Unemployment claims "unexpectedly" rise.

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Oct 30, 2004
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Interesting you mention that, economist Nouriel Roubini who predicted crash, has said that there are two US economies emerging. One where people that have jobs and businesses that are still viable and on the other hand there are roughly 20 million households who are simply not going to recover ever. Or about 50 million people.
http://www.roubini.com/roubini-moni...faces_the_guillotine_and_goodbye_to_the_bulls

We will become stratified like Mexico, with peasants, serfs, plebeians, begging in the streets while some in the middle class maintain their position and top controls all wealth.

I personally don't put much stock in it understanding Americans will cause enough social disorder to make a system like that untenable for long.

Of course we will have a large and broad underclass--after all--the third world nations' we are merging our economy with also have large and broad underclasses. Basic economic principles dictate that when the supply of available labor increases dramatically--such as a merger of the U.S., Indian, Chinese, and Mexican populations--relative to a relatively fixed demand for that labor--that wages--the price point, must decrease. Since we are continuing to allow foreign outsourcing, H-1B and L-1 visas, and mass immigration (legal and illegal), it is inevitable.

But will Americans rebel against the Demopublican Party? I don't see it happening. Many nations are fairly stable while a large percentage of the populace lives in abject poverty, such as the South American nations. I think Americans will just accept widespread poverty as being a natural part of the free-market and will continue to uphold their dogmatic belief in meritocracy.

If Americans were smart enough and energized enough to rebel, we wouldn't be in this position in the first place.

Are you ready to become a part of Third World America?
 

Hacp

Lifer
Jun 8, 2005
13,923
2
81
Of course we will have a large and broad underclass--after all--the third world nations' we are merging our economy with also have large and broad underclasses. Basic economic principles dictate that when the supply of available labor increases dramatically--such as a merger of the U.S., Indian, Chinese, and Mexican populations--relative to a relatively fixed demand for that labor--that wages--the price point, must decrease. Since we are continuing to allow foreign outsourcing, H-1B and L-1 visas, and mass immigration (legal and illegal), it is inevitable.

But will Americans rebel against the Demopublican Party? I don't see it happening. Many nations are fairly stable while a large percentage of the populace lives in abject poverty, such as the South American nations. I think Americans will just accept widespread poverty as being a natural part of the free-market and will continue to uphold their dogmatic belief in meritocracy.

If Americans were smart enough and energized enough to rebel, we wouldn't be in this position in the first place.

Are you ready to become a part of Third World America?

We need to get rid of H-1Bs and illegals. They're stealing good, hard, meaningful American jobs from American citizens. Lets stop creating jobs for foreigners and lets let India and Mexico hire their own workers.
 

Zebo

Elite Member
Jul 29, 2001
39,398
19
81
Of course we will have a large and broad underclass--after all--the third world nations' we are merging our economy with also have large and broad underclasses. Basic economic principles dictate that when the supply of available labor increases dramatically--such as a merger of the U.S., Indian, Chinese, and Mexican populations--relative to a relatively fixed demand for that labor--that wages--the price point, must decrease. Since we are continuing to allow foreign outsourcing, H-1B and L-1 visas, and mass immigration (legal and illegal), it is inevitable.

But will Americans rebel against the Demopublican Party? I don't see it happening. Many nations are fairly stable while a large percentage of the populace lives in abject poverty, such as the South American nations. I think Americans will just accept widespread poverty as being a natural part of the free-market and will continue to uphold their dogmatic belief in meritocracy.

If Americans were smart enough and energized enough to rebel, we wouldn't be in this position in the first place.

Are you ready to become a part of Third World America?

Whipper - we have certain rights and freedoms no other country has. Speech, vote, assembly, guns pull simply welfare and watch America explode. No I don't think it's possible to have a South American America.
 

StageLeft

No Lifer
Sep 29, 2000
70,150
5
0
Just wait till employers lay off all those employees they will not need in January when the holiday season is over.
BS. They said that this time last year, too.

oh, wait... ;)

--

It can't be a good figure. I agree with the above, though, that one week uptick or down tick is not that meaningful normally, but given the seasonal hiring typical around now it could be more meaningful than normal.

In so far as the stock market. Good luck. I've never understood it with it's crazy valuations or investing in items with no cash flow. I don't even have any delusions I can time market no matter how much I read.
You and apparently 60% of professional fund managers who are literally paid to beat it (and can't!).
Optimistic numbers say 7-8 years to return to full employment, with good policies.
That is bad. I heard more like three years...?

