The Republican Thread

[NorthSideSox72]

I believe the reason "moderate" is quoted the way it is, is Kaps belief that he doesn't really stand on anything. He changes as politically prudent, so he is always in the middle-ish.

If this was a reference to Romney, then I'd agree. Romney is moderate AND spineless. I don't see that sort of shifting in the wind in Huntsman's past, from what I have read (which admitedly is still limited).

 

[mr_genius]

And being a foreign dignitary for the United States, sticking with the job regardless of who the President is, takes a lot more courage than jumping ship out of political weakness.

 

it was basically a big business trip for him. of course he doesn't care who is president at the time.

[kapkomet]

I believe the reason "moderate" is quoted the way it is, is Kaps belief that he doesn't really stand on anything. He changes as politically prudent, so he is always in the middle-ish.

 

Which is my whole problem with the entire GOP field. "Moderate" means non-commital.

 

Huntsman is the same way, IMO.

 

[mr_genius]

I was just thinking, GW Bush looks like a really good president when you compare him to Obama.

 

be honest, did any of you think Obama would be this incompetent? I thought he would probably suck, but i had no idea it would reach these historic levels.

[kapkomet]

I was just thinking, GW Bush looks like a really good president when you compare him to Obama.

 

be honest, did any of you think Obama would be this incompetent? I thought he would probably suck, but i had no idea it would reach these historic levels.

 

In a word, absolutely.

[bigruss]

I was just thinking, GW Bush looks like a really good president when you compare him to Obama.

 

be honest, did any of you think Obama would be this incompetent? I thought he would probably suck, but i had no idea it would reach these historic levels.

To be fair Obama has done some things very well in office. Beyond that, I'm really not sure if it's just the current political climate or what but he can't seem to get much done at all. I do think he gets a ton of blame for stuff he really has no control over, but he has been a disappointment.

 

But that's what happens when you come in promising to change everything to be better, of course you won't meet expectations. He was always a guy that was going to talk a big game, with the deliverables lacking.

[southsider2k5]

I was just thinking, GW Bush looks like a really good president when you compare him to Obama.

 

be honest, did any of you think Obama would be this incompetent? I thought he would probably suck, but i had no idea it would reach these historic levels.

 

lolz.

[iamshack]

If this was a reference to Romney, then I'd agree. Romney is moderate AND spineless. I don't see that sort of shifting in the wind in Huntsman's past, from what I have read (which admitedly is still limited).

I read the recent article in Esquire or GQ (I have both of them, not sure which it was), and was pretty impressed with his position on the war and his desire to reduce the defense budget. Of course this is easy for him to say now, and more difficult to implement if he were to actually become President, but his willingness to say it was at least more than most other Republicans are willing or able to do.

 

As for his time in China, this has basically insulated him from the tea party nonsense because he simply wasn't around to take part in it.

 

I dunno, I am certainly not a political expert by any means, but I, like NSS, was at least curious to see what he is about, which is more than I can say for almost any other Republican at this point.

[Texsox]

When you have a third of Americans wanting him to fail so badly they could taste it? Of course.

[southsider2k5]

http://www.nationalreview.com/exchequer

 

Paul Krugman continues his campaign to discredit the economic success of Texas, and, as usual, he is none too particular about the facts. Let’s allow Professor K. to lay out his case:

 

[Texas] has, for many decades, had much faster population growth than the rest of America — about twice as fast since 1990. Several factors underlie this rapid population growth: a high birth rate, immigration from Mexico, and inward migration of Americans from other states, who are attracted to Texas by its warm weather and low cost of living, low housing costs in particular.

 

. . . But what does population growth have to do with job growth? Well, the high rate of population growth translates into above-average job growth through a couple of channels. Many of the people moving to Texas — retirees in search of warm winters, middle-class Mexicans in search of a safer life — bring purchasing power that leads to greater local employment. At the same time, the rapid growth in the Texas work force keeps wages low — almost 10 percent of Texan workers earn the minimum wage or less, well above the national average — and these low wages give corporations an incentive to move production to the Lone Star State.

