People, register! This site has a powerful discussion engine. But you must register, login! Literally comments on this site are like "mini blogs", they have their own RSS feed, tracking mechanism, promoting and voting mechanism. People can track their comments, replies and easily have a deep discussion.
So many are commenting, 1,2, 5 times a day but anonymously. Anonymous comments go into a moderation queue in order to filter out spam, referrer linkers and the crazies. That means you comment might not show up for hours. If you are logged in, you can just write whatever you want, post youtubes, pdfs format to full HTML, post graphs, links, whatever.
Seriously we have some great comments going on but to have a real time discussion we need folks to register and login. We really do love your comments, but you can really start an online detailed discussion if you just register and login.
I like CNBS for humor. Where else can you watch them run 1 minute ads extolling some millionaire or billionaire and make it seem like, "Hey, Jack Welch got rich off the backs off GE employees and now runs a private online MBA program ripping off people, so I should see him as a hero! Yippee!" CNBS and Bloomberg and everyone else need to reward their corporate sponsors/advertisers, so any news must be spun hard, lest people realize they have no $ to spend for corporate crap.
Stock market is a barometer of what, CNBS? Real inflation is much more than reported by Feds, and the Fed is keeping interest rates so low for retail customers that people have no choice but to help inflate stocks if they want to keep above inflation if they want to eat and buy gasoline. But the constant flashcrashes (e.g., today Knight Capital), NASDAQ screw ups, algo/HFT manipulations and mistakes are even scaring retail investors. And who can really trust brokerages anymore given MF Global and every other fraud we know about every day? CNBS knows the retail investor is done with the lies, especially after Farcebook was confirmed to be a farce. I can't wait until one or two of them is fired, has massive debt from too many vacation homes, and they can whine about how tough life is while being surrounded by people much smarter than them and with much more honesty on unemployment lines.
They just claimed the ADP report was a "good sign". Good God, do they even understand the numbers? BTW: they claimed the stock market is up 50% in the last two years. Isn't that nice, while working America is in poverty de facto.
Anyone who looks for jobs fruitlessly in the US knows the situation is not improving at all, and hasn't been for years now (makes staying in a house and fed extremely difficult). There are only so many times you can see the same ads taken down and reposted by the same companies and same fraudsters/HR depts and fraudsters/temp firms. But don't dare question them about their lies or get tired of being led on. Make sure you treat them like the gods they think they are, lest LinkedIn and Forbes and FoxBusiness and politicians label you an ungrateful, lazy leech with a poor attitude - I guess Americans' ideal of questioning authority and being educated is only ideal when it suits corporate masters, or so I'm told nowadays.
How many people graduate college every year? 1.5+ million? So unless we're seeing 400,000, 500,000 + jobs created/month, 20 million unemployed Americans will soon grow to 30 million to 40 million. And those with jobs should be happy that they graduated to work for a federal agency (DOJ/US Attorneys - no shame, making attorneys with $150,000 in debt work for free?) or a private company for free for a year in an internship while their bosses pull in six figures and full benefits? Screw that. Or someone is "lucky" to now stock shelves at Home Depot after graduating with an aerospace engineering degree while the Home Depot founders go on Fox and belittle Americans for being lazy and uneducated?
Let me know when a new breed of politician comes to town, who only wants to serve the public, not get rich before, during, or after service (i.e., any current D & R at all levels of govt.) fights the oligarchs and actually delivers MASSIVE job growth of 500,000/month by ending bogus trade agreements, punishes outsourcing, punishes those hiring illegal workers, ends BS internships that pay nothing for people long after college and grad school, brings back Glass-Steagall, punishes CEOs and bankster criminals under FCPA and RICO (these were laid out before and are easy for any prosecutor with an IQ over 80) everywhere they lurk, and will do everything to bring back cooperation and integrity and the Golden Rule to American society. This "Survivor," snakeoil salesman, rape and pillage today to enrich yourself and your cronies attitude is only destroying America.
We could have an adjustable interest rate. We could have adjustable credit levels and credit scores. We could have adjustable underwriting guidelines. We could have adjustable home values perhaps based on assessor's values. We could have adjustable years to a mortgage. What we can not have are investment banks funding mortgages without reading them, tranching them with false ratings and selling them around the world especially to Freddie and Fannie while betting against the quality of the loans. Mr. DeMarco needs to retire. He and his friends are righteously demanding profits for themselves regardless of how they trash the holders of the mortgages and the investors who bought an interest in the mortgages.
The mortgage purchase application statistic / index released by the Mortgage Bankers Association weekly has been in steady decline since February, And it has been declining nearly every week during the May-now peak home buying season.
This is the one stat that should be paid attention to as it reflects the actual number of mortgage applications received
As for unemployment stats, Mike Williams from Shadowstats.com states the acutal unemployment figure as of July 5th to be around 25% Factor in Underemployment and this is truly a sad picture
We've reached a point where no Govt statistics regarding virtually anything should be believed
I'll have to show the correlations of UI to nonfarm payrolls and give new estimtes next time I overview UI. I write up UI about once a month, usually when the press has gone insane over a 1 week window statistic that they should not give that much weight to.
