[Nwxffgke]

PRINCETON, NJ -- Unemployment, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, hit 10.0% in mid-February -- up from 9.8% at the end of January.

[nonDosearrany]

hail thee CSA!

isn't the actual real and true unemployment figure higher, once other factors be added in (most 'o which i don't understand)?

- MeadHallPirate

[SawbasyWrab]

The early Feb 2011 report from the U.S. Govt. Bureau of Labor and Statistics said unemployment was at 9.0%.

However, two major factors in the lower number were 1) temp. Xmas jobs, and 2) the rising now nearly 7 million unemployed people not counted in the BLS unemployment figure because they are so discouraged they haven't looked for work in the past four weeks prior to the report. The BLS tracks these people, they know these people exist, are unemployed and want and need to work, but because they haven't reported having done anything to look for work in the past four weeks, they're not counted as even being in the labor force.

These two factors greatly throw the BLS figure off from the true unemployment rate.

Also, the BLS report in early February doesn't cover much of January. It covers the period of the second week in December through the first week in January, when many people have been added to the employment rolls for temp. full-time Xmas shopping-related work.

In early March we'll get a more accurate assessment minus the newly laid-off temp. Xmas help, as that report will cover the second week in January through the First week of February.

The BLS figure is not derived from data reported from unemployment offices throughout the country. It is determined through a series of interviews conducted each month by the census bureau, in which 150,000 businesses are contacted and 60,000 households (involving about 120,000 people or so) are contacted and the figure is determined.

I can't comment about the Gallup polls accuracy.

But when the temp Xmas jobs are gone and if we rightly include the nearly 7 million discouraged workers in the computation, the true unemployment rate closes in on 13% nationally, with many regions hit much harder than 13%.

Remember, there is so far no great incentive for major corporations to hire domestically. Illegal immigrant-hiring (risky for businesses though) and off-shoring American jobs to foreign wage-slave labor, is all the rage for major corporations who are expanding over-seas (which is why "our" "economy" seems stable in the face of horrific unemployment).

Small business, however, which amounts to around 98% of all businesses according to a friend of mine who works at one of the major credit bureaus and tracks this information, businesses whose customers are mostly domestic, are still hurting. Because of the domestic crisis in unemployment, these businesses still lag in sales, and they've had to cut back in employees, over-work the employees they have or hire illegals at wage-slave labor rates (just to stay in business).

[yxn2dC07]

As I have maintained ever since I joined here, when we are still bleeding jobs to China and other places, any growth in employment will be hard to realize. What we have going on with corporate globalization only makes matters worse for the folks here at home, out of work.

I think we are seeing the down side of corporate globalization. The part Clinton and the Pub Boys never told us about. They forgot to include the caveat that while we will be able to buy our shit cheaper, don't expect your factory job to still be here to finance your buying cheap toaster ovens. In fact, that new lower paying, lower benefits service job you had to get to replace your old job, makes the Chinese price for toaster ovens, about the same when compared to your income as it was prior to your job being sent elsewhere. Yeah, that's right. This globalization model invented for the corporations to maximize profits has a down side. But only if you are a working class bloke.

And of course the recession laid bare the bones of the effects of corporate globalization upon average people here in America. The part that we were never told about, but should have known, if we had used common sense. I just wonder how long it will take before we come to our senses, and admit that manufacturing is still essential to this Nation and its economy and its people. Until we once again make our own toaster ovens for our consumer happy society, people will suffer, and suffer greatly.

It's high time for tax rates on the rich to move back up to what they were. Then the gov't redistributes those monies to non rich folks who then spend them, giving the economy a shot in the arm. It's not like the gov't puts those revenues in a locked box. No, instead of being squirreled back by the rich, that money is spent, and every dollar spent goes back into the economy in some form or fashion.

Ask yourself this. Is it better for govt to tax and spend, putting those dollars back into the economy, or is it better for the rich to have low tax rates and then take the savings and invest in China? Where the return is much higher than here, due to the cheap labor over there. I know which way seems better.

[Retapleapse]

As I have maintained ever since I joined here, when we are still bleeding jobs to China and other places, any growth in employment will be hard to realize. What we have going on with corporate globalization only makes matters worse for the folks here at home, out of work.

