More Evidence Great Depression II Is Here: 30mm Unemployed in U.S. (19% of workforce)

trefoil · Aug 11, 2009

Quote from ByLoSellHi:

I'm not being sarcastic or coy, but a short response can dispatch of the above sentiment quickly:

History is replete with once wealthy nations that made that critical turn where "the children no longer lived better than their parents."

The roadside of history is replete with the skeletal remains of once wealthy empires.

Britain & Spain are two examples. Both have lower living standards, by far, now, than they did in generations past.
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Small but vital point: we're not an empire.
With the exception of the War of 1898, we never went in for imperial acquisition, and the largest country we got a hold of in that war, the Phillipines, long ago became independent.
The expense of having an empire is a large part of what did these countries in. We don't have that expense. More than that, we don't have the drain on our youth that having an empire takes from you. Our youth can continue to make us richer by making their new ideas reality; they're not dreaming of being the Viceroy of India instead. (Although, arguably, shipping off windbags like Curzon to the colonies was probably a net gain for the British. Oh well.)

Scataphagos · Aug 11, 2009

Last week some Deutchebank analysis said it would be 41% by 2011.

Burtakus · Aug 11, 2009

Quote from Illum:

I take that back, Nasa IS hiring... 125k starting. My maths isn't up to snuff, but employment available.

http://jobview.usajobs.gov/GetJob.a...ler=basic.aspx&pg=2&AVSDM=2009-05-16+12:32:00
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That's a GS-15 or SES slot. You would need at least a BS in ME, AE, EE, or a hard science such as physics. Preferably a MS to e competitive perhaps PhD. On top of that you would need at least 20+ years of experience in spaceflight to even be considered. Probably closer to 30+ years to be competitive. On top of that you would need to be recognized as an an expert in your field with national if not international stature. you also have to have enough credibility to tell an SES program manger they are screwing up and have them listen and follow what you are saying.

Not many folks can meet those quals that is why they get paid that much.

nasdaqmadness · Aug 11, 2009

I am not calling dooms day quite yet but I have to agree with ByLoSellHi on this one. I think things are alot worse than we are led to believe. The health of the economy depends so much on the overall psychology of the U.S consumer. Hopefully the masses will buy the BS and think that the worst is behind us. We dont all have to believe.

Hope for the best but have a plan for the worst.

new$ · Aug 12, 2009

worst recession since World War II

http://www.worldfinance.com/news/worldnews/breaking-views/article701.html

Illum · Aug 12, 2009

Would the Great Depression have been known as a recession if we had the reserve currency status back then? You hear the article about GS being a squid wrapped around humanity? Check out the many places in the world the largest, deadliest military is stationed. We will get out of this, and quicker than people will realize. Maybe next time, if they dump the dollar and our forces weaken. But not his time. Rome is too strong to just up and collapse.

speres · Aug 12, 2009

Quote from ByLoSellHi:

If the stats Herbert cites are true, there is no way out.

I believe his stats to be more true than not.

A Scary Reality

By BOB HERBERT
Published: August 10, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/11/opinion/11herbert.html?_r=1&hp

Last week was a pretty good one for President Obama. Bill Clinton helped out big time when he returned from North Korea with the American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee. Sonia Sotomayor was elevated to the Supreme Court. And Fridayâs unemployment report registered a tiny downward tick in the jobless rate.

But for American workers peering anxiously through their family portholes, the economic ship is still sinking. You can put whatever kind of gloss you want on last weekâs jobs numbers, but the truth is that while they may have been a bit better than most economists were expecting, they were still bad, bad, bad.

Some 247,000 jobs were lost in July, a number that under ordinary circumstances would send a shudder through the country. It was the smallest monthly loss of jobs since last summer. And for that reason, it was seen as a hopeful sign. The official monthly unemployment rate ticked down from 9.5 percent to 9.4 percent.

But behind the official numbers is a scary story that illustrates the single biggest challenge facing the United States today. The American economy does not seem able to provide enough jobs â and nowhere near enough good jobs â to maintain the standard of living that most Americans have come to expect.

The country has lost a crippling 6.7 million jobs since the Great Recession began in December 2007. No one is predicting a recovery in the foreseeable future powerful enough to replace the millions of jobs that have vanished in this historic downturn.

Analysts at the Economic Policy Institute noted that the economy has fewer jobs now than it had in 2000, âeven though the labor force has grown by around 12 million workers since then.â

Two issues that absolutely undermine any rosy assessment of last weekâs employment report are the swelling ranks of the long-term unemployed and the crushing levels of joblessness among young Americans. More than five million workers â about a third of the unemployed â have been jobless for more than six months. Thatâs the highest number recorded since accurate records have been kept.

