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Kansas unemployment, the credit or blame

by Bob Weeks on October 22, 2012

The unemployment rate in Kansas dropped from 6.2 percent to 5.9 percent in September. Before figuring who to credit for this, we ought to take a look at the underlying trends.

Kansas Governor Sam Brownback was quick to take credit, issuing the tweet “KS unemployment rate dropped to 5.9% in Sept. lowest rate since Dec. ’08.”

Jason Perkey, who is Executive Director of the Kansas Democratic Party, wanted to give the credit to President Barack Obama, as can be seen in his tweet.

Looking at the numbers behind the unemployment number, however, reveals something that I don’t think either party wants credit for: a shrinking labor force.

Todd Davidson of Kansas Policy Institute took a close look at the numbers that go into forming the unemployment rate, and here’s what he found: “The drop did not come from higher employment. 7,819 fewer Kansans were employed in September 2012 than in September 2011. The unemployment rate is lower because over 20,000 Kansans dropped out of the labor force over the last year.” More details are at Taking a Closer Look at the September Unemployment Rate.

Graphically, here’s what the situation looks like. The number of people in the Kansas labor force has been declining. When the number of employed takes a slight uptick, the unemployment rate can decline by a fairly large amount. But it’s not part of an encouraging trend.

Tagged as: Kansas Democrats, Kansas state government, Sam Brownback, Twitter

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Sedgwick County updates agenda information system

by Bob Weeks on September 7, 2010

Recently Sedgwick County implemented a new system for making its commission agendas and accompanying background material available online.

Previously, only the agenda itself was available online. Agendas contain just a brief description of each item to be handled at meetings. If citizens wanted more information about an item, they had to travel to the courthouse to obtain a printed copy of the agenda report. This document, which might be several hundred pages in length, contains detailed information about each item. It’s the type of information that citizens need if they are to be informed about the matters the commission will consider at each meeting.

The new system makes this information available online. It also handles the minutes and video of past meetings. You can access the system through the Sedgwick County website. Navigate to the County Commission page (the drop-down box at the top right is easy and always available.) Then in the stack of links at the right of the screen, click on Commission Meetings.

Now if you click on any meeting on or after August 25, 2010, you’ll be in the new agenda system.

Using the new system, I found that it took a few moments to become familiar with the way the system organizes the agenda information. Once you get used to it, you can move around the agenda and examine supporting documents easily. Background material is usually presented in small chunks as pdf documents, and it’s easy to print just the few pages that you might be interested in.

The system also allows the public to enter comments, presumably to be read by commissioners or staff before meetings. In a nod to social media and other networks, you can share agenda items on Facebook, Twitter, and other systems. (Sample tweet: PURCHASE OF REAL PROPERTY LOCATED AT SECOND STREET AND ST. FRANCIS IN WICHITA, KANSAS. Presented by: Ron Holt, bff. http://t.co/gl22l3U)

Besides the public face of the system, it will also be used internally by county staff and commissioners to handle agenda paperwork more efficiently.

A fact sheet on the new agenda information system promotes its cost savings, estimated to be $15 per week in reduced usage of paper. The benefit to citizens, however, is access to agenda background information without making a trip to the courthouse. These trips were necessary, as my several recent requests to have background information emailed to me were always declined.

While this system may save $15 per week in paper, it was undoubtedly an expensive system to purchase and implement. According to a county budget document, the five-year cost of this project is $142,594. That doesn’t include internal resources devoted to this project and its ongoing support.

Its goals are more ambitions than what was required to provide citizens with the agenda background information, which was the one area where Sedgwick County was deficient. Many governments, such as the city of Wichita, have made this information available by simply posting the entire agenda report. That’s a simple solution that has worked, although not with all the functionality that the new Sedgwick county system provides.

Tagged as: Activism, Computing, Facebook, Sedgwick county government, Twitter

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RightOnline in Las Vegas this week

by Bob Weeks on July 19, 2010

Later this week the RightOnline Conference takes place in Las Vegas, Nevada.

This is the third year for this conference. It’s held at the same time — and in the same city — as the Netroots Nation. Or NutRoots, take your pick.

The event features a lot of training and some great speakers. Michele Bachmann will headline the Friday dinner, and the Saturday general session features speakers like Andrew Napolitano, Mike Pence, Robert McDowell, Herman Cain, Erick Erickson, and John Fund.

RightOnline is sponsored by the Americans for Prosperity Foundation. Click on Podcast: Erik Telford Previews the RightOnline Conference to hear an interview with AFP’s Erik Telford. To keep up on Twitter, the hasthag is #ro10.

