Timothy B Lee and Soo Oh are mostly right, We Just Got Some Really Great News About the Economy. I wouldn’t say “great news,” but the new jobs report is quite good news and the economic recovery keeps on keeping on. We added 292,000 jobs last month. And the estimates from the two previous months were revised up by a total of 50,000 jobs. So that means that the economy created 2.7 million jobs last year. That’s very good, but still less than 2014, when 3.1 million jobs were created.

It’s not all good news, however. The employment to population ratio (for prime age workers 25-54 years old) is stuck at 77.4%. To give you an idea of what this means, it was 80.0% in January 2008. It was 81.9% in April 2000. This is not a sign that people have gotten lazy. And given it only deals with people at least 25, it mostly filters out people going to school. And given it only deals with people under 55, it mostly filters out people who are retired. So our low rate (which has increased substantially from its nadir of 74.8% in December 2009), simply indicates that there are not enough jobs around.

Let’s do a rough calculation. The employment to population ratio for prime age workers is roughly 2.5% below where it was before the financial crisis. That represents about 3.5 million workers. And I continue to believe that full employment is not 5% (Much less 5.5% or 6%!) but rather 4%. So that represents another 1.5 million workers, for a total of 5 million workers. So if we continue to gain jobs at a rate of 292,000 per month, we will be back at full employment in a year and a half. Of course, no one expects the economy to continue to grow at this rate. It is more reasonable (but hardly assured) that we will see 200,000 jobs per month, which is over two years. For people who have been waiting for seven years, that’s still a long time.

This brings us to the Federal Reserve. This jobs report does not exonerate the recent rate hike. For one thing, the economy hasn’t had time to adjust to it. But the other thing is that the the economy doesn’t have to tank for the Fed to be hurting it. As I’ve just discussed, there are roughly five million people who would like jobs who can’t find one. Wage growth this last year was 2.5% — just above the core inflation rate for the year of 1.8%.

This brings up another question: when was the core inflation last substantially above the Fed’s 2% target? You have to go back 20 years to get even up to 3% for the year! The average core inflation over the last 15 years (1.95%) has been less than the Fed’s target, yet it is terrified that it might might go over the target. It is clear that despite its legal mandate, the Fed has no target; it has a ceiling. It will work to stop low inflation, but it only freaks out about inflation dipping above 2%.

I really hope that the economy will really start to take off now and that this jobs report is just the start. But I seriously doubt that. The most likely case is that it will continue to improve at the mediocre 200,000 jobs per month. At the same time, the Republicans will do everything they can to stall the economy. I mean, look at the following graph. This is what the Republicans have done to keep Americans out of work:

That’s a two million job gap right there. And given a 50% multiplier effect (which is probably low), if the Republicans had allowed the government to grow as it always did after past recessions, we would more or less be at full employment. If that were the case, the Fed could do almost anything it liked and I wouldn’t complain. But despite this jobs report, we are still in the middle of a very fragile recovery, and the Federal Reserve should be doing everything it can to help — and not just please bankers who want larger returns on their “investments.”

Shakezula over at Lawyers, Guns & Money, wrote, Predictable Predictions — ObamaCare Edition. It’s about two conservative predictions about Obamacare: that it would cause employers to cut hours so that they didn’t have to provide health insurance; and that the Medicaid expansion would lead to job cuts. As Shakezula noted, “Two predictably wrong predictions.” But I have to admit to being totally exhausted by the whole thing.

Of course the predictions were wrong. The people who made them never intended for them to prove to be right. This is how the Republican Party works. They have thrown every possible negative consequence at Obamacare hoping that something would stick. Note: stick, not be right. It is the tactical use of fear. And the Republicans are brilliant at it. They aren’t involved in rational debate. They are rather involved in a kind of anti-apologetics where they are just trying make the best sounding argument for what they believe on faith (or for other reasons regardless).

The Republicans were never afraid that Obamacare wouldn’t work. They talked about it failing all the time, of course. That was their major argument against it: that it was a big government program destined to fail. But if that were the case, they could have stood back and watched it fall. But they haven’t done that because their great fear all along has been that it would succeed.

And look what those losers in Congress finally managed to do. After almost six years and over 50 votes to repeal, the Republican controlled Congress managed to send a repeal bill to President Obama. Obama, of course, will veto it, and they know it. But this is what passes for success among the Republicans: a slightly less humiliating defeat. But I guess the real thing they are doing is sending a message: elect a Republican president this year and people like me can be totally screwed.

Sarah Kliff and Soo Oh at Vox put together a great chart, Here’s How Much Obamacare Has Cut the Uninsured Rate in Every State. The only state where the uninsured rate has gone up is in bright red Wyoming. This may be why Wyoming is currently discussing accepting the Medicaid expansion. But this isn’t just about the Medicaid expansion. Lots of states that didn’t expand Medicaid are seeing uninsured rates go down because of the exchanges. Texas has seen its uninsured rate go down by roughly a quarter. So I guess it’s really important to repeal Obamacare and stop these positive outcomes.

