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OMG! 1/3 of the country has no job? My 3 year old is a dead beat! Granny should quick slacking off! Its a crisis!

Seriously, they is a very misleading number. Unless you factor out the young and old it is meaningless. We have a lot of Baby Boomers retiring now, and old folks are living longer. Not factoring this out is disingenuous.

Prime age participation (ages 25-54) is at 81.2%, only slightly lower than the all time high of 84.6% right before the dotcom bubble popped.

Source: https://research.stlouisfed.or...

First, let's reiterate again: you have been putting up straw men; the fact remains that we have more full time employees today than ever before.. So statements about "even fewer jobs" are nonsense.

Now, what about the sluggish recovery and the growth in low paying, part time jobs? They are real and lamentable. But they aren't due to automation, they are due to increased labor regulations and labor costs. More automation is simply an effect, not a cause.

I can't blame them either.

I think the only reasonable system possible is one which has private ownership, free and competitive enterprise, and a government providing basic services, ensuring security and regulation, and promoting fairness and equality by e.g. making sure everyone has access to health care and education.

If this is 'capitalism', I'll take it. You can also call it the Rhineland model or social market economics, or whatever you want. I want it :)

What we're seeing now is:
- wage share of income falling relative to capital's share [1]
- real median income stagnant for the past 20 years even though real average income has increased by 25% [2]. Over 50 years median income increased by 25% (not even .5% per annum), while average income increased by 100%. In other words: the economic growth since the seventies has almost entirely gone to the above-median earners: the top 1% share of income jumped from 10% in the seventies to over 20% now, with a large part of this increase going to the top 0.1% (i.e., not us).
- governments are unable to provide basic services because the rich don't pay their fair share of tax [4]
- governments are unable to provide basic services because they are unable to reform entitlement/welfare systems which are in fact transferring money from the relatively poor young to the relatively well-off old [5]
- markets aren't acutally well regulated, especially in the US, and too many industries have (near-)monopolies, causing profits to be historically way too high [6]

In Europe, 'capitalism' means that old people have either permanent contracts with generous benefits, or are already enjoying their equally generous retirement which they entered between 55 and 65. Young people have temporary contracts at stagnant wages, are unable to buy a house because of (1) inflated prices due to government meddling (green belts, mortgage interest deductability); (2) they don't have a permanent contract; and (3) new lending regulations means banks are a lot more stingy than even 10 years ago; and will not retire before 67 on a defined contribution scheme, which is pretty bad news especially given the essentially zero interest rates and government bond yields. In the US (and increasingly the UK), added to this is a nice pile of student debt. If I were young(er), I'm not sure I would think this is such a good bargain...

1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
2) https://research.stlouisfed.or...
3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
4) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
5) http://www.economist.com/news/...
5) http://www.economist.com/news/...

I was addressing how you were pretending the ongoing crash since 2008 never happened

Manufacturing has already recovered from the crash in 2008; there is no "ongoing crash". It doesn't matter whether you meant short term drops or long term drops, your beliefs about a manufacturing crisis are wrong.

Where did I say long term?

That's the discussion that you made reference to.

you obtuse idiot.

Showing your true colors again.

Since income to the manufacturing sector has declined a vast amount how the hell can you justify such an obvious lie?

I have no idea what "income to the manufacturing sector" is supposed to mean. Output has increased decade after decade, with only temporary dips during recessions and rapid recoveries afterwards:

https://research.stlouisfed.or...

Manufacturing wages have steadily increased as well (the graph is in absolute terms, but it has outpaced inflation; you need to do that calculation yourself).

https://research.stlouisfed.or...

Kind of explains the naive comments. I'll bet you thought somehow a constitutional lawyer was some kind of radical! At least you give me someone to look down upon and feel smug about.

Yes, that's obviously what you're all about: looking down on people and feeling smug about them.

Since income to the manufacturing sector has declined a vast amount how the hell can you justify such an obvious lie?

I have no idea what "income to the manufacturing sector" is supposed to mean. Output has increased decade after decade, with only temporary dips during recessions and rapid recoveries afterwards:

https://research.stlouisfed.or...

Manufacturing wages have steadily increased as well (the graph is in absolute terms, but it has outpaced inflation; you need to do that calculation yourself).

https://research.stlouisfed.or...

Kind of explains the naive comments. I'll bet you thought somehow a constitutional lawyer was some kind of radical! At least you give me someone to look down upon and feel smug about.

Yes, that's obviously what you're all about: looking down on people and feeling smug about them.

a massive drop in expenditure on wages due to job losses.

Manufacturing job losses occurred during the recessions in the early and late 2000s, with output and unit costs remaining about the same or growing, when the labor force decreases, productivity goes up.

Also no innovation means no paying people to improve stuff so another false spike on "productivity" numbers.

The innovatino was happening outside manufacturing, in robotics, automation, logistics, management, and outsourcing. Taking advantage of that innovation often requires almost no investment. And, yes, bringing the option of cost-efficient outsourcing to an industry is also innovation.

It turns out the hours of contractors were not counted in the "productivity" numbers and there was a process of shedding skilled staff to drive those numbers.

FRED productivity measure "multifactor productivity" and hence count the cost of all inputs. That has also increased, though less than real output per hour of all persons. As you observe, part of that difference is probably indeed due to outsourcing, which results in expensive, underutilized union employees being replaced by on-demand contractors.

how about a little lesson?

You're welcome.

a massive drop in expenditure on wages due to job losses.

Manufacturing job losses occurred during the recessions in the early and late 2000s, with output and unit costs remaining about the same or growing, when the labor force decreases, productivity goes up.

Also no innovation means no paying people to improve stuff so another false spike on "productivity" numbers.

The innovatino was happening outside manufacturing, in robotics, automation, logistics, management, and outsourcing. Taking advantage of that innovation often requires almost no investment. And, yes, bringing the option of cost-efficient outsourcing to an industry is also innovation.

It turns out the hours of contractors were not counted in the "productivity" numbers and there was a process of shedding skilled staff to drive those numbers.

FRED productivity measure "multifactor productivity" and hence count the cost of all inputs. That has also increased, though less than real output per hour of all persons. As you observe, part of that difference is probably indeed due to outsourcing, which results in expensive, underutilized union employees being replaced by on-demand contractors.

how about a little lesson?

You're welcome.

I hope that Gordon's prediction is incorrect, but being in the manufacturing industry and seeing the new hires come and go makes me worry.

Yet Manufacturing Sector: Real Output Per Hour is at all time highs.

From the FRED graph we can see that the rate of manufacturing growth since the pre-crash (2009) peak, until the beginning of this year has been almost 1.5% annually. That is something, in an economy that has had depressed growth from under-investment (excess savings). But it gives a doubling time of 45 years, which is disappointing. It was higher before the 2009 Crash, taking the growth back to the previous pre-recession peak (2000 to 2009) gives 4.9% growth, a mere 15 year doubling time.

Robert Gordon points out a couple of factors contributing to out current slow-down that are entirely due to deliberate institutional (largely political) decisions:

1. The first of those is inequality. Over the last 35 years, an amazingly high fraction of our economic progress has been siphoned in to the incomes of the top one percent of the income distribution. That’s a tremendously important feature that causes the slowdown. It’s not just the lack of innovation. We’re seeing plenty of innovation. But it’s the fact that not everybody is sharing in the fruits of that innovation.

2. A slowing in the pace of improvement of educational attainment.

I hope that Gordon's prediction is incorrect, but being in the manufacturing industry and seeing the new hires come and go makes me worry.

Yet Manufacturing Sector: Real Output Per Hour is at all time highs.

Can you not post hyperlinks on the mobile site? That was supposed to link to https://research.stlouisfed.or....

If you look at the actual data, the conclusions of the report fall apart. Real output per person in the manufacturing sector has nearly doubled since 2000. Note that the FRED time series come from the same source as what EPI uses, the BLS. All your link shows again is that EPI is an organization of dishonest partisan hacks. What might give you a clue is that Figure A shows you a year-by-year graph of employment, while Figure B shows a bar chart of hand-picked time ranges.

Of course, a more fundamental question to ask is why organizations like the EPI want to condemn Americans to working in menial, low-paying blue-collar jobs in the first place. I guess the answer isn't all that difficult: Democrats and progressives like lots of low wage, dissatisfied, blue collar workers: it keeps them in power.

If you look at the actual data, the conclusions of the report fall apart. Real output per person in the manufacturing sector has nearly doubled since 2000. Note that the FRED time series come from the same source as what EPI uses, the BLS. All your link shows again is that EPI is an organization of dishonest partisan hacks. What might give you a clue is that Figure A shows you a year-by-year graph of employment, while Figure B shows a bar chart of hand-picked time ranges.

Of course, a more fundamental question to ask is why organizations like the EPI want to condemn Americans to working in menial, low-paying blue-collar jobs in the first place. I guess the answer isn't all that difficult: Democrats and progressives like lots of low wage, dissatisfied, blue collar workers: it keeps them in power.

Oh really, genius? What happens if the workforce participation rate was the same as it was in 2007?

Behold

You realize the US unemployment rate is below 5 percent, right? That's what economists consider essentially full employment, given that a certain percentage of Americans will always be in career transition for personal reasons.

This chart shows what he took over from Bush.

Try again - house ownership is declining for the latest generation, and the foolishness of McMansions has baked in higher costs for those who bought them, leaving them less free money. That's why we say people are "house poor." They have to drive further to work (costing $$$), they have to pay more for heating, etc, and more in taxes.

Also, "average hours worked for persons engaged" totally fails to make the distinction between part-time and full-time jobs. In other words, it doesn't account for job quality. It also doesn't count for lost benefits, etc, with full-time employers over the last 40 years. You simply can't make the comparison.

However, if you dig a little bit and look at this graph from the same link, you'll see that share of labor compensation as a percentage of GDP is at a historical all-time low. Part-time and mcjobs, plus more people dropping out of the workforce, helps explain a chunk of that.

> Indeed. But don't forget that increase stopped sometime in the '70s.

Actually almost half of that 23% increase is after 1984.

Here's a chart from the St Louis Federal Reserve for you:
https://research.stlouisfed.or...

If you look at total compensation, people actually have been getting paid more.

...

Plus I really dont think there are 640million empty properties right now in the US ("multiple empty houses for every man, woman and child" is what you said, combined with the current estimated population of 322million). A quick googling shows a recent estimate is only 18.6million, and most of those need significant extra work as they are uninhabitable.

As of Q3 2015 the St. Louis Fed estimates 17,443,000 vacant homes in the USA. and the OP began with an obvious typo, this is more than enough supply for our 500,000 homeless. But banks and corporate slumlords manage these property hoards to optimize their 3-month GAAP balance sheet which usually means the houses are not being efficiently used as homes, they are corporate gambling chips. That would be fine if our government of the people was for the people. But our corporate-owned government uses public resources to optimize fiat money stock prices of fictional people (aka corporations) instead of public health and well-being. So we socialize 800 billion dollar corporate losses and ignore the fallout of personal foreclosures and homelessness. (We also ignore that over the past 8 years, the ROI is approximately 1.5% on the extremely high-risk investment of bailing out a number of failed corporation. There are MUCH better ways to spend 800 billion dollars.)

In one of this century's first destructive supreme court rulings, Kelo v. City of New London decided that the US government can use eminent domain to seize your property and give it to Walmart, Oracle or any other private corporation. Homelessness is by design in an economy optimized for corporate stock prices. We've been here before. From the Grapes of Wrath:

“The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth. There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.”

People complain about the fact that wages don't keep up with price inflation.