I personally don't put much stock in it understanding Americans will cause enough social disorder to make a system like that untenable for long.
Hopefully, though economic desperation can breed unfortunate political systems.
Prepare For Rebellion, Obama Orders US-Canadian Troops
<-article a waste of time
Many nations are fairly stable while a large percentage of the populace lives in abject poverty, such as the South American nations. I think Americans will just accept widespread poverty as being a natural part of the free-market and will continue to uphold their dogmatic belief in meritocracy.
This is true, they certainly may get used to their relative decrease in living standards. I say relative because I am not sure it will get worse here, it just won't be as clearly different with the rest of the world, but ultimately the US' position of dominance is fading.
 

Special K

Diamond Member
Jun 18, 2000
7,098
0
76
Optimistic numbers say 7-8 years to return to full employment, with good policies.

That is bad. I heard more like three years...?

Here is an interesting article I read about the topic. It's nearly 4 months old now, but given that the official unemployment rate has risen since then, the information contained within should still be vaild:

http://www.businessinsider.com/henr...-we-wont-have-a-v-shaped-recovery-jobs-2009-9

Specifically:

Getting the unemployment rate back to 5&#37; in 5 years would require average monthly job creation of 250,000. The average for the major boom of the 1990s was 150,000. The average for the past 30 years has been about 50,000.

and:

John calculates the number of jobs we'll need to get back to a 5% unemployment rate (15 million) and asks where those jobs are going to come from. He also observes that, to get to 5% unemployment in 5 years, we'll need to average 250,000 new jobs every month. The average has never been this high, even in a strong economy.

The average job creation over the past 30 years is 50,000 jobs a month. The average job creation from 1991 to 2000 (a major boom) was 150,000 jobs a month. The average in 2006, the best year in the recent boom, was 232,000.
 

Specop 007

Diamond Member
Jan 31, 2005
9,454
0
0
Well if it weren't a shock then why would they report on it? Do you read newspapers that report obvious news that everyone knows? I like how now you've moved your criticism from 'the librul media never reports on this' to, 'the librul media doesn't report on it in the way I think they should'.

Whatever it takes to preserve your world view.

If you spent as much time following the news as you did proclaiming the endless wealth of socialism you'd know what I say is true. You can dance around it all you want frankly I really just dont care. Theres the retards who act all shocked that a bit of bad news comes out here and there and then theres those who follow news closely from more than the White House mouthpieces.

Your defense of this "unexpected" news tells me which you are........
 
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woolfe9999

Diamond Member
Mar 28, 2005
7,164
0
0
Fair enough I'd just like to point out with Washington DC a problem delayed is a problem solved but really none of the underlying causes of the financial crisis have been solved. We still have deteriorating bank balance sheets. Banks are still loaded with "toxic assets" e.g. people who can't pay. The commercial real estate crisis is just starting. And runaway public debt trying to alleviate it all to no avail, only now everyone except bankers and politicians is a lot poorer. In my book that's not an 'improvement' but actually a much worse situation than before, worse than 2008.

Note that most of the 'improvements' cited by the media are slowdowns in rates of decline. Another intersting point I've noticed is how any "good news" will immediately be spread far and wide, while "other" numbers are automatically subject to heavy scrutiny and low circulation. So the "recovery" is basically 'public relations' campaign and has nothing to do with reality.


In so far as the stock market. Good luck. I've never understood it with it's crazy valuations or investing in items with no cash flow. I don't even have any delusions I can time market no matter how much I read.

Well, I don't think the situation is worse than 2008. In 2008, the entire financial system was teetering on the brink of collapse. That is not the case now. Unemployment is higher, but that is always a lagging indicator.

That doesn't mean the situation is even remotely good. In fact, it's flat out awful. Awful is not acceptable; it's merely better than cataclysmic. So your obversations about the economy are generally correct with that one qualification.

Economic data is relevant for trending more than for absolute values at a given moment in time. When job losses slow down more and more each month, the theory is that this inevitably becomes job gains. At least that is the theory, and it's probably accurate with the qualification that you can experience short term movements away from the trend, and the timing of the whole trend arc is a rogue variable. In other words, these jobs can be back in 18 months or 5 years, and there may be job losses in some months throughout the arc.

I don't know about the media playing up the positive and downplaying the negative data. I guess I just read the financial pages daily and all the data is there. Positive data is generally written up with loads of qualifications to suggest that too much shouldn't be read into it. Maybe leftie political pundits are overplaying the positives? Not sure. Anyone who sounds too optimistic now is instantly branded either a political hack or just a flat out fool. The most you generally hear is that this or that piece of data is "an early encouraging indicator that things may be starting to turn around" or some such thing. People saying "we are out of the recession" is meaningless. We ARE out of the recession, according to its strict, technical definition.

What I see most often with comments on the internet is the reverse. Every negative piece of data means the sky is falling, and every positive piece of data is meaningless, unimportant, or even doctored by The Powers That Be. One person sees a week of increased unemployment claims as terrible, catastrophic news, while that same person ignored or downplayed a prior week where jobless claims were unexpectedly lower. I think these people fall in two categories: conservatives who relish every piece of bad news because they want the economy to fail, and what I call the "doom and gloom" crowd. This is the crowd that says the United State/world/universe is going to hell in a hand basket, and they've been saying it ever since I was born. It is Bankruptcy 1995; it is California is going to slide into the ocean due to earthquakes; it is the U.S. will be a third world country any time soon. As a culture, I think we relish in misery.

Myself, I an neither am optimist nor a pessimist. Facts are facts. The economy is in a shithole right now. Trend data is showing some improvement which might mean we are going to come out of it, eventually, at some unspecified time in the reasonably foreseeable future. Or maybe not.

- wolf
 
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werepossum

Elite Member
Jul 10, 2006
29,873
463
126
Well, I don't think the situation is worse than 2008. In 2008, the entire financial system was teetering on the brink of collapse. That is not the case now. Unemployment is higher, but that is always a lagging indicator.

That doesn't mean the situation is even remotely good. In fact, it's flat out awful. Awful is not acceptable; it's merely better than cataclysmic. So your obversations about the economy are generally correct with that one qualification.

Economic data is relevant for trending more than for absolute values at a given moment in time. When job losses slow down more and more each month, the theory is that this inevitably becomes job gains. At least that is the theory, and it's probably accurate with the qualification that you can experience short term movements away from the trend, and the timing of the whole trend arc is a rogue variable. In other words, these jobs can be back in 18 months or 5 years, and there may be job losses in some months throughout the arc.

I don't know about the media playing up the positive and downplaying the negative data. I guess I just read the financial pages daily and all the data is there. Positive data is generally written up with loads of qualifications to suggest that too much shouldn't be read into it. Maybe leftie political pundits are overplaying the positives? Not sure. Anyone who sounds too optimistic now is instantly branded either a political hack or just a flat out fool. The most you generally hear is that this or that piece of data is "an early encouraging indicator that things may be starting to turn around" or some such thing. People saying "we are out of the recession" is meaningless. We ARE out of the recession, according to its strict, technical definition.

What I see most often with comments on the internet is the reverse. Every negative piece of data means the sky is falling, and every positive piece of data is meaningless, unimportant, or even doctored by The Powers That Be. One person sees a week of increased unemployment claims as terrible, catastrophic news, while that same person ignored or downplayed a prior week where jobless claims were unexpectedly lower. I think these people fall in two categories: conservatives who relish every piece of bad news because they want the economy to fail, and what I call the "doom and gloom" crowd. This is the crowd that says the United State/world/universe is going to hell in a hand basket, and they've been saying it ever since I was born. It is Bankruptcy 1995; it is California is going to slide into the ocean due to earthquakes; it is the U.S. will be a third world country any time soon. As a culture, I think we relish in misery.

Myself, I am neither am optimist nor a pessimist. Facts are facts. The economy is in a shithole right now. Trend data is showing some improvement which might mean we are going to come out of it, eventually, at some unspecified time in the reasonably foreseeable future. Or maybe not.

- wolf

When you're in a pit like this one, even a broken shovel is good news, slows down the digging if nothing else.
 

Darwin333

Lifer
Dec 11, 2006
19,946
2,328
126
Well if it weren't a shock then why would they report on it? Do you read newspapers that report obvious news that everyone knows? I like how now you've moved your criticism from 'the librul media never reports on this' to, 'the librul media doesn't report on it in the way I think they should'.

Whatever it takes to preserve your world view.

They still report murders in NOLA even though its no shock and any given weekend we know at least 1 or 2 (usually drug dealers) are going to get shot. Now if its not a drug dealer or gang banger maybe that would be unexpected. I just read a news story that Republicans were going to try and slow down the vote on health care SHOCKER. Today our local paper felt the need to tell us it rained... yesterday (we got 3 inches, trust me we noticed).They report obvious crap all the time.
 

shadow9d9

Diamond Member
Jul 6, 2004
8,132
2
0
If you spent as much time following the news as you did proclaiming the endless wealth of socialism you'd know what I say is true. You can dance around it all you want frankly I really just dont care. Theres the retards who act all shocked that a bit of bad news comes out here and there and then theres those who follow news closely from more than the White House mouthpieces.

Your defense of this "unexpected" news tells me which you are........


If you spent as much time following the news as you did proclaiming the endless wealth of capitalism ...

Our system will always be a mix of the 2... without restraints, capitalism devolves to sweatshop wages with .0001% controlling all the wealth.