The US Jobs Market Continues Its Strong Comeback From the Pandemic (npr.org) 100
The U.S. job market remains red-hot. Employers added 428,000 jobs in April, extending a remarkable comeback in the labor market. From a report: The unemployment rate held steady at 3.6% -- matching its lowest level since the start of the pandemic. The economy has now replaced nearly 95% of the jobs that were lost when the coronavirus hit. And employers are still keen to hire. Job openings remain at or near an all-time high as businesses struggle to recruit enough staff. "For people who are out of work and looking, there are lots of job opportunities," Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell told reporters on Wednesday. "Wages are moving up at rates that haven't been seen in quite a long time, so it's a good time to be a worker, looking to either change jobs or get a wage increase in your current job," he added.
Re:Not a surprise (Score:5, Informative)
That's pretty much global right now, so it's not a national policy issue.
Re: Not a surprise (Score:4, Insightful)
It is global because the people running the other affected countries are pursuing the same stupid strategies as the Democrats.
You mean sanctioning Russia? Most inflation in the last year is because Russia invaded Ukraine. Which is more stupid: taking steps to punish Russia for its inappropriate use of force or pursuing a policy of appeasement until the Russian tanks start rolling down the Champs-Élysée?
Anybody who thinks that aggressively punishing Russia is stupid must have missed that month of world history class where they talked about World War II.
Re: Not a surprise (Score:5, Informative)
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/... [townhall.com]
Re: Not a surprise (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe you are misinformed? Almost all the inflation happened well before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. https://townhall.com/tipsheet/... [townhall.com]
Well, I know it's not fair to blame it all on Russia, but that was the only cause of inflation that could have been realistically avoided by western government actions, and it is what pushed things over the edge, IMO.
There were, however, a number of factors that were involved:
But with the exception of the last one, no current-day government could have prevented any of those things from happening, realistically speaking.
That said, if you look at the numbers [statista.com], you'll find that the economy just about ground to a halt during the pandemic, with inflation rates dropping to as low as 0.3 percent in April of 2020. As the economy started recovering, the resulting boom pushed inflation rates to a bit higher than normal (average is 3.24%; most of 2021 was ~5%). This was basically just inflation making up for lost time.
A big surge in car prices pushed the inflation rate up slightly in October of 2020. And then Russia started massing troops on the border of Ukraine in November. And inflation rates have gone up every month since then. To my knowledge, there was nothing else interesting happening right around that time, so putting the blame for most of the current inflation rate on Russia seems justified.
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Why do you think the war started in the first place?
Mainly because Russia took on entirely too much debt to expand their oil and gas production.
In late 2020, California passed a law that would ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars statewide by 2035. Multiple other states would follow those standards as well. And in July 2021, the EU made similar promises.
Putin's asset in the White House tried to roll back emissions standards in the U.S., and to prevent California from their gasoline-powered vehicle ban. But after Biden took office, all of Trump's medd
Re: Not a surprise (Score:5, Informative)
Most inflation in the last year is because Russia invaded Ukraine
Most inflation in the last year is from corporate profits. Corporations have increased profits by 40% over pre-pandemic levels [thehill.com]. The cost of producing liquid fuels in particular is actually down, but the prices are up [npr.org], and that has effects across all markets.
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Tell me you don't understand supply constraints and how inflation works without telling me you don't understand how supply constraints and inflation works.
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You have it backwards, The higher appearing profits are due to inflation, especially in the energy sector.
If that were true then nobody would be fighting Sanders' proposed excess profits tax, which explicitly accounts for inflation. They wouldn't be making any excess profits, so there wouldn't be any additional taxes.
Re: Not a surprise (Score:1)
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So *nobody's* pursuing smart, Republican style strategies you would prefer? Awfully convenient for your argument then.
Re: Not a surprise (Score:5, Informative)
Except that's not actually borne out by energy production statistics [forbes.com]. In particular both crude oil and natural gas production went way up under Obama, specifically because he was concerned about the effect of Russia on world energy supplies. This admittedly did not set well with many Democrats.
Maybe we don't understand how the world works, but at least we're trying to understand it rather confabulating a fantasy world that proves us right.