 

What, indeed, does population growth have to do with job growth? Professor Krugman is half correct here — but intentionally only half correct: A booming population leads to growth in jobs. But there is another half to that equation: A booming economy, and the jobs that go with it, leads to population growth. Texas has added millions of people and millions of jobs in the past decade; New York, and many other struggling states, added virtually none of either. And it is not about the weather or other non-economic factors: People are not leaving California for Texas because Houston has a more pleasant climate (try it in August), or leaving New York because of the superior cultural amenities to be found in Nacogdoches and Lubbock. People are moving from the collapsing states into the expanding states because there is work to be had, and opportunity. I’ll set aside, for the moment, these “middle-class Mexicans” immigrating to Texas other than to note that “middle-class” does not broadly comport with the data we have on the economic characteristics of Mexican immigrants. To say the least.

 

Krugman points out that New York and Massachusetts both have lower unemployment rates than does Texas, and he goes on to parrot the “McJobs” myth: Sure, Texas has lots of jobs, but they’re crappy jobs at low wages. (My summary.) Or, as Professor Krugman puts it, “low wages give corporations an incentive to move production to the Lone Star State.” Are wages low in Texas? There is one question one must always ask when dealing with Paul Krugman’s statements of fact, at least when he’s writing in the New York Times: Is this true? Since he cites New York and Massachusetts, let’s do some comparison shopping between relevant U.S. metros: Harris County (that’s Houston and environs to you), Kings County (Brooklyn), and Suffolk County (Boston).

 

Houston, like Brooklyn and Boston, is a mixed bag: wealthy enclaves, immigrant communities rich and poor, students, government workers — your usual big urban confluence. In Harris County, the median household income is $50,577. In Brooklyn, it is $42,932, and in Suffolk County (which includes Boston and some nearby communities) it was $53,751. So, Boston has a median household income about 6 percent higher than Houston’s, while Brooklyn’s is about 15 percent lower than Houston’s.

 

Brooklyn is not the poorest part of New York, by a long shot (the Bronx is), and, looking at those income numbers above, you may think of something Professor Krugman mentions but does not really take properly into account: New York and Boston have a significantly higher cost of living than does Houston, or the rest of Texas. Even though Houston has a higher median income than does Brooklyn, and nearly equals that of Boston, comparing money wages does not tell us anything like the whole story: $50,000 a year in Houston is a very different thing from $50,000 a year in Boston or Brooklyn.

 

How different? Let’s look at the data: In spite of the fact that Texas did not have a housing crash like the rest of the country, housing remains quite inexpensive there. The typical owner-occupied home in Brooklyn costs well over a half-million dollars. In Suffolk County it’s nearly $400,000. In Houston? A whopping $130,100. Put another way: In Houston, the median household income is 39 percent of the cost of a typical house. In Brooklyn, the median household income is 8 percent of the cost of the median home, and in Boston it’s only 14 percent. When it comes to homeownership, $1 in earnings in Houston is worth a lot more than $1 in Brooklyn or Boston. But even that doesn’t really tell the story, because the typical house in Houston doesn’t look much like the typical house in Brooklyn: Some 64 percent of the homes in Houston are single-family units, i.e., houses. In Brooklyn, 85 percent are multi-family units, i.e. apartments and condos.

 

Professor Krugman knows that these variables are significant when comparing real standards of living, but he takes scant account of them. That is misleading, and he knows it is misleading.

 

Likewise, he knows that the rest of the picture is much more complicated than is his claim: “By the way, one in four Texans lacks health insurance, the highest proportion in the nation, thanks largely to the state’s small-government approach.” Is small government really the reason a relatively large number of Texans lack health insurance? Or might there be another explanation?

