U.S. Economy

[thoughtone]

Re: Majority of New Jobs Pay Low Wages, Study Finds

I didn't complain about anything. You're the one that wants to tell people a job isn't worth having if it's under a certain wage. People can pick the wage they want to work for and not be dictated to by a bunch of politicians that make the equivalent o $60/hour.

But then again why be a politician if you can't order people around.

So again, by you posting that article, you confirmed that you agree that President Obama is doing what you want.

 

[Greed]

Re: Majority of New Jobs Pay Low Wages, Study Finds

No, the article is interesting and that's why I posted it.

And unlike your view of your Jesus and presidents in general, he's not doing anything. He's not the reason jobs are coming back from China. China is the reason jobs are coming back from China. Unless you want to argue that rising standard of living and rising cost in China was orchestrated by President Obama?

And explicitly, what i want is the complete elimination of the minimum wage. Does it sound like I approve of your government?

 

[thoughtone]

Re: Majority of New Jobs Pay Low Wages, Study Finds

No, the article is interesting and that's why I posted it.

And unlike your view of your Jesus and presidents in general, he's not doing anything. He's not the reason jobs are coming back from China. China is the reason jobs are coming back from China. Unless you want to argue that rising standard of living and rising cost in China was orchestrated by President Obama?

And explicitly, what i want is the complete elimination of the minimum wage. Does it sound like I approve of your government?

Before you pat yourself on the back, I posted the article a long time ago. You don't read my posts!

Factory Jobs Gain, but Wages Retreat

And unlike your view of your Jesus and presidents in general, he's not doing anything.

Reagan, Bush, Bush and even Clinton did nothing to big back jobs. The only president in the last 30 years to explicity make the effort is Obama.

China is the reason jobs are coming back from China. Unless you want to argue that rising standard of living and rising cost in China was orchestrated by President Obama?

The higher standard of living in a communist country is due to the conservatives and the lower standard of living in the US is due to the conservatives.

And explicitly, what i want is the complete elimination of the minimum wage. Does it sound like I approve of your government?

Not unexpected. You want the rest of the country to have the poverty and educational ignorance of Mississippi and Alabama!

 

[Greed]

Re: Majority of New Jobs Pay Low Wages, Study Finds

Not unexpected. You want the rest of the country to have the poverty and educational ignorance of Mississippi and Alabama!

Everything you said is stupid, but you should consider how much you think like a politician when you declare that working for any wage a person agrees to is somehow bad.

You make work illegal. That's the morality of America.

Someone low-skilled with nothing should stay like that because a job isn't worth having below a certain wage. So says the decree from people who aren't paid anything close to minimum wage. Instead just rely on government. People would rather work than rely on government.

 

[thoughtone]

Re: Majority of New Jobs Pay Low Wages, Study Finds

Everything you said is stupid, but you should consider how much you think like a politician when you declare that working for any wage a person agrees to is somehow bad.

You make work illegal. That's the morality of America.

Someone low-skilled with nothing should stay like that because a job isn't worth having below a certain wage. So says the decree from people who aren't paid anything close to minimum wage. Instead just rely on government. People would rather work than rely on government.

This thinking like a politician is your straw dog. Your innuendo that Black folk are lazy, government leeches is typical right wing government self hate.

Still no answer about whites killing whites.

 

[Greed]

Re: Majority of New Jobs Pay Low Wages, Study Finds

What answer is needed? Let white people worry about whites people.

Black people should worry about black people.

 

[thoughtone]

Re: Majority of New Jobs Pay Low Wages, Study Finds

What answer is needed? Let white people worry about whites people.

Black people should worry about black people.

Oh! Typical dodge.

 

[Lamarr]

Under Obama, Poor, Middle Class Incomes Fall Sharply

Despite repeated promises that he would build prosperity from the bottom up, President Obama has presided over three years of income losses for the middle class, according to the latest household income data from the Census Bureau.

Since 2009, the middle 20% of American households saw their average incomes drop 4%. In 2011 alone, they fell 1.7%. The poorest 20% have fared even worse under Obama, Census data show. Their incomes have dropped more than 7% since 2009, and are now lower than they've been at any time since 1985, after adjusting for inflation.

Meanwhile, the wealthiest have managed to eke out gains in two of the past three years. In 2011, the top 20% saw their average income climb almost 2%, the Census data show.

These results are in direct contrast of what President Obama said his policies would produce when he ran for president in 2008.

At a high profile speech in March of that year at Cooper Union in New York City, for example, Obama said "I've put forward a series of proposals that will foster economic growth from the bottom up."

Later that year, he said the country faced "a choice between more of the same policies that have widened inequality, added to our debt," or policies that "will restore balance to our economy; that will invest in the ingenuity and innovation of our people; that will fuel a bottom-up prosperity."

And in his first budget, released in February 2009, Obama said his policies would bring about "bottom-up growth that empowers hardworking families to climb the ladder of success."

But so far, none of that has happened during Obama's recovery, which started in June 2009 and has produced historically low rates of economic growth.

Instead, only the wealthiest households have managed to eke out income gains, while every other income group has fallen further behind in each of the past three years.

