Tag Archives | unemployment

Oh, no! Not another conspiracy theory.

By on May 3, 2012 in Economics, General Discussion, Politics

Well, yes; I have another conspiracy theory. It is that those giants of industry who are supporting the Republicans in the coming elections will use their control of major employers to force a basically growing economy into retreat. They can do this through sudden layoffs, inventory reductions, reduction in advertising, shifting operations offshore, constraining resource [...]

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A Simple Email to Another Blogger on the Issues of Today’s Labor Market

By on May 1, 2012 in Economics, General Discussion

Daniel: I believe  you are understanding it and this is what I go round and round with economists such as Thoma and Spencer who believe the free (sigh) market will correct it and itself in the next generation. It will not and this is a global economics war we are in today. Yves Smith understands the [...]

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The psychological impact of GDP rates.

By on April 29, 2012 in Economics, General Discussion

The preliminary GDP numbers are our for first quarter 2012 and the same story we have heard lately is being re-played, personal expenditures are up but government spending is down. The early number for Q1 is 2.2% Now my question is what number do we need to sustain to take away the psychological funk created [...]

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Income inequality: a new look

By on March 7, 2012 in Economics, General Discussion

From an article in The Economist on the sidebar (‘Income Inequality: Growing Apart), there is commentary and a link to new research by Emmanuel Saez): http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/saez-UStopincomes-2010.pdf which gave me some new insights on our current inequality (mostly due not to rentier income as in the Gilded Age but compensation to valued employees as well as [...]

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JOBS!!!

By on February 3, 2012 in Economics, General Discussion

I was pleased to see the economy added 243,000 jobs last month.  I know it’s just one month, but I’m encouraged for three reasons:   1)  This is part of a long run of job creation (which has been in positive territory since October of 2010, and in six figures since September of 2011);   [...]

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A sociological artifact.

By on January 30, 2012 in General Discussion, Human Behavior, Politics

I was reading a piece from a book called New York Stories, which is a collection of essays from New York magazine from the past 40 years. I found this one quite interesting. It deals with rising anger amongst the white working class of New York in 1969, a lot of the points dealt with are regional, [...]

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The problem with productivity gains.

By on January 26, 2012 in Economics, General Discussion

Issues surrounding productivity have come up on occasion in discussions with this group and so I have given it some thought and would like to offer what I think the problem with productivity gains may be. This stuff is purely stream of consciousness type stuff. In economics productivity gains are the goose that lays the [...]

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Why manufacturing has moved abroad.

By on January 26, 2012 in Economics, General Discussion

The New York Times has a very good long-form article about manufacturing moving to China (in particular the iPhone)   http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html?pagewanted=1   It covers a lot of ground and many perspectives, and is well worth the time.  It provided me some perspectives I hadn’t really considered.  Specifically, it discussed the way supply chain conveniences are [...]

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Irony, thy name is Friedman

By on January 26, 2012 in Economics, General Discussion, Human Behavior

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman today has an article today entitled “Average is Over,” which argues that in the 21st century people who want to be employed need to find a way to stand out, because being average just won’t cut it in the era of outsourcing and automtion.  I actually giggled when I [...]

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Solving our unemployment problem

By on January 24, 2012 in Economics, General Discussion

Salon.com has an article that indicts the Republican presidential candidates for having nothing to offer on the unemployment problem:   http://www.salon.com/2012/01/24/the_gops_unemployment_trap/   It is amazing how little Republicans talk about the issue (of the four remaining candidates, only one even mentions it on his website) when you take a look at how historically unusual our [...]

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