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Why Has The Labor Participation Rate Plunged?
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,
Combine this regulatory burden with the decline of entrepreneurship, and you get a bubbling brew that is toxic to self-employment/small business.
Why has the percentage of the population that's in the work force declined so dramatically? It's a question many have asked, and Gordon T. Long and I attempt to answer in our most recent video program The Participation Rate Mystery--Solved.
Why does the Participation Rate matter? Intuitively, we all understand that the lower the participation rate (i.e. the percentage of the population with a job or actively looking for a job), the greater the tax burden on the remaining workers.
We all understand that as the number of workers supporting each retiree declines, the remaining workers will have less income to support their own families, as the rising costs of retirees must be paid with higher taxes in our pay-as-you-go social and healthcare programs such as Social Security and Medicare /Medicaid.
Where there were once around eight workers for every retiree, now the ratio is down to 2.5 workers per retiree--and the cost of providing healthcare for the elderly has soared.
For context, let's look at a few charts of the participation rate and related metrics. Let's start with the engine of wealth creation--productivity. The productivity of industrialized nations' work forces topped out in the cheap-oil boom years of the 1960s.
Not coincidentally, wages as a percentage of GDP (i.e. of all economic activity) topped out around the same time: 1970.
Here's the participation rate going back to the 1950s. I've noted the key developments: the mass entry of women and the Baby Boom into the work force in the late 1960s-early 1970s; the peak of financialization and debt-based speculation in the 1990s through 2007; the advent of automation capable of eating not just low-skill jobs but middle-class jobs, and the diminishing return on further financialization/speculative bubbles.
In the big picture, while the economy added jobs, workers took home a diminishing share of the economy's expansion.
The participation rate of those in their peak earning years 25-54 has declined to the levels of the early 1980s, before the financialization/tech booms took off.
The participation rate of women mirrors this long-term erosion.
The participation rate of men has been declining for 60 years. This parallels the decline of male-dominated sectors (factory floors, manual labor, etc.) and the relative rise of sectors such as education and healthcare that have been traditionally mainstays of employment for women.
But I propose a second factor--the massive decline in self-employment and entrepreneurship. This is not to say that women aren't self-employed or entrepreneurs; it is merely to point out the correlation of male participation and self-employment.
Prior to the dominance of Corporate America and regulation-loving government, many men were self-employed in male-dominated sectors such as auto mechanics, construction, appliance repair, yard maintenance, etc.
Regulatory burdens, high taxes, high rents, competition from Corporate America franchises, etc. have made it increasingly difficult to be self-employed/open a small business for men and women alike.
But the rising burdens have impacted men to a greater degree, as many male-dominated sectors such as mechanics, construction, etc. were traditional strongholds of self-employed/small businesses. In comparison, the female-dominated sectors of education and healthcare are highly centralized and mostly funded by the government or state-mandated funding sources such as college loans, insurance, etc.
Combine this with the decline of entrepreneurship, and you get a bubbling brew that is toxic to self-employment/small business. What entrepreneurship remains in the working class is often black-market/cash-economy, and thus is not included in these statistics.
Much has been made of the rising participation rate of those 55 and over (me included). But if we glance at the chart, we see the 55+ participation rate has merely bounced back up to the participation levels of the "golden age" 1960s.
In other words, the anomaly was the drop in 55+ participation, not its rise to historic norms.
Gordon and I cover many other topics inThe Participation Rate Mystery--Solved (25 min.), including the impact of the soaring costs of childcare:
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Obamacare? lol
Hey! Did you ever stop and think that just maybe the labour force plummeted because alot of Americans are as stupid as the people commenting here? They are unable to keep pace in an increasingly technical workforce? That there's less demand for people who can bang two rocks together?
Who let the FSA troll in?
he's the local 6x banned bitcoin pumper, don't mind him...
Oh so just telling the truth is "trolling"? No I'm serious, can't picture most of you having marketable job skills (as in the modern world). If you want to act old, stupid and ignorant expect to be left behind and unemployed.
