What exactly does anyone really expect Mr. Obama to say or do? Is he not a member of The Washington Brotherhood? Is he not just another professional politician, playing the same game mastered by many before him? After his first two years in the oval office, is it really that difficult to figure him out, and understand his real intent? Can we really expect anything other than the propaganda and "business as usual" rhetoric, flowing freely from the mouths of those we've entrusted with the well-being of this nation and her citizenry? Have we not been down this exact same road for the past half century of non-representative government? For all of those that live in a fairy tail world, and those that exist by habitual wishful thinking, there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, nor will the tooth fairy slip a million bucks under your pillow, sorry.
Addressing the topic :
Yes, it is a well know fact that unfair, unjust, and one-sided foreign trade agreements and policies have taken many jobs out of this country. It's also true that those agreements and policies are directly responsible for closing plants and factories, lost industries, and our present day import dependency. We must also remember that it didn't happen by accident or chance, but was engineered and executed by The Washington Brotherhood over many decades. And, we must also realize and understand how The Washington Brotherhood is given the power to destroy this nation's ability to prosper and enjoy economic independence. It doesn't take an MIT graduate, nor a Philadelphia lawyer, to figure out, that for the most part, The Washington Brotherhood is comprised of mere puppets, that dance to the tunes played by the rich, the powerful, the influential, and the corporate elite. The fact is that John Q. Public doesn't vote on the floors of Congress, nor have a voice in the oval office.
There are many building blocks that make up the present devastating economic climate, that has us sinking in the abyss of debt, poverty, unemployment, and economic dependency. Among them, as the root article so very well noted, is job out-sourcing, which is basically condoned and encouraged by Washington, and for the most part, goes unpenalized. This anti-America practice is founded and based solely on greed. With close to 27 million American workers ( including recent high school and college grads ) either unemployed, under-employed, or have given up looking for work, the out-sourcing of jobs remain an every day practice among business America. Yet, we hear Mr. Obama ask the business community to stop the anti-America practice, and hire American workers instead. But, has he asked Congress to legislate change?
Its been said that money is the root of all evil, and corporate American has made a truism of those words. Greed has influenced our government, our economy, and our future. The power no longer rest with the people, but has been transfered to the those only concerned about their wealth, power, and their influence that controls the anti-America puppets of The Washington Brotherhood.
Navistar will close Melrose Park Illinois Engine Plant within 3 yrs.
Navistar got 225 Million in Recover Zone Facility Bonds - low interest, tax exempt
Navistar has a bond rating of BB-
Navistar has laid off over 200 employees in the past 2 yrs.
Navistar muscled 20Million from a small town in Illinois
Navistar got 64 Million from the State of Illinois
Navistar is closing their Fort Wayne Indiana locations and eliminating 1400 employees
This is why corporations are moving to firing people under the guise of layoffs -- it's a lot harder to get sued when you "let somebody go" because "the business is contracting" than when you fire somebody for an actual stated cause. But when the layoffs happen on a Friday, and the new hire classes start coming through on the following Monday, it's hard to miss what is going on.
The BLS publishes much more in depth information on their CPS survey and the sampling error. I don't want to get into standard deviations and methods, plus starting out with a bias that is cumulative and all of that statistics rot, but there is one bunch of numbers which are pretty useful. This is from the BLS reliability of CPS estimates, p. 195.
The sampling error, error range by one std. deviation for monthly change amounts are:
CPS category
Monthly level
Change, Month-Month
Civilian labor force ....................
300,000,
246,000
Employed ..................................
323,000
265,000
Unemployed .............................
155,000
172,000
That means 68% of the intervals, if you add or subtract these monthly amounts, you'd hit the "true" population subset levels. If you take these numbers and multiply by 1.645, you'd get 90% of the time, up or down, the true levels.
This is why beyond updating as quickly as possible, the 2010 Census data base, to be used (noted in this post), I think they need to increase their sample size to try to reduce the std. deviation size.
