Recent comments

  • People, citizens are looked at as commodities, as disposable, something on a spreadsheet to be made cost effective.

    The American middle class decline starts in earnest about 1980, thx politicians for selling out America!

    Reply to: The Devaluation of American Workers   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • DEC. 2014 -- Washington Post: Following the 2014 elections, one of the most immediate threats to unions comes from so-called right-to-work legislation, which allows employees to opt out of joining a labor union (even when that union negotiates business for their benefit).
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/12/03/after-republic...

    DEC. 2014 -- The Nation: From ALEC to the Heritage Foundation, a group of anti-labor stalwarts is looking to turn cities and counties into right-to-work zones. The American City County Exchange (ACCE) is a new offshoot of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and seeks to replicate ALEC’s state-level successes at the local level. One major goal of the group: passing right-to-work laws at the local government level in non-RTW states.
    http://www.thenation.com/article/191857/are-cities-next-front-rights-war...

    Reply to: The Devaluation of American Workers   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • Fox News on cable TV today @ 10:30 am PST -- They say stocks are faltering because of low oil prices (because the global economy is slowing), and that this may be taking a bite out of our 401ks and pensions — and that U.S. oil producers may cut back, affecting jobs.

    * Question: So are we damned either way — with either low oil prices or high oil prices?

    Fox Business (last month) "With new technology such as hydraulic fracturing (fracking), the U.S. has been able to access large deposits of oil and natural gas that were previously unusable. Seemingly overnight, the U.S. has gone from one of the largest energy importers to one of the world’s largest energy producers. This has helped the U.S. to be less dependent on foreign energy sources as well as create thousands of new jobs. In addition, we can enjoy very low energy costs compared to almost anywhere in the world."
    http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2014/11/27/what-baby-boomers...

    * Question: So what good is cheap and abundant oil if we get cheap gasoline for our cars and cheap heating oil for our homes, but then our retirement plans get screwed? Is “energy independence” a BAD thing because the oil companies operate for profit? Shouldn’t the energy companies be nationalized — and oil and gas be sold to U.S. consumers “at cost”?

    (2 months ago) "Fox News has officially criticized Obama for making gas prices too cheap. It marks the first day in which Fox News hasn’t criticized Obama for making gas prices too expensive."
    http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/10/28/fox-news-jumps-the-shark-now-bas...

    Reply to: November Retail Sales Solid on Autos, Up 0.7%   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • Unreported data.

    If you call the labor companies (pay-daily) you are able to determine the amount of jobs available per city.

    Calling 10 labor companies in the State of Washington, home to the enemy Microsoft and their socialist lobbying efforts against the America people.

    These 10 labor companies had no jobs.

    From Seattle to the Canada border was 1 job, a salvation army bell ringer. Commute for job was 35 miles one way to a country town grocery store paying min wage. within an hour the job was no longer available. Two day background check was also needed for this position which lasted till christmas.

    Microsoft is lobbying/promoting the need to import more talent when the people in the state have no work. Dehumanizing people, demoting Americans inplace for lower wage workers that are again replaced by more lower wage workers.

    American workers are already bidding less than India workers.

    I know people that work for these companies. and their policy although secret, is when you call them and ask if they have work, they always are told to tell people 'yes'. But they are a first come-first serve employment, so even though they have jobs, they are already taken by thousands of people on the waiting list.
    There are no labor jobs. I know people traveling across the country to work a job for twelve dollars an hour since its the only job in the country.

    An end to this madness is simple. Get enough signatures in each state to obtain on the ballot a vote for action against these types of tax evading corporations.

    Lets put up for vote American citizens get hired first. It will be a landslide and any politician who goes against the people of this country will be prosecuted for treason and crimes against the American people.

    We know we are close to a win, cause they know it too....

    Reply to: Those Fabricated Jobs   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • You wish you could know about the quality of the jobs coming through. Look at nominal average hourly wage growth. It's still way below pre-recession trends. The labour market cannot be tight until nominal wages are being bid up, and bid up for some time.

    Reply to: There Were 1.9 Persons Per Job Opening in October 2014   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • sorry, i hadnt read your post to the end before i rushed to comment... and no, i dont buy the "bureau of lies" headline that karl denninger used, just that i thought his detailing or the year to year differences was pretty impressive...from what i've read about seasonal adjustments, they're generally based on the last five years of data, or at least somewhat more heavily weighted towards more recent seasonal results...thus the data for 2013 would have been adjusted in part using the recession years of 2008 and 2009, whereas the adjustment for 2014 would include the stronger sales of 2013...that could account for a large part of the discrepancy, without any conspiracy on anyone's part..

