American Politics during the Obama Presidency

[QUOTE=Esten;440711]The last time we had 6 consecutive months of 200K+ jobs was 1997. That's right, [B]1997[/B]. Not even Bush and all those tax cuts could do better. Again we see the epic exposure of Republican falsehoods that trickle-down economics is superior, that Obama's policies have failed, and that the Affordable Care Act is a big jobs killer.

The US economy also set a new record for consecutive months of private-sector job growth. The labor market is clearly strong.

No doubt the ODS crowd will try to claim that part time jobs are up, and that wage growth is anemic because of Obama. Let's see if they can make a convincing case that any weakness in these areas are due to Obama's policies, rather than effects of capitalism and corporatism.

The US Jobs Market Just Accomplished Something It Hasn't Done Since 1997
[URL]http://www.businessinsider.com/july-jobs-report-200k-growth-for-first-time-since-1997-2014-8[/URL][/QUOTE]Suffering from sometimers Esten? You are seriously crowing about 6 consecutive months of 200 k+ jobs when we already exposed the prior month was a loss of several hundred thousand full time jobs and gains of part time jobs? You know those full time jobs that Obamacare killed and the part time jobs that Obamacare created. You can keep on spinning, but those previously employed on a full time basis are not singing BO's praises.

This reminds me of the joke where the blond is sitting on a bench bragging about how she now has healthcare thanks to Obama. Her friend congratulated her and asked whether her employer had covered her. No, the blond replied. I qualified for free healthcare because my employer laid me off.

[URL]http://www.cnbc.com/id/101891054[/URL]

"But in the interview, Obama chided business for a lack of social responsibility, citing a "general view" that "the only responsibility that a corporate CEO has is to his shareholders. ".

The arrogance of that statement is astounding. Why should those running companies only be responsible to the owners of those companies? Maybe because that is their job. Want to be socially responsible with company employees and assets, ask the owners for permission to do so or else do it on your own time with your own money.

BO would make a great leader for Argentina.

[QUOTE=Dccpa;440724][URL]http://www.cnbc.com/id/101891054[/URL]

"But in the interview, Obama chided business for a lack of social responsibility, citing a "general view" that "the only responsibility that a corporate CEO has is to his shareholders. ".

The arrogance of that statement is astounding. Why should those running companies only be responsible to the owners of those companies? Maybe because that is their job. Want to be socially responsible with company employees and assets, ask the owners for permission to do so or else do it on your own time with your own money.

The BO would make a great leader for Argentina.[/QUOTE]I tell anybody who will listen that corporations have no business engaging in charitable or eleemosynary activities but nobody (except obviously you) gets it. Similarly I tell everybody that the corporate income tax is a complete fiction and a total waste of time and effort. These are both areas where emotion and rhetoric trump logic.

I think the CEO has a responsibility to the environment and to the community in which it operates, since this involves legitimate [B]stake[/B]holders (as opposed to [B]share[/B]holders). But I can't be green if my competitors aren't green, so hence you have regulations and I don't think you can expect a CEO to be any more environmentally conscious than society indicates its desire for (through the particular regulations selected). And, I think the best way the responsibility to the community can be discharged, given that environmental regs are being complied with, is to provide steady employment to the citizens of the community. And, the best way to do that is to be profitable. So I as CEO will seek to be as profitable as possible while complying with all the regulations that the community has indicated it wants. Then I will either pass those profits on to the shareholders as dividends, or retain them for expansion, or some of both. What I won't do is decide for the shareholders that saving the (spotted owl, harp seal, bastard children) is the right cause for them to contribute to. With multiple anonymous shareholders, how could corporate management possibly decide what charities the OWNERS of the corporation want to contribute to?

But every time I bring this up, I am just an unsympathetic scrooge.

Here's who the next Argie president should be, in my opinion. Saw him live once in Corrientes street.

[URL]http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicho_G%C3%B3mez[/URL]

Every day when it's time to open up the daily paper, we are so emotionally jaded that the tragic events we read seem like they are from a different planet. And there seem no end to it. So it's nice, that out of the conflicts, natural disasters and craziness, to read about one sane man who can make a major contribution to his fellow human beings. Being humble, generous, kind. I would like to be like that.

