While criticizing the CEO of Gallup, Barry Ritholtz at Bloomberg states as fact: "More than a million people returned to the job market last month, raising the unemployment rate from 5.6 percent to 5.7 percent."
So, how does one come to that conclusion? The BLS reports that those "not in the labor force" declined from 92,898,000 in December to 92,544,000 in January — meaning, we had 354,000 more people participating in the labor force......while also reporting 257,000 jobs were created and "the number of unemployed persons, at 9.0 million, was little changed".
"The Koch brothers are homing in on reducing overcriminalization and mass incarceration, as well as reforming practices like civil forfeiture. Progressives, rather than giving the Kochs the stink eye, are welcoming their efforts."
* I suppose that, unless one were Satan, no one is totally evil. But if a Koch were president, would he put a banker in jail?
Independent Contractors are New Businesses! The ideal of Employment has lost all of its lusture. Really why drive in a car to sit at an office to work for people who generally do not know what you do when you can sit at your house and consult in the position you really want, pay less taxes and live the good life. Whatever it is these hard working folks need to get from their work we got robots for that. Another way to say this...
All envy, all the time. There will always be people wealthier than you or I. Let's punish them, shall we? Let us assume a superior moral state by commanding them to surrender that which they own. It makes us feel wonderful! If they own it and it's more than I own, they must have stolen it. That just stands to reason, does it not? See how easy that is? They are thieves, I am a societal altruist. Me: morally superior. Everybody should be equal. That's what a democracy is, isn't it? And the founding documents state that we are a democracy....where? (hint: they don't)
You use an example like Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney affects you not one iota. It's only your own envy you feel. For every Mitt Romney, there are 2000-5000 sort of middle class workers who have managed to accumulate perhaps a million or two dollars over their entire working lives. And they wish to pass it on to their offspring. I know, I know, it really should go to you, shouldn't it? It's only fair. How did those assets accumulate so unfairly in the hands of just one person. It's wrong, you know, to have any more than a person could reasonably use or consume and certainly YOU are the adjudicator of that, aren't you? You know better! You have cool quotations from billionaires who give speeches at nerdy conventions you all paid $250 to attend. Very nice. They have lots of tips for you and you get to absorb their guilt for having accumulated their wealth. And you pay for it. Very smart.
So anyway, that middle class guy who worked his whole life and ended up living in a nice house worth well into six figures (of course he has to be white to live in such a neighborhood) and paid property taxes so his (and your) kids could go to school even though his kids left the nest 30 years ago....and then there's that stock portfolio he accumulated over his working career....maybe into six figures as well WELL BEYOND the amount of steak and potatos he might be able to eat in WHO KNOWS how many years....HE STOLE IT!!! I just know it! How do I know it? Because he has it and I don't.
The depth of your reasoning is about that of a third grader. Did that ever occur to you?
Every dime that worker put into the stock market....and paid his mortgage with...he paid taxes on those sums before they hit his hand, didn't he? He probably paid 35% to 45% state and Fed taxes on that income all his life. Well, what's so interesting, uncanny really, is that the Feds, outside their exlsuion, want to take 55% of it. So if I add 55% to 45% I get 100% using new math. So basically, there is a condition wherein the gov't takes 35% or 45% of your money while you are alive and 55% after you die. Is there something that distinguishes this from slavery?
But screw him, his family, and his heirs. Because they should have to liquidate that property and those stocks right after he dies so they can pay the government their due! The government owns it all, don't they? 35-45% while you are alive, 55% after you die. Man, it's so great to live in a free country!
Reshoring – getting companies to understand all of the benefits of local production and adopt a more comprehensive total cost analysis could cut the trade deficit by 25% and bring back 1 million manufacturing jobs. Mainly this requires education of companies.
To get the other 75%, requires improved competitiveness: taxes, currency/tariffs, skilled workforce and basic education.
Since 2003, new offshoring is DOWN by 70%-80% and new reshoring is UP by 1500%.
The most important accomplishment has been the net-loss of 100,000+ manufacturing jobs each year has ended. The economic bleeding has stopped.
New reshoring is now balancing new offshoring at about 40,000 manufacturing jobs/year, resulting in the first neutral year of job loss/gain in the last 20.
According to the Reshoring Initiative reshoring and FDI yielded between 2010 and 2014:
- About 170,000 manufacturing jobs
- 25% of manufacturing job growth
- 400,000 total jobs including the manufacturing multiplier effect
The Reshoring Initiative Can Help.
