Why even bother dragging the SEC away from their porn on their computers? Just introduce the Corzine House and Senate CFTC circus transcripts, change Corzine to Dimon, switch around raiding funds to betting hundreds of billions on a coin flip/derivatives, or any "elite's" sham hearing, and move on.
The rule of law, real enforcement, and real punishment are so passe.
In the brave new world of banksterism/US of Greed, the new theme is, "It's not what's immoral or even wrong, it's what you can get away with at the other guy's expense" (and yes, I've actually heard "it's not illegal so who cares" repeated more and more on TV and in the press). Even when it is CLEARLY ILLEGAL, unless the law is enforced, the free pass is in effect for the "elites" (elite in the sense of ill-gotten wealth, not in the moral or intelligent sense). Kipling's "The Gods of the Copybook Headings," the Golden Rule, our so-called "exceptionalism" and "City Upon a Hill," all apparently now garbage.
Like clockwork, here comes the investigation. I believe even the major press is announcing we'll see "investigations" and even a possible Congressional hearing but in the end, this will be just another 8 minute blip on the screen and corporate lobbyists, dismantling any financial regulation will march on as if nothing has happened.
Additionally the "rogue trader" rhetoric is being front paged now. No surprise, sacrificial lamb offering.
No, that's the "official" unemployed. The second graph is U-6 per job opening. I show what's included in the alternative unemployment rate published by the BLS. U-6 has "some" drop outs, but not all, only people who looked in the last 12 months who are "not in the labor force".
Additionally JOLTS includes part-time jobs and U-6 includes a large number of people already stuck in part-time jobs who want and need full-time real ones. So, while there are 6.1 people per job opening, part of those people, in U-6, are not gonna want to go from one crappy low paying part-time job to another one.
I wish the JOLTS survey would report hours per job opening and wages, benefits as well. For example retail trade is notorious to be mostly really low paying, no benefits, part time jobs, leisure and hospitality is even worse. Yet within these very large job categories, there are a few good jobs.
Anyway, as a thumb in air weathervein this ratio still tells you the jobs market really sucks and I would claim most in the press refuse to acknowledge there are WAY more people competing for these jobs than in 2007. In other words, one cannot just take levels and say "whoopee, job openings have increased almost to 2008 levels" for in 2008, they were WAY LESS people looking for work.
If you look to the left, we create our own "alternative" unemployment rate, see here, which was 16.6%. That ratio includes the BLS published statistic of those who are officially dropped out, not counted, as part of the labor force, but report they want a job.
Other economists are quoting even higher "real" unemployment rates, but we use what the BLS publishes to come up with ours.
So, U-6 shows there are 6.1 people wanting a job per opening. I didn't do our "alternative" unemployment rate of 16.6%, but roughly, that would be about 8 people per job opening.
Since you mention a MS EE, and you should write your elected officials that this should be changed, the BLS counts foreign guest workers, H-1B Visa holders as "employed" and that job being taken by a H-1B, L-1, F-1, OPT as a job. That artificially pumps up the occupational employment statistics. That should be recategorized as jobs outsourced, not entered into the employment statistics and separated, by both the CES and the CPS employment surveys.
It's not a job opening, or opportunity to hire a H-1B foreign guest worker, not for the U.S. labor pool and American jobs market.
Myself, the current political climate jabber is something to just confuse the people. There is nothing wrong with government regulation and legislation to give massive incentives for domestic investment, domestic hiring, based on citizenship (i.e. hire Americans), corporate tax policy that puts rewards for hiring, retaining and training labor.
"Force" doesn't mean at gunpoint, it means enact legislation, policies to the point corporations, in order to be profitable, must invest their cash into the United States, instead of globe hopping for the cheapest labor markets and production.
i.e. instead of allowing corporations to park profits offshore, tie 0% corporate tax rates to hiring Americans and investing, building within the United States. So, this isn't "at gunpoint", it's a major reshaping of the corporate tax code.
A private businesses' model remains the same, but there is an additional, much needed element beyond "make profits for our shareholders" and that is a responsibility to the nation and to their prospective work forces.
This isn't "take over the corporation", at all, not even close to what the Chinese do with state owned enterprises.
Right now we have corporate lobbyist written tax codes, labor laws, trade treaties that give strong incentives to fire U.S. workers, move production offshore and increase financialization.
It's currently corporate socialism, corporate welfare if one wants to speak in those red herring political philosophy terms.
Me, I'm practical, what works, what increases profits, business activity but also increases individual wealth, on average, increases work life in America, keeps the nation out of massive debt and so on. Many of these ideas which are thwarted again by corporate lobbyists, have already been proved to work in the past.
Improved? All the statistics show the jobs being created are at Burger King and Starbucks.
Does that 3.4 /job figure include those who have dropped out of the labor force? I can assure you that if you have an MS in engineering, no one will hire you at Burger King.
I personally think we need certain derivatives outright banned and a return to full-bore glass-steagall, plus break up the TBTF banks. I mentioned the FDIC plan in my JPMorgan Chase. Interesting both of us used the exact same term to describe JPMorgan Chase, hubris.
I also briefly mentioned the new FDIC plan, we have now "living wills" and on and on about closing down large banks, but hello, didn't JPMorgan Chase with CDSes and derivatives just do precisely what caused the financial crisis, yet we cannot get these derivatives banned, regulated, monitoring, including approval for their actual model?
This drives me nuts because no one mentions their mathematical model the derivative itself, is front loaded with contagion and massive risk, potential losses. How can these "bad math" structures even be allowed?
This story will go on and will be repeated in this corporate boardroom or that trading desk. It will be repeated because the taxpayer is on the hook for the losses and the culprits are never truly punished.
No one is surprised by this who reads the real news on the blogs - we knew about the massive derivatives out there and still outstanding liabilities in the trillions these people hold. Just as oil and silver and gold manipulation is no surprise and going on daily, but the MSM will just learn about that in a few years. It seems the fawning press was shocked, but then the truth shouldn't stop Facebook 24/7 coverage or the inevitable pump-and-dump scam from happening.
Dimon will apologize, try to blame a few people below him, develop memory loss when appropriate, talk about the mistakes that were made and only he can fix the issue because he presided over the mess. Isn't that quite a scam! Just as Corzine did, just as Murdoch did, and on. Did the Koch Bros. ever face real prosecution for violating sanctions with Iran? Nope. Murdoch for hacking and bribes? Nope.
The fawning press and paid-for politicians don't want to hold this "job creator's" feet to the fire, so he'll get a pass or retire with a massive bonus. And if push comes to shove, the diseased banks can always claim, "if you destroy us, we are so ingrained and large that you will kill the host." IT's GREAT TO BE A PARASITE!
Compare a store manager. Comes up short $500. Can he say, taxpayers, come bail me out? Can he get a massive salary and a bonus and find another job if forced to retire. Nope. No job for him. No sympathy. No CNBS coddling him.
Until these people and institutions face real investigations by honest and driven folks, they are arrested for insider trading, manipulating commodities, endangering entire nations, they will smirk and laugh on the way to the Hamptons or Davos. Real arrests, real loss of all their wealth, and real prison time in a real prison. You think these people wouldn't change their actions facing the loss of all their ill-gotten wealth and the thought of one count of a federal or state crime sending them to a MAXIMUM SECURITY PRISON for 10+ years? Of course they would change, and right quick. Under state law, the prison is determined by the length of time one serves, so no camps are available. One count of lying to a fed is a real crime and so incredibly easy for lazy prosecutors to use - and yet they never use it. The USCode is filled with laws that could apply and are easy to charge these criminals with, but the feds won't and they will prevent states from prosecuting the cases because they are "federal matters." And so the story repeats itself.
Been following your blog for a bit and enjoy the counter points and perspective you provide. Thank you.
I get confused when I read about one's desire for government to intervene in private business. You make regulatory suggestions focused on corporations; how do you define a corporation or big business for that matter? Size, number of employees, profit margin, legality? It does seem once you draw a line, companies will do what they can to stay away from it (http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-05-03/why-france-has-so-many-4...). You use the word "force" when describing your policy suggestion. Arguments can be made about the products which are produced, but how can regulating a company's business model be for the "greater good"? How far away from nationization is it when the government dictates not only the products produced but also the staffing levels as well as where to invest their profits?
