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http://i48.tinypic.com/30953e1.png
Note that most data begins at 1980. Also note zirp since 2008.

Most data from here (I am not sure about the methods but its from government...):
http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/surveymost?ap

Gold and FFR is from elsewhere, I had it sitting around but I'm sure you can easily check to verify. Data from pre-1980 is harder to find. If you have a good source I would love to know it. To me it looks like the price of gold was being suppressed and it is just now catching up with everything else. In other words the volatility in gold is the result of manipulation.

My 10.9 is absolutely accurate. Source: http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm/

If our economy grew by a factor of 6 only with a population growth of 3x, then we'd be only about twice as rich as our great grand fathers. You cannot possibly believe that without being horribly ignorant of history. House sizes are mammoth compared to that generation. We have electricity in every home. Even the poorest in this country have access to food, running water, electricity, a public school system and library system. And please tell me what the i7 equipped PC in your sig would cost in 1920. Cars were relatively the same cost in terms of median salary, but you gor something that looked like this http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/20scars/1924-chevy-utility-coupe.jpg

The fact is we are more wealthy than those from 90 years ago and dramatically so. To not see this requires an absolute ignorance of history.

Of course, great many things are done for the love of it. But as a company, if you rely on your employees to work for the sake of love, you are in for a big surprise.

Good engineers are hard to come by. Good mathematicians, physicists are rare. Because not so many students get masters in technical and scientific fields. And indeed the unemployment figures are this... So there is in reality almost no unemployment for people with higher education degrees.

The salaries are however low because of the pressure of outsourcing, competition with developing countries, and the general feeling of insecurity due to the high general unemployment rate. As the pressures of outsourcing and developing countries abate, benefits will have to go up. And in some companies, they will, and in some, they won't. To keep the same profitability, the money will have to come from somewhere, and the only preserved class is the CEO/higher management class.

Now they will never lower their salaries. But their companies will go bankrupt, and these will be replaced by more equal ones. Just because it works better. Now, this is not for today or next year. I expect the crisis to last another 4-5 years. And then changes in culture take a generation. But within 15 years we will see some change, and within 25, it is likely that the current balance will have been thoroughly changed.

I am optimistic about the long term. Of course, if all science funding goes and people give up on long term research, we might well be fucked for a couple generations. But hey, we must hope or despair.

1) I think you're lying. I don't believe you own any company, hired anyone for any R and D or even have a wife, much less one who drives a "snazzy" BMW.

2) You arguments about the poverty rate are specious in the extreme since they're nothing more than you opening your mouth and speaking words that please you.

Here's how substantiating assertions works:

Poverty rate in 1962 for male head of household, wife with 3 kids:

$3,571 in 1962 dollars

cited from:

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/threshld/thresh62.html

Poverty rate in 2011 for male head of household, wife with 3 kids

$28,844 in 2012 dollars

cited from

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/threshld/index.html

Value of a single 1962 dollar today

$7.60

cited from

http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm/

poverty rate for 1962 in 2012 dollars:

3,571 *7.60 = $ 27,139.60

Difference in poverty between 1962 and 2012:

28,844- 27,139.60 = $1,704.40 in 2012 dollars or $224.30 in 1962 dollars

I'm not sure if you are posting in support of GP or not, but your source is in support of his claim.

* Your number of 73.9 million Americans is for hourly workers only. 1.7 million of those is 2.3%.
* Those working for less than minimum wage are primarily tipped employees who earn more than minimum wage after tips.
* The actual number of workers in the U.S. is around 140 million so 1.2% of workers earn minimum wage.
* Using that same number even if we ignore tip income, we're still only at about 2.7% of workers earning minimum wage or less.

Further, most of those working for minimum wage are:
* Under 25
* Part-time Workers
* Living in depressed areas
* Restaurant workers (many of whom are tipped employees)

Anecdote:

When I worked in a restaurant there were times I wasn't a tipped employee, but I earned more than the servers (who earned the minimum wage) on an hourly basis. Guess who left with more money at the end of the week? That was also true in the next state over where the minimum for tipped employees was lower than the minimum wage.

Finally, the number working minimum wage is dwarfed by the number of unemployed which (per the source linked above) is about 13 million. The minimum wage is great for those who can find work, but it screws some percentage of that 13 million who otherwise might be able to get a job. The National Industrial Recovery Act might have been unconstitutional as hell, but it got the job done of getting more people able to support themselves. Lowering or getting rid of the minimum wage would have the same effect but would not be unconstitutional, and we can easily make it a temporary fix requiring renewal.

"Who in the country actually works for minimum wage? A small number indeed, 1 to 2%."