I think we are seeing the down side of corporate globalization. The part Clinton and the Pub Boys never told us about. They forgot to include the caveat that while we will be able to buy our shit cheaper, don't expect your factory job to still be here to finance your buying cheap toaster ovens. In fact, that new lower paying, lower benefits service job you had to get to replace your old job, makes the Chinese price for toaster ovens, about the same when compared to your income as it was prior to your job being sent elsewhere. Yeah, that's right. This globalization model invented for the corporations to maximize profits has a down side. But only if you are a working class bloke.

And of course the recession laid bare the bones of the effects of corporate globalization upon average people here in America. The part that we were never told about, but should have known, if we had used common sense. I just wonder how long it will take before we come to our senses, and admit that manufacturing is still essential to this Nation and its economy and its people. Until we once again make our own toaster ovens for our consumer happy society, people will suffer, and suffer greatly.

It's high time for tax rates on the rich to move back up to what they were. Then the gov't redistributes those monies to non rich folks who then spend them, giving the economy a shot in the arm. It's not like the gov't puts those revenues in a locked box. No, instead of being squirreled back by the rich, that money is spent, and every dollar spent goes back into the economy in some form or fashion.

Ask yourself this. Is it better for govt to tax and spend, putting those dollars back into the economy, or is it better for the rich to have low tax rates and then take the savings and invest in China? Where the return is much higher than here, due to the cheap labor over there. I know which way seems better.

Gee Blue the same old song, it's hard for you to understand, the good old USA is getting beat on the world stage, foreign engineering has put us to shame, take Honda for Christ sake, they started out making lawn mowers, but do to expert engineering thay kick our ass and now they are one of the largest auto makers in the world. Engineering

Germany's engineering in manufacturing equipment kicks our ass, US manufacturing buys German engineered and made processing equipment, that no one can complete against.

Now I ask who makes all the wind mills you see whirling in the sky and who is the best manufacture of solar panels, it not cheap labor (it is in some cases but not all) it's engineering.

We do a lot of great stuff, but engineering on mechanical stuff we have failed miserably and that is the reason our factories are suffering and high wages compared to the other parts of the world does not help and puts us at a further disadvantage.

We're not living in the 30's and 40's anymore, if you haven't noticed it's 2011

[Retapleapse]

PRINCETON, NJ -- Unemployment, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, hit 10.0% in mid-February -- up from 9.8% at the end of January.

Wait on minute, I don't believe that chart, Obama told us unemployment would not go above 8% if we hurried and approved his trillion dollar stimulus bill. So that chart is dead wrong.

[uphokyhuP]

As I have maintained ever since I joined here, when we are still bleeding jobs to China and other places, any growth in employment will be hard to realize. What we have going on with corporate globalization only makes matters worse for the folks here at home, out of work.

I think we are seeing the down side of corporate globalization. The part Clinton and the Pub Boys never told us about. They forgot to include the caveat that while we will be able to buy our shit cheaper, don't expect your factory job to still be here to finance your buying cheap toaster ovens. In fact, that new lower paying, lower benefits service job you had to get to replace your old job, makes the Chinese price for toaster ovens, about the same when compared to your income as it was prior to your job being sent elsewhere. Yeah, that's right. This globalization model invented for the corporations to maximize profits has a down side. But only if you are a working class bloke.

And of course the recession laid bare the bones of the effects of corporate globalization upon average people here in America. The part that we were never told about, but should have known, if we had used common sense. I just wonder how long it will take before we come to our senses, and admit that manufacturing is still essential to this Nation and its economy and its people. Until we once again make our own toaster ovens for our consumer happy society, people will suffer, and suffer greatly.

It's high time for tax rates on the rich to move back up to what they were. Then the gov't redistributes those monies to non rich folks who then spend them, giving the economy a shot in the arm. It's not like the gov't puts those revenues in a locked box. No, instead of being squirreled back by the rich, that money is spent, and every dollar spent goes back into the economy in some form or fashion.

Ask yourself this. Is it better for govt to tax and spend, putting those dollars back into the economy, or is it better for the rich to have low tax rates and then take the savings and invest in China? Where the return is much higher than here, due to the cheap labor over there. I know which way seems better.

I don't have a problem with capitalism or globalization, in fact I think we need those two things; the thing that's missing, the ingredient we're lacking these days is how we decide we will treat each other as human beings.

When the top CEO makes 400 times that of the lowest employee when 30 years ago the top person at a company made between 30 and 40 times more than the lowest employee, that tells us all we need to know about where the wealth redistribution has been going.

I have little faith in people, but enough faith that backed into a corner by avarice and greed, the people will rise up and claim their rights and make things fair in the end.

There is wealth enough for everyone. Corporate America had an amazing 2010, but they are not creating jobs here still because they can get those things done overseas, but they will face problems overseas soon enough as Chinese workers begin to ask for their human rights and as Indonesians and others ask for theirs in the face of jobs they work hard and long hours at with very little benefits and little pay.

The people will prevail and carve out a piece of the pie for themselves, and it will come when they realize that they must stand together in unity in order to get it.

[Sheestgag]

Gee Blue the same old song, it's hard for you to understand, the good old USA is getting beat on the world stage, foreign engineering has put us to shame, take Honda for Christ sake, they started out making lawn mowers, but do to expert engineering thay kick our ass and now they are one of the largest auto makers in the world. Engineering

Germany's engineering in manufacturing equipment kicks our ass, US manufacturing buys German engineered and made processing equipment, that no one can complete against.

Now I ask who makes all the wind mills you see whirling in the sky and who is the best manufacture of solar panels, it not cheap labor (it is in some cases but not all) it's engineering.

We do a lot of great stuff, but engineering on mechanical stuff we have failed miserably and that is the reason our factories are suffering and high wages compared to the other parts of the world does not help and puts us at a further disadvantage.

We're not living in the 30's and 40's anymore, if you haven't noticed it's 2011

Why are you such a pessimists when the proof is out there. The USA still outproduces China and other major industrial nations. We do it with fewer people because we are so much more efficeint than they are.

Despite China's might, US factories maintain edge Despite China's might, US factories maintain edge - Yahoo! News

Are you just anti-American, a foriegn troublemaker, a boy calling wolf? It really is disheartening to see that you are so down on the USA with opinion(uninformed), and not facts.

[EsAllCams]

hail thee CSA!

isn't the actual real and true unemployment figure higher, once other factors be added in (most 'o which i don't understand)?

- MeadHallPirate

and the winning answer is...in a word, YES

[Sheestgag]

the reason why we have had a decline in many industries is that the other nations are at war with us to become #1. They subsidize production to help us loose our factories. We have tried to deal fairly with these nations as a program to help them develope because of the ravages of WWII and our advantages from WWII. Well it looks like thay will not play fair but we know if we adopt protective barriers they too will erect the same. That will stifle world trade and we will see destruction of trade and even more decline.
I would like to see the USA push for more fair trade and that is what Obama is doing, but at the same time I would like to see the USA subsidize the same industries that the rest of the world is subsidizing. But we have a plutocracy with a strong lobby force that bribes our Congress. That is where the true problem lies.

[yxn2dC07]

Gee Blue the same old song, it's hard for you to understand, the good old USA is getting beat on the world stage, foreign engineering has put us to shame, take Honda for Christ sake, they started out making lawn mowers, but do to expert engineering thay kick our ass and now they are one of the largest auto makers in the world. Engineering

Germany's engineering in manufacturing equipment kicks our ass, US manufacturing buys German engineered and made processing equipment, that no one can complete against.

Now I ask who makes all the wind mills you see whirling in the sky and who is the best manufacture of solar panels, it not cheap labor (it is in some cases but not all) it's engineering.

We do a lot of great stuff, but engineering on mechanical stuff we have failed miserably and that is the reason our factories are suffering and high wages compared to the other parts of the world does not help and puts us at a further disadvantage.

We're not living in the 30's and 40's anymore, if you haven't noticed it's 2011

I ain't buying what you are selling. My own brain and manufacturing experience will not allow it. I faced just a little bit of this outsourcing and offshoring in the last couple years before I sold my own biz and retired. Hell, I refused to buy cheap materials from slave labor places. It is a decision, you know?

