More Americans Work At Big Firms Than Small OnesBy:Chris GaetanoPublished Date:Apr 7, 2017 For generations, if you were a worker in the U.S., it was very likely that you were employed by a small business with fewer than 100 people. In the wake of the economic crisis of 2008, however, this is no longer the case, as large and very large companies now employ a larger percentage of the population than mid-sized or small businesses, according to the Wall Street Journal. Using census data, the WSJ calculated that 36.2 percent of people worked at either a large (2,500 to 9,999 people) or very large (10,000 or more people) company, versus 38.9 percent who worked for small (100 or fewer people) companies and 24.9 percent who worked for mid-sized (100 to 2,499 people).
Since 2014, the latest year for which there is census data, this is no longer the case. At this point, 39.2 percent were employed at either a large or very large company, while 26.5 percent worked at mid-sized companies and 34.3 percent worked at small companies.
The effect has been sharper in some sectors than others. For instance, in 1980, small businesses employed 50.3 percent of all retail workers, while 34.8 percent were employed by large or very large companies. However, decades later it is these giants who now employ the biggest share of workers at 47.2, versus the 35.6 employed by small retailers today. And while finance had always had more people working in large or very large companies, employing 38.7 percent of the sector’s workers versus 34.4 percent in small companies, the years have widened the gap. The 2014 numbers indicate that 45.4 percent of finance workers now work at large or very large companies, while 29.1 percent work at smaller firms.
While generally one would expect smaller, more nimble competitors to emerge to challenge established giants, the WSJ said this is not happening as much, which could explain why big companies are taking up a higher share of employment than before. In 1980, 12.5 percent of companies were less than a year old. In 2014, this number has shrunk down to 8 percent. The WSJ also pointed to a momentum effect: these big companies have also made large gains in market share in between 1980 and 2014, which means they grow even bigger, and can operate more easily by taking advantage of things like economy of scale. * [After the pandemic winds down a bit more, then more current data will be more relevant than it would be just now. Total employee compensation would also be more relevant than just the number of workers. Tata for now though.]
Ron (RC) Weakley (A.K.A., Darryl For A While At EV) says:
Even in the best of worlds if higher education were free for all, then not everyone would make their way through medical school and residency or obtain a PhD in operations research. For those that can though, then Uncle should pay off all their student loan debt out of hand rather than under the shadow of default.
they really arent in ‘total’ control. they have a fairly strong level of control in the House, but barely any in the senate (having a 50 D to 50 R balance), and the only way to move forward is for all 50 to vote, the VP breaks the tie. but it seems that there are at least democratic senators which are more rebellious and wont vote with their party often. they do have the president and will up to the next presidential election. so they actually only control at best 2/3 of the government
Let me rephrase. The Democratic Party has the White House, and a majority in both the House and Senate (including the VP). They previously were in this situation for two years from 2009 to 2011. Before that it was 1993 till 1995. Before that we have to go back to the late 70’s.
The Democratic Party rarely has these numbers so it’s surprising that they can’t even pass a minor thing like raising the minimum wage. Most political analysts believe that the Democrats may lose power for the rest of the decade.
The spectacle created by Republican senators with presidential ambitions as they browbeat the first Black woman nominated to the Supreme Court — after which 47 Republicans voted against her on Thursday — might have seemed like glaring evidence that the G.O.P. had written off the Black vote this November.
Far from it. In rising inflation, stratospheric gas prices, lingering frustrations over Covid and new anxieties over the war in Ukraine, Republicans see a fresh opening, after the Obama and Trump eras, to peel away some Black voters who polls show are increasingly disenchanted with the Biden administration.
Thanks to gerrymandering, Republicans need not win over too many Black voters to affect a handful of races, and dozens of Black Republican House candidates — a record number of them — are reshaping the party’s pitch.
