That one person got a job.
That doesn’t invalidate my point any more than a drunk driver that makes it home safe invalidates the dangers of drunken driving.
Okay, fine.
So you’re arguing that when 15 million people are looking for 4 million jobs, that there’s a job for all of them and they have no excuse for being unemployed.
There are 11 million mathematical reasons why you’re wrong.
Sorry. I forgot that the number of open jobs was fixed and permenant. I guess companies won’t ever grow again or new companies will ever form.
Are you under the impression that as some point in the past unemployment was zero?
Wow, you sure can kill a man dead with words he never even said.
Even the best case scenarios don’t project us getting back to 1.5 employees fighting for every 1 job (the Bush years) for the better part of a decade.
As for there being 0 unemployment, that’s also not anything related to what I said.
What I said was we’ll never have an employee’s market again. We’re stuck in a permanent state of “employer’s market” syndrome if we stay the course.
Never is a long time.
Ok. How about “the employer’s market will last as long as America continues to be around if we stay the current course”. Or, “it won’t be ending in our lifetimes if we stay the current course.”
You have to leave the United States if you want to escape the employer’s market… and other nations’ immigration laws prevent American workers from moving out of here as easily as jobs do.
If you didn’t have to pay $30,000 to move to Canada or God knows whatever to move to France or elsewhere, emigration would be off the hook. We might even achieve net zero immigration if that were the case.
The very words of all the old dudes in the early 70s when I was a young teen.
Been through at least 2 very big boom and bust cycles since then. People always say what you say in the bust part, and they are right as often as end of the world predictions are spot on.
For pretty much the same reasons too!
Which was right at the emergence of the consumer credit boom. As I have said already, that served to mask a lot of underlying structural problems in the economy.
We don’t have much of that consumer credit boost to mask these problems anymore.
Okay. Well, when the employer’s market ends, you can feel free to crow about it. I guarantee you the Straight Dope Message Board won’t be around by the time that happens. In fact you and I may be dead of old age by then.
Great! You just persuaded me you are the superest economist ever! You can make up whatever you want, and then whatever you say is automatically true! You really think you can’t market a skill like that?
Whatever, dude. That’s your excuse for saying you have no idea when this employer’s market will ever end, but you’re mad at me for pointing out the lack of a light at the end of the tunnel.
As I said, come back to me when the employer’s market changes to an employee’s market. If I’m wrong, you can feel free to feed me crow.
I mean, if you are right, it should be sometime soon, right? In the next, say, 10 years?
Back when I was in my 20’s a single mother could hop right into a $15/hour customer service job with no training and train her way through 3 different industries to the top rungs of the company. Hundreds of people did that in the same department she was in. Probably millions all over the country.
That’s what you call the land of opportunity.
Okay, let’s pretend that you are some sort of oracle, blessed with this magical foresight, and that it will be an employer’s market forever:
So what?
no, the “whatever” is for you. We have engaged enough on this thread for me to be quite certain you are only fooling yourself pretending that what is a run of the mill gripe regarding your personal situation at most does not extend in general, and that you would even know the first thing about economics if it ran you over in a truck.
I am telling you to eat crow now because you haven’t demonstrated any understanding of the subject whatsoever in this thread, no sense that you have done research, considered various viewpoints. Only that yo have locked yourself into terms that you are pretty much making up. this probably isn’t the board where you can expect to get away with that unchallenged, and you should at least know that.
I promise you, you are not giving me enough to think about to remember you later. sour grapes + depression /= economic insight
Millions of single mothers worked their way to the top rungs of “the company” by starting out at $15/hour? Sure dude. Can I buy you another drink?
If millions of “$15/hour single mothers” are so job savvy, and so good at corporate advancement, then why aren’t they busy finding new opportunities? Your ideas are crossing the border into lunacy and delusions, just a heads up…
Has anybody else noticed that with the exception of 1980, each recovery took longer than the previous?
Makes me wonder if unemployment benefits and layoff packages are to blame.
My grandmother was born in Hungary in 1907, and lived to be 100 years old, eventually dying in Montreal. Do you have any idea how much change she lived to see, how many ups and downs, how many inventions that changed the world?
The world changes in massive, unimaginable ways. Always has, always will.
Oh, look. A temper tantrum because not_alice has run out of cookie cutter arguments and can’t handle the heat…
Whatever, dude.
You know absolutely nothing about economics and your arguments are totally rooted in ignorance of history.
The employer’s market is here to stay and you have no evidence to support that it isn’t… except, well, delusion.
You call your militant style of ignorance a challenge?
Seriously?
You argue things that have ZERO basis in fact, and you show a profound ignorance of every aspect of economics. You can’t see past the nose on your face and you have no documentation or facts to back you up.
Do not talk to me about going unchallenged. You’re not a challenge. Please do not look at yourself as that, or the world is going to deal you a lot of hurt.
I run a successful business that depends on the success of the working class. It is unlikely, given your superficial (at best) understandings of the world, that you have much experience in much of anything. I do believe
In any case your arguments have jumped the shark. The stage is set and the players are here. I’m telling you that the employer’s market is here to stay and you can feel free to continue spouting ignorant arguments by saying it’s not. But you’ll grow old and die before you ever get to say I’m wrong.
Now that you’ve thrown your frustrated little temper tantrum there’s nothing else to do at this point but watch you be wrong, over and over and over again. You’ve left plenty of ammo for other liberals to have an absolute field day.
Jeez. I’m glad enough people in power don’t share your line of thinking. We’d be in even worse shape than we are now.
Hint: it’s not unemployment benefits that are to blame. It’s the lack of jobs.
This is basic math, man. BASIC MATHEMATICS. Oh my God. :smack:
Does the word ‘plutocracy’ ring a bell?
I’ll ask again, so what?
Well, if you find nothing wrong with going BACKWARDS to a society ruled by the rich and which practices social darwinism as a rule, then you’re more detached from society than any normal person can hope to reach.
But then that seems to be the norm. I’ve mined this forum for all the arguments it can hope to muster and really this has gotten down to little more than watching hamsters on a wheel.
Nothing new under the sun. The vast weaknesses of the pro-offshoring and pro-capitalist arguments are obvious and laid bare for other liberals to exploit.
There’s no straight dope here… just a buncha guys who think they’re better than the world but who have shown no evidence to back up this superiority.
Ta ta, dude. It’s been fun seeing what you’ve got.
So what you’re saying is that the cause of unemployment is the lack of jobs? That’s brilliant, have you thought about publishing this theory? I bet The Onion would love it. “Area Man Has Plan to Solve Unemployment…” Now just fill in the actionable part.
Last time, here is your big chance to show how smart you are, put us all to shame, exploit our ignorance, ready?
So what?
An employer’s market for the next 10 years: so what?
An unemployment rate at 7.5% instead of 5%, so what?