Anyway, old Nick J. (that's me) thinks it's all gonna come home to roost soon. I heard on the radio driving to work that the unemployment rate went down slightly, then the announcer said that was due to "discouraged" workers being removed from the statistics because they've stopped looking for jobs, another example of the basic dishonesty of all government. One thing I was wondering is, how those workers are no longer considered unemployed, I mean, if they were recently removed from the number of unemployed, when did they stop hoping to find a job and when did their unemployment benefits run out? Aren't they extending those benefits to infinity? If you're receiving unemployment benefits, you're still unemployed, right? And a discouraged worker is defined as someone who was looking for work in the past 12 months but has given up the search, believing no jobs are available to them, so when did theses new "discouraged" (who are no longer considered among the unemployed) first lose their jobs?
"Isn't it interesting that if you stopped looking for a job, you evaporate as a jobless person and are just not counted. It's what government does: Downplay disasters and amplify success."- Gerald Celente
In any event, there are some new people to add tho the rolls, as more firms engaged in mass layoffs in June;
... it doesn't hit the April spike, but it does rise above the number of firms that had mass layoffs in February and March. This could imply that relatively smaller businesses are reducing their workforces.
...
If this is the case, then a labor market recovery will be even that more difficult. Most job growth comes from smaller firms. If many are still laying people off, then this confirms a very slow decline for the unemployment rate.
...John Williams, founder of Shadow Government Statistics, says when accounting for the long-term unemployed, the jobless rate runs up to as much as 22% currently. Williams's newsletter, which analyzes flaws in government economic data, points out that such a rate isn't that far from the 25% it hit during the Great Depression.-source.
Unemployment numbers are poorly conceived. In addition to "discouraged workers" who simply give up, they also stop counting people who have been unemployed for a certain length of time (I've forgotten how long).
ReplyDeleteNot sure why you're saying the Census is lumped in with "useless spending throwing our money down the rat hole." The dicennial census is about the only thing the Constitution expressly requires the government to do. I had a shitty time working for the Census, but that doesn't mean I think we should give up on counting people and apportioning federal representation.
Also, only income earned exceeding 34k is taxed at 25%. Why are conservatives and libertarians so bad at understanding taxes? Oh right, no Jews...
Also, only income earned exceeding 34k is taxed at 25%.
ReplyDeleteYes, Ginx, I do understand that...as I said, you do fall into that tax bracket when you reach that amount. It doesn't make it any less theft that only what is earned above that is taxed at the higher rate. The fact is, when you start taking more when a person earns more, it hurts incentives, and discourages people.
Discourages people? Seriously? If you were offered a job that paid you 40 million dollars, you would turn it down if it meant being in the highest tax bracket?
ReplyDeleteUtter bullshit. Ridiculous conservative gibberish.