Jamie Dimon has been touted as Midas. But $ 2 billions worth of crow proves that he has been "gold plated," like those U.S. "gold plated" weapons that cost millions to built but are useless in battle, and most don't even go into production - after the U.S. spends $ billions to design and test them- like the $ 150 billions wasted on the army's "Persuader Cannon" whose production was scrapped!
I am surprised why Dimon hasn't resigned yet, or why the JP Morgan Chase board of directors hasn't fired him. It is probably because JP Morgan Chase hasn't lost it own money; it lost the investors money. Nothing to worry about. After all, when the Wall Street collapsed a few years back, the executives not only were not fired, but when the federal bailout funds came in those losers executives shared $ 300 million in bonuses from the taxpayers money.
I won't be surprise if Dimon receives a $ 15-20 million bonus in the next few months! Dimon would certainly eat crow, but with 24 carat gold silverware!
Nikos Retsos, retired professor, Chicago
We've covered this previously but basically big oil is fixing gas prices. Ritholtz put together numerous articles together to give you the nasty details.
Richard Heinberg propose a startling diagnosis: humanity has reached a fundamental turning point in its economic history. The expansionary trajectory of industrial civilization is colliding with non-negotiable natural limits.
Even in 2007 the job market was pretty crappy and from the graphs, I'm making a point that things are not even back to crappy 2007 for labor. The negative amplification slant is multi-fold. First, you're right, the monthly BLS figures are revised, seems generally one needs to almost look at BLS data at least quarterly, plus we have April not looking too good so this might be a data blip.
Then, the MSM press headlines repeatedly try to act like an 8.1% official unemployment rate is just fine, and a 8.1% unemployment rate is still obscene. So, this is to pour cold water on those denial cheerleaders who want to somehow brush millions of unemployed under the denial rug.
Then, as another noted, politicians are acting like job openings, which the BLS reported in their official statistical release as unchanged, somehow means there are jobs out there to employ people and there are not. It's better but no where near where things need to be and this has been going on for over 4 years, which is a phenomenally long time.
The BLS NFP figure is notoriously unreliable on an individual monthly basis.
Separately, your takeaway of all this data is oddly negative. To my untrained eye, things continue to improve, albeit not at the rate that most would like. But the rate at which things can improve is circumscribed by the state the the global economy, in particular the developed economies within it, finds itself in. That state itself is a function of the mess that it was in 5 years ago, and that itself a function of all the prehistory that we know and do not love.
Constantly we hear people moaning about how crap everything is, how the government (whether of the US, UK, whatever) needs to fashion and implement a "pro-growth policy", as if that is something that it is not only possible but easy to do, if only they would stop deliberately dragging their heels and put their minds to it.
Well, it is not. The system has been well and truly screwed, and it will take time to heal.
They have got to be kidding. Even if one reads just the BLS material and this is a statistical release, they are saying it's still a piss poor job market (my translation).
This is why I cover statistical releases, either the MSM gets it outright wrong and come on, I mean the government releases these reports so people, especially politicians, policy makers and the press, can actually read them!
This "blame the person" is B.S. and yeah, we expect that from the right, to blame people for bad policy, but I've seen that coming from the left many a time, blaming workers.
Anyway, link this up and pass it around, that's what why it's here. Maybe half a dozen graphs staring them in the face will make these people wake up. The job market still sucks big wankers and it's going on 5 years. Half a decade.
These stats are excellent, as always. Just proving to us out here in the field what we experience every day, and unfortunately my brain refuses to quit (it'd make living in the US so much easier nowadays).
- Today we find in the news the Governor of Maine telling his fawning sycophants in a convention that the unemployed should just get off the couch already and get those jobs - you know, those jobs dropping from the sky (these JOLTS stats don't make sense for those who don't like to read). Rick Perry, a recipient of govt. funds himself, said he supported that thought. But it's not a D or R, issue, because both sides of the same nonthinking coin in the oligarchs' pocket.
- On the other side, we have MSNBC (a hardcore DNC shill) celebrating the fact that a 22-year old posted his mug on a billboard and got a job in sales. The comments on that site are 10-1 (and that's a iberal site) bashing the unemployed, celebrating his "creativity," and devotion to finding a job. The "welfare/lazy 99ers" meme is also present (forgetting the fact that millions of people were never eligible for one day of benefits or ran out long ago).