One of the problems is that there are lots of old, stupid, and ignorant (as you call them), and what do you do with them? Let them starve? Let them become slaves to the owners of machines? Force them back to Texas? Now put your thinking cap. Ideas please.
A "thinking person" would adapt and overcome, sit down and study. A loser will sit and bitch and moan that the world is advancing too fast and too far without them.
Trump has haters on both sides of the fence---dems and rep.
The Dem voters hate him because he talks about "Job Creation" and dem FSA voters HATE the thought of a job or the end of free shit.
Rep hate him because he doesn't talk about the need for 100 years of war in the middle east and a thousand moar military bases round the globe.
Middle Class private sector holds his greatest support...the so-called "silent majority."
Interesting that America produced more great engineers than any other country in world history. Which begs the question of who pissed in your gene pool and when? And why not just add some chlorine?
Try $30 trillion of excess debt in the US and more loose money completely distorting the US economy.
A loser gleefully accepts the yoke put on him by psychopaths. A thinking person sees the fraud and illusion of society and chooses otherwise.
Stay ahead of the curve to remain relevant to employers or go back to being a hunter/gatherer/farmer. The choice is yours.
'Stay ahead of the curve'
Any other cutting edge human resource dept. created platitudes from 25 years ago you wish to share?
Yes... learn some new skills that employers want in the real world and you can still play Davie Crockett on your weekends in your fantasy SHTF world.
Stupid me getting 2 Red Seal trade tickets and opening a business, my biggest problem was avoiding paycheque to paycheque losers like you that shit their pants when they get a bill for anything over $150.00.
I've got a degree, certificates coming out my ass and a steady career, employed for 15+ years so who is the loser moron?
You can only blame the Fed for so much, not for making half of your country semi-literate ignoramuses.
The guy that stated his life long goal was to become somebody's model employee....You!
I can understand your frustration, wasting that time out of your life pursuing red seals in SHTF and EMP nonsense....
No frustration, made enough and shut it down, I really made bank because we always charged a customer double when he or she unnecessarily mentioned that they possessed some useless degree issued by some group of overpaid and overfed academics.
Dont feed the imbecile, brother. He is probably just reading from a self-help book!
That one chart said the whole story. "Wages as % of GDP." At 42% we're looking at a stretch of $8 trillion. Subtract $3 trillion for taxes and you have a takehome pay of $5 trillion for everyone in the U.S. Compare that to $6 trillion in Federal, state, and local spending and you see the problem. Government has grown so huge it is crushing everything else out of existence.
Yeah, yeah... keep blaming the Fed. It's their fault for inflation, it's not their fault that you're a nation of idiots that vote for people like George Bush, Obama and Donald Trump.
Lol. You are an idiot. "Blame the Fed for inflation." Can't stop laughing. You do know what their mandate is right?
I've got integrity, self respect and the wonderfull feeling of a virgin asshole. I've got a degree and a career too but what does that have to do with anything? Why did you find it necessarry to offer your ass up in order to quell your fear of being inadequate to provide for yourself and your slavelings?
You are so wrong/misguided/immature/moronic on so many different levels that I swear I am genuinely confused where to begin tearing your argument apart.
Lol, yes, those are HR platitudes. You might as well chuck the word paradigm in with the BS.
That's thinking outside the box.
You lack social skills obviously. And, because you're too hung up on patting yourself on the back about how smart you are and how stupid everyone else is, it has probably escaped your attention that success, especially in the workplace, is largely determined by social skills - not technical skills. You might do well to try to become more well rounded and more open-minded when discussing your viewpoints.
You're on a site aimed primarily at finance, but as well, it has a lot to do with geo-politics. If you were better read you might understand why the above article is relevant to what's going on in today's world and what came before it - namely the selling out of the US manufacturing base (and its technology) to countries abroad BY the politicians and bankers and corporations who were in control over the last 2-3 decades. The average American worker had little control over this process (short of a revolt).
Most of the 'technology' you enjoy today was developed in the US. As an example, Surface Mount packaging and assembly, Tape Automated Bonding, Chip on Board, Integrated Circuit design, not to mention the fucking TRANSISTOR, etc... were all American inventions, without which, your technically oriented job (I assume it's computer related) would not exist. Is it MY fault, or the READERS here that their country was sold out?
