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Record 92,269,000 Not in Labor Force; Participation Rate Matches 36-Year Low

LOL !!

What " Books " have you read ? 3 or 4 huh ?

You want to address the worldwide bubble and explain how Janet Reno forced lenders in Spain to make loans to deadbeats? And it's LOL funny to believe lenders raking in record profits and record bonuses on record stock values were "forced" to do a damn thing.

Oh please Pres. Bush and Pres. Clinton, please, please don't throw us in the briar patch!!!

And you give away your right wing bias by not mentioning anything that happened post Clinton, except to blame Obama - WFT?. You funny.
 
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You want to address the worldwide bubble and explain how Janet Reno forced lenders in Spain to make loans to deadbeats?


Yea sure, because its impossible to research Subprime and easy credit bubbles on a National scale...

No, they must have all been interlinked....so NOT the Democrats fault.....yea right.

Nations like Spain, Italy and Ireland actually participated in their own isolated credit bubbles, beleive it or not.

All you have to do is READ about it. For example, Spain's Banks borrowed bueacuop dollars and then made tons of loans to Spanish developers.

Those developers went and built literal ghost towns.

One has a a international sized airport and everything. ....its brand new and it sits EMPTY right now.

Those entire ghost towns sit empty filled with brand new infrastructure, homes, apartments and of course empty airports.

Spanish Politicians actually were prosecuted for it. Go read about it, nothing is stopping you but your loyalty to a false narrative.

With respect to Americas Subprime Fiasco, ALLOT of our poison DID make it out into the International Capital Market's

In the form of bundles and bundles of securities backed by Subprime loans tucked away in CDO tranches like little time bombs waiting to go off.

When they DID go off they corrupted the entire CDO portfolio and nearly Collapsed Capital markets all over the world.

I actually HAVE read books on this subject, and HAVE researched it thoroughly and literally none of it is good news for the Democrats.
 
Re: Record 92,269,000 Not in Labor Force; Participation R ate Matches 36-Year Low

The point is all those numbers are gathered and reported, with apples to apples comparisons over decades. U-3 in 2014 = U-3 in 1994 = U-3 in 2004. It would be easier to convince the "media" to ignore U-3 and quote only U-5 or U-6.

Look, I get it, you think the employment situation is worse than the "official" numbers suggest. Probably, although the "official" number has always had the same biases you're complaining about. And I agree that U-3 doesn't tell the whole story, but all it takes to tell the whole story is to pick one of the other definitions already reported by BLS and just focus on THAT. The data are there. I just don't see the big deal here. Anyone who cares about the data knows where to find the numbers.

Do you honestly think the government is going to focus on a U- number that is higher then the current U-3? Especially if it is not called the 'official' unemployment rate?

Of course they won't.

And the mass media will probably do the same.

If you want the government/mass media to acknowledge a higher unemployment calculation process - then you - imo - HAVE to start calling it the 'Official' unemployment rate or almost no one will pay attention to it.

And unfortunately, almost no sitting government is going to do that unless they have no choice.


I appreciate your apparent open mind on this - but I personally think you have to change the official unemployment rate or the vast majority will ignore it.

I bet you most Americans do not even know what the U-6 is.
 
So in your world the CRA can be blamed for nothing at all. Thank you for you input. Next.

My world and those that live in the real world. Backed up by studies and numbers. All you have is "faith" that the CRA must be the main cause because you want to blame democrats. You should put your post in the Religion Thread.

Have a wonderful evening. :2wave:
 
LOL !!

Yes, the GSEs are bankrupt because they bought " PRIME " loans.

Trillions in CDOs all over the world went belly up all at once because their tranches were filled with Securities backed by " Prime " Loans.

Give me a break.

Problem with that assertion is even Clintons AG disagreed with it as she specifically mentioned the 1995 CRA changes as the mechanism for the 86 percent increase in CRA commitments from 1995 to 1998.

