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President Obama talked to NBC’s Ann Curry this week, who asked about his efforts to convince the private sector to invest more in hiring. His answer wouldn’t have been especially noteworthy, were it not for the right’s strange criticism of it. Here’s the clip of the relevant portion:
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For those of you who can’t watch clips from your work computers, the Today host noted that businesses are buying equipment, but not hiring workers, and asked why the president has been “unable to convince businesses to hire more people.” Obama responded, “Well, I don’t think it’s a matter of me being unable to convince them to hire more people. They’re making decisions based on what they think will be good for their companies. A couple of things have happened. Look, we went through the worst crisis since the Great Depression. We are now in a process where the economy is growing again, and we’ve created 2 million jobs over the last 15 months. But it’s not as fast as it needs to be to make up for all the jobs that were lost.
“The other thing that happened, though, and this goes to the point you were just making, is there are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers. You see it when you go to a bank and you use an ATM; you don’t go to a bank teller. Or you go to the airport, and you’re using a kiosk instead of checking in at the gate. So all these things have created changes in the economy, and what we have to do now — and that’s what this job council is all about — is identifying where the jobs for the future are going to be; how do we make sure that there’s a match between what people are getting trained for and the jobs that exist; how do we make sure that capital is flowing into those places with the greatest opportunity. We are on the right track. The key is figuring out how do we accelerate it.”
Fairly straightforward stuff, right? Wrong. Fox News, Erick Erickson, Rush Limbaugh, and Michelle Malkin all argued yesterday that the president “blamed ATMs for high unemployment.”
Must these folks always make such odd complaints? Is the notion that technological advancements have displaced part of the workforce — a concept taken as a given among economists — really that hard to understand?
It’s frustrating enough when the right lies, smears, and takes cheap shots. But some days, I just wish they’d grow up.
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David in NY on June 15, 2011 4:37 PM:
Wonder how the former bank tellers, displaced by ATM's, feel about this.
Eeyore on June 15, 2011 4:42 PM:
Tomorrow: OBAMA WANTS TO TAKE AWAY YOUR ATMS! The founding fathers wanted us to be able to get money 24/7!
T2 on June 15, 2011 4:43 PM:
I don't wish they'd "grow up", I wish they'd get voted out of office. That's real, that can happen. Wishing the Republicans would start being normal is a loser's game. Vote them out.
ManOutOfTime on June 15, 2011 4:44 PM:
Hilarious! I have to say, I don't even think it's that much of a stretch, anyway, to blame ATMs for high unemployment, but in my crazy brain that's an abstraction and a placeholder for "technological advances reduce need for human workers." BUT, were that the statement and only statement Obama made, it would be wrong. The collapse in household formation and therefore new housing construction is the biggest drag on un-, low-, and semi-skilled workers.
The availability of 15 million laborers makes it a tragedy that we don't have $10 trillion worth of deferred infrastructure maintenance projects and historically low interest rates to pay for the work. What? We do? Never mind.
Trollhattan on June 15, 2011 4:46 PM:
I await the Fox talking point in which Obama is responsible for the lack of jobs shoveling coal into locomotive fireboxes.
Texas Aggie on June 15, 2011 4:49 PM:
"But some days, I just wish they’d grow up."
But then they wouldn't be conservatives anymore.
This morning I was driving the guy who is installing a bathroom in my father-in-law's house to work. He has a junior high education. He made the comment that it seemed to him that the right wing wasn't really interested in facts or reality or anything like that, just in winning a debate. He has another friend, a Baptist missionary's son, who told him that it's all a game, that you can't believe your own points or else you would lose the debate. He stated that you had to keep your eye on the final goal, and how you got there was incidental. The only important thing was to win the "game."
If a guy with so little education can understand that the right wing is full of it, then what's the problem with so many TP's?
eahopp on June 15, 2011 4:52 PM:
Forget shoveling coal in the locomotive fireboxes--what about all the lost jobs of blacksmiths making horseshoes, wood workers making wagons, saddle makers, and the guys walking around the city streets, day and night, sweeping up the horse dung?
Damn them newfangled automobiles!
Lifelong Dem on June 15, 2011 4:59 PM:
Obama speaks, RW media goes apeshit.
Tide goes in, tide goes out.
You really can't explain either one.
Danp on June 15, 2011 5:01 PM:
Sometimes I think the biggest difference between Monty Python and cable news is that cable news lacks a laugh track to let it's viewers know what is supposed to be funny.
zeitgeist on June 15, 2011 5:02 PM:
having a party of non-grown-ups makes perfect sense in a representative democracy where many of the voters have never grown-up (or have regressed).
its hard to blame the wingers when the strategy works. sure it demans the country and make problem solving impossible, but to the extent politics is a game about winning, and they keep winning, whose fault is that?
sadly, the electorate has gotten the government it voted for. while the right wing candidates in 1994, 2000, 2004 and 2010 may have hidden some of the specifics, they have hardly been subtle about the broad contours of their beliefs. through a combination of voting and non-participation decisions, the citizens have spoken. mainly in baby-talk, apparently.
