Part Time for Economic Reasons

I want to know "Overtime for Economic Reasons". And then there's "Overtime for No Good Reason At All", to which I subscribe.

About the Olympics...

The last 'good' Olympics, were when there was no corporate involvement, aside from advertising on tv. Jean-Claude Killy was the first athlete to cash in on endorsements in a huge way, and it opened the door to what we have today, where the athletes actual performances are only a small portion of what you'll see in total, in any 60 minute period on the telly, when the fiscal white elephant comes to town for a fortnight.

"I've been quite warm outside in very cold temperatures if I'm dressed appropriately. Snowboarding when it's -20C is fine even if it's windy."

for some reason I always found the walks more painful then anything else. I would gave boots, under underwear and scarf and hat covering my whole face on those walks and yet I would still yell from the cold sometimes.

I think it was the lack of anything else to take my mind off the cold and lack of light and no one around that did it.

Looks like Tokyo was eliminated as well.

poic wrote:

for some reason I always found the walks more painful then anything else. I would gave boots, under underwear and scarf and hat covering my whole face on those walks and yet I would still yell from the cold sometimes.

I agree. The walk I identified was the coldest because I was under-dressed, unprepared, and undistracted . Even though I've been in much colder temperatures, I've never felt so cold as that day.

so from CRs first graph ...E verses adult population....

we are less than 2% from dropping below the ratio of adult employment to adult population last seen during the recession of 1982

I would say we're headed for a double-dip except I really haven't noticed a jump to take the second dip from.

so heres an interesting question

since people who are temps and part time...when they loose their jobs not counted as new UE

do the UE numbers reflect a change in employment from full time permanent to part time temporary??

cause if not, then their is a leak in the metrics of the model

can anyone educate me about this...my search so far yields no answer

ok, let's try this again. It was pigged on the last thread
.
re: Employment
The employment:population ratio advanced at a rate not seen since Feb->Mar this year. -0.4%
graph data
January B/D revisions should be fun when when you consider ADP, Manpower, and Monster surveys telling the story that the economy caught up to last January's revisions and then lost about 1mn jobs instead of adding 1mn. Didn't know they had midyear revisions at this point, will have to look that up before I know what I'm talking about

This was probably already posted this morning, but apparently the IMF wants banks to buy financial crisis insurance.

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“The financial sector is creating a lot of systemic risk for the global economy,” Mr. Strauss-Kahn said. “It's just fair that such a sector would pay some part of its resources to mitigate the risk they are creating themselves.”

There is so much naive cuteness in that statement that I don't know where to begin. But I do feel the urge to give the old codger a hug and tussle his hair.

In the "Too Fucking Expected" news, Chicago eliminated in first round. LMAO!

Seriously, did anyone really expect Chicago to win this? Rio, baby! Madrid could win but for the fact that Spain hosted one in the last 20 years already.

poic wrote:

And we all know how on the ball economists have been over the last 2 years (well basically since the creation of economics)

To be fair, the purpose of economics previously was to shed insight on human behaviour. The whole focus on prediction was simply a 20th century bastardization of the discipline, most likely resulting from some economists becoming enthralled with new computational and mathematical tools.

No one expects psychologists to predict the behaviour of their patients, so why should we with economists?

noob goldberg wrote:

the IMF wants banks to buy financial crisis insurance.

Buy more AIG credit default swaps! Problem solved.

Vonbek, I don't know if you saw it or not but I tried to answer your window question on previous thread at 8:28. No need to beat the little one now ( )

Buy more AIG credit default swaps! Problem solved.

You made me spew coffee out my nose with that one. lol

poic wrote:

unfortunately economists in general and Economics itself represent themselves as a science rather than social science now.

This is unfortunate, I agree.

Thanks Uncle Ar. Our house is very airtight. Good point.

I don't think it has anything to do with a desire to predict people. I think it's because that's the result of assumptions made for the purpose of simplifying the math. That's why it's always an optimizable equilibrium or a gaussian distribution.

Thoughts on inflation from the Cleveland Fed-

CR thinks the NBER is likely to call something like a March 2009 end to the recession. I think the dominant sentiment on the panel is to wait at least 1 year before making a declaration, and I think the second half of the 'double-dip' will show up by then and cause the March end not to be declared. To me the recession dating panel is acutely aware of the shortcomings experienced in the early 1980s and 2000s, and won't be duplicating past action

Everything should be hunky-dory soon. My credit union sent out a letter explaining that they'd solve their financial crisis by eliminating the dog treats at the drive through windows.

