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Threeringale
Citizen
Username: Threeringale
Post Number: 61
Registered: 1-2006
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 12:52 pm: | 
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In a man bites dog story, this former Reagan administration official and Wall Street Journal contributor thinks the economy is going to hell in a handbasket:
Job growth over the last five years is the weakest on record. The US economy came up more than 7 million jobs short of keeping up with population growth. That’s one good reason for controlling immigration. An economy that cannot keep up with population growth should not be boosting population with heavy rates of legal and illegal immigration.
Over the past five years the US economy experienced a net job loss in goods producing activities. The entire job growth was in service-providing activities—primarily credit intermediation, health care and social assistance, waiters, waitresses and bartenders, and state and local government.
The whole thing: http://www.vdare.com/roberts/060211_jobs.htm
Cheers |
Hoops
Citizen
Username: Hoops
Post Number: 836
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 1:01 pm: |
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Innis - exactly the point I was trying to make.
Scrotis - I am not following your line of reasoning. At what point exactly did it become an it takes one to know one issue? My background has exactly nothing to do with the point of this thread.
As you say -
"A large chunk of people considered "poor" these days just have misplaced priorities and poor spending habits....give me 10 mintues with an ED and 8 out of 10 times I can tell you where the true problem is...."
The clear choice is being made all over between health care and food. These are not disposable income items. Its in the articles I posted. Again I defer to your self proclaimed knowledge of 'ED'.
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dougw
Citizen
Username: Dougw
Post Number: 728
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 1:08 pm: |
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Innis - since I have posted actual real wage numbers and it shows they are positive does that mean you think the economy is good?
Scrotis - you interpreted my comment perfectly.
Duncan - I have no idea how you get my God Bless America comment to questioning someone elses patriotism. I just have great faith and pride in the American economy. The economy's performance is really about us not the prez. Aren't we great! |
Innisowen
Citizen
Username: Innisowen
Post Number: 1611
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 1:13 pm: |
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Below is the full text of the article for which Threeringale provides the link.
Hold on to your hats, according to this article. We're in for a scary ride.
February 11, 2006
Jobs News Even Worse Than We Thought
By Paul Craig Roberts
Last week the Bureau of Labor Statistics re-benchmarked the payroll jobs data back to 2000. Thanks to Charles McMillion of MBG Information Services, I have the adjusted data from January 2001 through January 2006. If you are worried about terrorists, you don’t know what worry is.
Job growth over the last five years is the weakest on record. The US economy came up more than 7 million jobs short of keeping up with population growth. That’s one good reason for controlling immigration. An economy that cannot keep up with population growth should not be boosting population with heavy rates of legal and illegal immigration.
Over the past five years the US economy experienced a net job loss in goods producing activities. The entire job growth was in service-providing activities—primarily credit intermediation, health care and social assistance, waiters, waitresses and bartenders, and state and local government.
US manufacturing lost 2.9 million jobs, almost 17% of the manufacturing work force. The wipeout is across the board. Not a single manufacturing payroll classification created a single new job.
The declines in some manufacturing sectors have more in common with a country undergoing saturation bombing during war than with a super-economy that is "the envy of the world." Communications equipment lost 43% of its workforce. Semiconductors and electronic components lost 37% of its workforce. The workforce in computers and electronic products declined 30%. Electrical equipment and appliances lost 25% of its employees. The workforce in motor vehicles and parts declined 12%. Furniture and related products lost 17% of its jobs. Apparel manufacturers lost almost half of the work force. Employment in textile mills declined 43%. Paper and paper products lost one-fifth of its jobs. The work force in plastics and rubber products declined by 15%. Even manufacturers of beverages and tobacco products experienced a 7% shrinkage in jobs.
The knowledge jobs that were supposed to take the place of lost manufacturing jobs in the globalized "new economy" never appeared. The information sector lost 17% of its jobs, with the telecommunications work force declining by 25%. Even wholesale and retail trade lost jobs. Despite massive new accounting burdens imposed by Sarbanes-Oxley, accounting and bookkeeping employment shrank by 4%. Computer systems design and related lost 9% of its jobs. Today there are 209,000 fewer managerial and supervisory jobs than 5 years ago.
In five years the US economy only created 70,000 jobs in architecture and engineering, many of which are clerical. Little wonder engineering enrollments are shrinking. There are no jobs for graduates. The talk about engineering shortages is absolute ignorance. There are several hundred thousand American engineers who are unemployed and have been for years. No student wants a degree that is nothing but a ticket to a soup line. Many engineers have written to me that they cannot even get Wal-Mart jobs because their education makes them over-qualified.
