Wall Street Journal reports economic crisis is over

The economy is set to soar, but the Biden /Democrat hysteria choir is trying to tap it down so it can grab more green goodies at your expense.

"The latest evidence arrived Monday with the Institute for Supply Management’s news that its March survey for service businesses hit 63.7. That’s an all-time high, and it signifies rapid growth and optimism. The only problem is that many businesses say they can’t find enough workers or supplies to meet their order books.

That follows Friday’s blowout employment report for March, with a net total of 1.07 million new jobs including revisions from the previous two months. Wage gains were bigger than they looked at first glance, given that many returning workers were those in lower-wage services jobs hurt by the pandemic." Wall St. Journal

Cancel the egg rolls. Hire CBS to do a hit piece on Florida's governor. Bust open the border with more infected immigrants and ship them around the country. Keep the schools closed with teachers union (which funds 99.9% Democrat candidates) cooperation. Send Fauci to all the talk shows with even more confusing information.

Critical Race Theory has bad effect on employee morale

Mike Huckabee: "Cigna workers told the paper [Washington Examiner] that they are forced to undergo “sensitivity training” that they find to be racist and discriminatory. They aren’t just made to feel guilty of “white privilege,” but also “gender privilege,” “religious privilege” (if they’re Christians), heterosexual privilege, age privilege and on and on. There are internal complaints that it’s “disgusting and wrong.” There’s even a list of words that are banned for possibly triggering someone (I guess I’m insensitive due to my whiteness, but I can’t even imagine why “Hip Hip Hooray!” is banned at birthday parties but “Hooray! Yay!” is deemed “inclusive.”)

Cigna offers employees lessons in the “systemic racism” of the US taken right out of the debunked “1619 Project” and recommends that employees read such divisive racist books as “White Fragility” and “How to Be an Anti-Racist.” Worst of all, workers claim the company is engaging in openly discriminatory hiring practices in which minorities are hired despite a lack of qualifications while highly qualified applicants are rejected solely because they’re white. One employee complained of positions being left open for an inordinate amount of time just because the only applicants were white."

If your book club, church or next door neighbor recommends "White Fragility," ask them to justify their selection or recommendation.  Ask them if they consider themselves a racist or just other people.  Ask them how this will calm or reduce racial tension.  If they do identify as a racist, ask them what sort of changes they will be making.

There's a skills gap, but the myth is racism

"Black students never catch up to their white and Asian peers [8th grade proficiency tests]. There aren’t many white-collar professions where possessing partial mastery of basic reading and math will qualify one for employment. The SAT measures a more selective group of students than the NAEP, but even within that smaller pool of college-intending high school students, the gaps remain wide. On the math SAT, the average score of blacks in 2015 was 428 (on an 800-point scale); for whites, it was 534, and for Asians it was 598—a difference of nearly a standard deviation between blacks and whites, and well over a standard deviation between blacks and Asians. The tails of the distribution were even more imbalanced, according to the Brookings Institution. Blacks made up 2 percent of all test takers with a math SAT between 750 and 800. Sixty percent of those high scorers were Asian, and 33 percent were white. Blacks were 35 percent of all test takers with scores between 300 and 350. Whites were 21 percent of such low scorers, and Asians 6 percent." The Bias Fallacy | City Journal (city-journal.org)

I looked at the charts, and by the way, the white students never catch up to their Asian peers either.

If all these liberal and leftist organizations from non-profits to universities to big tech are looking for black people to fill positions of responsibility and high skills, there will not be enough people to go around based on testing, except by continually adding "people of color" who are immigrants or visiting foreign scholars. 

The No-Fear Act

Today when I was looking up some COVID19 statistics at the CDC site, I noticed something at the bottom of the page called the "No-FEAR" Act. Have you heard of that? Trust me, President Trump hasn't removed all the ridiculous red tape and piles of useless paperwork in DC. "The Notification and Federal Employee Antidiscrimination and Retaliation Act of 2002 is a United States federal law that seeks to discourage federal managers and supervisors from engaging in unlawful discrimination and retaliation. It is popularly called the No-FEAR Act, and is also known as Public Law 107–174."

