Personally I’m sick of the bullcrap and fake numbers that have come out of Washington for decades. With this latest group it began immediately with the notion of “created or saved” jobs. Then came the trickle-down stimulus bill that trickled into yacht payments and bonuses. So look at these charts.
The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. That estimate is added to the BLS estimate of U-6 unemployment, which includes short-term discouraged workers.
The U-3 unemployment rate is the monthly headline number. The U-6 unemployment rate is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) broadest unemployment measure, including short-term discouraged and other marginally-attached workers as well as those forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time employment.
And if you don’t like this, then read another depressing article here.
Everything is definitional. I can give you any number you wish.
I’m glad to see someone still talking about the fact that the economy is still on a massive downward slide. People seem to have gotten bored with the topic.
The chart shows we are in a recession, yes. I remember getting the email back in late 2008.
The chart also shows we are no longer in a downward slide.
#1. Sounds a lot like “I got mine, fuck you”.
#3. Dallas, never wake up son, sleep like a baby. So adorable.
You can’t look at his methodology and underlying numbers unless you subscribe, so I can’t form any opinion on them being more correct than the government’s. They might as well be from fox news.
I can believe these numbers but I prefer to go back to the calculations we used back in the 1930s to measure unemployment. Or, you could keep it simple: 1/2 an employed person for every part time job, 0 for an unemployed person of employable age and never, ever drop them off the calculation until retirement age: 65. If they have a job they count, if they don’t they count as zero. Pretty simple. Too bad you have to subscribe to see their supposed calculations. Still, this makes sense. You’ll likely come up with the number as is listed here, 20-some percent unemployment.
I’ve said for a while we’ve gone through or are in a depression, not a recession. I doubt any politician in power will claim we are ever in a depression again, even if we are.
Jim at #5, Williams says “The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994.”
His method is basically to calculate U-6 the way it would have been calculated prior to 1994 when the method was adjusted in order to get a number that was more pleasing…er…more accurate.
Williams claims that his alternate numbers reflect the previous models accurately, and to date I haven’t seen anyone dispute that they do.
I don’t agree with Williams on a lot of his economic ideas, like his insistence that we are about to tip into hyperinflation…even though we have double digit unemployment and may be about to drop into another recession (as if we ever actually made it out of the first.) But his numbers on unemployment? Yeah, I believe those.
Anyway, as far as his methods go, see here:
http://shadowstats.com/primers-and-reports
I see people that are counted in anyone of those numbers charted above that have no desire to get a job much less keep one.
We’d have less than 1% unemployment if the stimulus money had been spent on bringing back the WPA and CCC.
We could use some new infrastructure.
Cursor_
#4–handle==no, totally different concepts. The fact they can both be expressed as simple declarative sentences equates them in no other way. BTW, use of the anglo-saxon is very harsh sounding. Screw will also get you by net censores.
Always appropriate though to “understand” what is actually being measured as opposed to what it is called. Lots of games played by hanging labels on issues.
#8–Gig==a very stupid post. How many people have you seen and do you think your personal experience should form another Unemployment Index or are you affirming your total lack of relevancy?
Its a slow day. Always good to note that the employment level is set by society as much as anything else. There was a time when everyone in America could have been employed as a switchboard operator ((still true today?)) but society went on to electric then computer switches which removed those jobs from the market. Same thing today. Not a big point, simply that letting the market rule is still a society choice and we all get what we get. What is more “beneficial?” A society filled with switchboard operators, government workers, conservation corps, a general plan of welfare, or increasing class separation?
Pro’s and Con’s to every decision made.
Personally, I’m sick of our sad, lying, and corrupt fucking Government. They don’t know their ass from a hot rock but they are the rulers and we are the slaves.
Bring back the Constitution, and till then, Just Say No To Government!
recession with inflation..
#4 Was there a particular point made (I made two) that you saw was erroneous from looking at the chart?
What I don’t like about all these graphs and charts of the employed, unemployed, underemployed is that they don’t take into account all the self employed. They don’t consider the house painter waiting for the phone to ring, the builder taking a $200 job instead of the $20,000 job, The lawn service/snow plow guy getting only 1/2 the business cuz people are worried about eating. That makes a large impact on our economy that NO ONE talks about.
This is a little off topic so indulge me…
I’ve seen before the comment about the government could pay for people to dig holes and fill them in again. (Sort of like the bobbos comment about telephone operators).
Intuitively whilst we understand it provides ‘jobs’ but probably isn’t a great idea because we have ‘wasted’ resource – in this case human effort. Its waste because presumably that effort could have been put to something useful.
If the government built a 250 million dollar pleasure boat used for a few weeks a year to ferry ferry some people around. Most would agree that is waste.
