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U.S. Adds 195,000 Jobs; Unemployment Remains 7.6%

AmazonTania said:
I haven't ignored it. It's been brought up too many times for me to ignore. It may be true that employees are making less in real terms, but this doesn't have much to do with how employees are paid. The fact is employees are not being paid less. The value of their wages are just worth less. I also do not deny that it is a problem. It's not a problem for me, but it's a problem...

That is all.
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It is a problem for anyone making wages, and this insistence on ignoring it (and yes Virginia, saying it is "irrelevant" is to ignore it) is so frigging bizarre.
 
Bump for the Amazonian...
Gimmesometruth said:
And just to add some more fuel to the fire, wages for the top quintiles are not representative of total income since a large percentage is made up of investment income....

Real+Incomes+by+Quintile+2.png
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AmazonTania said:
Inflation is low if you believe the CPI. There are many metrics which contradicts it. My personal favorite is the Big Mac Index.
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Oh no....I wasn't familiar with the "BMI"....and guess what...it is not a measure of inflation....but of currency exchange rates.

Good grief.
 
Gimmesometruth said:
Ah, single point analysis. That explains a lot.

How about a billion?

US Daily Index » The Billion Prices Project @ MIT
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Brief history on the CPI. During the 1970's, the CPI was thought to overstate inflation. So measures were taken to adjust the CPI for accuracy. During the 1970, they removed housing prices from the CPI, and replaced it with rents. In the 1980's, they adopted a new chain-weighed CPI. In the 1990's, they've introduced a concept called Hedonic Adjustments and Substitutions, which pretty much rendered the CPI useless. There is no reason why it should be taken as an accurate measure of inflation, and should be taken with a grain of salt.

The same for the Billion Price Project. It's barely more than 5 years old and uses the same methodology as the current CPI, which also says inflation is low. If inflation was measured the same way it was measured during the 80's and 90's, it would show that inflation is not low at all.

Unless you are in the top quintile, you ought to be more self interested.
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Why?
 
Gimmesometruth said:
It is a problem for anyone making wages, and this insistence on ignoring it (and yes Virginia, saying it is "irrelevant" is to ignore it) is so frigging bizarre.
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I already said it was a problem. You are pontificating.

So what are you going to do about it? Give employees more money?
 
AmazonTania said:
Some people like to measure productivity with GDP, so I wasn't sure what you were going for. America works more hours, but more hours doing what exactly? What exactly are Americans producing to make America more 'productive?'
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Output per hour worked.


So as productivity has soared, wages remain rather stagnant.

output_per_hour-large.png
 
Gimmesometruth said:
Oh no....I wasn't familiar with the "BMI"....and guess what...it is not a measure of inflation....but of currency exchange rates.

Good grief.
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The Big Mac Index does both. You can read the full report on annualised price increases just for a low fee of $12 dollars.
 
AmazonTania said:
Brief history on the CPI. During the 1970's, the CPI was thought to overstate inflation. So measures were taken to adjust the CPI for accuracy. During the 1970, they removed housing prices from the CPI, and replaced it with rents. In the 1980's, they adopted a new chain-weighed CPI. In the 1990's, they've introduced a concept called Hedonic Adjustments and Substitutions, which pretty much rendered the CPI useless. There is no reason why it should be taken as an accurate measure of inflation, and should be taken with a grain of salt.

The same for the Billion Price Project. It's barely more than 5 years old and uses the same methodology as the current CPI, which also says inflation is low. If inflation was measured the same way it was measured during the 80's and 90's, it would show that inflation is not low at all.
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I'm sorry....is this an argument to use currency exchange rates...as a substitute for for tracking the cost of billions of goods in the US?



Why?
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If you are in the 4 lower quintiles.....and have seen no real increase in wages for a long time.... why should you be interested in your own wages? Seriously?

Oh snap.....I am debating with someone who believes inflation is irrelevant....to the point of using a currency exchange measure for measuring inflation.

FFS.
 
AmazonTania said:
I already said it was a problem. You are pontificating.
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You are talking out of both sides of your mouth again, previously it was "irrelevant"....but when pushed, it becomes a "problem"....sort of.....since it kind of gets measured when you buy your Mac in London....I guess..sort of ....kind of.

So what are you going to do about it? Give employees more money?
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Um, everyone should be demanding higher wages...but guess what?...that is tough to do when there is a labor glut.
 
Kushinator said:
Output per hour worked.


