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Good Economy? Tech Layoffs Are Up
Nerval's Lobster writes: If you look at the broad numbers produced by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the economy seems great, especially for the tech industry: The unemployment rate for tech pros currently stands at 2.1 percent, down from 2.3 percent in the first quarter. However, that dip isn't uniform for all sectors: The unemployment rate for Web developers climbed from 2.1 percent to 3.1 percent. Computer support specialists, network and systems administrators, computer & information systems managers, and database administrators also saw their respective unemployment rates rising slightly. Layoffs and discharges for the tech industry as a whole rose slightly in April and May (the latest months for which the BLS had numbers), to an average of 441,500 employees per month. That's higher than the first quarter, when layoffs and discharges averaged 424,300 per month. That's not to say we're on the verge of a collapse, bubble, or other economic shock, but it's definitely not great times for everybody.
For an economy to thrive, all its parts must thrive.h
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
The more computer geeks end in the streets the better. They deserve it. When they helped destroying the lives of entire families because computers and robots were taking the place of people, they laughed "you can't stop progress, candle-makers". Now it's them getting the short end of the stick and we're glad. You ever see any of those stupid nerds asking for change in the street, knife him in the guts.
Well, a lot of it is. So much stuff is plug and play these days, or is easily configured to the point that you don't really need to be an expert to do it that you need fewer and/or cheaper people - or you can have people in India do it remotely. Welcome to the 21st century, where you will reap what you have sown.
We in the tech industry may be taking it for granted that, by and large, we can hopscotch from job to job however it suits us. In the broader U.S. economy, with official unemployment still above 5%, underemployment around 11%, certain communities (such as poor, minority urban neighborhoods) well above that, and wages more or less flat or declining for the past decade, I would argue we should count our blessings. That also does not consider the situation in, say, most of the rest of the world, where the statistics paint a worse picture.
In any event, the fluctuations in the unemployment rate and layoff figures month-to-month are pretty meaningless. You still like to have the granularity of month-to-month datapoints, but the broader trends are revealed only in longer timescales.
Well, seeing as an unemployment rate of 3% or less is considered "full employment", this story is just another bullshit blown-out-of-proportion negative hit piece. Everyone gathers around to say it's so horrible, the government ought to do something, etc. I would ordinarily write this kind of crap off due to Slashdot's ridiculously bad editors, but in this case it seems it is another 'jobs' story required by Dice.com to add value to this website by helping to gather data. The article represents nothing but meaningless noise on a graph.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
No, the reason there is increasing unemployment while also a shortage is because to become a tech worker you just have to collect a degree. To become a useful tech worker, you have to actually have some skills.
Lots of people want to become tech workers because of the promise of a quick fortune. A limited number will have actual skills (but without the passion) and might find a comfortable niche where they can charge out banker sort of rates for their services. A small number won't have any tech skills but will recognise this early and move into management before they are found out. A much larger number aren't even smart enough to figure out how little they know and get stuck complaining until they eventually attach themselves to a clueless corporation awash with money.
In the alternate world of people who work in tech because they enjoy it and can actually get things done, there is a huge shortage.
This sounds like normal shifting of the economic tides. Things change, and some people benefit and others have to find another path.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
So the news here is that absolute Web Developer unemployment went from 2.1% to 3.1% and tech layoff rose by ~5%. That is a fluctuation of 1 month! Oh noes! What will we do!? That is ONE MONTH you statistically challenged clod.
And a summer month at that, when I assume new grads are coming into the market.
Do you guys seriously have the gall to call that journalism?
I agree. By almost any metric you choose to use since he came into office, with possibly the exception of the national debt, we are better off now. I remember the end of Bush's term well and it was quite fucking scary.
It's easy to blame the last two presidents, but they're powerless compared to those who are really responsible for the current awful state of the global economy: Baby Boomers.
The Baby Boomers in the United States inherited one of the most successful, stable, equitable economies to have ever existed. Jobs were plentiful, innovation was rapid, inflation was minimal, and the economic machine ran very smoothly.
The earliest Baby Boomers started getting real influence within academia and government starting in the late 1960s, and within business starting in the early 1970s. The 1960s were a decade of wonder, even to the point of getting humans to the moon, not thanks to the effort of the Baby Boomers, but thanks to the effort of the generations who came before them. Almost as soon as the Baby Boomers started getting seriously involved in governance of the nation, of its academia, and of its businesses, things started going to hell.
Baby Boomers in general are best described as a "rotten" generation. They are very self-centered, with massive egos, and a complete lack of sensibility. They are sure they are right, even then they're obviously and hopelessly wrong, and will remain oblivious (or wilfully ignorant) to the point of disaster.
The 1970s were the first disaster caused by the Baby Boomers. Their Middle Eastern policies shot up the price of oil, harming the economy. They also managed to wreck the finances of cities like New York and Detroit. I know that some will say, "But Nixon wasn't a Baby Boomer!", yet in many ways he was very much one of them in attitude and mindset; he was just born somewhat earlier. That is why he was elected by the Baby Boomers, who made up the majority of the electorate at the time. His age aside, he was one of them, for all intents and purposes.
This progressed into the 1980s. The stereotype of the greedy, manipulative yuppie was nothing more than a description of the Baby Boomers who, due to their numbers, had taken control of much of business and government at that point. Economically, the 1980s were shameful, with major stock market crashes, recession, and finally at the end of the decade the imposition of "free" trade.
The 1990s saw the beginning of the unravelling of the economy due to the mismanagement of it by the Baby Boomers. Some may see most of the 1990s as having been economically good years, but the reality is that they were much worse than they could have been. The rise of the PC and the Internet during this decade could have improved the economy drastically, had their economic effects not been neutered by Baby Boomers.
The 2000s saw the complete unravelling of the economy due to the terrible management of the Baby Boomers. The price of a basic academic education spiralled out of control, thanks to the Baby Boomers who poorly managed such institutions, as well as the student loan industry. The economy was in tatters, with jobs being sent out of the country rapidly, yet without any sort of replacement jobs being created. Despite their earlier resistance to the Vietnam War when they were at risk of being sent to fight, Baby Boomers were very eager to start multiple foreign warzones now that they were in command and sending others off to die. We're all very well aware of how poorly the Baby Boomers ran the missions in Afghanistan and Iraq; they were complete disasters, and we're still dealing with the fallout even today.
Now half-way through the 2010s, we still see the Baby Boomers doing damage to our institutions, businesses, and economy as a whole. One thing to consider now is that their offspring, born in the 1980s, are now themselves getting into positions of power. Bred to have very much the same "rotten" attitude and mindset of their parents, we'll only see the disasters caused by the Baby Boomers prolonged by the Millennials that the Baby Boomers spawned.
Half a century ago, it would have been unimaginable for an entire generation to have been given so much, yet to have turned around and systematically squandered and destroyed it. But that's exactly what we saw the Baby Boomers do!
