August jobs report: Hiring grinds to a halt

[Chaosblade02]

America is going to have to go through some dramatic change in policy before the economy gets any better. Otherwise we will never see 5% unemployment rates again. People don't realize what we are experiencing now with the economy is going to be the new economic norm for America.

 

[PeshakJang]

I liked Huntsman's plan.



http://www.google.com/search?client...rceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&channel=suggest (first WSJ link)

Ok, who is it going to hurt when we cut things like tax-free municipal bonds?

Rich people aren't going to keep lending money at lower rates out of he kindness of their hearts... Municipalities will see borrowing rates skyrocket. These are the simple FACTS that people refuse to acknowledge.

 

[matt0611]

And yet fail to name them or to document the claim...

We cut government by almost 1/2 iirc after WW2 and let most of the shitty new deal programs expire. We had the highest growth in a single year ever after government stopped spending. Keynesians predicted the economy would collapse after this happened. They were wrong just as you and Obama have been wrong.

You'll just make up some lame excuse about why that was possible though.
Like most liberals, you can't even fathom how an economy can grow without the government central planning it.

Obama and his (and yours) shitty economic policies have been an absolute fucking failure as everyone who actually understands economics predicted years ago.

FAIL

Looks like Obama is gonna up the ante though, lets spend and print more. What a fucking failure of a president he is.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

Guns, Stea and Germs. Everyone needs to read this book.

We went from hunter gatherers to farming over time (for various and many reasons). As that occured, people were put "out of work". And more people had time to do things like develop better weapons. And over time, better farming tools, which put more people "out of work". It;s amazing how modern society is built around efficiency. And throughout history, it is the governemnts that tended to create jobs for the people in order to better mankind. And now, with this continueing evolution of job creation, we want to destroy the very thing that throughout history has created work for people. It's assinine.

It's a fragmented thought. I don't care to make it any better. To many people are rigid in their preconceived notions.

 

[nick1985]

We cut government by almost 1/2 iirc after WW2 and let most of the shitty new deal programs expire. We had the highest growth in a single year ever after government stopped spending. Keynesians predicted the economy would collapse after this happened. They were wrong just as you and Obama have been wrong.

You'll just make up some lame excuse about why that was possible though.
Like most liberals, you can't even fathom how an economy can grow without the government central planning it.

Obama and his (and yours) shitty economic policies have been an absolute fucking failure as everyone who actually understands economics predicted years ago.

FAIL

Looks like Obama is gonna up the ante though, lets spend and print more. What a fucking failure of a president he is.

but...Krugman says otherwise!!!

 

[fskimospy]

We cut government by almost 1/2 iirc after WW2 and let most of the shitty new deal programs expire. We had the highest growth in a single year ever after government stopped spending. Keynesians predicted the economy would collapse after this happened. They were wrong just as you and Obama have been wrong.

You'll just make up some lame excuse about why that was possible though.
Like most liberals, you can't even fathom how an economy can grow without the government central planning it.

Obama and his (and yours) shitty economic policies have been an absolute fucking failure as everyone who actually understands economics predicted years ago.

FAIL

Looks like Obama is gonna up the ante though, lets spend and print more. What a fucking failure of a president he is.

Oh really? This sounds very interesting to me! Please provide links to the people who said Obama's economics would be a failure.

Specifically I want to see links to people that attack specific policies that include why they believed the policies to be a failure and most importantly, what the results of that policy failure would be.

I can't wait to see what the predictions of those who you believe 'actually understand economics' were. (hint: I already know, and it's not going to end well for you)

 

[Jhhnn]

We cut government by almost 1/2 iirc after WW2 and let most of the shitty new deal programs expire. We had the highest growth in a single year ever after government stopped spending. Keynesians predicted the economy would collapse after this happened. They were wrong just as you and Obama have been wrong.

You'll just make up some lame excuse about why that was possible though.
Like most liberals, you can't even fathom how an economy can grow without the government central planning it.

Obama and his (and yours) shitty economic policies have been an absolute fucking failure as everyone who actually understands economics predicted years ago.

FAIL

Looks like Obama is gonna up the ante though, lets spend and print more. What a fucking failure of a president he is.

Heh. Mere assertion, lacking substantiative reasoning or documentation of any kind.

We cut spending on the military dramatically as WW2 ended, no doubt. That doesn't mean that the govt shrank in any other respect.

The growth of the period was due to demand, plain and simple- international and domestic. Pent up domestic demand from the austerity & rationing of the war years was enormous, and military suppliers quickly retooled to meet it. There is no such pent up demand today, only the enormous debt of the Ownership Society crushing demand as Americans attempt to meet their obligations.

You need to quote Keynsians of the period if you're to have credibility wrt their predictions at the time. Good luck with that.

The rest, I'm afraid, is just raving denial on your part as to the causes of our current malaise. The cause is the over extension of credit by greedy financiers who took a cut off the top of the creation of that debt at every level other than at the tippytop. It was cheered on from the bully pulpit & every level of the Bush Admin, and also by their congressional allies. Mortgage debt. Credit card debt. Federal debt to facilitate tax cuts & wars of adventure.

Not until that debt is either paid down or destroyed will demand again fuel the private sector to hire, but the need for people to have jobs to survive & participate in the economy is persistent, ongoing.

Everything that most people think they know about economics is turned upside down in a liquidity trap, a balance sheet recession, and a debt/deflation spiral, which is what we really have today, despite efforts by the FRB & Treasury to counteract them. And so long as enough people like yourself are chumped by simplistic & emotionally satisfying jingoism, it'll get worse, not better.

 

[Jhhnn]

but...Krugman says otherwise!!!

It's not just Krugman, but rather a multitude of other economists who predicted the crash of the Ownership Society as the pundits of Republicanism said it never would end. Reference Roubini, Stiglitz, and others. They were right then, their detractors dead wrong.

Who ya gonna believe- guys with a track record of being right, or the perps & their mouthpieces who put us into this mess?

 

[WhipperSnapper]

I don’t understand why Huntsman isn’t getting more attention.
He actually sounds reasonable, he actually has experience, and his overall opinions reflect the majority of Americans thus he would be electable and the real threat to Obama. Hell... I might vote for him. Too bad the batshits have derailed the republican party. I cannot imagine how the main stream republicans are feeling about what is happening to their party, and Im not even a republican (obvious?)....

I listened to Huntsman's interview on the PBS Newshour, and if I heard him correctly, he said something to the extent that he thought Evolution may have occurred and that global warming may have a scientific basis. If so, that alone would probably be enough to make him an unviable candidate amongst the Tea Party Tards crowd.

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

We cut government by almost 1/2 iirc after WW2 and let most of the shitty new deal programs expire. We had the highest growth in a single year ever after government stopped spending. Keynesians predicted the economy would collapse after this happened. They were wrong just as you and Obama have been wrong.

You'll just make up some lame excuse about why that was possible though.
Like most liberals, you can't even fathom how an economy can grow without the government central planning it.

Obama and his (and yours) shitty economic policies have been an absolute fucking failure as everyone who actually understands economics predicted years ago.

FAIL

Looks like Obama is gonna up the ante though, lets spend and print more. What a fucking failure of a president he is.

Like most (shatever label you give yourself), you can't even fathom how an economy can grow without the government central planning it.

So, explain it to us. Start with "Largest US employer cuts spending" and go from there.

So, tell how how the end of WW2 is like today? lso, what do you exactly mean when you say we cut the government in half after WW2?

If you want to look at post WW2, keep in mind that taxes on the poor decreased relative to the wealthy. In effect, taxes on the wealthy went up.

 

[matt0611]

Oh really? This sounds very interesting to me! Please provide links to the people who said Obama's economics would be a failure.

Specifically I want to see links to people that attack specific policies that include why they believed the policies to be a failure and most importantly, what the results of that policy failure would be.

