US Hiring Slowed in September as Global Economy Weakened
Posted by richrobinson 8 years, 6 months ago to Economics
Seven years of high speed Obama Keynesian economics and this is where we are. Record numbers not in the work force. A global slow down. The potential for another '08 style collapse. I wonder what Socialist solution is in store for us next.
Simple.
Too bad so many find it such a difficult lesson.
Jan
and is no better than a mockery. I could say more,
except that I don't type obscenity over the Internet,
(or anywhere else).
A jobless recovery truly is a non sequitur.
The problem with this kind of "recovery" is that no nation can continue to grow its economy when its people are unemployed. India is a classic example, as is China. They have massive amounts of unemployment yet tout all kinds of "growth" that is dependent on other nations. It isn't self-sustaining.
We make less, taxed more, everything costs more and we dare not make a move for fear of the next satanic regulation against humanity.
Sorry...I was venting!
Jeff sez:
"For the past few years, the Obama lovers in the media have been boasting about the supposedly great economy Americans are enjoying. According to this fictitious narrative, Obama’s strong leadership saved the economy and led to our “recovery,” but, in reality, we face today a RINO or “Recovery in Name Only” economy.
The real economy was exposed in the September labor report. The country created only 142,000 new jobs, much less than expectations. This year, we are adding fewer than 200,000 new jobs each month, well below last year’s average of 260,000 new jobs per month.
The so-called experts blame it on the global economic slowdown, yet, the economy of the United States has been troubled for years. We never recovered from the Great Recession of 2008 and have really been suffering from a prolonged recession.
The stock market only “recovered” because of a massive influx of money from the Federal Reserve. This policy of “Quantitative Easing” was the main reason the market did not totally collapse. Now, interest rates are being kept artificially low because the Federal Reserve is not confident the weak economy can sustain an increase.
They have every reason to be concerned. Weekly earnings fell approximately three dollars to $865.61 and hourly wages decreased one penny last month and have only increased 2.2% this year. Workers are earning less and working less hours as the average work week declined to only 34.5 hours. The old adage of a 40 hour work week is from a bygone era of economic prosperity that does not reflect today’s economic reality.
Some hopelessly positive analysts will cheer that the unemployment rate remained steady at only 5.1%. However, this rate is totally meaningless in an economy with only 148.8 million Americans working and an astounding 94.6 million people outside of the workforce.
Americans outside of the labor force include all people 16 years of age and older who are not employed and have not made any efforts to look for a job. Millions of these individuals are so discouraged about the labor market that they have stopped looking for employment. Many are completely dependent on government assistance. In America today, 50 million Americans are living in poverty, while 46 million people are receiving food stamps, a figure that has been exceeded for 38 straight months. A mere 15 years ago, only 17 million Americans received food stamp benefits.
In the last month, 579,000 Americans left the workforce, a number more than four times higher than the number of new jobs in September. Thus, the labor force participation rate fell to 62.2 percent, the lowest since 1977.
View Full Article http://townhalldaily.com the rest is worth the read. for The Rest Of The Story remember those words?
But you DID list a LOT of Good Reasons why you and other employers have reasons to contract your workforce! What y'all need to look at is Where Did Those Driving Forces Start, and just maybe, What can You or Anyone Else Do To Reverse Those Trends.
Look for Root Cause or kwitcherbitchen!
How does a politician like Rand Paul compete with the giveaway promises the socialist candidates make (that will be paid for by the "other" people)
All I can do is try to eliminate as much need for humans through automation and efficiency improvement.
Root Cause of what? People liking free stuff? I think THAT inclination goes back a few hundred thousand years.... :)
And when you wring all the benefits out of efficiency improvements, automation is one next logical step.
Unions are still fighting That reality and very stubbornly resisting the results of their own prior success in.... wait for it.... getting higher wages!
I love the irony in that.
A driverless truck pulls up to the back of the Golden Arches and "mates" its delivery doors to the back of the building...
All necessary foodstuffs and other items are transferred into the building hands-free and hermetically sealed against contamination.
Customers, whether drive-through or sit-down, order by touchscreen and automated equipment prepares and delivers all orders to the customer in a neat little bundle.
Backup power keeps the 'store' running, even in power outages. Emergency supply deliveries in case of unusual out-of-stocks are roof-delivered by Amazon Prime helicopter-drones with similar mating connections.
Local maintenance, smiles for customers, and anything else are provided by the One Minimum-Wage attendee in the store unless he/she is on a nap or potty break.
And the unions did it to themselves without thinking....