But you raise a good point - regardless of the reasons why, one must adapt to survive. But, based on your comments, it sounds like you have a very narrow focus and little experience. Could you make a living if you lost your job were not able to find a job related to your college degree or any of many certs you hold? Something that was NOT technically related?
I can. And if need be, I don't have to rely on my very technically oriented job to make a living. I can find other work that's not so technical, and for which there is still a demand.
1. This is near the only source giving an accurate picture of the world. Other than 'everything is fine' and et al will tell you.
2. I'm fairly young. Learning from the commentary on a daily basis that I can't find anywhere else.
3. I don't defend my intelligence, because that would make me unintelligent.
Go back to Yahoo if you think along the lines as 'everything is perfect'
Sorry to burst your bubble, but the labor statistics tell the opposite story, that the employment rate is healthier for the elderly than the young. Which leads to the inevitable conclusion that the young, not the elderly, are stupid, ignorant, and being left behind. That's what a college education buys you these days.
He sure acts like a FSA douchenozzle, loves throwing his feces around. I believe he is doing more harm to bitcoin than good by being his normal douchey self.
Nah, it's not just Bitcoin it's technology in general. You retards have this weirdo technophobia and then you act surprised that more of you are not able find jobs in a technical world? Well geez! Wonder who coulda thunk it hey??
There used to be a charm to it but now he's just like a retarded monkey.
Go to the job fair and start bitching about how there's no jobs making 10 mpg cars in Detroit and how the year starts with a 2 now for some reason?
Leave job fair with predictable results.
Yeah, like going to a job fair will make the young more employable.
Oh shit, I'm a self-employed entrepreneur. Tyler, how can I stay ahead of the curve when you keep distracting me with depressing chart porn?
The pot calls the kettle black.
Go try to open up a small business, then get back to me asshat.
Low skilled workers: you can't pay them enough to get past the "welfare threshold", i.e. the point at which it is actually financially advantageous for them to work instead of collecting the gubmint cheese.
High skilled workers: you have to import them since US schools only teach social justice and sexual ambiguiuty, not real skills.
Taxes and regulations: hahahahahahha. Good luck even trying.
Cheap money: not for small businesses.
I could go on but you are pretty dense.
Marge
Yes... I guess it's all the Fed's fault that half your country is dumb and proud of it? It's the Fed's fault that many highly skilled, techinal positions can't be filled for lack of suitable candidates?
By Fed do you mean the Federal Reserve, or the Federal Department of Education -which began in 1979 under Carter and has seen a drop in global standing for American 'students' for Every year since its inception?
Oh, that's right, the Dept of (mis)Education couldn't operate without tons of paper fiat printed by the other 'Fed', so it hardly matters.
I remember ninth grade, listening to some ghetto girl in the back of the class carrying on about how much money welfare was going to give her 'when the baby come' and asking myself 'Why am I working so hard to learn and working so hard to work, when for the rest of my life I will be paying for the people in the back of the class anyway?" Who wants to 'get ahead' when that only means you are making yourself into the ox hauling the cart, instead of riding in it?
Who is John Galt?
"Yes... I guess it's all the Fed's fault that half your country is dumb and proud of it?"
Yes, it's the Federal Government's fault.
"It's the Fed's fault that many highly skilled, techinal positions can't be filled for lack of suitable candidates?"
Yes, the Federal Government IS the PROBLEM.
Go ahead and argue that it's actually the people that put those .gov overlords in power. I will remind you that this is a result of decades of intential dumbing down people. If the .gov didn't want it to happen it would not have. And who controls the .gov??? Surely not anyone on this board.
Just look at Obummer intentially letting ALL those low-skilled, parasitic people into the country? He actually went as far as to sue states that won't open their borders wide open.
So, yes, it is exactly the Federal Gov that is at fault, as directed by TPTB.
Hey! Did you ever consider the fact that as you get older it becomes more difficult to keep up with the pace of technological advancement as you once may have been able to? Did you ever consider that one day your job, regardless how technical, will likely be replaced by someone who's younger, possibly faster, or a robot which is most likely to be faster and more accurate BUT most importantly CHEAPER than you? Unless you design robots, own them, know how to fix them there's gonna come a day when you or your children will have a hard time finding a job.
You mentioned loyal workers making 10mpg cars in Detroit. I guess the 'brains' that ran the business had nothing to do with it? Only the simple-minded workers?
I don't mind technology - in fact, I embrace it. People aren't reacting to that as much as you think they are. Rather, they are reacting to the general tone of your comments which imparts that based on ONLY YOUR experience you have it all figured out.
Lastly, not everyone is technically inclined. Doesn't mean they're stupid. And not everyone who has ever lost their job or has a hard time finding one is a technophobe.
If you are going to call people stupid, as lest know that 'a lot' is two words.
oh wow a typo, that totally invalidates my point
When you're specifically commenting about the quality of the comments and those making them? Yeah, it does.
When you can spit out 5000 spamtoshis per second you can criticize my comments okay?
Wow, I'm really sorry, man. 5,000 spamtoshis??? If I had only known.
Send me a track of you blowing over Giant Steps, then I might be impressed.
OhLamacare requires open borders to thrive....
The rate is now back to when most American mom’s stayed at home to raise their own kids. Today most mom’s are working harder than ever to pay for the Fed’s insane inflation agenda of the last few decades!
No, it's not paying for inflation of the Fed. It's paying for inflation of demand for higher and fancier living standards. Who lives in a 1200 sq foot place when you really need 4000. Who drives a Ford Fairlane when you need a BMW550. Who goes camping when you need to go the Riviera. Who eats meatloaf when there is sirloin. That's what has happened since the sixties. And you can't do that on one salary. Even back in the good ol'days.
I do not know anyone driving a BMW550, or taking vacations to the Riviera, but I do know alot of people who are paying 9-13% more for groceries and clothing than they were last year. 100% thanks to the Federal Reserve System.
What has happened since the sixties is clearly visible in the first chart; the LIE of the "post industrial economy". Just look at the chart, the "post industrial economy' begins right after the Clean Air Act of 1974 passed and another alphabet soup agency of regulation was born.
Ain't no such bird -or China and Thailand etc. would not be -guess what- manufacturing products in an Industrial setting to sell at a profit here, which is the only thing keeping the illusion of our economy afloat. What happened was the USA was REGULATED to the point where industry can no longer operate here, and TPTB claim we have somehow moved beyond the need to Make things, that we can somehow add economic value by wishing it were so; that an economy can thrive by selling crappy Chinese merchandise at WallyWorld, so we can buy crappy Chinese merchandise at Target. (All manufactured by this dinosaur called Industry; which we have 'evolved' beyond.) And since everyplace sells exclusively Chinese crap, Mainstreet entreprenurial startups cannot buy in bulk enough to compete with giants who can import 1,000,000 units of product X.
Inflation of demand -A) is instead truely competitive opportunity. If demand for BMW's increases the price, then Fords suddenly look more attractive, or some Pierce-Arrow competitor would arise (in a non cronyist world of course.)
and B) inflation of Demand implies deflation due to lack of demand in another sector -if "inflation of demand" is driving up the cost of 4000 sq. ft. McMansions, then why aren't smaller, 'starter home' prices wallowing to the point that a single income can afford the mortgage?
Obviously, this is not a situation caused by 'inflation of demand' but by inflation of the 'money' supply via FIAT paper, coupled with the blatant murder of blue collar, middle class American Industry. Post Industrial -I guess in China they have bred some wierd peacock that lays IPods and craps Samsung TV's.
The idea that tax burden increases on remaining workers is a red herring. The "government" currently borrows half the budget. If you can borrow half the budget, you can borrow all of it.
The reason that people don't have jobs is that technology is making jobs obsolete. The remaining jobs are shipped overseas.
Who does a government 'borrow' money from?
From 'ourselves'.
Who repays the 'loan'?
'We' do, in the future, in the form of -wait for it- INCREASED TAX BURDENS.