"In 2011, 73.9 million American workers age 16 and over were paid at hourly rates, representing 59.1 percent of all wage and salary workers.1 Among those paid by the hour, 1.7 million earned exactly the prevailing Federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. About 2.2 million had wages below the minimum.2 Together, these 3.8 million workers with wages at or below the Federal minimum made up 5.2 percent of all hourly-paid workers."

http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2011.htm

Your claim that housing and fuel are not in the CPI is categorically false. Housing alone is over 41% of the CPI calculation, and motor fuel is another 5.5% You can read it for yourself: http://www.bls.gov/cpi/cpid1205.pdf (page 4). Now, if you want to say the CPI under-estimates inflation, the place to start is with the hedonic adjustment factors...

Your claim that housing and fuel are not in the CPI is categorically false. Housing alone is over 41% of the CPI calculation, and motor fuel is another 5.5% You can read it for yourself: http://www.bls.gov/cpi/cpid1205.pdf (page 4). Now, if you want to say the CPI under-estimates inflation, the place to start is with the hedonic adjustment factors...

I'm not sure what you think inflation means, but it has nothing to do with whatever it is you think you're calculating. Also, the CPI absolutely does include housing and fuel - see http://www.bls.gov/cpi/cpifaq.htm#Question_7 I guess you're thinking of "core inflation" rather than CPI but, unfortunately for you, neither has increased by anything close to what your "theory" would predict.

So, at $112,760 per year (median) that's 9% of the median salary. The Ad Litems’ attorneys’ fees and expenses could be rather more painful I suppose.

Another $20 an hour job gone...

Really? Unemployment seems to have an inflection point every election. Source: BLS.

Fed Minimum Wage facts

"1.7 million earned exactly the prevailing Federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. About 2.2 million had wages below the minimum.2 Together, these 3.8 million workers with wages at or below the Federal minimum made up 5.2 percent of all hourly-paid workers. "

"Although workers under age 25 represented only about one-fifth of hourly-paid workers, they made up about half of those paid the Federal minimum wage or less."

Trying to live on your own after college on minimum wage is hard. But even harder hit are those 50% of minimum wage earners who are over 25, and likely will not (or cannot) get higher paying jobs. Lack of education, disabilities, etc..

Would you rather have 2.5% of our workforce permanently earning a non-living wage, using various forms of welfare, or would you rather have the cost of some luxury goods (retail, restaurants, etc..) go up slightly, and those minimum wage workers paying more tax, buying more things, and generally helping to stimulate the economy?

Except that there are two million Americans over the age of 25 making minimum wage or less* in this country. And the raises most people get after their trial periods are up are usually only fifty cents per hour, maybe a dollar if your trial period wage is $15/hr.

$7.25 or $8.50/hr, you're going to have a difficult time making ends meet.

That said, I totally agree with your sentiments that raising minimum wage again won't solve any problems, and that most people are fucking idiots and have no idea how to handle their money. Give those 'tards 50% more on the hour, and they'll still buy houses and cars they can't afford. The people living on near-minimum wage that can handle their money and would actually see an significant increase in quality-of-life are in the very small minority.

*Less is because of the $2.13/hr minimum wage for tipped employees, which hasn't been increased in 20 or so years.

A quick google shows fast food starting pay is right around $8/hour

which is why tipping is customary in the US.

According to the US Department of labour median for a salesperson in May 2010 was $9.94/hr which is still less than $12/hr. don't know how wages in the US compare now to then but you still appear to have a valid point there.

Lowery's numbers on employment are backed up by the Burea of Labor Statistics -- an entity of the US federal government responsible for tracking industry trends. You can see for yourself that the 2000 data says there were 52,180 musicians employed in the United States earning a median annual wage of $36,740 and a mean annual wage of $44,520. From the 2010 data you can see that there were 43,350 musicians employed. They don't offer annual wages, saying that these occupations typically don't work year round, but the median hourly wage is $22.39 and the mean hourly wage is $30.22. While we can't compare the apples and oranges of the wage reports, we can certainly see that there was a substantial decrease in the number of employed musicians in the United States.

The obvious question is: who counts as a musician in this statistic? From the description on the web (especially the list of organizations in the 2010 statistic), these are normal day jobs where musicians are paid by the hour - theaters, opera houses, churches... I bet the list doesn't include artists signed up to labels which makes it completely useless for our discussion. Basically, close a few hundred theaters and opera houses around the country and you get 9,000 fewer musicians in this statistic. What does the RIAA statistic say?

I will go so far as to say that when there's less money in a business, there's less talent in it.

Exactly. The market will take care of balancing money and talent.

I understand you're not concerned. Maybe you're not concerned about deforestation or overpopulation or the euro crisis either.

