Not great, but still good:
For the first time in many years, manufacturing stands out as an area of strength in the American economy.
When the Labor Department reports December employment numbers on Friday, it is expected that manufacturing companies will have added jobs in two consecutive years. Until last year, there had not been a single year when manufacturing employment rose since 1997.
And this week the Institute for Supply Management, which has been surveying American manufacturers since 1948, reported that its employment index for December was 55.1, the highest reading since June. Any number above 50 indicates that more companies say they are hiring than say they are reducing employment.
There were new signs Thursday that the overall jobs climate was improving, as the Labor Department reported that new claims for unemployment benefits fell last week and a payroll company’s report showed strong growth in private-sector jobs in December.
As stores have filled with inexpensive imports from China and other Asian countries, the perception has risen that the United States no longer makes much of anything. Certainly there has been a long decline in manufacturing employment, which peaked in 1979 at 19.6 million workers. Now even with hiring over the last two years, the figure is 11.8 million, a decline of 40 percent from the high.But those numbers obscure the fact that the United States remains a manufacturing power, albeit one that has been forced to specialize in higher-value items because its labor costs are far above those in Asia. The value of American manufactured exports over a 12-month period peaked at $1.095 trillion in the summer of 2008, just before the credit crisis caused world trade volumes to plunge. At the low, the 12-month figure fell below $800 billion, but it has since climbed back to $1.074 trillion. Those figures are not adjusted for inflation.
Excellent timing, since Newt plans to let the NAACP in on the secret that black people would like jobs more than food stamps. This white privilege thing isn’t going to mean a hill of beans if Gingrich keeps letting out our secrets. And yes, I’m still completely flabbergasted he said that and that it doesn’t immediately disqualify him for office in the minds of every person in the country. There are still people who will vote for him, which I find shocking and upsetting at the same time.
David Koch
Funny report on Romney’s disastrous town hall event
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mitt-romney-out-of-control/2012/01/04/gIQAacGSbP_story.html
Villago Delenda Est
His air horn racism is a feature, not a bug, in South Carolina.
David Koch
Pretty impressive diplomatic victory for Obama — he organizes EU boycott of Iran.
Bob
Shouldn’t that be “…black people like food stamps more than jobs”?
Litlebritdifrnt
I’m with you Cole, considering that two of the Republican front runners came out with utterly racist statements in the space of a week and yet they are still front runners is incredibly distressing to me. (Santorum is now trying to say he said “blah people” as opposed to “black people” yeah right). I hope Santorum is outed as the closet gay he is one day and I hope Newt is served with divorce papers by Calista when he is lying in a hospital bed dying of cancer. They are both evil people.
Drum Circles And Weed
United States is still the largest manufacturer in the world.
This is good news. Seems to be a lot of that recently.
Arclite
C’mon JC, Newt’s just sayin’ what everyone is thinkin’!
dmsilev
And the 4-week average for initial jobless claims fell to a 3.5 year low. At 373K, it’s still higher than it should be for a healthy economy, but it’s been falling consistently for a while now and is starting to enter the range consistent with real job growth.
We’ve got a long long way to go, but at least for now, the signs are positive. At least for now…
David Koch
Keystone XL pipeline is the most important issue facing mankind, according various online progressives. The highly polluted tar sands oil will permanently kill the climate. “Game over”, they say.
Fair enough.
So why are a number of them supporting their own destruction by supporting tar sands oil advocate Ron Paul?
Roger Moore
I don’t find it at all shocking, and all the more upsetting for that reason.
Brachiator
@David Koch:
it involves Europeans and no immediate bombing of Iran or magically taking out the Iranian leadership. Sane people will praise this. The GOP will trumpet the sign of weakness and lack of foreign policy skills.
Ron Paul will bleat that we should just leave Iran alone, and semi and demi libertarians will all huzzah their approval.
@Villago Delenda Est: RE: There are still people who will vote for him, which I find shocking and upsetting at the same time.
Fixed. Newt isn’t just trying to score primary points. He’s going full racist thug.
brantl
Newt Gingrich, all-amrican dick, with a side dish of high density lipids (HDLs).
Roger Moore
@David Koch:
Because under a Ron Paul presidency, they’d be able to smoke so much weed they wouldn’t care about the end of the world anymore. Priorities, man, priorities.
Jay in Oregon
@Bob:
Newt’s belief (and the belief of those of his ilk) is that African Americans feel entitled to getting something for nothing because Democrats, the NAACP, Al Sharpton, and Jesse Jackson conspire to teach African Americans that they can get something for nothing — that we have created a “plantation” and are “buying” the votes of black people with money earned from the sweat of the white man’s brow.
JPL
I don’t have cable but network news didn’t mention this. It must be an oversight because I can remember the attacks on Move-on after the Petraeus gaff.
Cassidy
Good article on Santorum.