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Obama was a centrist Democrat. Liberal Democrats' assessment of him is actually similar to yours. All parties are coalitions of various interests. That's why every time there's a contested primary it starts with enthusiasm for some liberal firebrand like Bernie Sanders, but they never win. The Democratic Party is a coalition between liberal whites and minorities, who are much less liberal but without whom no candidate can win the nomination.
Within the Democratic coalition, more than 2/3 favor increased d
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Re: You're not rsilvergun. You're just a liar. (Score:5, Interesting)
I, for one, wish you would not do this, as it creates confusion. I realize that immaturity, incivility, and outright boorishness are mainstays of slashdot culture, and so I expect that requests like mine will not get much traction. I think this is unfortunate, as there are some smart people who use this site and the discussions can sometimes be very informative and interesting.
But there will always be people like you trying to ruin that. I don't understand why you think this form of mockery is a good idea, but the only thing that is within my power is to make a simple request that you stop.
So, please stop. Thanks in advance.
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You know you have the option to just fuck off and leave the rest of us alone that still enjoy participation here, right?
Re: You're not rsilvergun. You're ju (Score:2)
Ive said the same thing about other websites!
Slashdot is not at its best but what’s the harm of it existing? It’s not like it’s Facebook or Reddit where it’s very existence is bad for the rest of the net.
Re: You're not rsilvergun. You're just a liar. (Score:5, Informative)
Tell us you're an idiot living in an echo chamber, without telling us you're an idiot living in an echo chamber.
Seriously - three people have been charged with seditious conspiracy that have now pled guilty and are cooperating with the Department of Justice. There WERE guns involved - they had them stashed in Virginia for easy access if they got the word from whomever was orchestrating that mess, which apparently Oathkeeper founder Stewart Rhodes couldn't get in contact with [bostonglobe.com] during the insurrection to arm up and hold the Capitol with guns.
He just testified to that under oath while pleading guilty to fucking sedition. Let's play a game of "who I'm likely to believe" shall we?
A. Some random fucking twat on the Internet who constantly posts blather and right-wing dipshittery
or
B. A guy that admits to seditious conspiracy under penalty of perjury, who was actually there with guns, in the room with one of the leaders of the conspiracy.
And yes, it was an insurrection, by definition.
Re: You're not rsilvergun. You're just a liar. (Score:2)
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It costs 30% more to live under Biden and the Democrats than under Trump.
And yet somehow the oil companies are reporting record profits. It's almost like something is going on...
Re:Not a surprise (Score:4, Informative)
So, if Biden is to blame for the inflation, he must be to blame for the rise in jobs. Jesus you're a dolt.
The inflation was caused by the U.S . and the world opening up after the worst of Covid passed by. Consumer spending in the U.S is up a lot and continues to rise. Add to that and the supply chain bottlenecks, of course there is an inflation. But Biden had nothing to do with it.
Now the previous alleged president did more to spank the economy by adding to the Covid damage with his dumb-ass pronouncements and quack cures. Then the right wing nutjobs like you whined incessantly about the vaccine so much that normal people decided to believe you dumb asses and not get the shot. So we got nailed with Covid much harder than needed. That drove the economy down so that the rebound had more room to run, thus inflation.
So I think we can blame the inflation on people like you. You must be very proud.
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The Department of the Treasury had 40% of all US currency in circulation printed new in the latter half of 2020 and into 2021. There's your biggest source of inflation, and that is squarely on Biden.
Re:Not a surprise (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah, because the government printing money to continually increase debts while reducing taxes and increasing the deficits never leads to inflation at all. And who spent almost $2T/year while President, when tax receipts were nowhere near that?
Oh, that would be your boy Trump, who I believe said he would get rid of the national debt if in office for 8 years. Well, after adding $7.8T more debt [newsweek.com] (+40% of the total when Obama left) in his first 4 years, how was he going to accomplish paying off $20T in the next 4 years, exactly? Was he going to auction off the US Navy? Perhaps a global bake sale for billion-dollar cupcakes?
Now I'm not thick enough to think that the pandemic had nothing to do with it, but he wasn't exactly making good on that promise during his first three years, as there hasn't been any debt reduction payments for 6 years. Until yesterday, under Biden. [cbsnews.com]
Watch what they do, not what they say. Republicans love to talk about deficit reduction and paying down the national debt, but never actually do so when they have the ability. Meanwhile, Democrats come in and fix the mess left behind by Republicans, and start actually reducing deficits and paying the debt.
