Oh No
The scary thing is that the administration’s actions suggest that they actually believe this nonsense:
President Obama’s senior political adviser David Plouffe said Wednesday that people won’t vote in 2012 based on the unemployment rate.
[...]
“The average American does not view the economy through the prism of GDP or unemployment rates or even monthly jobs numbers,” Plouffe said, according to Bloomberg. “People won’t vote based on the unemployment rate, they’re going to vote based on: ‘How do I feel about my own situation? Do I believe the president makes decisions based on me and my family?’ ”
The GDP, I’ll give you. The rest of it…we’re doomed.
“People won’t vote based on the unemployment rate, they’re going to vote based on: ‘How do I feel about my own situation? Do I believe the president makes decisions based on me and my family?’ ”
What I want to know is why he thinks a majority of voters are going to answer this in the positive.
Right. It’s not like it’s unrelated to trend in the unemployment rate.
Luckily, gas is cheap!
Everyone David Plouffe knows is doing great!
The GDP, I’ll give you. The rest of it…we’re doomed
Are you down with “primarying” Obama?
He didn’t say he thought that.
It’s amazing to me how much people are reading into, and out of, this quote.
Well, when the context of the quote is one of talking down the shittiness of recent job numbers while simultaneously talking up Obama’s re-election chances, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to read that into Plouffe’s words.
He isn’t talking down the shittiness of the recent job numbers.
I don’t see where people are getting that.
You know, while I generally disagreed with your positions, I gave you the benefit of the doubt (and some civility by keeping my mouth shut).
But Joe, you’re off your rocker. I can believe things will get better (though the odds are hugely against it), but I know things will get far far worse than that before then.
And your @&#^%^@ nit-picking and carrying water for whatever fantasy world you think we’re living is starting to get old.
Fuck you. If you don’t like my arguments, argue against them.
I have it with cocksuckers like you telling me I’m not writing what I believe. Fuck yourself.
Where does he say that you’re not writing what you believe?
You could at least apply the same standards of hyper-literal precision to yourself that you demand of everybody else.
What do you think “carrying water” means?
What do you think “carrying water” means?
That you believe what someone more powerful than you tells you.
It does not mean you are insincere. I don’t think anybody here doubts your sincerity. I know I don’t.
Nor I.
I occupy a subservient position to no one, and it is an insult to my sincerity to ascribe my statements to that.
I don’t do the bidding of anyone, and to say that I do is to say that I write what I write because I’ve been told do.
Knock it the fuck off. I don’t accuse any of you of that. Knock it the fuck off, unless you’re really determined to ruin a lot more threads with your little insults.
You could at least apply the same standards of hyper-literal precision to yourself that you demand of everybody else.
This.
I don’t demand hyper-literal precision of anyone.
But I see the clique has settled around a new line to agree on.
Please, can we have another zillion comment thread about me? I am so much more interesting than the economy.
Knock it the fuck off.
I think it’s fascinating to discuss why you’re carrying Obama’s water. I really want to know what makes you tick – you seemed like such a level-headed guy over at Yglesias’, and then sometime after 2009 you seemed to turn into some sort of echo chamber for Obama-chanting.
I mean really, what the hell happened?
I really want to know what makes you tick
You know, as a commenter, JFL can be interesting. As a topic, not so much.
I just want to go on record and say that this response is just out of line. Captain Splendid disagreed with some snark, but responding with name calling and abuse is uncalled for, and threatens to turn the comments sections on this blog into flame wars.
Yes, I can tell how much you hate the personal attacks.
crickets
Joe, there’s a difference between describing a position as “nitpicking” and telling someone to “fuck off.”
Not to mention “cocksucker” as a pejorative. That’s something I’d expect of Normy, not Joe.
Yes, one is a rude word – be still my beating heart! – while the other is a slur against someone’s honesty and sincerity.
I know what’s worse.
It’s not nitpicking that’s the problem.
I’m tired of being accused of “carrying water” and otherwise not believing what I write or writing what I believe.
I don’t do that to other people, and I’m not going to put up with it when it’s done to me. If naughty words bother you so much, perhaps going forward, I shouldn’t be the only one to object to such dishonest, dismissive, and constant insults whenever I don’t tout the local party line.
I don’t do that to other people, and I’m not going to put up with it when it’s done to me.
Yes you are, so calm down.
No, I will not fucking calm down.
Do you think this thread? Is it wicked awesome?
We can do this, or we can talk about the topics of threads without making slurs about my motives and honesty the subject of every thread, and thereby guarantee that they look like this.
I guess the choice is up to the people who can’t manage to disagree with something that appears under my name without accusing me of “carrying water” or “shilling” or otherwise insulting my honesty.
My fucking honesty, that is.
I guess the choice is up to the people who can’t manage to disagree with something that appears under my name without accusing me of “carrying water” or “shilling” or otherwise insulting my honesty.
For what it is worth, I do not, and never have, questioned your motives, your honesty, or your sincerity.
But I do really, really think that you are the last person to complain about people insulting you. Leaving aside trolls like Normy and Donalde, I don’t know anybody here as likely to personalize this stuff as you.
And “cocksucker” is not just a rude word, it is a fucking pejorative. I really believe that you are a better person than that. Please don’t prove me wrong.
You are better than most, Mal. You’re right, you don’t feel the need to hurl insults at my integrity because you disagree with me.
And you sure as hell do disagree with me when the spirit moves you, thus proving that such a thing is, in fact, possible. And you know what? Our exchanges tend to go quite differently, don’t they?
I take it personally when I’m insulted personally, but if you can read these threads and think that I am the perpetrator, rather the recipient, of slurs against motives, you just aren’t paying attention.
I cannot post three comments without some very well know regulars making the same tedious accusations of shilling and water-carrying.
And consider all “cocksuckers” to be hereby withdrawn, and replaced with “motherfuckers.” ‘kay?
I really don’t see you doing anything other than getting mad, and people still insult you. If you wanna call “not putting up with something” if nobody’s behaviour changes except you get madder, then okey-doke.
I’m fucking not motherfucking getting fucking mad.
This is quite calculated.
Do you like this thread?
This is what threads are going to look like, now, when you people keep fucking shitting on me.
Let’s keep things on-topic, mm-kay?
What excellent calculation skills.
For what it is worth, I do not, and never have, questioned your motives, your honesty, or your sincerity.
I will second Mal on this — I would not impugn joe’s motives, honesty, or sincerity.
