Bruce Bartlett is a mensch.
A mensch, at least as I was taught the term, is someone who takes responsibility for his actions, including his mistakes. Alas, “menschlichkeit” is a rare virtue in modern America, certainly in the political sphere, where nobody ever admits to being wrong about anything.
So all hail Mr. Bartlett, who has written movingly in The American Conservative magazine’s December issue about how he came to realize that conservatism and its economic doctrine weren’t what he imagined them to be, and in particular how he came to realize that Keynesian analysis had a point. Mr. Bartlett’s essay only drives home, of course, how very few economists — whether in the policy/think tank world or in academia — have been willing to do the same. You have to wonder in particular about the prominent economists who threw their support behind Mitt Romney in his late, unlamented campaign.
They have to have known that Mr. Romney was talking nonsense, that his numbers didn’t remotely add up; and some of them made what sure look like patently disingenuous arguments about taxes, the business cycle and more. Was it a case of political allegiance trumping professional standards? Or was it personal ambition above all? And no, it’s not symmetric: President Obama and his people do play some number games, but not to anything like the same degree — it’s more about packaging than about trying to tell a fundamentally false story.
Anyway, I have in the past been a bit hard on Mr. Bartlett, wondering why it took him so long to see the obvious. But never mind that: he has shown character, in a nation where that is hard to find.
The Fake Skills Shortage
Kudos to Adam Davidson for some much-needed mythbusting about the supposed skills shortage holding the American economy back.
“The secret behind this skills gap is that it’s not a skills gap at all,” wrote Mr. Davidson on Nov. 25 in his weekly column in The New York Times Magazine. Mr. Davidson wrote that he spoke to factory managers who said “that they had a hard time recruiting in-demand workers for $10-an-hour jobs.”
Whenever you see some businessperson quoted complaining about how he or she can’t find workers with the necessary skills, ask what wage they’re offering. Almost always, it turns out that what said businessperson really wants is highly (and expensively) educated workers at a manual-labor wage. No wonder they come up short. And this dovetails perfectly with one of the key arguments against the claim that much of our unemployment in the United States is “structural,” due to a mismatch between skills and labor demand.
If that were true, you would see soaring wages for those workers who do have the right skills. In fact, with rare exceptions you don’t. So what you really want to ask is why American businesses don’t feel that it’s worth their while to pay enough to attract the workers they say they need.
Help us Prepare for Trump’s Day One
Trump is busy getting ready for Day One of his presidency – but so is Truthout.
Trump has made it no secret that he is planning a demolition-style attack on both specific communities and democracy as a whole, beginning on his first day in office. With over 25 executive orders and directives queued up for January 20, he’s promised to “launch the largest deportation program in American history,” roll back anti-discrimination protections for transgender students, and implement a “drill, drill, drill” approach to ramp up oil and gas extraction.
Organizations like Truthout are also being threatened by legislation like HR 9495, the “nonprofit killer bill” that would allow the Treasury Secretary to declare any nonprofit a “terrorist-supporting organization” and strip its tax-exempt status without due process. Progressive media like Truthout that has courageously focused on reporting on Israel’s genocide in Gaza are in the bill’s crosshairs.
As journalists, we have a responsibility to look at hard realities and communicate them to you. We hope that you, like us, can use this information to prepare for what’s to come.
And if you feel uncertain about what to do in the face of a second Trump administration, we invite you to be an indispensable part of Truthout’s preparations.
In addition to covering the widespread onslaught of draconian policy, we’re shoring up our resources for what might come next for progressive media: bad-faith lawsuits from far-right ghouls, legislation that seeks to strip us of our ability to receive tax-deductible donations, and further throttling of our reach on social media platforms owned by Trump’s sycophants.
We’re preparing right now for Trump’s Day One: building a brave coalition of movement media; reaching out to the activists, academics, and thinkers we trust to shine a light on the inner workings of authoritarianism; and planning to use journalism as a tool to equip movements to protect the people, lands, and principles most vulnerable to Trump’s destruction.
We urgently need your help to prepare. As you know, our December fundraiser is our most important of the year and will determine the scale of work we’ll be able to do in 2025. We’ve set two goals: to raise $104,000 in one-time donations and to add 1340 new monthly donors by midnight on December 31.
Today, we’re asking all of our readers to start a monthly donation or make a one-time donation – as a commitment to stand with us on day one of Trump’s presidency, and every day after that, as we produce journalism that combats authoritarianism, censorship, injustice, and misinformation. You’re an essential part of our future – please join the movement by making a tax-deductible donation today.
If you have the means to make a substantial gift, please dig deep during this critical time!
With gratitude and resolve,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy