Free Republic

America has a long-running crisis in manufacturing employment. Quite simply, year after year, the number of people employed in making things declines — the figure is down by nearly 5 million since 1996. And in election years like this one, it is common to hear politicians talk about how they will bring manufacturing jobs back. Across the board — on both sides of the aisle, in every part of the country — there is an overwhelming desire to have more manufacturing jobs. This is partly due to nostalgia and symbolism. But it’s also driven largely by economics: Generally speaking, the...

Over Labor Day weekend, I saw many friends arguing that labor unions and government intervention “humanized capitalism” by giving us the 8-hour workday, the 40-hour workweek, ending child labor, and so forth. Unfortunately, these folks have their history backward. We didn’t humanize capitalism, it humanized us. The wealth produced by capitalism allowed us to indulge our humanitarianism in ways not possible when so many were living on the edge of survival. You can’t have 8-hour workdays, 40-hour work weeks, and no child labor, until the material conditions exist to make such changes feasible for a large number of people. Workers...

You probably aren't aware because it isn't a topic that gets discussed much if at all on the outside, but increasingly even monetary policymakers are coming around to the idea that we are in a depression. What choice do they have, really, since practically any chart of any economic account in any economy shows as much. The gathering in Jackson Hole late last month was really an internal discussion in how to think about keeping current central bank frameworks alive in such a world. Earlier this week, San Francisco Fed President (and CEO) John C. Williams spoke in Nevada on...

Darryl R Schoon August 8, 2016 If the thunder don’t get you, then the lightning will… The Grateful Dead, The Wheel(lyrics) In the world of phenomena, everything has a beginning and an end; and today, the bankers’ endgame is moving closer to its inevitable resolution and demise. The question is no longer if, it is when and how. The relationship between paper money and gold is causal in central banking’s collapse. When paper money was backed by gold, it (1) gave the bankers’ paper money its value and (2) constrained the ability of governments to print limitless amounts of money,...

Obamacare’s expansion of Medicaid reduced employment in those states that participated in it by a statistically significant extent, according to a recent study by Georgetown University’s Tomas Wind:“I find a significant negative relationship between Medicaid expansion and labor force participation, in which expanding Medicaid is associated with 1.5 to 3 percentage point drop in labor force participation.”As Wind notes, Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion provided an unusually good test case for the effects of a government program, since it went into effect in some states but not others during the covered period. […] Ironically, despite its enormous cost of billions of dollars...

In most presidential elections, the two candidates spar over issues. The president campaigns for his party's nominee in hopes of continuing his legacy. Democrats champion liberalism, Republicans conservatism. In numerous press conferences, journalists try to force newsworthy and embarrassing admissions from the two candidates. Not this year. Barack Obama, who less than two years ago dipped to 40% in approval rating, is nowhere to be seen. He seems to know that the more he is absent and quiet, the more the public likes the idea rather than the reality of him as president -- and his approval rating has risen...

Debt terrifies people but the paradox of macro-economics is that sometimes borrowing even more is the best way out Credit: Jon Elswick An ominous paper by the US Federal Reserve has become the hottest document in high finance. It was intended to reassure us that the world's hegemonic central bank still has ample firepower to overcome the next downturn. But the author was too honest. He has instead set off an agitated debate, and rattled a lot of nerves. ... ...federal debt is already 105pc of GDP - up from 54pc... ...nagging question is what happens at the onset of...

The numbers are in and after seven years of Obamanomics the economic climate in America is “worse than the depression.”

For the past year as some of you know, Sweden has called for a ban on lobster imports from the United States. Without a shred of proof, they claim that American raised lobster threaten their native lobster in its own habitat. Only two forces seem to be fighting this unjustified and uncalled for ban, Nova Scotia and New England Fisherman, particularly those from my home state of Maine. The ban proposal has already cleared its first hurdles despite new data by European scientists that show that American imports have nothing to do with the increase of North American lobsters in...

How should we stop corporations from leaving the United States, as both presidential candidates have vowed to do? After Pfizer announced this year that it wanted to merge with the Ireland-based Allergan in a maneuver known as a corporate inversion, the Obama administration put in new tax rules that effectively scuttled the deal. President Obama characterized inversions as a way American companies to “get out of paying their fair share of taxes here at home.” Last month, the Chamber of Commerce sued to block the new rules, saying that the administration “simply rewrote the law unilaterally.” We need to put...

