Unemployment falls to lowest level since May 2001

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally posted by: spidey07

One creates their own opportunity.

If one denies this they are destined to be poor the rest of their lives.

I doubt anyone would deny that. However, if people deny that it's also necessary to have a good government with good economic policies, they're liable to live under a bad government with bad economic policies for the rest of their lives and they'll find themselves less successful at creating opportunities.

That's what's going to happen to the United States, which is well on its way to becoming a third world country (because of global labor wage arbitrage and population explosion). Taking initiative to create your own opportunities is not enough. After all, people in third world countries (presumably) take iniative, too.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

We've added something in the range of 3 million jobs since 2003 I believe. So I would think he is on the positive side. I believe has was nearly on the positive side before the 2004 election, only missed it by a few months.

I am sure the numbers would be easy to find with a little work.

The problem is that our nation has probably added 10 million people since 2003. The job growth has to keep up with population growth or it isn't really "growth" relative to the size of the populace.

 

[catnap1972]

Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper

Originally posted by: hellokeith
It's not that Americans don't want to work xxx job, it is because they don't want xxx job's payrate.

Right. Americans don't want to work jobs that only afford them third world standards of living. I bet you don't want a job like that, either.

Originally posted by: hellokeith
The ratio of Wages / Cost of Living has been decreasing for 60+ years. This is not news. Yet some think it is the government's responsibility for you to have a house, couple of cars, nice clothes, cell phone w/ bluetooth headset, and tickets to the game/concert. If your happiness is based on having those things, then get off your rear and work more/harder, take night classes, get some certifications.. i.e. improve yourself.

Take night classes? Reeducate? Retrain? For what ???

Patent Law? But we already have an oversupply of people with both engineering (or science Ph.D.'s) and law degrees and work in the patent field is already being sent to India.

Engineering? Much of that work's being sent to India and China, especially the computer stuff and companies will also import labor via H-1B and L-1 visas.

Financial analysis? That's being sent to India, too.

Computer programming? That's already been sent to India.

Could you please name some fields, other than the physical labor of nursing, that people could go retrain and reeducate for? Fields where there is a (real) large labor shortfall that offer middle class livings? Maybe you know something that most Americans who'd like to retrain don't.

It's real sad that Americans have bought into the politicians' and the media's opiate of the masses--education. "Education will save us!"

My brother has an advanced science degree and a law degree (from a very reputable law school) and he couldn't find a job in his field because we have too many people with the same combination--that's a whole buttload of education there--and we have <gasp> an oversupply of such highly educated people! We even have such people who are unemployed or severely underemployed, earning meager livings while facing student loan debts. One of the reasons so many science Ph.D.s went to law school was...because we had a huge oversupply of Ph.D. scientists.

Education and retraining are the magical solutions to unemployment--believe it if you're one of the sheeple! The politicians and the media just love feeding it to the American people who gobble it right up, as though education magically created middle class jobs. In reality, education is not a solution for sound economic policy (such as policies that would address the issue of global labor wage arbitrage).

As you clearly stated, even if people could "go to school" and "retrain" for something, he'd be bitching and moaning that supply and demand (too many people, too few jobs) on those jobs is driving the salaries down (the right claims they're the experts on economics yet they can't grasp that simple fact)

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Fox said that we now have "record" number of people employed. Which I would understand to mean that more people are working than ever before. And therefore Bush has added more jobs than he as lost.

Another great stat. The average unemployment under Bush is now 5.3, and under Clinton it was 5.2 so Bush is closing in on Clinton's record for unemployment, and baring a drastic increase in unemployment should pass him in another month or two.

Meanwhile, Nanci Pelosi had this to say ""The President has the worst jobs record since the Great Depression..."

What about the issue of jobs quality? After all, we could have seen a huge increase in the number of poverty-wage jobs and a decrease in the number of middle class jobs. I think that's what Americans perceive when they tell pollsters that they think the economy is bad.

I wish the American sheeple could understand that the issue is not merely quantity, but quality. How many of the alleged new jobs were part-time jobs without benefits? How many good full time jobs were lost and replaced with part-time jobs? How many people traded one solid middle class job for two poverty-wage part-time jobs?

That's what we need to know.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

When people are asked if they feel they are doing well economicly something around 66% say 'yes' they are.
People are being told over and over again how bad the economy is by people like Pelosi and others who are out for political gains and they start to believe the hype.
It becomes a case of "I am doing good, but I worry about the guy across the street."

The other 34% of the people who aren't doing well are, of course, welcome to starve to death or to go to a deathcamp. We need not worry about 1/3 of the populace as long as 2/3 are doing well.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally posted by: umbrella39

The funny thing is their biggest cheerleaders here think they are somehow going to escape their fate and eat at the table with the rich boys. I guess it just takes some people longer to figure out they are getting screwed by the same prick as everyone else.

Most Americans have zero understanding or even awareness of the issues of global labor wage arbitrage, population explosion, and Peak Oil. It's going to be quite a shock when our economic chickens come home to roost and when people discover that reality and economic laws of supply and demand really do exist.

Sadly, I'll be one of the people going down with the ship in spite of my opposition to the government policies that will be responsible for transforming the nation into a third world country.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

You've seen me post here many times, these people will continue to spout this nonsense until they are directly affected. Then watch them change their tune.

When I was "directly affected", I was forced to reevaluate everything. I went from advocating laissez-faire and a benevolent-universe-America-is-a-Meritocracy type of philsophy to merely advocating a predominantly capitalist mixed economy.

Education and advanced degrees as the solution to employment problems? If only it were that simple.

Also, when things go badly for you, you start to question all of those fluffy feel-good beliefs that we've been taught to believe. Beliefs such as the notion that our nation has unlimitted natural resources and that good will always prevail and that people will always be rewarded for their attemps to better themselves. Instead, you have to face reality. Why is housing so expensive? (Because the supply of land is decreasing as the population increases.) You then start to worry about competition for resources and whether or not it makes sense to import millions of impoverished people into the country and whether or not it makes sense to increase the strain on our environment and to decrease our nation's amount of natural resources per person.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally posted by: Puffnstuff

PS those troops dying in Iraqistan are just a figment of your imagination.

Regarding the troops and the unemployment numbers, might it be argued that having so many working-aged people over in Iraq has lowered the unemployment numbers some? It's almost convenient for the government. What happens when all of these vets return home and start to look for work?

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper

Originally posted by: Puffnstuff

PS those troops dying in Iraqistan are just a figment of your imagination.

Regarding the troops and the unemployment numbers, might it be argued that having so many working-aged people over in Iraq has lowered the unemployment numbers some? It's almost convenient for the government. What happens when all of these vets return home and start to look for work?

Well, it's only 150,000 currently deployed in Iraq. But, how many are still in the armed forces due to stop-loss (back-door draft)? Could see as many as a million back in the work force?

 

[db]

OP: "...some people still seem to think that the economy is doing terrible. The addition of this good news will likely avert any suspected weakening of the market and keep us going strong."
__________________________________________
The "official" unemployment rate is now calculated by eliminating those who are discouraged and no longer looking for work.
It did not used to be calculated that way.
To find out the true unemployment rate, go to the BLS and do a find for " Table A-12 " where you will find that the true unemployment
rate is 8.1%.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: db
OP: "...some people still seem to think that the economy is doing terrible. The addition of this good news will likely avert any suspected weakening of the market and keep us going strong."
__________________________________________
The "official" unemployment rate is now calculated by eliminating those who are discouraged and no longer looking for work.
It did not used to be calculated that way.
To find out the true unemployment rate, go to the BLS and do a find for " Table A-12 " where you will find that the true unemployment
rate is 8.1%.

This is basically how it has been done for sometime. The last time unemployment was this low during the clinton admin, that stat was about the same as it is now.

 

[fitzov]

The "not in the labor force" yet not counted as unemployed is a relatively large number--looks to be about half of the civilian labor force and ten times as many on unemployment

These in-
dividuals wanted and were available for work and had looked for a job sometime
in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had
not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.