We are NOT anywhere NEAR the 30s Depression. I don't know what shiet you have been smokin' but we are not there. We don't have 20% unemployment. Soup lines all across the country,etc. However, having said that, I would NOT discount the possibility of that happening. As a nation and people, we are more leveraged now that probably all the the decades of the 20th century COMBINED! Should be interesting to see how it all play out one day eventually... That day might not be now. Or it could be tomorrow. We just don't know. But then after the '87 crash, a lot of people were worried about excessive credit expansion. Yet, we still had the greatest boom years in the history of this nation and the world during the 90s... So, who knows. Just trade 'em.
No it's not even close to the Great Depression as already explained. The current growing unemployment is due to a bubble burst, outsourcing and cost cutting. What in the world do you expect Bush to do about it? I mean what has he ever do to cause it? Outsourcing = globalization + high dollar. That was Clinton's platform. Bubble was during Clinton's era but hey it was such a great time then so who cared. There is nothing that the government can do about outsourcing and cost cutting by corporate America. I mean you want Bush to force the companies to hire?
Very true. Hey, we'll just have to see how things play out. After all, isn't a meteor supposed to hit before 2016?
CNBC, CnnFn, BITV (Bloomberg) don't read DNC talking points don't know Krugman, who is he?/she? didn't see Seabiscuit hummmm, back to back waves of multi-year, double digit unemployment.... ---these figures (commerce dept reports, unemployment reports, etc.), since LBJ have been manipulated for political gains. Actual figures were more correctly reported on in the 30's, hence leading to the over whelming landslide administration vote / change resulting in the Roosevelt 3 term wins. As discussed on numerous threads on ET regarding Economics, Employment, Jobs Creation and so forth these points came to mind: 1) employers hire with such narrowly defined requirements as to almost make jobs unattainable. Which means that most persons, no matter how desperate or well intentioned or minimally job retrained will never qualify for whatever so called new jobs are being made available, including Nursing, as someone suggested. Numerous comments, even earlier on this thread attested to that point. Someone mentioned having a Math PhD was usually sufficient to qualify for an interview or an offer from a number of positions where the person did not have previous experience. Can't do that today, in this highly specialized or highly overrated take no risk, train nor develop no-one economy. 2) Jobless recovery. I mean, really. If you're not at the party, then why does it even count? Really, it will always be about personal better-ment and personal interest. Simply put, we individually represent our interests, families, political and social associations and interests. When excluded or not even capable of choosing then such really doesn't count. Try telling 3nd and 3rd graders that they are having a Foodless Lunch Break and see how well that goes over. They'll call it and you, for that matter, exactly as they see it, and then they will start a riot on ya. Simply put we are worse off that the Depression. during those times, there weren't false representations that we are moving out of a Recession into a Jobless Recovery, there were real jobs... during those times, we didn't play with each other's depressed condition and blame each other that, how did someone earlier say? "they let their benefits run out and are essentially lazy in not trying to find another job?" ---- All(s) I'm saying in participating on these threads is we need to stop looking at these reports as if they're true. Most of the traders on these threads, God Bless them all, are successful traders, like myself, who don't really want for much. But, in all that, we really are not effected by these conditions, like we see others and hear reports. Oh, 60 Minutes, 60 Minutes II were some of the other business reporting sources that I referenced. There was a segment that they aired on how many huge soup kitchens and huge percentage segments of entire communities, particularly in the Midwest, are not only homeless, on relief if its available, but have nothing left and no hopes of getting anything. That segment was too much for the politically controlled media to tolerate and was quickly not followed up on. Someone also suggested that you can't blame this administration. Well? Someone also suggested: "what do you want Bush to do, tell CEO's to hire?" Well it seems that that door surely swings in his direction when he wants money for campaigns, or no bid contracts or other things. Why does anyone have to tell one citizen to honor other citizens, as if self interest weren't enough, yet that is where things are at this point. So yes, why not? Seems they active consult each other on these excessively generous tax breaks that have allowed them to siphon off these jobs to other countries and still get these tax concessions. So, perhaps it is conscientious quilt, perhaps that what it means to be a caring human citizen of the US, of the world, or these times. I hope you care just as much, what ever that translates into. hey, I'm signing off this post. cheers
Yeah, Mecro, you got that right. This is the government's job to protect american companies from unfair competition. This is also the government's job to protect american workers from unfair competition. They cannot force the companies to hire, but they can and should provide insentives to expand and hire in this country, not in India, Russia, China and Mexico. Why is it so hard for you to understand?