Basically, the message is damn those unemployed people! If only they had no problem paying for a billboard to plaster their mugs for all to see. I'd hire a surgeon via that route. Laid off physicist from NASA? Put your face on a billboard! Undercover police officer laid off in budget cuts? Put your face on a billboard? Factory worker laid off because of private equity takeover and layoffs? Put your face on a billboard!
Billboards solve all problems. Don't worry about ID theft and being taken as a joke by 99% of the people driving by. Don't think about reasons unemployed are unable to find jobs like the unemployed vs. job opening ratio, age discrimination, being overqualified, being unable to move because of an underwater house, not being able to take an internship when you have college loans for that "worthless" engineering degree >$100,000.
The media (Fox, CNN, MNBS, CNBS, etc.) and the politicians say you are to blame for being unemployed - put your face on a billboard already!
Labor productivity, I won't mention names but there were so major press that just got the ratios upside down and what this means for U.S. workers. I just hope I'm translating from those dense government economic reports to real people enough.
If anyone is wondering why all of the different values, i.e. increased $21.4, $21.3 and $21.36 on overall credit, the Fed publishes data to 1 decimal place and it appears they concatenate instead of round. One can dig around and find the original data and it goes to more decimal places of accuracy. I personally don't know what to think about that, come on Fed, be consistent, are you rounding or not?
On your site, we do take cross posts, articles of interest and we hope EP readers are jumping around the Internets and yes we do love links back to EP!
Your article above is an informative and concisely written piece with good supporting economic details. I thought that you / or your readers would find the Wall Street community's discussion on this matter as well as other topics of interest: http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/blog/record-consumer-credit-numbers Our community consists of aspiring / current finance professional users so feel free to use it as a follow up if you like or as an expansion of traffic and readership. I hope all is well and keep up the good work!
Why even bother dragging the SEC away from their porn on their computers? Just introduce the Corzine House and Senate CFTC circus transcripts, change Corzine to Dimon, switch around raiding funds to betting hundreds of billions on a coin flip/derivatives, or any "elite's" sham hearing, and move on.
The rule of law, real enforcement, and real punishment are so passe.
In the brave new world of banksterism/US of Greed, the new theme is, "It's not what's immoral or even wrong, it's what you can get away with at the other guy's expense" (and yes, I've actually heard "it's not illegal so who cares" repeated more and more on TV and in the press). Even when it is CLEARLY ILLEGAL, unless the law is enforced, the free pass is in effect for the "elites" (elite in the sense of ill-gotten wealth, not in the moral or intelligent sense). Kipling's "The Gods of the Copybook Headings," the Golden Rule, our so-called "exceptionalism" and "City Upon a Hill," all apparently now garbage.
-Kurtz
Like clockwork, here comes the investigation. I believe even the major press is announcing we'll see "investigations" and even a possible Congressional hearing but in the end, this will be just another 8 minute blip on the screen and corporate lobbyists, dismantling any financial regulation will march on as if nothing has happened.
Additionally the "rogue trader" rhetoric is being front paged now. No surprise, sacrificial lamb offering.
No, that's the "official" unemployed. The second graph is U-6 per job opening. I show what's included in the alternative unemployment rate published by the BLS. U-6 has "some" drop outs, but not all, only people who looked in the last 12 months who are "not in the labor force".
Additionally JOLTS includes part-time jobs and U-6 includes a large number of people already stuck in part-time jobs who want and need full-time real ones. So, while there are 6.1 people per job opening, part of those people, in U-6, are not gonna want to go from one crappy low paying part-time job to another one.
I wish the JOLTS survey would report hours per job opening and wages, benefits as well. For example retail trade is notorious to be mostly really low paying, no benefits, part time jobs, leisure and hospitality is even worse. Yet within these very large job categories, there are a few good jobs.
Anyway, as a thumb in air weathervein this ratio still tells you the jobs market really sucks and I would claim most in the press refuse to acknowledge there are WAY more people competing for these jobs than in 2007. In other words, one cannot just take levels and say "whoopee, job openings have increased almost to 2008 levels" for in 2008, they were WAY LESS people looking for work.
