Daily Archives: October 25, 2010

Republicans Intimidate Minorities

Mark Kirk, the Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Illinois, told state Republican leaders last week about his plan to send “voter integrity” squads to two predominately African-American neighborhoods of Chicago and two other urban areas of Illinois with significant minority populations “where the other side might be tempted to jigger the numbers somewhat.

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/10/mark_kirk_sends_poll_watchers_to_vulnerable_largel.php

“Intimidation” is my word based on this:

  1. “”Voter fraud” has been the rally cry for conservative groups seeking to make it more difficult to cast ballots and suppress minority voter turnout.” Quoted From the Above Article
  2. The video recorded the alderman from the south side of Chicago stating the remarks were an “insult” and “offensive”.
  3. Moreover, the Urban Dictionary defines it this way, “A jew who tries to act black.”  This is offensive to Jews and African-American.  http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=jigger
  4. Additionally, I can’t speak about Chicago but in Louisiana where I come from the white folks used the word “jig” as an offense to African-Americans.  Occasionally, they would extend that use to “jigger” to refer to the actions of a “jig” as in jigger rigging.  A lexicon is a record of how regular people use words.  In the South, I would not say it was a common usage but just about everyone I knew knew what it meant.  If others have heard “jigger” used in this context, before the the Republican candidate’s comment, the comment would be heard  as an insult, offensive and intimidating.  This may not be how the Senator meant it but I think it is certainly how some might take it as was mentioned in the article.  Here is proof of this statement:

“Jigaboo, jiggabo, jigarooni, jijjiboo, zigabo, jig, jigg, jigga, jigger

(U.S. and UK) a black person (JB) with stereotypical Black features (e.g. dark skin, wide nose, and big lips).[110] Jiggaboo or jigabo is from a Bantu verb tshikabo, meaning meek or servile.[111] There might also be a historical connotation with peek-a-boo, boo boo, boogie and boogie man.”

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs

My Observations about Jobs and the US Chamber of Congress

I am sure there are lots of reasons that jobs are leaving the country that probably cannot be isolated to one party or the other but I will tell about my experience in management at US Robotics, a high tech dial up modem maker, in the nineties.  When I got there we were selling 9600bps modems at about $500 a pop.  A company called Hayes was under-selling us by $100 or so.  Upper management went ballistic and told us to redesign and cost reduce the modem.  We did all that but we were still short until we started costing out the effect of manufacturing the modems in the Far East.  The cost reduction was dramatic.  We were able to sell 1400bps Sportster Modems at $200.  To make a long story short, we went from a 5 million dollar company to a 50 million dollar company in 5 years and killed the competition.  We did not lay off any US employees.  We actually ramped up to 3 manufacturing shifts.  We learned that stable products were cheaper to produce in the Orient.  However, since we were coming out with about 100 new products a quarter world-wide we found that new products, less stable, did better in our manufacturing facilities. 

There are several reasons why the Far East can manufacture cheaper than us:

1)       Their cost of living is cheaper.

2)       They can pay their labor a lot less.

3)       There were no unions so the companies could work their employees literally to death in some cases or fire them.

4)       Some of those governments illegally (with regard to trade treaties) underwrite the manufacturing costs.  Part of the issue with this is a legitimate issue that foreign countries make…some of those countries fund R&D much like we do here for things like NIH, Defense, etc. so the companies do not need to take the R&D cost out of their cost of goods sold.

The US Chamber of Commerce along with big American based companies in China is actively siding with the Chinese government and those Chinese companies to oppose labor union in China.  For more info see:

http://www.fpif.org/articles/labor_rights_in_china

I think this presents many problems for us.  The Chinese government and businesses will not be able to hold this tide off forever.  The Chinese people will demand better working conditions and better pay.  If we stand in the way we risk losing the good will of the Chinese people.  Also, they are just starting to go through what we went through some decades ago.  If their cost of production rises it will only help manufacturing jobs in the US.

Here is another thought, white collar jobs are now following the blue collar trend.  India is gobbling of professional software jobs from the US for many of the reasons that China gobbled up manufacturing jobs.   We need to understand that our pain is due to a world economy that is allowing more impoverished countries to increase the standard of living.  We need to let them go through the process until economic conditions normalize.  If we try to stamp every fire out that pops up we are going to make enemies in the world and we still not stop the tide.

IMO, protectionism or exploitative capitalism will only hurt us in the long run.  We need to respond with innovation, retraining, budding new markets and we probably still will not be able to stop the pain just mitigate it.  When I got out of undergraduate school with a BS in Electrical Engineering I had my pick of a dozen jobs.  A young graduate now can hardly get a technician position now with that degree.

I think it is also useful to think of this type of economic cycle in terms of our own immigration problems as well.

Federal Deficit and Debt – President Obama vs President Bush

If you look at these numbers you will see that the national debt has gone up every year since 1969 except the last four years of the Clinton administration budget:

Revenues, Outlays, Deficits, Surpluses, and Debt Held by the Public,

1968 to 2007, in Billions of Dollars

Sources: Congressional Budget Office; Office of Management and Budget.

