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Guest Post: Bringing The "Not In The Labor Force" Mystery To Light
Submitted by Lance Roberts of Streettalklive.com
Bringing The "Not In The Labor Force" Mystery To Light
There has been much debate over the weekend regarding the 1.2 million individuals who moved into the "Not In Labor Force" category in Friday's Bureau of Labor Statistics report, which included an increase to the total population of 1.5 million. From the Wall Street Journal:
"Here's what happened: According to the Census Bureau, the civilian population [age 16 and over] grew by 1.5 million people in 2011. But the growth wasn't distributed evenly. Most of the growth came among people 55 and older and, to a lesser degree, by people 16-24 years old. Both groups are less likely to work than people in their mid-20s to early 50s. So the share of the population that's working is actually lower than previously believed. Taking that into account, the employment-population ratio went up. The unemployment rate wasn't affected.
'There was not a big increase in discouraged workers,' economist Betsey Stevenson commented on Twitter. 'What happened was Census found a bunch of old people we had assumed died.'
The adjustments had other effects, as well. They made the drop in the number of unemployed look smaller than it really was, and the rise in the number of employed look bigger. And because the Labor Department doesn't readjust its historical data to account for the new calculations, it isn't possible to compare January's figures on employment, unemployment and similar measures to those from earlier months."
So, fortunately, we have a lot more people alive than previously estimated. (Note to self: the TWO best jobs in the world are Mortician and Labor Analyst - when everything goes wrong people come back to life). However, I want to dig a little deeper into the Not In Labor Force (NILF) category to see what is really going on.
From the BLS Report (emphasis added): "The adjustment increased the estimated size of the civilian noninstitutional population in December by 1,510,000, the civilian labor force by 258,000, employment by 216,000, unemployment by 42,000, and persons not in the labor force by 1,252,000. Although the total unemployment rate was unaffected, the labor force participation rate and the employment-population ratio were each reduced by 0.3 percentage point. This was because the population increase was primarily among persons 55 and older and, to a lesser degree, persons 16 to 24 years of age. Both these age groups have lower levels of labor force participation than the general population."
So, as you can see in the first chart above, the adjustment to the population over the last decade was the second largest on record. However, the devil is in the details, as the population of 55 and older didn't really increase — they were always there but just not counted. The real concern is with the 16-24 age group. The longer that age group remains unemployed, the higher the probability that they will become long-term unemployable due to degradation of job skills. As we have seen in the recent reports, this age group has a much higher unemployment rate than any other category, and that doesn't bode well for economic strength in future as this group moves into lower wage-paying positions. Recent manufacturing reports show that one of the problems they face is finding "skilled" labor to fill available positions. The shift away from a production and manufacturing base over the last 30 years in the U.S. is now starting to take its toll. The problem, in trying to bring manufacturing back to the U.S., is not just education and skill training but also competitive advantages that the U.S. will have a difficult time overcoming in terms of underlying production and labor costs. Countries like China and Korea have no regulatory, environmental and minimum wage requirements to meet. Those are all additional costs that the U.S. must build into production costs, which limits our competitive potential. Outsourcing is going to be a long-term problem that will be very difficult to reverse.
But that is only one part of the issue. Another reality that impacts long term employment issues is our ongoing decline in economic prosperity. The number of individuals falling into the NILF category has been on the rise over the last decade, and the slope of that rate of increase is rising sharply. Of course, the knee-jerk answer response is that it is due to the rash of "baby boomers" moving into retirement. There is no arguing that a large number individuals are moving toward what would normally be retirement years. However, given the fact that the majority of average Americans, including the aging demographic, are woefully underprepared for retirement, they are being forced to work longer into their retirement years. Therefore, demographic trends alone do not adequately answer this issue. The reality is that the economic growth rate of the country over the past three decades has not been sufficient to support the growth in population. This is the same problem that exists in many other countries as well, countries where population growth has been faster than economic capacity. The decline in prosperity, which can be directly linked to increasing debt per household and lower savings rates, has led to higher levels of long-term unemployment and ultimately increases in the NILF category as shown in the chart above.
The chart above shows the actual revised NILF numbers from January 1990 to Present with an estimated increase of 350,000 per month going forward to account for the retiring "baby boomer" generation. The issue is that the January increase to the NILF category was 4X the estimated rate of increase. While there will be revisions in the coming months, what is important to note here is that, as usual, analysts and the media got lost in "the number" rather than understanding the relevance of the number in relation to the overall trend.
With the long-term trends of economic growth and employment on the decline, the issue for the U.S. going forward is how to correct these problems and return the country to a path of prosperity. With debt ratios in excess of GDP and deficits running into the foreseeable future, the negative ramifications for economic prosperity remain headwinds. The debt deleveraging cycle for households will take much longer than most think, and the impact of the deflationary cycle will continue to takes its toll on wages and employment going forward.
The good news, however, is this. Just as it happened post "The Great Depression", the country will rid itself of its excesses and return to its root values that have been lost to greed and excess over the past thirty years. Individuals will once again return to saving more, which will in turn lead to productive investment. The "innovation" cycle that the U.S. holds will continue and, as debt levels are reduced, the growth rate of the economy will begin to accelerate.
America is not doomed to "Third World" status if the leaders of this country will begin to do what is fiscally and politically in our collective best interest. The idea of the "American Dream" is still alive. However, that dream was gradually perverted by the shift from generations of hard working individuals who strived to "build stuff" to an "entitlement generation" of "give me stuff". The country cannot prosper with 1 out of 2 Americans on some sort of government assistance program, 87 million not in the labor force and over 46 million Americans on food stamps. This will change as necessity will ultimately dictate.
The best for us lies ahead. It will just take the realization that "hard work" and "sacrifice" are ideals that will once again have to be adopted not only by the "Average American" but by our government as well.
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We are so screwed.
+1 ... won't let me vote you up.
Censorship on Zerohedge? We are so screwed.
Just a little self censorship. ZH is still wild and free.
The employment level is down 5% from its 2007 peak and at its lowest level since 2004. The secret to the record labor force participation rate in 1999/2000 was the federal government consumed only 18.2% of the GDP compared to 25.3% today.
Simply put the bigger government gets the less jobs there are.
The conspicuous consumption certainly was not at the blue collar level. The wealth inequality is caused by;
1. Federal Reserve inflation policies.
2. Federal government consumption and increased transfer payments.
3. Immigration policy that disproportionately affects low skilled workers and benefits elites.
The answers are simple;
1. End the Fed.
2. Restrict the federal government to no more than 11% of the GDP.
3. When the fiat collapse form state governments into regional national governments that support polices 1 and 2.
Another secret to that high labor force participation rate in 1999 to 2000 was the bubble economy. The Fed brought rates down to 3% in 1993 and let that plateau at about 6% until the .com bubble popped. At that point, we should've had a deep recession, which was never allowed. Instead, the Fed is still trying to reflate that bubble.
The bubble economy before the .com bubble also propped up GDP, making federal spending / GDP seem smaller.
Solution #2 won't work because GDP is just a plain ridiculous statistic. For example, if a hurricane wipes out a city and the city is rebuilt, all that rebuilding is added to GDP when that city is actually worse off than before the hurricane. Or, perhaps, more relevant, government spending is counted in GDP but the borrowed money is not subtracted. Also, the deflator is simply a lie in order to boost GDP.
But really, if solution #1 was followed and the Fed was ended, solution #2 would fall into place because the Fed would be there to be the government's sugar daddy. The government would then have to get the taxes out of the people, or out of borrowing from other countries, which is much more difficult.
TheSilverJournal.com
I agree that the GDP is complete BS and have written about it. And you are 100% correct that if we had free banking gold/silver the federal government could not grow beyond what people were willing to give it, and foreign creditors would be much more cautious about loaning money in real gold/silver.
I would re-write the GDP as;
Y = C + I – G + lNXl to give the statistics geeks something more realistic, even though it is crap.
What really irks me about the BLS is that they want us to believe they found all these old farts who were not counted and everything is cool with their numbers. What hubris!
That just proves that no actual jobs were added to lower the unemployment rate and that it was truly a statistical adjustment. How unempmloyment is measured is no secret. The sad thing is the mainstrem media is either unable or unwilling to make a connection between the labor force participation rate dropping to fresh multi decade lows and the declining unemployment rate.