Tagged as: Activism, Americans For Prosperity, Free markets, Politics, Twitter

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Articles of Interest

by Bob Weeks on March 30, 2009

Capitalism, CFL bulbs, green indoctrination, bailout constitutionality, Facebook, Twitter

‘The Road to Serfdom’ revisited: Markets display uncertainty over future of capitalism itself (Scott S. Powell in the Washington Times) Discussion of how government interventionism in the economy is not helping. “President Eisenhower called it ‘creeping socialism.’ Nobel Prize winner Friedrich von Hayek called it ‘The Road to Serfdom.’”

Do New Bulbs Save Energy if They Don’t Work? (New York Times) Many customers are not happy with compact fluorescent light bulbs. Short life for the expensive bulbs is a common irritation.

‘Green Hell’ Coming Soon to a Life Like Yours (Human Events) A review of a new book that merits reading. “Be prepared the next time your child comes home from school with some nice ‘green’ project or attempts to lecture you about how you ‘should’ be doing more ‘sustainable’ activities to ‘save’ the Earth. You will be ready to confront teachers, political leaders, neighbors, and annoying aunts with the astounding new book by Steve Milloy titled Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them.”

Bailing Out of the Constitution (George Will in the Washington Post) Is the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 — that’s the $700 billion bailout of banks from last year — constitutional? Perhaps it isn’t, argues Will. It has to do with the Vesting Clause of Article I says, “All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in” Congress.

Is Facebook Growing Up Too Fast? (New York Times) Facebook will soon have 200 million members. All are not happy, evidence being the recent controversy over a redesign of some of its most important aspects. There’s also the “coolness” factor: can kids like a social network that their parents are now using?

When Stars Twitter, a Ghost May Be Lurking (New York Times) “In many cases, celebrities and their handlers have turned to outside writers — ghost Twitterers, if you will — who keep fans updated on the latest twists and turns, often in the star’s own voice. Because Twitter is seen as an intimate link between celebrities and their fans, many performers are not willing to divulge the help they use to put their thoughts into cyberspace. … It is not only celebrities who are forced to look to a team to produce real-time commentary on daily activities; politicians like Ron Paul have assigned staff members to create Twitter posts and Facebook personas. Candidate Barack Obama, as well as President Obama, has a social-networking team to keep his Twitter feed tweeting.”

Tagged as: Bailouts, Capitalism, Climate change, Computing, Environment, Facebook, Twitter

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Articles of Interest

by Bob Weeks on March 19, 2009

Journalism, crime alerts, war on drugs, minimum wage, stimulus and education

The State of the Fourth Estate (Jordan Ballor at the Acton Institute) What will happen to journalism in the digital age? The article describes its importance to a free society, with reflection from a Christian view.

Alert system tells you when a crime occurs (Stan Finger in the Wichita Eagle) Receive email or text messages alerts concerning crime in your area by signing up at www.citizenobserver.com. Maybe criminals will start using Twitter to tweet about their escapes, making it easier for police to capture them. While email and text messages are fine, this is a good application for Twitter, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see this service expanded to include Twitter.

From the Trenches of the Drug War: A Street Cop’s Perspective (The Future of Freedom Foundation) Speaking of crime … what is the true cost of the war on drugs? Lessons from the front.

Raising BC’s minimum wage: Good intentions, bad policy (The Frazer Institute) As we in Kansas appear ready to raise our state’s minimum wage — with good intentions (I wonder about that sometimes) — consider the well-known unintended consequences: “The most damaging consequence of minimum wage increases is that employers respond by reducing the number of workers they employ and/or the number of hours their employees work. In other words, minimum wage increases result in higher unemployment for low-skilled workers and young people. This unpleasant reality is well documented in the research.”

Spec. Ed. Stimulus Money Raising Cautions (Education Week) Managing the use of stimulus money may be tricky: “Within the next few weeks, though, the federal tap will open up, releasing an extra $6.1 billion for districts to use for special education, with another $6.1 billion to come later this year. … Though grateful for the largess, school leaders face restrictions with that money. The rules governing the use of federal special education money mean that it’s unwise for districts to use the added funding to start new programs or hire new teachers. If they were to do so, districts would have to continue to pay for those costs in two years, when the federal infusion goes away, under a provision in the IDEA that requires districts to avoid making large cuts in programs from year to year.” What should the money be spent on? Professional development is one recommendation mentioned.

Tagged as: Economics, Education, Kansas news media, Politics, Twitter, Wichita news media

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Pew Internet and American Life Project Redesign

by Bob Weeks on March 19, 2009

The Pew Internet & American Life Project has redesigned their website. This organization has been a valuable source of information about the Internet and how people are using it.

