Assessing America's 'imperial adventure' in Iraq
By John Simpson
Copyright by BBC News
31 August 2010 Last updated at 05:10 ET
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11135500
US soldiers pack equipment into an aircraft as they prepare to leave Iraq, 27 August 2010 US troops have been packing up as their combat operation in Iraq officially ends
"This," a leading American supporter of President George W Bush wrote in a British newspaper back in February 2003, just before the invasion of Iraq, "is our imperial moment".
He went on to argue that the British had no right to criticise America for doing what they themselves had done so enthusiastically a century before.
But America's imperial moment did not last long. And now, seven years later, the US is criticised for just about everything that happens here.
Opinion is evenly divided between those who are glad to see the Americans go, and those who criticise them for leaving too soon and potentially laying Iraq open to fresh sectarian violence.
It is a pattern that every occupying power becomes used to. America, it seems, cannot do anything right - not even getting out.
Most of the arguments in favour of invading back in 2003 have come to nothing.
Many Iraqis welcomed the overthrow of Saddam Hussein - 50% regarded the invasion as a liberation, according to a BBC poll taken in 2004, while 50% regarded it as an occupation - but nowadays it is hard to find anyone who sees America as Iraq's friend and mentor.
Nor has the overthrow of Saddam Hussein led to a general domino effect towards democracy throughout the Middle East.
On the contrary, America's position in the Middle East has been visibly eroded.
Some of the things done by the American authorities in Iraq, based in the Green Zone in Baghdad, were sober, positive and practical.
Some have become a burden, for instance the constitution the Americans wished on Iraq, which makes it fiendishly hard to create a decent effective government.
Grotesque mismanagement
And because the Green Zone administration was thrown together in a huge hurry back in 2002-03, overseen by former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld - a man with no interest in nation-building - some of what was done involved grotesque levels of corruption and mismanagement.
Mr Rumsfeld was sent a careful, conscientious 900-page report by the state department containing detailed plans for the post-invasion period. He reportedly dumped it, unopened, straight into his waste-paper basket.
Iraqis, and some Americans, pile a good deal of the blame for what happened during this period on to Mr Rumsfeld's ally Paul Bremer, the temperamental pro-consul who often seemed unaware of what was going on right under his nose.
Former Vice-President Dick Cheney, when asked by the Saudi foreign minister why the US insisted on going ahead with the invasion, answered: "Because it's do-able."
But the problem began even higher up.
A respected Iraqi dissident, who later became vice-president, has described how shocked he was to find, a few weeks before the invasion, that President Bush seemed wholly unaware that Muslims in Iraq were divided between Shia and Sunni Islam.
American generals seemed to despair of finding a solution to the growing insurgency.
Petraeus's luck
The US forces, contrary to all the basic rules of counter-insurgency, allowed the enemy to attack "Route Irish", the main road between Baghdad airport and the Green Zone, as and when it chose.
British soldiers, used to Northern Ireland, pointed out again and again that occasional nervous sorties in armoured vehicles were not the same as taking control of it.
Their American counterparts took no notice, and the situation grew worse.
It took an expert in counter-terrorism, Gen David Petraeus, to turn the situation around. Like most successful generals, he had luck on his side.
Gen Petraeus understood that insurgencies have a specific life-span, and he was fortunate enough to arrive in Baghdad at the time when the Iraqi insurgency was starting to wind down.
Sunni Muslims were increasingly sick of the violence that Sunni extremists were causing, and he encouraged the growth of Awakening Councils which enabled moderate Sunnis to rise up and deal with both Baathists and supporters of al-Qaeda.
The supply of people willing to become suicide bombers began to dwindle.
Gen Petraeus's tactics turned the tide. At the height of the violence something like 100 people were dying each day across the country from bombings and shootings.
Now the number killed in political violence has dropped to about 10 a day - unacceptable in a more peaceable society, but a great relief here.
Uncertain future
Yet many Iraqis fear that with the Americans no longer here in force, and the Iraqi army and police still lacking sufficient training, the violent extremists on both the Sunni and the Shia sides could start fighting again.
Great military powers run big risks by putting their strength to the test against weak-seeming opponents”
Whatever happens here for the next decade, the Americans will get the blame - unless of course Iraq becomes peaceful and prosperous, in which case no-one will thank them.
That is the usual fate of an occupying force.
Vast numbers of people have died, the overwhelming majority of them Iraqi.
Unthinkably large amounts of money have been spent here, and yet Iraq has slipped far down the world's rich list.
Has the United States benefited? It is hard to see how.
As the British learned in the Boer War, and Russia learned by invading Afghanistan, great military powers run big risks by putting their strength to the test against weak-seeming opponents.
America seems to have shrunk as a direct result of its imperial adventure in Iraq.
It will have to work very hard to persuade the rest of the world that it is strong again.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
This Week's David Mixner Blog
President Obama, At This Stage, Shame On You
By David Mixner
Copyright By David Mixner
Aug 25 2010
http://www.davidmixner.com/2010/08/president-obama-at-this-stage-shame-on-you.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DavidMixnerCom+%28DavidMixner.com%29
President Obama First and foremost, the LGBT struggle is one of the great civil rights movement of our times. Given that, quite honestly, there is simply no logical personal or political reason for President Obama to be against marriage equality. At this stage there can only be two conclusions: that he is a political coward or that he does indeed hold prejudice against LGBT citizens. Nothing else fits at this stage. No one can make any more excuses and no one can justify his position any longer. Looking at the facts, the statistics, the political reality and at the President's current position one can only say "Shame on you, Mr. President. Shame on you."
This weekend two factors forced me to focus on his lack of leadership on this issue. One was a brilliant article in the New Republic by Richard Just entitled simply "Disgrace" and the other was a chart published in The New York Times showing the massive change in support across the country for marriage equality. Combine that with a recent CNN poll that showed 52% of Americans believe now that marriage equality is a Constitutional Right and you see how ridiculous his position has become before the public.
The President should look to his fellow Democrats for courage. Overwhelmingly, Democrats now support marriage equality. If you look at the New York Times Marriage Chart you will see a state by state breakdown on the increasing support for parity. Look at the entire chart and you will see states like West Virginia support for marriage equality has grown in 15 years from 21% to 41%. Seventeen states now support marriage equality by greater than 50%! Another 13 states support it with margins of greater than 40% with most of those above 45%! Of the remaining 20 states, Obama only carried 2 of those states and 12 of those 20 are in the deep South or border states. Can the political facts be any clearer?
Moreover, we can truly say President Obama is now hurting us in our battle for marriage equality. His words can be used by our foes with ease when he gives us his tired mantra: "marriage is between a man and a woman." I can dissect all his statements but the New Republic article by Richard Just lays it out perfectly:
My colleague James Downie has assembled a fascinating timeline of Obama’s statements on gay marriage over the past 14 years, stretching from 1996 to earlier this month, when the White House responded to a judge’s ruling on Prop 8 by reiterating that it opposes same-sex marriage. What the timeline shows is a pattern that can only be described as illogical and cynical. Obama argues that he is against gay marriage while also opposing efforts like Prop 8 that would ban it. He justifies this by saying that state constitutions should not be used to reduce rights. (His exact words: “I am not in favor of gay marriage, but when you’re playing around with constitutions, just to prohibit somebody who cares about another person, it just seems to me that that is not what America is about.”) Obama appears to be saying that it is fine to prohibit gay people from getting married, as long as the vehicle for doing so is not a constitution. Presumably, then, he supports the numerous states that have banned same-sex marriage through other means, without resorting to a constitutional amendment? If so, he might be the only person in the country to occupy this narrow, and frankly absurd, slice of intellectual terrain. Obama has also said he favors civil unions rather than gay marriage because the question of where and how to apply the label “marriage” is a religious one. This argument makes even less sense than his stance on state constitutions, since marriage, for better or for worse, is very much a government matter.
The article concludes with this amazing paragraph. Please read these lines very carefully. The highlighted parts are mine.
But, while he may not realize it, Obama is already leading on gay marriage; he is just leading in the wrong direction. Every time Obama or a surrogate reiterates his position, it reinforces the idea that gay marriage is a bit too scary for the political mainstream. Worse, Obama’s stance seems to be a way of conveying to the country that he knows a lot of people still aren’t completely comfortable admitting gays and lesbians as full participants in American life, and that this is OK because he isn’t either. It is about the most cynical gesture you can imagine from an allegedly liberal leader—and we deserve better. I am speaking to you as an American, Mr. Obama.
DADT: The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same!
By David Mixner
Copyright By David Mixner
Aug 26 2010
http://www.davidmixner.com/2010/08/dadt-the-more-things-change-the-more-they-stay-the-same.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DavidMixnerCom+%28DavidMixner.com%29
Yesterday was like a flashback from a bad political acid trip.
United States Marine Commandant James Conway, who is doing his best to undercut "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", suggested that there might have to be separate barracks for homosexual troops. In one swift moment, the commandant transported me back 17 years to 1993. In fact, this entire process is beginning to look like a repeat performance of 1993.
Trust me, that is not good news.
President Bill Clinton, caught in a firestorm the first month of his presidency, called for six months of 'study and review' in order to placate the military and to hopefully build support for allowing gays in the military. Under the ample leadership of now deceased Tom Stoddard, the "Campaign for Military Service" was formed to support the President with such strong backers as David Geffen, Barry Diller, Bob Shrum, Marylouise Oates, Greg Craig and so many others. By March, the President led by Senator Sam Nunn visited the USS Roosevelt and allowed himself to be pulled into the tight living quarters on the ship. In a notorious front page picture, Nunn made his bigoted, Neanderthal point that homosexuals and straights could not share these quarters.
Clinton then suggested segregated living quarters for homosexual troops and received a firestorm of protest. Meanwhile, the military leaders and people like Sam Nunn used this 'study and review' period to build up pressure that led to DADT.
Sound familiar?
Just look at how this is going. Last year we were told to wait until the healthcare bill passed Congress. Then we were told it would be Spring of this year. Finally, this supposedly brilliant idea of a 'study' was proposed and accepted. This wouldn't be completed until early next year and after this year's Congressional elections. Well, this 'study' by the military has consisted of the most humiliating questionnaires, probing our lives, playing to stereotypes and suggesting segregating homosexual troops. Recently in a private meeting arranged for LGBT donors, the word was given that closure might not be until next May or June.
Trust me - after the elections, we will start hearing all sort of proposals that continue in someway to make us second class citizens. They will blame the results of the elections and not their inaction this year. My guess is we will not achieve a clean-cut right to serve; that we will be offered once again some sort of new status within the military.
Guess the only question left is if the LGBT community is going to accept second class status and enable Congress to give poor excuses or will we change this time and demand full equality?
Ken Mehlman and Coming Out
By David Mixner
Copyright By David Mixner
Aug 27 2010
http://www.davidmixner.com/2010/08/ken-mehlman-and-coming-out.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DavidMixnerCom+%28DavidMixner.com%29
Melman Ken Mehlman's process of coming out of the closet certainly has stirred the troops. People are enraged by his previous politics. Some believe he has to apologize for a litany of past positions before he can be accepted into the greater LGBT community. Others have welcomed him and his vast network of contacts that he now brings to this community. What is clear is that everyone has an opinion.
There are really important facts to remember as the community comes to terms with its latest out member:
-Coming Out has been and continues to be the most important political action that a person can take in our epic struggle. Every time an individual finds the courage to come out to his family, friends and public, it creates a ripple effect that increases the hope for us all.
-No one should ever be discouraged from Coming Out nor punished for it.
-For years we have been saying, "We Are Everywhere" and this certainly proves the case.
-We are not a membership organization where someone has to meet criteria either socially or politically for entrance.
-The purpose of a movement is to change minds. Look at the shift in public opinion in the last few years. We should accept those who have opposed us in the past and use their talents and gifts.
-Finally, no one has to approve, accept nor be quiet about another person's political beliefs or actions in their past. That is the essence of free speech. You don't have to like them personally, have to sleep with them, approve of their dog or cat nor invite them to dinner.
Like Ted Olson taking the Proposition 8 Court Case, Ken Melhman's coming out process is bound to create a rippled effect. Just look at the names on the fundraiser that he has organized to support marriage equality and the American Foundation for Equal Rights Proposition 8 Court Case.. Do we want to make it impossible for all conservatives to come out for marriage equality? Do we want to shun all people whose policies of the past we personally disagree? Who gets to decide who is acceptable and who is not?
I couldn't vehemently disagree more with Ken's political choices in the past. For me personally, they are appalling. However, I understand the courage it took to make such a shift and to immediately organize his family, friends and political network to join us in this struggle. For us and for him, I hope his action benefits everyone. Whether we like him or not, coming out is good and never should be discouraged.
The United States Senate's Worst Nightmare
By David Mixner
Copyright By David Mixner
Aug 30 2010
http://www.davidmixner.com/2010/08/the-united-states-senates-worst-nightmare.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DavidMixnerCom+%28DavidMixner.com%29
Senate_in_session While not impossible it is unlikely that the Democrats in the United States Senate will lose their majority. There is no question that they will lose seats and could have a long night waiting to see if the majority holds in November. That alone is reason to give pause because that great "intellectual and compassionate" Republican Mitch McConnell from Kentucky will lead that historical body. This is a man that has no business being elected senator let alone leader of the Senate.
That scenario is enough to give anyone pause but might not be the real problem in the Senate. We could see the election of five to six senators who respect no traditions, no leaders of either party and, using Senate rules, could totally bring the business of the nation to a halt. A group consisting of Sharron Angle from Nevada, Rand Paul from Kentucky, Joe Miller from Alaska, Marco Rubio from Florida and Mike Lee from Utah could form a bloc of extreme right wing views that would create chaos in the Senate. If these five senators were all elected, they would represent the new extreme of the Republican Party. Lord knows what other senators would join them given the success of the right wing defeating traditional conservatives in the primaries. We can be pretty sure Senators Jim DeMint and Jeff Sessions would be in their corner often during crucial debates.
The rules of the Senate allow filibusters, appointments to be tied up and Legislation not even come to a vote, needless delays and creating chaos until other Senator's seek peace by selling out on their ideas and principles. A bloc of seven to ten senators hell bent on an ideological agenda who don't give a hoot about their leadership just could be our worst nightmare on election day. Lord helps us.
By David Mixner
Copyright By David Mixner
Aug 25 2010
http://www.davidmixner.com/2010/08/president-obama-at-this-stage-shame-on-you.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DavidMixnerCom+%28DavidMixner.com%29
President Obama First and foremost, the LGBT struggle is one of the great civil rights movement of our times. Given that, quite honestly, there is simply no logical personal or political reason for President Obama to be against marriage equality. At this stage there can only be two conclusions: that he is a political coward or that he does indeed hold prejudice against LGBT citizens. Nothing else fits at this stage. No one can make any more excuses and no one can justify his position any longer. Looking at the facts, the statistics, the political reality and at the President's current position one can only say "Shame on you, Mr. President. Shame on you."
This weekend two factors forced me to focus on his lack of leadership on this issue. One was a brilliant article in the New Republic by Richard Just entitled simply "Disgrace" and the other was a chart published in The New York Times showing the massive change in support across the country for marriage equality. Combine that with a recent CNN poll that showed 52% of Americans believe now that marriage equality is a Constitutional Right and you see how ridiculous his position has become before the public.
The President should look to his fellow Democrats for courage. Overwhelmingly, Democrats now support marriage equality. If you look at the New York Times Marriage Chart you will see a state by state breakdown on the increasing support for parity. Look at the entire chart and you will see states like West Virginia support for marriage equality has grown in 15 years from 21% to 41%. Seventeen states now support marriage equality by greater than 50%! Another 13 states support it with margins of greater than 40% with most of those above 45%! Of the remaining 20 states, Obama only carried 2 of those states and 12 of those 20 are in the deep South or border states. Can the political facts be any clearer?
Moreover, we can truly say President Obama is now hurting us in our battle for marriage equality. His words can be used by our foes with ease when he gives us his tired mantra: "marriage is between a man and a woman." I can dissect all his statements but the New Republic article by Richard Just lays it out perfectly:
My colleague James Downie has assembled a fascinating timeline of Obama’s statements on gay marriage over the past 14 years, stretching from 1996 to earlier this month, when the White House responded to a judge’s ruling on Prop 8 by reiterating that it opposes same-sex marriage. What the timeline shows is a pattern that can only be described as illogical and cynical. Obama argues that he is against gay marriage while also opposing efforts like Prop 8 that would ban it. He justifies this by saying that state constitutions should not be used to reduce rights. (His exact words: “I am not in favor of gay marriage, but when you’re playing around with constitutions, just to prohibit somebody who cares about another person, it just seems to me that that is not what America is about.”) Obama appears to be saying that it is fine to prohibit gay people from getting married, as long as the vehicle for doing so is not a constitution. Presumably, then, he supports the numerous states that have banned same-sex marriage through other means, without resorting to a constitutional amendment? If so, he might be the only person in the country to occupy this narrow, and frankly absurd, slice of intellectual terrain. Obama has also said he favors civil unions rather than gay marriage because the question of where and how to apply the label “marriage” is a religious one. This argument makes even less sense than his stance on state constitutions, since marriage, for better or for worse, is very much a government matter.
The article concludes with this amazing paragraph. Please read these lines very carefully. The highlighted parts are mine.
But, while he may not realize it, Obama is already leading on gay marriage; he is just leading in the wrong direction. Every time Obama or a surrogate reiterates his position, it reinforces the idea that gay marriage is a bit too scary for the political mainstream. Worse, Obama’s stance seems to be a way of conveying to the country that he knows a lot of people still aren’t completely comfortable admitting gays and lesbians as full participants in American life, and that this is OK because he isn’t either. It is about the most cynical gesture you can imagine from an allegedly liberal leader—and we deserve better. I am speaking to you as an American, Mr. Obama.
DADT: The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same!
By David Mixner
Copyright By David Mixner
Aug 26 2010
http://www.davidmixner.com/2010/08/dadt-the-more-things-change-the-more-they-stay-the-same.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DavidMixnerCom+%28DavidMixner.com%29
Yesterday was like a flashback from a bad political acid trip.
United States Marine Commandant James Conway, who is doing his best to undercut "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", suggested that there might have to be separate barracks for homosexual troops. In one swift moment, the commandant transported me back 17 years to 1993. In fact, this entire process is beginning to look like a repeat performance of 1993.
Trust me, that is not good news.
