(02-25-2010 07:17 PM)hubcap Wrote: [ -> ] (02-24-2010 09:14 PM)hoffmanjohn Wrote: [ -> ]This is a basic economic technique that is probably taught in a few basic Macro-economic classes.
Every recent example of calculating unemployment seem to pad the numbers. If we did have real unemployment numbers I doubt the government would release it or the media would report it. This is keeping Americans in the dark and under control.
If it is taught in academia there is likely an agenda behind it.
well you would have to prove that point,but i am pretty sure that there are some private firms which make unemployment estimates as well. For example Goldmam Sach's made a pretty good prediction for the 4th quarter in terms of GDP.
(02-27-2010 09:07 PM)hoffmanjohn Wrote: [ -> ]well you would have to prove that point...
And that is the point. Who's data will I use? What institution will I trust to tell me the truth? Has the system become so corrupted that I can drive through California seeing Hoover/Obamavilles all over the state and as long as some "expert" who has a graph behind him that will prove his point, I can dismiss it and go back to being complacent? I can go back to debating reality on the internet?
Al Gore has a ton of data to prove Global Warming is real. We have the media hammering away at it spending a huge amount of money to do it. Shall we take his word for it? After all he can prove it, he has the money to prove it. And he has a huge movement of unpaid college kids ready and willing to go out and push his agenda! And Al Gore is an oil man! Why in the hell would an oil company owner push for carbon credits? Deductive reasoning alone should tell us there is something else going on here! But do we pay attention? No! We sit here and argue unemployment numbers.
In the last few months, our company has dumped safety bonuses, rolled back 40 hour guarantees to 32 hours for some and ended them completely for others like me. I am about lose a car I bought and have been paying on for 3 years now. My rent is behind a month, I struggle to make my water bill, auto insurance, electric bill, medical bills and food. I have had to let go of memberships who came down on the wrong side of the health care issue. Why should I support AARP with my wallet when they don't support me on healthcare issues?
And I am fully employed!
So at the age of 54, I don't need a group of wealthy experts to form my opinions of what is happening in this country, all I need to do is look out the windshield of my Mack Truck and see all the shut down factories. Listening to media experts has become a little like Prime Minister Chamberlain on his return trip from Germany getting a guarantee from Hitler that Germany would not attack England so the headlines on all the papers read "Peace in out time". How long did that media pronouncement of peace last? Or how about Hoover and his statement that "Better times are just around the corner"? I am sure some "expert" prompted Herbert Hoover to say that to reassure the American population into some kind of jobless recovery.
Can we trust the number crunchers to give us reality? I don't think so. I think we can gain better facts by opening our eyes and realize that we are standing in an ever rising tide of national debt, we have a run away government who has disconnected themselves from reality and we have a population who believes every word FOX news says and will follow these experts right into and inflationary depression that will bankrupt this country and turn it over to a collection agent called the United Nations.
The same folks who coined the term "Jobless Recovery" are handing us our information. This is what happens when corporations own the independent media. You get your unemployment numbers from the employers.
So, I don't need to start scrambling around trying to prove my point, anything I say will be discredited by numbers that are handed to us by the media. It is like handing teenagers a new toy to keep them busy while you check their room for condoms. This recession/depression is just an outward manifestation of the wealth collection cycle and the media is keeping us engaged chasing our tail arguing with each other while they do it.
But I am sure we can find some expert to tell us that everything is fine.
//And that is the point. Who's data will I use? //
First of all the unemployment figures are estimates just like many other important economic indicators. In any event I don't need these unemployment figures in order to estimate how well the labor market is doing. This is because I could just simply use "Okun's Law". Most of the statistical information I use comes from calculated risk.
In the end their is no "true" unemployment figure, because it would be a fallacy to assume that such a thing could ever exist. (no true scotsman fallacy).
(02-28-2010 10:36 AM)hubcap Wrote: [ -> ] (02-27-2010 09:07 PM)hoffmanjohn Wrote: [ -> ]well you would have to prove that point...
And that is the point. Who's data will I use? What institution will I trust to tell me the truth? Has the system become so corrupted that I can drive through California seeing Hoover/Obamavilles all over the state and as long as some "expert" who has a graph behind him that will prove his point, I can dismiss it and go back to being complacent? I can go back to debating reality on the internet?
Al Gore has a ton of data to prove Global Warming is real. We have the media hammering away at it spending a huge amount of money to do it. Shall we take his word for it? After all he can prove it, he has the money to prove it. And he has a huge movement of unpaid college kids ready and willing to go out and push his agenda! And Al Gore is an oil man! Why in the hell would an oil company owner push for carbon credits? Deductive reasoning alone should tell us there is something else going on here! But do we pay attention? No! We sit here and argue unemployment numbers.
In the last few months, our company has dumped safety bonuses, rolled back 40 hour guarantees to 32 hours for some and ended them completely for others like me. I am about lose a car I bought and have been paying on for 3 years now. My rent is behind a month, I struggle to make my water bill, auto insurance, electric bill, medical bills and food. I have had to let go of memberships who came down on the wrong side of the health care issue. Why should I support AARP with my wallet when they don't support me on healthcare issues?
And I am fully employed!
So at the age of 54, I don't need a group of wealthy experts to form my opinions of what is happening in this country, all I need to do is look out the windshield of my Mack Truck and see all the shut down factories. Listening to media experts has become a little like Prime Minister Chamberlain on his return trip from Germany getting a guarantee from Hitler that Germany would not attack England so the headlines on all the papers read "Peace in out time". How long did that media pronouncement of peace last? Or how about Hoover and his statement that "Better times are just around the corner"? I am sure some "expert" prompted Herbert Hoover to say that to reassure the American population into some kind of jobless recovery.
Can we trust the number crunchers to give us reality? I don't think so. I think we can gain better facts by opening our eyes and realize that we are standing in an ever rising tide of national debt, we have a run away government who has disconnected themselves from reality and we have a population who believes every word FOX news says and will follow these experts right into and inflationary depression that will bankrupt this country and turn it over to a collection agent called the United Nations.
The same folks who coined the term "Jobless Recovery" are handing us our information. This is what happens when corporations own the independent media. You get your unemployment numbers from the employers.
So, I don't need to start scrambling around trying to prove my point, anything I say will be discredited by numbers that are handed to us by the media. It is like handing teenagers a new toy to keep them busy while you check their room for condoms. This recession/depression is just an outward manifestation of the wealth collection cycle and the media is keeping us engaged chasing our tail arguing with each other while they do it.
But I am sure we can find some expert to tell us that everything is fine.
its called a jobless recovery because the labor market has been known to lag behind GDP growth. For example in 1934 we had positive GNP growth,but the labor market still lagged behind. The unemployment rate is not expected to drop to 5% until 2014, and next year the unemployment rate is expected to be around 8%. This means that the labor market will have a slow recovery, and this is something that our government can not "fudge".
(03-03-2010 06:30 PM)hoffmanjohn Wrote: [ -> ]its called a jobless recovery because the labor market has been known to lag behind GDP growth.
THERE IS NO LABOR MARKET!. And I know because I am in it! I don't have to go to some professor of economics to quote me figures and theories. Just to be blunt and to the point, I work shoulder to shoulder with illegals every day of the week.
We export our manufacturing and export illegal labor to do what is left. If there is ever a GDP growth to be had, the profits from it will never go into an working Americans pocket.
Please tell me you are not another college kid who has come here to set us all strait on economic theory?