For those concerned with the economic viability of the American family going forward, the plight of young workers, especially young men, is particularly frightening. The percentage of young American men who are actually working is the lowest it has been in the 61 years of record-keeping, according to the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston.

Only 65 of every 100 men aged 20 through 24 years old were working on any given day in the first six months of this year. In the age group 25 through 34 years old, traditionally a prime age range for getting married and starting a family, just 81 of 100 men were employed.

For male teenagers, the numbers were disastrous: only 28 of every 100 males were employed in the 16- through 19-year-old age group. For minority teenagers, forget about it. The numbers are beyond scary; theyâre catastrophic.

This should be the biggest story in the United States. When joblessness reaches these kinds of extremes, it doesnât just damage individual families; it corrodes entire communities, fosters a sense of hopelessness and leads to disorder.

The unemployment that has wrought such devastation in black communities for decades is now being experienced by a much wider swath of the population. Weâve been in deep denial about this. Way back in March 2007, when the official unemployment rate was a wildly deceptive 4.5 percent and the Bush crowd was crowing about the alleged strength of the economy, I wrote:

âPeople can howl all they want about how well the economy is doing. The simple truth is that millions of ordinary American workers are in an employment bind. Steady jobs with good benefits are going the way of Ozzie and Harriet. Young workers, especially, are hurting, which diminishes the prospects for the American family. And blacks, particularly black males, are in a deep danger zone.â

The official jobless rate is now more than twice as high â 9.4 percent â and even more wildly deceptive. It ticked down by 0.1 percent last month not because more people found jobs, but because 450,000 people withdrew from the labor market. They stopped looking, so they werenât counted as unemployed.

A truer picture of the employment crisis emerges when you combine the number of people who are officially counted as jobless with those who are working part time because they canât find full-time work and those in the so-called labor market reserve â people who are not actively looking for work (because they have become discouraged, for example) but would take a job if one became available.

The tally from those three categories is a mind-boggling 30 million Americans â 19 percent of the overall work force.

This is, by far, the nationâs biggest problem and should be its No. 1 priority.
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It would be interesting to see, that nobodys touched on, if the jobless are skilled trades or retail, labourers etc

Misthos · Aug 12, 2009

Quote from Illum:

Would the Great Depression have been known as a recession if we had the reserve currency status back then? You hear the article about GS being a squid wrapped around humanity? Check out the many places in the world the largest, deadliest military is stationed. We will get out of this, and quicker than people will realize. Maybe next time, if they dump the dollar and our forces weaken. But not his time. Rome is too strong to just up and collapse.
More...

During the Great Depression, we were the world's largest exporter of oil. We were also the world's largest creditor.

Basically, we were what Saudi Arabia and China both are today.

I just mention this to put your statement in a little more perspective. I'm not being a wise-ass.

Yes, we do have a phenomenal military. But if we have the need to use that, then I would assume quite a few things would have happened along the way to that necessity. i.e. the SHTF in a very big way. I doubt there would be much trading going on in that scenario.

Greenrush Drew · Aug 12, 2009

Respectfully disagree. America is surely an empire. With military bases in 170 countries and some half a million troops around the world and at a cost of over a trillion dollars per year to the taxpayers, I would say that qualifies.
Also, the US Dollar being the reserve currency allows the US to tax everyone via inflation, and this subtle monetary mercantilism is how empires maintain their steely grip over the rest of the world.

Quote from trefoil:

Small but vital point: we're not an empire.
With the exception of the War of 1898, we never went in for imperial acquisition, and the largest country we got a hold of in that war, the Phillipines, long ago became independent.
The expense of having an empire is a large part of what did these countries in. We don't have that expense. More than that, we don't have the drain on our youth that having an empire takes from you. Our youth can continue to make us richer by making their new ideas reality; they're not dreaming of being the Viceroy of India instead. (Although, arguably, shipping off windbags like Curzon to the colonies was probably a net gain for the British. Oh well.)
More...

Misthos · Aug 12, 2009

Quote from Greenrush Drew:

Respectfully disagree. America is surely an empire. With military bases in 170 countries and some half a million troops around the world and at a cost of over a trillion dollars per year to the taxpayers, I would say that qualifies.
Also, the US Dollar being the reserve currency allows the US to tax everyone via inflation, and this subtle monetary mercantilism is how empires maintain their steely grip over the rest of the world.
More...

Exactly. Well said. Our reserve status allows us to export our inflation costs. The net effect is not much different than Rome's collection of tribute.