deficit reduction WAS A BLIP!

Parent Cafe
21

<p>If you only mention job growth, and fail to mention the layoffs, that is deceptive…</p>

<p>Talk to the tens of thousands getting laid off? Where is the economy thriving… I am sure those people with no jobs would love to know</p>

<p>And Xiggi, what section is rapidly growing? And, how much debt is our country in? WHo owns that debt?<br>
Big layoffs may signal trouble</p>

<p>Torrid summer of cuts continues with moves by Kimberly-Clark
BEN DOBBIN
Associated Press</p>

<p>ROCHESTER, N.Y. - In a week where Alan Greenspan said he expected the U.S. economy to keep growing and Wall Street seemed generally pleased with corporate performance, workers at Eastman Kodak Co., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Kimberly-Clark Corp., among others, were warned about thousands of new layoffs.</p>

<p>“You get immune to it after a while,” longtime Kodak technician John Hladis said with barely a shrug when the scythe fell once more at the Rochester-based photography company, slicing away another 10,000 employees.</p>

<p>But some economy watchers are suddenly concerned that this latest flurry of job cuts – a byproduct of various trends such as outsourcing, mergers, automation, changing technology and consumer demands – may foreshadow trouble ahead.</p>

<p>“We won’t know till afterwards, but I do think we may be seeing a tipping point in the economic cycle that these big layoffs are flagging,” said John Challenger, chief executive of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a Chicago-based employment research firm. “I think it’s a sign that leaks are breaking out.”</p>

<p>Pleased with corporate performance? What does that mean?</p>

<p>And did you know Frist had $1Million dollars of campaing money he invested in the stock market, and he now has about $200grand, and he claims that he would get a better return that in government bonds, and this is a man who wants to privatize Social Security</p>

22

<p>I know the Reich speech ,it was great. Thanks!! The conservatives just have to stick their heads in the sand all the time…, But the writing is on the wall and I think it might be a bit late to try to stop the way things are going. Well, The british empire didn’t last forever and neither did the Roman empire. We’ll just join the downtroden like everyone else usually ends up doing.</p>

23

<p>The conservatives will blow themselves up. I just hope I don’t blow up with them. :)</p>

24

<p>Laura, since you have been in the employment field for a while, may I ask you WHOM did you blame in 2000 for the then current job losses?</p>

25

<p>The irrational frenzy of the dot com era when people were supporting companies with no real value, which was a double hit. The loss of market capital and the following job loses when they companies went bust. It also was somewhat aided by the Y2K problem, which caused salaries to go much higher than they should have and then it was over and people were layed off. If you thought you could blame Clinton, sorry, no.</p>

26

<p>. Also I believe other things were happening. When we had a supposed shortage of workers we brought in overseas workers. They started companies at home and brought work back to the home countries…the start of outsourcing. What makes matters worse, I don’t think we really had the shortage we thought we had. Companies didn’t want to pay what the salaries were and took the cheaper workers from overseas instead of training the availble older workers who could have been retrained in the newer technology.Compainies didn’t want to continue paying there higher salaries when they could hire cheap foreign labor. Companies threw the older workers out on the streets. Worse than that, after the other recessions I’ve seen, when many had been laid off in technology, they always had an incredible hiring boom when the pent up demand grew. I waited and waited after the recession of 2000 AND WE NEVER HAD THE REHIRING. Now we had outsourcing…it was just an excuses to permanently send the potential new jobs overseas and not rehire more people here. That’s the bad joke about all this. The companies ARE doing great, they just don’t need to hire any new people to keep doing well. We are so screwed.</p>

27

<p>“If you thought you could blame Clinton, sorry, no.”</p>

<p>Not at all, my position has always been that Presidents receive too much credit for a good economy and way too much criticisms for a moribund economy. The 1993-2000 results are immediately linked to the policues started in the prior years, and so are our current times. Economic cycles do not move as fast as … politicans would like us to believe. But the tracking cycles do have implications as to whom the real culprits are.</p>

28

<p>“If you only mention job growth, and fail to mention the layoffs, that is deceptive…”</p>

<p>That is NOT what I was doing. I mentioned that layoffs and job growth can happen at the same times … in different industries. </p>

<p>Here are a few general numbers:</p>

<p>From March 2001 to January 2004, manufacturing jobs shrank by 3.8 million. That loss was 1.3 million more than the drop in total jobs (down 2.5 million). Thus, non-manufacturing jobs have actually increased by 1.3 million (1.1%) since the previous overall job peak in March 2001. The fields where positive numbers are recorded are education, health care, financing and real estate (up 8%), and government (up 3.8%). </p>

<p>Manufacturing employment reached a high of 21.2 million in 1979 and has been gradually declining for most of the past 25 years. In January 2004, the number stood at about 14.3 million.</p>

29

<p>What was the net gain in jobs last year? I am curious…and were those jobs fulltime, or parttime, minimum wage, with or without insurance</p>

<p>How did non manufacturing jobs increase? I am not understanding your post</p>

30

<p>It’s just so incredibly convenient to scapegoat any single presidential administration for negative economic circumstances (not to mention, it’s intellectually lazy). Any nation’s economy (not to mention that of the United States) is an extraordinarily complex machine, reacting to all manner of domestic and international catalysts. EVERYTHING, from individual spending/savings/debt load habits, to the same variables on a national scale, to weather and war, to global politics and economics (the list goes on and on), effect the health of our economy in very real ways. The butterfly effect really does apply here. All of the individual variables cannot possibly be controlled by one man (or hopefully someday, woman) who sits in the oval office for a mere four to eight years. It’s just NOT THAT SIMPLE. But somehow, each side is only inclined to recognize these outside forces when it comes to excusing the presidential administration they support. “It wasn’t Clinton’s fault, it was republican sponsored corporate welfare” “It wasn’t Bush’s fault, it was democratic support of NAFTA and other non-protectionist legislation pushed by the democrats”. Oh BULLFEATHERS! I find the vociferous blame game that each side of the political aisle wages against the other tedious in the extreme. Stridency and self-righteous breast thumping are no substitutes for clear eyed thinking and just plain LOGIC.</p>

