| Wednesday,
February 9, 2011 "Doing the math on a jobless recovery" by
Brad Schiller in today's Wall Street Journal (link)
is well worth your time. It will not tell you anything you could not have
worked out for yourself, but few of us do that kind of simple analysis even
though we should. As Samuel Johnson said, men seldom need educating but they
often need reminding. We mostly have been exposed to what we need to think
about, but it's easy to forget such things.
To get back to full employment tomorrow, we
could get by with another seven million new jobs. To reach full employment
by the end of this year, we would need at least nine million new jobs
(some 750,000 a month). There's simply no way we will experience that kind
of job creation.
Each year brings another two million-plus
workers to the labor force (new workers plus the re-entry of discouraged
workers). Thus we would need monthly job gains of 460,000 to achieve full
employment in time for the 2012 presidential elections.
Note that officially we created 36,000 jobs in January. In December,
with all the temp hiring of the season, we created 121,000; a number
unlikely to be repeated in the next two quarters.
At the rate of 36,000 new jobs a month—the
number gained in January—we will never get back to full employment. Even
if we keep adding jobs at the December rate of 121,000 new jobs, we
wouldn't achieve full employment in this millennium.
Of course one can get closer to full employment by
restricting population growth, and in particular restricting growth of
uneducated and unskilled workers who soak up the entry level jobs that were
once the apprenticeship program for the unskilled and uneducated,
particularly minority workers who came from very bad schools. Of course the
vast majority of those coming from the public school schools now come from
very bad schools. Worse, though, regulations and wage laws and unions make
it very difficult to create a new job now; easier to hire someone off the
books and hope that there won't be raids. Clearly it's easy to fool the
system: ask Meg Whitman.
=========
On 1942 things looked grim for the United States. We were at
war on two fronts, with both Germany and Japan. The Axis had the armies and
the determination. German tanks were better than ours, their airplanes were
as good, and they had far more of them than we had or anyone might
reasonably predict we could get in any short time. The US battleship fleet
was destroyed, and the German submarine fleet made Atlantic shipping a
nightmare. The Japanese understood naval warfare, had the carriers, and a
highly trained naval air corpt. The United States would have to create a new
fleet, build a new army, build tanks and trucks and artillery and airplanes
and ==
And of course the United States did that.
The goal of Germany and Japan in January, 1942 was to
destroy Detroit. Destroy the factories, and lay the area waste. Turn it into
slums that might, just might, be convertible back into farmlands. Of course
they couldn't do that. By 1945 Germany and Japan were conquered and their
industries were in ruins. Detroit thrived.
Now in 2011, Detroit is a wasteland, some of which might,
just might, be convertible back into farmlands. Germany and Japan couldn't
do that, but we could do it to ourselves. Meanwhile, Germany rebuilt its
ruins into industrial might. Is there a lesson here?
What man has done, man can aspire to. What Americans have
done, Americans can aspire to. We can see how Germany and Japan came back
from ruin and near starvation. Initiative, hard work -- and sane labor and
economic policies.
If the United States wants to create jobs, the answer is
simple: make it easy to create jobs. Stimulus funds don't work. Economic
freedom does.
The three major factors in economic growth are sane economic
and labor regulation and laws; availability of energy, and availability of
educated workers. We had all those in 1942. We do not have them now.
It shouldn't be hard to draw conclusions from that. Even
Congresscritters and State Legislators ought to be able to get it.
=================
The Egyptian story continues to unfold.
Someone in the State Department seems finally to have
convinced the White House that immediate elections in Egypt will result in
victories by the Muslim Brotherhood, whose 1987 offshoot is Hamas. Hamas won
the election in Gaza and now rules there. Gaza is hardly an example of
liberal democracy. Under Hamas, thousands of rockets have been launched in
the general direction of Israel. Most of those opposed to Hamas have
vanished into prisons or unmarked graves.
Egypt will not become a liberal democracy as a result of any
election to be held in 2011. An early election is far more likely to result
in one man, one vote, once, unless the Army intervenes, as it would.
