Re: before if you worked over 30 hr’s the company had to offer you full benefits

Huh? There has never been a law mandating benefits (other than public ones like social security and unemployment) for any workers. Companies were always free to offer or refuse health insurance, vacation time, sick time etc. to anyone.

Re: The 90’s royally sucked.

Maybe for you. For many of us the 90s were pretty good. The rising tide really was lifting all boats back then.

Re: “Giant sucking sound” NAFTA & GATT.

My blue collar friends (in Michigan) were bitching about to much overtime not job losses and the like back in the 90s. Where did you spend that decade?

Posted at July 5, 2008 6:04 PM in response to A Warning For Young Workers: The Up-Escalator May Be Broken

May I ask what these demographic arguments are? The fact that our population is aging? But that's true almost everywhere-- and more so in Europe and Eastern Asia than here. I don't see why older people make for a bad economy. What matters is the ratio of producers to non-producers. Indeed, I suspect an economy with too many children (see: some very desperately poor countries) may have more trouble, since many retirees can work at need, while young children really can't.
Or is this an immigrant bashing thesis? Our economy is going to hell because we have too many of foreigners who no speaka da English and may not have graduated from high school?
Sorry, but short of some mass mortality on the scale of the old Black Death I don't see any demographic threat to the US. Europe and Japan are in bigger trouble in that territory-- and even so I also find the "Eurodoom" thesis of Mark Steyn et al equally ridiculous.

Posted at June 25, 2008 9:46 PM in response to The Housing Crash and the End of Granny Bashing

Re: That's not a typo -- seventeen years.

It may not be a typo, but it is ridiculous, as is using the term "depression". Comparing the current sour economy to the Great Depression is like comparing a headcold to pneumonia. There just is no comparison. And no, I don't expect boom times in housing to return for quite awhile, but that hardly dooms the whole economy. Nor do I think we can compare the US to Japan: for a whole lot of reasons the US is very different from Japan, politically, socially and economically. My own prediction: housing will be flat as Kansas for at least five years, but in 2-3 years the economy will be humming again, based on alternative energy, infrastructure, and biotech. This assumes that either the Democrats are running the show, or, if McCain is in the White House, he doesn't (or can't) do anything spectacularly stupid.

Posted at June 24, 2008 9:47 PM in response to The Housing Crash and the End of Granny Bashing

Re: government I’m aware of, except the Peoples Republic of China has instituted a ZPG program.

Many governments do not need such programs because their population fertility rate is at or below replacement. The population bomb is turning into a fizzle. (Yes, I know the Middle East, Africa, and India aren't in that category-- but give them time and they too will be).

Re: As a matter of fact, poverty is very much more environmentally friendly than is USA and Western European consumerism.

This is bullshit of a high order. A visit to any poor or even not-so-rich country is in order if you believe that. China's environmental problems, for example, are appalling.

Re: This prevented such large swings in population [in England].

This is only true if you ignore a rather large chunk of history, from about 1000 to 1700 when the population of all Western Europe surged then fell darstically, reciovered partially, then declined again before beginning the rise that led to the current population levels.

Posted at June 17, 2008 9:52 PM in response to Malthus Redux?

Re: What jobs can Americans hope to possibly transition to, and at what wages, and with what security?

There are still plenty of decent jobs out there, the problem is there is a serious lack of such jobs for the whole bottom half of the economy. And no, college is not the answer: many of these people simply have no aptitude for or interest in college. Used to be they could be hired for unionized manufacturing (construction etc.) jobs. Now, very few of those jobs exist. I realize that on a blog like this we have mostly educated and middle to upper middle class readers who are going to put their own issues first, but on the jobs issue I would suggest we look beyond the mild cold our class is suffering, and see the pneumonia that is raging several rungs down the economic ladder.

Posted at June 9, 2008 9:48 PM in response to It's Hot Outside but Cold in the Job Market

Re: Who says that an unemployed person receiving unemployment benefits is living solely on those benefits?