I'm not sure where the final total of these discrimination and retaliation reports goes, but every government department and agency seems to be required to fill them out. . . quarterly. Then annually, then compare them to the last 4 years (at least that's all I found so I was looking at annual totals from Obama years also). I didn't investigate in depth--only about 10 minutes. What I found out from the agencies I looked at is that it takes about 200 days to investigate a complaint (race, color, religion, reprisal, sex, PDA, national origin, equity pay, age, genetics (?), awards ). The biggest complaints seemed to be performance evaluations and non-sexual harassment. There were miniscule number of filings considering the size of some of the agencies, and in most cases there were zero findings of discrimination and retaliation. Maybe if you complain about your boss, the investigation and findings would be to get demoted to this awful job.

https://www.opm.gov/equal-employment-opportunity/no-fear-act/

https://www.cdc.gov/eeo/nofearact/index.htm

https://www.fema.gov/about/offices/equal-rights/no-fear-act

https://home.treasury.gov/footer/no-fear-act

The most detailed report was the Bureau of Consumer Financial  Protection which is awash in helpful and eye opening acronyms  https://home.treasury.gov/footer/no-fear-act

SCOTUS decision on LGBT and Title VII

This was a bad decision, not because workers with special sexual interests and behaviors should be fired without cause, but because SCOTUS redefined the clear meaning of a law passed over 50 years ago.  It’s a terrible precedent.  Sex meant biology and gender meant grammar when Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed; orientation was an introduction to college or a new job.  Now sex means anything I want it to mean. With this ruling, SCOTUS can reach back and change the clear intent of a law while keeping it.

What if other aspects of law like contract law, or property law, membership law or education law, or health law or family law also becomes, “Your truth is not my truth.”  What if Elizabeth Warren really can decide on her own truth about her tribal heritage? Why should her truth she’s believe all her life be less important than tribal membership laws? What if you demand Catholic communion/eucharist because today you’re feeling Catholic instead of Methodist?  What if you decide age restriction for sexual relationships are meaningless if a child appears to be a different age?  What if you claim residency outside your school district even though you don’t pay taxes there, but today you believe  you are a resident?  These “what ifs” are no more ridiculous than denying biology, the original intent of Title VII was to protect women and minorities.

And the ruling provides no religious protection, which is in the Bill of Rights and should take precedent over the ever changing societal mores and fascination with all things sexual. The ruling leaves open the can of worms on whether transgender individuals who have not had gender-reassignment surgery or counseling can be considered members of the opposite sex — an issue at the forefront of women’s athletics. In fact, this ruling can destroy the gains and protections women have won the last 50 years.

This is an issue that belongs in Congress, where they make laws, not in the Supreme Court.

How lifers make a living in Congress—Bernie Sanders

Some of my regular readers are old enough to remember the Jimmy Carter years; he was ousted by Ronald Reagan because people were so upset by the economy. It was a terrible recession, and I didn't have a job in my regular field, library science, but found one being alert to gossip in my aerobic class.

Through my aerobics instructor, Corey, I got a temporary government contract job through JTPA (formerly CETA)  This is where the federal government takes your tax money, filters it through all the DC bureaucrats, then sends it to the states which employ a lot of people to fill out the forms to get it, where it is filtered through the state (Ohio) bureaucracy, then smaller programs are developed, where it is further spread out among local agencies and non-profits.

I worked for STEPS, Senior Training and Employment Program. Senior workers (over 50) had been hit particularly hard by that recession, so our little group of 5 or 6 went around the state putting on workshops and developing publications. It was a dream job for me, and I was employed. I even was able to write speeches for the head of the Bureau of Employment.

