290K Jobs Created in April; Economists say No Double Dip

[Bluefly]

Originally Posted by pghquest

Actually they dont.. Thats why politicians release talking point memos. We dont have many "reporters" left, they are all commentators.. You do understand there is a difference, right?

You're basing your "argument" on a whole lot of baseless assumptions and asking me to go along. Commentators are the likes of Hannity and Olbermann. But, there are still thousands upon thousands of journalists who write articles and create news reports.

I need proof that the White House told them to say what you're saying, and that what the journalists said about the rising unemployment rate is incorrect.

I never made such a claim..

Actually, you did:

What you arent grasping is that the journalists are reporting on what the ADMINISTRATION is telling them.. Its the ADMINISTRATION spinning the facts. I cant spin the unemployment numbers, I dont have the connections in Washington.

As such, it's time to step up and prove your assertion rather than just spew assumptions and propaganda. Your belief about what happens in journalism isn't enough. You can focus solely on the Wall Street Journal if you would like. Front page article written by a journalist (not a commentator).

Go.

Never stated that it wasnt a good sign, nor have I ever stated that unemployment wont start to drop. Are little voices talking to you?

Then what in the world are you arguing?!?!? If we agree that a temporary uptick in unemployment is good because it's a sign that people are re-entering the workforce because they are encouraged by the new jobs being created, and that eventually - perhaps over several months - that demand will be met with more jobs and the rate will eventually go down - then you have no argument to make!

The little voices are telling me this is your way of backing out of the corner you made for yourself. They're telling me to step aside and let you go before it gets too embarrassing for you.

[pghquest]

Originally Posted by Bluefly

You're basing your "argument" on a whole lot of baseless assumptions and asking me to go along.

The White House has a press conference DAILY with the press to release talking points. That is the job of Robert Gibbs, White House Press Secretary..

Originally Posted by Bluefly

Commentators are the likes of Hannity and Olbermann. But, there are still thousands upon thousands of journalists who write articles and create news reports.

Not anymore, many of them just take the press releases and report on the talking points..

Originally Posted by Bluefly

I need proof that the White House told them to say what you're saying, and that what the journalists said about the rising unemployment rate is incorrect.

Is a video of him saying it good enough?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/37019373#37019373

Originally Posted by Bluefly

Actually, you did:

No I didnt..

Originally Posted by Bluefly

As such, it's time to step up and prove your assertion rather than just spew assumptions and propaganda. Your belief about what happens in journalism isn't enough. You can focus solely on the Wall Street Journal if you would like. Front page article written by a journalist (not a commentator).

Go.

See video above..

Originally Posted by Bluefly

Then what in the world are you arguing?!?!? If we agree that a temporary uptick in unemployment is good because it's a sign that people are re-entering the workforce because they are encouraged by the new jobs being created, and that eventually - perhaps over several months - that demand will be met with more jobs and the rate will eventually go down - then you have no argument to make!

I'm NOT arguing.. I stated that the unemployment numbers went up and the unemployment percentage is what is ALWAYS report...It was you guys who began to argue with me about why the unemployment number going up was positive news and to justify the spinning from Washington.

Originally Posted by Bluefly

The little voices are telling me this is your way of backing out of the corner you made for yourself. They're telling me to step aside and let you go before it gets too embarrassing for you.

I'm not in any corner, I'm not the one who changed the parameter from unemployment percentage to # of jobs..

[Bluefly]

You need to provide proof that journalists don't exist anymore and that none fact checked the reason why the unemployment rate went up.

Your argument about unemployment number versus the percentage is about as accurate as your claims that there are no journalists left. They have always talked about how many jobs are created or lost. Republicans talked ad nauseum about 52 weeks of job growth under Bush before he oversaw the loss of over 700,000 jobs a month.

That is no different a metric than talking about 290,000 jobs created last month under Obama.

So, not that that's clear, I believe we should be done here. Good day.

[pghquest]

Originally Posted by Bluefly

You need to provide proof that journalists don't exist anymore and that none fact checked the reason why the unemployment rate went up.

I need to do no such thing, unless you can find me numerous stories indicating that unemployment went up.

Originally Posted by Bluefly

Your argument about unemployment number versus the percentage is about as accurate as your claims that there are no journalists left. They have always talked about how many jobs are created or lost. Republicans talked ad nauseum about 52 weeks of job growth under Bush before he oversaw the loss of over 700,000 jobs a month.

No, they talked about 52 months of job growth as a PERCENTAGE. There was no 52 months of job growth as a real number.

It was ALWAYS the percentage that matters, and has been since the beginning of time. Here, let me prove it to you..