Except that Real Compensation Per Hour has been rising (although it had a bit of a plateau during the recession recovery years).

In an economy that bears some semblance to a free market, innovation and competition would naturally increase the purchasing power of a given wage (or at the very least hold it constant) over time. That does not happen under the Federal Reserve system and fractional reserve banking.

Price of 1975 Cray-1 (80 MFLOPS), $8 million.
Price of 2015 iPhone 5s (76.8 GFLOPS), $450.

Looking in terms of hours worked, 100.5 hours of work was required to purchase a washing machine in 1959 compared to just 23.3 hours of work (for the average worker) in 2013. Purchasing a TV demanded an astounding 127.8 hours of work in 1959, whereas a worker in 2013 could purchase one with only 20.7 hours of work (see other examples above). More examples here.
 

it's not being greedy to actually want non-stagnant wages

Non-farm business sector real compensation per hour is up 2.7% since 2014, after a long plateau due to the recession and formerly high unemployment rate, which is now down to 5%.

CEO pay is down over 30% (as a ratio with average worker pay) since 2000 though.

The labor participation rate for 25-54 is 80% and is at historical highs. Stop lying. If you dont believe me, go look it up.

You know what it was in 1950? 65%

You doom and gloomers are all alike. Liars

Source

Participation rates were far lower before women started to work, but then again the economy was much smaller then as well. We are currently looking at participation rates as low as the mid 1980's.

Daily Kos is not a valid source; it's on par with Bozo the Clown or Big Bird. It's a site set up by hard-left activists to advance hard-left politics and is no better than Politifact, which is run by Democrats.

Try THIS CHART from the St Louis Fed which shows that the NET gain in jobs for all of the Obama years is only about 1 million, and THIS CHART which shows NET gain in jobs for foreign-born workers over the same span of the Obama years as nearly 2 million.

All the political candidates (on BOTH SIDES) and their paid hacks, activist mouthpieces, and corporate and/or union shills play with numbers to mislead people in various ways; some compare data from different time spans, some (usually Obama supporters) cite all the increases but ignore the losses (same trick they use with Obamacare coverage) some cite all the monthly gains (hoping the reader will misunderstand the data and mentally add them all up and see tens of millions on new jobs). Incidentally, the GOP is just as guilty when they are in power of citing a list of monthly gains and knowing they are tricking the average user into misleading himself. The problems with summing the monthlies are: [a] they do not include the monthly losses, [b] they include very temporary and seasonal jobs.

Daily Kos is not a valid source; it's on par with Bozo the Clown or Big Bird. It's a site set up by hard-left activists to advance hard-left politics and is no better than Politifact, which is run by Democrats.

Try THIS CHART from the St Louis Fed which shows that the NET gain in jobs for all of the Obama years is only about 1 million, and THIS CHART which shows NET gain in jobs for foreign-born workers over the same span of the Obama years as nearly 2 million.

All the political candidates (on BOTH SIDES) and their paid hacks, activist mouthpieces, and corporate and/or union shills play with numbers to mislead people in various ways; some compare data from different time spans, some (usually Obama supporters) cite all the increases but ignore the losses (same trick they use with Obamacare coverage) some cite all the monthly gains (hoping the reader will misunderstand the data and mentally add them all up and see tens of millions on new jobs). Incidentally, the GOP is just as guilty when they are in power of citing a list of monthly gains and knowing they are tricking the average user into misleading himself. The problems with summing the monthlies are: [a] they do not include the monthly losses, [b] they include very temporary and seasonal jobs.

You see a much different picture overall

https://research.stlouisfed.or...

https://research.stlouisfed.or...

And here's the chart

http://imgur.com/PA4QfSl

What you have is large numbers of guest/H1B workers being hired while the market for American born workers in any sector is dead stagnant since 2007
BTW thanks for the hope and change.

You see a much different picture overall

https://research.stlouisfed.or...

https://research.stlouisfed.or...

And here's the chart

http://imgur.com/PA4QfSl

What you have is large numbers of guest/H1B workers being hired while the market for American born workers in any sector is dead stagnant since 2007
BTW thanks for the hope and change.

Try over 200 million.

When was the last time the USA had 3% growth?

Last year, at 3.7%. And the year before, and the year before, and the year before. The last time it was under 3% was 2010, when it was 2.1%. For the first quarter of 2015, it was an annualized growth of 3.6% (second estimate; the Q2 estimates aren't due until the end of next month).

The US did, indeed, decline during the recession: growth was flat or negative in 2008 and 2009. But GDP increase year on year has been pretty consistently in the 3.5-4.5% range since the close of the recession. Source.

Not that GDP is a great measure of economic success, but you were the one who brought it up. Practically all of that GDP increase goes to a tiny percentage of the population, and they fight hard to keep it that way. The rest is treading water or falling back. But as a whole, by the coarse measure of GDP, the US has been doing quite well ever since the end of the recession.

It's the corporate cash, rather than the consumers. A lot of it is sitting in the Fed itself. Bank reserves with the Fed have skyrocketed:
https://research.stlouisfed.or...

They've been sitting at about 3 trillion dollars. They could invest that in new products, but they don't seem to think that the consumers have the money to make that investment worthwhile. I think they're wrong. Consumers are starting to borrow again:

https://research.stlouisfed.or...

after a substantial blip during the crisis itself.

So I think (and I believe you agree with me) that this is really caused by the investor class failing to invest. That's an odd economic choice, since that kind of stagnation should mean that inflation gradually eats their nest egg. They've managed to keep inflation low. The Fed is offering free money, and instead they're putting their cash into the bank.

A lot of economists would say that it's time for even more forcible inflationary measures, since the current low rates only barely seem to be staving off deflation. The Fed hasn't been willing to go that far (they'd rather that the legislature do it if the investors won't), but they have repeatedly refused to raise interest rates. That's the action they take when they're afraid of inflation; it's the punch bowl they take away when the party gets going. And this party is stuck; it's not completely moribund but it's getting mediocre small talk (and many are shut out entirely.)

