Charles Lane of the Washington Post(!!) writes:
Here's a thought: Instead of trying to "create" jobs by tweaking this tax break or increasing that spending program, why not stop doing things that destroy jobs?
First among his suggestions is to "End federal protectionism and price supports for sugar".
I support that 110%.
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Image: blue1987tail/Flickr
Bingo, energy buzzes, and butts characterize this week’s weird jobs. If that’s not your cup of tea, you can always spend four hours sitting on someone’s lap. $10 an hour, kid you not:
1. WA: Need someone to sit on lap
I [...]
1) A fall in wages increases the incentive to hire (call this the substitution effect) but it decreases the income of people who already have jobs and this in turn decreases their spending and other people’s income (call this the macro income effect). In essence, Krugman and others are arguing that the [...]
Yesterday CBO released a cost estimate for S. 1733, the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act .... This legislation would make a number of changes in energy and environmental policies largely aimed at reducing emissions of gases that contribute to global warming. The bill would limit or cap [...]
This evening at 7pm ET:
1) Paul Krugman: Would cutting the minimum wage raise employment?:
Serious People (and Fox News) are rallying around the idea that if Obama really wants to create jobs, he should cut the minimum wage.... [R]educing wages would at best do nothing for employment; more likely it would actually [...]
... Tuesday, vice president Joe Biden offered his latest progress report on the stimulus package passed earlier this year. In a memo for the president, Mr. Biden said the clean-energy part of the stimulus plan—some $80 billion out of the $787 billion total—could help create more than 700,000 jobs [...]
I urge everyone to Go Read Garth. And then you will understand that Economics is The Science of Supporting the Status Quo and Stifling Innovation, as Steve Jobs (h/t Patrick) noted several days ago.
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What defined business in 2009? Bankers and bailouts, for one. The proliferation of social media. A radical shift in the ways we find and accept jobs. A redefinition of the real estate, credit, and media markets.
In a word, 2009 was full of fluctuations. And nobody covered, commented [...]
For students wondering where the depression-resistant, high-paying jobs are, the USA Today reports that the percentage of federal government workers making over $100,000 per year increased from 15% to 19% during the current downturn's first year and a half.
"The growth in six-figure salaries has pushed the average federal" [...]
The collectif antilibérale makes the excellent point that there is no problem with the appointments to the new jobs created by the Lisbon treaty. Two things will control their in-trays, after all - the first is the job of getting a major new institution, the EU external action service, [...]
He writes, among other things:
Is The Administration's Economic Thinking Incoherent?: Brad DeLong parses my piece today on the administration's struggle to create jobs while still minding the deficit and pronounces himself "increasingly bewildered about administration thinking."...
Now, obviously, not every member of the administration and every Democrat [...]
Some jobs, anyone can do. And some jobs need to be a personality fit. For example, you probably shouldn’t be an atheist if you apply for a church musician gig. You shouldn’t be a manipulative type if you’re interested in hypnotism. And if you want to sell [...]
The real unemployment rate--the share of Americans who say that they are actively looking for work and don't have jobs--has been drifting down since late spring--from 9.7% in June to 9.4% in November. The seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate over that same period has risen from 9.5% to 10.0%, as the actual' [...]
On Tuesday, President Obama unveiled a plan to use repaid TARP monies to fund a job creation program. The question is, can the government actually create jobs?
Initially, one would say yes. If the government hires more workers, this is job creation. If the government hires more contractors, this is [...]
Geez, Thursday already? Where did the week go ?
Here is what caught my eye today
• Will the real Santa Claus Rally please stand up? (MarketWatch)
• Why Didn’t Canada’s Housing Market Go Bust? (Cleveland Fed)
THIS one is clear as a bell:
Americans Want Government to Spend for Jobs, Send Bill to Rich
Here are the [...]
The folks in the United States seem to have some clear ideas about what they like and dislike, want and don’t want.
Dislikes? Bankers, Bonuses, and Congressmen.
Wants? Public Works programs, Jobs.
Paying for all that? The Rich.
That’s the result of a pair of surveys out this week from Bloomberg. The numbers are [...]
Australia’s latest unemployment numbers seem now to suggest a levelling off of unemployment at or a bit below 6 percent, at least for the next few months. The unemployment rate in November dropped to 5.7%, with full time jobs rising by 31,000. Full time jobs are still down about 150,000 [...]
This evening while shopping at Target I noticed that, in a single trip out to the parking lot, one (teenage) employee manages to round up and return to the entry-way of the store a quantity of shopping carts that, when I was working such jobs 30-plus years ago, required the [...]
SPEAKING yesterday about his new job creation proposals, President Barack Obama noted:
I don't think I have to tell you there has [...]
