  Irish_mafia Member Username: Irish_mafia Post Number: 945 Registered: 10-2003 |
LET'S GET ONBOARD the TRAIN! Job Creation Continues - More Than 8.2 Million Jobs Created Since August 2003 On July 6, 2007, The Bureau Of Labor Statistics Released New Jobs Figures – 132,000 Jobs Created In June. Since August 2003, more than 8.2 million jobs have been created, with more than 2 million jobs created over the twelve months ending in June. Our economy has now added jobs for 46 straight months, and the unemployment rate remains low at 4.5 percent. Americans Are Working And Taking Home More Pay Real After-Tax Per Capita Personal Income Has Risen By 9.9 Percent – Nearly $3,000 Per Person –Since President Bush Took Office. Real Wages Rose 1.1 Percent Over The 12 Months Ending In May. This is faster than the average rate during the 1990s, and it means an extra $729 in the past year for the typical family with two wage earners. The Economy Has Now Experienced Over Five Years Of Uninterrupted Growth, Averaging 2.9 Percent A Year Since 2001. Real GDP grew a strong 3.1 percent in 2006. Since The First Quarter Of 2001, Productivity Growth Has Averaged 2.8 Percent. This is well above average productivity growth in the 1990s, 1980s, and 1970s. Purchasing Managers Reported Manufacturing Expansion For The Fifth Consecutive Month In June. The Institute for Supply Management manufacturing index rose to 56 in June. | ||
Royce Member Username: Royce Post Number: 2289 Registered: 07-2004 |
Is this 8.2 million new jobs a net figure? You know, jobs created minus jobs lost, especially manufacturing jobs. Folks can play a lot of games with numbers to make their side of the story look good. | ||
Innovator Member Username: Innovator Post Number: 68 Registered: 07-2006 |
You basically copied and pasted http://www.whitehouse.gov/info cus/economy/ Why is this in the Detroit section? I realize we don't have a "mindless regurgitation of White House talking points" forum, but at least take it to non-Detroit. | ||
Accraghana Member Username: Accraghana Post Number: 3 Registered: 07-2007 |
I know that it is not likely that you can expand on any of this copy and pasted material, but I am curious if those per capital income figures are not skewed by the growth in earnings of the elites. If the top 10% of income earners in America show a solid increase in earnings that would give and reflect as a rise in average per capita figures. The top 10% of income earners in America, combined, likely makes more than the bottom 50% of income earners combined. Thus, these per capita figures do not demonstrate to what economic classes this income growth is distributed. The rich could be getting much richer while the middle class and poor get poorer. Generally speaking, when dealing with statistics, the MEDIAN figure (half above half below) is more informative than the AVERAGE which can be skewed by anomalies on either end. In regards to job growth, 140,000 jobs NEED to be created each month in order to keep up with population growth. So saying that 130,000 jobs were created in a given month is misleading, because that is actually an unhealthy figure relative to population growth. Its akin to saying that your house which you purchased 10 years ago for 100k is now worth 120k and thinking that your home has gained in value when inflation was averaging 3 percent a year the last 10 years. Your house is actually worth 10k less than when you brought it. So, without adjusting job growth data with population growth data, the analysis is meaningless. That having been said, if the economy was at FULL EMPLOYMENT and incomes were really rising, inflation would be much higher than it is. Full employment is the signs of a robust economy and usually always leads to upward pressure on inflation which is usually tamed by raising interest rates by the FED. So its not likely that Employment is as healthy as those numbers suggest. | ||
Mackinaw Member Username: Mackinaw Post Number: 3225 Registered: 02-2005 |
We have been in a long, steady period of growth with low unemployment throughout since 2003. 2004-2007 has been a boom time outside of Michigan by all economic accounts. If we weren't fighting a costly and controversial war, Bush would be earning a legacy similar to Clinton on domestic well-being. Our domestic well-being is actually more remarkable here in this Bush years than the Clinton years because we've had to recover from the technology bust, terrorist attacks, and keep up the momentum in spite of a housing bust. There is a lot of good going on economically. It's too bad that Michigan has not kept up on the whole (interesting to note, though, that the Detroit economy has been procyclical with national trends, but for an entirely different set of reasons), and that the Bush years will be marred to a great extent by the Iraq war conspiracy. | ||
Spacemonkey Member Username: Spacemonkey Post Number: 210 Registered: 03-2006 |
NOTE There's a recruitment open house tomorrow night at Team Detroit (internet advertising). info: teamdetroit.com | ||
Accraghana Member Username: Accraghana Post Number: 4 Registered: 07-2007 |
Ok. Here is a you and me example of what is happening and tell me there is a not a difference. Let’s say you and I both have 4 bedroom homes, 3 car garage, late model car, boat, vacations, and dinner out with the family….ect. Say one of us maintains this lifestyle via income growth and the other maintains this lifestyle via credit growth (borrowing). Say one of makes 100k a year while the other is making 75K and maintaining the same lifestyle via credit cards, refinancing and the like. Which person’s consumption and lifestyle is sustainable in the long run and who is just borrowing from the future? Folks, the national debt is nearly 9 trillion dollars. Folks, the personal savings rate of Americans is ZERO. The consumption that is fueling the economy and maintaining lifestyles comes from BORROWING growth and not EARNINGS growth. GDP growth that is the result of earnings growth is not the same as GDP growth that is the result of borrowing growth or rather, central banks PRINTING more currency for banks and credit institutions to lend out. Of course the economy will grow if the government is simply printing more dollars. Hell, if I could counterfeit money and get away with it would not my earnings and standards of living grow too? Of course it would and that is what is happening in America and around the world now. Since we are on a fiat system of currency, in other words money not backed by anything tangible of worth, printing money can invigorate economic activity. However, the consequence of that is that it devalues the currency and any one who watches currency exchange rates no that the American dollar has been falling against other major currencies, like the Euro, for sometime now. (Message edited by accraghana on July 11, 2007) | ||
Upinottawa Member Username: Upinottawa Post Number: 888 Registered: 09-2005 |
This thread should be moved. But for fun: In January 2002, the USD was worth $1.61 Canadian. Today, the USD is worth $1.05 Canadian. | ||
Spartacus Member Username: Spartacus Post Number: 196 Registered: 07-2005 |
Acc, the $ is not falling because the U.S. is printing more dollars. I thought I already called you out on this "theory" in another thread. BTW, it's not necessarily a bad thing that the dollar is weak. It makes our countries exports cheaper. If the Fed were printing more dollars to expand the economy then we would experience inflation in this country. | ||
Jt1 Member Username: Jt1 Post Number: 9555 Registered: 10-2003 |
He is on about the spending habits in this country being fueled by debt. What happens when the tens of millions of baby boomers retire? The vast majority are not prepared for retirement and will be looking to the government or taxpayers. quote: http://www.urban.org/publicati ons/1001017.html | ||
Accraghana Member Username: Accraghana Post Number: 5 Registered: 07-2007 |
http://www.thetrumpet.com/inde x.php?page=article&id=3362 The Bank for International Settlements (bis), arguably the world’s most prestigious financial organization, is warning that massively loose monetary conditions are threatening the global economy and that most people just don’t understand the risk. According to the bis, circumstances today are similar to the periods just preceding the Great Depression and the Asian Contagion of the 1990s. In each of these cases, like today, conditions led many analysts to erroneously suggest that a new era of ceaseless prosperity had arrived. The bis’s 77th annual report pointed to both the United States and China as two increasingly unbalanced economies that could derail global economic growth. The report specifically highlighted several worrying signs, according to the Telegraph, including “mass issuance of new-fangled credit instruments, soaring levels of household debt, extreme appetite for risk shown by investors, and entrenched imbalances in the world currency system” (June 25). The common theme lurking behind each of the above concerns, says the bis, is “highly accommodating financial conditions”—in other words, massive amounts of money being created and loaned out. For example, the U.S.’s total money supply (as measured by M3) is currently being expanded at a rate of approximately 12 percent a year. At that speed, the total amount of money in the U.S. will double in just six years—an inflation nightmare waiting to happen. Chinese money supply (as measured by M2, which is less inclusive than M3) is growing at over 17 percent annually. bis noted last year’s record issuance of almost a trillion dollars in collateralized debt obligations (cdos) and synthetic cdos. cdos are bond-like packages of mortgages and sometimes other forms of debt. Globally, corporate mergers and acquisitions also hit a record $4.1 trillion last year. Money is an interesting thing. Central banks print it, regular banks lend and create more of it, people slave for and borrow it—everybody wants more of it—until all of a sudden there is too much of it, everybody has it, and it becomes worthless—and nobody wants it anymore. It has happened before. American continentals, German marks, several French currencies, Argentine pesos, Russian rubles, the list goes on and on, back to and even before the Roman denarius. It will happen again. | ||