Offshore outsourcing and offshore production have left the US awash with unemployment among the highly educated. The low measured rate of unemployment does not include discouraged workers. Labor arbitrage has made the unemployment rate less and less a meaningful indicator. In the past unemployment resulted mainly from turnover in the labor force and recession. Recoveries pulled people back into jobs. Unemployment benefits were intended to help people over the down time in the cycle when workers were laid off. Today the unemployment is permanent as entire occupations and industries are wiped out by labor arbitrage as corporations replace their American employees with foreign ones. Economists who look beyond political press releases estimate the US unemployment rate to be between 7% and 8.5%. There are now hundreds of thousands of Americans who will never recover their investment in their university education.
Unless the BLS is falsifying the data or businesses are reporting the opposite of the facts, the US is experiencing a job depression. Most economists refuse to acknowledge the facts, because they endorsed globalization. It was a win-win situation, they said.
They were wrong.
At a time when America desperately needs the voices of educated people as a counterweight to the disinformation that emanates from the Bush administration and its supporters, economists have discredited themselves. This is especially true for "free market economists" who foolishly assumed that international labor arbitrage was an example of free trade that was benefiting Americans.
Where is the benefit when employment in US export industries and import-competitive industries is shrinking? After decades of struggle to regain credibility, free market economics is on the verge of another wipeout.
No sane economist can possibly maintain that a deplorable record of merely 1,054,000 net new private sector jobs over five years is an indication of a healthy economy. The total number of private sector jobs created over the five year period is 500,000 jobs less than one year’s legal and illegal immigration! (In a December 2005 Center for Immigration Studies report based on the Census Bureau’s March 2005 Current Population Survey, Steven Camelot writes that there were 7.9 million new immigrants between January 2000 and March 2005.)
The economics profession has failed America. It touts a meaningless number while joblessness soars. Lazy journalists at the New York Times simply rewrite the Bush administration’s press releases.
On February 10 the Commerce Department released a record US trade deficit in goods and services for 2005—$726 billion. The US deficit in Advanced Technology Products reached a new high. Offshore production for home markets and jobs outsourcing has made the US highly dependent on foreign provided goods and services, while simultaneously reducing the export capability of the US economy. It is possible that there might be no exchange rate at which the US can balance its trade.
Polls indicate that the Bush administration is succeeding in whipping up fear and hysteria about Iran. The secretary of defense is promising Americans decades-long war.
Is death in battle Bush’s solution to the job depression?
Will Asians finance a decades-long war for a bankrupt country?
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Scrotis Lo Knows
Citizen
Username: Scrotisloknows
Post Number: 881
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 1:14 pm: |
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Innyboy-Yes, ED="Economically Disadvantaged." As you may recall, i tried using the term "lower class" on another board but that didn't go sit too well with the PC crowd.
Hoops-Medicaid and foodstamps.
Dougw-gee, look at that, considering Inny thinks I am dumb. 
-SLK |
Guy
Supporter
Username: Vandalay
Post Number: 1582
Registered: 8-2004
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 1:18 pm: |
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Innis, thanks for the article. If the job market is so bad , why is the unemploment rate at 4.7%.
Seems kind of silly to include the years covering the recession and 9-11 to draw conclusions about the health of the 2006 economy. |
dougw
Citizen
Username: Dougw
Post Number: 729
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 1:20 pm: |
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But Innis you said the important factor was real wage growth and I posted that the facts that real wages are growing? Did you change your requirements for a good economy when you saw the facts? |
dougw
Citizen
Username: Dougw
Post Number: 730
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 1:22 pm: |
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Guy now they will come back with the "unemployment is low so people are dropping out of the labor force" argument. I want to know how people can afford to just drop out of the labor force? Also if they are not even looking for a job how do they spend their days? |
Bob K
Supporter
Username: Bobk
Post Number: 10819
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 1:25 pm: |
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Guy, one theroy is that people have given up looking and now are in the underground economy or busy selling off their wives ceramic pig collection on eBay. 
Cjc, Sorry you don't like farming, although to get the advantages you never have to go near what my son used to call "smelly farm animals". And then their are mining shelters, Keogh plans and enough other things so that the average person with an income over $500k pays around 15% of their income in Federal income taxes. |
Guy
Supporter
Username: Vandalay
Post Number: 1583
Registered: 8-2004
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 1:27 pm: |
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doug and Bobby that would be incorrect. The Household Survey shows significant employment gains.
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Hoops
Citizen
Username: Hoops
Post Number: 837
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 1:32 pm: |
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the fact remains. Working people cannot make ends meet.
People with foodstamps still need to go these food kitchens. Medicaid does not cover all expenses and leaves the balance to be borne by those who can least afford it. Therefore the hard choice between food and medicine. These benefits to the neediest are slashed in favor of putting the money into the pockets of the already rich. So what we have is a disaster in the making. The working poor and the non-working poor have to eat. If they cant provide for their families legally they will do it however they can.
Yes the poor in America have it better then the poor in Kabul. Does that make it ok for American children to go to bed hungry? |
Guy
Supporter
Username: Vandalay
Post Number: 1584
Registered: 8-2004
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 1:32 pm: |
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Bobby I got one to go. God Bless America.
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Innisowen
Citizen
Username: Innisowen
Post Number: 1612
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 1:35 pm: |
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Scrotey:
I'm sorry. I thought that all your talk about ED was your way of performing commercials for Viagra. |
dougw
Citizen
Username: Dougw
Post Number: 731
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 1:36 pm: |
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Bobk are you saying an individual that makes $500,000 pays $75,000 in taxes? That seems much too high and is not fair. It needs to be lower to be fair. |
Bob K
Supporter
Username: Bobk
Post Number: 10821
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 1:37 pm: |
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Guy, nobody pays any attention to the household survey since it is ancedotal, not statistical.
The fact of the matter is that during the recovery fewer jobs have been created than population growth would indicate are needed.
Doug, I think they go underground and work "off the books" or by picking up odd jobs as they can. Your question is a good one. |
Eats Shoots & Leaves
Citizen
Username: Mfpark
Post Number: 3072
Registered: 9-2001
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 1:44 pm: |
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State of the Economy
by Gene Sperling and Christian E. Weller
January 26, 2006
The economy will likely play a prominent role in this year's State of the Union address.
In the weeks and months leading up to the speech, the President and his economic team and staff have sought to create a selective and exaggerated picture of the economy as a means to justify their fiscally reckless economic policies and to support making their tax cuts permanent. Yet, while GDP growth may have been solid over the last couple of years, growth over the full recovery has been mediocre, and job and wage growth have been historically weak. The tide may be rising, but it is has been unusually weak at lifting all boats. Historically low job growth, declining wages, rising poverty and the worst deterioration in our fiscal situation in history is hardly proof that current fiscal policies are working or should be continued.
Read the full report (PDF)
http://www.americanprogress.org/atf/cf/{E9245FE4-9A2B-43C7-A521-5D6FF2E06E03}/SOTU_ECONOMY.PDF
You will need to cut and paste this in your browser.
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Innisowen
Citizen
Username: Innisowen
Post Number: 1613
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 1:45 pm: |
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I quote:
"Innis, thanks for the article. If the job market is so bad , why is the unemploment rate at 4.7%.
Seems kind of silly to include the years covering the recession and 9-11 to draw conclusions about the health of the 2006 economy."
My guess is the author of the article wished to give what he regards as a true picture of the state of the US economy during the first five years of the Bush administration.
As we say in Wall Street in order to have a proper disclaimer: "Past results are not to be regarded as an indicator of future performance." In most cases, however, past results really do give a very good indication of future performance. I guess that would be part of the author's point as well. |
Scrotis Lo Knows
Citizen
Username: Scrotisloknows
Post Number: 882
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 1:48 pm: |
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Hoops-
You are all over the map with your last post.
"People having trouble making ends" meet has been the same since the dawn of time. I pay my taxes and donate heavily every year. What else do you expect me to do about it?
And foodstamps can be used in almost any grocery store (especially urban areas where most poor folks ten to dwell). If they can't get to one, I can't help that.
Butif they need ride, just ask me. If I can, I will help, but in NO WAY out of guilt. I have nothing to feel guilty about.
Hoops-I undestand your desire not to kick people when they are down, but doing such as opposed to hold them accountable for the basic things are two different things. Call it tough love, but I won't let them starve....
-SLK
-Inny, take a break my friend, not only are your posts weak today but everyone is beating the crap out of you....everyone has an off day now and then...even arrgoant jesuits...
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dougw
Citizen
Username: Dougw
Post Number: 732
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 1:50 pm: |
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Bobk are you saying the actual unemployment rate is even lower since it does not include lots of people working off the books? Wow what a stong employmeny picture you are painting.
Innis - are you ignoring the real wage facts I posted? Sucks to be proven wrong eh? |
Hoops
Citizen
Username: Hoops
Post Number: 838
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 1:55 pm: |
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SLK - I'm all over the map? You are failing to comprehend even the simplest of posts. The thread is about the economy. My posts are about the obvious disconnect between what Straw posted and reality.
The issue is not whether people can USE foodstamps. The issue is that they are using foodstamps AND soup kitchens because their benefits have been cut or discontinued. How is that hard to understand? No one is asking you SLK to do anything about it, except maybe give up your support for a failed economic policy of tax givebacks to 1% of the population while the bottom 10% starve.
Tough love? These people are working 40 hours at Walmart and another 20 hours at Target and still dont make enough to feed their families.
The gap between haves and have not was decreasing and did decrease over the Clinton years. While you were busy crying about Monicagate the economy and living conditions improved.
Now they are getting worse. |
Innisowen
Citizen
Username: Innisowen
Post Number: 1614
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 2:05 pm: |
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One economist's rosey picture is another's gloom:
Increased immigration of low-skilled workers from Mexico and Central America helps to explain the pattern of "low average wage growth in the US in recent years," (quotation marks mine) the Congressional Budget Office said in a report released on 10 Nov (2005).
Latin American workers, with less education than US natives and who earn less, have cut overall average earnings in the US. But given the growth of immigrants, the increase in the earnings gap between US workers with more and less education may be less than is often suggested.
"Commonly cited statistics on earnings growth can be misleading if used as indicators of progress during a period in which an increasing share of the workforce is foreign born," the CBO said in a study of immigration and the US labour market commissioned by the Senate finance committee.
Immigrants account for one in seven workers in the US and half the growth of the workforce since 1990. As the number of foreign born workers has increased from 13 million to 21 million over the past decade, people from Mexico and Central America accounted for about 40 percent of the increase.
So, Doug, you may see a rosey picture if it fits your bill. I see a more dismal one for the typical US wage earner, and I feel very sorry for him or her while not really being affected myself. |
cjc
Citizen
Username: Cjc
Post Number: 5258
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 2:15 pm: |
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Bob K -- how is someone paying at a 15% rate being subsidized? |
dougw
Citizen
Username: Dougw
Post Number: 733
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 2:18 pm: |
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Innis are you saying that if we exclude immigrants that real wage growth (which is the statistic you picked) is even higher?
Or are you saying that the immigrants have a hard time surviving here? If so please explain the billions of dollars sent from immigrants back to Mexico each year. Or explain why they keep coming here if the situation is so bad. |
Bob K
Supporter
Username: Bobk
Post Number: 10822
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 2:19 pm: |
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Given a 33% marginal rate, sure. They are taking advantage of various deductions and shelters available to them. Some may technically be available to the less affluent, but not often used because you have to have the bucks to play and their marginal rate isn't high enough for it to work.
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dougw
Citizen
Username: Dougw
Post Number: 734
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 2:22 pm: |
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For the record I think the economy was great during the Clinton years. My view of the economy is not clouded by who occupies the White House but by facts.
Why is it not possible to dislike the Prez but admit the economy is great? |
Bob K
Supporter
Username: Bobk
Post Number: 10826
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 2:34 pm: |
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Doug, none at all. It is just that some of us find the trend of even more wealth concentrated in the hands of less than 1% of the population (with policies to increase that concentration championed by the administration), loss of jobs ranging from CSRs to lawyers and accountants to offshore companies, selling our infrastructure to the highest bidder (see Keyspan) and encouraging illegal immigration to keep wages down probably doesn't bode well for the future.
I tend to call it the Argentine model. |
steel
Citizen
Username: Steel
Post Number: 971
Registered: 2-2002
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 2:45 pm: |
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dougw,
-Just curious, -would you mind referencing where you got the real wage numbers you posted and why you did not post them for Clinton's second term but only the first?
-Thanks much
PS: The entire premise of this thread is wrong. It would seem to assume that "libs" are never well invested or are only concerned with Bush making a poor showing no matter what. |
dougw
Citizen
Username: Dougw
Post Number: 735
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 2:55 pm: |
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My source was www.laborresearch.org who sources the data from the US Dept of Labor.
