Archive for February, 2008
February 3rd, 2008 by Bob Schwartz
Jason Heppler over at South Dakota Politics links to a Glenn Reynolds piece about our legislature’s attempt to allow guns onto South Dakota universities (HB1261). Following the usual NRA talking points Reynolds proclaims that being able to carry guns into the classroom could have saved lives at Virginia Tech, you even got to love Reynolds headline, “People don’t stop killers. People with guns do”.
Just what is needed to prevent gun violence, more people with guns and lucky us it is our own legislature that is seeking to bring that extra firepower onto our own OK Corrals, I mean colleges. If our lawmakers get their way I guess backpack manufacturers will have to scramble to add new pockets to their products as our college students will need a place to keep that .357 along with their English Literature textbooks…
February 2nd, 2008 by Bob Schwartz
Cory over at the Madville Times is asking just that question based on the myriad of conflicting reports coming at us from all angles regarding our economy. It all came to a head when the jobs report came out and showed a hefty loss of over 17,000 jobs in January which was the first decline in 52 months. But what got Cory and others going was that even with the downturn in jobs, the unemployment rate actually went down from 5-4.9% during the same period.
So now we have reports that show we shed jobs but fewer people are out of work? That contradiction has some saying (including Cory’s favorite Harvard math guy) that based on the unemployment rate we actually only have a small chance of sliding into a recession.
The 4-week moving average of initial UI claims was reported yesterday at 325,750, which is 17,000 lower than 4 weeks ago and essentially unchanged from the October average. Alone, trends in UI claims suggest a 4 percent recession probability. The unemployment rate is 0.1 points lower than December, but 0.1 higher than three months ago, suggesting an 8 percent recession probability. Combined, this yields an overall recession probability of 6 percent
What isn’t mentioned in all the talk over the drop in unemployment is why? If you read the WSJ article and other sources you will find out that while we did lose 17,000 jobs overall, most coming in manufacturing and construction, other sectors like retail and service actually saw large increases in jobs. Further skewing the unemployment numbers, apparently a large amount of chronically unemployed folks just stopped looking so were not included.
Call me stupid, you wouldn’t be alone, but how is a huge downturn in good paying manufacturing and construction jobs that is offset by a similar increase in low paying service and retail jobs a good thing? Sounds like a recipe for a recession to me considering the decline in spendable income that comes along with the change in employment.
Now mind you that recipe doesn’t apply in South Dakota where we think paying our teachers like a high school kid working at McDonalds is a good thing and where the Governor heralds a minuscule unemployment rate that is highly dependent on those McDonalds jobs, but in the real world the numbers tell me we should be worried.
I’m with Cory, some math guy touting only a slim 6% chance of a recession only tells me that there should probably be more mathematicians out of work and no $1000 dollar check from Uncle Sam will change that or the obvious slowdown we are seeing in the economy. Call it whatever you like, a recession, a slowdown, or even just a blip on the radar, those living through it don’t care what it’s called.
February 2nd, 2008 by Bob Schwartz
Boy has time flown by quickly, it only seems like yesterday that this lowly blog was born but today marks the 2 year anniversary of A South Dakota Moderate. I’ve had many different looks to the site and many different opinions (over 1200 posts to date) but many things haven’t changed. I still have horrible grammar and I still can’t write worth a damn.
Putting those obvious negatives aside, if this site shows one thing, just like a certain body part, everyone has opinions and most of them stink but the internet, and apparently KELO doesn’t care and gives me an outlet anyway.
February 1st, 2008 by Bob Schwartz
SB185, the bill that sought to toughen regulations on personalized plates was shot down in committee yesterday.
A state law that says personalized license plates in South Dakota must be in “good taste and decency” will not be changed by lawmakers.
A bill that would have set tougher guidelines for messages that are displayed on vanity plates was killed unanimously Tuesday without discussion by the state Senate Transportation Committee.
SB185 said license plate messages may not be vulgar, profane, derogatory, obscene or racially offensive.
At least now we won’t have to worry about whose idea of “good taste and decency” would be used to determine what appears on your license plate.
February 1st, 2008 by Bob Schwartz
Yesterday Shell set a record for the highest profits ($27.6 Billion), and remember I said profits not revenue, ever recorded by a company in the UK. Low and behold, Exxon Mobile released their 4th quarter earnings this morning and unfortunately for Exxon, they were less than half of Shell but a record just the same.
CNBC - Exxon Mobil said Friday record oil prices boosted its fourth-quarter earnings to $11.66 billion, the highest ever operating profit by a U.S. company.
Shares of the world’s largest non-government-controlled oil company rose 1.7 percent in before-the-bell trading as the results beat Wall Street forecasts.
Net income rose nearly 14 percent from the year-earlier of $10.25 billion.
Two national profit records in two days. The supply vs demand way of pricing oil in the commodity market seems to be more geared towards increasing the supply of profits going to the oil companies than maintaining the reasonably priced supply of gas going to the pumps. At least one industry is weathering the recession…
February 1st, 2008 by Bob Schwartz
While probably not a big deal here in union unfriendly South Dakota (a previous employer threatened to shut down rather than allow employees to unionize), John McCain joined his new BFFL Rudy Giuliani on the Jay Leno Show yesterday. That appearance which required crossing a Writers Guild of America picket line, falls in line with earlier appearances on Leno by other GOP hopefuls Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, and Mike Huckabee, and again re-enforces just how much the Republican party cares about working Americans.
I used to think that labor unions had long since lost their luster and in recent times had caused more problems than they solved and union membership had followed those thoughts. But a funny thing happened last year that hadn’t happened in at least 25 years, union membership actually increased.
For the first time in the past quarter of a century, in 2007 U.S. unions increased their share of membership among workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) annual union membership report released today. Unions added about 310,000 members last year, raising the unionized share of the workforce to 12.1 percent from 12.0 percent in 2006.
The same article goes on to mention that the small 310,000 member increase might be a statistical anomaly but it is an anomaly that hasn’t happened in 25 years. Is this the start of a trend showing a growing dis-satisfaction with employers and big business and in turn the GOP whose platform is geared towards being pro-big business?
As much as labor unions might want you to think, they have nowhere near the political clout they once had, just ask John Edwards whom garnered just about every union endorsement out there and never won a thing. But, and this is still a big but, if our current do everything for business model despite what it means for the employee continues, will we be able to say the same thing in 4 or 8 years? If you think it’s hard to understand the broken English of some tech support reps now…
McCain and the rest of the Republican’s decision to slap labor in the face just for a few minutes of free publicity will likely not have any side effects for them this time around but I am sure if the labor union membership increase becomes a trend instead of an anomaly, 4 years from now might not be as rosy, or as forgiving for past transgressions by the GOP.