[URL]http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-leadership/wp/2014/08/05/kentucky-state-president-to-share-his-salary-with-schools-lowest-paid-workers/?hpid=z4[/URL]

[QUOTE=Dccpa;440718]Suffering from sometimers Esten? You are seriously crowing about 6 consecutive months of 200 k+ jobs when we already exposed the prior month was a loss of several hundred thousand full time jobs and gains of part time jobs? You know those full time jobs that Obamacare killed and the part time jobs that Obamacare created. You can keep on spinning, but those previously employed on a full time basis are not singing BO's praises.[/QUOTE]Cherry-picking and lies. Here is the data from BLS:

[URL]http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t09.htm[/URL]
[URL]http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12032194[/URL]

Full-time jobs did indeed drop from May to June. But they increased from June to July. Year-over-year, [U]full-time jobs are up 2.4M[/U] while [U]part-time jobs are down 0.1M[/U]. The May to June change was a complete outlier. In the BLS chart in the second link, "Part-Time for Economic Reasons" jobs are clearly in a downtrend. The drop in part-time jobs ("Working part time, but want full-time work") is also shown in this NYT table: [URL]http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/08/01/business/jobs-0802.html[/URL].

More importantly, there is no clear evidence that the Affordable Care Act is having any significant effect on jobs. There were some right wing propaganda sites that tried to spin the June jobs report that way, but not all. The conservative Washington Examiner wrote last month "There's no conclusive evidence linking Obamacare to the growth in part-time employment. " If it was such a fact, no conservative media outlet would be so out of step. Looks like you've been duped, Dccpa.

[QUOTE=Esten;440744]Cherry-picking and lies. Here is the data from BLS:

[URL]http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t09.htm[/URL]
[URL]http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12032194[/URL]

Full-time jobs did indeed drop from May to June. But they increased from June to July. Year-over-year, [U]full-time jobs are up 2.4M[/U] while [U]part-time jobs are down 0.1M[/U]. The May to June change was a complete outlier. In the BLS chart in the second link, "Part-Time for Economic Reasons" jobs are clearly in a downtrend. The drop in part-time jobs ("Working part time, but want full-time work") is also shown in this NYT table: [URL]http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/08/01/business/jobs-0802.html[/URL].

More importantly, there is no clear evidence that the Affordable Care Act is having any significant effect on jobs. There were some right wing propaganda sites that tried to spin the June jobs report that way, but not all. The conservative Washington Examiner wrote last month "There's no conclusive evidence linking Obamacare to the growth in part-time employment. " If it was such a fact, no conservative media outlet would be so out of step. Looks like you've been duped, Dccpa.[/QUOTE]Speaking of lies, how about your first link? Here is a nice simple summary from your chosen web site that doesn't try to dazzle with details. Where oh where is that 2. 4 jobs you mentioned? I only see 330 k you for July and yoy for June showed a net loss.

[URL]http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/surveymost[/URL]

Now look at your second link. Notice the increase, let me say that again, INCREASE in part time jobs since Obamacare took effect. And before you try to spin the yoy decrease, that has been mentioned by employers that they cut jobs as Obamacare took effect in January. We won't know the full effect of the job damage from Obamacare for years.

[QUOTE=Dccpa;440750] We won't know the full effect of the job damage from Obamacare for years.[/QUOTE]The Congressional Budget Office tried to estimate it, and came up with the loss of 2. 5 million full time job equivalents by 2024:

[URL]http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/45010-breakout-AppendixC.pdf[/URL]

I don't know that we want to go to the European extreme, but as society industrializes, the work week normally shrinks. So it might be time to re-think the idea of 40 hours as full time. I admit it's handy since it divides the 24 hour day nicely and if we wanted to maintain that the work week would have to go to 32 (or 4 eights) and that seems a bit low to remain competitive. You look at carbon footprints and so forth and it argues for more hours per day and fewer days per week. I think moving to 4 tens as the norm would increase productivity and reduce employee expenses. At least in my state, you would still be looking at 20 minutes of paid break and 30 minutes of unpaid lunch whether it's 5 eights or 4 tens, so you'd gain 20 minutes per week as an employer. Employees would largely prefer it and it would have positive externalities.