But I also would point out that “cocksucker” is not just a “pejorative,” but an explicitly homophobic slur, and it’s really not cool.
You accuse me of shilling for Obama pretty regularly.
Try to be a little more self-aware..
Me too.
Also, I don’t see how Joe’s carrying water according to any of the readings given: He’s generally more pro-Obama (or charitable toward Obama) than a lot of other people in these threads. And?
OK, joe…sorry I bothered. It won’t happen again.
Really? Is that what everyone is getting so wound up about?
I’ve never heard it used that way, but in the same sense as “dickhead” or “asshole” or “motherfucker” – just a standard rude insult.
I once heard a guy call his dog that, and and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a reference to the dog’s orientation.
Huh. You learn something new every day.
Really? Is that what everyone is getting so wound up about?
I’m not everyone. I’m speaking strictly for myself.
Maybe let’s fight about whether or not Joe is an Obamahack without using “cocksucker” as a slur, m’kay? I happen to know plenty of cocksuckers that I like quite well.
Maybe let’s fucking not.
Maybe let’s have a thread that isn’t about that.
For a change. Hey, there’s a thought.
“Fuck you,” “cocksuckers,” “fuck yourself.”
I now grant myself permission to laugh aloud whenever you complain about how you’re making substantive posts and arguing the issues, and everyone else is just being mean to you.
Looks like you’ve found yourself an excuse to ignore anything anyone except me writes that isn’t high-minded and substantive.
You must be so happy. You’ve been casting about for that for months now.
I’ll be your little cocksucker any day, joe. It’s what I do best, mmmmmmmmmmm cock cock cock cock….
Sock puppets are a tasty treat. Granted, their souls are undernourished, but it turns out that works out on the same principle as veal.
It’s a sorry little dodge from dimwits who can’t hold up their end of an argument, so they need to impugn my motives and honesty.
It’s basically an admission that you’re in over your head with me and can’t answer my points.
You are, and you can’t. Seriously, go fuck yourself.
It’s not your arguments that piss me off, it’s your whistling on the way past the graveyard and then treating anyone who thinks differently like wingnuts.
As for specifics, I have no idea why you think any of your facts, figures and charts, both old and new, have anything to do with the new reality of Peak Everything fucking us in the ass.
Go on, trot out another job report. Refer to political incident from decades ago that has no bearing whatsoever on the stupidity we’re dealing with now.
I don’t care what pisses you off.
The widdle feewings of people who write things like your @&#^%^@ nit-picking and carrying water for whatever fantasy world you think we’re living don’t interest me in the least.
And that’s where I stopped reading your comment. I’ll just have to live with the knowledge that I might have skipped over the most brilliant insight in the history of mankind, but I’ll take my chances.
Yawn.
I don’t care what pisses you off.
Then why should anyone care if you’ve “had it” with their behavior?
Seriously, joe, grow the fuck up.
Blow me, you fucking hypocrite.
You have never, not one single time, ever found anything to complain about in any comment ever aimed at me.
But now you’ve appointed yourself naughty word patrol.
Tell you what: scroll past everything I write, don’t reply, don’t engage at all.
I could do without the hypocritical whining for a day or two.
I could do without the hypocritical whining for a day or two.
Evidence suggests otherwise.
DNFTT
What a stupid comment.
Yeah, that’s me, just someone who doesn’t write meaningful comments or engages in substantive discussion.
Wimp.
Still better than your dismissive contempt.
Yes, I can see how dismissive contempt offends you so.
When there’s the slightest interest in applying standards objectively, I’ll consider conforming to them.
Get real. I’m tired of you, not dismissive.
This whole “I’m going to project my seriousness, rationality and competence on our elites” crap is getting old. Hasn’t the last 30 years taught us anything?
Didn’t you read the whole quote?
Of course people use their own situation to judge the health of the economy, rather than statistics.
I don’t understand how this is supposed to be a controversial statement.
I don’t understand how this is supposed to be a controversial statement.
Because the unemployment rate is a number that actually reflects individual people having a bad time. People are able to look around their friends and families and see who is having a bad time. That’s not seeing “9.1%” and going “OMG!” but it demonstrates the political artlessness people have come to dread.
So does GDP.
Nonetheless, as Plouffe says, people judge the health of the economy by their own situation and those around them, not statistics.
Certainly true.
Is it your contention that the unemployment rate is a bad tool to use in projecting how people will judge their own situation and the situation of those around them? Is it your contention that the 9.2% unemployment rate masks an on-the-ground experience of the economy in which things are better than you’d expect based on the numbers?
That is not my contention.
Nor is it Plouffe’s by any by the most forced reading.
I have a really hard time buying the reading that Plouffe is merely making a technical correction without saying anything one way or the other about Obama’s re-election prospects. That’s your reading, right? That David Plouffe, Obama’s campaign manager, was asked about the unemployment rate, and gave a technically correct answer without making any implicit claims about Obama’s re-election campaign?
For me, the fact that Plouffe is a campaign manager led me to think that he was spinning bad numbers with the implicit claim that the actual situation is better than the numbers suggest.
No. Not even remotely.
WTF, people?!?
He, and I, are saying that the economy WILL influence people’s voting habits, and that it does so not through scary numbers but through people’s personal experience.
As I understand it, you read Plouffe as follows:
“People won’t vote based on the unemployment rate, they’re going to vote based on: ‘How do I feel about my own situation? Do I believe the president makes decisions based on me and my family?’ ”
“Now,” Plouffe continued, “it may well be the case that the economy is doing terribly and people will feel that their situation is bad, and won’t vote for Obama. My dismissal of concerns about the unemployment rate should absolutely not be read as a statement one way or the other about Obama’s re-election prospects.”
That’s the key claim – that Plouffe actually isn’t saying anything about Obama’s re-election prospects in that quote. If he were implicitly talking about re-election prospects, then his dismissal of unemployment numbers would suggest he was less worried about Obama’s reelection than the unemployment numbers would suggest.
And that’s an absurd claim.
He explicitly states that people will vote based on their perception of the economy.
In response to a question about how this month’s jobs report will influence the election, he says that the economy influences people’s voting more strongly in terms of their own experience than jobs reports.
I don’t know why you keep reading that out of his statement – well, I do, actually: because the way the story was written up.
You’re misunderstanding my point.
Obviously Plouffe is saying that the economy affects Obama’s re-election chances.