There would be upsides and downsides to such an eventuality. For example, working at McDonald's will cease to be an 'entry-level position' for many workers because the numeric demand for such workers will evaporate. There will be dislocations and disruptions, as with any such change.
Stick around.. the show should be "interesting," to say the least.
But ceteris paribus (sp?) ... the attempt to keep EVERYTHING ELSE the same while varying ONE variable so as to observe its effect... is way hard to do... especially in economics and Economies! :)
I'd guess, though, that if automation and/or improved efficiency could be looked at Alone, their effects probably would be to lower 'costs', hence 'cost of living.'
but IANAE (I Am Not An Economist) ... Thank whoever or whatever... :)
There are now five ways to adjust to market conditions in business.
1. Quality
2. Service
3. Prices
4. Layoffs and reduced hours
5. Reduce taxes
and finally number Six the Six hundred pound guerrilla chuckle chuckle
6. Close.
Why didn't WF see the handwriting or the wall it was on five years ago?
The other soon after the six day war showed a group of Arab types marching across the sand hands up. All had the stereotypical semitic features. One turned to the other and said "That's funny he didn't look Jewish."
Sometimes a single picture is worth a thousand words and phone calls. they tend to stick in your mind forever.
Dunkin' might have been caught in the 'health-food squeeze' as the media and health nuts took over the airwaves, too, y'know...
Any 'simple explanation' is inevitably wrong.
Nothing complex about the looters raped the economy and are in the CYA phase. The more complex the less I believe them.
The only question is did you remember to check the vaseline for sand. May be the only medicine Obamacare provided.
But, middle and upper management jobs ALSO went to China too- not directly, but because the low level jobs here required middle and upper management people who are now no longer needed here. That helps account for the reduction in management jobs here in the USA.
ON AVERAGE, we're around 5% unemployment... which IS the long-term AVERAGE unemployment for decades and decades.
As we APPROACH the "reversion to the mean," why do so many of you AND the mainscream media panic when the RATE of CHANGE of that percentage trails off?! As anything 'reverts to the mean,' it doesn't usually shoot through on a linear trajectory. If it does, it will REVERSE to 'revert to the mean' AGAIN and everyone will freak because 'unemployment is Increasing.'
Does Nobody Understand math, averages, economics?!
The root causes of the '"08 collapse" are quite irrelevant to today's economic situation. Although there is talk of another 'bubble' starting, which is what popped us into the last major recession.
PLEASE read some balanced economics... Subscribe to MarketMinder.com and read Ken Fisher's books on investing!
THEN come back here and tell me they're wrong, and why.
YES, Obama is a Keynesian. And the only two worse than him are Hillary and Bernie! They ALL believe that Government Control Is The Way To Fix All Problems.
But believing what the AP or Breitbart or Huffpost or the WaPo tell you about 'economics' will lead you 'astray' just as well.
Whatever...
I know. My theory is journalists need something write about. I used to do paid writing and will probably do it again. I looked for stories that I thought would be coming up, like the anniversary of some famous event, and then I tried to write interesting stories. I never went into the "OMG this and that happened," but I know that's one way to get attention.
"YES, Obama is a Keynesian."
I'm a Keynesian too, but not by the definition that some people use as an excuse to spend. We've been in a tepid expansion for years, and my Keynesian model says it's passed time to stop the borrowing and even start retiring debt.
I liken it to the size of my home mortgage versus my gross pay or annual burn rate.
When I bought my (high-priced) house in Silicon Valley, the carrying costs (minimum monthly mortgage payments) created a negative cash flow until my wife got a job. The mortgage principal was about three times my gross salary.
After years of inflation (and depreciation of the dollars I was using to pay the carrying costs) AND a few raises, the monthly payments got so manageable I started to prepay the balance. With a few stock options sold, I paid off the mortgage about ten or more years before it was due to complete.
Oh, and the interest rate at the start was 9.75%... "the last mortgage under 10% in Silicon Valley in late 1978," according to my banker. As rates dropped, I re-fi'd at least once or twice.
Avoid Ken Fisher's books and other information feeds. He's definitely NOT a Keynesian. He would probably agree that Obama IS one, though, and then point out that the "recovery" under Obama has been one of the weakest and slowest in US history.
But hey, he's not a Keynesian, so WTF does HE know???? :)
Total population
Population employed (AKA Labor participation rate - currently at its lowest in 40+ years)
Average family income (down >$5000 under Obama)
U13 unemployment rate (a more realistic look)
# of people on government welfare, especially food stamps and WIC
The problem with looking at the U6 unemployment number is that it is based on the number of people actively looking for work and does not include those taking handouts.
