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Can the West’s perplexing employment miracle continue?

economist.com

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Re: Can the West’s perplexing employment miracle continue?

#101

Post by boppo1 »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #17
mkl95 wrote: post #9

We have gone from a zero interest rate economy to a high interest one within months. Whoever claims to accurately predict what's going to happen in the next few years is talking out of their ass. We know inflation should start decreasing within a year or so, but you cannot predict how millions of people will react to suddenly not being able to afford stuff.

> Whoever claims to accurately predict what's going to happen in the next few years is talking out of their ass. That's true regardless of the interest rate situation... > We have gone from a zero interest rate economy to a high interest one within months. IIUC, even the Fed's pretend "Natural Rate of Interest" is higher than current rates - meaning even they seem to believe they're still stimulating the economy some…

How do I calculate real interest rates?

Re: Can the West’s perplexing employment miracle continue?

#102

Post by takeda »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #85
dd36 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I don’t know a single person that didn’t work.

A friend worked for Royal Caribbean in their entertainment division onboard. No work, no unemployment, a bit of stimulus, and had to crash at one of my homes so they weren’t homeless. Because no one rents to you when you have no assets and volatile income during a pandemic. Exhausted their emergency savings and modest retirement account. This is one of many of my associates in the service industry that had substantia…

How came no unemployment?

If you had regular job, you were eligible for unemployment there was also PUP enabled due to pandemic, so if you were self employed you could request unemployment under that. In addition there were also short periods of time where you could get extra $600/week (as it is impossible to survive for long on the usual unemployment amount)

Re: Can the West’s perplexing employment miracle continue?

#103

Post by SimDeBeau »

majormajor wrote: post #84
b33j0r wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This conversation needs someone fiddling in the background. No one had a normal economic life for several years. It’s a miracle that these levers have been adjusted to the point that everyone is like “well no one going to work for three years had no impact! What over-reactionaries!”

I find the idea that there's a "normal" period somewhat baffling. Conditions have been constantly changing for hundreds of years, from interest rates to investment strategies to technology to globalization etc. Nobody has a magic crystal ball for what's next.

I don’t disagree, but it also seems possible to identify periods that are more unusual compared to their neighboring periods, and useful to talk about them.

Re: Can the West’s perplexing employment miracle continue?

#104

Post by jandrewrogers »

dd36 wrote: post #79
ceejayoz wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no one going to work for three years Where did this happen?

Yeah, I don’t know a single person that didn’t work.

I am close to several people that were unemployed for at least 18 months due to COVID policy erasing their jobs.

Re: Can the West’s perplexing employment miracle continue?

#105

Post by metadat »

bluGill wrote: post #20
mkl95 wrote: post #9

We have gone from a zero interest rate economy to a high interest one within months. Whoever claims to accurately predict what's going to happen in the next few years is talking out of their ass. We know inflation should start decreasing within a year or so, but you cannot predict how millions of people will react to suddenly not being able to afford stuff.

This isn't a high interest rate ecconomy, this is normal interest rates. Rates have been absurdily low for a while so you may not remember it, but history provides a record.

Is the norm really that home loans are unaffordable even to first-time-buyer DINKs with good-to-decent six figure jobs who just want a place to live? (not an investment property) Currently the mortgage rates are the highest ever since 1989.

Have you personally already purchased your first home? Without family assistance, it would be absolutely brutal and untenable for my children to enter into in this domain at present.

The people at the bottom are getting a remarkably harsh and bad deal these days, even in instances where they have been exceedingly fiscally responsible their entire life. Is this the future the youngsters deserve? My kids are still solidly upper middle class, imagine what this translates to for the lower end of socio economic status.

This seems severely suboptimal. At what point is a serious systemic correction warranted? What is the current generation supposed to tell their children? At some point people's motivation to participate in the system and play by the rules will be negatively impacted. What happens then?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DINK

Re: Can the West’s perplexing employment miracle continue?

#106

Post by geuis »

It's difficult to take serious any article that tries to apply Japanese customs to other western (Euro/US/Aus/NZ) cultures. We are deeply entangled, but JP is a different beast. Aside from the aging population and low birth rate, it's still a distinctly different culture than say, New York or London.

What the author describes are long term artifacts of Japanese culture. It's a service culture (dunno if that's a term) in which I mean extra levels of service are given to guests and customers. Again, sorry if "service culture" is incorrect. I highly respect JP culture.

So, I'm not sure how that pertains to jobs in the rest of the western world.

Also, the article is behind a paywall. So boo.

Re: Can the West’s perplexing employment miracle continue?

#107

Post by ChatGTP »

snowwrestler wrote: post #95
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #57

I thought this was a bizarre (OK, I'll be honest, shitty) article. The beginning starts out by seemingly making the point that Japan has low unemployment because it has a lot of inefficient, "make-work" jobs, e.g. "smartly dressed women help you use the lifts" (subtext being who needs help using an elevator) and "a team of four people was involved in the preparation of your correspondent’s gin martini". OK, fair enou…

I agree with most of this, but birth rates are not relevant. Note that Japan has had a very low fertility rate for years but still has folks for all those make-work jobs. In the U.S. what changed over the past 5 years is legal immigration: it was drastically cut and has not been restored. So as citizens and existing long-term residents pursue better jobs or time at home, there are far fewer new residents eager for lo…

Yes, but in Japan a lot of people doing the pointless jobs are old.

As they pass away, there will be less need for the pointless jobs but there is no one to replace the old people who are also doing the important jobs like farming, which is not highly automated, so there is little chance Japan is on the brink of any real employment crisis. If anything more and more jobs are coming online everyday, with less people to fill them.

Sometimes I know we worry about AI taking our jobs but I’m wondering if we will be able to survive without it ?

Re: Can the West’s perplexing employment miracle continue?

#108

Post by abduhl »

LeonB wrote: post #87
ethbr0 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to a high interest one We're at 4.50–4.75, no? That's not low, but it's not high either. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_funds_rate#Historica...

To someone who took out a loan expecting it to stay at the rate it was at… It’s extremely high.

And why would they expect that?

Re: Can the West’s perplexing employment miracle continue?

#110

Post by davidw »

metadat wrote: post #105
bluGill wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a high interest rate ecconomy, this is normal interest rates. Rates have been absurdily low for a while so you may not remember it, but history provides a record.

Is the norm really that home loans are unaffordable even to first-time-buyer DINKs with good-to-decent six figure jobs who just want a place to live? (not an investment property) Currently the mortgage rates are the highest ever since 1989. Have you personally already purchased your first home? Without family assistance, it would be absolutely brutal and untenable for my children to enter into in this domain at prese…

There's a serious housing shortage.

https://www.npr.org/2022/07/14/1109345201/theres-a-massive-h...

Worryingly, the higher interest rates are making it more difficult to construct the housing we so desperately need in so many places.

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