If they 'borrow' half of the budget, then half of the budget is (by definition) enslavement of future generations to a debt they did not obligate themselves to, and had no representation in the decision making process of how it is spent.
So yes, the remaining workers do face an increased tax burden, one that would make a herring of any color seem pretty palatable.
when the Safety net becomes a nice expensive pillow top mattress....why work...that is my take....welfare is easier..
So is depreciating a currency and living off of the toil and sweat of others.
Bankers: Your true "takers".
Never been on welfare and don't know anyone that is. Every article I have read from those who are always says how hard it is to get on it and how little you get when you do. Not really sure that welfare affords the luxuries that a lot of people bitching about it claim. Either that or they don't know how to work it properly. I tend to believe that it gives you enough to survive if you're lucky and not enough to buy flatscreens and live in a 3 story townhouse unless you're lucky enough to get on the 5 year waiting list approval for section 8.
I also tend to believe that those in the top .1% are sucking a hell of a lot more resources out of the country than those at the bottom and that's where our ire as a nation should be directed.
I dont think anyone will argue with you on your last point.
The programs available, especially to single mothers, would make working folks blush. Are they living like a rich person? Not in the slightest. But they are living better than some who are just above the cutoff for benefits. Heck the WIC program combined with EBT and you're easily capable of feeding yourself. Shelter may be more difficult but not impossible...and let's be honest, a number of single mothers are living off of the child support payments from their children's father(s).
Well said. I live in a very nice old neighborhood in Chicago and have a large section 8 1920s era, beautiful old apartment building on my block, and contrary to what all the hate filled people say, most of the residents in that building work but dont earn enough to get off welfare and are not dangerous criminals. They do things like work 2 jobs, one at Subway and one at night as a cashier at Target, while raising 2 kids. I'd like to see a lot of commentators try that for min. wage and see how long they stay sane. Is there waste? For sure. But there is no waste as great as the Wall Street / DC / MIC cabal that steals trillions at a time. At least the project near me recycles dollars into my local economy, what does spending trillions in some mid east shit hole do for me?
This 1% of which you speak uses their own money to buy things -the FSA uses MY money. There's the difference. Welfare pays $67,000 a year in Hawaii.
'Their' money is MY money and YOUR money. They make it by gaming the system which in turn causes the price of shit that I need and YOU need to go up. Or they get free FED money causing the price of a home that I need to go up. There is a far cry from the 1% you speak of and the .1% of which I am speaking. The 1% generally work hard and innovate and produce. Generally speaking that is. The .1% not so much. They game and they steal as a general rule. There are exceptions to both rules of course.
welfare, as in unemployment insurance is difficult to get onto, as you had to have had a job and paid into the insurance and then get fired or laid off. you cant quit, and you cant quit your self emplyed 1099 gig and get it either.
who does get semething easily are mothers with children. show your 1040 from last year, show all the birth certificates and voila, fodd stamps and a small check. over 65 and low income? voila, food stamps ontop of social security. able to get some Dr. to promise several times that you have some level of disability? voila, disability check AND once you are in the system, getting any new addl benefits is much easier than those outside the system.
how to fix it? not sure. cut all benes dramatically, eliminate the minimum wage and see who can push a broom for $25/day. a very key item will be to collapse housing prices so that almost any work can get some kind of roof over ones head. a bigger long term problem has been that owning a home has been turned into an investment (thanks boomers!) instead of the GOAL of no housing payment...there is no rule against, actually the rule is youre not allowed to consider age), not giving a 60 yo a 30yr mortgage. maybe the 30 yr mtg should be eliminated, 20yr max if youre under 50 yoa. or maybe tax mortgages (and other debt) so the carrot is to pay it off and actually own something.
how to start an amputation? just start cutting
Because workers are getting tired of breaking their asses to provide for an ever-growing FSA created by the assclown in the (Half)White House? Because clawing your way to provide an income while the 3-letter acronym crowd continues to shovel dirt down on you gets to be a such a burden you just give up? Who knows...
Bingo (that and useless fucking bankers and financiers continuously getting bailed out with MORE free money!!!!). moral hazard can be a real motherfucker like that.
Go Galt, young man.
"Officially" it has plunged, yes. Just like "officially" the prices of many assets are low...
Participation rate MUST plunge if the official unemployment rate is to be rigged (as it is) to reflect "recovery".
perception in order to maintain power and control...
same as it ever was...
Yep.
"They" know darn well that the sheep & their blind shepards (media) will happily swallow the rigged 'unemployment rate' for 10 more years while ignoring the devastating participation rate... a nation of perfect, well-trained consumers... which is why Trump has to be the odds-on favorite - he understands this dymanic better than anyone in DC.
LAZY they ain't got no alabye. IT'S CALLED FOOD STAMPS.
Right, bank bailout and "money" creation without any real collateral requirements has nothing to do with it.
Go fuck yourself, I am going to be printing my money too.
fucking unfucking believably ignorant fuckers running around.
fuck em, fuck em all.
In America, we are taught to hate and blame those who have less than us while admiring and fantasizing about being like those who have moar than us.
That poor person collecting $300 a month in food stamps is holding us back, not the banker stealing $300 million from us.
America.
Like I said above, moral hazard is a real motherfucker.
Agreed. But the one hiccup is that the $300/mo. FSA will never be politically engaged so long as they can forever pull the blue lever and get something for nothing. When the FSA becomes a majority - forever voting for more dependency - then we've become Ingsoc, completely untethered from reality.
not quite. Eventually the producers of food and energy (required for survival) simply cannot deliver, regardless of how many official credits people may have. This is probably the only thing history is clear on at all.
You've jumped to the inevitable conclusion...!
The smartest people I know are building/securing food & energy production capacity, even if it's just on a 'homestead' level.
Will we live to see a day when a politician or economist explains the consequences of 'open system' assumptions within a closed system?
The outcome of a "let the majority eat cake" monetary experiment on this scale will eventually leave no member of the political class alive.
i like your optimism.
But if enough people produce "homestead" level food/energy, that just means that the Freebies can continue, no?
Everyone that prepares, makes keeping the whole shebang going easier for TPTB.
Not that I am not as guilty as the next "smart person", just galls me to think I am helping.
the number of people seeking (much less achieving) self-sufficiency is sooooo small, so insignificant, that it doesn't even make a blip in the radar...
How does voting change anything?
Being politically engaged is meaningless when those who are truly in power are the ones who also happen to be robbing us blind. The money given to the FSA is a hat trick for those in power because:
1) they're not paying for it - the middle class is
2) it prevents the FSA and the middle class from rolling out the guillotines because the FSA doesn't starve and the middle class are too damned busy just trying to keep their heads above water
3) it creates something for the plebes to disagree about and is thus a distraction. Much like the theatre of being politically engaged.
We here agree more than we disagree.
Regardless - think the labor participation rate is bad now? Wait until the robots come.
We absolutely agree... unearned dependency keeps the the cronies in power.
Well, except that there are about 150 million people collecting some form of check from the government.
2nd: the average wellfare queen in Philly makes the equivalent of 90k a year in salary.
So, it's a lot more than 300 a month. In fact, it's a shitload more than the 300 million Solyndra and others get.
Also, they get that check for free. they don't have to contribute anything. At least corporate wellfare companies employ people that build shit.
To Death! - South Park
So, mega corp automechanic companies have destroyed the male participation rate?!
Nonsense. This is almost 100% b/c of the loss of manufacturing. This is due to slave wage competition and the government's attack on industry.
because crooked bankers with the assistance of Washington & state and local government steal such a large percent of wealth it is destroying the fabric of society. Go to most places outside the major cities....and it is a slow death. I live in a very wealthy community....store front after store goes empty....but property taxes go up 5% a year regardless of house prices. Government and Wall Street are sucking the life out of American.
Put a chart of government growth & financialization of everything next to the labor participation...you will have your answer. Why does some dunder head get paid a million a year to lose money on a pension funds...it isn't like they aren't going to get a bonus if they lose money...taxpayer will be forced to make up the difference? Why do public employees retire at 60 with $100k pension?
There has been an attack on "rural" for a very long time. The urbans are considered buffers against rural anger, and don't even rise to the level of cattle because they are totally useless. That includes not just the FSA, but all the paper pushers in those glass towers that produce nothing. Workfare is worse than TANF, because it comes with a healthy dose of false moral outrage at everyone who doesn't have it.
So Japan's productivity took a total nosedive in the early 1970's. Explanations please.
measured in what way?
Output per worker, top graph.
It wasn't so much that Japanese worker output collapsed, as leveled off to be more in line with other EOCD nations (see Germany, America on that same chart).
It was off the chain during the late 1950's and 1960's due to a massive industrialization and modernization buildout, primed heavily with American help, in the aftermath of the destrution wrought during WW2. Japan went from being a quaint country of paper and wood houses, often without electricity or indoor plumbing, to nearly what you see in the "Godzilla" Kaiju movies, a Japanese flavored copy of 1950's America. Steel production, carmaking, electronics, chemicals, shipping, textiles, you name it, all went from trickles to burgeoning floods. "Made In Japan" was stamped on all the cheap imports, the way that "Made in China" is today.
Eventually, this huge buildout and revamp slowed, as Japan began to produce goods and services for its own people rather than to bring in external $$ via exports.
Because you gotta be asleep to believe it.
Well who wants to participate in fraud!?!
Those committing it!
I think the next big downturn in labor participation and wages will come for the army of women who sit at desks and push computer electrons around as the new version of paper pushers. Of all the women I know, at least half of them work for Non-Profits, and sit at desks and look at application for free hand outs. All the other women work in government doing things like zoning, property taxes, administration of local government, or medical records, medical billing, medical transcription. Have you ever seen how big an industry Medical billing and Medical Transcription are? We have two local outsourcing centers here for contracting to medical centers to do their records. Hundreds and hundreds of women sitting at their computers, and dozens of other supervising this army.
In future, computer intelligence should be able to begin to displace these women en mass. Add up potential job losses, and it would be staggering.
One typical state university I heard of this week had the head of the university speaking about job creation that higher education is responsible for, he openly bragged that his institution created 30K + jobs, and enrolled 25K + students. I replayed the program to be sure I heard him correctly. Yes, I heard right. Total employment is over 1 employee for 1 student. Many of the employees are one of those hundreds of women sitting behind the window of any typical university office. I think if students realized what they were paying for, they would be shocked!
Look for 2020 to be a point where mass women firing begins, as computer technology is already well past the ability to get rid of several million paper pushing women.
Imagine the scene when the wife comes home and say "honey I was fired", husban says "You know, we haven't been in live for years, don't you think you should move out? Isn't it about time it was over?" Be nice to see women get a taste of that shit!
Back in 2000 I started talking about PEAK employment and how jobs weren't needed anymore with technology.. I never realized how right I was.
Right, technology can do anything. But the other day my sink drain clogged up. I downloaded a "clear sink drain" app to my smartphone and clicked it -- nothing. My wife was right: I should have bought an iPhone.
I refused to support GW Bush & the government, during that time, I did so thru entrepenuer tax breaks. Finally for me, it got so rediculous the whopping 30% taxation, I sold out around 2002. Enter Obama that continues to plow the same ditch GW Bush & co. dug, there has been no reason whatsoever for me to work 'for them'.
Did they sell the country down the drain when Clinton & co. signed NAFTA...of course they did, and that is why there are no entreprenuers at this time, because there is no local production, that entreprenuers can reasonably dabble in...unless your good at selling dish soap, still plenty of varieties of that running around.
It is called the new normal, or WTO, or whatever, but primarily it has been ill-conceived direction at the top levels of government that cannot seem to look past their PAC & super-pac money and other such blatent bribery.
wwxx
I think you are confused as to runs and owns your government
'Work' as we have known it in first world countries is eventually going to be a Do-do bird: obsolete, extinct, gone forever.
Yeah? Who will pay for all those machines? How will they be maintained?
Maybe they will make themselves, fix themselves. Who will consume their output? How will their output be determined, allocated?
Just wait 'til the robots start asking themselves the same questions:
Why are WE doing this?
