Comparing Reagan and Obama on unemployment

[WhipperSnapper]

The unemployment rate in the US was only about 5% as little as 5 years ago. Even when everything is made in China, everyone had a job to do.

It was probably closer to 8% or 10%. Remember, the unemployment numbers don't count large numbers of unemployed people*. Also, they fail to account for underemployment and severe underemployment.

*people who have "stopped looking for work", people who choose to be housewives/husbands because they can't find worthwhile jobs, people who retire earlier than they want to because they can't find worthwhile jobs, etc.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

If Obama does get employment back down to reasonable levels then yeah. He would deserve some sort of credit but only if your not a die hard republican since if you are one Obama could walk on water and they would make up some sort of BS for him....

Obama isn't the cause of our problems, but he's not helping fix them, either. Obama doesn't even seem to acknowledge foreign outsourcing, mass immigration, or H-1B and L-1 visas as being problems. As far as I can tell he hasn't taken any steps to address global labor arbitrage at all.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

In 16 months, Obama has turned the job loss into a monthly gain; in April there was a gain of 290,000 jobs. Unfortunately, we must continue to pay for Bush’s wars: $73 billion in 2010 for Afghanistan alone.

Obama hasn't done jack-shit. Didn't that month with the 290,000 jobs gain include the hiring of 400,000 people to work low-quality temporary Census Bureau jobs?

So far Obama has done nothing or almost nothing to address our nation's economic problems. Had McCain won he wouldn't have done anything either. We need to realize that both of our political parties are bad and essentially act as one single party when it comes to our international trade policy.

 

[Carmen813]

Obama hasn't done jack-shit. Didn't that month with the 290,000 jobs gain include the hiring of 400,000 people to work low-quality temporary Census Bureau jobs?

So far Obama has done nothing or almost nothing to address our nation's economic problems. Had McCain won he wouldn't have done anything either. We need to realize that both of our political parties are bad and essentially act as one single party when it comes to our international trade policy.

No, that month was about 50 percent public and 50 percent private employment.

Stupid % symbol is broken.

 

[ProfJohn]

No, that month was about 50 percent public and 50 percent private employment.

1. Weren't the numbers for that month revised downward??
and
2. The July numbers are out and they suck big time. 130,000 jobs LOST!!!! So you can pretty much take the job gains for the previous two months and throw them out the window.

When added together we are probably looking at near zero job growth over the past 3 months. Not a good thing.

 

[Craig234]

That is awesome Craig, thanks.

So Bill Clinton ran on a promise to present a five-year plan to balance the budget, but never presented such a plan.

Most people would see that as evidence that Clinton had no desire to balance the budget, but some how you see that as proof that he wanted to balance the budget all along?

Wow, you are just a liar, I have to demote you at this point.

You made the claim that I would not find any reference by Clinton hinting at his interest in balancing the budget before 1995.

I pointed out a few easily found including one from the Republicans saying that Clinton had been talking many, many times for his entire presidency about his desire to balance it.

At this point, if you had a shread of integrity, you would say something to the effect of acknowledging you had one of the biggest corrections made this year in the forum.

But you did not do that.

You did not say a word about how you had been wrong - you instead just tried to pretend the original claim you never made did not exist, and look for a new angle to twist.

At this point, you're saying it's more important that his campaign quote about a 5 year plan instead becoming a 7 year plan is more important to characterize him, as you say, as never wanting to balance the budget, than how important his actual history of ending 12 years of skyrocketed Republican deficits was, for each of 8 years down to a $200 surplus, if you don't count the borrowed $200B from SS, as they didn't in these statement.

You lie and lie, I correct and correct, and you are clearly not being honest, and so you have given up any presumption of deserving to have anything you say answered.

 

[Craig234]

Yup.

In Reagan's defense, unemployment was measured differently back then and today's real numbers are probably above 15-30%. See the Shadowstats site. (The Shadowstats number is 22.5%.)

In Obama's defense, as you said, Global Labor Arbitrage was not in full swing. Zero or almost no knowledge-based jobs had been outsourced, and far fewer manufacturing jobs had been outsourced. Also, we didn't have the massive amount of illegal immigration that we have today.

