Talk Elections

The recession may end towards the end of this year, but we all know that unemployment is a lagging indicator and will get worse before it gets better, reaching its peak sometime next year. 

I am asking what do you think that peak will be.

Personally, I would not be surprised if it hits between 12 to 13% before it will all be finally over. 

Mid-tens by August, then starts to recede ...

Psychologically, the key number if 10.8%.

If the unemployment rate exceeds that, all the "happy talk" in the world won't work.

Probably 20-25% by 2011. This country has a negligible amount of manufacturing. Where are all these jobs going to be created?? And what kind of jobs will they be?

We need to start offing the Baby Boomers now before it is too late!

Well, they'll be very poorly paid whatever kind of job they are - that is the nature of economic 'globalization'.

It wont go over 10%.

why do you say that?

Not enough scope for it to get much worse.

Probably 12%. Things are still getting worse.

Management, finance, government, medical services, salesmen, engineers, IT jobs like programming, Marketing, just to name a few.

Just the same Job creators we have seen over the past 10 years. Though finance will probably be a the bottom of the pack. I agree about management being on there though(full Disclosure: I plan to major in Business Management). With medical services you might as well put pharmacuticals and Health Insurers, b/c if they are on board with Obama's Health Care reform you can bet they are going to get something out of it. Also the Energy Sector(especially renewables but also conventional domestic sources).


I say the max peak is 12.5%, and the minimum peak is about 10.7%.

Such a narrow scope of jobs won't be enough to put all the unemployed back to work. And for a management job you have to have people to manage, obviously.

No higher than 11%.

I doubt that official unemployment will surge much further than 10%.

Meanwhile, I expect increasing divergence between official and unofficial unemployment, with official worsening mildly and unofficial worsening significantly.

More jobs lost in June than expected; official unemployment rate rises to 9.5%, highest since 1983. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/03/business/economy/03jobs.html?_r=1&hp)

I can't say jmfcst's forecast of a recovery in the third quarter (or the early part of the fourth) is looking too good...  :P

because history shows that the tail wags the dog?

To say this employment report was bad is an understatement.

B/D model "created 185K" of jobs.  About 330K dropped off the numbers entirely (which is why the employment percentage didn't jump as much).  Looking at the Rust Belt, it's pretty obvious that the eventual mass auto layoffs ain't here yet.

To those who think otherwise, when your economy is (or was) 70% consumer spending and wages keeping declining along with bank's cutting consumer credit, what do you think will happen?

Wage and salary declines are also accelerating, according to an examination of income tax deposits. One wonders how long labor conditions can remain in free-fall given that consumer spending has stabilized now for 6 full months. At some point, one imagines, there must be finally enough slack in the labor market that it begins to stabilize.

When the July numbers come out in another month, there will be another shoe dropping in the unemployment numbers, i.e. non-federal government employees.  Most state and local governments operate on a fiscal year starting on July 1st, and most require a balanced budget.  Additionally, taxpayers have made it pretty clear that they don't want increased taxes, so, there will be layoffs in the local/state goverments around the country.

13%

If the national official unemployment rate hits 10.9%, that will be higher than at any time since world war 2!

Something else to consider.

If consumers decide to be frugal in the upcoming Christmas season (which I expect), then many retailers, suppliers and some manufacturers will be going bankrupt in January of next year.

11% then it will start heading down.

probably 18 to 20 percent by the end of obamas term

LOL, you make me laugh.

At least OVER 9000! percent and rising! Mothers will eat their babies!
Just kidding, I think it'll probably most likely be 11%,

I can't imagine it getting worse than WW2.......

Uh, please reread, as I explicity was noting the unemployment rate.

Also, the unemployment rate from 1942 throught the first half of 1945 was minimal.

What we need is a good old-fashioned war. If the government isn't go to pay people to dig holes in the ground, then they might as well pay them to make bullets and use those bullets to kill foreigners.

Bingo. Preferably the foreigners be Muslims.

Starting with those Muslims already in the US?

Holy sh**t some of you are optimistic.  Are you batsh**t insane or just hopelessly desperate?

I don't think I can give a number to how high it will go, but the U-3 will exceed 15% within the next 2 years, and I suspect it will exceed 20% at some point.  And that is the U-3.  What do you think the U-6 and the REAL rate will be, the rate that the government isn't fiddling with?

This is going to be so WONDERFUL.  It is hard not to sit and laugh at the misery that is coming.

