated among the native-born working class and especially men—not coincidentally the precise group that has suffered the most severe downward pressure on wages.

Part of the reasons for the lack of relocation is that the ones hardest hit by the Recession - the middle-class families - are tied down by various obligations: homes they can't sell "above water" (home values haven't returned to what they were back in 2007 when the crash hit) are big obligations.

Yglesias takes the opportunity to point out how mobility in previous economic cycles actually helped the economy:

But the existence of good reasons not to move doesn’t explain the decline in mobility. Back in 1985 over 20 percent of the population moved. That number fell steadily to 11.6 percent in 2011 before ticking back up to 12 percent last year. What’s more, even if you just look at interstate moves, a lot of the shifting doesn’t appear to be related to a search for employment...  This is bad for unemployed people in Rhode Island and Nevada who perhaps could be getting work in Vermont and North Dakota. But it’s also bad for the broader economy. An outflow of unemployed people from high-joblessness regions would reduce pressure on state and local budgets. And in the low unemployment areas, the arrival of more workers wouldn’t just fill job openings. Their presence would make local labor markets more efficient and would spur investment, as the new workers need places to live, places to shop, and tools to work with. That in turn increases demand for goods and services nationally as regions that produce capital equipment or primary commodities get a boost.

In some respects, it would be in our nation's interests to get some funding going to 1) help families relocate to jobs, 2) help families pay down mortgages on homes so they can afford to sell the homes as part of the relocation effort and 3) help communities with sizable job openings entice relocators and provide social services to help families adjust to the moves.

So, of course, Congress ain't doing much on this because it doesn't help them repeal ObamaCare for the 42nd time.

/headdesk

If the voters of this nation had any collective common sense, they'd vote into office in the 2014 midterms politicians sworn to pass jobs bills.  Any jobs bills for our returning veterans would help.  Any jobs bills fixing our broken bridges would help.  Any jobs bills helping families move to where the jobs are would help.

The Real Scandal In DC: No One Cares

For all the yelling and screaming we've heard about Benghazi... for all the yelling and screaming we're gonna hear about the IRS investigating Tea Party groups... the real problem in Washington DC is that no one in power really gives a crap about the long-term unemployed and even the lucky-for-now employed average Americans struggling through this austerity-cramped "recovery".

To wit, from Derek Thompson at The Atlantic:

On April 24, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar scheduled a hearing. Fun story, right? A hearing in Washington is like a fern in the rainforest. But this hearing was notable for both its subject and its attendance. It was a meeting about the most important economic crisis facing America today: long-term unemployment. At 10:30am, the hearing began. She was the only attendant...I have two stories for you about Washington and the economy. Both true. But very different.The first story is called: How Washington Saved the Economy. You might begin in 2008, when the Federal Reserve went on an unprecedented spree of asset-buying to un-gunk the banks, push down interest rates, and spur investing in mortally weakened economy. This was followed, in 2009, with an equally historic stimulus package aimed at filling holes in state budgets and sending cash back to families and businesses... There is little question that monetary and fiscal stimulus blunted the recession -- and saved the economy.The second story is called: How Washington Permanently Scarred the Labor Market. You might begin this story in 2011, when Congress (led by Republican obstructionism) embarked on a historic quest to crush deficit spending by any means necessary. Hold the economy hostage over the debt ceiling? Check. Kill the American Jobs Act while scheduling a too-awful-to-be-a-real-law sequester? Check. Allow the too-awful-to-be-a-real-law sequester to become a real law? Checkmate... The deficit fell fast. As unemployment ebbed, the ranks of long-term jobless calcified, creating two separate job markets. One broken market for people out of work for more than six months. And another slowly healing market for everybody else. But the combination of a thermostatic recovery and a deep aversion to stimulus crushed any hope that the long-term unemployed would get the help they needed. Long-term unemployment isn't special just because it's longer; it's special because it's self-perpetuating. Skills atrophy, networks dry up, and employers discriminate, creating a vicious cycle of joblessness that can't be cured by normal economic growth...