Actually, I'm concerned about a lot of things. But artists in general getting paid is not one of them. No offence but paid artists are simply not that important for creation of art. Art will get created either way. Perhaps different art but that doesn't matter. The thing is, if you want to get paid for doing something, it's YOUR responsibility to find people who will pay you for doing that. Not mine and especially not the government's. The US constitution specifically says that copyright was created for the benefit of consumers, not to create jobs for creators.

In the meantime, I hope people will consider assisting their favorite musicians financially. I hope they will also consider not sharing music for artists they have not assisted financially. That seems pretty fair to me.

Of course it's fair. But I don't see any good reason why it should be a requirement.

Lowery's numbers on employment are backed up by the Burea of Labor Statistics -- an entity of the US federal government responsible for tracking industry trends. You can see for yourself that the 2000 data says there were 52,180 musicians employed in the United States earning a median annual wage of $36,740 and a mean annual wage of $44,520. From the 2010 data you can see that there were 43,350 musicians employed. They don't offer annual wages, saying that these occupations typically don't work year round, but the median hourly wage is $22.39 and the mean hourly wage is $30.22. While we can't compare the apples and oranges of the wage reports, we can certainly see that there was a substantial decrease in the number of employed musicians in the United States.

The obvious question is: who counts as a musician in this statistic? From the description on the web (especially the list of organizations in the 2010 statistic), these are normal day jobs where musicians are paid by the hour - theaters, opera houses, churches... I bet the list doesn't include artists signed up to labels which makes it completely useless for our discussion. Basically, close a few hundred theaters and opera houses around the country and you get 9,000 fewer musicians in this statistic. What does the RIAA statistic say?

I will go so far as to say that when there's less money in a business, there's less talent in it.

Exactly. The market will take care of balancing money and talent.

I understand you're not concerned. Maybe you're not concerned about deforestation or overpopulation or the euro crisis either.

Actually, I'm concerned about a lot of things. But artists in general getting paid is not one of them. No offence but paid artists are simply not that important for creation of art. Art will get created either way. Perhaps different art but that doesn't matter. The thing is, if you want to get paid for doing something, it's YOUR responsibility to find people who will pay you for doing that. Not mine and especially not the government's. The US constitution specifically says that copyright was created for the benefit of consumers, not to create jobs for creators.

In the meantime, I hope people will consider assisting their favorite musicians financially. I hope they will also consider not sharing music for artists they have not assisted financially. That seems pretty fair to me.

Of course it's fair. But I don't see any good reason why it should be a requirement.

Lowery's numbers on employment are backed up by the Burea of Labor Statistics -- an entity of the US federal government responsible for tracking industry trends. You can see for yourself that the 2000 data says there were 52,180 musicians employed in the United States earning a median annual wage of $36,740 and a mean annual wage of $44,520. From the 2010 data you can see that there were 43,350 musicians employed. They don't offer annual wages, saying that these occupations typically don't work year round, but the median hourly wage is $22.39 and the mean hourly wage is $30.22. While we can't compare the apples and oranges of the wage reports, we can certainly see that there was a substantial decrease in the number of employed musicians in the United States.

I'm not concerned in the slightest. Even if people completely stop paying for recorded music (which is even more unlikely than successfully crushing all freeloaders with iron fist), musicians will simply start using Kickstarter to get paid for making completely new music. Not to mention millions of amateurs who make music just for fun without expecting a dime in return.

Having recorded both as a professional musician signed to a record label and as an Independent musician using kickstarter (for the same band), I expect I speak with some authority when I say that the money available to a band -- meaning the musicians themselves -- for recording a record (and living) will likely be about 10-20% as much as this band might expect from a record label 10 years ago. I will go so far as to say that when there's less money in a business, there's less talent in it. I think the employment numbers in the US speak for themselves.

I understand you're not concerned. Maybe you're not concerned about deforestation or overpopulation or the euro crisis either. I suppose we'll just have to wait and see about all these things. In the meantime, I hope people will consider assisting their favorite musicians financially. I hope they will also consider not sharing music for artists they have not assisted financially. That seems pretty fair to me.

Lowery's numbers on employment are backed up by the Burea of Labor Statistics -- an entity of the US federal government responsible for tracking industry trends. You can see for yourself that the 2000 data says there were 52,180 musicians employed in the United States earning a median annual wage of $36,740 and a mean annual wage of $44,520. From the 2010 data you can see that there were 43,350 musicians employed. They don't offer annual wages, saying that these occupations typically don't work year round, but the median hourly wage is $22.39 and the mean hourly wage is $30.22. While we can't compare the apples and oranges of the wage reports, we can certainly see that there was a substantial decrease in the number of employed musicians in the United States.

I'm not concerned in the slightest. Even if people completely stop paying for recorded music (which is even more unlikely than successfully crushing all freeloaders with iron fist), musicians will simply start using Kickstarter to get paid for making completely new music. Not to mention millions of amateurs who make music just for fun without expecting a dime in return.