What's qualifies as a CRA loan ? Well according to Clinton appointee Jamie Gorelick ( Vice Chair at Fannie Mae ) they were ANY loan made with " flexible underwriting techniques " and up to 3 percent down.

AThe Federal Reserve Boards assesment lacks allot of credibility considering they didn't even mention that the CRA laws were CHANGED in 1995.

Got it , the Federal Reserve lacks credibility. I guess The Daily Caller would have been a better source. Sorry.

Fannie Mae reported net income of $3.7 Billion for the 2nd qtr 2014, $17 Billion in 2012 and $84 Billion in 2013. The Treasury is doing quite well on their investment. Like GM they have recovered nicely and have improved their standards and operations. The credit union I work for sells directly to them and they are quite diligent with what they buy along with monthly reporting and settlements. If they scrutinize our small portfolio and we are a drop in the bucket of their $3.3 Trillion Balance Sheet. The government taking them over was a good thing and us being able to sell mortgages enables us to do more loans. I wonder if I can find those CATO Institute opinions that claimed the GSE's weren't doing enough for low income buyers. Too funny.
 
Nice how you forgot the EBT section 8 free phone scum.

Follow-up to previous post.... almost 90 million of "persons not in the workforce" can be explained as follows (not references, should you want to verify)

View attachment 67172487


The US is an aging population, with 10,000 per day (or 300,000 per month) turning 65. While the act of turning 65 does not mean you retire and leave the workforce, it is a leading indicator and support for why the "not in workforce" number will continue to climb. Its not a bad thing.

Baby Boomers Retire | Pew Research Center

Another significant item that helps facilitate people out of the workforce is the Affordable Care Act. People in the 55-65 age bracket had often stayed in their jobs or took on a job just to get health insurance. That is no longer necessary with the ACA.

And, again, entrepreneurs and many of the self employed are also off the employment grid. They are creating tomorrows jobs, which should also be considered a good thing.

So, don't fear the number.
 
An administration that declares a 6.1% unemployment rate in this economy is either ignorant or disingenuous. Which is it?
The administration doesn't declare anything. How can you spend this much time discussing politics and be this malinformed?
 
Personally I think the main problem (and perhaps the same problem we've had for decades now) is that our regulatory process is a mass of ridiculously confusing bull****.

But the fix for that is not "less regulation".

It's "proper regulation".

Some regulations are necessary to prevent and provide incentives to avoid certain activities (such as dumping toxic chemicals into a water table, for example?)

Yet some regulations are either pointless wastes of time, or in the worst cases, cause harm without preventing that which they were intended to prevent.


So in short, some regulations need to go, and some things need to be regulated more/differently.

SENSIBLE regulations are good, but nonsensical regulations are worse than doing nothing.
 
The administration doesn't declare anything. How can you spend this much time discussing politics and be this malinformed?

Apparently that's not so hard. Almost all extremest are able to spend hours and hours discussing things that they are either not informed about or are malinformed about. Heck, you've been on this forum a while, you're just now noticing that?
 
Personally I think the main problem (and perhaps the same problem we've had for decades now) is that our regulatory process is a mass of ridiculously confusing bull****.

But the fix for that is not "less regulation".

It's "proper regulation".

Some regulations are necessary to prevent and provide incentives to avoid certain activities (such as dumping toxic chemicals into a water table, for example?)

Yet some regulations are either pointless wastes of time, or in the worst cases, cause harm without preventing that which they were intended to prevent.


So in short, some regulations need to go, and some things need to be regulated more/differently.

SENSIBLE regulations are good, but nonsensical regulations are worse than doing nothing.

For the most part, the regulations which are pointlessly harmful are those at the state and local levels. I watch the Stossel show quite frequently on Fox News, and he loves to point out how regulations are often unneeded and harmful. Yet when he uses examples, they are almost always regulations at the state and local levels.

The federal government could care less if I hang a banner on my building advertising "$99 paint jobs", but the city I live in prohibits me from doing so.
 
