Some are going to claim this is a mean-spirited post, but this needs to be addressed, as many on the left have been praising and propping up Jim Capozzola for a long time. In truth, he is one of the more mean-spirited left of center writers out there (albeit, a good one, IMHO). His posts in the last few days, however, are rather helpful when trying to gauge his mindset.
Jim is an unemployed writer. You don’t have to read too many pages of his blog to recognize that he is exceptionally unemployed. Why this is the case is beyond me, because he uses the language rather well. However, it appears that he has had no luck in his chosen craft, and is nearing (or in the middle of) a financial meltdown:
Believe it or not I don
Dodd
You were far too easy on him, John. He also says he’s written to
“Outrage”?!? Someone needs some perspective.
The woman Postrel used as an example (in your pullquote) owns her own business! His disdain for the nature of that business is telling in the extreme. His condescension toward her accomplishments certainly doesn’t disprove Postrel’s point; it only proves how insufferably full of himself he is.
There was a time when a single mother opening her own business and, by all appearances, succeeding would have been seen as something to celebrate. For Democrats, that time seems to have ended at precisely 12 noon on 21 January 2001.
Dodd
20 January, that is.
Terry
I agree with Dodd; you were way, way, way too kind to that fatuous gasbag. He is ever bit as nasty as such worthless fools as Hesiod..he merely uses a spell-checker and proofs his crap as contrasted with Hesiod, atrios, et. al. As somebody on some comment board once put it, “Capozzola writes as if he were channeling Paul Lynde.”
Misanthropyst
I’m confused as to why securing the wealth and fortunes of America’s economic elites is tantamount to defending Western Civilization, while suffering job dislocation and declining wages and employment options is a matter of “creative destruction” and the natural order of things, to be borne gracefully and silently.
This reminds me of that shill Rush Limbaugh convincing blue collar and middle class people that it would be in their best economic interests to eliminate capital gains and estate taxes, a guaranteed way to cement in place a hereditary leisure class in this country.
Well, if my option is to polish those skills necessary to service our new Overlords, or to look out for my own financial interests, I know where I stand, and how I insist my elected representatives act. or I’ll vote for new ones.
John Cole
I will just assume you didn’t read the Postrel article, and thus dove in headfirst into the comments here with a typical underclass vs. the elites argument.
Many of the business owners in these new entrepeneurial jobs are doing quite well, as the article attests. Regardless, many of the jobs that used to exist simply DO NOT EXIST ANYMORE, so I am not sure what you intend to do…
GetcancerJohnCole
What a fucking asshole.
Mark L.
I, too, am a writer. I am a freelance writer with two books, and about 100 published articles to my credit. This includes magazines like German Life, American History, Boy’s Life, and Military Heritage. In other words, not the first tier, but certainly those high on the second tier.
I cannot make a living writing. Few people can. The MEDIAN annual writing income of a freelance writer in 2000 was $3500 (US). That means that of every 100 writers, 50 make under $3500 and 50 make above that. (I am above median, but it ain’t enough to pay the mortgage.)
One reason it is so hard to make a living as a writer is that it is like being a prostitute in college town. Too many people are giving away what you want to charge good money for. So I have a day job — in my case a damn good one. (I am an engineer.)
Back in 2001 I got laid off. (It happened at the end of September. Gee, I wonder why?) For 10 months I made my living as a writer, part-time teacher, photographer, whatever. I took on whatever came my way, until I found a new job.
No one “owed” me a living. No one had an “obligation” to buy my writing. But, like I said, I scrambled until I could make up the difference between my expenses and my income.
Eventually I plan to become a writer full-time. I have a business plan, and seem to be sticking pretty close to the model projected. But it will be 2010 before I am ready to quit the day job. Until then, I work two jobs, full-time.
Unfair? Nah. It’s life. And besides, the second job — writing — is done sittin’ on my butt in an air-conditioned room. How hard is that, really? But nothing in life that is good comes easy.
John Cole
Cute. Some anonymous coward in a math lab at SIU in Carbondale wants me to get cancer.
Afraid to put a name to your viewpoint? Wuss.
Riggs
I was a cop in Oregon, the department got downsized. I came back to my home state of MN and now Im an electrician. Talk about a change of careers. You know whos to blame? Nobody. I worked retail, restaurant and security jobs to put myself through technical school because thats what I had to do. All you liberals think you have it so bad because you cant get that professorship in your major of Ancient Assyrian Meditation. Guess what, there are people in other countries doing jobs that would give you nightmares. Count your blessings that your American and have freedom of choice. Get off your butt and take control…or learn to live in your parents basement a while longer.
dave
Fuck you, you prick. Wishing you Jim’s bad luck, times ten million.
