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9 Responses to “A Closer Look at Employment Data”

1. Pat G. Says:
   November 8th, 2008 at 1:33 pm

   Please note the continued decline in manufacturing jobs beginning in 06 unlike the other sectors. This is apparently the result of all those free trade agreements. When they say that the Big 3 are the backbone of manufacturing in the U.S. they’re not joking. We can’t afford to lose them too. We can’t support a mostly service oriented economy if we continue to lose higher paying jobs. I am not for bailouts of any kind but give them the money they need AND attach strings to it. Then, most importantly, follow up to make sure that they’re being financially responsible while spending it.

2. DL Says:
   November 8th, 2008 at 2:06 pm

   Unemployment? Not a problem. We can just borrow a trillion dollars to bail out the retail sector, another trillion to bail out the manufacturing sector, another half a trillion for construction. Problem solved.
   (LOL).

3. John Clarke Says:
   November 8th, 2008 at 2:23 pm

   Anyone know what just happened to the article on Retail Sales. I was in the middle of posting some thoughts on this and WHAM, it just vaporized (along with my post).
   Maybe I screwed something up?

4. Vega Says:
   November 8th, 2008 at 2:43 pm

   Nearly 1.2 million jobs have been added since Feb of this year via the birth/death model. In fact, Friday’s numbers show 71,000 jobs added via birth/death. The fact that the BLS is still gaming the numbers at this point annoys the hell out of me. I am tired of the bullshit, tired of the, “Oh, save GM, save F, save all the banks, save the insurers, save the reinsurers, save the underwater homeowners, save all the people who need to be saved.” Fucking-A, man, this is America. You dug your hole, now you need to find your way out. Enough with the handouts. Enough with the lies.

   Wouldn’t it be nice for once to see a CEO say, “Whoa, we fucked up royally. But you know what? We don’t want taxpayer money, we don’t want a handout. Fuck it, the ship is going down and I know that any handout is just going to delay the inevitable. I don’t want to run a zombie company, and I don’t want to waste any more money on a business I know is not viable for the foreseeable future.”

   Seriously. The money has been SPENT. It is GONE. Mortgage equity withdrawal, man, it has been SPENT FORWARD. There is no rewind. It is gone, wasted on bullshit like jetskis and Hummers and everything else. Now there is shrinking consumer cashflow: banks won’t lend (why should they?), unemployment is going up, real wages are going down, asset values are cratering, and the savings rate might FINALLY start to head UP. So where’s the cash flow growth going to come from? Where? WHERE? I will tell you: NOWHERE.

   The US economy is toast until the bullshit “borrow now, spend now, pay it back later” model rights itself. Worse yet, the world is toast with us because they either spent like drunken sailors like we did OR because they happily lent us the money which fuelled our debt/consumption orgy.

   So let’s all ENJOY watching the consumer shrink from 72% of our GDP (18% of world GDP, bigger than all other countries!) down to 60%. Let’s have FUN watching corporate profits as a percent of GDP go from all-time highs to all-time lows.

   People, it is going to happen. Deficit spending, SAVING GM AND ANY OTHER COMPANY THAT SHOULD BE RIGHTLY OUT OF BIZ, will only add to the burden. We’ve seen the power of SPENDING FORWARD in reverse. Yeah, when the gov’t does it clearly it’s just as bad as all the other jerks who took cash out of their houses.

   I am NOT sorry for this rant. I am pissed off. FUCK AIG. You want to “renegotiate” the terms of your deal with me? Go to hell. Better yet, go out of business and let me take the $115B loss before it doubles. SCREW GM. SCREW F. SCREW CERBERUS. Let them take the pain. Let them FAIL. Let smart people pop up and FILL THE GAPING HOLE IN OUR ECONOMY WITH BETTER PRODUCTS. Hey, there’s an idea.

   Deleveraging is here, people, and it is not going away. PRICE CONTROLS DO NOT WORK, so don’t bother trying to put a floor under house prices. Take a look at Schiller’s graph of REAL house prices over the last 175 years. Note the BUBBLE from 1999 onward. That bubble is going to correct. It is happening as we speak, and we still have A VERY LONG WAY TO GO. What makes it even WORSE is that the homeownership ratio is going to crater. So who wants to buy? Who can get the money to buy? Not all the subslime and Alt-A jerks who lied a few years ago. Oh, by the way, guess how many VACANT houses are out there now in the USA? Something like 13% off all homes, or 18 million homes, that according to Rosenberg. Compare that REAL number to the number of homes for sale. That’s the real supply.

   And finally, all the assholes in NYC who think real estate only goes up are going to wake up and see what happens when the NET WORTH of the WHOLE CITY declines by 50%. The wealth is GONE. The income is GONE.

   So let’s have FUN as we watch C, BAC, MS, and GS cut jobs galore. They are operating STILL as if the economy were 2006 – 2007! The rollback in jobs is on the way. Whatever.

   “Oh man, I think the clock is slow….” –Van Halen

5. Mark E Hoffer Says:
   November 8th, 2008 at 2:43 pm

   The detail behind the HeadlineNews, even the WSJ didn’t get into this type, molecular, breakdown…The NYT has a marketplace opportunity, if only they’d pay such attention more regurlarly.. (some Dreams never die, maybe if we only “Hope” for “Change” there, too…)

   Pat,

   see: http://www.trilateral.org/about.htm for starters

6. DL Says:
   November 8th, 2008 at 2:48 pm

   The world’s largest Lamborghini dealer just went under:

   http://www.ocregister.com/articles/lamborghini-orange-county-2218874-keuylian-cars

   I think they deserve to get bailed out as much as anyone.

7. DL Says:
   November 8th, 2008 at 3:31 pm

   Article on the Japanese economy 1990-2005, and its relevance to the present economic issues in the U.S.:

   http://www.csis.org/media/csis/events/081029_japan_koo.pdf

8. Pat G. Says:
   November 9th, 2008 at 12:06 am

   Thanks Mark. Looks interesting! I’ll give it more in depth reading when I can.

   I agree with you Vega. And the government had their opportunity to show the type of resolve that you discuss by letting Bear Stearns fail BUT they didn’t. From that decision on their (our) fate was sealed.

9. Sogol Says:
   November 10th, 2008 at 12:49 pm

   If you’re interested in comparing other countries employment situation with NFP data check out interactive charts on FXEconoStats (http://fxeconostats.com)