If anything, the G.O.P.’s treatment of the Supreme Court nominee, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, was a testimony to the party’s confidence that amid so many more powerful political forces and more consuming objects of public attention, their handling of her confirmation simply didn’t matter much. …
How do you break a filibuster if it applies here. I believe it is 60 votes. Dems do not have sixty votes and back in 2009-2011, Mc Turtle said he would filibuster too. Furthermore we have a “Manchin – problem” who has voted against anything which may cause a deficit. Given his past, he would probably not back an increase in the minimum wage. He said so in 2021. https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/536977-machin-says-he-doesnt-support-raising-minimum-wage-to-15-per-hour/
So because the Democrats couldn’t get the $15 per hour wage through (8 Democratic Senators voted against it, including Joe Manchin), they just give up? There is a deal to be made, probably in the $10 to $12 per hour range. Mitt Romney and Tom Cotton had their own increase proposal in February, 2021.
This article states that “only” 4.9 million workers would get a pay increase. If you are one of the 4.9 million that means a lot.
The Democrats are running out of time. Time to get some positive bills passed before the mid terms. If and when the Republicans take over the House, it will be impeachment time and non stop Hunterep Biden hearings. If the Republicans take back the Senate, very few judges will be confirmed.
You just do not understand loser liberalism. Losers are never responsible for their own losses. There is always some evil conservative that can be blamed for everything. Nowadays it is almost impossible to imagine that Vince Lombardi was actually a Democrat.
With inflation squeezing Americans’ finances, former Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summer has qualms about the way the Federal Reserve is fighting rising costs.
A highly-visible economics professor and president emeritus of Harvard University, Summer recently took to Twitter and the media to critique the national strategy.
Prices have risen by 6.4 percent from last year, marking the worst inflation since 1982. To combat the issue, federal officials, including Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, last month raised the benchmark short-term interest rate by a quarter point and has signaled potentially as many as seven rate hikes this year.
But this method, Summers writes, “is likely to lead to stagflation, with . . . unemployment and inflation both averaging over 5 percent over the next few years — and ultimately to a major recession.”
Summers has been pessimistic about rising prices for quite some time. In fact, he was among the first prominent figures to warn about this surge of inflation, which he characterized in an interview with the New York Times as “strong enough to break even longstanding traditions.” …
But no, the NYT-cited interview quotes Larry Summers complaining about concession stand prices at the Masters golf tournament:
… spectators who routinely pay thousands for tickets on the secondary market. Ham and cheese on rye, for example, has gone from $2.50 last year to $3 now, while the price of a chicken biscuit has increased by 50 cents, to $2. …
“The change in the price of concessions at Augusta is a little like the dollar store being the dollar-and-a-quarter store,” said Lawrence H. Summers, the former Treasury secretary (and a self-described “very enthusiastic and very bad golfer”) and among the first prominent figures to warn about this surge of inflation, which he characterized in an interview as “strong enough to break even longstanding traditions.”
Augusta National is not prone to raising prices. The pimento cheese sandwich, a white bread ritual whose price remained untouched heading into the tournament that will begin on Thursday, has been $1.50 since 2003. …
Ron (RC) Weakley (A.K.A., Darryl For A While At EV) says:
The former president’s level of intervention in the swing state’s elections is unmatched anywhere else.
… for Trump and his allies, the former president’s midterm intervention in Michigan is also part score-settling and preparation for 2024.
If Trump runs again — and, crucially, if he loses and contests the outcome — it will help him to have followers in positions of power. Already, his preferred candidates are mainstreaming baseless claims about voter fraud in Republican nominating contests, reshaping the party while risking turning off moderate voters in the general election in the fall. …
It is hard to believe, but now impossible to deny, that the broad framework that kept much of the world stable and prospering since the end of the Cold War has been seriously fractured by Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. In ways we hadn’t fully appreciated, a lot of that framework rested on the West’s ability to coexist with Putin as he played “bad boy,” testing the limits of the world order but never breaching them at scale.
But with Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, his indiscriminate crushing of its cities and mass killings of Ukrainian civilians, he went from “bad boy” to “war criminal.” And when the leader of Russia — a country that spans 11 time zones, with vast oil, gas and mineral resources and more nuclear warheads than anyone else — is a war criminal and must be henceforth treated as a pariah, the world as we’ve known it is profoundly changed. Nothing can work the same.
