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Astonishingly strong US jobs report sends stocks wavering

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Re: Astonishingly strong US jobs report sends stocks wavering

#171

Post by anonymouskimmer »

looping__lui wrote: post #56
pjc50 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn’t income equality (government interventions in some aspects aside) a mere reflection of people’s contribution to a economy and their ability to negotiate? Watch the elision between this and the next sentence: > So, are you assuming/applying everyone more or less has the same contribution or do you want everyone to be paid the same irrespective? The bit that's gone is "their ability to negotiate", which depends…

Income from capital is generally lower in low-interest regimes. We probably saw inflation in asset classes such as housing and stock as a result of monetary oversupply and cheap access to capital. Not factoring in such things into inflation is a question the Fed would have to address. With a sufficient social net and minimum wages, even poorly qualified have good negotiation power. No offense, but I’m also not sure h…

Unless they are disabled, people should be doing their own house cleaning, doing their own shopping, and etcetera.

Service jobs should be limited to corporations. In your home, you (or your children) do it. Otherwise it's a waste of human talent to have another human dedicate their life to doing a menial task.

Re: Astonishingly strong US jobs report sends stocks wavering

#172

Post by netfortius »

lapcat wrote: post #151
netfortius wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't believe how fewer people see that side! It's good for the working folks to get competitive wages, but what are you doing with the troves of people who had to embark in the 401k/IRA/etc. "trains"? Are they expected to get back to work in their 60s/70s/80s, to make up for inflation and purchasing power

That's supposed to be what Social Security is for. Though arguably the retirement age is too low now for increasing human lifespans. (OTOH the pandemic cut into that somewhat.)

Living out of [only] social security is a bad joke, for a standard of living barely above just eating, sleeping and not getting sick. I contributed the max throughout my 30 years professional career, I'm fully vested, and it can barely cover anything of usable value, in these times. If one thinks that culturally / spiritually (but not religiously) could be supported by socsec, is delusional. Leaving the States is the only reasonable move, considering the present situation.

Re: Astonishingly strong US jobs report sends stocks wavering

#173

Post by lapcat »

netfortius wrote: post #172
lapcat wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's supposed to be what Social Security is for. Though arguably the retirement age is too low now for increasing human lifespans. (OTOH the pandemic cut into that somewhat.)

Living out of [only] social security is a bad joke, for a standard of living barely above just eating, sleeping and not getting sick. I contributed the max throughout my 30 years professional career, I'm fully vested, and it can barely cover anything of usable value, in these times. If one thinks that culturally / spiritually (but not religiously) could be supported by socsec, is delusional. Leaving the States is the…

Note that I said "That's supposed [emphasis added] to be what Social Security is for."

The question is not what the federal government is actually doing right now (if anything) to help people affected by inflation but rather what the federal government could do to help people affected by inflation.

Some people in the comments seem to be claiming that driving up interest rates is literally the only logical possibility, and nothing different could be done.

The equation of retirement and stock market investment is a deliberate policy choice designed to push large amounts of working class money into the stock market, thereby benefitting the speculators and financiers.

Re: Astonishingly strong US jobs report sends stocks wavering

#174

Post by gymbeaux »

lazide wrote: post #94
gymbeaux wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, higher inflation doesn’t necessarily correspond to higher variable interest rates. Indirectly, yea, but only because the fed is raising the benchmark rate to “fight inflation”.

No one is going to write a mortgage for a lower rate than inflation unless they’re crazy (so the gov’t might, but even then not usually!). They’d be signing up to 100% burn their cash doing so. Inflation absolutely impacts mortgage rates, and all other lending.

I don’t think so… I mean which inflation figure are you talking about? The one that happens to be about what a 30-year mortgage would also be right now? That’s not usually the case. Mortgage rates are “fed benchmark” + a couple percentage points. Beyond that, correlation to inflation is coincidental.

Re: Astonishingly strong US jobs report sends stocks wavering

#175

Post by hwillis »

boringg wrote: post #118
tedd4u wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s income. Regarding wealth (“net worth”) [1] Median: $121,411 p90: $1,219,126 p95: $2,584,130 p99: $11,099,166 p99.5: $17,557,208 p99.9: $43,207,732 [1] 2020 federal reserve data https://dqydj.com/average-median-top-net-worth-percentiles/

You should probably look at "net worth" with a normalization for age as it would be unfair to compare the 20-40 range vs the 60-80 range. Taking on debt vs paying off debt. Now to be fair I am not sure you can normalize this as we don't know what the future holds but it's worth noting for anyone sub 30 years old.

> unfair to compare the 20-40 range vs the 60-80 range.

No, you want the skew. The goal is to capture the people who own 90% of stock, so you do want wealth regardless of age.

