Unemployment reaches 9.5%

[shiner]

Originally posted by: Red Dawn

Originally posted by: shiner

Originally posted by: marincounty
Unemployment is at its highest in 26 years. Who was president then? Your hero, Reagan.
You guys should all be thrilled.

Dealing with the mess that the original Carter and Gerald Ford had left him.

Not that it has anything to do with the current situation, but if you are going to go back in time to blame Presidents at least remember that Reagan was cleaning up a mess that Carter left behind. Much as Obama is attempting to clean up a mess that Clinton and W. left him.

Fixed and you are correct, like Obama, Reagan wasn't responsible for the high unemployment .

Now, now...you can't blame Gerald for anything. He was too busy falling down stairs and being eaten by wolves to have much influence on the economy.

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: OCguy

Originally posted by: Red Dawn

Did he actually? He predicted it would help and maybe it has by preventing things from being even worse.

:laugh:


So if it goes to 18%, you can say he stopped it from 25%.

Well if in two years it's at 18% or even 10% you can definitely say it didn't work.

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: shiner

Originally posted by: Red Dawn

Originally posted by: shiner

Originally posted by: marincounty
Unemployment is at its highest in 26 years. Who was president then? Your hero, Reagan.
You guys should all be thrilled.

Dealing with the mess that the original Carter and Gerald Ford had left him.

Not that it has anything to do with the current situation, but if you are going to go back in time to blame Presidents at least remember that Reagan was cleaning up a mess that Carter left behind. Much as Obama is attempting to clean up a mess that Clinton and W. left him.

Fixed and you are correct, like Obama, Reagan wasn't responsible for the high unemployment .

Now, now...you can't blame Gerald for anything. He was too busy falling down stairs and being eaten by wolves to have much influence on the economy.

:laugh: And promoting WIN

 

[OCGuy]

Obama is responsible (And Bush for the original bailout) for overreacting to stop a market correction that is going to happen one way or another. At least we could have had high unemployment without more debt and foreign powers seriously considering moving off the USD.

Paying your mortgage with your credit card only delays the inevitable foreclosure. At least if you lose your house early, you still have a credit card.

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: OCguy
Obama is responsible (And Bush for the original bailout) for overreacting to stop a market correction that is going to happen one way or another. At least we could have had high unemployment without more debt and foreign powers seriously considering moving off the USD.

Paying your mortgage with your credit card only delays the inevitable foreclosure. At least if you lose your house early, you still have a credit card.

Well we'll see. Right now it's way to early to pass judgment..not that it will stop you from doing so.

 

[jonks]

"Obama warned that delay would mean that "millions of jobs will be lost, and national unemployment rates will approach double digits," also adding that no matter what is done "recovery will likely be measured in years, not weeks or months."

- L.A. Times, February '09.

He was pretty clear on how long it would take. Anyone complaining now is simply doing it to complain. Calls for the stimulus ranged from 500B to 1trillion. If he did 500B and things didn't get better people would be here saying "His own people said he'd need 1 Trillion, why didn't the dumb ass listen?"

 

[CPA]

Originally posted by: shiner

Originally posted by: marincounty
Unemployment is at its highest in 26 years. Who was president then? Your hero, Reagan.
You guys should all be thrilled.

Dealing with the mess that the original Carter had left him.

Not that it has anything to do with the current situation, but if you are going to go back in time to blame Presidents at least remember that Reagan was cleaning up a mess that Carter left behind. Much as Obama is attempting to clean up a mess that Clinton and W. left him.

Plus Reagan had other Carter issues to deal with, mainly high interest rates.

 

[senseamp]

Originally posted by: OCguy

Originally posted by: senseamp


Without stimulus money, states would be cutting a lot more jobs to balance budgets, just for starters.
Bush's assertions were pulled out of his butt. This is real.

Oh the horror, balanced budgets! Only spending what you can actually afford? Pfffft.....


The states are still going have to cut those same jobs when the stimulus runs out. Oh wait, we can just send them more!

I won't convince you, you can read up on the paradox of thrift yourself if you want to.
I am just glad your side isn't running the show, or we'd be in even deeper sh!t.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: shiner

Now, now...you can't blame Gerald for anything. He was too busy falling down stairs and being eaten by wolves to have much influence on the economy.

he was delicious

 

[BrownTown]

IS anyone else around here not feeling this "recession" at all? Everyone in my family is making more this year than anytime before in their lives and all my friends (except those still in college) were able to find jobs. I guess it seems to me that if you had a solid skill (like engineering which is my friends and family mostly) then you are not having a problem riding through this economy. Its all those business and finance type majors who are getting screwed when people realized that these people really didn't know how to handle money at all. I mean for example why am I paying someone to lose 20% on my 401k? I can lose my own money just fine without some idiot banker doing it for me.