Obama has done a pretty good job
...of lying about unemployment, just like his predecessors before him. The published rate is not based on the inverse of the workforce participation rate. It is, frankly, invented, by ignoring large swaths of people who are out of work but not eligible to collect any unemployment benefits.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Yea, by relaxing the rules for disability claims he took almost two million people out of the labor force (which went a long ways towards cooking the unemployment rate) while also putting doing a double whammy on Social Security (instead of contributing, all those people are draining it). Great job.
> You do realize that the Democrats controlled BOTH Houses of Congress for his first two years and still couldn't get the economy moving?
On the plus side, it didn't collapse entirely. I don't know how well you remember the economic storm clouds of 2008.
With the rampant fraud and claims of "shortages", it's not going to be good.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Well, how do you want to measure economic health?
GDP is up ~8.5% since 2008.
DJIA is up ~18.5% since 2008.
Unemployment is down ~2% across the board since 2008.
Average hourly wage is up ~4% (Although the MEDIAN seasonally adjusted wage is down slightly, perhaps indicating a widening gap in wages?)
Perhaps the reason tech related jobs are doing relatively poorly is because they are too easily outsourced. If it doesn't matter where you are physically when you do your job, then you are literally competing with the entire planet for that job.
=Smidge=
For his first two years, we were lucky we didn't up in a 2nd great depression. Fraud in bond ratings associated with what should have been mortgage junk bonds singlehandedly brought business lending to a halt.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
You can't blame that on republicans obstructing his agenda when his party had full control of the house, senate, and white house.
You can blame it on Republicans obstructing the Democrat agenda when they were pushing Single-Payer Health care. This was actually the Republican health reform plan, which makes it hilarious how hard they fought against it. We couldn't have proper national health care because of the Republicans — the Democrats already tried that and the Republicans successfully stopped it. No big surprise; the insurance companies were never going to go for that, and it's corporations which truly run this country. One dollar, one vote.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Then make it strictly optional for someone to work for a third party, or for anything less than a full-time working arrangement, as a condition of accepting work.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Well, how do you want to measure economic health?
With meaningful, uncooked figures. I don't care if GDP is up if the profits are going into the same old pockets. The published unemployment rate is based on who is eligible to collect benefits: it is just made-up bullshit. Stop believing it.
Average hourly wage is up ~4% (Although the MEDIAN seasonally adjusted wage is down slightly, perhaps indicating a widening gap in wages?)
Yes, we will never care about the average wage. Only the median wage and the minimum wage are relevant. Why would you think an average was notable?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I have a bridge with an ocean view to sell you. http://www.shadowstats.com/alt...
I'm afraid that a great deal of "web development" has become automated over time and done by other personnel. It's often cheaper and far, far faster for most sites to reduce their toolkits to a few well supported technologies and stop hosting their own storage, their own DNS, their own mail servers, and yes, their own "web server" farmss. I've helped various partners and clients reduce their developer head count by a great deal by discarding the in-house, only one developer in their own team knows it, proprietary technologies in favor of less flexible but far more stable and scalable technologies.
Jest yesterday, I spent the day going over available technologies pulled off of Google web searches by an eager web developer for some critical web services. I did show their manager the infamous "MongoDB is Webscale" video, to illustrate for their supervisor why adding "secret sauce" of exciting, new, in-house technologies can be destructive.
"We just can't find American tech workers anymore," repeated Mark Zuckerberg to Congress. "And here are some big campaign donations to prove my point."
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
You shouldn't include children or college students or retired people or stay at home mothers in the unemployment rate. These are people who do not participate in the workforce because they are doing other things instead. The workforce participation rate is mostly meaningless. As a matter of fact, in a perfect, idyllic (non-Republican) world, the workforce participation rate would be as close to 0% as possible. But then who is going to generate wealth for the 1% OMG!
You shouldn't include children or college students or retired people or stay at home mothers in the unemployment rate. These are people who do not participate in the workforce because they are doing other things instead.
That's why they don't affect the workforce participation rate, which measures what percentage of people who normally work aren't working. Try again.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Apparently you do not realize that anyone's definition of the unemployment rate is flawed and either includes or excludes people. It isn't a real number, it is something like the bill in an Italian restaurant (if I recall Douglas Adams correctly).
And Obama didn't come up with the prescription the government uses, it was in use well before him.
I admit Obama isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, but this isn't his fault, he isn't lying about this.
He shoulda just wrote checks to everyone like Bush did. Then anti-austerity the government and spend like a drunken sailor and still fuck up the economy. Asshat.
The unemployment rate for tech pros currently stands at 2.1 percent, down from 2.3 percent in the first quarter. However, that dip isn't uniform for all sectors: The unemployment rate for Web developers climbed from 2.1 percent to 3.1 percent.
A 1% or less change pretty much amounts to statistical noise. It is meaningless. That is almost certainly well within the amount of normal variation we should expect over short time periods. Furthermore those unemployment figures are roughly half that of the 5-6% unemployment rate currently enjoyed by the overall economy. Basically a 2-3% unemployment rate is as close as you ever get to full employment. It doesn't get better than that.
You forget he also increased unemployment benefits to two+ years, while the bureau of labor statistics only counts people unemployed under a year in their numbers. Anyone unemployed for over a year is moved into the category of not looking for employment.
Brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
Right, by kicking the can down the road, and making exactly ZERO reforms, increasing the perverse incentives that caused the crash in the first place, we have made everything better, FOREVER.
In his first two years, when the dems had full control,of the houee and senate, he made the economy significantly WORSE.
Neither the president nor congress controls the economy. The economy went in the tank due to events that occurred during the Bush administration. Lehman Brothers and the rest of it occurred prior to Obama taking office. But as much as I might dislike either of those presidents neither of them were responsible for the economy tanking and their tools to help fix it are limited. Arguments that this president or that one "made the economy worse" are by and large stupid and ill informed.
The logical fallacy you are falling prey to is post hoc ergo propter hoc. Just because things happen in a temporal order doesn't mean they are causal. Economic cycles rarely have much to do with who is in office at a given time.
Apparently you do not realize that anyone's definition of the unemployment rate is flawed and either includes or excludes people.
When the goal is to lie, and you repeat the lie, and you know what the goal is, then you're a liar. It doesn't matter how many excuses you have.
I admit Obama isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, but this isn't his fault, he isn't lying about this.
Either he's an idiot, which I don't believe, or he knows the figure is a lie but he's repeating it as if it were the truth, which is just a different kind of lie. Which would you like? Or do you see a third way?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Also there are always winners and loosers in the sector as times are changing.
Web Developers: Decline in the need of Web Developers is expected as right now, much more sales and marketing are happening on social media sites. So there is less need for Web developers to keep corporate billboard sites.
System Admins: The the rise of cloud, there is less of a need for small-medium sized data centers.
Now just because there is less of a need, it doesn't mean these are bad careers, just there is less demand then they were before.
