From the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION: JUNE 2009

Nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline in June (-467,000), and the unemployment rate was little changed at 9.5 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Job losses were widespread across the major industry sectors, with large declines occurring in manufacturing, professional and business services, and construction.

As for manufacturing:

Employment in manufacturing fell by 136,000 over the month and has declined by 1.9 million during the recession. Within the durable goods industry, motor vehicles and parts (-27,000), fabricated metal products (-18,000), computer and electronic products (-16,000), and machinery (-14,000) continued to lose jobs in June. Since the recession began, employment in motor vehicles and parts has declined by 335,000, or about one-third.

Associated Press, “Obama: More work needed to create new jobs”

Be not discouraged. Washington Post, “Federal Agencies Could Add 120,000 Area Jobs”

Regarding the Institute for Supply Management’s June report on manufacturing:  Today’s report indicates that the manufacturing recession could end sometime in the second half of the year.

The fact that the overall PMI index improved for a sixth consecutive month in June is significant.  After bottoming out at 32.9 last December, the PMI Index rose to a level of 44.8 in June, still shy of the break-even point of 50, which signals that the manufacturing sector is expanding. 

And while it has yet to break into positive territory, positive developments, especially over the past few months, mirror similar improvements in other regional surveys of manufacturing activity throughout the second quarter.

The fact that the ISM’s measure of manufacturing production rose into positive territory in June for the first time since last August is noteworthy.  And, while there have been significant improvements in both overall orders, as well as export orders, over the first half of the year, the fact that both continued to contract last month signals that a general upturn in manufacturing activity in the second half will likely be gradual.

From The Examiner, taken aback (as were we) by the President’s recent remarks holding up California as a model of energy conservation and economic leadership. From today’s editorial, “California here we come“:

While promoting his new cap-and-trade energy tax bill, which passed the U.S. House last week, President Obama revealed in a White House address on Monday his model for the nation’s economy - California. “In the late 1970s, the state of California enacted tougher energy-efficiency policies,” Obama said, noting that the state and its residents use less energy today per capita than the national average. “Think about that,” he said, “California producing jobs, their economy keeping pace with the rest of the country and yet they’ve been able to maintain their energy usage in a much lower level than the rest of the country.”

Obama might want to rethink his choice of a model state because it is easy to understand how California has curbed its energy use. Between 2000 and 2007, before the current recession, the state shed nearly 21 percent of its manufacturing jobs, driving down its industrial electrical consumption by 21 percent. California’s industrial users pay electric rates twice as high as their Midwestern counterparts - which helps explain why so much heavy industry has fled the state. In addition to alienating its industry, California has also curbed energy use through exorbitant residential electric rates (50 percent higher than the national average) and massive net out-migration. Between 2005 and 2007, 2.14 million Californians moved to other states, while only 1.44 million people from elsewhere moved to the Golden State, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

California’s state leaders failed to get a budget in place for the start of the new fiscal year, and state employees may soon be paid in IOUs.

There’s a news peg for the White House press corps to ask a question of Mr. Gibbs today: “Earlier this week President Obama held California up as a model of energy and economic leadership. California is some $20 billion in the red, failed to get a budget in place for the new fiscal year, and is going to issue IOUs instead of paychecks. In what way does the President regard California as leader?”

Many manufacturers and NAM member companies have been disappointed by the slow and weak impact the stimulus measure — which the NAM supported — has had on the economy. (See this post.) The goal was both immediate stimulus (a la shovel-ready) AND dollars spent on investments that would strengthen U.S. competitiveness, especially infrastructure.

Now MSNBC provides some numbers that affirm the manufacturers’ dissatisfaction:

Of the $478 billion in direct spending (the rest is mostly tax cuts), the Congressional Budget Office figures only about $150 billion will be available this year.

Of that money, some agencies have done at lot better than others at writing checks. The Social Security Administration — which knows a thing or two about writing checks — has spent all $13 billion of its stimulus budget for this year. About three-quarters of the $21.5 billion allocated to Health and Human Services has been spent. And the Agriculture Department has processed about two-thirds of the $3.2 billion it has available this year.

But it seems that other agencies are having a harder time getting the money out the door. As of mid-June, for example, spending by the Transportation Deptartment for so-called “shovel ready” projects represented barely 2 percent of available funds. The EPA has barely touched its $4.4 billion in stimulus spending. Same for the Defense Department.

So spending with minimal stimulus and little if anything to enhance U.S. competitiveness. Sure. Bring on Stimulus II!

(Hat tip: Jonah Goldberg, who writes today on the primacy of pork.)

While promises to increase taxes on businesses, particularly those with operations overseas, may play well on the campaign trail, it’s clear that, when the dust settles, the rhetoric has no basis in reality. 

