Another Disappointing Jobs Report: +115,000 (Participation Rate Lowest in 30 years) (interview, Sanders, economic)

[bobtn]

Originally Posted by HappyTexan

Business expansion won't work if people are underemployed.
The days of the instant loan (HELOC) is over. People now have to live within their means and if their means is lower then their spending is cut.

Don't you recall the summer of "stay-cations"..the new term for staying home for vacation. It was a retail slogan to get people to buy more crap for their backyard, like pools and grills saying it would be cheaper to do that then take a trip.

Not all sectors are US consumer dependent. Those sectors can expand, and with our weak dollar, its a good era to export stuff.

[HappyTexan]

Originally Posted by bobtn

Not all sectors are US consumer dependent. Those sectors can expand, and with our weak dollar, its a good era to export stuff.

Why export when it's cheaper to build the factory where the demand is and hire local people with a local distribution chain.
This is what "globalism" is all about now.

[bobtn]

Originally Posted by HappyTexan

Why export when it's cheaper to build the factory where the demand is and hire local people with a local distribution chain.
This is what "globalism" is all about now.

1 in 7 US mfg jobs are for exports, and that sector is up double digits this decade. Not everything is toy making-there are areas where we have an edge manufacturing globally. There are Southeastern RTW mfg plants I personally have experience with which would have been CLOSED w/o their thriving export markets.

[HappyTexan]

Originally Posted by bobtn

1 in 7 US mfg jobs are for exports, and that sector is up double digits this decade. Not everything is toy making-there are areas where we have an edge manufacturing globally. There are Southeastern RTW mfg plants I personally have experience with which would have been CLOSED w/o their thriving export markets.

I'm not saying that US mfg for exports is all but dead but that is not the only option these days.

Some are expanding by investing/buying out local companies in that country and putting their label on it. McCormick spices is one such company.

In some countries, a company has to take cultural buying habits into consideration.

[MTAtech]

Originally Posted by bobtn

We need tax cuts tied to business expansion-it is luny we tax an IPO and a sale of existing 80 year old stock at the same rates. we NEED IPOs. We need to STOP tax holidays, short term stuff never stimulates anything, it just changes which MONTHS something is bought. GM's worst sales months pre recession were right after employee pricing month ended.

Your views are a fantasy world. We should go to Mark Zuckerberg and ask, “How much did you think about the capital gains tax rate when you were starting Facebook? Did you even know what the capital gains tax rate was when you were starting Facebook? Do you know what it is now?” This is a psychodrama that people imagine is playing out in the heads of businesspeople, and it’s not happening. It’s all in the minds of the political flacks.

The idea that billionaires need tax incentives to invest, instead of just their desire to make money --but it's ok to raise taxes on the middle-class, is truly Alice in Wonderland thinking, where up is down and down is up.

The last 10-years have had the lowest tax-rates in a 80 years and also the worst economic growth. The periods where tax-rates were high had also the highest economic growth. Back then, rich people didn't seem to need tax-cuts to invest their money.

[313Weather]

Originally Posted by chickenfriedbananas

Protectionism doesn't work. It was one of Hoover's chief responses to the Great Depression and it resulted in a trade war that deepened the effects of the depression so that it spread elsewhere.

Beyond that, none of what you're discussing above really is at the root of the problem. The problem is that the base of consumption -- the life's blood of a strong, vibrant capitalist system -- is not nearly as strong as it was in the past. Maybe one day republitards and libertardians will begin to understand that you actually need people with steady incomes in order for capitalism to work, not an increasingly select group of elite profiteers at the top of the food chain who stash their gambling winnings in offshore accounts. People aren't spending because they don't have enough income, and even those who do have some income don't have access to credit. The tightening of credit may not be entirely a bad thing, in my view (should have happened long ago, in my view), but it hurts when would-be entrepreneurs can't get loans because banks are sitting on piles of cash and intend to do nothing with it.

You may not want to admit it, but the reality is that we are increasingly facing a crisis of capitalism. People are beginning to lose faith in it. The problem is that most people are confused about how to make it work again, which gives off the impression that the cure is even worse than the disease itself. The real problem, as I see it, is that voters seemed to give Obama a mandate in 2008, which Obama may have, to some degree, confused in 2009 with his push for the controversial healthcare reform law, and then he lost that mandate in 2010. Now we have a president without a mandate -- but at a time when a mandate is required. And moreover, we need a mandate that promotes more collectivist goals. Yet here we have a president with no clear direction in which to govern. We have a congress that is divided, with one half dead set against anything the president does, and the other dead set to do anything the opposition doesn't want them to do. We have a broken political system that starts with broken voters, continues with ineffective governance, and ends in the death of the American dream.