My point is that your reading of Plouffe has him dismssing the unemployment rate statistics without that dismissal implying anything about Obama’s re-election chances. Your argument is that Plouffe’s dismissal of the unemployment rate numbers is unrelated to any claims (explicit or implicit) being made about Obama’s re-election chances.
I think a more likely reading of Plouffe’s comment is that his dismissal of the unemployment numbers is meant to implicitly suggest that Obama’s re-election chances are better than one would think, based on unemployment. That is, my reading is that the dismissal itself provides an implicit argument about Obama’s re-election chances, and that’s where we differ. You think it doesn’t.
Okay, I’m going to step in here for a sec, and suggest that you might be really off.
I think Joe from Lowell has problems, but it has a bit more to do with an obsessive “Somebody’s Wrong On the Internets” tilt. I just let it slide off of my back and not engage.
No, but seriously DivGuy, Joe doesn’t have a false understanding of your point. Your point is, from my considered (and waste of time/brain cell) POV, is highly contorted.
But again, seriously, this crowd is pretty screwy.
With unemployment that high, and currently rising again, it heightens job insecurity among those who still have jobs and gives management more excuses to squeeze ever more work out of the existing workforce for the same or less money (which is what has been happening now for more than two years). That tends to make a lot of people really unhappy.
What you quoted is obviously not a controversial statement.
The problem is that it’s very narrowly correct. When there’s a high unemployment rate, there are in turn lots and lots of unemployed people and lots and lots of people with unemployed family members, and when they ask themselves, “How do I feel about my own situation? Do I believe the president makes decisions based on me and my family?”, they are more likely to answer “bad” and “no”.
The unemployment rate is one statistical measure for projecting how people are likely to feel about the President and whether he’s been working for them.
I think you need to posit “political artlessness” as a demonstrated proposition in order to believe that highlighting personal experience over statistics an an explanation of voting behavior is remotely artless.
I don’t think I do.
I’m sorry, I don’t follow at all. Can you please explain what you mean? I didn’t mean to be talking about whether Plouffe or anyone else was “artless”.
I mean to reply to Substance. Oops.
I should add this looks like spin. Plouffe isn’t part of the economic team. He’s just a campaign guy, spinning bad numbers because that’s his job.
The problem is that there is other, better evidence that Obama and his economic team are also of the belief that they can’t do much to fix the economy – or, more precisely, that they can’t do much to make the recovery progress at a speed which will get the economy fixed within a span shorter than a decade.
See Mike Konzcal on Obama’s apparent acceptance of Reinhart/Rogoff and slow-recovery fatalism:
I started reading that book, and I was surprised to discover that it’s not that good. They start pushing their monocausal “we can’t explain why, but government debt caused all of these crises” claim early.
I don’t understand how this is supposed to be a controversial statement.
Because it assumes that voters are completely ignorant of basic economic trends. I’m sure some are. And I doubt there are many who could tell you the exact unemployment rate at any given time.
But let’s assume that unemployment stays really high as the 2012 election gets close (projections are 8.2 percent, so it’s a reasonable hypothetical). If so, there’s a good chance that “high unemployment” will be a significant theme in the election. Both in the news and from candidates.
Set aside the unemployment rate as proxy for how people are doing as they perceive themselves and their immediate circle; I think we agree on that.
I still think that high national unemployment is going to be something people know about, and will vote on. Maybe they won’t vote for or against someone because the rate is specifically above 9 percent or something, but I think they will get the message that unemployment is really high.
From what I’ve seen, the polling shows that unemployment is a huge concern. Is that because:
1) unemployment is high, and people are either unemployed or know lots of people who are, so they’re concerned about it, or
2) people are reading that the unemployment rate is really high, so they’re concerned about it.
I don’t see why both can’t be true. And that’s why I think Plouffe’s statement is controversial–because it assumes that the “average American” is ignorant of anything he isn’t directly exposed to, and either doesn’t follow the news at all or can’t understand even the basics of it if he does.
I think that if Plouffe actually believes anything besides the most narrow interpretation of what he said, he’s dangerously wrong. Granted, I could also be wrong about which is the cart and which is the horse, but (obviously) I think I’m right, and that’s why it’s controversial to me.
You have a great deal of faith in the average voters.
In polls, pluralities were saying we were still in a recession in 1994.
I would argue that people’s perceptions of whether or not we are in a recession is more relevant than whether or not an economist points out that the string of consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth has come to an end.
People feel the effects of a recession long after the recession is “officially” over. Those people don’t give a fuck what economists say.
And since the official unemployment rate acts to understate the true level of pain people are feeling in the economy at times like this (since it pretends discouraged workers and the underemployed do not exist), I would just like to suggest that Obama may be in more trouble than he thinks.
Relevant, in terms of political consequences? Oh, absolutely. Ask Tom Foley.
Relevant in terms of what the objective situation is, and what is likely to happen in the near future, and what policies we should pursue? Absolutely not.
Surely, you don’t think that people’s perceptions in 1994 mean that we should have spent a ton of money on a jobs program over the next 2-3 years.
Anyway, everything you’re saying about what people feel is just a repetition of Plouffe’s statement. Yup, people don’t look at jobs reports; they look at their own situation.
To be clear: I think what’s controversial is that Plouffe is saying the average American does not vote based on the unemployment rate, and and does not judge the economy based on the unemployment rate.
And I don’t think that’s true; I think it’s both.
It’s like saying “Americans don’t think Michael Jordan is great because of his PPG; they think he’s great because they’ve seen how great he was.” Do they know his career scoring average? Doubt it (I don’t). Do they know it’s really high? That I’ll buy.
People don’t judge their situation in isolation. The more individuals hear about high unemployment rates, the more concerned for their future situation, regardless of their current, they are going to be.
The part of his statement that worries me, as I wrote below, didn’t end up in the quote:
Which I interpret as his saying that it has been improving and he think it’s likely to improve even if unemployment hangs around horrible.
That seems neither plausible or actually true. Maybe it’ll all become “new normal” and thus irrelevant to the campaign. Sad and scary if so.
Shorter Obama Administration:
“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
Sounds familiar.
Is that actually shorter?
(I realize this comment added nothing, but I thought it was funny)
I never thought we would see the day when Obama seemed more out of touch than Bush.
In most years Plouffe would be right. Nobody votes a particular way because someone they don’t know is unemployed. While the economy is the most determining factor in elections, unemployment is usually the least important part of the economy, electorally speaking.
