Unemployment shoots up!

[opebo]

In another sign that the US economy's worst days lay ahead, unemployment shot up to 5.5% from 5%.

Of course remember to take these figures with a grain of salt as they probably underestimate the 'real' rate of unemployment by about half.

[Albus Dumbledore]

Do you by any chance write for Pravda?

[Angel of Death]

The Wall Street Journal, here: not exactly a bastion of anti-capitalist sentiment.

[JSojourner]

The Wall Street Journal, here: not exactly a bastion of anti-capitalist sentiment.

::: resisting the temptation to say something juvenile like... "PWNED" :::

(Because, as I have said, I hate that...)    ;-)

Thanks, Opebo and Angel.  It certainly IS up.  Things are getting really bad for a lot of my friends. They were working good paying jobs with benefits four years ago.  Now, they're juggling Wal-Mart with Burger King just to keep the water on.  And forget health benefits.

[Ban my account ffs!]

The Wall Street Journal, here: not exactly a bastion of anti-capitalist sentiment.

::: resisting the temptation to say something juvenile like... "PWNED" :::

(Because, as I have said, I hate that...)    ;-)

Thanks, Opebo and Angel.  It certainly IS up.  Things are getting really bad for a lot of my friends. They were working good paying jobs with benefits four years ago.  Now, they're juggling Wal-Mart with Burger King just to keep the water on.  And forget health benefits.

Well, maybe they should have thought of that before they went and got themselves laid off.. I mean, God... the corporations decide, we adapt.. it's personal responsibility. 

[Kaine for Senate '18]

Do you by any chance write for Pravda?

Not anymore; he got laid off about 6 months ago.

[Nym90]

Not to mention the rate of "underemployment" as JSojourner pointed out. Folks with college degrees working for minimum wage or only slightly better and thus not able to afford to even pay off their student loans.

[JSojourner]

The Wall Street Journal, here: not exactly a bastion of anti-capitalist sentiment.

::: resisting the temptation to say something juvenile like... "PWNED" :::

(Because, as I have said, I hate that...)    ;-)

Thanks, Opebo and Angel.  It certainly IS up.  Things are getting really bad for a lot of my friends. They were working good paying jobs with benefits four years ago.  Now, they're juggling Wal-Mart with Burger King just to keep the water on.  And forget health benefits.

Well, maybe they should have thought of that before they went and got themselves laid off.. I mean, God... the corporations decide, we adapt.. it's personal responsibility. 

Damn right.  Root, hog or die!  Thus spake Ayn Rand.

[dead0man]

You guys done whacking each other off yet?

[NDN]

In another sign that the US economy's worst days lay ahead, unemployment shot up to 5.5% from 5%.

A .5% increase is not 'shooting up.'

You must be logged in to read this quote.

True.

[opebo]

In another sign that the US economy's worst days lay ahead, unemployment shot up to 5.5% from 5%.

A .5% increase is not 'shooting up.'

Yes, it is.  A one month change of .5% is definitely a dramatic and unusual increase.  If it continued for, say the typical year or two of a recession we'd have a hell of an unemployment rate.

[NDN]

.5% is the most since probably the Reagan administration, but the way you phrased it implies that 5.5% is somehow a high number. It's not, that's still lower than a lot of the 1st world even if the actual number is probably a couple percentage points higher. Basically the reported rate is too low for .5% to really be that scary.

I'm much more concerned about the blatant oil price gouging and the resulting increase in cost of living than the unemployment rate.

[Albus Dumbledore]

Reminder: US unemployment figures(or any economic numbers period) are more unreliable than soviet government 'statistics'. With the soviet union it was The State trying to make everything look like it was going well but with the US it's a bunch of large corporations and the state trying to make things look good. Having multiple sets of statistics, almost all of whom are divorced from reality obviously doesn't help.

[NDN]

Unemployment is mostly distorted because we stop measuring people looking for work after a point. But that's not as big of a deal as underemployment. JS is right there, if you've paid thousands to go to college and you're working a job that anyone with a HS diploma (or less) could do there's a problem.