Question: How exactly do people earn steady incomes when companies are allowed to ship their jobs to other countriesand pay those worker 10 cent on the dollar?

[Mircea]

Originally Posted by buzzards27

Yep, real tragic, . I guess those baby boomers (1946 to 1956) have finally began to retire.

If 327,000 Boomers retire every month, then there should be an equivalent number of job openings, right?

Except there isn't, which is indicative of serious problems in your economy. Some economists have suggested that Boomers were the driving force behind your economy, and now that they have been retiring, their spending has decreased significantly. The evidence is compelling, although I'm still undecided. As I said, your economy will be recessionary through the end of the decade. If Boomers are impacting your economy, then that would explain why, in part.

If you recall, the BLS claimed that between 2008-2018 there would be 50.6 Million jobs "created." That's an average of 5,060,000 per year or 421,666 jobs per month.

They also claimed that 67% of those jobs would be "created" by retiring Boomers. That means it breaks down to:

1] 139,150 new jobs created by growth each month -- you aren't hitting that; and

2] 282,516 replacement jobs created by retiring Boomers each month -- you aren't hitting that either.

Tragically...

Mircea

Originally Posted by roysoldboy

bob, I think you failed to show any kind of proof of what you say. Since we have been losing jobs all of your months where was the growth. Get those links of proof out of your computer and on the forum.

I already debunked that month by month previously.

Proofing...

Mircea

Originally Posted by afoigrokerkok

The UE rate went down last month because 342,000 people dropped out of the labor force.

411,000 dropped out.

154,316,000 March
153,905,000 April
-----------------------
411,000 decrease

Originally Posted by afoigrokerkok

People are only counted as "unemployed" if they are actively seeking work....

In the last 4 weeks prior to the survey. They are considered part of the labor pool and unemployed if and only if they have applied for a job in the last 4 weeks.

Originally Posted by afoigrokerkok

- if they give up out of frustration, they are no longer counted.

If I remember correctly, the criteria prior to 1994 was 12 months. If you had looked for a job in the last 12 months you were counted as part of the labor pool and unemployed.

Originally Posted by afoigrokerkok

No, that's the weekly applications for unemployment benefits, which are released on a weekly basis. The previous week's number of unemployment applications has been revised upwards (not downwards...but, in their case, upward revisions are bad news) 60 of the last 61 weeks.

The headline is always something like "unemployment applications drop" when there were, say, 388,000 applications the last week and 390,000 the week before and then the 388,000 number is revised upward the next week (so that it actually ends up being higher than the week before).

Yes. Tip: Skip over the crap and look at the raw data, ie the "not seasonally adjusted" numbers.

That tells you the real story and gives you a brutally clear picture of what is really happening. There is no need (and no logical reason) to seasonally adjust the data for the weekly unemployment claims or for monthly job reports.

I've taken lots of statistics courses, and then on top of those I had to take stats for polisci majors and stats for econ majors. One of the [disturbing] things that you see, is that everything is geared toward "normalization."

You want all of your data points in a nice tight zone so that you have a very clear trend/curve showing on your graph (so you can get published).

The way this whole idea/concept and process of "normalization" affects things is like in Industrial Engineering where asking, "How fast can a worker assemble a widget?" becomes "How fast can the average worker assemble a widget?"

In Education, "How fast can a child read?" becomes "How fast can the average child read?"

Surely people can see where that leads to mediocrity foisted on Society as everything is dumbed-down.

And how does this process of "normalization" play out in political science? Well in polling instead of "How do citizens view censorship?" it becomes "How does the average citizen view censorship?"

And in economics this plays in out the weekly unemployment claims and jobs report by seasonally adjusting the numbers to "normalize" them so that it presents someone's preconceived view of what it ought to be.

Originally Posted by afoigrokerkok

This thread is about the BLS employment situation report (better known as the "jobs report"), which is issued once a month. The numbers are not revised between reports.

Correct. They are only revised when a new job report is issued. Note that sometimes they will revise reports from 2-3 months prior.

Originally Posted by April 2011

The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for February was revised from -14,000 to +39,000, and the change for March was revised from 162,000 to 230,000.

