Job's Data doubles estimates

[southsider2k5]

http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?...teid=mktw&dist=

 

Payrolls for Aug and Sept were revised upwards 115,000. October added 337,000 jobs, which means during Bush's 4 years of office job losses/creation is right at 0.

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?...teid=mktw&dist=

 

Payrolls for Aug and Sept were revised upwards 115,000.  October added 337,000 jobs, which means during Bush's 4 years of office job losses/creation is right at 0.

One more argument of the left falls apart. That makes over 2 million jobs created this year by the economy. Meanwhile, the recent stock market party rocks on.

 

Life is good.

[southsider2k5]

Following the markets theme, an interesting number to keep an eye on today is in the crude oil is $48.58. That is the 50 day moving average. Everytime crude has traded near its averages on the charts it has bounced upwards. If some how crude could trade under that, the next stop might be $40. There really isn't a lot of technical resistance on the way down.

[AngelasDaddy0427]

Right...Because 5 dollar an hour jobs are equal to 15 dollar an hour jobs.

Just because they manage to underemploy people doesn't mean the economy is any less in the toliet.

They are going to learn real quick that record levels of spending with less and less money coming back in is going to come back to bite them on the ass.

Ohh well I guess we'll have to wait for another Clinton to come back and actually pay down the debt and build back the trust fund again.

[jackie hayes]

http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?...teid=mktw&dist=

 

Payrolls for Aug and Sept were revised upwards 115,000.  October added 337,000 jobs, which means during Bush's 4 years of office job losses/creation is right at 0.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, private employment is still down 1.2 million jobs. So the loss of private jobs is made up for by the enormous growth in government spending. Go W.

[3E8]

You should be angry with Greenspan, not Bush.

[mreye]

Right...Because 5 dollar an hour jobs are equal to 15 dollar an hour jobs.

Just because they manage to underemploy people doesn't mean the economy is any less in the toliet.

They are going to learn real quick that record levels of spending with less and less money coming back in is going to come back to bite them on the ass.

Ohh well I guess we'll have to wait for another Clinton to come back and actually pay down the debt and build back the trust fund again.

:sleep :banghead

[southsider2k5]

Right...Because 5 dollar an hour jobs are equal to 15 dollar an hour jobs.

Just because they manage to underemploy people doesn't mean the economy is any less in the toliet.

They are going to learn real quick that record levels of spending with less and less money coming back in is going to come back to bite them on the ass.

Ohh well I guess we'll have to wait for another Clinton to come back and actually pay down the debt and build back the trust fund again.

Because you like to spew a lot of assumptions without any factual basis, I am going to issue you a challenge right here.

 

Go look up jobs and wages statistics. Prove to me that wages in this country have declined at all.

 

Find me some evidence to back up anything you are saying, besides "I heard it on CNN."

[southsider2k5]

On a seasonally adjusted basis, private employment is still down 1.2 million jobs.  So the loss of private jobs is made up for by the enormous growth in government spending.  Go W.

So should the government have done nothing and let those 1.2 million people be unemployed? Should Bush have just let the Clinton recesion turn into a depression, like it would have if the fed and Bush hadn't interceded? I'd love to hear your solution to solving it.

[mreye]

Oh boy. This is gonna get good! [rubbing hands together]

[mreye]

So should the government have done nothing and let those 1.2 million people be unemployed?  Should Bush have just let the Clinton recesion turn into a depression, like it would have if the fed and Bush hadn't interceded?  I'd love to hear your solution to solving it.

You're in the mood today, huh? I love it when you get this way!

[Goldmember]

[southsider2k5]

You're in the mood today, huh? I love it when you get this way! 

It must be deep seed resentment at not being good enough for a mreye party

[Wong & Owens]

Ugh, the economy's performance and job losses/gains have so much to do with a billion other factors that I can't believe anyone still thinks because candidate A or candidate B is in office, the economy is magically going to change in 3 months.

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

Ugh, the economy's performance and job losses/gains have so much to do with a billion other factors that I can't believe anyone still thinks because candidate A or candidate B is in office, the economy is magically going to change in 3 months.

Exactly why the economy was not a reason to elect Kerry.

[Wong & Owens]

Exactly why the economy was not a reason to elect Kerry.

Right. The reason to elect Kerry was that Bush is a .......

 

ah, forget it.

 

 

:fthecubs

[jackie hayes]

So should the government have done nothing and let those 1.2 million people be unemployed?  Should Bush have just let the Clinton recesion turn into a depression, like it would have if the fed and Bush hadn't interceded?  I'd love to hear your solution to solving it.

