"The U.S. economy added 257,000 jobs in January, and revisions showed that employment gains in the last two months of 2014 included 147,000 more jobs than previous estimated.
That was enough to keep job growth running at its fastest 12-month pace since the middle of 2000."
Fast pace since mid 2000?
But nearly everyone on TUSCL just sheepishly nodded their heads when Stevie-girl said how DOOMED we are. So WTF is going on here?
The numbers seem slightly high, although still very good even if they get bumped down a hair.
To be a broken record: unemployment is a lagging indicator. We're nearing the end of this cycle. Good time to be a wage earner, but corporate profits will probably stagnate.
Actually the numbers were revised much higher
DUKEY NEEDS A JOB
The economy is roaring!
My jobb is bein the final prophet of the LORD mane. I need not the filthy mooney four the LORD mane sustaineth mee with the flesh of the Grown Hogg and the nuggats of KFC an he giveth my holy sausage fingers the abilitie too dazzel the hores.
Whatt need hath your prophet four mooney if he hath food, shelter an hores? The LORD man hath provideth all of that and moar
257,000 jobs in January?
If that were the case every month, then we would be keeping up with population growth. Wow!
But there is still such a net loss behind us, that I don't think we will catch up, ever. And then there is the artificial reduction in the joblessness rate brought about by our overseas military adventurism and the associated federal spending here at home.
2/3/15, San Jose Mercury News, widening pay gap, I mean really widening! " Workers in the region holding high-skill jobs have a median income of $118,700 compared with $27,000 for workers holding low-skill jobs " Note also that this is a region with extremely high housing costs. This widening gap will only increase this trend.
"The income gap is growing, but it's mainly because people at the upper levels are doing so much better, and people at the bottom, adjusted for inflation, are seeing their incomes falling,"
Rolando Dela Pena, a Gilroy resident, said that earning just $370 a week in a warehouse, it's difficult to find an affordable place to live. Even renting a single room costs at least $700 to $1,000 in his part of the South Bay.
What we are seeing is a sort of a recovery, but it is one which benefits an ever shrinking portion of the population. This entire bubble which @Dougster is pitching for, is one which includes only a portion of the population. Each of these bubbles has included a smaller portion of the population than the one preceding it. This is only one of the factors which nullify any chance that there will be long term economic stability. When you don't have economic stability, it does eventually crash the stock market, because that market is based on what people think various companies will be worth in the future, as opposed to what their balance sheets actually indicate today.
Bernie Sanders and Thom Hartmann, most of the recovery benefit is going to the top 1%, and there was a time when it didn't work this way. youtube.com
Doug Henwood, Left Business Observer, new Greek Finance Minster, Yanis Varoufakis, tense high stakes negotiations with creditors expected, opposing Angela Merkel and her ilk. shout.lbo-talk.org
I don't think we are DOOMED because of any bubbles, really blisters, which are going to get lanced. But our democracy is certainly doomed if we can't fix it again so that working people can have lives and a future, instead of being a society which is ruled by speculators.
SJG
Old Love, Clapton, Electric youtube.com
SJG: "f that were the case every month, then we would be keeping up with population growth. Wow!"
This doesn't make sense. What percentage of the population needs to be employed at any one time? Certainly not everyone. Some are too old/retired. Some too young. Others in post-secondary school some taking time off. I'd bets it's between 40-50% of the population growth we need to keep up with, and it will lessen going forward. (until it goes to 0% when robots doing everything including the thinking.)
Jobs Report Means Diddly politico.com
Even beyond this, we still have an economy which is based on unsustainable energy consumption, mostly for transportation. But it is also an economy and a jobs market which includes less and less people. People are continually being forced out and into the junk job sector.
As far as population growth, as I remember Doug Henwood used to say that it took 250k more jobs per month just to keep even. I can't find that any more. But it seems to be about 50% of the population which will need jobs at any given time. So the monthly expansion rate is still quite large.
Obama's budget, good for the country, but dead in Republican Congress youtube.com
To do better than this it will take a much deeper economic restructuring, another New Deal. The Affordable Care Act is good, but we need much more than just this.
What we are seeing now, on Wall Street, is just the latest newest bubble. We can't do much to stop busts, once they start. But if we decline to boost for the bubbles, it will help.