That is usually the political calculus that leads politicians to disregard unemployment when it is around 7-8%. In most of the recent bouts of high unemployment, most people haven’t worried too much. In the unlikely event that they too would lose their job, they would probably find a new one. Few people lived with the fear that they would drop into the class of the long-term unemployed.
That isn’t true anymore. People who have jobs now, and who have been working in secure, well-paying jobs all of their life are worried about losing everything. The government refuses to even consider that their fears are worth any policy-time at all. The only news about unemployment that people hear is that it is bad or getting worse. They never hear that anyone is trying to do anything about it. That is a recipe for disaster.
People vote based on how they feel about their own situation, but a lot of people feel like they could be reduced to poverty if they lose their job. If unemployment were high, but steadily and predictably decreasing, people with jobs would not be as worried.
Even given that, I would say that people judge their security more by what they see going on around them in their local labor market than by national news. Do they know people who are losing/getting jobs? Have there been a lot of businesses closing around them? These factors have always influences people’s perceptions more than statistics.
These factors have always influences people’s perceptions more than statistics.
That’s true, but I think that the answers are, in no particular order:
I know a lot of people who have lost jobs.
Of those who found new jobs, in every case, the pay has been worse.
Yes, several businesses I have done business with for years or decades are now gone.
Okay. Was there supposed to be a connection between your comment and Plouffe’s statement?
Mal is not alone and what he is seeing is what is reflected in those unemployment numbers. With unemployment that high, no consumer demand, and ever increasing pressure to increase productivity while holding wages stagnant an awful lot of people are feeling stressed, even if they have jobs.
Nicely put.
And it is a recipe for disaster.
Thanks for being a responder with some sense.
The government refuses to even consider that their fears are worth any policy-time at all.
It’s not the numbers themselves, but all the best models for predicting re-election use GDP and all attempts at trying to use unemployment in the model simply produce noise.
It appears that Scott read the headline on this Hill piece – Top Obama adviser says unemployment won’t be key in 2012 – and read the quote which is about how unemployment will influence people decisions in the 2012 elections, now whether, and allowed the headline to skew his perception of the quote.
Take away that misleading headline – which left out the word “rate” – and the quote is perfectly innocuous. Of course people judge the state of the economy by asking ‘How do I feel about my own situation? Do I believe the president makes decisions based on me and my family?’
Fine. And in fact economic growth happens to be a very empirically accurate proxy for this, so we can all go home (and, alas, so might Obama.)
Add in the concept of time delays – job growth lags economic growth, perceptions lag job growth – and this is quite true.
Add in the concept of time delays – job growth lags economic growth, perceptions lag job growth – and this is quite true.
Which means people will believe life is better sometime in 2014 or so?
Great, President Bachmann can take credit for saving us all from Kenyan Socialism…
Better than what?
better seems to be the relevant variable. This would mean we’d need to see a few consecutive months of the type of job growth we saw in Feb-April by next winter/spring in order for people to feel, by November, that things are getting better for them
I really do hope you are right. I really do hope that, in November 2012, you can tell me I was worried about nothing.
We should know by July or August whether this reversal was a blip or a long-term change in the direction of the economy.
Which is not to say nothing else could happen between this summer and next fall.
Plouffe (and Joe from Lowell) are whistling in the dark. The president’s indifference to unemployment is not only inept, it’s wicked.
It’s like everybody became illiterate overnight.
Yeah, that’s quite the demonstration of indifference to unemployment – the way he talked about how the economy influences people’s voting.
Okay, so where is the jobs program, if jobs are a priority? Where is the proposal for a jobs program, so that it can be made clear that the Republicans are the ones who don’t care about jobs?
Blocked by the Republicans in Congress. As your next question demonstrates you well know.
Get back to me at the end of this year.
Why hasn’t he proposed one already? It’s not like this is a new problem. Waiting this long to actively try – or to even appear to be trying – to fix this awful unemployment situation is negligent at best.
Because you don’t roll out a political campaign in the summer, and because the job growth numbers from Feb-April were strong enough to suggest that a new jobs program, as opposed to touting progress to date, was the way to go.
Remember, Jorge, from a campaign perspective, a new jobs initiative also runs the risk of looking like an admission of failure to date.
and 9+ % unemployment doesn’t look like a failure to date?
What did I just write?
Unemployment had fallen below 9%, and had been trending down for over a year.
The US unemployment rate went up or stayed the same for Jul 2010 through Dec. 2010 (really all of 2010 was fairly constant) trended down through April and has gone up since then.
Also, given that the ARRA was coming to an end, most people would have anticipated rising unemployment as demand had certainly not gained sufficiently. This seems like touting progress to date that was soon to be reversed was not very good thinking
The Republicans have put a gun to the head of the American economy in an attempt to get their way on spending cuts. Where is Obama pointing a gun to get his constituency what it wants? The day after a resolution to the debt ceiling contest is signed, I want to see Obama take a hostage, and demand action on job creation.
He can learn to fight dirty, or remain pure and clean, living in a land ruled by the people who fight dirty.
If Obama comes out with an ambitious jobs and infrastructure (really, the two are the same thing) program in time for the campaign season, I will be quite pleased and, indeed, give you kudos.
I will still think that mostly ignoring jobs to focus on AUSTERITY, of all things, for all of 2011 was a huge political and policy mistake, if indeed a mistake it was.
I don’t think it was so much Obama determining what to focus on, as the larger political culture.
“Elections have consequences” goes beyond just who holds what office. The message that came out of the 2010 elections wasn’t just something Obama could ignore.
It’s certainly possible to argue that he could have played his hand better, especially in hindsight, but the people who won big in the recent election get a voice – a big voice – in deciding what we’re going to talk about.
I don’t see why not. The Republicans entirely ignored the message of 2008 and won in 2010. There’s very little evidence that “messages” and “momentum” exist beyond powerful people choosing to believe in them.
I think Obama could just as easily have said, “The Dems lost because the economy isn’t recovering quickly enough, so we need to start creating jobs, and these are my proposals.”
Probably nothing would have passed Congress, but there were absolutely no objective constraints on Obama that forced him to accept the “Deficit!!1!!oneone” narrative.
No, they didn’t. The Republicans spent 2009 and 2010 criticizing Obama for pushing for health care reform and the rest of his agenda instead of “focusing on jobs,” remember?
And what agenda did the Republicans spend 2009 and 2010 pushing in the media, except “Where are the jobs?” In rhetoric, though not in practice, they made the central message of the 2008 elections theirs, even more than Obama.
