Unemployment Rate Actually Below Average Not Doom And Gloom As Reported

reply to post by WyrdeOne

nevermind...i take it back

[edit on 7-6-2008 by blimpseeker]

reply to post by blimpseeker


Ive read some stupid crap today, this takes it though..

wow...golly gee...do you think it might be time for them to uh...move to a different city?

Ignorant quote numba one. Move to a new city. No jobs here, lets all just become professional migrant workers.

maybe log on to monster.com and uh...maybe find a job in another town?

Find a new job? .. After 15k a year for 4 years on education to get a BSN in Nursing ...

Get a job at McDonalds.

WTF is all I can ask you.

obama forbid they MAY have to move to find work...

Some will. I think you miss the entire picture though...

freaking generation exxers...

Generation Y actually.

Trolls..

Light:

Again, this is not what the data show. It is also not what I have seen. I know people who graduated from college with their BSN (and this was a low, low ranked college) this year and they had multiple job offers for outrageous amount of money. And this was without connections, and again, from low ranked schools.

It depends where your at of course.

But the numbers say jobs are falling, inflation is rising..... so you can't pedal this bs about jobs jobs everywhere jobs for all .....

All I can say is, re-read every thread from last May ...

So far us Doom and Gloomer Economic pundants have all been right.

reply to post by Rockpuck


Rockpuck, aren't we being masons supposed to all agree - how else can we accomplish our plot of world domination? YOUR NOT GOING WITH THE PROGRAM!

As you say, employment markets vary. Even in the "best of times" certain markets will be saturated for certain professions - I do not think the data show that this saturation is dependent upon prevailing market conditions for nursing jobs. Especially because medical jobs will grow independent of such conditions due to the fact that medical help is always needed. The demand is inelastic.

I just plugged in the historical data for GDP as a independent variable and the nursing salaries (proxy for demand) as the dependent and didn't get any sort of correlation or a statistically significant R squared (sad that I do this, but I was bored). While obviously thats a simple model, if the nursing demand was subject to prevailing economic conditions it is most likely to show up as statistically significant in a simple regression without any controlling variables. I used real and not nominal numbers, so inflation isn't a factor.

The numbers are not what the doom and gloomers would like us to think. GDP is growing adjusted for inflation, unemployment has gone up but is still low - people cannot blame their inability to get a job on the economy and be accurate (yet). Doom and gloomers have actually NOT been correct historically - if they were, we would have seen negative GDP for the last quarter of 2007 and the first quarter of 2008. But that won't stop the media from spinning the doom and gloom.

As I said, I do not doubt many ATS members are being truthful. Misery lovely company, and people love talking about how bad they have it - especially on a site that is enthralled with populist propaganda. But ATS is not a sample which is statistically generalizable to the population.

[edit on 7-6-2008 by ALightinDarkness]

wow...golly gee...do you think it might be time for them to uh...move to a different city? maybe log on to monster.com and uh...maybe find a job in another town?

This is the most ignorant suggestion I have ever heard.


reply to


post by blimpseeker


What a cynical heartless bi**h you must be.( At least that is the impression you are giving here) There are a lot of reasons people don't just up and move, valid reasons, not because they are lazy or don't want to. You sound like somebody who has all they need and no compassion whatsoever for anyone who is not in what ever situation you claim to be in. It is not as easy as pick the phone up and move, monster.com and move, ect., unless you have the money to do something like that, the education, no ties to keep you to the city you currently live in, those ties could be anything from a dying relative to emotional attachment to family that keeps one in there hometown. What the hell do you think is wrong with someone's OWN hometown being the place it used to be before NAFTA, before Bush, before all the jobs moved away? So is everyone in the country to move to some magical place of jobs and forget their families and lifetime friends , to make a living? And will that place hold jobs for all of America that is in a bind? Everyone moving is not the solution, we should be able to live in our own cities and work, we shouldn't have to leave behind our loved ones to earn a living. Money is never more important than your roots, your family, I would rather eat dirt and work in a conveince store than to move to say, Califonia or New York, Chicago, or any number of f'up cities that pay more than here. You have completely lost sight of why work is important, it is to take care of your family, to spend time with your family but be able to feed them, nurture them, and make memories. I really doubt that you will understand what I am saying, I believe your heart to be frigid, you are just about the money, period. You think that is what is the most important thing to everyone. It isn't. Try compassion sometime.

[edit on 8-6-2008 by space cadet]

reply to post by space cadet

"Losers will always make up excuses for their failure."
"You must do your damdest and win."
George S. Patton

the point i am trying to get across to you is. SURVIVE.
at whatever the cost.
so you have to move away from the place where you grew up? too bad! you/your family needs to eat. your kids deserve better, it is your job to provide it no excuses.