I dunno, maybe that's not the right thing to be saying at this point in time, but I kind of feels weird when I look at the news and its all doom and gloom and then I look at the people I know and they are doing fine. Even where I work people are "job shopping" because there are more jobs out there than people who can fill them (where I work they have been desperately trying to hire people and hope to hire ~1000 in the next 6 months).

The reduction in per capita GDP is only like 5% right, so its like on average people earn95% of what they earned before this mess. Seems like it shouldn't be that hard for people to cut back 5%, the only people who should be hurt are the idiots leaving above their means and I personally have no problem with such people falling on their asses. I personally spend about 45% of my after tax income and save 55%, now I know most people can't do that, but at some point you have to have the intelligence to have a "rainy day" fund. When life is doing good you don't just expect it will last forever, you have to SAVE money. The point is to AVERAGE out the economic fluctuations, so when you are making more money you save 15% of it, then if you take a pay cut or are unemployed for some amount of time you tap into that savings. Its just unfortunate there are so many people thinking they can live beyond their means and now the people who were intelligent and saved are the ones paying for it.

 

[glenn1]

Originally posted by: BrownTown
IS anyone else around here not feeling this "recession" at all? Everyone in my family is making more this year than anytime before in their lives and all my friends (except those still in college) were able to find jobs. I guess it seems to me that if you had a solid skill (like engineering which is my friends and family mostly) then you are not having a problem riding through this economy. Its all those business and finance type majors who are getting screwed when people realized that these people really didn't know how to handle money at all. I mean for example why am I paying someone to lose 20% on my 401k? I can lose my own money just fine without some idiot banker doing it for me.

I dunno, maybe that's not the right thing to be saying at this point in time, but I kind of feels weird when I look at the news and its all doom and gloom and then I look at the people I know and they are doing fine. Even where I work people are "job shopping" because there are more jobs out there than people who can fill them (where I work they have been desperately trying to hire people and hope to hire ~1000 in the next 6 months).

It's easy to be minimally affected by a recession; just graduate high school (and preferablly college), have a steady work history, learn a marketable skill or two, and don't make some dumb life choice. Those who have the biggest problems in the economy (in good times or bad) are those who didn't do those things, like union member with a third world laborer skill set, a school dropout with an 8th grade education, or unwed teenage mother trying to raise her multiple children on food stamps.

Of course, since you actually made good choices in your life and took responsibility, the progressives out there see you as just a cash cow to pay for benefits for those in the other categories.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally posted by: gersson

This is really worrisome. At first I thought we had shaken off Great Depression like soup kitchens but now I'm thinking that if something drastic doesn't happen, we could eventually get there.

Most of the men I know are unemployed (construction, etc) and are self-employed; I don't think they are reflected in the 9.5% so realistically this number could be MUCH higher.

That number doesn't factor in underemployment and poverty wage jobs, which are essentially the same things as unemployment IMHO.

Note that you need to add about 150,000 to the job loss numbers since we need about 150,000 new jobs each month merely to keep pace with our explosive rate of population growth. So even in a month where the nation "gains" 20,000 jobs, the nation has still lost 130,000 jobs relative to the population growth of working-aged people.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally posted by: Drako

I can't wait to see all the jobs that will be created when UHC kicks in.

Ironically, real socialized medicine would probably be a BOON for our nation's economy since, as things stand right now, we're spending a much higher percentage of our nation's GDP on health care than any other nation in the world.

Also, relieving businesses and people of the burden of having to worry about health care would probably help businesses tremendously and encourage individual entrepreneurship and small business creation and growth.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally posted by: BoberFett

Wait, I thought UHC was going to save this country money. Doesn't that require shedding jobs?