You argued that Obama’s substantive policy choices had to reflect the “message” of the 2010 elections – that he had to engage on the deficit because of the losses in 2010. I said he was under no such constraint, and offered as evidence that the substantive policy choices of the Republicans were unaffected by their 2008 loss, and that clearly hasn’t hurt them electorally.
Now you’re saying that Republicans’ political messaging responded to the message of the 2008 elections. That’s true enough, but I would make a major distinction between political messaging and substantive political choices.
Obama in 2008 campaigned on a fourfold policy platform – stimulus, health care, emissions reform, and education reform. Republicans worked to block every single one of those, despite the “message” of the election, and they suffered no harm from it electorally. I submit that Obama was under no constrain to respond to the “message” of 2010 with deficit compromise offers, and should have spent every minute he spent on deficit plans instead on job creation plans.
Ah, there’s the disconnect. No, I didn’t. I was talking about political messaging.
“what we’re going to talk about.”
“The Republicans spent 2009 and 2010 criticizing Obama for…”
“And what agenda did the Republicans spend 2009 and 2010 pushing in the media…”
“In rhetoric, though not in practice…”
I assumed you were, too, when you said
“I think Obama could just as easily have said…”
and
“Probably nothing would have passed Congress…”
But, as you said, no such proposals would have passed Congress, so you’re making an argument about political messaging.
Substantively, on policy grounds, he had a House of Representatives, from which all spending bills must emerge, focusing on spending cuts. On policy substance, he had to deal with that.
Where is any freaking expression of concern about jobs or trying to create jobs?
I haven’t seen much evidence that the White House gives two shits about unemployment, so it makes sense that their campaign man now has to spin that indifference.
Even using Plouffe’s own question, I don’t see why anyone would vote for Obama. I don’t think he’s made decisions based on me or my family.
Nor have I – and as an underemployed (for nearly two years now) economist, I have been watching pretty closely.
I have not seen Obama make any economic policy decisions in at least the past year or so based on anything other than the interests of Wall Street.
I seem to recall the use of the phrase “shovel-ready” during the campaign. I guess the shovelling in question was of a different sort.
Call it the Goldman Sachsification of the economy, i.e. what’s good for Goldman is good for America. Economic policymakers by and large come from a very specific strata of the corporate and financial services worlds, which shapes their biases and outlook on the economy accordingly. They see Goldman and JP Morgan making money hand over fist. They see major corporations swimming in cash. So from their vantage point, which views unemployment as a mere number, and an insignificant one compared to balance sheets, things are fine.
The very existence of the phrase “jobless recovery” indicates how little the DLC crew cares about its own putative constituency.
But we already knew that.
I suspect the White House’s strategy is to focus on sucking up to Wall Street, leveraging his advantage as an incumbent and building up a financial advantage that Romney, Bachmann, or any other GOP candidate can’t hope to match and then chase independents while calculating that the base has nowhere to go no matter how much kickback they get in the eyes.
It could work. Hard to see how any action or even particularly strong talk about jobs fits into that scenario, though- before or after the election.
As Anderson said, there’s a moral element to this. Actual human suffering is involved.
I’m not going to get drawn into a debate with JFL over words on this one. This is a very interesting statement by Plouffe. First of all, it’s wrong. People make decisions based on what they perceive to be the state of people in some group they identify with. Middle class white people in their neighborhood or job region, for example. This identity group varies by person but it is critical for understanding that if 9% of the population is unemployed that does not mean that only 9% of the electorate will be unhappy with you. And this leads into the second part of the problem. Even if you’re not unemployed, high unemployment in the economy makes it more likely that you will be unhappy. Probably your employer isn’t giving you much in the way of raises each year. Maybe you’re even nervous about whether you will lose your job and if so, whether you can find a new one because it makes sense to assume that you could suffer similar problems as your peers in the near and mid future.
So there is a formulation of Plouffe’s statement that is correct, but it’s not that interesting in this economy since the unemployment rate also seems to be influencing real pay increases and confidence among employed workers as well. Or in other words, everyone is doing pretty poorly and this isn’t some isolated sector that is feeling all the pain. The real question is why he’s making this statement. Is this just happy talk to avoid pessimism about Obama’s reelection chances? Or do these guys seriously believe that the disposition of the American electorate in 2012 is going to be more influenced by the annual deficit than the unemployment rate? Because if it’s the latter, they are on crazy pills. And we’d better damn well hope the economy can absorb more fiscal contraction.
The only ray of sunshine for me in the current situation is that I think Bernanke is a much better economist than anyone on Obama’s team and won’t be contracting monetary policy for a loooong time to come.
Because he was asked what this jobs report means for Obama’s re-election chances?
Funny how my reading is about “words,” while yours is substantive.
The question stills stands. Did Plouffe give this particular answer because he thinks the set of all jobs reports between now and election day don’t matter or is this just happy talk?
A little of both, isn’t it?
Of course he’s trying to spin things for his side, but it’s also pretty inarguable that people judge the economy more from their experience than from statistical reports.
Well, of course. But the statistical reports provide evidence that there are lots and lots of people who are having really shitty experiences. Plouffe is ignoring that fact–quite consciously, I’m sure–in order to play down the significance of the job report.
It’s as if we all saw smoke pouring out of a building, and Plouffe saying: Oh, smoke won’t cause the building to fall down–fire does that. Most people, of course, would be rightly worried that the smoke indicated that there *was* a fire, and so the building was in danger. But I suppose you would just sit back and point out that what Plouffe said was literally true.
Except Plouffe said nothing of the sort.
Seriously, were it not for the write-up, this would be an utterly uncontroversial statement.
And I have trouble imagining anything less interesting that what you’re “just sure” I would write.
This is so out of whack with what I actually wrote that I can only think you didn’t really read it. I didn’t report what Plouffe actually said, so “Plouffe said nothing of the sort” isn’t responsive at all. Nor did I anywhere say that I was “just sure” what you would write.
Look, I admit that my comment contained a snarky shot at you–I withdraw it. But there’s real substance there, too. Plouffe is saying what he said for a reason. And that reason can’t be to inform everybody that most voters base their votes on their own experience rather than on the numbers in some report. Why not? Because, as you rightly point out, everybody already knows that! So why did Plouffe say it? To give the impression that the jobs report is irrelevant to Obama’s reelection chances. But that impression he’s trying to give is false: the report is relevant since it’s one bit of evidence that lots of people are having bad economic experiences.