The IBD/TIPP Economic Optimism Index slipped this month, led by a sharp slide in confidence about the economic outlook over the next six months. Pessimism deepened among Democrats, in particular, with their view of near-term economic prospects sinking to a five-year low. The overall IBD/TIPP Economic Optimism index fell 1.7 points to 46.7, remaining in pessimistic territory below the 50 level since April 2015. The index has been in a narrow range of from 45.5 to 48.7 this year. The index is a composite of three major subindexes that track views of near-term economic prospects, the outlook for personal finances...

ELKHART — Goshen Coach, a commercial bus manufacturer, announced it will close its Elkhart facility on Oct. 31 and expects to lay off 159 employees. The company filed a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification on Wednesday with the Indiana Department of Workforce Development to announce the plan to close the facility at 25161 Leer Drive. It plans to offer "severance benefits and transition programs to affected employees," according to the notice, which does not explain why the plant will be shut down. Company officials could not be reached Wednesday for comment. Goshen Coach, which has manufactured specialty vehicles since 1985,...

Americans think the economy is in far worse shape than it is. The U.S. unemployment rate is only 4.9%, but 57% of Americans believe it's a lot higher than that, according to a new survey by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University. The general public has "extremely little factual knowledge" about the job market and labor force, Rutgers found. It's another example of how experts on Wall Street and in Washington see the economy differently than the regular Joe. Many of the nation's top economic experts say that America is "near full employment." The unemployment...

For the first time since the mid 1990s, Norway’s expenditures have exceeded state revenues. Figures released by Statistics Norway (SSB) on Tuesday show that the state’s total revenues in the second quarter of this year totaled 328 billion kroner, which is 2.3 percent less than in the same quarter of last year. […] “Reduced income from petroleum taxes and reduced surplus from the State’s Direct Financial Interest in petroleum activities (SDFI) account largely for the continued decrease in total revenue in Q2 2016,” SSB wrote. …

It was noted yesterday that Donald Trump mentioned “the false economy”. Many people do not have a solid frame of reference for what this three-decades old term is referring to.

...When we hear about how much more income the top 20 percent of households make, compared to the bottom 20 percent of households, one key fact is usually left out. There are millions more people in the top 20 percent of households than in the bottom 20 percent of households. The number of households is the same but the number of people in those households is very different... ...A little over half of the households in the bottom 20 percent have nobody working... ...Household income statistics can be very misleading in other ways... ...income statistics can show an economic decline,...

...Popular attention focuses on Uber and similar internet-based networks that unite buyers and sellers... ...the gig economy is overrated. It's not the main engine of change. It accounts for only about 0.5% of employment... ...In 2015, these unconventional jobs represented 15.8% of the U.S. total. That's almost one in six. What's more, these "alternative work arrangements" are growing rapidly; in 2005, they were only 10.7% of all jobs. Some industries have long relied on subcontracting (construction, trucking) or temporary work (retailing)... ...The "alternative work arrangements" fall into four categories: (1) independent contractors and freelancers... ...(2) on-call workers who have designated...

The U.S. economy added 151,000 jobs in August, the Labor Department said, 24,000 less than expected. The jobless rate held steady at 4.9%. The report was viewed as close to Goldilocks — not too hot, not too cold — because it's likely to keep the Federal Reserve on hold when it meets on Sept. 21. Major stock indexes saw moderate gains after the report. The 10-year Treasury yield dipped slightly after the lower-than-expected job gain, but subsequently turned higher. As of midmorning, markets were pricing in about a 25% chance of an interest-rate hike in September, unchanged from the prior...

More than 70 percent of manufacturing jobs and more than half of jobs involving data collection might be rendered obsolete by automation and robots, according to a report from McKinsey & Company. One study estimated up to 80 percent of current jobs may be threatened by automation, which could become a critical economic issue for policy makers and global leaders in the coming decades. While Americans celebrate Labor Day weekend, it is a good time to contemplate the rise in artificial intelligence and how it can threaten jobs in all types of industries....

This Labor Day, America has 83,000 fewer coal jobs and 400 coal mines than it did when Barack Obama was elected in 2008, showing that the president has followed through on his pledge to “bankrupt” the coal industry. A 2015 study found the coal industry lost 50,000 jobs from 2008 to 2012 during Obama’s first term. During Obama’s second term, the industry employment in coal mining has fallen by another 33,300 jobs, 10,900 of which occurred in the last year alone, according to federal data. Currently, coal mining employs 69,460 Americans, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Much of...