Unemployment rate jumps from 7.7% to 8.9% in 30 days

[AEON]

UNEMPLOYMENT RATE JUMPS FROM 7.7% TO 8.9% IN 30 DAYS

The "liberal" in me wants the guaranteed income like yesterday. If these numbers continue, or worsen, we're headed for some major upheaval.

The conservatives, especially the hard working Bible Belt folks, need to drop their blind defense of the wealthy. It's you they are stealing from! (well, and the rest of us)

[Dfit00]

Very interesting how that video shows mostly African American folks walking around and looking for a job.

Even though the US has the best and highest paying jobs in the world, many people are now opting for overseas employment.

http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/...ortunity/?_r=0

[AEON]

Originally Posted by Dfit00

Very interesting how that video shows mostly African American folks walking around and looking for a job.

Even though the US has the best and highest paying jobs in the world, many people are now opting for overseas employment.

http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/...ortunity/?_r=0

Interesting...I didn't know that.

[tim722]

Originally Posted by AEON

The "liberal" in me wants the guaranteed income like yesterday. If these numbers continue, or worsen, we're headed for some major upheaval.

The conservatives, especially the hard working Bible Belt folks, need to drop their blind defense of the wealthy. It's you they are stealing from! (well, and the rest of us)

I've heard the actual numbers are closer to 17% due to many giving up looking for a job and others can only find part-time work. It's only going to get worse with Obama still in office. He has no clue about how to jump start the economy. Keep the food stamps coming.

[Vlad n U 2]

Thanks Obummer.

[mikal]

It's Gannett's fault. LOL

They're just the gift that keeps on giving.

[PhilsFan]

Originally Posted by tim722

I've heard the actual numbers are closer to 17% due to many giving up looking for a job and others can only find part-time work. It's only going to get worse with Obama still in office. He has no clue about how to jump start the economy. Keep the food stamps coming.

And the socialism!

[Diemen]

Originally Posted by tim722

I've heard the actual numbers are closer to 17% due to many giving up looking for a job and others can only find part-time work. It's only going to get worse with Obama still in office. He has no clue about how to jump start the economy. Keep the food stamps coming.

Couldn't possibly have anything to do with obstructionist Republicans blocking everything in sight.

[AEON]

And for those "lucky" enough to find work...

In the year 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that, by century’s end, technology would have advanced sufficiently that countries like Great Britain or the United States would have achieved a 15-hour work week. There’s every reason to believe he was right. In technological terms, we are quite capable of this. And yet it didn’t happen. Instead, technology has been marshaled, if anything, to figure out ways to make us all work more. In order to achieve this, jobs have had to be created that are, effectively, pointless. Huge swathes of people, in Europe and North America in particular, spend their entire working lives performing tasks they secretly believe do not really need to be performed. The moral and spiritual damage that comes from this situation is profound. It is a scar across our collective soul. Yet virtually no one talks about it.

On the Phenomenon of BS Jobs

[Pearl]

In a related story:

The median, or midpoint, income in June 2013 was $52,098. That's down from $54,478 in June 2009, when the recession officially ended. And it's below the $55,480 that the median household took in when the recession began in December 2007.
The report says nearly every group is worse off than four years ago, except for those 65 to 74. Some groups have experienced larger-than-average declines, including blacks, young and upper-middle-aged people and the unemployed.

Median Household Income Dropped 4 Percent Since The End Of The Great Recession: Report

We should keep this thread going in order to keep an eye and discuss the troubled economy and job market, just like that Greek thread is still going.

[AEON]

Originally Posted by Pearl

In a related story:



Median Household Income Dropped 4 Percent Since The End Of The Great Recession: Report

Yet - home prices are skyrocketing again. It's very frustrating...

[AEON]

Originally Posted by Diemen

Couldn't possibly have anything to do with obstructionist Republicans blocking everything in sight.

Both parties are crap and don't care about anything other than lining their own pockets.

[Pearl]

Originally Posted by AEON

Both parties are crap and don't care about anything other than lining their own pockets.

This is true.

[U2DMfan]

Originally Posted by AEON

The conservatives, especially the hard working Bible Belt folks, need to drop their blind defense of the wealthy. It's you they are stealing from! (well, and the rest of us)

Hammer meets nail. It comes down to politicians using their libertarian strain as a wedge. That sense of economic fairness and govt intrusion. I hear this constantly. It essentially boils down to an eventual argument about welfare. It's so frustrating even as I type this. FYI, I am firmly in the Bible Belt, and if there is anyone around here empathetic to these people, it's me. Even though I am not much of a conservative at all or religious. It's just...these are my people. Most of my family. Some friends. Although most of my friends are as socially liberal as I am. I do still have some libertarian strains though. But I was a SCARY right wing nut up until about 18 years old. I've spent the last 20 years of my life deconstructing how I ended up there. I understand the 'Tea Party' mentality pretty much thoroughly. Top to bottom.

Bible Belt folk: "I don't think the rich should have to pay more in taxes".
Me: "Why?"
Bible Belt folk: "It's not fair. I don't want to pay more in taxes and neither should they. Or anyone else. The Govt is too big".
Me: "You know...someone has to pay the bills".
Bible Belt folk: "Then we should get all these people off welfare, and stop sending millions in foreign aid to people that hate us".
Me: "relatively speaking, it's a drop in the bucket. You need lots of revenue and it can only come from slightly higher rates on the wealthy"
Bible Belt folk: "I don't believe that".
Me: "Well it's true. Besides, the rich have never made more money than they are making now".
Bible Belt folk: "Good for them".
Me: "But it's the non-rich that end up paying those bills".
Bible Belt folk: "Like I said, reduce the bills. Get all those people off welfare, stop fighting wars in Muslimville and stop sending millions to Africa"
Me: "Welfare is inevitable and it's not going away. Foreign aid might as well be the same as buying tanks. It's national security. And I agree with you about the wars."
Bible Belt folk: "Stupid Bush and those wars."
Me: "Yeah but don't you see? The same reason you voted to re-elect him in 2004 is the same reason you believe that taxing the wealthy is a great sin".
Bible Belt folk: "Huh?"
Me: "Politics. getting you to vote against your best interest".

And they simply don't want to believe they could be duped like that.
The personal pride meets the libertarian principle meet pure politics.
And Republicans continue to dominate these demographics.
Also...Bible issues but that's another subject.

Originally Posted by AEON

Both parties are crap and don't care about anything other than lining their own pockets.

Truth, brother.

[AEON]

Originally Posted by U2DMfan

Hammer meets nail. It comes down to politicians using their libertarian strain as a wedge. That sense of economic fairness and govt intrusion. I hear this constantly. It essentially boils down to an eventual argument about welfare. It's so frustrating even as I type this. FYI, I am firmly in the Bible Belt, and if there is anyone around here empathetic to these people, it's me. Even though I am not much of a conservative at all or religious. It's just...these are my people. Most of my family. Some friends. Although most of my friends are as socially liberal as I am. I do still have some libertarian strains though. But I was a SCARY right wing nut up until about 18 years old. I've spent the last 20 years of my life deconstructing how I ended up there. I understand the 'Tea Party' mentality pretty much thoroughly. Top to bottom.

Bible Belt folk: "I don't think the rich should have to pay more in taxes".
Me: "Why?"
Bible Belt folk: "It's not fair. I don't want to pay more in taxes and neither should they. Or anyone else. The Govt is too big".
Me: "You know...someone has to pay the bills".
Bible Belt folk: "Then we should get all these people off welfare, and stop sending millions in foreign aid to people that hate us".
Me: "relatively speaking, it's a drop in the bucket. You need lots of revenue and it can only come from slightly higher rates on the wealthy"
Bible Belt folk: "I don't believe that".
Me: "Well it's true. Besides, the rich have never made more money than they are making now".
Bible Belt folk: "Good for them".
Me: "But it's the non-rich that end up paying those bills".
Bible Belt folk: "Like I said, reduce the bills. Get all those people off welfare, stop fighting wars in Muslimville and stop sending millions to Africa"
Me: "Welfare is inevitable and it's not going away. Foreign aid might as well be the same as buying tanks. It's national security. And I agree with you about the wars."
Bible Belt folk: "Stupid Bush and those wars."
Me: "Yeah but don't you see? The same reason you voted to re-elect him in 2004 is the same reason you believe that taxing the wealthy is a great sin".
Bible Belt folk: "Huh?"
Me: "Politics. getting you to vote against your best interest".