Such as Mainframe developer and Cobol programmer... They are still needed, just not as many as it was 20 years ago.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Poor health did. All he did was pick up the slack assclowns like Scott Walker left with their right wing blather so we didn't have 2 mil new homeless.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
look to the republican debate last night: "less government regulation"
the democrats have been complicit in the failure that led to 2008 only when they have gone along willingly with the republican wet dreams about how less government regulation makes magic better world: of companies not punished for polluting, companies not punished for tanking the economy, companies not punished for screwing up the food supply, etc.
the democrats bear about as much responsibility as the guy who handed the murderer the gun. who is the real culprit here? which party loves, loves, loves less regulation?
that doesn't mean all regulation is good. some regulation sucks and needs to be thrown out. but the people behind the purse books don't fucking care about healthy environment, food, economy, etc., they want all regulation destroyed, evne the good and important parts. they just care about making as much money as they fucking can right now, fuck the rest. fuck your grandkids, fuck the poor and middle class. fuck them all: i'm making money, screw you. and which party do such people give most too and which party whines loudest about "evil regulations?"
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Lots of things happen, for lots of reasons.
And economic policies have economic consequences. When you make it more expensive to hire people, fewer people get hired.
> Just because things happen in a temporal order doesn't mean they are causal.
Repeated experiments are good for seeing if two events are coincidence or if they are causal. Keep doing A and see if B keeps happening as a result. This chart was made before Obama was elected, but it does show 40 years of trying dem policies and trying republican policies:
http://bettercgi.com/tmp/clint...
You'll notice that economic growth has ALWAYS gotten worse under the EVERY democrat administration's budgets, and ALWAYS gotten better during every republican administration. When it happens every single time, that's not coincidence.
The chart was made just before Bush started spending like Ted Kennedy at a strip club, with the results you'd expect.
Agreed - he said he wanted to work with the other side, but then whenever they met he was like "hey, I won, get over it!" and wouldn't compromise at all. Now not compromising might be a good thing under some circumstances (too many chefs spoil the meal - you don't want to see good legislation watered down by compromise), but the republicans can say the same thing. I'm neither democrat nor republican, but looking at how democrats and republicans act, the confirmation bias for "their side" is absolutely astounding, and you can't point it out to them - they go nuts.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Which is why I like to look at the other end. The total employment numbers. Not the number of unemployed. It is a much better metric of what is going on (as it is not as baked).
https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/PAYEMS/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment-to-population_ratio
Basically either you have a full time job or you dont, you either have a part time job or you dont. 'Looking for' is irrelevant, 'farm' is irrelevant. It started because some bright spark decided part time means something else. They also bake inflation numbers too. For example I like to use cars and houses as a factor of inflation. As both of those have not changed much in 50 years (other than slightly better tech).
The baking of the numbers is a Ford/Carter/Regan invention. The rest of the president administrations have tweaked it more and more. The 'why' is because of confidence. If people are confident people spend money. If they are fearful the horde it. So the administrations since Ford. Have baked the numbers to make it 'look good'. Because it literally becomes self fulfilling.
Also recessions hurt jobs? What a shock! SHOCKED I tell you. Obama could do nothing or even actively try to hurt it and jobs would come back. In the US we do not have a 'base pay' sort of thing. So yeah most people will start looking for a job or make one themselves. For some reason they like to eat and have a place to live (its weird... /sarc)
Why would you think an average was notable?
He likes to compare himself to Bill Gates?
I agree. By almost any metric you choose to use since he came into office, with possibly the exception of the national debt, we are better off now. I remember the end of Bush's term well and it was quite fucking scary.
What a lot of people do not understand was that in 2008, we were on a precipice.
The years of using risky mortgages as an investment vehicle
The years of running the presses for emergency appropriations
The years of people living off their credit cards and re-fi's
And even though that was insanity enough, fighting war on two fronts at the same time as reducing taxes (for some) ranks in my book as fiscal attempted suicide.
2008 could have been the year that the Great depression of the 1930's could have been dwarfed.
So yes - despite some folks visceral hatred of the "Magic Negro" and his appointees and cabinet, something amazing happened. Despite an amazing amount of money that vanished into thin air, despite a decade of financial voodoo, we got through it with a lot less pain than it looked like we were due.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
A weak recovery beats a recession every single time. Slow growth beats contraction and half a loaf is better than the loafer who was in the White House before him.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Right, by kicking the can down the road, and making exactly ZERO reforms, increasing the perverse incentives that caused the crash in the first place, we have made everything better, FOREVER.
You talking about the simultaneous emergency appropriations to finance a two front war, plus tax reductions at the same time?
Oops, sorry, wrong timeline.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
For his first two years, we were lucky we didn't up in a 2nd great depression. Fraud in bond ratings associated with what should have been mortgage junk bonds singlehandedly brought business lending to a halt.
I wouldn't say single-handedly, but it certainly was a major contributor. Unfortunately no one was really punished for all that fraud; not just by the ratings agencies but by loan originators and the banks that sold mortgage backed securities. Eric Holder institutionalized "too big to jail", basically saying that since the crimes were so immense, and their effects so far reaching, we couldn't hold anyone accountable for fear of destroying the system. He is now back at his old firm Covington & Burling, where they literally saved his office for him while he was Attorney General. He is now representing the very same banks that he would not prosecute while in office.
The fix is in. We can argue about whether Obama's actions were good or bad, or helped or didn't, or were too much or not enough. But the real issue is that the system has been captured, and we can't remove the parasite without killing the host (or so we're told, anyway).
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
I'm neither democrat nor republican, but looking at how democrats and republicans act, the confirmation bias for "their side" is absolutely astounding, and you can't point it out to them - they go nuts.
Just looking at all the comments above this point pretty much proves your point. :^)
I've stopped voting for the two main parties myself. My votes have been pretty fairly spread between Reps, Dems, and third party. For the last presidential election I went with the Green Party choice. Maybe next year I'll finally go Libertarian, if they field a better candidate than usual.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
"Workforce participation rate" is a scam. Why are we better off when larger percentages of the population are working? Would we be better off as a society if every adult man and woman was working full time? The "workforce participation" rate was much lower in the golden '50's and '60's than it is today, yet we somehow managed to survive as a society.
When did a desire for 100% workforce participation become the new normal? You've got to know when you're being played.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Well, how do you want to measure economic health?
GDP is up ~8.5% since 2008.
DJIA is up ~18.5% since 2008.
Unemployment is down ~2% across the board since 2008.
Average hourly wage is up ~4% (Although the MEDIAN seasonally adjusted wage is down slightly, perhaps indicating a widening gap in wages?)
Perhaps the reason tech related jobs are doing relatively poorly is because they are too easily outsourced. If it doesn't matter where you are physically when you do your job, then you are literally competing with the entire planet for that job. =Smidge=
I would start by not using the low point of the greatest recession in living memory as my reference point.