This mentality is exactly why we have a sprawling government today. Federalists have expanded our notion of the role of government, and suggested we spurn those who disagree. The Founding Fathers knew that one day it would come back to bite us..... as it is now. Your future lies in your hands. Because "we the people" have allowed the government to dictate to us how we will live, it does. We have placed our destiny in the hands of those who only care for themselves and what they'll have at the end of the day. Its time to grow up and leave home. At the close of the Civil War, slaves of all Nationalities, hadn't a clue how to care for themselves. Their wellbeing had always been in the hands of their masters. But they persevered and moved on. Stop looking for "the Master" to come to your rescue, he won't.
How can you have a record number of homes being built along with a record number of jobless losing benefits? The underground part of the economy must be increasing, people working cash only etc..
Despite what other less-informed pundits may think, January's employment figures were very disappointing - even though Wall Street decided that 112,000 new jobs was enough to have a little party. The problem with the 112,000 is that most of those new jobs don't really exist. I'll let the Labor Department explain itself in this passage from page 3 from its Friday release: "Retail trade employment increased by 76,000 over the month, after seasonal adjustments. The industry had lost a total of 67,000 jobs in November and December. "Weak holiday hiring in general merchandise, sporting goods and miscellaneous stores meant that there were fewer workers to lay off in January, resulting in seasonally adjusted employment gains for the month." By now my readers should have a PHD (pretty high disdain) for Capitol Hill math. This one, though, is a cake taker. I'll translate: Included in the 112,000 new jobs in January were 76,000 jobs that supposedly exist because people who weren't hired in December couldn't be fired in January. Got that? They didn't get hired in December, or fired in January, so they showed up as new employees in January as a statistical fluke. So, really there were only an abysmally small 36,000 new jobs in January. Considering that the margin of error for the survey of companies from which this number is derived is about 156,000 up or down, those 36,000 new jobs aren't even worth mentioning. But even if I hadn't just pulled out the Labor Department's own words on this fluke, what intelligent person really thinks stores hired 76,000 checkout clerks and shelf stuffers after the holidays? And there are a dozen other points in Friday's jobs report that show just how anemic the labor market really is. I thought these wacky but favorable seasonal adjustments would make last Friday's number come out better than everyone was expecting. But the underlying growth was so weak that even a good hop on the seasonals in retailing and other areas couldn't make this an easy play for Washington. The situation is still the same: moderate economic growth which leads to very light job expansion. * Please send e-mail to: jcrudele@nypost.com
Hiring is steadily improving: there are more hires this month than last in my region of the country - which typically leads the nation - and I see hiring momentum building. So, I dont really worry about this type of noise and I just let my observations guide my thinking. All of this jobs banter is just the usual market "noise" - which makes trading possible. The job trend is towards more job creation and new hiring and this fact has not changed since the last calendar quarter of 2003.
Do you want the government to hold the workers hand also and do their work for them? Or when they start complaining that they want higher wages to buy the new plasma screen, the government should go talk to the CEOs and force raised pay? At the most, the government can provide tax incentives to offset the cost of American labor vs its substitute overseas. But I doubt that is even enough. Plain and simple, the jobs being exported were highly OVERPAID. Period. Now that their true cost is uncovered, American workers who are still used to the old wages are being displaced. I mean, some of these jobs were getting like 30-50 bucks an hour but all they are really worth is 10 bucks an hour. Of course, during the bubble, cost was not a consideration. Now the reality starts setting in. Do I agree with all the outsourcing and cost cutting? Of course not. These scumbag cost cutting bastards are trying to outsource anything possible without even bothering to think. Some jobs make sense to be outsourced, the mundane generic ones that in essense are repetitive bullshit no matter the "special" qualifications. But some of these outsourced jobs will only bring down the quality of the products/services and the companies will feel the fall out. We will see some of these outsourced jobs rushed back in. Hehe, the new gimmick is to try to recreate the person to person interaction with video conferencing. Apparently, some Indian guy with a heavy accent that you can barely understand on a monitor will duplicate the experience of the two employees working next to each other. This is the same mentality used to raise millions for the dotcoms that would never bring in a cent in revenue. So go figure.