WhipperSnapper
Lifer
- Oct 30, 2004
- 11,442
- 32
- 91
Perhaps Americans will do the unthinkable and actually have to rediscover the name:
Thomas Malthus
In the meantime, we are by far the world's third most populous country (right behind those middle class bastions (sic) of China and India) and our population is exploding at third world rates, heading toward at least 450 million by 2050.
Americans might feel scared as they observe high rates of inflation and also the loss of jobs and wage levels to global labor arbitrage, but will they figure it out? Will they ever come to understand basic economics and concepts such as supply, demand, price point, shortage, and overpopulation?
They might, but if they do it will be on their backs and after it's too late to do much about it to improve the condition of the economy in their lifetimes. Perhaps they'll even be ready to end all immigration and enact a one child policy.
blackangst1
Lifer
- Feb 23, 2005
- 22,902
- 2,360
- 126
How can we trust these figures? Everyone knows unemployment numbers arent really accurate, and there currently is NO accurate way to calculate. Therefore, we dont know if it did or not. Worthless story.
This is true. The Bush administration has skewed the numbers since 2001.
Only if Democrats get in can the numbers be trusted again and only after a thorough vetting.
Yes, because "the numbers" which came out of 42's administration were always accurate. :roll:
The fact of the matter is that "the numbers" are manipulated and if you think it matters which party happens to be at the helm, I've got a bridge for sale...
blackangst1
Lifer
- Feb 23, 2005
- 22,902
- 2,360
- 126
Capt Caveman
Lifer
- Jan 30, 2005
- 34,543
- 651
- 126
The unemployment statistics are correct for looking for certain items. It's the same statistic as has been used for decades and its faults are well known. To say that GWB is at fault for this is totally incorrect.
I think people really misconstrue the sources and uses for these statistics. Any statistician or analyst worth their weight will know the sources and uses and use them appropriately. To condemn them because you don't feel they reflect the "truth" (which truth?) is to forget that everybody knows what they are for and use them accordingly.
I think people really misconstrue the sources and uses for these statistics. Any statistician or analyst worth their weight will know the sources and uses and use them appropriately. To condemn them because you don't feel they reflect the "truth" (which truth?) is to forget that everybody knows what they are for and use them accordingly.
blackangst1
Lifer
- Feb 23, 2005
- 22,902
- 2,360
- 126
Show where and how the methodology for unemployment has changed.
Also, what you just said is even more laughable than the assertion he change them. Why? Because the data is still available. Same with CPI, there are several measurements out there and you use each one in the ways they are meant to be used. Overall, you can't fool the market and they always build in their own estimates.
9-1-2003 The Bush Administration's War on Labor
By Jonathan Rees
Mr. Rees is Associate Professor of History, Colorado State University - Pueblo.
The Denver Post, in a rare article that considers the administration's war against labor in its entirety, offers many more examples of "Significant changes in labor law made by President Bush."
These include: "Stopped action on 29 worker-safety regulations;" and "Required federal contractors to post signs telling workers that they did not have to join unions. Signs do not tell workers they can join unions if they desire."
"Abolished the Bureau of Labor Statistics' monthly report documenting plant closings and layoffs of more than 50 workers at any workplace."
That pretty much sums up the Bush administration's attitude towards workers' rights right there.
If they don't recognize what's happening to them, they won't complain.
CADsortaGUY
Lifer
7-5-2008 Even folks in the Optimist Club are having a tough time toeing an upbeat line these days
Americans' unhappy birthday: 'Too much wrong right now'
Eighteen members of the volunteer organization's Gilbert, Ariz., chapter have gathered, a few days before this nation's 232nd birthday, to focus on the positive: Their book drive for schoolchildren and an Independence Day project to place American flags along the streets of one neighborhood.
They beam through the Pledge of Allegiance, applaud each other's good news ? a house that recently sold despite Arizona's down market, and one member's valiant battle with cancer. "I didn't die," she says as the others cheer.
But then talk turns to the state of the Union, and the Optimists become decidedly bleak.
They use words such as "terrified," "disgusted" and "scary" to describe what one calls "this mess" we Americans find ourselves in. Then comes the list of problems constituting the mess: a protracted war, $4-a-gallon gas, soaring food prices, uncertainty about jobs, an erratic stock market, a tougher housing market, and so on and so forth.