Having recorded both as a professional musician signed to a record label and as an Independent musician using kickstarter (for the same band), I expect I speak with some authority when I say that the money available to a band -- meaning the musicians themselves -- for recording a record (and living) will likely be about 10-20% as much as this band might expect from a record label 10 years ago. I will go so far as to say that when there's less money in a business, there's less talent in it. I think the employment numbers in the US speak for themselves.

I understand you're not concerned. Maybe you're not concerned about deforestation or overpopulation or the euro crisis either. I suppose we'll just have to wait and see about all these things. In the meantime, I hope people will consider assisting their favorite musicians financially. I hope they will also consider not sharing music for artists they have not assisted financially. That seems pretty fair to me.

Except that it is not just one burger flipper who has gotten a raise, but every minimum wage employee.

Hence my comment about "further down the line you'd presumably see similar increases". If an industry is heavily minimum wage centered, then yeah, the benefits to minimum wage workers is likely to be low and possible even negative. But in the rest of industries, there will be a net positive for minimum wage workers. So, I'd guess the question is just how many people make minimum wage. After some googling on Minimum Wage workers, it would appear that ~59% of 16+ workers are hourly workers and ~5.2% of hourly workers are minimum wage or lower workers (~3% of all workers total; the "or lower" comes from many states which have waitresses and the like who are expected to supplement their income with tips and hence are allowed to be paid some amount less than minimum wage). Having said that, things like leisure and food services seem to rely heavily on minimum wage workers, so burger flippers would be one of the few minimum wage workers likely to suffer. Yet, in their potential suffering, they by definition will always be paid enough to live on a living wage.

The question is, if minimum wage is such a good idea, why don't we make $100 and hour?

I really don't know if you're being facetious or not, but the answer is obvious: very few people earn $100/hr or more so such a massive shift in the minimum wage would fall into the trap of it being a net negative. Further, such an act would spur significant inflation as people who are "worth more than minimum wage" would see or at least expect to see their wages scale upwards. After all, the point of a minimum wage isn't to group everyone into one pay bracket; it is to guarantee that the small percentage of full-time minimum wage workers aren't effectively worse off for working. It's not some sort of communist plot to give everyone an equal salary so they can be as wasteful as the average middle class American or the rich.

So, if something's illegal, and people are still widely disobeying the law 20+ years later, then it really shouldn't be illegal.

What, like murder? It's been "illegal" since Hammurabi's code and "people" still do it. I think we'd all agree that murder should generally be illegal -- the devil is in the details though. Was it self defense? Was it accidental? Et. al. File sharing admits of the same complexity: Was it fair use? Did the artist intend for it to available on file sharing services? Does putting my files in the cloud also entitle all my friends to access my music too, regardless of the artists' intentions?

And it's pretty clear that the process of legislation is a ridiculous mess. Not to mention the use of the phrase "shouldn't be illegal". Shouldn't? According to whom? Morever, the process of legislation is often too slow to effectively deal with the problem at hand. It probably should have been illegal to evict native Americans from their land and break deal after deal with them and yet it was done and we non-native Americans benefit from that immoral behavior to this day. It probably should have been illegal to slaughter the Buffalo for no reason at all but it wasn't and so our ancestors did -- much to their later chagrin. The word should is rife with moral overtones and I don't think anyone posting here on /. actually wants to examine the morality of their actions. They just want free music. Ethically speaking, I would say that you should probably honor an artists' wishes when it comes to file sharing.

I think the real essence of the "file sharing question" (or the "MAFIAA question" depending on which side you are on) is one of self interest. If you like an artist and want to hear their songs, you should support them financially. Would it kill anyone to pay the legislated amount of 9.1 cents for a song? If you RTFA, you would know that this the amount legally mandated for an artist when a song gets sold -- and the record company and MAFIAA don't get any of that money. This results in the artist being able to make a meager living. The median wage is $22.39/hr according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics but very few musicians are employeed full-time. Annual wages average $35k per year which is well below the overall average wage which is $45,230 per year. If we don't pay for music, there will be less of it. If we pay for the music we like, there will be more of that music.

So, if something's illegal, and people are still widely disobeying the law 20+ years later, then it really shouldn't be illegal.

What, like murder? It's been "illegal" since Hammurabi's code and "people" still do it. I think we'd all agree that murder should generally be illegal -- the devil is in the details though. Was it self defense? Was it accidental? Et. al. File sharing admits of the same complexity: Was it fair use? Did the artist intend for it to available on file sharing services? Does putting my files in the cloud also entitle all my friends to access my music too, regardless of the artists' intentions?

