FlamingText

banjo
i wandered over here from joshua's pad, feel free to bounce me if you so wish.

i dove in and decided to look at some of these numbers. i started with the unemployment average, which was 5.4% according to the bureau of labor's site, NOT 5.6% like you said, but it looks like we're looking at the same reference…whatever. if you look at this link, you can see the average rate for several years. paying attention to the clinton year's, since you used them as a reference, the average rate during that time is 5.75%, which puts today's number below it, using either 5.4% OR 5.6%.

if you look at civilian labor force participation, here, the numbers are consistently even for the last ten years.

taking into consideration the debate surrounding the payroll vs. household surveys, the employment numbers can be confusing. if the employment average is accurate, and it is below the average for the last 10 years, and you add to it the numbers you have stated for salary levels, which are slopping downward, then to me it seems that we're looking at a more competitve environment. the addition of international employee resources, china, india, etc have pushed the wages down.

as i look back at this data, i get confused. the unemployment average is actually lower today, but you're citing a loss of 1.2m jobs, which would mean that more people are unemployed. how can this data point in opposite directions?

i'm not going to touch the deficit spending issue—it's way beyond my abilities. as for ceo pay growth and relationship to employee salaries, i'm not sure what your motivations are for posting that. the gov't has no way to regulate these salaries, and they never should. it points out that, although the employees have to compete amognst each other for earnings, the ceo's get the security of fat salaries. is this divisive, yes? is it fixable? i would think only by natural market forces.

Seed-

You can't add up the average for each year and then divide it to get the average for a period of time. Looking at the progression from the chart you supplied
(ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/lf/aat1.txt) it's pretty obvious that during the Clinton terms, the Unemployment Rate went from 5.6 in 1995 to 4.0 in 2000. In Dubya's first year in office, the Unemployment rate rose to 4.7, then 5.0 in 2002, and finally 6.0 in 2003--higher than it was when Clinton took office in 1995.

This link (http://data.bls.gov/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?data_tool=latest_numbers&series_id=LNS11300000) was somewhat confusing. Yes, the numbers are even, but the graph shows a steady downward movement. If the number of employed stays the same, and the population increases, it's a loss, right?

Job loss vs. Unemployment rate-
If Joe Blow's companie lays him off from his $70k job at the Chrysler plant because they're moving the plant to Ethiopia, but Joe goes out and gets a job as a clerk at the new 7-11 down the street (at $9 per hour with no benefits), then there has been no movement in the unemployment rate. One job was lost, and another one was created. But Joe's new job isn't enough to make his house payment, and his car payment, and pay for the braces that Joe jr. needs. Now some difficult choices must be made.

Flamingbanjo-
Hope we're not hijacking the board here ;-) I followed seed over from his blog.

However, I'll be back to visit you. I like what I see.

Here are some graphs that do a decent job of demonstrating what I think Flamingbanjo is trying to illustrate, Are You Better Off?. Really the most amazing charts are the second and fourth ones, the job creation under Clinton was astonishing and the turnaround from surplus to deficit under Bush is scary and the projections are worse.

Easy touches on what a main issue of the job situation is, we've lost something like 5 million jobs during Bush's reign, around 4 million have been created but the average shortfall compared to those lost jobs is $9000 less than before. That's not a winning deal in any book.

ok, ok, i knew it would degrade to this. i was hoping banjo would come in before this. fine.

johnny mentions the net 1m jobs gone in the last four years. i have a couple issues here, and i hope i remember them all. frst up, how does this realet to the office of the pres? now, the cat is out of the bag on who i feel is better for the job, but skip that. how, exactly, is the employment rate, and quality of jobs and salary, effected by the cheif of the executive office? the tools implemented by the office are feeble at best. correlation does not imply causation. put the politics aside on this, and tell me how the president has a direct influence on these matters.

next up, where does the garauntee of jobs come from? seriously, everybody wants to work and be productive. if not, the populous does it's best job to provide for them. darwin plays in there cruely in parts. where did the garauntee of a job, a living, etc. come from? if it's not a sure thing, then what is the appropriate level of employment? i look back at my original link to previous years, and things have been pretty shitty. easy points out that averaging DOES NOT take into account trends. great. it does give a sense of reference.

if the gov't' job is too ensure these things, how is it done? we have an election coming up, and i am not sure EITHER of them can ensure any of this. what i AM sure of is that I can find work, be productive, without the gov't.