The problem with free-market economists

Explained by a free-market economist.

New York Times: Obama's young volunteers/supporters from 2008 are unenthusiastic about reelection campaign.

The Times talks to young people in Nevada, which has an unemployment rate of 13.4%. Two of the people quoted:

Jason Tieg, 22, a student at Brigham Young University-Idaho, voted for Mr. Obama with great enthusiasm in 2008. But now, struggling to find a part-time job to help him through school, he is not even sure he would do that again. “I got a job in July as a custodian on campus, but I lost it again when they needed to cut down.”

“I don’t know if I’ll support him next year,” he said. . . .

Maureen Gregory, 23, a Las Vegas native who turned up at an interview at Madhouse Coffee loaded with buttons, T-shirts and posters from the campaign[,] . . . sneaked away from school every day to work at an Obama campaign headquarters [in 2008]. “Sometimes I didn’t get out until midnight,” She [sic] said. She, too, could not imagine devoting that much time to him again, as much as she admires Mr. Obama.

“I didn’t think it was going to be so bad,” she said. “I’m looking for something to do. Even part time. I was definitely hoping Obama could do more.”

Do government regulations "kill jobs"?

Yes, but they also create jobs:

"If you’re a coal miner in West Virginia, it’s not a great comfort that a bunch of guys in Texas are employed doing natural gas," said Roger Noll, an economics professor at Stanford and co-director of the university’s program on regulatory policy. "Some people identify with the beneficiaries, others identify with those who bear the cost, and no amount of argument is ever going to change their minds."

And to the extent we can trust self-reporting by employers, it seems that not many jobs are killed by regulations:

Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that very few layoffs are caused principally by tougher rules.

Whenever a firm lays off workers, the bureau asks executives the biggest reason for the job cuts.

In 2010, 0.3 percent of the people who lost their jobs in layoffs were let go because of “government regulations/intervention.” By comparison, 25 percent were laid off because of a drop in business demand.

How to lie with statistics: Unemployment edition

The US Department of Labor's new unemployment report -- which seems to show a major drop in the unemployment rate yet a tiny increase in actual jobs -- is explained here. (via)

Unemployment in the double digits

Already.