I compared Clinton's first four years against Bush's first four years since that is all the data that is available for an apples to apples comparison.
I do think many people are trying to make Bush look bad no matter what. Like the Prez makes the economy good or bad at his discretion. |
Bob K
Supporter
Username: Bobk
Post Number: 10827
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 3:00 pm: |
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One of the interesting aspects of these discussions is that there is an "opportunity cost" for living in a country such as the USA, at least in my opinion. Investors have a pretty stable political enviornment, reasonably honest markets and a growing economy to invest in.
An increasingly large number of people don't seem to recognize this. They are, like most Wall Street analysts (from which group I suspect many come from) they are looking at the next three months, not the next decade. Where is Warren Buffet when you really need him? |
cjc
Citizen
Username: Cjc
Post Number: 5259
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 3:25 pm: |
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Bob K -- that's not a subsidy. There is no grant or contribution given to the individual.
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Eats Shoots & Leaves
Citizen
Username: Mfpark
Post Number: 3075
Registered: 9-2001
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 3:25 pm: |
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Buffet is busy cleaning up after the AIG fiasco. |
Innisowen
Citizen
Username: Innisowen
Post Number: 1615
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 3:48 pm: |
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dougw:
http://www.laborresearch.org/charts.php?id=8
The attached specific link to your source is to a page on real wages (in 1982 constant bucks) for non-farm labor and doesn't show a real pretty picture since 2000, when you-know-who took over.
I don't think the wage picture is pretty at all.
Tell me where I am missing something. |
Guy
Supporter
Username: Vandalay
Post Number: 1587
Registered: 8-2004
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 3:56 pm: |
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Gain in Average hourly earnings year over year :
Feb 2006 3.3 %
Feb 1997 3.6 %
Headline on MOL:
ECONOMY DOING WELL: Women , Children and Minorities hardest hit. |
dougw
Citizen
Username: Dougw
Post Number: 736
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 4:11 pm: |
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Innisowen - are you kidding - you take my source after I post it. Do the math as I did (you can calulate a geometric return on an annualized basis right?) Bush's first four years show better growth that Clinton's. If you can't do the math I posted the answer above. |
Madden 11
Citizen
Username: Madden_11
Post Number: 828
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 4:28 pm: |
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I compared Clinton's first four years against Bush's first four years since that is all the data that is available for an apples to apples comparison.
Doug, that may be apples to apples, but you've neglected to include the condition of the orchard at the start of both men's terms. Clinton inherited an economy that was in the toilet and brought it back to life, whereas Bush got one that was thriving and crushed it. It always falls to a Democrat to clean up the mess left by the supply-siders. |
Guy
Supporter
Username: Vandalay
Post Number: 1588
Registered: 8-2004
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 4:32 pm: |
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Madden, you have that completely backwards. If you want I can provide the numbers. Clinton took over in a recovery. Bush took over during a downturn. There is no argument. |
Southerner
Citizen
Username: Southerner
Post Number: 734
Registered: 2-2004
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 6:11 pm: |
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I love these threads. Nothing like seeing rich libs justify their guilt. Drive to Irvington and buy a family dinner if you feel that dirty. |
cjc
Citizen
Username: Cjc
Post Number: 5260
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 8:09 pm: |
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Guy is right. The recession during Bush 41's first term stopped progressing and turned around in the Spring of that year as I recall. If you don't recall, that's because for some reason the press didn't cover that phenomenon.
Totally coincidental.
 |
Madden 11
Citizen
Username: Madden_11
Post Number: 829
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 9:30 pm: |
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Madden, you have that completely backwards. If you want I can provide the numbers.
Please do. |
Guy
Supporter
Username: Vandalay
Post Number: 1591
Registered: 8-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 28, 2006 - 8:03 am: |
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GDP in Sept 1992 4.0 % Dec 1992 4.5 %
GDP in Sept 2000 -0.5 % Dec 2000 2.1 %
Dow Jones peaked in Dec 1999 at 11,497 by March 2001 it dropped to 9,878. That is a 14% drop.
Worse than that was NASDAQ which peaked at 4,696 in Feb 2000 by March 2001 it was 1,841 and dropping. |
Foj
Citizen
Username: Foger
Post Number: 997
Registered: 9-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 28, 2006 - 11:21 pm: |
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"Gain in Average hourly earnings year over year :
Feb 2006 3.3 %
Feb 1997 3.6 %"
Um-- you cited the Average. Which most times is higher. Consider looking at the median. |
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