aacj

September 05 2024

Workers' share of economic pie shrinks; U.S. military recruiting crisis; U.S. immigration backlog; school shooting in Georgia; election roundup

Greg Loving

05 Sep 2024 • 8 min read

Traveling, no podcast 9/5-6

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Workers’ share of the spoils of economic output has not recovered from a sharp drop seen after the Covid-19 pandemic, according to data that points to worsening economic inequalities as the rollout of generative AI gathers pace. Estimates by the International Labour Organization, published on Wednesday, show that the share of global gross domestic product earned by employees and the self-employed fell from 52.9 per cent in 2019 to 52.3 per cent in 2022 and had remained flat in the following two years. The trend marks a sharp acceleration of a long-running decline. The ILO said labour’s share of global GDP had fallen 1.6 percentage points since it first began publishing data in 2004 — representing a loss of $2.4tn after adjusting for inflation — and that 40 per cent of the drop had taken place since 2019.

Article Source: FT

2. U.S. Military Struggles to Recruit Amid Decreasing Force Size and Rising Global Threats

America did away with the draft 51 years ago, waging its many wars and interventions since with the All-Volunteer Force (AVF). But “all-volunteer” is a misnomer. Americans aren’t lining up to serve, and the AVF is really an all-recruited force. Its previous annual recruitment of about 150,000 mostly young Americans, who are individually located, pitched, and incentivized to serve, comes at considerable effort and expense.  The United States got through two foreign wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with the AVF — though neither war was a victory. A war with Russia, China, Iran, or North Korea would be an entirely different proposition, with the possibility of more casualties in a few weeks than the United States suffered in the entire Global War on Terrorism. Three of America’s four major military services failed to recruit enough servicemembers in 2023. The Army has failed to meet its manpower goals for the last two years and missed its 2023 target by 10,000 soldiers, a 20 percent shortfall. Today, the active-duty Army stands at 445,000 soldiers, 41,000 fewer than in 2021 and the smallest it has been since 1940. The Navy and Air Force missed their recruiting goals, too, the Navy failing across the board. The Marine Corps was the only service to achieve its targets (not counting the tiny Space Force). But the Marines’ success is partially attributable to significant force structure cuts as part of its Force Design 2030 overhaul. As a result, Marine recruiters have nearly 19,000 fewer active duty and selected reserve slots to fill today than they did as recently as 2020. A decrease in the size of the active force might be less worrying if a large reserve pool could be mobilized in the event of a major war or national emergency. But recruiting challenges have impacted the reserve components even more severely than the active duty force. The National Guard and Reserves have been shrinking since 2020. Last year, the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve each missed their recruiting targets by 30 percent. The Army Reserve had just 9,319 enlistees after aiming to recruit 14,650 new soldiers. Numbers for the Navy Reserve were just as bad — the service missed its enlisted and officer targets by 35 and 40 percent, respectively. Should a true national security emergency arise, America lacks the ability to mobilize as Israel and Russia have done.

Article Source: Vox

3. U.S. Immigration Court Backlog Soars to Over 3.6 Million Cases in 2024

The backlog of immigration court cases has grown from about 500,000 in 2016 to more than 3.6 million in June 2024. This figure reflects the cases of everyone who’s the subject of what’s called an immigration removal proceeding, not just those who’ve applied for asylum because of state persecution. Pending asylum requests alone accounted for almost 1.3 million of the cases in the backlog at the end of 2023, according to a Bloomberg Businessweek analysis1, and the average asylum claim now takes more than four years to be decided. This inefficiency has helped feed a surge at the southern border: By filing an asylum claim, even a flimsy one, some newly arrived migrants can remain in the US for years as their case meanders through the courts. Asylum in recent years has become the chief way that migrants who arrive at the border without documentation try to stay in the US.

Article Source: Bloomberg

4. Tragic School Shooting in Georgia Highlights Alarming Surge in School Violence

A 14-year-old student opened fire at his Georgia high school on Wednesday, killing two students and two teachers before surrendering to school resource officers, according to the authorities, who said the suspect would be charged with murder.

Ed note: The frequency of school shootings has surged in recent years, particularly during the late 2010s and early 2020s. While it may seem impersonal to apply statistics to such devastating events, analyzing these numbers is crucial to understanding the scope of this ongoing crisis. In 2024, there have already been 24 school shootings, resulting in 9 deaths. This is slightly lower than 2023, which saw 11 deaths, but the overall trend remains concerning. In 2022, the number of deaths spiked significantly, with 34 lives lost—three times higher than the five-year average of 11.8 deaths from 2019 to 2023. The data also reveals an increasing number of shootings over time. While the 2000s saw relatively fewer incidents, the past decade has seen a marked rise in both shootings and fatalities. The average number of school shootings from 2019 to 2023 was 35.6 per year, compared to lower annual figures in the early 2000s.