Yes, but the money that would have otherwise been spent to employ people to do health care-related paper work would get spent on other things, creating new jobs for those displaced people. The net result is that instead of producing paperwork those people might end up producing actual tangible wealth or at least worthwhile services.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Originally posted by: glenn1

Originally posted by: BrownTown
IS anyone else around here not feeling this "recession" at all? Everyone in my family is making more this year than anytime before in their lives and all my friends (except those still in college) were able to find jobs. I guess it seems to me that if you had a solid skill (like engineering which is my friends and family mostly) then you are not having a problem riding through this economy. Its all those business and finance type majors who are getting screwed when people realized that these people really didn't know how to handle money at all. I mean for example why am I paying someone to lose 20% on my 401k? I can lose my own money just fine without some idiot banker doing it for me.

I dunno, maybe that's not the right thing to be saying at this point in time, but I kind of feels weird when I look at the news and its all doom and gloom and then I look at the people I know and they are doing fine. Even where I work people are "job shopping" because there are more jobs out there than people who can fill them (where I work they have been desperately trying to hire people and hope to hire ~1000 in the next 6 months).

It's easy to be minimally affected by a recession; just graduate high school (and preferablly college), have a steady work history, learn a marketable skill or two, and don't make some dumb life choice. Those who have the biggest problems in the economy (in good times or bad) are those who didn't do those things, like union member with a third world laborer skill set, a school dropout with an 8th grade education, or unwed teenage mother trying to raise her multiple children on food stamps.

Of course, since you actually made good choices in your life and took responsibility, the progressives out there see you as just a cash cow to pay for benefits for those in the other categories.

Ok, when you talk about jobs and if you have a solid job like engineering which applies to me and my family, it's fine for a LOT of people. My mom recently just got a pay cut though that kicks in July, so I suppose she's finally felt that part of it. For me, everything's the same. I think that while a lot of my friends and their families haven't had their employment statuses change, everyone feels the stock market tumble. So while we might be making good money, our investments are still like meh. Tell that to my 401k. I might've avoided disaster, but performance overall is still moderate. Sure there was the March - June boom but now things are flattening out again.

Overall I don't feel it much because I'm not heavily invested in the market yet (I'm 22), but I'm sure for the rest of us, our paychecks are only a small indicator of what our overall financial situation is like.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally posted by: glenn1

It's easy to be minimally affected by a recession; just graduate high school (and preferablly college), have a steady work history, learn a marketable skill or two, and don't make some dumb life choice.

The newspapers have been full of stories lately about people with college degrees who cannot find jobs, so you might want to rethink the dogma that higher education and work ethic are a guarantor of middle class prosperity. They are not. Heck, there are even people out there with advanced degrees and professional degrees who are either unemployed or underemployed-involuntarily-out-of-field.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper

Originally posted by: glenn1

It's easy to be minimally affected by a recession; just graduate high school (and preferablly college), have a steady work history, learn a marketable skill or two, and don't make some dumb life choice.

The newspapers have been full of stories lately about people with college degrees who cannot find jobs, so you might want to rethink the dogma that higher education and work ethic are a guarantor of middle class prosperity. They are not. Heck, there are even people out there with advanced degrees and professional degrees who are either unemployed or underemployed-involuntarily-out-of-field.

So my best friends graduated 2008 with me and we all locked up jobs within 2 months. Some of us did do the job searching well before, but surprisingly some of us didn't start till close till the end.

A lot of my friends from this year have locked up jobs too. I know of only one person who got his offer rescinded and is going back to school for another semester. I have friends who left Big 4 accounting a few months ago to move into different companies. TBH I don't see things that bad amongst my circle of friends. But maybe we're young and it's a bargain either way to hire us. Now if I ask my mom I know she's told me about colleagues of hers and former colleagues that have been laid off recently and stuff.

 

[miketheidiot]

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: Lemon law
Everyone seems to be missing the point, the last time we were in a similar situation, when Hoover was running things and did basically nothing to arrest the slide, unemployment went up rapidly and quickly hit 25%.

Hoover did "basically nothing?"

Some might disagree with you.

Maybe instead you meant Harding?

lolmises

might as well link newsmax.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

What fields are they in, DLeRium? I know that it's a different story depending on what field you're looking at. Law degrees (7 years of college education) have little employment value now and science Ph.D. degrees can lead to undemployment or underemployment (ie, postdoc).

 

[miketheidiot]

Originally posted by: shiner

Originally posted by: marincounty
Unemployment is at its highest in 26 years. Who was president then? Your hero, Reagan.
You guys should all be thrilled.

Dealing with the mess that the original Carter had left him.