It's the corporate cash, rather than the consumers. A lot of it is sitting in the Fed itself. Bank reserves with the Fed have skyrocketed:
https://research.stlouisfed.or...

They've been sitting at about 3 trillion dollars. They could invest that in new products, but they don't seem to think that the consumers have the money to make that investment worthwhile. I think they're wrong. Consumers are starting to borrow again:

https://research.stlouisfed.or...

after a substantial blip during the crisis itself.

So I think (and I believe you agree with me) that this is really caused by the investor class failing to invest. That's an odd economic choice, since that kind of stagnation should mean that inflation gradually eats their nest egg. They've managed to keep inflation low. The Fed is offering free money, and instead they're putting their cash into the bank.

A lot of economists would say that it's time for even more forcible inflationary measures, since the current low rates only barely seem to be staving off deflation. The Fed hasn't been willing to go that far (they'd rather that the legislature do it if the investors won't), but they have repeatedly refused to raise interest rates. That's the action they take when they're afraid of inflation; it's the punch bowl they take away when the party gets going. And this party is stuck; it's not completely moribund but it's getting mediocre small talk (and many are shut out entirely.)

What non-governmental institution turns over its profits to the US Treasury? What non-governmental institution has to have its head approved by Congress? What non-governmental institution has its charter written by Congress?

The Fed should learn to keep interest rates low. If you look at a graph of interest rates, you'll see that interest rate hikes preceded 8 of the last 9 recessions. Only four out of 12 rate hikes didn't cause recessions.

Why should the Fed raise interest rates now? It just raises costs to borrowers and increases bank profits. Interest rate hikes caused the housing crisis in 2007, because the ARMs adjusted to the increased prime rates instigated by the Fed.

Why is there this mass hysteria that rates have to increase, when clearly rate increases precipitated the most recent crash?

"The Federal Reserve also ignored Bagehot's recommendation of what to do during a bank run: make money readily available but on good collateral at dear prices. Instead, the Federal Reserve paid good money for garbage from the banks."

I would argue that the collateral is good. It was market groupthink that resulted in the crash, gossip in chatrooms hysterically screaming that every mortgage was in default. In fact the vast majority of mortgages didn't default. A few did, which was expected, but irrational paranoiac fear took over, as the market loves to let it.

Bagehot was too conservative with his "at a high rate of interest" dictum. Also, the Fed should bail out individuals, not banks. Even Kenneth Rogoff agrees:

Without question the best and most effective approach to the problem would have been to bail
out the subprime homeowners directly, forcing banks to take losses but keeping them manageable.
For an investment of perhaps a few hundred billion dollars, the US Treasury could have saved
itself from a financial crisis whose cumulative cost, counting lost output, already runs into many,
many trillions of dollars. Instead of âoesaving Wall Street,â a subprime bailout would have been
targeted, almost by definition, at lower-income households. But unfortunately, this approach too
would have been politically impossible prior to the crisis.

It is up to us to change the political possibilities by educating ourselves and voting in representatives that will tell the Fed to help individuals instead of corporations.

That's been going up too: http://research.stlouisfed.org...

As of January 2015, the U6 rate is at 11.3%, from a high of 17.1% in 2009-10. U6 includes discouraged workers (U4 and up) and even "underemployed" workers (part-timers that would prefer to be full time), and so is probably a bit high if you're talking about actual unemployment. No, we're absolutely not at record levels of unemployment.

Moreover, no one uses "percentage of working age people not working" as an unemployment metric (unless you want to inflate the figure), because that includes people who choose not to work, such as spouses of full time workers, students, or those who retire early.

How about the baby boomers? Awesome, more wildly inaccurate statistics. It's not great news, but it's a far cry from what you indicated:

* 33 percent of Boomers have put aside less than $50,000
* Baby Boomers have saved an average of $262,541, about a third of the $805,398 they predict they’ll need at retirement.

I'm not claiming things aren't tough out there, but just pulling made-up statistics out of the air isn't going to inspire confidence in your arguments.

Note true. Home equity has rebounded tremendously over the last 2-3 years and is back above 60% of GDP just like it was in the 50's and 60's.

1. Hedge funds/billionaires being able to borrow at the Fed rate and at much higher margins than us peons (95% vs 50% for the rest of us) pumped the money into the stock markets.

Which I'm not sad about, since my savings is mainly in U.S. equities.

2. All the money floating around was used by corporations to do stock buybacks - not because their businesses were worth investing in (contrary to the myth taught in Finance classes and spewed by corporate PR departments) but because it allowed the CEOs and billionaires to get even richer.

And anyone else who owns stock in those companies. Like me. And I'm not even a millionaire.

3. 1 & 2 were all done at our expense because it weakened the dollar - making consumer goods more expensive; while our wages haven't gone up.

The dollar isn't especially weak. Here is a graph of its value vs. a basket of trade-weighted currencies. You'll notice it actually got significantly stronger during the recession. Here is a graph of CPI. Post-recession is has increased at about the same rate as pre-recession. I can't speak for everyone else, but my wages have gone up.

In the meantime, we are working longer and longer hours because in order to keep profits up, companies have been laying people off and making their current workforce work harder and longer.

Not working longer hours here. Here is a graph of average hours worked per week for employed persons. Seems like the current level is roughly the same as the level prior to the recession.

A plan that was supposed to help us out and get employment back to 2007 levels has horribly failed.

In 2007 U-3 unemployment ranged from 4.4% (March) to 5.0% (December). Current unemployment (November 2014) is 5.8%. The rate of decrease since peak unemployment (10.0% in October 2009) has been fairly linear at about 0.069% per month. At that rate we should once again be at "2007 levels" (i.e. 5.0%) in October 2015.

1. Hedge funds/billionaires being able to borrow at the Fed rate and at much higher margins than us peons (95% vs 50% for the rest of us) pumped the money into the stock markets.

Which I'm not sad about, since my savings is mainly in U.S. equities.

2. All the money floating around was used by corporations to do stock buybacks - not because their businesses were worth investing in (contrary to the myth taught in Finance classes and spewed by corporate PR departments) but because it allowed the CEOs and billionaires to get even richer.

And anyone else who owns stock in those companies. Like me. And I'm not even a millionaire.

3. 1 & 2 were all done at our expense because it weakened the dollar - making consumer goods more expensive; while our wages haven't gone up.

The dollar isn't especially weak. Here is a graph of its value vs. a basket of trade-weighted currencies. You'll notice it actually got significantly stronger during the recession. Here is a graph of CPI. Post-recession is has increased at about the same rate as pre-recession. I can't speak for everyone else, but my wages have gone up.

In the meantime, we are working longer and longer hours because in order to keep profits up, companies have been laying people off and making their current workforce work harder and longer.

Not working longer hours here. Here is a graph of average hours worked per week for employed persons. Seems like the current level is roughly the same as the level prior to the recession.

A plan that was supposed to help us out and get employment back to 2007 levels has horribly failed.

In 2007 U-3 unemployment ranged from 4.4% (March) to 5.0% (December). Current unemployment (November 2014) is 5.8%. The rate of decrease since peak unemployment (10.0% in October 2009) has been fairly linear at about 0.069% per month. At that rate we should once again be at "2007 levels" (i.e. 5.0%) in October 2015.

1. Hedge funds/billionaires being able to borrow at the Fed rate and at much higher margins than us peons (95% vs 50% for the rest of us) pumped the money into the stock markets.

Which I'm not sad about, since my savings is mainly in U.S. equities.

2. All the money floating around was used by corporations to do stock buybacks - not because their businesses were worth investing in (contrary to the myth taught in Finance classes and spewed by corporate PR departments) but because it allowed the CEOs and billionaires to get even richer.

And anyone else who owns stock in those companies. Like me. And I'm not even a millionaire.

3. 1 & 2 were all done at our expense because it weakened the dollar - making consumer goods more expensive; while our wages haven't gone up.

The dollar isn't especially weak. Here is a graph of its value vs. a basket of trade-weighted currencies. You'll notice it actually got significantly stronger during the recession. Here is a graph of CPI. Post-recession is has increased at about the same rate as pre-recession. I can't speak for everyone else, but my wages have gone up.

In the meantime, we are working longer and longer hours because in order to keep profits up, companies have been laying people off and making their current workforce work harder and longer.

Not working longer hours here. Here is a graph of average hours worked per week for employed persons. Seems like the current level is roughly the same as the level prior to the recession.

A plan that was supposed to help us out and get employment back to 2007 levels has horribly failed.

In 2007 U-3 unemployment ranged from 4.4% (March) to 5.0% (December). Current unemployment (November 2014) is 5.8%. The rate of decrease since peak unemployment (10.0% in October 2009) has been fairly linear at about 0.069% per month. At that rate we should once again be at "2007 levels" (i.e. 5.0%) in October 2015.

With each technological iteration, we have fewer and fewer who can find productive use of their talents in society. Both physical, and now mental talents are being superseded by machine. Take a look at the total workforce participation, and yes, you will find with each passing year, more and more people are driven out of the workforce because they possess neither physical or mental skills that cannot be reproduced by a machine.

Here's a graph from the Federal Reserve of male (to avoid discrimination effects in early years) from 1950 to present:. Drops from 87% to 69% from 1950 to present.

And with each passing year, the number jobs that machines cannot do goes down.

One well-known economist, Tyler Cowen, talks about the 15% whose productivity will soar because machines become a productivity multiplier, while for remaining 85%... well, tough luck for them...

The robot revolution will be a slow moving one, taking decades as every day a few more jobs are eliminated. But like a glacier during an ice age, even if you can't see it moving, it *will* crush everything in its path.

I am getting my data from the Federal Reserve's domestic and foreign data: http://research.stlouisfed.org... [stlouisfed.org]

Tons of data you can view there. Pull up France's 25 - 54 employment, and the US's. My statement is true.

That's not a smart way to do it actually. It's very much possible (and indeed common) to be fully educated AND looking for a job below the age of 25. That's why the BLS only counts you as unemployed if you're LOOKING for a job. If you're a student at age 30 for example, your figures count you as unemployed. When I was in college, I knew a LOT of people older than 25 that didn't work.

The BLS unemployment rate is an accurate figure for that reason, not your 25-54 figure.

I am getting my data from the Federal Reserve's domestic and foreign data: http://research.stlouisfed.org...

Tons of data you can view there. Pull up France's 25 - 54 employment, and the US's. My statement is true.

You, and Business Insider, are pushing a narrative that relies on apples-to-oranges. You and BI are relying on unemployment data covering all 18+ year olds. But that's a ridiculous metric for a country with strong educational social programs for the younger generation and strong retirement social programs for the older generation. The young take the time to learn more skills, the old are able to retire at a much younger age than the wage slaves in the US.

But of course the free market fundamentalists are going to seize on faulty reasoning if it can be used as an argument to dismantle social programs and worker protections.

Well, the last time Republicans were in charge was Jan 2007. At that time, the unemployment rate was 4.6% and falling, and the deficit was $161 billion.

Yes, they certainly built quite an extravagant house of cards. If only they'd held power for one more term it wouldn't have collapsed...or something.

Republicans controlled Congress for 12 years; six years with a Democrat president, six with a Republican. The highest unemployment seen during this entire 12 years was 6.3%, and it lasted only one month. If Republicans were the problem, we shouldn't we have seen a problem before 14 years had passed?

Since 2009, for five years, we have not seen the unemployment rate drop below 5.9%.