How does the world have an effective U.N. with a country led by a war criminal on the Security Council, who can veto every resolution? How does the world have any effective global initiative to combat climate change and not be able to collaborate with the biggest landmass country on the planet? How does the U.S. work closely with Russia on the Iran nuclear deal when we have no trust with, and barely communicate with, Moscow? How do we isolate and try to weaken a country so big and so powerful, knowing that it could be more dangerous if it disintegrates than if it’s strong? How do we feed and fuel the world at reasonable prices when a sanctioned Russia is one of the world’s biggest exporters of oil, wheat and fertilizer?
The answer is that we don’t know.
Which is another way of saying that we are entering a period of geopolitical and geoeconomic uncertainty the likes of which we have not known since 1989 — and possibly 1939. …
… it appears that Putin is gearing up for a two-pronged strategy. First, he’s regrouping his ravaged forces and concentrating them on fully seizing and holding this smaller military prize. Second, he’s doubling down on systematic cruelty — the continued pummeling of Ukrainian towns with rockets and artillery to keep creating as many casualties and refugees and as much economic ruin as he can. He clearly hopes that the former will fracture the Ukrainian Army, at least in the east, and the latter will fracture NATO, as its member states get overwhelmed by so many refugees and pressure Kyiv to give Putin whatever he wants to get him to stop. …
… The hope is that the three together would set in motion forces inside Russia that topple Putin from power.
… if it leads to someone better, someone with just minimal decency and an ambition to rebuild Russia’s dignity and spheres of influence based on a new generation of Tchaikovskys, Rachmaninoffs, Sakharovs, Dostoyevskys and Sergey Brins — not yacht-owning oligarchs, cyberhackers and polonium-armed assassins — the whole world gets better. So many possibilities for healthy collaborations would be resurrected or forged.
Only the Russian people have the right and ability to change their leader. But it will not be easy because Putin, an ex-K.G.B. officer — surrounded by many other former intelligence officers who are beholden to him — is nearly impossible to dislodge.
But here is one possible scenario: The Russian Army is a prideful institution, and if it continues to suffer catastrophic defeats in Ukraine, (one) can imagine a situation where either Putin wants to decapitate his army’s leadership — to make them the scapegoats for his failure in Ukraine — or the army, knowing this is coming, tries to oust Putin first. …
The leader of Sweden’s second-biggest opposition party will, should neighbour Finland apply to join NATO, suggest that his party change its stance towards favouring a Swedish membership, he told daily Svenska Dagbladet.
A change of stance by the Sweden Democrats party would mean a swing to a parliamentary majority in favour of long-neutral Sweden joining the alliance.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has prompted the two countries to consider joining, although Sweden is more hesitant than Finland which has a 1,300 km border with Russia. …
“Then (if Finland applies) my ambition is to go to the party council with a request that we change our mind,” the paper on Saturday quoted Sweden Democrats party leader Jimmie Akesson as saying in an interview.
“What’s changed now is that Finland is very clearly moving towards a NATO membership and there are many indications this may happen in the near future. That, and the fact Ukraine, which is not a NATO member, is completely alone, has made me turn.” …
The prospect of Finland and Sweden joining NATO was part of the discussion between foreign ministers from the military alliance in Brussels this week, a senior U.S. State Department official said on Thursday. …
“The alliance’s open door remains open and there was discussion about that potential candidacy,” the official said. …
Since the invasion began on Feb. 24 public opinion polls commissioned by Finnish media outlets have shown a swift U-turn with the majority of Finns now favoring joining NATO. …
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has said that if Finland and Sweden joined NATO then Russia would have to “rebalance the situation” with its own measures. …
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday that if Finland and Sweden joined NATO then Russia would have to “rebalance the situation” with its own measures.
Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, which it says aims among other things to degrade Ukraine’s military potential and prevent it becoming a bridgehead for a NATO attack, has prompted the two Nordic countries to consider joining the U.S.-led alliance.