Good points. I'm not sure how high illegal immigration was, back then (when Reagan did amnesty).

 

[Craig234]

Please go back and take some high school level U.S. Government classes. Clinton did not leave Bush a surplus. Clinton had nothing to do with a surplus. Well if you count repeatedly sending budgets to the Republican congress that kept rejecting them until Clintons deficit spending was reduced. Is that the surplus you are talking about?

Ignorant, revisionist history.

They clashed over the spending priorities, but Democrats pushed fiscal discipline. Republicans only pushed it when it came to saying 'no' to any Democratic spending.

What happened to the deficit when Bush took office paints the picture quite well.

It was the Republican congress in the mid 90's that had promised to balance the budget... not Clinton.

More wrong history. Both Clinton and the Republicans had 'plans' for balancing the budget, which they fought over whose plan would be enacted.

Again, we got our taste of the Republicans 'plan' when they got complete control of the government - as we had when they had the presidency before Clinton.

I will agree that Bush was a RINO.

You even get that wrong.

How many times do you need to have ti explained:

Republicans SAY things to get elected while doing other things.

No matter how many times Republicans TALK one thing and vote another, you keep falling for it. Why, they're the party for balancing the budget! They said so!

Bush wasn't a RINO - he was a "the phony Republican marketing image you fall for about Republicans" in name only.

He was a real Republican - pass policies to benefit the rich, while saying what he needed to get elected - that's a Republican.

And the rich did benefit very well under him, as he shifted the policies under which they benefitted hugely under Clintom, but just a little less, to even more favoring them.

What was Bush's #1 policy priority? Tax cuts weighted for the rich at the same time he was already shooting the deficit back up and concentration of wealth was skyrocketing.

 

[Jhhnn]

That was a different Republican congress with different leaders.

The biggest mistake the Republicans made was removing Newt from power.

More obfuscation. Tom Delay was in a position of leadership from 1995 until 2005, Hastert from 1995 until 2007. Blunt and Boehner have been there all along. Similar continuity exists in the Senate.

What's this year's slogan, anyway? "We're all the same, but different, honest!"?

"Different" your ass, PJ. The only thing different about modern repubs is that they bully less and whine more when they're out of power.

 

[ericlp]

and pray to god they don't grab a gun to show their outrage for their gods.

 

[xj0hnx]

Ignorant, revisionist history.

Right, because Craig said so, lol.

Republicans SAY things to get elected while doing other things.

No matter how many times Republicans TALK one thing and vote another, you keep falling for it.

And democrats don't? Or do you just continue to make enough excuses for them when they do? Partisan hack to the fullest extent you are.

Bush wasn't a RINO - he was a "the phony Republican marketing image you fall for about Republicans" in name only.

He was a real Republican - pass policies to benefit the rich, while saying what he needed to get elected - that's a Republican.

Bush was the definition of neoconservative RINO.

 

[CallMeJoe]

...What's this year's slogan, anyway?

The New Nixon?

 

[ProfJohn]

More obfuscation. Tom Delay was in a position of leadership from 1995 until 2005, Hastert from 1995 until 2007. Blunt and Boehner have been there all along. Similar continuity exists in the Senate.

What's this year's slogan, anyway? "We're all the same, but different, honest!"?

"Different" your ass, PJ. The only thing different about modern repubs is that they bully less and whine more when they're out of power.

Newt was speaker from 1995 to 1999 which just happens to coincide with the big push to balance the budget.

Newt was the driving force behind the Republicans taking control of congress and the contract with America. Once he left things went to hell, although it was the post dot.com bubble that re-created deficits and then the attitude that 'deficits don't count' or whatever it was that Chenney said.

 

[ProfJohn]

Wow, you are just a liar, I have to demote you at this point.

You made the claim that I would not find any reference by Clinton hinting at his interest in balancing the budget before 1995.

I pointed out a few easily found including one from the Republicans saying that Clinton had been talking many, many times for his entire presidency about his desire to balance it.

