dagblog - Comments for "Was the Decline in Manufacturing a Factor in Trump's Victory?"

And it shouldn't be sitting

Obey — Sat, 03 Jun 2017 01:15:33 +0000

In reply to Well dammit. Now I have to

And it shouldn't be sitting at the bottom of a dead 'in the news' thread.

Well dammit. Now I have to

Obey — Sat, 03 Jun 2017 01:13:32 +0000

In reply to Thanks for the understanding

Well dammit. Now I have to rethink everything. Great

Thanks for the understanding

artappraiser — Sat, 03 Jun 2017 00:54:24 +0000

In reply to Yeah, like Ocean-Kat says, if

Thanks for the understanding about my rant done without much thought, It just that it hit me after seeing acres of screen taking over dagblog over fighting what to do about jobs for these white working class males as if older white working class males allover the country is all either party needs. When in the current situation of why Trump won, it's not: it's a few select precincts in the whole country that were played. Congress is a different story. But Obama won two elections and Hillary won the majority. While I totally understand the problem inherent in the national unemployment figures, I am seeing more than this story about more than a few localities dropping to like 3% like Maine, and where wages are rising.

And what's more Trump is planning on taking credit for this low unemployment! When the kudos should go to the Obama administration!

And it just strikes me that a lot of this talk about Dem Party and Sanders might just be foolishly fighting past wars, as they have before, and ignoring more potent future concerns.

There's a whole new generation of voters coming up, and I don't think the loss of working class jobs 20 or 30 years ago are going to be their concerns at all. I don't think many of them will even think of working in a factory as viable job for a full life.

Nor are racial issues going to be the same, as more and more of the new voters will be mixed race.

Went to see a show this afternoon at the NYHistorical Society. Saw a group of public school high schoolers getting a history lecture in front of a diorama, guard says they are prepping for a state regents exam or something like that, at the end of semester. Maybe sophomores/juniors. Not a one of them could one label "black" or "white" for sure. On closer look, the diorama was of mementos from 9/11/01. Most of them weren't born yet, they have to be taught about it in history class.

This isn't just a coastal phenomenon. Look close at a story like the New Yorker story on the opoid epidemic in West VA. You will see that on the saintly volunteer team in West Va, there are 4 women: 3 are white and 1 is black. One of the couples in the story seems to be interracial. And the story is less about looking for jobs, and more about hope of getting out of small dead-end towns where life is deadening, where there is no there there, nothing to live for. It might as well be about getting out of ghetto culture of Chicago into the Barack-and-Michelle version of Chicago.

Forget Fox News, conservative talk, it's dying. I repeat: it's dying, with the boomers as they die if not sooner. (For chrissake, broadcast TV and radio are dying!) I think U.S. culture is changing quickly and radically and both parties have not kept up with it. Fighting old fights that don't matter anymore. Trump voters a bunch of old people with old thoughts mixed with some others who went "what the heck, the classic parties ain't doing us no good." Even so, still not a majority, but a parlor card trick with the electoral college. And parties should change according to the old issues that were utiltized to do that?!

P.S. Your link a nice nod my

artappraiser — Sat, 03 Jun 2017 00:49:34 +0000

In reply to Thanks for the understanding

P.S. Your link a nice nod my way, but not at all funny. Because: exactly this type of thing is what we have to "look" at all the time at art fairs. Not even close to parody, too real. As I was saying: revolutionary change in the culture. Furthermore, anyone who tries to sell that the millenials are not a very different generation from the ones before is doing: fake news.

Yes. no disagreement there.

artappraiser — Sat, 03 Jun 2017 00:07:26 +0000

In reply to A half-hearted counterpoint -

Yes. no disagreement there. And it ain't Obama nor Trump's fault. Is "Wall Street's" fault, not playing by the rules.

A half-hearted counterpoint -

Obey — Fri, 02 Jun 2017 23:09:49 +0000

In reply to All this jobs jobs jobs talk

A half-hearted counterpoint - there are apparently a number of serious reasons for this newfound reduced economic mobility beyond mere laziness: underwater mortgages (yes, still 7 million seriously underwater), professional licencing, etc.