No new schools should be built until all schools are operating say 80 hours per week. Government offices should be open from 7 AM to 9 PM. Basically, physical facilities should be used exhaustively like they are in the private sector. That's going to mean more maintenance expense and we need to address the roads and bridges sooner rather than later. Now, the tax burden falls on the transporter. There is a free rider problem. I don't have a car, so I pay no gas tax, but yet I consume products that were transported by rail or truck, so I still have an interest in a good transportation infrastructure whether I drive or not.

Libertarians and their ilk tend to support usage-based fees and so do I, but the problem is, usage can be really tricky to figure out. I more think that infrastructure should be financed from general rather than specific revenues. Like an airport. Suppose I am afraid to fly so I never fly. Does that mean I don't benefit from the airport? I still do because people can visit me, and I can send freight, and some goods can be marketed more cheaply by air whether I fly or not, and so forth. Non-drivers are free riders. They don't pay for driver's licenses or gas or anything like that, but they still benefit from the existence of roads.

Obamacare is going to increase the free rider problem, but my guess is that the increase in the coverage rate will offset this. We can now see that the states that somewhat inexplicably decided not to expand Medicaid are not seeing coverage increases, but those states that expanded have seen very significant gains:

[URL]http://www.press-citizen.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/05/obama-health-law-tale-two-americas/13655519/[/URL]

The truest test of any society is how it treats its weaker members and increased health care coverage, especially coverage for preventive care, is a definite step in the right direction. It might take 100 years to hit the tilting point where the future benefits are greater than the past costs, but I don't think so. I think we are already there. Just think about how heinous it was to not cover people with pre-existing conditions. What the fuck were they supposed to do, just curl up and die? I think that ultimately, the Affordable Car Act will [B]increase[/B] labor force participation, due to better pre-natal, infant, youth, and adult continuing care, although that might take a generation or two.

Dccpa, the numbers are crystal clear in the first BLS link. In the row "Full-time workers", the number is 118489 for July 2014 and 116156 for July 2013. A difference of 2333 (thousands) or 2. 4 M (rounded up). No lies just facts. In the second link, you are again cherry-picking two points (July 2014 vs. January 2014) which show a very slight increase in part-time jobs. But it's easily within the noise observed over the clear multi-year downtrend, which includes other brief periods where the slope was positive before again going negative. And, there is nothing linking this with the ACA, as the employer mandate hasn't even gone into effect.

Tiny's CBO report is old news, but good news. The CBO clearly stated it's estimates were not of people losing jobs. Rather, they were for people voluntarily choosing to work less as health insurance becomes more affordable. Imagine, someone juggling 2 or 3 jobs to make ends meet and pay for insurance, now can work 1 or 2 jobs, spend more time with their family or pursue more education, etc. That is [I]freedom[/I], and likely to exert upward pressure on both labor demand and wages.

I know some right wingers are desperate to find any support they can, but it's hopeless. The data is overwhelming that the jobs market keeps getting stronger, and the data is absent that the ACA has significantly affected jobs. Get over it, your propaganda has been exposed as a fraud.

Meanwhile, millions of Americans are now benefitting from the ACA. Here is just one story of thousands. Even the NRA would applaud an outcome like this one.

Study: Obamacare helping more youth to get mental health treatment
[URL]http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/study-obamacare-helping-more-youth-get-mental-health-treatment[/URL]

Well, what do you know. What an elite force, just the team to go to Iraq and clean up the mess. And take care of Putin on the way home.

Sylvestor Stallone, Jason Statham, Antonio Banderas, Jet Li, Wesley Snipes, Harrison Ford, Chuck Norris, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger and a host of others. Now if they only could resurrect Steve McQueen and Eli Wallach, I might even join them.

Funny, I am so out of it that I didn't even know about the Expendables till today.

[QUOTE=Esten;440760]Dccpa, the numbers are crystal clear in the first BLS link. In the row "Full-time workers", the number is 118489 for July 2014 and 116156 for July 2013. A difference of 2333 (thousands) or 2. 4 M (rounded up). No lies just facts. In the second link, you are again cherry-picking two points (July 2014 vs. January 2014) which show a very slight increase in part-time jobs. But it's easily within the noise observed over the clear multi-year downtrend, which includes other brief periods where the slope was positive before again going negative. And, there is nothing linking this with the ACA, as the employer mandate hasn't even gone into effect.