TheSilverJournal.com
MUST SEE video from BLS:
Are You "Really" Unemployed?
h/t Mish
Ditto, and he beat me to it. It is hard to miss that line - IF? Ha! Are the members of Congress counted as NILF? Cause they sure as hell ain't...
NFP
Well played - although it was better before the expletive was deleted.
Same as navy - couldn't +1 it.
I keep holding out hope that my mother will start reading ZH one of these days.
Is she in the Glenn beck cult?
She's apolitical. Just another person standing at the edge of retirement, looking to try to keep busy.
Go long prisons.
I started to laugh but then I remembered that CXW, GEO and CRN are all publicly listed companies and are increasingly lobbying state governments.
To echo someone above: we are all doomed.
Thought the same thing.
Ditto with the greed and the back-stabbing. That shit ain't going no where!
They rig our elections why would anyone think they wouldnt rig unemployment numbers. We are a 3rd world country.
Like there are a bunch of old farts out there not counted.
"This was because the population increase was primarily among persons 55 and older and, to a lesser degree, persons 16 to 24 years of age."
Fucking commune living Rainbow Family Hippies and OWS kids screwing up a well oiled government machine once again.
If anyone is interested, tomorrow on National Geographic they have a new TV show... DOOMSDAY PREPPERS... shall be interesting if you want new tips/ideas for your financial armageddon preppring...
Here's the first part of the pilot :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUM0TOkNALg
I have a few contacts in the prep community, the "real" preppers wouldn't touch this show, and national geo is gravitating to nutcases and doing the usual reality TV nonsense with staged scenes. I'd suggest taking it with a huge grain of salt, and instead look at sites like http://ferfal.blogspot.com/ and http://www.survivalblog.com/ and http://shtfschool.com/ plus forum sites like zombiesquad ... and take those with a grain of salt too, but a smaller one.
Correct. No true prepper would ever make his preparations known for many reasons. Chief among those is that the first rule of prepping is to not tell anyone what you are doing, else when "it" happens everyone who didn't prepare who knows you prepped will show up on your doorstep and you'll either have to give them some of your stash to go away or start stacking them like cord wood on your doorstep.
I'll watch the show, but purely for entertainment purposes.
Sounds like a bunch of BS! LOL
America is not doomed to "Third World" status if the leaders of this country will begin to do what is fiscally and politically in our collective best interest.
Won't happen as long as the banksters and their puppets are in control and the laws are not enforced.
Remove 60% of the US's energy inputs (which equals its energy imports) and ask yourself if it could stay above "third-world" status. NOTE: the "third-world" isn't near as highly leveraged energy-wise.
It's all about sustainability. Leadership means very little: for if it did, then that would suggest that "leaders/govt" could actually be "productive" (read "create stuff" for consumption/export).
DOOMSDAY PREPPERS, Bitchez!!
Actually, there were a bunch of 15 year olds who got lost in a Wardrobe and came out as 65 year olds.
Mexican and Chinese auto workers make less then $2 an hour.....that's a long way from the $68 an hour auto workers make here and in Germany.
As Steve jobs told Barry, "jobs are not coming back."
Germany does well in China
Jobs will come back if we can put in place a transversal value added chain; think strategic value added cross bred with entry barriers of quality and local service capabilites, like installation and after-sales. Think networked problem solving in a eco-system environment. Its a new economic paradigm where its not simple labour productivity comparison but complex system comparison. It requires to create eco system infrastructure and labour skills. Like modularised houses and off shore platforms and domotic electronic systems. The Inernet will help create these platforms and integrate local services to it.
Think out of box, think transversal, rethink the object you sell, its hardware, software and services multilayered and product cycle oriented from design to end of product life cycle; beyond installation into after sales and maintenance, BUT preconceived as such SINCE INCEPtion. A whole new approach. Including recycling the junked object at end of life cycle. All thus integrated gives a product with a sustainability coefficient that corresponds to the new economic RM constraint paradigm that must replace the hyperconsumption buy and replace at planned obsolescence cycle rupture point now prevalent. Like the Iphone or Ipad. This has to be rethought. To include social excellence criteria available in home market.
It is obvious this model is better adapted to industrial hardware then consumer hardware products which have shorter life cycles.