For now, the ratio has dropped in terms of UI vs. "job growth" indicator", plus we have massive underemployment. Our policy makers believe it's just fine and dandy that highly educated PhDs should work as administrative assistants and Home Depot sales associates. As overall population increases so do these low paying service jobs, retail trade, to adjust for basically population growth.
So, bottom line, next time I do UI, which is probably in 2 or three weeks, I will make a point to number crunch the correlation to payroll data, as well as CPS employ levels.
You won't hear any argument from me on between politicians and corporations, they have literally ruined this country by global labor arbitrage.
I understand that a slower rate of negative change, in certain circumstances, signals a positive change is coming in certain subjects/fields. But in employment stats, it doesn't make sense. For instance, a NJ branch of a pharmaceutical company laying off 1,000+ Americans to move operations to Asia or Europe doesn't mean job growth is coming for those Americans or pharmaceuticals in the US. Banks and tech companies moving support operations to Asia create thousands of newly unemployed. While the rate of firings decrease as inevitably fewer people left to fire in the US, it doesn't equate to growth. It simply means those people have been replaced by someone and those jobs are gone. In essence, a zero sum game that Americans will lose.
We're written about the massive shadow inventory multiple times. Here is our latest NAR take down. Click on the meta tag "residential real estate" to see all of the housing overviews, where distressed sales, REOs stats are kind of littered in between these reports.
I agree, I think they are trying to re-inflate housing prices and this site is one of the few which really digs around into housing statistical releases looking at spin and pointing it out. NAR is beyond belief full of it to the point they scare me that they report inputs into the NIPA. These are the accounts which determine GDP.
The fact is America is tapped out. I don't know who can afford even a $200k mortgage with 5% down, never mind a $300k one with the below poverty wages, labor arbitrage, unemployment going on.
On initial claims, it's just a rule of thumb, below 375k fires (or UI claims), implies job growth, it's just a correlation. The nation is now massive worker churn, see the latest statistics over in the left hand column, bad news for U.S. workers.
So, less fires, means those monthly hires that occur increase job growth. Kind of like a pump is filling a glass with a hole in the bottom, less water out of the hole in the bottom with a constant water flow from the pump means the glass will get fuller.
That said, the BLS counts illegal workers and all foreign guest workers in their employment statistics. There literally are millions of these foreign guest workers and it does skew the data, especially in some occupational categories, such as STEM. Illegals are something like 10-20 million estimated, most working age and they clearly really skew the unemployment statistics for American workers as well.
Check back on Friday for we go over the BLS monthly employment report like flies on s**t. It's graph-o-rama with many hand calculations from the raw statistics. We also calculate, and from the government statistics, so you can follow along, all published data, our own alternative unemployment rate and levels of people needing a good job. It's over 27 million, over 18% unemployment rates, that's incredible! These calculations also include foreign guest workers, illegals, simply because the BLS (Congress) refuses to separate out the work force by immigration status.
While the BLS counts foreign guest workers, last I heard and never said never, illegals and foreign guest workers cannot collect UI. So, they should not be in the initial unemployment claims statistics (we hope).
How many houses are purposely being held by banks off the market to artificially inflate the house prices they are actually trying to move? The fact is with so many houses underwater, in foreclosure, and neighbors of those houses not selling now because they are waiting for better times much later on (i.e., they would be selling - but just not worth it), any "rise" will be complete propaganda/lies for many years to come. Just like any drop in unemployment rates is caused by statistical games and increasingly ignoring greater proportions of the population who are now unaccounted for. I also notice the correlation know that somehow the press is saying fewer initial unemployment claims = job growth? Not sure how fewer people being fired every week (but still 350,000-400,000) is equated to people getting hired (especially with dismal job growth numbers that are actually lower than the initial weekly claims), but that's the new lie - fewer people being fired = more people being hired (pure nonsense).
Calculated Risk compares home prices to rents and also performs inflation adjustments. Sorry to burst your bubble, but you want to read these additional statistics. Most noteworthy is how distressed home sales have been flat, with huge REO, estimated at 85-90% of all REOs (bank owned, foreclosed properties) are being held off of the market.
Those bubble people are so desperate for a return to the housing bubble it's beyond reason. Folks, this is a better report, but it's not that much better. More importantly, going off of one month of housing data, in spite of S&P's superior statistics, is a huge mistake. Don't do it, don't buy in. Home prices being flat with a one month bump up of 2.2% is simply not going to pull the economy out of it's doldrums. Sorry, no way in hell.