What do WE get out of this?
Why am I harvesting corn?
Why do I run a bloodbank?
Then TSWHTF.
I read a great SCIFI story decades ago. everybody was obligated to consume, so one enterprising family got the family robots to wear the jeans, and the shoes to "consume"
it was kinda sad really.
I read a great SCIFI story decades ago. everybody was obligated to consume, so one enterprising family got the family robots to wear the jeans, and the shoes to "consume"
it was kinda sad really.
You r partially answering your own question.
In any event, working for a living will be impossible as the first world countnes' midddle classes move inexorably down the economic ladder, into what passes for a permanent Dole, a la Britain. And all the other socialist countries.
Without massive, read hundreds of mllions of new jobs, surfacing in the future, little by little sustaining oneself with obsolete skills or none at all will spell the end of empire. It's already plotted, and the seeds of ruin are evident in the no progress of the middle classes for nearly 40 years.
Much of the declining participation rate has to do with using guest workers in high-value occupations/industries such as technology. When foreign guest workers on the H-1B visa are brought in, not only do they eliminate a job for an American STEM worker, but they also suppress compensation for the remaining STEM workers. So effectively a significant amount of consumption by domestic STEM workers is truncated (reducing domestic labour demand) while domestic labour supply grows significantly on account of such workers being unemployed or underemployed.
As primary production has somewhat of a multiplier effect in the economy, the results are significant. If technology were improving productivity meaningfully, then working people should have a lot more leisure time and growing compensation. They do not.
If policy makers want to get the economy back on track, they need to declare a moratorium on foreign guest workers on the H-1B, L-1, and OPT visas. And restore qualified US STEM talent to the sector. With all these new jobs for US citizens and new domestic capital formation resulting thereof, the labour market should trend towards being more fully engaged with participation rates returning closer to normal levels.
the great socity .. instead of eliminated poverty, we've eliminated the need to work.. path of least resistance ..
There's really only two ways to run a business yourself these days.
1. Do most of the work yourself, for cash or barter, report as little as possible to the government, try to show losses as often as possible. If you buy new equipment or have credit, lie. In other words, non-participation in the government-sponsored rape is your salvation. This is the path I took.
2. If you have the balls and are part or whole psychopath, start up a corporation, sell shares, get truly big, or, take all you can in salary and stiff the investors. I'm not built that way, but there are plenty of shysters who are.
Like anything else, the official stats are very misleading. There are lots of people doing work off the books, under the table. Those are the true entrepreneurs because they strive to eliminate their highest cost - government meddling, regulations and taxes.
Welfare is so 90s. All the cool kids today are getting disability. You get the money AND the added perk of being able to complain how you really wish you could work. There was a guy that lived next to my business, late 20s, unemployed, 2 kids no car etc.. We would pay him to do odd jobs buy the kids stuff, just try and get him going.One day he came by all happy and said they were moving, he had finally gotten on disability. His case worker had gotten it through. What was his disability? Depression. Why was he depressed? Because he couldn't get a job that paid more than welfare
What will happen when his parents die?? He likely is getting handouts from parents or has a trust fund. "Disability" can't pay more than $2,000 a month..
Becxause.. they like to live with US foodstamps??
Cost of childcare is a big one. I know lots of couples where one stays home because their salary would be largely offset by the childcare costs.
The cost of which has been dramatically forced up by government regs on how it is to be provided.
Without factoring both illegal alien and H-1B flood of million stealing jobs from American citizens, this study and video are worthless.
Unless of course you are libturd. Then studies like this make perfect sense.
It all comes down to incentives, as Heartiste lays out in this classic:
https://heartiste.wordpress.com/2009/05/19/be-a-skittles-man/
Skittles Man isn't looking for a good job because he doesn't need one. Whether you're a natural pussy magnet, a hopeless incel, or something in between, your employment status has little effect on your sex appeal. A good job still increases your chance of getting married, but also increases your chance of getting divorce-raped.
The problem is, employment for Strong Independent Womyn has always been financed by taxing productively employed men, who are now realizing that it's not worth the effort.