Comments on: Women and the Obama economy

By: Ymarsakar

Ymarsakar — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 16:34:37 +0000

Some of the LEft thinks that by using guns we become as bad as the criminals. Some Republicans think that by using the tactics of the Left, we will become as deceitful and evil as them.

Two superstitions, but which one is better?

By: Ymarsakar

Ymarsakar — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 16:31:29 +0000

Evil doesn’t need to explain anything. Any more than a death cult leader needs to explain to his followers why they all need to die together. The order merely has to be given. Dissent crushed. And orders will be obeyed, come hell or high water.

I wonder what the first generation feminists would have reacted to the sight of so many women beholden to the new lord and master, government, in terms of wealth, property, and prosperity. Was this the security of home and employment that so many cherished?

By: Libby

Libby — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 19:02:01 +0000

This story is silly (reminds me of the joke NYT headline: World Ends, Women & Minorities Hardest Hit), but at least as far as public school-related cuts go, I’d guess that women are harder hit because women are more represented. From just my own experience, the public schools that my son has attended (3) have had an almost entirely females staff; his last elementary school had only 3 men: the Librarian, the Drama teacher & one of the Admin staff. In addition, many states have experienced administrative staff bloat, which, again, is usually female staff (http://tinyurl.com/cg3mh5s).

By: Wolf Howling

Wolf Howling — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 09:40:28 +0000

Mike: I don’t mean to sound critical in my response above. I fully agree with all that you have written, with the proviso that, as I say, the facts don’t matter, just the meme..

By: Wolf Howling

Wolf Howling — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 09:36:14 +0000

Mike: “The problem for the left is, how do you explain the terrible GDP numbers post-election, in December and January? And how do you explain that prior to the sequester, personal income dropped to its worst level in forty years? All pre-sequester, I re-emphasize.”

It doesn’t matter. Facts are utterly meaningless to the left. The meme will be repeated ad nauseum that the failure of the economy is due to Republicans and sequester. I suggest that you look at the Horowitz article linked by heartlander. It is spot on.

Heartlander: That is an exceptional column by Horowitz. I have been screaming just that for years. There has to be intellectual honesty, but unless that is equally matched with emotion and passion, it is worthless. We are in a zero sum war with the left, and we have yet to arm.

By: heartlander

heartlander — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 08:19:08 +0000

Wolf Howling writes:
“Let’s face it, most of the groups that voted against their interests have been written off by the right for decades – blacks, young single mothers, etc. That is not something that we can afford to do any longer.”
Amen, Wolf.
David Horowitz has written a new piece that absolutely nails this point, and talks about how we can change that. Every conservative in America really needs to read it and put it into action — or we are lost.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/02/david-horowitz-how-republicans-can-win.php

By: Caedmon

Caedmon — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 07:23:16 +0000

I think this is not so much a public vs. private sector thing as a symptom of a slower and broader trend.
A quarter of a century ago as desk top computers entered the workplace it was predicted that they would eliminate women’s jobs. In fact women benefited because they had QWERTY which in those days was the gateway to computers. There was also the perverse effect of mechanisation: when something becomes cheaper to do, folks will do it more often. The so-called paperless office produced far more paperwork.
Now we have a whole generation raised in the digital world. We have the mouse, the internet, cell phones, e-mail. Whole tiers of administration are obselete. Because capitalism is not the rapacious juggernaut so many take it to be many of these tiers remained in place together with the jobs that go with them. The economic contraction of five years ago forced the pace of change.Many of the jobs lost then will never, ever come back, because they were pointless. They were by and large jobs done by women. Now this trend is making itself in government offices.

By: Mike Devx

Mike Devx — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 22:30:23 +0000

Wolf Howling, you wrote:
> From now until 2016, all economic failure will be portrayed as caused by the sequester.

The problem for the left is, how do you explain the terrible GDP numbers post-election, in December and January? And how do you explain that prior to the sequester, personal income dropped to its worst level in forty years? All pre-sequester, I re-emphasize.

But that won’t stop them. It’s up to conservatives and the GOP (not the same thing) to make their case. I don’t expect the GOP to do anything even close to decent when it comes to making their case. Occasionally that group of tongue-tied apparatchiks gets the message right, but not very often. They seem to accidentally stumble upon the right message, and even then, they don’t follow up and they even abandon it.

You can expect any reduction in funding – like the sequester – to have short term negative effects on the economy. It would last for a few months, and then should be absorbed, and in the end it ought to result in a net positive. But it takes, what, about six months to work its way through? If we were lucky enough to see sequesters every year, by 2016 we should be in a somewhat better position than we are today, because the *growth* of government spending will have slowed dramatically.

But they don’t call economics “the dismal science” for nothing. There really doesn’t seem to be any definitive argument either way that is conclusive. So you have to have a strong message and you have to transmit it confidently, all the while breaking through the hostile mainstream media filtering. Good luck with that. Especially when our apparatchiks in Washington DC don’t have a strong message, don’t have the courage of their convictions, and don’t have much confidence in themselves nor in their supposed message.

By: Mike Devx

Mike Devx — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 22:21:47 +0000

Wolf Howling, that is an incredibly depressing list. Problem is, I agree with every word. Sigh.

By: Wolf Howling

Wolf Howling — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 21:15:53 +0000

1. From now until 2016, all economic failure will be portrayed as caused by the sequester. The fact that not one dollar is being cut from the current levels of funding, along with any and all other facts surrounding the sequester, are and will be immaterial.

2. ”Poised for a rebound as the economy picks up?” Is this woman insane. Our economy is showing no signs of picking up, we just raised taxes on the job creators, and we have many more direct and indirect taxes as well as costs in the offing between Obamacare, Dodd-Frank and Obama’s war on coal and oil. I expect us to be in a far worse position come 2016 than we are today. I will not live long enough to see a return to something akin to the “Reagan economy.” I doubt my children will either. The problems we have now are systemic and will be difficult if not impossible to remedy.

3. This woman blaming the sequester – which only limits the rate of growth for future federal spending – for future hiring shortfalls at the state and local level is just insane. State and local governments are funded by revenue at the state and local level – all of which is dependent on private sector economies in their state. Unless the federal government has now picked up the full tab for state and local government employees, what she has said doesn’t pass the laugh test. True, the left is bound and determined to push as much federal revenue as possible into the pockets of union workers at the state and local level, but that is neither the primary source of their funding nor a reliably steady source of funding.

4, I am not going to look up the old stats, but I would note that in 2009, the recession was being called a “mancession” because the number of jobs lost was so heavily weighted to men. The only reason job loss was not then roughly equal was because the public sector got the near trillion dollar stimulus and, indeed, several large cash infusions since. To the extent that anyone is claiming “imbalance” today, it has to be put in the larger context of recession since 2008. Well, that is, unless of course you want to push a meme that women are being unfairly targeted today – and really, what left of center person wouldn’t want to embrace that meme.

5. As to how long it takes for the groups that voted against their own interests to finally see through the fog of b.s. with which they are being fully inundated, I have no idea. If it didn’t happen in 2012, it will not happen again in the foreseeable future unless and until we learn how to reach out to them far more effectively than we are doing. Let’s face it, most of the groups that voted against their interests have been written off by the right for decades – blacks, young single mothers, etc. That is not something that we can afford to do any longer.