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US unemployment lowest in 4 years

Chile had a decentralized government under Pinochet. Moving to a different region would have not gotten them out of the economic mess they faced. If we did nothing, many more people would be unemployed and the social safety nets would not have been sustainable. Mass unemployment and the problems it would cause is not the fault of people. It's the fault of a bad economy that was sustained by using financial instruments that help to implode the world wide economy.

I am absolutely amazed at how you compare Chile's economy to ours. Are you in school now? There is no comparison in terms of freedoms we have, choices we have, income levels, growth opportunities. It really is a shame how little you know about our country and our economy
 
Really? So BLS shows that? What verifiable site shows the results of Stimulus and measures saved jobs?

Did you follow the link to the verifiable site that I linked to? See how easy it is to answer your own questions?
 
I am absolutely amazed at how you compare Chile's economy to ours. Are you in school now? There is no comparison in terms of freedoms we have, choices we have, income levels, growth opportunities. It really is a shame how little you know about our country and our economy

Really? Explain about the freedom thing. Who has more freedom? I'm curious to hear this one. Also, explain how we have more choice? Name one area where we have more choice? Please just one. You're correct our income levels are not so unequal as Chile's but our inequality index keeps rising as we become more and more like Chile. Also, talk about growth opportunites. Who has more and explain- You're just spouting off drivel unless you can give me some proof. Go ahead...list one from each category. TIA
 
Nearly all states experience severe economic conditions as the direct result of the economic meltdown and not due to unions. What a major red herring. Without federal dollars many more jobs would have been cut due to the recession.

Your assertion that more jobs would have been cut without more federal dollars is the only "red herring" . It's the same desperate claim from you people without any quantification, just your opinion as 5 years in you desperately grasp at straws to find anyone to blame but the one who's responsible, Obama.

After the collapse, jobs had already bottomed out and had started to climb long before any federal stimulus was released, hell before ANY federal stimulus action was even mentioned.

I tell you what, you go back to 2008 and find ANY Economist that predicted a economic collapse, that predicted more job losses if Obama didn't waste nearly a TRILLION dollars.

Because here's what your President spent 90 billion dollars on. A greens jobs initiative to build a manufacturing base for a product no one wanted and that China could easily undercut our cost on.
It was literally a 6th grade science project gone awry.

I never blamed UNIONS anyway, but DID more than infer the hundreds of millions that wen't out to them was a DIRECT pay back for their support. The Collapse was due to regulations passed during the 90's by the Democrats that lowered standards for banks and for the GSE's under the false pretense of combating " redlining ".
 
Really? Explain about the freedom thing. Who has more freedom? I'm curious to hear this one. Also, explain how we have more choice? Name one area where we have more choice? Please just one. You're correct our income levels are not so unequal as Chile's but our inequality index keeps rising as we become more and more like Chile. Also, talk about growth opportunites. Who has more and explain- You're just spouting off drivel unless you can give me some proof. Go ahead...list one from each category. TIA

Anybody can start a business in this country and you don't find that freedom everywhere. We have more choices because of that freedom and if you ever traveled much you would understand that. This really is getting old with you as you simply cannot admit you are wrong or that you don't know what you are talking about.
 
Your assertion that more jobs would have been cut without more federal dollars is the only "red herring" . It's the same desperate claim from you people without any quantification, just your opinion as 5 years in you desperately grasp at straws to find anyone to blame but the one who's responsible, Obama.

After the collapse, jobs had already bottomed out and had started to climb long before any federal stimulus was released, hell before ANY federal stimulus action was even mentioned.

I tell you what, you go back to 2008 and find ANY Economist that predicted a economic collapse, that predicted more job losses if Obama didn't waste nearly a TRILLION dollars.

Because here's what your President spent 90 billion dollars on. A greens jobs initiative to build a manufacturing base for a product no one wanted and that China could easily undercut our cost on.
It was literally a 6th grade science project gone awry.

I never blamed UNIONS anyway, but DID more than infer the hundreds of millions that wen't out to them was a DIRECT pay back for their support. The Collapse was due to regulations passed during the 90's by the Democrats that lowered standards for banks and for the GSE's under the false pretense of combating " redlining ".

Good grief:roll:
 
Anybody can start a business in this country and you don't find that freedom everywhere. We have more choices because of that freedom and if you ever traveled much you would understand that. This really is getting old with you as you simply cannot admit you are wrong or that you don't know what you are talking about.

Dodging I see. Very well but you also have the freedom to start a business in Chile.
 
I agree we would have most definitely hit a depression, but what makes you think we would be better off after a depression?

BK is not the same for business as it is for private individuals. Companies that went out of business would have left a void that other more stable business models would have picked up. That is the fact.
 
Dodging I see. Very well but you also have the freedom to start a business in Chile.