These results are highly unusual in an economic recovery, which typically produces income gains across the board. During the eight-year Reagan boom, for example, incomes at the bottom climbed 14%, while those in the middle climbed 13%, and those at the top 22%.

What's more, despite Obama's promise that he would reduce income inequality, it's increased each year he's been in office, reaching an all-time high after remaining flat during the Bush years.

University of California, Berkeley, economist Emmanuel Saez found that the top 1% captured 93% of the income gains between 2009 and 2010, which is a far higher share than occurred during the 2002-07 Bush expansion.

 

[QueEx]

Third-quarter economic growth bests expectations




McClatchy Newspapers
By Kevin G. Hall
October 26, 2012

WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy accelerated between July through September, growing at an annualized rate of 2 percent, the government said Friday in a report that slightly exceeded expectations.

After growing at just 1.3 percent in the second quarter, the U.S. economy sped up in the subsequent three months, beating analyst expectations of a 1.8 percent third-quarter growth rate.

The quarterly growth was powered by a boost in consumer spending, but was restrained by tame business investment. This reflects polls of sentiment, which show a more upbeat consumer, and businesses holding a less positive view of the future.

The drop in a range of business spending suggests that the unresolved so-called “fiscal cliff” -- the planned tax hikes and deep spending cuts if Congress can’t reach compromise later this year -- already is harming the economy.

Coming back from the worst recession since the Great Depression, the U.S. economy continues to underperform. While an improvement, the rate of growth in gross domestic product, the broadest measure of U.S. trade in goods and services, is nowhere near what’s needed to knock down the 7.8 percent unemployment rate.

“The economic recovery continues but at a very sluggish pace. Over the first 13 quarters of the recovery, real GDP growth has averaged only 2.2 percent and, at 2.3 percent, the pace of growth over the last year has shown no signs of picking up,” wrote economists at RDQ Economics, a research note.

The increase in the growth rate is a preliminary first estimate that will be updated Nov. 29 as more information comes in. The growth rate, said the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, reflected positive contributions from personal consumption, federal government spending and residential fixed investment.

These positives in the economy were partially offset by negative contributions from exports, which declined amid a global growth slowdown, and by businesses pulling back on investment in their private inventories. That suggests businesses and corporations are holding back amid election uncertainty and still unresolved major issues such as whether tax cuts that were extended this year are allowed to expire.

“The corporate sector is cautious. Equipment and software spending was flat in (the third quarter), after expanding at a 5.1 percent rate in the first half. This was the weakest quarter we’ve seen since the recovery started in mid-2009,” wrote Neil Dutta, head of economics at Renaissance Macro Research, in a note to investors. “Capital spending responds to an accelerator effect; thus, with expectations around future growth receding, the corporate sector is holding back. With the year-end fiscal cliff approaching, firms are holding back on committing to longer-lived durable assets.”

The “fiscal cliff” involves Bush-era tax cuts that are set to expire at the end of this year, reverting back to Clinton-era tax brackets. Also expiring is a tax holiday on what employees contribute in payroll taxes.

Absent a budget deal, deep mandatory cuts in spending across government, including defense and national security, are set to take hold next year. And by late February or March, the government is expected to bump up against a debt ceiling and will have to reach a new accord with Congress in order to borrow more to pay existing obligations. All these things fall under the “fiscal cliff.”

“The economy simply does not have enough momentum to absorb the shock from going over the fiscal cliff without going into recession in 2013,” wrote Dutta.

There’s plenty of anecdotal evidence that businesses are pulling back until there is greater clarity. Should a compromise not be reached, the implications for the economy are grave. Analysts expect the final months of this year to be much like the sluggish growth of summertime.

“We see little prospect for improvement in the current quarter, with the major components likely to maintain (third-quarter) trends,” wrote Alan Levenson, chief economist with investment giant T. Rowe Price, in a research note.

There were some signs of life in Friday’s numbers. Personal consumption rose by 2 percent, driven in large measure by a return of the consumer. Spending on goods rose at a rate of 4.4 percent in the quarter, and spending on services rose at a slower rate of 0.8 percent in the three months. Spending on durable goods, big ticket items such as cars and refrigerators, rose by 8.5 in the quarter.

For the first time in quite a while, housing added to growth rather than subtracted from it. Investment in residential housing leapt up at a rate of 14.4 percent in the three-month period, rising from an 8.5 percent rate in the second quarter of this year. That’s a plus for growth, but housing today represents a smaller share of overall growth so its impact on the broader growth numbers is subdued.



Email: khall@mcclatchydc.com; TwitterKevinGHall

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/10/26/172687/third-quarter-economic-growth.html#storylink=cpy


​

 

[QueEx]

 

[Greed]

Is the U.S. Manufacturing Renaissance Real?

Is the U.S. Manufacturing Renaissance Real?
By Rana Foroohar and Bill SaporitoMarch 28, 2013

U.S. manufacturing is back. That’s been the conventional economic wisdom now for several months, and there’s plenty of proof to back it up – rising factory output, strong manufacturing production gains, and lower labor costs that make American workers more attractive. Couple that with the natural gas boom underway in the U.S., which many experts believe will lower energy costs for U.S. manufacturers, and you’ve got a resurgence of a sector that has been shrinking as a percentage of the economy for several decades. “We are probably the most competitive, on a global basis, than we’ve been in the past 30 years,” says GE CEO Jeff Immelt. “Will U.S. manufacturing go from 9% to 30% of all jobs? That’s unlikely. But could you see a steady increase in jobs, over the next quarters and years. I think that will happen.”