[edit on 8-6-2008 by blimpseeker]

reply to post by ALightinDarkness

Rockpuck, aren't we being masons supposed to all agree - how else can we accomplish our plot of world domination? YOUR NOT GOING WITH THE PROGRAM!

Ah crap .. don't go reporting me to the Grand Lodge of all Grand Lodges! .. You know what they do to rouge Masons...

As you say, employment markets vary. Even in the "best of times" certain markets will be saturated for certain professions - I do not think the data show that this saturation is dependent upon prevailing market conditions for nursing jobs. Especially because medical jobs will grow independent of such conditions due to the fact that medical help is always needed. The demand is inelastic.

Well ya.. during the increase of the economy from 2002-2007 after we got out of the recession, some places like the entire West Coast, the Southern East Coast and Arizona where booming.. they drove the markets. At the same time the Midwest where I live never even got out of the last recession and they are telling us we are going into a new one lol.. hell .. look at Michigan only a 4 hr drive from where I live.. It is kind of sad that their industries left and now (if you live within 3 states of Michigan you will know what I mean) they spend their money on radio and TV advertising trying to get people to take their vacation to that polluted lake of theirs. I don't think Tourism will save Michigan.

There has always been a shortage of Medical professionals.. the reason so many are out of work now is two fold. One, because the demand was so great more people majored in Nursing, then there was a financial cutback and the hospitals are reducing their maximum needed nurses.

Your right though, we could just move to a new state. Course, I would have to pack my business up and move it to.. tedious paper work and so forth..

if the nursing demand was subject to prevailing economic conditions it is most likely to show up as statistically significant in a simple regression without any controlling variables. I used real and not nominal numbers, so inflation isn't a factor.

It's not so much Dependant on the economy.. in fact no one I talk to can understand why it's happening..

The only thing I can relate it to is expansion work on all the hospitals around here (they are building new ones all over the place, but are not hiring any one new, only dispersing preexisting employees) need funding from the cities they build in. Well how does a city fund work like this?

Municipal bonds.

Since no one in their right mind will buy one of those now, the funding comes out of either a fund or out of some other form of debt. Trimming jobs is an easy way to save money.

oom and gloomers have actually NOT been correct historically - if they were, we would have seen negative GDP for the last quarter of 2007

Well, here on ATS the picture we described a while ago is.. very well near what it is now.

Also many financial institutions are saying that yes, it is possible to have a recession without a negative GDP. As time moves on, some of our descriptions need changes and updates.. in our current age the GDP no longer reflects the individual.

As I said, I do not doubt many ATS members are being truthful. Misery lovely company, and people love talking about how bad they have it - especially on a site that is enthralled with populist propaganda. But ATS is not a sample which is statistically generalizable to the population.

I own my own business, my income is going straight up .. Just bought me my first ever brand new car, I am planning a vacation or two ..

But everyone around me is stagnet, and being overcome slowly but surely by their debts and a stagnet economy. While I agree most people get themselves into the situations their in, it's still troubling to watch from the outside in. It's an economic cycle, our last recession was in 2001, it's now 2008 and we are due for another down turn.

I think the next big hit to the market will be the Credit Card Bubble bursting ....

I do wonder what the banks will do in a year or two when most of the population doesn't have good enough credit to buy with debt.....

space cadet

It's a troll... Don't feed, poke, prod or antagonize the troll...

Otherwise you'll get comments like....

so you have to move away from the place where you grew up? too bad! you/your family needs to eat.

reply to post by Rockpuck


Hospitals are not usually paid for with municipal bonds, although this varies on jurisdiction. In North Carolina its a county level function and generally the cost is paid in large part by the state, and somewhat by the county.

If your in a jurisdiction where the cities are paying for them..city municipal bonds remain perfectly safe investments - one of the safest, actually. Of all the cities that used them, only a handful have signaled things may not be going as well as planned, and only one that I can think of has actually declared bankruptcy. However, even if the city declares bankruptcy, municipal bonds are the first obligation that must be paid out of the general fund by law and is thus not impacted by such declarations - the only way bond holders could never get paid is if literally all the property tax holders moved out and there was no property tax to collect. And if that is the case, paying bond holders is the least of our worries.

As you know I have worked with local governments quite a bit in the past...and let me just say, there is no shortage of institutional investors who are more than willing to buy bonds from most cities. In fact, it really hasn't impacted bond sales at all. The type of investor that follows the MSNBC/CNBC investor crowd and thrives on economic hysteria doesn't make up a large portion of bond sales. They are perpetually switching between "economic boon" high tech stocks and "economic doom" oil and gold, as the media instructs them - municipal bonds don't fit well at the extreme of either.

I have looked at past economic threads on here, and people are just generally beating the doom and gloom drums about the end being nigh and the America empire falling. This really isn't being correct - but ATS users will buy into that sort of populist propaganda regardless of reality because it is what many of them want to believe.