The more people forced into the junk job sector, then the more people who will turn fatalistic and go for things like Drugs, Alcohol, and Born Again Christianity. The more of this, the more child abuse, and then an every growing permanent untouchable class.
SJG
Neil Young - Rockin' In The Free World youtube.com
SJG: "forced into the junk job sector, "
There's tons of jobs in high paying tech and finance. Far more demand for qualified workers than there are qualified workers, even with all the importing from outside the country that goes on. Where I work we would be willing to pay as much $50,000 to relocate qualified person at the early stages of their careers. For people later on even more.
People need to get more educated because there is no shortage of jobs out there for qualified people.
SJG: "As far as population growth, as I remember Doug Henwood used to say that it took 250k more jobs per month just to keep even. I can't find that any more. But it seems to be about 50% of the population which will need jobs at any given time. So the monthly expansion rate is still quite large."
Yep, I remember many in the media and on certain blogs always used to parrot that line. Good example of how the media almost seems to have and agenda to mislead that the economy is in worse shape than it is, so that those who can beyond what they say can make a little dough.
Looking into this population growth matter, I do have to back off. I could have mixed up what Henwood was saying.
But what I do see is that the US is running right about 0.77% population growth per year. So if we figure a baseline of 320 million and 50% needing to be employed, that still comes out to needing 100k new jobs per month just to keep even.
But labor statistics, and what they really mean, are extremely complex. So I would like to see some interpretation from persons with established expertise, before settling on this 100k number and discounting the higher number.
As far as junk jobs, no I don't think these positions you speak of in High Tech and Finance are going to do it. First of all many people are just not going to be employable in those sectors. Sure some people are making good livings, but there are many others for whom that will never work. Many people are just not wanted in the labor market.
And then on top of that, many of those jobs you speak of are really not that good anyway, things which pay people on commission only, or with stock options. Many of these new jobs, even the cream of them, are often only marginally livable and extremely low security.
There are more and more people who are living closer and closer to the edge. They talk about more than 50% of the population being within two paychecks of defaulting on rent or mortgage. I posted the link to the SJ Merc article saying that for those with less education the median wage is 27k per year. Very hard to stay housed and automobile transported on that wage, at least here. This means people are really struggling and are very close to the edge.
As far as people getting more educated, yes this is always good, but for many it is just not an option. And also, if you do get more people more educated, this does not improve the jobs market, it just raises the bar.
I'm not saying your wrong about there being a boom. There will always be more booms, as the same people who make money off of the busts also make money off of the booms. We came out of the Great Depression believing that this would be ended, by Keynesian policies. It did work for a long time. Then some lunatics in Iran took the people in the US Embassy hostage, and then Jerry Falwell dumped a Southern Baptist Sunday School Teacher in favor of a Hollywood Playboy Divorcee, because the IRS was trying to collect back taxes from Bob Jones University because they were still enforcing a ban on interracial dating in blatant defiance of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. What happened next is all history now, as the New Deal Reforms started being lifted and now even Progressive Era Reforms are also in jeopardy.
Yes, we could reverse course! It is possible. But as of now it keeps getting worse and worse and worse. Clinton's Labor Secretary Robert Reich has always emphasized this, an ever increasing segment of the population is getting closer and closer to the edge and is living in a state of constant fear. And no, you can't just preach to them, "Get educated". This is not going to do it, not for most.
So yes, there will be boom after boom after boom. And with each of these comes a bust. Once a bust starts, it is very hard to stop it. But if you decline to support the booms, the busts will not be as severe.
As far as this present boom, I say that it has been here for the better part of a year already, and the most significant indicator of this is the bubble on Wall Street. I say the sooner it bursts the better. And I know it can't go too much longer, as Republicans want to take the White House and both Houses of Congress. To do this they need a bust.
So I'm not saying that there won't be more booms, as speculator money is out there to make them happen. I'm just saying that no good whatsoever comes from them and that we shouldn't support them.
And as I see it, considering especially the Knight Ridder owned Mercury News, most of what the media does is boosting for the booms.
SJG
Warren Hayes youtube.com
@SJG: I'm not sure how the Republicans could organize a stock market crash in such away they won't do more harm to themselves in the process. That's quite a conspiracy theory!