You see one of the reasons is government is always redefining to suit there needs and without regard to intelligible accuracy. I digress. Why would I not treat what you just wrote as yet another proof of government cooking the books or an intentional act of pulling the wool over our eyes then adding a large bucket of cement.?
Back when I was a kid, there was virtually no production line automation and as a postwar baby, I grew up in an environment where pretty much the only time people were out of work was when a union called a strike.
Jobs were basic, and 'careers' for 'educated people' included medicine, science, nursing and the like. The hierarchy of "management" was thin and exclusive.
Then, everyone got excited about women's rights and their participation in the labor force. No longer was the 'dream' of women to raise a family... it expanded to include going to high school, college, getting a well-paying job so that, as the divorce rate simultaneously was increasing, they would know they could support themselves and kids, if necessary, into the future.
So tons of women got degrees, the Glass Ceiling was discovered and attacked, and now Fortune Magazine can run a special issue of the World's Most Powerful Women.. CEOs and CFOs and such, of MAJOR world-wide companies.
So teachers and librarians' jobs go cheap and begging, as more women get Master's and Ph.D's and become majority of engineering and technical school classes and move up the corporate ladder, displacing the Old Boys on the charts.
Meanwhile, B-Schools teach their grads that, once they enter the workplace, their destiny is to be Leaders Of The World, and if it means climbing over and screwing others to get there, so be it.... And That is a quote/paraphrase from a B-School friend of mine just before she dropped that class at STANFORD UNIVERSITY ... yeah, the on in Palo Alto, CA... Silicon Valley.
So, Blarman, this is a VERY complex issue, with LOTS of inputs and outputs.
To bitch about 'average family income' being up or down is bullshit unless you bring to the party some of the many driving forces, or "Root Causes" as I refer to them... of the Problem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Okebm... is one video you might benefit from watching, along with most of the others Bill Whittle has up on YouTube.
But you won't.
Cheers!
And pardon me, but average income per family IS a big deal if one has gone to the grocery store over the past 5 years and seen the prices for food - conveniently left out of the inflation indexing - rise by nearly 40%. I work in the food service industry, and rising prices are BANE to the whole industry because they already operate completely on high volume, low margin. When prices go up and volume drops, margins disappear entirely. Food stamps are a covert attempt at the government trying to take over the food service industry just like they have done with energy, finance, and now healthcare.
And why are incomes dropping? Obamacare's provisions have significantly contributed to that, as have the billions of dollars of regulatory burden added on since Obama was put in office because they impose new costs on businesses that don't provide value which can be sold to customers. Forbes has already reported on this several times. And basic supply and demand tells us that as things get more expensive, people buy less because they run out of means. It doesn't take a PhD in Economics to understand this (and BTW I have an MBA, so I'm not exactly a slouch when it comes to the matter).
I know roughly what margins are in the food retail business, but not in "food services."
If some product becomes so expensive that customers (individuals or restaurants?) stop buying it, I would assume that the product would leave the shelves or menus and stay off or be replaced by some less-expensive item.
Food stamps and other government "solutions" try to drive behavior from a top-down command system, which I tend to observe as being less efficient than the Free Market would provide. Yes, I'm a Friedman-ite, from that pov.
I'd be glad to dish on Forbes, Anti-BusinessWeek, Fortune and other similar publications, but it's late and I've got a lot of Intray to weed through.
Cheers!
Never around 5%? Ever? ... looking for some more data from previous times...
Ok, average looks WAY above 5.... maybe 6-6.5?
Same link...
Input 1938 or earliest possible date, leaving 2015 as most recent...
Contrary to wht Michael says, facts are too far left or too far right. Facts are facts. People who can tell you how $hitty life is are easy to find. Show me people like Ken Fisher with a track record of analyzing the economy and helping people invest in things that work and end up making successful and profitable products.
Prior to the last round of China-based financial knee-jerks, The IRA dollars my wife and I handed over to Ken's company to manage have allowed us to give up literally $700k in cash withdrawals and management fees over 11.3 years with them, and our net balance is down about 1% over that entire period.
So much for 'being screwed by Wall Street." Choose your money manager well and let them do their job. I was recommended to Fisher's company by a dear friend who kept me in good stock market tips for many years, then abruptly stopped making recommendations. Why?
He decided to enjoy life instead and said he was putting way too much time and energy into managing his investments. He handed all his retirement money to Fisher Investments and never looked back. We went 'up the mountain' to Ken's place and interviewed them and decided to entrust them, too.