If you look to the left, we create our own "alternative" unemployment rate, see here, which was 16.6%. That ratio includes the BLS published statistic of those who are officially dropped out, not counted, as part of the labor force, but report they want a job.
Other economists are quoting even higher "real" unemployment rates, but we use what the BLS publishes to come up with ours.
So, U-6 shows there are 6.1 people wanting a job per opening. I didn't do our "alternative" unemployment rate of 16.6%, but roughly, that would be about 8 people per job opening.
Since you mention a MS EE, and you should write your elected officials that this should be changed, the BLS counts foreign guest workers, H-1B Visa holders as "employed" and that job being taken by a H-1B, L-1, F-1, OPT as a job. That artificially pumps up the occupational employment statistics. That should be recategorized as jobs outsourced, not entered into the employment statistics and separated, by both the CES and the CPS employment surveys.
It's not a job opening, or opportunity to hire a H-1B foreign guest worker, not for the U.S. labor pool and American jobs market.
Myself, the current political climate jabber is something to just confuse the people. There is nothing wrong with government regulation and legislation to give massive incentives for domestic investment, domestic hiring, based on citizenship (i.e. hire Americans), corporate tax policy that puts rewards for hiring, retaining and training labor.
"Force" doesn't mean at gunpoint, it means enact legislation, policies to the point corporations, in order to be profitable, must invest their cash into the United States, instead of globe hopping for the cheapest labor markets and production.
i.e. instead of allowing corporations to park profits offshore, tie 0% corporate tax rates to hiring Americans and investing, building within the United States. So, this isn't "at gunpoint", it's a major reshaping of the corporate tax code.
A private businesses' model remains the same, but there is an additional, much needed element beyond "make profits for our shareholders" and that is a responsibility to the nation and to their prospective work forces.
This isn't "take over the corporation", at all, not even close to what the Chinese do with state owned enterprises.
Right now we have corporate lobbyist written tax codes, labor laws, trade treaties that give strong incentives to fire U.S. workers, move production offshore and increase financialization.
It's currently corporate socialism, corporate welfare if one wants to speak in those red herring political philosophy terms.
Me, I'm practical, what works, what increases profits, business activity but also increases individual wealth, on average, increases work life in America, keeps the nation out of massive debt and so on. Many of these ideas which are thwarted again by corporate lobbyists, have already been proved to work in the past.
What works is my motto.
Improved? All the statistics show the jobs being created are at Burger King and Starbucks.
Does that 3.4 /job figure include those who have dropped out of the labor force? I can assure you that if you have an MS in engineering, no one will hire you at Burger King.
I personally think we need certain derivatives outright banned and a return to full-bore glass-steagall, plus break up the TBTF banks. I mentioned the FDIC plan in my JPMorgan Chase. Interesting both of us used the exact same term to describe JPMorgan Chase, hubris.
I also briefly mentioned the new FDIC plan, we have now "living wills" and on and on about closing down large banks, but hello, didn't JPMorgan Chase with CDSes and derivatives just do precisely what caused the financial crisis, yet we cannot get these derivatives banned, regulated, monitoring, including approval for their actual model?
This drives me nuts because no one mentions their mathematical model the derivative itself, is front loaded with contagion and massive risk, potential losses. How can these "bad math" structures even be allowed?
My take on JP Morgan Chase is here.
This story will go on and will be repeated in this corporate boardroom or that trading desk. It will be repeated because the taxpayer is on the hook for the losses and the culprits are never truly punished.
No one is surprised by this who reads the real news on the blogs - we knew about the massive derivatives out there and still outstanding liabilities in the trillions these people hold. Just as oil and silver and gold manipulation is no surprise and going on daily, but the MSM will just learn about that in a few years. It seems the fawning press was shocked, but then the truth shouldn't stop Facebook 24/7 coverage or the inevitable pump-and-dump scam from happening.
Dimon will apologize, try to blame a few people below him, develop memory loss when appropriate, talk about the mistakes that were made and only he can fix the issue because he presided over the mess. Isn't that quite a scam! Just as Corzine did, just as Murdoch did, and on. Did the Koch Bros. ever face real prosecution for violating sanctions with Iran? Nope. Murdoch for hacking and bribes? Nope.