One member's son is serving his second tour in Iraq. Another speaks of a daughter who's lost her job in the mortgage industry and a son in construction whose salary was slashed. Still another mentions a friend who can barely afford gas.
Joanne Kontak, 60, an elementary school lunch aide inducted just this day as an Optimist, sums things up like this: "There's just entirely too much wrong right now."
Happy birthday, America? This year, we're not so sure.
Perspective also varies between the haves and have-nots.
In California's Silicon Valley, one of the wealthiest places, the nation's housing crash can be seen as a healthy correction and a buying opportunity, and high gas prices are unpleasant, yes, but not unbearable.
Maybe it's no surprise that at Ferrari Maserati of Silicon Valley, where $200,000 models are still being snapped up, sales manager Larry Raphael says, "We really haven't been affected by what the media says is a low mood in the country."
Yet in these rarefied ZIP codes, others are affected ? even if they feel personally secure. "I worry about my gardeners and how they're dealing with the cost of fuel"
7-5-2008 Smooth sailing for yacht builders despite economy
NEW ORLEANS - Fuel prices are soaring and credit markets tightening, but the super-rich are still lining up to pay tens of millions of dollars for mega yachts.
The well-heeled buyers of the floating mansions are increasingly coming from emerging economies ? in the Middle East, Russia and South America. The source of their wealth runs the gamut ? technology, venture capitalism, new industries. And, yes, oil.
"There are a lot of people with new wealth looking for relaxation and enjoyment," said John Dane III, president of privately owned Trinity Yachts, the largest U.S. builder.
These days, the biggest problem at Trinity's shipbuilding yards is having enough workers to handle the 24 custom contracts the company currently is working for the luxury vessels.
"Nobody is buying these yachts because they need them," said William S. Smith III, Trinity's vice president. "They're buying them because they want them."
There's not enough supply," said Ed Slack, editor of International Boat Industry. "It takes two years to build some of these yachts and the demand hasn't slowed down."
So far, Trinity's largest vessel has been a 192-foot yacht that would carry a replacement price of $60 million to $65 million. The company is working a 242-footer that will have a price tag in excess of $90 million.
Trinity has about 900 employees at its yards in Gulfport, Miss., and in New Orleans, where the company's yard was used to build the Higgins vessels of World War II and D-Day fame. Feadship has three European yards that keep 1,200 workers busy turning out an average of five yachts a year.
Dane said he could use more workers to keep up with the orders. When someone is ready to buy, a long delay could mean "they look for another yard," he said.
Americans' unhappy birthday: 'Too much wrong right now'
Eighteen members of the volunteer organization's Gilbert, Ariz., chapter have gathered, a few days before this nation's 232nd birthday, to focus on the positive: Their book drive for schoolchildren and an Independence Day project to place American flags along the streets of one neighborhood.
They beam through the Pledge of Allegiance, applaud each other's good news ? a house that recently sold despite Arizona's down market, and one member's valiant battle with cancer. "I didn't die," she says as the others cheer.
But then talk turns to the state of the Union, and the Optimists become decidedly bleak.
They use words such as "terrified," "disgusted" and "scary" to describe what one calls "this mess" we Americans find ourselves in. Then comes the list of problems constituting the mess: a protracted war, $4-a-gallon gas, soaring food prices, uncertainty about jobs, an erratic stock market, a tougher housing market, and so on and so forth.
One member's son is serving his second tour in Iraq. Another speaks of a daughter who's lost her job in the mortgage industry and a son in construction whose salary was slashed. Still another mentions a friend who can barely afford gas.
Joanne Kontak, 60, an elementary school lunch aide inducted just this day as an Optimist, sums things up like this: "There's just entirely too much wrong right now."
Happy birthday, America? This year, we're not so sure.
Perspective also varies between the haves and have-nots.
In California's Silicon Valley, one of the wealthiest places, the nation's housing crash can be seen as a healthy correction and a buying opportunity, and high gas prices are unpleasant, yes, but not unbearable.
Maybe it's no surprise that at Ferrari Maserati of Silicon Valley, where $200,000 models are still being snapped up, sales manager Larry Raphael says, "We really haven't been affected by what the media says is a low mood in the country."
Yet in these rarefied ZIP codes, others are affected ? even if they feel personally secure. "I worry about my gardeners and how they're dealing with the cost of fuel"
7-5-2008 Smooth sailing for yacht builders despite economy
NEW ORLEANS - Fuel prices are soaring and credit markets tightening, but the super-rich are still lining up to pay tens of millions of dollars for mega yachts.
The well-heeled buyers of the floating mansions are increasingly coming from emerging economies ? in the Middle East, Russia and South America. The source of their wealth runs the gamut ? technology, venture capitalism, new industries. And, yes, oil.
"There are a lot of people with new wealth looking for relaxation and enjoyment," said John Dane III, president of privately owned Trinity Yachts, the largest U.S. builder.
These days, the biggest problem at Trinity's shipbuilding yards is having enough workers to handle the 24 custom contracts the company currently is working for the luxury vessels.
"Nobody is buying these yachts because they need them," said William S. Smith III, Trinity's vice president. "They're buying them because they want them."
There's not enough supply," said Ed Slack, editor of International Boat Industry. "It takes two years to build some of these yachts and the demand hasn't slowed down."
So far, Trinity's largest vessel has been a 192-foot yacht that would carry a replacement price of $60 million to $65 million. The company is working a 242-footer that will have a price tag in excess of $90 million.
Trinity has about 900 employees at its yards in Gulfport, Miss., and in New Orleans, where the company's yard was used to build the Higgins vessels of World War II and D-Day fame. Feadship has three European yards that keep 1,200 workers busy turning out an average of five yachts a year.
Dane said he could use more workers to keep up with the orders. When someone is ready to buy, a long delay could mean "they look for another yard," he said.
Growing inequality skews the usual parameters out into the weeds- benefits of productivity gains simply have not been shared with workers, but rather expressed as profits during the recent so-called recovery.
So we have a situation where a very, very few are doing phenomenally well, but Joe and Joan Sixpack are falling further and further behind... expressed as an average, or a cumulative total, it all looks peachy. Put in terms of median, the 50th percentile, the picture is entirely different. For mid-earners, there's been no recovery, other than in terms of unemployment numbers... If anything, debt loads are higher and reserves smaller for the middle class as we enter a period of reduced economic activity...
http://www.epi.org/newsroom/re...feeble-recovery-pr.pdf
Using the OP's example of the gardener, the rich folks answer to the problem hasn't been to give the guy a raise, but rather to loan him the money to carry on...
That'll solve the problem, right?
Engineer
Elite Member
- Oct 9, 1999
- 39,230
- 701
- 126
We see how well that worked when everybody was borrowing against their home.....
As a CNBC analyst stated, wait until the home equity loans and credit card loans become the same problem that the mortgages of today have become. Stated that would happen before any real recovery.
WhipperSnapper
Lifer
- Oct 30, 2004
- 11,442
- 32
- 91
Regarding Silicon Valley, I wonder how the heck they can even maintain employees who earn less than $50,000/year in just about any undertaking--be it gardening or fast food. The cost of living is so outrageous in the San Francisco Bay Area that, combined with the price of gas, I don't see how it would make economic sense for the people who work low-wage jobs in that area to keep working them. Then again, I've never understood why poor people continue to want to live in and around New York City, etc. (Why not just pack up and head elsewhere where you are more likely to find a better wage-to-cost-of-living ratio?)
no kidding. John Williams takes a shot at sorting through the data at
http://www.shadowstats.com/
it's good but not thorough enough. i'd like to see GNP figures itemized
according to categories of expenditure, that is with oil expenditures &
"financial products" separated out, and GNP segments stated by
product volume, not dollar volume.
i suspect if we can obtain that data, we'll see that real economic activity
has been shrinking (measured by real product volume, not dollar volume)
for quite some time. and real economic activity per capita, even more so,
because while the real economy shrinks, the US population continues to grow.
it's time to re-localize manufacturing. remember the beautiful Next factory
that got so much attention, to build the cube shaped workstations designed by
Steve Jobs team, right in Silicon Valley ? there were loads of such factories
in Silicon Valley in the '80's.
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