Originally posted by: umbrella39
Originally posted by: PJABBER
Do you remember how loud the Bush bashing was when the prospect for jobs was more than twice as good as it is today?
Do you? Oh yeah, you were just a LURKER back then! :roll: Do you honestly think you are fooling anyone rip?
Originally posted by: PJABBER
U.S. Unemployment Rate Charting - Google
I had a chance to play around with Google's charting and graphing tools the other day and decided to get a bit of a refresher on the U.S. unemployment rate trend line. It was quite an eye opener.
Do you remember that the seasonally unadjusted unemployment rate in October, 2000 was 3.6%? Or that in October, 2006 it was 4.1%?
Do you remember how loud the Bush bashing was when the prospect for jobs was more than twice as good as it is today?
The current unemployment rate in the U.S. in the latest month of July, 2009 stands at 9.4% and yet we hear little criticism of the Obama Administration for failing to halt this slide even with his fatally flawed, yet massively expensive, stimulus package.
The laying of blame against President Bush continues here, it remains a popular pastime for those who have bought the line, the hook and the sinker. But those who have not will find it a cold comfort that the current Administration knows not what to do next. Except maybe double down on a failed game plan.
We are faced with critical issues all around, but unemployment in this country is the most likely to affect us all.
Bob Herbert writes an insightful article that captures the essence of the unemployment picture in the U.S.
A Scary Reality
August 11, 2009
The New York Times
A Scary Reality
By BOB HERBERT
Last week was a pretty good one for President Obama. Bill Clinton helped out big time when he returned from North Korea with the American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee. Sonia Sotomayor was elevated to the Supreme Court. And Friday?s unemployment report registered a tiny downward tick in the jobless rate.
But for American workers peering anxiously through their family portholes, the economic ship is still sinking. You can put whatever kind of gloss you want on last week?s jobs numbers, but the truth is that while they may have been a bit better than most economists were expecting, they were still bad, bad, bad.
Some 247,000 jobs were lost in July, a number that under ordinary circumstances would send a shudder through the country. It was the smallest monthly loss of jobs since last summer. And for that reason, it was seen as a hopeful sign. The official monthly unemployment rate ticked down from 9.5 percent to 9.4 percent.
But behind the official numbers is a scary story that illustrates the single biggest challenge facing the United States today. The American economy does not seem able to provide enough jobs ? and nowhere near enough good jobs ? to maintain the standard of living that most Americans have come to expect.
The country has lost a crippling 6.7 million jobs since the Great Recession began in December 2007. No one is predicting a recovery in the foreseeable future powerful enough to replace the millions of jobs that have vanished in this historic downturn.
Analysts at the Economic Policy Institute noted that the economy has fewer jobs now than it had in 2000, ?even though the labor force has grown by around 12 million workers since then.?
Two issues that absolutely undermine any rosy assessment of last week?s employment report are the swelling ranks of the long-term unemployed and the crushing levels of joblessness among young Americans. More than five million workers ? about a third of the unemployed ? have been jobless for more than six months. That?s the highest number recorded since accurate records have been kept.
For those concerned with the economic viability of the American family going forward, the plight of young workers, especially young men, is particularly frightening. The percentage of young American men who are actually working is the lowest it has been in the 61 years of record-keeping, according to the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston.
Only 65 of every 100 men aged 20 through 24 years old were working on any given day in the first six months of this year. In the age group 25 through 34 years old, traditionally a prime age range for getting married and starting a family, just 81 of 100 men were employed.
For male teenagers, the numbers were disastrous: only 28 of every 100 males were employed in the 16- through 19-year-old age group. For minority teenagers, forget about it. The numbers are beyond scary; they?re catastrophic.
This should be the biggest story in the United States. When joblessness reaches these kinds of extremes, it doesn?t just damage individual families; it corrodes entire communities, fosters a sense of hopelessness and leads to disorder.
The unemployment that has wrought such devastation in black communities for decades is now being experienced by a much wider swath of the population. We?ve been in deep denial about this. Way back in March 2007, when the official unemployment rate was a wildly deceptive 4.5 percent and the Bush crowd was crowing about the alleged strength of the economy, I wrote:
?People can howl all they want about how well the economy is doing. The simple truth is that millions of ordinary American workers are in an employment bind. Steady jobs with good benefits are going the way of Ozzie and Harriet. Young workers, especially, are hurting, which diminishes the prospects for the American family. And blacks, particularly black males, are in a deep danger zone.?
The official jobless rate is now more than twice as high ? 9.4 percent ? and even more wildly deceptive. It ticked down by 0.1 percent last month not because more people found jobs, but because 450,000 people withdrew from the labor market. They stopped looking, so they weren?t counted as unemployed.
A truer picture of the employment crisis emerges when you combine the number of people who are officially counted as jobless with those who are working part time because they can?t find full-time work and those in the so-called labor market reserve ? people who are not actively looking for work (because they have become discouraged, for example) but would take a job if one became available.
The tally from those three categories is a mind-boggling 30 million Americans ? 19 percent of the overall work force.
This is, by far, the nation?s biggest problem and should be its No. 1 priority.
Really? ALL of them? You probably just meant MOST of them, right?Originally posted by: alchemize
Interesting, all the lefties are up in arms about Patranus's/Pjabbers thread count, calling for bans, new rules, etc..
Then you need to poke holes in your blinders. Start with pinholes, don't want to overwhelm you right off the bat.Don't recall hearing much complaining when Techs and JPeyton went on their thread-a-thons
Yep, see that from both sides. Both are wrong.Freedom of speech as long as you agree with me, anything else is Un-american :laugh:
Originally posted by: WHAMPOM
Originally posted by: alchemize
Interesting, all the lefties are up in arms about Patranus's/Pjabbers thread count, calling for bans, new rules, etc.. Don't recall hearing much complaining when Techs and JPeyton went on their thread-a-thonsOriginally posted by: Genx87
Originally posted by: TruePaige
I wish he would. Or that there was some kind of "X number of threads per day" limit.
I'm okay with tolerating a few of these trolls as long as they mind their place but man...
Nothing stops you from ignoring these threads. But I suspect you enjoy them deep down inside.
Freedom of speech as long as you agree with me, anything else is Un-american :laugh:
Freedom of speech as long as it does not drown out opposing views. More like what we are talking about!
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Why is unemployment bad?
I beg your pardon. Does "You're either with us or you support the terrorists" ring a bell? How about the highly choreographed and tightly controlled Bushco "Town Hall" meetings and other invitation-only events? I agree two wrongs don't make a right, but it is the absolute height of hypocrisy, if not outright delusion, to suggest it was the left drowning out the right during Bush's reign.Originally posted by: Genx87
That doesnt help your argument at all considering the lefts drowning out anybody they dont agree with under Bush over the past 8 years. Suddenly drowning out the competition when you have power is a bad thing.
Uh huh.
Because then we can't buy all the shiny toys we see in the ads. This is bad for our egos because our neighbors might have more stuff than we do. It is also terrible for China's economy.Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Why is unemployment bad?
What is HIV bad? Why are broken legs bad, why are broken down cars bad?Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Why is unemployment bad?
Originally posted by: CrackRabbit
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Why is unemployment bad?
Because it allows people like PJABBER to post on this forum non stop.
Originally posted by: CrackRabbit
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Why is unemployment bad?
Because it allows people like PJABBER to post on this forum non stop.
Originally posted by: eskimospy
Originally posted by: CrackRabbit
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Why is unemployment bad?
Because it allows people like PJABBER to post on this forum non stop.
Haha, nice.
Originally posted by: jbourne77
Originally posted by: CrackRabbit
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Why is unemployment bad?
Because it allows people like PJABBER to post on this forum non stop.
You do realize he joined a month before you did and has 4% of your post count?
Originally posted by: jbourne77
Originally posted by: CrackRabbit
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Why is unemployment bad?
Because it allows people like PJABBER to post on this forum non stop.
You do realize he joined a month before you did and has 4% of your post count?
Originally posted by: eskimospy
Originally posted by: CrackRabbit
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Why is unemployment bad?
Because it allows people like PJABBER to post on this forum non stop.
Haha, nice.
No, try haha FAIL. It's actually a little more embarassing for you: you joined 5 years after he did, and he only has 5% of your post count.
Originally posted by: eskimospy
Originally posted by: jbourne77
Originally posted by: CrackRabbit
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Why is unemployment bad?
Because it allows people like PJABBER to post on this forum non stop.
You do realize he joined a month before you did and has 4% of your post count?
Originally posted by: eskimospy
Originally posted by: CrackRabbit
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Why is unemployment bad?
Because it allows people like PJABBER to post on this forum non stop.
Haha, nice.
No, try haha FAIL. It's actually a little more embarassing for you: you joined 5 years after he did, and he only has 5% of your post count.
He was referring to PJ's deluge of enormous blog style posts that have taken place over the last few weeks. Don't be mad though jbourne, I still love you.
Originally posted by: jbourne77
Not mad at all... just don't see the difference between what he's doing and what techs, jp, and dave do when they're on a streak.
Originally posted by: eskimospy
Originally posted by: jbourne77
Not mad at all... just don't see the difference between what he's doing and what techs, jp, and dave do when they're on a streak.
There's almost nothing different between what he's doing and what they do. How many people do you see rush to the defense of dave?
Originally posted by: eskimospy
Originally posted by: jbourne77
Originally posted by: CrackRabbit
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Why is unemployment bad?
Because it allows people like PJABBER to post on this forum non stop.
You do realize he joined a month before you did and has 4% of your post count?
Originally posted by: eskimospy
Originally posted by: CrackRabbit
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Why is unemployment bad?
Because it allows people like PJABBER to post on this forum non stop.
Haha, nice.
No, try haha FAIL. It's actually a little more embarassing for you: you joined 5 years after he did, and he only has 5% of your post count.
He was referring to PJ's deluge of enormous blog style posts that have taken place over the last few weeks. Don't be mad though jbourne, I still love you.
Fair. He has among the most extensive initial comments on his threads.Personally I think pj adds alot to the forum. He reminds me of Craig actually, but the polar opposite. He provides plenty of links, and plenty of intelligent points, from his POV...something other than a one or two sentence reply. I just happen to agree with most of his points, and I bring Craig in only because he also contributes links and intelligent POV, even if I think its wrong. At least he provides it.
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Why is unemployment bad? Skoorb can get in line with HIS questions.
Originally posted by: Blackjack200
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Why is unemployment bad? Skoorb can get in line with HIS questions.
Unemployment is bad because if people aren't working they are sitting at home realizing how shitty their lives are and becoming disillusioned with those in charge (at both governmental and corporate levels)
In short, they may start to realize that they don't hate themselves as much as they thought.
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
PJ is like biting into a clove. If you have sugar in your mouth the taste is quite refreshing.