I can't wait to see what the predictions of those who you believe 'actually understand economics' were. (hint: I already know, and it's not going to end well for you)

You don't remember ANYONE saying Obama's economic policies would be a failure?

There were plenty of people on this very forum who said the stimulus and money printing and more government would fail to bring us out of this economic shithole. What conservative even on this forum DID NOT predict it would be a failure?

And here we are again, ready to do more of the same. Hint, these economic ideas will not end well for us, but that won't stop the people in government from doing them. Oh well.

 

[IGBT]

it's the obama economy. His finger prints are all over it.

 

[fskimospy]

You don't remember ANYONE saying Obama's economic policies would be a failure?

There were plenty of people on this very forum who said the stimulus and money printing and more government would fail to bring us out of this economic shithole.

And here we are again, ready to do more of the same. Hint, these economic ideas will not end well for us.

You didn't even come close to answering my question. You said everyone who understood economics knew that Obama's policies would be a failure. If this is true, my request to you was extremely simple. All I wanted to know was who predicted their failure, the exact policy that they predicted would fail, and most importantly what the results of that failure would be.

If someone knew these policies would fail, they must have had an idea of how and why they would fail, otherwise how could they make such a prediction intelligently? Why is printing more money bad and what were its specific bad effects? Why was the stimulus bad and what were its specific bad effects? Why was more government bad and what were its specific bad effects? Point out specific things that were said and show how America's economic performance reflected the correctness of those statements.

If what you said was true, this shouldn't be hard.

 

[matt0611]

You didn't even come close to answering my question. You said everyone who understood economics knew that Obama's policies would be a failure. If this is true, my request to you was extremely simple. All I wanted to know was who predicted their failure, the exact policy that they predicted would fail, and most importantly what the results of that failure would be.

If someone knew these policies would fail, they must have had an idea of how and why they would fail, otherwise how could they make such a prediction intelligently? Why is printing more money bad and what were its specific bad effects? Why was the stimulus bad and what were its specific bad effects? Why was more government bad and what were its specific bad effects? Point out specific things that were said and show how America's economic performance reflected the correctness of those statements.

If what you said was true, this shouldn't be hard.

The stimulus and money printing and government expansion would lead to back where we started of course, economic shit hole. Nothing has changed, we had a stimulus high for a year and now we are feeling the effects of it wearing off. Like I have been saying since I started posting here.

Don't sit here and pretend no one predicted this would fail.

 

[RbSX]

At this point it's going to take so much work and raw effort to get America out this hole and frankly, I don't think the populace has the collective will to do it.

This isn't a matter of monetary or fiscal policy, it's an issue a problematic method of existence where people will lay off their neighborhood so that they can make another buck.

 

[fskimospy]

The stimulus and money printing and government expansion would lead to back where we started of course, economic shit hole. Nothing has changed, we had a stimulus high for a year and now we are feeling the effects of it wearing off. Like I have been saying since I started posting here.

What does that even mean? Lead us back to where we started how? 'Economic shot hole' is not an economics term, nor is it a measurable number or quantifiable effect. What exactly does it mean? Is it based on GDP growth? Employment figures? The Dow? Investment levels? What? 'Stimulus high' in what way? What aggregate demand do you think it replaced or stimulated (or didn't), where do you think GDP/investment/employment/whatever levels would have been otherwise, and what are you basing this on?

All you're saying is a bunch of emotional shit that feels right to you in your gut, based on absolutely zero actual numbers. I already know you can't back up your dumb statement, because it's already really clear that you never even gave it any thought. I guess it's sort of mean of me to pick on you like this, but maybe if people get slammed for saying dumb things like what you wrote on here more often they will do it less.

 

[shortylickens]

I heard about dozens of jobs this year that I could have done.
Investigated all of them. They all turned out to be false, or they didnt want me. Of all the ones that did hire, all their new employees either came from India & Korea, or those new jobs along with hundreds of old ones were shipped to India and Korea.

