Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Bankrupt San Bernardino Hires Twice Bankrupt Manager for Annual Salary of $222,000
Obama's Infrastructure Mania; Why It's Not Justifiable (And What To Do About It)
Millennials, the Stressed (Screwed by Obama, the Unions, the Fed) Generation
Gasoline Prices Rise 34 Straight Days: Are Speculators to Blame? If Not, Who Is?

Bankrupt San Bernardino Hires Twice Bankrupt Manager for Annual Salary of $222,000

Posted: 22 Feb 2013 02:56 PM PST

The woes of twice bankrupt Allen J. Parker, age 71 may be over.

The bankrupt city of San Bernardino Hires the Twice Bankrupt Allen Parker as City Manager based on his "experience".

The bankrupt city of San Bernardino has hired a new city manager who, according to court filings, has twice declared personal bankruptcy and was recently ousted from the board of a small community's water company after being sued by shareholders.

The city council voted unanimously on Tuesday night to hire Allen J. Parker, 71, as its city manager on an annual salary of almost $222,000. He replaces an interim city manager who resigned last month because, according to friends, she was exasperated by the city's internal divisions.

Pat Morris, the mayor of the city in California, praised Parker's "wealth of city management experience" and expressed "great confidence" in his ability to oversee the city's affairs.

The California newspaper The Press-Enterprise reported on Thursday that Parker filed in 2011 for personal bankruptcy. In comments to the paper, Parker said that his bankruptcy and his ability to handle the city's fiscal problems were "apples and oranges."

The bankruptcy of San Bernardino, a city 65 miles east of Los Angeles, is a national test case as to whether the pensions of government workers take precedence over other payments in a municipal bankruptcy - a high stakes issue for pension plans and their beneficiaries, and for the Wall Street bondholders who lend money to governments.

Parker's first bankruptcy was in 1991 and his second in 2011. Apparently he is the best person available for the job.

But what job is that?

I strongly suspect the "job at hand" is to protect the interests and the pensions of the city council members and perhaps the unions (at the expense of taxpayers of course).

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Obama's Infrastructure Mania; Why It's Not Justifiable (And What To Do About It)

Posted: 22 Feb 2013 12:35 PM PST

Inquiring minds are watching an excellent video on The Kudlow Report between Larry Kudlow and David Harkin.

Harkin is the author of a study on US infrastructure and a professor at the university of North Carolina Charlotte.

Partial Transcript

Kudlow: President Obama wants to spend another $50 billion on repairs to our infrastructure. Do we really need it? That would be on top of the over $100 billion for the nonshovel ready projects back in the 2009 stimulus. Remember that? There's a new study that says we may not need it. Our roads and bridges are not crumbling and are much better than they were 20 years ago. How about that good news? David Harkin is the lead author of that study. David, thank you for coming on. I read the reports. Throughout the country in real terms adjusted for inflation, state control, highway spending has increased by 60%. 177% in nominal terms. 60% in real terms. They had good results.

Harkin: We were quite surprised when we looked at the numbers. The highway system has gotten better on all seven measures we looked at. Accidents rates are down. Even the pavements have been improved particularly for the interstate system. Even congestion is down too. This isn't, I think, generally common knowledge. Most people think the infrastructure is crumbling or falling apart. We found just the opposite.

Kudlow: Why is Washington then, so manic and obsessive about pouring more and more infrastructure money? Why?

Harkin: Well, the fundamental problem here is that the states control how that money will be spent. Some of it comes from the federal government and some of it from the states. So the feeling in the states and in Washington is that we just need more and more and more. But in fact the numbers don't support that. The numbers suggest that we're making progress and that's very good news for the public. So, in terms of where the issue should go here we ought to look very carefully at whether these requests are really needed.

Kudlow: David, here's one of my big beefs. This is highway money and bridge money. Davis-Bacon, the prevailing union wick, once you use federal dollars and it's true for these big union states like New York, New Jersey and California, Once do you that you have to pay the Davis-Bacon prevailing union wage rate which is at least a third higher than if you did it privately. That's my biggest beef about spending all this money.

Harkin: In our study we showed the cost for doing this work are much higher in a few states compared with the rest of the country like California, New Jersey, New York are very high cost states relative to the other states. To go back to the earlier question regarding whether this is just a problem of the interstate system or whether the civil engineering report is correct, you know, let's remember the civil engineering report looks at only one year and is based on opinions from local experts. But it doesn't look back in time to see whether we made progress. David Harkin thank you ever so much. congratulations on your study which blows the lid off all this infrastructure money proposal coming out of Washington.