Rb336 Member Username: Rb336 Post Number: 542 Registered: 02-2007 |
And how much of this increase in real wages is due to blue states over the past 4 years instituting higher minimum wage rates? I don't believe any crap the white house propoganda office puts out anyway | ||
Iheartthed Member Username: Iheartthed Post Number: 1119 Registered: 04-2006 |
>Accraghana Finally, a math head around here... Thank God! | ||
Spartacus Member Username: Spartacus Post Number: 197 Registered: 07-2005 |
The Fed controls the money supply, but not by literally printing more dollars. Anyone who has taken Econ 101 can tell you that. | ||
Accraghana Member Username: Accraghana Post Number: 6 Registered: 07-2007 |
Spartacus, due to "fractional banking" banks CREATE electronic money or "credit money" that they lend out. Banks create money via low reserve requirements that says that only....say 10% of Loans need to acutally be backed by ACTUAL physical dollars in the bank. | ||
Mackinaw Member Username: Mackinaw Post Number: 3231 Registered: 02-2005 |
Savings rates in America are absurdly low. Most economists would be willing to see slower consumption growth in exchange for more personal savings. | ||
Gannon Member Username: Gannon Post Number: 9599 Registered: 12-2003 |
Plus, aren't all bets OFF on the whole fractional system with credit cards? What of the way THEY grow the money supply? THAT is one balloon that we don't want to see pop...unless, of course, for the most of us it eliminates our debt. (where's Tyler Durden when you need him?!) Is there ANY type of reserve necessary for MasterCard, Visa, or American Express...for the money lend out (usually at such usury rates)?! I won't even get into Mackinaw's rah-rah post just yet, I've got to wind up for that one. For starters, we've NOT 'weathered' the housing slowdown just yet...it has only just begun. Cheers. | ||
Charlottepaul Member Username: Charlottepaul Post Number: 1308 Registered: 10-2006 |
"38 people move to Charlotte every day." "population expected to reach a million by 2026." http://defendcharlotte.com/30s ecpromo1.htm | ||
Charlottepaul Member Username: Charlottepaul Post Number: 1311 Registered: 10-2006 |
Y'all are more than welcome to join the job/economic 'creation' down here... | ||
Mackinaw Member Username: Mackinaw Post Number: 3233 Registered: 02-2005 |
No that's true, Gannon. I agree it will get worse, and it will place more drag on the economy, but if the rest of the economy remains as strong as it is today then I think it will "weather" it. | ||
Accraghana Member Username: Accraghana Post Number: 7 Registered: 07-2007 |
Population growth can be economic growths engine all its own in the speculative economic system that we exist in. There is an old saying. What comes first people or jobs? That is the proverbial chicken an egg philosophical question. What happens is that population growth creates speculative economic investment, which in turn creates economic opportunities. For example, many developers build homes and commercial properties in speculation that growth will eventually fill their supply. This speculation creates jobs and income opportunities. As population increases, demand for private services, government services, retail and the like also increases creating jobs in the process. This speculative investment keeps job growth ahead of population growth. The opposite is also true however. Population stagnation or decline accelerates job losses and creates the type of speculative momentum that leads to disinvestments…. like Comerica moving its HQ for example. Trends and speculation gives capitalism as “self fulfilling prophecy” aspect to it. So in essence, many boom areas of the country really are not PRODUCING net gains for the national economy. Opportunities are to a large extent simply shifting from one area of the country to another following population growth trends. If you took the population growth component out of many areas in the South, the economic performance would not that much better, if at all, than Northern Rust belt areas. I am not impressed with the South or the West economically because they are not booming in tradable services that can be exported to other nations and bring new money into the nation to lift standards of living. When the Midwest boomed, it boomed with goods producing industries that could be exported to the world lifting the standard of living on Americans through international trade. It was not an economy that attracted people to tourist economies like Nevada, or retirement economies like Florida or Arizona. The booming economies of the “new economy” is not at all comparable to the booming economies of the “old economy” lead by states like Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania and the like. | ||