[Albus Dumbledore]

The US letting the rest of the planet do one way trade wars on us isn't helping either. If there's going to be free trade I say it has to be reciprocal. No letting in large amounts of chinese goods if they won't let us send goods in.

[NDN]

The problem with that is that China basically owns us. If we decide to dump them they could make it so that we had to buy all our goods with tuna or cigarette cartons within a day. It's sort of like economic MAD.

[Albus Dumbledore]

Yes but it'd be worse for them(you think it's bad for us if they did it? China doing that would kill it's reputation and thus desirability for investment), Then again my guess as for what's likely to actually happen as opposed to what I want to see are more of the same continuing but with a slow move away from globalized free trade by the nations of the world due to food/energy/job loss concern("THEY STOLE OUR JORBS" doesn't only play well in Michigan) due to the rise of populists/protectionists.

[NDN]

I don't see it happening, that would be horrible for growth in the long term which the elites would not allow. Also oil production has not seriously declined yet. The high prices we're seeing now are pretty much entirely speculation driven.

[Albus Dumbledore]

You give the elites too much credit. If they were as omniscent and able to crush all resistance to their globalized Agenda protectionists like Lou Dobbs would be entirely out of the political spectrum. Also, you presume no major economic or political disruptions from the high price of oil. If oil is priced out of the price range for third world nations expect largescale chaos. You don't need the oil actually drying up to cause trouble. All you need is high prices lasting a while to affect more unstable nations.

[NDN]

High prices won't last though. Right now oil is trading at nearly $1.40 a barrel, and 60% or more of that is speculation. The price increases can only go on so long before consumers cut back on consumption due to being priced out of the market, OR the government steps in.

[Albus Dumbledore]

Feds stepping in would be terrible given the likely measures(nationalization of oil companies, rationing). Look at how well nationalized oil companies work in the third world for a guide as to what's likely.

[NDN]

They'd probably build more refineries, release some of the reserves, or limit oil futures trading instead. Rationing is unlikely barring another embargo and nationalization isn't happening so long as the oil lobby is around (although it might not be that horrible).

[opebo]

.5% is the most since probably the Reagan administration, but the way you phrased it implies that 5.5% is somehow a high number. It's not, that's still lower than a lot of the 1st world even if the actual number is probably a couple percentage points higher. Basically the reported rate is too low for .5% to really be that scary.

5.5% is a very high number, considering how dishonest the numbers are compared to back before they were falsified by Reagan.  Also keep in mind that in 2008 a 5.5% unemployment rate is more painful simply because what jobs are available pay so little and have no benefits - so even if you somehow manage to get a job, you cannot live upon it.  In, say 1979, jobs were still much more likely to be unionized, they paid a lot more relative to the cost of living, and were much more likely to have health insurance.

In other words in 2008 the appropriate analysis for a working class person to make is that his situation is hopeless.

...Also oil production has not seriously declined yet. The high prices we're seeing now are pretty much entirely speculation driven.

No, production has not declined, but it is not increasing much anymore.  This, given growing demand, is enough - I'd say sans speculation we might be at $100/barrel.  This is still beyond what the US economy can handle without a long-term and consistent decline in working class standards of living (and don't doubt they'll be the ones, as always, to foot the bill).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Of course remember to take these figures with a grain of salt as they probably underestimate the 'real' rate of unemployment by about half.

U.S unemployment statistics are even more of a joke than in most other places as they only really measure the short-term unemployed.

[opebo]

Not that a big spike isn't a bad thing, but 5.5% in not a bad unemployment number at all.  In fact, we've been operating at past full employment for some time, it was bound to happen that we see a rise at some point. 

No, the real unemployment rate is far higher than 5.5%, and the fact that it has looked close to 'full employment' during the late 1990's is just proof of how ridiculously fake the figures are.  Look at it this way - productivity has been going up around 2%-2.5% per year for 15 years now, and wages are FLAT to dcclining.  There is no lack of a reserve army of the unemployed.