The Reshoring Initiative believes that the key to skilled workforce development is motivating a higher quantity and quality of recruits and recommends a high impact-minimal cost skilled workforce development program which can be found here: http://reshorenow.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-reshoring-initiatives.html
The not-for-profit Reshoring Initiative’s free Total Cost of Ownership software helps corporations calculate the real P&L impact of reshoring or offshoring. In many cases, companies find that, although the production cost is lower offshore, the total cost is higher, making it a good economic decision to reshore manufacturing back to the U.S. http://www.reshorenow.org/TCO_Estimator.cfm
The never ending "tax break" is absurd when one needs money to get a break with. Most are not paying that much, if anything in income taxes and payroll (FICA) are not going to be reduced.
It looks like Gallup is going to put out their own private version of the CPS, which would be awesome. They have some additional comments on January's report here.
Drug testing is a policy of austerity. Ridiculous comment, but in context, just another spurious but useful mechanism created by folks who prefer to keep people out of work. Yes! There are those people.
Senator Rand Paul’s latest attack on Social Security disability (accusing them of gaming the system) was only the latest salvo in a decades-long attempt by the Republicans to defund, destroy or privatize our Social Security system. But Paul’s attack on Social Security and disabled Americans wasn’t only heartless and offensive, it was also untrue.
According to the report released by the Social Security Administration’s Inspector General, fraudulent Social Security Disability Insurance claims are exceedingly rare. Dean Baker wrote a great piece, and says fraud accounts for just 0.02% of all payments. He also notes:
"It is also important to note that there are undoubtedly people who should be getting disability who have been wrongfully denied benefit. We could have workers dying of cancer or unable to work due a heart attack or stroke or other disability who a judge somehow decided was not eligible. If we put more pressure on judges to turn down claims then there will be more people improperly denied benefits."
And as Social Security Works Executive Director Alex Lawson noted recently, “America has one of the strictest disability standards in the developed world.”
This wasn’t the first time Senator Paul has attacked Americans living with disabilities. In a 2010 interview, Senator Rand Paul said he supports abolishing the Americans with Disabilities Act – the landmark 1990 legislation that prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability – because it isn’t fair to business owners.
Income Inequality Is Ravaging America’s Middle Class:
"The cost of living for one person in the U.S. is $20,194. After taxes and living expenses, most Americans are just getting by. For those in more expensive cities like New York or Washington DC, people with low wages are barely surviving. Our minimum wage really should be about $22 per hour...The minimum wage from the 1960’s would be $22 in today’s productivity terms."
American workers can no longer afford to save money for a rainy day either. CEPR: "The current saving rate is far below the average for the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s."
The political landscape is littered with drug users. Bill Clinton became POTUS. Drug screening for something that's becoming medically legal in many States is a waste of time and money. I'd bet if we drug-tested Congress, a good many would fail (some already have). How many CEOs have cocaine in their desk drawers right now (poor unemployed people can't afford to buy it). Reefer Madness was propaganda, just like blaming our youth for taking a toke once in a while is the reason for 92 million not in the labor force. If they're all on drugs, then we DO have a very big problem. But where are they getting the money to buy all those drugs?
Big problem. Too many of the younger generation cannot pass basic employment requirements like criminal record or drug screen. Whose fault is that? That is not a lie, it is a reality. Whatta you gonna do with the part of our society that you have chuckled aside now that it is coming back to politically haunt you?
One day after he had penned a gutsy opinion piece on Gallup’s web site defiantly calling the government’s unemployment rate a big lie, Jim Clifton told CNBC that he was worried he might “suddenly disappear” and not make it home that evening if he disputed the accuracy of what the U.S. government is reporting as unemployed Americans.
The biggest economic joke,is supply side,voodoo,slight of hand economics. Make the rich richer and those greedy SOB;s will voluntarily share their windfalls with those who do the real work,whose labor made them wealthy in the first place.
It has not happened in the thirty years since Regan shoved it down our throats,and there is no reason to expect it to work now.
Bushenomics,Reganomics on steroids,is the single reason for the 2008 meltdown that very nearly brought the nation to its knees. Bush and the Ayn Rand Republicans,came within a whisker of doing what Bin Laden tried to do with airplanes. Bring down America. The man should have been tried for treason and economic espianoge
The proposed TPP trade agreement would NOT create 650,000 new jobs (as Obama claims one study shows). A Washington Post fact-checker says the correct number is zero (according to the same study!)
Billions of dollars in settlements, damages, penalties and fines for corporate wrong-doing are tax deductible. The tax loophole that permits this, CEOs call a "business expense". Critics say that taxpayers are in effect subsidizing corporate misconduct.
Not to mention (and while it's not specifically mentioned in this article), with "limited liability", the CEOs of these corporations can also avoid personal forfeitures and doing jail time for criminal offenses.
I really don't see how we can turn the economy into a workforce of self-employed. How can a modern economy survive on primarily barter and trade?
While criticizing the CEO of Gallup, Barry Ritholtz at Bloomberg states as fact: "More than a million people returned to the job market last month, raising the unemployment rate from 5.6 percent to 5.7 percent."
