Monday, March 8, 2004

The Horror!

I think cole slaw is one of the three-or-so most disgusting things on this planet. I have seen people eat it. I have seen them claim to enjoy it. I have never figured out who they think they're kidding or why they want to mislead me into believing the stuff is edible. If and when I become president, there will be a Constitutional Amendment requiring an immediate death penalty for the making of cole slaw.

With that in mind, this is the most horrifying thing I have seen to date on the Internet. If you're the sensitive type, don't click on it.

• Posted at 5:35 PM · LINK

Postfree Peanuts

If you've delayed ordering the first volume of The Complete Peanuts from Fantagraphics, do so now. Shipping has been delayed (they're now saying March 31) so they've extended the offer for Free Shipping until March 15. We like Free Shipping. Free Shipping is a good thing. Go here and get Free Shipping. And thank Brandon Power for pointing out to me about the Free Shipping.

• Posted at 5:19 PM · LINK

Today's Political Rant

Here's an odd political thought. One of the big reasons George W. Bush is dropping in most polls (losing 52-44 in the current Gallup/CNN) is that we seem to have what they call a "jobless recovery." Jobs are simply not being created to keep up with the expanding demand for them. Here are some rough numbers as I understand them.

The pool of new people seeking employment is said to expand at the rate of about 150,000 per month. Now, there seems to be some disagreement over how much the job market has to expand to accommodate all those new potential workers. There's a thing called a "mobility factor" which means that you need more than 150,000 jobs created to serve 150,000 people. This is because the jobs do not always appear where the workers are. An availability of new minimum wage jobs in Maine doesn't help the people looking for work in California. Some say we need at least 200,000 new jobs a month just to keep pace and of course, we need a lot more than that if we're going to reduce unemployment. Whatever the number, we're falling far short of it.

Every month, the administration predicts more jobs will be created and every month, their projections are spectacularly wrong. In February, for example, they forecast 130,000 and the total growth was only 21,000. What's worse is that all 21,000 were in the public sector, meaning only that the government hired more people. Conservatives are supposed to hate the whole notion of more folks on Uncle Sam's payroll, and the Bush tax cuts were supposed to spur private industry to create more jobs.

Clearly, that's not happening. Today in Dallas, Bush bragged, "We've added more than 350,000 new jobs over the last six months. The tax relief we passed is working." 350,000 in six months is pretty far short of what the country needs just to stay even, and even that number will probably, like most recent reports, be revised downward. The announced January gain of 112,000, for instance, has recently been restated as 97,000. So clearly, the principle that you cut taxes for the wealthy so they'll create more jobs for the rest of us is becoming increasingly hard to argue.

Now, here's where we come to my weird thought of the day...

Let's say you run a big company. Let's say you're part of the top management of Wal-Mart. Well, you have to love the Bush administration. You're pocketing $20 billion per month and even if you pay honestly, you're paying one of the lowest corporate tax rates in American history, to say nothing of all the other perks you derive from a business-friendly government. Wal-Mart has already donated a million bucks to G.O.P. candidates and its top execs are making personal donations, as well. So why not, around October of this year, start hiring like crazy?

Wal-Mart employs 1.2 million Americans. An average employee makes around $1,000 per month. If they suddenly decided to add 100,000 employees in October, kept them through the Christmas rush and fired them all January 1, it would cost around $300 million. (These are obviously very rough numbers. All I'm presenting here is the principle.) Now, they may not need 100,000 more workers now but through Christmas, they'll need some increase, and every company has short-term work that can be done, so it's not like that $300 million wouldn't give them some useful service. They could even cut back on the hours of some current workers, keeping them technically employed but passing some of their work on to others who would now also be counted as employed.

What I'm getting at is that Wal-Mart could easily hype the employment numbers just before the election. It might cost them some bucks but it also might cost them less than John Kerry as president. If Target, Sears, K-Mart and a few dozen others all made a point of putting on extra workers in October, they could enable the Bush administration to say, "The jobs are coming back," and there would be no real way to prove they were only temporary.

This would be more than a matter of keeping Bush in office. A lot of wealthy folks in this country have a lot riding on the proposition that slashing taxes for the rich will ultimately benefit all. The premise has always been arguable and G.W.B. is certainly making it harder to defend. If a backlash against that supposition merely raised the maximum corporate tax rate from 35% to, say, 38%...well, someone else will have to do the math but it seems to me that would cost Wal-Mart a lot more than hiring some extra workers for a few months.

• Posted at 3:38 PM · LINK

Running Commentary

Yesterday morning, my friend Carolyn and I walked a few blocks from my house to watch some of the L.A. Marathon. Our vantage point was around mile 17 of the 26 mile competition, so the runners we cheered on were getting weary but were, for the most part, still pretty strong. They seemed appreciative of the huge crowds that turned out to line the streets, and even more appreciative of the volunteers handing out oranges and bottles of water.

It was a colorful, if sweaty crowd. There were a couple of folks in clown make-up and one wearing one of those full-face masks that Mexican wrestlers favor. There was one runner pushing a stroller containing an infant jogger-of-tomorrow. My unscientific survey of those who passed us showed a pretty hefty percentage of New Balance shoes, my footwear of choice. I did not spot animation expert Amid Amidi who, I see from his weblog, was somewhere among the 24,000 starters...but he may have passed us while I was studying running shoes. (Amid, you and all those who ran have my respect. I could barely make it down to watch you.)

The whole mood was very festive. There was a rock band playing near where we were, and they were good even if every third song was "Roll Over, Beethoven." Some spectators were dancing right in front of the bandstand and every so often, a runner would detour out of the lane to join them in a few steps. A lot of onlookers held up signs that read, "Go, [name of some runner]." On the way down, I spotted a lady who was walking away from the site with one that said, "Go, Donny!" Donny, apparently, had already passed so her work was done. A couple on their way to the route stopped her and apparently said, "Hey, we're going down to cheer on someone named Donny. Could we have your sign?" And she gladly handed it over. I don't know why but I liked that. I liked the whole brief trip to watch the runners. Especially because I wasn't one.

• Posted at 10:09 AM · LINK