Thursday, November 03, 2022
Wednesday, November 02, 2022
Most Don't Believe Life Will Be Better For Their Children
The chart above is from the Gallup Poll -- in a survey done between September 1st and 16th of a nationwide sample of 812 adults, with a 4 point margin of error. Americans, by a 15 point margin, no longer think their children will have a better life than they have had.
U.S. Has The Worst Drop In Worker Productivity Since 1947
The following is from The Washington Post:
In the first half of 2022, productivity — the measure of how much output in goods and services an employee can produce in an hour — plunged by the sharpest rate on record going back to 1947, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The productivity plunge is perplexing, because productivity took off to levels not seen in decades when the coronavirus forced an overnight switch to remote work, leading some economists to suggest that the pandemic might spark longer-term growth. It also raises new questions about the shift to hybrid schedules and remote work, as employees have made the case that flexibility helped them work more efficiently. And it comes at a time when “quiet quitting” — doing only what’s expected and no more — is resonating, especially with younger workers.
Productivity is strong in manufacturing, but it’s down elsewhere in the private sector, according to Diego Comin, professor of economics at Dartmouth College. He noted that productivity is particularly tricky to gauge for knowledge workers, whose contributions aren’t as easy to measure. . . .
Critical to a well-oiled economy, productivity is also the ultimate driver of standards of living: Higher productivity eventually translates to more goods and services available at a lower cost, and increased wages for workers, meaning higher productivity also combats inflation.
When productivity slows, economic growth dwindles. The drop-off is particularly concerning to economists and employers as the U.S.economy flirts with recession. It’s unfolding as employers struggle to find workers, amid a national tug-of-war over the future of offices. Burnout is high. Engagement is low. People are working more hours, but they’re doing less with them.
“No one knows or will know” what is causing the drop-off in productivity for some time, said economist Lawrence H. Summers, president emeritus of Harvard University and former treasury secretary. But it could have something to do with the fact that many employees “were working unsustainably hard” in 2020 and 2021, Summers said. . . .
This year’s productivity decline comes after a strong 2021. In the first quarter of last year, worker productivity grew 4.3 percent, one of the highest rates in years, according to the Labor Department. That growth rate slowed the following quarter to 2.3 percent, which was still nearly double the feeble productivity rate increases the nation experienced in the decade after the 2007-2008 financial crisis.
Tuesday, November 01, 2022
It's Not Both Sides - Most Political Violence Is From The Right
Republicans would like for you to believe that both sides are engaging in political violence. That's just another GOP lie. By far, most political violence is done by those on the far right -- not the far left. Here is part of how Max Boot Puts it in The Washington Post:
It should not be controversial to say that America has a major problem with right-wing political violence. The evidence continues to accumulate — yet the GOP continues to deny responsibility for this horrifying trend. . . .
Violence is unacceptable whether from the left or right, period. But we can’t allow GOP leaders to get away with this false moral equivalency. They are evading their responsibility for their extremist rhetoric that all too often motivates extremist actions.
The New America think tank found last year that, since Sept. 11, 2001, far-right terrorists had killed 122 people in the United States, compared with only one killed by far-leftists. A study from the Center for Strategic and International Studies last year found that, since 2015, right-wing extremists had been involved in 267 plots or attacks, compared with 66 for left-wing extremists. A Washington Post-University of Maryland survey released in January found that 40 percent of Republicans said violence against the government can be justified, compared with only 23 percent of Democrats.
There is little doubt about what is driving political violence: the ascendance of Trump. The former president and his followers use violent rhetoric of extremes: Trump calls President Biden an “enemy of the state,” attacks the FBI as “monsters,” refers to the “now Communist USA” and even wrote that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has a “DEATH WISH” for disagreeing with him. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has expressed support for executing Nancy Pelosi and other leading Democrats. Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Tex.) has tweetedthat “the America Last Marxists … are radically and systematically DESTROYING our country.”
That type of extremist rhetoric used to be confined to fringe organizations such as the John Birch Society. Now it’s the GOP mainstream, with predictable consequences. The U.S. Capitol Police report that threats against members of Congress have risen more than tenfold since Trump’s election in 2016, up to 9,625 last year.
The sickness on the right was on display after news broke about the attack on Paul Pelosi. While leading Republicans condemned the horrific assault, the MAGA base seethed with sick jokes making light of the violence and insane conspiracy theories. (Filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza suggested that the attack was “a romantic tryst that went awry.”)
There was, alas, no sign of the GOP taking responsibility for fomenting hatred. Kari Lake, the GOP nominee for governor of Arizona, blamed“leftist elected officials who have not enforced the laws.” Naturally, Republicans accuse Democrats of being “divisive” for citing Republican rhetoric as a contributing factor to political violence.
It’s true that, by calling out GOP extremism, Democrats do risk exacerbating the polarization of politics. But they can’t simply ignore this dangerous trend. And it’s not Democrats who are pushing our country to the brink: A New York Times study found that MAGA members of Congress who refused to accept the results of the 2020 election used polarizing language at nearly triple the rate of Democrats.
So please don’t accept the GOP framing of the assault on Paul Pelosi as evidence of a problem plaguing “both sides of the aisle.” Political violence in America is being driven primarily by the far right, not the far left, and the far right is much closer to the mainstream of the Republican Party than the far left is to the Democratic Party.
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