Bloomberg: Jobs crisis could spark riots here (in USA)

[SiXiam]

US Unemployment down to 8.6% (from 9%)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16005502

[williaty]

Keep in mind the unemployment numbers improved in part because a large number of people gave up and therefore are no longer counted by the Feds. Real unemployment is always considerably higher than the number published as national unemployment.

[dogbane]

Yep. I'm supporting two long-term unemployed adults who have stopped getting benefits.

[williaty]

Another thing to keep in mind is that, on average, 240,000 more new kids "show up" to the workforce than losses due to disability, retirement, and death. In other words, any time we "add" less than 240,000 jobs per month, the total number of unemployed people is going up.

If we "lose" 100,000 jobs in a month, there are actually 340,000 additional people who couldn't find work at the end of the month compared to the beginning.
If we gain 0 jobs in a month, there are actually 240,000 more people who couldn't find work at the end of the month compared to the beginning.
If we "gain" 140,000 jobs in a month, there are still an additional 100,000 people who couldn't find work at the end of the month compared to the beginning.

We have to "gain" a minimum of 240,000 jobs each month in order to just break even. Any time you see job gains of less than 240,000/month, real unemployment is rising.

[MVegas]

Also, a sizeable portion of those were in retail....
Expect to lose most of those after Christmas.

[mariposa]

Yep. I'm supporting two long-term unemployed adults who have stopped getting benefits.

I can kind of feel your pain. My daughter has one job for 3 days a week, and is trying to find something else for 2-3 days a week. She got "hired" for holiday work at a store, but seems to spend more time on-call than working. She's looking for something else.

[TacAir]

Keep in mind the unemployment numbers improved in part because a large number of people gave up and therefore are no longer counted by the Feds. Real unemployment is always considerably higher than the number published as national unemployment.

I keep hearing that "structural" (dunno, it's a term I hear on the TeeVee) unemployment is pushing 20 to 25%. Given the number of folks now on the dole, it seems a reasonable number.

How that would lead to riots (OT) is hard to say....

[williaty]

How that would lead to riots (OT) is hard to say....

Bread and circuses.


Right now, almost everyone, including the unemployed, have shelter, enough food they aren't consistently starving, and TV. In other words, in absolute terms, they aren't that bad off. If enough people become unemployed that their relatives can't provide food, the food banks can't keep up (which is actually already happening), and people can't afford some form of entertainment to distract themselves, it's much more likely to turn violent. Similarly, if we get into a situation such as has been seen in the Middle East this last year where a very large portion of the populace is unemployed and feel like their being kept that way by inequalities in the system, that's likely to turn into rioting as well.

[phil_in_cs]

Yep. I'm supporting two long-term unemployed adults who have stopped getting benefits.

I can kind of feel your pain. My daughter has one job for 3 days a week, and is trying to find something else for 2-3 days a week. She got "hired" for holiday work at a store, but seems to spend more time on-call than working. She's looking for something else.

And she's counted as "employed" under the current counting method.

[williaty]

Yep. I'm supporting two long-term unemployed adults who have stopped getting benefits.

I can kind of feel your pain. My daughter has one job for 3 days a week, and is trying to find something else for 2-3 days a week. She got "hired" for holiday work at a store, but seems to spend more time on-call than working. She's looking for something else.

And she's counted as "employed" under the current counting method.

Yeah that's true. Should have added that earlier. "Wants full time, only can find 5 hours a week" counts as employed. "Has PhD, works 12 hours a week as lawn mower" counts as employed.

The employment numbers are just bullshit. They've been dicked with for too many years by politicians who want to be able to say that unemployment decreased on their watch. It's just like the poverty line: it's deliberately kept out of touch with reality because if it were updated, suddenly hundreds of thousands of more people would be impoverished and no one wants to say "625,000 more people were declared poor during my administration".

[Kommander]

The employment numbers are just bullshit. They've been dicked with for too many years by politicians who want to be able to say that unemployment decreased on their watch. It's just like the poverty line: it's deliberately kept out of touch with reality because if it were updated, suddenly hundreds of thousands of more people would be impoverished and no one wants to say "625,000 more people were declared poor during my administration".

I agree with you about the manipulation of the employment numbers. There is no longer any reason to trust them. I prefer the numbers from the private statistical agencies.

[raptor]

Employment statistics courtesy of shadow statistics. Note the U-6 unemployment rate is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) broadest unemployment measure, including short-term discouraged and other marginally-attached workers as well as those forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time employment.

This unemployed number is still over 15%. The headline number that the politicians always tout is obviously the lowest number.

The SGS number is the pre 1994 U-6 number based upon the BLS calculations then.

http://www.shadowstats.com/

[williaty]

I find it really sad that, after the dot com bubble and crash, while the banks recovered and made millions, the workers of America never recovered to pre-dot-come levels of employment.

[Kommander]

I find it really sad that, after the dot com bubble and crash, while the banks recovered and made millions, the workers of America never recovered to pre-dot-come levels of employment.

It is debateable as to if the banks ever truly recovered or simply built an empire of bullshit that later came crashing down and got them all bailouts.

[williaty]

I find it really sad that, after the dot com bubble and crash, while the banks recovered and made millions, the workers of America never recovered to pre-dot-come levels of employment.

It is debateable as to if the banks ever truly recovered or simply built an empire of bullshit that later came crashing down and got them all bailouts.

To a large extent, that's what investment banking is: getting people to buy your bullshit and running before it begins to stink. The guys, from traders up to execs, who made millions definitely "recovered".

