LA TIMES OFFERS MORE PROOF WHY NO ONE BOTHERS TO READ IT ANYMORE
I found this article on the economy in the LA Times interesting for two reasons. First, it mentions “stagflation,” perhaps the first time that word has been seen in print in any context except an historical one in a quarter century. Second, one of the economists using the term is a moonbat:
A separate Fed survey of regional economic conditions released Wednesday showed that the economy was slowing, led by declines in home sales and manufacturing, and that inflation was on the rise.
Other recent data — including retail sales, employment and wage data from April and May — suggest that the Fed’s previous rate hikes are slowing the economy. Economists said more increases by the Fed would run the risk of inducing a recession — and wouldn’t have much effect on inflation anyway because it was largely driven by the global demand for oil.
“The economy could be facing a bout with stagflation,” said Peter Morici, a University of Maryland business school professor. “My feeling is we’re headed for a tragedy here.”
Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said he also viewed stagflation as a possibility as credit tightening further damps the housing market and puts a crimp on the spending of homeowners.
“The May price data provides grounds for concern on several fronts,” he said.
“I think we’re in for some tough times.”
First, since 1st quarter growth was pegged at a robust 5.3% annual rate while the 4th quarter’s real GDP rate was revised upward to a very healthy 1.7%, any “grounds for concern” would seem to be wishful thinking on the part of partisans. What both gentleman economists were reacting to is information found in the “Beige Book,” a report issued 8 time a year by the Fed in preparation for it’s Open Market Committee meetings on rates:
Each Federal Reserve bank gathers anecdotal information on current economic conditions in its district. The beige book generally consists of reports from bank and branch directors and interviews with key business contacts, economists, market experts, and other sources. The beige book summarizes this information by district and sector.
This is clearly an important report. But to predict “tragedy” as a result of it’s “anecdotal” conclusions doesn’t sound much like science to me; more like spin don’t you think?
Now, to the economists quoted in the article who strangely (or perhaps not), were the exact same economists quoted in this SF Chronicle article of June 3 which also warned of a bad economic moon rising.
Peter Morici is indeed a recognized authority on trade, having served as Chief Economist for the International Trade Commission under President Clinton. He can also be fairly characterized as a liberal economist. Here’s an excerpt on a paper he did advocating a “social charter” for NAFTA:
Should a common floor be negotiated for workplace health and safety standards and environmental protection?
Also, once the door is opened to these issues, proponents of a Social Charter may wish to add legislatively-mandated worker benefits and rights. Generally, these are much more extensive in Mexico and Latin America than in the United States and Canada. U.S. pressure on Mexico to raise workplace safety and environmental standards may engender, in time, countervailing pressures on the United States and Canada to alter their worker entitlement laws.
Here are links to a couple of dozen other papers and op-eds by Professor Morici so that you can make up your own mind.
Regardless of whether he’s a liberal or conservative, Professor Morici is an oft-quoted economist because he always seems to have something interesting to say. He is, in effect, contacted by these publications because he can sex up an article with eye-catching quotes. For instance, he has been predicting for at least 3 years that that our trade deficit with China as well as our refusal to pressure the Chinese in altering the valuation of the yuan will result in catastrophe. He is the media’s “goto” guy on gloom and doom quotes on the trade deficit.
While I have no doubt that there is potential trouble in our economic relations with China (and he is not the only one who has been predicting such a calamity), the fact is he and others have been wrong - so far. And in fact, the Chinese have recently taken steps to devalue their overpriced currency.
The Professor may not be a partisan. But his quote about “stagflation” and “tragedy” is over the top. With interest rates at 5.25% and inflation still under 5%, that is a far cry from the kind of economic conditions we saw in the mid to late 1970’s which was the last time “stagflation” was used as a descriptive of the US economy.
On the other hand, we don’t have to worry about the political leanings of the other economist quoted in the article. Dean Baker is an unabashed liberal who heads up a recognized liberal economic think tank, the Center for Economic and Policy Research. His Board of Directors can fairly be described as a gaggle of far left activists and policy wonks. There’s Mark Weisbrot, an admirer of Hugo Chavez and other Latin American socialists. Brennan Van Dyke was a director at the radical Center for International Environmental Law . Robert Pollin is an advocate for the “Living Wage” and has written with admiration for socialist economic models in the third world.
My beef with the Times is not that they are quoting liberal economists it’s that they are only quoting liberal economists. I daresay that there might be opposing views with regards to whether or not the United States is headed into a period of stagflation. Isn’t it customary to include opposing viewpoints when writing about the political economy?