That's what most of these employment programs do--they employ the people who work in them. I don't know if a single person over 50 ever found a job due to our efforts, but probably thousands of government workers, either civil service, or grant temporary like me, or Area Agency on Aging employees, or the many training centers set up for teaching and skill development (private), the landlords who rented the space, or the small caterers who provided the lunches we served at the workshops managed to get through that recession. Plus, I met great people (state employees are fantastic) and had a good time--learned so much about how government works and why so many people sat alone in offices with nothing to do while we temporary workers were very busy.

This is a tiny picture of what Bernie and others in Congress have been doing for a living for their entire lives. They live well, but not much changes for the people who really need help.

The booming Trump economy creates a labor shortage

So many Democrats believe Trump's economy talk and tweets are "spin." They whine, post stupid memes, and have no respect for people trying to get ahead after Obama's 8 years of slow growth (except for the rich--they did well after 2009). That's because Washington Post, NYT, CNN and MSNBC mislead the sheeple, or just lie.

From today's Wall Street Journal:

"The remarkable jobs rally at U.S. small businesses continued in December. That’s according to the latest National Federation of Independent Business monthly employment survey, due out later today.

NFIB’s Chief Economist William Dunkelberg reports:
Job creation did not change from November, with an average addition of 0.29 workers per firm, the highest level since May. Net job creation had faded from February’s 0.52 workers per firm to September’s 0.10, but is back in strong territory. Finding qualified workers remains the top issue for 23 percent reporting this as their number one problem, 4 points below August’s record high.

The desire to hire among the owners of small firms remained robust. According Mr. Dunkelberg, “The 2019 small business labor market ended in much the same way as it began with strong hiring, elevated levels of open positions, and higher employee compensation.” Speaking of rising wages, the NFIB economist notes: “Attempting to fill open positions, historically high percentages of owners plan to raise worker compensation.”
In some industries, the competition for labor is especially fierce.

NFIB reports:
Sixty-two percent of construction firms reported few or no qualified applicants and 46 percent cited the shortage of qualified labor as their top business problem. Comparable figures for manufacturing were 63 percent and 24 percent respectively. Growth is clearly constrained in these important sectors by a shortage of workers."

The Washington Post today got it half right--reported on the booming job growth, but then attributed it to rising minimum wage! How dumb does a business columnist need to be (or who is threatening him) to write that? Minimum wage is a huge deterrent to a healthy economy. Wages are going up because of labor shortage--workers are promoted and new ones hired at good salaries if they can walk and chew gum. It's not rocket science, except for MSM. A very small number of workers even in recession made minimum wage, most made more.

In 1980, when the federal minimum wage was $3.10 ($9.41 in 2018 dollars), 13% of hourly workers earned the federal minimum wage or less. Today, only 2% of workers do. The number of federal minimum wage workers has decreased from 7.7 million in 1980 to 1.7 million today. This is partly due to states establishing higher minimum wages than the federal level. I guess Democrats want more people to be earning minimum instead of less?  I don’t get it!

Can you spot the lie?

Inspired by various lists going around Facebook, from condiments in the frig to rock events, I decided to try this. It's a list of ten jobs I’ve held, but one I didn’t (there are eleven on the list). Can you guess which one? Can you guess from which I was fired?

newspaper delivery
drug store clerk
specifications writer
journal author
Russian cataloger
Spanish teacher
agricultural worker
babysitter
Translator of medical articles
speech writer
drive in car hop

At an older blog I made a list of all the jobs I had before I graduated from college.

Sex, race and income gaps

On my walk this morning I saw three women and four men, in four different jobs.

One woman was about 23 and a home health aide walking one of my neighbors around the condo grounds.  She was white, attractive, pleasant and cheerful and they were chatting together. Her median pay scale (on the internet, because I didn't ask her) is about $10.00/hour.  If she works for an agency, the family will probably pay more than double that, but she'll have decent benefits. If she's a private contractor, she'll make more, but will have to contribute her own Social Security.  Not even a high school degree is required.  I often see foreign women with limited language skills in these positions.  It was not the case with this young woman.
 
