Open thread for night owls: A reduced labor force
is a lousy way to cut the unemployment rate

post from Daily Kos on 04 May 2012 11:30:04 PM. © Daily Kos

Felix Salmon writes about today's mediocre jobs report:

[The chart below] is just petrifying. The participation rate started falling after the dot-com bust, leveled off during the credit boom (but never really rose much), and then fell off a cliff when the recession started. You?d think it would have started to bounce back up by now, but no. Instead, we?re now deep into pretty much unprecedented territory. Yes, the participation rate has been this low before?back in 1981. But that was during the decades when women were still properly moving into the labor force.
As Mike Konczal noted this morning, a key indicator of labor recession is still in force: if you?re unemployed, you?re still more likely to drop out of the labor force entirely than you are to find a job. [...]
For demographic reasons?the retirement of the baby boomers?the labor force participation rate is naturally going to fall over the next decade. But go back just one year, to March 2011, and look at the official CBO projection of the labor force participation rate. The CBO saw a rate of 64.6% in 2012?a full percentage point higher than we?re at right now. The participation rate wasn?t expected to fall to today?s level of 63.6% until 2017.
Politically speaking, the unemployment rate is still the number that people concentrate on. But increasingly, being unemployed is little more than a halfway house between employment and dropping out of the labor force altogether. Until the labor force participation rate stops falling and starts rising, the so-called recovery will remain a theoretical economic entity and not a real-world reality for hundreds of millions of Americans. We need jobs, and we need them now. Ben Bernanke, and Congress, are you listening?

Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2006:

So, it was an ordinary day for our embattled Secretary of Defense as he enjoyed speechifying about spreading freedom and fighting terrorists. All was well in Rummyland until protesters disrupted his speech and challenged him on his spin about the Iraq War. ThinkProgress has the video of a feisty exchange between Rumsfeld and CIA veteran Ray McGovern, who demanded to know why Rumsfeld lied about WMD.

Tweet of the Day:

Who tested this theory?? â??@jbarooah: Twitter is harder to resist than sex, according to research: http://t.co/...
? @SabrinaSiddiqui via Twitter for iPhone

High Impact Posts. Top Comments.

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-owls-A-reduced-labor-force-is-a-lousy-way-to-cut-the-unemployment-rate

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Open Thread

post from Crooks and Liars on 04 May 2012 11:30:04 PM. © Crooks and Liars

enlarge Credit: tb0t

detail from a very fine rendition of Botticelli, Avengers-style.

Open thread below.

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http://crooksandliars.com/bluegal-aka-fran/open-thread-299

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By: demi

post from Comments on: Women + Immigrants = Double War on 04 May 2012 11:21:20 PM. © Comments on: Women + Immigrants = Double War

I love those!Here, have some cc cookies. Warm, right out of the oven.A little milk. My current book.I'm out.Thanks for being such a swell person, Eli. It's uplifting to know folks like you(z) are out there.Night night.

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By: Eli

post from Comments on: Women + Immigrants = Double War on 04 May 2012 11:14:01 PM. © Comments on: Women + Immigrants = Double War

I came *this* close to picking up some Pecan Sandies on my way back home...

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By: greenwarrior

post from Comments on: Women + Immigrants = Double War on 04 May 2012 11:03:10 PM. © Comments on: Women + Immigrants = Double War

crunch time in my community. a 12 acre sweet piece of property in the middle of the neighborhood is trying to get nabbed for development. been fighting it for two years. nbhd assoc recommended preserving it a couple weeks ago. environmental board - ditto two nights ago. tuesday night is planning commission, then city council. we're working hard and that's intersecting with a crisis with my broken wrist.

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By: Margaret

post from Comments on: Women + Immigrants = Double War on 04 May 2012 11:02:39 PM. © Comments on: Women + Immigrants = Double War

What?!? No Cheetos? Shooter will be so disappointed.

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By: masaccio

post from Comments on: Women + Immigrants = Double War on 04 May 2012 11:01:29 PM. © Comments on: Women + Immigrants = Double War

Republicans never got over the 13th Amendment. The part that got rid of slavery was bad, but at least the part about involuntary servitude offers some real possibilities for gaming the system.

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Late Night FDL: Fatsters Roundup for May 4, 2012

With DDay's return from vacation imminent, it's time for me to pack up, tidy up and depart. I enjoyed trying to round up the daily news on the many varying topics of interest to all of you. Thanks for joining in and enriching the experience.[...]

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The DMZ: Forward Edition

This week's edition of The DMZ is up at Bloggingheads.tv. Matt Lewis and I scratch our heads at the departure of Richard Grenell from the Romney campaign, and how Obama is playing offense on national security. Watch it below.

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http://www.liberaloasis.com/2012/05/the_dmz_forward_edition.php

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Mitt reaches for a new low, and the charter
hustle

I am trying to remember if there was ever a slimier and more contemptible poli-trickster who ran for the highest office in the land than Flipper. Honestly, the guy might be worse than Dick Nixon.

He actually thought that it was necessary to try to exploit the situation with that blind dissident in China to score political points.

Just a couple of days ago Flipper said the following:

"If these reports are true, this is a dark day for freedom and it's a day of shame for the Obama administration.... We are a place of freedom, here and around the world, and we should stand up and defend freedom wherever it is under attack." [Source]

Flipper said this while the United States was feverishly trying to negotiate an agreement with the Chinese for the man's exit to the West. Now, as it turns out, all might be well that ends well.

By running off at the mouth, Flipper and his friends might have caused this man and his family their lives. But the life of some poor blind guy in China who likes to call out his own government is worth nothing to these people. The only thing that matters is power and money, and they will do whatever it takes to get it.

I bet that even poor Chen Guangcheng could see that.

Finally, more evidence that republicans care more about dollars than the lives of the citizens they are supposed to be looking out for. (h/t to Jose Vilson for reminding me to blog about this story)

Here in Pistolvania we are having an educational crisis thanks to the charter school system that has been bought and paid for by special interest groups in Harrisburg. And, in case you were wondering, I am not letting his Oness and his peeps off the hook, either. Because, they too, seem to be somewhat complicit in this charter school scam that is being perpetrated on the citizens of my state.

The for profit private charter schools that our governor has been promoting to educate our children have been...wait for it....wait for it... no different, and in some cases, worse than the public schools that they are supposed to be replacing. Having these schools have had a devastating effect on poorer school districts, and because of all the money and influence involved there is no end in sight.

But here is the elephant in the room, and the dirty little secret that no one will talk about: Until we address the real problem with failing schools, which is not the teachers and the school house, but the homes and environment that these little rugrats are coming from; nothing will really change.

I suspect that these hustlers promoting charter schools know this, but sadly, to them, this is just another way to make a dollar. Let's call it the charter hustle.





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http://field-negro.blogspot.com/2012/05/mitt-reaches-for-new-low-and-charter.html