Tag: Unemployment
Is Full Employment The Goal?
We hear all the political rhetoric about jobs….jobs….jobs…..we listen to the prez tell us he wants to put Americans back to work……we hear the GOP tell us all about the evils of the Dems approach and that they will put all Americans to work if we just trust them with our vote…..everyone has heard it and has made their own decisions on who will put us mere mortals back to work….
Recently Mitt Romney after hearing the jobs report said that he was disappointed in the report and in particular the unemployment rate of 8.1% which he said that anything above 4% was unacceptable…….pause here for thought……..maybe Mr. Romney needs to take a refresher course in economics……for the US to have full employment it will need 5% unemployment…..I will say that I like his statement but an unemployment rate of 4% is just not gonna happen…..no matter how many promises he makes…….it just not gonna happen. (Mitt has updated his prediction to 6% by the end of his first term)……..CBO has already stated that the rate should be 5.0% by 2016……
Apparently, both parties are trying to reach that magic idyllic number of full employment. But what does that really mean? Does it mean that every man and woman of employable age will have a job? Only if you are not living in this world. Full employment does not mean an employment level of 100%. In fact, it is estimated to be around 5% – the idea being that there is always a level of unemployment due to the existence of people who are between jobs or work seasonally.
If full employment, as defined in economics, is an unemployment rate of 5% or lower…..that means that in today’s world we are at about 8%…..that is only 3 percentage points away from the official definition of “full employment”.
Basically, full employment means that the conditions in which all people who are looking for jobs can find one…..not that everyone has a job……
(In case you missed it…the redundancy was intentional…..just saying)
Another Economic Hit Approaches
My thinking was that the ratings would be lowered……and this post was going to be about that…..but the bastards best me to it…….oh well….onward and upward.
I wish that I had better news…..I hate being that guy that seems to always delivers the crappy stuff….but I do what I must to help people see what is coming…….
The economy is in the toilet….so it cannot get any worse, right? Wrong again! It will soon get a lot worse and this time it will be again on the backs of the unemployed……Washington is doping the spending cut two step and there is an economic storm approaching….NO! This time it is not he debt or the debt ceiling……..but rather the stopping of the unemployment benefits……I know…I know……I can suck the fun out of the party…..but forewarned is fore armed…….
This from Yahoo News…….
At the start of 2012, the extended unemployment benefits approved by Congress in December 2010, which cover a maximum of 99 weeks per person, will expire. Though the benefits are hardly lavish–a little more than $300 a week for most recipients–their total impact on the economy is huge, because so many Americans are currently taking advantage of them. Moody’s Analytics estimates that when the benefits expire, $37 billion will be taken out of the economy, the New York Times reports. That’s enough to exert a significant slowing effect–at a time when the recovery is already a long way from robust.
Government benefits that go to poorer Americans, like unemployment insurance, tend to boost consumer spending more than other kinds of stimulus, because people living paycheck to paycheck have little choice but to spend the money, rather than saving it. So the disappearance of jobless benefits will take money out of circulation when economic growth is seeking to gain some traction.
Indeed, economists say that the withdrawal of jobless benefits will create a major ripple effect on growth as a whole. Consumer spending accounts for around 60-70 percent of U.S. economic activity, economists say. But with so many Americans having lost wealth in the housing bust, spending has been tepid for a while, preventing the recovery from gaining any momentum. Now, the end of the extended benefits will likely soon put a further crimp in spending.
Oh crap! It cannot get much worse, huh? Nope! And how will our cowards in Washington handle this new crisis? I know that at times I can be a bummer and I see boogey men behind every bank account….but so far I have been pretty accurate in my concerns….
And then there is Cantor, the House majority leader who said to Jim Kramer…..
CANTOR: Jim, the most important thing we can do for somebody who’s unemployed is to see if we can get them a job. I mean, that’s what needs to be the focus. For too long in Washington now we’ve been worried about pumping up the stimulus moneys and pumping up unemployment benefits and to a certain extent you have states for which you can get unemployment for almost two years and I think those people on unemployment benefits would rather have a job. So that’s where our focus needs to be.
So if you are unemployed you will most likely be one the chess pieces in a debate in the House and if all goes like it did with the debt debate…..YOU ARE SCREWED!
We Are Recovering!
Daily Agitator
Are tired of the spin yet? Well, let us be honest and call it what it is…….LIES!
We hear daily that the economy is recovering….that the markets are up….that there are jobs being created (but at a slow rate) ……..corporate dividends are rising…….CEOs are making out like bandits……..yada…yada……but are we truly recovering? According to many media outlets the recession has ended……but so far as I can see and I am not looking through rose colored glasses, it still sucks and many others are worse off than I…….