And yet the only time workers got even a small raise was under Clinton. Strange.

Look here

The fact is that since republicans have had control of the house, no stimulus (like the two stimulus measures passed under Bush by both parties, or the 2009 stimulus bill) has happened, and nothing but cuts and stupid government shutdowns have occured. The deficit (as a percent of GDP) has gone down every year since the financial meltdown. This means an ailing private sector must take up the slack of the hundreds of thousands of federal and local jobs that have been lost. The republicans have blocked all bills that might have helped, and in fact have been actively hostile to such efforts as extensions to unemployment, and even food stamps.

Also, are you SERIOUSLY trying to blame the financial meltdown on Obama? I mean, why didn't the lack of legislation under Bush have its intended effect, and calm the markets? The invisible hand was apparently too busy bitch slapping bond brokers and people who had their future tied up in 401Ks. Without the bailouts of banks (the TARP, under Bush, passed by the democratic congress) our economy would have crapped its pants. In trying to get stimulus after the near depression, 177 republicans voted against the 2009 stimulus act in the house, and only 3 republican senators (one of whom was Arlen Specter) voted for it. Without that stimulus, we would still be in a depression.

The fact is, republicans brought on the financial meltdown due to lack of oversight, nearly destroying the economy, and have done everything in their power since to keep it fucked, all the while blaming Obama, who wasn't even around (well, he was a Senator) at the time. They should be laughed out of office. Sadly, they have a really good PR firm working for them (FOX news).

Your comments would have been spot on 20 years ago. Things have changed. Read up on Basel II.

Let us start with reserve requirments. The banks need to keep this reserve at the Fed (where there is a required minium) or in other safe assets like US Treasury Bills. T-Bills always offer a higher rate – unless intrest rates are zero. Then you use the Fed becasue it is more convient. What you are showing is the banks preference in where to park their reserves, not overall excess reserves.

Second, high poewr money is no longer high power.

http://research.stlouisfed.org...

Which results in this:
http://research.stlouisfed.org...

(M1 is the bit that the Fed has indirect control over. The rest less so.)

Why is this? The Fed issues currency – a.k.a. high power money. But anybody with high quality liquid assets can create money. 20 years ago that was primarily banks and the Fed had a 1 size fits all when it came to reserve ratios. To maximize profits, banks need to be as highly geared as they could be. Any new cash from the Fed would be turned into loans fast.

Then Basel II came along and said that reserve ratios had to be risk adjusted. Was your lending safe, then you have have a high ratio and a low reserve. High risk loans meant a low ratio and a high reserve. Banks would create a computer model.

Or you could lend off books. Issuing loans via MBSs dod not require any reserves. The shadow banking system does not require any reserves. Both of these methods could indirectly create money. The Feds have very little control over these markets.

Then the banking crisis hit. The computer models toe calculate the reserve ratio blew up and the shadow banking system shut down.

Which takes us to your point on the reserves – exchanging productive assets for Fed reserves. To be a little glib, managing reserves is one of the primary functions of the banks – a necessary part in converting 30 year home loans into 0 years savings products. Banks want to gear as high as possible to maximize profits while central banks want to keep the gearing low to reduce risk. The current environment is not that bad. In the past 100 years I can point to 20 to 30 years where it was worse.

And I am not sure what you mean by the comment that MBS and Treasuries will soon be worth far less. I can't think of any way the one could make Treasuries worth less without making the Fed's reserve dollars taking a even bigger hit. Nor do I know what you mean by big fish. Banks and the wealthy hold much of the government debt and MBS so they would suffer the most. My personal vote is for financial repression, but for that to happen we would need to have some inflation over the next 10 years, and the market does not think that will be happening – we know that because the price of TIPS.

http://www.pimco.com/en/insigh...

Your comments would have been spot on 20 years ago. Things have changed. Read up on Basel II.

Let us start with reserve requirments. The banks need to keep this reserve at the Fed (where there is a required minium) or in other safe assets like US Treasury Bills. T-Bills always offer a higher rate – unless intrest rates are zero. Then you use the Fed becasue it is more convient. What you are showing is the banks preference in where to park their reserves, not overall excess reserves.

Second, high poewr money is no longer high power.

http://research.stlouisfed.org...

Which results in this:
http://research.stlouisfed.org...

(M1 is the bit that the Fed has indirect control over. The rest less so.)

Why is this? The Fed issues currency – a.k.a. high power money. But anybody with high quality liquid assets can create money. 20 years ago that was primarily banks and the Fed had a 1 size fits all when it came to reserve ratios. To maximize profits, banks need to be as highly geared as they could be. Any new cash from the Fed would be turned into loans fast.

Then Basel II came along and said that reserve ratios had to be risk adjusted. Was your lending safe, then you have have a high ratio and a low reserve. High risk loans meant a low ratio and a high reserve. Banks would create a computer model.

Or you could lend off books. Issuing loans via MBSs dod not require any reserves. The shadow banking system does not require any reserves. Both of these methods could indirectly create money. The Feds have very little control over these markets.

Then the banking crisis hit. The computer models toe calculate the reserve ratio blew up and the shadow banking system shut down.

Which takes us to your point on the reserves – exchanging productive assets for Fed reserves. To be a little glib, managing reserves is one of the primary functions of the banks – a necessary part in converting 30 year home loans into 0 years savings products. Banks want to gear as high as possible to maximize profits while central banks want to keep the gearing low to reduce risk. The current environment is not that bad. In the past 100 years I can point to 20 to 30 years where it was worse.

And I am not sure what you mean by the comment that MBS and Treasuries will soon be worth far less. I can't think of any way the one could make Treasuries worth less without making the Fed's reserve dollars taking a even bigger hit. Nor do I know what you mean by big fish. Banks and the wealthy hold much of the government debt and MBS so they would suffer the most. My personal vote is for financial repression, but for that to happen we would need to have some inflation over the next 10 years, and the market does not think that will be happening – we know that because the price of TIPS.

http://www.pimco.com/en/insigh...