As I continued, I saw two men with the Columbus Public Utilities department--both had uniforms, tools, and white trucks.  They were white and probably under 40. They were repairing a piece of equipment in a large box near the road. I'm guessing they do some kind of electrical maintenance.  I think the box probably controls power in the whole neighborhood. If they were supervisory, they'd need a bachelor's degree and about 10 years experience. Salaries were hard to determine, since I don't have a job title and am guessing, but the median could be $154,000.

Two women were in the playground of the near by church with pre-schoolers.  I don't know if they were teachers or aides, but I'm going to call them pre-school teachers. They were white and probably early 30s. They were actively involved in the children's activities and very watchful. They weren't sitting and chatting or checking their phones. Their median salary is about $12.06/hour  ($28,570) or about 50% of an elementary school teacher ($56,000), and less than a fitness instructor ($39,410) at a private club or gym. I think the pre-school teachers need a bachelor's degree or would be working on one, but most elementary teachers around here have a master's degree.  Also the teachers work 9-10 months with a number of days off during the school year, but the Fitness instructor works 12.  They would probably all have benefits, at least health, vacation and sick leave.  The pre-school teacher may also get free day care for her own children, or a discount.  The fitness instructor may have a family discount to use the gym.  The elementary teacher gets play ground duty and short lunches.

When returning home I noticed two trucks going  a bit over the speed limit driven by two young black men   for the company, 1-800-Got Junk. These days it's called "environmental diversion."  I think they may have been late teens or early 20s. I actually found this company on the internet, and various job titles.  A truck driver makes $11.36 or ($18-$22,000 a year).  I think they had full benefits. There were various job levels, and room for advancement, and no education (for truck driver) was required. Brian Scudamore, a high school drop-out,  is the founder and CEO of 1-800-Got Junk, and you can check him out for a very interesting career story.  He's founded several companies, but this one does about $152 - $170 million a year. He got this idea when he was 18 and working at McDonald's.  (Company is now franchised, so I don't know who owns the one in Columbus.)

The next time you see an article about the wage gap or gender gap or race gap in employment, remember, not all jobs are the same, they don't have the same requirements, responsibilities, education, and race or gender probably isn't what has caused the difference. And also think about Mr. Scudamore.  Anyone could have done what he did, but he rolled up his sleeves and did it.

Big Oops

As part of Clinton’s criminal justice reforms, she supports “banning the box,” meaning the box former criminals have to check on a job application acknowledging they committed a misdemeanor or felony. But as she was articulating that stance to her audience [Charleston NAACP] Friday, she made a verbal slip-up.

“Earlier today, I announced that as president, I will take steps to ban the box, so former presidents won’t have to declare their criminal history at the very start of the hiring process,” she said. “That way, they’ll have a chance to be seen as more than just someone who’s done time.”

She's now a much bigger criminal than any president, she just isn't a former president.

It’s not true what you’ve heard about Baltimore

These man on the street interviews by the media of people milling around in Baltimore make no sense, nor do the memes floating around the social media about how bad things are. Black mayor, black police, black president, black attorney general, etc., all seem to be afraid of black gangs and thugs. According to the BLS, Baltimore is doing better than the rest of the U.S.A. economically in many areas.  I’ve listen to some people call the talk shows and they sound like they’re reading from a script, but can’t identify a particular crime which affected them.

I also counted the charter schools in Baltimore—32 I think.  I’m guess those kids did not join in the rioting when school let out yesterday.