No! Jobs will NOT "come back." This suggests that we're going to somehow bring back jobs that we had in the recent past.
The entire paradigm of the recent past is D-E-A-D! US manufacturers actually did us a great service, they sold off a ton of dead-end shit to places like China; and we here back home were able to gobble up the remains of this dying stuff really cheap (so we wouldn't rise up against TPTB and their dead-end paradigm).
Don't get me wrong, I'm NOT clapping my hands over people struggling. I'm neutral, as I can see pluses and minuses in everything: I weigh them all and then decide; and, my decision is never allowed to block out subsequent information that could otherwise significantly alter prior decisions.
What I'd suggest is that we'll be returning to jobs that are more traditional than modern industrial and technology-related.
It really isn't an issue of IF people become employed. It's an issue of HOW people are going to spend time being productive.
The machine-age IS going to wind down. Expect there to be a BIG increase in physical labor requirements: this isn't looking so good when you take into consideration demographics (some day I figure we'll be kicking ourselves for slamming the door on "illegals" [there goes the youth for taking care of the decrepit]).
There is a great global leveling going on. The structural justifications for wage inequality between nations are being eroded away on a daily basis. In ten years, those Chinese and Mexican workers will be earning more and, if there are any auto workers left in the U.S. by then, those U.S. workers will be making considerably less. That in itself is not a problem. If we stopped devaluing the dollar and allowed housing, medicine and education costs to deflate, wage deflation might be a great development that finally allows for real, wealth-creating, productive industry to return to the U.S. The Fed's stubborn attempts at controlling prices are not only failing but they're also suffocating productive industry.
"In ten years, those Chinese and Mexican workers will be earning more"
Is this factoring in inflation or not? Anyway... I'd argue that this really WON'T be the case, and for the following reasons:
1) Any "increases" still are unlikely to significantly keep production levels up (let alone increase them); that is, these workers are still not likely going to be able to afford the very products they're making (most products only operate on top of a significant infrastructure [these tend to be heavily subsidized (read "unsustainable")]);
2) Drop in wages elsewhere will result in LESS export of products (this plays hand-in-hand with above);
3) Raw material inputs are becoming scarcer, requiring increasingly greater energy inputs to obtain; China is a big energy importer, Mexico not (though at the rate it's burning through [via export as well as domestic consumption] it it might one day be looking to import as well).
"wage deflation might be a great development that finally allows for real, wealth-creating, productive industry to return to the U.S."
I see mention of "wealth-creation" all over the place, but no one seems able to define what it means. In my mind it's really all about the extraction of physical resources and the subsequent transformation of them (for export). Further, we must not confuse short-term bubbles with sustainable practices: iCrap stuff, while it's brimming with "technology," and "creates" a lot of "wealth," is short-term bubble stuff, relies on a lot of complex, energy intense infrastructure (not to mention scads of consumers in which to prop up "economies of scale" production).
Not if the things that are made with $2/hour labor are made to cost more.
The US and EU have the people if not for businesses wanting pliant labor that is resistant to wage increases.
"Countries like China and Korea have no regulatory, environmental and minimum wage requirements to meet. Those are all additional costs that the U.S. must build into production costs, which limits our competitive potential."
So why Germany is competitive and has a positive trade balance with China?
hmmm,... so, is our american community of financial oligarchy's, nudging us to except "State Capitalism" - the ordained manifesto to a liberated quasi-communistic NWO?
how long before this nefarious ruse is implemented here in the states when there is but one job for every five-to-ten able bodied [hammer & sickle] workers?
just sayin
There is a minimum wage in Korea and there are regulatory and environmental requirements in both country. They're just ... a lot more flexible, especially in China, and especially if you have a few hundred thouand dollars to bribe the local Party official with.