Article Source: NYT

5. Election roundup: Trump-Musk commission, undecided votes, America’s falling birthrate, Harris retreats from Biden on tax policy, US Steel

Government efficiency commission

BREAKING...NEW YORK—Donald Trump plans to outline a suite of economic proposals in a speech here Thursday, including introducing a government efficiency commission recommended by Elon Musk, taking an even more aggressive swipe at regulations than during his first White House term and pledging to rescind certain unspent funds appropriated during the Biden administration.

The commission would conduct “a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government” and make “recommendations for drastic reform,” the Republican former president plans to say in an appearance before the Economic Club of New York. The goal would be to identify ways to eliminate fraud and improper payments, according to portions of the speech viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Undecided voters

About 18 percent of American voters have not made up their minds between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, recent polls suggest. Some members of this 18 percent say they lean toward one of the two candidates without having a firm preference. Others say they don’t lean toward either. Yet history suggests that many of these Americans will vote — and will ultimately support the Democratic or Republican nominee. Once they do, they will probably decide the presidential election. As a group, the uncommitted 18 percent of the electorate is less white and younger than decided voters If you assume that most swing voters are disaffected liberals because of their youth and diversity, however, you will be wrong. For one thing, uncommitted voters are slightly more likely to be male than decided voters are. Most also do not have a four-year college degree, and working-class voters tend to be more socially conservative. Overall, swing voters are more likely to identify as conservative than liberal, a potential advantage for Trump. Most swing voters, not surprisingly, consider themselves moderates As for the issues that matter most to swing voters, pocketbook economics is No. 1 by far. Loyal supporters of Harris or Trump, by comparison, name issues like abortion, climate change, civil rights or immigration more often than undecided voters do Poll results point to another key point about uncommitted voters: They are more eager to hear about Harris and her plans than about Trump and his. Trump has spent nearly a decade as the Republican Party’s leader, and even longer as a celebrity. Most Americans feel they know who he is. Many adore him. Many others despise him. Those in the middle generally don’t like Trump but are open to voting for him. Harris is not as well known. As a result, much of the campaign’s final two months will revolve around trying to define her, positively or negatively.

America’s falling birthrate

America’s falling birthrate is becoming a bigger issue in this year’s election. A small but dedicated cadre of advocates has pushed the topic to the forefront of conservative policy agendas in Washington and Silicon Valley, warning that U.S. economic growth and the solvency of Social Security depend on lifting fertility from its record-low levels. Democrats, meanwhile, are offering more support for new parents through Vice President Kamala Harris’s Opportunity Economy plan without explicitly tying it to incentivizing childbearing.

Harris capital-gains tax

Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris proposed a less drastic increase in the top capital-gains tax rate on Wednesday, breaking with a plan President Biden outlined in his budget blueprint earlier this year. The all-in top rate would be 33%, which would include a new 28% capital rate cited by Harris on Wednesday as well as Biden’s proposal to raise a 3.8% investment income tax to 5%, people familiar with the plan said. Biden, by contrast, wanted a near-doubling of today’s 23.8% top rate to 44.6%, taxing capital gains at roughly the same rate as ordinary income.

US Steel

President Biden is preparing to soon block an attempt by Japan’s Nippon Steel to buy U.S. Steel on national security grounds, according to three people familiar with the matter, likely sinking a merger that became entangled in election-year politics in the United States.

Ed note: this news caused US Steel stock to drop 20%

Article Source: NYT, WSJ

9/5/1877 Sioux military leader Crazy Horse is killed

Sources

1. https://on.ft.com/3TfxqME

2. https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/368528/us-military-army-navy-recruit-numbers

3. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-09-03/us-immigration-court-system-falls-to-politics-failing-asylum-seekers

4. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/09/04/us/georgia-shooting-apalachee-high-school/apalachee-high-school-shooting-lockdown?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb; https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/interactive/school-shootings-database/

5. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/04/briefing/who-the-swing-voters-are.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare; https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/increase-america-birth-rate-policies-election-2024-d81b4417?st=7jkub8v2netirsz&reflink=article_copyURL_share; https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/kamala-harris-to-pare-back-bidens-capital-gains-tax-proposal-14c537b1?st=0ed4ezdhj41sj0n&reflink=article_copyURL_share; https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/04/us/politics/biden-us-steel-nippon.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb