Recent comments

  • We might even see a negative in payrolls and assuredly an increase in the unemployment rate. The other indicators from Sandy's effects should show up also in the monthly unemployment report for October. Even though Sandy hit on the 29th, it's showing up in October figures.

    Bloomberg man, now there reporting on large events is very good, such as their coverage on bail outs, financial crime and so on, but on economic reports, uh, not so much. They pre-announce "crapola from space" all of the time. They have gotten more than one statistical release dead wrong as well.

    I'm working on an article about STEM employment, that is real B.S. and goes to show ya Congress only cares about it's donors, this is demanded by corporate lobbyists. There is no shortage and this will displace U.S. STEM workers.

    Reply to: The Permanent Dependency Class   11 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • There are share buttons at the bottom of all posts for easy posting to your social network or comment sections of your choice! Thanks, we number crunch!

    Reply to: The Rich and the Rest of Us in the United States   11 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • Some economist on Bloomberg who is a resident expert or some other nonsense was speaking about unemployment and jobs created. Basically he said maybe 150,000 jobs created will be reported, perhaps 90,000. But that will last for a few months, improvement after. Same thing with some other talking head on Bloomberg, but "it's the trend that counts." His monotone voice, complete lack of concern was sickening. It's like he was talking about a fly he happened to step on.

    TREND?! No, of course this can't be structural. This can't be outsourcing and visa abuses. No, of course not. Telling perhaps 30+ million Americans that are unemployed/long-term unemployed that jobs won't be coming back for many more months (mind you, this has been going on since 2007 - talk about f***ing denial and idiocy) in a tone in which one reports tomorrow's weather might bring sun or a slight drizzle is sick. People out here in the real world beyond NYC and LA TV studios can't find jobs for 5+ years. Jobs they do find with their PhDs and BAs and military or other experience pay $10/hr. Awesome! I missed the coverage of outsourcing and deathtraps in foreign countries brought to you by ABC or XYZ Corporation (incorporated in Del.), but I'm sure that will come on right after the Wal-Mart commercial.

    These asshats in power and their puppets will continue denying we are purposely being destroyed from the inside out. If it's not Sandy's fault, it's the fiscal cliff. If it's not the fiscal cliff, it's uncertainty about the 2012 election. Also toss in the Chinese Communist Party leadership turnover. Before that, the 2010 election. Before that, the 2008 election. Iran, check. Syria, check. Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. And in 2020 they will announce "Wow, what happened? It's like the Roman Empire. Oh well, it can't be our fault."

    Purposely being sold out. STEM visas just today approved by the House for foreigners. Because Lord knows US citizens are just some dumb bastards that can't add 2 and 2. Naked Capitalism showed that 70% of the jobs being created today in the US don't even require college degrees, but the corrupt traitors say they simply need more foreigners to take jobs we can't fill. Sold out, sold out, sold out. Oh well, it's that season for Bill O' to collect his paycheck from the Hacker-in-Chief/Police-Briber-in-Chief and distract people by talking about a "War on Christmas." A war on Americans by foreign and American corporate interests - nah. And on the D's-controlled channels, same old thing. Punch and Judy had more brains, and they were literally puppets.

    Reply to: The Permanent Dependency Class   11 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • Robert's research is impeccable and message compelling. How can this information not have impact on policy makers? It deserves the widest possible sharing.

    Reply to: The Rich and the Rest of Us in the United States   11 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • Most government agencies will answer the phone for intelligent questions where the caller knows what they are talking about in the first place. But almost all of the time, the information is in the fine print somewhere.

    Reply to: New Home Sales Decrease -0.3% for October 2012   11 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • For the week of November 17th, New York's initial unemployment claims dropped by -30,603. That's almost a halving of their claims, raw numbers not seasonally adjusted for that week were 32,689. New Jersey did not recover, their claims, same week were 45,631 and before the storm, October 27th's, NJ's initial claims were 9,360.

    So, assuming we have about 35k initial claims due to New Jersey and Sandy, that puts this week's figure 393,000 to bout 360k or so. That said, Sandy counts and the number of businesses wiped out by Sandy is huge so those initial claims implying jobs were lost probably isn't temporary for many of those businesses. Not good.

    Reply to: Initial Unemployment Claims 410,000 for November 17, 2012 - Sandy Still Pounds Workers   11 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • a “sale” is defined as a deposit taken or sales agreement signed, this can occur prior to a
    permit being issued. An estimate of these prior sales is included in the sales figure.

    http://www.census.gov/construction/nrs/pdf/newressales.pdf

    Reply to: New Home Sales Decrease -0.3% for October 2012   11 years 10 months ago
  • Since a “sale” is defined as a deposit taken or sales agreement signed, this can occur prior to a permit being issued.

    So, a sale is a fairly solid commitment. The Census is saying someone has put down the money without signing the agreement, or has signed the sales contract without the money down and sales can happen before even the permit to build the actual house has been processed.