I'm not sure what you are saying here. So what if $39.2 billion of education spending is done by the Feds. Isn't having state expenditures (and hopefully state control) a better way of doing things? And most Federal money should be spent on special ed and disadvantaged programs. Costs for special ed can be highly variable and a couple high needs kids could bust the budget of a small district, so spreading that out over a larger tax base is a good thing. And disadvantaged programs tend to have localized severity so that the kind of district that needs to spend on those services won't have the resources from the local tax base and has to get it from elsewhere.

The rest of your stats are a non sequitur. Why is 23.5% after inflation too much? That's about 2.1% per year. Real wages and salaries have gone up by 40% over that time. Maybe there is something more to be said here but this somewhat random data is not advancing your argument

Companies like Nike have been steadily moving their labor to the next cheapest place whenever people start asking for fair wages and working conditions.

Actually the evidence indicates that multinational firms routinely provide higher wages and better working conditions in poor countries than their local counterparts, and they are typically not attracted preferentially to countries with weak labor standards.

On the other hand, if manufacturers are forced to stay in high labor cost countries, they will simply use more automation and employ fewer people. US real manufacturing output is near an all-time high, yet US manufacturing jobs are down 35% from the peak in 1979. This is not just a US trend, but typical of all advanced economies.

Companies like Nike have been steadily moving their labor to the next cheapest place whenever people start asking for fair wages and working conditions.

Actually the evidence indicates that multinational firms routinely provide higher wages and better working conditions in poor countries than their local counterparts, and they are typically not attracted preferentially to countries with weak labor standards.

On the other hand, if manufacturers are forced to stay in high labor cost countries, they will simply use more automation and employ fewer people. US real manufacturing output is near an all-time high, yet US manufacturing jobs are down 35% from the peak in 1979. This is not just a US trend, but typical of all advanced economies.

The metric you're looking for, and the only meaningful one for your point, is called Real GDP Per Capita. And it's up. Subcatagories of durable goods are also up. Up in real terms, per capita.

If you want to say we would be manufacturing more if not due to bad economic policy, fine. I agree.

But don't spread this nonsense that is technically the same thing as saying we're in a recession.

Capitalism can achieve all of those things but it does lead to monopolies. There is plenty of historical examples including our own robber baron periods here in the USA

Unfortunately the "robber baron" concept is a myth.

Take Standard Oil for example. It had 4% of the market in 1870. Its output and market share grew as its superior efficiency dramatically lowered its refining costs (by 1897, they were less than one-tenth of their level in 1869), and it passed on the efficiency savings in sharply reduced prices for refined oil (which fell from over 30 cents per gallon in 1869, to 10 cents in 1874, to 8 cents in 1885, and to 5.9 cents in 1897). Although Standard Oil's efficiencies did allow it to dominate the oil industry (85% market share), it never achieved a total monopoly (in 1911, the year of the Supreme Court decision against it, Standard Oil had roughly 150 competitors, including Texaco and Gulf).

One of Rockefeller's harshest critics was journalist Ida Tarbell, whose brother was the treasurer of the Pure Oil Company, which could not compete with Standard Oil's low prices. She published a series of hypercritical articles in McClure's magazine in 1902 and 1903, which were turned into a book entitled The History of the Standard Oil Company, a classic of antibusiness propaganda.

Or take the Union Pacific (UP) and the Central Pacific (CP) railroads. These were not created by capitalist processes, but were state socialist creations by The Pacific Railroad Act of 1862. For each mile of track built Congress gave these companies a section of land - most of which would be sold - as well as a sizable loan: $16,000 per mile for track built on flat prairie land; $32,000 for hilly terrain; and $48,000 in the mountains. Compare with the privately built Great Northern transcontinental railroad.

Or take Cornelius Vanderbilt, who invented ways to make travel and shipping cheaper. He used bigger ships, faster ships, served food onboard. He cut the New York-Hartford fare from $8 to $1.

if you hadn't noticed there has been a jobs problem of late, capitalism isn't exactly a panacea.

Nothing in the world is perfect (including government), however you may want to compare the US unemployment rate of 6.1% with the French unemployment rate of 10.1% or the Spanish unemployment rate of 26% (France and Spain are ranked only "Moderately Free" by the Index of Economic Freedom).

And capitalism frequesntly just leads to fewer jobs because it is more profitable to do more with less workers involved.

Where is your data on this? The number of employed people in the US has always tended upwards with only a blip during the most recent financial crisis.

Of course you are correct that US employee productivity per hour rises all the time due to investment in productive capital.

There are only three countries in the world with higher productivity per employee hour than the US. One is Norway, which gets 20% of GDP from oil, and none of those countries have more than 3 million workers. Ireland is one, and it is currently rated "Mostly Free" by the Index of Economic Freedom, as is Luxembourg.

one person with $1,000,000 doesn't spend as much money in the same way that 20 people with $50,000 each would.

One person with $1 million would invest that money into capital, producing new jobs and technology. That capital would be spent on business goods, salaries, etc. All of my savings are in stocks, for example. The "paradox of thrift" is also a myth.

For example, Manufacturers' New Orders: Nondefense Capital Goods Excluding Aircraft which was $70 billion dollars last month.

In fact a number of companies rely on those welfare programs in order to supply a very cheap work force.

I belie

Capitalism can achieve all of those things but it does lead to monopolies. There is plenty of historical examples including our own robber baron periods here in the USA

Unfortunately the "robber baron" concept is a myth.