This is not a statement about what you’re just sure I would write?
It is: it’s another way of saying that your description of what Plouffe said doesn’t match what he actually said. Plouffe isn’t “ignoring” the experiences of people: he’s drawing attention to them as the most important thing.
Yes: to demonstrate that he feels people’s pain, and understands that their experiences, not some statistics, are what is important.
I guess I just don’t understand how anything in Plouffe’s statement is supposed to be a denial of the existence of economic hardship.
Let’s consider the opposite scenario: a jobs report comes out showing 300,000 new jobs were created in the previous month, and unemployment dropped from 9.1 to 8.9%
In response, David Plouffe says, “
Do you dismiss what he said as merely “literally true?” Do we get a thread full of comments about how out-of-touch the administration is, and how they’re ignoring that the jobs data actually indicates things about people’s personal experience?
Of course not, because talking about voters’ own experiences in a tough economy, as opposed to numbers in a report, isn’t just “literally true.” It’s actually, you know, actually, meaningfully true.
As everybody understands perfectly well, except when they don’t.
There’s a difference between down playing something that’s good for you and something that’s bad.
Until recently I would have said this is just happy talk, but with Obama talking about structural unemployment recently I am thinking he might be drinking his own kool-aid. It is hard to say.
And here I’ve been thinking that the question of whether a position is true or false should be the relevant factor, as opposed to its political implications.
It is just as true that people judge the state of the economy by their own experience when that observation is good for Barack Obama, as when it is false.
See, this is what I don’t get: how is anything Plouffe said “happy talk?” It seemed more like an effort to “feel your pain” by talking about feelings instead of cold numbers. Wouldn’t “happy talk” necessarily involve some kind of statement about things being good, or getting better?
The only ray of sunshine for me in the current situation is that I think Bernanke is a much better economist than anyone on Obama’s team and won’t be contracting monetary policy for a loooong time to come.
I remember being sure, back in 2007, that Helicopter Ben would live up to his name, and use inflation to ensure that nominal housing prices did not drop. If nominal prices stay above mortgage levels, people can sell, rather than face foreclosure. Very different prognosis for recovery.
I was very, very wrong.
Eh, I think that would have been impossible or unwise. You would need to 20% inflation, minimum, to accomplish that and there’s just no good way for the monetary authority to create that out of thin air. Bernanke could have done some things differently, but I couldn’t really complain much.
You would need to 20% inflation, minimum, to accomplish that
In hindsight, yes. At the time, I figured 6-8% would do it.
Bernanke could have done some things differently, but I couldn’t really complain much.
I think paying interest on reserves has been a disaster, as it gives banks incentive not to lend. Aside from that, well, he is clearly the least bad policymaker at present.
Even Krugman has come out saying Bernanke has failed to take effective action and shows no signs of doing so in the future.
Well, I don’t agree with Krugman here. Part of the problem is that Krugman is basically following Keynes, and I am following Mosler/Galbraith. The fed could buy another $2T in long dated government securities and drive rates further down but people are not going to invest in business development unless they see actual demand. Cheap money isn’t good enough right now and the best solution would be government jobs or more government spending. The latter delivers more demand and the former delivers jobs and demand.
It’s not Bernanke’s fault that the government isn’t running a bigger deficit. In my view, the only thing Bernanke could do is just announce that he is going to give everyone $5K a year until unemployment comes down below 6% or inflation pops over 4%. You could argue that the fed technically has the power to do that but the blowback would be immense and it would probably end with Bernanke’s resignation so it’s not really an option. Just soaking up more federal debt would not really help much.
Changing the long-term inflation target could have an effect.
What the Fed has done with interest rates, plus two big rounds of quantitative easing, would normally be defined as putting the pedal to the metal, no?
if by petal to the metal, you mean barely adequate start to fixing a huge problem, then yes
What did you think the word “normally” is doing in my sentence?
What the Fed has done with interest rates, plus two big rounds of QE, would not normally, or even in any other period in its history, be considered “barely adequate start to fixing a huge problem.”
Maybe because the other thread was dominated by a rolling fight between 2 or 3 commentators I didn’t see it, but why hasn’t anyone been talking about the imminent gutting of the non-commercial economy? We’re not just talking about government jobs but everyone and everything attached to it.
I mean seriously, it’s Versailles on the Potomac these days. The beatings will continue until morale improves. Out of touch isn’t an accurate phrase to describe it. These people aren’t even in the same reality as their constituents.
At least the Republicans have a plan behind this. They instinctively hate democracy and in the middle of a long-term campaign to destroy it. Currently their best bet is to destroy the economy and watch it take democracy with it. So far, so good.
But what about the Democrats? What about Obama? Their plan is to what? Get re-elected because people hate Republicans? We saw how well that worked last time. And re-elected why? To help the Republicans crash the economy in furtherance of corporatism and theocracy? There needs to be a real philosophical reckoning going in the hallowed halls of Washington. It seems people there have no idea why they have their own government jobs and whom they should serve.
I think the Dems don’t really have much of a plan other than “we’re not as batshit insane as those guys”. I mean, that’s really been the only generally-applicable Dem plan for the last 20 years or so.
That’s different from Obama’s personal plan, which I think is to run against both parties, because he can take the traditional Dem base for granted even as he pisses all over many of them.
Well, we have to see what the cuts are going to be. I’m hardly interested in getting into that debate, but I think the play here is to hope and pray that nothing substantial will be cut in the next 18 months or so. But who knows. Obama is quite clearly convinced that the time for any kind of stimulus is passed and that the economy won’t respond much either way to an increase or decrease in federal spending. Given that we are still sitting at 9% unemployment he is a moron for believing this, but, hey, my opinion of his mastery of public policy has been in slow decline ever since ACA passed.
I don’t think this necessarily reflects the thinking of either the Admin or the campaign in terms of the politics – that is, it might, but it might not. Rather, they have decided that they either can’t or won’t do anything about jobs, and so they have to downplay the political importance of these sorts of numbers.
This also the likely reason why they are talking about structural unemployment and confidence and deficit reduction. I think the politics is driving the rhetoric (“ideas”) not the other way around.
Fighting a war of ideas doesn’t get to the problem. They feel pressure to cut programs that help the bottom 99% (especially SS and Medicare), and to cut taxes (especially for the rich), and they are not feeling any pressure to do anything about jobs. If regular people got engaged (enraged?), if the WH was fielding angry calls from Democratic public officials in Congress, state houses or city councils, they would start sounding less like U of Chicago economists.