Not that it has anything to do with the current situation, but if you are going to go back in time to blame Presidents at least remember that Reagan was cleaning up a mess that Carter left behind. Much as Obama is attempting to clean up a mess that Clinton and W. left him.

nixon, actually. Stagflation was a result of the gold standard collapsing, oil shocks, and the resulting price controls

 

[BoberFett]

Originally posted by: Red Dawn

Originally posted by: OCguy

Originally posted by: marincounty

Originally posted by: OCguy

Originally posted by: marincounty
Unemployment is at its highest in 26 years. Who was president then? Your hero, Reagan.
You guys should all be thrilled.

Ive heard of Bu bu bu bu Bu$h!!! And Bu Bu Bu Bu Clinton, but we are back at Reagan now?


Oh, the sweet smell of desperation.

The only desperation I smell is right-wingers trying to smear Obama with anything they have. Republicans have so screwed the economy that unemployment is as bad as when their hero Ronnie was in charge. Or are you claiming that the high unemployment is Obama's fault?

Im claiming that Obama's promises with his corporate bailouts are not coming to fruition, and he is going to pay for it in the polls.

There isnt much the leftie parrot squad is going to be able to do to stop it.

Who knows how bad it would have been without them...or not. I've yet to see see any stats showing that it would be the same, better or worse without the bailouts. I do know that we haven't gone into an Economic Depression yet which is what the Bailouts were intended to prevent.

We do know we haven't been hit by terrorists on US soil since 9/11, which the Iraq war was intended to prevent.

I also haven't been attacked in my home by bears, which this stick I'm waving around was intended to prevent.

 

[glenn1]

Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper

Originally posted by: glenn1

It's easy to be minimally affected by a recession; just graduate high school (and preferablly college), have a steady work history, learn a marketable skill or two, and don't make some dumb life choice.

The newspapers have been full of stories lately about people with college degrees who cannot find jobs, so you might want to rethink the dogma that higher education and work ethic are a guarantor of middle class prosperity. They are not. Heck, there are even people out there with advanced degrees and professional degrees who are either unemployed or underemployed-involuntarily-out-of-field.

Agreed, having a college degree is not a panacea, and the economy can create job losses indiscriminately in companies and sectors formerly thought secure. And while a satisfactory education is necessary in to ensure a middle-class life, it's also not sufficient in itself.

Nowadays, to be reasonably assured of maintaining middle class status, every worker needs to constantly expand their skill set and ensure they can offer a good value proposition to a potential employer. No matter what your education level, you cannot rest on your laurels, or believe that you are owed a position in a certain field or pay level. Do that, and you wind up like the autoworkers in Detroit. Of course, it also doesn't really help if you have a job that can be done by someone in a third-world country with a 2nd grade education.

 

[Special K]

Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper

Originally posted by: glenn1

It's easy to be minimally affected by a recession; just graduate high school (and preferablly college), have a steady work history, learn a marketable skill or two, and don't make some dumb life choice.

The newspapers have been full of stories lately about people with college degrees who cannot find jobs, so you might want to rethink the dogma that higher education and work ethic are a guarantor of middle class prosperity. They are not. Heck, there are even people out there with advanced degrees and professional degrees who are either unemployed or underemployed-involuntarily-out-of-field.

Exactly, a ton of tech companies here have been laying off lots of so-called "professionals" with years of work experience, graduate degrees, etc.

Having a degree(s) in a "marketable" field such as engineering doesn't guarantee anything.

 

[Special K]

Originally posted by: gersson

The pace of job losses quickened in June after slowing just a month earlier, casting a shadow over the Obama administration?s attempts to stanch months of declines in the labor market.

nytimes

This is really worrisome. At first I thought we had shaken off Great Depression-like soup kitchens but now I'm thinking that if something drastic doesn't happen, we could eventually get there.

Most of the men I know are unemployed (construction, etc) and are self-employed; I don't think they are reflected in the 9.5% so realistically this number could be MUCH higher.

This is probably a dumb question, but given the number of job losses in June, how did the unemployment rate only rise 0.1%? In May, we had a net loss of 322,000 jobs but the unemployment rate rose from 8.9% to 9.4% (source). In June we lost 467,000 jobs but the unemployment rate only rose from 9.4% to 9.5%. Does that make sense? Am I missing something obvious here?

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: gersson
Topic Title: Unemployment reaches 9.5%
Topic Summary: 467,000 jobs lost in june

Doin a heck of a job.... Oh wait :shocked: