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US economy unexpectedly sheds 92k jobs in February

bbc.com

601–610 of 836 posts

Re: US economy unexpectedly sheds 92k jobs in February

#601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Approval ratings should be far lower than this.

Agreed but we also have to stop saying "the majority support this" or "half the country supports this" it ain't true and leads people to feel hopeless.

"The majority" I'll grant you, but I'd say 43.4% is close enough to "half" for these purposes. It's only a touch lower than his poll numbers right before the election.

Compare with Kier Starmer, who as of this writing has not sent armed goons into his own cities, wrecked all of his international trade and tourism, alienated his allies, or once again invaded the Middle East. His approval rating is about 20%!

Re: US economy unexpectedly sheds 92k jobs in February

#602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I surprised more US folks dont visit Canada, its amazing, much safer, and cheaper for them because of the exchange difference. Im guessing they see prices in CAD ($), and think its more expensive, but not realizing that $1 of theirs buys $1.35 CAD.

It's probably just that it doesn't feel like there's much to "get" there. If you go south you get sun and beaches. The coastal regions of Canada will be comparable to the coastal regions of New England and the Pacific Northwest, so there's no need to go all the way there if that's the sort of beach you're looking for. Likewise your outdoors, your cities and restaurants and museums are all going to be about the same a…

Museums and public art galleries are notably worse in Canada, honestly.

But, I think there some unique things worth seeing for an American: The old parts of Montreal/Quebec city, and the Alberta Rockies, especially the corridor between Banff and Jasper.

Re: US economy unexpectedly sheds 92k jobs in February

#603
post #584

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> The math just doesn't work out for someone relatively young and with no major health issues. The thing is, bad and expensive health issues can literally come upon you over night. You can get hit by a vehicle or get beaten up with no perpetrator to be held accountable, you can develop an aneurysm, get food poisoning, get pregnant unexpectedly (with all the risk that comes with, including healthcare not being accessi…

Sure, those things can happen. A lot of younger people will decide to just accept the risk, and then if they get hit by a bad and expensive health issue then they'll go to the ER anyway. Due to EMTALA, most hospitals have to treat them regardless of ability to pay. This is one of the factors causing the US healthcare financing system to collapse.

> Due to EMTALA, most hospitals have to treat them regardless of ability to pay. This is one of the factors causing the US healthcare financing system to collapse.

They'll only treat you until you're stabilized, though. They won't give you chemo or routine care. If you need to be admitted you're also not covered by the EMTALA.

All emergency medicine, not just that triggered by the EMTALA, is 5-6% of all healthcare spending in the US, so while it contributes, it's not collapsing the healthcare system.

The real problems with it are that it's an unfunded mandate by Congress, just adding to the financial tangling of the healthcare system, and that it's way too often used to treat things that could have been much more cheaply treated in a clinic, but then there are no clinics nearby that take Medicaid and are actually open, so instead, like with so much of our health care system, we choose to solve it the stupid way instead.

Re: US economy unexpectedly sheds 92k jobs in February

#604
post #125

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As an European, I would actually love tariffs on American services. Kick them where it hurts.

$0 * 1,000% still works out to be $0, unfortunately, so Facebook isn't going anywhere.

European advertisers would be the ones paying tariffs.

Re: US economy unexpectedly sheds 92k jobs in February

#605
post #590

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"Illness is neither an indulgence for which people have to pay, nor an offence for which they should be penalised, but a misfortune the cost of which should be shared by the community.” Aneurin Bevan

That's true to an extent, but the majority of US healthcare spending goes to treating chronic conditions caused more by lifestyle choices than misfortune. There's a fundamental issue in public health policy about individual responsibility and whether to charge people more (or potentially even deny care) over factors at least partially under their control. For example, the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) allows health…

> There are no clear right or wrong answers here.

Absolutely, but there are lots of working, existing models that are better than ours in practice, so this isn't much of an excuse.