Please stop being such a gullible fucking dumbass, falling for whatever these con men tell you.
In addition (Score:4, Insightful)
What could be better than a soaring job market with rising wages and a growing economy coupled with fiscal responsibility.
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Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
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Lots of things could be better than this, specifically a situation where we don't have the highest rate of inflation in 40 years, which will prompt the Fed to hike interest rates. That will mean higher costs for lending (mortgages, student loans, etc), and this will probably lead us into a recession combined with an upcoming global food shortage due to Bird Flu and a wheat shortage stemming from Russia's invasion.
This short term good news is a blip in face of an upcoming shit-show.
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Both parties have been pumping it in the last couple decades, but Republicans add more debt.
Obama's debt was significantly due to Keynesian response (right or wrong) to the greatest economic collapse since the Great Depression - caused by republican deregulation of the housing market.
Trump had no such situation/excuse in his first 3 years when he added $3T to the debt.
Bush Jr. had his foolish and unfunded wars.
Bill Clinton --
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Should probably check your own math. Obama added 8.6 trillion to debt over 8 years while Trump added 6.7 trillion in 4. I see no reason Trump would be curbed any spending if he had been re-elected. Republicans haven't exercised any fiscal responsibility since the Clinton years and they only did that out of spite. They deficit spend while Democrats actually try to pay for things via taxation. Hence the old adage of tax and spend democrats. Don't forget Obama inherited yet another Republican mess in 2008 as w
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I said both were responsible you utter retard. Try reading all of a response. I left this one short so you could do just that, though I'll not be replying to whatever further partisan lies you attempt to push.
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Yes, Democrat administrations add to the debt.
Yes, Republican administrations also add to the debt, while simultaneously reducing income from those are most able to pay the taxes.
Which is better?
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You seem to be conveniently forgetting how President Biden came to inherit this astronomical national debt. Are you dull, or merely disingenuous?
You mention that for President Biden, the only way to go from the bottom is up. Once more, you seem to conveniently be forgetting how President Biden came to be starting from that metaphorical bottom. Most people would agree, it was an ex-president that got us into this mess.
Which ex-president are you referring to, anyway-- Trump, Obama, or perhaps you mean FDR? I suggest you look at some numbers before you answer:
https://datalab.usaspending.go... [usaspending.gov]
https://www.thebalance.com/us-... [thebalance.com]
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Dude, who put out most of the Stimulus checks without funding them? Aka printed trillions upon trillions of dollars out of thin air? Who added $3T to the debt BEFORE Covid when we weren't engaged in any serious war and had a great economy? How the f do you even do that!? THAT is what causes inflation. Economies react over time to policy, not instantly. Inflation doesn't SUDDENLY show up because Joe Biden got sworn in, genius.
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The democrats who voted for it, especially since they wanted triple the amount in the first place. Inflation didn't start significantly kicking up until the second round of checks were voted in and so the market priced in a shitload of excess money after people were starting to go back to work.
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Yeah because it was better than doing nothing. The democrats would have even more GLADLY voted for it if it was funded through tax increases on the rich. Instead, Trump & Co. (against *some* republicans to be fair who didn't want to recklessly spend money we don't have) decided to print money out of thin air. The more money you print the less it's worth. Inflation 101.
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Right, I forgot it was Democrats who passed the massive tax cut for the wealthy and lost control of Congress in the process, because that sounds like something they'd do. Don't you wish we would have had that revenue coming in when the pandemic hit?
Re:In addition (Score:4, Insightful)
Ya, and those tax reductions under the previous alleged president continue to not pay for themselves but did help increase the debt.
A big push to the psychology behind the debt started with Ronald Reagan. He decided that tax cuts were great but never insisted on budget reductions. So the debt grew much larger under him. Clinton was caretaker and never took the debt seriously. He didn't have to because gov. receipts were rising. When Bush got into office, we heard that we'd have surpluses as far as the eye could see, which turned out to be about until 2002. The culprit again was tax cuts. But he also decided two wars didn't need to be paid for and the Republicans in Congress would never had allowed him to raise taxes even if he wanted to.