First student loans are a scam. they are worse than credit cards, you pay and pay and pay and the balances never seem to budge much. I had paid my way until my last year of college - bit the bullet and borrowed to get it done. a relatively modest amount. My wife had a similar amount. It took us 10 years to pay them off even with paying extra and often doubling up payments. this is money we weren't using to buy a car, or a nicer house, or furniture or appliances.
I don't see loans as the problem, as much as the exploding cost of college. The satellite campus of the major big ten school I attended back in the early 80's charged me around $20 bucks a credit hour for in state tuition (I still have a lot of the paper work to prove it). i recently went back to school to freshen up my skills to hopefully make me more valuable to current employer, or more marketable if not.
Man was I in for some major sticker shock. $249/ credit hour. that is a 12 times increase! Tuition is expected to increase another 9% next year
My question is what value has been added to the education to justify a price hike way beyond any measure of inflation? I have not seen my wages increase by that much
This started in the 1960's when the US abandoned the steel industry here. We've all seen the movies, 'Deer Hunter', 'All the Right Moves' etc.
The only good blue collar jobs in the private sector now are service industry jobs that CANNOT be outsourced and Government union jobs - that's it.
The eroded tax base along with tax gifts for the wealthy have put the crunch on Government union jobs also. It's not some conspiracy against them and this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that reads.
Without that important working middle class the high paying white collar jobs here will be moved overseas also.
Manufacturing was abandoned here 50 years ago, it just took a long time for people to notice.
My wife went to a agriculture and engineering public university. When she came home from orientation she informed me that she was going to major in philosophy. I was very taken aback. What can you do with a philosophy major?
Three years later she was accepted at a private law school. I thought, thank god, I was wrong. You can do something with philosophy that pays well.
Three years later she graduates, spends the whole summer studying for the bar exam, and passes it her first go. Now, I realize that I was wrong twice. Nobody is hiring fresh out of school young lawyers. The best job she has been able to find pays 10 dollars an hour. She also works retail selling clothing at night for 8 dollars an hour.
I love America. My family, we're very educated and working poor. The "American Dream" is dead to us. We will never be able to afford a home, a car less than 15 years old, or to properly support children. Most of it is hers, but we have nearly $200,000 in debt combined.
I had it all planned out. We would live as frugally as possible, and pay off her loans in 5 years. 40,000 a year paid back from our two incomes. Then we would be free. Current economy means that I'm making 1/3 the pay that I was in 2009. (I was laid off the summer after her first year in law school.)
I was raised with the belief that if you work hard, do what is right, and go to school you will be successful. What a lie. We totally fell for it. We're not lazy, we're not asking for free money. We want to pay for our loans. We also want the careers that we were promised, that will enable us to pay.
Will we ever get those careers? Why is my wife having to look at entry/low level banking jobs because it pays more than what she can find in the legal field? She is as licensed attorney.
They practically threw the money at her. She took that money on false pretense and false employment statistics. She thought she would have a real job and be able to pay for her education with hard work. Ha, welcome to the real world.
Both parties and politicians serve their masters behind the scenes. Current Prez is raising millions more at $40,000/plate dinner tonight in NYC, Romney raising the same today or tomorrow or in his treasury from his father's political career, his own political career (but he's an outsider, no really, he is), or his venture capital/American middle class destroying career. But hey, Romney cares about me, and so does Obama, because they say so, we all have so much in common. Just kidding. Who cares, they're all whores to the $ - that's why they seek political office.
The answers have been repeated ad nauseum for decades, but the best thing is nowadays the same asshats that helped push for destroying the middle class through eliminating Glass-Steagall, pushing NAFTA, outsourcing, etc. now ignore the destruction they caused or say things should be reversed (but without foregoing the hundreds of millions they made in the process, of course). Just look at Greenspan (aka Kermit "My Mumblings are Drops of Wisdom - Trust Me") , Clinton (who still fancies himself a champion of the middle class after NAFTA and getting rid of Glass-Steagall), Sandy Weill, and all the rest from both D & R.
Eventually some of the 99%'s wisdom will be adopted by some clowns who hear the crowd at the gates of Versailles and the Bastille. And then what will these self-promoters/politicians and banksters do? Of course claim full credit for "their ideas." And they'll get rich for stealing and using ideas the average American was espousing for years. But the media and their cronies will pay $300,000/speech to hear these charlatans steal and spout them and buy their books through shady deals that guarantee the books are bestsellers despite their lack of content.
Predictable, just as LIBOR rigging, banksterism in all its forms, laundering money for terrorists and cartels, and every other crime committed by the 1% is not really a crime because it only affects the 99%. Speaking of which, has RBS and JPMorgan and Barclays reached a civil deal yet so that any penalties can be passed on to their customers and CEOs can still make hundreds of millions of dollars through crime? Still waiting for RICO indictments from USDOJ, or Scotland Yard, or the Canadians, or any country affected by this around the globe, any day now, any day . .
