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This is unreal, first the basic defeat on audit the Fed, now the Wall Street Journal is reporting the Feds may start lending to foreign central banks to deal with the Greece debt crisis.
So, it's not just Germany being put on the hook. I'm putting this is a comment, maybe someone else wants to flesh out the story. Recall this was a huge issue caught by Rep. Grayson during the financial meltdown.
It's not 900k. That said, if one adds up the employed, 550k, the new entrants, 34k and the re-entrants, 195k, it comes to 779k. So where are the missing 26k? I believe those are people who finished temp. jobs and they get re-added to the U-3 stats.
The data is reported yearly and is not seasonally adjusted. That said, there is a good reason to upload the monthly reports and March unemployment is here and that's to compare. I started doing this because after a new report is issued, the old report disappears or at least I haven't been able to locate a report archive on many of these.
So, looking at March discouraged numbers there were 1 million discouraged. April is 1.2 million, so extrapolating that's an increase of 200,000, but not seasonally adjusted.
So, if discouraged had moved into the U-3 numbers thus to be counted in the official unemployment rate, one would have thought to see this number drop.
That said, if you look at the 3rd and 4th graphs, the civilian labor force and participation rate, plus you see I broke down some numbers there, that's how the unemployment rate increased. So, you have "re-entrants" but it's not everything. I haven't cranked the numbers to locate that 0.2% increase directly correlated to those numbers, but it's probably right.
So, you've got 195k moving into looking (re-entrant) but you've also got a huge bump up of discouraged.
In table A-11, we have a breakdown on the unemployment reasons.
The difference between March and April data is (thousands):
employment and completely temp: -108
on temp layoff: -236
on perm layoff: 129
job leavers:44
re-entrants: 195
new entrants: 34
So, it's not discouraged workers per say that the unemployment rate increased, it's the re-entrants and the new entrants and the growth in the labor force.
Notice also the drop in temp layoffs, yet the permanent layoffs increased.
Here's what I found strange, the drop out of the labor force was also high, yet the civilian labor force increased that much. The only other thing I can think of is immigration/people turning 16.
I believe thats the correct number of new workers that entered the workforce and moved the stat to 9.9%.
However what is likely is that these were people who were out of work (and either couldn't get unemployment originally so the stat shows them as employed or they ran out of benefits so the stat shows them as employed) and found seasonal employment lost it and now have 'reentered the work force'.
The statistics are skewed to show less people out of work then the actual number but sometimes that fact creates anomalies in reporting.
No one stops looking for work if they have bills to pay although welfare and bankruptcies could be looked at to see if one follows the other. There are probably some close interactions between all those numbers.
I keep reading that the reason the unemployment rate going up is because "discouraged workers" are now reentering the job market because they are, by definiton, no longer discouraged.
However, I haven't seen the numbers and percentage of change for discouraged workers. I know you are busy. However, if you get into the labor data perhaps you could pull out some numbers and percentages of changing discouraged workers.
Or, if anyone else has the specifics maybe they could post them.
Thank you
A3 is still a great rating and the returns are huge now.
So who is jumping in on this great investment or is it a scam like CDO's?
Not me because I couldn't afford to lose my money. I'm sure some pension fund manager wouldn't be scared from the A3 rating though.
Would you say anyone that lost money investing in Greece at this point were duped by the ratings or should the return be a warning sign that its too good to be true? You know my opinion on that.
They are looking at Greece and wondering how far behind can the UK, the US and the rest of Europe be?
Thats whats driving the market down. Greece by itself is a drop in the bucket but as a symptom of a bigger problem its scaring the hell out of investors who are moving to the dollar and hence oil is dropping as a result. If this were the Fall after a no hurricane season I'd say we were headed for $1.50 gas again but with the spill and a good gulf hurricane overdue thats not happening.
The US kicked in $3 billion for the Greek loan package through our IMF commitments - not a problem we'll just sell some more Treasuries to China or the SS Trust fund (those SS Trust fund iou's will never be paid back).
I've got to get a printing press and see how thats done.
You are specifically talking about CDO's also as if thats the only available investment out there.
When anyone looks at these things they know the higher the return the higher the risk. You don't have to be on Wall Street to understand that do you?
Whats the return on Corporate bonds these days or Treasuries or Munis? Not enough of a return for their ever growing needs. Greed and need set the tone of the investment.
Pension Fund Consultant Resigns Over Investment Choices of
the Pension Board
Greece and Spain won't pay back. This was a calculated Risk, and a Lesson for the Banking System. The only thing Germans can do is:
REPOSSESS 170 Leopard 2AEX Battle Tanks from Greece, and 190 Leopard 2A6E Battle Tanks from Spain.
U.S.A must REPOSSESS 170 F-16 Jet Fighters from Greece, … the rest is gone with the wind …forever …
Greece must stop paying lucrative pensions with borrowed money, reform the free health care system, and cut down, 4 times the military budged.
and the example you chose to use is an excellent example of why Veblen's socio-political analysis is superior to Marx's. Marxism, after all, has been a miserable failure in both organizing a society, and in projecting the end of capitalism (i.e., inherent contradictions).
But why is Marx more popular than Veblen? Unlike Marx, Veblen made no attempt to carry his immensely powerful socio-political analysis into practical political effect. In fact, Veblen offers no prescriptive remedies. Marx, on the other hand, hold out the promise - illusory and misguided it turns out - of achieving a better society if specific steps A, B, C and so on are carried out.
yes. I think it was a Frontline who interviewed even sovereign nations and their investments and they were duped. That's the whole reason for the posts on the credit rating agencies. They were slapping AAA ratings on these worthless CDOs.
Is it as simple as saying the banks lost the money gambling on derivatives?
Do you think the client in this case the Pension Fund board has any say in the investments? Do you think they were aware that the higher returns they wanted were higher risk or were they just plain stupid?
Any fund can invest in safer financial vehicles. Where the money goes is part and parcel with what the expected returns are and that is extracted from the needs of the investor.
How would the conversation between a fund manager and a fund start off? Something like what type of return do you need to meet your commitments?
In case one or two people may have missed this, the blog title with "Slouching" is a reference to a poem of William Butler Yeats, "The Second Coming", the last two lines of which are:
"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"
As long as we're with this poem, two other lines seem relevant today:
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."
I'd like to see Midtowing weigh in on this also. I disagree with them on some things but they have well positioned arguments all of the time. I may be a devils advocate here much of the time but its not from a lack of respect on my part for the other posters.
Your mention of corruption in government is timely for me, the FBI is popping RI pols left and right recently.
My own belief is that government corruption is so under investigated that it has nearly free reign with only the most blatant abusers ever smoked out in the open. My take is that when everyone can see something is rotten the only thing hindering a crime is the lack of investigation. The FBI, DOJ and the regulatory agencies probably need a 1,000% increase in funding just to keep up with political crimes related to kickbacks and purchased votes on both sides of the aisle.
Its a sad state of affairs.
midtowng should weigh in, but I'm pretty sure he'll say one is coming.
Myself, I am more thinking technically it could be a depression for a recession lasting more than 3 years is one. But, right now I'm leaning towards double dip, which (I'd have to go check the business cycle definition/experts on this), but I believe would be then classified as a depression (not sure if you can have a couple of positive GDP quarters in here). Regardless, I am not in the happy talk/green shoots camp and much I blame the government for. It's so corrupt! They absolutely throw the nation down the drain per corporate lobbyists/banksters agendas and frankly sometimes I don't think legislators even have the skills to know what they are doing. Doesn't help to have Larry Summers and Co. being the economic advisers.
the debt thing is tricky for me. I see this is a real problem but to me the original problem was they didn't do "Stimulus right" and they didn't do "bottom up" saving, i.e. the middle class. I'd say the residential real estate, refusing to plain give a haircut and reduce principle so people could stay in their homes was a major disaster.
Anywho, that's why this site exists.
This is an unsettling article. The depression in the 30's had an uptick before it really hit hard and that along the way to that there was a lot of civil unrest all over etc including the Bonus Army being evicted in DC but in general civil unrest like we are seeing and will continue to see in Greece.
Does Greece Signal A Depression?
US Banks and their actions being tied to global problems and that could have serious repercussions for us in the long run.
Financial Shockwaves Around the World
The latest market downturn could be much worse soon.
Citi Sees up to 20% Correction
This could be the 'Emperor has no clothes" moment for the worlds preferred way of doing business - borrow today and leave the bills to our children.
US business media still doesn't see much in the way of systemic harm going on with US business practices the way they are or they aren't making any statements about it but when the rest of the globe starts pointing our way it will be hard to deny.
shows more jobs and that they are under counting. Frankly I haven't looked at this and want to move onto the site upgrade (weekends are the slowest reader times and I have to take the site offline for long periods).
So, I hope to look at this in detail later.
Here is their spin (for now). I have to look at the definitions, details to see where this data is coming from....generally anything on labor it's like sifting through the sands, checking the datasets, extrapolating, making sure you're doing apples to apples.
But I hear ya on these people, the worst unemployment rate and I'll have to check but probably hitting the longest on record since the Great Depression and these guys cheer over jobs that don't even keep up with the population growth rate. Jez.
Other than myself few here will believe anything you write about that. I promise not to post in that topic other than to say great post though if you do endeavor that way.
Reality doesn't seem to play well on the edges of either political idealogical avenues.
You are at heart a realist who sees both sides of the street so to speak and who doesn't seem afraid to say whats what. Something terribly missing from Government. I don't know what you do but someday you could make a great advisor to a good President. My actual take.
If this topic is mentioned the EP rule of "no economic fiction" and that includes "Academic" fiction of which there is quite a bit, will be in maximum force. The reason is the minute one mentions even the slightest economic or labor market realities such as the truth that population affects labor markets, the accusations and insults come flying.
Yeah, the underground economy never being mentioned is interesting, and it's because the minute anyone talks about any of these factors the name calling comes flying around.
So, just be aware (and I dread the day frankly), if this is an EP topic I will be the labor economic, international migration flows/laws EP police admin. I'll be damned if we go into that entire degrading into name calling whatever insanity that goes on.
It was the Joint Economics Comm. It was on C-span today. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) was reporting on the employment numbers and the lead witness was the commissioner of the BLS - can't remember his name.
The African American congressmen was a John (?) Lewis. All he kept saying was how "good" (his word) the report was especially the "large number of jobs created in the private sector." And, the"Presidents program was working". The head of BLA didn't say a word, he just kept nodding and I swear there was a slight simile on his lips.
But, the biggest joke was Fox financial 'news?" They could not understand why the market would go down given the "positive labor report". I understand news 'slants', 'ideological bias', party loyalty and other subjective interpretations of reality. But, I'm starting to feel like Alice in Wonderland ("what's up is down; what's down is up) or like I'm "Waiting for Godot"
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