Many many times??

Ok find me ONE time between 1993 and 1995 in which he spoke of how he was going to BALANCE the budget.

A campaign promise made to get elected is meaningless, just look at all the promises Obama made or even the ones that Clinton made and broke.

Seriously, if Clinton was so keen on a balanced budget how come he NEVER spoke about it during his first two years in office????

 

[charrison]

The belief is that eventually, Chinese labor prices will rise to match American levels. How long will that take? How many generations of Americans will have to pretend that we're competing and enjoy lower standards of living than our parents, just to satisfy the Free Trade religion?

Yes eventually they will rise. Remember America was once a low wage country. Wages in china and india are rising quickly and they do have a growing middle class.

Can everyone be a nurse, plumber, mechanic, etc? Do we have infinite demand for those? Nope. You're looking at educated service jobs and pretending that they're for everyone. There are millions of Americans who can't do those jobs due to various limitations but they need jobs and the service industry jobs they can do don't pay the bills. Manufacturing was a good option for those people until our Government decided we didn't want those.

For most people there is some skill they can do well at. Yes it may require some addition al training(ojt or formal training), but most people can learn a marketable skill.

Not everyone can be educated. Many jobs that "require" college education don't really need it. This philosophy is a make-work program for the education sector.

Remember education is not just academics. I think we have pushed academia too hard and forgot about the vocational skills that are needed to keep this country running too.

And that's where the H1-Bs come in. If you can't send the job overseas? Import someone to do it for 50% of the American wage. The Free Trade religion has thought of everything!

Who do you want these people working for? The can work for US companies or they can compete against US companies. Take your pick, they are not going away.

 

[charrison]

You think the Chinese who earn fifty-cents-an-hour without labor and environmental regulations costs are going to be purchasing manufactured goods produced by American labor that earns $12/hour plus labor and environmental regulation costs?

China purchases big ticket items(boeing, deere, cat) from the us. Hell the iphone is going on sale in china. Something is happening there. Are they going to go to first world wages overnight, no, but wages are rising there.

Services? You mean minimum wage services like at Walmart and Starbucks? Where are these high-paying service jobs? Are the former manufacturing employees (let's call these people the "people who are to the Left of the IQ Bell Curve) supposed to work all sorts of knowledge-based jobs? Why are so many college-educated people and PhD scientists unemployed or under-employed?

As i have already stated, there is far more to services than cashiers and burger flippers.
College educated unemployment is currently under 5 percent. Things are nearly as bad as you claim for them.

How are we supposed to pay for all of the imported goods that are produced "where they are best able to be produced"? You don't really expect people in those other nations to be satisfied with letting Americans do the high-quality knowledge-based jobs, do you?

Pretty much how it is working now. Services have long displaced manufacturing as the dominant source of employment in this country.

Did you know that China wants to establish its very own Silicon Valley? Did you know that in 2004 India graduated 279,000 engineers? Soup-prise! People in those other nations intend to do knowledge-based service jobs, too (and probably at wages that are lower than what Americans will do them for). If anything, the knowledge-based service jobs will get done in those other countries and many have already been outsourced there. Even legal functions--some jobs that used to be done by American lawyers--have been outsourced now. In the meantime, Americans are being displaced domestically by foreigners on H-1B and L-1 visas.

What do you propose we do? Gas them? Maybe bomb their schools to shut them down?
India needs engineers too and probably a lot of them. IF they want to have a 1st world economy and infrastructure they are going to need every last one of them.

 

[Darwin333]

Ignorant, revisionist history.

They clashed over the spending priorities, but Democrats pushed fiscal discipline. Republicans only pushed it when it came to saying 'no' to any Democratic spending.

What happened to the deficit when Bush took office paints the picture quite well.



More wrong history. Both Clinton and the Republicans had 'plans' for balancing the budget, which they fought over whose plan would be enacted.

Again, we got our taste of the Republicans 'plan' when they got complete control of the government - as we had when they had the presidency before Clinton.



You even get that wrong.

