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US economy unexpectedly sheds 92k jobs in February

bbc.com

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Re: US economy unexpectedly sheds 92k jobs in February

#101

Post by phkahler »

paxys wrote: post #13

If the government-approved numbers are this bad the real ones must be catastrophic.

>> If the government-approved numbers are this bad the real ones must be catastrophic.

Sadly my first thought was not to trust this report. The article even notes further down:

>> The US central bank would typically respond to a weakening labour market by cutting borrowing costs, in hopes of giving the economy a boost.

Our fearless leader has put enormous pressure on the Fed to lower interest rates from day 1. They keep refusing, and following the data so it makes sense (if you don't care about reality) to alter the data to get the desired result.

Re: US economy unexpectedly sheds 92k jobs in February

#102

Post by noah_buddy »

mcntsh wrote: post #11

Wasn't this always the idea behind combating inflation? At the end of the day you need to make people poorer to make the dollar worth more...

Trump hasn’t managed to adequately combat inflation though. Last I heard, it’s ticking up once more.

Re: US economy unexpectedly sheds 92k jobs in February

#103

Post by nerdsniper »

dmos62 wrote: post #97
nerdsniper wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even a single CBP employee scrolling through your texts feels like too much to me. But when they take your phone, they're making copies of all the content in the phone and as much as possible from any apps/websites you're logged into. And that permanently lives in a database which doesn't afford you even the very thin veil of protection against misuse that a US citizen might be granted. It does all seem to be too muc…

Curious, how do they make copies of everything? Do they just film the phone as they're scrolling it?

They connect it to a little box that hacks into the phone and downloads everything. Search for "Cellebrite Universal Forensic Extraction Device (UFED)" or "Grayshift GrayKey". The border agent doesn't have to know anything about phones/computers, it's just "plug in, press button". With modern phones, they really only work if you unlock your phone before handing it to them, and they'll make you do that. If you don't unlock the phone and let them walk off with it for awhile, they'll refuse you entry into the USA and send you back.

US citizens are, of course, allowed in even if they refuse, but they will confiscate a citizen's phone in exchange for a custody receipt (Form 6051-D) and they are supposed to return it to the US citizen after they break into the phone / crack the encryption. If they can't crack it, they can choose to never return the phone to the US citizen. And it can be a very stressful situation in which citizens may not know what their rights are in the moment (or can't afford to replace their phone or lose access to it because how would you even get an Uber from the airport or coordinate a pickup if you don't have a phone).

You can choose to bring burner phones or make sure your phone is freshly factory reset, but if you're a non-citizen that can also be a reason to be refused entry, and if you are a citizen that can "get you on a list", leading to getting "SSSS" stamped on every boarding pass for every flight you take, in every country in the world, for the next many years. If your boarding pass gets "SSSS" written on it, you will get pulled aside by security and all your bags get individually hand-searched prior to every single flight (even transfers/connections/layovers).

Non-citizens are also sometimes asked for a list of your social media accounts and the passwords to their social media accounts. Refusing to provide your passwords can be used as a reason to refuse entry to the USA. If the USA believes you have a social media account that you failed to tell them about, that can also be a reason to refuse entry.

Also, as of recently, visitors from 38 countries have to post a ~$10,000 bond just to be allowed into the USA.

https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2023-09/Test_Results...

https://cellebrite.com/en/products/ufed/

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

Re: US economy unexpectedly sheds 92k jobs in February

#104

Post by h2zizzle »

nerdsniper wrote: post #30
giraffe_lady wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how much of it is actually AI vs just like, the bags of VC money have dried up and most tech companies can't anywhere near justify their personnel or often even existence without it. Like companies have been doing the RTO "stealth" layoffs for years now, it's not even news anymore, this was already well underway. There is also the obvious priapism of owners and investors to finally do to the remaining wh…

Where is the money that was going to VC investments going now? With increasing inequality, I figure rich people have more money than ever that they need to figure out where to invest.

