Recent comments

  • First, I don't "shill" for anyone. Second, if you bother to read these overviews, I many, many times calculate out the "real" employment rate, currently at about 18% and it's clear I amplify all of the BLS definitions so one knows people are left out of the official unemployment rate.

    Every single month I pour over record low labor participation rates and go hunt to dig out the hidden unemployed and the underemployed.

    I'm sorry, but we stick to the data, mathematics and from that basis, do show, every month, the piss poor state for American workers.

    That said, when one UNDERSTANDS what the official unemployment rate is, it's a valid metric and also shows a piss poor labor market, by historical norms.

    Try reading all of the report overviews instead of just wanting to slam someone, thanks. Just as it's completely irresponsible to claim unemployment is ok in America, it is just as irresponsible to not understand these reports and especially the limits of these BLS reports. I spend hours overviewing these facts, the least you could do is actually read them.

    Reply to: Unemployment 8.2%, 120,000 Jobs for March 2012   12 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • Oak, you're not serious, when state a 8.2% UE rate are you? I mean why would you publish that garbage, then offer no explanation as to reason for the bogus number and what the true U3 rate is (over 12%) I mean, please don't tell me you're spewing the garbage from the BLS and regurgitating it here. Who are you trying to pander to? What idiot moron drone would buy an 8.2%? I'm just trying to figure your agenda. What exactly is it. Who do you shill for? Or are just that ignorant.

    Reply to: Unemployment 8.2%, 120,000 Jobs for March 2012   12 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • Calculated Risk has tabulated the major new home builder's orders and sales data for Q1 2012. Click here to read it. CR is much more bullish on a housing bottom, but this report does show some positive activity. I'm more of a naysayer for a few reasons, basically the middle class is wiped out and so many foreclosures still in the pipe.

    Reply to: NAR Pending Home Sales Up 4.1% for March 2012   12 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • We're not convinced. While many are looking at trends, statistics and convergence, the reason we're not convinced, fundamentally, is the out of alignment with wages that housing still is. Bottom line, one cannot afford a home @ even $200k when one makes $12/hr.

    I don't think there will be major percentage drops, more a drifting lower or rolling around at these levels, so in a way that is a bottom.

    But a price recovery, that, we can say just doesn't look likely.

    Reply to: New Residential Home Sales See -7.1% Decline in March 2012   12 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • Frontline is doing a series on the financial crisis, in depth and just to let you know, we'll be replaying the series on our Friday Movie Night. I'll also be adding a host of reference posts, for we were covering what was happening, in real time, but bottom line what I'll like to amplify is how nothing has changed.

    Reply to: The Ghosts of Lehman Past   12 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • I cringe whenever I hear that Indian accent when calling customer service for a couple of things I use.

    No resolution is a real negative. It has to hurt more than they save because they lose customers that way.

    True story. The Westin Hotel in Boston sometime in the late 70's bought a PBX from Okidata. Okidata made just 13 of them and dropped out of that market. Any time a part failed the part had to be manufactured in Japan and shipped overnight to Boston. Needless to say the parts costs 100s of times more than they should have.

    Penney wise, pound foolish.

    Reply to: Multinational Corporations Are Hiring....Abroad That Is   12 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • I didn't even write it up because I view that minor increase as politics before the G20, IMF/World Bank meetings that happened this week in D.C. On the "return of manufacturing", the real reason manufacturing has grown in the last year is they had such major blood letting, it makes their new employment look higher, but one needs to take it into account all the way back to 2008.

    I am fairly certain offshore outsourcing does not pay in many cases, i.e. the U.S. is competitive, when one takes into account all factors, such as global supply chain, time window...

    although on global supply chain it's so bad, to manufacture in the U.S., you're gonna wait forever on parts because they are all....manufactured in China now.

    Yeah, who can forget HP. Similar to IBM, just watching the complete destruction of a once great tech giant.

    What kills me is how many large contracts, multi-million, billion, are complete failures, often due to offshore outsourcing, yet these same companies continue to get these contracts and of course continue to labor arbitrage, offshore outsource.

    That just blows my mind.

