Macro Corner 2016...I just penned this piece today for an alumni news letter. Regime change begins at home.

Macro Corner 2016

Hello out there all you friends of the economics department, time for another sit down with the old tale spinner. As the 13^th of this month brings my 56^th birthday, the “old” part fits more than ever. I know the president said it is “pedaling fiction” but somehow I just can’t seem to get my arms around singing the praises of this economy and how it has performed over the last few years. Last month’s jobs report of 151,000 is pathetic and is only matched by last quarter’s growth of .7%. These are the kind of numbers that has an economy stumbling sideways worse than some drunk ECU frat boy tripping on the curb trying to get into the football stadium. But there are other numbers that will perhaps “move you from your comfort zone” as the president has said about the objective of social activism.

Let’s start with the labor force participation rate. This used to be a procyclical macro variable, going up in expansions and down in recessions. Well, not any more. This variable shows the new age we live in, where 5% of the workforce can vanish and no one says anything except we are at full employment. Half of the decline is from baby boomers leaving the workforce to the tune of 10,000 people a day. But the other half, as Chicago economist Casey Mulligan showed in his book The Redistribution Recession, are people who have exited the labor force because of the increase in the value of transfer payments. Make it more attractive to not be in the labor force and what do you get? Less labor force participation and a return to 1978. Who knew?

But worse than this, in 1960 1 in 20 prime-aged adult males between ages 25-54 (note where I am now classified) were not in the labor force (5%). Today it is approaching 1 in 5. Think of that for a moment…almost 20% of the young prime-aged dudes of this country are not participating in gainful employment. What are they doing then? Growing up in Chicago, my father God rest his soul would call guys like these “bums”.  I won’t go there, but if a young man does not have a job that leads to a career, that then leads to responsibility and personal growth, then what is he doing? Painting fences and helping old ladies across the street? I sort of doubt it.

But it gets even better, or worse I should say. Just 15 short years ago 62% of the young folks between the ages of 20-24 were in the labor force and working. Today it is but a mere 42%. The way I always thought it worked was you got educated, went to work, got a career, found a life partner, bought a home and built a life for yourself and your significant other. Now that does not seem to be the case anymore. The opportunities for people starting out have dried up significantly. A two percent growth economy, and an economy that has not seen three percent annual growth since 2005, does not produce the dynamic qualities needed to create jobs enough for our new graduates to flourish and begin their employment paths like we did. The opportunities are not there. You can fill in the blank as to why. But we are failing our young people and that is the biggest disappointment of all.

So if your son or daughter asks to move back home after graduation, be kind and set some rules. But under no circumstances should you cash in your 401K to build an extension on the home for Junior and his girlfriend/boyfriend. Just say no.

And for all the young people who are for Bernie Sanders, I’ll repeat what H.L. Mencken once famously said…”Democracy is the theory that the common man knows exactly what he wants…and deserves to get it good and hard.” When Sanders is elected and all those Karl Marx wannabes are in the unemployment line, maybe then they will really feel the Bern.   

Remember regime change begins at home. Hope to see you at the golf tournament.

Dr. Parker

Mao and Robespierre live. "No justice, No Peace" works in Selma. Not at Chapel Hill.

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article56623573.html

Jonah Goldberg at his best, and I'm over at the tailgate with him.....time for all you little Mao wannabes to dry your eyes and wipe the snot from your noses.

http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1snrpt5

Here is the link to the Economic Symposium with Lee Ohanian on October 5, 2015. Very nicely recorded by the University video people if I must say.

https://mediasite.ecu.edu/MS/Play/3e34ba6367ac48c58bfff49a6c704aa31d

Here is the Interview with Lee Ohanian on Carolina News and Views. The Lunchtime symposium was also recorded and I will post that shortly when I receive it.

http://www.newsandviewswithtomandsadie.com/october-5-2015-ucla-economist-lee-ohanian-need-a-gop-communicator-obama-wants-un-to-police-america/

Here is a public program I did last week. I start at minute 17, so move the cursor there if you like. Someone emailed me and said I was "terribly condescending".