Apparently, you do not remember the numerous speeches which both Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd made in the 2003-2007 range stating that not only was there nothing wrong with the housing/mortgage market, but that the market was in great shape. They made such speeches every time someone proposed that something be done to prevent the coming meltdown. Their insistence that the housing mortgage market was doing better than fine and that those trying to fix it were just making partisan points played a large role in the problem not getting addressed before things blew up. I know you won't believe that since I have observed that you believe that Democrats are the font of all good and Republicans do everything with evil motives.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Well, yes, but recessions end. Throughout history recessions, such as the Dodd-Frank recession, recovered about the same point where that recession did. Except that those which occurred post WW II were all stronger recoveries than this one. If Obama is such a master of the economy, why was he unable to match ANY other President in that time period? And do not claim it was because the recession was so bad, because previously the worse the recession the stronger the recovery.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
you completely glossed over the part where the republicans want less regulation the most. since reagan this is their wet dream. that you can point to democratic morons who go along with their fantasy does not absolve the party most responsible for the deregulation push
"the republicans have been shouting the most about deregulation for the longest time, by many multiples"
"well, i found some democrat morons who went along with that, so let's shift all blame to them"
partisan blindness: negate all critical thinking on the topic, just shift all blame to the party you hate the most, forget actually making sense or intellectual honesty on the topic
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The size of the economy is measured in constant dollars, growth is measured in percent. That's how it's always done, so labeling it is a bit unnecessary and redundant.
You'll notice that economic growth has ALWAYS gotten worse under the EVERY democrat administration's budgets
> The actual facts [cnn.com] show you have that backwards
Did you LOOK at that page before linking to it? Your CNN link says that median income improved under Reagan, Bush, etc. So if you choose to trust that CNN is giveaway you correct numbers, you now know that traditional republican policies increase incomes.
Your second link is garbage. The numbers overall are WAY too high especially their democrat numbers; it looks like they treated inflation as growth rather than using constant dollars. Really they showed that inflation is higher under democrat policies, and presented that as if it were a good thing. Secondly, a president's first budget takes effect a year after they are inaugurated . (The effects start to be visible about a year later). The second link assigns the results during 2009, for example, to Obama - while Bush's budget was still in effect. That's misleading. The year Bush took office, we were operating under Clinton's budget, Clinton's policies. The state of the economy isn't much effected by the guy who just got elected, it's much more effected by the federal budget policies we're operating under.
so is this alex jones flavor herp derp or are you a free agent crackpot?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Yes, it is his fault, because going in, in 2009, he claimed he was going to make government transparent. Of course, he continued the same policies of obfuscation and deceit, plus adding a few of his own.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Credit where it's due: Obama has done a pretty good job, in spite of the unprecedented obstructionism he had had to put up with every step of the way.
Put me on the "nay" side. He's done more than his fair share of fiddling while Rome burns. The fossil fuel stuff is a good example. Maybe right after the worst recession in 80 years is not the best time to try to reduce fossil fuel consumption (for example, blocking off shore drilling and putting huge constraints on coal burning plants). Same goes with the Obamacare crap (we still don't have significant parts of the legislation active yet). He also completely blew the Keynesian spending strategy (such as TARP and ARRA).
And there's the ridiculous level of creativity in promoting US government power. During his two terms, there's been an unusually large number of unanimous Supreme Court decisions overturning some overreach of the federal government. For example, the EPA once argued that a family from Idaho didn't have standing to sue the EPA for blocking construction of a home until the family paid massive punitive fines first.
Those kinds of games don't help the economy and they demonstrate that he hasn't been focusing on stuff important to the US economy.
Only the median wage and the minimum wage are relevant.
As an aside, the minimum wage has always been $0 an hour.
Prices are up 10.8% since 2008.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
The "get over it" comment wasn't very diplomatic, but on the other side you already had Republican leaders explicitly stating that their primary goal was to prevent a second Obama presidency. When politics trumps good government, that's not good for the nation.
Truth is, the Republican Party has pretty well committed to ensuring that nothing Obama proposes should get done and everything that he does do should be undone to the point that it seems that they want his historical legacy to be as if he'd never been. And when it comes to "uncompromising", most of the people who brag about being "uncompromising" seem to be on the Conservative side. Uncompromising isn't the virtue they pretend it is. We're trying to run a country, not fight Satan himself. Although listening to some you'd be hard-pressed to tell.
The partisan spiral seems to have started with Newt Gingrich and the (uncompromising) Moral Majority. Both sides have taken their turns as their respective stars rise and set, but it really needs to stop.
Unfortunately no one was really punished for all that fraud; not just by the ratings agencies but by loan originators and the banks that sold mortgage backed securities.
I remember the savings and loan crisis and that's the reaction I wanted to see. Prosecutions in the hundreds and thousands, enough to send a giant shudder of fear through the financial industry and get them back to a more conservative posture. Instead we gave them a big pass, so of course the lesson they took from that was "go ahead and do it again, the profits outweigh the consequences".
And do not claim it was because the recession was so bad, because previously the worse the recession the stronger the recovery.
If you're going to compare you really need to use the great depression as your benchmark, this was on that sort of scale and the recovery there was pretty slow.
When unemployment is high is not the time to focus on adding historical new burdens to hiring, such as Obamacare.
I have to agree I was disappointed with his choice of focus.
Well, how do you want to measure economic health?
There's the rub. Government and Economists use different metrics than the voters do. Just because corporations are doing well doesn't automatically mean that the people are also doing well. When you're fearful for your continued income - that it may be interrupted or reduced, then you don't feel that the "real" economy is in such great shape. And while trickle-down wealth has pretty well lost all credibility, there's plenty of evidence to show that bubble-up poverty is real. If I don't know if I'll have a paycheck next month, I'm likely to put off purchasing things and even more likely to avoid investing in things where I could actually lose money. For economists, a recession is a sequence of numbers. For Main Street, it's a state of mind.
If that goes on long enough and is widespread enough, however, eventually it's going to bubble up all the way to the "official" metrics. Possibly even another Great Recession, but with less optimism about getting out of it next time, since last time things never really got that good for the consumers who drive it all.
Agreed - he said he wanted to work with the other side, but then whenever they met he was like "hey, I won, get over it!" and wouldn't compromise at all.
I'm a Libertarian, and that's not how it looked to someone who wasn't part of one of the major parties. Sure, he staked out a position on things he wanted, but as best I could tell he bent over nearly backwards trying to broker some kind of deal. The Republicans were so focused on not working with him they gave up an opportunity to get legislation passed that would actually move things farther towards their philosophy. Democrats are horrible negotiators because they believe in government, that always leads them to make compromises which often times give away too much.
While no fan of Obama, he is using the same yardstick that every other President was measured by in the last 15 or so years.
Yes, it is a lie, but it is a lie we agreed on as the standard. Changing the goalposts in the middle of the presidency for arguments sake is also disingenuous at best.
Anyone who live through the Carter recession, Regan boom, Bush 1 recession, Clinton boom, internet bust, Bush 2 boom/bust cycle, knows this one is fundamentally different. In part because the industrial age continues to fade, and the tech revolution continues to grow, while our measuring sticks don't change.
(and in part because Obama's policies are objectively and rationally not working as well as he claimed they would)
The whole process needs to be revamped with the increase in tech workers. The current system is based around factory and 40hr a week officer workers.
Adjustments need to be made, with clear indications of how the raw numbers differ, for:
People who want to work a full time job but can't
People who choose to work less than full time.
An "overemployment" number to show workers who work full time, but report more than 40hrs per week. Those hours need to be part of the unemployment number as they directly add to the unemployment number if a company can avoid hiring more people by making workers put in more hours, overtime or salary.
Self employed are not counted in the current numbers, they should be. Too many "independent contractors" are hidden in the numbers.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
We saw it in vastly different lights, then. Democrats had "won," and wouldn't budge; republicans were trying to satisfy tea party types and wouldn't budge... and the news painted the republicans as the obstructionists (as they typically do, except for Fox and their ilk).
Stupid sexy Flanders.
So, we need to contact the Tok'Ra.
Well you don't have the worldwide demand WWII gave you.
You can blame it on Republicans obstructing the Democrat agenda when they were pushing Single-Payer Health care.
Democrats couldn't get single-payer because Democrats didn't favor single payer. Enough Democrats opposed it that they couldn't get it through. What Republicans wanted really never came into play.....it didn't need to because Democrats completely controlled congress, and they took advantage of it.
Again, it was Democrat opposition to single-payer that prevented it from becoming a reality.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Well, how do you want to measure economic health? GDP is up ~8.5% since 2008. DJIA is up ~18.5% since 2008. Unemployment is down ~2% across the board since 2008.
Slowest economic recovery since the great depression. GDP going up 8% in seven years is less than 1% per year, not very good. And unemployment still sucks, especially when you look at the underemployed.
I don't blame Obama for this, the president can't single-handedly fix the economy, just pointing out it hasn't been too great.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I think his point was, in the 1950's half the population wasn't working, which is to say, women mostly stayed at home.
Today, we have closer to full participation and wages are lower in a relative sense.
It is great that women are now working, but it may have been a better world for us when only one person was working in a household.
Further, the point of technology is that people should not *have* to work. The problem is that the gains we are making with automation are just being used to simply not pay workers, as opposed to eliminating drudgery. We have a world were people don't have to work, but we still insist that they work to live.
We really should look at how we can come up with a basic income for people now that we can do so. There are some hurdles to that, because we can outstrip our ability to pay out if we say, reproduce too often, or even live too long, but I don't think there's a reason that people have to suffer today in Western countries simply because they can't work at a job where the human will actually do less than automation would.
i don't even know what the fuck you are talking about
do you understand the fucking topic of the fucking thread? do you have the mental wherewithall to do that?
nevermind that changing the topic is usually the sign of conceding a point, dishonestly
or changing the topic randomly means you're such a moron you don't even try to understand what the fucking topic in front of you is, you just think throwing random crap is supposed to be coherent in any way or that anyone is going to fucking listen to you. a scatterbrained weakminded crackpot
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
What I'm finding is this:
- Really good people with lots of experience are having an easy time finding work. (I get recruitment emails at least 2 or 3 times a week and haven't updated any of my resume/linkedin stuff in 3 years, nor have expressed any interest in a new job right now.)
- Lower-skill people or those with less experience are really having difficulty, especially new grads.
I attribute this to a couple of things. First, the nature of the work is changing somewhat, and companies are increasingly looking to hire people who possess a lot of experience and multiple skills. Second and more ominous, the low level jobs are increasingly being offshored, outsourced or eliminated. As an experienced guy, I don't like this because it doesn't allow for succession planning. New grads and new entrants into the field need those jobs at the low end to learn and grow into the experienced peoples' roles. I was a help desk person and a desktop support guy for quite a while before I got my first system admin job, for example. Let's say everyone migrates all their data to the cloud. This means that all the data center jobs move to the cloud companies, who mainly roll their own hardware and have endless fields of servers that are just swapped out when they fail. Those data center jobs then become break/fix maintenance jobs, making it difficult to make the natural progression that data center operations guys normally go through -- system admin, architect, etc. once they learn the ropes and the end-to-end of everything.
It's definitely going to be a big change coming up. Wages are going to be driven down even further, and you're going to see a binomial distribution that's more pronounced than it is now. I think the layoffs the article is referring to are definitely hitting the lower end of the IT job spectrum harder than the higher end. The company I work for is notoriously stingy with headcount and even they are hiring experienced people right now.
April 30, 2009 to September 25, 2009 - filibuster proof Senate.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
The issue has nothing to do with regulating everything you do (which is what Democrats want) vs not regulating anything (which is what you think Republicans want). It is about changing BAD laws which allowed certain people (Chris Dodd and Barney Frank...you may have heard of them in the law named after them) to profit off of the mortgage mess which caused the 2008 meltdown.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
No, it was not on the scale of the Great Depression, except of course, as much as Obama made the same mistakes FDR did.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
You mean the demand that allowed George W. Bush to oversee a much stronger recovery than Obama did, even with an attack on the U.S. was a result of WWII?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Well, how do you want to measure economic health?
GDP is up ~8.5% since 2008.
A solid 1.1% per year, well below the historical average post WWII... Not sure I'd count that as a good thing, given it's within the margin of error of calculating inflation (meaning - we may have some real GDP growth or we may not, it's so close to the error we can't tell).
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
you mean like social issues? (abortion, gay marriage, marijuana, etc.)
the guys bankrolling your congresscritter do not want laws which effect their bottom line. it doesn't matter if the law is good or bad or not, they only care if the law costs them money
but you want us to:
1. forget about those plutocrats who buy your congresscritter
2. forget about the party that screams deregulation in the name of plutocrat interests the loudest, by far
no, you want us to blame two democrat stooges for all of it
so your derangement is that you don't actually care about making sense or being intellectually honest on the topic. all you care about is punishing the democratic party any way you can, even by using subject matter that anything more than the slightest shallow analysis would mean you want to go after plutocrats and republicans way more than two democrat fall guys
if you actually care about the topic you say you care about, then the republican party is a greater enemy to you than two democrat stooges ever could be
so i am saying that you are intellectually dishonest and a blind shallow partisan hack: you don't actually care about the topics you say you care about, because if you thought for the slightest second about those topics you say you care about, you'd realize who is really creating the problem
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Care to point to relevant federal laws passed during Obama administration and relaxing the disability claim requirements? Ah, thought so.
So how many Republicans were for single-payer?
the democrats have been complicit in the failure that led to 2008 only when they have gone along willingly with the republican wet dreams about how less government regulation makes magic better world: of companies not punished for polluting, companies not punished for tanking the economy, companies not punished for screwing up the food supply, etc.