The fawning press and paid-for politicians don't want to hold this "job creator's" feet to the fire, so he'll get a pass or retire with a massive bonus. And if push comes to shove, the diseased banks can always claim, "if you destroy us, we are so ingrained and large that you will kill the host." IT's GREAT TO BE A PARASITE!
Compare a store manager. Comes up short $500. Can he say, taxpayers, come bail me out? Can he get a massive salary and a bonus and find another job if forced to retire. Nope. No job for him. No sympathy. No CNBS coddling him.
Until these people and institutions face real investigations by honest and driven folks, they are arrested for insider trading, manipulating commodities, endangering entire nations, they will smirk and laugh on the way to the Hamptons or Davos. Real arrests, real loss of all their wealth, and real prison time in a real prison. You think these people wouldn't change their actions facing the loss of all their ill-gotten wealth and the thought of one count of a federal or state crime sending them to a MAXIMUM SECURITY PRISON for 10+ years? Of course they would change, and right quick. Under state law, the prison is determined by the length of time one serves, so no camps are available. One count of lying to a fed is a real crime and so incredibly easy for lazy prosecutors to use - and yet they never use it. The USCode is filled with laws that could apply and are easy to charge these criminals with, but the feds won't and they will prevent states from prosecuting the cases because they are "federal matters." And so the story repeats itself.
Been following your blog for a bit and enjoy the counter points and perspective you provide. Thank you.
I get confused when I read about one's desire for government to intervene in private business. You make regulatory suggestions focused on corporations; how do you define a corporation or big business for that matter? Size, number of employees, profit margin, legality? It does seem once you draw a line, companies will do what they can to stay away from it (http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-05-03/why-france-has-so-many-4...). You use the word "force" when describing your policy suggestion. Arguments can be made about the products which are produced, but how can regulating a company's business model be for the "greater good"? How far away from nationization is it when the government dictates not only the products produced but also the staffing levels as well as where to invest their profits?
Thank you for your time,
Clayton
Jamie Dimon has been touted as Midas. But $ 2 billions worth of crow proves that he has been "gold plated," like those U.S. "gold plated" weapons that cost millions to built but are useless in battle, and most don't even go into production - after the U.S. spends $ billions to design and test them- like the $ 150 billions wasted on the army's "Persuader Cannon" whose production was scrapped!
I am surprised why Dimon hasn't resigned yet, or why the JP Morgan Chase board of directors hasn't fired him. It is probably because JP Morgan Chase hasn't lost it own money; it lost the investors money. Nothing to worry about. After all, when the Wall Street collapsed a few years back, the executives not only were not fired, but when the federal bailout funds came in those losers executives shared $ 300 million in bonuses from the taxpayers money.
I won't be surprise if Dimon receives a $ 15-20 million bonus in the next few months! Dimon would certainly eat crow, but with 24 carat gold silverware!
Nikos Retsos, retired professor, Chicago
We've covered this previously but basically big oil is fixing gas prices. Ritholtz put together numerous articles together to give you the nasty details.
Who Killed Economic Growth?
Richard Heinberg propose a startling diagnosis: humanity has reached a fundamental turning point in its economic history. The expansionary trajectory of industrial civilization is colliding with non-negotiable natural limits.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQqDS9wGsxQ
Even in 2007 the job market was pretty crappy and from the graphs, I'm making a point that things are not even back to crappy 2007 for labor. The negative amplification slant is multi-fold. First, you're right, the monthly BLS figures are revised, seems generally one needs to almost look at BLS data at least quarterly, plus we have April not looking too good so this might be a data blip.
Then, the MSM press headlines repeatedly try to act like an 8.1% official unemployment rate is just fine, and a 8.1% unemployment rate is still obscene. So, this is to pour cold water on those denial cheerleaders who want to somehow brush millions of unemployed under the denial rug.
Then, as another noted, politicians are acting like job openings, which the BLS reported in their official statistical release as unchanged, somehow means there are jobs out there to employ people and there are not. It's better but no where near where things need to be and this has been going on for over 4 years, which is a phenomenally long time.
The BLS NFP figure is notoriously unreliable on an individual monthly basis.
