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Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase

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Re: Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase

#221

Post by ivape »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #199
ivape wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we care so much if jobs are created or not created? The market is the market, either we need more jobs or we don't. If there are not enough jobs, then what are we going to do? Create more? We're just dressing up socialism in capitalism's clothes. If you want to seriously do capitalism, then there is absolutely no reason to measure employment. If it's zero then it's correct, if it's 100% then it's correct, the…

> if there are not enough jobs, then what are we going to do? Create more? …yes. > problem isn't employment. It's food and shelter We track these. And in most places in America, you can get to a place where you can get both for free. Not to the quality most people want. But to a degree that will sustain you.

And in most places in America, you can get to a place where you can get both for free.

I’m speaking about mass scale unemployment and underemployment. Our homeless infrastructure cannot even handle our homeless. The underemployed and underpaid are basically 6 months removed from homelessness without work, so call a duck a duck.

How long can you keep food/shelter without a job? Six months for the average American? If we are going to artificially create jobs, then I recommend we artificially house and food people instead because that’s the core issue. Your average American is freaking scared of everything if they go 6 months without a job, and that’s a problem.

If the market needed those workers and jobs it would have created them at any price, no price would be too low or too high. The reason the market doesn’t conjure up food and shelter for people is because that’s not what it’s for, so it’s best we decouple.

I’m suggesting that a large percentage of Americans are functionally homeless and basically on a weekly food-shelter lease program in our society that can be cut off to them at any time (sorry, capitalism). In America we call this a career, gig, a livelihood.

Re: Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase

#222

Post by underlipton »

danans wrote: post #40
jimbokun wrote: post #31

> But the contraction was capped by payroll expansions in goods-producing roles across industries such as manufacturing and mining. All together, goods-producing positions grew by 32,000 in the month, while payrolls for service roles overall fell by 66,000. Is this tariffs working as intended?

If your metric is "more/better jobs", then yes tariffs are a failure. But in a roundabout sense ... yes they are working. At least if the goal is to discipline and squeeze labor, and return leverage to employers. Part of the goal of the tariffs (and other non-tariff related policies) seems to be to reset leverage at all layers of the labor markets, pushing higher skilled and paid workers into lower skilled and paid m…

Unless workers unionize and demand higher wages.

High-prestige work as an escape hatch from poverty has failed, and that may be a good thing. When people accept that dirty or "unskilled" labor has to be done, and that it deserves a living wage as much as any educated position, we'll be stronger as a country. Perhaps we'd even see, with the influx of people who haven't yet accepted being stuck in monotonous, menial labor and with an outsider's perspective, a renewed emphasis on bottom-up innovation and efficiency-creation.

Re: Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase

#223

Post by JumpCrisscross »

ivape wrote: post #221
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if there are not enough jobs, then what are we going to do? Create more? …yes. > problem isn't employment. It's food and shelter We track these. And in most places in America, you can get to a place where you can get both for free. Not to the quality most people want. But to a degree that will sustain you.

And in most places in America, you can get to a place where you can get both for free. I’m speaking about mass scale unemployment and underemployment. Our homeless infrastructure cannot even handle our homeless. The underemployed and underpaid are basically 6 months removed from homelessness without work, so call a duck a duck. How long can you keep food/shelter without a job? Six months for the average American? If…

> How long can you keep it without a job?

Forever. That’s how free works. If you can get to an American city, which most American towns will happily help you out with, you can access free food and shelter virtually limitlessly.

> if the market needed those workers and jobs it would have created at any price , no price would be too low or too high

Market failure is real. Rates, regulations and barriers to entry can and do inhibit labour demand formation.

Re: Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase

#224

Post by ivape »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #223
ivape wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in most places in America, you can get to a place where you can get both for free. I’m speaking about mass scale unemployment and underemployment. Our homeless infrastructure cannot even handle our homeless. The underemployed and underpaid are basically 6 months removed from homelessness without work, so call a duck a duck. How long can you keep food/shelter without a job? Six months for the average American? If…

> How long can you keep it without a job? Forever. That’s how free works. If you can get to an American city, which most American towns will happily help you out with, you can access free food and shelter virtually limitlessly. > if the market needed those workers and jobs it would have created at any price , no price would be too low or too high Market failure is real. Rates, regulations and barriers to entry can an…

I edited.

I’ll edit this again if you have a response.

Re: Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase

#225

Post by JumpCrisscross »

_DeadFred_ wrote: post #86
psunavy03 wrote: post #6

We really need better ways of measuring economic health. I could lose my six-figure job, turn around, and get hired on as a server at Applebee's for minimum wage, and the "unemployment" rate would stay the same. Not to mention that it doesn't include those not actively looking for work. Either way, "full employment" doesn't mean much unless you take into account whether people are actually able to live a stable lifes…

Not at you personally, but your post being top and active, while not really relevant to the story presented always makes me wonder do people upvote these tangents to prevent discussion on the threads original topic?