Oh, and our local hospital announced this morning that they'll no longer take any patients from outside their service area since Colorado eliminated indigent care money. They're taking no chances!

EvilHenryPaulson wrote:

I don't think it has anything to do with a desire to predict people. I think it's because that's the result of assumptions made for the purpose of simplifying the math. That's why it's always an optimizable equilibrium or a gaussian distribution.

Here's a quote from Friedman's Methodology of Positive Economics that really was sort of a turning point in the perspective of the discipline (in my mind!):

Positive economics is in principle independent of any particular ethical position or normative judgments. As Keynes says, it deals with “what is,” not with “what ought to be.” Its task is to provide a system of generalizations that can be used to make correct predictions about the consequences of any change in circumstances. Its performance is to be judged by the precision. scope, and conformity with experience of the predictions it yields. In short, positive economics is, or can be, an “objective” science, in precisely the same sense as any of the physical sciences. Of course, the fact that economics deals with the interrelations of human beings, and that the investigator is himself part of the subject matter being investigated in a more intimate sense than in the physical sciences, raises special difficulties in achieving objectivity at the same time that it provides the social scientist with a class of data not available to the physical scientist. But neither the one nor the other is, in my view, a fundamental distinction between the two groups of sciences.

Normative economics and the art of economics, on the other hand, cannot be independent of positive economics. Any policy conclusion necessarily rests on a prediction about the consequences of doing one thing rather than another, a prediction that must be based - implicitly or explicitly - on positive economics. There is not, of course, a one-to-one relation between policy conclusions and the conclusions of positive economics; if there were, there would be no separate normative science. Two individuals may agree on the consequences of a particular piece of legislation. One may regard them as desirable on balance and so favor the legislation; the other, as undesirable and so oppose the legislation.

My father fled fear in the guise of communism, hung out in Geneva & Paris for 5 years after the war, and arrived in the USA as it was enveloped in fear, the fear being the fear of communism.

Fear does funny things to people...

YouTube - Calm Before The Storm:The Ventures:Fear

black dog,
Why settle for just one? Econompicdata does something nice for me, http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8rpY5fQK-UQ/SsX4PHbsrnI/AAAAAAAAIHI/e_KsPaIs-uU/s1600-h/hours+per+civ.png

Meredith Whitney's Piece is not a good sign for an employment recovery. She hopes that local banks will support small business, and says: "Main Street represents the foundation of this country. Reviving it should take priority over any regulatory reform or systemic overhaul."

I'm afraid that she will be sorely disappointed. That doesn't even seem to be on the radar.

Nice regression analysis, CR.

Yes, it's going to hit 10%+ and the mood is sour seriously again.

1. Saturn is going to die. That's 13k people and what % of 300+ dealers.
2. Retail's gonna be hit again and more box stores/retailers are gonna nosedive. Any word on Sears recently?
3. More small businesses go under or simply starve for lack of capital. If/when CIT goes down, where's the money going to come from to replace what they provided?
4. increased delinquencies/foreclosures will continue to pressure local governments and also take toll on corollary businesses.

And now, to the chili.

Michael Pettis posted a very good piece yesterday RGE - More Trade Tensions, and the Very Limited Advantage of Relative Poverty, in which he writes about comparisons between China now and Japan after the 1987 crash. One argument he makes is that
"China’s obsession with high-technology or state-of-the art infrastructure is extremely wasteful because the benefits of the most advanced technology only justify the costs if labor productivity and labor costs are very high. "

That's very interesting.

Another point he makes is "“The idea that being poorer makes policy easier can’t have emerged from looking at the experience of developing countries. I suspect that it arises from assuming that poverty does not represent differences in real factors – worker productivity, education, the institutional and legal framework, etc. – so much as in policy mixes.”"
He's talking about the idea that since China is poor relative to where Japan was in 1987 that there is still room for China to grow rapidly. To me, he's saying that figuring out whether China can continue to grow economically means looking at more than just the value of the yuan or the size of the country's Treasury holdings.

The unemployment numbers are a fraud...

The number of employed Americans in August was 139,649,000. The number of employed Americans in September was 138,864,000. By my calculation that is 785,000 less Americans employed. Can someone check my math. The unemployed only went up by 214,000. How could that be?