    Reply to: November Retail Sales Solid on Autos, Up 0.7%   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • From EPI: "Congress has agreed to reduce the Internal Revenue Service’s fiscal year 2015 budget by about 3 percent, with over half coming from the enforcement budget ... the $191 million reduction in the IRS enforcement budget could prove to be a $2 billion tax cut for tax cheats."
    http://www.epi.org/blog/congress-again-rewards-tax-dodgers-with-a-tax-cut/

    From my earlier post: "Conservatives tend to talk about noncompliance as if it were solely a function of tax rates. The higher tax rates are, the greater the incentive for tax evasion; lower the tax rates and tax evasion will decline. Thus tax evasion is yet another excuse to cut taxes." [And cutting the IRS budget to enable more tax fraud is another GOP excuse to cut government spending do lower the federal deficit. I just heard Obama say in a press conference that the spending bill is a "compromise".]
    http://bud-meyers.blogspot.com/2012/01/gop-claims-tax-evasion-as-excuse-...

    Reply to: New Spending Bill Puts Pensions at Risk   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • I'm not so sure in that I am thinking the drop in gas prices has something to do with the seasonal adjustment here. It's very high but it has been higher and one would think it would have been readjusted by now if it was really such an error...

    unless of course we all believe D.C. is simply the Bureau of Lies, which,well...

    ;)

    Reply to: November Retail Sales Solid on Autos, Up 0.7%   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • there's something odd about the seasonal adjustment in this report, which has been called out on Zero Hedge and on MarketTicker; my own quick calc show sthe year over year adjusted sales increase is +5.13%, while the unadjusted YOY increase is just 3.36%...last i checked, November was in the same season this year as last..

    here's market ticker:
    http://www.market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=229652

    Reply to: November Retail Sales Solid on Autos, Up 0.7%   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • yeah, those who live in their homes without making payments through these long foreclosure processes are pretty much living rent free, as are those who've been delinquent nearly 500 days without proceeding to foreclosure...this has been offered as an explanation as to why personal consumption expenditures have remained strong despite unemployment and stagnant wages...

    Reply to: Foreclosure Pipelines Still Over 4 Years as Average Time In Foreclosure Rises to Record 1024 Days   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • ...and Killed the Dodd-Frank Bill

    Washington Post: Elizabeth Warren, fellow liberals rail against bank provision in spending bill
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/12/10/elizabet...

    Mother Jones: Citigroup Wrote the Wall Street Giveaway Congress Just Snuck Into a Must-Pass Spending Bill
    http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/12/spending-bill-992-derivative...

    New York Times: The spending bill that Citigroup helped draft
    http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/12/09/wall-street-seeks-to-tuck-dodd-fr...

    Reply to: China Just Passed U.S. as World's Largest Economy   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • Yum! Brands (e.g. KFC, Pizza Hut, etc.) continues to open new stores in China. Yum already has 6,400 restaurants in almost 1,000 Chinese cities, and plans to open another 700 new stores next year. China is "the best restaurant opportunity of the 21st century with a consuming class that is expected to double from 300 million to more than 600 million people by 2020," according to the company website. "We continue to invest behind the development of our emerging brands in China."
    http://money.cnn.com/2014/12/09/investing/yum-kfc-china/

    Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg last week was hosting a Chinese Communist Party official whose responsibility includes preventing Facebook from entering China. In the Western media, Lu is described as China’s “Internet czar,” implying that he is the gatekeeper who decides which Western Internet giants can do business in China. Because China now has the world’s largest population of Internet users (estimated at 640 million in 2014), no responsible CEO of an American technology company can afford to write off this huge market.
    http://fortune.com/2014/12/10/mark-zuckerberg-rupert-murdoch-china/

    China opens 32 high-speed rail routes in grand expansion. China has the world’s largest high-speed rail network, which keeps the growing population and economy connected. The world’s fastest passenger train is also in China - the Shanghai Maglev Train can reach speeds of over 430 kilometers (260 miles) per hour. Chinese trains will arrive in the US before any tracks, as one of the two biggest state-owned train makers, China CNR Corp, has sold 284 cars to Boston’s metro in a $537 million contract.
    http://rt.com/business/212719-china-opens-high-speed-train/

    And speaking of trains: Madrid mayor welcomes first cargo train from China after epic 8,111-mile rail trip inaugurates the longest rail link in the world.
    http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/dec/10/silk-railway-freight-tra...

    Reply to: China Just Passed U.S. as World's Largest Economy   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • It's astonishing. While this will rip people's credit obviously, are they staying in these houses without paying the rent and just paying taxes and utilities?

    Reply to: Foreclosure Pipelines Still Over 4 Years as Average Time In Foreclosure Rises to Record 1024 Days   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • The DOW was at 17,986 on Dec.  5 --- The DOW closed today at 17,575 --- A difference of 411 points over the past 5 days. (It’s down 225 just today)
     
    OPEC slashed its estimate of 2015 crude oil demand ... Oil prices continued to hover around five-year lows after U.S. crude dipped to less than $63 a barrel on Monday for the first time since July 2009 [In 2011 oil was over $120 a barrel]
     
    Neil Shearing, chief emerging markets economist for Capital Economics, says: “Commodity exporters have been struggling to cope with a downturn in global commodity demand for some time, but the latest price falls have made their underperformance compared with net commodity importers even more stark."
     
