But I still say these numbers have got to be revised down. They don't smell right. This is not an economy that should be growing at 4%, and the renewed slowdown in wages suggests softness that isn't accounted for in the numbers.
Or, if this is an economy hitting nearly 4% (strong even by the standards of the 1990s boom), then Bernanke needs to quit slashing and start raising, or inflation is going to take off into the stratosphere. The underlying trends don't support this acceleration. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
and yet it's labelled a "surge" by the breathless business media...
How standards have changed. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
The average U.S. work week was unchanged at 33.8 hours.
Maybe the USA needs a 35-hour week so that Americans are incited to work a bit more than their current lazy habits? In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
What I wanted to note though was this other discrepancy in NFP monthly statistic: Current Population Survey (CPS), published by BLS also, showed a loss of 250,000 jobs and a decrease in the Civilian labor force of 211k.
That is interesting beside the increasing statistical significance of counting "marginally attached" employment in the labor force who are "not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey." Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
I think you could certainly argue that 166k is not bad given the state of things, but when you have a number like that spread over the business cycle, it's pretty weak. Now, in fairness, Bush didn't need as much growth in the recovery to get back to something near the NRU, since the peak unemployment rate after the '01 crash was roughly two full percentage points lower than the peak in the recession of the early-1990s (6% vs 8%). And the extremely low unemployment rate under Clinton probably implies that we dealt with an unnatural expansion in labor supply back then -- e.g., the elderly reentering the market seeking the higher wages a tight supply would afford them, dropping back out once the contraction arrived and more normal levels returned.
But it's been very weak, nonetheless, and I suspect that's why wage growth has been so pathetic throughout this expansion. I'd guess we've basically made up in the expansion what we lost on employment during the contraction over the last several years. Even taking out the Clinton years and comparing Junior with Reagan, Carter, Daddy, etc, this has been pretty sad. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
an unnatural expansion in labor supply back then
Putting my economist's hat back on for a moment, I should state that as, not "unnatural," but rather irregular. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
As far as inflation fears that Bernanke might consider - high inflation is already here. Bernanke and the Fed and the federal Housing Authority are trying desperately to inject "cash" (overtime for the currency presses) into the financial markets to dilute the losses. As someone else wrote - the good news is that we'll be paying our mortgages with cheap dollars - which is essentially what they're doing by increasing the money supply.
The bad news is that everything else that the overwhelming majority of us (in the U.S.) buy is going up at over 10% per annum at the moment - with no wage increases to compensate - unless you recently ran Merrill Lynch - come to think of it, I guess that Sean is taking a cut, too. Point being that to speak of a 3.9% growth rate is based on their fiction of < 3% inflation. Actual inflation adjustment means that the real "growth" rate is negative. paul spencer
take away all the profits made on weapons, tazers, riot shields, uniforms, junk food manufacturers, dodgy pharma, stupid energy creation, noxious chemicals, and factor in the future costs (those precious externalities), all the Love Canals waiting to be cleaned up, and how fast is the -tumour- growth occurring?
if someone's underweight and fading away, do we celebrate weight gain in the form of cancerous tissue?
man needs work for dignity and self-expression, to repay the inevitable fact that his life was and is dependent on the work and kindness of others, but there's a heck of a difference between work tilling the fields and putting on your hazmat suit and cleaning up the spilt detritus of some previous generation's hubristically myopic lust for phantom security and transitory stock market gains.
most people would choose different lives, if they could, i believe.
how can we return that choice to people, in a way that the planet can sustain?
i would be very happy to have the answer to that question... ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