End Transcript

Davis-Bacon Background

I have discussed Davis-Bacon on many occasions. Inquiring minds interested in a background on the original purpose of the act should read My Thoughts on the Davis-Bacon Act.

"... while the sponsors and supporters of the Act also intended it to disadvantage immigrant workers of other races, these thinly veiled references make it clear that the Act was primarily intended to discriminate against blacks."

The Davis-Bacon Act as amended, requires that each contract over $2,000 to which the United States or the District of Columbia is a party for the construction, alteration, or repair of public buildings or public works shall contain a clause setting forth the minimum wages to be paid to various classes of laborers and mechanics employed under the contract. Under the provisions of the Act, contractors or their subcontractors are to pay workers employed directly upon the site of the work no less than the locally prevailing wages and fringe benefits paid on projects of a similar character. The Davis-Bacon Act directs the Secretary of Labor to determine such local prevailing wage rates.

There are 117 classifications of jobs for which some set of bureaucrats must determine "prevailing wages". Here is a partial list:

ASBE = International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Asbestos Workers
BOIL = International Brotherhood of Boiler Makers, Iron Shipbuilders, Blacksmiths, Forgers and Helpers
BRXX = International Union of Bricklayers, and Allied Craftsmen
(bricklayers, cement masons, stone masons, tile, marble and terrazzo workers)
CARP = United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America
ELEC = International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
(electricians, communication systems installers, and other low voltage specialty workers)
ELEV = International Union of Elevator Constructors
ENGI = International Union of Operating Engineers
(operators of various types of power equipment)
IRON = International Association of Bridge, Structural and Ornamental Iron Workers
LABO = Laborers' International Union of North America
PAIN = International Brotherhood of Painters and Allied Trades
(painters, drywall finishers, glaziers, soft floor layers)
PLUM = Operative Plasterers' and Cement Masons' International Association of the United States and Canada
PLAS = United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Industry of the United States and Canada
ROOF = United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers
SHEE = Sheet Metal Workers International Association
TEAM = International Brotherhood of Teamsters

Even FDR Understood the Problem

Public unions get into bed with management and politicians and work out sweet deals for themselves at taxpayer expense. No one looks out for the taxpayer. Even FDR understood the problem.

Message From FDR

Inquiring minds are reading snips from a Letter from FDR Regarding Collective Bargaining of Public Unions written August 16, 1937.

All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management.

The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations.

Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of Government employees.

A strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable.

Time to Scrap Davis-Bacon, End Public Union Collective Bargaining

Before any project can be economically viable, labor costs must be addressed, and that is exactly why we need to scrap Davis-Bacon and all prevailing wage laws. We also need to eliminate collective bargaining of public unions.

Unless and until we do that, we will dramatically overpay for infrastructure projects and taxpayers will pay through the nose for them.

Government should strive to provide the most services at the least cost. Public unions strive to provide the fewest services at the most cost. Is it any wonder cities and states are broke?

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Millennials, the Stressed (Screwed by Obama, the Unions, the Fed) Generation

Posted: 22 Feb 2013 10:37 AM PST

Those looking for a reason for sluggish housing, weak retail sales, and low family formations rates, need only look at the plight of millennials (those aged 18-33).

Many millennials have no job, high student debt with no way to pay the debt off, and few job opportunities beyond part-time employment in food services or retail.

Millennials are the ones who Obama targeted to pay for Obamacare. Indeed, the forced inclusion of youth (who will overpay for health care) is supposedly what made Obamacare "affordable".

Yet, even with the screw job on youth, the "Affordable Health Care Act" is so unaffordable that Companies Opt of Obamacare, Not Even Labor Unions Want It.

Speaking of labor unions, the odds millennials get the same benefit packages going forward that public unions receive today are roughly zero percent. Nonetheless, expect tax rates on millennials to rise so that ungracious, unappreciative boomers get ridiculous benefits they do not deserve and did not earn.

The Stressed Generation

Is it any wonder a study of of Stress in America by the American Psychological Association shows millennials to be the most stressed generation.

Both Millennials and Gen Xers report an average stress level of 5.4 on a 10-point scale where 1 is "little or no stress" and 10 is "a great deal of stress," far higher than Boomers' average stress level of 4.7 and Matures' average stress level of 3.7.

The four generations are defined as following: Millennials (18- to 33-year-olds), Gen Xers (34- to 47-year-olds), Boomers (48- to 66-year-olds) and Matures (67 years and older).

Thirty-nine percent of Millennials say their stress has increased in the last year, compared to 36 percent of Gen Xers, 33 percent of Boomers and 29 percent of Matures.

More than 52 percent of Millennials report having lain awake at night in the past month due to stress, compared to 48 percent of Gen Xers, 37 percent of Boomers and 25 percent of Matures.