 

[matt0611]

What does that even mean? Lead us back to where we started how? 'Economic shot hole' is not an economics term, nor is it a measurable number or quantifiable effect. What exactly does it mean? Is it based on GDP growth? Employment figures? The Dow? Investment levels? What? 'Stimulus high' in what way? What aggregate demand do you think it replaced or stimulated (or didn't), where do you think GDP/investment/employment/whatever levels would have been otherwise, and what are you basing this on?

All you're saying is a bunch of emotional shit that feels right to you in your gut, based on absolutely zero actual numbers. I already know you can't back up your dumb statement, because it's already really clear that you never even gave it any thought. I guess it's sort of mean of me to pick on you like this, but maybe if people get slammed for saying dumb things like what you wrote on here more often they will do it less.

"Economic shithole" = low growth, high unemployment

"Stimulus high" = increase in GDP and growth from borrowing and spending, now the that the stimulus is gone we go back to where we started.

I'd go back through more posts to find them from 08 and 09 (under another name) but the posts don't back that far.

Are you looking for people who predicted current employment numbers or Dow or S&P levels? No one does that.

You don't recall ANYONE being opposed to the stimulus? No one said it wouldn't work? All the "conservatives" on the forum supported it? Is that what you are really saying?

 

[fskimospy]

"Economic shithole" = low growth, high unemployment

"Stimulus high" = increase in GDP and growth from borrowing and spending, now the that the stimulus is gone we go back to where we started.

I'd go back through more posts to find them from 08 and 09 (under another name) but the posts don't back that far.

Are you looking for people who predicted current employment numbers or Dow or S&P levels? No one does that.

You don't recall ANYONE being opposed to the stimulus? Is that what you are really saying?

No, that's not what I'm saying at all, and even your basic facts are wrong. (the US GDP is not back to where we started from) It seems like you're so used to making fact free assertions of ideology that someone asking for evidence is confusing you.

You said three things were bad/ineffective/whatever. Show us how. There's been quite a lot of economics work put into evaluating the stimulus, quantitative easing, etc. over the last few years. Use that data and show us why you are correct. Then (once again, most importantly), take predictions done from before those policies were implemented, and show how the future data conformed to those predictions. Since 'everyone who understood economics' knew this stuff, this should not be difficult.

This is how backing up the shit you say works.

 

[matt0611]

No, that's not what I'm saying at all, and even your basic facts are wrong. (the US GDP is not back to where we started from) It seems like you're so used to making fact free assertions of ideology that someone asking for evidence is confusing you.

You said three things were bad/ineffective/whatever. Show us how. There's been quite a lot of economics work put into evaluating the stimulus, quantitative easing, etc. over the last few years. Use that data and show us why you are correct. Then (once again, most importantly), take predictions done from before those policies were implemented, and show how the future data conformed to those predictions. Since 'everyone who understood economics' knew this stuff, this should not be difficult.

This is how backing up the shit you say works.

1. I'm talking about GDP growth not GDP. We are now growing at 1%. This is very low growth and we are borderline going back into recession. Remember before the stimlus? Unemployment wouldn't go beyond 8.5% or something? Yeah, right.

Sorry, I'm not writing an economic paper for you.
I already explained why government spending and money printing fails, it does nothing to fix the problems in the economy, its all an illusion of growth.

If you want to sit back and say no one saw this coming go ahead.

Mark my words, if we implement another stimulus this year, the economy will still be more or less in the same shitty state that its in now. And if Obama is re-elected, two years from now, and 3 years from now etc people will still be in talk of recessions if we aren't officially in one.

 

[fskimospy]

1. I'm talking about GDP growth not GDP. We are now growing at 1%. This is very low growth and we are borderline going back into recession. Remember before the stimlus? Unemployment wouldn't go beyond 8.5% or something? Yeah, right.

Sorry, I'm not writing an economic paper for you.
I already explained why government spending and money printing fails, it does nothing to fix the problems in the economy, its all an illusion of growth.

If you want to sit back and say no one saw this coming go ahead.

