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Weekly Address: Congress Must Act Now to Stop the Sequester
President Obama urges Congress to stop the sequester -- the harmful automatic cuts that threaten thousands of jobs and affect our national security from taking effect on March 1.
Here’s a quick glimpse at what happened this week on WhiteHouse.gov:
Sequester Looming: On Tuesday, with just days left until a set of deep, across-the-board budget cuts are set to take effect, President Obama discussed what’s at stake for our country’s economy, security and future and pushed lawmakers to work out a deal for the American people.
“So these cuts are not smart. They are not fair. They will hurt our economy. They will add hundreds of thousands of Americans to the unemployment rolls,” said President Obama, as emergency respondents stood behind him. “This is not an abstraction -- people will lose their jobs. The unemployment rate might tick up again.”
“And so that means that this is not just a gun issue. It’s also an issue of the kinds of communities that we’re building. And for that, we all share a responsibility, as citizens, to fix it.”
Medal of Valor: On Wednesday, Vice President Joe Biden and Attorney General Eric Holder paid tribute to 18 remarkable individuals who have displayed exceptional courage, while risking their own lives, in order to protect fellow citizens. Recipients traveled to the White House for the Medal of Valor ceremony, which marks the highest national award for valor a public safety officer can receive. Watch the full ceremony here and learn more about the 18 heroes here.
“I love Big Bird”: Celebrating Let’s Move!’s third anniversary, First Lady Michelle Obama welcomed a special guest to the White House: Big Bird. The pair headed to the kitchen and hung out in the East Room to talk about fun ways to exercise and the ease of finding delicious fruits and vegetables. The First Lady started the Let’s Move! initiative in February of 2010 to start “solving the problem of obesity within a generation, so that children born today will grow up healthier and able to pursue their dreams.”
Easter Egg Roll Lottery: On Thursday, the lottery officially opened for the 135th annual White House Easter Egg Roll. More than 35,000 people are expected to join the First Family and activities will include games, dancing and singing. This year’s theme is “Be Healthy, Be Active, Be You” -- a reflection of the First Lady’s Let’s Move! campaign. Watch highlights from previous White House Easter Egg Rolls and learn more about the event here.
Enter the free lottery and give yourself a shot at joining the First Family on the South Lawn this Easter.
Perhaps you can quote the GTD literature chapter and verse, understand lean and MVP and the modern meeting standard. Maybe you now delete your emails with a swipe. It's possible you've read not just this blog but fifty others, every day, and understand go to market strategies and even have a virtual assistant to dramatically increase your productivity.
That's great. But the question remains, "what have you shipped?"
You're saving a ton of time, freeing yourself up to... do what, precisely?
The productivity industry doesn't do this work to entertain us. They're trying hard to help you get more done better. Emphasis on done.
Striving to get smarter, better and faster helps us create our future. The risk is that merely collecting, trading and discussing the tools turns into the point.
It's possible that your next frontier isn't to get more efficient, it's to get more brave.
The bankrupt city of San Bernardino has hired a new city manager who, according to court filings, has twice declared personal bankruptcy and was recently ousted from the board of a small community's water company after being sued by shareholders.
The city council voted unanimously on Tuesday night to hire Allen J. Parker, 71, as its city manager on an annual salary of almost $222,000. He replaces an interim city manager who resigned last month because, according to friends, she was exasperated by the city's internal divisions.
Pat Morris, the mayor of the city in California, praised Parker's "wealth of city management experience" and expressed "great confidence" in his ability to oversee the city's affairs.
The California newspaper The Press-Enterprise reported on Thursday that Parker filed in 2011 for personal bankruptcy. In comments to the paper, Parker said that his bankruptcy and his ability to handle the city's fiscal problems were "apples and oranges."
The bankruptcy of San Bernardino, a city 65 miles east of Los Angeles, is a national test case as to whether the pensions of government workers take precedence over other payments in a municipal bankruptcy - a high stakes issue for pension plans and their beneficiaries, and for the Wall Street bondholders who lend money to governments.
Parker's first bankruptcy was in 1991 and his second in 2011. Apparently he is the best person available for the job.
But what job is that?
I strongly suspect the "job at hand" is to protect the interests and the pensions of the city council members and perhaps the unions (at the expense of taxpayers of course).
Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Inquiring minds are watching an excellent video on The Kudlow Report between Larry Kudlow and David Harkin.
Harkin is the author of a study on US infrastructure and a professor at the university of North Carolina Charlotte.