Ray Member Username: Ray Post Number: 935 Registered: 06-2004 |
Mackinaw and Irish Mafia, When will you learn that no amount of fact or empirical evidence will persuade most people on this forum that the US economy is fundamentally strong and that the trivails of Michigan are unique and self-inflicted. Accraghana, there is a shit load of manufacturing going on in the South and West, and more importantly, there is a lot of technology development going on. Cities like Dallas, Atlanta, Seattle and San Francisco seeth with value-creating economic activity. | ||
Gannon Member Username: Gannon Post Number: 9606 Registered: 12-2003 |
Yeah, Accraghana, don't forget our biggest export recently has been WAR, and much of that production is in the south and west. Mackinaw, Thanks...and while Ray wants to paint my tempering comments as ignoring fact and empirical evidence, the figures do not tell the whole story. They never do. They do not indicate the dynamic forces at work, they are merely static snapshots of an instant in time. I believe the force we call 'private equity', which is no doubt now largely funded by the war machine, will be changing our corporate capitalist system drastically over the next couple years. I'm not sure how, but pulling strategic companies out of the public realm...out of easy oversight...seems troubling to me. I've been gently alarmed at the large recent purchases by the Carlysle Group...and that they are collecting our publicly-traded industry's best performers, and have some nefarious plan (gotta keep the conspiracy brain churning). In addition, the return of derivative contract trading Hedge Funds not unlike that huge one with the Nobel Prize winners on the board of directors, Long-Term Capital Management, is very troubling. When LTCM failed, they could've single-handedly brought down the world's economic house of cards. Greenspan knew this, and got a dozen or so of his best buddies to shore them up and buffer the effects of their spectacular failure upon their banking and insurance interests. That was back in 1998...and we didn't hear about large Hedge Funds for years, but now they're back. This sort of trading almost brought down that 300-year-old British bank around the same time, when a far-east trader went wild on derivatives. While reading the Wiki on LTCM, I got an alarming check in my gut. The volatility of markets is usually not severe on the population, because most demands are elastic. War demands are about the least elastic ones, indeed if there is a force that induces the opposite than elasticity faster than war I am not aware of it...maybe fear works similarly...regardless, war is likely to exacerbate the negative effects when these things fail again. They are bound to...they are fueled with some of mere humankind's worst traits: selfishness, greed, pride...all that good foundational stuff that the Objectivists deem high honor or the greatest good. Hah. I'm going to have to do a mind-game on when Ayn Rand meets Murphy. When Mr. Anything-That-Can-Go-Wrong-Wil l shows up in a world of boasters. | ||
Gannon Member Username: Gannon Post Number: 9607 Registered: 12-2003 |
Accraghana, I just caught this from your initial post: quote: So...as our money then morphs into one electronic pile...it could all fail in an unprecedented world-wide market deflation. Now THAT is one ride I don't want to take. We could be back in overt colonial wars in no time at all...no more of this covert capitalist spun stuff. | ||
Accraghana Member Username: Accraghana Post Number: 8 Registered: 07-2007 |
Gannon, the banking system caused the last great depression in America with liquidity policies. You are on point and correct. The banking system and fractional banking is the closest thing to legalized Ponzi Confidence game there is. It all falls apart at the point people attempt to actually cash out from a loss of confidence. That is what caused the last great depression. That is the downfall of all Ponzi scams. The whole “fiat” system of currency is creating on big mess that will eventually cause major global economic problems. | ||
Danny Member Username: Danny Post Number: 6194 Registered: 02-2004 |
YAY GRANHOLM! More jobs means lower unemployment percentage. | ||
Umcs Member Username: Umcs Post Number: 4 Registered: 06-2007 |
I believe this editorial captures quite a bit of the perception issue Irish_Mafia doesn't seem to fathom correctly. http://www.detnews.com/apps/pb cs.dll/article?AID=/20070712/O PINION03/707120360 | ||
Accraghana Member Username: Accraghana Post Number: 9 Registered: 07-2007 |