Originally Posted by August 2011

The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for June was revised from +46,000 to +20,000, and the change for July was revised from +117,000 to +85,000.

The revisions always appear at the bottom in the very last paragraph (like a sort of afterthought).

Statistically...

Mircea

Originally Posted by Gatornation

Your income and employment value is determined by the job market. I think many are having a hard time realizing they were likely overvalued during the bubble years.

No doubt.

Not only were they grotesquely over-paid in the Domestic Labor Market, they are nauseatingly over-paid in comparison to the Global Labor Market.

Globally...

Mircea.

Originally Posted by momonkey

This is the sort of reasoning which has given us fifteen trillion in federal debt and a failing economy.

Yeah, but hey, spending $12 TRILLION to get a measly increase of $500 Billion in GDP is worth it, right?

Those idiots think so.

Uh, that isn't "free." It costs. And that cost appears in the form of Real Inflation, and based on the current rate of spending stupidity, that is going to be somewhere between 35% to 45%.

And 12 years from now, when all of the *******s are screaming bloody murder and foaming at the mouth because the price of everything, as in every thing, as in every single goddam thing in the US is going up 35% to 45% year after year after year, I'm going to throw these threads right back in their faces and laugh at them.

They can talk the talk now, but when it's time to walk the walk, they won't be able to do that.

Originally Posted by momonkey

When is devaluing the currency good for the economy and deficit spending the answer to economic downturns?

Well sometimes it is. Sometimes you have to spend money to make money, but you don't do that at the risk of your credit rating (like the US has done) and you don't do that when your debt exceeds your potential income (like the US has done -- National Debt $15.7 TRILLION and GDP $15.1 TRILLION), and you don't do it when there's no hope.

Would you borrow $10 Million to make 8-Track Tape Players? Why? No one will buy them, so is that a smart thing to do?

In a similar vein, why would you throw away $5 TRILLION to "create" jobs that cannot be created?

The US lost about 5 Million jobs permanently, as in forever (well, unless until about the year 2040). I get the distinct impression some have great difficulty grasping the definitions, connotations and concepts of "permanently" and "forever."

Originally Posted by momonkey

How does making the money consumers have worth less grow the economy?

They're about to find out.....that it doesn't.

Reasoning...

Mircea

[afoigrokerkok]

Originally Posted by 313Weather

Question: How exactly do people earn steady incomes when companies are allowed to ship their jobs to other countriesand pay those worker 10 cent on the dollar?

It can bring the cost/prices of products/services down, freeing up money that people can spend on other products/services, thus creating more jobs.

[afoigrokerkok]

Originally Posted by MTAtech

Your views are a fantasy world. We should go to Mark Zuckerberg and ask, “How much did you think about the capital gains tax rate when you were starting Facebook? Did you even know what the capital gains tax rate was when you were starting Facebook? Do you know what it is now?” This is a psychodrama that people imagine is playing out in the heads of businesspeople, and it’s not happening. It’s all in the minds of the political flacks.

The idea that billionaires need tax incentives to invest, instead of just their desire to make money --but it's ok to raise taxes on the middle-class, is truly Alice in Wonderland thinking, where up is down and down is up.

I don't believe anyone is proposing raising taxes on the middle class. Certainly not Romney...his plan includes cuts in tax rates for everyone and eliminating some deductions, with more deductions being eliminated for the top 1% than anyone else. His plan could result in tax increases for some of the lower class, but not the middle class.

I haven't looked at the Ryan plan in great detail but, minimally, it does not call for increasing tax rates on the middle class.

[buzzards27]

Originally Posted by MTAtech

Your views are a fantasy world. We should go to Mark Zuckerberg and ask, “How much did you think about the capital gains tax rate when you were starting Facebook? Did you even know what the capital gains tax rate was when you were starting Facebook? Do you know what it is now?” This is a psychodrama that people imagine is playing out in the heads of businesspeople, and it’s not happening. It’s all in the minds of the political flacks.

The idea that billionaires need tax incentives to invest, instead of just their desire to make money --but it's ok to raise taxes on the middle-class, is truly Alice in Wonderland thinking, where up is down and down is up.

Again, SPENDING, investing into a business, one way to avoid taxation. Raising the tax rate would encourage me to shelter, invest, to avoid taxation. Lower the tax rate and you encourage businessmen to reap their profits INSTEAD of investing. Every time tax rates are lowered there is a short spurt of higher tax revenues because of people taking there profits and cashing out.