Unemployment Plus Capacity Utilization = 'A F**king Disaster'

While your political touts are on the teevee, talking about the poll numbers that spell doom for Democratic politicians, let's not lose sight of the numbers that spell doom for actual ordinary Americans. Today, Karl Smith juxtaposes the unemployment rate with the numbers on total capacity utilization and declares: "This is a fucking disaster."

In short, we have idle factories and jobless workers, simultaneously. Per Smith:

Let me say that again because I think it fails to sink in - literally trillions of dollars in value are not being produced. Not misallocated. Not spent on programs you don't approve of or distributed in tax cuts you don't like. Trillions of dollars in value are not produced at all. Gone from the world entirely. Never to be had, by anyone, anywhere, at any time. Pure unadulterated loss.

[...]

So when I hear this debate drift oft into how Republicans don't appreciate the value of infrastructure - I suffer infinite eye roll. This is the time for this? You would watch the core economy grind down while you argue over the need to fix a pothole!

When I hear the GOP running some nonsense about how Obamacare is scaring small business I find myself beating back the desire for autodefenestration. Can we let this go already! There are real issues that need to be dealt with.

I sympathize with Smith's frustration in this regard, and ruefully note that over the next eight weeks, the discourse isn't likely to get more intelligent.

[Hat Tip.]

RELATED:
Rome is Burning [Modeled Behavior]

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Comments

[emcd]

02:23 PM on 09/19/2010

They tea partiers have mis-identified the source of the tyranny.

It's source is not the government.

It's the mendacious, malevolent puppeteers who control our world: multinational corporations and bankers that have a disproportionate influence on our economy and world governments and a disproportionate amount of accumulated wealth as a result.

[Mickey B]

09:13 PM on 09/11/2010

I find these statistics interesting. In the mid sixties, unemployment was 3.5% and utilization was 90%. In 2000, unemployment was 4% and utilization was 75%. Almost the same employment rate but a marked difference in utilization. Why? Wasn't 2000 when (Bush & Co.) starting cooking the books with the unemployment rate? This would imply that the actual unemployment rate in 2000 was much higher than advertised.

[WorldisMorphing]

06:53 PM on 09/08/2010

When will they understand that the west has metabolic syndrome...
Pointless-orgiastic-consumption fatigue...

The machine took away the need for economic slavery...only the corrupted rule of law and unreformed property rights stand in the way...
We've gotten to the point where what needs to be done is not and should not be undertaken for short term or even mid term profit. We've gotten to a point where gizmo-capitalism hampers progress.

Who ever said that progress was a linear thing anyway ... ? an idiot, that's who...

[BigJohnfromMN]

02:54 PM on 09/08/2010

How do republicans keep getting away with saying raising taxes kills jobs?

Is America really that stupid? Because HISTORY IS NOT ON THEIR SIDE:

In 1951, the highest individual income tax rate was 91% by 1959 it was still 91%, top corporate tax rates peaked in the 1950s 52%

And? Total private sector employment increased by 22% in the 1950’s

In 2000, the highest individual tax rate was 39.6% and in 2003 it dropped to 35% where it remains today, the top corporate is 35%.

And? Total private sector employment fell by 2.9% in the 2000’s.

By Republican logic the reverse should be true

(http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?DocID=543&Topic2id=30&Topic3id=39)
(http://www.economagic.com/em-cgi/data.exe/blsce/ces0500000001)

The only way to create and keep a middle class in America is by taxing the rich – and investing that money in the infrastructure, basic research, and education that creates the high paying jobs of the future.

During the war the government invested in basic research at unprecedented levels. After the war the government employed millions on infrastructure (the interstate freeway system, airports, etc.). The government educated an entire generation of young people through the G.I. bill, and then put those people to work on basic research (space program, defense initiatives, etc). This created a true historical anomaly, a middle class, and the only way to maintain it is to keep doing the same things that created it.

[Raymond Bilodeau]

05:00 PM on 09/08/2010

The problem is this rational response is NOT being taken up by the media and certainly NOT being used by Democrats in responding to the Republicans. The media and the two major parties are now wholly owned corporate entities with their sole goal to amass a fortune for their CEOs and key people. Screw the middle class.

[WorldisMorphing]

07:09 PM on 09/08/2010

The Rule of Law is Much harder to apply when a critical mass of indoctrinated drones wake up to the truth all at once...

Vous devriez le savoir, si vous êtes comme je presume, d'origine Québécoise...

[coolaid8]

06:16 PM on 09/08/2010

In 1951 we were still rebuilding the half of the world we blew up. Major powers like Germany, Japan, China, Britian, France, and Russia still had more rubble on the ground than they did factories. We were the only ones left standing and the only nation with an intact industrial base. Your comparison is not apples to oranges.

[StopMakingSense2]

01:09 PM on 09/08/2010

As usual republicans think business aren't hiring/expanding because of their taxes, regulations, and any other fictitious boogie man they can roll out. The truth is it's a demand problem driven by our debt binge, deregulation, loss of jobs, and future uncertainty. They try to blame Obama for the mess they created. Just more of their trickle down BS.. Actually it was right on, all that reached the middle class was a trickle. Of course a tidal wave went to the rich.

[jmpurser]

11:58 AM on 09/08/2010

Meanwhile the President is going to throw another $300 billion in tax cuts (actually accelerated tax deductions) at a business world that's ALREADY sitting on trillions of dollars AND (as this graph points out) up to 40% excess capacity. No one wants to actually DO something to fix this. No one.

[coolaid8]

01:03 PM on 09/08/2010

I have to agree with you 100% on this one. This demonstrates an appalling lack of understanding of the impact that taxes have on businesses, individuals, and the economy as a whole. Until we get a government that understands when tax cuts are appropriate and which taxes should be cut, when cuts are not appropriate, and when additional taxes are outright detrimental, we will never get out of this mess. Clearly, these are amatuers just trying to see what works.