Well, that makes them complicit then. And they're so much better when they're shielding ATF officials who are accessories (in the legal sense of the word) to something like 200 murders and counting. Guess I'm still butthurt over the Fast and Furious thing and that hypocritical thing about punishing people for legal behavior, but not punishing people for genuine crime.
As opposed to you who SUPPORTS the party which makes it possible for those plutocrats to thrive by increasing the regulations which keep people from entering into the market and offering services which compete with those plutocrats.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
That's irrelevant, Republican votes didn't matter, but probably none.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
If you're going to compare you really need to use the great depression as your benchmark, this was on that sort of scale and the recovery there was pretty slow.
The Great Depression had similar characteristics, an interfering president, Roosevelt who derailed the recovery he inherited to create a second recession as well as a long period of unemployment. If it weren't for the necessities of the Second World War, the US might still be in that depression today.
The participation rate, the percentage of Americans working is at a 38 year low.
An economy with fewer Americans working is not 'great'.
Ken
Not just "none", but they actually invoked the cloture. So Democrats had to muster 60 votes instead of just 50, and that required compromising with DINOs. Had Republicans simply acceded to the vote of majority, we would have had a nice single-payer system.
And actually, I don't even remember a single Republican-led constructive initiative recently.
No I'm talking about the fast recoveries in the 50's, 60's, 70's. But you're right Obama isn't doing *everything* he can to save the economy.
Because he wants to accomplish some of his campaign points and 8 years really isn't that long.
LOL
if there are no regulations, who do think wins? the established players. you think with no rules in the market the little guy has a chance? you want to know the kind of market abuses that can go on without any rules in the market? you're completel yignorant of this subject matter, why are you talking about it?
what you're talking about is *corrupt* regulations
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
which is also a huge problem
so what you want is to fight "the corrupt regulations* not *regulations*
do you understand?
would you kind getting the slightest education on a topic before opening your ignorant mouth?
as for democrats being the evil party that makes corrupt regulations... LOL!
how can someone be so twisted around in propaganda and ignorance?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Finish the thought: Bush and the Republicans wanted to change it how?
In vact, how are Republicans still trying to change Dodd Frank, in what ways?
Do you need help using Google news search? Is that too hard for you? I can paste the link if you need me to.
Think. then have an actually valid opinion.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The low point was in 2009-2010. Things were only just getting started in 2008, so I chose that year as right before things went to shit. Early 2008 was actually a high point.
Also, "in living memory" ? Have you graduated high school yet?
=Smidge=
The size of the disaster was equivalent. Yes, the response was poor, but the response during the depression was downright stupid, so that's an improvement and why it wasn't as terrible.
and which party screams loudest and for the longest time about no regulations and has done the most to destroy regulations?
but no, we have these stooges who agreed with us momentarily, therefore they deserve all blame
do you want to actually solve the problem, or play moronic partisan games?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
While no fan of Obama, he is using the same yardstick that every other President was measured by in the last 15 or so years.
That's my point exactly.
Yes, it is a lie, but it is a lie we agreed on as the standard. Changing the goalposts in the middle of the presidency for arguments sake is also disingenuous at best.
Anyone who live through the Carter recession, Regan boom, Bush 1 recession, Clinton boom, internet bust, Bush 2 boom/bust cycle, knows this one is fundamentally different. In part because the industrial age continues to fade, and the tech revolution continues to grow, while our measuring sticks don't change.
Well, make up your mind. Either we need to change our yardstick, or we don't. Which is it?
Adjustments need to be made, with clear indications of how the raw numbers differ, for:
(etc.)
Sure, I agree, but first the goal has to be to get real numbers.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You mean when CONGRESS defunded the SEC so they would not be able to have the manpower to go after and convict the criminal wall street bankers?
love the taste, hate the texture
Well, nobody's going to become a child based on employment opportunities, but people may retire, go to college, or become homemakers because they can't get a job. These things aren't completely independent.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Note also that the Democrats didn't have a full 60 Senators for long. Senator Franken was not seated for several months, for example, as his exceedingly close margin of victory was very carefully scrutinized, with legal proceedings on both sides.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
As an aside, the minimum wage has always been $0 an hour.
Lol nope. Some interns pay for the privilege.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Which, given that this is 2015, means inflation has been a bit over 1%, which is pretty darn low for modern times.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
So, you ignore the faster recovery under George W. Bush and forgive Obama for not doing better on the economy because he campaigned on doing things to damage the economy?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Oh yes, that explains why as government regulations have gotten stricter small businesses have thrived at the expense of big business...Wait, no, it's the other way around. As those government regulations, which you claim help small businesses compete, have become stricter and more extensive, it has become harder to start a business to compete with big business and big businesses have gotten bigger.
It is time to stop theorizing about how big business dominates in the absence of regulation and notice that what actually happens is that big business gets bigger as government regulation gets bigger.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Well, only because this time the Republicans were able to stop the President from doing what he wanted to do.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Just out of curiosity, how was the New Deal bad ?
I disagree. Although I wasn't particularly happy with many of the Democratic responses, they were right in one thing, increasing Federal spending was the correct course of action. That's the one thing that Republicans most opposed. If it were up to them, they would have slashed spending much as happened in the great depression and with similar results. It's pretty straightforward sectoral balances stuff.
Although there were some things to complain about with regards to the New Deal, I was actually talking more about the poor response by the Fed and the attempts to cut Federal spending as things were melting down.
So, you think that they should have increased the deficit by even more than the $1 trillion they did in Obama's first year? I would argue that it was the fact that the Democrats increased the deficit from less then $500 billion to over $1.4 trillion is all the explanation we need for the soft recovery we have seen.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
So, you think that they should have increased the deficit by even more than the $1 trillion they did in Obama's first year?
Weirdly yes. The Federal Government's budget as a currency issuer does not work the same way as a household or state budget. (both of whom are currency users not issuers) The additional deficit could have been accomplished either through a temporary tax cut or an increase in spending. The limiting factor on government spending under a fiat currency regime is not their ability to borrow, which is infinite, rather it is inflation which has been remarkably low lately. It's a hard concept to grasp, especially for a fiscal conservative like me, but that's how our system works. Here's a good explanation if you're interested: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/pa...
Then we have no common ground on which to come to an understanding. If you ever decide to visit the real world, let me know. I will be happy to show you around.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Good point. I'd call it tourism not work myself, but there it is.
Yeah as we all know a topic That starts with "Good Economy" is not about the economy.
Why what could be the reason for the off topic mods.
Give credit where credit is due, or at least go back to whining about the confederate flag, his birth certificate, or how gay's getting married dstroys the sanctity of your 5th marriage.