Additionally, 44 percent of both Millennials and Gen Xers report experiencing irritability or anger due to stress, compared to 36 percent of Boomers and 15 percent of Matures.

America's Most Stressed Generation

The Huffington Post comments on the above study in Millennials Come of Age as America's Most Stressed Generation

Not surprisingly, work is one of the biggest causes of stress, with 76 percent of Millennials reporting it as a significant stressor, compared to 62 percent of Boomers and 39 percent of Matures. "Many of these young people have come out of college or graduate school with horrendous student debt into a job market where there are not very many jobs," said Katherine Nordal of the APA. "This has put their life plans, probably, on hiatus."

The job numbers are indeed grim. According to Generation Opportunity, the unemployment rate for Millennials rose to 13.1 percent in January, up nearly 2 points from December. Among young African-Americans, it's a whopping 22.1 percent. And if you count those 18-29 year-olds who have given up and dropped out of the labor force, the overall youth unemployment rate stands at 16.2 percent.

And even for the lucky ones who are working, the picture remains bleak. According to the Economic Policy Institute, between 2000 and 2011 wages adjusted for inflation fell by over 11 percent for young high school grads and by 5.4 percent for young college grads. It doesn't help that, as a study by the Center for College Affordability found, 48 percent of working college grads are in jobs that don't require a college degree and 38 percent are in jobs that don't require a high school diploma. The report concluded that from 2010 to 2020, while 19 million college grads will be hitting the job market, the economy will add fewer than 7 million jobs requiring a college degree. That's a pretty serious -- and stress-producing -- gap.

And any of those heavily indebted, heavily stressed-out Millennials listening to President Obama's State of the Union speech would not have gotten much stress relief. He did acknowledge the increasingly untenable cost of higher education -- "Today, skyrocketing costs price too many young people out of a higher education, or saddle them with unsustainable debt" -- and declared that he would "ask Congress to change the Higher Education Act so that affordability and value are included in determining which colleges receive certain types of federal aid."

Not Promising at All

In regards to Obama's plans for education, Arianna Huffington misses the mark completely.

She says "Obama's push for colleges and universities to increase enrollment and the number of degrees they grant is a great goal." She also says changes to the higher education act "sounds promising if it ever happens".

Affordable education won't happen under Obama because neither Obama nor Huffington address the fundamental problems.

Fundamental Reasons College Costs Soared

Guaranteed student loans
Student loans cannot be discharged in bankruptcy
Untenable wage and benefit structures of teachers and administrators
Too much push for everyone to go to college whether they are suited or not
Federal grants and other costly programs designed to make college affordable but do the opposite
Outright lies and fraud by for-profit schools that lure students into believing they can become a chef or a Java programmer
Lack of enough accredited online universities
No competition in general

The millennials were screwed by all of the above. They were also screwed by Fed policies that punish savers to the benefit of the already wealthy.

Millennials became debt slaves in the process, to the benefit of the banks, the school administrators, and the teacher's unions.

Stressed by that? You bet. Screwed is more like it.

For an explanation of how millennials were screwed by the Fed, please see ...

Screwed Generation

The Daily Beast asks Are Millennials the Screwed Generation?

How has this generation been screwed? Let's count the ways, starting with the economy. No generation has suffered more from the Great Recession than the young. Median net worth of people under 35, according to the U.S. Census, fell 37 percent between 2005 and 2010; those over 65 took only a 13 percent hit.

The wealth gap today between younger and older Americans now stands as the widest on record. The median net worth of households headed by someone 65 or older is $170,494, 42 percent higher than in 1984, while the median net worth for younger-age households is $3,662, down 68 percent from a quarter century ago, according to an analysis by the Pew Research Center.

Quick prospects for improvement are dismal for the younger generation. One key reason: their indebted parents are not leaving their jobs, forcing younger people to put careers on hold. Since 2008 the percentage of the workforce under 25 has dropped 13.2 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, while that of people over 55 has risen by 7.6 percent.

The screwed generation also enters adulthood loaded down by a mountain of boomer- and senior-incurred debt—debt that spirals ever more out of control. The public debt constitutes a toxic legacy handed over to offspring who will have to pay it off in at least three ways: through higher taxes, less infrastructure and social spending, and, fatefully, the prospect of painfully slow growth for the foreseeable future.

In the United States, the boomers' bill has risen to about $50,000 a person. In Japan, the red ink for the next generation comes in at more than $95,000 a person. The huge public-employee pensions now driving many states and cities—most recently Stockton, California toward the netherworld of bankruptcy represent an extreme case of intergenerational transfer from young to old. It's a thoroughly rigged boomer game.