But at least one economic seer, Goldman Sachs’ chief economist Jan Hatzius, is throwing a bit of cold water on the idea. He recently released a report, which is getting a lot of attention on the web, arguing that the U.S. “manufacturing renaissance” is cyclical, not structural – meaning, the sector is doing as well as would have been predicted under any circumstances at this point in an economic recovery, and that the gains don’t point to a real seismic shift in U.S. manufacturing competitiveness. “Measured productivity growth has been strong,” admits Hatzius in the report, entitled “U.S. Manufacturing Renaissance: Fact or Fiction?” “But U.S. export performance – arguably a more reliable indicator of competitiveness—remains middling at best.”

It’s a very interesting point, and it matters a lot to the broader economy. Nations that do better in manufacturing gain an edge in the global economy: For every $1 of manufacturing output in a community, there’s another $1.48 of wealth created. That’s why economic advisors to the President, like National Economic Council head Gene Sperling, have been pushing pro-manufacturing policies. But the Goldman report would seem to indicate that the strength in U.S. manufacturing output reflects more the relative weakness of Europe (which is mired in a debt crisis) and Japan, rather than a long-term positive shift in the U.S. itself. “Over the next few years, the manufacturing sector should continue to grow a bit faster than the overall economy,” notes the report. “But the main reason is likely to be a broad improvement in aggregate demand rather than a structural U.S. manufacturing renaissance.”

Hatzius was on holiday this week and unavailable for comment (we’ll be following up with him next week), but one immediate question is whether exports really do provide a more accurate picture, as the report suggests. It may be that more goods manufactured in the U.S. are staying in the U.S. As we’ve traveled around the country reporting on this topic over the last couple of years, a number of big industrial firms have pointed to growing demand for their products here at home – Caterpillar, which makes an increasing amount of its large earth-moving equipment for domestic mining, agriculture, and energy operations, is a great case in point.

Then there’s the question of how to look at the productivity numbers. While U.S. productivity is up over the last several years relative to, say, China, which has been flat (and also suffers from rising wages), the big question is how much more it can go up. We feel there’s reason to be bullish on the growth potential there, given how materials science and the evolution of the “industrial internet” are fundamentally reshaping manufacturing in the U.S.’s favor. The once separate steps of designing a product, making or buying the parts, and then putting everything together are beginning to blend — a consequence of technologies such as additive manufacturing and 3-D printing. It means that manufacturing wants to be closer to engineering and design — a dynamic that would likely benefit the U.S., which still rules those high-end job categories. Add the ability to include sensors in every part and process, and you’ve got a whole new manufacturing ecosystem that allows companies to accelerate product development cycles and deliver more variety and value more quickly to ever more fickle consumers.

Of course, the jobs that are being created aren’t your father’s (or grandfather’s) factory jobs of knocking in four bolts a minute for eight hours a day. The new economics of Made in the USA are built in large part around acquiring cutting-edge technologies ahead of global competitors and then using those new techniques to produce more efficiently on super-automated factory floors. And while all the technology will translate into higher end jobs, it will also mean — barring dramatic growth — fewer jobs overall, especially in the middle. Positions will either be high end, or lower paid, since workers still have to compete with cheaper overseas labor (even with wage inflation in China, it will be years before the Chinese are on par with U.S. wages). It’s no accident that many of the new manufacturing clusters in the U.S. are in the South, where unions hold less power. “Yes, manufacturing is coming back, but it’s evolving into a very different type of animal than the one most people recognize today,” says James Manyika, says James Manyika, director of McKinsey Global Institute, which recently did an exhaustive study on this shift entitled “Manufacturing the Future.” “We’re going to see new jobs, but no where near the number some people expect, especially in the short term.”

It’s a sentiment that stands in sobering contrast to President Obama’s second term goal of creating a million new manufacturing jobs in four years. Some of the difference may lie in semantics. As Manyika points out, labor statistics underestimate the reality of manufacturing, since they count mainly jobs inside factories. Related positions in, say, Ford’s marketing department, or small businesses doing industrial design or creating new software for big exporters don’t get tallied. Yet these jobs wouldn’t exist but for the big factories. The official 9% of U.S. employment represented by manufacturing belies the importance of the sector to our overall economy. Manufacturing represents a whopping 67% of all private sector R & D spending, as well as 30% of the country’s productivity growth.

In short, manufacturing’s value can be measured in many different ways. “The ability to make things is fundamental to the ability to innovate things over the long term,” says Willy Shih of Harvard Business School and co-author of Producing Prosperity: Why America Needs a Manufacturing Renaissance. “When you give up making products you lose a lot of the added value.” That’s as good a reason as any to care about the future of manufacturing.

http://business.time.com/2013/03/28...-renaissance-real/?iid=biz-main-lead#comments

 

[thoughtone]

No! Simple enough?

See how easy it is to answer a question!

