Right now, everybody believes that the economy is down the tubes. As an unemployed computer geek, I’d have to agree. But, oddly, ever since the economy began its graceful swan dive into decrepitude, nobody is talking about what the numbers mean.
I’ve heard that national unemployment hit six percent last month. How bad is that, historically? How has the way that we’ve measured the unemployment rate changed, and how would these figures look if we used older, unadjusted methods of calculating them? What was the economic impact of this unemployment rate the last time it was this high?
Likewise, inflation. I haven’t even heard the inflation rate mentioned on the news or in the papers recently, even though it seems relatively low. But a quick check of the financial papers reveals the PCE vs. CPI debate as to which is the better economic indicator. Both of them involve the pricing of a group of products, but they’re adjusted for product substitution; when something gets too expensive, the inflation rate is adjusted to include something else. What if the inflation rate was measured by the market basket that was used ten years ago? Twenty? All I know is that things are more expensive now than they were last year, and by more than just a few percentage points.
What I’d like to know is, how bad are things in the US right now, in layman’s terms? Back when the economy was steaming along on the dot com boom, there were tons of layman’s level explanations for how well we were doing. Now that things are looking grim, I’d like a similar reference point.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks, among other things, the CPI and national unemployment rates. The little dinosaur icon next to most of the statistics will show you a time series histograph of the statistic…
Let’s put things in perspective. When the US economy is in the dumps, it is till doing much better than other economies when they are at their best. How’s that for perspective?
It has to be higher than 6% for older white American born men in the computer industry. I know so many that cannot find a job, or that cannot find a job that lasts more than a few months. The immigrants dont seem to have a problem finding jobs in the computer industry, and we keep taking in more and more of them. The businesses around here look like the United Nations, and those companies brag that they are culturaly diverse.
Free trade is supposed to mean free trade BOTH!!! ways.
If we had free trade, for every business that closed up here and sent jobs to Mexico, or to China, we would have an equal number if not more, of Mexican and Chinese setting up factories and business to replace those that close. Not true. I dont see any Chinese setting up replacing businesses for all those Americans that are losing their jobs.
Ross Perot and Pat Buchannan were right, and it is not getting any better.
So you think that free trade means that only american jobs and factories are lost? That only the wages and benefits of foreign workers are improved? You think that the United States 485 billion dollar trade deficit is another beneift of “free trade”?
When I learned economics, I was taught that under true free trade, all investment, goods and services would freely go back and forth between all countries, and would result in all economies improving - not just one way.
We apparently disagree not only on the definition, but on whether or not American citizens are better off.
[homer] Mmmmmmmm, Stagflation. [/homer]
All we need is a war, or a Venezualian labor strike to put a spike in energy prices. It’s the possibilities like that which prevent the economists from being able to tell us “what the numbers mean.”
Well, well, well, look who’s here after doing a drive by in the thread about vigilantes and never returning. Ok, let’s go one step at a time:
Well unless you can prove that the data cited is wrong what you say proves nothing except that you are surrounded by people who have more difficulty finding a job than average people which is quite irrelevant to this thread.
As has been explained many times, getting a visa is very complex and expensive and time consuming for the employer and for the employee. When a company hires a foreign worker it is because they cannot find a US citizen to fill it. If I need a programmer I cannot use a high school dropout.
I am not sure what makes you think anyone is entitled to any particular job. The way it works is that you find some job people need done and you offer to do it. As you say, there’s jobs out there. If they are being taken by foreigners it is because there are not enough Americans to do them.
Yes. And? The economy didn’t improve throughout the 90s? Just because we’ve had a slight slowdown it’s because of free trade? Please. Prove your assertions or hush up.
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We apparently disagree not only on the definition, but on whether or not American citizens are better off. **
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How would you know? I never made any assertion either way about whether American citizens are better off. Perhaps there is a link between your apparent inability to read and your woeful lack of understanding when it comes to history and economics.
Seems to me you’re ignoring the benefits of those workers to the companies that seem to think they are worth bringing over. And if they are a benefit to competative industries, chances are they are benefits to consumers too. You can go on about the hardships of domestic workers all you want, but not without considering the plight of domestic bussinesses and consumers, or without acknowledging that those groups overlap. Are the benefits to consumers worth the hardship to workers? Who knows…, but you certainly don’t seem to even acknowledge the key question.
