Comments on: The President and Job Growth

By: sofla

sofla — Tue, 09 Nov 2004 09:01:35 +0000

The GOP needs better job numbers in 2006, so there's some breathing room now for a while, if the job numbers are disappointing.

Another factor is the dollar's decline, and whether the Fed might need to raise rates to counter that.

By: Dave Schuler

Dave Schuler — Mon, 08 Nov 2004 21:11:43 +0000

Thank you for making that point, Anjin-San. It's a point I've made myself from time to time. There are many other areas of society that are done harm by the kind of increased productivity you're talking about—anything that requires a level of volunteerism for survival.

By: Anjin-San

Anjin-San — Mon, 08 Nov 2004 21:06:19 +0000

We also need to consider the overall cost to society of the pressures being brought to bear on corporate employees which lead to much of this much vaunted increased productivity.

Professionals who are saddled with large debt loads & don't have much in the way of lateral job mobility are having huge workloads dumped on them.

If someone sees their workload go up 25% without compensation and is willing to endure this out of fear of layoffs or oursourcing, well of course productivity goes up.

What are the downstream costs to society? Kids don't see much of Mom & Dad, who are struggling to keep everything together.
We are raising a generation of overweight, sickly kids who spend time in front of the TV or playing video games because the parents just don't have the bandwidth to raise kids properly. Hell now we have DVD player in our SUVs. No need to waste energy talking to the kids in the car now! Family values!

How many workers are trashing their health to hang onto their jobs? How many unnecessary heart attacks go into producing the bottom line that allows the CEO to get that 10 million dollar Christmas bonus?

By: <i>Deinonychus antirrhopus</i>

<i>Deinonychus antirrhopus</i> — Mon, 08 Nov 2004 19:49:50 +0000

Outside the Beltway
I'm guest blogging at James Joyner's blog, and my first post is up....

By: Dave Schuler

Dave Schuler — Mon, 08 Nov 2004 19:18:19 +0000

Job growth over the last several quarters has tended to be in two areas (government and health care) that share some qualities. Small numbers of highly-compensated workers. Credentialing and legal restrictions on entry (ever tried to set up your own government?). The two sets of factors are not unrelated. It's not a formula for sustained growth.

By: M. Murcek

M. Murcek — Mon, 08 Nov 2004 19:17:02 +0000

NORMAL job growth - whatever that is. During the dotcom boom, we were told the "old" economic models were out the window. After the dotcom bust, we were told the "old" models never went away.

Productivity can only go up or remain flat (in the modernized world), except for a huge terrorist attack, a decline in the education level of the population or a steep recession / depression in which there are vastly fewer producers doing much less producing (even then, productivity, as a ratio, might be flat or climb)

As long as there are demagogues telling people there will be a return to 23 dollar an hour broom leaning jobs for unionized highschool dropouts, there will be people holding out for exactly that.

By: Ed

Ed — Mon, 08 Nov 2004 18:28:44 +0000

James, interesting post but a couple of counter arguments.

1) Oil prices did jump, but they're on the way back down now;

2) Part of the reason for the sluggish summer months had to do with an overbuild of inventory by manufacturers. That inventory is working its way down and should be at more normal, seasonal levels in the very near future.

3) With Bush's re-election, global-multinational businesses can do better planning in terms of tax rates, regulatory costs, etc., so budgets may find themselves less restrained than they've been over the past several months.

By other measurements, it seems like there's a chance for really good growth in the near term.