 

[thoughtone]

Here we fucking go again. Investors and speculators need to start taking the hard hits. They are the ones supporting McCain, they are they ones saying the private sector can work best on it's own. Let your 401k drop to nothing, they then will understand why Social Security was created.

source: Wall Street Journal

September 9, 2008, 5:38 pm
Should the Fed Bail Out Lehman? Can It?
Posted by Heidi N. Moore

Is it time for the government to help out Lehman Brothers Holdings?

It has been all of two days since the Fannie Mae-Freddie Mac bailout was announced, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 280 points and a general sense of doom hangs over the markets.

And yet, Lehman is the center of an anxiety show all of its own. Its shares fell 45% on news that Korea Development Bank wasn’t interested in a deal. Then there are the three fears: coming third-quarter earnings, expected to be horrid; its exposure to risky real estate and mortgages, a market already plagued with uncertainty amid the government intervention at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; and the threat that worried counterparties might avoid doing business with Lehman in a replay of what happened to Bear Stearns. Banc of America Securities analyst Michael Hecht tonight said, “from here, we continue to view the situation as very binary, with a worst case scenario including a [Bear Stearns] type of bail-out/outright sale (which likely leaves little value left for common stockholders of about $2 per share after setting aside a ~$20B+ reserve for troubled asset markdowns, plus severance & retention).” The other option would be for Lehman to limp along by raising capital or selling off a portion of Neuberger Berman at fire sale prices.

When it comes to banks and thrifts, the Federal Reserve and Treasury have a wealth of legally approved options, including taking over and liquidating assets or creating a “bridge bank.” When it comes to broker-dealers like Lehman, federal regulators have only a hammer, a plumb line and a wrench. They can force a shotgun marriage, arrange a line of credit or put their authority–often referred to as “moral suasion”–behind an industry-led bailout of Lehman. Deal Journal took a look at their options.

Line of credit: The Fed discount window still is open for Lehman, so unless things really are dire the Fed probably won’t be called upon to further boost the company’s access to funding. Remember, the Fed offered a $30 billion line of credit to Bear Stearns, and this summer the Treasury extended a line of credit to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Shotgun marriage: This is a tried-and-true method of federal intervention that keeps the pressure off the government. The technique has more of a history among deposit institutions–which are heavily regulated–than investment banks like Lehman. Still, examples abound. One banking lawyer recalled how Riggs Bank, facing a money-laundering investigation, was nudged into a deal with PNC Financial in 2005 after the two banks had blown two other attempts to merge. This April, Fremont General sold its deposits and bank branches to Capital Source weeks after regulators ordered Fremont to raise capital or put itself up for sale.

The problem with this option for Lehman is the paucity of potential partners to whom the Fed or Treasury could make an appeal. Saddling another bank with Lehman’s mortgage-backed securities wouldn’t exactly be the definition of a bailout.

Moral suasion: The Fed is a guardian of the U.S. economy. Moral suasion is the term for the Fed’s ability to intervene so that the company to be saved isn’t embarrassed by an official Fed censure. The best example is the bailout of Long-Term Capital Management, in which the Fed called 13 banks to the table and asked them to work out a solution themselves. Another was the bailout of Chrysler, in which low-cost funding was provided by the government, with the Fed and Treasury sitting on the “stabilization committee” overseeing the process. In the 1970 case of Penn Central, the Fed didn’t impose a bailout but said it would be available to help businesses access the then-constricted market for short-term commercial paper. In New York City’s fiscal crisis in the 1970s, the Fed was the fiscal agent.

Of course, the Fed isn’t a bottomless pit of resources, and it has lavished a considerable chunk of its own balance sheet on asset acquisitions and bailouts this year, to the tune of at least $200 billion. Paul Volcker fretted about the Fed’s funding in May when the Fed still had about $800 billion in Treasury securities on its balance sheet to save the markets. It has considerably less room now. Treasury, as well, has its balance sheet occupied with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Bailing out Lehman is one thing; if that were to then lead to a bailout of the regulators themselves, that would be quite another.

Update: We added Hecht’s observation tonight. In addition, Lehman just announced that it would release its second-quarter earnings and an update on its “key strategic initiatives” tomorrow morning at 7:30 a.m., with a conference call at 8 a.m.

^^^^^^^^

 

[thoughtone]

Re: Bailout of Long-Term Capital: A Bad Precedent?

<CENTER>
New jobs numbers portray an economy
in near free fall</CENTER>


McClatchy Newspapers
By Kevin G. Hall
Friday, January 9, 2009


WASHINGTON — The U.S. recession gathered steam in December as employers shed another 524,000 jobs, the unemployment rate leapt half a percentage point to 7.2 percent, the length of the average workweek fell to a record low and job losses were spread widely across almost all sectors of the economy, the government said Friday.

December's unemployment rate was the highest since January 1993, and was up by much more than expected over November's rate of 6.7 percent, according to the Labor Department. The December job losses brought the full-year total to more than 2.6 million.

There was little to cheer in the report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Although the December job losses were just a touch higher than the consensus forecast, many analysts think that they'll be revised next month.

Several state employment offices saw their computer systems crash in December with the soaring number of people who were seeking jobless benefits, and this may have resulted in a number lower than it really is.

