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Originally Posted by dippin
Ace,
I think you are severely mistaken in your interpretation of the economic data.
A 7% unemployment rate does not mean that 93% of the workers are employed. It means that 93% of the population who is economically active is employed. People who have not sought work in the reference period are not considered unemployed, and those who have worked 15 hours in exchange for money are considered employed, so 7% is not a small number necessarily.
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I think most recognize the the problems with the published unemployment rate. I agree, the point I was making was being made overly simplistic, but my intent was to illustrate one way or the other there are those who are legitimately unemployed, and there are those who are employed. I don't know if the exact ratio is 93 employed to 7 unemployed due to the problems with the published measurement - but there is some actual ratio and I think the ratio is weaker than it has been, trending in the wrong direction but not near crisis level.
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And industrial production figures are very poor indicators of economic performance. Industry makes up under 1/5 of the US economy, with almost 80% coming from services.
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There are many economic indicators, some will start to turn positive before the economy technically recovers. Understanding what these indicators tell us about more general trends is a work in progress. If I perfect it, I would definitely be in a higher tax bracket and at some point I will publish my work in a book. I will give a shout-out to TFP so you will know its me.
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The idea that everything will be all right if we are only more optimistic about it is nonsense.
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Why take my point out of context? I never wrote "everything will be all right if we are only ,,,", I did say it has an impact. I think our economy would be subject to normal business cycles regardless of what we try to do to stop them. I think it is becoming increasingly clear that the Obama administration is over-promising and is basically clueless regarding the long term impact of their efforts to manage the economy through spending and bailouts.
---------- Post added at 06:16 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:07 PM ----------
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Originally Posted by roachboy
the unemployment numbers count only people unemployed for less than 6 months.
that's how the united states manages structural unemployment, by not counting it.
reports emanating from the fed, for example, particularly on the revised periodicity that bernake announced the other night, are as much advertisng materials as anything else---their primary function is to provide a sense of directedness by imposing a sense of directedness as a function of data-framing.
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That is one reason to look at actual employment numbers and the trends. The trends are generally up.
Here is a link to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
---------- Post added at 06:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:16 PM ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by guyy
Worked for Hoover, right Ace?
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FDR was the President during the majority of the Depression. His spending either was not effective or it took about a decade along with a world war to actually get us out of the depression. If that is the Obama plan...