If a private individual does exactly the same thing it can (and has been) described as a good thing – often when ‘trickle down’ is mentioned.
If ‘trickle down’ is such a great thing for an individual, then the effect of such ‘waste’ must surely be just as great from the government.
I guess my point is the idea of ‘waste’ as often argued is linked to whose spending it.
Admittedly in the governments case it is arguably more egregious because it’s ‘the peoples money’. And that’s a fair point. I’m just highlighting the selectiveness of the use ‘waste’.
Disclaimer: I claim trickle down largely doesn’t work precisely because of ‘waste’. Ie it does matter how the government or individuals spend money – precisely because ‘waste’ can be a significant factor.
The great myth, the unemployed are generally lazy. Why does the Right keep trumpeting that lame canard?
#14–AC==good point and what you are calling for is a whole different measurement such as “Average Family Income” or “Standard of Living” all of which are as relevant to the question as the elements that are included and excluded.
I still say this is NOT a normal business cycle, aka, a recession or double dip recession. It is somewhat unique: a societal “reset” as our post WW2 dominance gets hammered by competition from abroad that our International Corp Masters are dead set at taking advantage of to our own (USA) detriment. Too bad. We could be doing a much better job of keeping our people employed.
Choices and consequences. “I got mine, but its proportionately less in comparison to the rest of the world. Screw Me.”
#15–freddy==you’ve got your teeth into waste, but I think you need to think it thru a little bit more?
Would this help? You say: “I guess my point is the idea of ‘waste’ as often argued is linked to whose spending it.”/// I think it is more accurate to note the issue highlighted is “who’s” money is being spent? I don’t think it is accurate at all to call individuals buying yachts wasteful. When the gov does the same thing they aren’t spending “their” money, they are spending poor/middle class/and rich peoples money ((as opposed to the money of the Super Rich who avoid paying their legislated share)) on an activity that has a very low multiple effect.
Choices only “make sense” not by labels applied (eg-waste) but rather by what the other choices are. Tax and Spend. Deficit and Spend. High unemployment/low taxes. Make work/higher taxes. Homogenizing the income continuum/social harmony.
Who are these unemployed people? According to this, 1 in 4 people don’t have a job. That means that we should all know lots of people who are looking. But, while I know lots of folks who are underemployed, I don’t know anyone without a job.
@ bobbo
“I don’t think it is accurate at all to call individuals buying yachts wasteful.”
It’s not. But some purchases of yachts could be. Or at least more wasteful than others.
Surely all it depends on the utility and the cost? And that is all. Unless you are claiming the purchaser somehow changes that?
I’m using ‘waste’ as in it’s commonly interpreted dictionary meaning. So it’s no more a ‘label’ than any word in common usage.
…and don’t forget Bush’s other dirty tricks. For example. People that turn hamburgers were reclassified as manufacturing jobs to cover up the true losses. Then when it all collapses they blame the collapse on bad loans. Bullshit! They were good loans before everyone lost their jobs. Put the blame where it belongs. Bush and the Republicans caused the mess. Obama and the Democrats didn’t fix it.
#21 That reminds me of this joke….
How You Can Spot A Republican..
A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost. She lowered her altitude and spotted a man in a boat below. She shouted to him, “Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am.”
The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, “You’re in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above ground elevation of 2,346 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude.
“She rolled her eyes and said, “You must be an Obama Democrat.”
“I am,” replied the man. “How did you know?”
“Well,” answered the balloonist, “everything you told me is technically correct. But I have no idea what to do with your information, and I’m still lost. Frankly, you’ve not been much help to me.”
The man smiled and responded, “You must be a Republican.”
“I am,” replied the balloonist. “How did you know?”
“Well,” said the man, “you don’t know where you are or where you are going. You’ve risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. You’re in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but somehow, now it’s my fault.”
The trouble with Government numbers is that they base their statistics from unemployment applications. So many people lose jobs and are not eligible for benefits. Plus you have people just out of college who are way under employed or not employed in their field of education. I think its fair to say you can double the national figure in these times and it would be much more accurate. I think just the fact the economy is struggling has to tell a story of how people lack income to spend.
The official definition of employed in the household survey is pretty broad: any paid work at all during the survey period, even collecting cans.
You want to stimulate the economy? Stop taking all the money out of the private sector for government spending.
I have been doing the math and expecting the bleep to hit the fan for decades. The only question was when and it looks like we may now be past the point of no redemption without a lot of public agony including mine.
You don’t spend your way back to prosperity by soaking up all available resources for government projects nor by making business unprofitable.
If Obama and the Dems had given a one year tax moratorium with the 800 billion they blew and are still blowing it might have pulled us out though all the outsourcing pretty much means we as a nation are running on credit which is going to dry up.