And it's pretty clear that the process of legislation is a ridiculous mess. Not to mention the use of the phrase "shouldn't be illegal". Shouldn't? According to whom? Morever, the process of legislation is often too slow to effectively deal with the problem at hand. It probably should have been illegal to evict native Americans from their land and break deal after deal with them and yet it was done and we non-native Americans benefit from that immoral behavior to this day. It probably should have been illegal to slaughter the Buffalo for no reason at all but it wasn't and so our ancestors did -- much to their later chagrin. The word should is rife with moral overtones and I don't think anyone posting here on /. actually wants to examine the morality of their actions. They just want free music. Ethically speaking, I would say that you should probably honor an artists' wishes when it comes to file sharing.

I think the real essence of the "file sharing question" (or the "MAFIAA question" depending on which side you are on) is one of self interest. If you like an artist and want to hear their songs, you should support them financially. Would it kill anyone to pay the legislated amount of 9.1 cents for a song? If you RTFA, you would know that this the amount legally mandated for an artist when a song gets sold -- and the record company and MAFIAA don't get any of that money. This results in the artist being able to make a meager living. The median wage is $22.39/hr according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics but very few musicians are employeed full-time. Annual wages average $35k per year which is well below the overall average wage which is $45,230 per year. If we don't pay for music, there will be less of it. If we pay for the music we like, there will be more of that music.

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Biomedical Engineering is one of the fastest growing occupations and has a median income of over $80,000. I think that this NIH study, which was run mainly by people in academia, doesn't fully account for the jobs in industry.

As an academic for whom the question of biomedical jobs is most definitely not academic, I was interested enough to follow your link.

The actual title of the table you link to is "Fastest growing occupations, 2010 and projected 2020". So, these are government projections out to 2020. Also, the number of jobs is expected to grow from about 15,000 up to 24,000 (an increase of 9,000) which in a country the size of the USA (population 300 million) really isn't that much.

But the key point comes when you look at the full table in the actual publication and see that the minimum degree required for entry to the field of "Biomedical Engineering" is a bachelors degree.

Maybe there will be lots of job opportunities for biomedical PhDs in 2020 and maybe there won't. Either way, the link you cite is totally irrelevant to the current situation.

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Biomedical Engineering is one of the fastest growing occupations and has a median income of over $80,000. I think that this NIH study, which was run mainly by people in academia, doesn't fully account for the jobs in industry.

http://www.bls.gov/ncs/ocs/compub.htm
Bureau of Labor Statistics - National Compensation Survey - Wages
The job category is likely "computer and information systems managers" or "information systems managers" (Over $53/hr in wages in Atlanta, for instance = $138,000/yr. @50hrs./wk.). You also may want to look at the different levels of regular managers to see what the pay trajectory typically is and use that to scale the number for your specialty and region.

Also see the NCS databases section here.

http://www.bls.gov/ncs/ocs/compub.htm
Bureau of Labor Statistics - National Compensation Survey - Wages
The job category is likely "computer and information systems managers" or "information systems managers" (Over $53/hr in wages in Atlanta, for instance = $138,000/yr. @50hrs./wk.). You also may want to look at the different levels of regular managers to see what the pay trajectory typically is and use that to scale the number for your specialty and region.

Also see the NCS databases section here.

http://www.bls.gov/ncs/ocs/compub.htm
Bureau of Labor Statistics - National Compensation Survey - Wages
The job category is likely "computer and information systems managers" or "information systems managers" (Over $53/hr in wages in Atlanta, for instance = $138,000/yr. @50hrs./wk.). You also may want to look at the different levels of regular managers to see what the pay trajectory typically is and use that to scale the number for your specialty and region.

Also see the NCS databases section here.

If the hidden-camera videos on youtube are accurate, the companies DON'T want to find U.S. workers, but instead collect resumes (per requirements of U.S. law) simply to throw them in the trash afterwards. Their real mission is to claim "we can't find any locals" to the Congress, so they can apply for temporary visas to import cheaper workers from overseas.

I've heard this over and over again on this website and while I know it feels good to shift the blame to others, it might be a good idea to look at some real hard data. The latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) says the number of unemployed persons was 12.5 million in April. Compared that to 76,627 new H1B visas issued in 2010, I tend to believe that temporary visa workers are not a primary factor of U.S. unemployment.

Garbage men have a fatality rate of 30 per 100,000 according to http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2011/pf/jobs/1108/gallery.dangerous_jobs/8.html

Law enforcement has a fatality rate of 14 per 100,000 according to http://www.bls.gov/opub/cwc/archive/summer1999art1.pdf

Different years, but police fatality rates haven't more than doubled in ten years.

http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/cfch0009.pdf has farmers/ranchers at 42 per 100,000

And http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/news/1004/gallery.Most_dangerous_jobs/10.html has taxi drivers at 19 per 100,000.

