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True Rate of Unemployment

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Re: True Rate of Unemployment

#181

Post by Gareth321 »

Den_VR wrote: post #149
Gareth321 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great points. I have the same problem. I often end up throwing things away or doing work myself when I would be happy to pay the right people to do it. The classical response is that this is a failure of marketing, but marketing is no longer about connecting the right customer with the right business. It's about tricking people into buying things they don't need or want. I think AI will solve this in the future. It's…

Search engines were good at this, before the Internet optimized for it. Once the the Internet optimizes for ai search, it too will go the same way

Search optimisation is deterministic. The algorithms are quite sophisticated but even an older LLM can easily work around them right now. There will be some kind of AI arms race but I think the net effect of that will destroy search as a platform. What arises from the ashes? I can only speculate. Possibly distributed search. Possibly something like torrent swarms. uTorrent's distributed search has been available for decades and it's surprisingly resilient. Possibly something like I2P or Tor. Possibly AI agents creating amorphous and transient search tasks/communities. Even in these early days it's possible to cobble together hobby search engines using various sources for cheap/free.

I think Google sees the writing on the wall, which is why they're trying to turn Google search into an AI chatbot.

Re: True Rate of Unemployment

#182

Post by dfdydx »

DrProtic wrote: post #180
dfdydx wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you live? Most countries use labour force surveys, it's orthogonal to registration to unemployment agencies.

I looked it up and I have to correct myself. So EU/Eurostat has surveys, Serbia does too (I’m from Serbia). However most countries have also national way of determining the rate that works how I described, and they may differ quite a lot from Eurostat. I guess EU introduced surveys with Eurostat so countries don’t juke the stats. For example - Denmark computes net unemployment straight from benefit and PES registers…

The ILO definition is comparable across countries

Re: True Rate of Unemployment

#183

Post by Oras »

esseph wrote: post #110
teiferer wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then maybe it's time you look up how unemployment statistics are calculated in Switzerland and you will be surprised that you counted into them. It's unclear to me how folks with a university education can make such simplistic statements.

> It's unclear to me how folks with a university education can make such simplistic statements. Because a "University Education" doesn't shield one from being ill informed, or simply wrong about a topic. I mean, did you get 100% on every test? Well, then...

If the uni time didn’t trigger basic instinct of “researching” then that was a huge waste of time and money

Re: True Rate of Unemployment

#184

Post by dfdydx »

Gareth321 wrote: post #148
dfdydx wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the issue with saying that someone who is employed is ... employed. If the claim is that a single number (the unemployment rate) does not capture all the high dimensional features of society & work, then well of course! If the claim is that politicians & media focus too much on a single number to judge whether the labour market is doing ok, then sure? It's not a particularly contentious position th…

You're applying nuance to a discussion which so often does not lend itself to nuance. Successive governments love to focus on the unemployment figure as though that is the mark of a healthy jobs market. As you've pointed out, it's not. It's not even close. We should be speaking about it far less, and about other, more qualitative metrics far more. We don't, though, and the cynical reason is that the unemployment metr…

I guess it depends were you live, but in $HOMECOUNTRY, politicians also talk about wage levels (esp. their evolution vs inflation), etc.

Re: True Rate of Unemployment

#185

Post by bruce511 »

hdgvhicv wrote: post #65
bruce511 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately that doesn't really help. It has the effect of eroding the asset value such that it quickly means the owner can't sell. In other words, if selling removes much of your capital, you then don't gave capital to spend on the next place. Conversely investors become even more motivated not to ever sell. They can defer the LVT forever, and just use the property as collateral for loans (ie getting liquidity wit…

The tennant pays now anyway. Of a landlord could charge more rent they would. Two identical properties, one under mortgage and one that isn’t, have identical rental prices. The costs to the landlord are irrelevant.

I understand where you are coming from here. And there are multiple levers in play here.

The cost of a mortgage underpins the rental value. If there are multiple units for rent then there will be a "going rate" and that's certainly a part of the equation. In that sense some landlords get more cream than others, but that's capitalism in action.

There are however other costs that go into rental calculations. Perhaps the building has a supervisor, or rental agent. Perhaps utilities are included. There are typically property rates and taxes. There may be sectional title levies. That's before we talk about insurance, maintainence and so on. For a group of similar dwellings these costs will tend to be similar, and so the floor is set not just by the mortgage, but by including these costs as well.

If a extra cost comes along, which affects all the properties together, then that will just become part of the rental-floor equation. And yes, it's possible for that to be higher than people will pay, but that tends not to be the driving factor. People have to live somewhere and ultimately will pay whatever keeps them off the streets.

Of course people who own their own home will simply have an extra cost burden every year. There's no upside at all, and will result in more people not purchasing, but rather staying on the rental ladder. Indeed making purchase less attractive allows rents to get higher.

This is the problem with all economics. There are butterfly effects all over the place so "simple solutions" tend to have lots of unwelcome consequences. Trying to solve problems with taxes seldom ends well.

Re: True Rate of Unemployment

#186

Post by stuaxo »

A huge demonstration of why we need to move from a 5 day working week.

Some of the gains that have gone to the top need to be paid to spread the work over more people, a 4 day week would be a start.

Re: True Rate of Unemployment

#188

Post by xbmcuser »

jaredklewis wrote: post #26
xbmcuser wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me the true problem which most countries dont even acknowledge is low wealth and capital gains tax. Salaries are not enough because of land prices and the prices inflation it causes through out the economy. You bring down price of home land rent then price of everything else comes down. And their is a lot more economic activity as trillions of dollars are not parked in real estate for wealth generation.

A land value tax would fix rich people parking money in real estate. A wealth tax or capital gains tax would not.

No then the money would go into inflating the stock market or gold etc. And won't get back into the economy.

Re: True Rate of Unemployment

#189

Post by sethammons »

jaredklewis wrote: post #74
ryan_lane wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a land value tax would fix rich people from parking money in real estate, it would price regular people out of real estate. I know LVT is the libertarian dream, but in practice it means only the rich can own real estate long-term, in most cities. It also means the rich can drive out the poor by driving up land values around them, to the point where the taxes are too much to afford. LVT simply wouldn't be a good sy…

Well, I (and most economists) disagree. I think you just have a misunderstanding of how taxes work. The person or company that "pays" the tax does not bear the full burden of the tax. That burden is usually widely distributed throughout the economy. In the example of LVT, a landlord would pass on the LVT in the form of increased rents to their tenants. A power company that pays a carbon tax charge more their electric…

> The person or company that "pays" the tax does not bear the full burden of the tax.

As a homeowner, who else bears my tax?

Re: True Rate of Unemployment

#190

Post by 2legit2quit »

teiferer wrote: post #86
floro wrote: post #44

Everyone knows the stats are false but I don't know an alternative. I've been unemployed after graduating for a year and because I didn't use unemployment benefits I didn't show up in the statistics in switzerland. I know many cases like mine.

Then maybe it's time you look up how unemployment statistics are calculated in Switzerland and you will be surprised that you counted into them. It's unclear to me how folks with a university education can make such simplistic statements.

>...and because I didn't use unemployment benefits I didn't show up in the statistics in switzerland

and

> It's unclear to me how folks with a university education can make such simplistic statements.

Do you even fact-check yourself before making specious claims[0][1]? You HAVE to be registered via RAV to be counted. Full stop.

0 - https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/en/home/statistics/work-income/...

1 - https://switzerlandhandbook.com/rav-and-unemployment-benefit...

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