13%

You've got to remember that the majority of posters on this Forum (at this time) are Obamanoids who believe some of the most preposterous things.

When I noted (On November 25, 2008) that the unemployment rate would reach or exceed 7.6% when the February unemployment numbers were posted, they scoffed.

I don't think (hope) things are going to get quite as bad as you seem to believe, but, believe we are facing the worst economic calamity since the Great Depression!

I voted for Obama, and if you look at my posts, you'll see that I have had a healthy dose of pessimism about the state of economy, so don't paint us all with such a broad brush. Yes, this is certainly the worst recession since the Great Depression, and hopefully it doesn't get significantly worse.

Anyways, I was kind of expecting the economy to start to blow up during Bush's 2nd term.

Jfern,

I want to give you credit for NOT being an Obamanoid.

However, I believe you will admit that there are a number of them on this forum.

With the underemployed the actual rate is around 16.9%. Change you can believe in!

Not giving him much time, eh?  The stimulus money has barely been spent.  But you're right, it's bad.

Hey, welcome back!  Are you making $400,000/year in Dubai or whatever it was yet?


It is bad, but it has nothing to do with Obama.  (by that I mean he in no way had anything to do with the creation of the problem, nor can he solve it, but certainly it may destroy him).

Another "shoe" will be dropping in the employment picture on July 24th, when the minimum wage increases to $7.25 an hour.  Here's an excerpt from a Wall Street Journal article:

"The impact of the higher minimum wage will resonate even beyond that group of earners and industries. Economists say there are 2.8 million workers earning between the current federal minimum wage of $6.55 an hour and the new minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, which takes effect on July 24 and has had no signs of delay from legislators. But some estimates figure an additional seven million workers are affected because their wages are tied to the minimum and will go up accordingly.

Ryan Arfmann, who owns a Jamba Juice franchise in Idaho Falls, Idaho, is a case in point. He said he will have to boost pay to all of his 18 workers. The ones making less than $7.25 an hour will be raised to the new rate. But he said he will have to give raises to those currently earning more than $7.25 an hour because they have more experience.

As a result, he plans to cut hours for his part-time workers. "I'll definitely have to run a tighter shift each day and watch numbers like never before," said Mr. Arfmann, who estimates his business is down between 3% and 4% this year."

 

haha, the minimum wage boogeyman again!

Do you think companies just sit back and lose money and nothing happens?

If you think McDonalds and WalMart are going to lose money by paying $7 something instead of $5 something I would say you're being a bit unrealistic, Gustaf.

x 100,000 or more.

Those particular franchises will likely see their sales increase as well as they extensively serve the minimum wage crowd. The smoothie place probably not so much.

Yeah, lets give them more money so they can waste it faster.

I believe the fancy term is boosting consumer spending.

Stimulus money?  What stimulus money?  You mean the funds that are sitting on financial institutions' balance sheets?  That is supposed to somehow stimulate the economy?  How?

For every dollar in credit retired (paid off), $100 is removed form the money supply.  An economy that was driven by credit will not recover no matter how much you money you throw at it, because consumers have turned into savers and the savers are not actually saving, but retiring debt and shrinking the money supply.

We are talking a permanent 20% reduction of the GDP that is heading this way.

Ok, let's back up. Jim has 2 dollars. Jim then has to give those 2 dollars to Bob.

Did Jim just lose money.

I say yes.

I mean, I know mathematics is not your strong suit, but seriously. Thinking that you don't lose money when you, for lack of a better expression, lose money is thick-headed stupidity even by your standards.

Obviously by 'lose money' I meant - enter into a state of unprofitability.  Please strive, in future, Gustaf, to conduct yourself more like a young gentleman and avoid ad hominem attack.

No need to pretend that you are a gentleman. You routinely treat other people with ridicule and contempt and deride those who disagree with you. I don't show respect for those who treat others that way.

So, besides the strange idea that an extra cost of roughly 4 000$ per employee annually couldn't possible drive a company to unprofitableness, there is a fundamental error in your reasoning.

See, I never mentioned profitability. I merely stated that they would lose money, which you now seem to also agree to. Most companies try and maximize their profits. If the situation changes resulting in a loss of money they are likely to adapt. If it suddenly costs them more to hire people they will hire less. If they could make money on paying those kinds of wages they would have hired more people before the raise.

