Dana Blankenhorn

Where are the jobs?

Think of this as Volume 12, Number 42 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.

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It's the question every journalist is asking. Where are the jobs?

By this point in the economic cycle unemployment should be falling, not rising. People who have jobs, like my dear wife, are incredibly productive and highly profitable. Many are being pressed to the limit, forced into free overtime for fear they will join the ranks of the unemployed.

But put yourself in an employer's place a moment. You want to hire someone. How much will it cost?

Right now you don't know. The salary is not at issue here. The question is what will you have to pay for health care?

Until there is visibility on health care costs, which is not a question of how much you pay but knowing what that how much is, it's impossible to justify a new hire. Once a health care bill passes (or fails) you will know and be able to make a decision. Until then, no. 

The good news is that the economy is on the mend, thanks to the radical interventions of the last year. Sure, those interventions have increased the deficit, but look at it, again, from an employer's perspective.

The business is failing, and a new machine might increase production and productivity, but it will take debt to buy. If you don't buy you fail, but if you do buy you take a risk. So you buy. You're incorporated and thus protected from the personal consequences of failure to an extent. 

Fox Jr.

One neat trick the Right perfected over the last generation has been the manipulation of the media.

A founding principle of the Nixon Thesis is  "the liberal media." Any criticism, on anything from any quarter gets this immediate response from the conservative grassroots. "You're part of the liberal media," followed by a prompt dismissal of the critic.

It's a great dodge, this victim game. It means you never need answer a critic. They're biased. They're the enemy. And you can spread this word among your acolytes, so they too are inoculated.

Once inoculated in this way people become sheep. Nothing that contradicts you can ever get to them.

To this has been added the control and ownership of the media. The best know conservative media baron is Rupert Murdoch, who now has immense sway over the politics of Australia, Britain and the U.S. through his ownership of newspapers, magazines, TV and cable, and Web sites. A better example might be Silvio Berlusconi, who used his control of Italy's media to make himself ruler of all Italy.

To these conservatives the equation is pretty simple. Own the media and you control the people. Grab them by the clickers and their hearts and minds will follow. Politics is not a contest of ideas. It is a contest of wills, and money. With enough of both you can make people believe anything you want.

Liberals have never really gotten their heads around this. It's one thing to deal with a media that is owned by people who vote conservative. It's another thing entirely to face a conservative media, a media where no voices other than conservatives ones get a hearing, where no facts other than those conservatives approve of can be known.

Murdoch is not alone. Pat Robertson controls a large hunk of the media. Sun Myung Moon controls another hunk. There have long been regional conservative barons in various parts of the country -- Freedom Newspapers in California, Morris Communications in Georgia. The dominance of these companies within their markets mean liberal causes, liberal politicians, and liberal organizations start off with an immense disadvantage.

But at least these organizations pretend to exist in the market.

The New Madden

No tech today. No business. No politics. It's Columbus Day so we'll pretend it's your day off.

Instead it's something completely different. American football. Specifically its analysis, and the best guy working in that field. Tony Dungy (right).

In his first year Dungy has taken over NBC's Sunday Night football show with his quiet authority, with his knowledge and with his humanity. The network found a perfect sidekick for him in the recently-retired Rodney Harrison, but this is Dungy's show and we're all the better for it.

Football needed a new face when John Madden quit, and while it's a surprise to find it in a studio show host you take what you can get. Everyone on the set defers to Dungy, and it's easy to see why. Everything he says is letter-perfect for the moment. He knows the people, he knows the game as very few do (which he's proven) but there's something about his air of calm, reflective authority I find fascinating.