If the two countries join, “we’ll have to make our western flank more sophisticated in terms of ensuring our security,” Peskov told Britain’s Sky News.
However, he said Russia would NOT see such a move as an existential threat, of the kind that might prompt it to consider using nuclear weapons. …
Russia has warned Finland and Sweden against joining Nato, arguing the move would not bring stability to Europe.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that “the alliance remains a tool geared towards confrontation”.
It comes as US defence officials said Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine has been a “massive strategic blunder” which will likely bring Nato enlargement.
US officials expect the Nordic neighbours to bid for membership of the alliance, potentially as early as June.
Washington is believed to support the move which would see the Western alliance grow to 32 members. US State Department officials said last week that discussions had taken place between Nato leaders and foreign ministers from Helsinki and Stockholm.
Before it launched its invasion, Russia demanded that the alliance agree to halt any future enlargement, but the war has led to the deployment of more Nato troops on its eastern flank and a rise in public support for Swedish and Finnish membership. …
Moscow has been clear that it opposes any potential enlargement of the alliance. Mr Peskov warned (NATO) “is not that kind of alliance which ensures peace and stability, and its further expansion will not bring additional security to the European continent”.
Last week Mr Peskov said that Russia would have to “rebalance the situation” with its own measures were Sweden and Finland to join Nato.
And in February Maria Zakharova, Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman, warned of “military and political consequences” if the countries joined the bloc.
Despite the threats, both countries have pushed ahead with their bids and stepped up defence spending. …
A portrait of Peter the Great, it is said, hangs in the office of Vladimir V. Putin, the acting president of Russia, who seems likely to win the presidential election on March 26.
Those in the West who perceive Peter as the Westernizing reformer and scourge of xenophobes, and who have heard Mr. Putin’s paeans to free enterprise and democracy, are likely to find this heartening.
Others, who know Peter primarily for his unrelenting pursuit of power and empire, and who have nervously watched the Kremlin’s new master, a former K.G.B. agent, presiding over the destruction of Grozny and expounding the glories of a strong Russian state, might find the identification alarming. …
Peter’s real intention for his perestroika … was not to emulate or join the West, but to use it — in the czar’s own elegant (and possibly apocryphal) phrase, ”We need Europe for a few decades, then we must show it our rear end.” …
… Mr. Putin, of course, is no Peter. The K.G.B. lieutenant colonel who was abruptly bumped into the presidential throne of a nation in total disarray comes nowhere near ”the Great” in ambition, potential, drive or physical height. And too little is known at this stage to predict his behavior once he is elected.
But in any speculation about whether he is reformer or nationalist, autocrat or democrat, Western or Eastern, it must be kept in mind that in Russia these have never been mutually exclusive; that the most potent driving force in Russian history has been neither the sentimental xenophobia of bearded Slavophiles nor the pursuit of American-style happiness, but a deep-seated conviction that the Russian state is destined for greatness, power and respect. That has been true whether Russia aspired to being an empire, a utopia or a presidential republic.
The cyclical bouts of westernizing and reforming have always more to do with power than with democracy, more with matching the West than with joining it, more with discipline than with rule of law.
Russians long lived with an understanding: Stay away from politics, and live your life as you choose. The war in Ukraine wrecked that idea.
… By the summer of 2015, Boris Yeltsin’s) successor, President Vladimir V. Putin, had seemingly made Russia bright and prosperous. The political system he built was increasingly restrictive, but many had learned to live with it.
Many Russian liberals had gone to work for nonprofits and local governments, throwing themselves into community building — making their cities better places to live. A protest movement in 2011 and 2012 had failed, and people were looking for other ways to shape their country. Big politics were hopeless, the thinking went, but one could make a real difference in small acts.