These sampling levels are above, often, or are greater than the actual monthly change reported. In other words, the consecutive monthly change from September 2010 to October 2010 of the unemployed was 76,000, which is less than one std. deviation of 172,000, or inside the confidence interval.
Also, this analysis came from the BLS, which will exist for any sample, a std. deviation measurement. They wouldn't be publishing their std. deviations and accuracy, diffusion indexes, if they were just out to get cha and lie. Numbers people don't do that, this stuff is hard to get dead on and yet another reason I'd like to see a larger sampling with an alternative modern communications data gathering method added.
What has failed in America is good old-fashioned business ethics. The desire to build great businesses that serve human needs, to treat workers fairly and inspire loyalty, to work as a team disregarding social or financial status - were uniquely American traits. No more. All that matters is money, money, money - by hook or by crook, no matter who gets hurt. America will recover ONLY when it returns to its roots: creating global businesses that enrich America as well as the bankers.
Generally people's names are already in the comment, so you already know who authored it, therefore do not often need to respond by name, so reposting someone's name implies "confrontation" or "argument", as your mother would call you out by John Parker Louise, when one is in trouble for not doing their chores or whatever.
Generally comments should be in response to the article/blog topic, piece.
There are things called open threads, which on this site are all of the series, which are the "links" or examples are Saturday Reads, Superbowl reads, the Friday Movie Night, which are economic related or political related documentaries, then the Sunday Morning Comics, which are the weekly "editors choice" economic related funnies.
So, on open threads, anything goes in a comment.
This is not fuzzy math, but the economic definitions used by economists. that implies one needs to buy that Macro econ 101 (really Econ 201) book, such as Paul Samuelson's...you can pick a copy up for a buck or two of earlier editions, which works pretty good because the new editions are usually > $130. He wrote that book and it's kind of the intro economics "bible", in the 50's or something, so each edition just adds, but economic theory the basics, haven't changed since it's a science in this regard.
If you do not understand the definition, they you are not talking about productivity, you're talking about something else.
This isn't Apples & Oranges, to argue economics one must first understand the basic definitions being used.
Then, on math, I do my best to boil down mathematics to their basics where I believe high school math should cover it, but yeah, it does require people to be able to stretch their brain.
If you spend the time getting this stuff down, then after that, it's possible to understand what other economists are arguing about. I think productivity is one of the harder concepts to understand.
It's counter intuitive in many cases, esp. of late, but it's output per hours. That's the key, then you've kind of got to have ratios, relationships as a concept in your head. i.e.
output goes down & hours goes down even more => labor productivity goes up
output goes down & hours goes up => labor productivity goes down
output goes up & hours goes down => labor productivity goes up
ratios, one needs to kind of get what they mean in their heads. for example, everyone knows what a foot in length is in their brains as a concept, but ask most Americans what a meter is and how many feet are in a meter, they will not have that in their brains.
But you cannot redefine a economics metric, doesn't work that way, for example, you cannot just claim the laws of supply & demand do not exist because one doesn't get that intersection point. the law of supply & demand is another key concept.
But you need to start writing comments in respond to the corresponding post and getting your head wrapped around these economic definitions.
Please accept my sincere appology for using your name when responding to your comments. I did not know that was one of the rules here. As you know, I'm relatively new here, and I'm trying to learn your rules.
I will drop this thread since it seems that you and I are comparing apples and oranges. I'm not real sharp with fuzzy math and the government's dictionary which defines "productivity". It kinda reminds me of Bill Clinton's definition of what is and what isn't sex.
Again, read the definition and frankly I am getting more and more frustrated, when this site is all about economics, the refusal to pay attention to definitions and economic metrics.
I just pointed that labor productivity is a ratio, as defined in the equations, which, again, read the overview on Q4 Productivity & Costs. I literally put the entire equation, definition and point to further equations, definitions on the right page out of thousands from the BEA for readers to learn what this metric is and measures.
Do you not understand ratios? Is it fractions causing the issue here? How one can increase the numerator or decrease the denominator? That 6/12 = 1/2? That 3/4 > 2/3?
The statistics, right below, on Q4 Productivity show, a decrease in unit labor costs.
This is not a static relationship to # of workers, which is the point of this metric.
Now, if you do not understand fractions, or need help following how they use real GDP and why for output and other questions, please post under that thread linked above to be on topic in comments per the actual post.
I also do not appreciate my name in comments, as if somehow a mathematical equation would become variant with this never ending stuff. A mathematical relationship is time invariant, it's a ratio. So, in other words, trying to argue with a mathematical equation or definition is like jumping off of a building over and over expecting gravity to change because you do not believe in it.
Again, please post questions in the actual productivity thread and once you wrap your head around those basic definitions, then I will deal with any sorts of statistics, reports, theory, errors that I made in the overview or methods of the BEA and correspondingly Census.
So, which is it? Are you still saying that unemployment/employment does not correlate to productivity?
Are you still saying that whether 125 million workers are employed, or whether it's 75 million workers employed, the numbers do not correlate to productivity? In other words, the amount of output will be the same? And, if the amount of output is the same, what are the other 50 million workers doing? Are they standing around just watching the other 75 million produce? Please explain. I don't follow your reasoning here.
EXAMPLE :
A tool company makes hammers. During it's peak, the company produced 300 hammers a day with 20 employees. Since the recession, it was forced to cut-back to 6 employees. Now the company can only produce 90 hammers a day. Given this example, does unemployment/employment correlate to productivity?
When the recession hit, GM cut-back on the number of employees. Some were ask to take early retirement. After the cut-back, production decreased. Was this decrease in productivity from more or less employees on the payroll? Or, did GM produce the exact same number of vehicles with less employees?
A farmer can plant and care for 1000 acres with 12 employees. But, he can only farm 500 acres with his present payroll of 6 employees. Does unemployment correlate to the farmers productivity/production/output?
is what it is and it's not just the U.S. government it's all governments, that's the definition.
The government is the only data collection you've got, so assuming the methods are ok, which is what I look at, a lot of government data, I do think is credible.
That said, it's not 100%, which is why I pour over these things, but in the case of labor productivity, scroll down to the bottom and click on that paper, there are your Federal workers telling you, with their own data, something is wrong, that labor is not sharing in productivity increases and that's not what the case used to be...
which is why labor productivity shooting up, used to be good news for workers and now it's more bad news.
There's more to this, but first is to get those basic definitions down. If you notice I'm forever railing on offshore outsourcing, insourcing trade, so clearly I'm hunting for data which shows how much damage has been done to the U.S. economy, but also try to amplify what is not tabulated by the government, which isn't these various data agencies fault, it's Congress's fault, they are the ones, along with the executive branch, who can get more data points collected, such as requiring all corporations to report the # jobs offshore outsourced, the number of jobs and investments globally, per country, the number of guest workers...
But button line to talk about productivity, first is to get one's head wrapped around the basic definition, concept, which is output/hours, which does not mean more for workers.
I'm not asking you to restate definitions, show graphs and charts again, nor am I asking you for more government issued data. In my opinion, I asked legitimate questions in response to your statement that unemployment does not correlate to productivity. I'll accept common sense and simple logic answers. There's no need to produce, or repeat definitions.
Also, data issued by the government, is just that, government issued data. Do you accept the government's take on everything? Do you believe that our government is completely upfront and honest with the public?
The government tells us that we're headed upward, and should be out of this economic mire within the next couple of years. Do you accept their take on our economic nightmare?
I also use government issued data, but I'm wise enough to read between the lines. It's not difficult to separate the chaff from the wheat.
Would it be wrong to assume that 20 employees could produce more in one day than 3 employees? What, exactly, is wrong with the assumption that 125 million workers can produce more than 75 million workers?