This is why it is imperative the the SS retirement eligibility age (and Medicare)be lowered to 60, TODAY. This would allow those older workers who will not be rehired to survive and and those who want to retire early, to do so. This would open up jobs for younger, healthier, less costly workers. win/win. A "no-brainer". - Shoes4Industry.
Every US taxpayer will be on the hook for these loans when grads cannot find jobs due to all the abuses you listed (outsourcing, visas, etc.). Just like taxpayers and society in general are dealing with derivative nightmares, housing bust, and other issues our politicians helped create, ignore, and profit from.
Many colleges and grad schools, both public and private, knowingly publish fraudulent employment statistics.
Why? To draw more students in with false promises of gold at the end of the rainbow. And no doubt many politicians have interests in these schools and loan companies. What happens when students rely on "non-profit institutions of higher learning" that control access to the real stats, publish false PR, and publish false statistics? They take on massive debt loads they cannot repay and cannot find jobs to make a dent in those debts -but are blamed for not "networking" (yeah, like networking works when there are 6 people for every job or a degree makes one "overqualified"?!), or wanting to work hard enough for free in an internship. So these schools and their politicians are creating the problem with the help of law enforcement and politicians that aren't dealing with them like they would any fraud ring.
Look at law schools as merely one example. They are publishing stats saying 90%+ were employed as late as 2011 six months after graduation. Blatant lie. Also claiming MEDIAN salaries at some schools of $160,000?! Sorry, MEDIAN?! Never, never. That would assume max salaries at $160,000+ after graduation? Folks, reality is most grads for years now were unemployed or working jobs you could get after high school or college at $40,000 or less, but now saddled with debt from college and grad school. But the ABA and law schools continue to knowingly propagate the lies to draw in more sources of income/students. And when students and alum protest, the ABA and others, with no shame, say, "You should have known better!" Awesome lack of integrity.
But that debt load was taken by the students, their families, and the taxpayer (eventually). Same goes on in private tech schools, pharmacy schools, health care, engineering, IT, etc. Just look to indeed.com's forums to read about all the lies every school and industry is propagating. Ignore shills like Manpower which always say there's a "worker shortage" in bought-for articles in the press or American companies simply cannot find people able to tie their own shoes or figure out 2 + 2. In the old days, we used to be ashamed of these lies and call them frauds. Now fraud is the American way of doing business, and as long as other taxpayers and innocent people are harmed, the hucksters are okay with that.
Purely coincedental because companies and lobbyists and politicians never lie, but the "shortage" talk seems to be gathering weight at the same time the US DOT is allowing Mexican truck drivers to come further into the US under NAFTA. And wouldn't you know it:
"Supporters hail the agreement as an end to tariffs that have cost U.S. companies more than $2 billion. They say it will create thousands of jobs and spur trade between the two nations. SUPPORTERS [emphasis added] include top U.S. transportation officials, the nation's largest trucking industry trade association, businesses that export to Mexico and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. . . Patrick Kilbride, the Chamber's senior director for the Americas, could not provide specifics on how jobs will be created. " USA Today from August 2, 2011.
It's sad when a PR tool cannot even back up his lie with another lie quickly. Surely an unemployed American could take Mr. Kilbride's job and do a better job, right? But perhaps honesty isn't wanted at the Chamber.
So "shortage" talk is just a way to get Mexican truck drivers to undercut American drivers. But if you ask those same people, Americans who cannot find jobs should just go to trucking school, or go to the oil fields in North Dakota, or become an engineer, or go to law school, or home health care, or something. No matter what field they recommend or what career they tell you is "wide open and booming," they will do everything they can to screw over American workers and those seeking work to undercut wages and replace Americans.
Golly, I sure hope Mexico isn't a major point of origin and transit nation for drugs and violent criminals seeking entry, because that would be a major threat to our national security, correct? DOT should really talk to DHS and the DOJ - they might have something to discuss. Are all Mexican drivers subject to tough licensing and regs just like we are? Hmmm . . .
So when our national security and economy is further threatened, don't go blaming the unemployed or your fellow struggling Americans, we know who to blame - include top U.S. transportation officials, the nation's largest trucking industry trade association, businesses that export to Mexico and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. These people want the perks and money made on the backs of fellow Americans, they get the full blame. Enjoy.
America, it's being carved up for dinner by oligarchs and their puppets.
Nearing the end of my working life, my net worth is $25,000, including checking, savings, retirement fund, car, and motorcycle. I've jumped through the hoops, shown up on time, and strived to do something responsible by teaching people how to use workplace software. I was fired in Mach as part of a "restructuring" of my college, and I anticipate living under a bridge if I live long enough.
The figures in the chart above are not theoretical to me, and, like JD above, I worry that my kids and grandkids face a bleak future. When the owners of the propaganda machines convince millions that workers' unions are inherently bad, those workers are already dead, even if they don't know it yet. I long for the activism of the 1960s and 1970s where real people believed they had the right to be treated with compassion, respect and justice. The new world I see is apparently not brave at all.
People, register! This site has a powerful discussion engine. But you must register, login! Literally comments on this site are like "mini blogs", they have their own RSS feed, tracking mechanism, promoting and voting mechanism. People can track their comments, replies and easily have a deep discussion.
So many are commenting, 1,2, 5 times a day but anonymously. Anonymous comments go into a moderation queue in order to filter out spam, referrer linkers and the crazies. That means you comment might not show up for hours. If you are logged in, you can just write whatever you want, post youtubes, pdfs format to full HTML, post graphs, links, whatever.
Seriously we have some great comments going on but to have a real time discussion we need folks to register and login. We really do love your comments, but you can really start an online detailed discussion if you just register and login.
I like CNBS for humor. Where else can you watch them run 1 minute ads extolling some millionaire or billionaire and make it seem like, "Hey, Jack Welch got rich off the backs off GE employees and now runs a private online MBA program ripping off people, so I should see him as a hero! Yippee!" CNBS and Bloomberg and everyone else need to reward their corporate sponsors/advertisers, so any news must be spun hard, lest people realize they have no $ to spend for corporate crap.
Stock market is a barometer of what, CNBS? Real inflation is much more than reported by Feds, and the Fed is keeping interest rates so low for retail customers that people have no choice but to help inflate stocks if they want to keep above inflation if they want to eat and buy gasoline. But the constant flashcrashes (e.g., today Knight Capital), NASDAQ screw ups, algo/HFT manipulations and mistakes are even scaring retail investors. And who can really trust brokerages anymore given MF Global and every other fraud we know about every day? CNBS knows the retail investor is done with the lies, especially after Farcebook was confirmed to be a farce. I can't wait until one or two of them is fired, has massive debt from too many vacation homes, and they can whine about how tough life is while being surrounded by people much smarter than them and with much more honesty on unemployment lines.
They just claimed the ADP report was a "good sign". Good God, do they even understand the numbers? BTW: they claimed the stock market is up 50% in the last two years. Isn't that nice, while working America is in poverty de facto.
Anyone who looks for jobs fruitlessly in the US knows the situation is not improving at all, and hasn't been for years now (makes staying in a house and fed extremely difficult). There are only so many times you can see the same ads taken down and reposted by the same companies and same fraudsters/HR depts and fraudsters/temp firms. But don't dare question them about their lies or get tired of being led on. Make sure you treat them like the gods they think they are, lest LinkedIn and Forbes and FoxBusiness and politicians label you an ungrateful, lazy leech with a poor attitude - I guess Americans' ideal of questioning authority and being educated is only ideal when it suits corporate masters, or so I'm told nowadays.
How many people graduate college every year? 1.5+ million? So unless we're seeing 400,000, 500,000 + jobs created/month, 20 million unemployed Americans will soon grow to 30 million to 40 million. And those with jobs should be happy that they graduated to work for a federal agency (DOJ/US Attorneys - no shame, making attorneys with $150,000 in debt work for free?) or a private company for free for a year in an internship while their bosses pull in six figures and full benefits? Screw that. Or someone is "lucky" to now stock shelves at Home Depot after graduating with an aerospace engineering degree while the Home Depot founders go on Fox and belittle Americans for being lazy and uneducated?
Let me know when a new breed of politician comes to town, who only wants to serve the public, not get rich before, during, or after service (i.e., any current D & R at all levels of govt.) fights the oligarchs and actually delivers MASSIVE job growth of 500,000/month by ending bogus trade agreements, punishes outsourcing, punishes those hiring illegal workers, ends BS internships that pay nothing for people long after college and grad school, brings back Glass-Steagall, punishes CEOs and bankster criminals under FCPA and RICO (these were laid out before and are easy for any prosecutor with an IQ over 80) everywhere they lurk, and will do everything to bring back cooperation and integrity and the Golden Rule to American society. This "Survivor," snakeoil salesman, rape and pillage today to enrich yourself and your cronies attitude is only destroying America.
We could have an adjustable interest rate. We could have adjustable credit levels and credit scores. We could have adjustable underwriting guidelines. We could have adjustable home values perhaps based on assessor's values. We could have adjustable years to a mortgage. What we can not have are investment banks funding mortgages without reading them, tranching them with false ratings and selling them around the world especially to Freddie and Fannie while betting against the quality of the loans. Mr. DeMarco needs to retire. He and his friends are righteously demanding profits for themselves regardless of how they trash the holders of the mortgages and the investors who bought an interest in the mortgages.
The mortgage purchase application statistic / index released by the Mortgage Bankers Association weekly has been in steady decline since February, And it has been declining nearly every week during the May-now peak home buying season.
This is the one stat that should be paid attention to as it reflects the actual number of mortgage applications received
As for unemployment stats, Mike Williams from Shadowstats.com states the acutal unemployment figure as of July 5th to be around 25% Factor in Underemployment and this is truly a sad picture
We've reached a point where no Govt statistics regarding virtually anything should be believed
I'll have to show the correlations of UI to nonfarm payrolls and give new estimtes next time I overview UI. I write up UI about once a month, usually when the press has gone insane over a 1 week window statistic that they should not give that much weight to.