Now, I toss all email or hardcopy offers from anyone offering to manage my money... retirement or otherwise.
And anyone offering a subscription to their Newsletter gets bit-bucketed, too. I've concluded that all those market wizards are making most of their money from such subscriptions and not from their investments. Or at least most from subscriptions. If their investment ideas were THAT good, 1) they'd be living happily on them and 2) the last thing they should want to do is share those ideas with anyone...
Their customers automatically become their competitors for the same rainbow-chasing.
In a free market, that's one of the dumbest things anyone can do. QED.
Live long and Prosper, CG.
First answer: MANY times.
Next answer: EVERY TIME.
When the Debt Limit is ALWAYS RAISED when the Debt approaches the Limit, c'mon... the "Limit" becomes meaningless!!!!!!
c.f., http://www.plusaf.com/pix/homepagepix...
Get it?
The same thing paid for foreign aid food shipments when the ethanol scam went through. But who got that money. BIG agri business the farm workers of Iowa got zilch.
And so it goes. piddle piddle piddle
I've been gone two days so I'm catching up!
Yes, it IS a charade, played for political and media benefit and Low Information Voters get sucked in by it every time...
And THAT is also a difficult Problem To Solve!
Visually, the Average looks to be around SEVEN per cent over that Entire Time.
I refuted, not 'backed up' your statement. Sorry.
In any case you keep leaving out the initial ten percent gimmee so it's ten percent of the work force minus seven percent of 90 percent. Prior to Clinton the gimmee was 5%. I reckon 15% is just around the corner if not 20%
SOS.
Remember the old song. This government ...what is it good for... absolutely nothing.
This is also relevant for someone who wants to have a real world Gulch. If the majority of the people decide that the government should really be handing out goodies and empower the government to do so, all the Objectivist philosophy that everyone agreed to will go out the window.
Predictions: The free market will be blamed. The unborn will pay.
That's where a lot of your Christmas job bumps are coming from in the fulfillment industry. Pickers, Packagers and Shippers. Not to mention the computer skilled that put it all together. Some of that bump will stay as more turn to internet shopping and let the malls close.
How is this a problem? Was unemployment high to start with? Actually, it was at near historic lows.
If unmployement is at historic lows, business valuations are high, and the economy is still adding jobs, what do we have to work with to discredit politicians we don't like?
The true answer is that politicians did not create 142k jobs on top of already low unemployment. For those whose area of work is discrediting others the answer requires a huge mental stretch: People do work for willing customers and take what they earn and risk it on ideas to serve more customers.
That's what creates 142k jobs in a single month on top of an already-low unemplyment, in a world where people have all kinds of luxuries the previous generation couldn't have dreamt of.
Given - There is always a bubble before Christmas which disappears after Christmas.
The formula used by the government is - this version since the mid nineties.
Announce the number of people in the work force.
Subtract 10%
The 90% left are magically renamed 100% of the work force.
Figure how much employment has gone up or down. Subtract that from the neo100% which is really 90%.
Let's assume 200 million in the work force. doesn't matter it's a sample....
the new 100 % employment is 180 million. the 20 million are disappeared. Plunk your magic twanger froggy!
Employment is listed as 100% Employment goes down five percent. The government claim will be 95% unemployment
It's really five percent of 180 million plus 20 million conveniently disappeared earlier. Five percent of 180 million is...nine million. 29 million are unemployed out of 200 million. 85.5%o employment.
But let's assume five million workers get jobs. we now have 105% employment? No. We find there has been a mistake or error in projections of the number of people in the work force. Froggy plunks his twanger again.
Changing the number in the work force is especially handy when there is a large unemployment figure. Wow you mean there wasn't 200 million but only 190 million? Let's see minus 19 million is 171 million employed
The figure used up to WWII's end was zero percent adjustment. After it was 5% until Clinton then it went to 10%
But all the BS and spin aside spin is still another word for deceit.
The government has one fatal flaw working against it. They aren't known for being truthful.
but get ready here comes the next big wave of unemployment when the military gets cut. Ha ha they get preferential treatment and for most their jobs back in the civilian sector. Those displaced? Why we just add them to the ten percent that don't count.
Whatever the real figures are apply the minus ten percent rule to the governments current projected work force population THEN factor in the unemployment numbers.
They are very transparent and arrogant in this. No attempt to cover it up as with the voters registration count.
Glib but not believable.
Reverse it five million are added to the roles.
Do not believe the face value of anything the regime tells you about anything.
Our radical Marxist presidebt is the worst Liar-In-Chief in American history.