As for education, you just have to look at other countries that are poorer than us but still have a much better educated populace. A big part of the problem is American culture which doesn't place all that high a value on education. College for many being four years of party culminating a Bachelor of Arts in English or Art History or some other useless subject for many. I'm not sure if blindly throwing money at the problem can fix this cultural problem unless it is attacked in the right way.
In any case, I think robots will be able to out think us all pretty soon, so it might not even be worth worrying about we go about educated the 95% of whatever who just don't give a fuck.
I was thinking today marketwatch released a story too soon about Germany is not going to make any quick deals with Greece. They are supposed to match the news stories up with the changes in the market. Maybe release that story sometime late in the afternoon Tommorrow and then let the market tank a bit but let it run up some first. The public likes to be able to explain why the market did something. If news gets released that Germany says they are ok with kicking Greece out of the euro currency but the market shoots up for a day, then tanks the next day, the public will go, huh?? Of course if news comes out That Dougster was buying today but decided to sell the next day, then everything is good, mystery explained to the public. lol
sharkhunter: "I was thinking today marketwatch released a story too soon about Germany is not going to make any quick deals with Greece"
Negotiation on that level rally get resolved before the 59th minute of the 11th hour.
IMO, Greece, should just leave. Take the pain all at once. They'll bounce back more quickly that way.
@sharkhunter: Actually I was buying yesterday, but putting on hedges today. Good call!
Remember, our stock market bubbles are kept afloat by one thing and one thing only, investor willingness. So when they want to pull the plug, they will. The question about the Boom of 2015 is, not when are you going to get it, as that is past. It is why are you in something like this in the first place and how much longer do you dare stay in.
The dot com boom was a boom of only one thing, investor confidence.
As far as persons getting degrees in English or Art History, I think that is great. What we need are persons who have critical thinking skills.
But for many many people the family was an abusive environment. They have to count themselves lucky if they were even able to finish high school. Each week meant at a minimum more psychological abuse. It is because the parents decided to have children so that they could use them.
You won't find anything like this in the developing world. It is unique to the advanced industrial democracies.
Many other people just find that they have to make due with the situation they are in. Maybe their lives were torn apart by a bad marriage and a divorce. For others, school was just not something which worked. I showed you that SJ Merc article about the guy getting $370 per week working in a warehouse. This is just a sliver below min wage for 40 hours. Very very hard for anyone to stay housed, even renting a room, after also having all payrole and withholding deductions made.
And then even for those with substantial education and great skills, the very speculators who you praise and seem to represent, ruin the job market themselves. No one wants to work on their latest newest gambit to try and gain control of standards for compatibility, of some other thing they have to force people to do it their way. The speculators control and cripple technical innovation. People who have skills want to work on things which address real needs, and usually these are also things which will shatter the price floor too.
So those with actual skills and the speculators are working at completely cross purposes.
We have our universities, and many are publicly funded. But these have also been slashed.
Many other countries have government playing a bigger role in technological advances, and not just military either, commercial technologies. You need multiple avenues, not just the newest latest and very high risk KP type ventures.
SJG
SJG: "As far as persons getting degrees in English or Art History, I think that is great. What we need are persons who have critical thinking skills."
Our very jestie214 has an art history degree (or "fuckin' art history degree" as he might put it). Not a good example of a good critical thinker however. A good example of the exact opposite, in fact.
Universities are good at doing research. The market and venture capitalism system is good at choosing which of their research is worth following up on and taking to market. You need a good balance between them for research that takes a long time before there are practical benefits versus letting academics wanking around over very useless theories.
Other countries have universities and they also have markets and venture capitalists. But many of them also have something else. They have government run institutions which support the development of industrial technologies. Of course the most obvious examples of this are found in Germany and Japan.
Now there have been attempts here to do something like this by expanding the charter of both DARPA and National Bureau of Standards. There have been situations in which they have formed strategic partnerships with advanced technology startups, gotten some of their people appointed to advisory boards, and even supplied equity backed money.
So long as it is kept within some sanity bounds, I feel that this can be very constructive. And it need not be all Defense oriented.
As I mention all of this though what comes to mind is one man I remember by the name of Craig Fields. I was connected to something which was getting money through an arm of DARPA, and this did represent an expansion to that organization's charter.