The Bush Administration thought benign neglect was the way to manage the fed. regulatory controls, which only managed to help produce the housing crisis. They had help though, the sainted American people thought it was okay to buy 2nd and 3rd houses on little collateral just like the big boys they saw a TV, until the music ended.
Obama was left with a clusterfuck of an economy and decided to make it worse by extending Bush tax cuts and spending more. Then the Asshole took over and more tax cuts.
The budget has been tax cutted to death. Republicans won't raise taxes because they haven't learned squat since Reagan. The Democrats won't raise taxes because that would point out that the extra government spending that they passed is unfunded and don't want to stick the American taxpayer for the bills for the stuff the American taxpayers elected them to pass.
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You don't think that taking a machete to the defense budget had anything to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union, do you?
Re:In addition (Score:5, Insightful)
I read the linked news article, and frankly, I'm not sure I entirely understood it-- you practically need a degree in economics to follow these kinds of stories-- but it appears to be a lot more complicated than the OP is suggesting, and a lot less rosy.
In the first six months of fiscal 2022, the federal government has added $667 billion to the federal debt. So I'm very puzzled by the article's assertion (made in the first paragraph) that Biden is "paying down the national debt this quarter for the first time in six years".
Skipping down six paragraphs or so, I find this: "Earlier this week, Treasury said that it expects to pay down $26 billion in privately held debt from the April to June quarter this year. However, the hope to reduce the debt may be dampened by Treasury's expectation to borrow $182 billion in privately held debt from July to September."
Only a fraction of the national debt is privately held, so maybe they are counting it as "paying down the debt" if privately-held debt is reduced while publicly-held debt continues to increase? Or maybe the argument is simply time-based, and they are saying "sure, we increased the debt three quarters out of four, but we're reducing it during this one specific quarter"?
Either way, it sure is a bullshit way to summarize how the economy is doing.
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Look up "baseline budgeting". It's the same pattern of reasoning.
For example, if they intended to borrow $700B from the Federal Reserve Bank this month, but they only borrowed $680B , some economists will say they're paying down the debt. Those economists function like the King's Priests did during the Divine Right era - always excusing the behavior of rulers. Keynes himself escaped prosecution from pederasty by promulgating his theories to mollify the UK public.
This article may be promoting other stupid
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Also, who's holding that debt? Why are they the only ones being repaid? There's room for shenanigans there, although I'm not asserting any because I don't know the answers to the above questions and I'm not a fox fucker.
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If you didn't know (Score:5, Informative)
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Sshh.
A communist mod will be along momentarily to slap you in the pee-pee for telling the truth.
15 points is too damn much at one time.
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You’re only getting 15?
Re:If you didn't know (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:If you didn't know (Score:4, Insightful)
Labor participation rate is worth noting because it changes with time, and if you don't take it into account when looking at the unemployment rate, you will have an incomplete picture of the economy.
What we can "glean" from the current rate (62%) is that it's lower than it was in 2000 (about 67%). Why it's dropped is a complicated question. Part of it may be due to an increasing percentage of the US population going on disability, but I don't know if that's the biggest factor. The population has also aged slightly since then, so that may be another factor.
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Re:If you didn't know (Score:4, Insightful)
Did you say the same thing when Trump was president?
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Define "out of work."
(Seriously, good luck improving on the official definition used to compute unemployment that you are criticising).
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It is gotten from the number of people who want a job that aren't working. People who don't need a job or stopped looking aren't counted. Like retired people, people who are living off their investments, housewives, or students etc. Does it matter? Obviously, if they are fine without a job. Anyway, the participation rate is increasing too. Just so you know. The point is that in this economy most people who want a job can find one. And that is especially true if you get yourself an in-demand skill and good w
employers are still keen to hire (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, millions of people quit or changed jobs in March alone. No shit they're keen to hire. Are they keen to pay a living wage?
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It works exactly like I imagine it does. I imagine that if you pay people less than they need to live on, the system is unsustainable and thus produces negative effects.
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All Bullshit (Score:1, Informative)
Any positive economic news you hear is all bullshit at this point.
On fact though jobs are up, the total number of people employed is still below where it was before the pandemic. [tradingeconomics.com]
Look at the five year employment rate chart...