Of course, the problems are deep. Real Keynesian ideas became unserious a while ago – certainly during the Clinton Admin. (See Jamie Galbraith in the American Prospect.) The question is not why is Obama doing this, but rather, why are our elites doing this.
My guess is that the national unemployment rate will be less predictive of voting behavior than the state ones (it may be that this is not in fact true, but quick googling didn’t reveal this to me). I had a skim through the Bureau of Labor Statistics state-by-state thing (www dot bls dot gov/lau/) and it looks to me like the rate is slightly higher in states Obama might reasonably expect to win otherwise (California, New Jersey, Michigan, to name three) than in those he wouldn’t (Texas and quite a few small states). I would guess that, at least, this might effect turnout.
Keep up the good work Threadwinner Joe!
Gee, does anyone remember a troll who couldn’t figure out a reply button works?
Check is in the mail, THREADWINNER JOE! And check your inbox for the next round of ENC talking points after we’re finished gutting Social Security and Medicare to be Reasonable and Serious for my friends on Wall St. and in the Village.
Come on guys, I’m having a tough day. It’s HARD being an O-bot when the economy is going into a dobule-dip!!! LEAVE BARACK ALOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONE!!!!!!
Joe, You Are Not Alone!
Just fyi, the “clever screen name” guy, who is probably Normy, has been posting under my name.
Which is apparently ok with the admins.
Oh! I thought you were being ironic. Sorry!
Anyway, my content was meant for you sincerely.
I’m pretty sure clever screen name is not Normy. I’ll use the basic fallback – he has not called you gay, while both Normy and Barack have.
And FWIW, while the sockpuppetry is deeply offensive, he has missed one obvious detail which distinguished all his posts from any of yours, for anyone even mildly observant.
And now I see someone else has figured out that detail. That sucks.
Is there any reason to think that “clever screen name” is the troll?
He frequently responds to what I write with comments that are nearly indistinguishable from
If he’s not actually doing this to troll…well, that’s just sad.
He frequently responds to what I write with comments that are nearly indistinguishable from…
Given how mad you get when people badly paraphrase you, and how literally you demand being read, you really have no good reason to go down this road.
Yes, yes, it’s all in my head. I just picked that particular name at random, because Lord knows there is only one commenter who ever writes anything remotely suggestive of the notion that I shill for the administration.
There’s some confusion here. There is a commenter who has been around quite a while, and who uses “clever screen name” as his / her consistent nym; that person is not a troll but a regular commenter, and is in fact often quite witty and insightful.
Then there is Norm, who will use “Barack Obama” or JFL’s name in order to do his homophobic shtick. They are not the same.
Hmmmm…maybe that’s it.
Clever Screen Name has been around here at least as long as you, joe, an is no more a troll than you are.
While all the sockpuppetry is certainly annoying and needs to be dealt with by the hosts (if possible), I don’t think calling JFL a troll is remotely accurate (and I say this as someone who tries to limit my interactions with him). He is unfailingly sincere in his beliefs and those beliefs tend to toe the party line, which can be infuriating (or deeply amusing) depending upon the issue du jour. The problem of engagement with him is that his arguments follow a predictable and unsatisfying (to the participant) pattern: substantial and sometimes interesting assertions; inevitable disagreement over terms with semantic qualifications; degeneration into spiteful name-calling and self-victimization;
absurd chest-thumping. Still, I don’t believe he’s a troll, at least not like the rightwing ones we all recognize (and I say this as someone who has been labeled a leftwing troll and often gets threads offtrack with one of my rants).
Wouldn’t it be interesting to see what would happen if a discussion that didn’t include an accusation of “toeing the party line” were to take place?
At what point in a religious discussion between two speakers does one of them have the right, when the other keeps defending Catholic orthodoxy while proclaiming his own independence, to assume that the scales are weighted more towards orthodoxy than independence? A certain history has developed between them, a pattern has emerged, yet the self-identified independent bridles at any notion that an allegiance exists or that such a description is self-evident. Such a view from the put-upon person seems to ignore the context in which these disputes occur, as if each one has taken place in a vacuum without any history or previous record of conflict. There’s no reason this speaker can’t dream of a such an ideal situation (though it would be more likely to happen with a stranger); still, it would be more realistic to acknowledge his own prejudices and carry on with a little less vituperation and self-righteousness.
Wow, if you define someone as orthodox and committed to defending a doctrine, you can also make up an example that demonstrates them to be orthodox and committed to doctrine.
For your next trick, demonstrate that ugly people are ugly.
Also, lol at you, “jeer,” denouncing vituperation. It is difficult to imagine a less self-aware person.
You put all of that effort to come up with an excuse why it’s perfectly ok for you to write things that you know will result in threads getting off track and commenters at each others’ throats.
DNFTT.
Wow.
The horror.
I agree it’s not as dire as a whole as the truncated quote and freak out made it out to be, but it’s not so great either.
Is this true? Is it validated by some poll or by consumer confidence measures? All I see from a brief look is “US consumer confidence fell in June to the lowest point since November 2010 on concerns about unemployment and stagnating wages.”
I presume those concerns are personal prism sorts of concerns.
Isn’t Plouffe pretty much saying that people’s personal view of the economy is improving now? That’s the part that has me worried.
Ok, this graph could sorta justify him, I guess. Still doesn’t seem great.
Oh FFS. Look, the point is not that Plouffe is some kind of inhuman monster that doesn’t care about real people, or that he’s wrong about people voting on the basis of their own experience. The point is that Plouffe is acting as if there’s no connection between the unemployment rate and people’s experiences, as if the unemployment rate gives us no information about Obama’s electoral prospects. The full quote in context doesn’t change that at all.
Oh For Fuck’s Sake!
And if David Plouffe made exactly this point after a report showing positive job growth – which he has, numerous times, whenever there was a good jobs report – you’d be writing “Oh for fuck’s sake!” and bemoaning how stupid it is to point out that people’s personal experiences are more important then jobs reports.
Uh huh. Sure you would. Because that’s such an awful point.
For fuck’s sake.
Who doesn’t internalize trends in the economy into their own situation?
Everyone who gets pissed off when somebody notes that the recession ended two years ago, for instance.
This has never, ever been a remotely controversial point before. Literally 48 hours ago, everyone on this thread who is acting outraged at the observation that people pay more attention to their experience and what’s going on around them than to economic statistics was arguing precisely the opposite.