President Bill Clinton, caught in a firestorm the first month of his presidency, called for six months of 'study and review' in order to placate the military and to hopefully build support for allowing gays in the military. Under the ample leadership of now deceased Tom Stoddard, the "Campaign for Military Service" was formed to support the President with such strong backers as David Geffen, Barry Diller, Bob Shrum, Marylouise Oates, Greg Craig and so many others. By March, the President led by Senator Sam Nunn visited the USS Roosevelt and allowed himself to be pulled into the tight living quarters on the ship. In a notorious front page picture, Nunn made his bigoted, Neanderthal point that homosexuals and straights could not share these quarters.
Clinton then suggested segregated living quarters for homosexual troops and received a firestorm of protest. Meanwhile, the military leaders and people like Sam Nunn used this 'study and review' period to build up pressure that led to DADT.
Sound familiar?
Just look at how this is going. Last year we were told to wait until the healthcare bill passed Congress. Then we were told it would be Spring of this year. Finally, this supposedly brilliant idea of a 'study' was proposed and accepted. This wouldn't be completed until early next year and after this year's Congressional elections. Well, this 'study' by the military has consisted of the most humiliating questionnaires, probing our lives, playing to stereotypes and suggesting segregating homosexual troops. Recently in a private meeting arranged for LGBT donors, the word was given that closure might not be until next May or June.
Trust me - after the elections, we will start hearing all sort of proposals that continue in someway to make us second class citizens. They will blame the results of the elections and not their inaction this year. My guess is we will not achieve a clean-cut right to serve; that we will be offered once again some sort of new status within the military.
Guess the only question left is if the LGBT community is going to accept second class status and enable Congress to give poor excuses or will we change this time and demand full equality?
Ken Mehlman and Coming Out
By David Mixner
Copyright By David Mixner
Aug 27 2010
http://www.davidmixner.com/2010/08/ken-mehlman-and-coming-out.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DavidMixnerCom+%28DavidMixner.com%29
Melman Ken Mehlman's process of coming out of the closet certainly has stirred the troops. People are enraged by his previous politics. Some believe he has to apologize for a litany of past positions before he can be accepted into the greater LGBT community. Others have welcomed him and his vast network of contacts that he now brings to this community. What is clear is that everyone has an opinion.
There are really important facts to remember as the community comes to terms with its latest out member:
-Coming Out has been and continues to be the most important political action that a person can take in our epic struggle. Every time an individual finds the courage to come out to his family, friends and public, it creates a ripple effect that increases the hope for us all.
-No one should ever be discouraged from Coming Out nor punished for it.
-For years we have been saying, "We Are Everywhere" and this certainly proves the case.
-We are not a membership organization where someone has to meet criteria either socially or politically for entrance.
-The purpose of a movement is to change minds. Look at the shift in public opinion in the last few years. We should accept those who have opposed us in the past and use their talents and gifts.
-Finally, no one has to approve, accept nor be quiet about another person's political beliefs or actions in their past. That is the essence of free speech. You don't have to like them personally, have to sleep with them, approve of their dog or cat nor invite them to dinner.
Like Ted Olson taking the Proposition 8 Court Case, Ken Melhman's coming out process is bound to create a rippled effect. Just look at the names on the fundraiser that he has organized to support marriage equality and the American Foundation for Equal Rights Proposition 8 Court Case.. Do we want to make it impossible for all conservatives to come out for marriage equality? Do we want to shun all people whose policies of the past we personally disagree? Who gets to decide who is acceptable and who is not?
I couldn't vehemently disagree more with Ken's political choices in the past. For me personally, they are appalling. However, I understand the courage it took to make such a shift and to immediately organize his family, friends and political network to join us in this struggle. For us and for him, I hope his action benefits everyone. Whether we like him or not, coming out is good and never should be discouraged.
The United States Senate's Worst Nightmare
By David Mixner
Copyright By David Mixner
Aug 30 2010
http://www.davidmixner.com/2010/08/the-united-states-senates-worst-nightmare.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DavidMixnerCom+%28DavidMixner.com%29
Senate_in_session While not impossible it is unlikely that the Democrats in the United States Senate will lose their majority. There is no question that they will lose seats and could have a long night waiting to see if the majority holds in November. That alone is reason to give pause because that great "intellectual and compassionate" Republican Mitch McConnell from Kentucky will lead that historical body. This is a man that has no business being elected senator let alone leader of the Senate.
That scenario is enough to give anyone pause but might not be the real problem in the Senate. We could see the election of five to six senators who respect no traditions, no leaders of either party and, using Senate rules, could totally bring the business of the nation to a halt. A group consisting of Sharron Angle from Nevada, Rand Paul from Kentucky, Joe Miller from Alaska, Marco Rubio from Florida and Mike Lee from Utah could form a bloc of extreme right wing views that would create chaos in the Senate. If these five senators were all elected, they would represent the new extreme of the Republican Party. Lord knows what other senators would join them given the success of the right wing defeating traditional conservatives in the primaries. We can be pretty sure Senators Jim DeMint and Jeff Sessions would be in their corner often during crucial debates.
The rules of the Senate allow filibusters, appointments to be tied up and Legislation not even come to a vote, needless delays and creating chaos until other Senator's seek peace by selling out on their ideas and principles. A bloc of seven to ten senators hell bent on an ideological agenda who don't give a hoot about their leadership just could be our worst nightmare on election day. Lord helps us.
Chicago home prices up 2.5% in June
Chicago home prices up 2.5% in June
By Mary Ellen Podmolik
Copyright by The Chicago Tribune
Posted today at 10:35 a.m.
http://chicagobreakingbusiness.com/2010/08/chicago-home-prices-up-2-5-in-june.html
Home prices in the Chicago area rose for the third straight month in June, raising them up to a level equivalent with a year ago, new data released Tuesday shows.
While Chicago’s one-month price gains were greater than many of the cities in the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, national economic trends are likely to temper future home price appreciation, economists said.
“It’s a mixed bag,” said Yale economics professor Robert Shiller, “Corporate profits are still strong, inventories are low and that’s supposed to be a positive indicator. But confidence is a major driver of the economy. What really bothers me is the very high level of long-term unemployment.”
Shiller added the nation could see “a jobless recovery that could last for years.”
Nationally, home prices are 3.6 percent above their level of a year ago.
Between the peak of the Chicago housing market in September 2006 and its trough in March, home prices plunged 29 percent. The 2.5 percent gain in June followed a gain of 1.2 percent in May.
Other economists share the same worries as the authors of the widely watched Case-Shiller report, particularly given the dismal reports on new and existing home sales during July.
“Since the credit expired and the economy started rolling over again, home sales have taken an Acapulco-style cliff dive,” said Mike Larson, a Weiss Research analyst. “Anyone who thinks that won’t impact the pricing figures down the road needs to spend some time reading his Economics 101 textbook.”
During a Sunday morning interview on CNN, Shaun Donovan, secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, did not immediately dismiss the idea of again bringing back a federal homebuyer tax credit, which has been credited for driving home purchases last fall and again this spring. That ignited a flurry of speculation but Shiller and David Blitzer, managing director and chairman of the index committee at S&P Indices, oppose such a move.
“I would view this as a mistake,” Blitzer said. “You create a little activity but every time you do this, you get a little less activity and it wears thin.”
By Mary Ellen Podmolik
Copyright by The Chicago Tribune
Posted today at 10:35 a.m.
http://chicagobreakingbusiness.com/2010/08/chicago-home-prices-up-2-5-in-june.html
Home prices in the Chicago area rose for the third straight month in June, raising them up to a level equivalent with a year ago, new data released Tuesday shows.
While Chicago’s one-month price gains were greater than many of the cities in the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, national economic trends are likely to temper future home price appreciation, economists said.
“It’s a mixed bag,” said Yale economics professor Robert Shiller, “Corporate profits are still strong, inventories are low and that’s supposed to be a positive indicator. But confidence is a major driver of the economy. What really bothers me is the very high level of long-term unemployment.”
Shiller added the nation could see “a jobless recovery that could last for years.”
Nationally, home prices are 3.6 percent above their level of a year ago.
Between the peak of the Chicago housing market in September 2006 and its trough in March, home prices plunged 29 percent. The 2.5 percent gain in June followed a gain of 1.2 percent in May.
Other economists share the same worries as the authors of the widely watched Case-Shiller report, particularly given the dismal reports on new and existing home sales during July.
“Since the credit expired and the economy started rolling over again, home sales have taken an Acapulco-style cliff dive,” said Mike Larson, a Weiss Research analyst. “Anyone who thinks that won’t impact the pricing figures down the road needs to spend some time reading his Economics 101 textbook.”
During a Sunday morning interview on CNN, Shaun Donovan, secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, did not immediately dismiss the idea of again bringing back a federal homebuyer tax credit, which has been credited for driving home purchases last fall and again this spring. That ignited a flurry of speculation but Shiller and David Blitzer, managing director and chairman of the index committee at S&P Indices, oppose such a move.
“I would view this as a mistake,” Blitzer said. “You create a little activity but every time you do this, you get a little less activity and it wears thin.”
Editorial: U.S. citizens who say they were tortured get their day in court
Editorial: U.S. citizens who say they were tortured get their day in court
Copyright by The Washington Post
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/30/AR2010083004404.html
THE ALLEGATIONS are sadly familiar by now: The men were picked up by U.S. military forces, locked in tiny cells, deprived of sleep, and subjected to extreme temperatures and loud music.
What makes these allegations extraordinary is that the men in question, Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel, are U.S. citizens who were working in 2006 for an Iraqi security firm, Shield Group Security. According to court documents, Mr. Vance warned Iraqi-based U.S. officials about possible corruption at the firm, including the funneling of weapons to insurgents. After getting the brushoff, Mr. Vance contacted Chicago agents with the FBI on his next visit home. Mr. Vance and Mr. Ertel began passing information to the FBI once they were back in Iraq. That ended when the firm became suspicious and took the men hostage; Mr. Vance and Mr. Ertel were able to call their FBI contacts, who then alerted the military, which sent soldiers to rescue the men.
After a night at the U.S. Embassy, Mr. Vance and Mr. Ertel were told they would be detained as security internees. Mr. Vance was held for three months and Mr. Ertel for six weeks, during which they were interrogated repeatedly about what they knew about Shield Group's operations. A detainee review board ultimately ordered them released.
The men filed suit in federal court against former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and a slew of unnamed U.S. officials for violating their constitutional rights; if they prevail, they could collect money damages from the defendants.
Government officials are typically immune from personal lawsuits for actions they take in their official capacity. But the Supreme Court ruled in the 1970s that the immunity can be pierced if the officials knowingly violate well-established constitutional rights. Such lawsuits typically involve wayward law enforcement officers working on domestic soil; this appears to be the first to allow such a suit against civil and military officials in the midst of conducting a war. An Illinois federal judge has allowed the suit to proceed. That decision is now on appeal.
Personal lawsuits against individual government officials should proceed only if there is plausible evidence that the named officials directly participated in the constitutional violation -- a standard that Mr. Vance and Mr. Ertel's case does not meet with regard to Mr. Rumsfeld. The case should be limited to those individuals who directly caused the alleged harm; Mr. Rumsfeld and higher-ranking officials could be added to the suit later if evidence shows they were directly involved. A friend-of-the-court brief filed this month by former secretaries of defense and members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff makes a compelling argument that the men should have availed themselves of processes within the military justice system to ferret out and punish miscreants. The appeals court should consider whether this possibility still exists.
Judges should not be in the business of second-guessing or micromanaging the executive's battlefield decisions. But the assertions made by Mr. Vance and Mr. Ertel about their treatment in Iraq must be probed and, if true, those responsible for cruel or inhumane acts should be held accountable. The courts may not be the most appropriate place to start, but they should be available if and when other avenues fail.
Copyright by The Washington Post
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/30/AR2010083004404.html
THE ALLEGATIONS are sadly familiar by now: The men were picked up by U.S. military forces, locked in tiny cells, deprived of sleep, and subjected to extreme temperatures and loud music.
What makes these allegations extraordinary is that the men in question, Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel, are U.S. citizens who were working in 2006 for an Iraqi security firm, Shield Group Security. According to court documents, Mr. Vance warned Iraqi-based U.S. officials about possible corruption at the firm, including the funneling of weapons to insurgents. After getting the brushoff, Mr. Vance contacted Chicago agents with the FBI on his next visit home. Mr. Vance and Mr. Ertel began passing information to the FBI once they were back in Iraq. That ended when the firm became suspicious and took the men hostage; Mr. Vance and Mr. Ertel were able to call their FBI contacts, who then alerted the military, which sent soldiers to rescue the men.
After a night at the U.S. Embassy, Mr. Vance and Mr. Ertel were told they would be detained as security internees. Mr. Vance was held for three months and Mr. Ertel for six weeks, during which they were interrogated repeatedly about what they knew about Shield Group's operations. A detainee review board ultimately ordered them released.
The men filed suit in federal court against former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and a slew of unnamed U.S. officials for violating their constitutional rights; if they prevail, they could collect money damages from the defendants.
Government officials are typically immune from personal lawsuits for actions they take in their official capacity. But the Supreme Court ruled in the 1970s that the immunity can be pierced if the officials knowingly violate well-established constitutional rights. Such lawsuits typically involve wayward law enforcement officers working on domestic soil; this appears to be the first to allow such a suit against civil and military officials in the midst of conducting a war. An Illinois federal judge has allowed the suit to proceed. That decision is now on appeal.
Personal lawsuits against individual government officials should proceed only if there is plausible evidence that the named officials directly participated in the constitutional violation -- a standard that Mr. Vance and Mr. Ertel's case does not meet with regard to Mr. Rumsfeld. The case should be limited to those individuals who directly caused the alleged harm; Mr. Rumsfeld and higher-ranking officials could be added to the suit later if evidence shows they were directly involved. A friend-of-the-court brief filed this month by former secretaries of defense and members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff makes a compelling argument that the men should have availed themselves of processes within the military justice system to ferret out and punish miscreants. The appeals court should consider whether this possibility still exists.
Judges should not be in the business of second-guessing or micromanaging the executive's battlefield decisions. But the assertions made by Mr. Vance and Mr. Ertel about their treatment in Iraq must be probed and, if true, those responsible for cruel or inhumane acts should be held accountable. The courts may not be the most appropriate place to start, but they should be available if and when other avenues fail.
Today's Financial News Courtesy of the Financial Times
Today's Financial News Courtesy of the Financial Times
US data temper flight from risk
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010
Published: August 31 2010 08:33 | Last updated: August 31 2010 17:51
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ed7247bc-b4bf-11df-b0a6-00144feabdc0.html
Tuesday 17:40 BST. Better than expected US housing and consumer confidence data have been unable to fully dispel investors’ nagging concerns about the prospects for global growth.
Throughout much of Tuesday’s session there has been an overriding sense that fiscal and monetary authorities are bumbling their lines in the face of a dangerous plot twist for the global economy, pushing traders away from stocks and back into havens such as core government bonds.
Risk appetite has improved somewhat since the Case-Shiller house price index was shown rising more than forecast in June and a reading of US household sentiment rebounded from a five month low. These reports have helped push the S&P 500 on Wall Street up 0.4 per cent.
However, a poor display in Asia leaves the FTSE All-World equity index down 0.1 per cent and industrial commodities are struggling to make headway. It is pertinent that yields on US government bonds are inching closer to recent cyclical lows despite the small rally in stocks in New York. The yen, one of the favoured currencies in times of strife, is again flirting with 15-year highs against the dollar.
The Japanese unit’s strength stands in contrast to – indeed, is partly the cause of – the stock market’s slide into bear market territory. The Nikkei 225 is down 22 per cent since April’s peak, having lost 3.6 per cent on Tuesday as investors worried that the previous day’s announcement of stimulus measures by the government and the Bank of Japan were insufficient to drag the economy out of its slough.
The Market Eye
“Double dip fears” may have pushed “fiscal woes” off the headlines of late, but concerns regarding the latter are still bubbling beneath the service. Yields on Greek 2-year notes are up 102 basis points to 11.30 per cent, a near 4 month high, as investors continue to fret about Athens having to restructure its debt. Ten-year notes yield 11.55 per cent, also close to their highest level since the start of May, when fiscal funk was most fierce. Greek credit default swaps are 953 basis points, barely 60bp off their peak.
Meanwhile, the impact of the nation’s austerity measures is shown in news today of a 4.4 per cent annual fall in retail sales. The Athens stock market fell 0.4 per cent as banks again falter, taking the losses in August to 7 per cent, nearly twice the fall of the FTSE All-World index.
Traders had reacted to evidence of just such a lack of confidence in the US. Overnight, the S&P 500 on Wall Street retraced a big chunk of Friday’s gains, which had come following the promise from Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve chairman, that he stood ready to act if the economy continued to deteriorate.
Investors appear to have reassessed the chances of any Fed move proving successful and have reverted to worrying about recent poor economic data and the prospect that this week’s heavy batch of reports – climaxing with Friday’s jobs report – will only confirm that US growth is stalling.
Monday’s speech on the US economy by president Barack Obama also failed to inspire.
Wall Street’s slow grind lower on Monday was all the more debilitating for bulls because it came during a session populated by generally positive corporate news, with bid activity again to the fore and a proposed $10bn share buy-back by Hewlett-Packard.
This has been a long running theme: benign corporate data battling with rotten macroeconomic numbers. Today’s news that Canada’s economy slowed more sharply than expected in the second quarter is another example of this conflicting trend.
In addition, the uncertainty is affecting trading activity. Volume in New York has been pitiful in recent days – beyond the seasonal torpor. For example, only about 5.6bn shares traded on the three main exchanges on Monday, the slowest day for Wall Street so far this year, according to Reuters.
Both bulls and bears of risk may claim succour from that statistic. Equity optimists could argue that a decline on such meagre activity shows a lack of serious selling. Pessimists might say the refusal of punters to participate is symptomatic of not only a cyclical, but also a structural malaise affecting stocks.
The Vital Statistics
New York-based Strategas Research Partners notes that the American Association of Individual Investors survey last week showed bullish sentiment at 20.7 per cent, one of the lowest levels in the last 5 years. “Since 1987, we’ve counted only 34 readings lower than last week’s print. Over the next one month, the S&P 500 is up, on average, +2.6%,” says Strategas.
☼ Factors to Watch. Minutes of the Fed’s last policy meeting will be scanned for evidence of disagreement within the committee regarding the course of monetary policy. ☼
● Asia. The FTSE Asia-Pacific index fell 1.7 per cent. Hong Kong initially joined Tokyo in registering a sharp drop on worries about global growth; though losses were later pared and the Hang Seng finished down 1 per cent. Shanghai fell 0.5 per cent, while Sydney shed 1.1 per cent.
