In all seriousness, I really hope some of these Titans of Economics consider creating an series of economic states and redefine the system to be beyond this 2D "off/on" descriptive scenario.
I think this is such an issue, how the national interest is diverging from the economy, the national economy no longer being the assumed "leader" to the global economy and the most obvious (to the point of creating economic blog wars) the never ending divergence of the U.S. workforce/middle class/main street economy from the larger Macro economic view.
Otherwise known as the Densa society....we discuss the magic secret recipe of special sauce on Big macs and which color really does go better with red, yellow or white!
To be honest, I must have appeared thick when I was in school for I can remember being presented with these models thinking, "that signal is simply not a bell curve"....bam, on test, oops, "not A". ;)
I've seen maybe 6 episodes of the show over maybe that many years and I swear in every single one what's her name tells what's his name "That's scientifically impossible!". And I always wanted to say "The basis of science is observation, and you've been observing the scientifically impossible every week for 5 YEARS. Are you thick or what?!?"
So even now we see non-Gaussian data being modeled as Gaussians. Never mind that this is real data, never mind that this has been going on decades, never mind that the assumption of independent events doesn't apply. Are these guys thick or what?!?
Ha-Joon Chang quite thoroughly disassembles the neoliberal argument in Bad Samaritans. He does use a lot of data, so that likely disqualifies him among true believers. Somehow we as a nation bought into the neoliberal line, and we need to change that mindset if we're going to get out of this mess and stay out.
I've been on the radio with Bonddad for almost a year now, and I have to say the man is a true gentleman. He has been civil with those who disagree with him, and when he's wrong he fesses up. That is a lot more than many other bloggers on some other sites.
Amen also to a call for civility. A lot of sites, if you aren't 100% in agreement with some members of a site, you're branded a traitor or worse. For example, I am a libertarian capitalist who believes in a flat tax, but I go on Daily Kos because I believe in civil liberties and opposed to foreign interventions.
The same with this place, I know many here would disagree with me on many things, but I come here because I too share a belief in manufacturing. At the end of the day, we all have something to contribute, so long as it's constructive and by the host's rules. This is, in the end, Robert's website, who has graciously allowed us to post something. Robert's reputation is on the line when we add a diary. Hence his calls against what he deems "Economic fiction," because you just can't post anything. His site, his property. Its like visiting someone at their home, one should always be polite and courteous.
which is my main point....a data point does not a trend make. In this case a data point is over a month's worth of data.
August is not even out and that is really the next data point...
What I hope this entire exercise leads to is digging deeper into precisely what these EIs really measure and to me, there is nothing more important while loaded with problems than the unemployment statistics.
What this entire thing leads to is to write up inadequacies with the current measurement system and how we need much more accurate, much more real time statistics on the state of labor in this country. We need immigration status (they count guest workers in the statistics), we need real time monthly occupational data, we need better stats on ind. contractors, 1099-misc, small businesses and how they are doing, what percentage of the working pop is getting denied benefits and why, what is the current state of being denied a position in one's career field, how many drop out per occupations, at what age. How many are being forced into "early retirement", how many cannot find work and have zero public social safety net whatsoever....this list goes on and on.
Ya know you cannot get, at all, how many jobs are offshore outsourced and now it's even more hidden because instead of firing people in the U.S. to offshore outsource the jobs ...corporations are simply creating those jobs in other countries....
Yet when it comes to any real accurate data on this...corporations hide it worse than their offshore tax haven accounts.
We do not even know what specific factors are completely involved in the July SA adjustments vs. the August SA adjustments and this is for initial weekly claims...
BLS refuses to release it, instead gives you this and this.
So, frankly I cannot even verify from the SA if they added the auto layoffs wrong or not from the BLS.
Consider this: The definition of a small business for government contracting is 500 persons. I don't know anyone running a "small business" that has 500 people working for them. This makes the granting of contracts to Fortune 500 "small business entities" even more unforgivable. A 500 person corporation most definitely has the resources to obtain security clearances, not that I'm particularly happy with that definition.
And never mind trying to figure out how to file a contract! There is a structure there which is completely opaque to the average business person, especially ones running actual small businesses. If you go the Federal Business Opportunities website (fbo.gov), you can scroll to your hearts content through page after page of "opportunities" that are actually either tailored very specifically so that only one contractor can bid, or that are actually announcements of pre-assigned, no-bid contracts. Good luck getting one of those!