This is actually an improvement since a couple years ago, I went on this program and someone emailed me and called me "fat a$$". Well as my late father always told me "son, know who you are and make the most of it".



http://www.newsandviewswithtomandsadie.com/september-23-2015-goodbye-yogi-a-look-at-the-economy-with-ecu-economics-professor-randy-parker/

The more I listen the more I like this guy.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/08/24/blacklivesmatter-sanders-clinton-anger-column/32055507/

Welcome home Herbert Marcuse....

Let us hear from the great Marxist scholar (a contradiction if ever there was one) himself from his monumental work Repressive Tolerance (and how's that for a title?):


Liberating tolerance, then, would mean intolerance against movements from the Right and toleration of movements from the Left.

Surely, no government can be expected to foster its own subversion, but in a democracy such a right is vested in the people (i.e. in the majority of the people). This means that the ways should not be blocked on which a subversive majority could develop, and if they are blocked by organized repression and indoctrination, their reopening may require apparently undemocratic means. They would include the withdrawal of toleration of speech and assembly from groups and movements which promote aggressive policies, armament, chauvinism, discrimination on the grounds of race and religion, or which oppose the extension of public services, social security, medical care, etc.



Now let's hear from the great sociologist at Washington State University from her syllabus as discussed in yesterday's post:


Gross generalizations, stereotypes, and derogatory/oppressive language are not acceptable. Use of racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, classist, or generally offensive language in class or submission of such material will not be tolerated. (This includes “The Man,” “Colored People,” “Illegals/Illegal Aliens,” “Tranny” and so on - or referring to women/men as females or males) If I see it or hear it, I will correct it in class since it can be a learning moment for many students. Repeated use of oppressive and hateful language will be handled accordingly – including but not limited to removal from the class without attendance or participation points, failure of the assignment, and - in extreme cases - failure for the semester



Well there you have it ladies and gentlemen, there you have it! My fellow speech Stasi I salute you!

That's right...you are forbidden from using the terms male/female and he/she.

Read it for yourself. It is in black and white. I guess the angle is that if you use words like male and female and have figured out who you are, it is oppressive to use those words to those who have not figured out who they are, at least where gender is concerned.

How about this....you don't oppress my freedom of expression which the first amendment protects, and which I in no way mean to be offensive when using the words male/female and he/she and I'll help you along on your life's journey and let you be who you are and protect you against those who wish to do you harm while you are living it and working these things out.

Do we have a deal?

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/423375/washington-university-ban-syllabus-male-female-Breikss-professor

I miss this guy....

Christopher Hitchens is gone now and that is too bad. Although I frequently found him to be unnecessarily acerbic he was a brilliant mind. Well, I finally got to his book God is not great. It will certainly shake your faith, but there are many ways for that to be done. I have never bought the line that one must believe all the doctrines of a particular religion ... lock, stock and barrel ...or you are not a "true" believer. Pssshaw to that. This is when religion can be the "metal shackle" that Hitchens long claimed it to be.

Anyway he has true wisdom here that I am going to quote at some length. Here he is talking about his abandonment of Marxism:

"Those of us who had sought a rational alternative to religion had reached a terminus that was comparably dogmatic. What else was to be expected of something that was produced by the close cousins of chimpanzees? Infallibility? Thus, dear reader, if you have come this far and found your own faith undermined-as I hope-I am willing to say that to some extent I know what you are going through. There are days when I miss my old convictions as if they were an amputated limb. But in general I feel better, and no less radical, and you will feel better too, I guarantee, once you leave hold of the doctrinaire and allow your chainless mind to do its own thinking."

He went on in the book to say that he would be willing to posit that religion does some good in the world if the same religious people were brave enough and willing to say that religion was and is a source of great evil.

Here here old boy, and God bless your soul Hitch.

My faith is shaken but neither subverted nor abandoned. And I will not let it be a mental shackle. The crusades for an equitable income distribution and the scourge of corporate and personal taxation penance are all the mental shackles this country needs at the moment. Throw in the "(insert suitable color here) lives matter" gobbledygook and our national residence in purgatory is set for some time to come.