Enough to make one rage, don't it?  Pity of it is, there's no lobby group for unemployed people.  It costs money to hire a lobbying firm: unemployed people by sheer fact of no job/no money means they can't afford one.  Meanwhile, banks and anti-union business owners and rich people can afford lobbyists by the limo load, meaning they can drown out the local echo chamber to their hearts' content.  Without dedicated political activism in the place where it really matters - the halls of Congress - the unemployed are screwed.

To the seven people reading this blog: Swear upon your personal honor to find and support any and all political candidates pledged to pass a jobs stimulus bill campaigning for 2014.  Swear it!  Not to me.  Swear it to the millions of unemployed and underemployed Americans who need our help.

.

The Saturnalia Wish List of 2012 That Even Mayans Would Like

Heya!  Once again, every reader from Japan, Russia and elsewhere linking to this site for the "funny Iran military" pictures on that Iran Day Six article, as part of our effort in the WAR ON BILL O'REILLY'S CHRISTMAS we here at this blog celebrate the life-affirming pagan holiday known as Saturnalia! The day where fully expect the Mayans to show up even though their calendar ends on 12/21.  Okay Mayans, you're bringing the homemade brew and you know it!

Anywho. As part of tradition, I'm posting my wishlist to The Roman Lord of Time (hi there!) in the mad hopes that the pagan gods will once again after thousands of years notice us tiny insignificant lifeforms, and smite our enemies and grant us boons.

So here's the wish list!

1) A freaking full-time job.

2) No, seriously, a full-time job.  It's been 4 years since I lost my job as a librarian, I've been looking for anything related to my skill sets, only just recently getting a part-time on-call job working desktop support, but it's been hard as hell to find anything thanks to a Congress that refuses to do any kind of Jobs Stimulus package to encourage more hiring and boosting of the economy.  It's not the deficits or the debt that's the problem, you Beltway morans, it's the LACK OF JOBS!  THE LACK OF WAGES TO PAY FOR SH-T LIKE COLLEGE LOANS AND MORTGAGES AND KIDS' SCHOOLING AND HEALTH CARE!  /rage

3) 50,000 people buying my ebooks!  If I can't have a job, at least a boost of income from ebook sales...

4) Grover Norquist forced to watch as dreaded TAXES GO UP, and the universe failing to implode, demonstrating once and for all THAT HE'S AN IDIOT.

5) A nice stocking stuffer would be this GravityLight thingee someone's trying to market.  For $5 a pop, you get a light source off of an LED light (the wave of the future) by using simple mechanics (pulley/gears) to charge up the light.  No batteries, no outlets, no burning of carbon fuels like oil or coal, just human energy lifting the weight up and viola!  We live in amazing times.

6) Yo, Obama!  If you need a reference librarian to shelve books in the West Wing, CALL ME...

7) That the civil war ends in Syria as soon as possible with as little loss of life than has already been lost; that Egyptian democracy endures on the streets as peaceful protests end the threat of dictatorship and Islamist extremism; that Iranian politics give way to moderate leadership more keen on economic and social well-being for their citizenry than on aggressive nuclear baiting against the U.S.,

8) That the traffic I got on this blog during October and November (2000 to 3000 views!) keeps up and I get some honest-to-Mithras comments for a change...

9) That voter suppression efforts that the GOP tried to inflict on people this election cycle get blocked, banned, and richly denied in order to ensure ALL voters have their rights protected for all time,

10) That the upcoming series of movies in 2013 - Star Trek Into Darkness, Man of Steel, Iron Man 3 - not suck.  Please o PLEASE SATURN LORD OF TIME, LET THESE MOVIES ROCK N ROLL...

There.  Oh, and again, make sure you forward any bills for your annual sacrificial bull get sent to Mr. O'Reilly care of Fox Not-News.  BWHAHAHAHAHA.