Maybe I’m just an old fashioned sort of fellow who remembers a time when such a thing was commonplace. But it appears to me that this kind of reporting is one more reason why the Los Angeles Times is sloughing off more readers than any other top 10 major paper, losing a whopping 5.4% of its readers in the last year.
This is not surprising news if you read Patterico, who has documented the LA Times descent both editorially and circulation wise. One wonders if they, like the New York Times, will do anything to stop their decline before two of our greatest newspapers fold up and die.
UPDATE
Today, my readers are truly blessed to receive the wit and wisdom of two addtional Moran brothers in the comments below.
My brother who hails from the great white north (is there still snow on the ground in Minneapolis, Larry?) has corrected my figures on the GDP as well as my disbelief regarding “stagflation” as a term used outside of the history books:
1. You have the GDP growth for the 4th/1st quarters backwards: 4th was stronger than the first (probably for some technical reasons).
2. While stagflation may not have been used in the popular press in a quarter of a century, the Wall Street Journal has mentioned it (small possibility) as have many Wall Street firm’s commentators. And stagflation doesn’t have to be really high inflation and really low growth; abnormally high, or the EXPECTATION of abnormally high inflation and the EXPECTATION of really low growth is enough to get people worried and affect the economy and the markets. I don’t see much evidence of it either, but the twin deficits (trade and budget) have a real possibility of increasing inflation, lowering confidence in the U.S. economy, and as a result lead to a low/no growth environment. Again, I don’t see it happening very soon but it’s something that needs to be addressed, and soon.
Hope all is well.
Indeed. With two of my more progressive brothers keeping an eye on me, I’m going to have to mind my P’s and Q’s - no more kool aid drinking or BSing from here on out…
Rick,
I visit your site frequently and read much of what you write with interest. Much to my dismay, however, today I was reading this post, and ran across the word “irregardless” as in “Irregardless of whether he’s a liberal or conservative, Professor Morici is an oft-quoted economist because…”
There’s no such word, and it detracts from a well-written entry. Please fix it…
Thanks!
James
Comment by James — 6/16/2006 @ 6:06 am
Jim:
You are half correct. I looked it up in my on line dictionary:
usage: Irregardless originated in dialectal American speech in the early 20th century. Its fairly widespread use in speech called it to the attention of usage commentators as early as 1927. The most frequently repeated remark about it is that “there is no such word.” There is such a word, however. It is still used primarily in speech, although it can be found from time to time in edited prose. Its reputation has not risen over the years, and it is still a long way from general acceptance. Use regardless instead.
I bow to the superior judgment of you and the inheritors of Samuel Johnson’s legacy.
Rick Moran
RWNH
Comment by Rick Moran — 6/16/2006 @ 6:13 am
Rick,
Thanks. I don’t normally nitpick about things like that, but that word has driven me crazy for years. Interestingly, while it may appear in online dictionaries, it has never found its way into a paper-based version of Webster’s - at least not as far as I know.
Comment by James — 6/16/2006 @ 7:20 am
Rick:
A few comments:
1. You have the GDP growth for the 4th/1st quarters backwards: 4th was stronger than the first (probably for some technical reasons).
2. While stagflation may not have been used in the popular press in a quarter of a century, the Wall Street Journal has mentioned it (small possibility) as have many Wall Street firm’s commentators. And stagflation doesn’t have to be really high inflation and really low growth; abnormally high, or the EXPECTATION of abnormally high inflation and the EXPECTATION of really low growth is enough to get people worried and affect the economy and the markets. I don’t see much evidence of it either, but the twin deficits (trade and budget) have a real possibility of increasing inflation, lowering confidence in the U.S. economy, and as a result lead to a low/no growth environment. Again, I don’t see it happening very soon but it’s something that needs to be addressed, and soon.
Hope all is well.
Larry
Comment by Larry (your brother) — 6/16/2006 @ 8:46 am
Are the professors ‘predicting’ the economy in the same class that predicted a new ice age 30 years ago and are now predicting we’re all gonna die from the world overheating?
Just a little pun that proves most professors have the same accuracy in making predictions as any Wino on a street corner. Ask a professor, ask a Wino, the answer may be different but the percentage of accuracy will be the same. I just don’t trust the ‘educational’ system of the past few years.
Comment by Scrapiron — 6/16/2006 @ 9:26 am
And from yet another brother -
As a dedicated reader of the LA Times for the entire thirty three years of my residence here, I have several times in the last ten years canceled my subscription over its descent into GenX-pandering mediocrity.
The only thing that has prevented me from so doing has been that experience we all had growing up of sharing and passing around parts of the paper at the breakfast table (after, of course, His Lordship [aka Daddy] had finished with it). Force of habit - I need an hour in the morning to read a newspaper, and not on a computer screen - and LA has no other practical choice.