Meanwhile, Mubarak is an intelligent man; surely he
understands the major lesson of the Twentieth Century for people in his
position: if you hold power, particularly if you hold power and your major
opposition are the enemies of the United States, never let go. You are safer
as Castro than Pinochet.
The other lesson is for genuine tyrants, not authoritarian
dictators: Get Nukes and Get Them Fast. If you have enough money you may be
able to get them from North Korea; and if you have them, you may be treated
like the North Korean dynasty rather than like the friends of the US like
Diem or the Shah, or for that matter Saddam Hussein after Iran became the
major US opponent in the Middle East.
Get Nukes. Never let go. These are the lessons US policy
makers have been teaching, beginning with Kennedy who engineered the
assassination of Diem, continuing through Carter and the Shah, to the
harassment of Pinochet, and the invasion of Iraq. Mubarak, who is estimated
as having personal control of billions -- easily enough to buy both legions
and nukes -- must be aware of all this.
It is easy to blackguard Mubarak, and easy enough to say in
hindsight that he ought to have done more to assure a tranquil succession;
it is much harder to see how he should have done that. Pinochet retired and
Chile returned to liberal democracy, under a solemn a set of guarantees as
could be devised. Naturally those were ignored and he was not permitted to
die in peace. Mubarak, whose predecessor was assassinated by the
Moslem Brotherhood, handing over power while assuring the safety of his
family, had more to fear. He tentatively tried to assure the succession of
his son -- apparently King Lear is not on the reading list for Egyptian
generals -- but that didn't work. The Army had no enthusiasm for his son,
and unlike North Korea, where the Party rules, in Egypt the Army is the
major power.
The social network changed everything, but the lessons of
the Twentieth Century remain: if you have power, do not let go, because the
liberal democrats will swear to anything to get you to leave, but their
thirst for justice will overcome any commitments they have made.
Never let go, and Get Nukes. And you might think of building
a party structure; basing your power on Janissaries carries the disadvantage
that you have to pay attention to the troops. Ortega y Gasset had that part
right. I
have addressed that issue before.
===========
The headlines this morning predict that Mubarak will "step
down" this afternoon, possibly before I get back from my medical
appointment. The Power of the Internet? What happens next is not clear. The
Mamelukes will cast up a new Chairman, but I doubt any of us can predict who
it will be. The disastrous outcome would be a continuous revolution, ending
the long peace since Sadat.
And it is time for me to go.
==============
1345:
Medical exam found nothing but I didn't expect it to. Had a
number of blood samples taken. Also whole body X-ray. We'll know the results
of all that in a few days.
On the way home Mubarak made his speech. I heard most of it
on the radio. He isn't leaving. There was not a military coup. He is not
going to exile. The crowd doesn't accept that. They are said to be marching
on the state TV station, where the Vice President is speaking. The game goes
on. The Mamelukes have not yet had the final word.
And Egypt is losing money by the minute. Of course the
Mubarak personal fortune is large enough to make up for some of that. Tap
into the Mubarak stash...
Why am I reminded of the Nike Sedition? We know that
outcome. Mubarak is no Justinian, and there does not appear to be a
Belisarius on the scene. The Moslem Brotherhood has so far not begun to burn
the city down. We are not yet to that situation. But the crowd shouts "Out.
Out. Go." "What do we want? You out! When do we want it? Now!"
The question is, will the Mamelukes join the crowd and openly turn against
their Chairman?
It would be pointless for me to attempt breaking news, and
we won't know enough about this situation for intelligent comments until we
know what the Egyptian Army will do. The commentators continue to blackguard
Mubarak and to posit him as an absolute power dictator. Not true. He rules
at the pleasure of the Army. Armies are always reluctant to turn on their
commander in chief, but they do have influence. When you rule through
Janissaries, you must pay some attention to those Janissaries. The upper
echelons of the Egyptian Army do not live in fear and terror and have not
since Sadat.
=================
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