> do people upvote these tangents to prevent discussion on the threads original topic?

No, they upvote because they agree with it.

Just as some people flaunt their incompetence with basic math or civic involvement as a point of pride, it’s somewhat common in tech for folks to hold their lack of familiarity with economics, particularly econometrics, as a point of pride. (If you wanted to bury it, you’d flag it.)

Re: Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase

#226

Post by JumpCrisscross »

ivape wrote: post #224
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How long can you keep it without a job? Forever. That’s how free works. If you can get to an American city, which most American towns will happily help you out with, you can access free food and shelter virtually limitlessly. > if the market needed those workers and jobs it would have created at any price , no price would be too low or too high Market failure is real. Rates, regulations and barriers to entry can an…

I edited. I’ll edit this again if you have a response.

> I’ll edit this again if you have a response

Not how comment threads work.

Re: Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase

#227

Post by derf_ »

ajmurmann wrote: post #166
shafyy wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even better one: real wages, and income and wealth inequality.

Why does wealth inequality matter? If my real wealth doubles and Elon's real wealth doubles, inequality went up, yet everyone is tremendously better off. I think we are using inequality as a very bad proxy for poverty but we have much better metrics for that. I suspect people just dislike it for emotional reasons. I want to point out that Sweden has more billionaires per capita than the US. Yet everyone is fine with…

If everyone's real wealth doubles, that is great, but it is not a stable equilibrium.

If a very small percentage of the people own a large percentage of the wealth, it compounds. They literally cannot spend all of their income on consumption, except maybe by lighting piles of cash on fire, but that is not a route to doubling the real wealth of everyone in society.

That means that asset prices rise, and fewer people can afford property. Jobs concentrate near where rich people live, because they are the ones with disposable income to spend, making this worse. Transfer payments (rent) from ordinary people to the remaining property owners are high. Wages stagnate, because wealthy people spend most of their money on assets, not goods and services. Consumer demand decreases. Capital moves away from producing things that ordinary people need, because they can no longer afford them, and is instead allocated to producing luxury goods. Social mobility is low because low wages and high property prices make it impossible to work your way up.

The cycle is self-reinforcing, not self-correcting. Most of history throughout the world has consisted of a few very wealthy feudal lords and a large population of serfs.

Strengthening the political system might be nice, but post-Citizen's United, that does not seem to be the direction the US is headed, at least, nor is it in the interests of those who benefit most from the current system.

Re: Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase

#228

Post by shusaku »

twoodfin wrote: post #102
kasey_junk wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your first query is simply real wages. There are several real wage metrics in the bls data set. Here is a commonly referenced one: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q Your second query is more subjective. Most people would probably point you at the U6 underemployment number as that’s the most famous one. I like the employment projections series for this kind of question though https://www.bls.gov/emp/

That real weekly wage data is basically why Trump almost and then did get reelected in one chart.

The more I look at that chart the stranger it gets. It feels like a good case for concluding CPI isn’t calculated properly

Re: Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase

#229

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

ajmurmann wrote: post #195
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why does wealth inequality matter? If my real wealth doubles and Elon's real wealth doubles, inequality went up, Not in terms of the ratio between you, which is the way we normally talk about wealth inequality : "he has X times more wealth than I do", or "she makes X times more than I do". Anyway, this is not how wealth inequality has grown at all. It has happened by most people's real income barely rising at all o…

That's not at all what I've seen in the US. The middle class has shrunk but that part of the overall population has moved to upper income. Meanwhile, real (aka inflation corrected) median household income has gone up: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N If what you care about is standing real wages why talk about inequality? I'm concerned that it just functions better as rage bait and leads to unproducti…

1. it is well established that human pyschology makes relative income and wealth much more significant than absolute. And it doesn't matter which quintile you're in for that to be true.

2. real median household income stayed relatively flat between 1970 and 2012. Since then it has risen again in a significant way.

3. despite the gains in real median household income, the rise in the household income (and net worth) of various upper percentiles (20%, 10%, 5%, 1%, 0.1% ... take your pick) has been very, very much larger. consequently, the "double my income, double Musk's income" line is not a description of what has happened.

4. the percentage of GDP that accrues to capital rather than to labor have gone steadily up since 1980.

Re: Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase

#230

Post by twoodfin »

shusaku wrote: post #228
twoodfin wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That real weekly wage data is basically why Trump almost and then did get reelected in one chart.

The more I look at that chart the stranger it gets. It feels like a good case for concluding CPI isn’t calculated properly

Why?
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