[SeerSavant]

I find it really sad that, after the dot com bubble and crash, while the banks recovered and made millions, the workers of America never recovered to pre-dot-come levels of employment.

It is debateable as to if the banks ever truly recovered or simply built an empire of bullshit that later came crashing down and got them all bailouts.

To a large extent, that's what investment banking is: getting people to buy your bullshit and running before it begins to stink. The guys, from traders up to execs, who made millions definitely "recovered".

I'm not sure if that's what investment banking is... Damn sure feels like it's an accurate description of a modern fiat economy, though.

[J.C.]

If that is actually want the majority of investment banking was, no one would ever buy stocks or bonds. This sort of comment is the same as cop bashing and it really is out of line.

[williaty]

If that is actually want the majority of investment banking was, no one would ever buy stocks or bonds. This sort of comment is the same as cop bashing and it really is out of line.

It was a serious comment, perhaps expressed with a word that makes it seem as though I was kidding. Take a serious look at modern investment banking. I'm not talking about investment banking from the period between 1940 and 1980, I'm talking about since Regan. It used to be that an investment was giving someone money that they'd use to go buy something physical, make money from that physical thing or use that physical thing to do research that led to new knowledge, and then return to you your investment plus a small percentage of interest/profit. So the "new" money came from the fact that we had made either new physical things or gained the knowledge to make new physical things. This is the original purpose of things like venture capital and of forming corporations to sell stock in that corporation. While that does happen, probably (dollar wise) on a larger scale than it used to, it's no longer where the primary profit driver of investment banking. Somewhere along the line, they got the idea that money comes from money, as if it has some sort of life source that causes it to spontaneously generate new dollar bills. Now, investment banking buys a thought in someone's head (or in many heads) that's represented as bits in a computer record somewhere, holds it as an asset in the form of some bits for a while, then sells the thought and suddenly there's more money. But, hey, it's a thought, it doesn't get "used up", more than one person can own the same thought, so sell it again and again and again, and even multiple times at once.


Now, some guy walks up to you on the street and explains an idea like that to you and you're going to (rightly) call it bullshit. Get 10,000 guys in nice suits explaining that in books and suddenly we call it the derivatives market.

[ei8htx]

If that is actually want the majority of investment banking was, no one would ever buy stocks or bonds. This sort of comment is the same as cop bashing and it really is out of line.

It was a serious comment, perhaps expressed with a word that makes it seem as though I was kidding. Take a serious look at modern investment banking. I'm not talking about investment banking from the period between 1940 and 1980, I'm talking about since Regan. It used to be that an investment was giving someone money that they'd use to go buy something physical, make money from that physical thing or use that physical thing to do research that led to new knowledge, and then return to you your investment plus a small percentage of interest/profit. So the "new" money came from the fact that we had made either new physical things or gained the knowledge to make new physical things. This is the original purpose of things like venture capital and of forming corporations to sell stock in that corporation. While that does happen, probably (dollar wise) on a larger scale than it used to, it's no longer where the primary profit driver of investment banking. Somewhere along the line, they got the idea that money comes from money, as if it has some sort of life source that causes it to spontaneously generate new dollar bills. Now, investment banking buys a thought in someone's head (or in many heads) that's represented as bits in a computer record somewhere, holds it as an asset in the form of some bits for a while, then sells the thought and suddenly there's more money. But, hey, it's a thought, it doesn't get "used up", more than one person can own the same thought, so sell it again and again and again, and even multiple times at once.


Now, some guy walks up to you on the street and explains an idea like that to you and you're going to (rightly) call it bullshit. Get 10,000 guys in nice suits explaining that in books and suddenly we call it the derivatives market.

That was awesome.

[raptor]

Now, some guy walks up to you on the street and explains an idea like that to you and you're going to (rightly) call it bullshit. Get 10,000 guys in nice suits explaining that in books and suddenly we call it the derivatives market.

One guy is a nut. 10,000 guys with money is a market.

[ei8htx]

Man Found Dead at Texas 'Occupy' Camp

How many is that now?

[SeerSavant]

Man Found Dead at Texas 'Occupy' Camp

How many is that now?

Too many...

[raptor]

The mayor suggested that Occupy NOLA occupy Duncan Plaza only during the day time and stop camping there. He suggested that it was time to leave. OccupyNOLA when to court to request court approval of their actions. The hearing is today. Meanwhile NOPD asked everyone to leave last night.
They do so peacefully.

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/ ... ceful.html

A single person who is not a NOLA resident was arrested because he insisted upon being arrested. The NOPD obliged him.

The one man who was arrested -- Robert Riche, 22, of Kansas City, Mo. -- was defiant with officers and "actually insisted on being arrested," Serpas said. He is to be cited for two municipal violations.

Many of the "protesters" were actually homeless people and were offered alternate housing.

Forty-three of the campers were taken to shelters or transitional housing recently, said Stacy Horn Koch, the mayor's point person for homelessness. She said 20 of homeless people were offered services amid this morning's raid.

[squinty]

Man Found Dead at Texas 'Occupy' Camp

How many is that now?

Too many...

So, sometimes homeless junkies overdose and kill themselves. That's sad, and it's a black mark against the occupiers if they harbor people in their midst who abuse drugs during a political protest. But I'm not sure how the occupy movement is at fault for these deaths. These were people who chose to ingest dangerous substances who died because of that choice. These weren't deaths inflicted on them by Occupiers, and I don't think it's honest to say that the occupy movement "killed" these people, or that the occupy movement is somehow responsible for their deaths.