So out of farmers, garbage men, taxi drivers, and police the police have the safest (in terms of not getting killed) job.

Garbage men have a fatality rate of 30 per 100,000 according to http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2011/pf/jobs/1108/gallery.dangerous_jobs/8.html

Law enforcement has a fatality rate of 14 per 100,000 according to http://www.bls.gov/opub/cwc/archive/summer1999art1.pdf

Different years, but police fatality rates haven't more than doubled in ten years.

http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/cfch0009.pdf has farmers/ranchers at 42 per 100,000

And http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/news/1004/gallery.Most_dangerous_jobs/10.html has taxi drivers at 19 per 100,000.

So out of farmers, garbage men, taxi drivers, and police the police have the safest (in terms of not getting killed) job.

Yeah, Ron Paul is obviously a reliable source of information on tax policy.

Let's take 1995 as the canonical year "in the 90s" since it's dead smack in the middle of them. In 1995, the US federal government spent $1516 billion (source: http://www.cbo.gov/publication/42911).

Actual tax revenue for in billions for FY2011 are as follows: (source: http://www.cbo.gov/publication/42911)
        Individual Corporate Social
        Income Income Insurance Excise Estate and Customs Miscellaneous
        Taxes Taxes Taxes Taxes Gift Taxes Duties Receipts Total
                1,091.5 181.1 818.8 72.4 7.4 29.5 101.8 2,302.5

There are three major things to note about this data with respect to what you said:
1. Your claim is bullshit. Add up the stuff that's not under the "Income Tax" columns and you get $1029.9 billion. Last time I checked, that's less than $1516 billion. The math is a little hard but... YEP. $1029.9 is less than $1516. In fact, it's only about 68%. If you look at the data, you will see that there was not a single year in the 1990s that could have been paid for by the non-income taxes collected in 2011 OR ANY YEAR SINCE 1987.

2. Eliminating the income tax would mean that our taxes would break down as follows:
      79.5% from social insurance taxes
        7.0% excise taxes
        0.7% gift and estate taxes
        2.9% customs duties
        9.9% everything else
      This would be a highly regressive tax system.

3. Adjusted for inflation the bill for the stuff in the 1995 budget would be about $2282 today. (source: http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm). That's 2.2X what your non-income taxes collect today.

You'd think Ron Paul would have as much access to the Congressional Budget Office as I do. He's a member of Congress. Or maybe his mouth just doesn't have as much access to the truth.

Tech / TV / CARs need a TECH / vocational school.

That depends on what you're trying to do with the "Tech / TV / CARs" -- if you're trying to repair existing ones, then a vocational school may be a good option. If you're trying to design new ones from scratch (or even design significant modifications to one that already exists) that I'm going to use, I'd kind of like at least one (ideally most) of the designers to have advanced engineering or science degrees.

That's why the May 2011 data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (the first set of data I found; I didn't dig for more recent data) indicates that "automotive service technicians and mechanics" (occupation code 49-3023) made an average annual salary of $38,560 while "mechanical engineers" (17-2141) made an average of $83,550.

Did you look up the curriculum required for this certification?

http://www.bls.gov/ooh/Healthcare/Dietitians-and-nutritionists.htm

Education

Most dietitians and nutritionists have earned a bachelor’s degree in dietetics, foods and nutrition, food service systems management, or a related area. Programs include courses in nutrition, physiology, chemistry, and biology.
Training

Dietitians and nutritionists typically participate in several hundred hours of supervised training, usually in the form of an internship following graduation from college. However, some programs in dietetics include this training as part of the coursework.

Many dietitians and nutritionists have advanced degrees.

It sounds like you don't know what a nutritionist is. You're confusing them with restaurant chefs or natural food store salesmen.

Nutritionists who deal with diabetes work for doctors,

A friend of mine just told me that she couldn't eat lettuce because she was taking warfarin. Lettuce, which has vitamin K, would counteract the warfarin and cause internal bleeding. It could kill her. A lot of foods have interactions with commonly-prescribed drugs. Nutritionists have to know things like that.

There's so much bullshit going on in nutrition that nutritionists need a good background in science to know what to trust.

Yes, it was obvious that you were unaware of the science and technology focus in the area from your original post. You are correct that the presence of 20 Fortune 500 offices is a rather minor point. The link I referenced was more related to real-estate than scientific production.

My point was that there are many people from the area who would not be depressing to interview. One out of every 6 jobs in Huntsville is in science or engineering.

Atlanta, GA is also considered a prominent science and technology hub.

