Brew City Brawler

What does it take for Charlie Sykes to turn on George Bush?

Torture? No.  War? No. Huge deficits? No?

How did George W.  Bush earn one of Charlie Sykes' deep tunnel awards? Throw a lifeline to the Big Three.  The winners? The UAW (although they are looking at making serious givebacks). The losers, in Sykesland? The taxpayer (who apparently would be "winners" if the U.S. auto sector tanked.

It's odd. Charlie seems to think that -- at least he claims to think -- that a modest sales tax increase or a sick day mandate would decimate jobs in Milwaukee.

But in his eyes an effort (imperfect, yes, but an effort) to prevent the destruction of potentially hundreds of thousands of jobs (though job loss in the the U.S. based auto sector will measure in the tens of thousands in the coming years even in a best-case scenario) in the midst of a recession is a shitty thing to do. (No, the Brawler does not agree with propping up zombie manufacturers for its own sake, but he doubts that's what the end game will look like in any event.)

Truly, Sykes boggles the mind.

Meanwhile, Dean Baker chronicles how the Washington Post (which, like most "mainstream elite media," in Sykes' parlance, has a deep anti-labor bias) revels in the prospect of UAW givebacks and screws up its numbers along the way.

Listening to Scott Walker can make you stupid

Doing his best to dumb down our discourse, Charlie Sykes kicked off his show on Thursday by talking to Milwaukee County anti-executive Scott Walker. Scott offered the standard boiler plate about how the Republican Party's recent electoral problems aren't the fault of the message so much as the messengers (The Brawler dearly hopes Republicans take this message to heart).

Walker, like Sykes, also is skeptical of the efficacy of a stimulus package. (Please remember, Charlie Sykes will  spend all of next year saying words to the effect of "We've had all this stimulus, but it's not working.") Walker's recipe? Here's a shocker: Lower taxes and put money back in the hands of consumers!

Now to Nouriel Roubini. While he lacks Scott Walkers "essence of a Marquette education," he is an economist -- and one who actually saw this recession coming years ago. Roubini:

Tax rebates of over $100 billion failed to stimulate real consumption earlier in 2008. Only 25% of the tax rebate was spent as US consumers are worried about jobs and need to use funds to pay their credit card and mortgage. The tax rebate was supposed to boost consumption all the way through September 2008: in reality real retail sales and real personal spending rose only in April and May while starting in June and all the way in July, August, September, October and now into the holiday season real retail spending and real personal spending are down month after month. Thus, another general tax rebate would be as ineffective as the first one in boosting consumption.

The Brawler dearly hopes that Jesus tells Scott Walker not to run for governor. The possibility that Walker would have the opportunity to  run this state into a ditch is too depressing to contemplate.

James Sherk: Heritage Foundation huckster, hack and homophobe

James Sherk is the "Bradley Fellow in Labor Policy" at the Heritage Foundation -- which means he writes about how workers are abusing the Family Medical Leave Act, how card check will terrorize hapless workers, how really workers are capitalizing on productivity gains, how the job market doesn't suck as much as you think it does and, really, workers should just accept their lot because we're in the best of all possible worlds.

Sherk's latest claim to fame was a think piece claiming that UAW at the Big Three really do make $70 an hour -- contra the UAW and others, who say that the figure includes retiree costs.

Is  Sherk right? It's an infinite universe, so anything's possible, including a Heritage fellow discovering "truth." That said, the Brawler's standard reaction to anything out of Heritage or the AEI is distrust lest verified. Facts are fungible things in the hands of the think-tank wannabe wonks whose work is not conducted in the spirit of free inquiry. As former Heritage vice presidentBurton Pines said in a 1986 Atlantic story:

"We're not here to be some kind of Ph.D. committee giving equal time," says Burton Pines, a vice-president of Heritage. "Our role is to provide conservative public-policy makers with arguments to bolster our side. We're not troubled over this. There are plenty of think tanks on the other side."

That "standard" remains intact.

But could Sherk be an exception to the rule, a guy who will follow the truth wherever it leads and publish it no matter whether it suits the interests of his paymasters. Upon further review: Doubtful. He's a huckster and he's a hack. On top of it, he's a homophobe. Which may not affect his analytic abilities per se but does suggest the kind of ideologue we're dealing with.

1. James Sherk is a hack. How much do employees of Japanese auto plants in the U.S. make? With James Sherk it depends on when you ask -- or upon the objective of the piece. In November James Sherk said "over $80,000 a year in total compensation -- hardly cheap labor."  But last year James Sherk said they make almost $100,000 before overtime.

Japanese car companies provide their employees with good jobs at good wages. The typical hourly employee at a Toyota, Honda or Nissan plant in America makes almost $100,000 a year in wages and benefits, before overtime. Those wages seem more than fair, and they're set in a far more open market than the UAW would want to see.

Which means Sherk is a) innumerate and can't determine what they make or b) thinks that $80,000 is "almost $100,000", an extremely sloppy, if not outright dishonest, formulation.

Or:  Sherk realized it's not smart to say workers at Japanese auto plants make "almost $100,000" when you're arguing that UAW workers -- working for US-based companies -- are overpaid at $130,000.

Either way, numbers are slippery things in the hands of James Sherk.