The difference is that productive, real wealth-creating industry (the kind that results in the production of actual commodities or facilitates tangible increases in standard-of-living) is primary in places like China and Germany whereas FIRE is primary in the Anglosphere.
s. korea - yes
china,... just ask the taiwanese what freedom [?], and the people that work in the storage-locker factories with suicide fences, via apple, microsoft, dell, ge, gm, cat, mot, goodyear, hp, etc., etc., ___ infinity [these companies will abandon the u.s. and join the communist as soon as our purchasing power tanks and the asian tiger's begin to fill in the growth]
Ps. Everyone in the known universe wants a product that's made in germany, especially their fantastic automobiles
jmo
"Individuals will once again return to saving more,..."
at 0% that is not going to happen in volume....debt repayment will occur but capital formation at sufficient levels to overcome negative mpd (marginal productivity of debt) will be severely impeded.....
the debt of america is a stage 4 cancer on its economy....and most of that debt is now held by the frb and us gov....
3d worldization is on its way with the highly bifurcated societies of such countries....
It's a fucking unemployment rate. If the historical prints can't be compared to current ones, you're doing something wrong.
there is growth, but not in the economy or labour force
pass the sweet and sour shrimp!!..........
Is your MILF a NILF?
Mish has also done some further analysis of the figures;
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2012/02/fewer-nonfarm-employe...
DavidC
The author o fthis piece is out to lunch. Read the closing paragraph. I'll paraphrase:" America need not be headed for third world status if only our politicans begin to act in our best interest." When was the last time that happened? Manufacturing could return here very quickly if a simple formula was adhered to: 1. Tear up most if not all of the "free trade" agreements signed since the 1990s. We need FAIR TRADE, not FREE TRADE. On the other hand, we need LESS, not MORE college education in this country More trade and technical school educations are needed right now. Today, we have the highest percentage of our population with college degrees, and it is for nothing under the current system. And finally, here is something sure to stir the pot: Too many of our young people 24yrs and under are unemployable. Too many look like the carnival left town and they missed the bus out of town. They can't speak inteligently. They have few marketable skills an employer would want.
The idiot parents sent them to public school. What did you expect? You are better off on a homestead than having your kids get brain damaged in public indoctrination.
Kids don't write using the English language anymore. It's all text language now. I wonder if the average 17 year old high school student can write a term paper without using "ur" or "Ima" or "r u". I'd be willing to bet 50% of them can't do it.
New Normal math requires producing data that supports the desired result, not vice versa or something like that. All y'all should know this by now.
legacy costs, see evolution(in time) of
fiat ponzi lending schemes, infinite growth
paradigm on the margin advantage exploitation
and global expansion. i think we're done
sacrificing for murder incorporated.
Labor Force?
A friend recently disclosed to me the contents of their son's application for employment. He's a generation x-box'er and isn't too keen on work of any kind...and he's not in school, nor does he have any other job.
In the section where it asks, "day and hours available to work" he put "Monday - Thursday 10:30 to 4:00."
He augmented this with a comment to his mom that "for $8.00 per/hour they better not expect him to work long hours".
This kid (and millions more just like him) is exactly why we, America, will not compete with China. Or Mexico. Or Taiwan. Or etc.. It will take an economic disaster to turn around the mentality of our parasite generation. Only then, will these kids accept the jobs that reflect their true value. By then, that value will be about $0.75 per/hour, which will really be $10 per/hour...when gasoline is $40 per/gallon.
I'm a generation x'er and I was putting available any time and still couldn't land a shitty $10 an hour job! Oh well, I got into phenomenal shape, working on a second degree and coincidentally working as an intern for a mortician! 1.5 million extra potential clients for me sounds......wonderful!
No, the true value is not the US accepting Third World wages. The only likely direction that economic disaster will steer the economy is to preserve the US at the cost of the Third World.
There is no comparative defect that the US has that isn't present in the Third World - unless you want pliant labor pools that are no more than slaves.
Just take a look at the employment participation rate: http://soberlook.com/2012/02/employment-participation-rate-shows.html
According to a national radio host. I will paraphrase as best as I can ..
I'm not sure anyone realizes that labor stats are now gathered/created by the US Labor Department soley. A change was made about a year ago. The labor stats used to be sent to the US Labor Department by the individual state's labor departments. No longer.
I would love to know if this is true. I assume it is.
"The reality is that the economic growth rate of the country over the past three decades has not been sufficient to support the growth in population."
This for me is one of the main problems. Where is the next area of real growth that creates real jobs? Sure there will be some new innovations and some increase in jobs, but we need Millions of jobs. That is not going to happen for a long time. Companies are proud of themselves, they have learned to get along with less people, earn more and satisfy customers. No way that is going to change.