The Labor Department also revised its employment reports from October and November, noting that job losses in those months were worse than first reported. Employers rid themselves of 423,000 jobs in October, not the originally reported 320,000, and 584,000 positions in November, not the 533,000 first reported by the BLS.

While the steep jump in unemployment and mounting job losses grabbed the headlines, there was even more troubling news buried deeper down in the report. The BLS said that the average hourly workweek for production and nonsupervisory jobs had shrunk 0.2 percent to 33.3 hours. That marks the lowest that this number has registered since the government started compiling these statistics in 1964.

"The message in the decline in hours worked to a record low is that more big job losses are coming," said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Economy.com, a forecaster in West Chester, Pa. "Employers first cut their employees' hours and then their jobs if business doesn't quickly improve."

It's hard to see how business will improve anytime soon. The December jobs numbers point to an economy in near free fall, as the BLS said 1.9 million jobs had been lost in the final four months of 2008. In all, 11.1 million Americans are thought to be unemployed.

"In December, job losses were large and widespread across most major industry sectors," the BLS employment report said.

Manufacturers shed 149,000 jobs in December and 791,000 for all of last year. The biggest manufacturing losers were metal-makers and companies that make cars and car parts. Construction fell by 101,000 jobs in December and by 899,000 since its peak in September 2006.

Retailers dropped 67,000 positions in December and 522,000 last year, more than half of those jobs lost in the last four months of 2008. Warehousing and transport employment fell by 24,000 jobs in December, while the information industry lost 20,000 positions. Food services fell by 20,000 last month.

Only health care showed robust growth, adding 32,000 jobs in December and 372,000 positions last year. "The decline in jobs across so many industries and occupations is disturbing. There is no safe place in the job market," Zandi said.

In another troubling indicator, the number of involuntary part-time workers, those who want to work full time but can't find such jobs, rose to 8 million in December and increased by 3.4 million for all of last year.

Additionally, the number of long-term unemployed — jobless for 27 weeks or more — rose to 2.6 million in December and increased by 1.3 million for all of 2008. This number essentially doubled as many of the unemployed remained that way for much of the year.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/59365.html

What date did President Obama take the oath?

 

[Greed]

Re: Bailout of Long-Term Capital: A Bad Precedent?

What date did President Obama take the oath?

So what are you saying in regards to the trillions of dollars in bailouts that happened and the current $80 billion a month?

 

[Greed]

Re: Bailout of Long-Term Capital: A Bad Precedent?

See how easy it is to answer a question!

^^^^^^^^

What date did President Obama take the oath?

So what are you saying in regards to the trillions of dollars in bailouts that happened and the current $80 billion a month?

Not all the bailout happened under Bush.

 

[thoughtone]

Re: Bailout of Long-Term Capital: A Bad Precedent?

So what are you saying in regards to the trillions of dollars in bailouts that happened and the current $80 billion a month?

Not all the bailout happened under Bush.

I'm saying I don't agree with everything President Obama has done, I'm saying he has done a good job for what the previous administration has left him. The administration you had praise for in the beginning of this thread.

Could he do better? Of course.

 

[Greed]

Re: Bailout of Long-Term Capital: A Bad Precedent?

I'm saying I don't agree with everything President Obama has done, I'm saying he has done a good job for what the previous administration has left him. The administration you had praise for in the beginning of this thread.

Could he do better? Of course.

If you were a superhero you would be UnderStatement Man.

 

[thoughtone]

Re: Bailout of Long-Term Capital: A Bad Precedent?

If you were a superhero you would be UnderStatement Man.

What was you ex uses for GW? Didn't read too much criticism from you about him.

 

[Greed]

Re: Bailout of Long-Term Capital: A Bad Precedent?

What was you ex uses for GW? Didn't read too much criticism from you about him.

How much criticism do you read from me about Obama?

I mostly talk about America, the system, and people like you that like the status quo because their side is in charge.

 

[thoughtone]

Re: Bailout of Long-Term Capital: A Bad Precedent?

How much criticism do you read from me about Obama?

I mostly talk about America, the system, and people like you that like the status quo because their side is in charge.

As I have said, since I vote, he was the best alternative

 

[Lamarr]

People Not In Labor Force Soar By 663,000 To 90 Million, Labor Force Participation Rate At 1979 Levels

Things just keep getting worse for the American worker, and by implication US economy, where as we have shown many times before, it pays just as well to sit back and collect disability and various welfare and entitlement checks, than to work .The best manifestation of this: the number of people not in the labor force which in March soared by a massive 663,000 to a record 90 million Americans who are no longer even looking for work. This was the biggest monthly increase in people dropping out of the labor force since January 2012, when the BLS did its census recast of the labor numbers. And even worse, the labor force participation rate plunged from an already abysmal 63.5% to 63.3% - the lowest since 1979! But at least it helped with the now painfully grotesque propaganda that the US unemployment rate is "improving."

 

[QueEx]

Things just keep getting worse for the American worker, and by implication US economy, where as we have shown many times before, it pays just as well to sit back and collect disability and various welfare and entitlement checks, than to work .

You're becomming known for posting opinion pieces which have NO factual content to back them up.

