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World

Recap of Threats and Intimidation from Washington Over Snowden

Whistleblower Edward Snowden has finally been granted asylum by a country that he’s actually able to travel to.  Regardless of whether asylum in Russia is only temporary, this is precisely the situation that the U.S. government has been trying to avoid ever since Snowden’s identity became known on June 9th.  According to the State Department, “Mr. Snowden is not a human rights activist, he’s not a dissident, he’s been accused of leaking classified information, has been charged with three very serious felony counts, and must be, should be, returned to the United States to face a free and fair trial as soon as possible.” 

When confronted with accusations that the extreme measures taken by the Obama administration to try to capture Snowden are a form of political persecution, the State Department offers contradictory rebuttals, first saying, “he would be tried as any U.S. citizen would be, and he remains a U.S. citizen.”  and then stating, “I wouldn’t want to compare [Snowden’s] case to any other case in the U.S. or elsewhere.”  This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the incoherent public statements made by U.S. government officials trying to justify their pursuit of Snowden. 

Many countries have received threats or suffered blowback for even considering Snowden’s asylum request.  Indeed, in perhaps one of the more dramatic moments so far in the Snowden saga, Bolivia’s president, Evo Morales, had his plane rerouted and searched based on an unfounded suspicion that Snowden was on board.  Given that Snowden seems to have found himself a stable living situation - at least for now - let’s step back for a moment and review some of the actions and statements of the Obama administration and members of the U.S. congress with regard to Snowden.  They reveal how important this case is to the government, and also some of the contradictions that have emerged in the process:

    1. Various parts of the U.S. government were involved in trying to win China’s cooperation with efforts to capture Snowden, and after he left for Russia strong words were used to illustrate U.S. frustration with China.  White House spokesperson Jay Carney said on June 24:

I think it’s fair to say that this is a setback in the effort by the Chinese to help develop mutual trust.  And I think, as we’ve said with regards to the failure by Hong Kong to provisionally arrest Mr. Snowden, that we don’t buy suggestions that the Chinese weren’t a part of -- that this was just a logistical or technical issue in Hong Kong alone.  So we do believe it’s a setback.  

While censuring China, he also tried to build a case for why Russia should cooperate:

I can note, as I have, that we have worked cooperatively with the Russians in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings and have a fairly substantial history of law enforcement cooperation with Russia as a backdrop to this discussion.  But I wouldn’t want to characterize communications at this point or speculate about outcomes.  This is clearly fluid and we’re monitoring --

Although it is difficult to be certain since other bilateral meetings were not open to the public, it seems like this tough rhetoric was not toned down during the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue.

CEPR / August 06, 2013

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Workers

Slow Progress for Fast-Food Workers
In recent weeks, fast-food workers have gone on strike in seven U.S. cities. Their demand for a $15-per-hour minimum wage in their industry – about $30,000 per year for a full-time worker, typically with no benefits – has underscored just how low the $7.2

John Schmitt and Janelle Jones / August 06, 2013

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Brooks and Marcus on PBS News: Getting Just About Everything Wrong on the Economy (see correction)

The PBS Newshour won the gold medal for journalistic malpractice on Friday by having David Brooks and Ruth Marcus tell the country what the Friday jobs report means. Brooks and Marcus got just about everything they said completely wrong.

Starting at the beginning, Brooks noted the slower than projected job growth and told listeners:

"Yes, I think there's a consensus growing both on left and right that we -- the structural problems are becoming super obvious.

"So when the -- this recession started a number of years ago, you had 63, something like that, out of 100 Americans in the labor force. Now we're down, fewer than in [the employment to population ratio is now 58.7 percent] -- than when the recession started. And so that suggests we have got some deep structural problems. It probably has a lot to do with technological change. People are not hiring -- companies are not hiring human beings. They're hire machines."

It's hard to know what on earth Brooks thinks he is talking about. There is nothing close to a consensus on either the left or right that the economy's problems are structural, as opposed to a simple lack of demand (i.e. people spending money). This is shown clearly by the overwhelming support on the Federal Reserve Board for its policy of quantitative easing. This policy is about trying to boost demand. A policy that the Republican Chairman, Ben Bernanke, has repeatedly advocated to Congress as well. This policy would not make sense if they viewed the weak demand for labor in the economy as being the result of structural problems. So clearly Brooks' consensus excludes the Fed.

It also is worth noting the other part of Brooks' story, that instead of hiring workers firms "hire machines," is completely contradicted by the data. Investment has actually slowed in the last couples of years. (Non-residential investment is up by just 2.4 percent from its year ago level.) This means that firms are not hiring machines, or at least not as rapidly as they had in prior years. Also the rate of productivity growth has slowed sharply from the pre-recession period. In the last three years productivity growth has averaged less than 1.0 percent a year. This compares to more than 2.5 percent a year from 1995 until the recession in 2007. This means that machines are displacing workers much less rapidly than in a decade when we had much lower unemployment.

Dean Baker / August 03, 2013