I fully understand that you're a stickler for data, charts, and graphs. And, I can well appreciate that trait in you, it's to be admired. But, it's not so much the data, charts, and graphs, as it is the source of that data, charts and graphs. The point being, if government issued data says that our economy is growing, yet Main Street presents an entirely different picture, what do we believe? An example would be the government issued unemployment numbers that we've been talking about for awhile now. Even you disagree with government issued unemployment data.
The BLS themselves and many others are blaming the weather for the low payrolls numbers.
The BLS doesn't count payroll jobs for anyone who doesn't work for a 2 week period, with the 12th of the month included, that's unpaid, so vacation does not count.
As noted above, the change in payroll is such a small percentage, this maybe true, I'm not sure exactly the BLS time window or have overlaid it with snow storms. We'll see in February I guess.
I go through these definitions, calculations and put up graphs, then link to additional research for a reason. I do not want to have to restate the definition of labor productivity when I just wrote up a detailed overview.
Folks, ya all need to read the Instapopulists for a metric doesn't mean what you think it means. If you go through the definitions and the methods, that gives a clearly idea of what it means.
At the bottom of that post is some pretty solid research showing labor share has declined dramatically in the last decade and there definitions, methods I find particularly valid, for they deal with the fact price indexes are uses for output (to remove inflation) and CPI is used for real wages and how those two are different.
But please folks, consider reading the economic report overviews to get these definitions and concepts down. I always link to the original government website for further learning and FRED graph, I've given many links to them as well as an analysis/educational tool.
I'm seeing a lot of claims there has been an increase of 1.1 million jobs in the last year. From 01/10 through 01/11 it's 984,000, with the new adjustments.
Just curious here. You said, "Productivity is already answered and it's not directly correlated to unemployment." Questions: "IF" 125 million workers are employed, do they not produce more than 75 million workers would? "IF" we had 4% unemployment instead of 9% unemployment, wouldn't we be producing more? "IF" productivity doesn't correlate to employment, what did all of the employees do when the unemployment rate was down to just 5%? Are you saying that we can produce just as much with 9% unemployment as we can with 5% unemployment? Could we produce just as much as we are now "IF" the unemployment rate was 18%? What employment rate would allow us to produce max output of goods and services?
Concerning tax revenue:
When workers are employed, with spendable income in their pockets, they support retail, which means sales tax revenue. When workers are employed, it means payroll tax deductions. When workers are unemployed, they have less spendable income, and pay zero payroll taxes. So, common sense dictates that unemployment adversely affects tax revenue, both on the local and state levels, as well as on the federal tax revenue level. Less tax revenue means more debt, less services i.e. teachers, police officers, etc., and less tax funded projects.
In summary, unemployment means lost productivity, lost tax revenue, and more debt. In addition, as we're seeing now all across this nation, it means more bankruptcies, more dependency on government assistance programs, more citizens falling into the ranks of poverty and homelessness, and more negative pressure on retail to stay afloat.
Krugman wrote up an op-ed where he goes through a series of natural disasters affecting global food production, the Australia flood. One could break down these regions to compare output from previous years to now, but the above graph shows global food production is down.
Then, this is from Naked Capitalism, links, is this pretty good analysis, saying speculators are causing high food prices, which compares current prices to actual physical supply.
Now, the real thing to watch is inventories, the argument from Krugman is at some point someone must take possession of the physical quantity, so food has to be stashed somewhere.
In the oil speculative bubble of 2008, finding those inventories and the debate about whether this was really true, never was proved one way or the other to my satisfaction.
But we now have a roaring argument on food commodities going on. Let's stick to the data please on this one.
Productivity is already answered and it's not directly correlated to unemployment, answers here.
I've written up lost tax revenues in the past but those can be determined but on national debt it's inferred through lost tax revenues but I haven't calculated it out to the unemployment rate myself.
it captures the self-employed and unpaid family workers. I don't know where you get the sample size is just fine, I just calculated the percentage ratio and that's just too small for a nation which has become as diverse and this one is with 307 million.
What exactly does anyone really expect Mr. Obama to say or do? Is he not a member of The Washington Brotherhood? Is he not just another professional politician, playing the same game mastered by many before him? After his first two years in the oval office, is it really that difficult to figure him out, and understand his real intent? Can we really expect anything other than the propaganda and "business as usual" rhetoric, flowing freely from the mouths of those we've entrusted with the well-being of this nation and her citizenry? Have we not been down this exact same road for the past half century of non-representative government? For all of those that live in a fairy tail world, and those that exist by habitual wishful thinking, there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, nor will the tooth fairy slip a million bucks under your pillow, sorry.
Addressing the topic :
Yes, it is a well know fact that unfair, unjust, and one-sided foreign trade agreements and policies have taken many jobs out of this country. It's also true that those agreements and policies are directly responsible for closing plants and factories, lost industries, and our present day import dependency. We must also remember that it didn't happen by accident or chance, but was engineered and executed by The Washington Brotherhood over many decades. And, we must also realize and understand how The Washington Brotherhood is given the power to destroy this nation's ability to prosper and enjoy economic independence. It doesn't take an MIT graduate, nor a Philadelphia lawyer, to figure out, that for the most part, The Washington Brotherhood is comprised of mere puppets, that dance to the tunes played by the rich, the powerful, the influential, and the corporate elite. The fact is that John Q. Public doesn't vote on the floors of Congress, nor have a voice in the oval office.
There are many building blocks that make up the present devastating economic climate, that has us sinking in the abyss of debt, poverty, unemployment, and economic dependency. Among them, as the root article so very well noted, is job out-sourcing, which is basically condoned and encouraged by Washington, and for the most part, goes unpenalized. This anti-America practice is founded and based solely on greed. With close to 27 million American workers ( including recent high school and college grads ) either unemployed, under-employed, or have given up looking for work, the out-sourcing of jobs remain an every day practice among business America. Yet, we hear Mr. Obama ask the business community to stop the anti-America practice, and hire American workers instead. But, has he asked Congress to legislate change?
Its been said that money is the root of all evil, and corporate American has made a truism of those words. Greed has influenced our government, our economy, and our future. The power no longer rest with the people, but has been transfered to the those only concerned about their wealth, power, and their influence that controls the anti-America puppets of The Washington Brotherhood.
Navistar will close Melrose Park Illinois Engine Plant within 3 yrs.
Navistar got 225 Million in Recover Zone Facility Bonds - low interest, tax exempt
Navistar has a bond rating of BB-
Navistar has laid off over 200 employees in the past 2 yrs.
Navistar muscled 20Million from a small town in Illinois
Navistar got 64 Million from the State of Illinois
Navistar is closing their Fort Wayne Indiana locations and eliminating 1400 employees
This is why corporations are moving to firing people under the guise of layoffs -- it's a lot harder to get sued when you "let somebody go" because "the business is contracting" than when you fire somebody for an actual stated cause. But when the layoffs happen on a Friday, and the new hire classes start coming through on the following Monday, it's hard to miss what is going on.
The BLS publishes much more in depth information on their CPS survey and the sampling error. I don't want to get into standard deviations and methods, plus starting out with a bias that is cumulative and all of that statistics rot, but there is one bunch of numbers which are pretty useful. This is from the BLS reliability of CPS estimates, p. 195.
The sampling error, error range by one std. deviation for monthly change amounts are:
That means 68% of the intervals, if you add or subtract these monthly amounts, you'd hit the "true" population subset levels. If you take these numbers and multiply by 1.645, you'd get 90% of the time, up or down, the true levels.
This is why beyond updating as quickly as possible, the 2010 Census data base, to be used (noted in this post), I think they need to increase their sample size to try to reduce the std. deviation size.
These sampling levels are above, often, or are greater than the actual monthly change reported. In other words, the consecutive monthly change from September 2010 to October 2010 of the unemployed was 76,000, which is less than one std. deviation of 172,000, or inside the confidence interval.