For the most part, the regulations which are pointlessly harmful are those at the state and local levels. I watch the Stossel show quite frequently on Fox News, and he loves to point out how regulations are often unneeded and harmful. Yet when he uses examples, they are almost always regulations at the state and local levels.

The federal government could care less if I hang a banner on my building advertising "$99 paint jobs", but the city I live in prohibits me from doing so.
I suspect that's for "appearance" purposes - they don't want you trashing up the place with your garish banner involving black words on a white background (assumption for the sake of argument).

That or they want to charge you for a permit.
 
I suspect that's for "appearance" purposes - they don't want you trashing up the place with your garish banner involving black words on a white background (assumption for the sake of argument).

That or they want to charge you for a permit.

Exactly.

But if it's my property, shouldn't trashing it up be my right? If someone else doesn't want to look at it, then they don't have to, they can just look away. I figure if someone else doesn't want me to put up a banner on my building, then maybe they should purchase my building so that they can do as they wish with it. Maybe I don't want to look at the BMW plant up the street, so should we outlaw BMW plants?

A few years ago my county outlawed the use of yard signs, except for political candidates and churches. Imagine that. I've never figured out why the yard signs of political candidates and churches are so much more attractive than ones for the local little league baseball organization, but apparently they are.

the prohibition against lightweight signage directly harms our economy. It hinders companies from advertising their goods and services, and it harms my profits as I am in the business of producing such signs.
 
Yea sure, because its impossible to research Subprime and easy credit bubbles on a National scale...

No, they must have all been interlinked....so NOT the Democrats fault.....yea right.

Nations like Spain, Italy and Ireland actually participated in their own isolated credit bubbles, beleive it or not.

All you have to do is READ about it. For example, Spain's Banks borrowed bueacuop dollars and then made tons of loans to Spanish developers.

Those developers went and built literal ghost towns.

One has a a international sized airport and everything. ....its brand new and it sits EMPTY right now.

Those entire ghost towns sit empty filled with brand new infrastructure, homes, apartments and of course empty airports.

Spanish Politicians actually were prosecuted for it. Go read about it, nothing is stopping you but your loyalty to a false narrative.

With respect to Americas Subprime Fiasco, ALLOT of our poison DID make it out into the International Capital Market's

In the form of bundles and bundles of securities backed by Subprime loans tucked away in CDO tranches like little time bombs waiting to go off.

When they DID go off they corrupted the entire CDO portfolio and nearly Collapsed Capital markets all over the world.

I actually HAVE read books on this subject, and HAVE researched it thoroughly and literally none of it is good news for the Democrats.

You're missing the point. The bubble wasn't caused by Janet Reno or Bill Clinton but by a worldwide debt bubble. All you've done is pick a country - Spain - and described a debt bubble in action that just happened to coincide with the same debt bubble in Belgium, Ireland, U.S. etc....... If you're reading books on the crisis and they haven't explained why that is NOT a coincidence, then you should question the thoroughness of their analysis.

And like I said, any analysis that ends the day Clinton left office is just obvious right wing propaganda. If you want to be taken seriously on this, you should at least attempt to address what happened in the U.S. as the bubble was forming and reaching blowout levels, which was in the 2000s under Bush and Bush regulators. I'll gladly concede Clinton played a big role by his end of term signing of the repeal of Glass Steagall and rules that PROHIBITED the regulation of derivatives, and both of those were FAR bigger factors than CRA bullcrap.

Besides, I find it laughable that the subprime lenders, the big banks, and everyone involved in making loans from the underwriter to the CEOs making 8 or 9 figures were "forced" to do anything. It's just not credible. Profits, stock prices, bonuses were all ticking off records. And that was widespread across anyone involved in the process of being "forced" to make crap loan to deadbeats. When that's happening - people are getting fabulously wealthy doing something - it's because they want to do it. Why would anyone need CRA or anything else to "force" them to shovel money into the till by the tanker truck load full?
 