More maddening still, the payback for this expensive education appears to be a chimera. Over 43 percent of recent graduates now working, according to a recent report by the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development, are at jobs that don't require a college education. Some 16 percent of bartenders and almost the same percentage of parking attendants, notes Ohio State economics professor Richard Vedder, earned a bachelor's degree or higher.

The "Last" Generation

My friend "BC" has a few thoughts on the screwed generation. "BC" writes ...

Millennials suffer from ...

Lack of durable paid employment

Contingent low-wage, part-time employment

Few (if any) opportunities for occupational/career trajectories

Low or no income and purchasing power

Heavy debt burden

No ability to save

Few options to overcome individually or collectively the cumulative socioeconomic, fiscal, and distributional structural constraints bearing down on them

The generation coming of age does not have the paid employment and after-tax purchasing power necessary to support the growth of a debt-based mass-consumer economy, big mortgages, the crushing costs of parenting, discretionary spending, Obamacare, and elder transfer programs for the Boomers nor for themselves.

In this sense, the Millennials are the "Last" Generation.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

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Gasoline Prices Rise 34 Straight Days: Are Speculators to Blame? If Not, Who Is?

Posted: 21 Feb 2013 11:14 PM PST

Given a two-day plunge in crude futures, gasoline prices may have hit a temporary peak.

Nonetheless, consumers feel the pinch as pump prices have risen 34 straight days. For only the fifth time in history Gas prices topped $4 a gallon in District of Columbia.

Nationwide, the price of a gallon of regular gasoline climbed to $3.78 a gallon, up 47 cents in the past month, the AAA said.

In parts of California, Gasoline Prices Topped $5.00 on February 5. CNN Money has an interactive Gas Price map to check prices in your state.

Republicans Cry Foul

Yahoo!News reports Politicians Cry Foul Over High Gas Prices, Urge Action on Keystone XL

Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., posted a "Keystone Clock " on his House Energy Committee's website Wednesday. The chairman states more than 1,615 days have passed since TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline proposal sought approval. Joining Upton's call to build the pipeline is Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio. Executives at TransCanada have tried a different tactic to try to get approval from the Obama administration by claiming the pipeline won't affect global warming.

The tug of war between economics and environmentalism is escalating thanks to 34 straight days of rising gasoline prices.

Boehner posted a "Running on Empty " graphic Tuesday. The Speaker of the House complains gas prices have "soared $0.43 since Jan. 17" before remarking with his own Keystone clock, "How long will Americans have to wait?"

Boehner cites several sources, including nine Democratic senators, who want Obama to approve the project quickly. The pipeline may not see a decision until mid-June. Around 20,000 jobs and nearly a million barrels of oil a day are at stake for American oil companies.

Speculators to Blame?

The Salt Lake Tribune reports Spike in gasoline prices points to speculators

"Like locusts ravaging fertile crops, gasoline prices are soaring again and eating away at the purchasing power of ordinary Americans. And again, financial speculators appear to be a big part of the story."

Refinery Closures

In Recovery Killer? Gas Prices Barrel Toward $4 a Gallon CNN notes refinery closures.

Five dollar a gallon gas "is a real possibility" said John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital in New York. "This is partly being driven by the lost refinery capacity of about one million barrels per day...that's a lot."

Kilduff cited Hess's (HES) closure of a key refinery hub in Port Reading, New Jersey in January as a major factor that has sent gas on a tear. "Prices haven't looked back since," he said.

"It's one of about eight refineries that have announced closure. Now the East Coast is heavily reliant on [gas] imports when it used to be self-sufficient," Kilduff stated.

Speculation Nonsense

Refinery closures are one part of the puzzle. If speculators have driven up the price of oil (and that is debatable) it's not the speculators who are to blame, but rather the Fed.

By providing massive liquidity and negative real interest rates, the Fed encouraged speculation in the stock market, in junk bonds, and in commodities.

I believe there is a bubble in all of those areas. The Fed's intent was not to foster bubbles per se, but rather to stimulate housing and spur job creation. On the job creation front, the fed failed miserably, and bloated its balance sheet to over $3 trillion dollars in doing so.

Fed policies have destroyed those on fixed income for the benefit of the banks and wealthy, as I wrote on Wednesday in Reader Asks Me to Prove "Inflation Benefits the Wealthy" (At the Expense of Everyone Else).

The Bernanke Fed is so out of line that the House Subcommittee on Economic Growth Demands Answers From Bernanke on Fed's Exit Strategy; Fed Must Reply by March 5

Yet the media blames those evil speculators. Get real.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

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Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

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