Could you please provide a citation to the study demonstrating the affect that the number of people being classified as disabled "and on various welfare entitlement checks" are having on the decline of persons in the workforce ???

The best manifestation of this: the number of people not in the labor force which in March soared by a massive 663,000 to a record 90 million Americans who are no longer even looking for work. This was the biggest monthly increase in people dropping out of the labor force since January 2012, when the BLS did its census recast of the labor numbers. And even worse, the labor force participation rate plunged from an already abysmal 63.5% to 63.3% - the lowest since 1979! But at least it helped with the now painfully grotesque propaganda that the US unemployment rate is "improving."

I wonder if the age of baby boomers (now beginning to retire in larger numbers); and young people opting for college and advanced degrees might be having an affect on the declining number of people in the labor work force ???

 

[Greed]

Re: Bailout of Long-Term Capital: A Bad Precedent?

As I have said, since I vote, he was the best alternative

Best alternative to what?

McCain and Romney would prioritize banks over people. How has Obama proven to be an alternative to that?

Since you're so proud of voting, the actual alternative would have been to vote for a 3rd party that shared your values. Or do you really think Obama wouldn't have won without your vote in his two landslide victories?

 

[thoughtone]

Re: Bailout of Long-Term Capital: A Bad Precedent?

Best alternative to what?

McCain and Romney would prioritize banks over people. How has Obama proven to be an alternative to that?

Since you're so proud of voting, the actual alternative would have been to vote for a 3rd party that shared your values. Or do you really think Obama wouldn't have won without your vote in his two landslide victories?

So what 3rd party did you support?

 

[Greed]

Re: Bailout of Long-Term Capital: A Bad Precedent?

So what 3rd party did you support?

I didn't vote for any.

But you're so proud of your act of voting that you've brought it up multiple times.

So instead of voting for voting sake, why not support someone not from the Bank Party.

Try being proud of who you voted for instead of the act as an end in itself.

BTW, you also didn't state how Obama was an alternative to McCain or Romney.

 

[thoughtone]

Re: Bailout of Long-Term Capital: A Bad Precedent?

I didn't vote for any.

But you're so proud of your act of voting that you've brought it up multiple times.

So instead of voting for voting sake, why not support someone not from the Bank Party.

Try being proud of who you voted for instead of the act as an end in itself.

BTW, you also didn't state how Obama was an alternative to McCain or Romney.

I didn't vote for any.

No further questions.

 

[Lamarr]

You're becomming known for posting opinion pieces which have NO factual content to back them up.

Could you please provide a citation to the study demonstrating the affect that the number of people being classified as disabled "and on various welfare entitlement checks" are having on the decline of persons in the workforce ???

tell you what Que, Why don't you post a citation to the study, by the govt, that suggests 663,000 people are "no longer looking for work" in the month of March?

NO factual content

 

[Greed]

Re: Bailout of Long-Term Capital: A Bad Precedent?

No further questions.

Enjoy the America you've worked for thoughtone.

 

[QueEx]

tell you what Que, Why don't you post a citation to the study, by the govt, that suggests 663,000 people are "no longer looking for work" in the month of March?

NO factual content

Why should I I never made that assertion in the first place.

Now, what about that study demonstrating the affect that the number of people being classified as disabled "and on various welfare entitlement checks" are having on the decline of persons in the workforce ???

 

[QueEx]

tell you what Que, Why don't you post a citation to the study, by the govt, that suggests 663,000 people are "no longer looking for work" in the month of March?

NO factual content

How about one even better . . .



<IFRAME SRC="http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/business/0405_unemployment_v4.jpg" WIDTH=760 HEIGHT=900>
<A HREF="http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/business/0405_unemployment_v4.jpg">link</A>

</IFRAME>

Note: Due to rounding total equals 102%. Data: Labor Force: Bureau of Labor Statistics. Active Duty Military Personnel: Department of Defense. Institutionalized population: U.S. Census. Full-time Secondary Students: National Center for Education Statistics. Stay-at-home parents: Married couple family groups with one parent not in the labor force to care for family or spouse, U.S. Census. Retired workers receiving Social Security benefits: Social Security Administration. Disabled workers under 65: Bureau of Labor Statistics. Students and Retired Workers may overlap with the full- and part-time employed.


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[Greed]

Vanishing workforce weighs on growth

Vanishing workforce weighs on growth
By Jim Tankersley,
Published: April 6

Put out an all-points bulletin: Millions of Americans have gone missing from the workforce.

Every month that those would-be workers are gone raises the odds that they might never come back, dimming the prospects for future economic growth.

The vanishing trend is more than a decade old, but it accelerated during the Great Recession. Throughout 2012, economists held out hope that it had stopped. But then came Friday’s jobs report, and hopes were dashed.

The Labor Department reported that the U.S. labor force — everyone who has a job or is looking for one — shrank by 500,000 people in March. That brought the civilian labor force participation rate to 63.3 percent in March, its lowest level since May 1979. And it left the workforce several million members smaller than the Congressional Budget Office estimates that it should be, given the nation’s demographics.

Perplexingly, the driving force behind the decline does not appear to be baby boomers beginning to retire, an event economists have long predicted would shrink the size of the workforce. It’s people in the prime of their working years, ages 25 to 54, who began tumbling out of the job market in the early 2000s and have continued to disappear during the recovery.