Monthly Growth in Total Nonfarm Employment, Seasonally Adjusted (in thousands)

You see the little chart above? You see those little up and down marks? Take a look around 2003-2004 where that rather big drop takes place from above the 0 mark to below it? But still everyone proclaimed that growth still took place because the PERCENTAGE decreased, even though the result was less jobs being created. How about we look at another chart..

Here you see the massive drop which took place from 2000-2001, which is around the period of time of a recession. Do you recall ANYONE touting the drop in the NUMBER of jobs?.. NO.. Everyone has ALWAYS talked about PERCENTAGES..

Originally Posted by Bluefly

That is no different a metric than talking about 290,000 jobs created last month under Obama.

So, not that that's clear, I believe we should be done here. Good day.

You can ignore the fact that the ONLY number which has EVER mattered is the unemployment percentage, but that doesnt it so.. I agree, we'll have to agree to disagree, and we're done here..

[Bluefly]

Ummm... unemployment did go up because people started looking for work again and, in a crisis, it's always how many jobs that are created or lost that matter.

We heard over and over again that almost 800,000 jobs a month were lost at the end of Bush's reign. That's consistent with hearing over and over again that 290,000 gross jobs were created.

Anyway. out.

[Smash255]

Originally Posted by pghquest

I need to do no such thing, unless you can find me numerous stories indicating that unemployment went up.

No, they talked about 52 months of job growth as a PERCENTAGE. There was no 52 months of job growth as a real number.

It was ALWAYS the percentage that matters, and has been since the beginning of time. Here, let me prove it to you..

Monthly Growth in Total Nonfarm Employment, Seasonally Adjusted (in thousands)

You see the little chart above? You see those little up and down marks? Take a look around 2003-2004 where that rather big drop takes place from above the 0 mark to below it? But still everyone proclaimed that growth still took place because the PERCENTAGE decreased, even though the result was less jobs being created. How about we look at another chart..

Here you see the massive drop which took place from 2000-2001, which is around the period of time of a recession. Do you recall ANYONE touting the drop in the NUMBER of jobs?.. NO.. Everyone has ALWAYS talked about PERCENTAGES..

You can ignore the fact that the ONLY number which has EVER mattered is the unemployment percentage, but that doesnt it so.. I agree, we'll have to agree to disagree, and we're done here..

That is simply 100% wrong. The BLS has kept track of the total jobs data for 70 years, and the jobs added or decreased have always been talked about. The President and Congress have ALWAYS mentioned both figures whether it be a Democratic administration or a Republican one.

[HappyTexan]

If you are talking about the birth/death model, it is calculated after modeling and readjusted each year with the difference appearing in the January numbers for the previous year.

[Loveshiscountry]

Originally Posted by Bluefly

That would make sense if these people were outraged under Bush who expanded government and spending in radcial ways. But, instead, they voted for the guy.

Agreed Bush was a spending fool. The "it's okay to spend a ton of money for my projects but not for your projects bs" that is prevalent. To be fair, Obama and other Presidents pull the same garbage. We heard Obama with the "we won its our turn" statement.

Originally Posted by Bluefly

In reality, many, many people (just go back on this forum alone) were saying is that jobs wouldn't come back, that any rise was just a brief blip before the double dip collapse, that it would be and is a jobless recovery (just look at roysoldboy's post last night on the old 44% approval rating thread (now 51%) claiming it's still a jobless recovery! So many said that Obama's policies would destroy our country, yet reality is proving them wrong more and more everyday.

Jobless recovery is rather silly isn't it. If people are out of work how is that a recovery?
You are misrepresenting what people have said. I've read the forum. "Our money should not have been spent." This was repeated many times. "The jobs are not coming back as well as they should" not "they are never coming back".

Originally Posted by Bluefly

The economy is recovering far faster than any economist had predicted in early 2009 when Obama took office, so your statement is absolutely false that he's slowing down the recovery.

That is not true. Obamas own administration was yapping about 8 percent unemployment and then backtracked saying they didn't have all the info after the it became apparent they were way of the mark.

On top of that I don't see a recovery. The stock market is back to January first levels. I don't think we'll see the full impact of the Greece problems as well as the "blip dip" in the market for a few weeks. A saw a slight short term improvement before the recent crash. But to me that's like saying we only lost by 15 points instead of 25 so we are improving. The economy has not turned around for the better YET.