Enjoy the season!  ...and the countdown to the Mayan calendar continues...

What I Want To Hear From Obama On His Jobs Speech

Obama is set to appear tonight before a Joint Session of Congress to present a plan for doing something about the horrendous unemployment numbers that are miring our economy in the most prolonged recession this nation's ever seen (it's getting into Depression-type numbers, which is never good).

These are some of the things I'd like to hear Obama say:

"There is growing evidence that businesses and corporations are intentionally overlooking the long-term unemployed.  They are refusing to hire anyone who's been out of work longer than six months.  Even if that unemployed candidate has years of relevant experience.  This is wrong.  This is unacceptable.  It is prolonging our nation's economic woes by creating and expanding our unemployed population and putting more of a burden on our nation's social safety net already facing tight budget restrictions.  This is creating a self-fulfilling belief that the long-term unemployed are unemployable because, well, you're keeping them that way.  We need to look at this as discriminatory hiring practices, and we need to enforce hiring laws to tell corporations they need to hire more people who have been out of work for longer than six months, for longer than a year, for longer than two years.  Hire the long-term unemployed first before even thinking about hiring people who already have a job.  If we catch you hiring people who already have employment over people who've been begging and praying for work for years, we will fine your sorry corporate HR asses so much you'd think filing for bankruptcy will be cheaper."

"The vast long-term unemployed WANT to work.  They want to make something of their lives.  They want to earn a paycheck so they can feed their own families and pay for that roof over their heads.  There's not a one of them who prefers sitting at home doing nothing and earning unemployment benefits that barely covers the cost of weekly groceries or rent.  If any of you politicians even THINK of accusing the long-term unemployed as drug abusers or welfare queens, I will personally escort you to your district's or state's unemployment offices and have you sit there for six months so you can see how hard-pressed and desperate the unemployed REALLY ARE to find any work."

"That said.  FUCK YOU JIM DEMINT.  FUCK YOU AND YOUR BULLSHIT FANTASIES ABOUT THE UNEMPLOYED BEING LAZY."  (NOTE: Yes, I want Obama to say this.  After the Joe Wilson "You Lie" crap, why pretend civility is a part of Congress anymore?)

"There is no evidence that cutting taxes creates jobs.  There is no evidence that cutting regulations creates jobs.  What we do know is that cutting taxes INCREASES the federal deficits to unsustainable levels.  What we do know is that cutting regulations or ignoring regulations to make profits leads to increased pollution, unsafe work areas, and people dying.  So to my Republicans opponents: STOP SHILLING TAX CUTS AND DEREGULATION AS JOB-CREATORS.  You're selling snake oil, you fuckers."

"What we need in this country is another WPA.  We need to get construction jobs up and running.  We need to repair bridges and roads that haven't been fixed or upgraded in 40 years.  We need to repair and upgrade nuclear reactors that are 20 years past their expiration date, and yes while nuclear reactors carry enormous risk our energy needs rely on them right now, so we need to upgrade them to newer safer models than the old-style reactors from 40 years ago that aren't as safe against earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes and other natural disasters.  We need to replace schools older than 20 years, make them compatible with today's technologies, so we can start teaching our children on the tools of today and tomorrow.  We need to get people working: for every one person who was hired back during the WPA of the 1930s, that job created two other jobs in response."

"All we need is a construction-jobs program that hires people across this nation.  The WPA of the 1930s hired 8 million people.  We don't need to go that big.  We can hire 4 million people, and if one WPA job creates two more that can translate up to 12 million Americans getting jobs, cutting more than half of our unemployment numbers right there.  IT WORKED BEFORE AND IT CAN WORK AGAIN."

"And we can pay for this new WPA.  We can look at our budgets and make the adjustments needed to make budget room for this jobs program.  We can eliminate some of the tax credits on billionaires that won't hurt their wallets but will pay back into this jobs programs FOR ALL AMERICANS to benefit.  IT WORKED BEFORE AND IT CAN WORK AGAIN."