31

<p>Presidents and members of Congress can affect the economy for years to come by how they tax and how they spend.</p>

<p>If we had a democrat in the White House instead of George Bush, we might not be talking about ending the inheritance tax. We might not have 15% tax rates for capital gains and dividends. </p>

<p>We might be spending more money for alternative fuel research and not to open the Alaskan Wildlife Reserve.</p>

<p>We might not be talking about a partial privatization of social security. We might be talking about universal health care. We might be funding more stem cell research.</p>

<p>We might not have given more in tax breaks to the top 1% of the population than most people make. </p>

<p>We might not be spending hundreds of billions in Iraq. We might not be running up the deficit. The government might actually spend what it takes in. Government spending would be going to different people.</p>

<p>We might not have Alan Greenspan in charge of the Fed right now. </p>

<p>Who is running the show does make a huge difference. How are we going to expand the pie and who gets what? Those people that like George Bush know it makes a difference. Anyone that says otherwise is lying or just doesn’t know.</p>

32

<p>“Who is running the show does make a huge difference.”</p>

<p>That is very true, but the devil is in the details or in the time it takes to see the results of economic policies. For instance, foregoing necessary investments during apresidency is bound to impact the following one. The costs of building the military might show up in one administration as a huge expense, while the dividends from the resulting peace come much later. Isn’t that waht happened in the 1980 and 1990. On the other hand, a general laissez-faire policy might sound like a neat cost savings policy, but may cause MUCH larger costs later.</p>

33

<p>“How did non manufacturing jobs increase? I am not understanding your post”</p>

<p>Well, start with 18.1 million manufacturing jobs and end up with 14.3 represents a loss of 3.8 millions jobs. </p>

<p>However, if the total loss of jobs is 2.5 million, there must have been gain of jobs in the non-manufacturing sector. </p>

<p>So the total picture looks like:</p>

<p>Toral Jobs in March 2001 PLUS 1,300,000 NMJ MINUS 3,800,000 Manufacturing Jobs = Total jobs in January 2004.</p>

34

<p>Let me point out one very important fact when calculating the unemployment rate. Anyone who finishes receiving their unemployment insurance is considered not looking for work and no longer counted as unemployed, because they get kicked out of the system. That’s why the unemployment figures can continue to come down, while not really reflecting how many people are unemployed OR UNDEREMPLOYED . It is a bogus figure so often quoted and the figure actually means absolutely nothing. I know many people who have been unemployed for more than a year or two, who are not counted, but they are very actively searching for work. It is rarely noted just how flawed that figure is.</p>

35

<ol>
<li><p>The unemployment rate was not discussed above. Unemployment is a different statistic from jobs gained and lost. </p></li>
<li><p>It always pays to look up the methodology behind any statistics. There is a difference between using common practices and presenting “bogus” data. </p></li>
<li><p>This is from other countries:
<a href=“Hidden jobless could double unemployment figure”>Hidden jobless could double unemployment figure;
<a href=“http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/nov2003/jobs-n25_prn.shtml[/url]”>http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/nov2003/jobs-n25_prn.shtml&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://www.freedominst.org/2005/02/mr-browns-magical-unemployment-figures.html[/url]”>http://www.freedominst.org/2005/02/mr-browns-magical-unemployment-figures.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
<li><p>Here’s an article that discusses the unemployment figure … and supports your views.
<a href=“http://www.dissentmagazine.org/menutest/articles/wi04/shriberg.htm[/url]”>http://www.dissentmagazine.org/menutest/articles/wi04/shriberg.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
</ol>

36

<p>Xiggi, what do you think of the way we calculate inflation numbers in this country? Do we calculate housing costs and health care costs correctly?</p>

37

<p>okay, you edited while I was busy writing away…and did included some extra data…but I’ll include this anyway…</p>

<p>I know the number was not discussed, but after being in the employment field AND WRITING A BOOK PUBLISHED BY PRENTICE HALL, about it, I know a bit about it. The number is still important when calculating how well we are REALLY doing and thus VERY important. My husband teaches statistics AT COLLEGE and has a Phd in it and he’s the one that talks to me about it all the time. The unemployment figures are not calculated correctly and that’s that. The misuse of statistics and the fact that this admin misinterprets numbers on a regular basis drives him crazy. Why do you trust this admin so much when you obviously realize that statistics can be mis used?? Why do you think THEY are right?? They have a lot more to gain by fudging the numbers. Pleassssssse. WMD’s anyone???</p>

38

<p>Ah…the last article was very relevant and covers it nicely.</p>

39

<p>lauras50, do you envision any chance of a labor shortage when baby boomers retire?</p>

40

<p>An issue is when it is claimed that the economy is doing better, there are more jobs, etc, but when that is bragged about, there is little or no discussion about the layoffs, the underemployed, the uninsured, the students not being able to pay for college, gas prices</p>

<p>If you watched the Congressional Hearing the other day with Alan Greenspan on Cspan, it was very eyeopening, what was left out of the positive reports on how we are doing.</p>