It would be more accurate to have some measure of stock ownership to income, but I think that would not be as useful. Stock ownership probably does just track closely with age, since you store up all these assets to live off during retirement. Most young people will not own 1M+ in retirement and investment funds. Even high income people will instead spend that money on a house etc.

Re: Astonishingly strong US jobs report sends stocks wavering

#176

Post by lamontcg »

lr4444lr wrote: post #10
techdmn wrote: post #3

To me the headline says it all. Those workers, being in demand, asking for higher wages. What about our profits! We need a level of desperation in our work force, at least that caused by 4% unemployment, if we can expect to maintain the wealth gap that has been built up over the last years! (If it's not clear from the above, personally I am in favor of low unemployment and higher income equality.)

People employed can afford to buy stuff though, which also increases profit. The simpler reason is that it means that people believe Fed will read this as a license to not have to slow down rate increases, which will hurt stocks.

That's more or less exactly what the comment you're responding to is saying.

The way that higher unemployment and lower wages and income inequality is maintained is by the fed hiking rates until it engineers a recession (which hurts stocks).

Re: Astonishingly strong US jobs report sends stocks wavering

#177

Post by KptMarchewa »

looping__lui wrote: post #83
KptMarchewa wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The shift towards profitability" that made facebook lay off 11,000 people to save 1.5 billion to spend 40 billion on buybacks.

And their stock soared 25% yesterday because of their profitability. Are you trying to prove the point I’m making or just mad at me that I explain capitalism?

The biggest problem (among many) I have is that they bold faced lie.

When Zucc says "I view layoffs as a last resort" and then announces 40 billion buyback he should be lawfully punished. If there's no law for that there should be.

Re: Astonishingly strong US jobs report sends stocks wavering

#178

Post by mrep »

KptMarchewa wrote: post #177
looping__lui wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And their stock soared 25% yesterday because of their profitability. Are you trying to prove the point I’m making or just mad at me that I explain capitalism?

The biggest problem (among many) I have is that they bold faced lie. When Zucc says "I view layoffs as a last resort" and then announces 40 billion buyback he should be lawfully punished. If there's no law for that there should be.

I 100% agree with that. Companies should be barred from doing stock buybacks or paying out dividends for some time if they do layoffs.

Re: Astonishingly strong US jobs report sends stocks wavering

#179

Post by [deleted] »

techdmn wrote: post #3

To me the headline says it all. Those workers, being in demand, asking for higher wages. What about our profits! We need a level of desperation in our work force, at least that caused by 4% unemployment, if we can expect to maintain the wealth gap that has been built up over the last years! (If it's not clear from the above, personally I am in favor of low unemployment and higher income equality.)

[deleted]

Re: Astonishingly strong US jobs report sends stocks wavering

#180

Post by kspacewalk2 »

bjourne wrote: post #99
kspacewalk2 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inflation (but not hyperinflation) benefits people in debt, and hurts people with savings. Is having savings nowadays considered intrinsically less moral or something? Inflation targeting of, say, 2%, is the balance that takes into account the sometimes competing interests of all these groups (savers, borrowers, wage earners, people who live off investments, etc). Deviation into either direction causes long-term stru…

Yes, savings are "intrinsically less moral" as savings are money not being used. And since wealth accumulates itself the more savings the more income inequality. It is intrinsically immoral that the wealth controlled by two dozen Western families is larger than the wealth of three billion people.

>Yes, savings are "intrinsically less moral" as savings are money not being used.

Incorrect. Savings (i.e. bank deposits, financial instruments of various degrees of risk, from GICs to junk bonds) are very much being used, they are lent to other entities. Few people "save" by stuffing pieces of paper or gold coins under a mattress.

>And since wealth accumulates itself the more savings the more income inequality.

The logical error here is to think of savers and borrowers as permanent classes. In fact most people's life trajectory starts out as them borrowing more (for education, house, etc) and gradually transitions into them saving more (for retirement, inheritance). You need a healthy mix of borrowers and savers in a healthy economy. They help each other by participating on the opposite ends of a transaction from which they both benefit (i.e. not zero sum).

And, as an aside, wealth/income inequality is not somehow intrinsically negative, like for example poverty would be. Poor or middle-class people in a rich but very unequal society may very well be much better off than poor or middle-class people in a poor but more equal one.

>It is intrinsically immoral that the wealth controlled by two dozen Western families is larger than the wealth of three billion people.

It is not.

Let's say there's a policy which raises the standard of living (or amount of wealth) of the bottom 3 billion people by 1.2x, but raises the amount of wealth of the top two dozen dastardly Western families by 1.3x. This increases wealth inequality, and yet it is intrinsically moral to pursue this policy.

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