[/QUOTE]Who is cherry picking again?

Since you are using the most worthless seasonally adjusted numbers let us go with them.

May 118,727.

June 118,204.

July 118,489.

That would be 200 k jobs lost in the last two months. But wait, you claimed we have been gaining 200 k jobs a month.

No need to continuously debate numbers that are fake when there is a trump card to be played.

[URL]http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000[/URL]

Labor force participation rate shows a. 5% net loss yoy. Get back to me with your spin of how all those jobs are being created and yet the labor participation rate is declining.

[QUOTE=Dccpa;440797][URL]http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000[/URL]

Labor force participation rate shows a. 5% net loss yoy. Get back to me with your spin of how all those jobs are being created and yet the labor participation rate is declining.[/QUOTE]Goodness, that is dismal! The last time I looked at the figures was about 3 months ago. I thought the participation rate had turned the corner and was headed upwards. And we wouldn't have poor Esten to beat up on anymore. Guess I was wrong. Obama et al need to get serious about doing things that will improve employment participation and increase middle class incomes instead of obsessing about redistribution.

[QUOTE=Dccpa;440797]Labor force participation rate shows a. 5% net loss yoy. Get back to me with your spin of how all those jobs are being created and yet the labor participation rate is declining.[/QUOTE]You don't understand.

According to Nancy Pelosi this is a good thing because it means that more people will be able to "[I]follow their dreams[/I]", including their dream of never having to work to support themselves, their dream of having others pay for the things they need, and their dream of laying around waiting to vote for liberal politicans.

[QUOTE=Dccpa;440797]Since you are using the most worthless seasonally adjusted numbers let us go with them.

May 118,727.

June 118,204.

July 118,489.

That would be 200 k jobs lost in the last two months. But wait, you claimed we have been gaining 200 k jobs a month.

[/QUOTE]Dccpa, you're embarassing yourself. Let's put up all the numbers over the past year. There is a clear steady upward trend in full-time jobs. Part-time jobs are about flat, after dipping between summers. As for the LFPR, I suggest you do some digging into the underlying causes, such as changing demographics (baby boomers) and more people pursuing higher education.

Full-time Part-time
2013 Jul 116,156 28,184
2013 Aug 116,301 27,888
2013 Sep 116,883 27,421
2013 Oct 116,306 27,211
2013 Nov 116,951 27,461
2013 Dec 117,278 27,372
2014 Jan 117,656 27,540
2014 Feb 117,819 27,330
2014 Mar 118,003 27,695
2014 Apr 118,415 27,297
2014 May 118,727 27,219
2014 Jun 118,204 28,01
2014 Jul 118,489 28,070
Numbers in thousands
Source: [URL]http://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cpseea06.pdf[/URL]

[QUOTE=Jackson;440808]According to Nancy Pelosi this is a good thing because it means that more people will be able to "[I]follow their dreams[/I]", including their dream of never having to work to support themselves, their dream of having others pay for the things they need, and their dream of laying around waiting to vote for liberal politicans.[/QUOTE]Pelosi was talking about how the ACA lowers the cost of health insurance for low-income Americans. This would indeed potentially allow some of these people to work fewer hours, and thus pursue other ambitions such as going back to school (to get a better job) or some other endeavor. The ACA doesn't support people financially otherwise, it is strictly about lessening the burden to pay for healthcare insurance. Apparently this runs contrary to the beliefs of some conservatives, who would rather increase the burden on low-income people, and if they can't afford it (but make too much to qualify for Medicaid), it's [I]tough shitsky[/I] as some here would say.

Once again, the right wingers pull out their insulting "Americans are lazy" rhetoric to twist the words, views and intentions of liberals (who value hard work as much as anyone). As I have said before, misinformation is a core strategy for right wingers. They often seem unwilling or unable to make thoughtful, convincing arguments about why their views and policies are better. So they resort to misrepresenting others.