"Our nation's economy is struggling.  We can't ignore that.  One of the two reasons our economy is struggling is because we lack the jobs to hire the unemployed.  We can solve that with a jobs bill.  But we can't ignore the other reason our economy is struggling, and that is the household debt our citizens are fighting.  And the largest form of household debt are mortgages.  Too many families are struggling at too-low incomes paying off mortgages on houses whose values have gone underwater.  Our housing industry is facing another series of destructive foreclosures and abandoned properties.  Each foreclosure lowers the property values of everyone else's homes surrounding them.  This is making it hard for people to sell their homes if they have to move to new jobs.  This is making it hard for people to pay off their mortgages, period.  And this is shuffling their debts from one thing to another like their overdrawn credit cards or unpaid college loans.  Above all, paying off all this debt is making it impossible for our citizens to pay for anything else like products and services that would boost our consumer-driven economy.  We need to look into resolving some of these debt issues.  Instead of bailing out banks, bail out the mortgage holders.  Help them pay off their mortgages to where their homes are no longer underwater.  Help pay off their mortgages so none of them fall into foreclosure.  By helping them, we free up the banks overwhelmed with foreclosures to begin making safe loans that can stabilize our housing market."

"And again, I cannot stress this enough, FUCK YOU JIM DEMINT.  FUCK YOU SIDEWAYS WITH A CHAINSAW."

"Thank you, God Bless to all the families across our nation, God Bless the United States of America."

The Thing Bothering Me About Job Hunting

Other than the fact that my librarian background simply doesn't fit in too well with about 78 percent of the job market...

What bothers me is that *I* have to go to the employers for their job openings.  Offering my resume, typing in application forms, begging for interviews.  The problem is, each employer has their own requirements/requests for resumes... and different means of typing in application forms.  It gets frustrating that I gotta waste an hour or two tweaking each resume submission, or typing in a brand new application form.

Why can't we reverse the process?  Have all job search engines work the other way?  Have the human resources department come looking for US, based on our one standardized resume, no applications to fill, just come to us and take a quick look and see if we pass the preliminary before calling us for an interview?

I mean, THEY know what they're looking for.  The HR people can spot and keyword search within reason, and narrow the searches down and get us on the phone pronto.  Why have 100,000 unqualified people overwhelm a Human Resources office with half-assed resumes for one job, when the HR people can search a resume database, whittle it down to 5-10 people they like, and go from there?

Better still, at job fairs, sit the unemployed people down at a table, have our resumes displayed in front of us, and have the HR people walk by us and window-shop, pointing out "How much for that librarian in the window?" before taking us home for work and feeding?

Sigh.  It's been two years plus doing this.  We need a change of employment methods.  This current method, it just ain't working for me and 17 million other people...

The Problem Of The Unemployed, And Why We Need To Get the Long-Term Unemployed Back To Work

Over on Ta-Nehisi's Open Thread (For The Horde) for the day, commenter JHarper2 wrote an entry about the suffering he's enduring with kidney disease and the long wait he has for surgery and treatment.

Most of his entry borrows the writing of a young Irish woman (Regina H) also suffering while waiting for a replacement kidney, and while the original gist of the article is about enduring an illness, the woman writer compares the wait to being unemployed: (highlights mine)

...This week, I spoke with an academic who has studied the effects of unemployment, psychologically as well as socially.

He talked me through Year One. How the initial stress and nail-biting over bills and mortgages fades into feelings of depression, of failure. The gradual and growing feeling of becoming invisible.

The back-end of Year One is a watershed, for if Year One becomes Year Two, then the unemployed person is statistically unlikely to ever work again. They are then classed as long-term unemployed. Bye-bye fulfillment, farewell dignity, rest in peace all the hopes and dreams of that fragile human being.