Unions serve a purpose. But not when they insist in taking more and more and lose all sense of competitiveness in the global markets. Just look at the latest example:
Caterpillar:
Bulldozing its way through a high-profile dispute over wages, Caterpillar Inc. said Friday it will close a 62-year-old plant in London, Ontario, that makes railroad locomotives, eliminating about 450 manufacturing jobs that mostly paid twice the rate of a U.S. counterpart.
We have structural changes taking place, not cyclical, not easy to reverse. And politicians doing the right thing for the nation. Forget that. This will take years to correct, if we can correct at all.....after we make the right adjustments.
In the 1980s there was an explosion of new small businesses. For a long time the economy and tax policy had created barriers to individuals competing with large corporations. Niche markets weren't servied because they were to expensive to serve. Individuals being able to identify needs and start new businesses and succeed without being taxed and regulated to death would set the private sector free to create jobs. As for where those jobs would be. That's the purpose of free enterprise to reward people who find and meet needs.
Those are the least stable jobs with the highest amount of churn.
There's something to be said about quality of work as well as quantity of work.
Competitiveness is the problem, not the solution.
If only they brought back more old people from being dead, we would have 0.01% unemployment rate, and the economy would be surging ahead.
The shift away from a production and manufacturing base over the last 30 years in the U.S. is now starting to take its toll.
No kidding, except every academic economist will insist that freeing up our work force from the dreaded manufacturing sector is a good thing. Bunch of pointy elbow idiots don't realize that manufacturing is critical for a strong middle class. We are now screwed because we won't restore manufacturing for several generations, if ever.
There's just something amusing about a population increase amongst 55 year olds. My first thought is: who is giving birth to all these 55 year olds.
BLS eggheads
"The "innovation" cycle that the U.S. holds will continue and, as debt levels are reduced, the growth rate of the economy will begin to accelerate".
America does not operate in a vacuum and does not have a monopoly on 'innovation'. Debt levels are not being reduced they are being increased. Any drop in consumer credit has been minimal (and, worryingly, credit is notably being used for paying rent, both in the US and here in the UK).
DavidC
Pretty sure i've already heard several politicians say the US needs to abolish minimum wage. Problem solved. Just one thought: people here already had a taste of the good life. But then again we have many in tent cities who have nothing and could buy a boatload of stuff (in their minds) on $3.00hr. I for one won't be going along with it and if it comes down to that I plan on using some of the ammo I bought on things other than squirles.
I agree with this assessment, but i'm having a hard time imagining how this would actually work in practice.
Playing devil's advocate, if minimum wage was abolished, everyone who employed min wage people would immediately lay all of them off and re-hire people at a lower wage. So while there would be an increase in wealth for people with no jobs who would be willing to take a job at $3 an hour, all the people who were getting paid $7 an hour now have nothing (or would have to accept a huge pay cut).
I suppose the affect that would happen in theory would be that prices on goods would go down, but i'm having difficulty imagining that Wal Mart or McDonalds would dump all their workers, re-hire people for cheaper, and then actually follow through and lower all their prices.
I'm just trying to figure out how this would go down if it actually happened.
You optimists are so full of shit it's spewing out your mouth and your drowning in it. Explain to me how we "get back" what was lost when we haven't even changed course yet?
There's 2 problems with this, among others #1 politicians doing what's right and #2 the timeline. We'll be long dead to see this day come about.
Let me explain it to them in simple terms... If America was a cruise ship, we'd be taking on water, listing 25 degrees to starboard, engine sputtering, rudder jammed, heading for an iceberg at 20 knots in 35 degree water, half the crew drunk and partying, the other half heading for the lifeboats, and the captain... the captain is passed out. Now these optimists claim everything is going to be A-OK... we can save this thing and pick up all those people thrown overboard about 10 miles back. Riiight...
Italy comes to mind?
We shouldn't allow politicians to do shit like this - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8436772.stm And lot of the problem would not have not started. Instead of retaining a level playing feild, their going to trade us down in wages and materials so expect to make less money, end of story. Free trade is the problem IMHO.
Ban products built by slaves countries like China, South America, India or Africa.
Problem solved.