And they simply don't want to believe they could be duped like that.
The personal pride meets the libertarian principle meet pure politics.
And Republicans continue to dominate these demographics.
Also...Bible issues but that's another subject.



Truth, brother.

If we could somehow get these people to understand - even if it means quoting Jesus - that the wealthy and powerful only care about being more wealthy and more powerful - then way may start to see some changes.

As it is, they shout and vote to protect the very aristocrats that are enslaving them and preventing them from having the same standard of living their parents and grandparents had.

And the Left isn't blameless - the Democrats feed off the desires of honest, intelligent, and caring people who want a government that creates equal opportunity for all its citizens (a worthy goal), only to have these snakes establish rules and regulations that funnel money to the very same aristocrats (and to themselves - so they can now be aristocrats too) - which at the same times puts "the commoners" in debt to these aristocrats because now the cost of owning a home and decent education is so inflated by government interference that the only way to even sniff the American dream of owning a decent house and earning a quality education is to become a debt slave.

A different path - same result. Enslavement.

[Kieran McConville]

In Praise of Idleness - Bertrand Russell (1932)

Like most of my generation, I was brought up on the saying: 'Satan finds some mischief for idle hands to do.' Being a highly virtuous child, I believed all that I was told, and acquired a conscience which has kept me working hard down to the present moment. But although my conscience has controlled my actions, my opinions have undergone a revolution. I think that there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial countries is quite different from what always has been preached. Everyone knows the story of the traveler in Naples who saw twelve beggars lying in the sun (it was before the days of Mussolini), and offered a lira to the laziest of them. Eleven of them jumped up to claim it, so he gave it to the twelfth. this traveler was on the right lines. But in countries which do not enjoy Mediterranean sunshine idleness is more difficult, and a great public propaganda will be required to inaugurate it. I hope that, after reading the following pages, the leaders of the YMCA will start a campaign to induce good young men to do nothing. If so, I shall not have lived in vain.

[AEON]

Originally Posted by Kieran McConville

In Praise of Idleness - Bertrand Russell (1932)

I like it

[Kieran McConville]

It shows, if nothing else, how long this conversation has been going on. Of course he was operating (in that piece at least) at much the same time as Keynes was touching on similar ideas.

Some work is indeed necessary (though the total amount is probably radically less again than it was in Russell's lifetime), but work, just work of any sort, as a phenomenon, as a virtue is a nonsense. I've always thought that is somewhat like saying that bashing your own head against a wall is a virtue. Even if there was no need to be doing so.

Useful make-work of the kind that was employed in some countries during the Great Depression at least had the virtue of spreading the money around, thus helping a little to ameliorate that situation where some have boundless leisure and some are overworked, and all misery is increased in total.

[Aygo]

1,2% in only one month? Who buys that?
Not even in Greece and Spain, the countries where the unemployment rate is still running up the hills, it happens with such speed...

Yet, I don't know if that phenomenon exists in the US, but in many European countries, the summer months is the time where every single governments screams to the world that the unemployment rate fell... What they forget to say is that it's because of seasonal jobs because of tourism activity (which leads to the big jump of that rate again in September/October).

[U2DMfan]

Originally Posted by AEON

If we could somehow get these people to understand - even if it means quoting Jesus - that the wealthy and powerful only care about being more wealthy and more powerful - then way may start to see some changes.

You could say the antidote just might be a social conservative party that just believes in something different. Keeping all the same social 'wedge issues' the Republicans always employ but advancing a different economic argument.

And then they would be squashed like a bug by Big Money.

I've said it before, I'll say it again. Our problems do not end, but they certainly BEGIN with two things. 1) Term limits and 2) Campaign finance and lobby/special interest reform (hand in hand), really.