I well recall the song and dance that Clinton rolled out in regards to the offshoring. I see the closed down factories here that used to employ thousands of my neihbors. WHAT? One day those factories could not make and sell what they were making and selling for years and years? Bullshit. I know it, and you should damn well know it. I think you have drank too much of the corpoate kool aid, while I refuse to.

[Retapleapse]

Why are you such a pessimists when the proof is out there. The USA still outproduces China and other major industrial nations. We do it with fewer people because we are so much more efficeint than they are.


Despite China's might, US factories maintain edge - Yahoo! News

Are you just anti-American, a foriegn troublemaker, a boy calling wolf? It really is disheartening to see that you are so down on the USA with opinion(uninformed), and not facts.

Well then tell Blue and Dick they are way off base blaming corporations for the loss of all our manufacturing jobs. According to you their dead wrong. Thank you.

[Izzy]

I don't have a problem with capitalism or globalization, in fact I think we need those two things; the thing that's missing, the ingredient we're lacking these days is how we decide we will treat each other as human beings.

When the top CEO makes 400 times that of the lowest employee when 30 years ago the top person at a company made between 30 and 40 times more than the lowest employee, that tells us all we need to know about where the wealth redistribution has been going.

I have little faith in people, but enough faith that backed into a corner by avarice and greed, the people will rise up and claim their rights and make things fair in the end.

There is wealth enough for everyone. Corporate America had an amazing 2010, but they are not creating jobs here still because they can get those things done overseas, but they will face problems overseas soon enough as Chinese workers begin to ask for their human rights and as Indonesians and others ask for theirs in the face of jobs they work hard and long hours at with very little benefits and little pay.

The people will prevail and carve out a piece of the pie for themselves, and it will come when they realize that they must stand together in unity in order to get it.

Wow.

That's a whole lot just to ignore the subject of the thread...

[bactrimtab]

Jason Marcel
When the top CEO makes 400 times that of the lowest employee when 30 years ago the top person at a company made between 30 and 40 times more than the lowest employee, that tells us all we need to know about where the wealth redistribution has been going. Typical liberal, acting as though profits are there for first and foremost amongs the employees, rather than the SHAREHOLDERS of the company. Where there is room for legitimate outrage over the level of compensation being received by corporate officers, NONE of it belongs rightfully to other employees, it is outrage on the behest of those who have invested in the company.

Second, you might want to take a look at WHEN (and by extension WHY) this has changed over time. Well, because idiot liberals decided that even 30 to 40 times was outrageous, decided to pass a law limiting to $1 million, the amount corporations could deduct as an expense for tax purposes as compensation for a corporate officer UNLESS it was tied directly to performance. Well, sounds like a great idea right? WRONG, because anyone who isn't a stupid liberal knows that this legislation was DIRECTLY responsible for the unprecedented explosion of stock options to such executives from the mid-90s on ward (as well as the perverse incentivisation of short-term stock price manipulation by those whose bonuses and options were made significantly more valuable by those manipulations which led to many of the corporate accounting scandals that ran rampant under the Clinton Administration until they were ferreted out and prosecuted--under the Bush administration).

[Ivanaishere]

Actually, Marcus, it doesn't make much difference whether the CEO is paid in salary or in stock options. He's still being overpaid, while the workers are being underpaid, harming not only the workers themselves but the entire economy, and the difference you're talking about is an unimportant one.

As for the compensation properly belonging to the shareholders rather than the workers, that's the essential flaw at the heart of the capitalist system: that ownership of wealth goes to the owners of capital, not to those who do the work to produce it. It's a form of theft, essentially: a way to steal from a person the fruits of his labor. What you say is legally true. Morally, however, it's a travesty. It's the workers who produce all of the wealth going to anyone, CEO, shareholders, or themselves, and if the law doesn't entitle them to that wealth, which I agree it does not, then the law as it stands is the problem.

[Izzy]

It's the workers who produce all of the wealth going to anyone...

That's just nonsense.

Are the workers the ones who start up the businesses? Take the risks? Are the workers the ones making sound business decisions? Are the workers the ones who decide on the course for a company? Are the workers the ones held to account when a business decision goes south?

Taking your view, the person who makes the coffee and cleans the floors should make as much as me, seeing as she keeps me happy by making sure I always have coffee. Now, let's not take into account the fact that spend 50% of the year on the road, away from my family, earning a living. Let's not take into account the fact that she has nothing to do with any of the business decisions made for our company.