    Reply to: Multinational Corporations Are Hiring....Abroad That Is   12 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • HP sent 25,000 jobs overseas when that happened.

    The US will have to have a stagnant or declining wages for decades before we can compete with these over seas labor pools.

    China has finally started to let the renminbi float just a little. They had to start somewhere. Walmart will have to adjust prices and maybe as our wages come down and theirs go up more manufacturing will return to the US. Chinese companies have made some forays into South Carolina fairly recently. There is hope.

    I had to link to a Google cache of the article which for some reason had been taken down.

    http://bit.ly/I1vVtv

    Reply to: Multinational Corporations Are Hiring....Abroad That Is   12 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • Why pay for 4+ years of college and ongoing training when your job will be sold off to someone who has little to no education mortgage hanging over their head.

    I have read that in India the total cost of an education from the lowest grade level through college is $100,000 TOTAL. Guess what they have the same books and computers as we do.

    Not to instigate because that's not the purpose of saying this but everything that the Government sticks it's hand into to 'make it affordable' creates a false bottom and in the end makes that service unaffordable. Education, healthcare and housing. Sure housing is more affordable now but who can afford a home with no job? Construction unemployment still over 17%.

    So the work visa's are attacking American workers at the high end, the illegals are attacking American workers at the low end.

    This added workforce pool skews legitimate supply and demand for work here lowering wages overall.

    One of Obama's promises was to stop rewarding US companies for sending jobs over seas. I voted for him in part for that and the other was to send the troops home. Neither seems likely to happen in this term. He's probably still a better choice than Romney but people forget that Romney signed the first universal (maybe I'm wrong on this) health care act for a state. He's more a pragmatist than a conservative imo.

    Reply to: Displacing American Labor Through Foreign Guest Worker Visas   12 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • If others are up for authoring, just email me. We have other authors but they come and go, some as they can get to it. Its true to write, one needs to have their quality on max high, but this site is open to others.

    I am extremely nervous too. We have Obama, which good God, "corporate lobbyist wish lists are us". I don't know how this administration can face the nation after such a let down on that promise of "change". Then, we have Romney, who openly endorses a host of policies that will bring down the U.S., we have Congress, the most corrupt bunch of power players who only pass corporate lobbyists written bills and finally a fringe bunch of crazies who somehow think screwing the poor and middle class will make it all better.

    We haven't even gotten to insane state governments where it's either liberal, bureaucratic fantasy land "bullet train" CA or Wisconsin land with insane conservatives who believe all ills are due to unions and collective bargaining.

    Sane people are definitely no longer represented!

    I hear ya on that it seems the entire labor market situation is being stuffed under the rug, it's tiring, going on so long and nothing ever changes, no one policy that really will help the U.S. middle class, even when they are claimed they will, such as "Stimulus" (where funds, jobs, went straight off to foreign nations, not effective spending and most ridiculous tax cuts).

    Reply to: State Employment Slows for March 2012   12 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • You are the only one who consistently speaks out on the losses the U.S. worker is bearing. Our corporations do not feel our degrees are good enough and our cities and towns are only worth their attention if we bribe the greedy bastards with tax breaks. Their profits reside off our shores so we see no tax money on the goods we buy but do not manufacture. Or if we do the bring their own workers here illegally on bogus visas. I learned that here.

    Only you point these things out and I thank you.

    This recent employment gain is already slowing down. I hope we are surprised with a pickup. Austerity waits around the corner few reading this will benefit. Im very nervous

    Reply to: State Employment Slows for March 2012   12 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • Regulars might notice less posts recently. I've been very ill so now I'm trying to touch on reports, news I find significant. Bottom line, this never ending economic malaise....the only ones who seem to think it's gone away are the press and of course politicians.