How many times do you need to have ti explained:

Republicans SAY things to get elected while doing other things.

No matter how many times Republicans TALK one thing and vote another, you keep falling for it. Why, they're the party for balancing the budget! They said so!

Bush wasn't a RINO - he was a "the phony Republican marketing image you fall for about Republicans" in name only.

He was a real Republican - pass policies to benefit the rich, while saying what he needed to get elected - that's a Republican.

And the rich did benefit very well under him, as he shifted the policies under which they benefitted hugely under Clintom, but just a little less, to even more favoring them.

What was Bush's #1 policy priority? Tax cuts weighted for the rich at the same time he was already shooting the deficit back up and concentration of wealth was skyrocketing.

For the sake of fairness, you didn't mention that Bush also expanded entitlement spending more than any other recent president when he signed Medicare Part D into law. That is a pretty "un-republican" thing to do and definitely a bone thrown at "the little people".

 

[CallMeJoe]

For the sake of fairness, you didn't mention that Bush also expanded entitlement spending more than any other recent president when he signed Medicare Part D into law. That is a pretty "un-republican" thing to do and definitely a bone thrown at "the little people".

That particular "bone" was tossed to the pharmaceutical manufacturers.

 

[SammyJr]

Yes eventually they will rise. Remember America was once a low wage country. Wages in china and india are rising quickly and they do have a growing middle class.

What's quickly? Decades? And what guarantee do we have that a Chinese Middle Class will want American made goods? Furthermore, what American made goods?

Remember, to export a good or service, you have to actually have something to export. What do we have that's exportable, besides our war machines and shitty movies?

For most people there is some skill they can do well at. Yes it may require some addition al training(ojt or formal training), but most people can learn a marketable skill.

Yeah, flipping burgers and stocking shelves. We've been over that. These are shit jobs with shit pay and were the domain of teenagers needing beer money. If you aren't fortunate enough to be educated and lucky enough to be in a field that's hiring, then you're screwed.

Remember education is not just academics. I think we have pushed academia too hard and forgot about the vocational skills that are needed to keep this country running too.

The Gods of the Free Trade Religion has imported illegal immigrants for vocational skills. What? You think that people want to pay an American carpenter when they can hire someone under the table?

Who do you want these people working for? The can work for US companies or they can compete against US companies. Take your pick, they are not going away.

I'd rather they work in their home countries and work to improve the situation there. If that means they're competing with US companies, so be it. Over here, they contribute to the downfall of the U.S. middle class. Over there, they could improve things.

 

[SammyJr]

China purchases big ticket items(boeing, deere, cat) from the us. Hell the iphone is going on sale in china. Something is happening there. Are they going to go to first world wages overnight, no, but wages are rising there.

And the iPhone is made where..... China!

And Caterpiller has plants in..... China!!

See the pattern here?

What do you propose we do? Gas them? Maybe bomb their schools to shut them down?
India needs engineers too and probably a lot of them. IF they want to have a 1st world economy and infrastructure they are going to need every last one of them.

End the H1-B program. Demand labor and environmental standards on foreign made goods. Then the foreign engineers can stay home, bring their countries up to first world standards, and stop undercutting Americans who need to pay their student loans and feed their families.

 

[woolfe9999]

1. Weren't the numbers for that month revised downward??
and
2. The July numbers are out and they suck big time. 130,000 jobs LOST!!!! So you can pretty much take the job gains for the previous two months and throw them out the window.

When added together we are probably looking at near zero job growth over the past 3 months. Not a good thing.

OK I've got to call you on this for blatant hypocrisy. In this thread here when the March job gains were discussed, you said that we should BACK OUT the census workers who were hired, presumably because in effect they shouldn't count.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=29621086&highlight=census#post29621086

Now you go and describe the July numbers as "130,000 jobs LOST!!!" without mentioning that this is entirely due to these self-same census workers being laid off. So you don't want to count them as gains on the front end, but you'll count them as losses on the back end. What you're doing here is applying inconsistent assumptions in order to portray the economy in the worst possible light.