If you really cared about jobs and free trade, there are tons of tech jobs going wanting in, say, South Africa. But something tells me you wont take that argument that far.
And I have a hard time believing that you ever learned economics if you think that a trade deficit is necessarily a bad thing. I often travel to a nearby town to buy books, because it has a better bookstore. My “trade deficit” with that town is huge. Is that a bad thing? No way: for me, it’s totally worth it. And you can’t discuss my hometown without considering my happiness. Likewise, you can’t discuss the issue of whether a trade deficit is good or bad without considering the benefits to consumers who volunatarily chose to buy foriegn products: SOMETHING about them must have been more appealing than the domestic ones.
I have no information on the racial, Nationality, or gender breakdown, BUT, here in the Silicon Valley the unemployment rate has been hovering between 8% and 10% or so for the last year.
As somebody else pointed out, you are clueless regarding the status quo. Immigrants have a much harder time finding jobs than permanent residents or citizens due to the cumbersome visa processing involved. Only during the recent software boom (Y2K, e-commerce etc) were numerous immigrants hired, but again, that was to satisfy the demand which could not be adequately filled by citizens. No company would hire an immigrant if they could find a citizen.
I have no information on the racial, Nationality, or gender breakdown, BUT, here in the Silicon Valley the unemployment rate has been hovering between 8% and 10% or so for the last year. **
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My point exactly. Some places are above average and some are below average. So she’s in an environment which is above average. So what? This thread is not about her or her rants, it’s about the economy.
I do not know how that happened to the coding there but I clicked <quote> on tracer’s post and the result is messed up. Let me try again by hand.
I said to susanann: Well unless you can prove that the data cited is wrong what you say proves nothing except that you are surrounded by people who have more difficulty finding a job than average people which is quite irrelevant to this thread.
tracer said in response: I have no information on the racial, Nationality, or gender breakdown, BUT, here in the Silicon Valley the unemployment rate has been hovering between 8% and 10% or so for the last year.
and my response to tracer was: My point exactly. Some places are above average and some are below average. So she’s in an environment which is above average. So what? This thread is not about her or her rants, it’s about the economy.
Meh. Unless you owned those ridiculously overpriced tech stocks, your life today is probably as good as it was 3-4 years ago.
Immigrants and immigrant labor help the economy, all growth is good growth. That’s more jobs filled that went unfilled now being filled. (6% unemployment doesn’t mean no jobs, it means no jobs people want, immigrants will take 'em coz it’s a step up for them.) That’s more people spending money on necessities (demand-side), and more labor for business expansion (supply-side.) I thought that was pretty clear and settled, am I missing something?
Unemployment numbers:
Unemployment rate.........................6.0% < up .3 from Oct and a new yearly high
Household survey employment..............134225 < -689 from Oct
Establishment survey payrolls............130875 < -40 from Oct (Oct number was upwardly revised by +20)
Civilian labor force.....................142733 < -390 from Oct
Hours worked per week....................34.2 < unchanged from Oct, which was upwardly revised by +.1
Manufacturing hours worked per week.....40.7 < unchanged from Oct
Manufacturing overtime...................4.1 <unchanged from Oct
The above web site will give you the latest data from the latest month, always.
The pieces I posted show a picture of employment that to me is not pretty, in that none of the numbers showed improvement from October to November. But these figures are always preliminary and subject to revision, and as you can see October’s numbers have already been revised some, and those that were revised were revised up.
The most revealing part of the BLS report this month was this little blurb: “Factory job losses have averaged about 48,000 in the last 4 months, compared with losses of 20,000 a month from April to July.” Manufacturing is the part of the economy most sensitive to the business cycle, so it doesn’t bode well that that part appears to be in an accelerating decline.
Just my two cents…
As others have possibly voiced, not that bad right now, but that of course depends on if you just lost your good-paying job.
The economy here continues to falter, and there is a big test coming up, in my opinion of course. Consumers are keeping the economy afloat, but when they pull in their horns, as I perceive is happening, then WHAT will keep it going? And the answer is NOTHING.
If you want to watch how the world interprets the US economy, just watch the price of gold and the value of the US Dollar relative to something like the Euro.
As gold accelerates from the $320US range upward and as the dollar//Euro value changes from a 1/1 ratio, you will understand better how well the economy of the US is/isn’t doing.