That’s obviously bad for those people, who aren’t earning money in any way that would legally require them to pay taxes. It’s also bad for the economy for a simple reason: The fewer workers, the less growth produced.

A smaller workforce reduces what economists call potential gross domestic product, or how much the economy can be expected to expand over the long term. The decade of declining U.S. workforce participation has taken a toll on that potential growth level, many forecasters say. For example, Michelle Meyer, a senior U.S. economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said her real potential growth projections have fallen from 3.25 percent a year in the mid-2000s to 2.25 percent today — all because of the change in participation levels.

So, where did everybody go? And if hiring picks up, will they come back?

Economists have ideas but not all the answers.

“Prime-aged people are working less, and we don’t know why,” said Betsey Stevenson, a labor economist and associate professor at the University of Michigan. “I get concerned because there are a lot of people who have useful and productive skills that could really contribute to the economy, and we’re just failing to find ways to get them involved.”

The easiest explanation for vanishing prime-aged workers is the weak job market: The economy just isn’t creating enough new jobs to keep job-seekers engaged, so many of them are getting frustrated and abandoning their search for work.

In order to pull people back into the workforce, said Heidi Shierholz, a labor market economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute, “it’s going to take seriously improving job opportunities, and that hasn’t happened yet.”

Some researchers are making headway in explaining where people go when they leave the workforce. The conservative Heritage Foundation did a study last year that found that most of the people who left between 2007 and 2011 ended up in one of two places: They went to school, or they went on disability. The researchers expect the students to eventually return, but not the workers on disability, said James Sherk, Heritage’s senior policy analyst in labor economics.

Still, some aspects of the vanishing trend remain a mystery. Economists are struggling to explain why a large number of prime-aged African American men aren’t working. After decades of entering the workforce in greater numbers, women reached a saturation point in the past decade, and their participation has declined since then. No one is sure why.

A paper presented at the Brookings Institution last year by Robert Moffitt, a Johns Hopkins University economist, found declining participation to be “disproportionately concentrated among the less educated and younger groups within the male and the female populations and, for women, especially among unmarried women without children.” But the overall decline for women, he wrote, is “more difficult to explain” than that of men.

The hope among many economists is that faster growth and stronger job creation will begin to pull people back into the workforce. In that sense, workforce dropouts would be like an idled army, ready to form up again when the cause demands it. That would be good news for the economy: “We don’t think all of these workers are permanently lost,” said Meyer, the Bank of America economist.

Other economists are not so sure. The fear is that the longer people are out of work, the more their skills will erode. Their social networks will atrophy. Gaps in their résumés will scare off potential employers. They would become essentially unemployable.

Evidence is scant that this scenario has set in. But Friday’s numbers reignited concerns. “The idea that labor force participation is structurally or institutionally impaired gains increasing credence with each passing jobs report,” JPMorgan economists wrote in a research note Friday.

The longer the trend goes, the better the odds that’s true.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...c46116-9e20-11e2-9a79-eb5280c81c63_story.html

 

[Greed]

Myths of Post-Industrial America

Myths of Post-Industrial America
By Robert Samuelson - April 8, 2013

WASHINGTON -- We live in a post-industrial age, defined more by Google than by General Motors. The term "post-industrial society" was first popularized by the sociologist Daniel Bell (1919-2011) in a 1973 book, and the change has generally been a boon. The transition from factory to office has raised living standards, curbed pollution and reduced the number of grueling, often-monotonous jobs. Yet, this largely beneficial transformation suffers in the popular imagination. The vast "service sector," which now dominates the economy, is seen as inferior, low-paying and even frivolous because it produces nothing tangible.

Almost everyone seems to yearn for a manufacturing renaissance. This would, the reasoning goes, solve many problems. It would kick-start the sluggish recovery. By providing well-paying jobs, especially for semi-skilled men, it would strengthen the middle class. By restoring a heritage of "making things," it would reduce U.S. trade deficits and re-establish our global economic pre-eminence. No doubt, millions of Americans endorse this appealing vision. It's make-believe.



To be sure, manufacturing is reviving -- and the more the better. Rising wages abroad and heightened anxieties about global supply chains are causing some U.S. firms to relocate production from China or Mexico back to the United States. Cheap U.S. energy costs, reflecting plentiful natural gas, also favor American factories. Though these trends are welcome, they stop well short of a sweeping transformation of the economy. On manufacturing, a huge gap separates public perceptions and economic realities, as Marc Levinson of the Congressional Research Service has shown in several reports.

For starters, manufacturing's decline is misunderstood. The truth is that output has continued to climb. In 2010, Levinson reports, U.S. manufacturing production of nearly $1.8 trillion was the largest in the world; it was slightly ahead of China's, about two-thirds higher than Japan's and nearly triple Germany's. China may now be No. 1, but the U.S. remains a manufacturing powerhouse. In 2011, near-record output was 72 percent more than in 1990 and six times greater than in 1950. Recall some American-made products: commercial jets, earth-moving equipment, gas turbines. (Output refers to "value added," which is the difference between the sector's purchased inputs and its final products.)