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Exactly.

But if it's my property, shouldn't trashing it up be my right? If someone else doesn't want to look at it, then they don't have to, they can just look away. I figure if someone else doesn't want me to put up a banner on my building, then maybe they should purchase my building so that they can do as they wish with it. Maybe I don't want to look at the BMW plant up the street, so should we outlaw BMW plants?

A few years ago my county outlawed the use of yard signs, except for political candidates and churches. Imagine that. I've never figured out why the yard signs of political candidates and churches are so much more attractive than ones for the local little league baseball organization, but apparently they are.

the prohibition against lightweight signage directly harms our economy. It hinders companies from advertising their goods and services, and it harms my profits as I am in the business of producing such signs.
The argument would probably be that you were lowering the property value of those around you, or something.
 
...When that's happening - people are getting fabulously wealthy doing something - it's because they want to do it. Why would anyone need CRA or anything else to "force" them to shovel money into the till by the tanker truck load full?

Geesh, that part right there should make it obvious to anyone. That's all that you need to explain to anyone, and they should understand, unless of course they are just looking to scapegoat regulations (as opposed to the lack of proper regulations).
 
The argument would probably be that you were lowering the property value of those around you, or something.

Which would be a good argument in the case of the yard signs, except for the fact that they exempted political signs and church signs. I would suggest that not being allowed to use signage (banners) on my own commercial property actually reduces the value of my property though.
 
I've read three or four books on the bubble and burst and it's just clear that this was mostly deregulation gone amok. The data is there, the accounts of insiders confirm it. But all that really isn't needed. The bottom line is the lenders at that time were begging people to take out loans - the commercials ran non-stop in my region - low doc, no doc, bad credit, "Take out a home equity loan - go to Paris!!!" etc. The stock prices for the big lenders were hitting all time highs. Bonuses hitting all time highs for the CEOs, all the way down to individual selling loans who were all paid huge bonuses to get a warm body sign on the dotted line. Multiple people have testified about widespread fraud on the part of lenders to fake income numbers to get loans approved. Etc.

To believe the lenders were "forced" to do anything defies belief. They were making record profits, record bonuses, and people are honestly claiming the government "forced" them to rake money in by the bucketful? It's crazy talk.

Second and even more damning is there was a WORLDWIDE debt and housing bubble. The "it was all the democrats' fault" people will have to explain how CRA reached most of Europe, and allowed debt and housing bubbles bigger than our own. The bottom line is a global bubble requires a global cause and that global cause was a worldwide flood of easy money, make largely possible by the ballooning of derivatives from roughly a standing start to $600T in notional amounts outstanding.

View attachment 67172559

Barry Ritholtz does a good job debunking the right wing talking points here:

Examining the big lie: How the facts of the economic crisis stack up | The Big Picture

As I pointed out, I had a box seat to this event, and your understanding of what you read is spot on...

The boiler-room mortgage operation that I worked with could earn $16,000 by originating a $150,000 mortgage. They had an open line of credit that allowed for them to make their credit decisions (of course, within very broad criteria set by the funding source... like doe the guy have a house and a pulse?)....

Oh, and the "professionals" in this organization, on the other end of the line, selling you the mortgage? MBA's? mortgage brokers?, bankers? Hell no, former bartenders, car salesmen, copier salesmen.... they went through a one week course.... the good ones were making $100-300K/ year peddling something they knew very little about....

The economics made absolutely no sense at the time; and subsequent events proved they did, indeed, make no sense.
 
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Record 92,269,000 Not in Labor Force; Participation Rate Matches 36-Year Low | CNS News

LABOR%20FORCE-PARTICIPATION-AUGUST.jpg

It's probably been brought up already but the Baby Boom began in 1946 and lasted until 1964. Assuming they'd go to work at 16, the earliest of them would be hitting the job force in 1962 which is just shy of when you see the steady inclination begin. Those same people going to work in 1962 at age 16 would now be around 68 years old. People usually look into retirement when they're 55-65 which would have been in 2001-2011. This coincides when the participation rate begins to drop.

tl;dr version: your graph seems to show the baby boomers entering and exiting the workforce. We've kind of seen that coming...
 