Partial Transcript
Kudlow: President Obama wants to spend another $50 billion on repairs to our infrastructure. Do we really need it? That would be on top of the over $100 billion for the nonshovel ready projects back in the 2009 stimulus. Remember that? There's a new study that says we may not need it. Our roads and bridges are not crumbling and are much better than they were 20 years ago. How about that good news? David Harkin is the lead author of that study. David, thank you for coming on. I read the reports. Throughout the country in real terms adjusted for inflation, state control, highway spending has increased by 60%. 177% in nominal terms. 60% in real terms. They had good results.
Harkin: We were quite surprised when we looked at the numbers. The highway system has gotten better on all seven measures we looked at. Accidents rates are down. Even the pavements have been improved particularly for the interstate system. Even congestion is down too. This isn't, I think, generally common knowledge. Most people think the infrastructure is crumbling or falling apart. We found just the opposite.
Kudlow: Why is Washington then, so manic and obsessive about pouring more and more infrastructure money? Why?
Harkin: Well, the fundamental problem here is that the states control how that money will be spent. Some of it comes from the federal government and some of it from the states. So the feeling in the states and in Washington is that we just need more and more and more. But in fact the numbers don't support that. The numbers suggest that we're making progress and that's very good news for the public. So, in terms of where the issue should go here we ought to look very carefully at whether these requests are really needed.
Kudlow: David, here's one of my big beefs. This is highway money and bridge money. Davis-Bacon, the prevailing union wick, once you use federal dollars and it's true for these big union states like New York, New Jersey and California, Once do you that you have to pay the Davis-Bacon prevailing union wage rate which is at least a third higher than if you did it privately. That's my biggest beef about spending all this money.
Harkin: In our study we showed the cost for doing this work are much higher in a few states compared with the rest of the country like California, New Jersey, New York are very high cost states relative to the other states. To go back to the earlier question regarding whether this is just a problem of the interstate system or whether the civil engineering report is correct, you know, let's remember the civil engineering report looks at only one year and is based on opinions from local experts. But it doesn't look back in time to see whether we made progress. David Harkin thank you ever so much. congratulations on your study which blows the lid off all this infrastructure money proposal coming out of Washington.
End Transcript
Davis-Bacon Background
I have discussed Davis-Bacon on many occasions. Inquiring minds interested in a background on the original purpose of the act should read My Thoughts on the Davis-Bacon Act.
"... while the sponsors and supporters of the Act also intended it to disadvantage immigrant workers of other races, these thinly veiled references make it clear that the Act was primarily intended to discriminate against blacks."
The Davis-Bacon Act as amended, requires that each contract over $2,000 to which the United States or the District of Columbia is a party for the construction, alteration, or repair of public buildings or public works shall contain a clause setting forth the minimum wages to be paid to various classes of laborers and mechanics employed under the contract. Under the provisions of the Act, contractors or their subcontractors are to pay workers employed directly upon the site of the work no less than the locally prevailing wages and fringe benefits paid on projects of a similar character. The Davis-Bacon Act directs the Secretary of Labor to determine such local prevailing wage rates.
There are 117 classifications of jobs for which some set of bureaucrats must determine "prevailing wages". Here is a partial list:
ASBE = International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Asbestos Workers BOIL = International Brotherhood of Boiler Makers, Iron Shipbuilders, Blacksmiths, Forgers and Helpers BRXX = International Union of Bricklayers, and Allied Craftsmen (bricklayers, cement masons, stone masons, tile, marble and terrazzo workers) CARP = United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America ELEC = International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (electricians, communication systems installers, and other low voltage specialty workers) ELEV = International Union of Elevator Constructors ENGI = International Union of Operating Engineers (operators of various types of power equipment) IRON = International Association of Bridge, Structural and Ornamental Iron Workers LABO = Laborers' International Union of North America PAIN = International Brotherhood of Painters and Allied Trades (painters, drywall finishers, glaziers, soft floor layers) PLUM = Operative Plasterers' and Cement Masons' International Association of the United States and Canada PLAS = United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Industry of the United States and Canada ROOF = United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers SHEE = Sheet Metal Workers International Association TEAM = International Brotherhood of Teamsters
Even FDR Understood the Problem
Public unions get into bed with management and politicians and work out sweet deals for themselves at taxpayer expense. No one looks out for the taxpayer. Even FDR understood the problem.
All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management.
The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations.
Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of Government employees.
A strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable.
Time to Scrap Davis-Bacon, End Public Union Collective Bargaining
Before any project can be economically viable, labor costs must be addressed, and that is exactly why we need to scrap Davis-Bacon and all prevailing wage laws. We also need to eliminate collective bargaining of public unions.
Unless and until we do that, we will dramatically overpay for infrastructure projects and taxpayers will pay through the nose for them.
Government should strive to provide the most services at the least cost. Public unions strive to provide the fewest services at the most cost. Is it any wonder cities and states are broke?
Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Those looking for a reason for sluggish housing, weak retail sales, and low family formations rates, need only look at the plight of millennials (those aged 18-33).
Many millennials have no job, high student debt with no way to pay the debt off, and few job opportunities beyond part-time employment in food services or retail.
Millennials are the ones who Obama targeted to pay for Obamacare. Indeed, the forced inclusion of youth (who will overpay for health care) is supposedly what made Obamacare "affordable".
Speaking of labor unions, the odds millennials get the same benefit packages going forward that public unions receive today are roughly zero percent. Nonetheless, expect tax rates on millennials to rise so that ungracious, unappreciative boomers get ridiculous benefits they do not deserve and did not earn.
The Stressed Generation
Is it any wonder a study of of Stress in America by the American Psychological Association shows millennials to be the most stressed generation.
Both Millennials and Gen Xers report an average stress level of 5.4 on a 10-point scale where 1 is "little or no stress" and 10 is "a great deal of stress," far higher than Boomers' average stress level of 4.7 and Matures' average stress level of 3.7.
The four generations are defined as following: Millennials (18- to 33-year-olds), Gen Xers (34- to 47-year-olds), Boomers (48- to 66-year-olds) and Matures (67 years and older).
Thirty-nine percent of Millennials say their stress has increased in the last year, compared to 36 percent of Gen Xers, 33 percent of Boomers and 29 percent of Matures.
More than 52 percent of Millennials report having lain awake at night in the past month due to stress, compared to 48 percent of Gen Xers, 37 percent of Boomers and 25 percent of Matures.
Additionally, 44 percent of both Millennials and Gen Xers report experiencing irritability or anger due to stress, compared to 36 percent of Boomers and 15 percent of Matures.
Not surprisingly, work is one of the biggest causes of stress, with 76 percent of Millennials reporting it as a significant stressor, compared to 62 percent of Boomers and 39 percent of Matures. "Many of these young people have come out of college or graduate school with horrendous student debt into a job market where there are not very many jobs," said Katherine Nordal of the APA. "This has put their life plans, probably, on hiatus."
The job numbers are indeed grim. According to Generation Opportunity, the unemployment rate for Millennials rose to 13.1 percent in January, up nearly 2 points from December. Among young African-Americans, it's a whopping 22.1 percent. And if you count those 18-29 year-olds who have given up and dropped out of the labor force, the overall youth unemployment rate stands at 16.2 percent.
And even for the lucky ones who are working, the picture remains bleak. According to the Economic Policy Institute, between 2000 and 2011 wages adjusted for inflation fell by over 11 percent for young high school grads and by 5.4 percent for young college grads. It doesn't help that, as a study by the Center for College Affordability found, 48 percent of working college grads are in jobs that don't require a college degree and 38 percent are in jobs that don't require a high school diploma. The report concluded that from 2010 to 2020, while 19 million college grads will be hitting the job market, the economy will add fewer than 7 million jobs requiring a college degree. That's a pretty serious -- and stress-producing -- gap.
And any of those heavily indebted, heavily stressed-out Millennials listening to President Obama's State of the Union speech would not have gotten much stress relief. He did acknowledge the increasingly untenable cost of higher education -- "Today, skyrocketing costs price too many young people out of a higher education, or saddle them with unsustainable debt" -- and declared that he would "ask Congress to change the Higher Education Act so that affordability and value are included in determining which colleges receive certain types of federal aid."
Not Promising at All
In regards to Obama's plans for education, Arianna Huffington misses the mark completely.
She says "Obama's push for colleges and universities to increase enrollment and the number of degrees they grant is a great goal." She also says changes to the higher education act "sounds promising if it ever happens".
Affordable education won't happen under Obama because neither Obama nor Huffington address the fundamental problems.
Fundamental Reasons College Costs Soared
Guaranteed student loans
Student loans cannot be discharged in bankruptcy
Untenable wage and benefit structures of teachers and administrators
Too much push for everyone to go to college whether they are suited or not
Federal grants and other costly programs designed to make college affordable but do the opposite
Outright lies and fraud by for-profit schools that lure students into believing they can become a chef or a Java programmer
Lack of enough accredited online universities
No competition in general
The millennials were screwed by all of the above. They were also screwed by Fed policies that punish savers to the benefit of the already wealthy.
Millennials became debt slaves in the process, to the benefit of the banks, the school administrators, and the teacher's unions.
Stressed by that? You bet. Screwed is more like it.
For an explanation of how millennials were screwed by the Fed, please see ...