In today’s Washington Post, columnist Geoff Colvin does a good job of dispelling any notion that U.S. corporations are up to no good when it comes to the tax code.  In fact, the tax changes proposed by the Administration represent a major change in long-standing tax policy designed to “level the playing field” in a global economy where most countries tax business income at a lower rate.  At the end of the day, these proposals amount to a hefty tax increase on U.S. multinational companies.  The international tax changes, combined with other tax increases like the repeal of “LIFO” and the new carbon “tax and trade,”  are bad news for all of us.  As any economist knows, corporations don’t pay taxes, we—customers, shareholders and workers— do.

Continuing on the topic of regulations, the left-leaning-leaning-leaning-oops-it’s-toppled-over magazine, The Nation, envisions a newly emboldened and empowered and progressive Federal Trade Commission now making common cause with the Justice Department against “corporate gigantism.” From “The Little Agency that Could“:

Congress needs to take action to unleash the FTC’s full potential. First, it remains a small agency with broad and complex responsibilities and cumbersome procedural burdens, especially in rule-making. Here, the FTC’s champions in Congress can make certain that Congress supplies more resources and streamlines the FTC’s authority. The agency also has a chronic problem of setting priorities: wherever it turns, there are corporate malefactors, large and small, deserving of prosecution. Last year then-chair Kovacic prepared a broad review of the FTC’s effectiveness on the occasion of its approaching 100th anniversary. In his report he called for a larger staff and mission for the FTC’s independent Policy Planning Office to set priorities for the agency–especially apt to its mission of helping to restore a healthy and competitive economy. But the effort needs more than planners; it needs many more prosecutorial troops on the ground.

The second problem facing the FTC is the hangover from eight years of reactionary Bush judicial appointments hostile to FTC cases. (These cases invoked innovative legal theories that aimed for such goals as denying mergers or breaking up huge conglomerates and cited not only traditional anticompetitive theories but broader theories of harm to the economy and the public welfare.) This impediment, too, could be significantly ameliorated by clear legislative authority.

Just what America needs to stay competitive and create jobs: More prosecutorial troops to pursue innovative legal theories.

From Jim Geraghty, The Campaign Spot, “It’s Easy To Cut the Budget When You Have No Other Option“:

New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine is touting the fact that by signing the budget [Monday], he “became the first Governor of New Jersey in over six decades to reduce, two years in a row, the size and cost of state government.”

Except that he really didn’t have too much choice in the matter, as the state is facing a “historic tax-revenue collapse” and the state constitution requires a balanced budget. And the revenues started plummeting in the first months of the budgetary year last year.

And while the current budget does include some spending cuts, it also makes up the gap with $2 billion in federal stimulus money and raises taxes on wine and hard liquor, tobacco, and top earners. Oh, and if you win the lottery, the state is now taxing those winnings, too.

Which reminds us again of the Wall Street Journal editorial on the Albany-Trenton-Sacramento disease, with the second headline, “How three liberal states got into deep trouble with ‘progressive’ ideas.”

As far as we know, this is the full text of H.R. 2454, as passed by the House. It is now 1,428 pages.

Beach reading, as the oceans slowly rise to submerge you.

Or not.

From President Obama’s remarks Monday on energy and cap-and-trade legislation, offering California as a model for the rest of the country:

Think about that. California — producing jobs, their economy keeping pace with the rest of the country, and yet they have been able to maintain their energy usage at a much lower level than the rest of the country.

From the weekend, “Controller: IOUs signal Calif fiscal mismanagement“:

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Thousands of Californians will be hurt and it will cost millions if the state is forced to hand out IOUs instead of payments next week, the state controller said Friday. The IOUs could come as soon as next Thursday, yet lawmakers remained no closer to a budget compromise.

State Controller John Chiang (CHUNG) said Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and lawmakers need to come up with a complete solution to the state’s $24.3 billion deficit instead of making a political statement.

Some government entities are so strapped for cash, they’re thinking of taxing marijuana sales.

From President Obama’s remarks today on energy and cap-and-trade legislation, holding up California as a model for the rest of the country:

Think about that. California — producing jobs, their economy keeping pace with the rest of the country, and yet they have been able to maintain their energy usage at a much lower level than the rest of the country.

Their economy keeping pace with the rest of the country? That’s just not the case.

From Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Regional and State Employment and Unemployment: May 2009“:

• The largest over-the-month decrease in the level of employment occurred in California (-68,900), followed by Florida (-61,000), Texas (-24,700), and Michigan (-23,900).
• Michigan again reported the highest jobless rate, 14.1 percent in May. The states with the next highest rates were Oregon, 12.4 percent; Rhode Island and South Carolina, 12.1 percent each; California, 11.5
  percent; Nevada, 11.3 percent; and North Carolina, 11.1 percent.
• The California, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, and South Carolina rates were the highest on record for those states.

From The Wall Street Journal, Review and Outlook, June 26, “The Albany-Trenton-Sacramento Disease”:

• California’s deficit for 2010 is projected at $33.9 billion.
• California’s debt burden has multiplied so fast that it now has the worst bond rating of any state.
• New York ranks first, California second and New Jersey third in moving vans leaving the state.

Pass Waxman-Markey and your state too can have California’s economy.

And the President regards that as an argument in favor?