Separately, your takeaway of all this data is oddly negative. To my untrained eye, things continue to improve, albeit not at the rate that most would like. But the rate at which things can improve is circumscribed by the state the the global economy, in particular the developed economies within it, finds itself in. That state itself is a function of the mess that it was in 5 years ago, and that itself a function of all the prehistory that we know and do not love.
Constantly we hear people moaning about how crap everything is, how the government (whether of the US, UK, whatever) needs to fashion and implement a "pro-growth policy", as if that is something that it is not only possible but easy to do, if only they would stop deliberately dragging their heels and put their minds to it.
Well, it is not. The system has been well and truly screwed, and it will take time to heal.
They have got to be kidding. Even if one reads just the BLS material and this is a statistical release, they are saying it's still a piss poor job market (my translation).
This is why I cover statistical releases, either the MSM gets it outright wrong and come on, I mean the government releases these reports so people, especially politicians, policy makers and the press, can actually read them!
This "blame the person" is B.S. and yeah, we expect that from the right, to blame people for bad policy, but I've seen that coming from the left many a time, blaming workers.
Anyway, link this up and pass it around, that's what why it's here. Maybe half a dozen graphs staring them in the face will make these people wake up. The job market still sucks big wankers and it's going on 5 years. Half a decade.
These stats are excellent, as always. Just proving to us out here in the field what we experience every day, and unfortunately my brain refuses to quit (it'd make living in the US so much easier nowadays).
- Today we find in the news the Governor of Maine telling his fawning sycophants in a convention that the unemployed should just get off the couch already and get those jobs - you know, those jobs dropping from the sky (these JOLTS stats don't make sense for those who don't like to read). Rick Perry, a recipient of govt. funds himself, said he supported that thought. But it's not a D or R, issue, because both sides of the same nonthinking coin in the oligarchs' pocket.
- On the other side, we have MSNBC (a hardcore DNC shill) celebrating the fact that a 22-year old posted his mug on a billboard and got a job in sales. The comments on that site are 10-1 (and that's a iberal site) bashing the unemployed, celebrating his "creativity," and devotion to finding a job. The "welfare/lazy 99ers" meme is also present (forgetting the fact that millions of people were never eligible for one day of benefits or ran out long ago).
Basically, the message is damn those unemployed people! If only they had no problem paying for a billboard to plaster their mugs for all to see. I'd hire a surgeon via that route. Laid off physicist from NASA? Put your face on a billboard! Undercover police officer laid off in budget cuts? Put your face on a billboard? Factory worker laid off because of private equity takeover and layoffs? Put your face on a billboard!
Billboards solve all problems. Don't worry about ID theft and being taken as a joke by 99% of the people driving by. Don't think about reasons unemployed are unable to find jobs like the unemployed vs. job opening ratio, age discrimination, being overqualified, being unable to move because of an underwater house, not being able to take an internship when you have college loans for that "worthless" engineering degree >$100,000.
The media (Fox, CNN, MNBS, CNBS, etc.) and the politicians say you are to blame for being unemployed - put your face on a billboard already!
-Kurtz
Labor productivity, I won't mention names but there were so major press that just got the ratios upside down and what this means for U.S. workers. I just hope I'm translating from those dense government economic reports to real people enough.
Boy you keep digging out the details behind the numbers.
Thanks for doing all this relentless work. I really appreciate it.
Some of this can be posted on every comment section in the major media and the response will be a FOX talking-point.
If anyone is wondering why all of the different values, i.e. increased $21.4, $21.3 and $21.36 on overall credit, the Fed publishes data to 1 decimal place and it appears they concatenate instead of round. One can dig around and find the original data and it goes to more decimal places of accuracy. I personally don't know what to think about that, come on Fed, be consistent, are you rounding or not?
On your site, we do take cross posts, articles of interest and we hope EP readers are jumping around the Internets and yes we do love links back to EP!
Your article above is an informative and concisely written piece with good supporting economic details. I thought that you / or your readers would find the Wall Street community's discussion on this matter as well as other topics of interest: http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/blog/record-consumer-credit-numbers Our community consists of aspiring / current finance professional users so feel free to use it as a follow up if you like or as an expansion of traffic and readership. I hope all is well and keep up the good work!
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