Yeah, let's pay her six figures a year for making sure the coffee pot is full and the floors are clean...

[Avgustslim]

That's just nonsense.

Are the workers the ones who start up the businesses? Take the risks? Are the workers the ones making sound business decisions? Are the workers the ones who decide on the course for a company? Are the workers the ones held to account when a business decision goes south?

Taking your view, the person who makes the coffee and cleans the floors should make as much as me, seeing as she keeps me happy by making sure I always have coffee. Now, let's not take into account the fact that spend 50% of the year on the road, away from my family, earning a living. Let's not take into account the fact that she has nothing to do with any of the business decisions made for our company.

Yeah, let's pay her six figures a year for making sure the coffee pot is full and the floors are clean...

Well as you've stated that's a typical liberal for you.

People who start businesses or exercise initiative aren't necessary in the liberal world. After all, people who think for themselves are the enemies of all liberals.

[SawbasyWrab]

Well as you've stated that's a typical liberal for you.

People who start businesses or exercise initiative aren't necessary in the liberal world. After all, people who think for themselves are the enemies of all liberals.

In addition, liberals who are further-left socialists, are even further removed from here and now business as it truly is.

Not that I advocate any one over the other, as both have their flaws.

But capitalism is the method of money system management employed by the western world; that is our present paradigm in vogue and it's good to face the reality of it.

It's heirarchical nature appeals to men, men who, by nature, want to lead, and that requires followers (aspiring to be leaders) .. and the hierarchy of capitalism thereby functions.

Socialists have a tendency to forget the nature of the great majority of men.

Though women, owing to their natural cooperation-orientation, find neighborhood socialism pleasant and would be quite happy with a less competitive more cooperative form of money system management, I'm surprised when liberal socialist men espouse socialism.

I can't help but think that they must really like women .. or something like that.

[Retapleapse]

I ain't buying what you are selling. My own brain and manufacturing experience will not allow it. I faced just a little bit of this outsourcing and offshoring in the last couple years before I sold my own biz and retired. Hell, I refused to buy cheap materials from slave labor places. It is a decision, you know?

I well recall the song and dance that Clinton rolled out in regards to the offshoring. I see the closed down factories here that used to employ thousands of my neihbors. WHAT? One day those factories could not make and sell what they were making and selling for years and years? Bullshit. I know it, and you should damn well know it. I think you have drank too much of the corpoate kool aid, while I refuse to.

You don't have to believe what I'm selling just look around. How did Honda do what it did. How did Toyota do what it did? Why does Germany kick our butt in engineering in manufacturing equipment? Why do we buy all those wind mill parts from other countries. Why can't we build solar panels here? Why can't we drill our own oil? Why do we send 500 billion a yr to foreign countries to buy oil. Why do we outsource all those oil jobs to foreign countries?

Yeah I know it's all the Republican's fault or it's FOX News fault.

[Ivanaishere]

I can't help but think that they must really like women .. or something like that.

Well, yes, I do really like women. I'm a heterosexual male. It goes with the territory.

Actually come to think of it that's not true; there are plenty of straight guys out there who despise women except as fuck toys. So perhaps you have a point, that being a socialist and being a feminist (i.e., liking and respecting women) go hand in hand. Although that wasn't always true of the New Left back in the 60s-70s, come to think of it; may of those radicals were notoriously sexist.

Anyway, be that as it may -- respect and liking for women, although I will certainly own it, isn't the reason I'm a socialist. And the problem isn't that our system rewards those who start businesses and exercise initiative. It's that it doesn't reward or empower those who do the work to make their visions a reality. What's more, it doesn't even reward those who start businesses or exercise initiative. It rewards those who have money. Everyone else has to struggle, including entrepreneurs, most of whom fail.

The problem in our thinking is not that the person who funds the operation deserves a reward. It's that the working class doesn't, and that employees are an expense in our accounting rather than partners in the operation. This has a tendency to cause employees to be exploited and wages to be kept low, which is not only unfair but also harmful to the economy. The system is set up as one of privilege, a way to make the rich richer in perpetuity and consign the rest of us to the leftover scraps. It didn't have to be that way. And in the future, it still doesn't.