Recent comments

  • Your dedication to the lousy job situation is clear and appreciated.

    Reply to: The Romney Ad, the Auto Bail Out and China   12 years 3 weeks ago
    EPer:
  • I give that number above. The BLS also provides a smoothed curve for population growth, it's experimental, for research purposes, usually found somewhere on the CPS site.

    Reply to: How Many Jobs Are Needed to Keep Up with Population Growth?   12 years 3 weeks ago
    EPer:
  • I Noticed you eliminated the month of January, for your calculation. I realize the reason you left it out, but in my opinion, since these are people which do increase the population, I feel they should be counted. If you include the month of January, what would be the average monthly number of jobs needed to keep up with population growth?

    Thank you, MGB

    Reply to: How Many Jobs Are Needed to Keep Up with Population Growth?   12 years 3 weeks ago
    EPer:
  • I will dig into it. I have in the past to show

    a. there is no STEM, or "tech" worker shortage
    b. there is a glut of PhDs in this country
    c. unemployment rates are over double what they should be in these areas
    d. the bad unemployment rates for teenagers and those < 22 years of age are not because they all went to school.

    (NCG = New College Graduate)

    I'm working on a site redesign to make it easier to find things. But for now, another way is to do a Google site search.

    We literally have over 6000 posts, thousands related to labor markets, employed, jobs.

    Reply to: ADP Employment Report Says 158,000 Private Sector Jobs Gained for October 2012   12 years 3 weeks ago
    EPer:
  • The money is in a blind trust. This guy had political ambitions and there is no way he's going to direct a blind trust, that's illegal.

    About the only thing one can say about the blind trust is who he set it up with and the trustee. In other words, the choice of manager, who runs it, well, he's not exactly Mr. moral investor.

    The real question here is why isn't team Obama doing something about China, offshore outsourcing, LBOs, private equity, tax havens, hedge funds?

    There are six ways to Sunday to stop these practices and team Obama hasn't done jack shit. In fact he signed more trade agreements to enable even more offshore outsourcing and imports and ....tax havens...

    Good God, it's a cold day in hell to see a Republican railing on China while the Democrats do nothing. There ya have it!

    Retraining? Are you kidding me? We have millions, literally millions with the skills already plus we have returning Vets who also have intense skills, all through their military training and those skills are being completely ignored, discounted by employers.

    If Democrats wanted to do something they would force "private equity" into getting their 15% tax rate by hiring U.S. citizens, not distributed profits from "investments".

    Reply to: The Romney Ad, the Auto Bail Out and China   12 years 3 weeks ago
    EPer:
  • He was severed "retired" by 2002. Hey, there is no doubt Romney was a founding partner at Bain and leveraged buyouts, dismantling companies, selling off assets and all of that was what they did, it's more surprising that they bootstrapped some companies and kept them alive.

    The evil doings of Sensata are simply not Romney's doings, although it if was 1998, we could certainly say they were, but it's not.

    This is a great story of how private "equity", hedge funds and "investor groups" gain controlling interests, buy up junk bonds, debt in bankruptcy and so on and then stick it to the people.

    What do people think the European crisis is all about? Paying back the "investors", holders of sovereign debt.

    But this site, we simply do not do political hit pieces, it has to be accurate, factual and trying to tie Romney to what's happening now when he left Bain a decade ago isn't right.

    We also have companies closed, the jobs sent to China, every single day, we have 2.7 million direct manufacturing jobs lost to China.

    So, it's not just Bain in this game, try Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle to India, manufacturing to China and the list goes on and on.

    Even little red wagon went to China and Levi's went to Mexico.

    Reply to: The Romney Ad, the Auto Bail Out and China   12 years 3 weeks ago
    EPer:
  • people are born and also die. Check out this site, there are thousands of posts, calculating out all sorts of statistics, click on the labor economics forum at the top or use the search.

    Reply to: How Many Jobs Are Needed to Keep Up with Population Growth?   12 years 3 weeks ago
    EPer:
  • My understanding of the claims not only with Delphi but also Sensata (who moves jobs to China Tuesday) are that Romney does profit from his investment in Bain. He may not be managing the company, but he owns stock that pays dividends. The articles are far beyond Greg Palast. Sensata closed their doors when Ed Schultz arrived with a tv crew last Friday. The estimate of the Romney profit from Sensata is $8 million quoted in at least a dozen articles that I admit are "liberal" blogs. Romney's pattern with Bain was clear. Matt Taibbi did a detailed article in Rolling Stone about how Bain, with the cooperation of Goldman Sachs, had unlimited funding to "leverage" their small investments in companies until they were only good for bankruptcy after taking massive fees. Combine this pattern repeated many times by other similar companies and CEO's massive pay. It is real money. The interview of Ed Schultz with the President of UAW is available on-line at MSNBC.

    Reply to: The Romney Ad, the Auto Bail Out and China   12 years 3 weeks ago
    EPer:
  • Isn't it nice for the super rich to have a conference in their favorite tax haven tropical paradise and to get a former President of the United States to speak at their conference about how to hid your money from taxes from the prying eyes of governments?

    Lest we forget, President Obama signed the Panama trade agreement, which strengthened tax havens and made it harder for U.S. to even track them. That's a sitting president signing a glorified tax haven deal.

    Honestly, thinking in terms of Republican or Democrat when it comes to letting the super-rich and MNCs steal and suck the money out of the people is a mistake. They both are all in.

    Reply to: The Romney Ad, the Auto Bail Out and China   12 years 3 weeks ago
    EPer:
  • Greg Palast wrote an inaccurate piece and why I wrote this. God love him, but he sure did pull off a boner here.

    You'll see above that I link to it and why I wrote this piece, it's simply wrong and thus a political hit piece.

    I just went through this for a reason, Romney simply wasn't involved and this is piss poor "Journalism" (hit piece) or comments, claims being spread by social media, by trying to claim Romney's blind trust, which frankly there is no way Romney or his family is so stupid as to try to direct an investment in a blind trust, anyway, that trustee invested in Elliot Management, a hedge fund.

    It is that hedge fund, who is currently holding Argentina hostage over some bad sovereign debt, who made out like a bandit.

    I make this clear in this post and why I wrote it. We have fictional hit pieces, pick a candidate flying around and this is a big one.

    (What was that about Elizabeth Warren having Indian ancestry? )

    Reply to: The Romney Ad, the Auto Bail Out and China   12 years 3 weeks ago
    EPer:
  • "Mitt Romney and his partners made a killing on the GM bankruptcy by gaining control of bankrupt parts supplier Delphi, then threatening to withhold components critical to the production of GM vehicles... This is the real Romney" - UAW President Bob King
    USA TODAY Wednesday article on the filing of an ethics complaint by the United Auto Workers against Romney and Bain.

    Reply to: The Romney Ad, the Auto Bail Out and China   12 years 3 weeks ago
    EPer:
  • .
    Blackout imposed as W Bush speaks at Cayman Islands investor conference.

    .
    Repugs have no discernible conscience, loyalty or even a soul. They worship greed. Dems are corporate shills too. That said its not their religion. Only Romney makes more bad trade deals a centerpiece of his campaign. More taxcuts more trade deals good god how much more can we take. The Republicans need to be euthanized before they start biting more of the neighbors.

    So there are your choices. For the record I always go with no religion I agree with Jefferson whether it be about politics or eternal salvation.

    "I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent."

    -Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Hopkinson, March 13, 1789

    Reply to: The Romney Ad, the Auto Bail Out and China   12 years 3 weeks ago
    EPer:
  • First and most importantly - thanks for your work.

    I am not the statistical type. I usually default to the most simple models. the statement "The U.S. needs about 100,000 jobs per month, minimum just to keep up with population growth, ..." includes a lot of data on retirement age, participation rate, green card and alien workers. Too complicated for me.