As an example, here are some of their recent research reports:

Twitter and status updating: “As of December 2008, 11% of online American adults said they used a service like Twitter or another service that allowed them to share updates about themselves or to see the updates of others.”

Adults and Social Network Websites: “The share of adult internet users who have a profile on an online social network site has more than quadrupled in the past four years — from 8% in 2005 to 35% at the end of 2008.”

When Technology Fails: “Half (48%) of tech users need help from others in getting new devices and services to work, and many experience tech outages when there is a glitch with their home internet connection, computer, or cell phone.”

Tagged as: Computing, Twitter

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Articles of Interest

by Bob Weeks on February 27, 2009

Subsidizing Bad Ideas What are some of the things wrong with the president’s plan to solve the mortgage crisis? Howie Rich of Americans For Limited Government explains: “First, the plan is emblematic of America’s new “dependence mentality,” which is advanced by politicians like Obama who rhetorically extol the virtues that once made this country great while they systematically remove brick-by-brick the incentives needed to make it great once again. Second, it’s more of the same smoke-and-mirrors Washington politicians employ to hide the true coming-and-goings of your tax dollars in our nation’s capital. Third, it rewards many of the same financial institutions whose mistakes have helped bring this nation to the brink of fiscal ruin – and incentivizes them to make those same mistakes all over again.”

Judging Obama John Stossel explains some of the problems in judging the success of failure of President Obama’s economic interventions, and who should get the credit or blame.

Obama Gives Failing Schools a Pass: The day of reckoning has arrived — except for teachers’ unions (Chester E. Finn Jr. & Michael J. Petrilli in National Review). “This is classic Obama, straddling the Democratic divide on education, just as he did so deftly during the campaign, striving to placate both the reformers within the party and the union bosses. … It’s no accident that our schools aren’t producing enough well-educated graduates; that’s because the system has been designed to place the needs of adults over the needs of kids. But saying any of that would put him at odds with the education establishment, which he doesn’t appear to want to cross.” More indication that President Obama will not implement any meaningful education reform.

Zoomdweebie’s builds success on Twitter (Wichita Eagle). A Wichita business uses social media like Twitter to boost business.

The Government’s War on Recession. Lew Rockwell explains some of the problems and dangers with the way the Obama administration is attacking the problems with the economy: “The economics of stimulus are not as complicated. They amount to taking from some and giving to others. There is no wealth creation at all. There is no magic ‘multiplier’ to turn stones into bread. The economics of stimulus is value-destroying, because property is pried loose from owners who are putting it to socially useful purposes, and given to government so it can pass it out to friends. This process is costly to overall wealth production — and most of those costs are unseen. We will never know what kind of real stimulus could have taken place had the property been left in private hands. What jobs might have been created, what investments might have been made, what kind of business expansions might have taken place? We will never know.”

Tagged as: Computing, Economics, Education, Politics, Stimulus bill, Twitter

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Kansas Jackass spotted at Kansas days

by Bob Weeks on January 31, 2009

Through several methods, including excessive tweeting and plain old gumshoe work, the identity of the anonymous blogger Kansas Jackass was deduced. One tweet by the Jackass told me that the blogger would be entering the event hall at Kansas Days in a few minutes. I waited by the door and had a conversation with the Jackass.

Tagged as: Kansas blogs, Twitter

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Maggie Twitters

by Bob Weeks on December 2, 2008

My friend Maggie Thurber from Toledo explains a bit about Twitter and tweets. See Do you Twitter? from her blog Thurber’s Thoughts.

You can follow me on Twitter by clicking here.

Tagged as: Computing, Twitter

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Follow Me on Twitter. I’ll follow you.

August 8, 2008

Some people have asked if I’m on Twitter, and the answer is yes. Here’s a link to my Twitter profile, from where you can choose to follow me. I don’t use Twitter as much as a lot of people do. I don’t have a mobile device like a Blackberry. I have a regular old-fashioned cell [...]

Tagged as: Kansas blogs, Twitter

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Defending the American Dream, or RightOnline in Austin 2008

July 21, 2008

I just returned from Austin, Texas, attending a conference put on by Americans For Prosperity partnering with Sam Adams Alliance, Heritage Foundation, Leadership Institute, and Media Research Center. Thank you to my friend Erik Telford for inviting me to this conference. We had some great speakers. Robert Novak is a favorite person of mine. I [...]

Tagged as: Facebook, Free markets, Liberty, Twitter

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