Nobody is suggesting that people can't think at all without college, nor that there aren't exceptions, but generally college teaches people better critical thinking skills. People in other countries want to go to college, to American colleges in particular, as much as we do; and in several countries more go to college.

the new fed chairman's love affair with inflation

An odd statement. Inflation has been low by historical standards; in fact at the outset of the financial crisis we risked a deflation spiral; the CPI (the number used to measure inflation) dropped 0.4% in 2009, the first drop since 1955.

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/inflation-cpi
ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/cpi/cpiai.txt

Amazingly, jobness is also at a 4 year low (number of people who have jobs)

Reposting:

The number of people in employment has been consistently rising for at least the last year.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

Amazingly, jobness is also at a 4 year low (number of people who have jobs)

Is it fuck. Number of people who have jobs has been rising for at least a year.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

Amazing what statistics you can come up with when

Amazing what statistics you can come up with when you talk out of your ass. And I mean you.

Weird. Last I looked 'unemployment' was going down, but so was the number of Americans with jobs.

Well either you're imagining it, or it's somewhat more than a year ago that you looked. Because the number of people in employment has been consistently rising for at least the last year.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

I haven't seen it - but what about those statistics are incorrect? Up to about 1880 (I guess that's 130 years ago) way over 80% of the population worked on farms. Now, according to the BLS, about 2 million people work in agriculture and about 138 million are in non-agricultural work.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t08.htm

Nothing is wrong with the statistics, but the efficiency part is.... questionable. Look at how chickens were raised 50 years ago, and how it's done today. It's clearly a step back for the chickens, and the people who work directly with them, but even if you don't care about that, at some level, even though the meat and eggs aren't killing us outright with disease or malnutrition, it can't be an improvement in overall quality of the food product - unless all you care about is price, calories per dollar.

The changes at the bottom end of the beef/chicken/pork/grain/fruit/vegetable chain have repercussions all the way up. It makes what used to be "normal quality" food a steep premium product today.

I haven't seen it - but what about those statistics are incorrect? Up to about 1880 (I guess that's 130 years ago) way over 80% of the population worked on farms. Now, according to the BLS, about 2 million people work in agriculture and about 138 million are in non-agricultural work. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t08.htm

Solar? potential deaths? seriously?

yes seriously.
Working in construction is one of the most dangerous thing the average Joe can do:
http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/26/pf/jobs_jeopardy/
http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfar0020.pdf
Roofers in particular being the worst.
Now there are worse jobs out there, but my understanding is that per kW installed solar and wind kill a relatively large number of people because each install is a relatively small output.
Let's say your new nuke plant kills a dozen people over the course of it's life - that's terrible and a disaster, and certainly well above the proven average - but consider that to install solar panels on roofs equal to that plant's capacity would require of the order of a million installs. Plug that into the statistics and you're looking at about 30 people killed (if I have my numbers right).
Now that's not factoring in the deaths from the truckers who transport the materials, or the deaths from pollutants during their production or any deaths from servicing the panels during their life or when decommissioning them, that's not allowing for any deaths from construction of the storage facilities that would have to go with such a solar install. The list just goes on.

Does it matter that you're underemployed as long as unemployment is down? That's what "they" are counting on us forgetting to stay in office.

They don't care if you don't have a job ... as long as you've given up looking. Then you're not counted in the unemployment figure. The "unemployment" rate is meaningless without also looking at the Labor Force Participation Rate.

The original article/post links to a page describing "Radio and Telecommunications Equipment Installers and Repairers" and their pay of $55,600, however what is actually being discussed here falls more under the "Line Installers and Repairers" description and their pay of $39,970. Hopefully that makes some of you feel better about the service (or lack thereof) you received from your 'cable guy'. The correct link for this job description is.... http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos195.htm

We are living in an era where skills/inclinations that i.t. requires are in high demand, and therefore we are in luck.

Society has always rewarded intelligence because working smarter has always equated to producing more whether it's using a wheel vs a sled or a farmer rotating his crops and irrigating his fields. Likewise, in earlier eras, those who knew how to read and do simple arithmetic were much better off than those who didn't, which was most of society (kind of like today where most people don't know how to write programs). Today's IT people might have been yesterday's scribes or accountants, who enjoyed benefits such as being part of the royal court and not having to pay taxes. My point is that intelligence has always been greatly rewarded because it's directly linked to productivity, so I disagree that IT workers are lucky that intelligence happens to be in high demand today.

Talent/inclination works differently than 'smart'. Cognitive powers does not have direct relevance to the inclinations you have - there are a lot of smart people, scientists too, who find i.t. work quite stressing, irritating and unbearable. and vice versa.

Yes, but the ratio of smart people who find i.t. work stressing to dumb people who find it stressing is far lower, so that does not prove your point. Likewise, an i.t. worker will have much higher odds of being successful switching careers to becoming an engineer, lawyer, chemist or doctor than someone who majored in psychiatry or Spanish. Yes, there are exceptions but it's true for most people.