My point is that private employment reflects the real economy much better, and it's not doing as well as you say (you claimed 0 jobs lost).

 

But to address your second argument... So every time the economy is primed for a job loss, the government should expand so that noone is unemployed? Yes, the government should let them be unemployed and let markets work. Republicans talk about markets, but their actions show how little trust they have in fact.

 

This is not about the Fed. The Fed did the right thing, more or less. But they only act to stabilize the course of the economy, not to set that course.

[southsider2k5]

My point is that private employment reflects the real economy much better, and it's not doing as well as you say (you claimed 0 jobs lost).

 

But to address your second argument...  So every time the economy is primed for a job loss, the government should expand so that noone is unemployed?  Yes, the government should let them be unemployed and let markets work.  Republicans talk about markets, but their actions show how little trust they have in fact.

 

This is not about the Fed.  The Fed did the right thing, more or less.  But they only act to stabilize the course of the economy, not to set that course.

If you believe in a hands off government, that is fine. I totally respect that. And honestly I wish it was that way in reality. The problem is the government has taken on the role of economic baby-sitter, by setting up institutions such as the federal reserve, and by becoming the nations largest single employer.

 

And you are definately right in that the fed reactions were exactly what they should have been. Greenspan was out screaming "irrational exuberance" years before the bubble got so huge that it would have destroyed the economy. The way the federal government has functioned since the New Deal, is that they are the employment safety net. They expand to cushion the economy when normal companies are laying off people and going bankrupt. I would argue that the federal government was never meant to do that, but we have about 75 years of history now, with the government acting in that role. The problem is that it can't exactly stop doing it now.

 

And I have no doubts that if Bush hadn't have at least cut taxes, if not increased spending that we would have double digit unemployment right now in this country, and we would still be in depressions. The similarities of the late 90's to the late 20's are incredible. From a historical basis, there is no reason to believe that the economy would have reacted any differently if Bush had done nothing, or acted in a way to shrink government respective to decreased tax revenues equal to increases in unemployment.

[Wong & Owens]

If you believe in a hands off government, that is fine.  I totally respect that.  And honestly I wish it was that way in reality.  The problem is the government has taken on the role of economic baby-sitter

Seriously.

 

Am I not correct when I think I saw somewhere that the second largest chunk of the nation's tax revenues go to welfare programs?(1st was defense)

[southsider2k5]

Seriously.

 

Am I not correct when I think I saw somewhere that the second largest chunk of the nation's tax revenues go to welfare programs?(1st was defense)

Not welfare specifically, but entitlement programs in general, yeah that is the 2nd biggest expendature in the budget. Welfare, unemployment, food stamps, social security, medicare/caid.... you get the idea.

[jackie hayes]

If you believe in a hands off government, that is fine.  I totally respect that.  And honestly I wish it was that way in reality.  The problem is the government has taken on the role of economic baby-sitter, by setting up institutions such as the federal reserve, and by becoming the nations largest single employer.

 

And you are definately right in that the fed reactions were exactly what they should have been.  Greenspan was out screaming "irrational exuberance" years before the bubble got so huge that it would have destroyed the economy.  The way the federal government has functioned since the New Deal, is that they are the employment safety net.  They expand to cushion the economy when normal companies are laying off people and going bankrupt. I would argue that the federal government was never meant to do that, but we have about 75 years of history now, with the government acting in that role. The problem is that it can't exactly stop doing it now.

 

And I have no doubts that if Bush hadn't have at least cut taxes, if not increased spending that we would have double digit unemployment right now in this country, and we would still be in depressions.  The similarities of the late 90's to the late 20's are incredible.  From a historical basis, there is no reason to believe that the economy would have reacted any differently if Bush had done nothing, or acted in a way to shrink government respective to decreased tax revenues equal to increases in unemployment.

You do agree though that the real economy has not done as well as "0 job loss" would suggest?

 

I for one have a LOT of doubt that we would be in a depression. To me, the most convincing story for the Great Depression is that the Fed mishandled it. (This is the explanation that Milton Friedman gives.) The theory of monetary policy has come a LONG way since then, I don't think that would happen again. Plus, from a stimulative perspective, the Bush tax cuts were extremely ineffective. Business investment tax breaks, eg, would have been more useful Republican-friendly notion. Transfers to low-income individuals would have been more effective, too, though definitely not Repub-friendly. So much of the tax cuts went to the very rich (objective fact, I don't want to get into a values debate about this), and the rich tend to save at high rates (which implies that they spend less of the tax cut), so relatively little actually went into the real economy.

[southsider2k5]

You do agree though that the real economy has not done as well as "0 job loss" would suggest?