The conservative movement is based mostly on the idea of hatred. Conservatives see the world about winners and losers. They are like those people who whine about little league baseball where everyone gets a trophy. “What’s the point of playing a game if there isn’t a clear winner and loser?!” I’ve never understood this, but to the conservative brain it seems axiomatic. So if the poor don’t suffer, the game of life is not being played properly.

What makes humans most amazing as a species is not our big brains; other species have impressive brains. What we are great at is communication. And what has really allowed us to advance is the storage of information. This is why science operates at a breakneck speed. And as a result of this, we don’t have to worry so much about evolutionary pressures. We can control our birthrates. We can feed everyone. We can see to it that everyone has a reasonably contented life. Or we could do all these things if we could get the roughly one-third of the human race to stop believing that they can only be happy if others are miserable.

The Republican Party has taken it to a whole new extreme where they want to see the vast majority of people suffer so that the rich and power can feel just a little bit better about how awesome they are. The Republicans in Congress want to see to it that I don’t have healthcare; meanwhile, a bunch of terrorists think that the federal government is a tyranny because it won’t give rich people free land. The American conservative movement is such an amazing combination of evil and stupid that it’s hard to imagine outside of satire.

Ezra Klein wrote, Here’s What I Think Donald Trump’s Loss Will Look Like. You don’t need to read the article, here’s the entire argument, “Trump could just… not win. He could lose the Iowa caucuses. He could fall short in New Hampshire. A loss in any early state might lead to a loss in every state.” That could happen. But I think his argument is too dependent on Howard Dean as a model.

I remember the 2004 primary fairly well. I don’t recall Dean simply collapsing on the day of the Iowa caucus. His campaign seemed to be losing steam for months. His one big selling point was that he was against the Iraq War. But it also happened to have been the case that he wasn’t terribly liberal. And as good (Revolutionary!) as his online campaign was, the rest of his organization wasn’t that great. His whole campaign seemed to have lost steam by November. He was coasting. And then there was that bizarre trip to meet with Jimmy Carter. Through all that period, Dean seemed like the dog that caught the car. His campaign seemed rudderless.

Now you could say the same thing for Donald Trump. But I think Trump’s appeal to the Republicans is far more visceral than Dean’s appeal was to the Democrats. The Democrats liked that one issue, not Dean; Republicans like Trump. What’s more, there were real candidates running against Dean. Kerry might have seemed stilted, but he was a veteran. So was Gephardt. Trump is running against two first term Senators. Rubio actually has some experience, but he is not appealing to Trump voters. Cruz has basically no political experience and doesn’t seem any more electable against Clinton than Trump does. So I just don’t see Donald Trump petering out.

To me, the much more likely way that Trump loses is through the narrowing of the field. His negatives are still very high. After Bush and Carson get clobbered in Iowa, those votes will most likely go to Rubio and Cruz. I don’t see Christie doing anything much past New Hampshire. If Trump loses, it seems most likely that he will do so because there is a ceiling to his appeal. But that ceiling used to be much lower. The better he does, the higher the ceiling gets, because people aren’t against him because of his bigotry or policies or whatever; they are against him (in as much as they are) because they don’t think he can win.

I have no special insight into this. But I do think it is a mistake to make an analogy between Democratic voters in 2004 who were very angry about a recent event where they thought their party had let them down, and Republicans in 2016 who are very angry about everything and nothing, and always are. And I do think he has as good a chance of winning the Republican nomination as anyone else. But let’s not forget: he’s set the timbre of the campaign. If he isn’t the candidate, he’s still more or less the candidate. Again, I don’t think there is anything special about Trump. So who really cares? Donald Trump wins!

I am usually in agreement with Brian Beutler. But he was wrong yesterday, No, the Bundys Aren’t Terrorists. The crux of his argument is this, “The men took no hostages, and aren’t threatening to commit acts of violence against civilians.” That’s not actually true as a factual matter. This is not a sit-in where the men are chaining themselves to radiators. They are well armed and have been very clear that they will use violence against government officials if they try to dislodge them. These government officials are not military. There is no war going on. They are civilians.

What’s more, Beutler claimed, “Nobody is being terrorized by the Oregon occupiers.” Uh, yes they are. I am being terrorized — and for a very concrete reason. I used to hang out with a bunch libertarianish people who were just itching for revolution. I know just what these guys are thinking. Either everything ends peacefully and they get a bunch of attention and free snacks. Or they become martyrs hoping to set off angry white gun freaks all over the nation to return the country to its true owners: people like them. They imagine statues of themselves put up like they are the Nathan Hales of the Second Revolutionary War. Trust me: I know these people.

It greatly concerns me that law enforcement has to worry that this will turn into another Waco siege and Ruby Ridge. This faction of the extreme right wing dates back to the white supremacist Posse Comitatus. These people have been spitting bile for decades. Where do you think Ted Nugent’s impotent threats against the president come from? These people represent a nationwide tinder box. And they are right to think that if the military comes in and starts killing white militia men, it could get very ugly very fast. And this does concern me — a lot. All of these weekend revolutionaries have their copies of The Anarchist Cookbook, and they are ready to thrust themselves into the imaginary world of Red Dawn.