Chile has a population between 15-20 million and a 120 billion a year economy much of which comes from the state owned mineral industry. It is hardly comparable to what we have in this country so any comparison is nothing more than a diversion from the thread topic and the Obama failures.
 
It makes all the difference in the world because it affects the unemployment rate. Discouraged workers aren't counted as unemployed so simply having someone described as not looking for work affects the number of people reported as unemployed

But why discouraged and not all marginally attached or all who say they want a job?

Is someone who stopped looking for work due to discouragement able to get a job? No, not until they start looking? So adding them in as unemployed makes the rate worse than it really is because you're adding people who could not be hired, while the UE rate is supposed to measure those who failed to get work that month not months ago.
 
But why discouraged and not all marginally attached or all who say they want a job?

Is someone who stopped looking for work due to discouragement able to get a job? No, not until they start looking? So adding them in as unemployed makes the rate worse than it really is because you're adding people who could not be hired, while the UE rate is supposed to measure those who failed to get work that month not months ago.

Do you realize that the number of discouraged workers depends on the honesty of the individual surveyed and thus can be manipulated? How do you know whether a discouraged worker isn't someone who simply ran out of unemployment benefits and thus really should be classified as unemployed? The fact is this employment report is truly a disaster, 988,000 discouraged workers, 11.5 million unemployed, and a decline in the labor force all four years after the end of the recession. The economic nightmare under Obama continues.
 
It doesn't have to be in the Constitution.:roll:
And there, in a nutshell is why we must return to a Constitutional form of government. There are many idiots who do not understand that Constitutions identify what governments may do and what they may not do. If it is not explicitly allowed then the government cannot do it.

Of course all governments tend toward the accumulation and centralization of power until tyranny occurs, becomes the norm and is overthrown, usually with bloodshed.
 
Nearly all states experience severe economic conditions as the direct result of the economic meltdown and not due to unions. What a major red herring. Without federal dollars many more jobs would have been cut due to the recession.
Two points.

First point: The jobs "saved" were public sector union jobs.
Second point: When the economy cannot support public sector union jobs they must be cut not saved.
 
Chile refused to bail out the economy for a few years before they could no longer function. We most certainly can take a lesson from them since many of their privatized policies are here at our front door. What exactly do you think would have happened if we did nothing?
Don't do "nothing". Roll back the massive bureaucratic state with its 100,000 regulations, 2.5 million busybody bureaucrats and the ninnies on the Potomic. Stop stealing property from those who created it. Get the government off the backs of the people and the businesses.
 
Do you realize that the number of discouraged workers depends on the honesty of the individual surveyed and thus can be manipulated?
And that's a big argument against including them as unemployed: it's too subjective when we want an objective measure. It only tells us what people believe, or say they believe, not how things really are.

How do you know whether a discouraged worker isn't someone who simply ran out of unemployment benefits and thus really should be classified as unemployed?
The only question is job search.


The fact is this employment report is truly a disaster, 988,000 discouraged workers, 11.5 million unemployed, and a decline in the labor force all four years after the end of the recession. The economic nightmare under Obama continues.
I'm not saying things are rosey, but if you look at the U4?? Which includes discouraged, it's 8% now compared to 8.7% last year.
 
And that's a big argument against including them as unemployed: it's too subjective when we want an objective measure. It only tells us what people believe, or say they believe, not how things really are.

The only question is job search.



I'm not saying things are rosey, but if you look at the U4?? Which includes discouraged, it's 8% now compared to 8.7% last year.

That is a terrible number in an economy the size of ours especially since the part time employment has ballooned. The stagnant economic growth is hurting job creation, the labor force contracted last month and we still have fewer people working than before the recession began. That is the sign of very poor leadership and economic policies. The number of discouraged workers has been extremely high during this Administration and that says a lot about Obama's economic policies.

I disagree with you, anyone not working but able to work should be counted as unemployed.
 
I clearly understand it much better than you.


Apparently you don't.


How does that work? How could they take a job they haven't applied for or even asked about? How could they take a job without looking for one? The people aren't available until they try to find work.


This is obviously false. The simple fact that people were forced into retirement or gave up looking for work doesn't mean they wouldn't take a job if they thought there were jobs to have. When the economy starts to come back to life these people will start looking again. These people NEED jobs even if they are too beat down to look.

Also, there is the issue of the uncounted marginally employed workers who working jobs well below their qualifications, or working part time now instead of full time. These people need full time employment, but they don't show up in the U-3 statistic. The country could have half of the nation working part time at a fast food restaurant and the U-3 statistics would look great while the reality is horrible.

If you want a better barometer of the status of the job market in a single number then the U-6 is the better number. It is at least closer to the actual number of people feeling the pain of the market


anyone not trying to work is not available for work. That shouldn't't even be a discussion.