2. James Sherk is a hack. In between interning at Heritage and working full-time at Heritage, James Sherk was a senior fellow at some ludicrous outfit called the Evangel Society of Thought. Sherk -- who majored in economics at the right-wing Hillsdale College and received an MA in economics at the University of Rochester -- penned a variety of economic think pieces for said society. One of them was "The Fall of Keynes" in which Sherk wrote:

Yet within a decade and a half, Milton Friedman had consigned most of them [Keynes's ideas] to the ash heap of economic history. Keynesian orthodoxy passed from complete domination of the American economics profession in the 1960’s to near irrelevance as Friedman’s revolutionary monetarist theories and empirical research systematically demolished the Keynesian paradigm. (Brawler's bold)

Those lines were laughable at the time Sherk wrote them (2002) and certainly would have raised eyebrows at any economics department. ("Keynes is irrelevant? Really?")  They've aged even worse. But they make for a good  ideological rant.

3. James Sherk is a homophobe. Speaking of Keynes: If you're a serious economist (like,say James Sherk) writing about Keynes, how do you open your essay? By saying Keynes was a big gay homosexual! From the same essay:

Before one can understand Milton Friedman’s critique of Keynesian economics, one must first understand the origin of Keynesian thought and its dominant position in economic thought during the 1950’s and 1960’s. During his years in Cambridge, John Maynard Keynes belonged to a secret society called the “Apostles.” This organization strongly opposed Victorian morality and its values. It advocated the moral superiority of homosexuality, and, until his marriage in 1925, Keynes frequently engaged in homosexual acts, even with young boys. Keynes believed in living for the moment, in doing what feels best regardless of abstract notions of right and wrong.[i] Keynes once declared that “I remain, and will always remain, an immoralist.”[ii]

Is it overreaching to suggest Sherk is establishing a subtext of activist government=gay?

James Sherk had another piece titled "Why Christians should vote." One reason: Keep down the gays!

The issue of homosexual marriage illustrates the consequences of this progressive vision. Christians know that God established marriage between one man and one woman and condemns homosexuality as a sinful abomination on par with adultery, idolatry, and theft.

Progressives see nothing wrong with homosexual behavior and see no reason why they should not re-order society by allowing homosexuals to marry. Three Democrats campaigning for president support full gay marriage and the remaining six favor creating legal civil unions between homosexuals, which would grant homosexuals all the legal incidents of marriage, withholding only the formal name marriage. By contrast, President Bush opposes both these initiatives. A servant of Christ should carefully consider the implications of voting for any of the Democratic presidential candidates in 2004. While the government cannot reshape a homosexual's heart - only Christ can - Christians should oppose using the government to extend special legal recognition and protection to such abhorrent behavior, or using the coercive power of the state to redefine and reshape the institution of marriage.

The same essay says: "Even though they may not realize it, the guiding philosophy of the Democratic Party denies the existence of God." Who knew?

Next year,as fights emerge over card check and other progressive reforms, Sherk's smiling face will appear on MSNBC and other networks, doing his best to appear to be a reasonable person. When in fact he puts the nut in wingnut.

MMAC thug: Sick days=terrorism

Did you know the majority of Milwaukeeans who passed the sick day referendum were terrorists? Then you haven't been paying attention to the MMAC's lobbyist thug (literally!)  Steve Baas.

From a WUWM story noting how the business hot spots of West Allis and South Milwaukee are taking steps to make sure people living there won't be entitled to sick days.

Steve Baas is not surprised to see municipalities reacting to the paid sick days mandate in Milwaukee. Baas is with the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce. It plans to file a lawsuit challenging the Milwaukee ordinance. 

“I think after seeing what happened in Milwaukee this fall and the kind of impending economic disaster that the mandatory sick leave ordinance would put on us. I think other cities are going to be looking at ways to protect themselves from that sort of terrorism,” Baas says.

Terrorism=democracy.

Big Star -- thirteen

I saw Jeff Tweedy sing this solo years and years ago. He did a pretty good job.

Anyway, the Brawler suggests that you go see Alex Chilton and Grant Hart (formerly of Husker Du) tonight at Turner Hall.

Heroes in Chicago

From the New York Times:

Scores of workers laid off from a factory here that makes windows and doors have refused to leave, deciding to stage a “peaceful occupation” of the plant around the clock this weekend as they demand pay they say is owed them.

Workers at Republic Windows and Doors, which laid off about 250 people, said they were notified Tuesday that the plant, more than four decades old, would close Friday. They said they were given insufficient notice and were never paid for vacation days or severance.

The workers, many of whom were sitting on fold-up chairs on the factory floor Saturday afternoon, said they would not leave.

“They’re staying because the fact is that these workers feel they have nothing to lose at this point,” said Leah Fried, an organizer for the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America Local 1110, who said groups of 30 were occupying the plant in shifts. “Telling them they have three days before they are out on the street, penniless, is outrageous.”

The Brawler suspects Republic pulled this stunt because they think they can. The UE is not exactly a muscular union and the Brawler suspects that Republic hoped its (presumably) low-wage workforce would roll over. The Brawler is happy to see that the employees are standing up for themselves. Republic has legal obligations to its employees that it needs to meet. Period.