Quick" Mod this down to show you diagree with it!.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
You are correct, but a newly elected President can only do so much. Don't hold Obama's failure to collapse the economy against him, He tried.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Well, first, I am not arguing for no regulation. I am arguing for LESS regulation. My question is, do you really believe that the little guy has a chance with the level of rules that are currently in place? Even if the regulations were not corrupt, complying with them costs money which can more easily be adsorbed by the large, established players.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I would love to solve the problem. Our discussion suffers from the fact that you think that the symptoms are the problem and that they can be solved by making the real problem worse.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
If you don't mind moving to the Twin Cities (we have negative unemployment in theory for software engineers, there are more spots than we can find talent - it's a pretty good gig for us out here), we've got a couple of spots open in our R&D department. Don't worry about what languages you know, we're looking for full stack developers and assume you can learn or adapt - our core is Java, but we use a handful of languages and only care that you're really good with one and can fumble through the others. My boss, the head of R&D, is a legit alpha geek and has clout in the company like you wouldn't believe. We're isolated from the rest of the company and its politics for the most part.
Ping me if you want more info. Full disclosure, if someone I recommend gets hired and stays on for a year, I get a bounty of ~$1k.
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
It actually doesn't, when you achieve that weak growth by manipulating the denominator (ie destroying the value of money). All you get in the long run with such tactics is the destruction of economies by false economic signals.
It was and remains a ponzi scheme. One that everyone who works "legitimately" is forced to participate in. Once population growth stops, which it has in native Americans, it's all over. This will be the last generation that participates in this idiot scheme.
But now that they're leaving the workforce en masse,
No, they aren't. They are staying in the workforce, and graduating students are never able to enter it. Hand waving isn't going to dispel facts, and the fact is that the boomers aren't retiring, and it is the young people who are leaving/never entering the workforce "en masse".
But as a consolation prize, you sure sounded smart using that French term. I learned it as a boy from the Foxtrot book of the same name.
The only time it is good not to work is when you are fully self reliant. Do you really want to say that the majority, or even a significant minority of those not participating in the workforce have achieved such a state?
And actually, I don't even remember a single Republican-led constructive initiative recently.
That's because you're a partisan Democrat, you disagree with the Republican agenda, and anything they try to do to reach their goals, you will not consider constructive. (understandably, because it opposes your own goals).
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
we need strong effective regulations, free from bad regulations created by regulatory capture: big business bankrolling congresscritters and telling them what regulations to write
do you have a problem with that? because that's 100% in line with what i've said
and the largest enemy to getting that done is plutocrats and the Republican party who constantly whine about "evil regulations." by which they mean any regulation that hurts their donor's profits.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You equate "work" with "work for wages". There was a time when it was very common for one parent to stay at home and raise kids. That parent was most certainly not "self reliant". Are we better off now that both parents absolutely have to work and we have latch key kids?
Think about it, we've got all this automation and computerization of the workforce, yet MORE people have to work for families to survive, and now you're telling us that MORE people have to work for communities to survive. Who really benefits from "100% workforce participation"? Certainly not the people working.
You are welcome on my lawn.
We have too many regulations now and you want more. You live in a fantasy world where it is possible to have regulations which are free from regulatory capture. The very fact that we need regulations of any sort demonstrates that this is the case. The largest enemy of getting "strong effective regulations, free from bad regulations created by regulatory capture..." is human nature/
However, even if it were possible to have such regulations regulations always favor larger, established businesses. A larger business can more easily absorb the cost of complying with the paperwork necessary to demonstrate that one is in compliance with the law, which is why, big business always comes around to supporting more regulation in their industry.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
They are better off working because they need the income than not working while still needing the income.
And yes, housewives were, in fact, the self reliance side of the equation in those families. They cooked the food (much cheaper than eating out), raised the children (cheaper than daycare), etc.
Computerization and automation are great, but they haven't yet created as much productivity as the government has confiscated or destroyed through taxation, inflation, and regulation. These factors are the driving force pushing women into the workforce over the last 40+ years. That may change in the future, either by a dramatic reshuffling (and shucking down) of government, or by a radical increase in automation. I just hope it does so before we start seeing people starving to death in the streets of formerly first world nations (this is already happening in Greece, sadly).
Very good. You've figured out that "in those families" is the crucial part of the equation.
So why don't we talk about the number of "working families" instead of the total number of individuals working? You may be on the verge of understanding my argument.
When you measure the success of an economy by the percentage of individuals working, you're looking at it strictly from a point of view that benefits the ownership class and not the working class. The real discussion should be about the over 40% of workers that are making less than $15/hr which is far too little to support a family.
In those years, the '50's and '60s, a much larger percentage of workers in the lower third were earning enough to support a family even though there was much lower "total workforce participation". Today, it takes two people working in a family for the family to afford to live. This is where the economic problems lie, and that began during the Ronald Reagan administration.
You are welcome on my lawn.
there are many countries: canada, the nordic countries that have much less corruption than we do. we can have the same
oh no, we can't ever have perfection, but no one except an idiot would expect that, or judge from that perspective. the point is to do *better*, which we will, in spite of morons like yourself who seems happy with the status quo because "that's just human nature"
"hey man, your neighbor killed your dog. don't fight it dude, that's just human nature"
fucking idiot
you fight crimes and you fight criminals in this world, douchebag, or they take over
now which fucking side are you on?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Your example countries have MUCH smaller populations AND I am not convinced that they truly are less corrupt. Perhaps it is just the value of corrupting the government is less.
More importantly, you and I disagree on one basic point. You believe that regulations allow small companies to compete with large companies. I believe that it is regulations which allow large companies to suppress competition from small companies. In addition, you believe that the words "law" and "regulation" are interchangeable, which allows you to suggest that those who want limited government regulation are anarchists.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
they are truly less corrupt, and having smaller populations is an intellectually dishonest dodge. there's nothing different from these countries that we cannot also do
this is not a different of opinion. i have a factual understanding here. you have a quasireligious ignorant faith in a bullshit wishfulfilliment fantasy
this is the problem:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
the only way to solve that is regulations
fact
not anarchist. retards. people on the same "intellectual" order as creationists in regards to evolution
you can't just believe something which denies simple reality of a topic and expect to be taken seriously
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
and maybe in the process, fuck themselves. Gee, fuck is such a gentle word. Is there not a stronger one?
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
No, I have experience working with small businesses which were unable to compete because they could not afford to pay someone to fill out the paperwork necessary to comply with regulations. It costs money to comply with regulations...even when those regulations only insist that a company follow practices it would have followed any way because once there are regulations you have to DOCUMENT that you have followed them.
As to anti competitive practices those that are not a result of government regulation or only possible in the presence of government regulation, will be fixed by a free market in due time.
Of course there is another mistake you make, since you think that government regulation is by definition a good thing, you believe that those who wish to see government regulations minimized want to see all government regulations and laws eliminated.
Somehow you seem to think that people are evil when they run private corporations and good when they work for government bureaucracies.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
$15/hr is too little to support YOUR family. It could easily be enough to support a family with a greater degree of self reliance. In fact, my own situation is such that I don't even need 40 hours at minimum wage to support myself, thanks to older investment in capital resources like real estate.
