Don's Tuesday Column

        THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson   Red Bluff Daily News   12/19/2023

Delusions feed economic optimism

Curiously, the newest versions of Microsoft Word will gently chide you for using a word that may be politically “incorrect.” The word “insane,” for instance. My old version of Word lets me write “Governor Gavin Newsom is insane” without any attempt to flag it for inappropriateness. New Word apparently flags it and suggests a less stigmatizing term.

Now, I wouldn’t seriously write that because “insane” is a diagnostic term; however, “insane” can apply if someone says or believes things so nonsensical that the average, reasonable person would question their sanity. “The earth is flat” or “the moon is made of cheese,” for instance.

For a column accountable to editors and readers, propriety dictates that I can only say that Governor Gavin Newsom is wildly deluded to think that California’s economy is the envy of the nation, even the world, as he has suggested. He would certainly reject the idea that California’s economy is in “recession,” but that is exactly how Washington Examiner editor Conn Carroll puts it in “The United States isn’t in a recession, but California is” (12/08).

“The nonpartisan California Legislative Analyst’s Office reported Thursday that not only was California’s government facing a short-term $68 billion budget deficit, but the state appears to be in a recession.” The LAO put it like this: “California Entered A Downturn Last Year. [Due to Federal Reserve actions] California businesses have had much less funding available to expand operations or hire new workers…

“These mounting economic headwinds have pushed the state’s economy into a downturn. The number of unemployed workers in California has risen nearly 200,000 since the summer of 2022. This has resulted in a jump in the state’s unemployment rate from 3.8% to 4.8%.”

According to the “Sahm Recession Indicator,” a recession is initiated “when the three-month moving average of the unemployment rate rises by 0.5 percentage points or more relative to its low during the previous 12 months.” That same SRI applied the term “recession” to California’s economy in 2020 and during the Great Recession of 2008.

Unemployment calculations are often a matter of “junk in, junk out” when those considered to be “participating” in the labor force are arbitrarily included or excluded. For instance, I read that Tehama County’s unemployment rate is 5.3 percent, down from 6 percent for most of 2023. That’s a seemingly good number; however, since that rate is calculated on those actually working or looking for work, the many thousands of “working age adults” that have simply dropped out of the “labor force” are just ignored.

Of Tehama County’s nearly 66,000 population (2010), our “working population,” between 18 and 64, is about 56 percent (Neilsberg.com), or about 37,000 potential workers. And yet, Tehama County’s “Labor Force” is said to be 25,891. That means about 30 percent of our “working population” is not considered to be in the “Labor Force.”

That means that we could actually have over 30 percent “unemployment.” I’m sure that many of those in the “working age” demographic are genuinely not part of the labor force: Pregnant women and stay-home mothers, incarcerated criminals, students enrolled in college, early retired, etc. It is a fact, however, that for most of the last 15 years, those who give up even looking for work are simply not counted as part of the “labor force.” Nationally, that’s as many as several million non-workers which, if added to the unemployment rate calculations, dramatically raise that rate.

Work force “dropouts” don’t pay taxes, but do rely on the generosity of parents, family, friends or, in most cases, their ability to qualify for various government handouts. Previous generations considered it a personal character flaw to fail to find gainful employment and be a productive part of the economy. Current generations find it all to easy to use their adequate ingenuity to “qualify” for housing, income, health care, food stamp and other assistance—all at their fellow citizens’ expense.

So, when Biden and Newsom tout California’s economy as an example to America and the world, they are bragging about unemployment rates significantly higher than official statistics, some of the nation’s highest income inequality, and the nation’s highest poverty and homeless rates. Likewise, they are holding up to (unintended) ridicule the state that is providing a boost to other states’ productivity, tax base and Republican voter registration (Boise, Idaho’s incoming transplants register Republican over Democrat by three to one).

With a final urging to consult your doctor before blindly accepting the innocuousness of COVID shots, this is from theepochtimes.com, “How a COVID-19 Shot Upended Our Lives: Andre and Christian Cherry”: “Within a few hours of his second shot of the Moderna vaccine, Andre Cherry started having tremors in his left arm, which then spread to his other limbs. Soon he was forced to use a wheelchair. As his symptoms have worsened, he and his family have spent the last two years seeking help—and answers.” Certainly, an exception.

Birthday number 73 greets me on Wednesday; I hope the next round of labs is the same as the last.