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US oil supplies at a 36½ year low, SPR at a 39 year low; oil+products supplies at an 18½ year low
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New York Post Claims Census Falsifies Unemployment Figures
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House discusses 401k/IRA confiscation
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The war on the middle class
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Wow! 243,000 New Jobs Created in January
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How Many Jobs Are Needed to Keep Up with Population Growth?
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US oil supplies at a 36½ year low, SPR at a 39 year low; oil+products supplies at an 18½ year low
- 183800 reads
New York Post Claims Census Falsifies Unemployment Figures
- 949781 reads
House discusses 401k/IRA confiscation
- 314198 reads
The war on the middle class
- 315107 reads
Wow! 243,000 New Jobs Created in January
- 50037 reads
How Many Jobs Are Needed to Keep Up with Population Growth?
- 361804 reads
The Golden Rule
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Will the NY Attorney General Bring Doomsday Charges Against Wall Street? If So, How Long Will He Survive?
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New York Post Claims Census Falsifies Unemployment Figures
- 949043 reads
How Many Jobs Are Needed to Keep Up with Population Growth?
- 361595 reads
VAT or Value Added Tax is Getting a Look in D.C.
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U3 and U6 Unemployment during the Great Depression
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The war on the middle class
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House discusses 401k/IRA confiscation
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Tax Cuts for the Rich Do Not Generate Jobs
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It must be really embarrassing for the EU representatives to criticize Greece for the financial downturn especially when the same representatives were not able to point out these impediments earlier even though they clearly had the information about the country's rising debt.
Hi,
When I completed a first degree, which was a study Political Economy in the mid 80's, I dismissed Monetarism and the whole Chicago School. I dubbed this 'empire economics' a body of knowledge designed to justify and underpin the theft of public assets and the 'commons' via a number of vehicles - privatisation is one. To also facilitate the destructive redistribution of wealth in economies - Chile after the overthrow of a democratically elected government.
History is replete with examples of such 'theft' of public assets sold to a narrow group of wealthy private interests to pocket the rent from the use of assets that the public has already invested in. Greece is just another example of empire economics in action and an ongoing war between the sovereign State and the globalisers (banks, transnationals, global NGO's, etc.)
and extrapolate out the real number of those retiring, it's not linear, due to baby boomers. That said, I might pull in some of the "illegal immigrant" data. It's really large enough to skew things, plus I suspect use of contract to wage arbitrage, instead of jobs and an underground (cash under the table) non-reporting underground economy...that's in addition to the jobs offshore outsourced plus displacement through foreign guest worker.
But because there is a pattern, doesn't explain anything away in terms of a jobs crisis here and the labor participation rate nose dives in 2008, it's not linear.
I get a "feeling" that a host of people, generally are "burnt out" on a jobs crisis, but wanting to make a problem go away because nothing is being done about it, does not make it so.
Anyway, need some hard data activity over here to counter.
We've had two Admirals who have stopped a war on Iran - Fallon and Mullen. Fallon actually said, 'there will be no attack on Iran while I'm in charge' or something very close. There have been other hard core establishment types who have done the same. it's an insane notion to begin with and, now that we see the power of people ready to take their rights back, it's even crazier. We are truly cursed with the very word ruling elite in the history of the world, pure incompetents.
Nice points on this. What about the 135 million jobs in 2001 compared to the 135 million in 2010? You don't have a decade long declining pattern unless there's something there to explain it. Did deaths exceed births? No. Did people retire early because their pension plans were dong so good? No. Were jobs shipped overseas shamelessly by US corporations? Yes. Was competition suppressed in the US by law and regulation that make starting a new business exceptionally expensive? Yes again.
If anyone thinks it's just a declining pattern, talk to the twenty somethings, ask them what it's like to have skills and an education right now. Ask experienced professionals with exceptional skills if there's really a job shortage in their employment areas?
and sure beats absurd political statements with the U.S. exerting it's "will" in the region in the form of some very terrible and expensive war.
The Iranian opposition plans demonstrations on Monday, February 14. Opposition leaders Mehdi Karroubi and Mir-Hossein Mousavi told the government it should allow the demonstrations. There was no response. The government arrested Mehdi Karroubi and cut off his communications.
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Iran- Government Tightens Grip to Prevent Planned Demonstration on Monday
(11 February 2011) "The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran called for the immediate release of dozens of journalists and dissidents who have been arbitrarily detained in an apparent effort to intimidate Iranians from participating in a 14 February rally in solidarity with the Egyptian pro-democracy movement."
Iran Steps Up Pressure On Opposition
(11 February 2011) "Iranian authorities have stepped up pressure on the opposition with more arrests as the February 14 march proposed by opposition leaders draws closer."
More on demonstrations after the break
Election fraud in the 2009 Iranian presidential election sparkedk a series of protests that pitted anti regime demonstrators against police and paramilitary militias. Many were arrested and tortured. Some were convicted in show trials. Despite the violence against people in 2009, there has been continuous protest against rule of Ayatollah Khamenei and Ahmadinejad.
Last week I had a exchange of articles with Soraya Ulrich over at Daily Censored. I wrote this. Soraya, who voted for Ahmadinejad, responded here and then I offered a rejoinder. It was a very civil exchange. I later found out that Soraya did an exclusive interview Ahmadinejad and about Iranian politics. Her response to my initial article gives some insight as to the thinking of the regime.
The Iranian opposition will hit the streets soon. It's only a few hours until we see the staying power of the thugs to stole the 2009 election then beat, imprisoned, and tortured demonstrators for expressing their rights afterward.
Here's what happened last time the Iranian people invoked their right to freely assemble and state their grievances:
“Give Me Liberty…” Iranian People Demand Democracy June 23, 2009
Aljazeera:
Didn't even get to Algeria events.
The military has suspended the Egyptian constitution and Parliament has been dissolved. Banks are closed Monday to boot.
Bloomberg.
This is by the Egyptian military, and what it means, I do not know, but the headlines sure sound "frying pan to fire".
On their website I didn't drill down that far, but your points are good ones.
And now they want take more, as if they are doing this for us?
When they gave amnesty to the 10M+ illegals, how much of a drain did that put on the SS system? How much money was given away to people that contributed zero $ to the system?
How much money was given away to social programs that were never meant to be financed by SS? The politicians, who by the way have their own retirement system, are handing out our, and our employer's hard earned money, so they can get the votes to keep them elected.
The fact that this is even floated as an idea alarms me. This is not what a Democracy does. This is what Dictartorships do.
When has the Government managed anything properly?
That's all a lie told by lazy media members. The retirement age in Greece used to be 65 for men, 60 for women, and they raised it to 65 for both. The average salary is less than $7k. To say that the problem in Greece is citizens getting fat on Social Security when SS averages less than $3k is flat out wrong.
The Greek gov't needs to get its budget down to sustainable levels, but anything which doesn't help future growth (like selling off state assets) should rightly be ignored. The pones on the hook for Greek debt are the German and French banks. Greece should not destroy its future growth prospects to make those banks whole.
One other aspect of the JOLTS that seems to be overlooked is the type of job available. The BLS doesn't keep track, nor does Indeed.com or the Conference Board, of the job quality, since all jobs are lumped into one category; jobs. Jobs aren't separated by full- or part-time, day labor, temporary, 1099 or seasonal. I'm sure if the job openings were full-time, then there wouldn't be so many part-time workers who want to work full-time. If roughly 20% of the JOLTS jobs are not full-time jobs, that results in even more competition for the remaining "real" full-time jobs. A rough estimate: 25,000,000 million looking for 2.5 million full-time jobs would be closer to 10 job seekers per job. Not a pretty jobs picture at all.
Be careful what you call "workers". Almost all professions you mention here are de facto civil servants who, on average, earn at least double the amount from the workers in the private sector. And when we then look at the workers in the quangos you can quadruple the amount of their sallaries compared to the workers in the private sector.
And non of these, non-privat-sector-workers can and will loose their jobs. No, that only is the case with the workers in that private sector, because they are not guaranteed by law and constitution a job for live. Yes those transport workers, hospital workers, Doctors that go on strike time and again are civil servants too.
Nothing in Greece is what it seems. The workers that drive the metro earn about 100,000 euro. Train drivers up to 110,000. Stevedors in the harbour? Up to 150,000 annually. And all with guaranteed jobs for live and pensions starting at just over 50 years of age.
And be careful not to fall for the oldest trick in the book: the ruling party is preparing for snap-elections. They already announced that they would cut the salaries of the top civil servants by 30% to give that to the lowest paid civil servants (10-15% pay rise). And now this posturing on a total non-event. This press conference had nothing new. In fact, according to Reuters, “A finance ministry official, however, had said on Friday that Greece had agreed to the new target of 50 billion euros.”
Yes, elections are just around the corner.
Read the main directive, privatization. Forcing Greece to sell off public works, national assets, to large multinationals , selling off public assets to private entities, and while it's being proclaimed for "debt", it will be profits for multinationals, buyers of the state assets.
Never waste a crisis and selling off public assets owned by the government and therefore the nation, to multinationals, including FIRE, is a classic, Milton Friedman never waste a crisis and when the deal was struck, I don't believe there were terms of "sell off your nation-state to the highest bidder" in the fine print.
Retirement age is just one minor element to what is really under attack in Greece. This is also a pattern of the IMF, ask those in Thailand for more information.
The IMF representative said: "...some of the frequent demonstrations against the Greek government's reforms were being carried out by groups angry at losing their "unfair advantages and privileges."
to which you reply: "Just incredible and good for Greece."
What universe do you live in? Hairdressers, teachers, cab drivers and many other professions in Greece can begin retirement at between 55 an 57 years of age, while in financially more viable countries (obviously those that have to bail out the Greek population!) people have to work until 63 to 67 years of age. I wonder how your reaction would be if someone actually collected your money and gave it to someone else and told them to retrire early...
Why is this even possible! We should only give the politicians the ability to debate what percentage of revenue gets spent, up to 97% The idea of a budget deficit should not even be a possibility. Today there was talk by the GOP that 100 Billion was too much of a cut when we should be looking at cutting 1.5 trillion or whatever it takes to only spend as much or a little less than we bring in. How long can an American family spend twice as much than they earn before it is time to pay the piper!
I'm starting to really like this WSJ series. They pull out one number, out of hundreds of figures from economics and amplify it, this one is the number of new mortgages held by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The average adult consumes $700 per month in imported goods. If we could reduce that to $517 per person per month, we would have no trade deficit at all. With no trade deficit, we would likely have 3-4% unemployment. All we need to do is reduce our consumption of imported goods 25% to have jobs again in this country. That will secure our long-term economic future (a.k.a. our children’s future). Start buying American before we lose our country.
Take the Buy American Challenge today: http://www.BuyAmericanChallenge.com
Randy
WSJ and others are reporting that the 12/10 trade estimates used to calculate GDP were slightly higher, 0.3% than what December came in at, therefore Q4 GDP revision should be higher or the same.
We'll see. To date I have yet to get numbers to jive when trying to go from the Census data to the NIPA methods using the price indexes, so I'll just take their word on this one.
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