And the problem actually began in the Nixon administration, specifically with the abandonment of the gold standard/closing of the gold window. Look at the economic data--it all experiences a sudden shift in 1971 when that happened.
So why don't we talk about the number of "working families" instead of the total number of individuals working?
exactly, that is the issue with wage stagnation (like you are talking about)- I still think it is crazy that I had to take a huge dip in pay after the dot com crash in 2000 and only this year have i been able to make what I did then. We just had our first kid this year (me at 43)- all because of finances and still need to both work in order to keep afloat. In the 50's you would never see this happen - that time table would be back at least 15 years, the average family would be able to on one family member's middle class wage afford to buy a house and raise their 2.5 kids without struggling against it.
So let's see. What is the Republican plan for universal healthcare?
...crickets...
...crickets dying from mercury in coal ash...
...crickets...
...crickets are stuck in a traffic jam on the bridge...
...crickets bombing Iran...
Hm. How about environment regulation?
Education and student debts? Aging infrastructure?
That desperately needed tunnel under the Hudson River?
Middle east?
Yes, the Republican party is not constructive. It simply can't offer ANYTHING but the same old: "Cut taxes and reduce regulation (especially on Wall Street)".
Come to think about it... I actually remember one constructive law that was passed by this Congress! It was to allow big banks to use FDIC-insured funds for speculation. It was _literally_ written by Chase lobbyists and had universal Republican approval.
Oh look, you listed all the things that are important to you, and started wishing the Republicans would do something about it.
Do you understand what it means to be partisan?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Ok, so what important things Republicans stand for these days?
And do you approve of big banks using Federally-insured funds for gambling? Cause that's what Republicans are standing for right now. ALL of them: https://www.govtrack.us/congre...
And do you approve of big banks using Federally-insured funds for gambling? Cause that's what Republicans are standing for right now. ALL of them: https://www.govtrack.us/congre...
There is close to nothing about Dodd Frank I approve, and generally the handling of the financial crisis was abysmal by both Bush and Obama. But what do you expect when you have bankers as advisers?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Oh, a typical "there's nothing I approve, so everything's OK". In this case Republicans explicitly passed a law that goes against the Republican ideology of free market and small government, this law guarantees that the banks WILL BE BAILED OUT by FDIC in case of a failed gamble. But for you it's OK, since it's an "amendment" to an act that you don't like.
That's just one example. Republicans are not a political party - they don't have an economic strategy or anything remotely practical. They are by now a tool of wealthy corporations.
And now about "both parties do this" (which is the last defense of a scoundrel). There's a really important point here - there are Democrats in the Congress who are not beholden to Big Money. But there are NO Republicans in the Congress that even remotely care about people.
Then we have no common ground on which to come to an understanding.
That's understandable, it's not an intuitive concept especially for people without training in accounting.
It's not a matter of getting their act together, which has always been challenging for Democrats, it's a matter of capability. It's hard to muster 60 Democrats to vote for something in the Senate when there's only 59 Senators who are Democrats or independents caucusing with the Democrats.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
We need to change it, but to "change" it to beat up someone you don't like is just poor logic.
The raw data is there, in the U measurements, it is just how it is evaluated.
Raw numbers of employment would be absolutely fair, so long as we all agree what "unemployed" means.
Do you count children? Disabled? Maybe we count everyone? People that choose not to work?
122 million are employed in the us, of a population of 320ish million.
61% "unemployment" makes for a crappy headline.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
But there are NO Republicans in the Congress that even remotely care about people.
See? Now you're being blindly partisan again. Democrats say that Republicans don't care about people because Republicans don't like welfare. Republicans say that Democrats don't care about people because Democrats try to trap people in an inter-generational dependency scheme (Democrats just want to rule over you, etc).
Here's an example of a Republican view on how to tackle poverty, for example.
btw, I read this summary of the bill you linked to, and I can't find anything about the FDIC bailing out banks. Are you sure you linked to the right bill?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
See? Now you're being blindly partisan again. Democrats say that Republicans don't care about people because Republicans don't like welfare.
Nope. I don't like Republicans because they don't care about people, as your very own link suggests. ALL they want is more misery and more tax cuts.
BTW, I'm still waiting for examples of enacted constructive policies from Republicans that actually produced the intended results. Can you name a few?
As for the act, the crucial clause is this:
Amends the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) to exempt, from the rules of prudential regulators for swap dealers and major swap participants with respect to initial and variation margin requirements for swaps not cleared by a registered derivatives clearing organization, those swaps in which one of the counterparties....
Republicans because they don't care about people, as your very own link suggests. ALL they want is more misery and more tax cuts.
LOL ok, if you believe that, I can say nothing more to you. You're too blind.
As for the act, the crucial clause is this:
That clause doesn't apply to banks, financial entities, or brokers. It has nothing to do with the FDIC. I don't understand what you don't like about it.
I'm still waiting for examples of enacted constructive policies from Republicans that actually produced the intended results. Can you name a few?
Recently there hasn't been much, because Obama can veto nearly anything. I am a little worried what might happen if they get a Republican president. However, here are some things:
* They attempted to eliminate the ACA tax on medical devices, as one example.
* Reducing spending with the sequester was one where they actually achieved their goal (although Obama achieved some of his goals, too, but there's nothing wrong with that).
* They voted to defund Planned Parenthood, but failed because of Democrat opposition.
You may not agree with the goals of these initiatives, but that's ok, as long as you realize that most of politics is not about "right" or "wrong," it's about "what we want" vs "what they want." Politics is about balancing what different people want.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Eliminating ACA tax on medical devices MIGHT be a good idea, if they can provide a balanced tax increase or a cut on something else. Had they done so?
Sequester was the worst possible way to get cuts. And it was also in its very nature NOT constructive - it was meant to be a cudgel to force parties to make an agreement.
Defunding Planned Parenthood is also not constructive. And is extremely prejudiced and stupid (but what can you expect from Republicans?...).
So what other constructive laws have they proposed? I'm asking for constructive proposals, that do not simply say "let's grow economy by 5000% by 2020 by eliminating ACA!" but actually provide a deficit-neutral way to do it.
No, there is nothing Republicans do that you will like, because you are partisan. By definition, you dislike everything they do. They could create world peace, and you would still manage to find a way to dislike it.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Exactly which party do you think I'm standing for? I don't like a lot of stuff Democrats do and I like some of stuff many third parties are for. Hell, I even agree with Libertarians on some points.
Besides, "it's partisanship!" is about as stupid an argument as anything. EVERYTHING is patisanship, because there's likely to be a political party out there that stands for it.
I'm evaluating actual Republican performance and position. Both of them are beyond contempt. There is no single Republican in the Congress that I respect, all of them can be transformed into gutter slime and the country will be better for it.
There is no single Republican in the Congress that I respect,
Yes, I know.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."