Thursday, August 18, 2011

The Texas Jobs Machine


Now that the fog of political war has enveloped the debate about jobs and joblessness in Texas, the most I can do is offer some cogent analysis of the statistics.

I am very, very, very far from being competent to lead anyone through this fog, but I do recommend the detailed analysis offered in a blog called Political Math.

The blogger is not a Rick Perry supporter, and he has sufficient command of math and statistics to provide an analysis that factors in most of the relevant variables.

He concludes, thusly: ”My advice to anti-Perry advocates is this: Give up talking about Texas jobs. Texas is an incredible outlier among the states when it comes to jobs. Not only are they creating them, they're creating ones with higher wages.

“One can argue that Perry had very little to do with the job situation in Texas, but such a person should be probably prepare themselves for the consequences of that line of reasoning. If Rick Perry had nothing to do with creating jobs in Texas, than why does Obama have something to do with creating jobs anywhere? And why would someone advocate any sort of "job creating" policies if policies don't seem to matter when it comes to the decade long governor of Texas? In short, it seems to me that this line of reasoning, in addition to sounding desperate and partisan, hogties its adherents into a position where they are simultaneously saying that government doesn't create jobs while arguing for a set of policies where government will create jobs.”

7 comments:

The Ghost said...

actually its worse than you think ...

if they want to claim Texas jobs are a result of the regulatory and tax environment of Texas and have nothing to do with Perry then you have to look at the federal regulatory and tax environment and conclude they need to change ...

He may not have created the environment but he certainly managed it for quite a few years ...

David Foster said...

Goldman recently put out a report asserting that Perry had nothing to do with the Texas jobs situation..their arguments were similar to those cited at the link.
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Regarding oil/gas, it doesn't do any good for a state to have it if regulatory policies prohibit its use. That seems to be happening with regard to the nat gas potential in NY state.

I have noticed that numerous Wall Street players and related business journalists are feverishly opposed to any of the non-establishment Republican candidates. What might their motivations be? Partly, it is probably direct economic self-interest: despite all the Wall Street bashing, Obama susually comes through when someone on the Street wants a baiiout. Another factor, I feel sure, is that upper-middle-class-and-above Americans in urban areas, especially NYC, have a deep suspicion, fear, and contempt for Americans who are (a)rural, (b)Christian, and/or (c)not worshippers at the feet of academia.

Stuart Schneiderman said...

I think you're right, David. I haven't been out and around too much this week so I haven't picked up the local vibe about Perry, but I'm sure that New Yorkers, even the Wall Street type, will find him to be a product of an alien culture and will run in the other direction.

I guess that they would see Mitt Romney as one of them. They see Perry and Palin and Bachmann as too different to support.

Of course, they live in a city where there are fewer and fewer members of the middle class. In New York it's now the very rich and those who serve them.

To the list of cultural traits that threaten New Yorkers, let's add: middle class.

The amazing part is that these New Yorkers are comfortable voting for someone who represents the interests of labor unions, trial lawyers, and Palestinians... but not someone from rural America.

Dennis said...

Perry must have the Left running scared. The JournoList is throwing so much mud one would think he was Sarah Palin in drag. Couple that with the Obama people intimating they would like to run against Perry and one gets the rush to kill Perry off before he gets traction.
A lot of the jobs created in Texas are high paying jobs being taxed to death in places like California, Illinois, et al. A number of jobs are high tech. Nothing does more to improve an economy that a business friendly environment. This cannot be said for any of those states/cities where most of this drivel emanates like NY, Chicago, Los Angeles, et al.
It does seem to be that if you are a Blue state you are due to be blue.

Stuart Schneiderman said...

Perry certainly does have them running scared... I'm working on a new post about it... will be up within a few hours.

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