There was another side to this bargain: Mr. Putin was seemingly constrained, as well. Political action may have been forbidden, but there was tolerance when it came to other things, for example religion, culture and many forms of expression. His own calculus for the system to run smoothly meant he had to make some room for society. …
how long can a place be unfree and also happy — perhaps we have lived into the answer. Many liberals have left. Many of those who have not left face fines or even jail. In the weeks after the invasion, the police detained more than 15,000 people nationwide, according to OVD-Info, a human rights group, …
(Years later…)
Lev Gudkov, a sociologist at Levada Center, a research group that tracks Russian public opinion, (says) that about two-thirds of people nationwide approve of Mr. Putin’s actions in Ukraine.
“It is a less-educated, older part of the population, mainly living in rural areas or in small and medium-sized cities, where the population is poorer and more dependent on power,” he said, referring to those who rely on public funds like pensions and state jobs. “They also receive their whole construction of reality exclusively from television.”
He points out that “if you look at 20 years of our research since Putin came to power, then the peaks of support for Putin and his popularity have always coincided with military campaigns.”
One such campaign was the war in Chechnya, a particularly brutal subduing of a population that in 1999 was Mr. Putin’s signature act before being elected president the first time. We are starting to see some of the features of that war in Ukraine: bodies with hands bound, mass graves, tales of torture. In Chechnya, the result was the systematic elimination of anyone connected to the fight against Russia. It is too soon to say whether that was the intent in Bucha.
https://www.nysscpa.org/news/publications/the-trusted-professional/article/more-americans-work-at-big-firms-than-small-ones-040717
More Americans Work At Big Firms Than Small OnesBy:Chris GaetanoPublished Date:Apr 7, 2017 For generations, if you were a worker in the U.S., it was very likely that you were employed by a small business with fewer than 100 people. In the wake of the economic crisis of 2008, however, this is no longer the case, as large and very large companies now employ a larger percentage of the population than mid-sized or small businesses, according to the Wall Street Journal. Using census data, the WSJ calculated that 36.2 percent of people worked at either a large (2,500 to 9,999 people) or very large (10,000 or more people) company, versus 38.9 percent who worked for small (100 or fewer people) companies and 24.9 percent who worked for mid-sized (100 to 2,499 people).
Since 2014, the latest year for which there is census data, this is no longer the case. At this point, 39.2 percent were employed at either a large or very large company, while 26.5 percent worked at mid-sized companies and 34.3 percent worked at small companies.
The effect has been sharper in some sectors than others. For instance, in 1980, small businesses employed 50.3 percent of all retail workers, while 34.8 percent were employed by large or very large companies. However, decades later it is these giants who now employ the biggest share of workers at 47.2, versus the 35.6 employed by small retailers today. And while finance had always had more people working in large or very large companies, employing 38.7 percent of the sector’s workers versus 34.4 percent in small companies, the years have widened the gap. The 2014 numbers indicate that 45.4 percent of finance workers now work at large or very large companies, while 29.1 percent work at smaller firms.
While generally one would expect smaller, more nimble competitors to emerge to challenge established giants, the WSJ said this is not happening as much, which could explain why big companies are taking up a higher share of employment than before. In 1980, 12.5 percent of companies were less than a year old. In 2014, this number has shrunk down to 8 percent. The WSJ also pointed to a momentum effect: these big companies have also made large gains in market share in between 1980 and 2014, which means they grow even bigger, and can operate more easily by taking advantage of things like economy of scale. * [After the pandemic winds down a bit more, then more current data will be more relevant than it would be just now. Total employee compensation would also be more relevant than just the number of workers. Tata for now though.]
Even in the best of worlds if higher education were free for all, then not everyone would make their way through medical school and residency or obtain a PhD in operations research. For those that can though, then Uncle should pay off all their student loan debt out of hand rather than under the shadow of default.
We are now in April and the Democrats in total control of the US government for 16 months have still not raised the minimum wage.
they really arent in ‘total’ control. they have a fairly strong level of control in the House, but barely any in the senate (having a 50 D to 50 R balance), and the only way to move forward is for all 50 to vote, the VP breaks the tie. but it seems that there are at least democratic senators which are more rebellious and wont vote with their party often. they do have the president and will up to the next presidential election. so they actually only control at best 2/3 of the government
Let me rephrase. The Democratic Party has the White House, and a majority in both the House and Senate (including the VP). They previously were in this situation for two years from 2009 to 2011. Before that it was 1993 till 1995. Before that we have to go back to the late 70’s.
