Comments for The Big March Job Report Celebration at http://www.cepr.net , comment 1 to 10 out of 10 comments http://www.cepr.net Sun, 19 May 2013 03:20:28 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-big-march-job-report-celebration#comment-7971 Bruce, I am not a big backer of QE2 in that I expect its impact to be very modest. Some of it may be in boosting stock prices and thereby increasing consumption, but this would almost certainly be very small. (A 5 percent rise in stock prices would about $850 billion in wealth, which would translate into $26 billion to $35 billion in annual consumption or around 0.2 percent of GDP). I actually felt the bigger impact might be on home refinancing and some modest impact on investment. However, I think the net effect is likely to be very modest in any case. I would much prefer to see the Fed target a higher rate of inflation (e.g. 3-4 percent) as Krugman, Bernanke and others have advocated. But, you take what you can get. - Dean Mon, 04 Apr 2011 05:24:45 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-big-march-job-report-celebration#comment-7957 @MicronEcon ~ The Republicans are NOT killing jobs because they want to make Obama a one-term President. They are killing jobs because because their ideology tells them that killing jobs creates jobs. It never works out that way, but does work out the way the people who buy Republican politicians want, so they keep buying those politicians. And as long as I'm myth-busting here, I've got two more. (1) Obama doesn't have a 487 IQ, and (2) Obama is not playing 11-dimensional chess. Face it, the man just sucks at his job. - Benedict@Large Sun, 03 Apr 2011 04:32:33 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-big-march-job-report-celebration#comment-7955 Employment in the private sector has actually increased fairly steadily if slowly since the start of 2010, but government employment continues to decrease. Federal employment has been increasing very slowly, and state employment has so far declined only slightly. The largest decreases in government employment - and in the economy as a whole since the beginning of 2010 - have been in local government. http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/categories/11 - skeptonomist Sun, 03 Apr 2011 02:56:16 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-big-march-job-report-celebration#comment-7954 Good line from Dean: [b][i]First off, no one should include the stock market as indicator of the economy's well-being. Rich people are happy -- that's nice -- it has little to do with the economy. [/i][/b] But Dean, you and Paul Krugman have been lauding the Fed for for what they have been doing for months now. Bernanke has said again and again that his goal his been to raise asset prices as a mechanism to expand consumption (the good old wealth effect). The objective of QE2 was to raise stock prices. Do you support a monetary policy that has as its goal raising equity prices or not? - Bruce Krasting Sun, 03 Apr 2011 01:15:05 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-big-march-job-report-celebration#comment-7950 Celebrating the jobs thing is setting up the story that the Republicans killed the promising recovery. The Republicans are killing the recovery through State and local cuts, because they want to make Obama a one-term President. The theory is that nobody will remember all the statehouse fights when the economy tanks a year from now, they will blame Obama. But if the shutdown drama plays out with Obama telling the tale that JOBS WERE GROWING until the Republicans screwed things up, that can become the theme for the 2012 campaign. It's a really terrible contest, to see who gets blamed for the disaster that everyone in D.C. can see coming. - MicronEcon Sat, 02 Apr 2011 13:35:22 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-big-march-job-report-celebration#comment-7949 "no one should include the stock market as indicator of the economy's well-being. Rich people are happy -- that's nice -- it has little to do with the economy" i love it - paine Sat, 02 Apr 2011 13:23:07 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-big-march-job-report-celebration#comment-7947 Paine, it wasn't deliberate -- technical difficulties (now solved) coupled with lots of traveling. - Dean Sat, 02 Apr 2011 09:31:43 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-big-march-job-report-celebration#comment-7946 A cursory fly thru suggests some time ago you stopped responding to coments Is this best practice? It's certainly a trend among big hitters But ......you're a job peoples guy shoulder level talk seems like it ought be your meat - Paine Sat, 02 Apr 2011 07:05:14 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-big-march-job-report-celebration#comment-7944 The rate is small when using month to month changes A nice number like 300k out of a job force of say 150 million Is only what ? 20 basis points ? Maybe you use an annualized rate that gets you above 2 percent - Paine Sat, 02 Apr 2011 06:53:46 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-big-march-job-report-celebration#comment-7939 [quote]The largest declines are in manufacturing construction where bio-fuel subsidies had led to a boom in ethanol plants in 2009-2010.[/quote] Tom Coburn, Senator from Oklahoma disagrees with Baker, noting that Grover Norquist and his socialist buddies are effectively attempting to boost job growth with Keynesian tax cuts consisting of more ethanol subsidies. Coburn, a Physiocrat with historical family values from way back explained that doctors who treat only symptoms rather than causes never cure diseases. - izzatzo Sat, 02 Apr 2011 04:34:57 +0100