Recent comments

  • As a law school graduate of Class 2005, I can so relate! Your wife is lucky to have you. Many single law school graduates with no other financial support end up couch surfing.

    Lawyers are a dime a dozen. I've become less marketable since becoming an attorney as I am overqualified and overeducated for employers to consider me for the types of work I used to do.

    My income is nowhere near where it was before I entered law school a decade ago. I'm in default on private loans, my federal loan balance just grows each month under IBR, each year I add more past due federal income taxes, my credit is ruined, after 3 years my ex had enough and left, I have no friends, and I no longer talk to anyone in my family (they don't understand and made me feel worse). And I work my a* off since in complete desperation after not being able to find a job for almost two years, I rented an office space and started practicing. I felt I had no choice but go out on my own and I hear this same story over and over again from other new lawyers. It's brutal out there!

    Reply to: Student Loan Debt Time Bomb   12 years 2 months ago
    EPer:
  • I hope you share this on Facebook, reddit, slashdot, linkedin, etc. America needs to watch these report segments and we should see millions of hits on youtube. They watch some puppy video and not this? Come on.

    This is a hot topic, yet both Romney and Obama are completely gun-ho to increase foreign guest workers in this country as well as offshore outsource even more jobs. You need to raise this up to the level of a major campaign issue, as in, if you don't do something to stop this, you ain't gonna be President of the United States.

    Reply to: Friday Movie Night - U.S. Workers Fired, Replaced with Foreign Guest Workers   12 years 2 months ago
    EPer:
  • I don't see the point of linked in frankly. It's way harder to use than a regular mailing list for discussions, or simply put up a forum site, but that's just me, I never saw the real point to Facebook either. We all have linked in profiles because everybody else has a linked in profile, but consider who is searching the site and what it is for, I'm not surprised to see major denial on H-1B, worker displacement and all of this. People are in fear for their lives trying to get a job.

    Reply to: Friday Movie Night - U.S. Workers Fired, Replaced with Foreign Guest Workers   12 years 2 months ago
    EPer:
  • I'm most disappointed in the attitudes you will find in many mainstream sites, Linkedin, etc. where the people won't say, "The system is being designed and implemented so that the guy without the political power and bankroll is purposely being ignored, fired, and destroyed" by both parties and companies. Instead, if you say that, despite all the years you put in education and working, possible military service, many people will say, "Shhh, companies don't have to give you a good job, you should shut up and beg harder for a treat and not make waves. Even if it's an internship for nothing at 40 or 50, treat it as a prize!"
    I understand some people feel that way, but really, shouldn't that be a small minority of people at this point, or as times get tougher through others' actions and policies, we see many people's true nature in that if they stay small and quiet and don't make any noise, they may catch a falling crumb? Maybe they hope to be the last one to draw the ire of one of the "best and brightest," "masters of the universe," "our political betters," and "job creators." Go to Linkedin for a taste of this. It's sad when unemployed people are constantly told to stop whining, don't criticize companies or govt. policies because they won't get hired ever, and toe the US of Fortune 500 line by other unemployed, so-called "career and resume experts," and corporate shills.

    I'm sorry, but if someone did everything they were supposed to do, busted their ass, and has a family to feed or is single and can move anywhere and everywhere but is still deemed unemployable because he/she's a threat to mediocre management, too old, too young, not a candidate for cheap labor here or abroad, etc., at what point do these people think someone can protest for his right to and earn a living wage and thrive in his own country (or at least survive)? And if these people wind up homeless, the clods would call them lazy. But trying to do everything possible to work hard and fight for America so that one never has to rely on others while also helping fellow citizens is wrong? Interesting . . .

    Anyone who says we should accept our planned demise - well, go tell that to a vet, or a STEM worker, or someone who sees his kids starving every day or sees corporate dolts eliminating qualified people because no one should be "too smart." The sad/funny thing is many of these same people who say these things nowadays regarding company, visas, outsourcing and other destructive policies should be accepted and we should all shut up are the same ones who say they would stand up and take on oppressive regimes in the past and stand up for their neighbors and protect the innocent (e.g., Nazi Germany, Stalin's Soviet Union, etc.). Sure they would, they are afraid to challenge HR or govt. policies anonymously in America today, but they'd stand up to authoritarian regimes with guns? Yeah, okay.

    Reply to: Friday Movie Night - U.S. Workers Fired, Replaced with Foreign Guest Workers   12 years 2 months ago
    EPer:
  • Maybe we should just focus on the Labor Participation Rate. On that basis, we are at- 63.7 as a percentile, The Participation number also could shows how immigration and population growth effect the employment. Germany has a Participation Rate of 78% , Switzerland has a 83%.

    German and Swiss numbers tell bring up a number of issues about their societies vs the American Unexceptionalism. Best of all, the Percent Employed/Population number is much harder to fudge.

    Reply to: Jobs Report Show 163,000 Jobs, Unemployment Rate of 8.3%   12 years 2 months ago
    EPer:
  • BLS private sector jobs were 172,000. ADP is only private sector, doesn't report on government jobs.

    Reply to: ADP Employment Report - 163,000 Private Sector Jobs for July 2012   12 years 2 months ago
    EPer:
  • ADP July jobs number of 163,00 and then today Aug 3, 2012 the Labor dept comes in with the exact same jobs number of 163,000.

    How many times in the past has the ADP jobs number and the Labor Dept. number been exactly the same?

    Looks a little strange to me in this election year. Maybe the Labor Dept liked the ADP number better than theirs.

    Reply to: ADP Employment Report - 163,000 Private Sector Jobs for July 2012   12 years 2 months ago
    EPer:
  • I covered this above but the reason the unemployment rate increased is these are two different surveys, the CPS one gives the unemployment rate and it shows a drop in employment of 195k.

    Seasonal adjustments are dictated by a host of methods, including a software program. I've been looking at these adjustments but I still am not positive on the validity.

    Bottom line we have "job growth" in the margin of error so often of these surveys, we're counting crumbs. Also, the month to month numbers, we cover them, but really it's better to go quarterly, statistically speaking.

    Reply to: Jobs Report Show 163,000 Jobs, Unemployment Rate of 8.3%   12 years 2 months ago
    EPer:
  • I also had to deal with something else, but frankly ZH has "gotten it wrong" so many times but I'm looking into the SA from the data. I do think it's highly probable we're going to see a downward revision to these figures for next month.

    The "birth/death" model they freak out on every month, so I'll cover that as well.

    Reply to: Jobs Report Show 163,000 Jobs, Unemployment Rate of 8.3%   12 years 2 months ago
    EPer:
  • Sites are claiming that seasonal adjustments and birth and death numbers in latest stats are massive, upwards of 400,000. I haven't looked to verify, but even if a fraction of that number, statistical "games" to boost numbers would seem to be out of control, with the only expectation they will get worse closer to election. According to the MSM message, unemployment rate going down = good sign because more jobs. Unemployment rate going up today from 8.2 to 8.3% (8.3%, let's at least double that for anything close to reality) = good news because more people entering work force. Apparently, any unemployment rate they come up with is good news. 30% would be great because more people would feel good about looking for work once again!

    Well, at least the stock market HFT machines could read positive news in the headlines. That caused Farcebook to jump 10% and have everyone happy to forget it's close to 50% off its IPO highs. So, the stock market, barometer of nothing but easy Fed money and manipulation, is pleased, and that's all that counts to TV control rooms.

    Reply to: Jobs Report Show 163,000 Jobs, Unemployment Rate of 8.3%   12 years 2 months ago
    EPer:
  • Sorry folks, I'm looking at a host of data and I don't want to write something inaccurate. Gonna take awhile.

    Reply to: Jobs Report Show 163,000 Jobs, Unemployment Rate of 8.3%   12 years 2 months ago
    EPer:
  • Everything was unchanged, so increased hours isn't going to help us here in terms of employment. wages, TBD, I might do something separate and fuse the BEA personal income revisions with the BLS wage data together, since the 3 yrs of revisions showed we're all poorer than originally thought.

    Reply to: Jobs Report Show 163,000 Jobs, Unemployment Rate of 8.3%   12 years 2 months ago
    EPer:
  • There is something seriously fuked up when the CPS drops by that amount yet the CES increases. I was just looking over wages, hrs, earnings for hrs. increase is "akin" to about 300k jobs. Be writing up what I can figure out shortly. Surveys have different methodologies, time windows.

    Reply to: Jobs Report Show 163,000 Jobs, Unemployment Rate of 8.3%   12 years 2 months ago
    EPer:
  • Is there a specific source available for the median wages people earned in these 2012 jobs vs. the median wages in those previously held pre-Great Recession? This would shut down the whole "Hey, 160,000 new jobs! Awesome! Now only 25 million more to go!" talk if the part-time, no benefits jobs were specifically shown to keep people in poverty vs. the old jobs we lost that could at least feed and house one or two people.

    Reply to: Jobs Report Show 163,000 Jobs, Unemployment Rate of 8.3%   12 years 2 months ago
    EPer:
  • Folks, we had technical difficulties this morning. That said, we'll have much more to come on labor statistics.

    Reply to: Jobs Report Show 163,000 Jobs, Unemployment Rate of 8.3%   12 years 2 months ago
    EPer:
  • You comment at least once a day and I read every comment. It's great you are here but I request you register and login. The reason is when people register, you bypass all of the security, plus comments then become "mini blogs". You have an account, can track your comments, who has responded and most of all, use full HTML. That means you can post videos, images, links, quotes, whatever you want.

    Additionally because comments are "real time", do not go into a moderation queue you can have a real live discussion with others if desired.

    You are really adding to this site, so I'm hoping you get an account so you can add more insights.

    Comments on here actually have their own RSS feed and they also go out on a separate twitter feed. I keep hoping more people use it because I do my best to give a loud microphone to people, while trying to keep the writing generally up to Professional standards.

    Business Insider ALWAYS puts T&A on their site, usually a few mega rich houses and other useless stuff that has nothing to do with most of America and the peril we are in.

    Just wish I had the time to work on infrastructure more, needless to say BA has a team of paid web developers.

    I own this site so if you're worried about tracking or something, don't. Beyond the infamous Google knows all anyway, I don't sell anything to anyone or any of that evil crud.

    Reply to: Job Study Tells a Terrible Tale for U.S. Workers   12 years 2 months ago
    EPer:
  • Welcome to the new, ever-more disappointing America that makes a mockery of everything we hold (and used to hold) dear. Business Insider, the online site run by Pets.com guru Blodgett (a securities ban doesn't stop anyone from selling more snakeoil), is covering a fully employed financial analyst who is trying to win $500 by eating 500 Starbusts in 12 hours! This man has a job and is paid well while people with grad degrees are homeless and "overqualified"? And 25+ million of us close to homelessness don't have jobs despite our work ethic, education, and desire to feed ourselves, our families, and rebuild our Nation without the need for attention? I'd ask if this is a joke, but looking around, I know it's not - it's par for the course.

    Starbursts? Wow, that is much more important than the impending implosion of the West! Fantastic! Will he do it? Won't he? Who gives a flying Starburst?! Business Insider was also running a "story" on five reasons job candidates don't hear back from companies after applying. Needless to say, the "article" didn't mention: the book by the Penn professor showing the "skills gap" was a lie; companies are looking to reject Americans for H-1B visa abuses; outsourcing; the fact that HR wants to look busy to save their own jobs; companies don't hire personnel that might threaten mediocre managers; HR software has gone horribly awry; age discrimination by HR and CEOs against anyone over 30; etc. It's all unemployed Americans fault, don't ya know?

    I hope America never has to fight another war like WWII. Didn't those people building munitions, tanks, airplanes, and everything else necessary without any education or training before WWII know they were incapable of doing those things according to HR and CEOs nowadays? If you weren't working on a farm pre-WWII, how could you do it when farmers shipped off and had to be replaced? Impossible say moronic CEOs. How could people fly planes and shoot Nazis if they weren't flying planes and shooting Nazis before WWII for 3-5 years? Impossible! If someone knew how to fly a plane but was over 30, what could he really bring to the battle against the Axis ask CEOs and DC today. If you weren't in the airborne for 5-7 years and knew French, how could you possibly learn those skills when a war had to be fought? How could you possibly work with the resistance if you didn't have five years of working and leading teams of resistance fighters in France and Greece?! Training could bring anyone up to speed quickly within a few weeks or months if they had an IQ over 100? What's that? Impossible. And that's why CEOs and HR and their puppets should be ignored - they are clueless, and if not clueless, should not be allowed to use sharp objects.

    Reply to: Job Study Tells a Terrible Tale for U.S. Workers   12 years 2 months ago
    EPer:
  • Great read in the Village Voice on the for-profit college scammers. Not surprisingly three quarters of these schools are owned by Wall St. banks and private equity firms, no wonder our lawmakers have no interest in stopping this.

    http://www.villagevoice.com/2012-08-01/news/for-profit-colleges-con/

    Reply to: Student Loan Debt Time Bomb   12 years 2 months ago
    EPer:
  • All of those lovely derivatives, CDSes on sovereign debt are like dominoes. They did in part take a haircut but volumes to go.

    Reply to: The Never Ending European Implosion Update   12 years 2 months ago
    EPer:
  • Can someone please explain why we should care about Greece?

    Greece's economy is smaller than the state of Massachussets.

    Was I the only one back in the day that thought the Eurozone was a bad idea?

    Reply to: The Never Ending European Implosion Update   12 years 2 months ago
    EPer:

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