The Democratic Party rarely has these numbers so it’s surprising that they can’t even pass a minor thing like raising the minimum wage. Most political analysts believe that the Democrats may lose power for the rest of the decade.
What are the odds that MORE GOP members in the House & Senate, i.e. GOP majorities, would raise the minimum wage?
Or, would it be more likely that substantially larger Dem majorities in both houses of Congress would raise the minimum wage? Go figure!
But wait…
Jackson Confirmation Aside, GOP Sees an Opening With Black Voters
NY Times – April 8
Jim:
How do you break a filibuster if it applies here. I believe it is 60 votes. Dems do not have sixty votes and back in 2009-2011, Mc Turtle said he would filibuster too. Furthermore we have a “Manchin – problem” who has voted against anything which may cause a deficit. Given his past, he would probably not back an increase in the minimum wage. He said so in 2021. https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/536977-machin-says-he-doesnt-support-raising-minimum-wage-to-15-per-hour/
So because the Democrats couldn’t get the $15 per hour wage through (8 Democratic Senators voted against it, including Joe Manchin), they just give up? There is a deal to be made, probably in the $10 to $12 per hour range. Mitt Romney and Tom Cotton had their own increase proposal in February, 2021.
Chump change: The Romney–Cotton minimum wage proposal leaves 27 million workers without a pay increase | Economic Policy Institute (epi.org)
This article states that “only” 4.9 million workers would get a pay increase. If you are one of the 4.9 million that means a lot.
The Democrats are running out of time. Time to get some positive bills passed before the mid terms. If and when the Republicans take over the House, it will be impeachment time and non stop Hunterep Biden hearings. If the Republicans take back the Senate, very few judges will be confirmed.
Jim:
How many times have Dems tried to pass BBB and each time Manchin has blocked it. Time has run out and its time to convict a mass of upper level Dems.
Jim,
You just do not understand loser liberalism. Losers are never responsible for their own losses. There is always some evil conservative that can be blamed for everything. Nowadays it is almost impossible to imagine that Vince Lombardi was actually a Democrat.
I dismiss people who mention the ” for two years from 2009 to 2011″ fiction. Shows they do not care bout facts.
“Open thread March 8, 2022”
Back in time I go
Inflation is surging, and Larry Summers has thoughts
Boston Globe – April 8
(Summers interview link above should have been this one, presumably.)
Transcript: Ezra Klein Interviews Larry Summers
NY Times – March 29
But no, the NYT-cited interview quotes Larry Summers complaining about concession stand prices at the Masters golf tournament:
“…The pimento cheese sandwich, a white bread ritual…”
[White bread? There’s the problem. Pimento cheese belongs on pumpernickel. No wonder golfers dress so peculiar.]
I have some déjà vu going on with this.
It seems to me Larry Summers made the exact same comments a year or two ago, but I can’t find the evidence.
Trump turns Michigan into MAGA proving ground
Politico – March 28
The former president’s level of intervention in the swing state’s elections is unmatched anywhere else.
How Do We Deal With a Superpower Led by a War Criminal?
NY Times – April 10
Sweden Democrats leader wants party to change on NATO membership if Finland applies to join alliance
Reuters – April 9
Prospect of Finland, Sweden joining NATO discussed at NATO meeting
Russia says it would have to ‘rebalance’ if Finland and Sweden join NATO
(Whew. So that’s some good news.)
Walking that back…
This just in, from the BBC…
Russia warns Sweden and Finland against Nato membership
Russia seems fated always to be ‘Czarist’.
Czar Peter, Meet Putin; Eastern or Western? Both. And Neither.
NY Times – March 12, 2000
Putin’s War in Ukraine Shatters an Illusion in Russia
NY Times – April 9