Author Archives: Bill Humphrey

Bill Humphrey

About Bill Humphrey

Bill Humphrey is the primary host of WVUD's Arsenal For Democracy talk radio show and a local elected official. Follow him @BillHumphreyMA on twitter.

More on Unemployment

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Yesterday I reminded everyone to check the U6 unemployment, which gives a better picture of the unemployment situation in this country. There’s another reason I forgot to mention, other than that it doesn’t ignore the chronically unemployed.

It’s being said that this is the worst unemployment in 26 years (which goes back to 1983). That’s true if one looks at the official rate over that period (BLS graph):

But the problem is, and I wish the old media would remember this, the official definition of unemployment changed in 1994, to exclude the chronically unemployed (who lack job opportunities in their area), which makes the situation look better. Not only does that mean that a slight decrease in unemployment does not automatically point to recovery (because people could just give up looking for a while and then be excluded), but it also means that the magnitude of the recession is ignored in media reports. Saying that this is the worst unemployment in only 26 years simply isn’t true. Using the U6 from 1994 to present and comparing that to the old official rate before 1994, which used roughly the same definition, we find that this is the highest unemployment since probably as far back as the Great Depression. This is probably the worst in 71 years.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows me only back to 1948, but between 1948 and 1994, the highest unemployment was in 1982, when it reached 10.8% unemployment. Compared to the present (U6) unemployment, 16.4%, it’s evident that you have to go back past 1948 to find a higher unemployment rate than now. So I’m pretty sure that means going all the way back to the Great Depression, when (if I recall correctly) unemployment reached 25% at one point. After a brief recovery, it climbed back to 19% or so in 1938.

But all that is obscured when the old media decides to ignore the 1994 definition change that artificially lowers the official unemployment rate by 7 points in the month of may.

This post originally appeared on Starboard Broadside.

US Unemployment at 16.4% (U6)

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It’s the first Friday of the month, which means today’s labor report is out from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for last month. The U6 unemployment rate nationwide hit 16.4% for May 2009.

This is much higher than the normally quoted U3 rate, of course, in case that seems high to you. But as I explained when the February data came out, we should be looking at the U6 to get an accurate understanding of the situation. I encourage you to read that post, if you didn’t before, since understanding the difference between the “official rate” and the U6 rate is critical, in my opinion, to understanding the US economy, especially when we’re not in a recession.

I call the U6 “real” unemployment, just like people talk about “real” wage growth (which accounts for inflation).

This post originally appeared on Starboard Broadside.

If he can walk and chew gum…

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Or: Why President Obama must deal with the torture issue now

It got really cliche when supporters countered critics of Obama’s bold agenda by saying the president was capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time.

Even some people in the administration kept saying that. If he can work on Iraq, Afghanistan, the economy, and health care all at the same time – since he does have all these people working for him – it seems theoretically possible to do some other things simultaneously as well.

Robert Gibbs, the press secretary, says Obama is focused on “looking forward” and not back, which is supposed to be a good enough explanation for his disinterest in following the law and investigating and prosecuting those in the previous administration who authorized or carried out torture.

If Obama were the only person in charge of doing everything at once, this might be a reasonable thing to say. But he’s not. He’s the head of a gigantic administration (and he could, for that matter, leave it entirely up to the U.S. Dept. of Justice, like he’s supposed to, and not worry about it). That means it’s possible for the administration to be looking forward and back at the same time.

Like Janus, the Roman god of doorways and the namesake of the month of January:
janus

But on a serious note… think about it this way: If people committed crimes in the previous administration (and the evidence is overwhelming that they did), then they should be prosecuted. Because what sort of signal does it send to less-than-honest people in current and future administrations? If we prosecute, it tells people they can’t get away with it just because they’re out of office. If we don’t prosecute, it tells them that laws don’t mean anything because everyone will be ready to move on and “look forward.”

It doesn’t make sense to me that we should just “look forward.” That’s the same argument that Gerald Ford used in pardoning Nixon, and it pissed everyone off and may have cost him the 1976 election. Sure, it’s a distraction and it’s politically draining, but if we don’t hold up the law, does the law mean anything? Why bother writing laws if we never plan on enforcing them?

If we always cower because we don’t want to look like we’re politically motivated in carrying out the law, then it encourages further law-breaking. That’s not a slippery slope argument, it’s just reality. There are bad people out there who want to do illegal things, some of them will break the law anyway, but some of them will be stopped because they know there will be consequences.

Ta-Nehisi Coates has been looking at this in a different light, and he also makes these points and others better. Particularly, he suggests that there is a double standard for how the law gets enforced:

Endorsing justice, consequences, and “personal responsibility” for poor black fathers, as Obama does for instance, is moral, upstanding, and honest. Endorsing justice, consequences and “personal responsibility” for your colleagues who are charged with safegaurding the future of hundreds of millions of people is, apparently, mere retribution. What a joke.

 
Our country is based on the rule of law. If we enforce the laws for the poor minorities, we also have to enforce the laws for the powerful, rich white guys. I’d like to see these right-wing nuts stop defending illegal torture and start calling for enforcement of these laws, just as loud as they call for enforcing immigration laws and other such things.

We don’t get to pick and choose.