It is not that they are suddenly useless. No, it is because over the months of nothingness, they become the disappointed parent to their own situation; they fill their heads and their sleepless nights with criticisms of how they have let themselves and their families down.

Their confidence is an early casualty, they become depressed, they start staying up late and losing the best part of the day to a lethargy that doesn't lift until noon. They falter their way through a calendar's worth of groundhog days, until they sink into dependency, and then, they stay there.

This conversation was of an enormous amount of interest to me, mostly because the feelings described were familiar.

I asked him to differentiate between levels of damage: the impact of being out of work as a result of this blasted recession VS the impact of not working because you are sick.

He told me all his hefty books would say there should be a world of difference. Being able-bodied and idle should have worse consequences than being unwell and unproductive...

The comparison of unemployment to illness is apt: not the physical aspects of illness but the psychological effects.  The ennui.  The repetition of useless duties about the house.  Withdrawal from friends and the world (mostly because you can't afford to).  Isolation and regret and doubt and no one else relying on you for good things to happen.  Sleepless nights.

And I see all those signs in myself: Unemployed now for two years and counting, unable to wake up early, unmotivated half the time, stuck in minor routines, questioning every action I commit to, staying up past 2 in the morning some nights for no reason but just sitting there both bored and unable to carry myself to bed...

I job interviewed this Monday.  The potential employer's stress question was "Why do you think you'll do a great job here?"  I answered "Because I've worked public service when I worked with libraries, and... there's that satisfaction of helping someone get that one thing, that one book off the shelf they were looking for. It's like... you know, when you help get a turtle off the road and walk him back to the swamp so he doesn't get hit by a car, and you feel good for the whole day because you saved that turtle, and that really happened to me too when I worked in Broward, I saved a turtle and felt good for the whole day, that's what I get out of doing a great job."

I wanna get back to work.  I wanna get back to thinking I can help people, that I can do something, that what I do has value.  I wanna get back to saving at least one turtle a day.

Dear Federal Government: WE NEED JOBS.  Dear Corrupt Bastard Overlords of Finance: WE NEED JOBS.

Now.
 

Been Trying For Days to Think of a Coherent Argument In Defense of Unions, But the Best I Got Is "Damn You To Hell, Koch Brothers"

The recent fight in Wisconsin (and now other GOP-held states) over Governor Walker's attempt to break the public unions by restricting their rights and basically eliminating unions' right to collectively bargain deserves a ton of commentary, but I can't necessarily come up with anything refined like an essay on the issues.  It's mostly sheer rage at the gall of the Republicans that they are so blatant about going after workers' unions during a jobless economic recession.

So here instead are some links:

Huffington Post article about how union members REALLY ARE NOT THAT OVERPAID.

A reporter faking he was "David Koch", one of the deepest pockets among the GOP financial backers, was able to bluff his way past staffers to get a one-on-one with Governor Walker, who amiably chatted about how he was gonna bust the unions and provide a role model for other GOP governors to do the same.  Jokes about using violence, and a serious discussion on hiring people to infiltrate the protesters to incite violence were part of the discussion


That Walker was planning to trick the absent Democratic senators back to the state under the pretense of negotiation... and then force a quorum to allow the legislature to push through his anti-union bill... means that if those Democrats had any goddamn brain cells in them they'd best wait on returning until Walker can get recalled out of office.  Unfortunately, that's gonna take a year at least...

A review of Walker's planned budget is being labeled a "Bait and Switch".  Meaning it's gonna screw honest people the hardest.

The fact that a guy claiming to be a deep-pocket financial backer can get a direct call to the governor, while ordinary citizens and the press get nothing but static, highlights the serious problem of access that the wealthy have to our politicians.

And the legal and ethical ramifications of what Walker said are floating about the intertubes.

One other thing: Unions don't kill state budgets.  Weak housing markets (and I can attest to that here in "right to work" non-union Florida with its' collapsed home ownership/property development market) do.