Also, this analysis came from the BLS, which will exist for any sample, a std. deviation measurement. They wouldn't be publishing their std. deviations and accuracy, diffusion indexes, if they were just out to get cha and lie. Numbers people don't do that, this stuff is hard to get dead on and yet another reason I'd like to see a larger sampling with an alternative modern communications data gathering method added.
What has failed in America is good old-fashioned business ethics. The desire to build great businesses that serve human needs, to treat workers fairly and inspire loyalty, to work as a team disregarding social or financial status - were uniquely American traits. No more. All that matters is money, money, money - by hook or by crook, no matter who gets hurt. America will recover ONLY when it returns to its roots: creating global businesses that enrich America as well as the bankers.
Generally people's names are already in the comment, so you already know who authored it, therefore do not often need to respond by name, so reposting someone's name implies "confrontation" or "argument", as your mother would call you out by John Parker Louise, when one is in trouble for not doing their chores or whatever.
Generally comments should be in response to the article/blog topic, piece.
There are things called open threads, which on this site are all of the series, which are the "links" or examples are Saturday Reads, Superbowl reads, the Friday Movie Night, which are economic related or political related documentaries, then the Sunday Morning Comics, which are the weekly "editors choice" economic related funnies.
So, on open threads, anything goes in a comment.
This is not fuzzy math, but the economic definitions used by economists. that implies one needs to buy that Macro econ 101 (really Econ 201) book, such as Paul Samuelson's...you can pick a copy up for a buck or two of earlier editions, which works pretty good because the new editions are usually > $130. He wrote that book and it's kind of the intro economics "bible", in the 50's or something, so each edition just adds, but economic theory the basics, haven't changed since it's a science in this regard.
If you do not understand the definition, they you are not talking about productivity, you're talking about something else.
This isn't Apples & Oranges, to argue economics one must first understand the basic definitions being used.
Then, on math, I do my best to boil down mathematics to their basics where I believe high school math should cover it, but yeah, it does require people to be able to stretch their brain.
If you spend the time getting this stuff down, then after that, it's possible to understand what other economists are arguing about. I think productivity is one of the harder concepts to understand.
It's counter intuitive in many cases, esp. of late, but it's output per hours. That's the key, then you've kind of got to have ratios, relationships as a concept in your head. i.e.
output goes down & hours goes down even more => labor productivity goes up
output goes down & hours goes up => labor productivity goes down
output goes up & hours goes down => labor productivity goes up
ratios, one needs to kind of get what they mean in their heads. for example, everyone knows what a foot in length is in their brains as a concept, but ask most Americans what a meter is and how many feet are in a meter, they will not have that in their brains.
But you cannot redefine a economics metric, doesn't work that way, for example, you cannot just claim the laws of supply & demand do not exist because one doesn't get that intersection point. the law of supply & demand is another key concept.
But you need to start writing comments in respond to the corresponding post and getting your head wrapped around these economic definitions.
Please accept my sincere appology for using your name when responding to your comments. I did not know that was one of the rules here. As you know, I'm relatively new here, and I'm trying to learn your rules.
I will drop this thread since it seems that you and I are comparing apples and oranges. I'm not real sharp with fuzzy math and the government's dictionary which defines "productivity". It kinda reminds me of Bill Clinton's definition of what is and what isn't sex.
Again, I appologize.
Again, read the definition and frankly I am getting more and more frustrated, when this site is all about economics, the refusal to pay attention to definitions and economic metrics.
I just pointed that labor productivity is a ratio, as defined in the equations, which, again, read the overview on Q4 Productivity & Costs. I literally put the entire equation, definition and point to further equations, definitions on the right page out of thousands from the BEA for readers to learn what this metric is and measures.
Do you not understand ratios? Is it fractions causing the issue here? How one can increase the numerator or decrease the denominator? That 6/12 = 1/2? That 3/4 > 2/3?