For now, the ratio has dropped in terms of UI vs. "job growth" indicator", plus we have massive underemployment. Our policy makers believe it's just fine and dandy that highly educated PhDs should work as administrative assistants and Home Depot sales associates. As overall population increases so do these low paying service jobs, retail trade, to adjust for basically population growth.
So, bottom line, next time I do UI, which is probably in 2 or three weeks, I will make a point to number crunch the correlation to payroll data, as well as CPS employ levels.
You won't hear any argument from me on between politicians and corporations, they have literally ruined this country by global labor arbitrage.
I understand that a slower rate of negative change, in certain circumstances, signals a positive change is coming in certain subjects/fields. But in employment stats, it doesn't make sense. For instance, a NJ branch of a pharmaceutical company laying off 1,000+ Americans to move operations to Asia or Europe doesn't mean job growth is coming for those Americans or pharmaceuticals in the US. Banks and tech companies moving support operations to Asia create thousands of newly unemployed. While the rate of firings decrease as inevitably fewer people left to fire in the US, it doesn't equate to growth. It simply means those people have been replaced by someone and those jobs are gone. In essence, a zero sum game that Americans will lose.
We're written about the massive shadow inventory multiple times. Here is our latest NAR take down. Click on the meta tag "residential real estate" to see all of the housing overviews, where distressed sales, REOs stats are kind of littered in between these reports.
I agree, I think they are trying to re-inflate housing prices and this site is one of the few which really digs around into housing statistical releases looking at spin and pointing it out. NAR is beyond belief full of it to the point they scare me that they report inputs into the NIPA. These are the accounts which determine GDP.
The fact is America is tapped out. I don't know who can afford even a $200k mortgage with 5% down, never mind a $300k one with the below poverty wages, labor arbitrage, unemployment going on.
On initial claims, it's just a rule of thumb, below 375k fires (or UI claims), implies job growth, it's just a correlation. The nation is now massive worker churn, see the latest statistics over in the left hand column, bad news for U.S. workers.
So, less fires, means those monthly hires that occur increase job growth. Kind of like a pump is filling a glass with a hole in the bottom, less water out of the hole in the bottom with a constant water flow from the pump means the glass will get fuller.
That said, the BLS counts illegal workers and all foreign guest workers in their employment statistics. There literally are millions of these foreign guest workers and it does skew the data, especially in some occupational categories, such as STEM. Illegals are something like 10-20 million estimated, most working age and they clearly really skew the unemployment statistics for American workers as well.
Check back on Friday for we go over the BLS monthly employment report like flies on s**t. It's graph-o-rama with many hand calculations from the raw statistics. We also calculate, and from the government statistics, so you can follow along, all published data, our own alternative unemployment rate and levels of people needing a good job. It's over 27 million, over 18% unemployment rates, that's incredible! These calculations also include foreign guest workers, illegals, simply because the BLS (Congress) refuses to separate out the work force by immigration status.
While the BLS counts foreign guest workers, last I heard and never said never, illegals and foreign guest workers cannot collect UI. So, they should not be in the initial unemployment claims statistics (we hope).
How many houses are purposely being held by banks off the market to artificially inflate the house prices they are actually trying to move? The fact is with so many houses underwater, in foreclosure, and neighbors of those houses not selling now because they are waiting for better times much later on (i.e., they would be selling - but just not worth it), any "rise" will be complete propaganda/lies for many years to come. Just like any drop in unemployment rates is caused by statistical games and increasingly ignoring greater proportions of the population who are now unaccounted for. I also notice the correlation know that somehow the press is saying fewer initial unemployment claims = job growth? Not sure how fewer people being fired every week (but still 350,000-400,000) is equated to people getting hired (especially with dismal job growth numbers that are actually lower than the initial weekly claims), but that's the new lie - fewer people being fired = more people being hired (pure nonsense).
Calculated Risk compares home prices to rents and also performs inflation adjustments. Sorry to burst your bubble, but you want to read these additional statistics. Most noteworthy is how distressed home sales have been flat, with huge REO, estimated at 85-90% of all REOs (bank owned, foreclosed properties) are being held off of the market.
Those bubble people are so desperate for a return to the housing bubble it's beyond reason. Folks, this is a better report, but it's not that much better. More importantly, going off of one month of housing data, in spite of S&P's superior statistics, is a huge mistake. Don't do it, don't buy in. Home prices being flat with a one month bump up of 2.2% is simply not going to pull the economy out of it's doldrums. Sorry, no way in hell.
