Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
The real reason Romney's having trouble in swing states? According to Joe Klein of Time magazine (pictured), it's the economy, stupid--it's better than you think:
[L]et's face it: if you add up all the unemployed, underemployed and those who've abandoned the workforce, you're still looking at maybe 15% of the labor market....
And while the Romney campaign was sleeping, the other 85% have seen their circumstances change. "Their household income hasn't improved," says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's. "But their household balance sheets are very quickly moving in the right direction." The soaring stock market has restored their 401(k)s to their former plenitude; the values of their homes are creeping back above the waterline in some areas and booming in others; and, Zandi says, we are approaching "historic lows" in delinquency rates on consumer credit-card debt and auto and appliance loans. Our nation's feckless freeloaders have behaved responsibly since the 2008 crash. They've reduced their debts. They're feeling better about their circumstances. And suddenly, the percentage of people who think the country is on the right track is surging, especially in important swing states like Ohio, where the economic picture has improved dramatically.
What are we to make of this?
Discuss.
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Aug '11
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
If I understand him correctly, he's admitting that real unemployment is closer to 15%, but he's trying to spin it as a good thing by deploying the SQUIRREL! strategy, and saying "85% employment! Woo hoo!"
Shameless.
Oops. Sorry, Peter. That wasn't actually an essay.
Edited on September 21, 2012 at 8:31pmJul '11
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
He's lying. He was told to lie in order to help the president. He has no shame and would best serve himself by becoming a flagellant with a spiky whip.
I'm avoiding the essay but I'll read the eloquent ones here anyway just because Ricochet has the best member writers on the planet.
May '11
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
Once again, Peter, I am going to respond with an actual essay. And not a good one, either. In thinking about the "undecided" voter, I started trying to listen to him. In short, Obama has chosen a diversion (unsurprising) strategy. That is to double-down on the "us vs. them" theme, and to never use "Mitt Romney" in a sentence without also including the word "millionaire." My concern is that people are buying it.
I tried to write an essay that consisted of a) diagnosis and b) solution, but all I ended up with was stream of consciousness diagnosis. I'm at a loss for the solution. I'm glad you asked the question, though (2 days after I wrote my answer. How handy!)
My Essay Submission.
Oct '10
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
I'm going to take my own advice, and that of the vast majority of the world, and ignore Joe Klein and Time Magazine.
Mar '11
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
Stage One: Denial...
Aug '12
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
Zandi a hack ,in the bag , never made a dime for any client or investor
Apr '11
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
I think they should get out of the office and talk to someone other than their comrades in arms. Maybe a bar someplace outside of their comfort zone. One where an adult libation is called a beer or a shot, not a cocktail, and where wine comes with a screw off top. I also recommend they leave the tie and sport coat at home when they go.
Apr '12
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
No essay from me just a rant, as I write this between patients. Nothing like some Friday afternoon Obama propaganda. Even in my highly-educated white collar world, I know of a number people having tremendous difficulty finding work and young people right out of law school living at home. Our last two babysitters have been young attorneys between jobs! Frankly it is shocking that pundits are trying to spin this economy and this presdient into anything other than a disaster.
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
DrewInWisconsin: If I understand him correctly, he's admitting that real unemployment is closer to 15%, but he's trying to spin it as a good thing by deploying theSQUIRREL! strategy, and saying "85% employment! Woo hoo!"
Shameless.
Oops. Sorry, Peter. That wasn't actually an essay. · 28 minutes ago
Edited 21 minutes ago
Since a picture is worth a thousand words, this not only counts as an essay but as an ingenious evasion of the 200-word limit. DrewInWisconsin, I salute you.
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
Interestingly, we also have the Speaker of the House making a variation of this argument: that Romney is struggling in Ohio because John Kasich has done too good of a job getting the Buckeye State back on its feet.
Sep '10
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
The answer to Joe Klein is found at the 2:00 mark of this video.
Sep '10
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
Back in 2004, when unemployment was around 5 or 6%, Democrats went around saying that it was the worst economy since the Great Depression. Now they want us to believe that the economy today is something to be happy about? Has one term of Obama lowered their expectations that much? Also, the party that warns us against income disparity thinks it is OK for 15% of Americans to be unemployed as longer as the other 85% manages to stay afloat. Hopefully Democrats follow Klein's advice and try to make the economy their top issue.
Aug '12
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
Sean Trende at Real Clear Politiics has been making a similar argument for awhile. Essentially, the economy is not great, but it's not as bad as most conservatives seem to believe.
Yes, unemployment is high, but among the unemployed many will still be Obama supporters. That group skews disproportionately black, hispanic, and lower education and are much more amenable to promises of government assistance. So the crowd that should be most fed up with Obama are probably going to vote for him.