So as productivity has soared, wages remain rather stagnant.

output_per_hour-large.png
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If we are talking about in terms of manufacturing, that's a tad misleading. US manufacturing in terms of GDP is 13%. Japan's is 19%, Germany is 21% and Canada is slightly lower than the United States. America may be producing more per worker, and they may be working more hours but other countries are producing more value relative to the size of their economy. In other words, they are generally more productivity than the US and I am also guessing their wages are higher.

Manufacturing, value added (% of GDP) | Data | Table
 
AmazonTania said:
It does. Just because you don't understand it's uses doesn't mean it's wrong.
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Hon, a single point data set is not a "basket of goods", it is a joke, even the Economist says so.

Seriously, get real (and I do mean real, don't use joke currency exchange methods as a substitute for measuring inflation).
 
Gimmesometruth said:
I'm sorry....is this an argument to use currency exchange rates...as a substitute for for tracking the cost of billions of goods in the US?
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It means take the CPI and Billion Price Index with a grain of salt. Stop creating strawmen.

If you are in the 4 lower quintiles.....and have seen no real increase in wages for a long time.... why should you be interested in your own wages? Seriously?
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I work on margins calls and commission. I don't earn wages.

Oh snap.....I am debating with someone who believes inflation is irrelevant....to the point of using a currency exchange measure for measuring inflation.

FFS.
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Strawmen again. Going to need more hay for this one.

The Big Mac Index is not just a currency exchange measure. It uses the same metric as the CPI. I guess I can only expect scholars to know this...
 
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Gimmesometruth said:
Hon, a single point data set is not a "basket of goods", it is a joke, even the Economist says so.

Seriously, get real (and I do mean real, don't use joke currency exchange methods as a substitute for measuring inflation).
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A basket of goods is really not required to measure inflation. The purpose of inflation is to measure how overvalued or undervalued a currency is. That is exactly what the Big Mac Index does.

If you don't understand what inflation is, you will easily be fooled. As I said, just because you don't understand the BMI (or inflation for that matter) doesn't make it incorrect. There is nothing wrong with the metric, just your inherent lack of understanding.

Any more things you'd like for me to clarify?
 
AmazonTania said:
If we are talking about in terms of manufacturing, that's a tad misleading.
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In terms of total factor productivity, he U.S. is among the the most productive in the world. In terms of countries with more than 10 million citizens, the U.S. is no.1.
 
Kushinator said:
In terms of total factor productivity. The U.S. is among the the most productive in the world. In terms of countries with more than 10 million citizens, the U.S. is no.1.
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No one disputes that, but it's manufacturing output is still lower. In monetary terms, manufacturing output is very high, but as a portion of GDP it's very low. Manufacturing is on a global decline, but America is really losing ground on this particular area.
 
AmazonTania said:
I already said it was a problem. You are pontificating.

So what are you going to do about it? Give employees more money?
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Ask Gimme how many employees he/she has and what he/she pays them? Never any answers just whining and complaining about wages, never about getting a return on the investment in employees. Too many liberals look at the hourly rate without benefits and use that number to try and justify higher wages. The problem is however most liberals have no concept of return on investment or the business costs associated with owning a business. Hard to believe such brilliant people have so little experience in actually running a business and employing people.
 
AmazonTania said:
It means take the CPI and Billion Price Index with a great a salt. Stop creating strawmen.
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And instead use a single point currency exchange measure joke......yeah, thats the ticket!



I work on margins calls and commission. I don't earn wages.
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FFS.....and this is what is used in this line of work? Ignoring inflation and using joke currency exchange measures. Good grief!



Strawmen again. Going to need more hay for this one.

The Big Mac Index is not just a currency exchange measure. It uses the same metric as the CPI. I guess I can only expect scholars to know this...
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No, it doesn't, it is using a single item price point.
 
AmazonTania said:
No one disputes that, but it's manufacturing output is still lower. In monetary terms, manufacturing output is very high, but as a portion of GDP it's very low. Manufacturing is on a global decline, but America is really losing ground on this particular area.
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How would you suggest we alter this?
 
AmazonTania said:
A basket of goods is really not required to measure inflation.
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This is going right in the old memory bank with "Inflation is "irrelevant" for wages".

I could not make this up, I am just not deluded enough.
 
Gimmesometruth said:
And instead use a single point currency exchange measure joke......yeah, thats the ticket!


FFS.....and this is what is used in this line of work? Ignoring inflation and using joke currency exchange measures. Good grief!
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Actually the BMI is used by economist and individuals in the financial industry all over the world to measure inflation.

No, it doesn't, it is using a single item price point.
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The item is the medium. The metric is the formula used to determine the currency's value. Sounds like someone doesn't understand the CPI. That's *yawn*... not surprising.
 
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