Manufacturing's "decline" refers mostly to job loss, which is stark and long-term. In 1970, the 17.8 million manufacturing jobs represented 25 percent of all 71 million U.S. jobs. By 2012, the 11.9 million manufacturing jobs were only 9 percent of the 133.7 million total. The declines reflect two forces: automation and imports, especially of labor-intensive products. In 2011, Levinson notes, 97,000 steelworkers produced nearly 10 percent more steel than the 399,000 did in 1980. As for labor-intensive products, clothing output has dropped more than 80 percent since 1980, with jobs falling from 1.3 million to 150,000.

For society, this is a mixed bag. People who lost their jobs -- or couldn't find one in local plants -- were often devastated. Manufacturing's shrunken size also means that it can't single-handedly sustain recovery or cut unemployment. To date, factory jobs have risen 512,000 from their low point; that's only 9 percent of the total increase of 5.9 million. Finally, Levinson notes, automation has eliminated many factory-floor jobs; professionals and managers are almost a third of manufacturers' workforce. Factories will provide less economic and social support for blue-collar workers than in the past.

On the other hand, automation improves the workplace. It replaces exhausting, dangerous or boring jobs. In his book "America's Assembly Line," historian David Nye quotes an early worker at a Ford plant on the demeaning regimentation of factory work: "Henry [Ford] has reduced the complexity of life to a definite number of jerks, twists, and turns. ... When the whistle blows [the worker] starts to jerk and when the whistle blows again he stops jerking." Many electronic assembly jobs outsourced to Asia today are similar: "The assembly line ran very fast," complained one worker for the electronics assembler Foxconn, "and after just one morning we all had blisters."

More important, greater factory efficiency raises living standards. Prices are held down; purchasing power expands. This has enabled Americans to spend more on education, health care, travel, recreation -- and much more. Because these activities typically don't require the huge energy inputs of heavy industry, society becomes less energy intensive. This is happening in all advanced nations; since 1973, manufacturing's share of Sweden's employment dropped from 28 percent to 13 percent.

It's a mistake to romanticize manufacturing and disparage services, portraying them as separate economic realms in competition with each other. In reality, they're completely intertwined. Almost all services depend on manufactured products. Air travel requires planes, the Internet needs computers, and health care dispenses pharmaceuticals. And almost all manufactured products generate services. Cars provide transportation, homes give shelter, and films offer entertainment. There's plenty of industry left in post-industrial America.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/04/08/myths_of_post-industrial_america_117834.html

 

[Greed]

U.S. Labor Participation May Be Low for Years: Fed Study

U.S. Labor Participation May Be Low for Years: Fed Study
By Aki Ito
May 13, 2013 2:21 PM CT

Workers who have dropped out of the labor force may take a few years to begin searching for work, Federal Reserve (TREFTOTL) economists say in a paper offering insights into the health of a labor market that’s key to central bank policy.

“In the current recovery, it will probably take a few years before cyclical components put significant upward pressure on the participation rate because payroll employment is still well below its pre-recession peak,” Leila Bengali, Mary Daly and Rob Valletta said in a report released today by the San Francisco Fed.

Economists have debated how much a slump in labor force participation stems from temporary effects such as weak economic growth or from more lasting forces like an ageing work force. Participation is a key variable influencing the unemployment rate, which Fed officials are monitoring to gauge the appropriate level of stimulus.

Vice Chairman Janet Yellen said in March that a decline in unemployment reflecting job-seekers exiting the workforce may understate “the actual degree of labor-market slack.” That’s why the Federal Open Market Committee is keeping an eye on a “broad range” of indicators to assess the state of U.S. employment, she said.

The Fed has expanded its balance sheet to $3.32 trillion with bond purchases aimed at spurring economic growth and reducing 7.5 percent unemployment. The FOMC said May 1 it will keep buying $85 billion in bonds each month and may increase or reduce the pace depending on the outlook for inflation and the labor market.

Stocks Fluctuate

U.S. stocks fluctuated between gains and losses, after benchmark indexes climbed to record levels last week, as government data showed retail sales unexpectedly rose in April. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index was little changed at 1,631.00 at 3:04 p.m. in New York.

The 10-year Treasury yield rose two basis points to 1.92 percent, after reaching 1.93 percent, the highest level since March 26.

Labor force participation held at 63.3 percent in April for a second month, matching the lowest level since May 1979.

“We find evidence, reinforcing other research, that the recent decline in participation likely has a substantial cyclical component,” said the researchers. “States that saw larger declines in employment generally saw larger declines in participation.”

Bengali, Daly and Valletta found that the relationship between employment and participation has so far been weak in the economic recovery that started in 2009, with payrolls yet to approach their pre-recession peak.

“In the recoveries from the 1981-82 and 1990-91 recessions, the positive relationship did not emerge until the economy had passed the previous employment peak by a substantial margin,” they said. “We may not be deep enough into the current recovery for the typical positive relationship between participation and employment growth to emerge.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-...bor-participation-may-stay-low-for-years.html

 

[QueEx]

Re: U.S. Labor Participation May Be Low for Years: Fed Study

"Economists have debated how much a slump in labor force participation stems from temporary effects such as weak economic growth - or - from more lasting forces like an ageing work force."

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