 

Houston, as it turns out, is a less white place than Boston (no surprise) and also less white than Brooklyn. All three cities have large foreign-born populations, but Houston is unusual in one regard: It is 41 percent Hispanic, many of those Hispanics are immigrants, and many of those immigrants are illegals. Texas is home to 1.77 million illegal immigrants; New York is home to about one-fourth that number, according to the Department of Homeland Security, and Massachusetts doesn’t make the top-25 list. Despite Professor Krugman’s invocation of “middle-class Mexicans” moving to Texas, the great majority of Mexican and Latin American immigrants to Texas are far from middle class. The fact is that, in the words of a Fed study, “Mexican immigrants are highly occupationally clustered (disproportionately work in distinctive “very low wage” occupations).” Nationally, Hispanic households’ median income is barely more than half that of non-Hispanic whites. And low-wage occupations also tend to be low-benefit occupations, meaning no health insurance. (That is, incidentally, one more good reason to break the link between employment and health insurance.)

 

Further, some 28 percent of Texans are 18 years old or younger, higher than either New York or Massachusetts. Younger people are more likely to work in low-wage/low-benefit jobs, less likely to have health insurance — and less likely to need it.

 

The issues of immigration and age also touch on Professor Krugman’s point about the number of minimum-wage workers in Texas vs. other states. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which seems to be his source for this claim, puts the average hourly wage in Texas at 90 percent of the national average, which suggests that wages are not wildly out of line in Texas compared with other states. (And, again, it is important to keep those cost-of-living differences in mind.) In general, I’m skeptical of this particular BLS data, because it is based on questionnaire responses, rather than some firmer source of data such as tax returns. People may not know their actual wages in some cases (you’d be surprised), and in many more cases might not be inclined to tell the truth about it when the government is on the other end of the line.

 

Interestingly, the BLS results find that, nationwide, the number of people being paid less than minimum wage — i.e., those being paid an illegal wage — was 40 percent higher than those being paid the minimum wage. What sort of workers are likely to earn minimum wage or less than minimum wage? Disproportionately, teenagers and illegal immigrants. You will not be surprised to learn that just as Texas has many times as many illegals as New York or Massachusetts, and it also has significantly more 16-to-19-year-old workers than either state.

 

Another important fact that escapes Krugman: The fact that a large number of workers make minimum wage, combined with a young and immigrant-heavy population and millions of new jobs, may very well mean that teens and others who otherwise would not be working at all have found employment. That is a sign of economic strength, not of stagnation. New York and Massachusetts would be better off with millions of new minimum-wage workers — if that meant millions fewer unemployed people.

 

All of this is too obvious for Paul Krugman to have overlooked it. And I expect he didn’t. I believe that he is presenting willfully incomplete and misleading information to the public, and using his academic credentials to prop up his shoddy journalism.

 

ADDENDUM:

 

Also, Professor Krugman owes his readers a correction, having written: “almost 10 percent of Texan workers earn the minimum wage or less, well above the national average.” Unless I am mistaken, that is an undeniable factual error: The number of Texas workers earning minimum wage is about half that, just over 5 percent. The number of hourly workers earning minimum wage in Texas is nearly 10 percent, but hourly workers are, in Texas as everywhere, generally paid less than salaries workers. But hourly workers are only about 56 percent of the Texas work force. Can we get a correction, New York Times?

[StrangeSox]

In an argument about states, why does he pick three cities/counties to compare?

 

New York and Massachusetts would be better off with millions of new minimum-wage workers — if that meant millions fewer unemployed people.

 

I'm not sure that this statement is true if those millions of unemployed people were engineers, lawyers, doctors etc. and are now fry cooks. Massive underemployment while we've billions (trillions?) in idle capital isn't exactly a recipe for a vibrant economy.

[southsider2k5]

In an argument about states, why does he pick three cities/counties to compare?

 

 

 

I'm not sure that this statement is true if those millions of unemployed people were engineers, lawyers, doctors etc. and are now fry cooks. Massive underemployment while we've billions (trillions?) in idle capital isn't exactly a recipe for a vibrant economy.

 

Krugman picked those to start with.

[StrangeSox]

huh? Krugman's article doesn't mention specific cities.

[southsider2k5]

huh? Krugman's article doesn't mention specific cities.

 

Krugman points out that New York and Massachusetts both have lower unemployment rates than does Texas, and he goes on to parrot the “McJobs” myth:

[StrangeSox]

New York (the state) and Massachusetts are not cities.