India’s Sensex outperformed with a decline of just 0.3 per cent, after news of a faster-than-forecast 8.8 per cent annual economic growth rate cushioned stocks from the sour mood elsewhere.
● Europe. Major indices started with sharp declines, spooked by Asia and Wall Street’s falls. However, with US futures coming off lows bourses were able to stabilise mid-morning, rallying further following the US data.
The FTSE Eurofirst 300 is up 0.1 per cent and the FTSE 100 in London has come back from Monday’s holiday to register a 0.5 per cent advance after banks turned losses into gains.
● Forex. The yen is up 0.6 per cent against the dollar at Y84.10 as traders continue to play chicken with the Bank of Japan and the market’s current haven darling attracts flows.
The dollar is down 0.1 per cent on a trade-weighted basis. Sterling is down 1 per cent against the euro, and off 0.8 per cent versus the dollar despite news that UK mortgage approvals had risen unexpectedly.
● Debt. Core bond yields are approaching the lows seen last week as some traders remain risk-averse on US recovery fears. The US 10-year note is down 5 basis points at 2.48 per cent, while the Bund is off 1bp at 2.11 per cent. Ten-year gilt yields are down 7bp to 2.83 as they play catch-up following Monday’s holiday.
● Commodities. Growth worries are crimping demand for industrial commodities, with oil down 1.8 per cent at $72.94 a barrel. Metals are mixed, leaving the Reuters-Jefferies CRB index down 0.5 per cent.
Gold has slowly turned round an early decline and is hitting fresh two month highs, up 0.9 per cent at $1,248 an ounce.
Follow Jamie Chisholm’s market comments on Twitter: @JamieAChisholm
US housing woes compound job fears
By James Politi in Washington
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010
Published: August 30 2010 22:01 | Last updated: August 30 2010 22:01
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b06ce534-b474-11df-8208-00144feabdc0.html
Concerns that the depressed US housing sector will remain a drag on the US labour market have mounted following the loss of nearly 120,000 jobs in construction and related businesses in the last three months for which statistics were available.
According to Financial Times analysis, the decline in housing-related employment was the biggest weight on private sector job creation as it slowed to an average of 51,000 jobs a month during the May-July period from 153,000 a month in February-April.
US Labor Department data show that some 61,000 construction jobs were lost between May and July, with another 56,000 positions shed in ancillary areas, such as furniture, building products and financial services related to property.
New employment data for August will be released on Friday, and economists expect little improvement in the current anaemic rate of private sector job creation, which is not enough to bring the unemployment rate down.
“The fact is that too many businesses are still struggling, too many Americans are still looking for work, and too many communities are far from being whole again,’’ President Barack Obama said on Monday as he revealed that his advisers were considering further tax cuts designed to encourage job creation.
Analysis: US housing
As Americans struggle to shake off the hangover from the property bubble, officials are questioning policies that have long promoted ownership as a national birthright, writes Suzanne Kapner
Construction and associated businesses were among the hardest hit sectors in the recession, accounting for about 3m of 6.6m jobs lost after the collapse of the housing bubble in 2006.
The manufacturing sector lost more than 2m jobs in the same period, but appears to be emerging from the downturn in a healthier state. Manufacturing added 88,000 jobs between May and July, and 73,000 positions between February and April.
Construction and related industries added some 18,000 workers to their payrolls in the February-April period. The return of significant job losses in these sectors will increase worries among economists and policymakers of a further jump in long-term unemployment, as many of these workers struggle to find jobs in different industries or locations.
Construction’s contribution to overall US employment – measured by private non-farm payrolls – was about 6 per cent between 1980 and the early part of this decade, peaking at 6.7 per cent in October 2006. Construction now accounts for just 5.1 per cent of private sector jobs.
US consumers’ outlook brightens
By Shannon Bond in New York
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010
Published: August 31 2010 14:29 | Last updated: August 31 2010 15:52
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c77d9d9c-b4fe-11df-b0a6-00144feabdc0.html
Confidence among US consumers rose more than expected in August as their outlook brightened, but shoppers remained pessimistic about the current state of the beleaguered labour market.
The Conference Board’s confidence index rose 2.5 points to 53.5 in August from a revised 51.0 in July, beating economists’ expectations.
While the gain reflected “the result of an improvement in consumers’ short-term outlook,” Americans remain pessimistic about current conditions as job fears persist, said Lynn Franco, director of the Conference Board’s research centre.
The number of consumers who said jobs were “hard to get” rose to 45.7 per cent in August from 45.1 per cent, and the number who said jobs were “plentiful” fell to 3.8 per cent from 4.4 per cent. Fewer people described business conditions as “good” – 8.7 per cent compared with 8.8 per cent in July, but the number of people who described business conditions as “bad” also declined to 41.9 per cent from 43.4 per cent.
Consumers are slightly less pessimistic about the next six months, however. The number who expect more jobs increased to 14.6 per cent from 14.2 per cent, but they are still outnumbered by those who expect fewer jobs - 19.4 per cent in August compared with 20.6 per cent in July.
“Consumers will remain cautious,” said Michelle Meyer, an economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. “The improvement we saw today just brought us back to the June levels. I think it’s still clear that although expectations have improved, consumers are still worried relative to the trend.”
Confidence is a closely watched measure because it closely tracks consumer spending, which accounts for about 70 per cent of US gross domestic product.
The pace of consumer spending rose 0.4 per cent in July, commerce department figures showed on Monday, faster than economists had expected.
Separately, US home prices rose more than expected in June, but the pace slowed for the first time in 16 months.
The S&P/Case-Shiller index on Monday showed house prices in the 20 biggest US cities rose 4.2 per cent in June from a year ago. The increase was higher than the 3.9 per cent economists had expected, but slowed from May’s 4.6 per cent rise, which was the biggest year-on-year increase since 2006.
Further signs of flattening were evident in the 1 per cent monthly gain, down from a 1.3 per cent month-on-month rise in May.
Analysts warn that price increases are unlikely to be sustained as the last effects of the government’s first-time homebuyer tax credit, which expired in April, wear off and July’s drop in home sales weighs on the housing market.
“Seasonally this is the strongest time of the year for home prices, and residual demand from the homebuyer tax credit is exaggerating the strength,” said Joshua Shapiro, chief US economist at MFR. “We’ve seen demand fall apart after the tax credit expired, and so we’re going to see a fairly dramatic softening of prices as we get into the late summer and autumn.”
“Supply is way outstripping demand. The smallest dose of common sense will tell you what that will do to prices,” Mr Shapiro said.
Since the tax credit expired, the housing market has weakened, with new home sales hitting a record low in July and sales of existing homes dropping to a 15-year trough.
“If this relative weakness in demand continues, it will likely filter through to home prices in coming months,” said David Blitzer, chairman of S&P’s index committee.
Nationally, prices rose 3.6 per cent in the second quarter from a year ago and 4.4 per cent from the previous three months.
Seventeen of the 20 cities recorded price rises from May to June. Chicago, Detroit and Minneapolis saw the strongest monthly increases, while Las Vegas was the only city where prices declined.
Fifteen cities recorded yearly increases, led by San Francisco, where prices rose 14.3 per cent from June 2009, and San Diego, where prices rose 11.2 per cent. Prices fell most in Las Vegas, down 5.2 per cent from last year.
Eurozone jobless rate flat despite growth
By Stanley Pignal in Brussels and Quentin Peel in Berlin
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010
Published: August 31 2010 11:59 | Last updated: August 31 2010 15:36
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/876698d4-b4e6-11df-b0a6-00144feabdc0.html
Robust growth in the eurozone in the second quarter failed to dent its near-record unemployment rate, which remained flat for a fourth consecutive month in July, although prospects are brighter for the revived German economy.
The 10 per cent overall eurozone figure once again masked a chasm between the “core” economies led by Germany, which are doing well, and the “peripheral” group, such as Spain, which continues to struggle.
Germany’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate, as measured by the European Commission’s statistical arm, remained flat at 6.9 per cent in July, below its own pre-crisis levels, though its national figures point to a small decline in joblessness.
By contrast, Spain’s unemployment rate nudged up to 20.3 per cent, the highest figure ever seen in a eurozone country since the single currency was introduced in 1999. In Spain, 41.5 per cent of young people are now looking for work, compared to 19.6 per cent across Europe.
Joblessness in Ireland also rose, from 13.3 per cent to 13.6 per cent, but fell in Portugal from 11.0 per cent to 10.8 per cent; Greece no longer releases monthly data.
Somewhere between the two extremes, France remained flat at 10 per cent and Italy fell 0.1 per cent, to 8.4 per cent.
Germany simultaneously unveiled its first estimates for August unemployment, which showed a continuing slow but steady decline, with a seasonally-adjusted drop of 17,000 to 3.19m, leaving the jobless rate constant at 7.6 per cent.
The figure was greeted by economic analysts as confirmation of the resilience of the export-driven German economic recovery, although they continue to expect slower growth figures towards the end of the year.
Unemployment has been falling in Germany, the largest economy in the eurozone, for over a year. Compared with August 2009, the latest figure is down by 283,000, as German employers have stepped up recruitment and cut back on the number of workers whose working hours had been temporarily reduced.
Several economists expressed the hope that the positive figures from the German labour market would herald a revival of domestic demand to complement the rapid recovery in exports.
Business confidence rose to its highest level in August for more than three years, while consumer confidence was also increasingly positive.
“It is not only the drop in unemployment which bodes well for private consumption, but also job creation,” Carsten Brzeski of ING Financial Markets told Reuters. He said that the impressive performance of the labour market would only become “a real success story” if it led to a pick-up in private consumption. “All ingredients are in place for this to happen now,” he said.
Economists expect eurozone unemployment to peak in the coming months as labour market measures designed to stimulate the economy during the downturn start to be withdrawn.
Some are warning that the spurt of growth experienced in the second quarter – at 1 per cent, much higher than had been expected – will not automatically feed through to lower unemployment.
“The pick-up in eurozone economic activity since early-2010 is clearly feeding through to help the labour market,” says Howard Archer of IHS Global Insight, a consultancy. “However, there remains a substantial risk that eurozone unemployment will rise again later in 2010 and during 2011.”
Indian economy shows 8.8% growth
By Amy Kazmin in New Delhi
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010
Published: August 31 2010 08:58 | Last updated: August 31 2010 17:43
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a04512e6-b4d1-11df-b0a6-00144feabdc0.html
India’s economy grew a brisk 8.8 per cent in the June quarter year-on-year, its fastest pace since early 2008, highlighting the strength of the economy despite the impact of high inflation on consumer spending.
Growth during the first quarter of India’s April to March financial year accelerated from the 8.6 per cent last quarter, driven by robust manufacturing and services growth, and a pick-up in farm production.
The strong performance will encourage the Reserve Bank of India to persist with its’ aggressive monetary tightening to control inflation, which has dropped slightly - to 9.97 per cent in July – from its previous double-digit peak, but remains uncomfortably high.
“The first order of business for the government should be to contain the price pressure by raising interest rates,” said Frederic Neumann, managing director of HSBC, the investment bank. “Stabilising prices is almost a precondition to reviving household spending.”
The pick-up in private consumption weakened from last quarter, growing just 0.3 per cent year on year, slowing from a 2.6 per cent growth year on year during the previous quarter. “The big puzzle is why consumption hasn’t taken off,” said Mr Neumann. “It’s the missing leg of India’s recovery – and the most likely culprit is rising inflation.”
FT blog: Beyond Brics
Emerging markets: News and comment from emerging economies, headed by Brazil, Russia, India and China
New Delhi is forecasting that India’s economy will expand 8.5 per cent during this year, after growing 7.4 per cent last year, despite a severe drought that hit farm production and contributed to sky-rocketing food prices.
Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman of the planning commission, told reporters the pace of growth of India’s manufacturing sector – which expanded 12.2 per cent in the first quarter – will slow due to statistical effects as India moves further away from the downturn, and deeper into its recovery.
But he said farm output - up 2.8 per cent in the first quarter - would be substantially stronger. India has received bountiful monsoon rains – crucial for agriculture - and India’s sown acreage is now 10 per cent higher than it was at the same time last year
India has also recorded a sharp 18.8 per cent drop in its foreign direct investment inflows, to $10.78bn, during the first six months of 2010. The drop was particularly precipitous in June, when FDI fell 46.5 per cent, to $1.38bn, from a year earlier.
With renewed concerns about the strength of the global economy, the Confederation of Indian Industry, a powerful industry group, urged New Delhi to do more to improve the domestic business climate to ensure strong investment inflows . It also appealed for domestic interest rates to remain low to foster domestic consumption.
The RBI, which has already raised interest rates several times so far this year , is due to meet again on September 16.
With the notable exception of Japan, much of Asia has been growing at a blistering pace this year, with annualised second quarter GDP growth rates coming in at rates not far short of or well into double digits – 9.1 per cent inThailand, 10.9 per cent in China and a staggering 17.9 per cent in Singapore, for example.
However, growth is widely expected to moderate in the second half as the impact of extraordinary monetary and fiscal stimulus measures implemented in the wake of the global financial crisis begins to wane.
Finance ministers and central banks will be keeping a close eye on a raft of purchasing managers’ indices for August due for release on Wednesday for signs that a slowdown may already have begun. The July indices, released a month ago, suggested that the pace of growth in manufacturing activity was easing in most countries, although India was an exception.
US data temper flight from risk
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010
Published: August 31 2010 08:33 | Last updated: August 31 2010 17:51
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ed7247bc-b4bf-11df-b0a6-00144feabdc0.html
Tuesday 17:40 BST. Better than expected US housing and consumer confidence data have been unable to fully dispel investors’ nagging concerns about the prospects for global growth.
Throughout much of Tuesday’s session there has been an overriding sense that fiscal and monetary authorities are bumbling their lines in the face of a dangerous plot twist for the global economy, pushing traders away from stocks and back into havens such as core government bonds.
Risk appetite has improved somewhat since the Case-Shiller house price index was shown rising more than forecast in June and a reading of US household sentiment rebounded from a five month low. These reports have helped push the S&P 500 on Wall Street up 0.4 per cent.
However, a poor display in Asia leaves the FTSE All-World equity index down 0.1 per cent and industrial commodities are struggling to make headway. It is pertinent that yields on US government bonds are inching closer to recent cyclical lows despite the small rally in stocks in New York. The yen, one of the favoured currencies in times of strife, is again flirting with 15-year highs against the dollar.
The Japanese unit’s strength stands in contrast to – indeed, is partly the cause of – the stock market’s slide into bear market territory. The Nikkei 225 is down 22 per cent since April’s peak, having lost 3.6 per cent on Tuesday as investors worried that the previous day’s announcement of stimulus measures by the government and the Bank of Japan were insufficient to drag the economy out of its slough.
The Market Eye
“Double dip fears” may have pushed “fiscal woes” off the headlines of late, but concerns regarding the latter are still bubbling beneath the service. Yields on Greek 2-year notes are up 102 basis points to 11.30 per cent, a near 4 month high, as investors continue to fret about Athens having to restructure its debt. Ten-year notes yield 11.55 per cent, also close to their highest level since the start of May, when fiscal funk was most fierce. Greek credit default swaps are 953 basis points, barely 60bp off their peak.
Meanwhile, the impact of the nation’s austerity measures is shown in news today of a 4.4 per cent annual fall in retail sales. The Athens stock market fell 0.4 per cent as banks again falter, taking the losses in August to 7 per cent, nearly twice the fall of the FTSE All-World index.
Traders had reacted to evidence of just such a lack of confidence in the US. Overnight, the S&P 500 on Wall Street retraced a big chunk of Friday’s gains, which had come following the promise from Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve chairman, that he stood ready to act if the economy continued to deteriorate.
Investors appear to have reassessed the chances of any Fed move proving successful and have reverted to worrying about recent poor economic data and the prospect that this week’s heavy batch of reports – climaxing with Friday’s jobs report – will only confirm that US growth is stalling.
Monday’s speech on the US economy by president Barack Obama also failed to inspire.
Wall Street’s slow grind lower on Monday was all the more debilitating for bulls because it came during a session populated by generally positive corporate news, with bid activity again to the fore and a proposed $10bn share buy-back by Hewlett-Packard.
This has been a long running theme: benign corporate data battling with rotten macroeconomic numbers. Today’s news that Canada’s economy slowed more sharply than expected in the second quarter is another example of this conflicting trend.
In addition, the uncertainty is affecting trading activity. Volume in New York has been pitiful in recent days – beyond the seasonal torpor. For example, only about 5.6bn shares traded on the three main exchanges on Monday, the slowest day for Wall Street so far this year, according to Reuters.
Both bulls and bears of risk may claim succour from that statistic. Equity optimists could argue that a decline on such meagre activity shows a lack of serious selling. Pessimists might say the refusal of punters to participate is symptomatic of not only a cyclical, but also a structural malaise affecting stocks.
The Vital Statistics
New York-based Strategas Research Partners notes that the American Association of Individual Investors survey last week showed bullish sentiment at 20.7 per cent, one of the lowest levels in the last 5 years. “Since 1987, we’ve counted only 34 readings lower than last week’s print. Over the next one month, the S&P 500 is up, on average, +2.6%,” says Strategas.
☼ Factors to Watch. Minutes of the Fed’s last policy meeting will be scanned for evidence of disagreement within the committee regarding the course of monetary policy. ☼
● Asia. The FTSE Asia-Pacific index fell 1.7 per cent. Hong Kong initially joined Tokyo in registering a sharp drop on worries about global growth; though losses were later pared and the Hang Seng finished down 1 per cent. Shanghai fell 0.5 per cent, while Sydney shed 1.1 per cent.
India’s Sensex outperformed with a decline of just 0.3 per cent, after news of a faster-than-forecast 8.8 per cent annual economic growth rate cushioned stocks from the sour mood elsewhere.
● Europe. Major indices started with sharp declines, spooked by Asia and Wall Street’s falls. However, with US futures coming off lows bourses were able to stabilise mid-morning, rallying further following the US data.
The FTSE Eurofirst 300 is up 0.1 per cent and the FTSE 100 in London has come back from Monday’s holiday to register a 0.5 per cent advance after banks turned losses into gains.
● Forex. The yen is up 0.6 per cent against the dollar at Y84.10 as traders continue to play chicken with the Bank of Japan and the market’s current haven darling attracts flows.
