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Reuters blog archive
from Stories I’d like to see:
The revealing Rutgers report, job number revisions, and Trayvon, Inc
1. The Rutgers basketball coach scandal as a window on NCAA sports:
Some of the stories about the firing of Rutgers basketball coach Michael Rice after a video of him abusing his players in practice was aired on ESPN referred to a 50 page report the university commissioned from an outside lawyer after the videos were first brought to school administrators’ attention. It’s this report that provided the rationale for the school initially to suspend and fine Rice but not dismiss him.
For reporters and columnists (like the New York Times’ Joe Nocera) who have been highlighting how the NCAA has become a profit machine that abuses its unpaid players, the report is worth diving into. It presents an amazingly candid, and grim, view of college athletics, and it would be great to get university presidents far and wide on the record commenting about it.
The report -- written by John P. Lacey, the outside lawyer whose firm conducted the investigation -- describes the offensive scenes shown on the videos and declares that it is “not acceptable for any coach at any time in a university setting to refer to players using curse words accompanied by slang and derogatory references to homosexuals such as “fags” or “faggots,” etc.” So far, so good. But here’s how the report, whose recommendations the Rutgers administration fully accepted, rationalized not jettisoning Rice:
Based on the credible information provided to us, we find that many of the actions of Coach Rice, while sometimes unorthodox, politically incorrect or very aggressive, were within the bounds of proper conduct and training methods in the context of preparing for the extraordinary physical and mental challenges that players would regularly face during NCAA Division I basketball games. This permissible training includes screaming at players, cursing, using other foul and distasteful language and expressing frustration and even anger at times. It also includes physical contact during drills and unorthodox training methods to simulate the dramatic and unexpected events that occur during actual games.
from Breakingviews:
New despair seeps out of U.S. employment numbers
By Martin Hutchinson
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
A new despair is seeping out of U.S. employment numbers. The economy added just 88,000 new jobs in March, according to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on April 5. And the number of people counted as available to work fell to its lowest level in 34 years.
from MacroScope:
Goal line on jobs still a long way off: former Fed economist Stockton
The Great Recession set the U.S. labor market so far back that there is still a long way to go before policymakers can claim victory and point to a true return to healthy conditions, a top former Fed economist said. The U.S. economy remains around 3 million jobs short of its pre-recession levels, and that's without accounting for population growth.
“The goal line is still a long ways off,” David Stockton, former head of economic research at theU.S.central bank’s powerful Washington-based board, told an event sponsored by the Peterson Institute for International Economics. He sees the American economy improving this year, but believes the recovery will continue to have its ups and downs.
from MacroScope:
Don’t call it a target: The thing about nominal GDP
Ask top Federal Reserve officials about adopting a target for non-inflation adjusted growth, or nominal GDP, and they will generally wince. Proponents of the awkwardly-named NGDP-targeting approach say it would be a more powerful weapon than the central bank’s current approach in getting the U.S.economy out of a prolonged rut.
This is what Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke had to say when asked about it at a press conference in November 2011:
from MacroScope:
Texas-sized jobs growth turns puny? Don’t y’all believe it, Dallas Fed says
Is the pickup in U.S. jobs growth over before it even started? That’s the conclusion you might reach if you checked out the latest Texas employment update from the Dallas Fed , which shows the Lone Star state added only 4,000 jobs in January.Texas, as boosters like Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher never tire of pointing out, has been an enormous engine of job growth for the United States since the end of the Great Recession.
The state added 335,000 jobs last year. For it to generate a paltry 4,000 jobs in January – well, that sounds like bad news.
from MacroScope:
If not for shrinking labor force, U.S. unemployment would be over 11 percent: UniCredit
The U.S. workforce has been shrinking rapidly in recent years, but a new report from UniCredit highlights just how massive the effect of this trend really is. Economist Harm Bandholz says it amounts to a gaping 3.6 percentage points of U.S. unemployment.
That means the U.S. jobless rate, which dropped to 7.7 percent in February, would actually be around 11.3 percent without the decline in labor force participation. This would put American unemployment a lot closer to the euro zone’s recently reported record high rate of 11.9 percent.
from Chrystia Freeland:
Technology, the economy and pool cleaning
One way to divide people is into foxes and hedgehogs. Another is into those who think this time is different and those who believe there is never anything new under the sun.
The latter split can be a matter of temperament, of politics or even of religion. But today it is relevant for another, more urgent reason: It describes how people think about the most critical economic problem in the industrialized world today — the dearth of well- paying middle-class jobs.
from MacroScope:
Fading productivity could hurt U.S. job growth
RBC economist Tom Porcelli is such a curmudgeon these days. Still, given that he was one of the few economists that accurately predicted the possibility of a negative reading on fourth quarter GDP, maybe it’s not a bad idea to listen to what he has to say.
This week, he expressed concern about a rapid decline in U.S. productivity – and that was before data showing U.S. nonfarm productivity fell in the fourth quarter by the most in nearly two years.
from MacroScope:
Japan finally takes Bernanke-san’s advice – 10 years later
This post was based on reporting by Leika Kihara in Tokyo
Japan has crossed the monetary rubicon: the government is actively intervening in the affairs of the central bank, pressuring it to more aggressively tackle a prolonged bout of deflation and economic stagnation. The Bank of Japan is expected to discuss raising its inflation target from the current 1 percent level during its next rate decision on January 21-22.
Overnight, a Japanese newspaper reported the finance ministry and the central bank were considering signing a policy accord that would set as a common goal not just achieving 2 percent inflation but also steady job growth.
from MacroScope:
Does the Fed need a new mandate?
Are the world’s top central bankers too paranoid about inflation? As the United States struggles to sustain a weak recovery while the euro zone and Japan face outright contractions in output, a number of economists have called for the monetary authorities to be less dogmatic about adhering tightly to low inflation targets.
Most prominently, IMF chief economist Olivier Blanchard has argued the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent inflation target is too low given the severity of the loss of employment and growth that followed the Great Recession of 2008-2009. Kenneth Rogoff, co-author of an oft-cited study of economic downturns following financial crises called “This Time is Different,” has also championed greater inflation tolerance.