Yeah, like Ocean-Kat says, if

Obey — Fri, 02 Jun 2017 22:59:35 +0000

In reply to All this jobs jobs jobs talk

Yeah, like Ocean-Kat says, if you take into account people who are out of the labour market but would start applying if there were jobs available, you get a very different picture of the "real" unemployment rate. The first sign that the US isn't REALLY at 4.3% is that there is no sign inflation is pushing up, as it would because of wage pressures causing production costs to rise. The Fed's numbers on prime-age employment suggest we are maybe 3/4 of the way towards full employment from the bottom of the financial crisis recession.

But yes, your general point is well taken. Shall I say, refreshing.

The unemployment rate is

ocean-kat — Fri, 02 Jun 2017 21:33:42 +0000

In reply to All this jobs jobs jobs talk

The unemployment rate is deceptive. How deceptive is open to argument. When a person is no longer looking for work they aren't considered unemployed. Yet many have simply given up looking for work because they know their is no work available in their area. Statisticians consider the prime working years 25 to 54. The labor participation rate for this age group, especially for white men, has been falling for years. It would be interesting to see unemployment rates and labor participation rates by county. I suspect we'd find that rural counties would have higher unemployment rates and lower labor participation rates than urban areas and state or national statistics. I think that was one of the factors that drove rural men to vote for Trump.

All this jobs jobs jobs talk

artappraiser — Fri, 02 Jun 2017 17:20:17 +0000

In reply to They need to move to Maine,

All this jobs jobs jobs talk is starting to get to me when I am constantly reading about extremely low unemployment all around the country. including in red states like Wyoming. What happened is that someone learned to play a wicked poker with the Electoral College by targeting some pockets of long-time resentment about jobs lost 20 years ago or more, places that have not adjusted to reality and refuse to move anywhere but want obsolete jobs to come to them and want to stay in their hood and never change. Likewise we are told we need to cater to the needs of poor segregated minority communities, they don't want to move and mix, want to keep their culcha, but want jobs and services to come to them without paying a lot of taxes. Meanwhile immigrants are wiling to come across the world to work and live here. Absurdity after absurdity.

I know, don't need to say it, it's about well-paying jobs that restore the middle class. But that's not going to happen without education anymore. Not anywhere in the world. (If it ever really did. I grew up in a poor white hood in the late 50's and early 60's where uneducated dad's were always being "laid off" of "third shift" at the factory, so they could never afford to get out of slummy rentals, they kept having kids nonetheless.)

They need to move to Maine,

artappraiser — Fri, 02 Jun 2017 17:07:09 +0000

In reply to Was the Decline in Manufacturing a Factor in Trump's Victory?

They need to move to Maine, where they have the lowest unemployment ever, can have a conservative Gov. and live with mostly white people, too:

Maine’s Governor Wants Inmates to Fill Jobs, Not Prison Beds by Jess Bygood @NYTimes, June 1

Paul R. LePage, the brash and deeply conservative governor of Maine, has never been seen as an advocate of loosening punishments for criminals. He once joked that drug dealers should be publicly executed. He has seemed, at times, to support racial profiling in the pursuit of drug traffickers. And he has suggested that suspected domestic abusers wear ankle monitors, even if they have not been charged with crimes.

But last week, Mr. LePage conditionally commuted the state prison sentences of 17 male inmates, and is soon expected to commute the sentences of some female inmates as well. At the same time, his administration is reviewing whether he is legally allowed to commute the sentences of county inmates.

During radio interviews this week, Mr. LePage suggested his push for commutations was not a sudden shift in his views on the criminal justice system. Instead, he said, he is trying to solve the aging state’s mounting labor problem. The released offenders will be required to find jobs or job training.

“The tourist industry is struggling, can’t find enough workers,” Mr. LePage, a Republican who has been in office for six years, said on Tuesday on the radio station WVOM. “We are looking at every corner of the state to try to put people back to work. That’s what the commutation program’s all about.”

The commutations have flipped the political script in Maine. Mr. LePage is drawing cautious praise from advocates of civil liberties and supporters of shorter prison sentences for some crimes — groups that more often vehemently disagree with the governor. He is drawing anger from some of his fellow Republicans, who see the commutations as part of a political fight over a prison that Mr. LePage wants to close.

Most in Maine agree on the challenging contours of the labor market: The statewide unemployment rate is 3 percent, and innkeepers and restaurateurs have struggled to find workers for the summer tourist season. A drop in the number of available H-2B visas here, for seasonal nonagricultural workers, has not helped.

“This is the lowest unemployment rate the state has had probably ever,” said Julie Rabinowitz, the director of policy, operations and communication for the state’s Department of Labor [....]