Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Excellent post! I agree with your conclusion. Most people would post that graph and try to use it to say the job market is good. What most people will not look for what happened every time jobless claims got to, or even just close to where they are now a HUGE spike upward followed every time! Great catch Dave!
like all statistics the numbers can reflect whatever anyone wants .
i remember seeing a drunk driving commercial .
they stated 40% of all accidents involve impaired driving .
i sad to my wife , you see , it is actually safer to drive drunk or on drugs then straight . the other 60% of accidents are caused by the straight folks .
Anytime you use "percent" the next question is, "Percent of what?"
I knew someone who would show her horse one time and get a 4th place. She then advertized the horse as placing in 100% of the shows in which it had been entered. She was right, but.......
So let's look at it this way: Say there's 100 accidents. That means 40 of them were caused by drunk driving and 60 of them were caused by drivers that weren't drunk. Suppose we stop all drunk people from driving. Now all of a sudden next year there are only 60 accidents. And 60 of them were caused by drivers who weren't drunk. By saying that this year drivers who didn't drive drunk caused 100% of the accidents and last year drunk drivers only caused 40 percent of them, does that make it OK to consider allowing drivers to drive drunk? Of course not. Because you're not taking the total number of whatever the percentage is into consideration.
People are funny about percentages. For instance, someone will say they want a flat tax. OK, so what flat tax do you want? Ten percent is always an answer given. Ten percent of what? In this case, it's yearly income. So consider this: 10% of $20,000 a year is $2000. That leaves $18,000/yr for this family to live on. Now let's do 10% tax on someone who brings home $1,000,000.00 a year. His tax is $100,000. What does he have left to live on? $900,000/year. Seriously. If you brought home $1,000,000/yr, would you even notice if 10% of that walked out the door? That's like taking a dime out of a dollar to buy penny candy.
Likewise rent. Say I pay 50% of my salary every month in rent. I'm upset because Joe Blow pays only 30% of his salary every month in rent because he's in subsidized housing. But I bring home $5000 every month. So after paying rent, I still have $2500 left. Joe Blow brings home $1000/month. He only has $700 left after paying rent. But you'll see people like me complaining right and left about the "cheap" rent Joe pays and how it isn't "fair". Like I'd really want to trade my situation for Joe's because he gets something for "free"and I don't. Really, people actually do this!
It's percent of what? Learn to ask that every time someone quotes a percentage to you.
OK, enough with the percentage lesson.
Quote:
Originally Posted by InchingWest
2. People have gotten lazy. Gone are the days of the pioneer, the sturdy farmer, and the rugged rancher. Gone is the hayday of the proud and hard working blue collar tradesman. People wanted to live with luxury (cars, jewerly, phones, cable bills, etc) without being willing to work their butts off for it.
Maybe they haven't gotten lazy as much as they have worked their butts off only to be demoralized by having their jobs sent out of the country, their pensions stolen, their health insurance becoming non-existent, their hours cut, their pay diminished, their homes lost through no fault of their own, being laid off in their 50s, and then seeing someone like Marissa Mayer of Yahoo get a 55 million dollar severance package after being forced out (i.e., fired) after screwing up Yahoo.
The question I would be asking is why anyone would work their heart out if that's the kind of reward they're going to get?
And let's try to remember that many western settlers didn't buy their own land. In the late 1800s, it was land given to them by the government for the provision of living off it for five years. How many of those hard working, old time farmers do you think could have afforded to buy their own land if they had to pay for it?
Last edited by rodentraiser; 05-07-2016 at 07:34 PM..
It's not like this problem is unique to Boomers. FDR instituted the Social Security program in the 1930's precisely because most people don't save properly for their retirement. Other than the fortunate who had defined benefit pensions, most people have always retired poor.
Again, this is hardly new. Most people have always been lazy.
This is the great lie. The Bill Clinton Welfare Reform Act of 1996 put a 5 year lifetime cap on cash payments. A welfare queen who gets knocked up doesn't receive one dime more in cash payments for that next kid from the next baby daddy. The safety net is biased towards families, the disabled, and the elderly. If you're able bodied and don't have dependent children, the only benefits you're going to see are Medicaid and a very small amount of Food Stamp/SNAP/EBT card money. Even SNAP has a 20 hour per week work requirement. Able bodied people don't get Section 8 housing because there isn't enough to go around. If you don't work, you're living in a cardboard box under the railroad bridge trying to make it on ~$100/month in food stamps and charity food pantries and soup kitchens.
Corporations make profits. Shocking!
People just find ways to get on disability and get a free ride for life.
if you want to argue the unemployment numbers are off i would argue it the other way and say a lot of those unemployed are pretty much not employable or if they are it will be low pay in a local business who does no presceening .
we had people tell us they want outrageous amounts for low end jobs because they are collecting unemployment and work off the books at the local deli or pizza place so if they are going to take a job it has to beat that combo . throw those who don't really want a job in to those numbers too .
This makes me wonder what the impact on the labor force participation rate numbers would be, if we moved from an income tax system to a consumption tax system. It would remove much of the incentive to hide income, thereby getting more people working "on the books".
This makes me wonder what the impact on the labor force participation rate numbers would be, if we moved from an income tax system to a consumption tax system. It would remove much of the incentive to hide income, thereby getting more people working "on the books".
They do tax us on the consumption side. They would never give up taxing our incomes because the entire system would collapse. Not enough money on the consumption side to tax, and spending is too cyclical. It's not a government's job to save for a rainy day, the way we are expected to.
it isn't as much as employers are picky but this is the age of information access .
you can't imagine how many folks on all levels we get coming in for positions and they can't pass a drug test , a back ground check or credit check .
good employees are rarely let go unless a company folds . that best of breed usually gets snatched up by competitors before their body's hit the job market .
it is those dispensable employees that are the ones that usually end up looking .
so they are generally not the best from the get go .
i know my company i retired from has lots of jobs but they have a hard time getting people who can pass muster .
in fact they do an extensive amount of training too for newbees , i retired but still teach a few technical product lines 2 days a month for them . but finding decent employees is tough today when you can pre screen so easily .
the use of drugs today on all levels and ages is just insane .
As you have said, applicants are being rejected without consideration of their skills, so you can't even say they are categorically not the best.
This makes me wonder what the impact on the labor force participation rate numbers would be, if we moved from an income tax system to a consumption tax system. It would remove much of the incentive to hide income, thereby getting more people working "on the books".
And it would create much incentive to hide consumption. Not to mention that breaks and loopholes would be created to favor some forms of consumption over others.
Actually, the number opting out of the labor force has slowed dramatically since 2013. It's now increasing a little over 1 million each year. The table retrieves a raw figure that's not adjusted for seasonality. There hasn't been any increase this year, but it's likely there'll be a big jump in retirees come September.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