This is comically false. I have to assume you are being painfully dense because you have no other choice. If two people are stranded in the middle of the ocean and one is swimming towards a distant island while the other has given up does that mean only the swimmer needs rescuing?
 
This is obviously false. The simple fact that people were forced into retirement or gave up looking for work doesn't mean they wouldn't take a job if they thought there were jobs to have.
No one has said otherwise. But let's re_examine what I said and you claim is false: "The people aren't available until they try to find work."
Ok, explain how. Person X has not so now anything to find a job since January. How could she have been hired in July?

When the economy starts to come back to life these people will start looking again.
But until they do, can they be hired?
These people NEED jobs even if they are too beat down to look.
Not necessarily. Need and desperation aren't factors. Paris Hilton giving up looking for a tv job would make her discouraged.

Also, there is the issue of the uncounted marginally employed workers who working jobs well below their qualifications,
You'd win the Nobel Prize if you could figure out how to measure that.

or working part time now instead of full time.
They're measured. But they're not unemployed.

These people need full time employment, but they don't show up in the U-3 statistic. The country could have half of the nation working part time at a fast food restaurant and the U-3 statistics would look great while the reality is horrible.
It's not a qualitative measure...all it's supposed to measure is percent of people who could, in reality, have been working. That it doesn't measure something it's not supposed to isn't a flaw.

If you want a better barometer of the status of the job market in a single number then the U-6 is the better number. It is at least closer to the actual number of people feeling the pain of the market
Right. But the U3 isn't meant to "measure the pain" it's meant to be an objective measure of the labor market....the U6 is very subjective.


This is comically false. I have to assume you are being painfully dense because you have no other choice. If two people are stranded in the middle of the ocean and one is swimming towards a distant island while the other has given up does that mean only the swimmer needs rescuing?
Wrong question. The analogous question is which one could reach the island.
 
BK is not the same for business as it is for private individuals. Companies that went out of business would have left a void that other more stable business models would have picked up. That is the fact.

We all know which businesses would have been wiped out. Probably the only ones to exist would be the conglomerate multinationals. That would not at all be good for citizens.
 
Chile has a population between 15-20 million and a 120 billion a year economy much of which comes from the state owned mineral industry. It is hardly comparable to what we have in this country so any comparison is nothing more than a diversion from the thread topic and the Obama failures.

The irony is the copper mines were about the only thing that held up when the financial crisis took everything else down, so things could have been much worse. And, yes it is very comparable. Without adequate safety nets in place, half the country went into poverty in a very short time until they started to put back into place those safety nets. Lesson of the story is people lost their jobs and they had no where to turn and quickly went into poverty. That would happen here to.
 
And there, in a nutshell is why we must return to a Constitutional form of government. There are many idiots who do not understand that Constitutions identify what governments may do and what they may not do. If it is not explicitly allowed then the government cannot do it.

Of course all governments tend toward the accumulation and centralization of power until tyranny occurs, becomes the norm and is overthrown, usually with bloodshed.

Oh, there is an accumulation of centralized power in this country and its called private public initiatives. We are funding tons and tons and tons of tax dollars for these initiatives that go into private interest pockets. So, I will agree with your post. Things have gotten out of hand.
 
That is a terrible number in an economy the size of ours especially since the part time employment has ballooned. The stagnant economic growth is hurting job creation, the labor force contracted last month and we still have fewer people working than before the recession began. That is the sign of very poor leadership and economic policies. The number of discouraged workers has been extremely high during this Administration and that says a lot about Obama's economic policies.

I disagree with you, anyone not working but able to work should be counted as unemployed.
And how do you figure that someone not trying to work is able to work? How could they be working if they're not trying? By your standard, unemployed would include around 80 million adults who don't want a job.
 
Article I, Section 8, clause 1 and the Sixteenth Amendment.

Yeah, like I said. The constitution says almost nothing about taxes. There are volumes of tax law, and only one blurb in the constitution about taxes, so someone as clever as you shouldn't be confused about why the details of corporate tax deductions aren't covered in the constitution since NONE of the actual tax law is in the constitution.
 
Two points.

First point: The jobs "saved" were public sector union jobs.
Second point: When the economy cannot support public sector union jobs they must be cut not saved.

No, many states don't allow public union's collective bargaining. They equally got federal money for things like their schools to function so the union thing is nothing but a strawman. Also, the paradigm shift moves away from unions through laws and diluting their power to collective bargain. The shift is to privatize and consolidating power into corporate hands. Competing voices are not aloud. What do we call it when competing voices are crushed? Since the onset of all these anti-collective bargaining laws and right to work laws in many states, union membership is down to bare bones. I'm really not sure how they are going to function anymore unless we have a national movement back toward worker's rights and setting standards for workers like decent wages but I'm not so sure if that going to happen.
 
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