When’s the last time Bush has addressed an issue about the state of the US economy? And, since when does being President mean only being CEO? I’d sure like to see my stock porfolio, Mr. Bushed! What happened to running a nation and leadership? I know…he’d like to answer me, but it’ll cost me! 
Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have this either in GD or the Pit?
IANAnEconomist but I seem to recall from a previous period of high unemployment that unemployment of 4% was considered optimal. I have no idea where I got this notion, or anythign about its veracity or validity, but dammit I’m throwin’ it out there anyway!
ANyways, I don’t imagine Bush “favors” unemployment, if by that you mean he likes for people to be out of work. There’s ample fodder for debate as to whether, considering the number of jobs that have gone overseas in the relatively recent past, whether Bush or his last several predecessors favored employment of Americans but I imagine that given the choice between an economy fueled by high employment rates and one not so fueled Bush would choose the former.
Ya know, this is an issue I think about a lot, being as as how I’m job hunting at the moment.
The Evil Part of My Brain [sup]TM[/sup] is firmly convinced that Corporate Overlords, and their Republican puppets in government, want to deliberately keep unemployment as high as possible. Why? Because someone who has been out of work for a good long while, knows that supply of labor far far exceeds the demand, and is desparate for work will be more likely to accept low wages and no benefits, and be happy to have a job, any job. Thus, there is a large pool of cheap labor for corporations to draw from, profits increase without having to invest money in R&D which would keep them competitive in the marketplace and everyone’s happy except the people who can’t support themselves and their families. So, they deliberately short-staff their discount stores, lay off massive numbers of workers at the slightest hint of a drop in quarterly profits, and generally create an artificial scarcity of jobs.
I want to believe that the Evil Part of My Brain [sup]TM[/sup] is wrong, I really want to believe that.
You guys do know that the economy is currently creating jobs at near-record rates, right? And that it has created millions of jobs in the last six months?
Job creation is a lagging indicator in an economic recovery. The recovery is now in full swing, and a few months ago job creation finally caught up, and now it’s roaring.
**The Asbestos Man ** Do you really imagine that the corporate overlords are so incompetant that the best they can do is unemployment around 5%? If their goal is to keep it as high as possible, then they have to be the worst keepers of goals in centuries.
The rest of your screed makes even less sense. If there really were a large pool of unemployed workers to draw from, then there would also be fewer consumers of the goods that corporations make. Massive numbers of destitute peasants are not known to frequently purchase the lates computer, car, new home, or even the most profitable food items. Far from reducing the need for R&D, this would just about require companies to fund R&D as never before. They would have to find ways to make their producst so cheaply that even the unwashed masses you seem to think are everywhere could afford them. This sort of miniatureization is not done by simply hireing fewer workers.
If you are really concerned with the number of staff members at discount stores, and the frequency of layoffs, why not explore the massive regulations related to hiring and retaining qualified personel. Companies hire the minimum number of people they need to make profits. Hiring more people only makes sense if the costs associated with hiring are less than the costs of doing business in another way. All sorts of regulations controlling the relationship between employee and employed raise the cost of hiring. Rail agains that for a while.
Respectfully.
Did you ever consider that if you are unemployed ‘again’, there may just be a problem with your employability, not with someone who has little to nothing to do with job creation?
And with any luck, we’ll end up at the end of 2004 with almost the same number of jobs we had at the start of 2001! 
That is, of course, assuming that “aerospace engineer” (2001) and “fast-food sales drone” (2004) are of equal weight, since the only thing we’re looking at are raw number-of-jobs, as opposed to number-of-GOOD-jobs…
Well, from my humble experience, generally richer people with good jobs tend vote Republican - so I don’t think Bush would want these people unemployed, if he wants to stay in office. President Bush was unfortunate to come into office right when the dot com bubble burst, and then the economy suffered the shocks of the 9/11 attacks. Still, by all measures the recession was mild - the unemployment levels we had here in the US were lower than what you see in France or Germany even during good times. Every economic indicator shows the economy is recovering quite well.
Now the Democrats - they have a very good reason to favor unemployment. People without jobs, and on welfare tend to vote Democrat - so do you think they REALLY want to eliminate poverty?
Moving this from IMHO to Great Debates.
I was going to comment on this, but rjung beat me to it:
I worked in the aerospace/defense business in the 1980s. The “Peace Dividend” cost me my job. But my skills were directly transferable to financial data analysis, and I got an equivalent job in the civilian sector.
Since the current administration (I’m told) gives tax breaks to companies that send jobs overseas, my skills are no longer needed. When the ironically-named Tata took over the light programming, data processing, and program testing in my department, half of us lost our jobs. Of the eight of us laid off (in that round) eight months ago, I believe I am the only one who has found employment. And that employment pays 45% of my hourly rate. And I’m not working full time. And I have yet to have any medical or dental insurance or vacation time. There is no opportunity for advancement. I am getting some good CAD experience; but I have not seen any jobs in the area calling for people with CAD experience.
A job is not a job. “Jobs lost vs. jobs created” is meaningless unless the jobs created are equivalent to the jobs lost.
