Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder Sez this guy: <a href="http://www.laobserved.com/biz/2010/11/why_the_economy_is_l.php" target="_blank">http://www.laobserved.com/biz/...is_l.php</a>
Originally Posted By barboy2 Well Mr. Lacter, how do you reconcile the monstrous national debt, severely weakened manufacturing base and permanently lost jobs? It's hard to believe that someone would actually cite "much improved prospects for the holiday shopping season" to bolster the claim that the economy is looking up. Until the USA shifts back to a manufacturing and export economy from this service thing we got going it's "goodnight Irene".
Originally Posted By ecdc >>LOL! The experts have been saying this for what? 2-3 years now?<< Yeah, about as long as we've been hearing that the U.S. is mere moments from looking like The Walking Dead and we should all euthanize our pets and children now before the next big crash hits with the force of an H-Bomb.
Originally Posted By SpokkerJones Businesses are doing better because they don't have to pay all those people they laid off. Worker productivity is up because they are making the workers they have left work harder and longer. That doesn't bode well for those who are unemployed. Companies are realizing that they don't need those people they laid off.
Originally Posted By hopemax That's what I'm thinking. Businesses had record profits this last quarter. Highest since record keeping began. I think we're all about to learn what happens when 10-15% of the population just aren't economically "necessary" to keep the engine moving.
Originally Posted By EdisYoda >>LOL! The experts have been saying this for what? 2-3 years now?<< Shouldn't that be "Experts" in quotes? <<Worker productivity is up because they are making the workers they have left work harder and longer.>> I can attest to that. Tomorrow (Friday), I start work at 3:15am and don't get off till 9:00pm. All in the name of profits.
Originally Posted By SpokkerJones Yeah, something has to give. If fewer people have jobs then how will we afford the crap these companies produce? Employees are also consumers.
Originally Posted By fkurucz "Yeah, something has to give. If fewer people have jobs then how will we afford the crap these companies produce?" Profits might be up at Corporate America, but they are way, way down on Main St. At some point they will run out of people to layoff and jobs to offshore. What Corporate America is counting on is for foreign customers to pick up the slack for the withering American customer. What they have overlooked is that by offshoring everything they have in effect trained their soon to be foreign competition. >>Shouldn't that be "Experts" in quotes?<< Oopsie, that one slipped past me. >>Yeah, about as long as we've been hearing that the U.S. is mere moments from looking like The Walking Dead<< I kind of thought we were already there: permamnently high unemployment (while offshoring continues at a healthy clip), stagnant and falling wages, states and municipalities that have been slashing budgets year after year, a moribund housing market that shows no sign of recovery, record numbers of personal and corporate bankruptcies that keep growing. Sounds like zombieland to me.
Originally Posted By Mr X ***Sounds like zombieland to me*** Nah. Give it 18 more years (like Japan). Right now it's just rotting corpses. Zombies come later.
Originally Posted By SpokkerJones "At some point they will run out of people to layoff and jobs to offshore. What Corporate America is counting on is for foreign customers to pick up the slack for the withering American customer." I wonder how much corporations can destroy communities without inconveniencing the ones making those decisions. I mean, a place like Detroit is a complete mess, but it's known to be self-contained. What happens when every city is like Detroit and furious workers are firebombing the CEO's gated community? I don't condone that behavior, but a person with no options can do some crazy things. I wonder if we're going to see more meltdowns as unemployment benefits run out. More murder-suicides, where a guy wipes out his whole family because the pressure was too great. I guess as long as it's self-contained the decision makers won't really care as long as they are sitting on record profits.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip Either you guys are really young or you have no memory of the past. Unemployment has now been at or above 7% for TWO years, peaking at 10.2% in November 2009. It was at or above 7% for SIX years during the 80's (1980-1985) peaking at 10.8% in November and December of 1982. The United States did not collapse then; it is not going to collapse now. The only real difference this time around is that so many young workers were spoiled by record low unemployment from 1995-2002 that the current situation seems unimaginable.
Originally Posted By ecdc Well now apparently the narrative is changing. We'd been hearing about how the next big crash was coming, and boy when it did, you might as well huddle in your cellar with a shotgun and a barrel full of whiskey because the end was a comin'. Now it's actually that the current situation is zombieland. High unemployment, off-shoring, etc. And it's indeed pretty bad. I'm not insensitive to it. But I have two close friends who have been out of work for a while now, they're definitely struggling and it's hard to see them go through this and watch no one hire them because they're over 50. But, believe it or not, they're still relatively happy people. One's had to sell his home and move into a small apartment. There's struggles, but it's a far cry from this doomsday scenario we've heard preached for the past two years. And that's what I object to (and I think a lot of jobless people do too): the hopelessness of these pronouncements that truly do border on prophesying anarchy.
Originally Posted By barboy2 ///What happens when every city is like Detroit and furious workers are firebombing the CEO's gated community?/// Sounds cool to me if the CEO looted and defrauded the company causing financial msery to the rank and file and other innocents. Firebombing the Skilling and Enron-like folk's homes is warranted.
Originally Posted By hopemax > It was at or above 7% for SIX years during the 80's (1980-1985) peaking at 10.8% in November and December of 1982. < You are comparing apples to oranges though. During 1994, the government revised how unemployment is calculated. Current stats, count many more people as "not in the labor force" than they did under the old stats. You can see a discussion of the 1994 changes here <a href="http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1995/10/art3full.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/19...full.pdf</a> A lot of people are looking at the U6 number to find a "common" measuring stick between pre-1994 and post-1994 numbers. Currently, our U6 is about 17%. While comparing the 17% straight with 70s/80's numbers is not a fair comparison, it is also not a fair comparison to compare our current 9.6% number to the 70s/80s either. The actual comparison would be something between 9.6 and 17%. Something like 12-13% would not be an unreasonable guess. The "not in the work force" number is the one you really have to watch these days. People here the "gloom & doom" stop looking for work, and thus drop off the unemployment rolls. Unemployment actually dips downwards. A few weeks of positive news motivates those people to start looking again, and then the unemployment number creeps back up, since now that they are looking they are officially "unemployed."
Originally Posted By RoadTrip I have heard many times that the new way of calculating the rate results in lower figures, but the article you linked to would seem to indicate the opposite. It seems that the new rate generally considered the "official rate", U-5, now includes people as unemployed that were not counted prior to 1994. <<U-5 adds other “marginally attached” workers to U-4, with the denominator being the civilian labor force plus all “marginally attached” workers. This measure, using data not available prior to 1994, adds to the unemployed all persons who want and are available for a job and have recently searched for work, regardless of their reason for not currently looking. Hence, it includes those who are not currently looking for work for reasons such as child-care or transportation problems.>>
Originally Posted By RoadTrip OK -- I misunderstood. The article said that "The official unemployment rate was U-5", but they must have been referring to the numbers before the change.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip On the other hand, if U-5 now includes "all persons who want and are available for a job and have recently searched for work, regardless of their reason for not currently looking. Hence, it includes those who are not currently looking for work for reasons such as child-care or transportation problems.” who were never counted before 1994, would the new U-5 or U-6 even be a valid number for comparison? If you look at the charts in the article, the new U-3 has EXACTLY the same definition as the old U-5. I'm really not trying to be argumentative... it is just hard digging through the mumbo-jumbo to find what the article is actually saying.
Originally Posted By fkurucz >>I mean, a place like Detroit is a complete mess, but it's known to be self-contained. What happens when every city is like Detroit and furious workers are firebombing the CEO's gated community?<< They'll move offshore and tka ethe company's HQ with them.