The White House sending representatives to the funeral but not to the funerals for the blacks killed in Chicago, day after day, mostly killed by other blacks, probably hasn’t helped the image of this presidency which seems to delight in exacerbating race relations beginning with the “Boston police acted stupidly” in 2009.

http://www.bls.gov/regions/mid-atlantic/summary/blssummary_baltimore.pdf

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/04/27/obama-to-send-aide-to-freddie-gray-funeral-in-baltimore/

http://homicides.suntimes.com/victims/

http://www.marylandpublicschools.org/MSDE/programs/charter_schools/docs/BaltCity.htm

Without Texas, the SOTU speech would have been very different

“Since 2010, America has put more people back to work than Europe, Japan, and all advanced economies combined. Our manufacturers have added almost 800,000 new jobs. Some of our bedrock sectors, like our auto industry, are booming. But there are also millions of Americans who work in jobs that didn’t even exist ten or twenty years ago – jobs at companies like Google, and eBay, and Tesla.”

http://www.redstate.com/2015/01/26/rick-perrys-texas-responsible-us-job-creation/

When the unions raise the cost of fast food, will the poor eat at home?

I wonder how many of the fast food marchers yesterday were actually working for minimum wage or if they are hired by the unions. $15/hour for a teen to learn to wipe tables and sweep the floor? Not going to happen. And if the beginner gets $15, what does the counter person who's been there 3 years get, or the assistant manager? Don't their wages go up too? According to the BLS, 2% are paid minimum, and they are mostly young and part time. The percentage has dropped dramatically in the last 40 years--and maybe that's good, but probably not, since usually a worker’s first job is minimum wage and that's where we learn. I wasn't worth what I was paid at my first job, but it was a learning experience.

The identify crisis in the newest EO

President Richard Nixon in a 1969 Executive Order, included gender to a list of groups that are protected from being discriminated against as federal employees. Why the hoopla about Obama?  And if his EO update (also updated by Johnson and Clinton) makes a difference, why did he wait so long? Being gay didn't stop librarians from rising to the top of their profession. Or artists.  Or musicians. Or novelists.  Certain folks seem to fear their own sexuality and have stayed too long in the closet.  Will they now take the designation "male/female" off personnel records and applications? (I’ve heard California is removing husband and wife designations). Or will job applications and personnel records need to include surgery records for transitioned? Will a black transgender (male to female) have a case against the boss because a gay black man has been promoted and she wasn't? 

http://tgmentalhealth.com/basic-issues-in-transgender-mental-health/

http://www.healthcommunities.com/transgender-health/female-to-male.shtml

ACA affects employment expansion

A new survey demonstrates the Affordable Care Act's negative impact on employment. According to the Journal, "nearly half of small-business owners with at least five employees, or 45% of those polled, said they had had to curb their hiring plans because of the health law, and almost a third—29%—said they had been forced to make staff cuts, according to a U.S. Bancorp survey of 3,173 owners with less than $10 million in annual revenue that will be released Thursday." WSJ editorial, April 24, 2014

“As part of its "Faces of the Affordable Care Act" multimedia feature, the Journal is profiling two small businesses—T. Cain Grocery Inc. of Fairhope, Ala., and retail and wholesale bakery Ovenly LLC of Brooklyn, N.Y.—and it will revisit them periodically to update readers on critical decisions they face or have made as they cope with the law.”  WSJ report

Monday Memories—When Dad got a job at 80

My memory may be a little hazy (my siblings will set me straight), but I think Dad retired the first time when he was about 55 and sold his fuel oil business to his cousin.  He puttered and figitted and looked out the front window for awhile, then started working again.  I know for awhile he drove an oil tanker—had to join the teamsters, which was a big family laugh since he was anti-union.  Then he was a security guard for awhile at one of the Rockford hospitals.  I recall him telling some stories, but not enough of the details to report them. 

Then he started another business, Agri-Bolt, selling equipment parts to farmers for their large equipment.  A box of bolts would be installed in the barn for easy access and Dad would periodically stop by and refill it, then bill the owner.  Eventually, probably in his 70s, he gave that up too. He would walk 5-10 miles a day and help Mom with her guest home on the family farm, but he’d run out of things to do.