What could be called Obamanation has spread like a fetid immoral rot throughout every department and agency that directly answers to him.
Of course. But don't just throw up your hands and declare life a box of shits either. Instead find bellwether companies who products are correlated with the sector of the economy you're interested in. Look at sales at companies like Caterpiller that make things correlated to the economly. Look at number of overnight packages shipped by UPS. Look at a 100 indicators to make investment decisions. Ignore those who make a living telling you whose to blame for how crappy things supposedly are. Seek multiple independent sources and execute based on the facts.
My recently passed away dad left my brothers and I a tidy inheritance. He was a millionaire.
I'll won't put too much of that into stocks.
Some of my "conservative" email is about the expectation of stock markets crashes, bubbles bursting and complete economic crashes leading to survival situations, but I've also noticed such email is about someone trying to sell me something.
I still expect something bad to happen with the gigantic debt Obama doubled.
I say don't worry about the marco issues if you don't understand them, like the topics of those stupid e-mails. Instead I would focus on investments in things where I can clearly understand why customers give them money and how they can get what they provide at a good price and make a profit.
In employment figures, they don't count those who gave up, and in inflation they don't count food. How are either of those things not part of the picture?
"In employment figures, they don't count those who gave up, and in inflation they don't count food. "
But you believe figures from sales figures of food companies or wherever you do your research, which is a good thing. If food producers are able to raise prices w/o sales hurting, maybe consumer staples are the place to me. If you think this expansion has run its course, which I suspect is getting close, maybe it's staples and anything that's not correlated to the economic cycle. I am not an investing guru, but I'm much more interested in a collection of numbers from various companies they say are trustworthy rather than arguments for why a set of numbers is not trustworthy. Identifiying solutions is more valuable than identifying problems.
I always wondered about an economy that depended so heavily on one day of the year and not on the combined averages of 12 months and so heavily on retail sales versus the rest of the economic sectors.
Perhaps someone knowledgeable in that area might offer a comment
I believe we are at full employment and things are fine. Politician talk about jobs b/c it works. They turn unrelated things, like alternative energy, into alternative energy jobs. People respond to the jobs thing.
I'm trying my damnedest to do it. :)
Just to make money.
"so you can have the hassles of employees and pay the government more and be regulated more?"
When I see hassles, I try to find someone who thinks of that particular hassle as an interesting game or puzzle. I'm very far from an expert at that; I'm learning as I go.
Love the MainScream Media!
or love MarketMinder.com
China, for example, can't dent the US Dollar's importance in the world economy. Their economy is agrarian, despite their internal efforts to create a serious manufacturing economy. Meanwhile, the US economy is moving past 'manufacturing' to 'consumer.' China's seen the handwriting on the wall as their future and are struggling to move successfully to that next phase.
Their economy is top-down-controlled, one of the worst possible ways to get 'er done on earth! Their currency does not float, their bond market is negligible as far as the Outside World is concerned, and their "sudden drop" in growth... to the 6-7%/yr range is about what their 30+ year average growth has been, except for several engineered spikes. So a return to average is a catastrophe? Only for mainScream Media types.
Have you bought into that line, too?
No, they don't own all the US debt... the US does... something like 60+%. Europe owns about another 25%. China? Don't go there.
Honest numbers about Obama's 'Recovery' show some of the lowest stock market returns for his first term-and-a-3/4 since pre-Hoover for 3rd and 4th years of presidential reigns.
Try MarketMinder.com for more realistic appraisals of reality in the economic world...
No, wait... don't.... if you followed Ken Fisher or MM publications, their analysis and strategies would be adopted by more Thinking People and they might not do as good a job managing MY retirement funds with too much new competition.
Wife and I have been with them for 11+ years and after ALL fees and withdrawals (about $700k so far,) we're about 2% down from where we started... If SocSec doesn't evaporate, we've got a good cash flow for our lifestyle for about the next 125 years, per my spreadsheets.
And for about 13-15 years if SocSec went to zero tomorrow. (and we're in our 70s, essentially.
Enjoy!
Most folks' home mortgages are 3-5 times their gross income. That's almost exactly what it was for me when I bought my previous house in Silicon Valley in 1978. 3x.
Those numbers are only scary if you're closely tuned to the MainScream Media's Adrenaline Generators.
If you are... Enjoy! But don't think I'm going to take those 'arguments' seriously.
No selling of stock
No going out of business or going bankrupt.
Sound like Atlas Shrugged?
Ask: who stands to profit most from another collapse?
In the 2008 collapse, it was the lenders wanting to offload their toxic loan books, and the investors who passed up on the due diligence.
.