The statistics, right below, on Q4 Productivity show, a decrease in unit labor costs.
This is not a static relationship to # of workers, which is the point of this metric.
Now, if you do not understand fractions, or need help following how they use real GDP and why for output and other questions, please post under that thread linked above to be on topic in comments per the actual post.
I also do not appreciate my name in comments, as if somehow a mathematical equation would become variant with this never ending stuff. A mathematical relationship is time invariant, it's a ratio. So, in other words, trying to argue with a mathematical equation or definition is like jumping off of a building over and over expecting gravity to change because you do not believe in it.
Again, please post questions in the actual productivity thread and once you wrap your head around those basic definitions, then I will deal with any sorts of statistics, reports, theory, errors that I made in the overview or methods of the BEA and correspondingly Census.
Robert,
So, which is it? Are you still saying that unemployment/employment does not correlate to productivity?
Are you still saying that whether 125 million workers are employed, or whether it's 75 million workers employed, the numbers do not correlate to productivity? In other words, the amount of output will be the same? And, if the amount of output is the same, what are the other 50 million workers doing? Are they standing around just watching the other 75 million produce? Please explain. I don't follow your reasoning here.
EXAMPLE :
A tool company makes hammers. During it's peak, the company produced 300 hammers a day with 20 employees. Since the recession, it was forced to cut-back to 6 employees. Now the company can only produce 90 hammers a day. Given this example, does unemployment/employment correlate to productivity?
When the recession hit, GM cut-back on the number of employees. Some were ask to take early retirement. After the cut-back, production decreased. Was this decrease in productivity from more or less employees on the payroll? Or, did GM produce the exact same number of vehicles with less employees?
A farmer can plant and care for 1000 acres with 12 employees. But, he can only farm 500 acres with his present payroll of 6 employees. Does unemployment correlate to the farmers productivity/production/output?
is what it is and it's not just the U.S. government it's all governments, that's the definition.
The government is the only data collection you've got, so assuming the methods are ok, which is what I look at, a lot of government data, I do think is credible.
That said, it's not 100%, which is why I pour over these things, but in the case of labor productivity, scroll down to the bottom and click on that paper, there are your Federal workers telling you, with their own data, something is wrong, that labor is not sharing in productivity increases and that's not what the case used to be...
which is why labor productivity shooting up, used to be good news for workers and now it's more bad news.
There's more to this, but first is to get those basic definitions down. If you notice I'm forever railing on offshore outsourcing, insourcing trade, so clearly I'm hunting for data which shows how much damage has been done to the U.S. economy, but also try to amplify what is not tabulated by the government, which isn't these various data agencies fault, it's Congress's fault, they are the ones, along with the executive branch, who can get more data points collected, such as requiring all corporations to report the # jobs offshore outsourced, the number of jobs and investments globally, per country, the number of guest workers...
But button line to talk about productivity, first is to get one's head wrapped around the basic definition, concept, which is output/hours, which does not mean more for workers.
Robert,
I'm not asking you to restate definitions, show graphs and charts again, nor am I asking you for more government issued data. In my opinion, I asked legitimate questions in response to your statement that unemployment does not correlate to productivity. I'll accept common sense and simple logic answers. There's no need to produce, or repeat definitions.
Also, data issued by the government, is just that, government issued data. Do you accept the government's take on everything? Do you believe that our government is completely upfront and honest with the public?
The government tells us that we're headed upward, and should be out of this economic mire within the next couple of years. Do you accept their take on our economic nightmare?
I also use government issued data, but I'm wise enough to read between the lines. It's not difficult to separate the chaff from the wheat.
Would it be wrong to assume that 20 employees could produce more in one day than 3 employees? What, exactly, is wrong with the assumption that 125 million workers can produce more than 75 million workers?