The dollar is down 0.1 per cent on a trade-weighted basis. Sterling is down 1 per cent against the euro, and off 0.8 per cent versus the dollar despite news that UK mortgage approvals had risen unexpectedly.
● Debt. Core bond yields are approaching the lows seen last week as some traders remain risk-averse on US recovery fears. The US 10-year note is down 5 basis points at 2.48 per cent, while the Bund is off 1bp at 2.11 per cent. Ten-year gilt yields are down 7bp to 2.83 as they play catch-up following Monday’s holiday.
● Commodities. Growth worries are crimping demand for industrial commodities, with oil down 1.8 per cent at $72.94 a barrel. Metals are mixed, leaving the Reuters-Jefferies CRB index down 0.5 per cent.
Gold has slowly turned round an early decline and is hitting fresh two month highs, up 0.9 per cent at $1,248 an ounce.
Follow Jamie Chisholm’s market comments on Twitter: @JamieAChisholm
US housing woes compound job fears
By James Politi in Washington
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010
Published: August 30 2010 22:01 | Last updated: August 30 2010 22:01
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b06ce534-b474-11df-8208-00144feabdc0.html
Concerns that the depressed US housing sector will remain a drag on the US labour market have mounted following the loss of nearly 120,000 jobs in construction and related businesses in the last three months for which statistics were available.
According to Financial Times analysis, the decline in housing-related employment was the biggest weight on private sector job creation as it slowed to an average of 51,000 jobs a month during the May-July period from 153,000 a month in February-April.
US Labor Department data show that some 61,000 construction jobs were lost between May and July, with another 56,000 positions shed in ancillary areas, such as furniture, building products and financial services related to property.
New employment data for August will be released on Friday, and economists expect little improvement in the current anaemic rate of private sector job creation, which is not enough to bring the unemployment rate down.
“The fact is that too many businesses are still struggling, too many Americans are still looking for work, and too many communities are far from being whole again,’’ President Barack Obama said on Monday as he revealed that his advisers were considering further tax cuts designed to encourage job creation.
Analysis: US housing
As Americans struggle to shake off the hangover from the property bubble, officials are questioning policies that have long promoted ownership as a national birthright, writes Suzanne Kapner
Construction and associated businesses were among the hardest hit sectors in the recession, accounting for about 3m of 6.6m jobs lost after the collapse of the housing bubble in 2006.
The manufacturing sector lost more than 2m jobs in the same period, but appears to be emerging from the downturn in a healthier state. Manufacturing added 88,000 jobs between May and July, and 73,000 positions between February and April.
Construction and related industries added some 18,000 workers to their payrolls in the February-April period. The return of significant job losses in these sectors will increase worries among economists and policymakers of a further jump in long-term unemployment, as many of these workers struggle to find jobs in different industries or locations.
Construction’s contribution to overall US employment – measured by private non-farm payrolls – was about 6 per cent between 1980 and the early part of this decade, peaking at 6.7 per cent in October 2006. Construction now accounts for just 5.1 per cent of private sector jobs.
US consumers’ outlook brightens
By Shannon Bond in New York
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010
Published: August 31 2010 14:29 | Last updated: August 31 2010 15:52
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c77d9d9c-b4fe-11df-b0a6-00144feabdc0.html
Confidence among US consumers rose more than expected in August as their outlook brightened, but shoppers remained pessimistic about the current state of the beleaguered labour market.
The Conference Board’s confidence index rose 2.5 points to 53.5 in August from a revised 51.0 in July, beating economists’ expectations.
While the gain reflected “the result of an improvement in consumers’ short-term outlook,” Americans remain pessimistic about current conditions as job fears persist, said Lynn Franco, director of the Conference Board’s research centre.
The number of consumers who said jobs were “hard to get” rose to 45.7 per cent in August from 45.1 per cent, and the number who said jobs were “plentiful” fell to 3.8 per cent from 4.4 per cent. Fewer people described business conditions as “good” – 8.7 per cent compared with 8.8 per cent in July, but the number of people who described business conditions as “bad” also declined to 41.9 per cent from 43.4 per cent.
Consumers are slightly less pessimistic about the next six months, however. The number who expect more jobs increased to 14.6 per cent from 14.2 per cent, but they are still outnumbered by those who expect fewer jobs - 19.4 per cent in August compared with 20.6 per cent in July.
“Consumers will remain cautious,” said Michelle Meyer, an economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. “The improvement we saw today just brought us back to the June levels. I think it’s still clear that although expectations have improved, consumers are still worried relative to the trend.”
Confidence is a closely watched measure because it closely tracks consumer spending, which accounts for about 70 per cent of US gross domestic product.
The pace of consumer spending rose 0.4 per cent in July, commerce department figures showed on Monday, faster than economists had expected.
Separately, US home prices rose more than expected in June, but the pace slowed for the first time in 16 months.
The S&P/Case-Shiller index on Monday showed house prices in the 20 biggest US cities rose 4.2 per cent in June from a year ago. The increase was higher than the 3.9 per cent economists had expected, but slowed from May’s 4.6 per cent rise, which was the biggest year-on-year increase since 2006.
Further signs of flattening were evident in the 1 per cent monthly gain, down from a 1.3 per cent month-on-month rise in May.
Analysts warn that price increases are unlikely to be sustained as the last effects of the government’s first-time homebuyer tax credit, which expired in April, wear off and July’s drop in home sales weighs on the housing market.
“Seasonally this is the strongest time of the year for home prices, and residual demand from the homebuyer tax credit is exaggerating the strength,” said Joshua Shapiro, chief US economist at MFR. “We’ve seen demand fall apart after the tax credit expired, and so we’re going to see a fairly dramatic softening of prices as we get into the late summer and autumn.”
“Supply is way outstripping demand. The smallest dose of common sense will tell you what that will do to prices,” Mr Shapiro said.
Since the tax credit expired, the housing market has weakened, with new home sales hitting a record low in July and sales of existing homes dropping to a 15-year trough.
“If this relative weakness in demand continues, it will likely filter through to home prices in coming months,” said David Blitzer, chairman of S&P’s index committee.
Nationally, prices rose 3.6 per cent in the second quarter from a year ago and 4.4 per cent from the previous three months.
Seventeen of the 20 cities recorded price rises from May to June. Chicago, Detroit and Minneapolis saw the strongest monthly increases, while Las Vegas was the only city where prices declined.
Fifteen cities recorded yearly increases, led by San Francisco, where prices rose 14.3 per cent from June 2009, and San Diego, where prices rose 11.2 per cent. Prices fell most in Las Vegas, down 5.2 per cent from last year.
Eurozone jobless rate flat despite growth
By Stanley Pignal in Brussels and Quentin Peel in Berlin
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010
Published: August 31 2010 11:59 | Last updated: August 31 2010 15:36
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/876698d4-b4e6-11df-b0a6-00144feabdc0.html
Robust growth in the eurozone in the second quarter failed to dent its near-record unemployment rate, which remained flat for a fourth consecutive month in July, although prospects are brighter for the revived German economy.
The 10 per cent overall eurozone figure once again masked a chasm between the “core” economies led by Germany, which are doing well, and the “peripheral” group, such as Spain, which continues to struggle.
Germany’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate, as measured by the European Commission’s statistical arm, remained flat at 6.9 per cent in July, below its own pre-crisis levels, though its national figures point to a small decline in joblessness.
By contrast, Spain’s unemployment rate nudged up to 20.3 per cent, the highest figure ever seen in a eurozone country since the single currency was introduced in 1999. In Spain, 41.5 per cent of young people are now looking for work, compared to 19.6 per cent across Europe.
Joblessness in Ireland also rose, from 13.3 per cent to 13.6 per cent, but fell in Portugal from 11.0 per cent to 10.8 per cent; Greece no longer releases monthly data.
Somewhere between the two extremes, France remained flat at 10 per cent and Italy fell 0.1 per cent, to 8.4 per cent.
Germany simultaneously unveiled its first estimates for August unemployment, which showed a continuing slow but steady decline, with a seasonally-adjusted drop of 17,000 to 3.19m, leaving the jobless rate constant at 7.6 per cent.
The figure was greeted by economic analysts as confirmation of the resilience of the export-driven German economic recovery, although they continue to expect slower growth figures towards the end of the year.
Unemployment has been falling in Germany, the largest economy in the eurozone, for over a year. Compared with August 2009, the latest figure is down by 283,000, as German employers have stepped up recruitment and cut back on the number of workers whose working hours had been temporarily reduced.
Several economists expressed the hope that the positive figures from the German labour market would herald a revival of domestic demand to complement the rapid recovery in exports.
Business confidence rose to its highest level in August for more than three years, while consumer confidence was also increasingly positive.
“It is not only the drop in unemployment which bodes well for private consumption, but also job creation,” Carsten Brzeski of ING Financial Markets told Reuters. He said that the impressive performance of the labour market would only become “a real success story” if it led to a pick-up in private consumption. “All ingredients are in place for this to happen now,” he said.
Economists expect eurozone unemployment to peak in the coming months as labour market measures designed to stimulate the economy during the downturn start to be withdrawn.
Some are warning that the spurt of growth experienced in the second quarter – at 1 per cent, much higher than had been expected – will not automatically feed through to lower unemployment.
“The pick-up in eurozone economic activity since early-2010 is clearly feeding through to help the labour market,” says Howard Archer of IHS Global Insight, a consultancy. “However, there remains a substantial risk that eurozone unemployment will rise again later in 2010 and during 2011.”
Indian economy shows 8.8% growth
By Amy Kazmin in New Delhi
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010
Published: August 31 2010 08:58 | Last updated: August 31 2010 17:43
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a04512e6-b4d1-11df-b0a6-00144feabdc0.html
India’s economy grew a brisk 8.8 per cent in the June quarter year-on-year, its fastest pace since early 2008, highlighting the strength of the economy despite the impact of high inflation on consumer spending.
Growth during the first quarter of India’s April to March financial year accelerated from the 8.6 per cent last quarter, driven by robust manufacturing and services growth, and a pick-up in farm production.
The strong performance will encourage the Reserve Bank of India to persist with its’ aggressive monetary tightening to control inflation, which has dropped slightly - to 9.97 per cent in July – from its previous double-digit peak, but remains uncomfortably high.
“The first order of business for the government should be to contain the price pressure by raising interest rates,” said Frederic Neumann, managing director of HSBC, the investment bank. “Stabilising prices is almost a precondition to reviving household spending.”
The pick-up in private consumption weakened from last quarter, growing just 0.3 per cent year on year, slowing from a 2.6 per cent growth year on year during the previous quarter. “The big puzzle is why consumption hasn’t taken off,” said Mr Neumann. “It’s the missing leg of India’s recovery – and the most likely culprit is rising inflation.”
FT blog: Beyond Brics
Emerging markets: News and comment from emerging economies, headed by Brazil, Russia, India and China
New Delhi is forecasting that India’s economy will expand 8.5 per cent during this year, after growing 7.4 per cent last year, despite a severe drought that hit farm production and contributed to sky-rocketing food prices.
Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman of the planning commission, told reporters the pace of growth of India’s manufacturing sector – which expanded 12.2 per cent in the first quarter – will slow due to statistical effects as India moves further away from the downturn, and deeper into its recovery.
But he said farm output - up 2.8 per cent in the first quarter - would be substantially stronger. India has received bountiful monsoon rains – crucial for agriculture - and India’s sown acreage is now 10 per cent higher than it was at the same time last year
India has also recorded a sharp 18.8 per cent drop in its foreign direct investment inflows, to $10.78bn, during the first six months of 2010. The drop was particularly precipitous in June, when FDI fell 46.5 per cent, to $1.38bn, from a year earlier.
With renewed concerns about the strength of the global economy, the Confederation of Indian Industry, a powerful industry group, urged New Delhi to do more to improve the domestic business climate to ensure strong investment inflows . It also appealed for domestic interest rates to remain low to foster domestic consumption.
The RBI, which has already raised interest rates several times so far this year , is due to meet again on September 16.
With the notable exception of Japan, much of Asia has been growing at a blistering pace this year, with annualised second quarter GDP growth rates coming in at rates not far short of or well into double digits – 9.1 per cent inThailand, 10.9 per cent in China and a staggering 17.9 per cent in Singapore, for example.
However, growth is widely expected to moderate in the second half as the impact of extraordinary monetary and fiscal stimulus measures implemented in the wake of the global financial crisis begins to wane.
Finance ministers and central banks will be keeping a close eye on a raft of purchasing managers’ indices for August due for release on Wednesday for signs that a slowdown may already have begun. The July indices, released a month ago, suggested that the pace of growth in manufacturing activity was easing in most countries, although India was an exception.
A Republican Comes Out of the Closet
A Republican Comes Out of the Closet
By TOBIN HARSHAW
copyright by The Associated Press
August 27, 2010, 8:27 PM
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/27/a-republican-comes-out-of-the-closet/?ref=opinion
There’s an old, not terribly meaningful saying in the gay-rights movement that “no matter how far in or out of the closet you are, you still have a next step.” Perhaps, but I propose that we back off and let Ken Mehlman think about his for a while.
Until this week, Mehlman was mostly known for being the wonkish young man who managed George W. Bush’s re-election campaign and then ran the Republican National Committee. Now, he’s mostly known for what he shared with The Atlantic’s Mark Aminder: “Ken Mehlman, President Bush’s campaign manager in 2004 and a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, has told family and associates that he is gay.”
On the right side of the blogosphere, sympathy for Ken Mehlman. On the left, not so much.
Well, it’d be tough enough for most of us to have that conversation with Mom and Dad — imagine it with Karl Rove. And Mehlman isn’t going to keep his private life totally private, he tells Ambinder: “he wants to become an advocate for gay marriage and anticipated that questions would arise about his participation in a late-September fundraiser for the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER), the group that supported the legal challenge to California’s ballot initiative against gay marriage, Proposition 8.”
Unsurprisingly, for many gay and liberal bloggers, that’s far too little far too late. “While it’s nice that Ken has finally come out of the closet as an advocate, it’s really hard to forgive him for the damage he did to the community by working actively against it for pay for years,” writes Pam Spaulding of Pam’s House Blend. “That he can coast on the gains for our community by supporting AFER’s stellar work on Prop 8 on the backs of many during his tenure at the RNC who bore the brunt of homophobia, those who died as a result of hate crimes, the activists who were assailed professionally is unbelievable. Yet here we are in 2010 watching it unfold. As a human being Mehlman owes the community a serious apology for fomenting homophobia for political gain.”
“I don’t feel angry as much as I feel pity,” adds Melissa McEwan at Shakesville. “I can’t imagine the self-loathing, the discomfort in one’s own skin, the profound disassociation of self that happens with the subjugation of authenticity behind thin façade, that exists within someone who had the professional life he did. I wish him contentment of the sort that means he will never betray himself, or any other members of his LGBTQI family, again.”
No pity at all from Joe. My. God.:
During Ken Mehlman’s reign as Dubya’s campaign manager and afterwards during his tenure as chairman of the Republican National Committee, 21 states passed laws that banned same-sex marriage. Some of these laws made same-sex marriage unconstitutional, some made both civil unions and same-sex marriages unconstitutional. All of these anti-gay referenda took place from 2004-2006 and all of them were pushed by the GOP under Ken Mehlman (and with Karl Rove’s strategic advice) as a ploy to ensure conservative turnout at the polls. If you live in any of the 21 states listed below, you can credit your second class citizenship, in part, to fellow homosexual Ken Mehlman. Are you feeling very forgiving right now? ARE YOU?
And indiemcemopants at FireDogLake thinks Mehlman will never be able to wash the blood off of his hands:
In spite of the terror his philosophies inflicted on LGBT citizens and in spite of the decades long scare-fest of anti-gay hatred, gay-baiting and discriminatory laws foisted on us, Ken Mehlman wants us to know that his coming out experience has been just peachy. No apology for all the suicides his party’s stances inevitably brought on. No apology for hate crimes. No apology for the election campaign involving some of the worst anti-gay hatred anyone has ever witnessed. No apology for the terror LGB military people have had to endure. No apology for the forced rapes female soldiers went through to “prove” they are straight.
He just wants us to know that he’s been through a whole, whole lot and that he’s a very happy and well-adjusted person.
Carl at the Reaction, however, thinks it was an act of courage: “Undoubtedly, Mehlman could have gone into retirement quietly. His legacy, re-electing the most unpopular President in history, would have been safe. He chose not to do that. Grudgingly, I tip my hat to him. It’s important to appreciate when someone does the right thing for the right reasons. Hell, from Republicans, I’d applaud doing the right thing for the wrong reasons! Half right from the right is alright by me.”
While some public figures on the right, like Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage, have been outraged by Mehlman’s announcement, there hasn’t been much backlash from right-wing bloggers. Here’s Peter Wehner at Commentary:
While it’s something that runs counter to the stereotype, most of the conservatives I know are largely to completely indifferent to a person’s sexual orientation. They are the kind of people who might even invite Elton John to perform at their weddings and not give a second thought to the fact that John is gay.
For my part, I knew Ken in the Bush White House and after that, when he was the campaign manager of the re-election campaign and RNC chairman. I’ve always liked him and found his counsel to be wise. He’s a person with very impressive political gifts and talents. Yet by his own account, the personal road he’s traveled has not been an easy one; rather than activists and commentators directing wrath and ridicule at him, I hope some measure of grace and understanding are accorded to him. I realize these qualities aren’t in oversupply in politics, but they should be more common than they are.
“There is nothing new under the sun, you see,” adds Robert Stacy McCain. “There were gay people working for Republicans in 1967 and there are gay people working for Republicans today. What has changed is that gay-rights activists have turned sexuality into an identity-politics racket, so that any gay person who doesn’t share their agenda is made to feel inauthentic, a traitor to The Cause.”
B. Daniel Blatt at GayPatriot is more worried about the personal toll of a public coming out.
My greatest fear for Mehlman is that he has to go through the often tortuous process of coming out in public. All too many on the left, the gay left most of all, will give him no quarter. They’ll lambaste him as a self-hating hypocrite, may even try to follow him around, possibly even accosting him in public. They will not give him the space to deal with this in private and in his own way. That said, I bet there will be a handful of voices on the left, asking their ideological confrères to leave him alone, knowing how trying the coming out process can be. There are decent gay lefties out there and some may let their fellow feeling trump their ideological conviction. While I hope that they dominate the debate, I doubt that they will.