The labor force declined by 571,000 people. I guess they all hit the lottery or they became independently wealthy. The government uses these figures to obfuscate the true picture.

The headline on every website should be 785,000 LESS AMERICANS EMPLOYED IN SEPTEMBER.

Also the dreaded birth death adjustment added another 34,000 phantom jobs in September bringing the toal for the year to 707,000 new phantom jobs supposedly created by small businesses.

TheBurningPlatform.com » Economy » THE PLAN IS UNRAVELING - UNEMPLOYMENT FIGURES ARE A FRAUD

keep in mind the echo boom is just starting to enter the work force, it is 5% larger than the baby boomers who will now not be retiring because they have no savings/home equitty/equities equity

Quick comment on Employment-to-Population (EMRATIO) graph -- note that in all the prior recessions, EMRATIO either bottomed or showed signs of stabilization at the end date of the recession.

Hasn't happened yet, so I continue to think CR will have to extend his blue bars... (sorry to harp on this, I'm stressed out about something else at work and I fear this is my release valve... I'll go away now...)

P.S. I fear that there may be a fairly large shadow economy ("cash economy") growing underfoot, with folks that are hell-bent on not paying their side of the social contract, since said contract was blatantly broken by Congress last fall with the TARP bailouts going through despite huge popular opposition... among other things. Toss in all sorts of other prejudices on top of that...

I consider myself a member of the Nth Estate

The employment population ratio is a key focus item. We have more folks living off of less exacerbated by ZIRP.

This time around unemployment is a leading indicator.

Wisdom Speaker wrote:

P.S. I fear that there may be a fairly large shadow economy ("cash economy") growing underfoot,...

It's almost as if the dozen or so people who regularly posted here 3 years ago were right.

JD, is that we are the Nth Estate, we are Legion?

If shadow banking hadn't been such a cause of destruction on the last round, I would have predicted it to be developing again now. If you could work the sloped yield curve, not pay FDIC fees, were starting from a clean slate, and could hire some of the better unemployed finance people, you'd be able to get a lot of deposits. Maybe you could even make good loans.

But who has the scale? The regulatory permission? The credit rating or financing ability?

Just watch. Here come the American Landesbanks, run by states or cities.

Mark my words....no Olympics in the US between 2002 and 2040.

LA 2020 is a shoe-in. Of course that doesn't necessarily contradict your claim of no Olympics in the US by then. Via con Dios amigos.

Is it time to starting thinking that perhaps we have a long term core employment problem.
The 'green jobs' don't seem to be taking up the slack.
~splat

Too many are not earning enough to continue their lifestyle.
Too many are using up savings, retirement funds, credit cards to try to continue what is no longer.

Once those people start to downsize their life there will be masive changes. At some point it will become very acceptable to live in a smaller house, drive an older car, buy fewer items in general.

We, as a whole, are running out of any hope of extend and pretend. We have spent it all.

Mark my words....no Olympics in the US between 2002 and 2040.
I would venture that the Olympics will not exist, just as it ceased after Hellenism was replaced by Christianity, and the world sunk into darkness for 1500 years (and some say is still living in darkness).

Gather round, and i'll explain this thing we used to call "film".

Wisdom Speaker,
We'll know either way by February next year. CR is only human, and doesn't try to project his own views stronger than their merits using his platform. There is an agreement to disagree, and we'll have to wait and see.
.
Look at auto sales, CR made a post that their impact would be huge because the prior level of sales was relatively huge to current ones. Krugman picked it up and repeated the argument. I said no, you are neglecting base demand and the resultant excess inventory in place. C4C was proposed afterwards, and it couldn't even get up to 16mn units for 1 month when combined with dealer incentives and looming sales tax increases. Big deal, CR still posts the data as best as he can to be neutral and complete.

CR, thanks for doing a post on the real employment #s, instead of the negative fun-house mirror variety we so much more often!

Ahhh, but think of all the silver freed up for more productive investment arbitrage manipulation purposes.

Nothing like medium format Fuji Velvia to do nature photography. For some reason the deep colors resolve like nothing else. Remember the 50 speed film is really 40 speed. Plan accordingly just like any other silver investment.

the idea that samaranch swayed things towards madrid is disturbing and disgusting - the man is the embodiment of the corruption and commercialization that has almost totally ruined the games

@some investor guy,

Digital clobbered him years ago. He expanded into framing and photography to stay relevant.

@wisdom speaker

+1 on cash economy.

"Mark my words....no Olympics in the US between 2002 and 2040."