    Please consider National Center for Education Statistics http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372
    estimates 3.4 million students graduate from high school in 2012-13. that is 283,000 monthly. OK, some go to college, some are disabled, ... but some never graduate from high school. The same source estimates 14.8 million in grades 9 to 12. Divide by 4 years = 3.7 million per year or 308,000 monthly new workers entering the labor force.

    Our current employment situation is not sustainable.

    Best wishes

    Reply to: ADP Employment Report Says 158,000 Private Sector Jobs Gained for October 2012   12 years 3 weeks ago
    EPer:
  • I agree knowing the number of people retiring and therefore opening up their jobs to new graduates is an important number to subtract from the number or required/needed new jobs (but sometimes those jobs are not filled, so again it is hard to get correct numbers). I found this page because I'm running my own numbers.

    Trying to nail down how many new jobs are needed just to keep the unemployment rate from changing is difficult. I believe economists agree 150k-250k new jobs per month are needed in a healthy economy, but because so many are quitting their job search, only around 120k are needed currently.

    Some numbers to gain a sense of magnitudes:
    4 million are born in the US annually. So that's 333k born monthly.
    3.4m graduate high school annually (283k per month). Not sure how many look for work though - some might get married and/or be on welfare, be in prison; etc.
    Out of the 3.4m HS graduates, around 1.7m or 1.8m graduate college annually (142k-150k per month). One would think almost all of them want to work, so that many jobs clearly need to be created each month (minus the number of people retiring).

    Many people were basically forced to retire the past few years (many of my older friends at Lockheed for example They lay off almsot entirely those over 40 years old). Mostof those jobs won't be filled anytime soon, but they are hiring some college grads whom they otherwise would not have hired.

    Reply to: How Many Jobs Are Needed to Keep Up with Population Growth?   12 years 3 weeks ago
    EPer:
  • Today the New York Times reported Hurricane Sandy would cost $50 billion in economic activity losses (not just property), thus affecting GDP and "some economists estimate" Q4 GDP will be reduced by 0.5 percentage points (annualized).

    The sad aspect to this is we said these figures and showed how to calculate the effect on GDP over 48 hours ago.

    Reply to: The Perfect Economic Storm   12 years 3 weeks ago
    EPer:
  • First, we pulled the direct quote out of Bloomberg for a reason. There you can see the direct quote.

    An addition quote from the original Bloomberg article is this:

    should we be localizing the entire Jeep portfolio or some of the Jeep portfolio

    That means, Fiat is talking about moving the entire Jeep manufacturing line to China, that is what they are considering doing. Localizing the entire Jeep portfolio is the key quote. It's highly doubtful they would have two complete duplicate production lines of exactly the same model, in two separate countries. That's not what they do, they globally source. Thinking they would have duplicate production lines does not make sense from a manufacturing efficiency standpoint.

    Also, notice our point on Chinese tariffs against U.S. autos as well as how the Obama administration is M.I.A. on China and trade and instead Romney is the one talking about the massive drain China is on the U.S. economy and jobs.

    We know Bloomberg's reporting is solid and they talked to the source for these quotes. We also know offshore outsourcing is loved by Wall Street and it's only public relations, marketing groups who say "shut up", "hush hush". If you don't believe that, believe this. GM by 2001 or so had moved the entire Chevy S-10 truck production to Mexico. They really do move entire production lines offshore, that is the auto industry's history.

    Second, we've been tracking on the auto industry for a long time and this site heavily focuses in on outsourcing, multinational corporations. You clearly did not read the rest of the article details, showing, at the time of the bail outs, these companies were offshore outsourcing jobs.

    Delphi, Kokomo, Indiana was decimated.

    That's the problem with politics and why this site, not only is focused on economics, facts, statistics and data, but is also non-partisan.