Secondly, MFM never said there would be an increase in June, plus your graph shows an increase in June.
You're right he never said there would be an incrase in June: MfM's July diary was crystal clear that June was the bottom and that the increase of unadjusted first time jobless claims in July was the real trend.
2. There is no reason for callbacks to be reflected in the initial jobless claims rate -- after all, callbacks are not jobless claims. I'm sure they would affect nonfarm payrolls, the unemployment rate, and continuing claims -- but not initial claims.
There is no reason to go round and round further, but hopefully by now MfM understands that I still believe his thesis is wrong, and why.
I have plan which can help, improve the housing market, House price & sale. This needs some big governing body involvement, private companies can also partner in this plan as every will have opportunity to make some money.
I believe this is better plan then Cash for clunker, where Government doesn't have any think to make money and is really short term.
Please let me know if there is way I can share this plan with Mr. Bernanke OR any other influential person.
Krugman is really helping out us in the peanut gallery shouting down at the big guys on the stage by giving us a second link in his latest post.
So, if you've been sitting on that original eye popping graph and want it to be seen....seriously now is the time to write it up...I'm just thrilled the site performance is handling the increased traffic just fine!
I'm all for helping Krugman in all seriousness, push for new terminology to redefine that oxymoron term jobless recovery I believe jobless recovery should be purged, banished to ring 9 of Dante's inferno, never to see the light of day in future professional Academic phraseology.
Krugman in his latest post is whipping out the graphs to explain purgatory and here is the most astounding acknowledgment....
he says this entire new phenomenon is not because unemployment is a lagging indicator.
...it. But "jobless recovery" still has the advantage of being one of the most disgusting buzzphrases since "collateral damage."
With a very good post noting also the SA vs. non seasonal disconnect.
He is huge with original graphs, nicely done.
mass layoff non-seasonal disconnect
Yeah that'll work.
Only listened to half of it -- the book is just as breezy and comes at you from some unexpected angles. Definitely worth a read.
Brad Delong gave us a repost/link
In all seriousness, I really hope some of these Titans of Economics consider creating an series of economic states and redefine the system to be beyond this 2D "off/on" descriptive scenario.
I think this is such an issue, how the national interest is diverging from the economy, the national economy no longer being the assumed "leader" to the global economy and the most obvious (to the point of creating economic blog wars) the never ending divergence of the U.S. workforce/middle class/main street economy from the larger Macro economic view.
all of those large institutional investors who are protecting the middle class retirement funds.
Otherwise known as the Densa society....we discuss the magic secret recipe of special sauce on Big macs and which color really does go better with red, yellow or white!
To be honest, I must have appeared thick when I was in school for I can remember being presented with these models thinking, "that signal is simply not a bell curve"....bam, on test, oops, "not A". ;)
Who the hell are the buyers?!?
I've seen maybe 6 episodes of the show over maybe that many years and I swear in every single one what's her name tells what's his name "That's scientifically impossible!". And I always wanted to say "The basis of science is observation, and you've been observing the scientifically impossible every week for 5 YEARS. Are you thick or what?!?"
So even now we see non-Gaussian data being modeled as Gaussians. Never mind that this is real data, never mind that this has been going on decades, never mind that the assumption of independent events doesn't apply. Are these guys thick or what?!?
Friday Night Video
This is really worth watching, not only is it in depth but he is just hysterical. I mean funny as hell!
Ha-Joon Chang quite thoroughly disassembles the neoliberal argument in Bad Samaritans. He does use a lot of data, so that likely disqualifies him among true believers. Somehow we as a nation bought into the neoliberal line, and we need to change that mindset if we're going to get out of this mess and stay out.
In all seriousness, to the point I've been trying to figure out "who gets it" if something happened to me.
I end up being more blog cop than I really want to be and why I tried to add so many user content controls on the site...
the point is to give voice to a host of people who are really digging deep into financial/economic topics...
I don't like those dictatorships of other sites when it's the people who write on them who actually "make" a site be super cool and take off.
I've been on the radio with Bonddad for almost a year now, and I have to say the man is a true gentleman. He has been civil with those who disagree with him, and when he's wrong he fesses up. That is a lot more than many other bloggers on some other sites.
Amen also to a call for civility. A lot of sites, if you aren't 100% in agreement with some members of a site, you're branded a traitor or worse. For example, I am a libertarian capitalist who believes in a flat tax, but I go on Daily Kos because I believe in civil liberties and opposed to foreign interventions.
The same with this place, I know many here would disagree with me on many things, but I come here because I too share a belief in manufacturing. At the end of the day, we all have something to contribute, so long as it's constructive and by the host's rules. This is, in the end, Robert's website, who has graciously allowed us to post something. Robert's reputation is on the line when we add a diary. Hence his calls against what he deems "Economic fiction," because you just can't post anything. His site, his property. Its like visiting someone at their home, one should always be polite and courteous.
--------------------------------------------
www.venomopolis.com
which is my main point....a data point does not a trend make. In this case a data point is over a month's worth of data.
August is not even out and that is really the next data point...
What I hope this entire exercise leads to is digging deeper into precisely what these EIs really measure and to me, there is nothing more important while loaded with problems than the unemployment statistics.
What this entire thing leads to is to write up inadequacies with the current measurement system and how we need much more accurate, much more real time statistics on the state of labor in this country. We need immigration status (they count guest workers in the statistics), we need real time monthly occupational data, we need better stats on ind. contractors, 1099-misc, small businesses and how they are doing, what percentage of the working pop is getting denied benefits and why, what is the current state of being denied a position in one's career field, how many drop out per occupations, at what age. How many are being forced into "early retirement", how many cannot find work and have zero public social safety net whatsoever....this list goes on and on.
Ya know you cannot get, at all, how many jobs are offshore outsourced and now it's even more hidden because instead of firing people in the U.S. to offshore outsource the jobs ...corporations are simply creating those jobs in other countries....
Yet when it comes to any real accurate data on this...corporations hide it worse than their offshore tax haven accounts.
We do not even know what specific factors are completely involved in the July SA adjustments vs. the August SA adjustments and this is for initial weekly claims...
BLS refuses to release it, instead gives you this and this.
So, frankly I cannot even verify from the SA if they added the auto layoffs wrong or not from the BLS.
Consider this: The definition of a small business for government contracting is 500 persons. I don't know anyone running a "small business" that has 500 people working for them. This makes the granting of contracts to Fortune 500 "small business entities" even more unforgivable. A 500 person corporation most definitely has the resources to obtain security clearances, not that I'm particularly happy with that definition.
And never mind trying to figure out how to file a contract! There is a structure there which is completely opaque to the average business person, especially ones running actual small businesses. If you go the Federal Business Opportunities website (fbo.gov), you can scroll to your hearts content through page after page of "opportunities" that are actually either tailored very specifically so that only one contractor can bid, or that are actually announcements of pre-assigned, no-bid contracts. Good luck getting one of those!
Rating Agencies? Rating agencies? To misquote Edward G. Robinson, "Is this the end of RICO?"
Frank T.
Boy, nothing like a good spat to bring out the lurkers to say take a chill pill.
Glad you're here and hopefully others will stick around and comment.
1.
You're right he never said there would be an incrase in June: MfM's July diary was crystal clear that June was the bottom and that the increase of unadjusted first time jobless claims in July was the real trend.
2. There is no reason for callbacks to be reflected in the initial jobless claims rate -- after all, callbacks are not jobless claims. I'm sure they would affect nonfarm payrolls, the unemployment rate, and continuing claims -- but not initial claims.
There is no reason to go round and round further, but hopefully by now MfM understands that I still believe his thesis is wrong, and why.
Hi,
I have plan which can help, improve the housing market, House price & sale. This needs some big governing body involvement, private companies can also partner in this plan as every will have opportunity to make some money.
I believe this is better plan then Cash for clunker, where Government doesn't have any think to make money and is really short term.
Please let me know if there is way I can share this plan with Mr. Bernanke OR any other influential person.
Regards,
Suresh Arora
suresh.arora@yahoo.com
Krugman is really helping out us in the peanut gallery shouting down at the big guys on the stage by giving us a second link in his latest post.
So, if you've been sitting on that original eye popping graph and want it to be seen....seriously now is the time to write it up...I'm just thrilled the site performance is handling the increased traffic just fine!
I'm all for helping Krugman in all seriousness, push for new terminology to redefine that oxymoron term jobless recovery I believe jobless recovery should be purged, banished to ring 9 of Dante's inferno, never to see the light of day in future professional Academic phraseology.
Krugman in his latest post is whipping out the graphs to explain purgatory and here is the most astounding acknowledgment....
he says this entire new phenomenon is not because unemployment is a lagging indicator.
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