So, how does one come to that conclusion? The BLS reports that those "not in the labor force" declined from 92,898,000 in December to 92,544,000 in January — meaning, we had 354,000 more people participating in the labor force......while also reporting 257,000 jobs were created and "the number of unemployed persons, at 9.0 million, was little changed".
"The Koch brothers are homing in on reducing overcriminalization and mass incarceration, as well as reforming practices like civil forfeiture. Progressives, rather than giving the Kochs the stink eye, are welcoming their efforts."
* I suppose that, unless one were Satan, no one is totally evil. But if a Koch were president, would he put a banker in jail?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/09/koch-brothers_n_6646540.html
Independent Contractors are New Businesses! The ideal of Employment has lost all of its lusture. Really why drive in a car to sit at an office to work for people who generally do not know what you do when you can sit at your house and consult in the position you really want, pay less taxes and live the good life. Whatever it is these hard working folks need to get from their work we got robots for that. Another way to say this...
96% of Americans are acting like Robots!
All envy, all the time. There will always be people wealthier than you or I. Let's punish them, shall we? Let us assume a superior moral state by commanding them to surrender that which they own. It makes us feel wonderful! If they own it and it's more than I own, they must have stolen it. That just stands to reason, does it not? See how easy that is? They are thieves, I am a societal altruist. Me: morally superior. Everybody should be equal. That's what a democracy is, isn't it? And the founding documents state that we are a democracy....where? (hint: they don't)
You use an example like Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney affects you not one iota. It's only your own envy you feel. For every Mitt Romney, there are 2000-5000 sort of middle class workers who have managed to accumulate perhaps a million or two dollars over their entire working lives. And they wish to pass it on to their offspring. I know, I know, it really should go to you, shouldn't it? It's only fair. How did those assets accumulate so unfairly in the hands of just one person. It's wrong, you know, to have any more than a person could reasonably use or consume and certainly YOU are the adjudicator of that, aren't you? You know better! You have cool quotations from billionaires who give speeches at nerdy conventions you all paid $250 to attend. Very nice. They have lots of tips for you and you get to absorb their guilt for having accumulated their wealth. And you pay for it. Very smart.
So anyway, that middle class guy who worked his whole life and ended up living in a nice house worth well into six figures (of course he has to be white to live in such a neighborhood) and paid property taxes so his (and your) kids could go to school even though his kids left the nest 30 years ago....and then there's that stock portfolio he accumulated over his working career....maybe into six figures as well WELL BEYOND the amount of steak and potatos he might be able to eat in WHO KNOWS how many years....HE STOLE IT!!! I just know it! How do I know it? Because he has it and I don't.
The depth of your reasoning is about that of a third grader. Did that ever occur to you?
Every dime that worker put into the stock market....and paid his mortgage with...he paid taxes on those sums before they hit his hand, didn't he? He probably paid 35% to 45% state and Fed taxes on that income all his life. Well, what's so interesting, uncanny really, is that the Feds, outside their exlsuion, want to take 55% of it. So if I add 55% to 45% I get 100% using new math. So basically, there is a condition wherein the gov't takes 35% or 45% of your money while you are alive and 55% after you die. Is there something that distinguishes this from slavery?
But screw him, his family, and his heirs. Because they should have to liquidate that property and those stocks right after he dies so they can pay the government their due! The government owns it all, don't they? 35-45% while you are alive, 55% after you die. Man, it's so great to live in a free country!
Exactly right Robert! What good will a tax break do you if you don't have a job. It's freighting what is held up for solutions.
Reshoring – getting companies to understand all of the benefits of local production and adopt a more comprehensive total cost analysis could cut the trade deficit by 25% and bring back 1 million manufacturing jobs. Mainly this requires education of companies.
To get the other 75%, requires improved competitiveness: taxes, currency/tariffs, skilled workforce and basic education.
Since 2003, new offshoring is DOWN by 70%-80% and new reshoring is UP by 1500%.
The most important accomplishment has been the net-loss of 100,000+ manufacturing jobs each year has ended. The economic bleeding has stopped.
New reshoring is now balancing new offshoring at about 40,000 manufacturing jobs/year, resulting in the first neutral year of job loss/gain in the last 20.
According to the Reshoring Initiative reshoring and FDI yielded between 2010 and 2014:
- About 170,000 manufacturing jobs
- 25% of manufacturing job growth
- 400,000 total jobs including the manufacturing multiplier effect
The Reshoring Initiative Can Help.