Turgidson on June 15, 2011 5:05 PM:
Obama could say "I think puppies are cute" and the RW blowhards would find a way to accuse him of being a degenerate America-hating Commie. So it goes. T2 is right - they won't grow up, but they can be driven from power if the electorate gets clued into how insane they are.
fbacon2 on June 15, 2011 5:15 PM:
Not odd, just small. It's the same thing they did with the tire pressure gauges in the 2008 race when Obama answered an honest question about what individuals can do to lower their gas prices. Problem is that it works, and the press follows it. The bigger problem is that conservative rank and file voters might actually believe it.
Art Hackett on June 15, 2011 5:16 PM:
OK I propose the bank tellers full employment act. ATMs are outlawed, ditto for on line banking.. Banks open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, five teller minimum in all branches plus supervisory staff. Happy now?
slappy magoo on June 15, 2011 5:28 PM:
Why should they grow up? Not only are they no negative consequences for their inane ramblings, but the more they ramble the more attention they get, the more offers they get to appear on news shows, the more options they have for speaking engagements...if you amongst the craven and soulless in the GOP, there is no downside for bad behavior
Anonymous on June 15, 2011 5:40 PM:
"Obama speaks, RW media goes apeshit.
Tide goes in, tide goes out.
You really can't explain either one."
actually, you can explain one of them.
navamske on June 15, 2011 5:41 PM:
"It’s frustrating enough when the right lies, smears, and takes cheap shots."
You might as well say, "It's frustrating enough when the right breathes."
hornblower on June 15, 2011 6:55 PM:
I saw Ann Curry mention that the Pres. is not angry enough about unemployment. Should he throw a fit and foam at the mouth?
Do they really pay these people?
exlibra on June 15, 2011 7:08 PM:
Fox News, Erick Erickson, Rush Limbaugh, and Michelle Malkin all argued yesterday that the president “blamed ATMs for high unemployment.” -- Steve Benen
Reminds me of a sci-fi story I once read, a long time ago, where there was one "mothership/brain" and a whole flock of almost-brainless drones which could be sent out to do the grunt work. Of course, it's also, pretty much, how a beehive operates. But who's the Queen Bee giving the orders? Who's the Brain behind all those mouths?
"Practices ndeleg". Who does? And why?
Houndour on June 15, 2011 7:10 PM:
Do the Limbaughs, etc., not realize that technology has automated routine tasks in most industries, thereby wiping out entire labor categories? (Interestingly (well, to me), the healthcare industry has lagged in this respect; that's why the ACA contains incentives for increased use of electronic health records). Anyway, what remains? Complex problem-solving tasks that highly degreed knowledge workers have been groomed for. This structural issue has been unfolding for three decades now; it's remarkable that the Republican Party hasn't caught on.
Dylan on June 15, 2011 9:51 PM:
The republican response reminds me of my ex-girlfriend. I would say "That dress looks really good on you" She says "Oh so you hate the way I normally dress." Not a question but a statement in response. This kind of crazy jumping past the message was part of why we did not stay together, and it should be why America should look to republicans with more than just a skeptical eye.
mr. irony on June 16, 2011 7:55 AM:
GOP 2011: Cutting Jobs...Creates Jobs !
nycweboy on June 16, 2011 8:15 AM:
"I wish they'd just grow up" is hardly the way to suggest that you are standing on the "grown up" side of an argument. That conservatives will look for any - even flimsy - excuse to criticize the President seems both a given and rather silly to make into the biggest issue we face. The big issue, after all, is that neither Obama's statement, nor conservative annoyance with it, actually deals with the problem as identified: that technology has worked to eliminate a slew of jobs that used to exist, that will not be coming back any time soon. I don't disagree with Obama's restatement of various factual realities; but I think, like a number of leaders, he substitutes these recapitulations for actual ideas about how to deal with them. That conservatives also have no solutions is a good indication of why the President is likely to be reelected. That Steve Benen, still, spends most of his time refighting a fairly small partisan battle is a good indication of missing the big picture.
Ohioan on June 16, 2011 12:38 PM:
I agree with Rush on the headline criticism, although my detailed criticism is from the left. ATM's weren't deployed in 2007. None of the current crisis is structural. The "rentiers" as Paul Krugman calls them want you to believe that the current unemployment crisis is largely structural. The EPI throroughly debunked that theory. Obama is wrong - we don't need job training, we just need fiscal and monetary stimulus enough to fill the output gap.