I do understand where you are coming from here, but I would posit that much of the ire that is aroused by the assertion that the recession ended two years ago has to do with sluggish employment numbers.
The reality is a middle ground that very well could be closer to your opinion, but unemployment figures are one of those statistics that have a lot of popular sway.
I agree that there is some inconsistency in the way some have reacted to the numbers, but unemployment statistics are very important, regardless of whatever vantage one looks at them from.
I think you are trying to be a voice of reason and slightly overplaying it because of the response.
Not according to Nate Silver
If unemployment figures themselves were such an important political determinant, as opposed to other methods of judging the state and direction of the economy, the famous statement about “No president has ever won reelection with unemployment above 7%” wouldn’t have to be qualified with “since 1930″ and “except for those two times that they did.”
Damn straight. Did anyone who spent this thread freaking out about Plouffe’s statement spend the 16 month period between October 2009 and April 2011, a period when unemployment numbers were dropping at the same rate they rose this past month, writing about what great news the unemployment figures meant for Barack Obama’s reelection chances?
I’d just like to see some more consistency. I’d just like to see people pick a story – unemployment figures are important/unimportant, or macro statistics are/are not more important that personal experiences – and stick to that.
As opposed to how it has actually been working, which is to adopt whichever stance is 1) most negative, and 2) most critical of Obama.
this is not a true statement JFL
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate
the unemployment rate rose at least four times during that time.
further, since the current way of measuring unemployment does not include people who have stopped looking for work and, for the first time since data collection was started in ~1960, the rate of people leaving the work force is greater than the rate people finding jobs (and a. has been for the most all of the Obama administration, and b. the difference has increased with time). Thus, a large percentage of the U3 unemployment drop has not been due to people finding employment so even when the rate improved, the effect was significantly reduced
How is your statement supposed to in any way demonstrate that mine is false?
No, the line was not absolutely smooth. In some months, unemployment did better than the 16-month trend, and in others, it did better.
And…? This is supposed to make the statement that it fell as such-and-such a rater over a 16 month period false…how?
None of this is relevant to a comparison of the 16-month period I mentioned and the last month, because the changes you’re talking about were made before that 16-month period. It’s apples-to-apples.
It’s not a controversial point, but it’s wrong. In fact, the political science literature is clear that people vote based on the perceived strength of the economy, not based on their personal experience. You and Plouffe are wrong. (Well, Plouffe isn’t really “wrong” because he doesn’t believe what he’s saying; he’s just spinning.)
The fact that people don’t care that “the recession ended two years ago” is not evidence that they don’t care about statistics; it’s that they don’t care about certain statistics. People do care about the economy, but they evaluate the economy based on jobs and wages (and the change in direction of these categories), not based on GDP.
LEAVE BARRACK ALOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONE! Im not Normy, joe, Im an old nemesis from your Hit & Run days. You know, the blog you left two months after Obama was inaugurated because you couldn’t just sack up and defend the idiot you shilled for. Weigel leaving the same time as you was a bonus. Remember when you kept saying the surge in Iraq was a failure too? Or when you ranted about how Rev. Wright was just misunderstood (until Obama threw him under the bus, anyway)?
Fucking Democrat shill.
And the admins don’t have the slightest problem with this.
Even your progressive buddies hate you, cocksucker.
No we don’t. Even those of us who routinely disagree with him on a lot of issues actually respect and appreciate him. Sockpuppet scumsuckers like you who just try to stir up trouble for people, on the other hand, are just rancid rat shit to scrape off our shoes. Now I will follow my own rule and DNFTFRT.
I second DrDick regarding JFL.
The real bitch is that they would probably protect you. If I didn’t like these folks, I’d knock down the outdated silly linux server doing wordpress and the blog software and have your IP.
Since I do respect them, I won’t. If you ever manage to reveal your identity outside this forum and I can track it back (and I’ve just wrote a program to do that), I will have fun like a kid on Christmas morning.
IP? Lol good luck. Im using wifi on my paid. Suck it fag.
heh.
Simply disagreeing with those here made me a ‘troll’.
However, this guy here is making me look pretty good right about now.
How da’ ya’ like me now, GayMAJeff?
Meant 3G, not paid. Good luck “tracking down” the millions of 3G I pad users. So blow it out your ass Marxist fag.
The fact is, hear in the Heartland, we realise that enybody thos obsessed with an East Coast Lieberal like Joe has not had sex with an actuel living humen in a very long time.
The key word being “living.”
Ed,
This might be a good place to start:
https://sites.google.com/site/warty0bliggens/
On the same day this nonsense started, someone left this comment on another blog I read:
Warty said…
It’s joe! Fuck you, joe.
July 7, 2011 1:58 PM
The link on the name “Warty” went to that address.
“joe” with no “from Lowell” is the handle I used to use on Hit and Run. Odd coincidence, isn’t it?
What ever happened to that “Hope and Change” thing? Ya’ know, that moment when the earth started to hWow!
eal and the oceans started to recede…just with the election of a black president?
And now, the whole ship is going down and you’re fighting over which way it’s yawing as it goes plunges into the sea.
Interesting stuff.
I like big fat cocks. Big, long, uncircumcised throbbing cocks, right down my throat. Always have ever since 9th grade gym class.
GayMAJ…it that YOU?
Now this is a winning message:
I can feel the hope and change. Thank Cthulhu that we may be tackling that pesky deficit.
Now there’s that consistency I’m looking for!
It’s terrible for the White House to try to talk up the economy. And also, it’s terrible for the White House to make statements about the economy being bad.
Why do I also suspect that it would be terrible for the White House to say nothing about the economy?
Aslo, cock. A big, fat, throbbing cock i can lick the veins of as it shoots semen down my little bitch throat. MMMMmmmmmmm cock and semen….sticky and tasty mmmmmm…..
I see a libertarian is still so mad that I won so many threads back on H&R. I’m Threadwinner Joe ™.
Do the admins have a problem with this? Is this the kind of site you want to run?
Despite all my Threadwinning(tm) I had to leave H&R because I’m too much of a pussy to defend OB–I mean, because of RACISM! Too mucy RACISM! RAAAAAAAAACIIIIIIIIIIIIIIST!!!11!11
I also included the number of jobs needed to lower the unemployment rate by one percentage point to 8.2%. If the participation rate rises, then it would take 316,000 jobs per month. If the participation rate stays steady, it would take 224,000 jobs per month to lower the unemployment rate to 8.2%.