In case you think I am some partisan poster this was our destiny no matter who was in office (though admittedly Biden did hasten things along).
The economy is cratering, prepare yourself in whatever way you think best.
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On fact though jobs are up, the total number of people employed is still below where it was before the pandemic. [tradingeconomics.com]
Look at the five year employment rate chart...
Ya, it was about 61% in early 2020 and it's now at 60% -- a *whole* 1% difference. Wow. It's been steadily climbing since the drop in 2020, even now, and the year's not even half over. The max, between 1948 and 2022, was 64.7% in (about) 2001. btw so I don't know what you're on about.
Any positive economic news you hear is all bullshit at this point.
There's BS alright, apparently coming from people like you.
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Now look at things state by state. Things get fun then.
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a *whole* 1% difference. Wow.
Lower is still lower, and completely contradicts the rosy summary.
You can't talk about amazing job gains when we are not even back to where we were! We are still recovering.
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And there's always people that want to see the current administration fail, because it's not the tribe they correspond with.
Do you not understand that if Biden succeeds, we're all better off? So many people hoping that he'll fail, which means we're all a little more fucked. It's fucking stupid.
When Trump was in office, I really hoped he'd manage to not completely fuck the dog even though I hate that orange twunt. Turns out I was right, but I wish I wasn't because we'd all be better off.
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You don't think a lot of people that were already thinking about retirement, maybe went for an early start when their jobs all disappeared? Also, a million dead people.
"...[A] good time to be a worker..." (Score:4, Interesting)
My pay would be great if I weren't isolating at home with Covid that I got at my banquet job where no one is required by the state to wear masks any more.
Instead I'm missing the start of my working season, and most social safety nets designed to help people in my position cope with the loss of hours have been kneecapped or removed totally because, dontcha know, Covid is over now!
I'm gonna die mad that America's rulers took one look at the invisible disease which may be spread by the asymptomatic and, rather than organizing a societal reaction, painted it as an issue of personal responsibility; your responsibility to wear a mask or not, your responsibility to stop going out for groceries or not, your responsibility to get vaccinated or not, your responsibility to call work and explain that your scratchy throat could be allergies but could also be Covid and you need to wait for test results before getting scheduled, etc. The whole while, the Fed abdicated quarantine duties to the states, but then turned around and threatened to sue them if they interfered with interstate commerce (which, to be fair, is the exclusive domain of the Fed, as per the Constitution, but which they chose not to act on).
These individualized solutions wouldn't be enough for most people even if they did err on the side of caution; more often, they create situations like the one I had at my last event, where the venue organizer was coughing and maskless and going "oh don't worry it's just allergies." I'm not especially mad at her— besides wearing a mask, what's she supposed to do? Take 5 days off after every event to wait for symptoms? Call in sick and get tested every time she wakes up with a stuffy nose? If I did that, I doubt I'd still be employed, and my first day of symptoms was indistinguishable from my usual allergy symptoms for this time of year, and taking my allergy pill seemed to deal with it, so I can understand a blasé attitude towards congestion (mask-wearing notwithstanding).
When I called my state's health department to report my positive test, and to get a pin which allows me to anonymously share my test results with others I've come into contact with (via the state-provided contact tracing app, which I voluntarily installed on my phone back in 2020), I had to leave a message; I got called back the next day and told that the number I had called was not responsible for providing those pins (despite being listed as the number to call in the app) and also that I was the first person to contact them regarding the app, full stop.
And this is the response from people who largely agree that Covid is a real problem which exists, a group I'm not even sure is in the majority in my state (and certainly my country).
America has been such a goddamn waste of other people's land.
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Well, I guess I'm sorry the country that has provided a wonderful life for hundreds of millions and has largely improved the standard of living for everyone on the planet, has so disappointed you personally.
Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out?
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My pay would be great if I weren't isolating at home with Covid that I got at my banquet job where no one is required ... to wear masks any more.
So you worked at the most recent White House Correspondent's Dinner. What was that really like?
would you like fries with that? (Score:1)
or what size latte would you like?
Hah (Score:2)
Blame Biden for this! (Score:2)
What kind of jobs? (Score:2)
https://twitter.com/i/status/1... [twitter.com]