A positive October jobs report must mean one thing to Fox 'News:' economic disaster. On Bulls And Bears yesterday, not only is it doom and gloom, but it means the destruction of the free market.
FiveThirtyEight says otherwise:
...the October numbers are significant because they suggest that the previous two disappointing jobs reports were themselves outliers. The “true” pace of U.S. job growth may not be as good as October’s numbers, but it’s probably better than August’s or September’s. We won’t know for sure for several months, but the most likely explanation for Friday’s numbers is that the U.S. job market is still where economists thought it was back before the August slowdown: in a state of steady, solid job growth.
Ex-WWE champion 'Bradshaw,' who is now just John B. Layfield, was the first to be asked for his 'expertise.' Fox 'News' thinks that Layfield has the pulse on the average American household, because no one screams average American like an ex-pro-wrestler who made a fortune in show business, who now resides in swanky Bermuda. He began by mentioning all the make-believe jobs that the Keystone Veto will eradicate. Then attacked the idea of raising the minimum wage:
'You know why you don't have a minimum wage in West Texas of $15.00? Because no one wants to make that little of money.'
He suggests that President Obama has been most reluctant to raise the minimum wage, not Republicans. He subscribes to the fallacy that raising the minimum wage doesn't alleviate poverty. However, the CBO found that even a raise to the $10.10 threshold would bring close to one million people out of poverty, while others estimate the number as being more like five million. The $15/hr. minimum wage increase would have an even greater impact on poverty reduction, and contrary to the GOP forecasts of doom and gloom,
successful on-the-ground experiences have proven otherwise.
Emily Tisch Sussman, an actual economic expert and one of the two rational people on the panel, strongly disagrees with Layfield. She said,
'Even big companies are telling you, wage stagnation is hurting them. They don't have customers. They need people to be making more money to be buying things. People feel the economy is growing, but they are not feeling it themselves, they need a wage hike.'
Conservative Suzy Welch quickly argues that this will just kill jobs and particularly harps on the GOP's new concern about labor participation. Suzy is a member of the holier-than-thou GOP Hypocrite Club. This is from an article posted by New York Mag in 2002:
To her friends, Suzy (Welch, nee Wetlaufer) is a dynamo who juggles a high-powered career,...and still has time to teach Sunday school at the Hancock United Church of Christ, a liberal Protestant congregation. "She takes her Christian values very seriously," says her minister, Dan Smith. "Her knowledge of the Bible is really pretty deep." As for her affair with a married man, "I think that's an issue that Suzy is working on," Smith says.
True, infidelity is not limited to Republicans, but they are the ones who seem to advertise their religiosity the most.
Brenda Buttner, the host who feels that public sector job loss was a positive, goaded Gary B. Smith into denouncing Socialism's ill effects. He
'can't think of one great life-changing event or invention that came from Socialist Country. Greed is good because it makes people want to get ahead, the desire to make gobs of money is what fuels innovation.
The other rational person on the panel, Jonas Max Ferris, feebly tried to explain that when unemployment is low, that is the time to raise the minimum wage, but his facts are not welcome in this discussion.
Layfield, attempting to discredit Sussman, lies that there are no facts behind the idea that raising the minimum wage to $12/hr, even though there are plenty. Sussman explains that we should be accounting for inflation and in fact, we should be somewhere over $20/hr, which made Layfield smile because we he thinks should be tying inflation to the Reagan Era rates, not 1968. Denouncing the women's rights wage protests of the 70's, Welch claims they were futile because wages are not responsible for closing the poverty gap, it's about (economic?) growth that will do it. I believe she means the 'pro-growth policies' of anti-tax-Republicans, which have never helped alleviate poverty, but that's her story and she's sticking to it.
Finally, Gary B. used his remaining time to ask 'the Left' where the money comes from to raise the minimum wage? He believes the money should be used to grow and expand corporations and raising the minimum wage would destroy that possibility. Of course, take a company like Costco and you'll see that his economic analysis is as wrong-headed as the policies purported on Bulls and Bears.