[StrangeSox]

Another thing, he calls it the "McJobs" myth that most of the growth is low-wage because hey lets compare average wage in three arbitrarily chosen cities (wouldn't it make more sense to look at changes in average wage to see if the average is being brought down, or average wages of new jobs?), but then comes back around later and says much of the growth is driven by Mexican immigration, which means lots of low-age, low-benefit jobs.

[southsider2k5]

New York (the state) and Massachusetts are not cities.

 

It makes the point of Krugman's mistakes/mislead.

[StrangeSox]

It makes the point of Krugman's mistakes/mislead.

 

By comparing arbitrarily chosen cities? Why not Dallas or Ft. Worth? Austin? San Antonio? Why one specific borough in New York? Why not the entire city or Albany or Rochester?

 

If Krugman is making claims about trends at the state level, how does showing that some cities chosen by the author don't exactly match state level trends (maybe, his argument as presented does nothing to refute the McJobs claim) lead to a claim that someone was misleading or made a mistake? It's a different, albeit related, argument.

[StrangeSox]

Anyway, I'm glad we can agree that Krugman never picked these cities/counties/neighborhoods as a comparison point. Can we also agree that maybe it's a little odd to compare an entire county, a neighborhood and a city in a discussion regarding state-level economics?

[southsider2k5]

By comparing arbitrarily chosen cities? Why not Dallas or Ft. Worth? Austin? San Antonio? Why one specific borough in New York? Why not the entire city or Albany or Rochester?

 

If Krugman is making claims about trends at the state level, how does showing that some cities chosen by the author don't exactly match state level trends (maybe, his argument as presented does nothing to refute the McJobs claim) lead to a claim that someone was misleading or made a mistake? It's a different, albeit related, argument.

 

So what was Paul's scientific process for which states to compare?

[StrangeSox]

Well, Texas is the obvious one because that's what the article is about. The other would be "states that are performing comparably to Texas but are often denigrated as liberal bastions of anti-business satanism where growth is impossible."

 

You can point to counter-examples like California. You could do the same average-wage vs. cost-of-living analysis at the state level, since that's what the contention is. Maybe the "McJobs" claim really is a myth, and Texas' average wages and average benefits/health insurance coverage rates haven't plummeted as they would if all this growth really is low-wage. What doesn't make sense is comparing a county in Texas to a neighborhood in New York and city in Massachusetts in a discussion over state unemployment and job growth levels. Absent from the article is any data showing that Houston, Brooklyn and Boston are reasonable proxies for Texas, New York (state) and Massachusetts in terms of employment, wages and job growth.

 

How do we know from this article that Houston hasn't been completely stagnant and thus would be immune to the "McJobs" effect? We don't, and his argument makes no sense. "McJobs driving growth in Texas is a myth" does not follow from "Harris county, Brooklyn and Boston currently have comparable average wages while Harris has a lower cost-of-living."

[southsider2k5]

The other ones are randomly chosen to try to make his article look as good as possible, just like the author did in response.

[Jenksismyhero]

When you have a third of Americans wanting him to fail so badly they could taste it? Of course.

 

Welcome to American Politics.

[StrangeSox]

The other ones are randomly chosen to try to make his article look as good as possible, just like the author did in response.

 

They weren't randomly chosen. They were chosen because, yeah, they make Krugman's point that you don't need a business environment like Texas in order to have comparable unemployment rates; that can be achieved in liberal tax-crazy bastions like NY and MA. His argument isn't that every blue state is better than Texas.

 

Unless this author's goal was to chose three different civil levels (county, city, neighborhood) in a satirical attack on Krugman choosing these states and wasn't actually trying to make the argument laid out in the article about "McJobs," then it makes no sense at all. It's not misleading or incorrect for Krugman not to analyze city-by-county-by-neighborhood each civil level in each state in a discussion on state-level policies and economics.

 

You cannot claim that "McJobs" is a myth by comparing Houston, Brooklyn and Boston current average wages and COL. It just doesn't make any sense.

[StrangeSox]

I want to add Krugman could still very well be wrong here, but that article doesn't make a cogent case for it.