    Reply to: State Employment Slows for March 2012   12 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • This visa problem has been around since the 1980s when government and corporate America started their "Diversity is good" campaign. NORTEL in Richardson, Texas was hiring Indian engineers and programmers by the hundreds and this travesty continued up until 2000 when NORTEL started having trouble. The government was an active participant in pushing out American citizens from good paying jobs so cheaper foreigners could come here and work for much less. I believe the government, by ignoring the citizens of this country, is building a rebel base that is one day going to burn Washington (either figuratively or literally) to the ground. I am certainly angry the years I spent getting an engineering degree is wasted because the H1-B visa workers will work for $30,000 a year, sleep ten to a bedroom (violating most zoning laws in the country) because their other choice is to stay in India, earn $100 per month, and sleep in the street. I know as I have been to India many times and was married to one for 23 years. Nothing is going to happen until people start marching on Washington. Given the greatest impact is to white collar Americans, the likelihood of any marching is nil. So, we will continue to grip as our country is given away to foreigners so the corporate suits can have their multi-million dollar paydays. I always though the bs called "Diversity" was just another word for unemployment for Americans who worked hard to get difficult degrees. This country sucks. No wait. This is a wonderful country but the government and corporate America suck.

    Reply to: Displacing American Labor Through Foreign Guest Worker Visas   12 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • I haven't seen this WSJ article and also I do not believe the DOL releases this data. I just did an overview on MNCs, hiring from a BEA statistical release. I don't know where the WSJ is getting 16:1. Basically from 2009 to 2010, all employment growth was abroad and the report shows zero growth in levels, yet a 0.1% "growth" in U.S. jobs to a 1.5% abroad. If I do a straight percentage, I get 0% growth for U.S. workers with a 1.85% growth for foreign workers from 2009 to 2010.

    I don't know where they are getting 16:1 from these stats, of course the fact the BEA publishes zero growth in levels and then gives "annualized" percentages one cannot reproduce is no surprise to me.

    If you can quote a paragraph, please do so.

    Reply to: Displacing American Labor Through Foreign Guest Worker Visas   12 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • MNCs are hiring 16 non-Americans for every U.S. worker hired in 2010 according to stats from the USDOL on Thursday. Reported by WSJ.
    This is not complicated.

    Reply to: Displacing American Labor Through Foreign Guest Worker Visas   12 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • There's been a steady rotting out of objectivity in science and academia as the Corporate funded, economic value of tenure has corrupted research and study into a semi-papal type of group-think. Not many people will risk their children's private education to be "bold" and suggest non-corporate theology.

    Reply to: The Games Politicans Play With Employment Statistics   12 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • I think everyone, one way or another is getting affected by the current economic conditions.
    The whole unemployment thing is just one of the major factors

    Check out Dailyjobcuts

    Reply to: Displacing American Labor Through Foreign Guest Worker Visas   12 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • This is really bad, Mitt Romney has chosen Greg Mankiw as his economic adviser. Remember how outsourcing is good for America and how fast food should be reclassified as manufacturing jobs?

    This is George W.'s economic adviser and we see where that got us, not that Obama is picking anyone much better.

    The never ending mystery is how these people, whose advised has been shown to be disaster and very wrong, somehow keep moving up the power chain anyway.

    If there were in grad school, one would hope they would flunk out, but not in politics. Even worse, many of these people are professors, which begs the question on what is really being taught.

    Reply to: The Games Politicans Play With Employment Statistics   12 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • There are plenty with BS/BA, Masters even PhDs who are in the same boat. I think it depends on what one is programming. Some processes require knowledge of software architecture and advanced mathematics, other things, such as say the code underneath this site, really don't.

    Beyond that, any solid engineer will tell you most "hands on" skills, such as programming are self-taught. Languages change, come and go and it doesn't require a college degree to crack a book (well go online and do a tutorial, pull up an IDE with a tutorial), and learn about multi-threaded code and so on.

    Reply to: Displacing American Labor Through Foreign Guest Worker Visas   12 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • If we look at the quarterly real graph, retail sales imply ok, but less PCE for Q1 than Q4. It ain't bad and there are other elements which go into PCE, from another report.

    That said this "stellar" "blow out" just is not fact, which unfortunately many in the press say. What happens is there are those projecting various economic data and when a government report exceeds their estimates, we get these "blow out" headline buzz. Well, we believe in looking at the data just in comparison to itself and to other macro economic indicators, not what some Goldman Sachs analyst said.

    So, this report is ok, it's simply not some incredible retail sales blow out.

    Reply to: Retail Sales Increase 0.8% for March 2012   12 years 7 months ago
    EPer:

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