It's probably been brought up already but the Baby Boom began in 1946 and lasted until 1964. Assuming they'd go to work at 16, the earliest of them would be hitting the job force in 1962 which is just shy of when you see the steady inclination begin. Those same people going to work in 1962 at age 16 would now be around 68 years old. People usually look into retirement when they're 55-65 which would have been in 2001-2011. This coincides when the participation rate begins to drop.

tl;dr version: your graph seems to show the baby boomers entering and exiting the workforce. We've kind of seen that coming...

I am quite sure there is definitely something to that.

But I think the reason for the huge jump in the LFPR (labor force participation rate) from the mid-60's until the late 80's also has a lot to with women entering the work force.

latest_numbers_LNS11300000_1948_2014_all_period_M08_data.gif


Notice: Data not available: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics


Also, I read in a Fed report (though I cannot provide a link to it) that estimated that the drop in the LFPR was at most 1/2 caused by retirements.

Plus, even those baby boomers that are retiring, how many of them are only doing so because they cannot find work?

Finally, if you look at the LFPR in the last ten months, it is flat (it was the same now as it is was back in October, 2013) after it had been plunging pretty hard for 5 years. Considering baby boomers are still reaching retirement age, why would the LFPR suddenly stop falling?


I am not saying your point is not valid - I definitely think it is - I just think there is more to it then just the baby boomers retiring.
 
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I am not saying your point is not valid - I definitely think it is - I just think there is more to it then just the baby boomers retiring.

Yeah, no doubt women had an impact on the increase and older folks having trouble finding work could impact the decline.

I would note, though, that getting old just really sucks. People tend to slow down a bit. Their thinking won't be as sharp as it once was. That'll make it difficult for them to compete with 30 and 40 year olds who are working their way up through the business echelons. And the older a person gets, the more their job opportunities will be limited to the same industries that attract inexperienced teenagers and 20-somethings; food services, retail. And that brings in a whole other realm of competition--especially in a struggling economy.

We all glamorize the fact that our science has us living longer, but that doesn't necessarily mean we're competitive in the workplace for any longer.

But I digress...

Another aspect that would contribute to numbers dropping would be how college has become the norm, and instead of having jobs to pay for school, most kids are getting stuck with enormous school loans. My half-brother is in that category. He's in college now and I don't think he works. In fact he didn't get a job at 16 either. I kind of consider him a lazy bum in that regard (I got a job the day I turned 16) but if he didn't need it, good for him.
 
The BLS is using the same definitions they've used for decades now. It's true that U-3 isn't a complete picture of the unemployment situation, but then that's why BLS publishes all the other data people are using here to discredit U-3, and U-4 through U-6. The information is out there, and Obama is using the same yardstick used by Bush and Clinton at least. Now he has to use a different yardstick that gives worse numbers because why exactly? Did you demand that Bush use U-6 instead of U-3?

I don't trust an administration that comes out with miracles every August just in time for election day. Summer hires are not permanent employment, but that doesn't stop Obama putting out a false narrative like he does for most all his politics. He's playing politics every single day, he can't be trusted.
 
I don't trust an administration that comes out with miracles every August just in time for election day. Summer hires are not permanent employment, but that doesn't stop Obama putting out a false narrative like he does for most all his politics. He's playing politics every single day, he can't be trusted.
The administration has nothing to do with it. No one in the administration has any access to the raw data. An early copy of the report is sent to the Chief Economic Adviser the night before release, but that's it.

As for summer hires...seasonal adjustment is applied to the official numbers to mute the effects of regularly occurring increases and decreases.
 
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