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In the Weekly Standard blog, Mark Hemingway says the jobs number is even more dismal than you think.
According to the unemployment data released this morning, the economy added only 54,000 jobs, pushing the unemployment rate up to 9.1 percent. However, this report from MarketWatch suggests the data is much worse than that:
“McDonald’s ran a big hiring day on April 19 — after the Labor Department’s April survey for the payrolls report was conducted — in which 62,000 jobs were added. That’s not a net number, of course, and seasonal adjustment will reduce the Hamburglar impact on payrolls. (In simpler terms — restaurants always staff up for the summer; the Labor Department makes allowance for this effect.) Morgan Stanley estimates McDonald’s hiring will boost the overall number by 25,000 to 30,000. The Labor Department won’t detail an exact McDonald’s figure — they won’t identify any company they survey — but there will be data in the report to give a rough estimate.”
If Morgan Stanley is correct, about half of last month’s job growth came from the venerable fast-food chain. That is hardly the sign of a healthy economy.
Craig Pirrong, The Streetwise Professor, strikes at the heart of the problem with our current gangster government. Equal treatment under law is replaced with arbitrary rulings based on the political whims of the government class. In the instance Pirrong relates, the DOE warns (threatens) a company that has been given license to export natural gas.
…Greg Meyer of the FT, who wrote a good article on the company’s change in fortune, pointed out to me this language in the Department of Energy’s decision approving Cheniere’s application to export gas:
“We intend to monitor those conditions in the future to ensure that the exports of LNG authorized herein and in any future authorizations of natural gas exports do not subsequently lead to a reduction in the supply of natural gas needed to meet essential domestic needs. The cumulative impact of these export authorizations could pose a threat to the public interest. DOE is authorized, after opportunity for a hearing and for good cause shown, to take action as is necessary or appropriate should circumstances warrant it. Furthermore, DOE/FE will evaluate the cumulative impact of the instant authorization and any future authorizations for export authority when considering any subsequent application for such authority.”
…It is a threat to micromanage trade…through coercion. …
It is also a piece with this administration’s modus operendi–what Richard Epstein calls “government by waiver” in this typically incisive article. A government agency arrogates to itself the discretion to permit or disallow individuals and firms to engage in voluntary transactions, with only the vaguest statement of the criteria it will use to make these decisions. …Note that there is not even an assertion–let alone a proof–of a real externality (as opposed to a pecuniary, distributive one) to justify this threat of intervention. This is purely a threat to use coercion to achieve a politically desirable distribution of wealth between producers and consumers of natural gas.
…All this really means is: we will do what we want when we want for whatever damn reason we want. It is, as Epstein argues, the antithesis of the rule of law…
…When every regulator at every government agency has the power–and the active encouragement of the political authorities–to say “Nice little business you got here. Wouldn’t want anything to happen to it, would you?” one should not be surprised that these businesses are reluctant to invest or hire. Not in Putin’s Russia. Not in Obama’s United States. …
In the Telegraph Blogs, UK, Nile Gardiner posts that listening to Paul Ryan speak reminds him of another great optimist who had faith in the greatness of America.
…Like Reagan, Ryan is driven by a deep-seated belief in free market conservatism, in addition to a powerful sense of American greatness and exceptionalism. He also shares Reagan’s mantra that America’s prosperity and projection of power in the world can only rest upon a sound national defence, with the strong investment in the nation’s military that entails.
…No doubt in response to President Obama’s penchant for apologising for America’s past and his “leading from behind” foreign policy, Ryan also made a Reagan-like tribute to American exceptionalism, and a firm defence of Western civilisation:
“Today, some in this country relish the idea of America’s retreat from our role in the world. …
This view applies moral relativism on a global scale. Western civilization and its founding moral principles might be good for the West, but who are we to suggest that other systems are any worse? – or so the thinking goes.
Instead of heeding these calls to surrender, we must renew our commitment to the idea that America is the greatest force for human freedom the world has ever seen; a country whose devotion to free enterprise has lifted more people out of poverty than any economic system ever designed; and a nation whose best days still lie ahead of us, if we make the necessary choices today. …”
Jennifer Rubin comments on various topics in Representative Ryan’s recent speech.