Jon Henke
Cole – ever notice that Pandagon has little besides abuse to offer? To be fair, Ezra is better than Jesse, but there’s a decided lack of dignified discussion there. They just go straight for the insult.
I find that intelligent people try reasonable discussion – a bit of give and take – before bringing out the ad hominem artillery.
John Cole
Deep Dave. Got tired of calling everyone a brownshirt?
bains
I’ve often wondered why no one was focusing on this aspect of the employment issue. All those on the left can say is 3 million lost jobs, all the while the unemployment numbers are dropping (what is the historic unemployment level anyway?). Yet the household survey indicates more new jobs than Dems want to admit. A year and a half ago I left a large Arch/Eng firm to start my own. I’m sure my former firm listed me as a lost employee, yet I am not on anyone’s list (well except for those important to me) as employeed. I’m sure what would really piss off the Rittenhouses would be the realization that not only am I more content now, but I’m earning twice as much.
As Ms. Postrel’s piece points out, I’m not alone in this “new new” job environment.
Andrew J. Lazarus
You know, I tend to agree with John about freelance writing and not being owed a job. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that the self-employed new-new jobs are ten times as evanescent as the dot-com jobs they replace. Most of the people who become freelance massage therapists will be just as self-UNsupporting as the freelance writers. And they’ll be chasing day jobs, or starving. There is no Dawn of the New Self-Employed Age, being missed by economists.
bains
I know a number of people recently self-employed, cottage industry if you want, that don
Dean
Bains:
That depends. The unemployment figures have evolved over the years, in terms of what is included. (The military was once counted as “other,” iirc, now it’s employed.)
Similarly, today’s work force includes a lot more women than, say, 30 years ago. So the UNEMPLOYMENT figures (raw numbers, not necessarily percentages) probably have gone up.
A Chicago economist has, in fact, argued that today’s unemployment figures of ~4-5% are actually probably equal to the 6-7% structural unemployment of a decade or two ago, precisely b/c the counting rules have changed.
Andrew:
What is the biggest generator of jobs in the US? Small businesses. It’s our greatest strength over, say, Western Europe. But the same small businesses that spawn lots of job creation also have a higher propensity to fail. (Restaurants, iirc, have one of the highest failure rates, and are usually small businesses.)
Some people will make it, some won’t, specific job types may well be evanescent (although nail salons seem to have held up rather well), but this TYPE of entrepreneurship is hardly likely to recede.
UNLESS, that is, you choke it off w/ a combination of excessive business taxes and a tendency to prefer larger corporations (much as you see in Europe).
Andrew J. Lazarus
I agree with Dean, much as John agreed with Atrios.
Where I appear to disagree is with the idea that the statistics are missing lots of people MAKING A LIVING this way.
Bains, don’t forget to figure in your share of the increased National Debt. That’s an IOU signed by each and every one of us. The California Legislature lowered taxes, too. Because California can’t just print money like Uncle Sam, the jig was up much faster… but the idea is the same. I’m also curious, if you don’t mind, how many of your creative buddies have children, and how they arrange for health insurance if they do.
Brian
John,
To hell with this guy. If his blog is called Rittenhouse Review, I assume he lives somewhere near Rittenhouse Square in Center City, Philadelphia. Believe me, if he lives in an apartment like he describes, the rent is huge. He could move 2 miles to South Philly and get 2-3 months of rent for what he is paying for one. After all, the guy says he’s broke.
You must understand the Philly liberal Democrat mentality. (I grew up there, and lived the first 29 years of my life there; I’m 32 now). There has not been a Republican mayor in Philly since 1930. The Democratic machine in Philly, even today, would make Boss Tweed proud. From reading his blog, it seems to me that this is dying to get noticed by someone.
Tell this guy, instead of blogging about what he liked in the Sunday Inquirer, pick up the Classified section and get a job. I have no tolerace for guys like this. He acts like the world owes him a living. No wonder he is a Democrat.
Don’t send him a penny. Tell him to move out of Rittenhouse Square and get a studio in South Philly. F Him.
Mason
Andrew, as one of the self-employed, we don’t “arrange” for health insurance, we pay for it, just like every other form of insurance we need.