Let me see……8.9% unemployment with the real figure more like 19%……housing starts down to a 5 year low……home sales down…..foreclosures still rising……food prices up 6%…….gas prices rose by 4%….so what part of those figures look like a recovery is occurring?
OK, I will admit that if you can afford it and by it I mean investments, then you are in the middle of a recovery….but unfortunately, most Americans are NOT that heavily involved in the investing in stocks and bonds…..
But the American do not seem to see the recovery that the airwaves are reporting….
A new CNBC survey finds the percentage of Americans who believe the economy will get worse in the next year spiking to 37%, a 15 point gain from December. It’s now just five points below the all-time high of 43% in June 2008, which came in the midst of a surge in gasoline prices.
If you are an average middle class working family…..then you have NOT seen the recovery that those on Wall Street tell you that you are experiencing…….funny how that works……one part of society is doing fine and even maybe prospering and the other is stuck scratching out a living day to day, pay check to pay check…….
All the cheer leading for the economy is for those with cash to invest…..not you…your investments are such things as home payments, food, gas and the necessities….you have NO room for luxuries….what would you call this phenom?
It Is The Laziness!
From the VOMITORIUM
I have heard a lot of excuses for the unemployment problems we have….some are pretty accurate and then there are some that are just plain moronic…..
I realize the Americans can be a lazy lot….NO?…..explain a salad shooter or a machine that cracks an egg or drugs that offer instant weight lose…….Lazy!
But to blame the unemployed for unemployment is beyond rational thought….and there are a few that seem to think that the unemployed are lazy and unemployed by choice……from the Huffington Post:
Corbett joins the ranks of GOP candidates Rand Paul in Kentucky and Sharron Angle in Nevada, not to mention several members of Congress — including Democrats — who suspect the jobless of preferring not to work.
“The jobs are there, but if we keep extending unemployment, people are just going to sit there,” Pennsylvania attorney general Tom Corbett told radio reporter Scott Detrow last week. “I’ve literally had construction companies tell me, ‘I can’t get people to come back to work until — they say, ‘We’ll come back when unemployment runs out.'”
Are these people smoking crack? I do not know about the states beyond mine, but here you make about $245 a week in unemployment benefits…..has anyone tried living on $245 a week? If not, then let me inform you….IT CANNOT BE DONE? There is a possibility that some states pay more, but their cost of living is higher than my state.
This whole thing just illustrates how out of touch politicians are…..making comments like the unemployed are unemployed by choice is just beyond ignorant…..or is it arrogance…..but the biggest problem is the somewhere there is a group of people that will believe the crap spread.
Land Of The Lost (Decade, That Is)
I am sure when the word “Lost” is mentioned we will have a wealth of people that will tear up at the mere mention of the now defunct TV show……thanks to say this is NOT about a bunch of fictional people lost on the island of Manhattan…..but rather…..
Back in the 1990’s I was a frequent player on the stock exchange…made some money…lost even more….but I recall the days of my adventurism……Japan was a shining light of capitalism especially in the later 80’s….but that was about to change…..
The economic miracle ended abruptly at the very start of the 1990s. In the late 1980s, abnormalities within the Japanese economic system had fueled a massive wave of speculation by Japanese companies, banks and securities companies. Briefly, a combination of incredibly high land values and incredibly low interest rates led to a position in which credit was both easily available and extremely cheap. This led to massive borrowing, the proceeds of which were invested mostly in domestic and foreign stocks and securities.
This popped the bubble in spectacular fashion, leading to a massive crash in the stock market. It also led to a debt crisis; a large proportion of the huge debts that had been run up turned bad, which in turn led to a crisis in the banking sector, with many banks having to be bailed out by the government.
Overall, this has led to the phenomenon known as the “lost decade”; economic expansion came to a total halt in Japan during the 1990s. The impact on everyday life has been rather muted, however. Unemployment runs reasonably high, but not at crisis levels (the official figure is a little under 5%, but this is a considerable underestimate – the real level is probably around twice that).
I will bet you wonder why I mention this……does it sound familiar? It should or you are not paying attention to your life.
I gave you a little economic history because I see this happening in the US and I am not alone….Paul Krugman writes:
It’s not that nobody understands the risk. I strongly suspect that some officials at the Fed see the Japan parallels all too clearly and wish they could do more to support the economy. But in practice it’s all they can do to contain the tightening impulses of their colleagues, who (like central bankers in the 1930s) remain desperately afraid of inflation despite the absence of any evidence of rising prices. I also suspect that Obama administration economists would very much like to see another stimulus plan. But they know that such a plan would have no chance of getting through a Congress that has been spooked by the deficit hawks.
We hear daily that the US could become the next Greece because of the growing deficit….which seems to be the call of most conservatives these days,,,,,,,but I see it differently….I see the possibility of the US becoming another Japan with a “Lost Decade” and many years of suffering for the working majority of the country. Slow growth, high unemployment and a rise in the inflation rate.
