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Say Hello to Full Employment

theatlantic.com

141–150 of 348 posts

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#141
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

Yup, you also want to look at macroeconomic conditions around the world, tech trends, demographics, etc. For example, 10 years ago we had quantitative easing done by US/Europe, which led to subprime loans. Now, all of the major economies around the world is tapped out with QE, so deflation is the theme going forward Also, 10 years ago the dollar prime rate was 0%. Now it's close to 2%. That drives the emerging market…

"For example, 10 years ago we had quantitative easing done by US/Europe, which led to subprime loans."

QE did not cause subprime loans - QE was the response to the effects of the subprime loan era.

There was no QE before the liquidity crisis and subsequent economic recession, although it had been discussed academically.

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#142
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not going to rehash the finer points of a debate that stubbornly refuses to die among armchair economists online. But for the benefit of everyone else reading this thread: 1. The market, and the macroeconomic system in general, is not a purely stochastic process. This is a meme. 2. If by "naive chartism" you mean technical analysis, then sure, I agree. But if you're attempting to reduce the entirety of academic a…

You appear to be making an effort to come off as intelligent and I thought you might like to know that your accusations of arrogance when your post drips with it seriously undermines that. You fail to grasp a fundamental reality: data about the past can only tell us about the past. Data about the present can be useful for making predictions. Some of it is so useful that using it is criminally prosecuted by the SEC. B…

Your third paragraph was enlightening and explained your position reasonably well. I'm not sure I'm convinced, but it seems like an interesting discussion.

I feel obliged to downvote you because of the first two paragraphs, why did you add them? You were trying to refute what you considered an "accusation of arrogance" with the most arrogant opening paragraph possible?

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#143
post #4

"For the first time in recorded history, the number of job openings is higher than the number of people looking for a job." So what? If there's a thousand Node developers like me looking for work, and a thousand job openings for dentists, that's a mismatch. You may say beggars can't be choosers, but do they expect Node developers who went through CS courses to throw that away and take dentist courses?

How much of underemployment is caused by people not willing to move? For instance, I can almost guarantee you that if you’re a good Node developer you could find a job in less than a month in my market.

Where? Not being sarcastic or anything... really want to know.

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#144
post #80
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't help but feel the unemployment rate is so politicized that its facts and statistics will continue to be cherrypicked outside of reality.

sigh, and yet it's a key statistic needed to make decisions... improvements welcome!

You can get a lot of detail and try to correct things, for instance see this graph from the wikipedia article

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9b/US...

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#145
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

one of the reasons for reluctance to boost pay could be the fact that profit margins of trucking companies have decreased in recent years despite increasing demand for their services. Also they have found a way to enable illegal immigrants to drive trucks which gives another source to companies to keep trucker wages low. I am an immigrant and know so many guys (from my country) who could not find any other job (becau…

why have trucking profit margins decreased?

I would guess because of competition from VC funded companies from ecommerce and self driving trucks industries trying to disrupt trucking business

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#146
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same reason that landlords are entitled to expensive rent, doctors to high salaries, and colleges to high tuition. Its the market rate for those things. I would say there are much better second order effects from focusing on bringing prices down than the second order effects of focusing on forcing employers to pay more.

"Its the market rate for those things. " I don't think you can say that when they're the ones who set those rates. Especially when they constantly complain about not being able to find qualified workers. "I would say there are much better second order effects from focusing on bringing prices down than the second order effects of focusing on forcing employers to pay more." Maybe, maybe not. But that's not an argument…

When you hear someone say "I cannot find qualified workers" always add "at the price I am offering" because if they doubled or tripled the wage they offered, they could find a qualified person so it is a matter of price, not a matter of availability.

>Maybe, maybe not. But that's not an argument for not increasing wages.

The initial comment was about paying a living wage. There are two ways to make a non-living wage a living wage. Make the wage higher or make the living cheaper. I think way to much political energy is focused on making wages higher when I think it would be more productive in the long run to focus on making living cheaper.

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We'll likely have an inverted yield curve before the end of 2018 for sure. Go back in history to see the correlation to past recessions: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/T10Y2Y Obviously it's not as simple as that but it certain implies that something uncommon is happening in the financial markets.

https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/dont...

Thanks for this counterpoint, it provides solid context for the data!

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We'll likely have an inverted yield curve before the end of 2018 for sure. Go back in history to see the correlation to past recessions: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/T10Y2Y Obviously it's not as simple as that but it certain implies that something uncommon is happening in the financial markets.

One wonders about the extent to which this correlation is a self-fulfilling prophesy. If everyone gets skittish when indicators look too good and reduce investment, they end up causing the recession that they predict!

reflexivity is a wonderful thing.

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#149
post #136
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same reason that landlords are entitled to expensive rent, doctors to high salaries, and colleges to high tuition. Its the market rate for those things. I would say there are much better second order effects from focusing on bringing prices down than the second order effects of focusing on forcing employers to pay more.

I don't think the market explains most of those things. College tuition isn't because there is a short supply of educators and high supply of people wanting to be educated. There's not much scarce about it. I would argue that tuition increases because we've streamlined student loans and marketed college as a tool of mobility. Doctor pay is also highly abstracted from something like "market forces". Rent prices are pr…

I feel like we are strong agreeing. If we change the how student loans worked we could reduce the rate of increase. If we changed out medicine worked we could bring down prices (currently there are way to many links in the chain all making a buck). Also, if we allowed more housing to be built, prices would go down.

>Also, forcing employers to pay more is actually a supply/demand conundrum. If you want to buy unskilled labor for $8/hr but the going rate is $15/hr you're not going to have much luck.

The issue I have is most people who want a living wage, want to be done by setting the minimum wage so that a 40 hr week job gets you their. The causes lots of problems because it eliminates everyone from the labor market that cannot produce that much value. So in the end, you negatively impact the young, the old, the disabled, those who want to work part time, even ex-cons by setting minimum wage at a living wage value.

Re: Say Hello to Full Employment

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/dont...

Thanks for this counterpoint, it provides solid context for the data!

It’s from the Federal Reserve, so people may discount it either from a belief the Fed doesn’t know what it’s doing, or a belief the Fed is biased in how it sees things.

But I was happy when it showed up recently. It provides a good explanation about the yield curve and a more specific way to look at things.

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