Date         Deficit (-) or Surplus Debt Held by the Public

1968                 -25.2                             289.5

1969                 3.2                                278.1

1970                 -2.8                               283.2

1971                 -23.0                             303.0

1972                 -23.4                             322.4

1973                 -14.9                             340.9

1974                 -6.1                               343.7

1975                 -53.2                             394.7

1976                 -73.7                             477.4

1977                 -53.7                             549.1

1978                 -59.2                             607.1

1979                 -40.7                             640.3

1980                 -73.8                             711.9

1981                 -79.0                             789.4

1982                 -128.0                           924.6

1983                 -207.8                           1,137.3

1984                 -185.4                           1,307.0

1985                 -212.3                           1,507.3

1986                 -221.2                           1,740.6

1987                 -149.7                           1,889.8

1988                 -155.2                           2,051.6

1989                 -152.6                           2,190.7

1990                 -221.0                           2,411.6

1991                 -269.2                           2,689.0

1992                 -290.3                           2,999.7

1993                 -255.1                           3,248.4

1994                 -203.2                           3,433.1

1995                 -164.0                           3,604.4

1996                 -107.4                           3,734.1

1997                 -21.9                             3,772.3

1998                 69.3                              3,721.1

1999                 125.6                            3,632.4

2000                 236.2                            3,409.8

2001                 128.2                            3,319.6

2002                 -157.8                           3,540.4

2003                 -377.6                           3,913.4

2004                 -412.7                           4,295.5

2005                 -318.3                           4,592.2

2006                 -248.2                           4,829.0

2007                 -160.7                           5,035.1

http://www.cbo.gov/budget/data/historical.pdf

Federal Debt Under President George W. Bush

President Bush started with 3.3196 trillion dollars of public debt.

He left his 8 years (6 years with control of both branches of Congress) with 7.8111 trillion dollars of public debt.

This means the public debt increased 4.4915 trillion dollars during his administration.

Federal Debt Under President Obama

Here are the numbers for the Obama administration projected out to 21014:

Year Gross Debt in Billions as % of GDP Debt Held By Public ($Billions) as % of GDP
2010 (2 Sept) 13,442.1 92.1 (2nd Q) 8,933.2 61.2 (2nd Q)
2010 (est.) 14,456.3 98.1 9,881.9 67.1
2011 (est.) 15,673.9 101.0 10,873.1 70.1
2012 (est.) 16,565.7 100.6 11,468.4 69.6
2013 (est.) 17,440.2 99.7 12,027.1 68.7
2014 (est.) 18,350.0 99.8 12,594.8 68.5

 This means the public debt is estimated to increase under the Obama administration by 4.7837 trillion dollars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt

Wikipedia can be unreliable but I checked out the numbers before I posted the link.  The chart is a little simpler to read but here is the official US Treasury Department numbers:

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo4.htm

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo5.htm

Projected (est.) Congressional Budget Office numbers come from this report:

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/100xx/doc10014/03-20-PresidentBudget.pdf

Republican’s commonly complain that the surplus was due to Republican control of the Congress.  However, they do not point out that President Clinton did not have full control of the Congress for six years as President Bush did.

The Republicans took control (not a super majority) of the US House of Representatives in 1994 not the Senate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_1994

In 1995 the Republicans took control of the Senate as well (not a super majority).

“In the 1996, 1998, and 2000 elections, Republicans lost Congressional seats but still retained control of the House and, more narrowly, the Senate. After the 2000 election, the Senate was divided evenly between the parties, with Republicans retaining the right to organize the Senate due to the election of Dick Cheney as Vice President and ex officio presiding officer of the Senate. The Senate shifted to control by the Democrats (though they technically were the plurality party as they were one short of a majority) after GOP senator Jim Jeffords changed party registration to “Independent” in June 2001, but later returned to Republican control after the November 2002 elections. In the 2006 elections, Democrats won both the House of Representatives (233 Democrats, 202 Republicans) and the Senate (49 Democrats, 49 Republicans, and 2 Independents caucusing with the Democrats) as well as the majority of state governorships (28-22).”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Revolution

The Republicans had full control of the Executive and Congressional branches of government for six years and could not generate a surplus.  However, President Clinton did it for four years without having full control.

Unemployment Statistics – President Obama vs President Bush

 

Unemployment Under President George W. Bush

The unemployment rate in 2000 was 4.0%

The unemployment rate in 2009 was 9.3%

The rate went from 4.0% to 7.7% under President Bush, 3.7% over his administration.

http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat1.pdf

Unemployment Under President Obama

Current estimates are 9.6%

President Obama took office on January 20, 2009

In January 2009 the rate was 7.7%

It went from 7.7% to estimated 9.6% under President Obama, 1.9% under President Obama to date.

Series Id:           LNS14000000
Seasonally Adjusted
Series title:        (Seas) Unemployment Rate
Labor force status:  Unemployment rate
Type of data:        Percent or rate
Age:                 16 years and over

Top of Form

Download:

Bottom of Form

Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Annual
2000 4.0 4.1 4.0 3.8 4.0 4.0 4.0 4.1 3.9 3.9 3.9 3.9  
2001 4.2 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.3 4.5 4.6 4.9 5.0 5.3 5.5 5.7  
2002 5.7 5.7 5.7 5.9 5.8 5.8 5.8 5.7 5.7 5.7 5.9 6.0  
2003 5.8 5.9 5.9 6.0 6.1 6.3 6.2 6.1 6.1 6.0 5.8 5.7  
2004 5.7 5.6 5.8 5.6 5.6 5.6 5.5 5.4 5.4 5.5 5.4 5.4  
2005 5.3 5.4 5.2 5.2 5.1 5.0 5.0 4.9 5.0 5.0 5.0 4.9  
2006 4.7 4.8 4.7 4.7 4.6 4.6 4.7 4.7 4.5 4.4 4.5 4.4  
2007 4.6 4.5 4.4 4.5 4.4 4.6 4.6 4.6 4.7 4.7 4.7 5.0  
2008 5.0 4.8 5.1 5.0 5.4 5.5 5.8 6.1 6.2 6.6 6.9 7.4  
2009 7.7 8.2 8.6 8.9 9.4 9.5 9.4 9.7 9.8 10.1 10.0 10.0  
2010 9.7 9.7 9.7 9.9 9.7 9.5 9.5 9.6 9.6        

http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cpsatab15.htm (need check U3 Seasonally Adjusted)