Ray, much of the manufacturing growth in the places you mentioned represents a regional shift from high wage union regions in the North East and Midwest to “right to work” states that utilizes much cheaper labor. A manufacturer may move his plant from Ohio or Michigan down to Texas to take advantage of cheaper no unionized labor. It does not represent GROWTH in the aggregate for the nation, but rather a downward SHIFT from one region to another region. This is the reason that auto manufacturing is also shifting South. The point to note, which I was trying to make, is that it is a DOWN SHIFT for workers as companies seek lower labor cost. Of course exceptions to the rule exist, but overall that is the rule. America can hardly compete in a globalized pseudo free market awash in cheap labor and expect to maintain the number of high wage jobs in this nation. The south offers the cheapest wages and that is why manufacturing and other are shifting south, but eventually the South will be decimated as it cannot compete with Mexico, let alone China or India, in regards cheap labor. | ||
Lilpup Member Username: Lilpup Post Number: 2425 Registered: 06-2004 |
in the meanwhile Trade deficit up significantly | ||
Civilprotectionunit4346 Member Username: Civilprotectionunit4346 Post Number: 185 Registered: 06-2007 |
I hear something....ohh yeah it's the economy here still going down the bowl!!!! Baawwwoosshhhh! | ||
Gannon Member Username: Gannon Post Number: 9615 Registered: 12-2003 |
Accra, Thanks for confirming my notions. I 'see' things in wave representation sometimes in my mind, and can introduce slope or time accelerators and other weirdness and postulate the results. This is organic and untrained, but I've grown more able to exercise it within the last few years. I'd truly like to see those economic figures from that other thread adjusted without the war action spending...and on THIS I'd like to see calculated how the extended credit acts as an accelerator. I know the wave analogy in my noggin can be described or at least approximated with a combination of equations, but need my friend Michael to do the algorithms. Do we know if credit card clearance companies have to be leveraged similarly to banks...or if the sponsoring banks have to include this extension in THEIR leverage calculation?! Either way, the way they skim off BOTH sides of the purchase equation is economic art...but it's grown well into master-criminal-like behavior, with the bulk of us its slaves. I'd just like to see calculated how quickly the bottom could fall out in the best-imagined worst case scenarios...and then check to see how they've wiggled and danced around these weak spots if we see reality examples of our expected trends and/or conditions. OR, see how recent law and regulation changes seemingly ALLOW for these possible failures to occur. I'd be looking mostly for UNintended results, but would not be surprised if we found some accessories before the fact...like those creepy electricity brokers out west before Enron bellied up laughing about taking Grandma Millie's retirement money. I am never amazed at the depths mere humans can go against one another...not any more. Cheers...two shots of espresso propel me beyond feeling too badly talking about this stuff at the beginning of my day. | ||
Spacemonkey Member Username: Spacemonkey Post Number: 211 Registered: 03-2006 |
The Chinese are going to march right into the US and take over. It will happen within our lifetime. | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 3397 Registered: 10-2004 |
Oakland delegation seeks teachers from China Patterson and some Oakland County school districts are importing teachers from China to teach Mandarin Chinese starting this coming school year. Some of those schools will have Chinese immersion classes being taught at the lowest grades. | ||
Optima Member Username: Optima Post Number: 1 Registered: 12-2006 |
This is one of the best threads I've seen here in quite some time. Accra's post # 9 (10:25 am) is one of the best explanations of job shifting versus job creation I've seen and I concur. Globalization has impacted almost all professions (or will shortly) and so far I've resisted the temptation to follow the jobs that are relocating but perhaps only temporarily as I, too am forced to "re-career." Mega-Trends, published in 1986, predicted this economic behavior to an extent and the warning to diversify the state's economy should have begun at that time but as government is strictly a reactionary entity it is not surprising that we find ourselves in the type of scenario we are in currently. The calling card of globalization, cheap labor, will eventually finalize the shift of manufacturing out of this country and although I don't personally bemoan the loss it is quite painful to watch from this vantage point. The transition into a higher tech economy should be embraced by the state much more aggressively. This is my first post and I feel myself rambling so I will cut it off here. Cm |