Originally Posted by Bluefly

I realize you have a partisan agenda, but you should at least try to stick with facts when presenting it. Thank you. From CNN:

Sorry to burst your bubble. Since I did not vote or back Bush I do not have a partisan agenda. And to quote you "you should at least try to stick with facts when presenting it." Practice what you preach otherwise you come across as a hypocrite. Or a politician.

[Indentured Servant]

There are two major components of a capitalistic free market (pseudo) economy like ours. There is the mathematical or fundamentals and then there is the psychological. The former deals with Land (including resources), Labor and capital as it relates to scarcity. Theoretically, there should never be a recession unless, unless land, labor and capital recesses. In other words, unless there are shortages, there should be no reason that the economy contracts. The psychological, the latter, is economic activity born from people’s outlook for the future. If people are optimistic or pessimistic about the future, they will change their economic behavior. Indeed, much of economics is a self fulfilling prophecy born from whether people are feeling confident about the future or not.

The problem with America is that, for decades, Americans have had a “superiority” complex relative to the rest of the world. Americans think they are smarter, work harder, have the best system of doing everything, etc. What that has translated to is a high level of confidence in the future. A high level of confidence, if not over confidence, leads to a high level of risk taking. Whatever risk we take we feel that in the end we will be alright…..that we will work it out……and if not…..we will do it the next time. We have felt that no matter how far we throw the ball up in the air……that we will be able to run under it and catch it. This type of confidence, over the last 40 years, has out of tune with the fundamentals or math component of the economy.

What has happened is that the secular (long term) trend of the fundamentals have been deteriorating, probably since the US went off the gold standard and went to a fiat currency system. Going off the gold standard essentially meant that we could not meet our payment obligations based upon a fixed standard of money. For example, if I had 1000 dollars and I owed 1000 dollars, if I wanted to still have money I would just print up say……500 new dollars and use them to meet my obligations of payment to my creditors. So in essence, the ability to print money masks my insolvency. That is what happened to us when we went off the gold standard and the only reason that this did not create hyper-inflation at the time is because the dollar was the world’s reserve currency, plus, all global oil transactions needed dollars. Hence, the extra supply of dollars was always absorbed by the extra demand that resulted from being the “Worlds currency”. The inflation was really exported to other nations.

In light of this, the fundamentals, the true pillars of economics, have been stagnant and we are reaching an era of exponential population growth globally up against finite natural resources. You have the exploding economics of China and India that represents, together, about a third of the total population in the world. Growth in population and economies mean a growth in energy consumption. There are simply not enough resources. These global changes manifested gradually over the last 40 years, but the US population never adjusted to those changes because we were over confident and hence did not care.

Think about it. At one point in time a single male worker was all that was required to create a middleclass lifestyle for a family of 4. One husband working and a wife at home with the kids could create a very comfortable middle class existence off the husbands earnings alone. Today, you need both husband and wife working, plus, lots of borrowing (debt) to maintain that middle class existence. There is something wrong with the engine when you have to press all the way on the gas pedal to get up to the speed that you used to get up to in the same car by pressing only slightly on the pedal. We are maximizing the RPM’s but not going very fast…or at least not as fast as we should our used to based upon what we put in.

In conclusion, we will get a jump in economic activity as a result of people feeling more confident, which is the result of massive amounts of government spending (debt) improving short term statistics. It is these short term statistics that drive consumer confidence. So positive jobs report, a gaining DOW will all boost the economy from the psychological component. It will encourage people to go out and spend and when they do the statistics will get even better…..in the near term. However, all this confidence is being created at the expense of the fundamentals and solvency of the nation. The truth is that we owe too much, we produce to little because others can do it cheaper, we rank very low in math and science testing compared with the industrialized world, we are losing economic comparative advantage, we are nearing global resource shortages etc, etc. Whatever short term economic gains we are making CANNOT be sustained in the long run and will make the long run correction that much more disruptive. This has NOTHING to do with politics or what Party or Individuals is control. The fate is the same regardless.

[jwilson1978]

Consumer confidence and business confidence are both major issues. Just like investors overreacted and sold off stocks from the end of 2008 to March of 2009, employers overreacted and cut too many jobs. Despite the fact that companies now have record levels of cash on their balance sheets, they are still holding onto their money given the uncertainty in the economy. Likewise, banks which have worked on improving their balance sheets are still reluctant to lend to both businesses and consumers. We need to find a way to encourage employers to start spending more and we also need to force banks to start lending more. There has to be some type of incentive program we can come up with that would push businesses to start spending. Right now company's are too focuses on profits, which often translates to laying people off in order to reduce costs. This in turn creates more unemployment, reduces demand for goods produced by companies, and can lead to deflationary pressures as the cycle continues.