One reason I oppose “outing” is that I know from experience — and not just my own — that when coming to terms with this part of ourselves, we need to do it in at our pace and in private.
Sister Toldjah thinks this is only big news when filtered through a liberal lens:
This is a big deal, of course, because in the left’s minds, as well as the MSM’s (I know – same thing), Republicans “hate” gay people so it’s a “shocking development” to find out such a formerly high ranking GOPer would say “I’m gay.” Not only that, but this is a big deal more so to the left than the right because we all know how the far left, in particular, gleefully treats gay conservatives – very much like they treat black conservatives. That is, with the same contempt and bigotry that they accuse US of.
The little secret that is not really a secret except in the closed-minded world of the left is that most conservatives don’t “hate” gay people. Apparently, because most conservatives don’t support gay marriage and don’t support gays openly serving in the military, they “hate” them. This is “hate” – in spite of the fact that most conservatives also do not support polygamy nor any other type of “alternative” marriage, nor do they support women serving on the front lines in war. It’s an issue of not wanting to tamper with the existing social structure of the two parent man/woman family, and not wanting to create an atmosphere of great uncomfortableness in the military between those who are openly gay and those who aren’t. We’ve seen the disastrous results of the left’s tampering in the social arena for decades now, and we’re opposed to signing onto anything else they have to offer on that front.
To be honest, this whole thing didn’t exactly come out of the blue. Bill Maher had been insisting for years the Mehlman was gay, as has Mike Rogers, the activist whose made a crusade of outing gay politicians. And then there was this smoking gun.
In any case, Mehlman seems to have been prepared for the inevitable, and justified, tough questioning. In an interview with the Advocate, Mehlman was posed this question: “People are very aware that the Republican Party has skewed pretty conservative on gay issues in the past. Do you think that this could help win over some hearts and minds, that you could have conversations that you didn’t have in the past?” His answer:
Well, a couple thoughts. One is, Republicans have lots of different views on this issue. I would argue – and I’m arguing it now, I didn’t argue it before and I should have – that in fact if you are a believer in individual freedom and leaving people alone and you’re a believer in strengthening families that, in fact, supporting issues like the right to marry would be consistent with that. I think those are conservative positions.
But again, I’m not in politics anymore. I think it would presumptuous for me to speculate on what my impact might be but I certainly look forward to having conversations with people who I hope even if they don’t agree with me will respect me and give me a fair hearing and, ya know, we’ll see what happens.
But Ambinder insists that this isn’t the first time Mehlman has looked for the “fair hearing”:
Privately, in off-the-record conversations with this reporter over the years, Mehlman voiced support for civil unions and told of how, in private discussions with senior Republican officials, he beat back efforts to attack same-sex marriage. He insisted, too, that President Bush “was no homophobe.” He often wondered why gay voters never formed common cause with Republican opponents of Islamic jihad, which he called “the greatest anti-gay force in the world right now” …
Mehlman acknowledges that if he had publicly declared his sexuality sooner, he might have played a role in keeping the party from pushing an anti-gay agenda.
“It’s a legitimate question and one I understand,” Mehlman said. “I can’t change the fact that I wasn’t in this place personally when I was in politics, and I genuinely regret that. It was very hard, personally.” He asks of those who doubt his sincerity: “If they can’t offer support, at least offer understanding.”
Given the commentary of the last two days, that doesn’t seem to likely.
By TOBIN HARSHAW
copyright by The Associated Press
August 27, 2010, 8:27 PM
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/27/a-republican-comes-out-of-the-closet/?ref=opinion
There’s an old, not terribly meaningful saying in the gay-rights movement that “no matter how far in or out of the closet you are, you still have a next step.” Perhaps, but I propose that we back off and let Ken Mehlman think about his for a while.
Until this week, Mehlman was mostly known for being the wonkish young man who managed George W. Bush’s re-election campaign and then ran the Republican National Committee. Now, he’s mostly known for what he shared with The Atlantic’s Mark Aminder: “Ken Mehlman, President Bush’s campaign manager in 2004 and a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, has told family and associates that he is gay.”
On the right side of the blogosphere, sympathy for Ken Mehlman. On the left, not so much.
Well, it’d be tough enough for most of us to have that conversation with Mom and Dad — imagine it with Karl Rove. And Mehlman isn’t going to keep his private life totally private, he tells Ambinder: “he wants to become an advocate for gay marriage and anticipated that questions would arise about his participation in a late-September fundraiser for the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER), the group that supported the legal challenge to California’s ballot initiative against gay marriage, Proposition 8.”
Unsurprisingly, for many gay and liberal bloggers, that’s far too little far too late. “While it’s nice that Ken has finally come out of the closet as an advocate, it’s really hard to forgive him for the damage he did to the community by working actively against it for pay for years,” writes Pam Spaulding of Pam’s House Blend. “That he can coast on the gains for our community by supporting AFER’s stellar work on Prop 8 on the backs of many during his tenure at the RNC who bore the brunt of homophobia, those who died as a result of hate crimes, the activists who were assailed professionally is unbelievable. Yet here we are in 2010 watching it unfold. As a human being Mehlman owes the community a serious apology for fomenting homophobia for political gain.”
“I don’t feel angry as much as I feel pity,” adds Melissa McEwan at Shakesville. “I can’t imagine the self-loathing, the discomfort in one’s own skin, the profound disassociation of self that happens with the subjugation of authenticity behind thin façade, that exists within someone who had the professional life he did. I wish him contentment of the sort that means he will never betray himself, or any other members of his LGBTQI family, again.”
No pity at all from Joe. My. God.:
During Ken Mehlman’s reign as Dubya’s campaign manager and afterwards during his tenure as chairman of the Republican National Committee, 21 states passed laws that banned same-sex marriage. Some of these laws made same-sex marriage unconstitutional, some made both civil unions and same-sex marriages unconstitutional. All of these anti-gay referenda took place from 2004-2006 and all of them were pushed by the GOP under Ken Mehlman (and with Karl Rove’s strategic advice) as a ploy to ensure conservative turnout at the polls. If you live in any of the 21 states listed below, you can credit your second class citizenship, in part, to fellow homosexual Ken Mehlman. Are you feeling very forgiving right now? ARE YOU?
And indiemcemopants at FireDogLake thinks Mehlman will never be able to wash the blood off of his hands:
In spite of the terror his philosophies inflicted on LGBT citizens and in spite of the decades long scare-fest of anti-gay hatred, gay-baiting and discriminatory laws foisted on us, Ken Mehlman wants us to know that his coming out experience has been just peachy. No apology for all the suicides his party’s stances inevitably brought on. No apology for hate crimes. No apology for the election campaign involving some of the worst anti-gay hatred anyone has ever witnessed. No apology for the terror LGB military people have had to endure. No apology for the forced rapes female soldiers went through to “prove” they are straight.
He just wants us to know that he’s been through a whole, whole lot and that he’s a very happy and well-adjusted person.
Carl at the Reaction, however, thinks it was an act of courage: “Undoubtedly, Mehlman could have gone into retirement quietly. His legacy, re-electing the most unpopular President in history, would have been safe. He chose not to do that. Grudgingly, I tip my hat to him. It’s important to appreciate when someone does the right thing for the right reasons. Hell, from Republicans, I’d applaud doing the right thing for the wrong reasons! Half right from the right is alright by me.”
While some public figures on the right, like Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage, have been outraged by Mehlman’s announcement, there hasn’t been much backlash from right-wing bloggers. Here’s Peter Wehner at Commentary:
While it’s something that runs counter to the stereotype, most of the conservatives I know are largely to completely indifferent to a person’s sexual orientation. They are the kind of people who might even invite Elton John to perform at their weddings and not give a second thought to the fact that John is gay.
For my part, I knew Ken in the Bush White House and after that, when he was the campaign manager of the re-election campaign and RNC chairman. I’ve always liked him and found his counsel to be wise. He’s a person with very impressive political gifts and talents. Yet by his own account, the personal road he’s traveled has not been an easy one; rather than activists and commentators directing wrath and ridicule at him, I hope some measure of grace and understanding are accorded to him. I realize these qualities aren’t in oversupply in politics, but they should be more common than they are.
“There is nothing new under the sun, you see,” adds Robert Stacy McCain. “There were gay people working for Republicans in 1967 and there are gay people working for Republicans today. What has changed is that gay-rights activists have turned sexuality into an identity-politics racket, so that any gay person who doesn’t share their agenda is made to feel inauthentic, a traitor to The Cause.”
B. Daniel Blatt at GayPatriot is more worried about the personal toll of a public coming out.
My greatest fear for Mehlman is that he has to go through the often tortuous process of coming out in public. All too many on the left, the gay left most of all, will give him no quarter. They’ll lambaste him as a self-hating hypocrite, may even try to follow him around, possibly even accosting him in public. They will not give him the space to deal with this in private and in his own way. That said, I bet there will be a handful of voices on the left, asking their ideological confrères to leave him alone, knowing how trying the coming out process can be. There are decent gay lefties out there and some may let their fellow feeling trump their ideological conviction. While I hope that they dominate the debate, I doubt that they will.
One reason I oppose “outing” is that I know from experience — and not just my own — that when coming to terms with this part of ourselves, we need to do it in at our pace and in private.
Sister Toldjah thinks this is only big news when filtered through a liberal lens:
This is a big deal, of course, because in the left’s minds, as well as the MSM’s (I know – same thing), Republicans “hate” gay people so it’s a “shocking development” to find out such a formerly high ranking GOPer would say “I’m gay.” Not only that, but this is a big deal more so to the left than the right because we all know how the far left, in particular, gleefully treats gay conservatives – very much like they treat black conservatives. That is, with the same contempt and bigotry that they accuse US of.
The little secret that is not really a secret except in the closed-minded world of the left is that most conservatives don’t “hate” gay people. Apparently, because most conservatives don’t support gay marriage and don’t support gays openly serving in the military, they “hate” them. This is “hate” – in spite of the fact that most conservatives also do not support polygamy nor any other type of “alternative” marriage, nor do they support women serving on the front lines in war. It’s an issue of not wanting to tamper with the existing social structure of the two parent man/woman family, and not wanting to create an atmosphere of great uncomfortableness in the military between those who are openly gay and those who aren’t. We’ve seen the disastrous results of the left’s tampering in the social arena for decades now, and we’re opposed to signing onto anything else they have to offer on that front.
To be honest, this whole thing didn’t exactly come out of the blue. Bill Maher had been insisting for years the Mehlman was gay, as has Mike Rogers, the activist whose made a crusade of outing gay politicians. And then there was this smoking gun.
In any case, Mehlman seems to have been prepared for the inevitable, and justified, tough questioning. In an interview with the Advocate, Mehlman was posed this question: “People are very aware that the Republican Party has skewed pretty conservative on gay issues in the past. Do you think that this could help win over some hearts and minds, that you could have conversations that you didn’t have in the past?” His answer:
Well, a couple thoughts. One is, Republicans have lots of different views on this issue. I would argue – and I’m arguing it now, I didn’t argue it before and I should have – that in fact if you are a believer in individual freedom and leaving people alone and you’re a believer in strengthening families that, in fact, supporting issues like the right to marry would be consistent with that. I think those are conservative positions.
But again, I’m not in politics anymore. I think it would presumptuous for me to speculate on what my impact might be but I certainly look forward to having conversations with people who I hope even if they don’t agree with me will respect me and give me a fair hearing and, ya know, we’ll see what happens.
But Ambinder insists that this isn’t the first time Mehlman has looked for the “fair hearing”:
Privately, in off-the-record conversations with this reporter over the years, Mehlman voiced support for civil unions and told of how, in private discussions with senior Republican officials, he beat back efforts to attack same-sex marriage. He insisted, too, that President Bush “was no homophobe.” He often wondered why gay voters never formed common cause with Republican opponents of Islamic jihad, which he called “the greatest anti-gay force in the world right now” …
Mehlman acknowledges that if he had publicly declared his sexuality sooner, he might have played a role in keeping the party from pushing an anti-gay agenda.
“It’s a legitimate question and one I understand,” Mehlman said. “I can’t change the fact that I wasn’t in this place personally when I was in politics, and I genuinely regret that. It was very hard, personally.” He asks of those who doubt his sincerity: “If they can’t offer support, at least offer understanding.”
Given the commentary of the last two days, that doesn’t seem to likely.
Consumer Confidence Rose in August
Consumer Confidence Rose in August
By CHRISTINE HAUSER
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: August 31, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/01/business/economy/01econ.html?hp
Consumer confidence improved slightly in August, according to the latest Conference Board survey, but over all, Americans remain apprenhensive about the economy and the job market.
The Conference Board said Tuesday that its index on consumer confidence rose in August to 53.5 points. It had declined to 51 in July. The rise in the index — which examines how Americans feel about business conditions, the job market and the next six months — was above economists’ forecasts of 50.5. A reading of at least 90 indicates a healthy economy.
“All in all, consumers are about as confident today as they were a year ago,” said Lynn Franco, director of the Conference Board’s consumer research center. “Expectations about future business and labor market conditions have brightened somewhat, but over all, consumers remain apprehensive about the future.”
Consumer confidence is a closely watched because consumer spending typically accounts for 70 percent of the American economy and is crucial to a sustained recovery.
Americans expected a modest improvement in business conditions and were less pessimistic about job prospects, according to the survey. But the proportion of consumers expecting an increase in their incomes held steady at 10.6 percent.
In a second report on Tuesday, a crucial index on home prices in the United States rose in June, the last month that benefited from a tax credit for home buyers.
The Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller 20-city home price index, a widely watched indicator, on Tuesday reported a 1 percent rise in June from May, the third consecutive monthly increase.
Nationally, the index rose 4.4 percent in the second quarter of 2010, after having fallen 2.8 percent in the first quarter. Home prices in the nationwide index are 3.6 percent above their year-earlier levels in the three-month period.
But the outlook for the housing prices remains uncertain as excess supply, the flagging job market and other factors weigh on the sector.
Economists said a federal housing credit distorted prices as home buyers took advantage of the credit, which expired at the end of April.
That means the outlook for the rest of the year remains weak with the expiration of the tax credit, as well as the high level of foreclosures and inventories.
“While the numbers are upbeat, other more recent data on home sales and mortgages point to fewer gains ahead,” David M. Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor’s, said in a statement.
“The worry starts when you remember that the home buyers’ tax credit has expired, foreclosures are still at high levels, and July data on home sales and starts were very, very weak,” he said. “The inventory of unsold homes and months’ supply data were particularly troubling. If this relative weakness in demand continues, it will likely filter through to home prices in coming months.”
Still, Mr. Blitzer added, “We recognize that the housing market is in better shape than this time last year.”
Yelena Shulyatyeva, a United States economist for BNP Paribas, said that without employment growth, and in view of the excess housing supply, housing prices should remain under pressure throughout this year and next.
“We do not take this report as a signal of future strength,” Ms. Shulyatyeva said.
Patrick Newport, the United States economist for IHS Global Insight, said he expected declines next year, with the second quarter figures in 2011 to be probably another 8 percent to 10 percent lower from where they are now.
“The key reason is because there is still a big glut of home,” he said, with the second reason the number of foreclosures, followed by a job market that “just isn’t picking up,” he said.
The June numbers basically reflect a three-month moving average. Seasonally adjusted, home prices in June increased 0.71 percent in New York City and 0.02 percent in Los Angeles compared with the previous month.
The Case-Shiller report showed that 17 of the 20 metro areas surveyed registered an increase in June compared with May, according to non-seasonally adjusted data. Las Vegas fell 0.6 percent, with prices there close to their levels in 2000.
Prices in Phoenix and Seattle remained flat.
The housing industry has been buffeted with pessimistic reports in the last week. Both the sale of new homes and existing homes fell declined sharply in July, the first month that buyers could not qualify for a tax credit of up to $8,000.
A report from the National Association of Realtors said sales of existing homes in July fell 25.5 percentfrom the month a year ago to a seasonally adjusted annual sales rate of 3.83 million. That was the lowest rate of sales, which include houses, condos, co-ops and town houses, since 1999.
And the Commerce Department reported that sales of new homes in July fell 12.4 percent from June, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 276,000 units. That was the lowest level in July since the government began keeping track in 1963
Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters had expected sales to be flat in July from June.
The report also said the median sales price was $204,000 in July, down 6 percent from June and 4.8 percent from July 2009. The average sales price was $235,300 in July, down 3.1 percent from June.
A report on pending home sales is scheduled to be released on Thursday.
By CHRISTINE HAUSER
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: August 31, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/01/business/economy/01econ.html?hp
Consumer confidence improved slightly in August, according to the latest Conference Board survey, but over all, Americans remain apprenhensive about the economy and the job market.
The Conference Board said Tuesday that its index on consumer confidence rose in August to 53.5 points. It had declined to 51 in July. The rise in the index — which examines how Americans feel about business conditions, the job market and the next six months — was above economists’ forecasts of 50.5. A reading of at least 90 indicates a healthy economy.
“All in all, consumers are about as confident today as they were a year ago,” said Lynn Franco, director of the Conference Board’s consumer research center. “Expectations about future business and labor market conditions have brightened somewhat, but over all, consumers remain apprehensive about the future.”
Consumer confidence is a closely watched because consumer spending typically accounts for 70 percent of the American economy and is crucial to a sustained recovery.
Americans expected a modest improvement in business conditions and were less pessimistic about job prospects, according to the survey. But the proportion of consumers expecting an increase in their incomes held steady at 10.6 percent.
In a second report on Tuesday, a crucial index on home prices in the United States rose in June, the last month that benefited from a tax credit for home buyers.
The Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller 20-city home price index, a widely watched indicator, on Tuesday reported a 1 percent rise in June from May, the third consecutive monthly increase.
Nationally, the index rose 4.4 percent in the second quarter of 2010, after having fallen 2.8 percent in the first quarter. Home prices in the nationwide index are 3.6 percent above their year-earlier levels in the three-month period.
But the outlook for the housing prices remains uncertain as excess supply, the flagging job market and other factors weigh on the sector.
Economists said a federal housing credit distorted prices as home buyers took advantage of the credit, which expired at the end of April.
That means the outlook for the rest of the year remains weak with the expiration of the tax credit, as well as the high level of foreclosures and inventories.
“While the numbers are upbeat, other more recent data on home sales and mortgages point to fewer gains ahead,” David M. Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor’s, said in a statement.
“The worry starts when you remember that the home buyers’ tax credit has expired, foreclosures are still at high levels, and July data on home sales and starts were very, very weak,” he said. “The inventory of unsold homes and months’ supply data were particularly troubling. If this relative weakness in demand continues, it will likely filter through to home prices in coming months.”
Still, Mr. Blitzer added, “We recognize that the housing market is in better shape than this time last year.”
Yelena Shulyatyeva, a United States economist for BNP Paribas, said that without employment growth, and in view of the excess housing supply, housing prices should remain under pressure throughout this year and next.
“We do not take this report as a signal of future strength,” Ms. Shulyatyeva said.
Patrick Newport, the United States economist for IHS Global Insight, said he expected declines next year, with the second quarter figures in 2011 to be probably another 8 percent to 10 percent lower from where they are now.
“The key reason is because there is still a big glut of home,” he said, with the second reason the number of foreclosures, followed by a job market that “just isn’t picking up,” he said.
The June numbers basically reflect a three-month moving average. Seasonally adjusted, home prices in June increased 0.71 percent in New York City and 0.02 percent in Los Angeles compared with the previous month.
The Case-Shiller report showed that 17 of the 20 metro areas surveyed registered an increase in June compared with May, according to non-seasonally adjusted data. Las Vegas fell 0.6 percent, with prices there close to their levels in 2000.
Prices in Phoenix and Seattle remained flat.
The housing industry has been buffeted with pessimistic reports in the last week. Both the sale of new homes and existing homes fell declined sharply in July, the first month that buyers could not qualify for a tax credit of up to $8,000.
A report from the National Association of Realtors said sales of existing homes in July fell 25.5 percentfrom the month a year ago to a seasonally adjusted annual sales rate of 3.83 million. That was the lowest rate of sales, which include houses, condos, co-ops and town houses, since 1999.
And the Commerce Department reported that sales of new homes in July fell 12.4 percent from June, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 276,000 units. That was the lowest level in July since the government began keeping track in 1963
Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters had expected sales to be flat in July from June.
The report also said the median sales price was $204,000 in July, down 6 percent from June and 4.8 percent from July 2009. The average sales price was $235,300 in July, down 3.1 percent from June.
A report on pending home sales is scheduled to be released on Thursday.
For Many, a New Job Means Lower Wages, Studies Find
For Many, a New Job Means Lower Wages, Studies Find
By MICHAEL LUO
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: August 31, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/01/us/01jobs.html?hp
After being out of work for more than a year, Donna Ings, 47, finally landed a job in February as a home health aide, earning about $10 an hour, with a company in Lexington, Mass.
Chelsea Nelson, 21, started two weeks ago as a waitress at a truck stop in Mountainburg, Ark., making around $7 or $8 an hour, depending on tips, ending a lengthy job search that took her young family to California and back.
Both are ostensibly economic success stories, people who were able to find work in a difficult labor market. Ms. Ing’s employer, Home Instead Senior Care, a company with franchises across the country, has been aggressively expanding. Ms. Nelson’s restaurant, Silver Bridge Truck Stop, recently reopened and hired about 20 people last month in an area thirsty for jobs.
Both women, however, took large pay cuts from their old jobs — Ms. Ing worked in the office of a wholesale tuxedo distributor; Ms. Nelson used to be a secretary. And both remain worried about how they will make ends meet in the long run.
With the country focused on job growth and unemployment continuing to hover above 9 percent, there has been comparatively little attention paid to the quality of the jobs being created in this still-struggling economy and what that might say about the opportunities that will be available to workers when the tumult of the Great Recession finally settles. There are reasons, however, for concern, even in the early stages of a tentative recovery that now appears to be barely wheezing along.
For years, long before the recession began, job growth had become increasingly polarized in this country, with high-paid occupations that demand significant amounts of education and training growing rapidly, alongside low-wage, entry-level, service-type jobs that do not require much schooling or special skills, according to David Autor, a labor economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The growth of these low-wage jobs began in the 1980s, accelerated in the 1990s and began to really take off in the 2000s. Losing out in the shuffle, according to Dr. Autor, are jobs that he describes as “middle-skill, middle-wage” — entry-level white-collar positions, like office and administrative support work, as well as certain blue-collar jobs, like assembly line workers and machine operators.
The recession appears to have magnified that trend, according to Dr. Autor in a recent paper, released jointly by the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning policy group, and the Hamilton Project, which has a more centrist reputation. From 2007 to 2009, the paper found, there was relatively little net change in total employment for both high-skill and low-skill occupations, while employment plummeted in so-called middle-skill occupations.
A new analysis by the National Employment Law Project, a liberal advocacy group, takes a different approach, identifying industries that have actually experienced job growth in 2010 and examining their median wages. It is a blunter measurement because it focuses on industries, within which there is often great diversity in income. Economists also cautioned that it was still too early to know exactly which sectors would eventually lead the way in a sustained recovery.
Nevertheless, the law project analysis offers a snapshot of where the employment growth has been so far. It found job expansion to this point has been skewed toward industries with median wages that are low to middling, with a disproportionate share of job growth happening in industries whose median wages fall below $15 an hour.
“There’s a striking contrast so far between which industries have lost jobs and which ones are growing,” said Annette Bernhard, policy director for the law project. “If this kind of bottom-heavy job creation continues, it could pose a real challenge to restoring consumer demand and making sure working families have a way to support themselves.”
Both studies are disquieting because of the potential import for many who had once scratched out middle-class livings and are now looking for work. A unifying theme is the stubborn march of labor-intensive, low-paying service jobs, like the ones Ms. Ings and Ms. Nelson found.
There is typically a downward slide during recessions, said Till von Wachter, a Columbia University economist, in which higher-skilled and higher-educated workers are re-employed first, often landing jobs for which they are overqualified, squeezing out the lesser skilled and lesser educated. Indeed, in the current downturn, the unemployment rate has climbed the most for the least-educated workers, suggesting they have been hit the hardest.
However, while researching workers who lost their jobs in California in the 1990s, Dr. Wachter found that people who fall in the middle when it comes to their educational background — possessing high school degrees or some college — and the skills required for their occupation tended to experience larger and longer lasting income losses after job loss than people on both the lower and higher end of the scale.
Ms. Ings had worked in a variety of office and administrative roles in the wholesale tuxedo industry. Her wages of just over $16 an hour were enough to build a relatively comfortable life for her and her daughter, Jillian, now 21 and in college.
“During her whole growing up, I never got child support,” Ms. Ings said. “I always had to try to find a job that paid well to help support her. That’s my job, being a mother.”
When Ms. Ings was laid off in March 2009, she dove into finding another “corporate job.” But she found that nearly everyone seemed to be looking for people with at least a college degree, if not more. She had only a high school diploma.
As a teenager, she had worked in a nursing home and enjoyed it. So, after getting her certified nursing assistant license, she applied at the Home Instead office in Lexington, which has been steadily hiring this year, said Jack Cross, the franchise owner. Nationally, the company has created more than 2,400 jobs this year, and home health aides are one of the country’s fastest growing occupations.
Ms. Ings adores her job, but her finances remain taut, even though she is working 50 hours a week. She had been without health insurance for her first few months, but soon the company will begin deducting for it — a further pinch on her already meager paycheck.
“I’m going to be coming home with nothing,” she said.
In Arkansas, Ms. Nelson has been hampered by her decision to quit college after a semester several years ago. She has worked a variety of jobs, including a three year stint as a secretary, earning about $12 an hour.
Last year, she and her husband, Kenneth, and their son, Riley, now almost 2, moved to Colton, Calif., where they had relatives and believed the job market would be better. They moved back to Arkansas this year, however, after struggling to find steady work.
He quickly accepted a factory job at $8 an hour, but she got rejection after rejection trying to find office work.
She eventually gave up and took up waitressing. The couple is living with her mother, trying to save enough for their own place.
“I don’t know, with the jobs we have, if we’re ever going to be able to make it on our own,” Ms. Nelson said.
By MICHAEL LUO
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: August 31, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/01/us/01jobs.html?hp
After being out of work for more than a year, Donna Ings, 47, finally landed a job in February as a home health aide, earning about $10 an hour, with a company in Lexington, Mass.
Chelsea Nelson, 21, started two weeks ago as a waitress at a truck stop in Mountainburg, Ark., making around $7 or $8 an hour, depending on tips, ending a lengthy job search that took her young family to California and back.
Both are ostensibly economic success stories, people who were able to find work in a difficult labor market. Ms. Ing’s employer, Home Instead Senior Care, a company with franchises across the country, has been aggressively expanding. Ms. Nelson’s restaurant, Silver Bridge Truck Stop, recently reopened and hired about 20 people last month in an area thirsty for jobs.
Both women, however, took large pay cuts from their old jobs — Ms. Ing worked in the office of a wholesale tuxedo distributor; Ms. Nelson used to be a secretary. And both remain worried about how they will make ends meet in the long run.
With the country focused on job growth and unemployment continuing to hover above 9 percent, there has been comparatively little attention paid to the quality of the jobs being created in this still-struggling economy and what that might say about the opportunities that will be available to workers when the tumult of the Great Recession finally settles. There are reasons, however, for concern, even in the early stages of a tentative recovery that now appears to be barely wheezing along.
For years, long before the recession began, job growth had become increasingly polarized in this country, with high-paid occupations that demand significant amounts of education and training growing rapidly, alongside low-wage, entry-level, service-type jobs that do not require much schooling or special skills, according to David Autor, a labor economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The growth of these low-wage jobs began in the 1980s, accelerated in the 1990s and began to really take off in the 2000s. Losing out in the shuffle, according to Dr. Autor, are jobs that he describes as “middle-skill, middle-wage” — entry-level white-collar positions, like office and administrative support work, as well as certain blue-collar jobs, like assembly line workers and machine operators.
The recession appears to have magnified that trend, according to Dr. Autor in a recent paper, released jointly by the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning policy group, and the Hamilton Project, which has a more centrist reputation. From 2007 to 2009, the paper found, there was relatively little net change in total employment for both high-skill and low-skill occupations, while employment plummeted in so-called middle-skill occupations.
A new analysis by the National Employment Law Project, a liberal advocacy group, takes a different approach, identifying industries that have actually experienced job growth in 2010 and examining their median wages. It is a blunter measurement because it focuses on industries, within which there is often great diversity in income. Economists also cautioned that it was still too early to know exactly which sectors would eventually lead the way in a sustained recovery.
Nevertheless, the law project analysis offers a snapshot of where the employment growth has been so far. It found job expansion to this point has been skewed toward industries with median wages that are low to middling, with a disproportionate share of job growth happening in industries whose median wages fall below $15 an hour.
“There’s a striking contrast so far between which industries have lost jobs and which ones are growing,” said Annette Bernhard, policy director for the law project. “If this kind of bottom-heavy job creation continues, it could pose a real challenge to restoring consumer demand and making sure working families have a way to support themselves.”
Both studies are disquieting because of the potential import for many who had once scratched out middle-class livings and are now looking for work. A unifying theme is the stubborn march of labor-intensive, low-paying service jobs, like the ones Ms. Ings and Ms. Nelson found.
There is typically a downward slide during recessions, said Till von Wachter, a Columbia University economist, in which higher-skilled and higher-educated workers are re-employed first, often landing jobs for which they are overqualified, squeezing out the lesser skilled and lesser educated. Indeed, in the current downturn, the unemployment rate has climbed the most for the least-educated workers, suggesting they have been hit the hardest.
However, while researching workers who lost their jobs in California in the 1990s, Dr. Wachter found that people who fall in the middle when it comes to their educational background — possessing high school degrees or some college — and the skills required for their occupation tended to experience larger and longer lasting income losses after job loss than people on both the lower and higher end of the scale.
Ms. Ings had worked in a variety of office and administrative roles in the wholesale tuxedo industry. Her wages of just over $16 an hour were enough to build a relatively comfortable life for her and her daughter, Jillian, now 21 and in college.
“During her whole growing up, I never got child support,” Ms. Ings said. “I always had to try to find a job that paid well to help support her. That’s my job, being a mother.”
When Ms. Ings was laid off in March 2009, she dove into finding another “corporate job.” But she found that nearly everyone seemed to be looking for people with at least a college degree, if not more. She had only a high school diploma.
As a teenager, she had worked in a nursing home and enjoyed it. So, after getting her certified nursing assistant license, she applied at the Home Instead office in Lexington, which has been steadily hiring this year, said Jack Cross, the franchise owner. Nationally, the company has created more than 2,400 jobs this year, and home health aides are one of the country’s fastest growing occupations.
Ms. Ings adores her job, but her finances remain taut, even though she is working 50 hours a week. She had been without health insurance for her first few months, but soon the company will begin deducting for it — a further pinch on her already meager paycheck.
“I’m going to be coming home with nothing,” she said.
In Arkansas, Ms. Nelson has been hampered by her decision to quit college after a semester several years ago. She has worked a variety of jobs, including a three year stint as a secretary, earning about $12 an hour.
Last year, she and her husband, Kenneth, and their son, Riley, now almost 2, moved to Colton, Calif., where they had relatives and believed the job market would be better. They moved back to Arkansas this year, however, after struggling to find steady work.
He quickly accepted a factory job at $8 an hour, but she got rejection after rejection trying to find office work.
She eventually gave up and took up waitressing. The couple is living with her mother, trying to save enough for their own place.
“I don’t know, with the jobs we have, if we’re ever going to be able to make it on our own,” Ms. Nelson said.
F.D.I.C. Gives a Mixed Report on Banks in Quarter.
F.D.I.C. Gives a Mixed Report on Banks in Quarter.
By ERIC DASH
Copyright by Reuters
Published: August 31, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/01/business/economy/01bank.html?_r=1&hp
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation quarterly report card released Tuesday reflected a banking sector that posted a record profit even as the number of troubled banks continued to rise.
F.D.I.C officials said the list of “problem banks” reached 829 in the second quarter, adding 54 troubled lenders, many of which were small community banks. While that is a smaller increase than in previous quarters, the number of problem banks remains at its highest level in more than 16 years.Not all of those banks are destined to founder, but officials reiterated that they expected the number of failures to peak later this year. So far this year, 118 banks have failed, with 45 closing in the second quarter.
Even so, bank earnings continue to rebound. The banking industry posted a $21.6 billion profit in the scond quarter amid signs that loan losses are stabilizing, the F.D.I.C. reported. That profit was nearly five times larger than the $4.4 billion a year ago, and it was the industry’s best results since the credit card crisis began in the third quarter in 2007. The banks are also setting aside less money to cover future losses than they were before and taking advantage of ultra-low interest rates to improve lending margins.
Fewer borrowers are also falling behind on their loan payments. Across nearly every category, troubled loans started falling for the first time in more than four years. The sole exception was commercial real estate loans, which continued to show signs of weakness.
“The industry has stopped the bleeding, but has not recovered from the wounds,” said Jaret Seiberg, a financial policy analyst in a research note on Tuesday morning. Those glimmers of stability have attracted private investors, who believe they finally have a handle on the depth of the banks’ problems. Investment bankers, meanwhile, are setting their sights on a flurry of small bank deals in 2011.
Still, the nation’s 7,830 banks remain under pressure. The F.D.I.C.’s quarterly report hinted at early signs of strain from the new financial reform regulations as bank cut back on fee income ahead of the new legislation. Fees attached to deposits accounts, for example, was $752 million, about 7.1 percent lower than a year earlier. Lending, meanwhile, showed signs of continued weakness. Total assets for the banking industry fell about 1 percent, amid declines in every major lending category. Although other government reports suggest that banks may be starting to loosen some of their lending standards, a lingering unemployment rate and general nervousness about the economy has crippled demand for new loans. Commercial real estate loan balances fell 8.3 percent, while credit card balances declined by about 2.5 percent in the second quarter.
Sheila C. Bair, the F.D.I.C. chairwoman, warned that the recovery of the banking industry could be hampered by protracted weakness in the economy.
“Without question, the industry still faces challenges,” she said in a news statement. But the banking sector is gaining strength. Earnings have grown, and most asset quality indicators are moving in the right direction.”
The agency expects a “recovery, sluggish and slow,” Ms. Bair said.
With so many banks failing, the deposit insurance fund has been severely depleted. At the end of June, it carried a negative balance of $15.2 billion. The insurance fund is in better shape than such numbers might suggest, however.
Officials have estimated that bank failures would drain about $100 billion from the fund from 2009 through 2013. But of that amount, a total of roughly $80 billion in losses were recognized last year or projected for 2010. By that math, the agency is expecting an additional $20 billion of losses over the next three years.
F.D.I.C. officials said they hoped to recoup those costs through higher premium fees and a special assessment imposed last September. Still, Ms. Bair said the agency had ample resources.
“As we expected, demands on cash have increased this year,” she said. “But our projections indicate that our current resources are more than enough to resolve anticipated failures.”
By ERIC DASH
Copyright by Reuters
Published: August 31, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/01/business/economy/01bank.html?_r=1&hp
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation quarterly report card released Tuesday reflected a banking sector that posted a record profit even as the number of troubled banks continued to rise.
F.D.I.C officials said the list of “problem banks” reached 829 in the second quarter, adding 54 troubled lenders, many of which were small community banks. While that is a smaller increase than in previous quarters, the number of problem banks remains at its highest level in more than 16 years.Not all of those banks are destined to founder, but officials reiterated that they expected the number of failures to peak later this year. So far this year, 118 banks have failed, with 45 closing in the second quarter.
Even so, bank earnings continue to rebound. The banking industry posted a $21.6 billion profit in the scond quarter amid signs that loan losses are stabilizing, the F.D.I.C. reported. That profit was nearly five times larger than the $4.4 billion a year ago, and it was the industry’s best results since the credit card crisis began in the third quarter in 2007. The banks are also setting aside less money to cover future losses than they were before and taking advantage of ultra-low interest rates to improve lending margins.
Fewer borrowers are also falling behind on their loan payments. Across nearly every category, troubled loans started falling for the first time in more than four years. The sole exception was commercial real estate loans, which continued to show signs of weakness.
“The industry has stopped the bleeding, but has not recovered from the wounds,” said Jaret Seiberg, a financial policy analyst in a research note on Tuesday morning. Those glimmers of stability have attracted private investors, who believe they finally have a handle on the depth of the banks’ problems. Investment bankers, meanwhile, are setting their sights on a flurry of small bank deals in 2011.
Still, the nation’s 7,830 banks remain under pressure. The F.D.I.C.’s quarterly report hinted at early signs of strain from the new financial reform regulations as bank cut back on fee income ahead of the new legislation. Fees attached to deposits accounts, for example, was $752 million, about 7.1 percent lower than a year earlier. Lending, meanwhile, showed signs of continued weakness. Total assets for the banking industry fell about 1 percent, amid declines in every major lending category. Although other government reports suggest that banks may be starting to loosen some of their lending standards, a lingering unemployment rate and general nervousness about the economy has crippled demand for new loans. Commercial real estate loan balances fell 8.3 percent, while credit card balances declined by about 2.5 percent in the second quarter.
Sheila C. Bair, the F.D.I.C. chairwoman, warned that the recovery of the banking industry could be hampered by protracted weakness in the economy.
“Without question, the industry still faces challenges,” she said in a news statement. But the banking sector is gaining strength. Earnings have grown, and most asset quality indicators are moving in the right direction.”
The agency expects a “recovery, sluggish and slow,” Ms. Bair said.
With so many banks failing, the deposit insurance fund has been severely depleted. At the end of June, it carried a negative balance of $15.2 billion. The insurance fund is in better shape than such numbers might suggest, however.
Officials have estimated that bank failures would drain about $100 billion from the fund from 2009 through 2013. But of that amount, a total of roughly $80 billion in losses were recognized last year or projected for 2010. By that math, the agency is expecting an additional $20 billion of losses over the next three years.
F.D.I.C. officials said they hoped to recoup those costs through higher premium fees and a special assessment imposed last September. Still, Ms. Bair said the agency had ample resources.
“As we expected, demands on cash have increased this year,” she said. “But our projections indicate that our current resources are more than enough to resolve anticipated failures.”
Editorial: Who Else Will Speak Up?
Editorial: Who Else Will Speak Up?
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: August 30, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/31/opinion/31tue4.html?th&emc=th
The hate-filled signs carried recently by protesters trying to halt plans to build an Islamic center and mosque in Lower Manhattan were chilling. We were cheered to see people willing to challenge their taunts and champion tolerance and the First Amendment. But opportunistic politicians are continuing to foment this noxious anger. It is a dangerous pursuit.
Already New Yorkers have seen a troubled young man slash a Muslim taxi driver with a knife. A zealot in Florida is threatening to burn a stack of Korans on the anniversary of Sept. 11. Where does this end?
The country needs strong and sane voices to push back against the hatred and irrational fears. President Obama made a passionate defense of the mosque, but only once. Most Democratic politicians are ducking. So far, the leader with the courage to make the case repeatedly is Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
He has said firmly that the developers have a right to build and that New York needs a powerful memorial to those who died, surrounded by a living city. He has rejected efforts to move the mosque, noting that for opponents no distance will be far enough. At a Ramadan iftar dinner last week, Mr. Bloomberg declared that “Islam did not attack the World Trade Center — Al Qaeda did.”
Later, the mayor invited the wounded taxi driver, Ahmed Sharif, to City Hall. Then he went on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” to remind non-New Yorkers that “there’s already another mosque down there within four blocks of the World Trade Center. There’s porno places; there’s fast-food places. It’s a vibrant community. It’s New York.” Surely, Mr. Bloomberg isn’t the only politician left out there with courage and good sense.
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: August 30, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/31/opinion/31tue4.html?th&emc=th
The hate-filled signs carried recently by protesters trying to halt plans to build an Islamic center and mosque in Lower Manhattan were chilling. We were cheered to see people willing to challenge their taunts and champion tolerance and the First Amendment. But opportunistic politicians are continuing to foment this noxious anger. It is a dangerous pursuit.
Already New Yorkers have seen a troubled young man slash a Muslim taxi driver with a knife. A zealot in Florida is threatening to burn a stack of Korans on the anniversary of Sept. 11. Where does this end?
The country needs strong and sane voices to push back against the hatred and irrational fears. President Obama made a passionate defense of the mosque, but only once. Most Democratic politicians are ducking. So far, the leader with the courage to make the case repeatedly is Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
He has said firmly that the developers have a right to build and that New York needs a powerful memorial to those who died, surrounded by a living city. He has rejected efforts to move the mosque, noting that for opponents no distance will be far enough. At a Ramadan iftar dinner last week, Mr. Bloomberg declared that “Islam did not attack the World Trade Center — Al Qaeda did.”
Later, the mayor invited the wounded taxi driver, Ahmed Sharif, to City Hall. Then he went on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” to remind non-New Yorkers that “there’s already another mosque down there within four blocks of the World Trade Center. There’s porno places; there’s fast-food places. It’s a vibrant community. It’s New York.” Surely, Mr. Bloomberg isn’t the only politician left out there with courage and good sense.
Editorial: A Million Women vs. Wal-Mart
Editorial: A Million Women vs. Wal-Mart
copyright by The New York Times
Published: August 30, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/31/opinion/31tue2.html?th&emc=th
For nine years, Wal-Mart has fought to stave off a class-action lawsuit alleging that the company has long discriminated against its female workers in pay and promotions. So far it has avoided a trial on the merits of the issue. The battleground instead is whether the million or so women who have worked for Wal-Mart since 2001 really constitute a class, which the company vigorously disputes. In 2004, a federal district court judge said they did, and in April the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, ruling the case could proceed.
Now Wal-Mart has taken the class issue to the Supreme Court. It is probably a smart legal move, given the court’s clear tendency to rule in favor of corporations, particularly when big classes or discrimination claims are involved. We hope the court resists the temptation to toss out the case, which would force women to file lawsuits one by one. Wal-Mart’s employment practices deserve a full hearing.
The case originally began with seven female employees of Wal-Mart who realized that men were being paid more than women for comparable jobs and were getting promoted more often. As District Judge Martin J. Jenkins wrote in 2004, the statistics showed that women working in Wal-Mart stores were paid less than men in every region and in most job categories. The salary gap widened over time even for men and women hired into the same jobs at the same time, he wrote, and women took longer to enter into management positions.
Just because statistics showed a general salary gap, and more than 100 women presented evidence of second-class status, does that mean that each of the more than one million women who have worked at Wal-Mart in the last decade were victims of discrimination?
The company said that was an outlandish claim, and argued that there was no pattern or intent of discrimination. Judge Jenkins found that the potential discrimination was big enough to affect women as a class. The Ninth Circuit agreed and said it was better to deal with the matter in one lawsuit than with thousands clogging up the court system.
If this goes forward it would be the largest employment discrimination lawsuit in American history. Wal-Mart could face more than $1 billion in damages if the case proceeds and the company loses. Wal-Mart is the world’s largest private employer, and as the Ninth Circuit wrote, “mere size does not render a case unmanageable.” The Supreme Court should give the women of Wal-Mart a chance to make their case together.
copyright by The New York Times
Published: August 30, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/31/opinion/31tue2.html?th&emc=th
For nine years, Wal-Mart has fought to stave off a class-action lawsuit alleging that the company has long discriminated against its female workers in pay and promotions. So far it has avoided a trial on the merits of the issue. The battleground instead is whether the million or so women who have worked for Wal-Mart since 2001 really constitute a class, which the company vigorously disputes. In 2004, a federal district court judge said they did, and in April the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, ruling the case could proceed.
Now Wal-Mart has taken the class issue to the Supreme Court. It is probably a smart legal move, given the court’s clear tendency to rule in favor of corporations, particularly when big classes or discrimination claims are involved. We hope the court resists the temptation to toss out the case, which would force women to file lawsuits one by one. Wal-Mart’s employment practices deserve a full hearing.
The case originally began with seven female employees of Wal-Mart who realized that men were being paid more than women for comparable jobs and were getting promoted more often. As District Judge Martin J. Jenkins wrote in 2004, the statistics showed that women working in Wal-Mart stores were paid less than men in every region and in most job categories. The salary gap widened over time even for men and women hired into the same jobs at the same time, he wrote, and women took longer to enter into management positions.
Just because statistics showed a general salary gap, and more than 100 women presented evidence of second-class status, does that mean that each of the more than one million women who have worked at Wal-Mart in the last decade were victims of discrimination?
The company said that was an outlandish claim, and argued that there was no pattern or intent of discrimination. Judge Jenkins found that the potential discrimination was big enough to affect women as a class. The Ninth Circuit agreed and said it was better to deal with the matter in one lawsuit than with thousands clogging up the court system.
If this goes forward it would be the largest employment discrimination lawsuit in American history. Wal-Mart could face more than $1 billion in damages if the case proceeds and the company loses. Wal-Mart is the world’s largest private employer, and as the Ninth Circuit wrote, “mere size does not render a case unmanageable.” The Supreme Court should give the women of Wal-Mart a chance to make their case together.
At Bookstore, Even Non-Buyers Regret Its End
At Bookstore, Even Non-Buyers Regret Its End
By JULIE BOSMAN
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: August 30, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/31/nyregion/31barnes.html?th&emc=th
On Monday afternoon, Jai Cha walked out of the Barnes & Noble at 66th Street and Broadway in Manhattan as he does nearly every week — without a book.
“I’m just killing time,” said Mr. Cha, a 30-year-old lawyer, his hands stuffed deep in his pockets. “I’ve been coming here to read Bill Simmons’s ‘Book of Basketball,’ about a chapter at a time.”
He might have to hurry. Barnes & Noble announced on Monday that at the end of January it would close the store, a four-story space across the street from Lincoln Center that has been a neighborhood landmark since it opened nearly 15 years ago.
“We recognize that this store has been an important part of the fabric of the Upper West Side community since we opened our doors on Oct. 20, 1995,” Mary Ellen Keating, a company spokeswoman, said in a statement. “However, the current lease is at its end of term, and the increased rent that would be required to stay in the location makes it economically impossible for us to extend the lease.”
It has been a bumpy year for Barnes & Noble, the country’s largest book chain, with 720 stores. Sales and store traffic have suffered as the book business has shifted online; Amazon has held its early lead in the e-reader war; and early this month, Barnes & Noble put itself up for sale and is now in the midst of a battle for control of the company with Ronald W. Burkle, the billionaire investor.
People browsing at the Lincoln Center store on Monday lamented the loss of one of the city’s largest and most prominent bookstores, a sprawling space with a cafe on the fourth floor and an enormous music selection. For devoted theatergoers, it was a reliable site for readings and events that focused on the performing arts. (Still on the fall schedule are appearances by Patti LuPone and Elaine Paige.)
But many of those same people conceded that they have not bought as many books there as they did in the past. Some said they were more likely to browse the shelves, then head home and make purchases online. Others said they prized the store most for its sunny cafe or its magazines and other nonbook items.
“Oh, I really am sad,” said Lillian Kelly, a 70-year-old retiree, upon hearing the news that the store would close. “I love buying my greeting cards here.”
Ms. Kelly said she visited the store at least twice a week, usually heading upstairs to read magazines and to pick up a sandwich and cup of Starbucks coffee.
“They’re getting business out of me, I suppose,” she said. “Even though I’m sitting there reading magazines for free.”
Roger Hawkins, a former television news producer who was busy e-mailing on his laptop in the cafe, said he had been a Barnes & Noble member, giving him additional discounts on purchases, but let his membership lapse after he started buying audiobooks online instead. “There are other reasons that people come to this bookstore,” Mr. Hawkins said. “You don’t have park benches on the street anymore. It’s hard to find a place where you can sit down and have a cup of coffee.”
At the store’s entrance on Broadway, a steady stream of customers pushed through the revolving doors. A teenager in a turquoise T-shirt walked out, scarfing down a scone, but with no books in his hand. A couple from Tennessee paused outside the store, but decided to wander down the block to the Lincoln Square movie theater instead.
Melissa Rosati, an adjunct professor of publishing at Pace University, said she bought nearly everything online but came to the store on Monday to spend a $25 gift card on “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell.
“It’s not like I’m going to miss it that much,” she said. “There’s another Barnes & Noble on 82nd and Broadway” (the one known for helping put the beloved independent bookstore across the street from it, Shakespeare & Company, out of business 14 years ago).
Ms. Keating, the Barnes & Noble spokeswoman, said a search was under way for a new location on the Upper West Side, but she declined to provide details.
Two other Barnes & Noble stores in Manhattan, one on Astor Place and one in Chelsea, have closed in the last three years. But Barnes & Noble still has the huge store at 82nd Street, and in July 2009, it opened a 50,000-square-foot superstore at 86th Street and Lexington Avenue.
One result of the book chain’s uncertain year may be that much of the old animosity toward Barnes & Noble, once seen by some residents as a corporate bully that helped squash small, independent bookstores, has lately been replaced with affection.
Monica Blum, the president of the Lincoln Square Business Improvement District, said she detected a change in the way people viewed big bookstores.
“It is a community gathering space,” Ms. Blum said. “I think the larger bookstores have worked hard to become those kinds of spaces.”
Dora Schulman, a shoe saleswoman who has lived in the neighborhood since the 1960s, left clutching a CD. “It’s a pity,” she said. “All the stores on my route are closing — first Tower Records, then Blockbuster, now this.”
By JULIE BOSMAN
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: August 30, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/31/nyregion/31barnes.html?th&emc=th
On Monday afternoon, Jai Cha walked out of the Barnes & Noble at 66th Street and Broadway in Manhattan as he does nearly every week — without a book.
“I’m just killing time,” said Mr. Cha, a 30-year-old lawyer, his hands stuffed deep in his pockets. “I’ve been coming here to read Bill Simmons’s ‘Book of Basketball,’ about a chapter at a time.”
He might have to hurry. Barnes & Noble announced on Monday that at the end of January it would close the store, a four-story space across the street from Lincoln Center that has been a neighborhood landmark since it opened nearly 15 years ago.
“We recognize that this store has been an important part of the fabric of the Upper West Side community since we opened our doors on Oct. 20, 1995,” Mary Ellen Keating, a company spokeswoman, said in a statement. “However, the current lease is at its end of term, and the increased rent that would be required to stay in the location makes it economically impossible for us to extend the lease.”
It has been a bumpy year for Barnes & Noble, the country’s largest book chain, with 720 stores. Sales and store traffic have suffered as the book business has shifted online; Amazon has held its early lead in the e-reader war; and early this month, Barnes & Noble put itself up for sale and is now in the midst of a battle for control of the company with Ronald W. Burkle, the billionaire investor.
People browsing at the Lincoln Center store on Monday lamented the loss of one of the city’s largest and most prominent bookstores, a sprawling space with a cafe on the fourth floor and an enormous music selection. For devoted theatergoers, it was a reliable site for readings and events that focused on the performing arts. (Still on the fall schedule are appearances by Patti LuPone and Elaine Paige.)
But many of those same people conceded that they have not bought as many books there as they did in the past. Some said they were more likely to browse the shelves, then head home and make purchases online. Others said they prized the store most for its sunny cafe or its magazines and other nonbook items.
“Oh, I really am sad,” said Lillian Kelly, a 70-year-old retiree, upon hearing the news that the store would close. “I love buying my greeting cards here.”
Ms. Kelly said she visited the store at least twice a week, usually heading upstairs to read magazines and to pick up a sandwich and cup of Starbucks coffee.
“They’re getting business out of me, I suppose,” she said. “Even though I’m sitting there reading magazines for free.”
Roger Hawkins, a former television news producer who was busy e-mailing on his laptop in the cafe, said he had been a Barnes & Noble member, giving him additional discounts on purchases, but let his membership lapse after he started buying audiobooks online instead. “There are other reasons that people come to this bookstore,” Mr. Hawkins said. “You don’t have park benches on the street anymore. It’s hard to find a place where you can sit down and have a cup of coffee.”
At the store’s entrance on Broadway, a steady stream of customers pushed through the revolving doors. A teenager in a turquoise T-shirt walked out, scarfing down a scone, but with no books in his hand. A couple from Tennessee paused outside the store, but decided to wander down the block to the Lincoln Square movie theater instead.
Melissa Rosati, an adjunct professor of publishing at Pace University, said she bought nearly everything online but came to the store on Monday to spend a $25 gift card on “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell.
“It’s not like I’m going to miss it that much,” she said. “There’s another Barnes & Noble on 82nd and Broadway” (the one known for helping put the beloved independent bookstore across the street from it, Shakespeare & Company, out of business 14 years ago).
Ms. Keating, the Barnes & Noble spokeswoman, said a search was under way for a new location on the Upper West Side, but she declined to provide details.
Two other Barnes & Noble stores in Manhattan, one on Astor Place and one in Chelsea, have closed in the last three years. But Barnes & Noble still has the huge store at 82nd Street, and in July 2009, it opened a 50,000-square-foot superstore at 86th Street and Lexington Avenue.
One result of the book chain’s uncertain year may be that much of the old animosity toward Barnes & Noble, once seen by some residents as a corporate bully that helped squash small, independent bookstores, has lately been replaced with affection.
Monica Blum, the president of the Lincoln Square Business Improvement District, said she detected a change in the way people viewed big bookstores.
“It is a community gathering space,” Ms. Blum said. “I think the larger bookstores have worked hard to become those kinds of spaces.”
Dora Schulman, a shoe saleswoman who has lived in the neighborhood since the 1960s, left clutching a CD. “It’s a pity,” she said. “All the stores on my route are closing — first Tower Records, then Blockbuster, now this.”
Incidents at Mosque in Tennessee Spread Fear
Incidents at Mosque in Tennessee Spread Fear
By ROBBIE BROWN
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: August 30, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/31/us/31mosque.html?th&emc=th
ATLANTA — After a suspected arson and reports of gunshots at an Islamic center in Tennessee over the weekend, nearby mosques have hired security guards, installed surveillance cameras and requested the presence of federal agents at prayer services.
Muslim leaders in central Tennessee say that frightened worshipers are observing Ramadan in private and that some Muslim parents are wary of sending their children to school after a large fire on Saturday that destroyed property at the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro. Federal authorities suspect that the fire was arson.
The Islamic center has attracted national attention recently because its planned expansion into a larger building in some ways parallels a controversial proposal to build an Islamic center two blocks from the site of the Sept. 11 attacks in New York.
The Murfreesboro center, which has existed for nearly 30 years, suddenly found itself on front pages of newspapers this month and on “The Daily Show.” It became a hot topic in the local Congressional race, with one Republican candidate accusing the center of fostering terrorism and trying to link it to the militant Palestinian group Hamas.
Then, on Saturday, the police say, someone set fire to construction equipment at the site where the Islamic center is planning to move, destroying an earthmover and three other pieces of machinery. And on Sunday, as CNN was filming a news segment about the controversy, someone fired at least five shots near the property.