Wait, isn't it in Vancouver this winter? (Sorry Noob).

The IOC carries too much overhead and too many demands, they'll have to face a few olympics of no one qualified bidding to cut down on their extravagance. As long as they have bidders, they have no incentive to reform.

lawyerliz wrote:

We will see if there is one creative person at the bank.

LLiz slays me.

"

"Mark my words....no Olympics in the US between 2002 and 2040."

Wait, isn't it in Vancouver this winter? (Sorry Noob)."

Damn once again Asia gets another Olympics

just joking, I love the food and women in Vancouver.

Rough estimation of mine: There are roughly 75 million boomers and roughly from period 1945-1964, 20 years. So that would make 3.75 million per year and 312 500 per month retiring. So that leaves us 472 500 extra from 785 000. Still a very big number.

Is the markets lackluster response to all of this bad data a result of low volume, program trading, or what? Employment number horrendous, and the DJIA is down (at this writing) less than 10pts.

Uncle Ar wrote:

Wait, isn't it in Vancouver this winter? (Sorry Noob).

The border should never have been placed at the 49th parallel. Instead, it would have made much more sense to run it north and south. Probably more than once.

Rob Dawg-

Seriously dude....you nearly have three Olympics in a row in Europe (London, Sochi, maybe Madrid) with a possible fourth (2018 winter favorites Munich and Annecy) and you think LA 2020 is a shoo-in? Read the Washington Post article on the IOC delegate complaining about how hard it is to get into the US? The Europeans I work with are sick of being treated like a Ricker's Island inmate at JFK customs. You're kind of proving my "Americans don't get it" thesis.

It is odd for me being in the Arab world and seriously starting to really empathize with people on this side of the world being sick of the US attempts to dominate everything in the world. And economically speaking (since this is an econ blog), I feel an economic buzz here, and imagine the BRICs are the same, that I recall from the US in the 1990s but not since. The US just seems economically exhausted and out of ideas. I can't figure out why I would commit the career suicide of coming back.

The US has good econ blogs, though.

SNAFU, the US credit cards thing, I think, in Dubai is not so much a trend as a reflection that vendors here don't like dealing with the consumer protections of US and European cards. Can't pay my recurrent bills with them because the vendors don't want to deal with charge reversals, etc.

"I would venture that the Olympics will not exist, just as it ceased after Hellenism was replaced by Christianity, and the world sunk into darkness for 1500 years (and some say is still living in darkness)." Adornosghost has been reading Kunstler I see.

FHA.

Total condo units of the small condo less than 6,
no FHA financing. I think this is everywhere but maybe
just in Fla. Also, the Chase lady in Tallahassee said that
her whole FHA dept was being closed down. Don't know if this
is just in Florida either, but at LEAST in Florida.

.......a ragtag band of insurgents - well, that's better than some OTHER groups I've been known to hang with.....

We're here, we're like steer, get used to it.

( '61 model... high miles, original upholstery)

I was looking at the Federal Reserve Board's Survey of Consumer Finances (2007) in hopes of making an estimate for how long an average family could survive on 1 salary.

I know average is a tough number to come up with. What I was trying to come up with an estimate of how long they can go before the wheels really fall off.

My guess is approx two years before it is all burnt up. The savings, 401k, college fund, stuff sold on Craigslist, Mom and Dad, quit paying on the house, quit paying on the cards.

I don't think that is accurate at all... its actually a lot worse. Its bimodal... some could go indefinitely with minor cut backs and live on one salary [me, my neighbors]... others are toast in a month or two [my wife's suburban co-workers]. In aggregate it might look like two years but that hides the fact there are many at the edge with two full 'middle class' salaries.

I havent had time to read all the comments today...does anyone know what the revisions were to employment for the two prior months?

The Europeans I work with are sick of being treated like a Ricker's Island inmate at JFK customs. You're kind of proving my "Americans don't get it" thesis.

For those of you that didn't realize you are the hoi ploy...

The standard greeting we give foreign visitors on vacation or business trip, upon arrival @ U.S. Customs, is this:

A mug shot and a request (w/o denial) of all 10 fingerprints.

Not unlike the booking procedure at your local police department~

Don't worry I read between the lines, Noob. And I chased that Chicago School Lobbyist away last thread.

Bad day for Windy-bags.

It seems to me the Congress is opting for "destroying" the problem of healthcare rather than "fixing"it.