[jmpurser]

01:46 PM on 09/08/2010

And we get to choose between the "amateurs" and the "vandals" in November.

[Ronald Sloan]

11:08 AM on 09/08/2010

This may not belong but I'll post it any way.


The way I see things is that I believe that the unemployment line
Should be a little longer by about 218.
The way I see it the rethugs in the house and senate
have not worked since Obama took office.

[graffitijoe]

07:56 AM on 09/09/2010

That's what we need - a one party system, so that the word of the great one will be the law of the land as soon as he utters it.

He's such a wise and experienced Dear Leader, how could we go wrong?

[vanrainey]

10:54 AM on 09/08/2010

What I don't understand is why nobody seems to piont the finger at the institutionalised concentration of wealth. We have tax policy that caters to the accumulation and not the encouragement of the spread and flow of capital. We have a unsubstantiable belief that a laizzes faire approach to business and the economy is self corecting when every stage of history illustrates the unwise and unconscionable misallocation of resources by those few and powerful that control them. We need to rekindle the ethic that the unabated accumulation of wealth is not in the best interests of the people as a whole and that it is the closest thing to evil that we can experience in our world. The greatest terror and threat to our well being lies in the concentration of power from within and not any outside sources like Islam or competing economies.

[notAMoron]

10:03 AM on 09/08/2010

There is no point in mindlessly producing goods if no one is going to buy them. This is one of the ways the soviet bloc got into trouble. When demand was slack they continued to churn stuff out of their factories just the same to keep workers employed.

[BlueFloyd]

12:24 PM on 09/08/2010

I think you're missing the point. That wouldnt happen in a capitalist economy, because the lack of demand would curtail the excess production. However, the point is that there is no demand!!!

[coolaid8]

01:05 PM on 09/08/2010

Hey, if they can mandate that we all buy health insurance, why not mandate that we buy other things they want to produce. How about a Chevy Volt in every driveway? Every state can pick two items (one for each senator to take credit for) that can get government subsidies and we will be forced to buy them.

[Uosdwis]

07:50 AM on 09/08/2010

So, it will not get better AND the republicans will be in charge? Great, we're on the WORST rollercoaster in the world and in 2 years we will "angrily" vote out all republicans again. I need to look up "autodefenestration."

[msjimmied]

08:18 AM on 09/08/2010

I just did!

"The act of throwing oneself out a window. From defenestration, the act of throwing something out a window."

[jackinthegreen]

04:20 AM on 09/08/2010

CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN - from sucky to sucky.

[coolaid8]

01:06 PM on 09/08/2010

suckier

[mashtoe]

02:39 AM on 09/08/2010

The Democrats goal seems to be to get us to all just relax as they do nothing. Obama is still allowing corporations to import labor into the US driving down wages. And the Democrats fully support free trade with slave labor communist China. Basically we are screwed without real change and the Democrats want no real change.

It's clear the Democrats hate American workers.

[Larry Motuz]

10:04 AM on 09/08/2010

If you change the word "Democrats" to the word "Republicans", you are bang on.

As Lily Tomlin once said, "The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat."

[mashtoe]

10:06 AM on 09/08/2010

I think people cling to the idea we have two parties because it is too hurtful to admit we have only one.

[dakotawoman]

11:43 AM on 09/08/2010

While the GOP does the same. The "trickle up" theory worked well for Bush and Company. Trouble is, the well has run dry. The middle class consumer cannot "consume" (therefore making the economy flow again) without the $$$$ to do so. The bloodsucking parasite has killed its host, and now wants to blame everything except itself for the bloodless state of its victim.

[jhNY]

02:44 PM on 09/08/2010

Yep, and fanned.

[PoorRichardsHeartache]

02:03 AM on 09/08/2010

need to challenge a couple of points in the many posts:
1. anyone who thinks products were outsourced simply due to the cost of labor doesn't understand the outsourcing issue. only an idiot would outsource for low cost labor alone.
2. The outsourcing trend started in the early 70's and rapidly accelerated in the 80's. We outsourced the products and means of production. The US infrastructure to support manufacturing on a large scale has been decimated.
3. We have become a debtor nation. Analyze the balance of trade, and you will quickly see that we have been outsourcing our national wealth at an accelerating rate. The bottom line, we have become a net importer of all the goods we consume.
4. A good place to start revitalizing the economy is only provide tax offsets and stimulus to PRODUCTS that are manufactured in the US. Domestic or international consumption doesn't matter.
5. It has taken 40 years to get into this mess and we arent going to get out of it in the next couple of quarters.
6. The macroeconomists and monetarists have has on a fool's mission of distraction. Clueless.
Now I am out of characters.

[dakotawoman]

11:44 AM on 09/08/2010

Amen.

[SickHippie]

01:41 AM on 09/08/2010

This guy actually used autodefenestration in a sentence? That wins on so many levels.

[dakotawoman]

11:44 AM on 09/08/2010

Tickled me too.

[BillZBubb]

12:35 AM on 09/08/2010

Since Reagan we have deregulated everything. Since Reagan we have taken so much progressivity out of the tax system that now the middle class is disappearing and a small, super rich class has emerged. Since Reagan our industrial base has been gutted. Since Reagan real median wages have declined. I think you see the pattern.

[janejoad]

12:50 AM on 09/08/2010

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http.//www.YouTube.GilScottHeron/Bmoive.com

[janejoad]

12:51 AM on 09/08/2010

Good lord, I forgot to check the spelling......YouTube.GilScottHeronB/MOVIE.com