The Reshoring Initiative believes that the key to skilled workforce development is motivating a higher quantity and quality of recruits and recommends a high impact-minimal cost skilled workforce development program which can be found here: http://reshorenow.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-reshoring-initiatives.html
The not-for-profit Reshoring Initiative’s free Total Cost of Ownership software helps corporations calculate the real P&L impact of reshoring or offshoring. In many cases, companies find that, although the production cost is lower offshore, the total cost is higher, making it a good economic decision to reshore manufacturing back to the U.S. http://www.reshorenow.org/TCO_Estimator.cfm
The never ending "tax break" is absurd when one needs money to get a break with. Most are not paying that much, if anything in income taxes and payroll (FICA) are not going to be reduced.
It looks like Gallup is going to put out their own private version of the CPS, which would be awesome. They have some additional comments on January's report here.
Drug testing is a policy of austerity. Ridiculous comment, but in context, just another spurious but useful mechanism created by folks who prefer to keep people out of work. Yes! There are those people.
An average of about $41K, fine that sounds good, what is the median?
Senator Rand Paul’s latest attack on Social Security disability (accusing them of gaming the system) was only the latest salvo in a decades-long attempt by the Republicans to defund, destroy or privatize our Social Security system. But Paul’s attack on Social Security and disabled Americans wasn’t only heartless and offensive, it was also untrue.
According to the report released by the Social Security Administration’s Inspector General, fraudulent Social Security Disability Insurance claims are exceedingly rare. Dean Baker wrote a great piece, and says fraud accounts for just 0.02% of all payments. He also notes:
And as Social Security Works Executive Director Alex Lawson noted recently, “America has one of the strictest disability standards in the developed world.”
This wasn’t the first time Senator Paul has attacked Americans living with disabilities. In a 2010 interview, Senator Rand Paul said he supports abolishing the Americans with Disabilities Act – the landmark 1990 legislation that prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability – because it isn’t fair to business owners.
Income Inequality Is Ravaging America’s Middle Class:
"The cost of living for one person in the U.S. is $20,194. After taxes and living expenses, most Americans are just getting by. For those in more expensive cities like New York or Washington DC, people with low wages are barely surviving. Our minimum wage really should be about $22 per hour...The minimum wage from the 1960’s would be $22 in today’s productivity terms."
http://economyincrisis.org/content/income-inequality-is-ravaging-america...
American workers can no longer afford to save money for a rainy day either. CEPR: "The current saving rate is far below the average for the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s."
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/actually-the-personal...
The political landscape is littered with drug users. Bill Clinton became POTUS. Drug screening for something that's becoming medically legal in many States is a waste of time and money. I'd bet if we drug-tested Congress, a good many would fail (some already have). How many CEOs have cocaine in their desk drawers right now (poor unemployed people can't afford to buy it). Reefer Madness was propaganda, just like blaming our youth for taking a toke once in a while is the reason for 92 million not in the labor force. If they're all on drugs, then we DO have a very big problem. But where are they getting the money to buy all those drugs?
Big problem. Too many of the younger generation cannot pass basic employment requirements like criminal record or drug screen. Whose fault is that? That is not a lie, it is a reality. Whatta you gonna do with the part of our society that you have chuckled aside now that it is coming back to politically haunt you?
One day after he had penned a gutsy opinion piece on Gallup’s web site defiantly calling the government’s unemployment rate a big lie, Jim Clifton told CNBC that he was worried he might “suddenly disappear” and not make it home that evening if he disputed the accuracy of what the U.S. government is reporting as unemployed Americans.
http://wallstreetonparade.com/2015/02/gallup-ceo-fears-he-might-suddenly...
(* Editor's Note: I hope I don't disappear! Hey don't blame me! I'm just a messenger!)
The biggest economic joke,is supply side,voodoo,slight of hand economics. Make the rich richer and those greedy SOB;s will voluntarily share their windfalls with those who do the real work,whose labor made them wealthy in the first place.
It has not happened in the thirty years since Regan shoved it down our throats,and there is no reason to expect it to work now.
Bushenomics,Reganomics on steroids,is the single reason for the 2008 meltdown that very nearly brought the nation to its knees. Bush and the Ayn Rand Republicans,came within a whisker of doing what Bin Laden tried to do with airplanes. Bring down America. The man should have been tried for treason and economic espianoge
The proposed TPP trade agreement would NOT create 650,000 new jobs (as Obama claims one study shows). A Washington Post fact-checker says the correct number is zero (according to the same study!)
http://citizen.typepad.com/eyesontrade/2015/02/if-pinocchio-were-trying-...
An addendum to this post:
http://bud-meyers.blogspot.com/2015/02/do-regular-wages-face-double-taxa...
Billions of dollars in settlements, damages, penalties and fines for corporate wrong-doing are tax deductible. The tax loophole that permits this, CEOs call a "business expense". Critics say that taxpayers are in effect subsidizing corporate misconduct.
Not to mention (and while it's not specifically mentioned in this article), with "limited liability", the CEOs of these corporations can also avoid personal forfeitures and doing jail time for criminal offenses.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/04/business/when-a-company-is-fined-taxpa...
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