Cat Lady
That sneaky Obama letting all of his opponents punch themselves out to make him look like he’s competent or something.
CT Voter
You find it shocking and upsetting that people will still vote for Newt?
What’s shocking about that?
Upsetting, sure. But shocking?
People are still going to vote for someone who purposely, willingly, and with enthusiasm exploits ugly stereotypes? You find that shocking?
Alesis
Seconding the commenters who noted that Newt’s racism is more likely to help him than hurt him in a Republican primary. A lot of aggrieved white conservatives love the of idea telling off those whiners at the NAACP and their lazy black dependents.
Rather than being shocked (SHOCKED!) that there is racism being courted in this establishment it’s probably better to figure out why exactly is bashing the NAACP such a tried and true American political winner?
David Koch
@Roger Moore: This is what has always bothered me about the self-destructive behavior of certain progressives.
They make an overwhelming rational case on the urgency of stopping the lethal amounts of carbon the pipeline would emit, but then they do everything they can to elect the parties who will build the doomsday pipeline.
JPL
Even Santorum is now saying he didn’t disparage blacks by saying he wants to take away their welfare. What he really said is blah people. So the blah’s who are receiving welfare are now on notice.
link
Svensker
@David Koch:
But why?
Litlebritdifrnt
I am watching Hardball. Seriously how delusional does one have to be to be a black, gay man, who goes on teevee to DEFEND Santorum. Seriously? Dude get a clue, in Rick Santorum’s Americuh you would be dead, or in prison, or at best hiding out in your basement from two separate sets of lynch mobs. I simply do not get these people. I really don’t.
Kola Noscopy
Oh come on…this is Merka.
I can see being disgusted by the above, but surely you’re not honestly surprised.
ChrisNYC
Gingrich and the rest — they’re just such damn ghouls. Always sniffing around for money to take from someone. He’s doing a town hall now and casually mentions a “new partnership” he’s doing with some private healthcare thing for Vets. Private in that it’s not VA, bet you anything the funds are public. It sounds like another freaking “let’s go get some government money” scam. Those vets with their decent benefits are such sitting ducks for that stuff.
Davis X. Machina
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Lower top marginal income tax rates. Did the guy look top-bracket? You can always hire people to fend off the lynch mobs, you make enough money.
Brachiator
@Alesis:
Is there really that much to figure out here?
Wasn’t it the conservative hatchet goon Breitbart who claimed that the NAACP protected the “real” racists?
The NAACP has traditionally supported the Democrats. This alone makes them the enemy to conservatives.
ChrisNYC
What is Gingrich’s ratio of productive, valuable work to amount consumed? His WHOLE life all he’s done is taken. Ugh.
Mnemosyne
@Alesis:
You mean other than 400 years of racism?
Mark S.
Newt said the same thing last June:
I doubt the GOP will get 5% of the black vote this election. Hopefully, they’ll only get 30% of the Hispanic vote.
El Cid
US manufacturing by value typically increases; but what has happened greatly is the breaking up of manufacturing down into many component labor bits, and since the highest skill / highest tech / shorter labor time components can usually be done better and cheaper here, and the low to almost-highest skill / almost-highest tech / longer labor time components shipped abroad, the number of people employed in manufacturing declines.
A lot is going on — including the *dropping* costs of hiring US workers as *well as* some more positive things and stuff such as logistics — to make some of that offshored 2nd or 3rd tier manufacturing labor processes be returned to the US.
ruemara
you see, this is why I am supporting Gingrinch. He tells us White People Secrets®, They Don’t Want You [People] To Know!©
Jobs are better than food stamps…
Blimey, whatever will the wife say?
Tom Q
Can I say it’s a little disappointing that, out of 27 comments as I type this, only 3 address John’s main subject — the improvement in the economy — while most the rest have gone after the unsurprising news that Gingrich is a racist swine.
The economic news will have an exponentially greater impact on the election this year, and we need to trumpet these improvements far and wide. David Gregory said the other night that, without doubt, Obama will be running in “a bad economy”. If the trends since late summer (when many Chicken Littles were running around screaming “Double dip”) continue or accelerate just a bit, we won’t be in a bad economy anymore — we’ll be moving our way OUT OF a bad economy, the way Reagan was in ’84. (People don’t seem to remember, but we went from a seemingly bottomless recession in ’82/’83 to Morning in Fucking America ’84, just because of about eight months worth of job growth) It’d be nice if more Obama supporters saw to it that this news got around.
Jean
@Litlebritdifrnt: The only Black Republicans I have ever seen are on t.v.
Alesis
@Mnemosyne: @Brachiator:
Yeah I’m going with the 400 years of racism too. The fact that the NAACP is traditionally liberal is just a added bonus for the GOP but they are true believers in the essential inferiority of black blood/culture and resentful of efforts to prove the contrary and improve the lot of blacks.
Brian R.
