Old Stuff
Is Starvation Genocide?
Is the attempted starvation of a large population to meet a political objective genocide? What if up to 60% of that ethnic group will be starved? Apparently this is what some in Israel are advocating in respect to Iran:"Suffocating sanctions could lead to a grave economic situation in Iran and to a shortage of food," the source said. "This would force the regime to consider whether the nuclear adventure is worthwhile, while the Persian people have nothing to eat and may rise up as was the case in Syria, Tunisia and other Arab states." Source: Ynetnews.comIt is some what amazing that a people who history says were victims of genocide would propose what amounts to the same when not even under attack. How many Persians does Israel feel comfortable with the world starving to "prevent" Iran from building a nuclear weapon ? And would even the possession of such a weapon justify those actions? Would starving 10% of the population be acceptable (about 5 million of the 80 million Persians worldwide?) You decide.
On Iran and Inspections
J. Lewis has a good post up on ArmsControlWonk about the Iranian inspection situation. It includes two embedded videos from a different source which should be viewed before reading his comments. If you are not a wonk you may not find the videos quite as funny as I did but they are informative none the less.I think there are two issues which are paramount in the entire Iran fiasco to be. First, do we really believe they are currently working on a bomb or are we simply relitigating past NPT disgressions? I think all parties involved can say that without doubt there was a period of time during which Iran was, at the least, doing the necessary research to make a nuclear weapon. This is really no different than Sweden of S. Africa (and perhaps Brazil too.) The past is just that and what really matters is what is going on today. Is there firm evidence, independently reviewed (and hopefully not sourced by Israel) which points to plans for weaponization of their small stock of LEU?
Second, assuming that we are able to say firmly that they have the intention of producing a weapon in the near term, what of it? Is an Iran with a limited number of weapons of dubious delivery capability, such a serious threat to the United States that an attack is justified? And if an attack is made, will it forever erase nuclear weapons from Iran? After all, once they have the know how all it takes is the necessary quantity of HEU or PU to again make a weapon. The source of the material need not be Iran itself. Is the Iranian regime (not to be confused with MC Ahmadinejad) so irrational that they would risk certain anhiliation by detonating a smuggled weapon in the US (assuming they could even get a large HEU bomb into the US and in position to do serious damage?) The same arguments can be applied to Israel who have a large nuclear arsenal and the means to deliver such weapons timely and accurately. And assuming the Iranians did decide to attack Israel and were able to target a sufficient number of weapons to destroy the major population centers (before Iran is itself destroyed) what of Iran's allies in Lebanon and Syria? What of the "Palestinian homeland?"
The path we are on now appears to be an extremely costly conventional and asymmetric war which may also push Iran to weaponize, whether that was their original intent or not. And regime change is unlikely to change the Iranian view point as the general population is very much behind their nuclear program. Perhaps more thought should be given on how to create an environment where Iran does not feel the need to weaponize while also assuring others they they are not doing so clandestinely. Lewis is right when he says that the Agreed Framework bought a good amount of time between the Norks and the West but that ultimately it was wasted. Has every learned from those mistakes?
The Myth Of A Good Jobs Number
Look at these headlines!Job growth surges, jobless rate drops to 8.3 percent (reuters)WOW! Things really must be getting better! 243,000 jobs, 8.3% rate.
Unemployment rate falls to 8.3%; fifth straight monthly decline (LA Times)
Obama team trumpets good jobs numbers (USA Today)
US Jobless Rate Falls to 3-Year Low, Report Shows (NY Times)
Snap analysis: Job creation accelerates broadly (Reuters)
Or are they? Hmm.. well that all sounded good right? But what about the data behind those numbers? Things like labor force, participation rate, employment/population ratio... Shh.. those are too complicated for the newspapers and TV news! Besides, you're a good American right? Can't be talking things down in an election year!
Source:BLS.gov
HOUSEHOLD DATA
Summary table A. Household data, seasonally adjusted[Numbers in thousands]Category Jan.
2011Nov.
2011Dec.
2011Jan.
2012Change from:
Dec.
2011-
Jan.
2012
Employment status
Civilian noninstitutional population
238,704 240,441 240,584 242,269 -
Civilian labor force
153,250
153,937 153,887 154,395 - Participation rate
64.2 64.0 64.0 63.7 - Employed
139,330 140,614 140,790 141,637 - Employment-population ratio
58.4 58.5 58.5 58.5 - Unemployed
13,919 13,323 13,097 12,758 - Unemployment rate
9.1 8.7 8.5 8.3 - Not in labor force
85,454 86,503 86,697 87,874 -
So what really has happened in the past year? Well the civilian noninstitutional population rose 3.6 million. The civilian labor force rose 1.1 million. The participation rate FELL 0.5 percentage points. The employment to population ratio rose 0.1 percentage point to an abysmal 58.5%. Finally, those "not in labor force" rose nearly 2.3 million, an astounding 1.1 million in the last month alone.
So for the math challenged, the trick here has been to reduce the size of the labor force at a rate greater than the increase in number of persons employed. Presto chango you get a declining unemployment rate which makes the lede on every news report.
Of course, the reality is far different. What would the top line unemployment rate had been for Jan. 2012 if the participation rate were the same 64.2% as Jan. 2011? Hmm... 8.9%. How about if the participation rate were what it was in Jan. 2009 (65.4%)? 10.6%. Jan 2002 (66.2%)? 11.7% !
And of course, there is the other game that is played - seasonal adjustments. The fudge factor. One can avoid this too by looking at year over year unadjusted figures. For instance, Dec 2010/Dec 2011 and Jan 2011/Jan 2012. Using that method we have Dec'10 9.1%, Jan'11 9.8%, Dec '11 8.3% and Jan'12 8.8%
Splitting the difference, a drop of 0.9%. Wait.. did you say a drop? But...
The partipation rates also dropped - 0.3 pts Dec/Dec and 0.5 pts Jan/Jan. In fact, Jan 2012 is the LOWEST labor force participation rate in the past decade at 63.4%. This is reflected by the 2.6 million increase in 'not in labor force' over that same time frame. In fact, you must go back to pre-1984 to find similar rates. However, the trend at that time was upward from the 57.5 to 58.0% of the late 1940s to late 1960s when women were a smaller part of the work force. the peak at 66.1% in July 1997. On an annual basis 67.1% was the peak rate and ocurred in 1997-2000. From 2004-2008 the rate was 66.0. The other ratio, employment to population peaked at 64.4% in 2000 after spending the late 40s through 1970 either side of 56%. January 2012 saw this figure drop to 57.8%, last seen in 1983 and not far off from those Nifty Fiftie's rates.
Sorry to rain on the parade, but yes, things still really do suck.