Are You Economically Confused?
Daily Agitator
If you do not have a degree in economics or finance and try to listen to the “experts” on TV then you are so confused that you would agree to anything just to get these people to shut the hell up……
For instance, the US gain 290,000 jobs in April but yet the unemployment rate went from 9.7% to 9.9%….if you gain jobs how does the unemployment rate get larger? Easy if you listen to the “experts”……it seems that more people went back to looking for work because the jobs market is looking better……that is the official announcement……but if the people were unemployed in April and are looking for work then they are still unemployed…so how does the rate expand? It is all in the metrics of the science…that would be the science of bullsh*t…….all reporting is that the “real” unemployment rate is more like 15+%….but yet they have come up with a way for the dismal unemployment rate to appear more optimistic……it is all for the investor to get them excited about using their cash……never is it about the true outlook of the recession….
If you feel totally confused, then you are what I call an average person and NONE of the economic reports are for you….NONE of the economic reports take your life into account……..remember….YOU ARE the back bone of this economy and if your life is in recession then the rest of the country is in recession…..the investors and speculators will ALWAYS make their money, whether you are employed or not…
The problem is that they are gambling with YOUR money…the cash of the taxpayers is used in this casino called Wall Street….
Playing Games With People’s Lives
Daily Agitator
I have pointed out many times the silly little pathetic games that politicians are playing with people’s lives and livelihood……..health reform is one of those games and we can talk and talk with NO common ground…..either you think Americans need adequate health care or they do not….it is that simple but the lawyers in Washington, those people we call our representatives, care not…the only thing that is important to them is the GAME…….
There is other place these pathetic little toads are playing this game….one of the newest is with unemployment benefits….in an article written by Patrick martin:
Inaction by the US Senate last week will result in the cutoff of extended unemployment benefits and COBRA health care coverage to more than one million workers. The cutoff, which began to take effect Sunday night, demonstrates the unbridgeable social gulf between the working class and the denizens of Capitol Hill, both Democrats and Republicans.
The bill to extend unemployment benefits and COBRA coverage was blocked by Republican Senator Jim Bunning, an arch-reactionary from Kentucky who took advantage of a Senate rule requiring unanimous consent to bring the legislation to a vote before the weekend.
Bunning, who is not running for reelection, was contemptuous of the suffering that he was helping inflict on more than one million workers, including an estimated 60,000 from his home state. He demanded that Senate Democrats agree to pay for the extended benefits without creating new debt, and declared that his actions were intended “to send a message to the American people.”
The Democratic leadership calculated that by allowing Bunning to block the extension they would be able to put the Republican minority in a bad light. Reid, Durbin and Vice President Joseph Biden issued hypocritical statements denouncing Bunning, but there was no move to invoke cloture.
Instead, the Democrats said they would bring the bill up again next week. Responding to the political embarrassment, Republican Whip Jon Kyl said Sunday that while he supported Bunning in principle, the Republicans would vote to approve a 30-day extension for the unemployment program while further negotiations were conducted on a bipartisan bill to extend the program for an entire year.
As I have said….a pathetic pack of arrogant, self-indulgent pr*cks…..they are playing with you LIFE….do you NOT understand that?
I know I should stop asking this question….when will the American people wise up to these false prophets (in case you wanted a biblical reference)? BTW, that is NOT a rhetorical question!
What Happened To The Shovel Ready Projects?
I recall at the beginning of the process, the stim plan would create jobs because of the state’s shovel ready projects that need funding….remember?…..almost all governor’s said there were many, many shovel ready projects in their state that could use funding and that the stim plan would get those projects up and working……..and especially putting Americans back to work……that was then….this is now…..
As reported on ABC:
Ten months into President Barack Obama’s first economic stimulus plan, a surge in spending on roads and bridges has had no effect on local unemployment and only barely helped the beleaguered construction industry, an Associated Press analysis has found.
Spend a lot or spend nothing at all, it didn’t matter, the AP analysis showed: Local unemployment rates rose and fell regardless of how much stimulus money Washington poured out for transportation, raising questions about Obama’s argument that more road money would address an “urgent need to accelerate job growth.”
Even within the construction industry, which stood to benefit most from transportation money, the AP’s analysis found there was nearly no connection between stimulus money and the number of construction workers hired or fired since Congress passed the recovery program. The effect was so small, one economist compared it to trying to move the Empire State Building by pushing against it.
So basically, there is NO change in the status quo of the projects and the promised employment has NOT changed in the least. So if infrastructure projects would be a boom to the economy, why is it not helping?
Basically, because the bulk of the stim money is being spent saving the gamblers on Wall Street….which I have said many times is NOT creating what the economy needs…..DEMAND!