When he was about 80 (or maybe 83) he noticed an ad for a salesman for a bolt company, so he applied.  By that time, it was illegal to ask a potential employee his age, so they hired him.  They found out his age because it was required on some other type of form to list his birthdate, perhaps insurance. 1913.  And then he got employee of the month (or year) for being highest in sales.  Years later I was visiting him when a young man stopped by to see him—the owner of that business who still kept in touch after he’d retired from that job.

Sometimes I think he worked just to prove a point that anyone can get a job. . . even an old man.

                      

Dad would be 101 today.

Actually, this whopper may not be that big

 

The trick word here is "expanded." For instance, under Bush SNAP eligibility was expanded, but Obama increased recruitment to the program. EITC, HEAP, TANF, Medicaid, SCHIP, disability, even Obama phones (phone assistance began under Reagan) etc. were all programs of other presidents. Lack of good jobs and reductions because of Obamacare has pushed more onto government benefits.  What's new is people fleeing the workforce to apply for and get SS disability because he couldn't turn around the job situation.

What has expanded is the wait for veteran’s benefits.  For welfare recipients, there is a 30 day wait to qualify for food stamps, or expedited, 7 days. Over 675,000 claims pending for veterans, 58% for over 125 days. Why are veterans required to wait? Haven't they already paid? Are the low income, unemployed a bigger voting block than disabled veterans?

Fresh take on an old Chinese proverb

The President is just wrong about the poor

Americans are not poor due to an income gap or rising  income inequality—that rate has been fairly stable over the years (also the poverty stats don’t count all the 79 means tested programs).

Here's the research, Mr. President. It's behavior and choice. People aren't poor because others are rich.

"If you do these [four] things, it’s almost impossible to remain poor:
1. Finish high school,
2. Get a job,
3. Don’t have children until you get married.

Those who do these things have only a 2 percent probability of remaining in poverty and a 75 percent probability of joining the middle class." John Goodman

The only new idea the left seems to have is universal preschool. (They don’t know how to reform any existing programs, so why not throw money after one more?) But the more common tactic (e.g., Paul Krugman) is to use inequality as an excuse for enacting the traditional liberal agenda — deficit spending, minimum wage increase, more unemployment compensation. If you think any of that is going to solve the fundamental problem, I know a bridge in Brooklyn that is for sale.

Remember welfare reform of the mid-90s? Even a job, any job, reduces the poverty rate. Wealth transfer doesn’t solve poverty.

"The poverty rate among full time workers is 2.9 percent as compared with a poverty rate of 16.6 percent among those working less than full time and about 24 percent for those who don’t work. Unfortunately, the percentage of adult males working has been declining for decades. The work rate among young black males is below 50 percent. By contrast, when single mothers substantially increased their work rates in the mid-1990s, the poverty rate among mother-headed families reached its lowest level ever.. .

We already spend more than enough money on means-tested programs for poor and low-income people to bring them all out of poverty. There were about 46.5 million people in poverty in 2012, a year in which spending on means-tested programs was around $1 trillion. If that money were divided up among the poor, we could spend about $22,000 per person. For a single mother and two children, that would be over $65,000. The poverty level in 2013 for a mother and two children is less than $20,000. So this strategy would work, but giving so much money to young, able-bodied adults would not be tolerated by the public. Besides, if government gave this much cash to non-workers, many low-wage workers would quit work so they too could collect welfare.”

Ron Haskins, http://www.brookings.edu/.../19-war-on-poverty-what-went...

How to destroy more entry level jobs—get the unions involved

Requirements for entry level

“Many fast food workers are high school students because the industry doesn't require much in the way of formal education or experience, and offers plenty of part-time positions. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics notes that around half of food service workers were employed part time in 2010. Some employers have strict dress and appearance codes, while others provide more leeway. However, a neat, clean and polished appearance during the application process gives a good impression and can help you land a job.”

The job also requires adequate communication skills (pronunciation, grammar, ability to make eye contact, etc.) arriving on time, and not chattering with co-workers or reading smart phones while on duty. Good manners are a plus.  Workers are on their feet a long time.  The worker must be able to follow directions without getting mouthy or arguing.