…And finally on defense spending, he rejects the sort of penny-pinching isolationism of Jon Huntsman or Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.):
‘A more prosperous economy enables us to afford a modernized military that is properly sized for the breadth of the challenges we face. Such a military must also be an efficient and responsible steward of taxpayer dollars in order to maintain the confidence of the American people. The House-passed budget recognizes this, which is why it includes the $78 billion in defense efficiency savings identified by Secretary Gates.
By contrast, President Obama has announced $400 billion in new defense cuts, saying in effect he’ll figure out what those cuts mean for America’s security later. Indiscriminate cuts that are budget-driven and not strategy-driven are dangerous to America and America’s interests in the world. Secretary Gates put it well: “That’s math, not strategy.” ‘
This should dispel any doubts as to whether Ryan is simply a “budget guy.” He is, rather, one of the few politicians on the national stage who can weave specific policy themes with particulars and can demonstrate the connection (misunderstood or entirely missed by some of the GOP contenders or former contenders) between conservative economic principles and American foreign policy and values. And who else could get the support of the Hamilton Society and Tea Partyers?
Alana Goodman, in Contentions, highlights quotes from Ryan’s speech.
…On American exceptionalism. “America’s ‘exceptionalism’ is just this—while most nations at most times have claimed their own history or culture to be exclusive, America’s foundations are not our own—they belong equally to every person everywhere. The truth that all human beings are created equal in their natural rights is the most “inclusive” social truth ever discovered as a foundation for a free society. ‘All’ means ‘all’! You can’t get more ‘inclusive’ than that!”
…On human rights. “Now, if you believe these rights are universal human rights, then that clearly forms the basis of your views on foreign policy. It leads you to reject moral relativism. It causes you to recoil at the idea of persistent moral indifference toward any nation that stifles and denies liberty, no matter how friendly and accommodating its rulers are to American interests. . . .
On the policy of appeasement. “We have a responsibility to speak boldly for those whose voices are denied by the jackbooted thugs of the tired tyrants of Syria and Iran.” …
In the Weekly Standard, Christopher Caldwell discusses declining housing values and criticizes the homebuyer’s tax credit.
…You can see why the market for poor people’s homes might be weaker than the market for rich people’s. The less well-off get punished on both the supply side and the demand side. On the supply side there is an overhang of about 4 million homes that have either been foreclosed on or are severely delinquent. Of these about 2 million are foreclosed properties, according to Zillow. (A Wells Fargo expert quoted in the Washington Post puts the figure somewhat higher, at 2.2 million.) On the demand side, almost every month sees a retreat in the percentage of homes that are owner-occupied. It reached close to 70 percent in the middle years of the Bush administration. It now stands at 66.2 percent, roughly where it was midway through the Clinton administration. One can assume that poorer buyers are leaving the market disproportionately.
This is how we know that this recent collapse in house prices was not anticipated, at least not by anyone in a position of authority. Right now, the real estate market is a mighty engine of regressivity. The government, following its familiar model, has used an $8,000 tax credit to lure the poor into the market and saddle them with an asset that is rapidly losing value.
This is a model that goes beyond real estate. It was also the philosophy of the cash-for-clunkers program. At vast expense, the government creates a tiny bit of consumer demand that fizzes and sparkles for a few months and then disappears without leaving a trace—except in the federal deficit.
We have more commentary on David Mamet’s new book and new views; this time from Kurt Loder, in Reason.
…Now, his migration complete, Mamet says, “I look back upon my Liberal political beliefs with a sort of wonder—as another exercise in self-involvement—rewarding myself for some superiority I could not logically describe.”
…it is exhilarating to hear so much common sense expressed with such forceful eloquence: “The honest man might observe…that no one gets something for nothing; that politicians go in poor and go out rich; that the Government screws up everything it touches; and that the Will to Believe is best confined to the Religious Venue, as to practice it elsewhere is just too damned expensive.”
Mamet is not a man with a plan. Neither the right nor the left is to be entirely trusted, and a complete national salvation may remain forever beyond our grasp. “We are a democracy,” he writes, “and as such do not generally elect our best people to office. How could we? They weren’t running.”
Andrew Malcolm rounds up late-night, in the LA Times.
…Fallon: Herman Cain, former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, says he’s running for president. And this is cool — if his campaign isn’t over in 30 minutes or less, you get your pizza for free!
…Conan: Over 6 million people attended Cuba’s International Book Fair a while back. As usual, the most popular book sold was “How to Build a Raft Out of This Book.”
…Fallon: Today is National Hug Your Cat Day! Or as cats call it, “Yeah, don’t do that.”