Recent comments

  • This unemployment problem is very troubling. Why wasn't the stimulus money used to make more jobs?

    Brandon Hansen
    Just South of North
    http://www.justsouthofnorth.com

    Reply to: Unemployment at highest level since Great Depression   14 years 12 months ago
  • I've got one, cancel all Federal and State offshore outsourcing contracts and hire Americans immediately. I don't know the total number of jobs but it's in areas like food stamp call centers, back end management of social services, a host of jobs that pretty much anyone with a little training can do.

    It doesn't make sense to send U.S. taxpayer dollars offshore anyway, esp. in terms of government spending stimulating an economy.

    But it's clear we need dramatic, no holes barred action.

    Reply to: Unemployment 10.2% for October 2009   14 years 12 months ago
    EPer:
  • John Mauldin broke down the unemployment numbers and showed just how bad they really are.

    What I did not see in many of the stories I read was that the number of unemployed actually soared by 558,000, to 15.7 million, as measured by the household survey. The establishment survey polls larger businesses; the household survey actually calls individual households.
    Let's look at the real number in the establishment survey. If you don't seasonally adjust the number, the actual change in unemployment for October was 641,000, or about 450,000 more than the seasonally adjusted number. And the Bureau of Labor Statistics added 86,000 jobs that they simply guess were created through the so-called birth-death ratio. Interestingly, the birth-death ratio number is not seasonally adjusted, so it is just added to the unemployment number.
    ...
    My favorite slicer and dicer of data, Greg Weldon (www.weldononline.com), offers up an even more horrific number. As I have noted before, if you have not looked for work in the last four weeks, the BLS does not count you as unemployed. Quoting Greg:
    "Moreover, when we combine the monthly change in the number of Unemployed, with the number Not in the Labor Force, we might consider the result to be a proxy for the actual 'change' in the underlying labor market situation ... in which case, October's figure of 817,000 represents the fourth LARGEST yet, behind last month's (September's) second largest figure of 1,021,000 ... for a two-month combined figure of 1.838 million, in newly Unemployed, or no longer 'in' the Labor Force ...
    "...the second LARGEST two-month total EVER posted
    , barely trailing the December-08/January-09 total 1.955 million.
    "Bottom line ... basis this measure AND the 'Total Unemployment Rate,' we could conclude that not only is there NO 'improvement' in the labor market, but moreover, that it continues to DETERIORATE, intently."

    Reply to: Unemployment 10.2% for October 2009   14 years 12 months ago
    EPer:
  • but tangents.
    I wouldn't use the term "drivel" as Anonymous did, but many of the comments weren't directly related to the topic at hand. It wasn't a judgment on the comments, merely an agreement that the topic at hand wasn't being recognized for what it was.
    That's why I gave the comment a 5.

    Reply to: The Approaching Muni Bond Implosion   14 years 12 months ago
    EPer:
  • Drivel

    As one of the ‘drivelers’ criticized by ‘Anonymous Drive-by” (11/5 20:06), I feel a need to respond, especially since midtowng seems to agree as evidence by his 5 rating of the comment.

    To start with I remember back in (I think) the 1970’s when for at least weeks perhaps months (at least it seemed like months) day in and day out the lead story and analysis of mass media (that was the only media in those pre internet days) was “Is New York City going to go bankrupt?” Of course it did not. Later there was the hue and cry, fear and trembling, about Savings and Loans Banks going bankrupt

    Moving along, for the past year one of the major items in mass media and bogs has been the possible bankruptcy of various financial institutions, automobile companies and the state of California. Well some did and most didn’t and maybe more will. But, we keep rolling along.

    I wonder if “anonymous drive-by” and “midtowng” ever heard the morality tale of “The boy who cried wolf.” That pretty much explains my ‘oh hum’ response about another tale of bankruptcy. It may or may not come and if it does, I’m not sure what will be the consequences. Will public schools close, police forces disband, taxes raised (as Sharonsj reports from PA). Will there be a revolution (as Sharonsj is hoping for)?

    Frankly, I don’t know what to think or say about another “predicted bankruptcy. So I just Drivel to past the time.

    Meanwhile, “Anonymous Drive-by” I would be interested in reading what your thoughts are about Munis. Feel free to jump in – if nothing else, as you know, this blog welcomes drivel.

    Reply to: The Approaching Muni Bond Implosion   14 years 12 months ago
    EPer:
  • here.

    He's pointing to the many experts who cannot believe Geithner is blowing off the 9% default rates going on in CRE as "not a problem".

    They mention a resort in AZ having a massive default. I've been to that place and it is super nice, well run. It's shocking they went into default...

    Reply to: Bank Failure Friday - 5 more on the Funeral Pyre, toll now 120   14 years 12 months ago
    EPer:
  • The very late night failure of United Commercial Bank is significant for several reasons. By being bought by Pasadena's East West Bancorp, this becomes the dominant bank for Chinese Americans. It was the 4th largest bank to fail this year.
    But the key point is that it was a TARP recipient.

    United Commercial's collapse may cause a greater-than-usual stir because a year ago the federal government invested $299 million in bailout funds in the bank in exchange for preferred stock, which was made worthless by the failure.
    In addition, the FDIC said the collapse would cost the federal deposit insurance fund an estimated $1.4 billion.

    Reply to: Bank Failure Friday - 5 more on the Funeral Pyre, toll now 120   14 years 12 months ago
    EPer:
  • We also have the lovely manipulated birth/death population model.

    But this is the first I've heard of part-time being double, triple counted. Do you have a reference?

    I know the BLS counts foreign guest workers in the occupational stats, which hides the use of these Visas to displace U.S. workers and artificially deflates the real unemployment rate in some occupations. STEM being the most notorious.

    This article says if compared to the Great Depression, their U6 would have been 30%. But yeah, comparing Apples to Apples is very tough with these stats.

    As it was I stopped writing up weekly initial unemployment claims because it was so obviously manipulated. they would revise upward the previous week report so the new one made it look like initial claims had dropped....every week.

    Obviously with a 10.2% unemployment rate we are not creating new jobs and while the initial unemployment rate has dropped....that's in comparison to a tsunami from Q1 2009. If you compare it to any other recessionary time period, the numbers are still in recession turf for new unemployment claims.

    Reply to: Unemployment at highest level since Great Depression   14 years 12 months ago
    EPer:
  • So sayeth you, Jean-Baptiste Say, Ravi Batra, and every real economist with a functioning brain!

    Reply to: Wall Street still overestimating the American consumer   14 years 12 months ago
  • And they are jacking up interest rates as Congress is attempting to pass a credit rate limitation bill, so the sociopathic corporate america jumps the gun on the matter!

    It's all about disassembling the American economy.

    Reply to: Wall Street still overestimating the American consumer   14 years 12 months ago
  • ...are counted as 2 and 3 individually employed people, again incorrectly skewing the numbers. (Great points, BTW!)

    Our real unemployment, when figuring up the growth numbers in both poverty and homelessness, is in the vicinity of 32% to 36% unemployment. They have gamed far too many statistical indicators and provide far too many variances to believe otherwise.

    Reply to: Unemployment at highest level since Great Depression   14 years 12 months ago
  • You outstanding blog points out a common error that has been bugging the Hell out of me, and many others, forever. And thanks for the marvelous blog -- too many fall to the error of the apparent: the way they were measuring unemployment back in the '80s is different from today, just as the way the measured it back during the Great Depression is far different than the present.

    During the Great Depression, they actually reported all the numbers as closely as possible (i.e., they didn't exempt temporaries, contractors, self-employed, etc., etc.).

    The metrics (hate using the popular biz vernacular) back in the '80s are even different from today, a bit more efficient even back then -- until Reagan changed it.

    Reply to: Unemployment at highest level since Great Depression   14 years 12 months ago
  • For those who don't recall, the post is referring to U6, a broader measure of the unemployment rate.

    Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers.

    Marginally attached workers are persons who currently are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the recent past. Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached, have given a job-market related reason for not looking currently for a job. Persons employed part time for economic reasons are those who want and are available for full-time work but have had to settle for a part-time schedule.

    U6 includes people with part-time jobs, but only those who cannot get full-time.

    I think the real story on U6 is how corporations, companies now routinely refuse to give workers full-time jobs to avoid a host of additional costs, such as benefits. We even have many local, state, federal jobs doing this trick.

    So, one ends up working 2,3 jobs, all with no benefits to get full-time wages. But it's never really full-time wages because one is being denied a host of benefits, including unemployment insurance potentially.

    Another trick to avoid having to pay benefits and esp. any unemployment insurance is to claim people are contractors and small businesses. That makes the individual responsible for all benefits, taxes and most importantly, they cannot claim unemployment insurance since they are self-employed.

    Obviously someone with one client, working for one client for a year or longer, at low hourly rates or even worse, per project (a trick often used on tech. workers to squeeze them even further), is not exactly a small business.

    Reply to: Unemployment at highest level since Great Depression   14 years 12 months ago
    EPer:
  • Several municipalities have declared bankruptcy already. No jobs and falling home values = less revenue for the tax collectors. So what are the states doing? Raising taxes. Here in Pennsylvania I've heard my school taxes may double to pay for government pensions. Meanwhile, it took our moronic state legislators months to agree on a budget that slashes services. So I'm going to have to pay more to get less. How long do you think it will be before fed-up Americans revolt? Soon, I hope.

    Reply to: The Approaching Muni Bond Implosion   14 years 12 months ago
    EPer:
  • Don't forget that, on top of everything else, credit card companies are jacking up interest rates. Once I pay the new minimums, there's a lot less to spend. If all these corporations are borrowing money at near zero, why am I paying 30%? These fools are just driving more nails into the coffin.

    Reply to: Wall Street still overestimating the American consumer   14 years 12 months ago
    EPer:
  • Banksters borrow from the Fed (virtually free money), create more money (free!) and lend it to us to buy stuff at rates that make sense only to guys like John Gotti. We don't have the guts to restore usury ceilings, so they keep lending to those who either don't think about tomorrow or think they have no choice. We make deposits at virtually no interest and they lend it back to us at high rates. And the Fed keeps feeding Moral Hazard with our money and "Full faith and credit."
    Frank T.

    Reply to: Consumer Credit Decreases Again in 3rd Q   14 years 12 months ago
    EPer:
  • When you can just buy it. There are a host of strategic corporations already bought by China. i.e. national security strategic. This is one in a long line of them.

    On China, I agree, they are beating the Capitalists into the ground and also out to be the world's dominant economy.

    What a great trade agreement the China PNTR is too. It's taken them only 9 years to do this with that trade agreement. 9 years!

    Reply to: CIC Buys 15% in AES   14 years 12 months ago
    EPer:
  • Japan, Japan, Japan, Japan, and Japan.

    The economy will never recover as long as the population is overleveraged. Wages need to go up or debt levels need to go down (a lot). Won't happen any other way.

    Reply to: Wall Street still overestimating the American consumer   14 years 12 months ago
    EPer:
  • Here a couple of graphs provided by Karl Denniger that further support your position.

    First, the a shorter historical view:

    And then, a longer range view:

    His comments are right on as well.

    We are a credit-based system, as are all modern monetary systems. No meaningful economic recovery can or will occur until the consumer has purged his balance sheet of the inappropriate debt he has and is once again able to earn and borrow.

    If we supposedly exited the recession on or before September, it sure isn't apparent in this report. You can put a fork in that line of garbage - it's done.

    As many commenters here have so frequently stated, we are playing a game of "extend and pretend". But the "engine of growth", the American consumer (a.k.a., the average hard working, god fearing citizen) is the only recognizable victim of the Great Government and Wall Street Fraud of the 21st Century.

    Reply to: Wall Street still overestimating the American consumer   14 years 12 months ago
    EPer:
  • See our review of Pope Benedict's economic encyclical at http://tapsearch.com/pope-benedict-economic-encyclical which actually is more of a reaction as someone with a 60 year work experience being raised in a small family business, working in several factories while going to college, as part of every computer generation and part of many innovations traveling to the Silicon Valley for years , dealing with the highest echelons in corporations and doing business directly with China.

    Our bio is at our main site where we kept track of company close downs throughout the 1990s and specifically 1998. If you want a resource for someone who lived through the era where more than a million workers lost their jobs in the computer industry alone search us out the web. We now have thousands of references under Tapsearch Com. A must read is the Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins. We review it with Alan Greenspan's book at http://www.bizarrepolitics.com/confessions-for-history.

    We show lists of hundreds of companies in the computer industry that closed down due to free trade. And we defended the last micro computer made in the USA and several of the last industrial micro computers made in the USA down the very end. Production was made portable and ready to move from place to place seeking out the cheapest labor markets in the world down to wage slave and even child labor.

    The Federal Trade Commission site has much of our information on their site from 1998. We have updated this since then at our main site http://tapsearch.com/tapartnews. We have several sites and blogs related to our advocacy for fair trade and human dignity in the work day and a list can be viewed at http://linkbun.ch/aztb
    We started our advocacy in 1992 after seeing an article in a computer trade magazine about our Federal Government sponsoring the moving of factories outside of the USA starting in 1956. It was supposed to be a temporary program but it never ended with our government acting as broker throughout these years. The elder President Bush formulated the free trade program and announced the New World Order. President Clinton followed and passed these free trade agreements as if they were his own. We do not need any conspiracy theories to know that globalization and free trade have been driven by powerful forces outside the will of the people and outside of any natural economic fashion. It is a self-evident fact.

    Reply to: President Obama Stimulus Package will not do that much   14 years 12 months ago

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