It is interesting that now we are changing the definition of recession. When things aren't as bad as the media would like, we simply change the definition of bad. GDP was never meant to reflect the individual, because the individual means nothing in terms of measuring the overall economy. If we left up to the individual, we'd be in a recession forever because people always believe they have it bad.

As you said, I believe this is a cycle - and much like 2001, it has been heralded by legions of soothsayers that were predicting the end of the world as we know it and utter economic doom. Around me, everyone is doing fine...and those who actually lived through the depression think the doom and gloomers are absolutely nuts. And since those who lived through the great depression are very conservative and the most likely to predict doom and stock up their bunkers, I take that as a very good signal.

[edit on 8-6-2008 by ALightinDarkness]

reply to post by blimpseeker

the point i am trying to get across to you is. SURVIVE.

First of all let me point out that I do not consider myself a failure. Second I would like to point out that I AM surviving. You should never assume someone is not doing all they can for their children just because they are not wealthy, but for the record I don't have any children so that little quip you said is moot. I am not trying to stay in the town I grew up in, that is in another state, I am trying to stay in the town where I settled because I like it here. So, you didn't answer the questions blimplady, all you did was rant some and show that you really don't don't have any compassion for the low income or disadvanted. The main question is what makes moving to another state or area the only answer, and what about those who cannot move? Do you consider someone staying somewhere to tend to a dying family member to be a loser?

I know several people in construction industry as well as suppliers of building materials and work has pretty much stopped,plus I see all these small buisnesses going broke,so yes there is a recession no way around it,don't believe everything you read in the newspaper or watching Fox news

reply to post by Oldtimer2


Construction cannot explode indefinitely.. there must be a cap..

Small business though ARE hurting.. that's a fact, everywhere. They may not all be going broke, I know people who's are booming. Hell, mine is booming. But I also know those who are being effected by gas prices .. they all own restaurants actually.. If people spend an extra $200-250 in gas a month then what they used to, and an additional $100 more on their grocery bill .. well that comes out of entertainment like... restaurants.

Originally posted by Rockpuck. If people spend an extra $200-250 in gas a month then what they used to, and an additional $100 more on their grocery bill .. well that comes out of entertainment like... restaurants.

Well, actually most businesses that depend on the middleclass having a little discretionary income.....
as in my case, Art gallery, guide service, and small time manufacturing.
All my contemporaries in the tourist business are hurting because no one can afford to drive even for a short vacation. Even the Republican/conservatives among them are now seeing that this administration has declared war on the middle class and they are pissed.
And are considering a "change" and McSame aint it.


[edit on 10-6-2008 by whaaa]

reply to post by whaaa


I agree 100% .. I am going to Myrtle Beach this summer and I am putting aside $400 for gas. I will still have enough for the snorkeling, boating, jet skies and fishing trips. Maybe a round of golf.

But I also have no mortgage, and very limited credit debt.....

I think the biggest problem people have, is gas prices going up, discretionary income dropping and interest on credit cards rising. Also all those people CHARGING gas.... god, what effin morons.. that's one way to bury your self alive.....

It's not that people have no money, but all their money goes to pay for the money they already spent but didn't have!

I was reading this thread and was wondering how you all saw the last 2-3 months pan out with the current unemployment numbers released this month. I could not help noticing that they touted the numbers as a "green shoot" (I say the green on the edges is mold) and yet . . . the numbers were totally manipulated. Over the last three months they reclassified 2.1 million workers out of the totals because they “gave up looking for work.” No jobs to be found, maybe lost their homes, are living in a tent. How thick is your jobs section on Sunday? Ours is down to a single sheet of paper in a city of one million.


Dollars and sense

On the minus side, the reversal in the unemployment rate was ultimately dependent on the fact that some 422,000 people were taken out of the labor force altogether (many were classified as discouraged workers who, having become jobless, and no longer looking for work--out of frustration with dwindling job vacancies--are not considered part of the labor force by government statisticians). As The Financial Times' Edward Luce noted, if these people had remained in the labor force, the unemployment rate would have hit 9.7%, which was about the level foreseen by many economists. In one of the most forbidding sentences I have read in the press for some time, Luce then attempted to describe the significance of this development: "However, the drop in labor force numbers in July mirrors a rise in the number of people looking for work earlier in the year, which then exaggerated the rise in unemployment, which leapt by more than 500,000 in each of the months between February and May." Ouch.

reply to post by blimpseeker


Maybe california is the place to be eh?
Check out where they are at today.

Fourth largest employer in CA (WSJ)

In your defense the 5% then might have been no big deal in your historic view. What do you think of today’s 9.7% with skewed numbers and an off the book est. of 15% by some. In your opinion, is this still a case of, "Doom & Gloom" BS?

Or do you now see those other ATM members had VERY valid concerns a few months back when the writing was on the wall?