« Back

Open thread October 11, 2022

Dan Crawford | October 11, 2022 6:14 am

Open thread Oct. 7, 2022, Angry Bear (angrybearblog.com)

13 Comments

Fred C. Dobbs says:

October 11, 2022 at 10:15 am

IMF Warns ‘Stormy Waters’ Ahead for World Economy

NY Times – Oct 11

The International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday that the world economy is headed for “stormy waters” as it downgraded its global growth projections for next year and warned of a harsh worldwide recession if policymakers mishandle the fight against inflation.

The dark assessment was detailed in the fund’s closely watched World Economic Outlook report, which was published as the world’s top economic officials traveled to Washington for the annual meetings of the World Bank and the I.M.F.

The gathering comes at a fraught time, as persistent supply chain disruptions and Russia’s war in Ukraine have led to surging food and energy prices over the last year, forcing central bankers to raise interest rates sharply to cool off their economies.

“In short, the worst is yet to come, and for many people 2023 will feel like a recession,” the report said. …
- Fred C. Dobbs says:
  
  October 11, 2022 at 10:18 am
  
  World Economic Outlook, October 2022
  - Fred C. Dobbs says:
    
    October 11, 2022 at 10:20 am
    
    err…
    
    World Economic Outlook, October 2022
EMichael says:

October 11, 2022 at 10:18 am

ibid.
- Fred C. Dobbs says:
  
  October 11, 2022 at 10:22 am
  
  op. cit.
Fred C. Dobbs says:

October 11, 2022 at 10:31 am

What will happen to America if Trump wins again? Experts weigh in.

Washington Post via Boston Globe – Oct 11

… 47 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents want Trump to be the nominee in 2024, according to a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll. And if Trump and Joe Biden are the contenders, Trump narrowly edges Biden, 48 to 46 percent, among registered voters (albeit within the poll’s margin of error).

The twice-impeached president’s tenure in office was a festival of democratic norm-breaking, culminating in the “big lie” about the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 insurrection. A second term would likely bring more of the same – only this time Trump would have four years of practice under his belt.

…

21 experts in the presidency, political science, public administration, the military, intelligence, foreign affairs, economics and civil rights … sketched chillingly plausible chains of potential actions and reactions that could unravel the nation. “I think it would be the end of the republic,” says Princeton University professor Sean Wilentz, one of the historians President Biden consulted in August about America’s teetering democracy. “It would be a kind of overthrow from within. It would be a coup of the way we’ve always understood America.” …
- Fred C. Dobbs says:
  
  October 11, 2022 at 10:34 am
  
  (A lengthy article, at the link above. Too long to post in a useful way.)
- Fred C. Dobbs says:
  
  October 11, 2022 at 10:37 am
  
  (The article concludes…)
  
  … A few days after Biden’s recent democracy speech in Philadelphia – in which the current president said, “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic” – Trump responded at a rally: “As you know, this week, Joe Biden came to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to give the most vicious, hateful and divisive speech ever delivered by an American president, vilifying 75 million citizens . . . as threats to democracy and as enemies of the state. . . . He’s an enemy of the state, you want to know the truth. . . . We are the ones trying to save our democracy.”
  
  After four more years of nihilistic energy like that, the experience of being American could well have been transformed into something unrecognizable. “If Trump wins, I don’t imagine some kind of normal inauguration in ‘29,” Snyder says. “If we want a normal inauguration in ‘29, we need one in ‘25 which involves somebody else.”
Fred C. Dobbs says:

October 11, 2022 at 11:50 am

G7 Leaders Pledge ‘Undeterred’ Support for Ukraine After Russian Strikes

NY Times – Oct 11

At an emergency summit, leaders from the Group of 7 nations warned of “severe consequences” if Russia uses chemical, biological or nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

Leaders of the Group of 7 industrialized nations said on Tuesday that they were unwavering in their support of Ukraine and threatened “severe consequences” if Russia were to escalate its attack with nuclear weapons.

The joint statement from G7 leaders — including President Biden and leaders of European allies and Japan — came after an emergency virtual meeting called in response to Russia’s onslaught against civilian targets across Ukraine on Monday, the broadest barrage of strikes since the initial stages of the invasion in February. …
Fred C. Dobbs says:

October 11, 2022 at 12:02 pm

America needs a New Economic Patriotism plan

Boston Globe – Ro Kahanna – Oct 7

Ro Khanna is a Democratic US representative from Silicon Valley, California.

It would consist of a comprehensive set of policy actions designed to restore American manufacturing and technology leadership and a call to respect workers who will help our country achieve that goal.

