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Nice K.

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Nice line. Let's see where this goes first. There is usually a great rush to criticize on this board followed by a hat eating party down the line. We need to give this time to play out. I just can't see a scenario where this plays out badly. We either (a) give in for some agreement on debt relief, in which case, we've won, (b) given in for no agreement on debt relief, in which case we look like we are capitulating, but we spin it as an opportunity to kiss and make up and the French feel like BSDs, or (c) we don't given in and we are stuck right where we are today, no worse off.

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I really have been away a long time -- I don't remember any hats being eaten, even by those in direst need of a snack.

On the present issue, leaving aside my feelings about the war and the surrounding diplomacy (if you can call it that), I'm not sure I see the problem with saying "this is money the American taxpayer is paying, and as such it will not be used to reward countries that did not support the war with money or troops." That seems a pretty basic concept and, except for the part about the (current) American taxpayer paying for it, the basic truth. Tying it to security was pretty stupid and disingenuous -- I mean, whose gonna believe that letting French people in is a threat to security, if you aren't asking them to fight anyone?

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The time away has served you well.

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Wow, that's a "not bad" result to you? That sure looks like a hat eating party for Rabbi Hank and the freedom fries crowd to me (HC, love the new look by the way).

Not saying you are one of those, just saying that I would think there are several admin officials who would prefer a full afternoon of rubbing tanning oil on a thong-clad Hillary Clinton to doing anything that could remotely be seen as capitulating to the French.

On the one hand you could say we'd be no worse off because the debt amount would still be the same as it is now. But on the other hand if by publicizing this contracting policy at the outset of Baker's mission we eliminated some amount of desire on the part of Iraq's creditors to cooperate with us, then I would say we were worse off.

Of course I could never prove that, and you would be well-positioned to come back at me with the same "well they never would have helped us anyway" response that us pinkos get whenever we suggest that there could have been some better diplomatic work before the war. But, as you say, let's wait and see.

I find Kristol and Kagan's suggestion interesting:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Conten...3/481yjxxw.asp

Bilmore has argued eloquently to the contrary of this analysis, so I don't propose to say that this was the clear path to travel. However, I think it's quite a stretch to say that this is a no-lose proposition.

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I thought club was saying: In Iraq, we're f*cked. If, as a result of this contracts thing, we're no worse off, then we're still f*cked, but it's a no-lose situation.

Maybe I'm misunderestimating his position.

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I was hoping to come back and see you and your cohorts admitting that the "evidence" of WMD was trumped-up, that the suggestion that the war would be cheap and that Iraq would pay for its own reconstruction was humiliatingly false, and that your early claims of a "cakewalk" had proven about as intelligent as the celebrations of Patriots' fans when they scored the first field goal in the Superbowl against the Bears.

But, as I said, I'm willing to set all that aside to acknowledge that it's okay for the US to spend US postwar reconstruction money in a way that rewards countries that supported the war.

Given how our contracting has worked out so far (hey Cheney, spare some change for gas?), not to mention our reconstruction efforts, I have to wonder why France or Germany would want to touch those contracts with a ten-foot Pole.

Changed your mind yet?

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You are a little. I'm saying that the status quo before the announcement was no debt relief, so we can't do worse than the status quo. We are far from fucked in Iraq. It's just going to take more than 8 months. Hell, our own independence took what, 10 years.

the unhappy employment picture
 

Stephen Roach of Morgan Stanley, on the employment picture:

• There seems to be a real disconnect between the actual numbers on the hiring front and the impressions that have been formed in financial markets. Total nonfarm payrolls have expanded by only 328,000 workers over the August to November 2003 period -- an average of 82,000 per month. That's far short of the pace of job creation that normally occurs at this stage in a business cycle recovery -- somewhere in the range of 250,000 to 300,000 per month. Yet many have been quick to interpret the recent modest pickup in hiring as a sign that Corporate America is finally breaking the shackles of risk aversion and emerging from the funk of recent years. The mix of recent hiring trends tells a very different picture. It turns out that fully 84% of the total increase in nonfarm payrolls over the August to November period is traceable to hiring in four segments of the labor market -- the temporary staffing industry, health, education, and government -- where combined jobs have increased by 68,000 per month. In other words, the bulk of the so-called hiring turnaround since August has been concentrated in either the contingent workforce (temps) or in those industry groupings that are least exposed to global competition. This hardly speaks of a US business sector that has consciously made an important transition from downsizing to expansion. It merely reflects the fact that scale is increasing in the most sheltered and least productive segments of the economy.
  
  Those trends stand in sharp contrast to employment conditions in those segments of the economy that are most exposed to tough competitive pressures. Over the past four months, jobs have continued to decline in manufacturing, the information sector (i.e., telecom, publishing, data processing, and broadcasting), wholesale distribution, and finance and insurance. Moreover, at the same time, employment growth has been anemic in transportation and warehousing and in a broad array of professional and business services other than temps (i.e., legal, computer systems design, management consulting). Collectively, these "exposed" segments of the economy employ about 47 million workers, or 36% of the total nonfarm workforce. Over the August to November time period, jobs in this large collection of industries have contracted, on average, by 20,000 per month...

link, courtesy of Semi-Daily Journal

the unhappy employment picture
 

Ty is now up to about 20K words on this subject and he still can't explain how a drop in unemployment doesn't equalu more new jobs than more new workers.

the unhappy employment picture
 

You are at 20K posts on the subject, every one of which appears to be written by Hunter Thompson on a bad day.

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plus the fucks build the tip right into the bill so you can't stiff. servis en complete my ass

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the WMD's are in Syria.

the unhappy employment picture
 

Good stuff, but I don't buy it in at least two areas. Government employment still increasing? Local governments are laying people off left and right. DC schools announced hundreds this week. Chicago's Department of Water and Department of Transportation workers received 270 layoff notices yesterday. Literally, this has been going on for several months now.

As for legal, I kid you not, 20% of my firm's staff has turned over in the last 6-8 weeks. Normally, that would be a full year's worth of turnover. Only 10% of that 20% (i.e., 2% of our staff) has been fired in the last 6-8 weeks. The rest all found jobs from firms that were willing to pay them more. Granted, our firm's employees have always found open arms from other firms in the same geographic area, but the partners are beginning to panic. I think the staff is about to receive a 10 or 20% pay increase. For our specialization (IP), I'm hearing similar stories from Silicon Valley.

Not surprisingly, there are areas of the country that are getting their asses handed to them though as businesses continue to move out. I can't help but think it tends to be the same cities that were extremely pro-Gore in 2000, to the point of bussing public housing residents, welfare queens, crack addicts and other democrats to the polls and holding the polls open late. I'd say payback is a bitch, but unfortunately there are many innocent Republicans and moderates who did not partake in Daley's shenanigans, and they are facing the same job market in those areas.

Anyway, the legal market around DC and SF/SV (and CA generally for IP) seems to be picking up big time. I'm totally flippin swamped myself.

Hello

the unhappy employment picture
 

shrill hyperbole, but a compliment, right?