I bet you were the type of person 100 years ago who would complain about the loss of agricultural jobs while those silly manufacturing jobs were growing by leaps and bounds.
If only the press corps *were* doing such a thing. Then perhaps people would realize how fraudulent this recovery has been.
No, I'm the kind of person who complains about thieves and hypocrites who outsource good manufacturing and tech jobs overseas, allow illegal immigrant invaders to steal the meager American jobs still left at home so they can deflate wagers even further, and then have the nerve to crow about creating more low paying service sector jobs that American workers can't support a family on.
I'll bet you're the kind of person who doesn't mind getting screwed as long as some fool in the White House keeps telling you how well you're doing.
Bunch of crap, the press corps is the main source of doom and gloom in this country. You think anybody listens to Ted Kennedy or Warren Buffet for the state of our economy?
If we had a better legal immigration policy we wouldnt have to send tech jobs overseas. Instead our politicans are happy placating illegal immigrants who cant speak english and are unskilled. You wont get an argument out of me on that front.
I dont need the white house to tell me how well I am doing. I can look at my financial statements for that. I work in that evil service sector that comprises about 80% of the jobs in this country. My wages have increase by 35% in the last 5 years, and that is during the bad years according to you.
I guess once a democrat takes over I should really hit pay dirt?
As I remember it, the last time there was a Democrat in the White House the entire nation hit pay dirt. It wasn't until your idol got in there and turned that surplus into the largest deficit in history that the economy went on the skids. But, as you say, a very few people are doing very well -- at the expense of everyone else.
To some people, yourself included, that is the definition of democracy, I suppose. :roll:
Now you want to talk about a fake recovery, the late 1990s economic boom based on the hopes and lies of the internet? Now that was a great example of a fake economy that came crashing down!
So I guess in 08 I should start seeing double digit year over year wage growth?
I cant deny that I am not excited, just hope you arent telling me a fib.
WhipperSnapper
Lifer
- Oct 30, 2004
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Here's the problem. The claims contradict the economic logic that underlies global labor wage arbitrage. So, whenever you see these types of stats, you have to start asking critical questions.
What kinds of jobs? Full-time? Part-time? What kinds of wages? Benefits? Are illegals taking many of the jobs? It's always possible that two of the jobs in the stats could represent the elimination of one full-time job with benefits (for two part-time jobs with no benefits).
Global labor wage arbitrage dictates lower wages and the disappearance of knowledge-based jobs (at prevailing American wages--but we could get them back for third world wages).
Skepticism is justified because the newspapers are full of stories about mass layoffs of people from middle class jobs and about high-tech college-education-requiring knowledge-based jobs (like computer programming and engineering R&D) being outsourced to India and China. Heck, even aspects of patent law and financial analysis are getting offshored.
Go ahead and be skeptical, but don't tell me the economy isn't doing well when it clearly is. Can you show me a country, with a decently large population (30 million+), that has a better economy than ours, all things considered?
Oh, I didn't know it takes a college education to answer phones all day for Dell or work in a factory producing Barbies.
How is the economy clearly doing well?
The flatlined job "growth" producing jobs that aren't paying people enough to keep up with inflation?
The jobs created that are about split between public (military-industrial complex) and private?
The "growth" in the GDP that is solely from Mortgage Equity Withdrawal that is about to dry up like the Mojave Desert?
The fact that precious metals are skyrocketing because investors are losing faith in the dollar and are nervous about the tensions in the world?
The fact that the NASDAQ and the S&P500 are lagging WAY behind the DOW in this "economy" (again, another sign of people moving to more stable and reliable investments and not taking risk)?
Oil/gas still rising?
More people living in poverty?
Fewer people with health insurance coverage?
Real inflation near 8%?
Real unemployment nearer 10% (some economists say about 12%)?
Just because your boy Bush goes on yet another propaganda tour (like he's been doing about Iraq for over 3 years; like he did on Social Security last year) doesn't mean the economy is good.
I've been trying to tell you and tell you and tell you and I've shown you over and over and over again that the numbers being touted are FALSE! They are not realistic indicators of the true state of the economy. But, go ahead and live in your little rose-colored glasses world. As the saying goes: Ignorance is bliss.
So says conjur.
Real unemployment is closer to 4.6%, the NASDAQ and the S&P500 have hit 5 and 4 and half year highs recently and as for the NASDAQ had the best Q1 since 2000, The "growth" in the GDP that is solely from Mortgage Equity Withdrawal that is about to dry up like the Mojave Desertand, if that is the case we will see a serious hit in GDP in the next couple of years, we shall see, gold is no where near the 800+ mark in the 80?s especially considering inflation, flat lined job growth, are you nuts, why the hell do you think markets are worried (one of the very reasons they took a hit today), because there is so much job growth and thus that causes labor inflation, and thus the fed may very well keep tightening the ratchet for the longer term.
umbrella39
Lifer
- Jun 11, 2004
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Don't continue to waste your time on the sheep. Everything is doing fine in their world so the economy is great. So much smoke, so few asses willing to suck it up any longer. :roll:
Manufacting jobs are going away in the US and worldwide. Manufacting output has been expanding for over 30 months now, yet employment has been flat at best. Automaition is killing manufacturing jobs.
There are tons of jobs where I live for individuals without college degrees where they can start out at 60,000 a year. The coal mines here are hiring like crazy. The factories have lost so many workeres they have had to up their pay to keep people from leaving.
WhipperSnapper
Lifer
- Oct 30, 2004
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I might point towards Japan. However, using other nations as a standard isn't good since most nations are a mess. I wish I could answer your question but I can't due to a lack of knowledge on my part about the economies in other countries. However, I suspect that there are a couple nations where the average quality of life is higher (for a variety of reasons, some economic, some social).
I wish it were that simple. Unfortunately many of the jobs that are leaving do require college education, such as computer programming, engineering, science research, patent lawyering, financial analysis, accounting, and architectural design. Just about anything that isn't physically nailed down to the land and whose work product can pass through a phone wire can get offshored and the process is only in its mere infancy.
WhipperSnapper
Lifer
- Oct 30, 2004
- 11,442
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You say that that is the "real" number, even accounting for:
People who retired early as a result of being unable to find appropriate jobs (the laid off 60 year old MBA)?
People who stopped looking for work and accepted a life of poverty living with their parents or with a spouse (such as women who decided they'd rather be stay-at-home moms)?
Part-time unemployment?
How does your view of the unemployment number take into account severe underemployment, whcih might as well be regarded as a form of unemployment? Does your interpretation of the unemploment numbers account for people who dropped out of the job market to invest in education (in the vain hopes of re-entering the job market late)?
I'd love to see a much, much better determinant of economic well being than the politically manipulated unemployment numbers. I'd love to see one that takes into account (1) average incomes, (2) distribution of income, (3) underemployment, (4) severe underemployment, (5) part-time employment, (6) people who have dropped out of the labor market or who aren't in the labor market because they perceive it to be bad (the early retiree, the stay-at-home mom), and (7) students who are pursuing unnecessary education or whose educations would constitute a "education excess"--education that the employment market doesn't really need (such as the science Ph.D. whose degree doesn't get used or the law student whose degree won't get used or the MBA that the job market doesn't need, etc.).
If anyone can think of other factors that should be considered, please post them.
Regarding that last part about education, I think we should count many students as being unemployed because many of them might otherwise be working if the economy had positions available and/or if the economy were healthy enough that they felt they could have decent lives with less education.
An example is the guy with the computer science degree who puts off having to face the job market by getting a MS in comp sci. Another example is the guy with the science Ph.D. who decides to go to law school (as though we need more lawyers) since he can't find a decent job with his Ph.D. Might we properly regard him as being unemployed while he's in law school? Doesn't his decision reflect the state of the economy in some way?
What about the people who are going to college because they hope it will guarantee them a better career since career prospects for all Americans have become increasingly bleak? I call this the Education Arms Race. For example, if we only need to produce 20,000 attorneys every year but produce 40,000/year with 20,000 of those 40,000 having come to law school because they perceived that they would have bleak career prospects with their bachelor's degrees, resulting in 20,000 unemployed or underemployed-out-of-field attorneys, might we properly count those 20,000 students (well, 20,000 x 3 years for the degree = 60,000) as unemployed?
When you consider all of these factors, I suspect that the real unemployment in this country is closer to 20% than it is the reported 4.7%.
WhipperSnapper
Lifer
- Oct 30, 2004
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That's fine. I don't have a problem with innovation. In fact, I advocate (real) innovation. I will never, ever say that we should ban the lightbulb so that candlemakers can keep their jobs. However, I'd feel better about a headline that read:
Jobs Update, More jobs for Engineers, Scientists, Accountants, Lawyers, MBAs, and Computer Programmers as Factory Workers lose jobs.
Regarding the manufacturing jobs, it should be noted that even if fewer people are working directly on the assembly lines, someone still has to design, install, and maintain the robotic equipment and manage the production facility, etc.
I also wouldn't mind seeing this sort of a headline:
"Twenty Hour work week now standard as two people end up working what used to be one forty hour per week job as a result of huge increases in productive ability as a result of technological advance. Americans now enjoying more free time than ever before. Americans deciding that it's not worth it to work 40 hours per week, instead placing a higher value on free time, allowing for near full employment at wages that allow a comfortable middle class standard of living."
WhipperSnapper
Lifer
- Oct 30, 2004
- 11,442
- 32
- 91
Where do you live?
Regarding coal mines...there's a reason why the pay needs to be high and why people aren't rushing into the mines.
umbrella39
Lifer
- Jun 11, 2004
- 13,816
- 1,126
- 126
WS they simply aren't listening to you or simply don't care. They are stuck in the echo chamber and think that if they, like Bush, keep repeating the same things over and over those of us who are living the "American Dream" working for no benefits and paying more for products and services while our pay dives will become good little sheep like them The economy is just fine, it is strong!
Engineer
Elite Member
- Oct 9, 1999
- 39,230
- 701
- 126
Automation might be keeping more here than it's killing. I can tell you first hand that more are going out of this country in automotive via offshoring than automation is killing, period. Opening 9 plants in Mexico in the past 6 years doesn't equal automation killing off the 6 US plants that my company has closed down. Automation might take a few jobs but it does keep plants open here and does help contribute to saving jobs, especially higher tech engineering type jobs. Your line of automation kills more jobs than offshoring is incorrect.
.....more are going out of this country in automotive via offshoring than automation is killing, period.......
May be true for the Big 3 but the Japanese/Asian automakers seem be be expanding manufacturing and hiring here in the U.S.
May be true for the Big 3 but the Japanese/Asian automakers seem be be expanding manufacturing and hiring here in the U.S.
20%, you serious, off the deep end perhaps. For all these things you say that is so terribly wrong with our economy take a look around the world and compare this economy to any other. Now you have still not even touched the fact that this is according to analysts in the field is the best hiring market for recent grads in 5 years, and thus, they will be typically filling entry level positions, but at certainly considerably better pay than all these so called Micky D jobs that are filling the payrolls. Moreover, people are looking for better jobs all the time, since you are just giving individual what if examples I'll give you a real world example, my wife. She is three years out of her bachelors and managed to double her salary in just the last year with her most recent job offer, so 25 years old with a BS making 70k in the outer suburbs of Birmingham AL, not chump change for 25 year old in our area, by any stretch of the word, and she is just barely starting her career. There are opportunities to be found and people are finding them, if they look and if they have some set of marketable skills or at least willing to get some kind of education or technical training. Now, when I witness what is going on in France for the last two to three weeks occur here in the states then I might say, yea we got a serious labor problem. A million people, otherwise marching some rioting because people the age of my wife have a 20%+ unemployment rate, now that is real labor problem and not a so called what if scenario. This labor market isn?t as terrible as you may believe, especially when taking a look around the rest or the world, France being a prime example of that. As far as the markets go, what was one of the primary reasons for the slide on Friday, interest rates and labor inflation.
Text
That isn't a worry that there aren?t enough jobs right now, quite the opposite that is a worry over labor inflation, and possibly a sign for long-term fed tightening down the road.
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