“We are very concerned about our safety,” said Essam Fathy, head of the center’s planning committee. “Whatever it takes, I’m not going to allow anybody to do something like this again.”
No people were injured in either incident. The cases are being investigated by the police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
In a statement on the center’s Web site, a spokeswoman called the fire an “arson attack” and an “atrocious act of terrorism.”
In Nashville, 30 miles northwest, local imams met with representatives of the United States attorney’s office on Monday to discuss the risk of further anti-Islamic violence. Several mosques have requested police surveillance, they said, especially with the end of Ramadan this year nearly coinciding with the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
“We’re worried that these attacks could spill over into Nashville,” said Mwafaq Mohammed, president of the Salahadeen Islamic Center there. “We don’t want people to misunderstand what we’re celebrating around Sept. 11. It would be better to take precautionary measures.”
Another mosque, the Islamic Center of Nashville, has installed indoor and outdoor surveillance cameras, hired round-the-clock security guards and requested that F.B.I. agents be on site during worship services, according to the imam, Mohamed Ahmed.
“Whoever did this, they are terrorists,” Mr. Ahmed said. “What’s the difference between them and Al Qaeda?”
But in other parts of Tennessee, including Chattanooga, Knoxville and Memphis, Muslim leaders reported that they had experienced no hostility and saw no reason to increase security.
By ROBBIE BROWN
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: August 30, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/31/us/31mosque.html?th&emc=th
ATLANTA — After a suspected arson and reports of gunshots at an Islamic center in Tennessee over the weekend, nearby mosques have hired security guards, installed surveillance cameras and requested the presence of federal agents at prayer services.
Muslim leaders in central Tennessee say that frightened worshipers are observing Ramadan in private and that some Muslim parents are wary of sending their children to school after a large fire on Saturday that destroyed property at the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro. Federal authorities suspect that the fire was arson.
The Islamic center has attracted national attention recently because its planned expansion into a larger building in some ways parallels a controversial proposal to build an Islamic center two blocks from the site of the Sept. 11 attacks in New York.
The Murfreesboro center, which has existed for nearly 30 years, suddenly found itself on front pages of newspapers this month and on “The Daily Show.” It became a hot topic in the local Congressional race, with one Republican candidate accusing the center of fostering terrorism and trying to link it to the militant Palestinian group Hamas.
Then, on Saturday, the police say, someone set fire to construction equipment at the site where the Islamic center is planning to move, destroying an earthmover and three other pieces of machinery. And on Sunday, as CNN was filming a news segment about the controversy, someone fired at least five shots near the property.
“We are very concerned about our safety,” said Essam Fathy, head of the center’s planning committee. “Whatever it takes, I’m not going to allow anybody to do something like this again.”
No people were injured in either incident. The cases are being investigated by the police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
In a statement on the center’s Web site, a spokeswoman called the fire an “arson attack” and an “atrocious act of terrorism.”
In Nashville, 30 miles northwest, local imams met with representatives of the United States attorney’s office on Monday to discuss the risk of further anti-Islamic violence. Several mosques have requested police surveillance, they said, especially with the end of Ramadan this year nearly coinciding with the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
“We’re worried that these attacks could spill over into Nashville,” said Mwafaq Mohammed, president of the Salahadeen Islamic Center there. “We don’t want people to misunderstand what we’re celebrating around Sept. 11. It would be better to take precautionary measures.”
Another mosque, the Islamic Center of Nashville, has installed indoor and outdoor surveillance cameras, hired round-the-clock security guards and requested that F.B.I. agents be on site during worship services, according to the imam, Mohamed Ahmed.
“Whoever did this, they are terrorists,” Mr. Ahmed said. “What’s the difference between them and Al Qaeda?”
But in other parts of Tennessee, including Chattanooga, Knoxville and Memphis, Muslim leaders reported that they had experienced no hostility and saw no reason to increase security.
New York Rebounds From Slump, Unevenly
New York Rebounds From Slump, Unevenly
By PATRICK McGEEHAN
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: August 30, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/31/nyregion/31nyecon.html?th&emc=th
By most standard measures of economic health, New York City’s recovery from the financial crisis and the recession it started is well under way.
The typical New Yorker is less likely to be unemployed or facing foreclosure or bankruptcy than the average American. Homes in the metropolitan area have held their value better than in most other big cities as more people are moving to the region than deserting it. Tourists continue to flock to the city, filling hotel rooms at the highest rate in the country, and at rising prices.
Wall Street — still the engine that powers the city — roared back faster than expected, eliminated far fewer jobs than had been forecast, resumed paying out big bonuses and has begun to hire again. Despite a faltering stock market and recent signals that the national economy is losing steam, economists expect New York to remain on the rebound.
“We have been feeling on more solid footing the last six months,” said Marcia Van Wagner, the city’s assistant comptroller for budget. “If there’s no major shock, I think we’re going to have a slow, relatively steady recovery.”
There were some major shocks two years ago, most notably the collapse of the Lehman Brothers investment bank, which heralded the end of the boom years. Lehman’s failure, in September 2008, caused a panic in financial markets that spurred predictions of another Great Depression.
But in the city, far fewer jobs were lost than had been predicted and there has been job growth for the last six months. In July, the number of jobs in the city was down 108,000, or less than 3 percent, from July 2008. Over the same 24 months, the nation lost 6.7 million jobs, or more than 4.5 percent. The city’s unemployment rate slipped last month to 9.4 percent, slightly below the national rate.
Still, experts on the city’s economy said the effects of the recession were spread unevenly across the local landscape, leaving many people in dire financial condition. David R. Jones, the chief executive of the Community Service Society of New York, an antipoverty group, said that the farther away from Midtown one wandered, the more ravaged the city appeared.
“While we’re seeing in Manhattan that things are going relatively well and there’s been a sharp rebound, in some neighborhoods of New York things are not going well,” Mr. Jones said.
Away from the office towers and rooftop cocktail lounges, long-term unemployment is a persistent problem, and young job seekers are losing hope, Mr. Jones said. A survey in late July of city residents who meet or barely exceed the definition of poor found that only about one-fifth of them thought the city’s economy was improving, he said.
The city’s construction industry, which practically ground to a halt in 2009, is still mired in a slump. The total value of building projects begun in the second quarter was less than half the level of two years earlier.
And so, while economists agree that the recession is over in the city and that it did not last as long or exact as harsh a toll as on the rest of the country, the key determinant of people’s current well-being appears to be whether they came out of the recession with a job.
Those who remained employed, especially if they had professional or managerial positions, were fortunate. James A. Parrott, chief economist of the Fiscal Policy Institute, found that in the city, the income data masked a deep divide: the pay of managers rose at a healthy clip through the recession while lower-level workers took significant cuts in pay.
According to Mr. Parrott’s analysis of local wage data, the median pay of managerial workers in the city was $990 a week in the first four months of this year, up 11 percent in three years. But the median weekly pay for nonmanagers was $472, or 10.4 percent less than they earned in the first four months of 2007.
The growing gap “indicates a worrisome weakening in the ability of less-skilled New York workers to maintain their wage-earning power,” Mr. Parrott said.
“That doesn’t bode well for the recovery in consumer spending in New York’s neighborhoods,” he continued.
Personal incomes dropped more in New York than in the rest of the country last year, largely because of the smaller bonuses that were paid out in early 2009 for the dismal performance in 2008. But 2009 was very profitable for some of the banks that survived, like Goldman Sachs, and the corresponding bonuses have helped buoy the city this year, economists said.
“Even though the recession was milder in terms of the number of jobs lost, the income loss was much greater,” said Marisa Di Natale, an economist with Moody’s Economy.com.
The quick bounce back for the city’s best-paid workers has helped fuel a pickup in business at exclusive boîtes and expensive hotels, consultants and business operators said. On Friday, Tiffany & Company said sales at its flagship jewelry store on Fifth Avenue rose 16 percent in the first half of the year.
But many businesses, particularly those that cater to the city’s workers rather than executives or tourists, are struggling to stay afloat, they said.
“The 25 most-coveted restaurants in New York are doing an incredible amount of business,” serving 10 percent to 15 percent more diners than they did a year ago, said Steven Kamali, who brokers sales of restaurants and bars and advises hotel owners on food service. “On the other side of the argument, what we’re finding is the local neighborhood restaurants are taking the brunt of the pain.”
The steady stream of visitors has kept the city’s hotels nearly full, though room rates remain well below the levels they reached before the recession.
“Things seem to be getting better, almost inching back to late-2007 levels,” said André Balazs, who operates boutique hotels including the Standard and the Mercer.
But, Mr. Balazs said, even his wealthiest clients had not kicked a habit from the recession of haggling over their bills. “People who would fly a private plane to a destination suddenly feel the need to negotiate the price of a suite,” he said.
On the streets of some neighborhoods, working-class residents like Selina Sharmin are still dreading the recession’s aftermath.
Ms. Sharmin, 37, has worked in public libraries in Queens since she immigrated from her native Bangladesh 10 years ago. Just six months after she was promoted to a full-fledged librarian’s position, she received notice that she and 45 other employees of the borough’s public library system would be laid off on Thursday because of budget cuts.
“This is my dream job, I can tell you,” said Ms. Sharmin, who lives in Jamaica with her husband and two young children. “Now my future is dark and unknown.”
If she is laid off as scheduled, she said, she doubted that she would be able to afford the family health insurance her job provided. She said continuing that coverage would cost at least $700 a month. But she would receive just $405 a week in unemployment benefits, barely enough to cover her $1,200 monthly house payment, she said.
“Now I really don’t know what I should do and what I am going to do,” said Ms. Sharmin, whose husband has not been able to find work since he was laid off from a job in a gift shop. “Who’s going to hire me?”
Proposals to lay off more employees of city and state agencies like the Metropolitan Transportation Authority could continue to temper a local recovery, economists said. A reluctance to hire full-time employees in some struggling industries like publishing is another drag on the city’s economy, they said.
Alexandra Ben Othman, 29, of Sunnyside, Queens, can tell that tale in the first person.
Through most of last year, Ms. Ben Othman could not find any work after she was laid off by a publishing company. For the last six months, she has worked steadily as a proofreader, but the jobs have been temporary, leaving her to fear that the next paycheck could be the last. She receives no benefits, so she has gone without health insurance for almost a year.
“For a while I was looking for full-time,” Ms. Ben Othman said, describing her job search. “Then at one point I needed to take whatever I could get.” Her current assignment with an educational publisher is “still a little bit shaky but definitely a lot more secure than most other temporary assignments.”
Her husband, Mohamed Ben Othman, a Tunisian immigrant who drives a taxi on weekends, is looking for work as a plumber’s apprentice. She said she had considered taking classes toward a graduate degree in marketing or Islamic art history. A more remote possibility, she added, would be to move to Tunisia to teach English.
In the meantime, Ms. Ben Othman said, she is taking lunch to work, shopping at Costco and Target and frequenting her local movie theater on Tuesdays when tickets are just $5. “These days,” she said, “I’m being very frugal.”
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: August 30, 2010
An earlier version of this article misstated the percentage change in median pay found in James A. Parrott’s analysis of local wage data as an increase of 7.5 percent for managerial workers and a decrease of 6.3 percent for non-managerial workers. Also, the article mistakenly said the period studied was the first three months of 2010.
By PATRICK McGEEHAN
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: August 30, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/31/nyregion/31nyecon.html?th&emc=th
By most standard measures of economic health, New York City’s recovery from the financial crisis and the recession it started is well under way.
The typical New Yorker is less likely to be unemployed or facing foreclosure or bankruptcy than the average American. Homes in the metropolitan area have held their value better than in most other big cities as more people are moving to the region than deserting it. Tourists continue to flock to the city, filling hotel rooms at the highest rate in the country, and at rising prices.
Wall Street — still the engine that powers the city — roared back faster than expected, eliminated far fewer jobs than had been forecast, resumed paying out big bonuses and has begun to hire again. Despite a faltering stock market and recent signals that the national economy is losing steam, economists expect New York to remain on the rebound.
“We have been feeling on more solid footing the last six months,” said Marcia Van Wagner, the city’s assistant comptroller for budget. “If there’s no major shock, I think we’re going to have a slow, relatively steady recovery.”
There were some major shocks two years ago, most notably the collapse of the Lehman Brothers investment bank, which heralded the end of the boom years. Lehman’s failure, in September 2008, caused a panic in financial markets that spurred predictions of another Great Depression.
But in the city, far fewer jobs were lost than had been predicted and there has been job growth for the last six months. In July, the number of jobs in the city was down 108,000, or less than 3 percent, from July 2008. Over the same 24 months, the nation lost 6.7 million jobs, or more than 4.5 percent. The city’s unemployment rate slipped last month to 9.4 percent, slightly below the national rate.
Still, experts on the city’s economy said the effects of the recession were spread unevenly across the local landscape, leaving many people in dire financial condition. David R. Jones, the chief executive of the Community Service Society of New York, an antipoverty group, said that the farther away from Midtown one wandered, the more ravaged the city appeared.
“While we’re seeing in Manhattan that things are going relatively well and there’s been a sharp rebound, in some neighborhoods of New York things are not going well,” Mr. Jones said.
Away from the office towers and rooftop cocktail lounges, long-term unemployment is a persistent problem, and young job seekers are losing hope, Mr. Jones said. A survey in late July of city residents who meet or barely exceed the definition of poor found that only about one-fifth of them thought the city’s economy was improving, he said.
The city’s construction industry, which practically ground to a halt in 2009, is still mired in a slump. The total value of building projects begun in the second quarter was less than half the level of two years earlier.
And so, while economists agree that the recession is over in the city and that it did not last as long or exact as harsh a toll as on the rest of the country, the key determinant of people’s current well-being appears to be whether they came out of the recession with a job.
Those who remained employed, especially if they had professional or managerial positions, were fortunate. James A. Parrott, chief economist of the Fiscal Policy Institute, found that in the city, the income data masked a deep divide: the pay of managers rose at a healthy clip through the recession while lower-level workers took significant cuts in pay.
According to Mr. Parrott’s analysis of local wage data, the median pay of managerial workers in the city was $990 a week in the first four months of this year, up 11 percent in three years. But the median weekly pay for nonmanagers was $472, or 10.4 percent less than they earned in the first four months of 2007.
The growing gap “indicates a worrisome weakening in the ability of less-skilled New York workers to maintain their wage-earning power,” Mr. Parrott said.
“That doesn’t bode well for the recovery in consumer spending in New York’s neighborhoods,” he continued.
Personal incomes dropped more in New York than in the rest of the country last year, largely because of the smaller bonuses that were paid out in early 2009 for the dismal performance in 2008. But 2009 was very profitable for some of the banks that survived, like Goldman Sachs, and the corresponding bonuses have helped buoy the city this year, economists said.
“Even though the recession was milder in terms of the number of jobs lost, the income loss was much greater,” said Marisa Di Natale, an economist with Moody’s Economy.com.
The quick bounce back for the city’s best-paid workers has helped fuel a pickup in business at exclusive boîtes and expensive hotels, consultants and business operators said. On Friday, Tiffany & Company said sales at its flagship jewelry store on Fifth Avenue rose 16 percent in the first half of the year.
But many businesses, particularly those that cater to the city’s workers rather than executives or tourists, are struggling to stay afloat, they said.
“The 25 most-coveted restaurants in New York are doing an incredible amount of business,” serving 10 percent to 15 percent more diners than they did a year ago, said Steven Kamali, who brokers sales of restaurants and bars and advises hotel owners on food service. “On the other side of the argument, what we’re finding is the local neighborhood restaurants are taking the brunt of the pain.”
The steady stream of visitors has kept the city’s hotels nearly full, though room rates remain well below the levels they reached before the recession.
“Things seem to be getting better, almost inching back to late-2007 levels,” said André Balazs, who operates boutique hotels including the Standard and the Mercer.
But, Mr. Balazs said, even his wealthiest clients had not kicked a habit from the recession of haggling over their bills. “People who would fly a private plane to a destination suddenly feel the need to negotiate the price of a suite,” he said.
On the streets of some neighborhoods, working-class residents like Selina Sharmin are still dreading the recession’s aftermath.
Ms. Sharmin, 37, has worked in public libraries in Queens since she immigrated from her native Bangladesh 10 years ago. Just six months after she was promoted to a full-fledged librarian’s position, she received notice that she and 45 other employees of the borough’s public library system would be laid off on Thursday because of budget cuts.
“This is my dream job, I can tell you,” said Ms. Sharmin, who lives in Jamaica with her husband and two young children. “Now my future is dark and unknown.”
If she is laid off as scheduled, she said, she doubted that she would be able to afford the family health insurance her job provided. She said continuing that coverage would cost at least $700 a month. But she would receive just $405 a week in unemployment benefits, barely enough to cover her $1,200 monthly house payment, she said.
“Now I really don’t know what I should do and what I am going to do,” said Ms. Sharmin, whose husband has not been able to find work since he was laid off from a job in a gift shop. “Who’s going to hire me?”
Proposals to lay off more employees of city and state agencies like the Metropolitan Transportation Authority could continue to temper a local recovery, economists said. A reluctance to hire full-time employees in some struggling industries like publishing is another drag on the city’s economy, they said.
Alexandra Ben Othman, 29, of Sunnyside, Queens, can tell that tale in the first person.
Through most of last year, Ms. Ben Othman could not find any work after she was laid off by a publishing company. For the last six months, she has worked steadily as a proofreader, but the jobs have been temporary, leaving her to fear that the next paycheck could be the last. She receives no benefits, so she has gone without health insurance for almost a year.
“For a while I was looking for full-time,” Ms. Ben Othman said, describing her job search. “Then at one point I needed to take whatever I could get.” Her current assignment with an educational publisher is “still a little bit shaky but definitely a lot more secure than most other temporary assignments.”
Her husband, Mohamed Ben Othman, a Tunisian immigrant who drives a taxi on weekends, is looking for work as a plumber’s apprentice. She said she had considered taking classes toward a graduate degree in marketing or Islamic art history. A more remote possibility, she added, would be to move to Tunisia to teach English.
In the meantime, Ms. Ben Othman said, she is taking lunch to work, shopping at Costco and Target and frequenting her local movie theater on Tuesdays when tickets are just $5. “These days,” she said, “I’m being very frugal.”
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: August 30, 2010
An earlier version of this article misstated the percentage change in median pay found in James A. Parrott’s analysis of local wage data as an increase of 7.5 percent for managerial workers and a decrease of 6.3 percent for non-managerial workers. Also, the article mistakenly said the period studied was the first three months of 2010.
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