Take Standard Oil for example. It had 4% of the market in 1870. Its output and market share grew as its superior efficiency dramatically lowered its refining costs (by 1897, they were less than one-tenth of their level in 1869), and it passed on the efficiency savings in sharply reduced prices for refined oil (which fell from over 30 cents per gallon in 1869, to 10 cents in 1874, to 8 cents in 1885, and to 5.9 cents in 1897). Although Standard Oil's efficiencies did allow it to dominate the oil industry (85% market share), it never achieved a total monopoly (in 1911, the year of the Supreme Court decision against it, Standard Oil had roughly 150 competitors, including Texaco and Gulf).

One of Rockefeller's harshest critics was journalist Ida Tarbell, whose brother was the treasurer of the Pure Oil Company, which could not compete with Standard Oil's low prices. She published a series of hypercritical articles in McClure's magazine in 1902 and 1903, which were turned into a book entitled The History of the Standard Oil Company, a classic of antibusiness propaganda.

Or take the Union Pacific (UP) and the Central Pacific (CP) railroads. These were not created by capitalist processes, but were state socialist creations by The Pacific Railroad Act of 1862. For each mile of track built Congress gave these companies a section of land - most of which would be sold - as well as a sizable loan: $16,000 per mile for track built on flat prairie land; $32,000 for hilly terrain; and $48,000 in the mountains. Compare with the privately built Great Northern transcontinental railroad.

Or take Cornelius Vanderbilt, who invented ways to make travel and shipping cheaper. He used bigger ships, faster ships, served food onboard. He cut the New York-Hartford fare from $8 to $1.

if you hadn't noticed there has been a jobs problem of late, capitalism isn't exactly a panacea.

Nothing in the world is perfect (including government), however you may want to compare the US unemployment rate of 6.1% with the French unemployment rate of 10.1% or the Spanish unemployment rate of 26% (France and Spain are ranked only "Moderately Free" by the Index of Economic Freedom).

And capitalism frequesntly just leads to fewer jobs because it is more profitable to do more with less workers involved.

Where is your data on this? The number of employed people in the US has always tended upwards with only a blip during the most recent financial crisis.

Of course you are correct that US employee productivity per hour rises all the time due to investment in productive capital.

There are only three countries in the world with higher productivity per employee hour than the US. One is Norway, which gets 20% of GDP from oil, and none of those countries have more than 3 million workers. Ireland is one, and it is currently rated "Mostly Free" by the Index of Economic Freedom, as is Luxembourg.

one person with $1,000,000 doesn't spend as much money in the same way that 20 people with $50,000 each would.

One person with $1 million would invest that money into capital, producing new jobs and technology. That capital would be spent on business goods, salaries, etc. All of my savings are in stocks, for example. The "paradox of thrift" is also a myth.

For example, Manufacturers' New Orders: Nondefense Capital Goods Excluding Aircraft which was $70 billion dollars last month.

In fact a number of companies rely on those welfare programs in order to supply a very cheap work force.

I belie

Capitalism can achieve all of those things but it does lead to monopolies. There is plenty of historical examples including our own robber baron periods here in the USA

Unfortunately the "robber baron" concept is a myth.

Take Standard Oil for example. It had 4% of the market in 1870. Its output and market share grew as its superior efficiency dramatically lowered its refining costs (by 1897, they were less than one-tenth of their level in 1869), and it passed on the efficiency savings in sharply reduced prices for refined oil (which fell from over 30 cents per gallon in 1869, to 10 cents in 1874, to 8 cents in 1885, and to 5.9 cents in 1897). Although Standard Oil's efficiencies did allow it to dominate the oil industry (85% market share), it never achieved a total monopoly (in 1911, the year of the Supreme Court decision against it, Standard Oil had roughly 150 competitors, including Texaco and Gulf).

One of Rockefeller's harshest critics was journalist Ida Tarbell, whose brother was the treasurer of the Pure Oil Company, which could not compete with Standard Oil's low prices. She published a series of hypercritical articles in McClure's magazine in 1902 and 1903, which were turned into a book entitled The History of the Standard Oil Company, a classic of antibusiness propaganda.

Or take the Union Pacific (UP) and the Central Pacific (CP) railroads. These were not created by capitalist processes, but were state socialist creations by The Pacific Railroad Act of 1862. For each mile of track built Congress gave these companies a section of land - most of which would be sold - as well as a sizable loan: $16,000 per mile for track built on flat prairie land; $32,000 for hilly terrain; and $48,000 in the mountains. Compare with the privately built Great Northern transcontinental railroad.

Or take Cornelius Vanderbilt, who invented ways to make travel and shipping cheaper. He used bigger ships, faster ships, served food onboard. He cut the New York-Hartford fare from $8 to $1.

if you hadn't noticed there has been a jobs problem of late, capitalism isn't exactly a panacea.

Nothing in the world is perfect (including government), however you may want to compare the US unemployment rate of 6.1% with the French unemployment rate of 10.1% or the Spanish unemployment rate of 26% (France and Spain are ranked only "Moderately Free" by the Index of Economic Freedom).

And capitalism frequesntly just leads to fewer jobs because it is more profitable to do more with less workers involved.

Where is your data on this? The number of employed people in the US has always tended upwards with only a blip during the most recent financial crisis.

Of course you are correct that US employee productivity per hour rises all the time due to investment in productive capital.

There are only three countries in the world with higher productivity per employee hour than the US. One is Norway, which gets 20% of GDP from oil, and none of those countries have more than 3 million workers. Ireland is one, and it is currently rated "Mostly Free" by the Index of Economic Freedom, as is Luxembourg.

one person with $1,000,000 doesn't spend as much money in the same way that 20 people with $50,000 each would.

One person with $1 million would invest that money into capital, producing new jobs and technology. That capital would be spent on business goods, salaries, etc. All of my savings are in stocks, for example. The "paradox of thrift" is also a myth.

For example, Manufacturers' New Orders: Nondefense Capital Goods Excluding Aircraft which was $70 billion dollars last month.

In fact a number of companies rely on those welfare programs in order to supply a very cheap work force.

I belie