Re: US economy unexpectedly sheds 92k jobs in February

#606

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I come from healthcare staffing. Contracts were heavily affected by cuts in federal programs that are critical to some rural regions, and uncertainty caused by inconsistent messaging about the future of such programs. Some areas are very dependent facilities that can only survive with public funding. For example in nursing categories, CNOs (Chief Nursing Officers) would be requesting more staff, but CFOs would block…

Thank you. Is there a good reason this is showing up now versus in the 2025 data?

I'm in publicly funded mental health...federal cuts are starting to cause states & counties to either immediately slash what CBOs thought was solid funding for essential services, or to let us/them know to expect significant cuts starting in the next fiscal year.

Re: US economy unexpectedly sheds 92k jobs in February

#607
post #175

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How much of that 3% is from foreign tourists versus domestic Americans? And what types of jobs are those 15 million? High paid high skilled or low pay low skilled? Because from what I can tell you about EU tourism jobs, most jobs tourism creates over here are low pay, hard labor, unskilled jobs, mostly filled by minimum wage migrant seasonal workers who then send the money back home, meaning the biggest beneficiaries…

> How much of that 3% is from foreign tourists versus domestic Americans? Probably all of it since tourism was 11% of total GDP in 2023, a third of that being international tourism would be on par with european averages.

Where did you get 11% GDP from. Google says 3%.

Re: US economy unexpectedly sheds 92k jobs in February

#608
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of that 3% is from foreign tourists versus domestic Americans? And what types of jobs are those 15 million? High paid high skilled or low pay low skilled? Because from what I can tell you about EU tourism jobs, most jobs tourism creates over here are low pay, hard labor, unskilled jobs, mostly filled by minimum wage migrant seasonal workers who then send the money back home, meaning the biggest beneficiaries…

Ok so if that labor was someone’s job, that implies they couldn’t get something better for them. If you’re straight eliminating those jobs and now they have to take something even worse for them (lower pay, worse hours, worse personal satisfaction, etc)

Did you read anything I said? Who's losing their job when almost all tourism jobs are done by foreign seasonal workers? The locals mostly aren't losing any job because they don't work in tourism due to pay and work conditions.

Are you using the same logic to cry for the western workers making clothes and sneakers who lost their jobs to Asian sweatshops? Do you think they miss that type of jobs and would want them back?

Re: US economy unexpectedly sheds 92k jobs in February

#609

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably just that it doesn't feel like there's much to "get" there. If you go south you get sun and beaches. The coastal regions of Canada will be comparable to the coastal regions of New England and the Pacific Northwest, so there's no need to go all the way there if that's the sort of beach you're looking for. Likewise your outdoors, your cities and restaurants and museums are all going to be about the same a…

Museums and public art galleries are notably worse in Canada, honestly. But, I think there some unique things worth seeing for an American: The old parts of Montreal/Quebec city, and the Alberta Rockies, especially the corridor between Banff and Jasper.

Sure, yeah, but you say "Alberta Rockies" and I think "Ah, yes, because the US is notably lacking good scenic parks in the Rocky Mountains."

Re: US economy unexpectedly sheds 92k jobs in February

#610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the friends are mostly here to get a feel for the place and see if they want to emigrate As a US citizen who has daydreamed about moving to a Dutch city like Ultrecht I'm curious what they found, and how it feels to be an immigrant in the Netherlands.

It's not so easy to do. You can't just daydream about it. A friend of mine spent 18 months just with the paperwork. He's now making half of what he might make at home, but he's happy. The people are definitely friendly and welcoming, but the legal system makes it hard. And the businesses know this so they underpay because they can.

I have a general sense of the difficulty based on preliminary discussions with an immigration lawyer, but the Netherlands seems like one of the easier routes we're considering.

The reason it's "daydreaming" is that we're not yet ready to give up on New England, but I'd still like to start getting our ducks in a row in case there's a rush for the exits and we have to move quickly.

> He's now making half of what he might make at home, but he's happy.

Sounds like what we're looking for.

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