I never thought you were that bad until now, but unfortunately I have to go with Craig's assessment of your honesty.

- wolf

 

[ProfJohn]

OK I've got to call you on this for blatant hypocrisy. In this thread here when the March job gains were discussed, you said that we should BACK OUT the census workers who were hired, presumably because in effect they shouldn't count.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=29621086&highlight=census#post29621086

Now you go and describe the July numbers as "130,000 jobs LOST!!!" without mentioning that this is entirely due to these self-same census workers being laid off. So you don't want to count them as gains on the front end, but you'll count them as losses on the back end. What you're doing here is applying inconsistent assumptions in order to portray the economy in the worst possible light.

I never thought you were that bad until now, but unfortunately I have to go with Craig's assessment of your honesty.

- wolf

Really now??

Here is my exact quote

I wouldn't call it a 'jump'

Take away 48,000 census works and then factor in the winter weather and we are seeing a slightly improving job situation.

There are no numbers on that graph, but it appears that over the past 5 months we have broke even or maybe gained a few jobs. Certainly an improvement over the months prior to that, but nothing to get excited about yet.

And again, you can't really point to any Obama policy and claim it is the reason for the recent improvements in the job market. As someone else said, we are at the end of the longest recession in decades and sooner or later the job market had to improve.

I don't see the term 'back out' any where in that quote?

Are you just making things up now?

And my point still stands. We are seeing little to no job growth for the year so far.

And check out this page:
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf
The number of people employed in this country has DROPPED since last July!!

Obama is a failure when it comes to economic policy.

 

[woolfe9999]

Really now??

Here is my exact quote

I don't see the term 'back out' any where in that quote?

Are you just making things up now?

And my point still stands. We are seeing little to no job growth for the year so far.

And check out this page:
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf
The number of people employed in this country has DROPPED since last July!!

Obama is a failure when it comes to economic policy.

What is the difference between the words "back out" and the words "take away" in that context? You were arguing that the March job gains were not as good as they appeared because they included 48,000 census jobs. And now you are describing the on paper "loss" for July without even noting that it is entirely from census jobs. Census jobs shouldn't be considered as a true gain at the front end but SHOULD be considered as a "LOSS!!!" on the back-end? I'm sorry but your logic is blatantly inconsistent; you are playing games with statistics to paint the economy in as poor a light as possible.

- wolf

 

[ProfJohn]

What is the difference between the words "back out" and the words "take away" in that context? You were arguing that the March job gains were not as good as they appeared because they included 48,000 census jobs. And now you are describing the on paper "loss" for July without even noting that it is entirely from census jobs. Census jobs shouldn't be considered as a true gain at the front end but SHOULD be considered as a "LOSS!!!" on the back-end? I'm sorry but your logic is blatantly inconsistent; you are playing games with statistics to paint the economy in as poor a light as possible.

- wolf

Instead of arguing with me over my phrasing please explain away that link which shows a job loss between last July and this July.

Thank you.

I'd quote it, but the format won't work so I'll just the details I would love to see you address.

July 2009:
Civilian population 235,870,000
Employed 139,817,000
Unemployed 14,534,000
Not in labor force 81,519,000

July 2010
Civilian population 237,890,000
Employed 138,960,000
Unemployed 14,599,000
Not in labor force 84,330,000

So the number of employed has dropped, the number of unemployed has risen and the number who have given up has also risen. Not one piece of good news in the job numbers. And the numbers from May to June to July are bad as well. Since May we have lost 500,000 jobs.

Explain that away please.

 

[Jhhnn]

For most people there is some skill they can do well at. Yes it may require some addition al training(ojt or formal training), but most people can learn a marketable skill.

You assume a healthy market for those skills, which apparently is lacking in modern America.

It's kinda like having a master's degree in physics in BanglaDesh- what jobs are we talking about that need to be filled, again?

Let's say that all the people on welfare and unemploment worked real hard and got themselves trained to do... what, exactly? what sector of the economy is in need of tens of millions of new hires?

All you're offering is the usual pablum with a blame game thrown in.