Comments on: Wage Deflation in Our Midst

By: Pity the poor internship-less rich kid :: Scoop44

Pity the poor internship-less rich kid :: Scoop44 — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 01:38:01 +0000

[...] guess my point is: yes, as the economy settles into its new lower-employment pattern, it’ll be harder for college graduates to find a job. But it’ll be harder for everybody [...]

By: Unemployment Hasn’t Crushed the Green Shoots - CBS MoneyWatch.com

Unemployment Hasn’t Crushed the Green Shoots - CBS MoneyWatch.com — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:34:45 +0000

[...] Merrill Lynch and now with the Canadian brokerage Gluskin Sheff, piled on with an apocalyptic guest commentary in Barry Ritholz’s The Big Picture. Among the many discouraging data points: There are now [...]

By: Official Unemployment Hits 9.5% - Blogs - NewsSpotz

Official Unemployment Hits 9.5% - Blogs - NewsSpotz — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:12:11 +0000

[...] either. For instance, on Wednesday, at the Think Tank at The Big Picture, Barry L. Ritholtz hosted Chief Economist and Strategist David Rosenberg of Canada’s Gluskin Sheff. Here’s some of what he had to [...]

By: FrancoisT

FrancoisT — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:53:01 +0000

@ constantnormal and meSays;
Great posts! To top it all, we must remember that the absolute incapacity of the political class to respond appropriately to this crisis makes matters far worse than need be. All we’ve seen is lots of posturing and grandstanding. Form health care reform to credit cards new law, housing help bill and climate change House proposal, what have we got? A remarkably inane muddying through the special interests demands, pet peeves of Senator so-and-so, when it is not total denial of the problem in the first place. Even the stimulus package bill is falling far short of what the situation demanded.

We have a Great Recession that could easily become a depression, a financial sector still in total command of Washington, and a political paralysis and incompetence that can only aggravates the problems at hand.

Speaking of problems, David Rosenberg was asking: “Has anyone worked through the sociological repercussions from this divergence on divorce rates, birth rates, even crime rates?”

Well…Homeland Security sure did some preliminary work about that, didn’t they? Let’s remember their report on the dangers of rising right-wing extremism. Anyone who’s read some History will know that time of econ crisis that disproportionately affect young males is a recruiting bonanza for right-wing extremists anywhere. The KKK had their banner years when the economic situation was at its worse. Is there any reason this time should be different? (Yes! It is a rhetorical question)

All this societal bad blood just can’t be good for the conduct of business and the economy. Businesses thrive in a stable political climate where rules are trending toward fairness, clarity and a modicum of common sense; where governments are doing a decent job of referees in the marketplace, social and economic. Can’t say we have that now, can we? Far from it IMO.

So, these so-called green shoots will rapidly decay into yellow straws to end up as dusty tumbleweeds. It’s only a matter of time.

By: Think Tank / MacroNotes | The Big Picture

Think Tank / MacroNotes | The Big Picture — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:09:00 +0000

[...] sure to see the terrific commentary over the past 24 hours in the Think Tank from David Rosenberg, Jack McHugh, and Bill [...]

By: me

me — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:43:13 +0000

I think some corporate leaders are figuring it out. Intel called on other CEOs to invest in the US (IBM promptly fired 10,000 US workers and replaced them with Indian workers). But Intel put their money where their mouth was and built or invested in a US chip plant.

WalMart has called for employer based health care to “level the playing field”. How about universal health care to level the playing field with the rest of the world. Toyota put their latest plant in Canada because they didn’t have to pay health care costs.

GE is emphasizing US exports and has US workers featured in their new ads. Good jobs in the US are good for the US and the world.

I am sensing a turning point where execs realize what they have done, fired all their customers. Low wage jobs do not generate sales or tax receipts. Just maybe……….

By: Hoover

Hoover — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:40:40 +0000

So what he’s saying is that this time is different…

By: willid3

willid3 — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:09:58 +0000

i have been pointing to wage destruction for some time now. its not a new development, but has been going for decades. it just started to accelerate since late 2000 and 2001. and its a major reason for the credit crises. a lot of middle class people had to make up for lost income some way. and wall street was willing to help with easy credit (to make a killing) and encouraged even more job destruction and wage collapse

By: constantnormal

constantnormal — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:53:31 +0000

Little by little, inch by inch, I am coming to believe that we will, in due course, eclipse the Great Depression of the 1930s, as the government replicates the series of failures of the Hoover administration and follows the recent path so well-defined by Japan.

I look at the political landscape, and I see, all too clearly, that Bernanke is being prepped to be the blame-taker for all our problems, in an ineffectual sacrifice at the 2010 altar of Congressional re-election, only to have Janet Yellen — or even worser, Larry Summers — replace him in a move from bad to worse.

From there I expect to see U3 unemployment numbers march up towards 15% and beyond, and pensions and insurance companies begin to implode in domino fashion, unable to keep treading water as the deflationary spiral worsens.

And by the 2012 presidential elections, I fully expect lunatic fringe extremist candidates (from both major parties) to be chomping at the bit to grab the reins of power and do absolutely insane things (even more-so than our current “agent of change”), up to and including launching preemptive nuclear strikes on any of a number of global adversaries. Whenever times appear unmanageable/hopeless, it’s time to roll out military actions to distract the sheeple and get everyone to rally ’round the flag. I suppose that having a major chunk of productive capacity (human and industrial) glow in the dark is one way to bring capacity and demand into balance.

Am I too negative? Look at any of the above charts and show me the tiniest inkling of second derivative improvements that might signal a bottoming. Give me a fairy tale (a believable fairy tale, Franklin411) that has the mortgage foreclosure madness being brought to a close, employment finding a footing, and total debt levels beginning a managed decline.

By: Its_Science

Its_Science — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:13:07 +0000

The original text in my RSS reader stated:

“For every job opening in the USA, there are more than five million unemployed actively seeking work vying for those jobs.”

The text here looks like it’s been corrected, but the “Number of Unemployed per Job Opening” graph still looks like it the units are in millions as of this comment. Of course, this would imply that there are only about 3 job openings in the US. That would probably concern even the optimists quite a bit…

[BR: heh heh -- guess things are REALLY bad --
Thats a typo -- I fixed it.]