On McDonald's and profitability:

In 2007, they had 400,000 employees, the great majority of whom we can assume make minimum wage. They made 2.3 billion in profit in 2007. So they could spend about $5,000 more per employee per year before they have $0 in profit. Of course, not all their employees make minimum wage, so maybe if you just distributed the profits among the minimum wage earners, it'd be an extra $6,000 or $7,000 a year. Not very much as far as an hourly raise goes.

At that point they'd have to start charging more for all their stuff, and if the price of McDonald's appreciated by any significant degree, who'd even keep buying the stuff? Already a Big Mac is like $4 on its own wheras a real burger can be had for like $6, so they're only surviving by being ultra convenient and ultra cheap.

11 or 12% by next summer and then it will go down and we will be in full recovery by the 2 year anniversary of the meltdown of 08.

Which has basically been the only thing holding up the economy for quite a long time.

Precisely, Gustaf!  So why shouldn't people working at McDonalds and Walmart try to do that too?

That's not relevant. They already are, through negotiations over payment contracts. But nice way of trying to wriggle your way out of being proven wrong.

The point is that when the company has re-adapted to maximize its profits it is not given that all its employees will have benefited. What is likely to occur is that the least productive of them get fired while the remaining can cash in the higher wage. Thus, we see an increased inequality.

Anyway, Jacobtm, McDonald's is an extremely successful company. Companies go bankrupt every day, so there are plenty teetering on the edge. Some of those may keel over from an increase in the minimum wage, but I never meant that one of the world's largest most successful corporations would.

However, as I said, unprofitability is not the point. Stock-owners expect a decent return on their investment, otherwise they go somewhere else. Losing money by itself will lead to changes, regardless of at what level it is.

I would be SHOCKED to find out more than half of McD's employees make minimum wage.  Hell, I'd be surprised if it was more than a quarter.  My guess would be around 8% and none of those would be making minimum wage at McDonalds a year from now unless they are dumber than the functionally retarded.  I would be interested in seeing some numbers on this.

Which is why I have always advocated a generous dole from which the privileged (employers) must tempt workers with high pay, Gustaf.  I believe that is a better method of moving towards privilege reduction than a simple minimum wage.

So, I take it that you are admitting that I was right and you wrong. Why couldn't you do it openly and honestly to begin with instead of wriggling around and throwing away smart-ass remarks?

What, you are saying that you were right in claiming that $7/hour is more than $5/hour?  Sure, but I think we all knew that, Gustaf.

You didn't seem to. You claimed that one does not lose money through paying more wages. Anyway, what I claimed more specifically was that it is not given that a higher minimum wage will benefit workers since companies are not likely to sit back and accept the loss. Then you claimed that the losses did not exist. I showed that they did and you then claimed they weren't very big. I then explained why that did not matter.

Finally, you replied "that's why I don't think a minimum wage is such a good idea" to paraphrase slightly. Which seems like a pretty clear admission that I was right. I am wondering why you didn't accept, what I agree was, a fairly obvious statement immediately instead of claiming that companies don't lose money by paying higher wages. 

My apologies.  As I have stated repeatedly, I was referring to 'loss' as in 'going out of business'.  I don't know how many times I have to restate this, but I do apologize that we were referring to different things.

You see, I always look at economic arrangements as hierarchies, not as absolute 'amounts'.  Which is why I always think that the upper class seems a bit nit-picky when it disputes the difference between $5/hour for its serfs and $7/hour.  The way I look at it, they are still clearly on top, riding around on the fellow, and the amount is pretty irrelevant to the position in the hierarchy.

Now you are applying your personal, subjective moralistic outlook. I'm not really interested in that. I was merely pointing out that there is nothing stopping employers from firing people in order to maximize their own profit. You seem to be unable to separate that factual observation of what is with your personal feelings as to how it should be.

Btw, do you pay your hookers minimum wage? Or are you too busy being on top?

There is nothing moralistic or subjective about the analysis that the owner is above the worker in a hierarchy.  This is fairly demonstrable in various ways - the direction in which commands pass, the relative power over this or that, punishments, rewards, etc.


Yes, this is a political reality, Gustaf.  It is completely arbitrary that we arrange things in this way.  We all know that the owners have all the power.  I merely object to it as policy.  You seem to pretend that it is some sort of rational inevitability. 

Minimum wage is a policy which can only be very useful or effective when combined with other measures.  To say 'well the owners can just utilize their powers and destroy workers in return' if we implement the minimum wage does not, to me, suggest that we should just give up and acquiesce, but that we must remove that power from the owners (after all our State gives it to them in the first place).