    The real issue for partisan people such as yourself, all up in it about which way the election goes, is why is Romney running an ad on offshore outsourcing and loss of U.S. manufacturing to China? That should be a Democratic major issue and since when has Romney set forth a detailed manufacturing plan to make sure goods are manufactured in the U.S. beyond confronting China on their currency manipulation?

    In other words, we have a situation here where the messaging is almost turned and the GOP are now championing an issue that should be a Democratic one and we know Obama hasn't done hardly anything about China, the trade deficit and the loss of manufacturing to China.

    We also know in the 2008 primaries, Obama, to capture the Midwest, put out a bunch of lies against Hillary Clinton on NAFTA, implying he would rewrite NAFTA upwards. They clearly had no intention of doing so, and since he has been President, has not. In fact he signed and championed every more trade agreements based on the NAFTA model which are now of course increasing our trade deficit.

    Don't believe that, see our post from 2008 comparing Obama and Hillary on trade policy.

    Sorry, but one needs to look at the facts here, not be a cheerleader for politicians whose actual policies positions are against the national interest and the middle class interests.

    This site isn't endorsing any party or candidate and the reason for that is we are policy specific and issue specific. The spin out there is so furious, we do author articles with actual facts on some of these topics when the spin becomes a B.S. maelstrom.

    Reply to: The Romney Ad, the Auto Bail Out and China   12 years 3 weeks ago
    EPer:
  • I heavily revised this overview from it's original. Graphs were added to show the dramatic change in the ADP private payrolls.

    New graphs were added. Unfortunately ADP didn't really come out and tell people all of their data for all time was significantly revised. I did go looking for that and unfortunately in my trusty time machine, I grabbed the wrong vintage date originally, so the dramatic revisions didn't pop out at me.

    Good news is I went back and looked and found 'em. Just ASTOUNDING the changes and one would think ADP and Moody's would amplify that everything has changed in the data itself.

    Happy eye candy!

    Reply to: ADP Employment Report Says 158,000 Private Sector Jobs Gained for October 2012   12 years 3 weeks ago
    EPer:
  • I did read the Bloomberg article you reference in this. It says the manufacturing in China is additional, not replacing manufacturing in the US ...
    pretty crappy reporting on your part

    Reply to: The Romney Ad, the Auto Bail Out and China   12 years 3 weeks ago
    EPer:
  • The loss of jobs in the US has been devastating.
    Pointing to 2008 is interesting to me.
    The loss of manufacturing jobs has plummeted since 2000 as the graph shows above and is starting to crawl upward.
    There are many sectors that are growing and looking back at what they faced at the end of 2008 when the avalanche started we are seeing some better trends.
    These companies are making these decisions based on profit and labor costs.
    Presidents don't own these companies American citizens do.
    To say Obama has made it worse is not what these statistics are showing.
    Is it perfect? No.
    But to say it has gotten worse since 2008 is not statistically true. Some sectors like mills are hurting for sure but the guy answered that in the CBS clip. He did that.

    http://www.newgeography.com/content/002865-top-manufacturing-sectors-for...

    Reply to: The American Economy On Purgatory Mountain   12 years 3 weeks ago
    EPer:
  • We're skipping the overview on S&P Case-Shiller home prices. You can go to their website, here.

    The thing to point out is the report is not seasonally adjusted. Seasonally adjusted the composite-1 increased 0.4% and the composite-20 increased 0.5%. Not seasonally adjusted both indices increased 0.9%. Seattle was the only city to be negative, seasonally adjusted it was -0.1%. Generally the increase was less in August than July.

    We suspect the hurricane will affect home prices in October, so bottom line, there wasn't anything significant to report here and because of the East coast crisis, we've been putting other issues at higher priority.

    Also, the housing bust is over so we think S&P should switch back to the seasonally adjusted indices as their headline buzz numbers.

    Reply to: Case-Shiller Index Shows Home Prices Increased 0.5% From a Year Ago for June 2012   12 years 4 weeks ago
    EPer:

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