[And for Rick's regular readers, sharing sections of the Chicago Tribune - USA today before there WAS a USA today - created some interesting conflicts that made subsequent political disputes seem mild by comparison, especially over the sports page].
That aforementioned descent began ten years or more ago with a pseudo-liberal PC coloring infecting its newswriting, most especially on the front page, that galled the hell out of me, even when the ultimate political point was one I had some sympsthy with.I like my news, like my coffee, straight.
But what conservatives need to understand is that you just can’t play that old “liberal media” card any more, if you ever could. It just does not exist aside from maybe the New York Times and perhaps ABC or CNN. You’ve set up a straw man in order to reinforce the image of the embattled and righteous (conservative) warrior.
The LA Times is your poster child for this reality.
Media in this country is controlloed by a small number of very large CORPORATIONS. They are profit-making machines, responsible ultimately to their shareholders, and rarely if ever tempted by political philosophy (unless it’s regulation-free, free market capitalism). They will sell whatever they think most people will buy, and their political consciences rarely extend much if at all beyond the bottom line.
The LA Times sensed it was losing readership at the same time - about 6 years ago - that Times-Mirror was sold to - the Chicago Tribune. The TRIBUNE, brothers - never a liberal or even moderate voice in American media.
And the LA Times abandoned its “liberalism” - a kind of noblesse obilge fostered by the recently-deceased Otis Chandler - for a “what we can sell a more conservative-readership - ism.”
That included heavily weighting their op-ed page with CONSERVATIVE columnists, jettisoning Robert Scheer,their last true liberal pundit - and skewing the opinion writing to mewling and puking Gen X scums whose “political” bent is a kind of generic “yeah, man” conservatism. And you guys wouldn’t want these writers, either - they do not represent even a conservative point of view with any vigor or intelligence.
In short, the LA Times has sold its soul and birthright for a mess of pottage. In attempting to appeal to what it perceives as its market, it has alienated much of its readership base - no longer liberal yet not quite conservative and in no way objective. It’s a mess.
Comment by JK Moran — 6/16/2006 @ 9:32 am
Post Script -
And I am hoping that you will reflect on (and perhaps engage with me concerning) your right wing activist law-making precedent-ignoring original-intent-blasting judges on the US Supreme Court continuing the gutting of the Fourth Amendment in “Hudson vs. Michigan.”
- whose case name the LA Times, by the way, never mentioned in an entire article on the decision. Not what I call journalism.
And though the editorial page gets in a huff about this, I neglected to add above that this supposedly liberal paper endorsed all of Schwarzenegger’s right-leaning but defeated propositions in the recent primary election.
Comment by JK Moran — 6/16/2006 @ 9:50 am
Rick,
Please change the title of this post to “LA TIMES OFFERS MORE PROOF WHY NO ONE EXCEPT CONSERVSATVE BLOGGRS BOTHER TO READ IT ANYMORE”
Also, it’s nice to know that your liberal etymological tendencies are now out of the closet. If you start using “yo beotch†in your writing, then we’ll have confirmation.
JK Moran - Please quit with the sweeping Gen-X generalizations. It’s not only mean, but also unwise to throw rocks in glass houses.
Comment by Andy — 6/16/2006 @ 9:54 am
All right, Andy - allow me to re-phrase away from GenX et cetera to something along the line of “callow and ill-informed younger target audiences in the 18 to 39 year old demographic.”
And there are no glass houses here as regards that.
Comment by JK Moran — 6/16/2006 @ 10:07 am
Sheesh! The one fricking post on economics I write in two years and I screw it up! Thanks for pointing that out, Larry, although I had a devil of a time trying to find the exact figures until (slapping my head) I googled up…the BEA:
http://www.bea.gov/bea/newsrel/gdpnewsrelease.htm
Please note the first paragraph:
Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property
located in the United States — increased at an annual rate of 5.3 percent in the first quarter of 2006,
according to preliminary estimates released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the fourth quarter,
real GDP increased 1.7 percent.
Not that I doubt you, but where did I go wrong?
And for my regular readers: NOW YOU KNOW WHAT I HAVE TO PUT UP WITH A FAMILY REUNIONS!
Jim:
I have “outgrown” using the old shibboleth about a “liberal” media in all but a handful of cases (read any news story from the AP and tell me there’s no bias) and the New York Times. Most of my media critiques today are based on skewering liberal columnists who can’t seem to keep their facts straight.