Hookers in Thailand make between $10 and $60 per hour (more or less than that range being a rarity), and certainly the majority closer to $15 than $60.  And of course they don't provide 40 hours of service per week, so much of their time is spent waiting.  But as for hours worked, $15/hour is a reasonable guess.

This is, as you can imagine, a very comfortable living in a country where meals are $1-2 and apartments $70-100/month.  The great majority of prostitutes have a very easy life compared to people who work at regular jobs - at least until they're 35 or so, when marketability becomes slightly impaired.  But its a great life up until that age.

Most of my service providers make nearly what I make, and some make more.

Your assessment that people are nit-picky and immoral when they want to make more money was a subjective political opinion. At least, you finally admitted that I was correct on all my factual statement. The next time I hope you can think your way into admitting this immediately instead of feeling the urge to disagree with my facts just because you don't like them.

Anyway, these must be foreigner-only prices, correct? Since I assume Thais would be unable to pay these kinds of prices.

()

Thailand has an enormous middle class, Gustaf.  And anyway even working class Thais could afford a $15 hooker visit say once a month.

I suppose many people such as yourself are a bit out of date or confused about the standard of living in developing countries.  This one is not so poor at all.

Since you have argued innumerable times that the American workers are poor, how do you reconcile that with the idea that Thai workers are well-off?

So, I'm going to be rude again  and include pesky little facts in my post: US GDP per capita, PPP, so as to include reference to the prices in the country is roughly 47 000 USD, which is about 6th to 8th in the world. Thailand is about 8 000. So America is about 6 times as rich. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita)

Now, THailand's gross natioal income in nominal terms is about 3 400 USD. Which means that the average Thai has about 300 USD a month to spend (or 10 USD a day). So, either the poorest, cheapest street-hookers are 10 times richer than the average Thai or you're talking nonsense. Or they work only 1 hour per day. All of them.

Finally, as regards the middle-class, the United States has a Gini coefficient of roughly 40-45, Thailand has 42. So they have equally equal income distribution. The richest 20% in Thailand has 7.7as much money as the poorest 20%, compared to 8.4 for the US. So income is spread evenly if you compare the two, it is merely that the US is much, much richer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality)

But, of course, being an owner in Thailand is nice, I can understand that. Exploiting the poor while telling yourself they acually have it pretty good sure feels nice, doesn't it?

I never said 'well off', I said that they could afford a $15 hooker visit once a month.


Sounds very familiar, considering I knew all that before.  And considering that a decent hooker back home, if you can find one, is probably 6 times as expensive as here, it all makes a good deal of sense, doesn't it? ($15 times 9 = $90; it would probably be more like 120-150)


The cheapest, realistically, that any Thai in Bangkok can get laid would be 500 baht, and upcountry 300 would be the cheapest.  But this is the absolute bottom.  Doubling those prices is closer to commonplace. 

However, you have to keep in mind that in most venues where the girl is not freelancing, she must split her fare 50/50 with the management.  So, say she does 3 customers per day, 400 baht per time, and keeps half, that leaves her with 600 baht per day, or about $18.  Now, this is extremely low end, but keep in mind that hookers almost always make more than run-of-the mill working people - its the main attraction of the job. 

Also keep in mind that the official figures probably drastically understate real GDP per capita for Thais, simply because government tracking of economic activity is not that great, and there is a large black or simply undocumented economy.  So figure +20-30% on top of that nominal per capita GDP figure.


I never said 'the poor' have it pretty good, I made the observation that prostitution is a relatively lucrative field for poors compared to other fields available to them.  Basically I only deal with middle class people, purveyers of food (who are roughly middle class in income if not status), and prostitutes.  I tend to go for the middle-market type of working girl so she makes basically the same as a middle class bureaucrat.  I don't make any value judgements about this, just observation.

Come check them out in person Gustaf - they'll untwist your panties for you.

Ok, wait, wait, wait.

Let me get some fact straight here:

1. You think workers are better off in the United States than in Thailand? Is that on the record?

2. Hookers have to give HALF the money to the owner? Sounds like they are being used and exploited to me. (and I'm going to save you the embarassement of saying "why, Gustaf, you silly Swede, half is a lot more than the slaves under American capitalism can expect" and tell you right now that labour providers typically recieve about two-thirds of GDP in developed countries, with capital owners getting roughly a third). Besides, I did a little internet research and it seems as if half is the best they can hope for.