    So, the next question is what does the Census do with canceled contracts and sales?

    From the website:

    The Census Bureau does not make adjustments to the new home sales figures to account for cancellations of sales contracts.

    The Survey of Construction (SOC) is the survey used to collect all data on housing starts, completions, and sales. This survey usually begins by sampling a building permit authorization, which is then tracked to find out when the housing unit starts, completes, and sells. When the owner or builder of a housing unit authorized by a permit is interviewed, one of the questions asked is whether the house is being built for sale. If it is, we then ask if the house has been sold (contract signed or earnest money exchanged). If the respondent reports that the unit has been sold, the survey does not follow up in subsequent months to find out if it is still sold or if the sale was cancelled. The house is removed from the "for sale" inventory and counted as sold for that month. If the house it is not yet started or under construction, it will be followed up until completion and then it will be dropped from the survey.

    Since we discontinue asking about the sale of the house after we collect a sale date, we never know if the sales contract is cancelled or if the house is ever resold. Therefore, the eventual purchase by a subsequent buyer is not counted in the survey; the same housing unit cannot be sold twice.

    As a result of our methodology, if conditions are worsening in the marketplace and cancellations are high, sales would be temporarily overestimated. When conditions improve and these cancelled sales materialize as actual sales, our sales would then be underestimated since we did not allow the cases with cancelled sales to re-enter the survey. In the long run, cancellations do not cause the survey to overestimate or underestimate sales.

    So, in bad times one would seemingly have high overestimates for a period of months that eventually will be dropped and the survey evens out.

    Explains why even more this statistical release has such wide variance and error margins.

    Thanks for asking this question. I share your frustration with the new Census site and they moved the FAQ to some ridiculous crappy aggregate thing. Please complain about it. They offshore outsourced the website design via IBM (who hires H-1B guest workers, fires Americans plus offshore outsources) and clearly it shows in such crappy design changes.

    I personally find it disgusting that the Census, who probably has the most data to present of any government agency, would not hire regular Federal employees to deal with website design and instead would take taxpayer money and hand it to evil, crappy, offshore outsourcer IBM.

    They should have all of this, in house, permanent, full-time Federal employees or U.S. citizen contractors only.

    Reply to: New Home Sales Decrease -0.3% for October 2012   11 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • What kind of justice is this? The bankruptcy judge on the Hostess liquidation approved $1.8 million in executive bonuses for 19 scum sucking Hostess executives while allowing these same executives to steal from worker pensions and not pay it back plus just destroyed pensions by sending them to the PBGC.

    Meanwhile buy outs are coming in everywhere. So what happens here. Hostess executives get paid, workers lose their jobs and a huge chunk of their pensions (we'll see, most likely) and the products,assets are bought out by someone who in turn assuredly hires non-union workers and we get our chemical cupcakes back while workers lost their jobs, their pensions.

    If this happens Hostess will become much more than a symbol of the 1970's chemical food and lifestyle of the U.S. middle class, it will become the symbol of the great screw the worker by any means possible agenda that has been happening, in cahoots with U.S. courts!

    Reply to: Twinkies, Pensions, Real Wages and Poverty   11 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • in your discussion of sandy effects, it occurred to me that i dont know when a "sale" is recorded by census; is it the signing of a contract, or something else in the process?

    the census FAQs didnt help much...

    Reply to: New Home Sales Decrease -0.3% for October 2012   11 years 10 months ago
  • Folks, if you see an error or a confusing statement, please let us know. GDP is a massive statistical release and we hand calculate percentages not covered by other sites trying to amplify and illustrate the BEA statistical release.

    The idea here is to amplify the report and we want to know if we have succeeded in that effort.

    Reply to: GDP Revised Upward to 2.7% Growth for Q3 2012   11 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • Daily experience shows there are a decreasing number of jobs to even apply to. They simply aren't there, anywhere. And this includes the ability to travel anywhere, including overseas, at a moment's notice. Private, public, jobs in area trained for and jobs far afield. That's how ridiculous the situation is. No amount of lies or pep talk or "retrain, learn to become a short-order cook or brainsurgeon or space shuttle commander and relocate here or there for $10/hr." can change the fact that there are decreasing jobs. I knew nothing would change following the election, and nothing has. This endless fiscal cliff talk is a nice distraction both D & R enjoy so no one has to talk about unemployment and increasing numbers of hopeless Americans with no working future until the fiscal cliff is put off again in December or Jan. 2013. And then it will be endless talk about Iran or Syria or somewhere else, anywhere else but the US desperate workers. And the obsession in the media about housing starts or sales? Even assuming the stats weren't dubious or NAR wasn't trying to sell a house to everyone (even when most people are struggling or looking to find jobs and post-housing collapse), how do housing starts or sales matter when median wages are falling when people have jobs, increasing numbers of Americans can't find jobs no matter how many skills and degrees they have, and a house in this day and age is merely a debt ball-and-chain around someone as companies expect everyone outside the boardroom to move anywhere within 24 hours to serve their increasingly insane whims.

    Reply to: The Permanent Dependency Class   11 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • I remember this all very well. BoA was specifically targeting illegal immigrants for bank accounts, money transfers and mortgages.

    I'd love to have some accurate statistics but when it comes to anything dealing with illegal immigration, legal immigration, guest workers they repress facts with "you're a racist if you look at that".

    But we remember very well, from 2002-2006 marketing in "Español" mortgages, subprime, to illegals. If one looks at bombed out areas of foreclosures, the maps, they really do overlay where there are high concentrations of people here illegally, but daring to look at the statistics, well, I sure haven't found enough to do anything with.

    One of those, hmmmmm, isn't that interesting, collection of facts where are repressed.

    On flippers, I noticed in Case-Shiller, Phoenix is up over 20% from a year ago in prices and existing home sales are at typical one third "cash buyers".

    I did see that, corporate welfare bail out full circle to rinse, cycle, repeat.

    Reply to: The Permanent Dependency Class   11 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • Just at the peak of the bubble I remember there was a new product introduced specifically to immigrants (even with no proven residency status) who didn't even have a credit rating. And you are right - Wall Street, including pools of rich investors, are buying up properties to flip them because they made some money doing that at the bottom of the market in Las Vegas and Miami when banks were dumping properties at below market prices. It doesn't seem like the uptick in housing prices we are now seeing is anything more than a dead cat bounce. One thing I am hearing from people in construction is that the flippers want only cosmetic work done and want to be out in 45 days at the most. This is certainly not going to promote neighborhood stability. Another thing I am seeing is that the banks are reaching again for poor credit risks, not just in housing loans, but auto loans and student loans. We are back a bit to 2006. Did you notice General Motors repurchased GMAC? Talk about deja vu all over again.

    Reply to: The Permanent Dependency Class   11 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • There was no reason the United States had to go down this route exactly. Somehow the symbiotic relationship with China became too irresistible, and I think that is in part because the US entered into the relationship with an existing trade imbalance with Japan. It was already inured to running such balances and getting away with it for a variety of reasons (reserve currency of the world, global superpower, etc.). Germany never got itself into the trap of running trade deficits and didn't need China to act as its banker to finance German purchases of cheap Chinese goods.

    Reply to: The Permanent Dependency Class   11 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • and their continually pounding with pundits who make 7 figures to boot on empty, meaningless arguments on all cable channels, plus the press clearly puts out misinformation blizzard snow. It's mind numbing and their audience is supposedly the people who know what's going on.

    Reply to: Some Things to Do on Thanksgiving   11 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • Medical collections is getting away with murder too, as amplified in this article.

    Typical figures in those buying existing homes are over a third are "investors" or cash buyers. They have been snapping up properties and to this day banks are illegally foreclosing on people who are actually paid up on their mortgage.

    Depression era people didn't use credit because they couldn't get credit in part.

    Reply to: The Permanent Dependency Class   11 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • Oh, how far we've fallen. And that's why the people in charge want everyone to stop thinking, stop reading (except for Us and People) and to buy the newest i-crap and play Angry Birds or buy endless apps (for only $.99 - what a deal to kill brain cells). The people in charge aren't brighter, they're more self-serving, and some cases, just narcissistic psychos that need a dumbed-down populace that doesn't question their orders. There was an episode of the new "Twilight Zone" (awful compared to the original) in which kids were tested for IQ scores at a certain age in a dystopian society. A couple's kid took the test. He came back home and was so proud because he crushed it. The parents looked sad and horrified upon hearing this. The reason - the kid didn't know that in the future people that were too bright were seen as a threat to the powers that be and were imprisoned or killed. And that's what makes the "Twilight Zone" (especially the old ones) so effective. It's possible.

    Reply to: Some Things to Do on Thanksgiving   11 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • cable we might have momentum for fact and statistical based policy.

    Reply to: Some Things to Do on Thanksgiving   11 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • Sub-prime mortgages were partly a reaction to the problem of poor credit ratings. More people had health care collections on their credit reports. Few people had any money for a down-payments on a house or car. Credit card balances in the US were enormous compared to the rest of the world. Jobs were unreliable and short-term. The downward middle class existed in the middle of the "bubble and burst" economy that continues today. In Sacramento hedge funds are buying foreclosures in bulk. Good news is real estate prices are rising. Bad news is they will create slums. Hard to imagine any solutions when we play politics to the point of dysfunction. Good description of our recent history. In contrast my parents of the Depression never used credit.

    Reply to: The Permanent Dependency Class   11 years 10 months ago
    EPer:

Pages