More economic recovery:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12648347

 

The US unemployment rate fell slightly to 8.9% in February, down from 9% the month before.

It is the third month in a row that the jobless rate has fallen, with February's figure marking a near two-year low.

Employers added 192,000 jobs last month, the US Labor Department said, above market expectations.

Paul O'Neill, former US Treasury Secretary, described the data as "very positive".

A Labor Department statement said that most job gains were in manufacturing, construction, business services and transport.

State and local government slashed 30,000 jobs, the most since November as budget cuts continue to bite.

The data showed that the jobless rate for adult men was 8.7%, for adult women 8%, and for teenagers 23.9%.

The unemployment rate has come down from 9.8% in November.

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I'll be the first to admit that this is not what the Obama Administration predicted or really wanted when they wanted unemployment to stay where it was when they were inaugurated. However looking at this, the unemployment figures appear to be showing more, and more effective, growth since the Administration's stimulus package has gone into effect. It makes me curious in fact whether or not a larger stimulus package would have had more effect. What do you guys think?

Comments

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

1) Those arguing a counterpoint would ask about the Mandate of Heaven and the concept of the Roman Emperor as the living god, and whether or not that renders the entire concept of a "cult of personality" moot.

2) Er....this is totalitarianism at its core. Qin Shi Huang did all this in the 3rd Century BCE. What separates fascism from communism is the latter explicitly identifies itself with one faction of class warfare while the former rejects the concept altogether and substitutes its own.

[http://users.livejournal.com/-wanderer-/]

1) I'd agree that those two things are examples of cults of personality, but the reach is so limited compared to modern-day cults of personality. I don't know how much the average pre-modern Chinese person (i.e., an illiterate peasant) understood about the Mandate of Heaven, or if he even bought into the concept. I sincerely doubt it affected his life in an everyday sense though. Given that the state co-opted the literati even in those earlier times and indoctrinated them, it would be hard to say how much reach the concept had outside of the ruling classes.

2) I would hesitate to call Qin Shi Huang totalitarian in any way that resembles 20th century totalitarianism. I agree that he was on that spectrum but falls short. Unifying weights, writing, burying your opposition alive, etc. is one thing, but intruding on every aspect of society is quite another, and something that was impossible to do, given the technology of the times.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

1) I disagree with that. The average peasant understanding the Huangdi or the Augustus as such was most likely the only way that he or she would have understood them.

2) All I know as a counter to that is that at one point what is now China had seven ancient states, but after Qin Shi Huang they were forever destroyed in one lifetime. Qin Shi Huang was the most successful totalitarian in world history, and there's a reason he was rehabilitated in Chinese history by Mao Zedong.