Who's going to ban them? The politicians that have a stake in all of it and are owned by the corporations? Maybe we should give the longshoremen rocket launchers and have them blast any POS thing that comes floating in with 10 miles of containers headed for Walmart.
Don't ban them, just have a trade tax higher than -0-. Real simple.
Read below, this is why we have a huge trade deficit.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8436772.stm
For a second I doubted jobism paradigm. But know I see almost all numbers fit and I am back to sleep/work/consume cycle. Thank you masters. Thank you almighty Markets.
Who wrote this? Someone from New York Times (supreme, doctrinal guardians of socio-economic status quo)?
When something is completely broken, as jobism doctrine for example, you bring minor, irrelevant doubts but hastily explain and correct them. Thats how you get illusion that broken, non-functional whole works quite decently (and still exists).
NOW EVERYBODY BACK TO WORK! Keep yourself busy and swallow. Do not question "reality" as described in NYT (just for example).
You would think with all the computers and social security numbers issued you could simply count workers and base your metric there.
However, considering that the social security administration has some numbers being used hundreds of times by illegal aliens collecting welfare and other bad folks using identity theft, nobody seems able to clean up that mess.
The government has these fantasies on monitoring people's phone calls, electrical usage, twitter feeds and Facebook jihad pages, yet they seem completely comfortable avoiding the obvious - unemployment - never-mind under employment, "discouraged" workers living in homeless camps, children in poverty, etc.
the fact that the corrupt corporate media goes along with it all ads fuel to the fire.
Forget faith in government. Nobody believes anything anymore.
I am in the farm equipment business. My labor force is old and getting older. We cannot hire any young people. They want it all, want it now and want what experienced, relaible employees get for wages. We are doing everything we can to eliminate people. We have consolidated positions and those we can't consolidate any further, we sub out. None of my subs thus far has added employees. They simply stretch the ones they have. My dairy farm customers use a lot of mexican labor. The farmers are in the process of automating everything they can as they know (believe) the next generation of mexican labor will not be as excited about doing the jobs that are currently being done by their predecessors. This next generation has sampled the american way of life and they too want it all, want it now and want more than they are worth. The only jobs that will be left in this country are the ones that can't either be automated or exported, period. The unemployment line will continue to grow.
Thats great news. Goal of economy is (or should be) to emancipate human beings from toil and repetitious work which kills brain cells. Also emancipate us from "worth" as you say, as if we were farming equipment. There is hope as long as that line grows.. at some point it will force "human farm owners" to apply logic and sound economic thought instead of mandatory wage slavery.
It's a little more complicated than young people being too uppity. The cost of living is soaring without bound. My future brother-in-law works at a farm equipment supplier and he has to live with his parents to survive. Those FRNs go a long way in Mexico. They don't here. Many of those young people may think, "what's the point of getting greasy in a shop if I can make the same money stocking oatmeal at Walmart?" If you can't inspire them with a brighter future and a chance to move up, there's really no point of them hanging around your place.
I've done everything from shooting screws at a manufacturing plant, stocking shelves at a box retailer, and working for a Fortune 500 company. I am an Air Force officer (reserve now) and I've been a DoD civil service employee and contractor. I have a degree in electrical engineering--and I'm unemployed. I've seen my share of lazy, worthless sluts (male and female) who have jobs only because they either spread their legs or sucked a dick.
What _YOU_ don't understand is that running a household is like running a business: If the pay you offer doesn't cover my expenses, I can't take the job. Duh! I've had to turn down jobs solely because the offered pay wouldn't cover my gas expenses to drive to the job site. I would literately lose less money by sitting at home reading ZH.
And then there are the employers (I assume you're one of these) who look at my resume and declare, "Well, you don't have any experience in the _EXACT_ skill area we want; therefore, you have to start at the bottom." Employers like you show NO interest in attempting to leveraging a diversely experienced candidate. You might *gasp* actually have to invest six months to onboad somebody.
Finally, there is NO worker shortage. The entire problem is piss poor managers who'd rather has their asses kissed than called on the carpet to explain their fuckups. I have _literately_ been in interviews where I was told, "Well, this place has been mismanaged for years, and now we need someone to come in and fix our problems." It is not my responsibility to bail your ass out because you can't run your business.