A couple comments on this issue
First student loans are a scam. they are worse than credit cards, you pay and pay and pay and the balances never seem to budge much. I had paid my way until my last year of college - bit the bullet and borrowed to get it done. a relatively modest amount. My wife had a similar amount. It took us 10 years to pay them off even with paying extra and often doubling up payments. this is money we weren't using to buy a car, or a nicer house, or furniture or appliances.
I don't see loans as the problem, as much as the exploding cost of college. The satellite campus of the major big ten school I attended back in the early 80's charged me around $20 bucks a credit hour for in state tuition (I still have a lot of the paper work to prove it). i recently went back to school to freshen up my skills to hopefully make me more valuable to current employer, or more marketable if not.
Man was I in for some major sticker shock. $249/ credit hour. that is a 12 times increase! Tuition is expected to increase another 9% next year
My question is what value has been added to the education to justify a price hike way beyond any measure of inflation? I have not seen my wages increase by that much
This started in the 1960's when the US abandoned the steel industry here. We've all seen the movies, 'Deer Hunter', 'All the Right Moves' etc.
The only good blue collar jobs in the private sector now are service industry jobs that CANNOT be outsourced and Government union jobs - that's it.
The eroded tax base along with tax gifts for the wealthy have put the crunch on Government union jobs also. It's not some conspiracy against them and this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that reads.
Without that important working middle class the high paying white collar jobs here will be moved overseas also.
Manufacturing was abandoned here 50 years ago, it just took a long time for people to notice.
My wife went to a agriculture and engineering public university. When she came home from orientation she informed me that she was going to major in philosophy. I was very taken aback. What can you do with a philosophy major?
Three years later she was accepted at a private law school. I thought, thank god, I was wrong. You can do something with philosophy that pays well.
Three years later she graduates, spends the whole summer studying for the bar exam, and passes it her first go. Now, I realize that I was wrong twice. Nobody is hiring fresh out of school young lawyers. The best job she has been able to find pays 10 dollars an hour. She also works retail selling clothing at night for 8 dollars an hour.
I love America. My family, we're very educated and working poor. The "American Dream" is dead to us. We will never be able to afford a home, a car less than 15 years old, or to properly support children. Most of it is hers, but we have nearly $200,000 in debt combined.
I had it all planned out. We would live as frugally as possible, and pay off her loans in 5 years. 40,000 a year paid back from our two incomes. Then we would be free. Current economy means that I'm making 1/3 the pay that I was in 2009. (I was laid off the summer after her first year in law school.)
I was raised with the belief that if you work hard, do what is right, and go to school you will be successful. What a lie. We totally fell for it. We're not lazy, we're not asking for free money. We want to pay for our loans. We also want the careers that we were promised, that will enable us to pay.
Will we ever get those careers? Why is my wife having to look at entry/low level banking jobs because it pays more than what she can find in the legal field? She is as licensed attorney.
They practically threw the money at her. She took that money on false pretense and false employment statistics. She thought she would have a real job and be able to pay for her education with hard work. Ha, welcome to the real world.
Both parties and politicians serve their masters behind the scenes. Current Prez is raising millions more at $40,000/plate dinner tonight in NYC, Romney raising the same today or tomorrow or in his treasury from his father's political career, his own political career (but he's an outsider, no really, he is), or his venture capital/American middle class destroying career. But hey, Romney cares about me, and so does Obama, because they say so, we all have so much in common. Just kidding. Who cares, they're all whores to the $ - that's why they seek political office.
The answers have been repeated ad nauseum for decades, but the best thing is nowadays the same asshats that helped push for destroying the middle class through eliminating Glass-Steagall, pushing NAFTA, outsourcing, etc. now ignore the destruction they caused or say things should be reversed (but without foregoing the hundreds of millions they made in the process, of course). Just look at Greenspan (aka Kermit "My Mumblings are Drops of Wisdom - Trust Me") , Clinton (who still fancies himself a champion of the middle class after NAFTA and getting rid of Glass-Steagall), Sandy Weill, and all the rest from both D & R.
Eventually some of the 99%'s wisdom will be adopted by some clowns who hear the crowd at the gates of Versailles and the Bastille. And then what will these self-promoters/politicians and banksters do? Of course claim full credit for "their ideas." And they'll get rich for stealing and using ideas the average American was espousing for years. But the media and their cronies will pay $300,000/speech to hear these charlatans steal and spout them and buy their books through shady deals that guarantee the books are bestsellers despite their lack of content.
Predictable, just as LIBOR rigging, banksterism in all its forms, laundering money for terrorists and cartels, and every other crime committed by the 1% is not really a crime because it only affects the 99%. Speaking of which, has RBS and JPMorgan and Barclays reached a civil deal yet so that any penalties can be passed on to their customers and CEOs can still make hundreds of millions of dollars through crime? Still waiting for RICO indictments from USDOJ, or Scotland Yard, or the Canadians, or any country affected by this around the globe, any day now, any day . .