@Tom Q:
Amen to that.
People already know Newt’s a steaming pile of shit. Let’s help point out that the economy isn’t any more.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Jean:
True, they must send out a request on Craigs List or something for willing dupes.
WereBear (itouch)
I’m pleased about the good economic news because this Chrstmas season sucked. My little cat toy business was perking along, and the Republican house pulled the debt ceiling business, and it dropped in it’s tracks.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
Well since the topic got shredded, I’ll plead for help. I was given the name of an online dating site for people with Asperger’s and figured what the hell. It couldn’t be any less productive than anything else I’ve tried. Of course, that means I need to write a profile. I hate this part.
lacp
@Tom Q: If the next 7 or 8 months continue at this rate, the President can do all his campaigning in Hawaii.
lacp
@Jean: I know. I played one of them, and I’m not black.
Violet
The news on the economy seems to have been consistently good for awhile now. Not great, but good. Hiring is up. Holiday spending was way up. Now manufacturing is up. Obama could turn out to be very lucky in how this works out. IF things keep going this direction. But for now, Yay!
I can’t believe Santorum claimed he said “blah” people. What an ass.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
Never mind. They literally have only one woman listed on the site within 100 miles of my zip code.
Violet
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
What are you asking for help with? The writing of the profile?
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Violet: Mostly just sympathy, I guess. But, as I said, it doesn’t matter. False alarm.
Violet
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Sorry it didn’t work out. You might try it anyway. Never know what might happen.
Schlemizel
@JPL:
CBS carried it – mentioned that only 28% on food stamps are black and 51% white but that blacks are only 13% of the nation.
Maude
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Ah, it’s okay. You are a fine gentleman.
oops, can’t spell
dogwood
@Tom Q:
Your point is well-taken. It’s easy to make fun of the vapidity of “Morning in America”, but it was brilliant. The truth is, despite all the crap that is going on here and in the world, most American voters do have jobs and a health care plan. It ain’t good enough by a long shot, but I suspect that if the economy keeps growing plenty of voters will be pretty weary of doom and gloom. That’s exactly what happened in ’84. Only rabid partisans can turn it up to 11 and stay there permanently.
Schlemizel
I am afraid we are in for a very long, very slow slog back to good health in America. While this is good news, wages have not gone up for 30 years and are not likely to ever catch up. There is nothing Obama or the Dems can do to fix this, the 1% have sold us down the river for short-term gains. They can get the work done for cheap overseas but demand will never be back as long as people are making dirt. It was American consumption (for good and bad) that drove the world economy & our corporate overlords have killed that golden goose.
WereBear (itouch)
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Write to please YOU. The whole point is that this audience shares your thought processes. Good luck!
Caught the later breaking news. Yes, do it anyway. Because you never know when a woman in your zip code will log in, and there you are.
Trentrunner
The 1984 Morning in America campaign was the same one where Reagan tried to co-opt Springsteen’s “Born in the USA,” which caused Bruce to muse:
Egg Berry
@Tom Q: The economic news is a chimera. When Eurozone goes BOOM, we’re all fucked.
Chuck Butcher
@dogwood:
Yep, along with this talk of an improving economy while doing jack shit to address the way disparity of wealth means we have what we have… and will have. Sure, I’ll take Obama and the whole damn crop of D legislators over the R brand in the face of what they mean but I’ll be damned if I’ll pretend something is actually happening in regard to the problem. I can’t think of a reason why somebody would scream about a plutocracy…
Cacti
If Gnewt would just say he hates war and loves weed, the firebaggers would handwave his racism away.
dogwood
As far as the racism of Newt, Paul and Santorum, there’s no sense being surprised or disappointed. This stuff isn’t over, but it is the beginning of the end of this nonsense as an effective political tactic. Even though it’s smaller, the Republican base is composed of many more reliable voters than the Democratic base. But soon that just won’t be enough. That conservative base is dying off and shedding Hispanics. These people are living in Pat Buchannan’s 1968 America, and any consultant or party bigwig who lets it go on should be fired.
dogwood
@Chuck Butcher:
I wasn’t talking about policy, I was merely commenting on the politics of the situation.
Mnemosyne
@WereBear (itouch):
Well, if anyone needs a recommendation to buy from you, I can testify that the Stinky Sock was a huge hit. Keaton punched Charlotte in the head when she tried to take it away from him.
(added link for shopping convenience)
Ruckus
@Jean:
During the last pres election I walked past a black man about 55 yrs old wearing a McCain sweatshirt. In one of the most liberal counties in CA.
Valdivia
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
hey if you ever need help with that I am happy to lend a hand. I have done so many of these I can practically outsource my talents!
Valdivia
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
hey if you ever need help with that I am happy to lend a hand. I have done so many of these I can practically outsource my talents!
FromTheBackOfTheRoom
@Tom Q:
Green Shoots! Yay.