As for the rest, people have accepted the new normal to a degree and while not giving Obama a pass on the economy, they are grading him on a curve because of the size of the mess he inherited. Conservatives, and the Romney campaign for that matter, are inside a bubble if they think this election will turn on the economy.
To me the most effective arguments to persuade voters are about the looming debt and entitlement crises as well as pointing out all the promises Obama has broken and how differently he has governed than the unifying moderate he presented in 2008.
Edited on September 21, 2012 at 9:08pmJan '11
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
This is weasel talk, where you throw out a volume of self-interested assumptions as facts, and then posture yourself as if you've offered an overflowing justification for your case.
All of these claims are offered in weasel-language. He throws out so many weasel claims, hoping that quantity will appear as quality.
The first trick in luring people onto a bandwagon is to convince people that one is coming.
Sep '10
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
Well, I live in a swing state, North Carolina, where the data are confusing but even so do not jibe with Klein's jive. On the one hand, if you believe The Hill, Obama is ahead of Romney by several points. On the other hand, Republican candidate for governor, Pat McCrory, a former multiple-term mayor of Charlotte, is ahead of his Democratic challenger by double digits, having begun about even in June. Now, the scandal-plagued state Democratic party is in tatters, but the great disparity between McCrory's and Romney's positions suggests that Obama's lead here is completely unrelated to people feeling good about the state's economy—we have a 9.7 unemployment rate (a .1 increase between July and August). I fear it has more to do with Romney not doing much good advertising and Obama pumping the airwaves with light-headed messages essentially calling Romney Simon Legree, whereas McCrory has lots of adds featuring local people (including a few black folks) saying, hey, maybe we should give the new guy a chance. By the way, I've lived in NC since 1984, and during that period there's been only one Republican governor.
Jul '12
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
we are approaching "historic lows" in delinquency rates on consumer credit-card debt and auto and appliance loans.
The reason this has occurred is because many people have turned upside down their priority of payments. Before the housing bubble burst, people when faced with financial difficulties kept paying the mortgage first and let their other debts go into delinquency. But now with many people underwater on their mortgages, owing more than the value for the house, there is no sense in making the mortgage payments so they keep up on their other debts. In states like Florida it can take almost 2 years before a bank can get hold of a house so people live in their homes "rent free" but keep on paying their credit cards and like. Also, with changes in Bankruptcy laws making it harder to do a Chapter 7 BKs that wipe out unsecured debt people have more incentive to keep up with credit cards.
Also, one the reasons consumer debt has declined is because people have wiped out their mortgage debt going into foreclosure or alternatives.
Mar '11
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
There's a lot in here that is mere assertion, with an assist from the left's go-to economic talking head, Mark Zandi. Data please, gentlemen?
1. 401k values? he assumes every last dollar of 401k balances have been diligently invested in the equity indices. did people stop making voluntary contributions -- or did they make emergency withdrawals -- or did they put everything into cash -- when times got tough? yes, many of them did.
2. home values? severe cherry-picking re "some areas" and "other areas". the aggregate matters and homeowners, collectively, are deep under water. there is not one scrap of data that supports his point.
3. delinquencies and debt reduced? well, yeah -- people have retrenched. it's what happens after a severe recession.
4. feeling better about their circumstances? compared to what? the nadir, or where they were prior to the recession? again -- assertion. not even offering credible anecdotal evidence.
5. what he skips right over is the income situation, which Zandi admits stinks. but unless you are retired and living off of dividend checks, you can't count on your assets to support your spending, and household wage income growth is putrid.
this is hackery.
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
When was the last time that unemployment was, in effect, at 15% and a President was re-elected?
Joe Klein and Marc Zandi should get the E. J. Dionne award for flackery.
Mar '11
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
I would also echo other remarks above; in addition to being hackery, it is simply a case of trying to lower the standards bar sufficiently that Obama can slither over it.
Edited on September 21, 2012 at 9:24pmJul '10
Re: Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
When you have nothing smart to say, you start making it up. It ought to be clear to anyone with a smidgen of objectivity that we are doing terribly economically, politically, and in foreign affairs. Those governing haven't even had a budget in over 3 years. Clearly there is no plan for fixing any of this. It's just stumble along, mumbling like a pirate.
Unfortunately, objectivity is often in short supply in a political campaign. And as the old adage in pool goes, "If you can't shoot well, shoot fast." So what we have is fast shooting, in any direction with the hope of something gaining enough traction to ride past all the detritus of a nation to another term.
Talk to any SEAL or Special Forces guys and you will learn that the way to counter wild fire in any direction is with accurate, to the target fire, delivered with concentration and speed. When Romney et al. learn that they need to actually demolish him on each and mostly every point (s0me of what he says are simply blazingly stupid and need to be dismissed as such), things will finally become rational.