Now Congress will pay for more health care for more people without demanding new efficiencies, or cutting down on wasteful practices, inflated costs, and corruption. When the cost explodes, all those in the healthcare business and those receiving their campaign contributions will say, "I told you so". The special interests will have won and the American people will have lost again.

adornosghost (profile) wrote on Fri, 10/2/2009 - 9:34 am
Been shooting with an old twin lens Mamiya in 2 1/4 with Velvia.

Adornosghost, you are clearly a fellow traveler. Mrs. Dawg often photographs me as I am taking my pictures. She says it is for the death insurance claims.

Kinda like olde school real estate investing where you pick your spot, frame your content, run your numbers and pull the trigger and then to be sure, the best bracket their exposure. It was all about the data and planning not like now where it is about the most expensive AI modeling software. Wait... were we talking about photography or economies?

the quality of the printers we can buy for the home are just too good

that, and even my technological-impaired mother can send jpegs to Target for next day printing.

OT

You can get a free tall starbucks coffee today if you go in for the taste test (you don't even have to do the taste test, just ask for the free coffee)

But I did the test and I'm pretty sure SBUX made the regular bean coffee less strong so people will pick the instant coffee as the real thing. You can see to the bottom of the cup pretty clearly for the regular, but not for the instant.

Good way for SBUX to skew the results in favor of their new instant coffee. This new instant coffee may work well if people buy it in addition to their regular SBUX habit ( I dont have one ) , but if people get this instant instead of going to the store for fresh, they will lose money. I doubt regular instant coffee drinkers will buy this SBUX instant because its much more expensive than other instant coffees.

OT but a few weeks back I was staying out in the deep deep jungle of Cambodia... my moto driver invited me home to celebrate Bai Chum (trans: rice ball... the day they remember dead ancestors and out leave food out for the ghosts of which they're 3 levels, one can only eat pus and blood)
literally, they live in huts on stilts, no electricity therefore no TV, floors are wood slats, and below at ground level are ducks, chicks, and a few cows and of course a damned rooster (bet none of you have every heard say a couple of hundred spread across a plain all crowing at once)...
I was walking down this path one afternoon passing a shack on the way and this little boy sees me and the first thing he shouts out is 'barangue' in alarm! which translates as stranger, foreigner, intruder or even enemy!
this little brown naked 3 year old boy made me instantly realize we don't stand a chance in Afghanistan.

You know you've succeeded when you're mentioned in New York magazine. CR certainly deserves the attention of the wealthy and powerful...kudos.

seemed like everywhere I went.

"*"In four months I'll have lived overseas 2 years now. It is interesting being overseas when little things pop up in the news media that show the degree of contempt the world has for America now, and Americans appear to be freaking shocked and not realize the obvious. It's like...."wait....how could we have lost???...."
*
Very true, I felt that clearly while traveling recently in Singapore and Dubai. Some merchants would not accept $ or CC from US banks. There is this idea that America has been living off the hard labor of others by gaming the system, and the government is doing all it can to keep that gig going. Last time I felt such contempt while traveling when Reagan was in the WH."

Couldn't agree more. Spending time in Europe I clearly sense they have had enough of the "American Way." Not to say they don't want Levis or iPhones but a country run by "a used car salesman philosophy" has done damage - our brand of capitalism has no appeal for them. The world is moving on and away and can barely tolerate us. Selling worthless debt rated AAA to the world has consequence. Chicago Olympics just one small example.

You have good points on your side. Alas, all I have is "follow the money" on mine.

Does anybody know how many baby boomers are retiring per month nowadays? 100 000?

Not a chance. There are less people retiring and more people coming back INTO the workforce. Few have enough money to retire silly goose.

Recession pulls U.S. senior citizens back to work: survey

Recession pulls U.S. senior citizens back to work: survey
| Reuters

Rough estimation of mine: There are roughly 75 million boomers and roughly from period 1945-1964, 20 years. So that would make 3.75 million per year and 312 500 per month retiring. So that leaves us 472 500 extra from 785 000. Still a very big number.

What method are you using ? Given the number of people that aren't counted because they are new grads and the number of people that were retired and coming back into the workforce and those deferring retirement because of financial issues, I'd say the number retiring is likely nowhere near 312k per month. The more likely scenario is more people fell off the unemployment insurance rolls. I suspect if it were properly counted, that the number would be closer to 800k. Those on this site are way too optimistic about the real picture and government statistics.