Agreed, but when your automated equipment breaks or you need help with exporting your product, I certainly don't expect you to hire a legal American for decent wages.
Looks like you are missing I give ups point. We have a generation that has never had dirty fingernails, somebody has to do those jobs. Some of our unemployed in the US are "above" those kinds of jobs. We have a huge chunk of the population conditioned to live beyond their means, the other side of that equation is not going to go over so well.
+1000000.
(even if I can't +1 you)
Employers think that they're entitled to perfect people and to complain if anyone else has that entitlement. People would work harder, and in more profitable ways, if employers considered people as long-term investments versus disposable resources.
The only jobs that will be left are the ones that are protected.
My associates in the infrastructure world (not IT, but power systems, water, waste etc) tell me there is no one under 50 who knows anything for them to hand the reigns of operations over to.
There's no way to train those people? If they want such people, that's the only way to go.
What seems to be wrong this time around is that businesses think they're entitled to have people be pre-trained but complain loudly if there's a single entitlement on the other side.
No problem. Just keep the borders open an allow a bunch of greasers to flood the country. Problem solved. Additional benefit - they breed like rabbits.
Americans need New political parties at State level. If New political movements - like say the Pirate Party starting capturing State Houses the party machines would collapse. The US political system is so corrupted by money that it has no ideology and is available to anyone with money and nowadays there are lots of foreigners with lots of money buying politicians. It started in 1973 when the Arabs found how much oil windfall dollars could be recycled to buy Westerners....
"So, fortunately, we have a lot more people alive than previously estimated." No, actually, that's not a good thing. Perhaps that view is to radical even for ZH, but a real population plunge would be a great step forward, for the survivors, of course. And maybe the dead, depending on the circumstances.
"Outsourcing is going to be a long-term problem that will be very difficult to reverse." Here's an easy but admittedly painful way to get way ahead on that: stop using the petrodollar as the "reserve" currency. It artificially inflates the dollar, allows those Beltway dipshits borrow out the ass, and makes a glut of cheap imports and manufacturing destruction in the US inevitable.
Or stop outsourcing in the most painful, immediate, and permanent way possible - law.
The USA will continue along the path chartered for it until there is collapse. Only then will there be a change. What I wonder is this: Will the change be for the better or worse? Believe it or not, it can get worse, ALLOT WORSE. Sad to say, I don't see Ron Paul returning for another run in 2016. Perhaps that is a good thing {not saying it is, just saying maybe}. Is there someone else out there to pick up the banner of liberty, smaller, more represenative government, that might be more appealing to the masses? Or are the 'mercun sheeple so morally and ethically bankrupt that it doesn't matter who runs? A friend and I were debating this issue just the other day. He said the movement needs someone younger, more charasmatic and "media savy" than Dr. Paul for the public to accept. I said that it isn't the candidate, it is the public that is the problem. The message of liberty and the personal responsibility that goes along with it scares the hell out of people. They just want to go to work, come home and eat supper, pop a top and turn on ESPN {or The Real Housewives of Wherever}. As long as their 401ks and IRAs are looking better, they don't see anything that needs fixing.
Barry & Ben understand this, and are doing all they can to facilitate it. Although inconvienced by TSA agents, they see the pat downs and scannings as a necessary evil. They are oblivious to all of the cameras poping up on ever corner. They accept and accomodate every intrusion into their life without much fuss. At this point, I don't know what else to do besides love my family, pray and prepare. I feel like Noah before the flood, warning people in vain while they mock or change the subject. "But you have been saying this for years now, and nothing that bad has happened. That was 2008, we are past the crisis, we have bottomed and are steadily rising". What can I say. Now I know how Peter Schiff felt back in 2006 when he did his apprences on CNBC, warning about the mortage meltdown that was coming. Except to my family, I am through talking unless someone asks, and they all know better to ask!
If outsourcing is so difficult to reverse, can you remind me again how Germany manages to be high-wage, largely unionized country with a manufacturing and export economy 2nd only to China?
Hey, just asking.
'There was not a big increase in discouraged workers,' economist Betsey Stevenson commented on Twitter. 'What happened was Census found a bunch of old people we had assumed died.'
ahhh, Betsey ... If you are that old you are not counted as part of the "workforce" ...