Mark my words, if we implement another stimulus this year, the economy will still be more or less in the same shitty state that its in now. And if Obama is re-elected, two years from now, and 3 years from now etc people will still be in talk of recessions if we aren't officially in one.

So are you talking about GDP growth or unemployment or both? What portion of GDP growth over the last two years do you attribute to stimulus spending, what parts of the stimulus caused this growth (tax cuts? spending?), and why do you think it led to this growth? If this was a bad policy, what were the detrimental effects, and how to they exceed the benefits it offered us? If it's an illusion of growth, what counterbalancing effects have occurred that have eliminated the gains from growth?

Please be specific.

Nobody's asking you to write an economics paper, I'm asking you to use economics papers that have already been written to... you know... actually back up what you're saying. All you've done is spout utterly fact free platitudes and extreme right wing talking points. Instead of offering more fact free predictions, do something novel and back up what you're saying with something... with anything.

If you even used one source or reputable analysis it wouldn't make your argument much less horrible, but it would make me a lot happier. Can you try using one just as a favor to me?

 

[Fern]

Ok, who is it going to hurt when we cut things like tax-free municipal bonds?

Rich people aren't going to keep lending money at lower rates out of he kindness of their hearts... Municipalities will see borrowing rates skyrocket. These are the simple FACTS that people refuse to acknowledge.

Well, since you brought up the muni thing. I was reluctant to comment on it since it could seem picky.

Frankly I'm surprised that people in politics know so little about constitutional basics etc. Huntsman is clueless. The Constitution forbids the federal govt from taxing muni interest, and it forbids states from taxing Treas bond interest.

He can't change that with a tax bill, the Constitution would need to be amended.

And yes, you are correct about muni rates going up if the tax structure were to change.

Fern

 

[matt0611]

I had some time to search today and I will do more looking for the other things to back up what I have said.

Here's a quote from Alvin Hansen (a prominent Keynesian at the time and once regarded as the "American Keynes") in 1943:

"When the war is over, Government cannot just disband the Army, close down munitions factories, stop building ships, and remove all economic controls."

Source:
In a publication for the National Resources Planning Board, After the War, Full
Employment, quoted in Hugh S: Norton, The Employment Act and the Council of Economic Advisers, 1946-1976 (Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1977):

 

[Jhhnn]

I had some time to search today and I will do more looking for the other things to back up what I have said.

Here's a quote from Alvin Hansen (a prominent Keynesian at the time and once regarded as the "American Keynes") in 1943:

"When the war is over, Government cannot just disband the Army, close down munitions factories, stop building ships, and remove all economic controls."

Source:
In a publication for the National Resources Planning Board, After the War, Full
Employment, quoted in Hugh S: Norton, The Employment Act and the Council of Economic Advisers, 1946-1976 (Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1977):

And the govt didn't actually do that, either. Military strength remained much higher than pre-war levels, if reduced from the wartime peak, and many of the economic rules of the New Deal remained in place until the Reagan era.

What drove the economy in postwar America was demand, classic Keynsianism in action.

 

[matt0611]

And the govt didn't actually do that, either. Military strength remained much higher than pre-war levels, if reduced from the wartime peak, and many of the economic rules of the New Deal remained in place until the Reagan era.

What drove the economy in postwar America was demand, classic Keynsianism in action.

Yeah, we know we didn't disband the entire army. Government spending dropped by over 1/2 iirc and a large chunk of the armed forces were disbanded.

The Keynesian were wrong, they predicted disaster After the fact they use the simplistic reason of "demand", like just the fact that people want things and spend money creates an economy, but thats circular reasoning because people can only demand things if they produce something. People demand things all over the world yet in many places they live in terrible economic conditions.

Economic growth comes from savings, capital accumulation, technological innovation, increasing production capability. You get very little of this from central planning and spending money on political projects. People voluntarily acting in the private sector allows this to happen.

We will never, ever, spend and borrow or central plan our way into prosperity. Lets just keep trying though, maybe it will work this time...or not.