Unfortunately though, Fields and some of his people were fired over this, and I believe fired by G. H. W. Bush.
Anyway, there never has been any such thing as a free market, and their never will be. To establish something which even approximates one, and in a very limited domain, takes a monumental amount of government regulations and enforcement.
And as for deciding which avenues should be pursued, I do not agree that the market place does a good job of deciding this. Not at all. Mostly the market place is just a bunch of people having to make very imperfect decisions based on the limited range of options they are provided with.
And as far as the venture capitalists, they are even worse. They are people who have learned how to manipulate the market place. They do not promote innovation, they fund things which impede innovation, as this is how the get good returns.
Actually, since the bubble bust of the late 80's, there has not been much willingness in the venture community to invest at all in advanced technology start ups. There were fears over the scale of the fabrication facilities being built in Asia. Then there was a wearing out of public support for the Regan Bush defense budget and the development of post Vietnam weapon systems. So the money just stopped. People would call this an economic recession. But really, like all of these, it was nothing more than a recession in speculator interest.
So local billboards advertised the need to conserve water, as we were in a draught. But then something changed. Clinton announced his first budget. He was making some very very small restorations of upper income taxation. He was making some very minor reductions in standing military costs and some other trimmings to government spending. Symbolically Hillary Clinton was seated between Apple's John Scully and Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan.
The investment community loved it. It meant for once that we were off of voodoo economics. Though there would undoubtedly be more problems to solve, at least we were not still running the train as fast as possible towards a cliff.
What investors need is economic stability, because the value of corporate stock is based on what a company is expected to be worth in the future, not on what it's balance sheet says today. So with the risk factor reduced some, the stock market soared. Remember that after the 1986 crash, people were saying that the DOW might never again exceed 4000.
Then you had the Vice President boosting for "The Information Superhighway". He had always been a supporter, having introduced legislation for large scale funding.
So there are several dynamics at work here. First, just like with the Apollo program being the driving force behind the development of solid state electronics, integrated circuits, and practical computers, you had DARPA being the driving force behind development of the Internet.
But then you have speculators who come in when they see that the time is right to popularize. So we had a Wall Street bubble, a bubble in employment and in cars on the road and in fuel consumption, and especially in the sale of flashy new cars.
But most all of the dot com start ups were not actually technology startups. They were more exercises in media and branding. People were saying that they worked in "hi-tech", but because of what venture capitalists were funding, and what they were not funding, there really was no such thing as hi-tech anymore. Not many people actually realize this, as they pay attention to things like Google, Facebook, and Twitter.
Then eventually someone realized that most of this stuff was non-sense and the overwhelming majority of the dot com startups failed, and almost always making the poor poorer and the rich richer in the process.
The dot com boom brought in a much sleazier grade of start up too. Previous generations paid real wages with benefits, because they were trying to lure talented and experienced people away from stable companies.
This new bubble brought us companies which were intentionally seeking new grads, people who will just do what they are told without debate, and going much further in substituting stock options for pay, and doing it to people who are paid far less.
And then the time from business plan to funding to blowout was shortened. Previously the life of a failed startup would have been maybe 4 years. Now it was getting down to more like 4 months.
Speculator willingness to fund semiconductor startups never did return, as the focus became these media startups. New fab facilities of the largest scale were built, but in other places. And work on advanced semiconductor and materials technologies moved to other places, like for example the greater Portland area, and supported by their new Graduate Center, championed by their Senator Mark Hatfield.
So what we need is a more pluralistic approach. There will always be markets and venture capitalists. And they do things, and I would say that most of it is negative and that we should just try to ignore it, as well as making sure that they pay their fair share of taxes.
But there is still a need for governmental institutions to provide funding and leadership. We overlook how much we have already benefited from this, when we focus on these new zillionaires who are always coming in long after the fact.
Likewise, the private funding which does exist for new technologies is always having to operate in a competition for attention with the things the speculators are behind.
There are people trying to do new things, but it is being done very quietly. It is wrong when we ascribe to these speculators a large role in building a better future, because they really are not doing anything like that.
And then, even during the Clinton boom, the income disparity gap was widening. One running joke about the Clinton Admin creating jobs was, "Don't tell me about those, I've got three of them."