 
NATE UPDATE: More TNC on moving forward

Here’s what TNC actually thinks about “moving forward”

There’s a bar in the East Village that offers five shots of anything for ten bucks. I’m going there tonight, and taking 10 shots of anything the crowd reccommends. Then I’m going to stand on the street soliciting random women for sex. Should I be arrested I shall have the perfect rejoinder, “Officer, I think we should focus on looking forward.” Should I be slapped, I’ll have the perfect rebuttal, “Baby, I think we really should be focused on looking forward.” Should I succeed and come home, hung-over, and have to face my spouse’s accusing eyes, I shall be armed with the perfect riposte, “This relationship should focus on looking forward.”

 
This post originally appeared on Starboard Broadside.

“CIA official: no proof harsh techniques stopped terror attacks”

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Oh? That headline comes from McClatchy DC:

WASHINGTON — The CIA inspector general in 2004 found that there was no conclusive proof that waterboarding or other harsh interrogation techniques helped the Bush administration thwart any “specific imminent attacks,” according to recently declassified Justice Department memos.

That undercuts assertions by former vice president Dick Cheney and other former Bush administration officials that the use of harsh interrogation tactics including waterboarding, which is widely considered torture, was justified because it headed off terrorist attacks.

 
Unsurprising. Didn’t know it had been found codified yet in an official document. There was a Bush speech in 2006 that explains that a foiled 2002 plot was later identified by torturing KSM in 2003, suggesting that some information was gained but not anything vital or time-sensitive that stopped an attack. The 183 waterboardings just explained to the CIA which plot had been stopped previously by a local arrest of an Al Qaeda agent.

By the way, I skimmed and read parts of the 2005 Bradbury memo, which the McClatchy article above mentions later as citing (and contradicting) the 2004 memo. I didn’t get to that part yet, but I’ll check into it.

This post originally appeared on Starboard Broadside.

Torture “safety measures”

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More disturbing discoveries in the torture memos: doctors were on hand with equipment to perform emergency tracheotomies on detainees in case they stopped breathing properly due to extensive water boarding.

You know, where they cut a hole in your throat so you can get enough air not to die.

I don’t understand how people can still insist this wasn’t torture.

I’ve crawled through several sections of the 2005 memo cited (pdf) myself now. The tracheotomy part can be found in the second paragraph of page 14. (I actually read the memo backward for some reason, but this particular part is on p. 14). I’ve also found from reading it that these rules were created pretty much in response to worse torture before this, such as the repeated waterboarding of KSM 183 times in one month… though they don’t acknowledge that.

This post originally appeared on Starboard Broadside.

Make sure to see this…

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I was away when this story broke, or I would have covered it in more detail, but I want to make sure people read about this story. It was first broken by “emptywheel” on Firedoglake and then picked up by the New York Times.

According to the May 30, 2005 Bradbury memo, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in March 2003 and Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times in August 2002.

 
That’s mind-boggling. It’s almost impossible to understand how that amount of torture was accomplished mathematically, let alone the moral implications.

Most important note of all: No information was gained.

This post originally appeared on Starboard Broadside.

Deficit Levels

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This video was on the front page of Daily Kos mainly to highlight what the author saw as betrayal by Sen. Evan Bayh on FOX News, where he explained why he planned to vote against the Federal spending bill that runs budget programs. I’m not, however, posting it here for that reason, as you’ll read below the video.

If he and other deficit hawks stopped for a moment to consider what they are actually saying, they might realize they were making the case FOR increased deficit spending. He cites the Civil War and WWII as the only times when he thinks the deficit-to-GDP ratio was higher than now (Bayh thinks it’s 12% of GDP right now, and by the end of WWII it was over 100% of GDP).

Ok, setting the Civil War aside because that brings up unrelated issues, let’s examine the issue of citing World War II deficits. Right now, we’re in a major recession. It’s the worst since the Great Depression (1929-1942ish). Now, we trundled along from 1929 to the US entry to war worrying about deficits and not spending too much compared to the national GDP, which was much smaller then than it is now. No amount of New Deal programs worked until 1942, when the New Deal went on Allied War Effort steroids. That doesn’t mean the New Deal failed because it was useless, it means it didn’t succeed because it didn’t go far enough.

World War II came along and we went WAY into debt and spent at a federal budget deficit exceeding the entire gross domestic product of the United States. This money went to buy and build weapons, pay factory workers, expand the bureaucracy, pay soldiers, overhaul the manufacturing industry, and increase government control over the American Total War Economy. Our long malaise and stupor finally broke and we emerged out the other side of the war on an economic crest (which temporarily dampened as spending and price controls were slashed rapidly by a Republican-run Congress). But the Great Depression was finally over and we didn’t go back to it. Without the extreme wartime spending, though, it’s probably safe to say the Depression would have continued longer.

While the debt was never entirely paid off, the deficit and debt levels were both brought reasonably quickly back under control, and they largely remained that way for the rest of the 20th century. By the time President George W. Bush took office, we were still paying down the national debt, but the spending was close to par with the revenue. No harm done.

Obviously, in the very long run, World War II-level spending would be unsustainable, but it was only meant for the short-term. Evan Bayh clearly makes an exception to his deficit concerns “rule” when he cites World War II…which came after/during the Great Depression and ended it permanently. That means that he knows it’s critical to act by massive government spending for a few years. There are exceptions to his rule, and he knows it, but doesn’t connect the dots.

Aren’t we in exceptional times right now?

This post originally appeared on Starboard Broadside.