 

I for one have a LOT of doubt that we would be in a depression.  To me, the most convincing story for the Great Depression is that the Fed mishandled it.  (This is the explanation that Milton Friedman gives.)  The theory of monetary policy has come a LONG way since then, I don't think that would happen again.  Plus, from a stimulative perspective, the Bush tax cuts were extremely ineffective.  Business investment tax breaks, eg, would have been more useful Republican-friendly notion.  Transfers to low-income individuals would have been more effective, too, though definitely not Repub-friendly.  So much of the tax cuts went to the very rich (objective fact, I don't want to get into a values debate about this), and the rich tend to save at high rates (which implies that they spend less of the tax cut), so relatively little actually went into the real economy.

Actually I would argue the opposite. The fact that we are at 0 jobs is pretty incredible to me. Heck 9-11 by itself was directly responsible for the loss of 1 million jobs in one day. That took about 6 months of this year to get made up, all by itself.

 

There is no doubt that the great depression was caused by economic mismanagement. There was simulatious raising of interest rates, coupled with government cutbacks. It was economic suicide that was committed on top of arguely the biggest bubble in the history of the country. If George Bush had acted by keeping the balanced budget the economy would have had two of those three factors happening again. Remember the job losses were already taking place, which meant that tax revenues were already shrinking. So instead of government spending increasing, or even staying stable, the reduction in revenues would have meant a reduction in outlays as well to stay balanced. So at the point not only do you have a private sector contraction going on, but also a government contraction of employment. The multiplier effect begins to take over at that point. Less workers=less spending= job cuts=less workers=less spending.... you get the picture.

 

The question is, would fiscal policy alone (since we have ruled out government aid) have been enough to prevent depression? It would have helped to slow the bleeding, but there is no way it would have been more effective on its own, than with the government aiding in reviving the economy. And not only that, under the scenario in which you are suggesting, the government would have had a huge part in the contraction.

 

As to the effectiveness of the tax cuts. I would argue that they have been hugely successful. The first thing you do when you get a huge cut, is to stablize the bleeding. The tax cuts were just that. Yes the huge majority of the monies from the tax cuts went to the upper brackets. They also pay the huge majority of the taxes, so to me that is logical. But what isn't being said, is that these are the people who hire people. Sure you could give a huge tax break to the poor, but are they going to hire anyone? No, of course not. One of the big differences between the depression and now is the emphasis on corporate profits. If companies aren't making money, what is the first cut a company will make? Jobs. Employees are the single biggest expense that most companies have. In this day and age if companies have declining stock prices they lay off workers in a heartbeat. After the stock market bubble burst, there was a huge rush to cut costs by these companies. Which meant there were huge job cuts coming. By institituting the tax cuts, you eased the pressure on plunging corporate profits, which meant that more companies were able to retain employees, by having their profits and ergo stock prices kept artificially high, until the economy had recovered sufficently to pick up the slack.

 

The fact that the tax cuts helped to stablize the economy would have been a huge improvement over what the government staying out of it would have had.

 

And don't think the poor were left out of the tax cuts. Remember the lower quintile of people pay a negative tax rate. That's right they don't pay any taxes, as a matter of fact, they profit from taxes. How do you give them a tax cut? That's where the cheesy $300 check idea came from. Yeah it wasn't a lot, but how much can you cut taxes for people who don't pay taxes? That's why there were also things like the expansion of the child tax credits, which served to push that bracket to a larger negative tax rate. As a sheer dollar total, the poor can't spend nearly as much money as the rich, that's why tax cuts with a larger dollar amount aimed to the rich, have a hugely larger effect on the American economy as a whole.

[jasonxctf]

One more argument of the left falls apart.  That makes over 2 million jobs created this year by the economy. Meanwhile, the recent stock market party rocks on.

 

Life is good.

yeah because the Dow is exactly where it was back in 1999 when I was sitting in my dorm room.

 

5 years, no sustained growth.. always a good thing.

[jasonxctf]

plus, just an FYI.. to keep up with population growth and immigration the economy needs to add at least 150,000 jobs a month to break even.

 

So if the job losses and creation are back to 0 since Bush entered office, that means that he only has 7.2 million jobs to go to ACTUALLY break even.

[southsider2k5]

plus, just an FYI.. to keep up with population growth and immigration the economy needs to add at least 150,000 jobs a month to break even.

 

So if the job losses and creation are back to 0 since Bush entered office, that means that he only has 7.2 million jobs to go to ACTUALLY break even.

How come the unemployment rate hasn't exploded to reflect that number? There are only about 2.8 million people nationwide who are unemployed. That 7.2 million number doesn't make any sense with the data.