What else are they living off of? Drug money? Sure some people may have a working spouse, or income from rental property or investments. But even if that's true they had that income before they were unemployed and any way you cut it their cash flow has taken a major hit. I repeat: except in very exceptional cicrumstances involving people who didn't really need to work to start with, no one malingers on unemployment. It just doesn't pay enough! So dump the ideological blinders and try using common sense.

re: And, let's face it, the job that was lost may have been only a minimum wage job in the first place, so the unemployment benefits, as meager as they are, may be a somewhat adequate substitute for the lost income.

If that's the case then the benefits would be much smaller than the maximum. I guess I'm posting to someone who has never had any contact whatsoever with the unemployment system?

Re: And none of this addresses the moral hazard question: should government be paying people, effectively, not to work, even if it is a small amount, and even if it is for a limited amount of time?

Yes, and for several reasons:

1. It's good for the economy, helping to prevent recessions from spiraling down into depressons
2. It's good for the political economy as well, preventing recessions from generating violence and revolt (or worse, something like a fascist or socialist dictatorship)
3. The money is not coming out of thin air: it was paid into a fund on behalf of the employee by the employer (ultimately it represents deferred compensation).
4. Often enough it's the govermment's own policies which have resulted in unemployment. As long as the Fed frets over the inflation rate (granted they haven't done much of that lately) and sees increasing unemployment as a remedy for inflation, then the government damn well should be ameliorating the harm it is causing.

Re: How can the moral damage of this policy be ameliorated?

You and I do not inhabit the same universe. I don't even see that there is "moral damage", though there may be "morale damage" from unemployment itself. Again, I am forced to conclude that you have zero real-life experience in this area. I have. My morals did just fine while I was unemplpyment: continued going to church, being nice to little old ladies and kittens, etc.

Posted at June 7, 2008 9:02 PM in response to It's Hot Outside but Cold in the Job Market

Re: I can understand and appreciate the conservative argument - that you create moral hazard, and may in fact worsen the situation

Anyone who has ever collected unemployment knows that this is a howling absurdity. While the limit varies by state, the most you can collect is between $1000 and $1200 a month (and no health benefits of course). That's poverty level wages. No one, I repeat, no one is going to dally about getting another job for that meager pay. Living off unemployment is a quick road to foreclosure, eviction and bankruptcy.

Posted at June 6, 2008 9:08 PM in response to It's Hot Outside but Cold in the Job Market

Re: If they sold the loan to a securitizer for a fee of $663, why is their loss mitigation department involved? Wells Fargo didn't lose a dime.

If the loan went bad too soon after it was sold, Wells would have had to repurchase it from the security.

Posted at June 1, 2008 1:29 PM in response to Should This Be Legal?

Re: In many ways the encounter with American Indians provided the bedrock for the "American Project," which arose out of a set of diverse communities established by colonists who came from different backgrounds.

Still, westward expansion could have occured with far less brutality and outright genocide toward the native peoples. For an example of which possibility look north, to Canada. Yes, the Canadians were not always nice to their natives, but there was no Canadian Trail of Tears.

Posted at May 31, 2008 8:02 AM in response to Slippery politics

re: When a mortgage is forgiven, the principal not paid back is considered, like any other unpaid debt, income and taxed accordingly.

There were already numerous exclusions and exceptions to that before the recent change in the law. Anyone with a good tax preparer could beat the IRS on this one, provided they acted quickly.

Re: They borrowed the money, and either because the lender waived the deficiency when accepting a deed in lieu of foreclosure or the mortgage was non-recourse, they don't have to pay the money back -- no loss.

Note: in a non-recourse mortgage there would never (in principle) be a tax liability after foreclosure. Because the mortgage holder cannot legally pursue the mortgager for any unpaid debt, there is no debt amnesty.

Re: Debt cancellation is a gain for the borrower and a loss for the lender.

If the borrowr keeps the money, or what was purchased with it, yes. The point here is that the borrower has not kept the money-- the lender has taken it back in the form of the foreclosed property.

Posted at May 30, 2008 10:45 PM in response to A Huge (and Unfair) Tax Bill on Top of Foreclosure