And no - dont ever fall into the pit of thinking that 'because i am smart, i could make it' -> it does not work that way.

I think your opinion is wrong because smart people do tend to make it. Let's look at other professions that are in demand today besides IT: healthcare, engineering, mathematics, chemistry, physics, biology. All of these fields require a high level of intelligence. Additionally, the overall unemployment rate in 2010 was around 10% while for those with an associate's degree it was 7%, 5.4% for a bachelor's and less than 2% for a Doctoral degree. Again, a higher level of education generally requires a higher level of intelligence, so it seems that those who are more intelligent have an easier time finding work.

I will concede one point, however. It requires luck to be born in the right place and at the right time and the body you end up with, whether it's intelligence or good looks has a great impact on how successful you will be. But all of those things won't guarantee you success if you don't apply yourself.

...we finally not only have job growth (albeit still weak), the unemployment rate dropped a percentage point, and I think probably will drop two or three more at least by next year's election.

No, we don't.. The unemployment rate (a percentage statistic) went down because people are leaving the work force (though some jobs were added). They've given up, retired, settled on lower-paying jobs, or whatever, but this notion that it's just a little weak is nonsense. The universe of eligible employees just got smaller. People are still losing their jobs, and none of these windbags are even discussing engineering a way to fix it.

And while I wouldn't vote for Newt, at least he at one point in his life uttered the phrase ''I would rather rely on engineers than diplomats...". It's a start.

That "9%" is only the Americans out of work who are actively looking for a job. That's the U3 unemployment rate.

The U6 number is over 16% which includes all people who want full-time work and can't get it (or have given up).

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm

That is a bit misleading, because it sounds like someone making $350k is not a millionaire, but

A) that's $1M every three years, not every 20 years for the average family, and
B) $350k in 1955 is 2.9 MILLION in 2011 dollars.
http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=350000&year1=1955&year2=2011

Of course you may have chosen a field that is in screaming demand or have a family business you can slide into once you get out of school, I don't know you and can can't speak for you. Most people however will have a very hard time finding work after school even with degrees in the right field

Apparently not, with an unemployment rate of about 5% for folks with at least a bachelor's degree. I dont know what school of math you went to, but 1 in 20 doesnt qualify as "most" in my book.

I feel for LimeCat, I'm certain you'll do fine, I just wish that you didn't have to swim the English channel with an anchor on your back. When my Dad got his degree he did it on a VA Loan while taking care of a wife and two children and working two jobs.

I already have a full time job. I got my first job with a crappy AAS in IT and no experience 6 years ago and paid it off (it was a rather expensive, crappy school) a year later, having waited tables to pay the first half off. I will not deny that I was privileged, but for some perverse reason I insisted on paying for both school and car despite my mom's offer to cover both, and did so a year into my first job.

I will not deny that you can be in less than stellar situations and have trouble getting that education-- like perhaps your father. But your father does NOT represent the vast majority of students, nor even the vast majority who end up with gigantic loans. Those are the folks who, perhaps, chose Georgetown with its $40k tuition despite no real plan for a job nor plan to pay it off. Want to gamble? Go to Las Vegas. Want to gamble big? Take out $300k in student loans on the off chance that you will get a high paying lawyer job at the end.

We need to get very clear what our priorities as a society are. If we are interested in serving our future we should perhaps look at taking the necessary actions for creating that. Instead of finding new and more interesting ways to abuse our elderly and children.

We also need to get very clear on what a government is, and is not, supposed to do. Governments can do many things, but most it will do badly.

I don't know where you are getting your information, but stop.

". The US is in the middle of a deep recession "
Recession, but not 'deep' by any global standards.

"is currently experiencing the highest level of unemployment that it's experienced since the great depression."
False. 82-83 are the years you are thinking of. but Great depression sounds scary, doesn't it? There are other reason it doesn't make sense to compare, but it's pretty complex.

http://www.bls.gov/cps/prev_yrs.htm

"Some analysts are actually thinking that this recession will be worse, in the end, than the great depression was"
do you not even get that you are using two different words? No, the recession will not be as bad as the depression.

Not even close. But hey,m 'Great depression' sounds scary enough to use it as a strawman to push an agenda, doesn't it?

"the stock markets have already lost *way* more money than was lost in 1929, "
The great depression fell 83% before starting to recover in 32.
IN 08-09 we fell 12. 8 percent.

It's not even close. Please, please, please, stop repeating these lies. The great depression was far, far, far worse then what we are experiences, or even the worst real projections.

Just for the record, the inflation calculator at http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl says that 22.96 was 30.25 in today's dollars. The 9.42 was 12.41. It doesn't change your point much.