Spokane7
68°
September 25, 2011 in Opinion
Smart Bombs: Let’s clear the air on jobs
Apparently one of the big constraints on the U.S. economy is its inability to produce sufficient levels of soot and mercury. As part of a jobs initiative, House Republicans are pushing legislation called the TRAIN Act that would derail new standards aimed at curbing these emissions.
What’s really going on is an attempt to leverage an economic crisis to gut unrelated regulations. Or, as Roger Noll, co-director of the Program on Regulatory Policy at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, said: “The effect of regulation on jobs has nothing to do with the mess we’re in. The current rhetoric about regulation killing jobs is nothing more than not letting a good crisis go to waste.”
Noll was quoted in a ProPublica article that rebuffs the simplistic “job-killing regulations” mantra. Even President Barack Obama caved in to this notion when he recently asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to ease up on stringent ozone protections. ProPublica, a nonprofit news-gathering operation, queried many economic experts and found that regulations can kill particular jobs, but they help create others. In other words, jobs shift, but the overall effect is negligible.
Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that employers attribute a mere sliver of layoffs to burdensome regulations. For instance, in the first half of this year, regulations were blamed for 0.2 percent to 0.3 percent of job losses. The chief culprit is a dearth of paying customers, which is a problem that can’t be easily fixed by cutting regulations and business taxes.
So even if House Republicans were to succeed in stifling the Clean Air Act, there wouldn’t be a big jump in jobs.
However, you could expect an uptick in grief, because the EPA estimates that the new smog and soot standards will prevent 34,000 deaths annually and the new mercury standards will save 17,000 lives and prevent 120,000 asthma attacks in children.
Then again, thwarting those regulations could create some jobs in the health care and funeral sectors.
Insecure vs. Secure. To see whether Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, let’s compare it with the alleged scam by a Colbert woman. The Security and Exchange Commission claims that Doris “Dee” Nelson, purveyor of the Little Loan Shoppe, ran a huge Ponzi-like operation. According to the feds:
Nelson promised annual returns of 40 percent to 60 percent. Social Security supplies regular estimates on what people can expect to collect. A Brookings Institution study based on readily available Social Security data shows that most people get back just about what they put in. Some collect more. Some collect less. There are no expectations of extravagant gains.
Nelson allegedly got new investors to cover payments to old investors by lying about the health of her business. Social Security’s books are open to the public and its actuaries compile long-term projections based on worst-case to best-case scenarios. Its current health and future challenges are well-known.
Nelson started her enterprise in 1999 and it lasted less than 10 years. Social Security has been around for 75 years.
Little Loan Shoppe has sought bankruptcy protection, meaning its 1,300 creditors can expect to collect a tiny fraction of the more than $100 million they’re owed. Government projections show that Social Security could pay beneficiaries 100 percent of what’s coming to them until 2037, if nothing changes. Even if Congress failed to intervene, the program could pay beneficiaries 75 percent of what they’d expect up until 2084.
Verdict? Beware of politicians uttering “Ponzi scheme” when they’re talking about Social Security.
Greek to me. Out of gas, out of control and headed for a kamikaze plunge … but enough about global markets. How about that satellite falling to Earth?
I think I speak for all angst-ridden 401(k) holders when I say, Greece? Seriously? It’s not enough that I have to weigh the effects of myriad U.S. economic events, but now I have to track the amount of Greek debt infecting international banks?
“Stocks plunge on Greece debt concerns.” “Stocks rise as EU signals Greece bailout.” “Stocks plunge on Greece debt concerns.”
This daily rollercoaster ride is giving me a big, fat Greek headache.
Smart Bombs is written by Associate Editor Gary Crooks and appears Sundays on the Opinion page. He can be reached at garyc@spokesman.com or at (509) 459-5026.
Smart Bombs: Greatest generation? Not us 
Dazzeetrader11 on September 25 at 1:40 a.m.
How about getting some joba (about 1 million jobs) by developing some energy. What Obama’s proposing is just re-election strategy….not much to do with jobs or the edonomy. He want’s to be elected…that’s all his plan is. But even if his plan is funded to the hilt, it wouldn’t matter much.
Even the AP ( left leaning as it gets outside of MSNBC) knows his new plan reults in little even IF it was passed as is and went off perfectly without a hitch.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_OBAMAS_JOBS_SHORTFALL_1ST_LD_WRITETHRU?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-09-24-04-37-39
Not much to dispute. Know the facts. I’m sure some his “kill the rich” will be somewhere in a retort……….. it’s fine. Obama uses that all the time……..like any community organizer does.
jimvw2 on September 25 at 9:26 a.m.
The whole “jobs” debate is phony on both sides; but it’s the Republicans who foisted it on us as some kind of success measure for fiscal policy. Obama and the Democrats sadly took the bait.
The people who drove this economy over the cliff also exported our manufacturing sector and all of its family wage jobs. They worked steadfastly for 30 years to undermine unions that demanded living wages and job protection. They sold us the idea that globalization is an unstoppable, ultimately beneficial movement, despite evidence to the contrary. They took over our banking system to serve their global momopoly strategy. They created this recession and continue to profit from it, while Tea Partiers cheer and jeer from the sidelines, their useful idiots.
And what political party do you think these greedy, amoral internationalists embrace? REPUBLICAN.
So Obama, who has been challenged at every step by this oligarchy’s handmaidens in the House and their Libertarian jesters, has sadly played right into their phony “job creators” narrative. He should stop pandering to these greedy creeps. He should tell the truth about jobs.
No amount of tax breaks and deregulation or tax increases and new regulation is going to bring back our blue collar middle class, which is the real way out of this economic ditch.
For that, we will need to do a lot of things the greedy pigs at multi-national banks and investment firms won’t like and will spend furiously to prevent. It will mean tariffs and maybe trade wars until the rest of the world, especially China and India get the message that America is back in business. That means you iPod and your Lexus might be more expensive for awhile.
It will require restoring the rights of workers to collectively bargain for the compensation for their skills and labor.
It will require the federal government to pick winners (those who choose to make products and services here with workers who make a living wage), and losers (those who bet against America by investing in jobs and equipment in foreign tax havens). This is what we should be doing with the tax code.
It will be costly and painful for a generation or more, but in the end, our grandchildren, like our parents, will be able to support their families on one income. And their children will have the expectation of doing better than their parents, once again.
It’s not about jobs today. It’s about putting American workers first again. If we create the conditions for re-industrialization of this country with real family-wage jobs, the employment problem will resolve itself. But that restoration will take at least a decade and create a storm of resistance from the oligarchy’s billionaire’s club.
The question I have, given all the petty political gamesmanship we’re smothering in today: do Americans have the stomach for this existential fight?
DickAdams on September 25 at 9:27 a.m.
Oh yeah, Obamacare has nothing to regarding creation of new jobs, and the small business owners shall be forced to furnish medical insurance. Crooks should read last weeks Inlander, regarding a recent story in Forbes, and for the second time naming the Lilac City as the “SCAM capitol” of the good old U. S. of A.
gmorton on September 25 at 11:25 a.m.
Gary Crooks wrote,
“Or, as Roger Noll, co-director of the Program on Regulatory Policy at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, said: ‘The effect of regulation on jobs has nothing to do with the mess we’re in. The current rhetoric about regulation killing jobs is nothing more than not letting a good crisis go to waste.’”
Mr Noll is full of beans. Federal regulations alone impose a total cost of $1.75 *trillion* on the economy every year.
“The annual cost of federal regulations in the United States increased to more than $1.75 trillion in 2008. Had every U.S. household paid an equal share of the federal regulatory burden, each would have owed $15,586 in 2008. By comparison, the federal regulatory burden exceeds by 50 percent private spending on health care, which equaled $10,500 per household in 2008. While all citizens and businesses pay some portion of these costs, the distribution of the burden of regulations is quite uneven. The portion of regulatory costs that falls initially on businesses was $8,086 per employee in 2008. Small businesses, defined as firms employing fewer than 20 employees, bear the largest burden of federal regulations. As of 2008, small businesses face an annual regulatory cost of $10,585 per employee, which is 36 percent higher than the regulatory cost facing large firms (defined as firms with 500 or more employees).”
http://archive.sba.gov/advo/research/rs371tot.pdf
As noted, that figure does not include the cost of state and local regulations, which probably at least equal the federal figure. Per the above report, the federal regulatory costs represent 14% of national income, compared to 21% for federal tax costs. The sum of those two represent the *total federal government burden* on the US economy. With state and local regulatory and tax added, the total government burden exceeds 60% of US GDP.
If Mr Noll does not believe those costs effect jobs, he is either living in a fantasy world or is parroting the party line (ProPublica being a Soros/Sandler operation).
“Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that employers attribute a mere sliver of layoffs to burdensome regulations.”
That is irrelevant. Employers cannot generally attribute a layoff to any particular regulation. And the layoffs over the past two years are not, for the most part, due to regulations even indirectly – they are due to the collapse of the housing bubble and the subsequent loss of some $7 trillion in capital and 18% of Americans’ net worth.
http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2011/201117/201117pap.pdf
Regulatory costs are a significant factor, however, in determining how quickly the economy will *recover* from the recession – and how great a recovery there will be.
There are two parts to the current economic crisis – one short-term, the other long-term. The short-term problem is for the market to adjust to the loss of capital extinguished by the housing collapse. The long-term problem is the gradual decline, over the last 40 years or so, of US competitiveness and the migration of capital (and thus jobs) to more economically attractive venues.
If long-term prospects were good, recovery from the short-term problem would be well underway at this point. But they are not, and regulatory costs are a major reason.
gmorton on September 25 at 11:33 a.m.
jimwv2 wrote,
“That means you iPod and your Lexus might be more expensive for awhile.”
Along with everything else you buy.
“It will be costly and painful for a generation or more, but in the end, our grandchildren, like our parents, will be able to support their families on one income.”
Ah, yes. And in the end the State with “wither away,” Christ will establish His kingdom, and everyone will live happily forever.
gmorton on September 25 at 11:39 a.m.
Gary Crooks wrote,
“Nelson promised annual returns of 40 percent to 60 percent. Social Security supplies regular estimates on what people can expect to collect.”
That doesn’t differentiate between a Ponzi scheme and a sound investment. It is only a measure of how egregious the former is.
Here’s what a sound retirement scheme looks like:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903791504576587240912688176.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
johnclarke on September 25 at 1:51 p.m.
I take a couple day away from the drumbeat at the SR, and return to find the usual non-infomercials from the usual suspects.
Funny how Cons look at things. The repeal of key laws and regulations essentially enabled the economic crisis. Con thinking: create a problem then blame your enemy for the problem.
I guess I’d like to know specifically what the “new” government regulations are that are preventing the jobs recovery. Oddly, I read a story recently how the Obama administration is doing away with lots of regulations to help business.
The issue is simple, it’s greed - oh and stupid people spouting nonsense like it’s fact.
misjustice on September 25 at 6:52 p.m.
“The question I have, given all the petty political gamesmanship we’re smothering in today: do Americans have the stomach for this existential fight?”
jimvw2, we may have the stomach for the the fight but we do not have the spine necessary to implement long-term, politically unpopular, difficult solutions. For over 30 years we have kicked problems down the road, waiting, expecting, wanting the next Congress, the next President, the next Generation to fix them, deal with them, solve them; and here we are.
misjustice on September 25 at 6:52 p.m.
Where’s my tax cut?