Terrorism doesn’t have to include acts of violence. In fact, terrorism works mostly through the lack of violence — making people uncertain when it’s going to happen. If there is constant violence, it isn’t terrorism; it is war. One reason that Israel doesn’t crack down on illegal settlements is because of the as of yet non-violent terrorism of Israeli settlers. The fear is that if they are required to follow the law, they will start bombing. That’s terrorism.

Or think about it this way. Imagine your next door neighbor had a crack house and he told you that if you ever called the police, he and his friends were going to storm your house and kill your family. Okay, by Beutler’s definition, that would be terrorism because it was stated explicitly. But what if your next door neighbor just implied it. Isn’t this what the mob does? It isn’t, “I’m gonna burn down your house”; it’s, “It’d be a shame if your house burned down.” The Bundy bunch are very much using terrorist tactics; it’s implied in what they are doing.

What are we to call the Bundy Bunch if not terrorists? Aren’t the New Black Panthers called terrorists? Would anyone have had a problem calling civil rights protesters terrorists if they had occupied lunch counters with shot guns? I think that Beutler is doing what I too often do around here: grope for something contrary to say. The Bundy Bunch are terrorists. It may turn out that they are also a bunch of cowards who won’t live up to their rhetoric. But listen to these guys and what they and their predecessors have been saying for decades. They are either revolutionaries or terrorists. And given the amazing amount of freedom and democracy in this country, I don’t see much of a case for “revolutionaries.”

Paul Krugman wrote a really interesting article that I have a couple of things to add to, Academics and Politics. Now we all know the old complaint that college professors are liberal. And it is largely true. Should this concern us? Only if it should concern us that most people on Wall Street are conservative. People who gravitate toward knowledge as an end in itself will understandably lean left. It isn’t a conspiracy.

More and more, I believe that political orientation is really about culture. Being a conservative is really not about particular policies but about an outlook on life. This is something I’ve noticed from countless conversations with conservatives where we are very much in agreement about most things — especially economics. When I was in the academy, the conservatives I knew were like I was at the time: libertarian oriented — not wanting to have government interference. They were generally radically liberal on social issues.

But as liberal as the academy may have traditionally been, it has gotten much more so over the last 25 years. As you can see in the following graph taken from the Higher Education Research Institute, in 1990, roughly 40% of college faculty called themselves liberal and an equal number called themselves moderates. Roughly 20% called themselves conservatives. Today, 60% call themselves liberal, less then 30% call themselves moderates, and only 10% call themselves conservatives.

Krugman’s idea is the obvious one: the academy didn’t get more liberal, the conservatives got more conservative. He also mentioned the Republican Party’s general dismissal of global warming and evolution by natural selection. I would go further. The Republican Party is anti-intellectual. What’s more, they think the only purpose of education is to create a better workforce for IBM and GM. They don’t even think education is a matter of creating good citizens. Look at how common the desire is to eliminate the Department of Education. They want education to be controlled locally so that, among other things, students can be taught that African slaves were “immigrants.”

There is one bit of data presented by Krugman that is startling. If you look at the general population, 35% are Republicans or lean Republican, and 52% are similarly inclined toward the Democrats. For science professors, the numbers are 12% for Republicans and 81% for Democrats. But if you think about it for a moment, it isn’t surprising. Nor is it surprising that this trend started around the time that Bill Clinton became president. What does the Republican Party stand for? Any good ideas that it once had have been co-opted by the Democrats. We now have a moderate party and a proto-fascist party. It isn’t surprising that well informed people would skew heavily toward the Democrats.

But here’s something that a person of Krugman’s stature can’t say: it’s also about intelligence. Republicans love to publish books about what idiots liberals are. They’re compensating. They know that the more education and knowledge a person has, the more liberal they become. This causes conservatives to say things like a comment I recently got, “You’re what my father always called an educated idiot.” That was the extent of his argument. I was wrong just because and all my book learning didn’t mean a thing to him because he thought with his gut.

I think there are actual issues that liberals and conservatives can debate. But in this country, there really aren’t. The conservative movement has gone off the rails. So it’s hard for people who think for a living to miss this fact. Republican economic policy is wrong. Sure, you can find intelligent analysis from Greg Mankiw, but what Republicans want to do is the same thing they’ve done for four decades now and it never works as advertised. Republicans are simply wrong about global warming. Republicans are wrong about foreign policy. These aren’t opinions; these are factual claims. And on foreign policy, even they know they are wrong, because they talk tough, but when pressed, they admit that they would do nothing different from what the Democrats would do.

If we had the Republican Party of the early 1970s, I can see intelligent people differing over policy. But today, there are only three reasons to be a Republican. First, you might be stupid and ignorant. Second, you might be a hateful bigot. Third, you might be rich. That’s it. It isn’t surprising that PhD physicists skew heavily toward the Democratic Party.

Afterword

I haven’t read the study, so I can’t say. Another factor could be that colleges are using so many more adjuncts, who get paid next to nothing. Poor people skew liberal as well. I suspect if you polled college administrators, you would find that they are far more conservative.