When factory jobs in small towns disappeared because of offshoring, automation, and corporate greed, workers like Fred Davis in Anderson, Ind., found themselves unemployed. After being loyal to Union City Body Co. for years, Davis was left with no salary, no health insurance, and thousands of dollars in unpaid bills.

Davis’s story is not unique, a point he was quick to make when I met him in August. He gave me a binder documenting 40 other factories that have closed in Indiana. These closures destroyed communities. They led to divorces when the breadwinner relocated for a job and the spouse didn’t want to move out of the only home they knew. Many who stayed struggled with depression due to the loss of purpose and pride that work had provided.

In Chicago, I spoke with steelworker Jawan Smith who worked at US Steel South Works. When he started out, steelworkers made $30 an hour with a pension. Now, too many steel mills have closed or downsized, and many of his friends are working at warehouses that pay closer to $17 an hour. He told me there are fewer economic opportunities for Black men in Chicago than there were four decades ago.

A recent report by Bill Spriggs of Howard University confirms with data what Smith already knows. Our country’s failed trade policies with China have led to the loss of millions of good-paying jobs and disproportionately harmed Black manufacturing workers. These same policies also left us unprepared for the COVID-19 pandemic. Many Americans are shocked that we don’t make masks here, enough baby formula, semiconductor chips for our cars, or even basic electronics that are part of our smartphones.

We owe people like Davis and Smith honesty about the policy mistakes our nation has made. It was arrogant and naive to think that production didn’t matter and that we could let manufacturing jobs go offshore. …
- Fred C. Dobbs says:
  
  October 11, 2022 at 12:05 pm
  
  What the nation needs is a “New Economic Patriotism” plan. The plan would represent both a comprehensive set of policy actions designed to restore American manufacturing and technology leadership and a call to respect workers who will help our country achieve that goal. As part of this vision, the president should set a bold goal to achieve a trade surplus again by 2035. This is a proxy and metric for new industry, exports, and good-paying jobs. Germany maintains nearly 25 percent of its workforce in manufacturing jobs by investing in export industries to counteract the decline from imports and running a trade surplus. Trade deficits some years are fine when balanced by trade surpluses in other years. But the country has been in constant trade deficit since 1975.
  
  The federal government must partner with the private sector to achieve this goal. First, it should finance factories at zero-interest loans and commit the purchasing power of the federal government to support American-made products and materials like batteries, electric heaters, steel, and aluminum. New bills like the CHIPS and Science Act, which I coauthored, should be introduced and passed for sectors beyond semiconductors. These new factories should be in every region of our country.
  
  Second, the departments of Commerce and Education should work with companies, community colleges, and universities to invest in the next generation of workers. …
  - Ron (RC) Weakley (A.K.A., Darryl For A While At EV) says:
    
    October 12, 2022 at 7:18 am
    
    Fred,
    
    Excellent. Dude. Ro was born in US, so Ro for POTUS.
Fred C. Dobbs says:

October 12, 2022 at 8:50 am

Companies Hoarding Workers Could Be Good News for the Economy

NY Times – Oct 12

(At least they are in Provo, Utah.)

PROVO, Utah — Chad Pritchard and his colleagues are trying everything to staff their pizza shop and bistro, and as they do, they have turned to a new tactic: They avoid firing employees at all costs.

Infractions that previously would have led to a quick dismissal no longer do at the chef’s two places, Fat Daddy’s Pizzeria and Bistro Provenance. Consistent transportation issues have ceased to be a deal breaker. Workers who show up drunk these days are sent home to sober up.

Employers in Provo, a college town at the base of the Rocky Mountains where unemployment is near the lowest in the nation at 1.9 percent, have no room to lose workers. Bistro Provenance, which opened in September, has been unable to hire enough employees to open for lunch at all, or for dinner on Sundays and Mondays. The workers it has are often new to the industry, or young: On a recent Wednesday night, a 17-year-old could be found torching a crème brûlée. …

Provo’s desperation for workers is an intense version of the labor crunch that has plagued employers nationwide over the past two years — one that has prompted changes in hiring and layoff practices that could have big implications for the U.S. economy. Policymakers are hoping that after struggling through the worst labor shortages America has experienced in at least several decades, employers will be hesitant to lay off workers even when the economy cools.

That may help prevent the kind of painful recession the Federal Reserve is hoping to avoid as it tries to combat persistent inflation. America’s economy is facing a marked — and intentional — slowdown as the Fed raises interest rates to chill demand and drive down price increases, the kind of pullback that would usually result in notably higher unemployment. But officials are still hoping to achieve a soft landing in which growth moderates without causing widespread job losses. A few have speculated that today’s staffing woes will help them to pull it off, as companies try harder than they have in the past to weather a slowdown without cutting staff. …