    Gas Buddy shows an average gallon of gasoline at $2.67 (Remember when the GOP blamed Obama for high gas prices?)
     
    (* I'm guessing that, the forecast for a lack of demand for oil also means a forecast for lack of consumer demand for goods and services, hence, the downturn in the stock market. Your thoughts?)
    Reply to: There Were 1.9 Persons Per Job Opening in October 2014   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • It is fall below and this is the first time. Will add to article. I calculate these figures from the data, this article is correct unless i made a calculation error, which I did not.

    Also, on EP, the number who want a job is already in an article, no reason to link to the raw source instead of our article with the information further calculated and graphed.

    Reply to: There Were 1.9 Persons Per Job Opening in October 2014   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • From the Economic Policy Institute, regarding the new JOLTS report and saying only 2 were unemployed for every job opening:

    "9.0 million unemployed workers understates how many job openings will be needed when a robust jobs recovery finally begins, due to the existence of 5.8 million potential workers who are currently not in the labor market, but who would be if job opportunities were strong. Many of these “missing workers” will go back to looking for a job when the economy really picks up, so job openings will be needed for them, too ... When a job opening goes unfilled when the labor market is weak, as it is today, companies may very well be holding out for an overly-qualified candidate at a cheap price."

    Source:
    http://www.epi.org/blog/jolts-report-mostly-on-trend-jobs-seekers-to-job...

    My comment at the EPI awaiting moderation:

    There are 69,000 more Americans "not in the labor force" than there were the month before.
    http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS15000000

    Since Great Recession "officially" ended, we've had 11 million more "not in the labor force".
    http://bud-meyers.blogspot.com/2014/08/since-recession-ended-11-million-...

    From the BLS: Number of persons “not in the labor force” but who currently want a job --- 6.2 million (up from 5.4 million a year ago)
    http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t16.htm

    Reply to: There Were 1.9 Persons Per Job Opening in October 2014   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court came down unanimously against a group of temporary workers in Amazon warehouses. The workers were required to undergo mandatory, unpaid theft screenings once their shifts ended, and their case (Integrity Staffing Solutions v. Busk) focused on whether they should be compensated for that time.

    Addressing the workers' arguments, the court's opinion, delivered by conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, included this curious line: "These arguments are properly presented to the employer at the bargaining table … not to a court in an FLSA claim."

    It's not clear whether the irony was intended. Amazon's U.S. warehouses, of course, are entirely non-union. Workers, therefore, have no bargaining table at which to sit, a fact noted Tuesday by the National Employment Law Project, an advocacy group for low-wage workers.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/09/clarence-thomas-amazon-ruling_n...

    Reply to: There Were 1.9 Persons Per Job Opening in October 2014   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • Statistics in China are nowhere close to reality (see Stevenson-Yang). The economy they have is rife with corruption, and stifled by wooden central planning. They are to paraphrase John McCain, a five and dime store posing as a superpower.

    Reply to: China Just Passed U.S. as World's Largest Economy   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • Joseph E. Stiglitz: "This is, and should be, a wake-up call ... China enters 2015 in the top position, where it will likely remain for a very long time, if not forever. In doing so, it returns to the position it held through most of human history ... The most important thing America can do to maintain the value of its soft power is to address its own systemic deficiencies -- economic and political practices that are corrupt and skewed toward the rich and powerful."
    http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2015/01/china-worlds-largest-economy

    (* Our job creators have been telling us that outsourcing made the U.S. more "globally competitive", so why is China now #1?)

    Reply to: China Just Passed U.S. as World's Largest Economy   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • Yes, our representatives are selling us out, because they always believe the corporations when they say they need cheaper labor while ignoring the workers who say they need more high paying jobs.

    But the 2 types of immigrant workers are very different. An imported worker fills a job in the domestic market, no question. And in Silicon Valley, the imported workers generally cost less, even with the extra paperwork. But, I hate to break it to you, the undocumented who have been living here for years, um, many of them already have jobs. Most are already working here, especially the ones who will take advantage of the chance to work legally. So, giving them permission to work might actually help raise wages, increase social security payments and increase tax revenues.

    Workers need government to stop wage theft, and hiring "illegals" is wage theft that hurts all workers. The government needs to jail and/or deport the CEO's who benefit from hiring undocumented workers. Doing nothing to help the undocumented workers (who have been working here for years) just perpetuates a low wage underclass that benefits the rich at the expense of the working class.

    Reply to: American Workers Put Last in Obama's Amnesty   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:

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