Well, while none of them are the President, Secretary of Commerce Don Evans, Treasury Secretary John Snow talked about unemployment on online Q&As on June 18
http://www.whitehouse.gov/ask/20040618.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/ask/20040618_2.html
And Elaine Cho, Secretary of Labor, talked about it on July 17
http://www.whitehouse.gov/ask/20040617.html
As for the President, he talked about unemployment in his weekly radio address on May 22
Since this canard about the new jobs ‘not being as good’ as the old ones has been floating around so much, I don’t suppose we could get some actual cites for that?
Because the jobs data I’ve looked at shows the jobs recovery to be widespread across all sectors.
If you’re complaining about the fact that no one is hiring 6-month MCSEs to $70,000 IT positions, well, that’s simply because reality has taken hold again in the IT industry. Other than that, it looks to me like the jobs being created are pretty good ones.
And hopefully that lame point about how Bush may be lucky to only finish with the amount of jobs he started with will fade away as it deserves to. If a president inherits an economy that’s shedding jobs, and by the end of his term it’s making jobs at a fabulous rate, why shouldn’t he get credit for that? Why should he be criticised for the jobs lost before his policies had a chance to take effect?
Presidents don’t create jobs. Entrepreneurs do. Bush needs to get government the heck out of the way.
Typical Pubbie reply.
“Something is wrong with you, not the system.”
(Also worth noting that job creation dropped from ~340,000 to ~240,000 between April and May)
((BLS also notes, “Job growth in May again was widespread, as increases continued in construction, manufacturing, and several service-providing industries” which seems to back the whole “getting more shittier jobs” argument to me))
It took me a long time to come around to this view, but under the right circumstances, a certain amount of unemployment (read: people actively seeking jobs but have not yet been hired) is a good thing.
Several years ago, when unemployment was quite low, the company I then worked for was looking to hire. We simply couldn’t find anyone to take our jobs for months, which slowed our progress.
If the economy is poised for a certain type of growth, where comapnies will need warm bodies, you need a certain amount of unemployment to get things going.
If the growth is not job-oriented, then unemployment is a liability, IMO.
A job is not a job. My current position combined with my wife’s salary allows us to pay our mortgage, and have a comfortable amount of benefits.
If I lost my current job, the only serious growth sector in my area right now is retail sales. Been there, done that, and it ain’t going to pay the bills. Sure, I could pull up stakes and relocate, but if the local economy were actually creating worthwhile jobs, the loss of my current one would not necessarily entail that sort of upheaval.
And for the actual good jobs that are being created right now, those are mostly going to more experienced people who were laid off several years ago. Job creation under Bush has certainly increased recently, but they are nowhere near keeping pace with the number of jobs needed.
Yep, economists estimate a good 4-5% unemployment rate is healthy.
Sucks to be in that 4-5%, though.
Christ. Talk about seeing the glass as being half empty. And the Dow was down on Monday, too… things MUST be going in the wrong direction!
Snarkiness aside, I am firmly convinced that Bush does not give a whole lot of thought to labor issues, period. Unemployment high? Well, let’s cut taxes. Jobs going offshore? Let’s cut job training programs… uh, unless it is an election year. People complaining about having to work two jobs to get the same income they did when the economy is booming? We should try to eliminate overtime pay for millions of workers.
For all the hype that had been spread about about Bush’s “excellent” foreign policy team (and they are an excellent team in terms of experience), his domestic economic team is really second rate. Don Evens is a good guy, but I’m convinced that Elaine Chao was put at Labor simply to have the most incompetent person in charge of a cabinet department that’s despised or belittled by the right wingers.
And let us not forget that Paul O’Neill, who had been, in all fairness, a merely adequate Treasury Secretary, was dumped after he raised doubts about more tax cuts. God forbid! And so he was replaced by Snow, who was expressly chosen just to be a spokesman for more tax cuts.
This President wants to be a war president, period. Bush II talking about the economy really reminds me of Bush I talking about “that vision thing.” He just doesn’t get it.
Well, I ain’t no economist, so I can’t spin the financial bullstuff as well as others, but I’ll take a crack at it. From the Special Libraries Association annual salaries surveys:
In essence, salaries have not been growing at a healthy rate since Bush took office, and are barely keeping up with cost-of-living increases. Some folks even contend that the 2003 numbers are the lowest in 30 years.
Sure, the numbers for 2004 are looking better, but that’s merely a case of “the economy is starting to suck less,” as opposed “everything’s swell, why are you complaining?”
Yes, yes; when in doubt, Blame Clinton™. :rolleyes:
Of course, those of us who aren’t eager to grab that old canard could also ask, when the economy was starting to slide, who had the wonderfully stupid idea to slash taxes for the rich, increase spending all around, and piss away the surplus we had? Especially considering that Reagan had already proved in the 80s that “trickle down” economics didn’t work…
The point was brought up that jobs are being created in record numbers. I felt that warranted a footnote that a ~33% cut in job creation in a month. Glass full or empty, that is a helluva change.