Yearly Archives: 2013

By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Tonight I want to focus on only two topics: First, ObamaCare apologists, Democratic operatives, and career “progressives” have been peddling the Big Lie that ObamaCare is universal. WaPo’s Sarah Kliff has a story today: Left behind: Stories from Obamacare’s 31 million uninsured; I’ve been saying 30 million, but heck, who’s counting? Enough with the “universal,” already! At least for these United States. Because anybody who’s been paying attention to the heath care reform debates knows that there’s already a truly universal, proven system, on this very continent, in a country with a culture and a political system very much like our own, and called, amazingly enough, Medicare:

Andrew J. Bacevich is a professor of history and international relations at Boston University.  He is the author of the new book, Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country (Metropolitan Books). Originally published at TomDispatch.

Sometimes history happens at the moment when no one is looking.  On weekends in late August, the president of the United States ought to be playing golf or loafing at Camp David, not making headlines.  Yet Barack Obama chose Labor Day weekend to unveil arguably the most consequential foreign policy shift of his presidency.  

By Michael Hoexter, a policy analyst and marketing consultant on green issues, climate change, clean and renewable energy, and energy efficiency. Originally published at New Economic Perspectives. This is the third of three parts. Part two is here.

Market Transformation Policies: Harnessing Self-Interest for the General Interest

With the assumption that government has the right to intervene and shape markets for the public good, the below policies will drive consumers and private investors to help shape the zero-carbon energy system.  The motivational forces harnessed by these policy instruments are narrow individual and business self-interest (i.e. increasing monetary income, decreasing monetary costs).

By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Yes, ObamaCare, even if it has been driven off the front page by the NSA and Syria, is still lurching along; there are 23 days ’til open enrollment begins, even if October 1 has been very conveniently redefined as a “soft launch” that doesn’t really matter, the only date that really matters being January 1, 2014, when you can actually purchase the ObamaCare product, because Jeebus, who wants to make huge household budget decisions that could affect your 2013 1040 in 2013? (But can’t somebody tell HHS that October 1 doesn’t matter? Because it’s all over their site.)

By Michael Hoexter, a policy analyst and marketing consultant on green issues, climate change, clean and renewable energy, and energy efficiency. Originally published at New Economic Perspectives. This is the second of three parts. Part one is here.

Policy Instruments to Realize the Pedal-to-the-Metal Plan

The above list of technological changes to radically reduce and eventually zero-out society’s emissions using current and near-future technologies would represent the largest construction project in the history of humankind by far, occurring over several decades.  While these developments are required to preserve something that resembles society and what might be called appreciable human wealth, in themselves they are not objects of desire for significant portions of the public nor do many private investors see attractive returns in them, so that it cannot be said that market demand currently exists for this type of transformation.  Still, many individuals would probably come to enjoy, for instance, the amenities offered by the zero-carbon infrastructure once built, as political battles and the battles around finances, land use and the noise and inconveniences of the construction period had receded into the past.

By Hugh, who is a long-time commenter at Naked Capitalism. Originally published at Corrente. A complete archive of Hugh’s reports can be found here.

The short version:
August is the month where large numbers of students return to school. The BLS defines the unemployed as those actively seeking work. Since many students are not actively seeking work at this time, the size of the labor force and both the number of employed and unemployed decrease in seasonal terms in August. Consequently, unadjusted, the labor force declined by 1.225 million. The number of employed dropped by 604,000, and the number of unemployed declined by 621,000. (The sum of these two equals the drop in the labor force.) As a reflection of this, the number of part time workers for economic reasons decreased 634,000.

As expected, these declines are moderated in the seasonally adjusted data, with the labor force decreasing by 312,000, and employment dropping by 115,000 and the unemployed by 198,000.

The jobs or business data are, in part, at odds with the people data. While the labor force declined in August, the jobs data show the number of jobs increasing by 169,000 seasonally adjusted and 378,000 seasonally unadjusted. We may look on the seasonally adjusted number as suspect since the July number of 162,000 was revised downward 58,000 to 104,000 (which is below the level needed to keep up with population growth). In any case, the crapification of American jobs continues. Seasonally adjusted, retail trade added 44,000, healthcare 33,000, professional and business services 23,000, and food and drinking places 21,000. If your great ambition in life is flip burgers or work at Walmart, America remains the land of golden opportunity.

Hours increased slightly in August, and weekly pay reflected this, but both these improvements could be due in part to the stripping out of lower paying involuntary part time positions we saw in the household or people data. As usual, most of these gains were concentrated at the top end.

Real trend unemployment is now 5.2% above the “official” rate of 7.3%