This is why it is imperative the the SS retirement eligibility age (and Medicare)be lowered to 60, TODAY. This would allow those older workers who will not be rehired to survive and and those who want to retire early, to do so. This would open up jobs for younger, healthier, less costly workers. win/win. A "no-brainer". - Shoes4Industry.
Every US taxpayer will be on the hook for these loans when grads cannot find jobs due to all the abuses you listed (outsourcing, visas, etc.). Just like taxpayers and society in general are dealing with derivative nightmares, housing bust, and other issues our politicians helped create, ignore, and profit from.
Many colleges and grad schools, both public and private, knowingly publish fraudulent employment statistics.
Why? To draw more students in with false promises of gold at the end of the rainbow. And no doubt many politicians have interests in these schools and loan companies. What happens when students rely on "non-profit institutions of higher learning" that control access to the real stats, publish false PR, and publish false statistics? They take on massive debt loads they cannot repay and cannot find jobs to make a dent in those debts -but are blamed for not "networking" (yeah, like networking works when there are 6 people for every job or a degree makes one "overqualified"?!), or wanting to work hard enough for free in an internship. So these schools and their politicians are creating the problem with the help of law enforcement and politicians that aren't dealing with them like they would any fraud ring.
Look at law schools as merely one example. They are publishing stats saying 90%+ were employed as late as 2011 six months after graduation. Blatant lie. Also claiming MEDIAN salaries at some schools of $160,000?! Sorry, MEDIAN?! Never, never. That would assume max salaries at $160,000+ after graduation? Folks, reality is most grads for years now were unemployed or working jobs you could get after high school or college at $40,000 or less, but now saddled with debt from college and grad school. But the ABA and law schools continue to knowingly propagate the lies to draw in more sources of income/students. And when students and alum protest, the ABA and others, with no shame, say, "You should have known better!" Awesome lack of integrity.
But that debt load was taken by the students, their families, and the taxpayer (eventually). Same goes on in private tech schools, pharmacy schools, health care, engineering, IT, etc. Just look to indeed.com's forums to read about all the lies every school and industry is propagating. Ignore shills like Manpower which always say there's a "worker shortage" in bought-for articles in the press or American companies simply cannot find people able to tie their own shoes or figure out 2 + 2. In the old days, we used to be ashamed of these lies and call them frauds. Now fraud is the American way of doing business, and as long as other taxpayers and innocent people are harmed, the hucksters are okay with that.
Purely coincedental because companies and lobbyists and politicians never lie, but the "shortage" talk seems to be gathering weight at the same time the US DOT is allowing Mexican truck drivers to come further into the US under NAFTA. And wouldn't you know it:
"Supporters hail the agreement as an end to tariffs that have cost U.S. companies more than $2 billion. They say it will create thousands of jobs and spur trade between the two nations. SUPPORTERS [emphasis added] include top U.S. transportation officials, the nation's largest trucking industry trade association, businesses that export to Mexico and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. . . Patrick Kilbride, the Chamber's senior director for the Americas, could not provide specifics on how jobs will be created. " USA Today from August 2, 2011.
It's sad when a PR tool cannot even back up his lie with another lie quickly. Surely an unemployed American could take Mr. Kilbride's job and do a better job, right? But perhaps honesty isn't wanted at the Chamber.
So "shortage" talk is just a way to get Mexican truck drivers to undercut American drivers. But if you ask those same people, Americans who cannot find jobs should just go to trucking school, or go to the oil fields in North Dakota, or become an engineer, or go to law school, or home health care, or something. No matter what field they recommend or what career they tell you is "wide open and booming," they will do everything they can to screw over American workers and those seeking work to undercut wages and replace Americans.
Golly, I sure hope Mexico isn't a major point of origin and transit nation for drugs and violent criminals seeking entry, because that would be a major threat to our national security, correct? DOT should really talk to DHS and the DOJ - they might have something to discuss. Are all Mexican drivers subject to tough licensing and regs just like we are? Hmmm . . .
So when our national security and economy is further threatened, don't go blaming the unemployed or your fellow struggling Americans, we know who to blame - include top U.S. transportation officials, the nation's largest trucking industry trade association, businesses that export to Mexico and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. These people want the perks and money made on the backs of fellow Americans, they get the full blame. Enjoy.
America, it's being carved up for dinner by oligarchs and their puppets.
Nearing the end of my working life, my net worth is $25,000, including checking, savings, retirement fund, car, and motorcycle. I've jumped through the hoops, shown up on time, and strived to do something responsible by teaching people how to use workplace software. I was fired in Mach as part of a "restructuring" of my college, and I anticipate living under a bridge if I live long enough.
The figures in the chart above are not theoretical to me, and, like JD above, I worry that my kids and grandkids face a bleak future. When the owners of the propaganda machines convince millions that workers' unions are inherently bad, those workers are already dead, even if they don't know it yet. I long for the activism of the 1960s and 1970s where real people believed they had the right to be treated with compassion, respect and justice. The new world I see is apparently not brave at all.
Pages