I fully understand that you're a stickler for data, charts, and graphs. And, I can well appreciate that trait in you, it's to be admired. But, it's not so much the data, charts, and graphs, as it is the source of that data, charts and graphs. The point being, if government issued data says that our economy is growing, yet Main Street presents an entirely different picture, what do we believe? An example would be the government issued unemployment numbers that we've been talking about for awhile now. Even you disagree with government issued unemployment data.
The BLS themselves and many others are blaming the weather for the low payrolls numbers.
The BLS doesn't count payroll jobs for anyone who doesn't work for a 2 week period, with the 12th of the month included, that's unpaid, so vacation does not count.
As noted above, the change in payroll is such a small percentage, this maybe true, I'm not sure exactly the BLS time window or have overlaid it with snow storms. We'll see in February I guess.
I go through these definitions, calculations and put up graphs, then link to additional research for a reason. I do not want to have to restate the definition of labor productivity when I just wrote up a detailed overview.
Q4 2010 productivity and costs.
Folks, ya all need to read the Instapopulists for a metric doesn't mean what you think it means. If you go through the definitions and the methods, that gives a clearly idea of what it means.
At the bottom of that post is some pretty solid research showing labor share has declined dramatically in the last decade and there definitions, methods I find particularly valid, for they deal with the fact price indexes are uses for output (to remove inflation) and CPI is used for real wages and how those two are different.
But please folks, consider reading the economic report overviews to get these definitions and concepts down. I always link to the original government website for further learning and FRED graph, I've given many links to them as well as an analysis/educational tool.
I'm seeing a lot of claims there has been an increase of 1.1 million jobs in the last year. From 01/10 through 01/11 it's 984,000, with the new adjustments.
Robert,
Just curious here. You said, "Productivity is already answered and it's not directly correlated to unemployment." Questions: "IF" 125 million workers are employed, do they not produce more than 75 million workers would? "IF" we had 4% unemployment instead of 9% unemployment, wouldn't we be producing more? "IF" productivity doesn't correlate to employment, what did all of the employees do when the unemployment rate was down to just 5%? Are you saying that we can produce just as much with 9% unemployment as we can with 5% unemployment? Could we produce just as much as we are now "IF" the unemployment rate was 18%? What employment rate would allow us to produce max output of goods and services?
Concerning tax revenue:
When workers are employed, with spendable income in their pockets, they support retail, which means sales tax revenue. When workers are employed, it means payroll tax deductions. When workers are unemployed, they have less spendable income, and pay zero payroll taxes. So, common sense dictates that unemployment adversely affects tax revenue, both on the local and state levels, as well as on the federal tax revenue level. Less tax revenue means more debt, less services i.e. teachers, police officers, etc., and less tax funded projects.
In summary, unemployment means lost productivity, lost tax revenue, and more debt. In addition, as we're seeing now all across this nation, it means more bankruptcies, more dependency on government assistance programs, more citizens falling into the ranks of poverty and homelessness, and more negative pressure on retail to stay afloat.
Krugman wrote up an op-ed where he goes through a series of natural disasters affecting global food production, the Australia flood. One could break down these regions to compare output from previous years to now, but the above graph shows global food production is down.
Then, this is from Naked Capitalism, links, is this pretty good analysis, saying speculators are causing high food prices, which compares current prices to actual physical supply.
Now, the real thing to watch is inventories, the argument from Krugman is at some point someone must take possession of the physical quantity, so food has to be stashed somewhere.
In the oil speculative bubble of 2008, finding those inventories and the debate about whether this was really true, never was proved one way or the other to my satisfaction.
But we now have a roaring argument on food commodities going on. Let's stick to the data please on this one.
This one should be included, NASDAQ hacked.
Productivity is already answered and it's not directly correlated to unemployment, answers here.
I've written up lost tax revenues in the past but those can be determined but on national debt it's inferred through lost tax revenues but I haven't calculated it out to the unemployment rate myself.
State of the Spinon.
it captures the self-employed and unpaid family workers. I don't know where you get the sample size is just fine, I just calculated the percentage ratio and that's just too small for a nation which has become as diverse and this one is with 307 million.
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