What we had of a working class is all but completely decimated, being forced to live with unbelievable uncertainty, and really no future. As it is like this, we have no political stability and so we have no economic stability.
Then on top of this our continuing environmental unsustainability. And so what we have are just a bunch of pundits boosting for the newest and latest Ponzi scheme. Not a good situation at all.
So we need to start making those with higher incomes pay their fair share of taxes, as it used to be in this country. And then we need to start recognizing that their is a role for government leadership in technology, and that this should not be limited to defense. We need to recognize that we have to provide working people with stability and a future, and that this has been destroyed. And we have to find a path towards environmental sustainability.
But none of these things will happen so long as people keep believing that good will come from the next speculator boom.
And then last thing we need is to have everyone being educated just to be a pawn in the schemes of these speculators. The more Humanities degrees that can be awarded, the better.
SJG
Rainbow youtube.com
Nazareth youtube.com
^^^ Time to get with the boom, SJG. Still time to join the home team and come in for the great big win.
Dougster, you and I are not on the same team. I don't want there to be any more booms of the sort you are boosting for. I don't see any of it as leading to any big win. You don't have any claim to your team being the home team either.
I say it is time for you to change sides and start working with those who want everyone to be included, and to collapse the wealth and opportunity gap, and to start living and working in ways which are sustainable.
SJG
SJG: "start working with those who want everyone to be included"
Start working on this revolution on behalf of people who don't give a fuck? Think I'll have to pass on that one.
Your now touching on what I think is the most important issue. If I am reading you correctly, you are saying that those who are poor, living on the street, in and out of jail, and never far from alcohol, drugs, or Born Again Christianity, or who have been forced into the junk job sector are just morally defective.
I could not possibly disagree with this more. But I am glad that we are finally getting to what underlies this faith in the "New Economy" and in booms and busts, and in the speculative economy.
Lots of people came out with critical comments about the Dot Com Boom, after it was over. But I was criticizing in from the very beginning. I told a local newspaper the all the boosting and libertarian rhetoric were just a repackaging of the old Social Darwinism of the 1880's.
Duty calls me now, so this will BE CONTINUED
SJG
Chaka Khan - Stay / Sweet Thing, Live In Pori Jazz 2002 youtube.com
SJG: "If I am reading you correctly, you are saying that those who are poor, living on the street, in and out of jail, and never far from alcohol, drugs, or Born Again Christianity, or who have been forced into the junk job sector are just morally defective"
No you're not reading me correctly. As always you are projecting the windmills you like to charge in every direction whether it fits or not.
I would certainly prefer a genuine boom over a bubble. If I thought we were just in a bubble I would not have taken the big gamble and uprooted my life to bet on it. If we are in a bubble and it bursts it certainly is going to hurt my bonus checks. I doubt I'd be laid off unless it was prolonged but that is risk too. A risk too big for me to take if I didn't think we are in the real deal right now.
Now on a personal level, I did notice that, although the correlation was not 100% the meanest people (anti-social traits) and though who didn't give a fuck (passive-aggressive traits) tended to be on lower down on the socio-economic scale. Especially if they were white people versus immigrants who are generally friendly and hard working. Now there were exceptions to that rule, in fact so frequent that you might not call them exceptions, but I saw this too often to be able not to notice it and say there is no correlation.
What causes that? It's an interesting question. Do the families have genetic predisposition to those behavior traits which is why they can never get ahead in the world?
Or is it that every human born has roughly the same genetic pre-disposition and the environment they grow up in is primarily responsible if it turns into an issue or not. I have to think it is much more the latter than the former.
But here's the thing, I think the best way you deal with it is by increasing the overall wealth of society, and make sure that everyone has opportunities to make the move when they are ready.
Trying to convince people who grew up with those traits that they should care is just not going to happen. It's too late by then. They are impervious to reason.They see the world through their confirmation bias and nothing can change that.
I don't see all this lack of opportunity in society that you do. Care to elaborate on it? I can't remember a single person who had the talent to do something, but just wasn't able to do it for financial reason.
I will tell, however, that your revolution will not work for the following reason:
Anyone who cares enough, and is competent to affect the kind of changes you have in mind will care for a while, when they are young and rebellious like young people are supposed to be. Later on when these people discover find that our society has enough social mobility that if they channel their efforts to look out for themselves and their families they do very well. Until society lack that level of social mobility then, right or wrong, your revolution is doomed. Thus Churchill's saying will always play out "If you not Liberal when you are young you have no heart. If you are not conservative when you are old, you have no brain".