Interest on debt; shoring up the financial vehicles and insurance through which they diffused the catastrophic losses of their bad bets from the past few decades; stockpiled for the inevitable economic collapse and the feeding frenzy that will follow; land.

Re: US economy unexpectedly sheds 92k jobs in February

#105

Post by iso1631 »

TwoNineA wrote: post #55
cheesecompiler wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a significant majority of people in Canada who not only vocally decided to not go to US but discourage their friends from doing so too. People have judged me for driving through the states.

Last year we cancelled a planned US vacation, this year we didn't even think about it. Going back to Europe two years in a row. I don't give a fuck about tariff policy of our supposed "friends" but when our "friend" repeatedly threatens our independence and sovereignty, no thanks. Not going to step into the USA for a long time.

It's not the government that's the problem per-se, it's the fact half the US supports that government

Re: US economy unexpectedly sheds 92k jobs in February

#106

Post by bigthymer »

nerdsniper wrote: post #30
giraffe_lady wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how much of it is actually AI vs just like, the bags of VC money have dried up and most tech companies can't anywhere near justify their personnel or often even existence without it. Like companies have been doing the RTO "stealth" layoffs for years now, it's not even news anymore, this was already well underway. There is also the obvious priapism of owners and investors to finally do to the remaining wh…

Where is the money that was going to VC investments going now? With increasing inequality, I figure rich people have more money than ever that they need to figure out where to invest.

More money is flowing into commodities. Gold price going up feeds into more mining.

Re: US economy unexpectedly sheds 92k jobs in February

#107

Post by thunky »

root_axis wrote: post #96
aliljet wrote: post #6

There's a vibe in at least the PNW that feels like the tech sector is sloughing jobs and avoiding creating new ones courtesy of AI. I genuinely wonder if that feeling is backed by reality and whether it's large enough to be translating into national statistics across all industries.

The idea doesn't really make sense to me. We know LLMs increase productivity, especially for coding, but increasing productivity shouldn't make you fire people unless your business has already exhausted any potential for growth. Instead we would expect the increased productivity to grow businesses further and increase hiring for all other tasks that LLMs are still not good at.

> Instead we would expect the increased productivity to grow businesses further

This assumes infinite demand which is not a good assumption imo. Especially if people are losing their jobs.

Re: US economy unexpectedly sheds 92k jobs in February

#109

Post by gaoshan »

TwoNineA wrote: post #55
cheesecompiler wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a significant majority of people in Canada who not only vocally decided to not go to US but discourage their friends from doing so too. People have judged me for driving through the states.

Last year we cancelled a planned US vacation, this year we didn't even think about it. Going back to Europe two years in a row. I don't give a fuck about tariff policy of our supposed "friends" but when our "friend" repeatedly threatens our independence and sovereignty, no thanks. Not going to step into the USA for a long time.

Can't blame you. Coming from the US I have been making a point to vacation in Canada, fwiw.

Short of voting, protesting and getting into arguments with MAGA people I don't know what else I can effectively do.

Re: US economy unexpectedly sheds 92k jobs in February

#110

Post by toddmorey »

toddmorey wrote: post #84
joe_mamba wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Most of the world is not visiting the US right now Only right now? The US touristic cities have been and continue to be the most expensive places in the world to visit by far, so most of the planet will never visit the US out of cost reasons alone, regardless of their views on $CURRENT_POLITICS. Foreign tourism probably isn't large enough part of the US GDP to be making a dent in the US economy as a whole. @WarmWash…

It accounts for 3% of the economy and provides around 15 million jobs. That’s absolutely going to make a dent. And international tourism supports local tourism. I think Las Vegas will continue to be a shell of what it was until international tourism rebounds. BEA used to have these cool interactive tables on GDP by industry, but they’ve now been discontinued. It really feels like our current administration just does…

Edit: I do think it’s fair to say our economy is much more diversified and resilient to a drop in tourism then a country like Spain where it’s closer to 20% GDP.

But maybe the right way to frame it is it wouldn’t be felt as much nationally, but international tourism drops are pretty catastrophic to local economies of some of our biggest cities like New York Miami and Los Angeles Angeles.

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