Did you guys see his “post-publication addendum”? What a goddamned whiny meathead. Hey, I’ve got aspirations to be an astrophysicist and live on the first moon colony, but I take what I can get. At least I work for a living instead of sitting on my ass whining about being unemployed on my blog. Fah.
bains
Thanks Dean,
I recall several months ago someone arguing that today
Dodd
Bains – I wrote a quick answer to your Q last night but had a crash before I could post it. The Fed’s target, very generally speaking, is around 5% – what they consider to be “full employment” and the point below which increased inflation becomes a greater danger. One can argue with their methodology, but 5% being “full employment” under current counting rules (as described above) is pretty well established.
The Dems like to count job losses from 20 January 2001, shortly after the peak and, therefore, before unemployment (a lagging indicator) rose very much, but unemployment had fallen to 4.4% (IIRC), well below the “full employment” level, so a good many of those jobs were unsustainable in any economy without inflationary pressure (or so Greenspan believes).
As a side note, I also like to point out whenever this comes up that unemployment is actually a tick or two lower right now than it was at this time in 1996, when He Who Could Do No Wrong Where The Economy Was Concerned was starting his re-election campaign.
Steeve
“Cole – ever notice that Pandagon has little besides abuse to offer? To be fair, Ezra is better than Jesse, but there’s a decided lack of dignified discussion there. They just go straight for the insult.”
It’s good to see the level of discourse is SOOO much higher here. What a bunch of hypocrites.
Andrew J. Lazarus
Brian is off by 17 years, a Republican was elected Philadelphia mayor in 1947. (Thanks, Google.)
I think a lot of you self-employed guys are going to start looking at traditional employment when the question is where do I get $500/month more for that family health insurance. I would have said you’d also like the knowledge of steady income, but we don’t have that so much any more.
BTW, leaving the unemployment numbers aside, Bush is getting clobbered on job creation stats. A low unemployment rate based on increases in discouraged workers and p/t workers isn’t good for re-election.
Dodd
There’s the “people are just giving up” canard again. When UE spiked last June because people were *re-entering* the workforce as prospects starting looking up, did you give Bush credit for that or attack him because the number went up? And has it occured to you that, even if that phenomemnon is actually real (a proposition for which the evidence is scant at best), a great many of these people everyone says are giving up might be these same self-made ones we’ve been discussing and which the official employer survey (but not the more-ore-less ignored household survey) misses?
Darkwater
As a sometimes visitor to your blog, I was quite amazed that you decided to publish this. I thought for a few days about whether I should comment, and decided to go ahead. There are a couple of generally unrecognized truths of the blogosphere:
1) Andy Sullivan is a great, occasionally wacky writer who desperately, desperately needs a good editor. I mean, if there’s a writer out there who shows the value-added of editors, it’s Sully.
2) Not everything that goes on in the blogosphere needs to be commented on by other bloggers.
I was introduced to your blog by one of the run-ins you’ve had with someone I had been reading before (at this point, I’ve forgotten who), but I stayed around enough to look at some of your other posts and found them good. Still, the concept of you commenting that Jim Capozzola is mean-spirited is – well, let’s just say in an ideal world you would owe me a new keyboard. Regardless of your personal feelings towards Mr. Cappoloza or his situation, did you not realize the reaction your comment would get from your readers?
Still, wherever it comes from, your audacity does fill me with mirth from unexpected places. (Sort of like Rittenhouse!)
Andrew J. Lazarus
Michael Bérubé weighs in
I could say much the same, although maybe worse, about comments like Dodd’s. You know, the government tries to measure quantities like discouraged workers, just as they do the self-employed. And it’s simply a fact that workers who have exhausted their UI bennies drop out of the total. Or you could just blow some random guesses about employment statistics out of your ass.
Dodd
Yes, Andrew, I know that. I even referenced that fact by pointing to a sharp jump in people who returned to the workforce back in June. I haven’t seen you offer any to support your thesis, though.
As it happens, I know that Workforce participation was at 66% in January. That level is low by historical standards but it hasn’t been dropping. A few moments on Google would lead you to this Bureau of Labour Statistics chart that shows that Civilian labor force participation rate has stayed in a band 1.25% wide for a decade.
Here are the monthly numbers for the last year:
Note, please, the *uptick* in January, a month in which UE fell and everyone said, as you just did, that it was because people were leaving the workforce. It’s true, of course, that LFP is 1/1% lower than it was when Bush took office. I seem to recall saying something earlier about measuring from the peak, before UE (a lagging indicator) fell much. But your assertion that UE was falling now b/c of discouraged workers just doesn’t hold up, Andrew, not when LFP just ticked up to the same percentage it was at in September (when UE was 6.1% – a full .5% higher than now).
What was that about blowing things out of my ass again?
Dodd
That’s what I thought.