How has this generation been screwed? Let's count the ways, starting with the economy. No generation has suffered more from the Great Recession than the young. Median net worth of people under 35, according to the U.S. Census, fell 37 percent between 2005 and 2010; those over 65 took only a 13 percent hit.
The wealth gap today between younger and older Americans now stands as the widest on record. The median net worth of households headed by someone 65 or older is $170,494, 42 percent higher than in 1984, while the median net worth for younger-age households is $3,662, down 68 percent from a quarter century ago, according to an analysis by the Pew Research Center.
Quick prospects for improvement are dismal for the younger generation. One key reason: their indebted parents are not leaving their jobs, forcing younger people to put careers on hold. Since 2008 the percentage of the workforce under 25 has dropped 13.2 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, while that of people over 55 has risen by 7.6 percent.
The screwed generation also enters adulthood loaded down by a mountain of boomer- and senior-incurred debt—debt that spirals ever more out of control. The public debt constitutes a toxic legacy handed over to offspring who will have to pay it off in at least three ways: through higher taxes, less infrastructure and social spending, and, fatefully, the prospect of painfully slow growth for the foreseeable future.
In the United States, the boomers' bill has risen to about $50,000 a person. In Japan, the red ink for the next generation comes in at more than $95,000 a person. The huge public-employee pensions now driving many states and cities—most recently Stockton, California toward the netherworld of bankruptcy represent an extreme case of intergenerational transfer from young to old. It's a thoroughly rigged boomer game.
More maddening still, the payback for this expensive education appears to be a chimera. Over 43 percent of recent graduates now working, according to a recent report by the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development, are at jobs that don't require a college education. Some 16 percent of bartenders and almost the same percentage of parking attendants, notes Ohio State economics professor Richard Vedder, earned a bachelor's degree or higher.
The "Last" Generation
My friend "BC" has a few thoughts on the screwed generation. "BC" writes ...
Millennials suffer from ...
Lack of durable paid employment
Contingent low-wage, part-time employment
Few (if any) opportunities for occupational/career trajectories
Low or no income and purchasing power
Heavy debt burden
No ability to save
Few options to overcome individually or collectively the cumulative socioeconomic, fiscal, and distributional structural constraints bearing down on them
The generation coming of age does not have the paid employment and after-tax purchasing power necessary to support the growth of a debt-based mass-consumer economy, big mortgages, the crushing costs of parenting, discretionary spending, Obamacare, and elder transfer programs for the Boomers nor for themselves.
In this sense, the Millennials are the "Last" Generation.
Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
"Wine Country" Economic Conference Hosted By Mish Click on Image to Learn More
Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., posted a "Keystone Clock " on his House Energy Committee's website Wednesday. The chairman states more than 1,615 days have passed since TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline proposal sought approval. Joining Upton's call to build the pipeline is Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio. Executives at TransCanada have tried a different tactic to try to get approval from the Obama administration by claiming the pipeline won't affect global warming.
The tug of war between economics and environmentalism is escalating thanks to 34 straight days of rising gasoline prices.
Boehner posted a "Running on Empty " graphic Tuesday. The Speaker of the House complains gas prices have "soared $0.43 since Jan. 17" before remarking with his own Keystone clock, "How long will Americans have to wait?"
Boehner cites several sources, including nine Democratic senators, who want Obama to approve the project quickly. The pipeline may not see a decision until mid-June. Around 20,000 jobs and nearly a million barrels of oil a day are at stake for American oil companies.
"Like locusts ravaging fertile crops, gasoline prices are soaring again and eating away at the purchasing power of ordinary Americans. And again, financial speculators appear to be a big part of the story."
Five dollar a gallon gas "is a real possibility" said John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital in New York. "This is partly being driven by the lost refinery capacity of about one million barrels per day...that's a lot."
Kilduff cited Hess's (HES) closure of a key refinery hub in Port Reading, New Jersey in January as a major factor that has sent gas on a tear. "Prices haven't looked back since," he said.
"It's one of about eight refineries that have announced closure. Now the East Coast is heavily reliant on [gas] imports when it used to be self-sufficient," Kilduff stated.
Speculation Nonsense
Refinery closures are one part of the puzzle. If speculators have driven up the price of oil (and that is debatable) it's not the speculators who are to blame, but rather the Fed.
By providing massive liquidity and negative real interest rates, the Fed encouraged speculation in the stock market, in junk bonds, and in commodities.
I believe there is a bubble in all of those areas. The Fed's intent was not to foster bubbles per se, but rather to stimulate housing and spur job creation. On the job creation front, the fed failed miserably, and bloated its balance sheet to over $3 trillion dollars in doing so.
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