However, to posit the notion that the ever smaller circle of CORPORATIONS (gasp!) that own the media somehow put a conservative slant on straight news reporting ignores the individual biases of the noted White House, National Security, and political reporters who voted for Kerry in 2004 in percentages approaching 90%!
Most reporters - like our dear brothers - are able to professionally manage those biases by practicing the craft of journalism the way it should be done. Then there are the lazy ones who can’t be bothered. These nitwits inevitably are exposed by bloggers and made out to be the clock punchers they truly are.
And a word here about corporate guidance. Newspapers sell a brand. That brand is usually “accuracy” not bias (exceptions being Punch Sulzberger and the Reverend Moon). Getting the facts right is more important to say, the Los Angeles Times than it is to “Raw Story” or “Truthout.Org.” This is what concerns corporate managers; how the brand is doing, not whether or not Dana Priest (NS correspondent for the WAPo) is a liberal moonbat (she is) or whether Bill Salmon is a conservative conspiratorial loon (anyone who says there are al-Qaeda nukes in suitcases in this country falls into that catetgory).
And these same corporations exercise little control over the day-to-day publication of their newspaper - which makes any bias they have pretty much of a moot point.
Finally, as I mentioned, this is my first post about economics in nearly two years. I also don’t do legal. The decision sounds horrible. Then again, if you are the wife of a police officer sitting at home night after night waiting to get the worst phone call of your life, maybe she has a different perspective.
Comment by Rick Moran — 6/16/2006 @ 10:29 am
Ah, yes. The Eeeevil Corporation; driven by profit and immune to influence other than that from Karl Rove. To admit that NYT, ABC and CNN are biased portward (and you leave out the most conspicuous bad actor, Dan Rather’s CBS of blessed memory, and little else) is to admit that the bow is skewed. Simply admitting the NYT, knowing how much of what then is defined as “news” on their pages is then repeated down the food chain, is to admit Left bias in corporate entities. I don’t see how anything is left of your objection after that stipulation unless you want to talk some examples. There is of course an effect on media coverage from the top. We saw with the Chandler family objections to the decay of the LAT that, yes, there is a veto power from the board but it comes only when the stock price is shriveled to a fare-thee-well. A similar event is under way with the Sulzbergers. I love the persistence with which Lefties declare that they want their news “straight”, like they all define themselves as Centrist. Just saying it doesn’t make it true but if it ain’t true (and it ain’t) then it alters your navigation but you are unable to correct. Here be serpents. And we call them Democrats.
Comment by squidgie — 6/16/2006 @ 10:41 am
Good points brother Rick, especially about the presumed brand of newspapers being news. When newspapers drift in either direction from this, they lose credibility even when they gain readership.
To Squidgie - I believe you are reading my point only partially correctly. The bow is skewed indeed, but on the whole rather more to the right than left - in news and talk radio, in the majority of now corporate-owned newspapers, in advocacy outfits like Fox. The change has been in the shift away from family ownership as with the Sulzbergers, Grahams, and Chandlers in which the particular politics of the owners found expression in at least (and traditionally exclusively) in the editorial pages.Fox reflects Murdoch; this is hardly what one would call “straight.”
And this -
>>I love the persistence with which Lefties declare that they want their news “straightâ€, like they all define themselves as Centrist. Just saying it doesn’t make it true but if it ain’t true (and it ain’t) then it alters your navigation but you are unable to correct. Here be serpents. And we call them Democrats.
Comment by JK Moran — 6/16/2006 @ 11:15 am
- is silly. No one I know on the Left “define themselves as a Centrist.” A centrist is anyone named Clinton; only from the far far right could either of them be called a “liberal.” It has nothing to do with preferring generally unshaded news anyway.
From a strictly rhetorical point of view, your last 2 sentences and concluding fragment vitiate whatever integrity the rest of your comments may have had initially.
Comment by JK Moran — 6/16/2006 @ 11:27 am
JK,
You can take out the Gen-X term, but you still make generational generalizations. I supposed I can therefore make some of my own about the Boomers, who are a bunch of self-centered spoiled brats who rode in on the coattails of the WWII generation and gave little of value to American except spitting on the military, free sex and drugs and the decline of marraige as an institution. I’m sure I’m missing a few things there somewhere, but you get the idea.
Comment by Andy — 6/16/2006 @ 11:42 am
It is you, sir, who declare that your definition of “straight” coincides with objective. Fox is an advocacy outfit? Yup. Moreso than our heavyweights above mentioned? Um, no, jsut with a better (though of course much shorter) track record. But do you actually declare that the net effect industry wide is to the right? Oh, it is to laugh, but not to rebut since this conceit is a major leak in the Democrats’ bark. You DON’T think/believe/admit, per Evan Thomas that the skew of the media persistently benefits Dems? M’kay! Cuz with that you undermine the most potent element in the modern Dem/Left coalition. I scream with delight when I here of the libbies de-subscribing to the WaPo or NYT because these handmaiden’s of Rove/Scaife/Murdoch have become stridently Rightist. It is a great joy in an atmosphere dripping with joys. Do pile on.