3. So, 18 dollars a day. That equals about $2 an hour then. Let's multiply that by 6 to account for price level differences compared to the US and then tell me again what people can be expected to live on, or however your tirade usually goes. And, of course, I'm letting the assumption of the number of customers here go. I suspect, from the research I did, that it is difficult for the higher-priced girls catering to foreigners to have more than one customer a night. And again, given my general experiences with tourist countries, prices are usually significantly lower for the domestic market. Most internet stories I come across seem to have 500 to 1000 baht as the price range. But that is for Swedish 50-year olds going to bars specifically catering to them. I'm pretty sure Thais buy their prostitutes much, much cheaper.

4. Oh, I'm sure you avoid the poor as much as you can. Why would you mingle with the poor and downtrodden? Your warm heart could get seriously hurt by that, after all, given how much it already bleeds for the American workers.

5. And you talk about the attraction of the job - do you mean to imply that these Thai prostitutes are free agents following their ultimate goal in life, as opposed to the rest of us deluded drones working in the West?

dude, what are doing?  the only serious conversation you can have with him is about car engines.  you should know that

I don't like intellectual dishonesty and general hypocrisy, so sometimes I expose it a little bit. I suspect he will give up soon and make some kind of sweeping insult to end the discussion and escape with a little dignity, so it won't last much longer. I do most of this stuff while being bored at work, to be honest.

huh?  he is dishonest and admits to being dishonest.  where's the hypocrisy?

you both should stop replying.

let's have peace

Alex would consider this just another sign of my being bipolar

;)

No, at least I haven't seen him admit to it. If he does, I will let it go.

Why do you care so much?

Because the most fundamental prerequisite for any sort of progress is clear thinking. If contradictions are allowed, it is impossible to have meaningful discussions.

Besides, it is the only sort of thing really worth my while to discuss. If someone says, "freedom is better than equality" and someone else says "no, equality is better than freedom" it doesn't usually lead anywhere. Just stating contrarian value judgements is a dead-end, since you are usually unable to convince anyone. Sure, it may be important for politicians to do it, but why would I waste my time preaching my opinions to random people on the internet?

Furthermore, why would I not care about this? BRTD cares about suburbs, Phnrocket about boobs, Jmfcst about the Bible, Stark about Jews, CarlHayden about Mexicans, etc...what makes inconsistency and dishonesty less worthwhile than the majority of subjects discussed here?

I try to do a little work by fighting stupidity. Hopefully, something good eventually comes out of that.

Yes, they have more money in toto, certainly.  I have never claimed otherwise.


Yeah, 1/2, 1/3, whatever.  I'm sure that there are plenty of hookers in Thailand who only pay 1/3 to the owner.  There are those - freelancers - who seem to get away with paying nothing.  Most girls working in bars which cater to foreigners tend to make a bigger percentage - probably more like 70%.  When I mentioned 50/50 I was referring to the lower end Thai venues - basically describing a 'worst case scenario'.


Some thais do, but middle class ones typically spend more than Swedes or Americans on holiday.  Thai men are very picky.  But, as you say, 500-1000 back (say 15-30 dollars) is normal in cheap beach towns, and double that is the norm in expensive bangkok.  High end Thai venues will be 1,500-2,500 per 1.5 hour session, with a very few in the 2,500-5,000 baht range who have to be 'model quality'.  Basic Thai brothels and so forth will be around 500 or so.

As you said, the foreigner serving girls usually get only a couple per day, while those in thai venues usually get several, and the lower down the rungs, they more they get.


No, its just like any other job, Gustaf.  Perhaps with a little more social stigma and a big of a pay bonus as a result, but basically just like any other job.

So, they too are being exploited by their owners, living as miserable wretches under the capitalist boot, unable to do what they really want with their lives?

Obviously.  Only owners have power, Gustaf, as you well know.  However, being a cute young girl does have some advantages, particularly in an aging society like Thailand (or the US, or most parts of the world).

And do you feel any moral qualms about exploting them, being the owner of the boot that presses them into the mud, so to speak?

Gustaf, you don't seem to know me very well after all these years.  I have always poo-pooed the idea of objective morality.  I never have any moral qualms.

So, you do not then, I trust, have any objections to other people exploiting the poor? This compassionate warm heart that you sometimes refer to is just pretending, I gather?

The objection is a political one and to some extent an intellectual one, Gustaf, not a moral one.  I don't think of it as 'wrong' that the rich eat the poor, but I just find it somewhat dubious that the poor don't seem to mind.  It seems they may be taken in by some deceptions, or in any case their political actions do not seem to serve their own interests.