Of course the Greens should be happy because that will put the end to imported foreign oil. We won’t be able to pay for it because nobody will take our money. Why should they? It’s just paper backed by nothing. Black humor.
Of course if you pack enough people into one room, wrap up in enough comforters, and maybe have a little heat that should limit the numbers that freeze to death in the large part of this country with subfreezing temps.
Sooner or later having an old house with a flue may turn out to be real important.
#21 By any previous standard Fanny and Freddy made and are still making bad loans because by any reasonable standard the people they are loaning money to buy homes can’t repay the amount of money loaned to them.
That was the entire idea behind what Frank and friends were doing with Fanny and Freddie. Loan money to people that couldn’t otherwise get a loan. Why couldn’t they get a loan? Because they didn’t have enough income to pay back the flipping loan!
You know what is doing best now? Apartments!That is what a lot of people who once had half million dollar homes can actually afford in high priced real estate locations.
If anyone with three working brain cells looked at the increase in the price of housing in many markets over the last few decades they would have known we were heading for a major crash because nothing I can imagine could sustain that kind of growth in real cost over the long term.
#20–freddy==I’d agree with you if I could but you are still missing what I think is pretty clear: a person spending their own money “cannot” waste it. I often buy crap so that I will stop thinking about whether or not I should buy it. Now, my “wasteful” price range is less than $100 and there IS NOT A SINGLE SUCH PURCHASE that I regret because I now no longer have to think about it even though I have: eg, a fondue pot for that special evening, eg, a 23 inch HDTV for whenever I want to watch it in addition to my 52 inch one. So, the rich guy spends millions on his boat that he uses one week a year. If he has the money and he gets “psychic benefits” no one can call that wasteful.
Not so with the government. The rich guy spends HIS money, the government spends OUR money. Huge deterministic difference that is valid.
So: concerning private people’s spending: you cannot call it wasteful. Concerning government spending: it just means you don’t like it.
Of course “waste”/”wasteful” is a label you can try to put on issues to shut down any further more insightful thinking about the subject. Words have different/multiple functions. No body calls someone/something else a gossamer. Gossamer is not a label. I don’t know why you would argue such a black/white definitional point.
I do know that I have seen small businesses and the people that work for them suffer in the last two years – and the government keeps on growing and taxing. Small businesses (<500 employees) generated 60 to 80 percent of net new jobs annually over the last decade. One thing that would help is to lighten their tax burden so that they can grow during this economic climate.
Many small businesses get up to a 1/3rd of their net revenue taken away by taxes. Let the small businesses grow and the increase in volume should help alleviate unemployment and the economy at large.
Oh.. and bring back the Glass–Steagall Act that separated Wall Street investment banks from depository banks – that would help too. It existed to prevent the situation that we are in right now.
Approximately 50% of all jobs in America involve working for the federal, state, or local government or being contracted by said government. The vampire continues to feed on it's own arm driving up the national debt to new heights (after finishing the tasty civilian snacks of course).
Hos be working.
@ bobbo
Quickly – I generally agree. But you seem to be arguing that personal spending cannot be ‘wasteful’ – and there I disagree.
“So, the rich guy spends millions on his boat that he uses one week a year. If he has the money and he gets “psychic benefits” no one can call that wasteful.”
So his utility – is the ‘enjoyment’ he gets out of having the item. And that’s where the idea falls down. For three reasons
1) Enjoyment is relative (if everybody has the same boat) the enjoyment is less, as behavioral economics has shows.
2) Enjoyment is not absolute (you get diminishing returns).
3) Even if the person loves it – by his use of a limited resource, he has deprived others of its use.
All those ideas are fairly run of the mill behavioral economics. I just finished the ‘Economic Naturalist Field Guide’ by this guy…
http://www.robert-h-frank.com/book.html
The ‘waste’ argument – came out of a discussion about trickle down. I was trying to think how and why it may go awry.
The somewhat obscured question is – what are you trying to maximize? If you can’t answer that then you can’t really determine what is waste – because waste is relative to efficiency, and that can only be determined depending on what you are maximizing.
If you are maximizing for ‘happiness’ – then it’s fairly obvious that spending 250 million of a boat is sub-optimal, when a minimal amount of money would greatly enhance many peoples happiness (not least because they are at the bottom end of diminishing returns curve).
To be clear I’m not saying a person shouldn’t buy a 250 million dollar boat. I’m saying lets call a spade a spade. Well and trying to highlight the limits of ‘trickle down’. That it can be far from efficient (ie utility is lost) depending on what money is used for.
Maybe you’re not maximizing for ‘happiness’, if so I’d be curious to know what you are maximizing.