I’m dying to know though, what is the paragon of straight news coverage these days? AP? Reuters? TruthOut? Howzabout this: let CNN be CNN and let Fox be Fox and we’ll see you at the Nielsons, at the stock ticker and at the polls.
As for the Clintons I’m pretty sure they call themselves “liberals” so, I guess, they reside on the Far Right. Genius! I never mentioned the name, by the way. I’m not sure what your point is. Is there one?
Comment by squidgie — 6/16/2006 @ 3:00 pm
Okay, anyone up for giving Terry a wedgie?
Comment by Badge 2211 — 6/16/2006 @ 5:53 pm
I remember they did something similar at the end of George W. Bush’s administration after we won the Gulf War. They attempted to turn two quarters of GNP contraction into “The worst economy since the Great Depression”. It wasn’t even officially a recession, let alone even near the Carter economic period.
Comment by crosspatch — 6/16/2006 @ 6:15 pm
OOPS ment George HW Bush
Comment by crosspatch — 6/16/2006 @ 6:15 pm
Andy -
>>you still make generational generalizations. I supposed I can therefore make some of my own about the Boomers, who are a bunch of self-centered spoiled brats
Comment by JK Moran — 6/16/2006 @ 7:23 pm
sorry - the second half of my comments isn’t getting posted - after quoting Andy I wrote:
You were welcome to make exactly this sort of generalization even without mine, and I’m sure you know that people have made just such a generalization.
While I of course would not agree with it, it is certainly a point of view worth serious discussion, as the implications of the bb generation aging into retirement are profound for Gen X and everyone else younger.
Rather than attempt a generational defence here and now (might be a good idea at some point for my own blog), I would simply point out on my brother’s right wing website that much of the success of the conservative revolution of the last 25 years has been due to these self-same Boomers, the ones who regarded the excesses of the New Left of the late 60s with enough disdain to work for decades to counteract what they regarded as the excesses of a fringe element of their own demographic cohort.
Comment by JK Moran — 6/16/2006 @ 7:25 pm
My ribbing about the generational thing is mostly that, but I think it is wise to avoid generalizations. I’m a bit jaded as I’ve grown up with boomers telling me what a slacker I am.
Comment by Andy — 6/16/2006 @ 7:41 pm
And I truly recognize your frustration with just such a generalization as I made. Certainly your sensitivity to my broad brush stroke - and I am presuming your active engagement with politics that leads you to read and post here - belies the slacker canard casually tossed your way by some of my fellow boomers.
Some generalizations have roots in a partial or perceived reality, which is why I would never take offence at the self-absorption allegation levelled at boomers, even though I don’t agree with it. My GenX indictment above was a flippant and frustrated comment that grew from a multitude of experiences with the slacker menrality (and I have been a high school and college teacher for more than 30 years).
Thanks to the entirely appropriate (in my view) umbrage that you took at being lumped into a generalization, I will most assuredly be more careful of the injustice of such statements here and elsewhere.
Comment by JK Moran — 6/16/2006 @ 10:40 pm
James and Rick: Thanks for clearing the word in question at the top of the comment section for me. I`ve been telling people the same thing as James said, that there is no such word, irregardless of how many repeat it. Oh the ir of it all!
OT: My time home was short lived and I`m back in Japan. Keep up the good work Rick as your site is one of my reality checkpoints
Comment by forest hunter — 6/17/2006 @ 9:45 pm
Rick–
As someone said in a movie once: “You never have an egg timer when you need one.”
From the Wall Street Journal, June 20. Third news story:
“The Dow Jones Industrials declined 72.44 to 10942.11 and the S&P 500 fell back into the red for the year on worries about stagflation.”
The way the WSJ has changed over the years, I would not look at this as deep economic analysis, but it shows some people are thinking about it.
Comment by Larry (your brother) — 6/20/2006 @ 7:17 am
I obviously don’t read enough economic news!
Then again, numbers always confused me. And math was never my strong suit in school. Besides, I had a nice qualifier when making that statement…
“perhaps the first time…”
To err is human. To admit it if you’re a blogger is divine. See my post today about the Truthout.Org mess and the Rove indictment that never happened.
Comment by Rick Moran — 6/20/2006 @ 7:28 am