You can be in denial about this now. Some might it through their whole life in that kind of denial, but I think a guy like you won't be able too. Before long you'll see that you are just wasting your time on people who don't care.
Trying to warn you now, but it looks like you may need to experience it for yourself.
SJG: "Lots of people came out with critical comments about the Dot Com Boom, after it was over. "
Contrary to popular myth almost everyone was everyone that it was a bubble while it was occurring. Me included. So don't pat yourself too much on the back for imagine insight on that one. Anyone who lived through it will know what I'm talking about.
When Starbuck's barristas were barraging about borrowing to invest Linux IPOs, it's just too obvious. What we have now is nothing like that.
@Dougster, You've written much and I want to take the time necessary to respond to it in detail. This will take a while though because I am only on for about 1 hour per day now.
You wrote, " Now on a personal level, I did notice that, although the correlation was not 100% the meanest people (anti-social traits) and though who didn't give a fuck (passive-aggressive traits) tended to be on lower down on the socio-economic scale. Especially if they were white people versus immigrants who are generally friendly and hard working. Now there were exceptions to that rule, in fact so frequent that you might not call them exceptions, but I saw this too often to be able not to notice it and say there is no correlation. "
You wrote, " Trying to warn you now, but it looks like you may need to experience it for yourself. "
Because I am deeply involved with those already at the bottom, I too have noticed exactly what you have noticed. I know that in talking about this, calling a certain type of American born poor whites "shit heads", I have pissed Mr. IME and some others off. But I don't actually interpret it the way that you do, or I think the way that Mr. IME does.
TO BE CONTINUED
SJG
Neil Young, Greatest Hits youtube.com
PS: I expect to be sessioning tomorrow with one Vietnamese-American lovely who when I window shopped her and asked her, "Do you like to be kissed?" she was taken back for a moment by such a question, and then she emphatically nodded and smiled yes. She was already bending way forward to let me look down her dress and see her cleavage. Though she was standing behind a service counter, if we had been any closer together we'd of been kissing already.
She and a few others are like a bit of San Francisco being transferred to San Jose. And besides, I have gotten to be good at softening them up and getting them way beyond what they might usually do anyway.
@Dougster wrote,
"Contrary to popular myth almost everyone was everyone that it was a bubble while it was occurring. "
I disagree. At least in public and at least among the rank and file, they were calling the dot com boom, "The New Economy". They were acting like something so fundamental had changed that it would last forever. Kevin Kelly wrote a book called "The Long Boom".
This Long Boom which he was predicting sounds to me the same as this 2015 boom you are boosting for.
The dot com boom was just a boom in investor confidence. And since what this mean was money going into turning the NASDAQ market into a Ponzi scheme, I took it as an indication of dire economic unhealth. If the situation were better, then there would be better things to invest in.
People did not seem to see this.
But today, you and others are boosting for more of the same!!
You say you have uprooted your life and that you have a chance of making it into the upper 1%. I assume that you are not just working for a different employer, but that you are doing some different type of work, something which would allow you to even further benefit from another bubble.
Of course none of us know what is going to happen. There could be this big bubble coming. But on the other hand, it might have to wait until after the bust designed to influence the 2016 election.
My point is that no good whatsoever comes from these bubbles. None.
Now sure, some speculators are able to make money, as you seem to want to do. But that is simply taking money off of people. You buy low and sell high, because other people have done the opposite. What we all are then left with is a country where the wealth gap has increased and where more and more people really have no future.
I happened to overhear one guy getting ready to apply online to work for Verizon. What an indignity, to be expected to disclose personal information and apply for work in that kind of a way. Sickening!
But more and more people are faced with living like that on a daily basis. More and more people are working for unlivable wages, with no job security and no future.
SJG
SJG: "If the situation were better, then there would be better things to invest in."
I'm not having trouble finding stocks to invest in these days. I post some of my holding back on Nov 7 and have discussed others in PMs with other folks.
Are you invested in the market these days, SJG?
TUSCL will be doomed if we keep letting other countries hack us