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Anecdotal evidence the economy is on the upswing?

MrWonka said:
First, you'll find that the cost of living in areas of California dominated by farming is quite reasonable. Second, they don't need you to live there all year, they want people who migrate there to help with the harvest, and then head back home. It's actually a great deal for migrant workers.
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That is not a great deal for anyone if you look at the bigger picture - cheaper groceries for the US by keeping Mexico a third world neighbor. We use that same concept, even more widely, in the construction industry - cheaper housing in the US by keeping Mexico a third world nation. I bet you like offshoring of manufacturing for a similar reason - cheaper widgets for the US by using third world labor. Meanwhile, folks just can't seem to understand why US wages remain stagnant while big business profits soar.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
That is not a great deal for anyone if you look at the bigger picture - cheaper groceries for the US by keeping Mexico a third world neighbor. We use that same concept, even more widely, in the construction industry - cheaper housing in the US by keeping Mexico a third world nation. I bet you like offshoring of manufacturing for a similar reason - cheaper widgets for the US by using third world labor.
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Right, so long as we don't have a shortage of jobs here(which we don't), and people from those countries are willing to do then why would we not let them?
 
MrWonka said:
No, actually it doesn't necessarily have to at all. Particularly when so many goods are already made in other countries where the wage hike wouldn't apply. It is entirely possible that some businesses will chose to pay the wages, by simply taking a small hit to their profit margin, and if one or two competitors decide to do that it makes it very difficult for the rest to raise their prices without losing market share.

Furthermore, even if the cost of some goods goes up, there are many other things that do not. Things like student loan debt, car loans, mortgage payments. Those are already set previously so a raise does nothing but good.



False. You can quite easily raise the incomes of those people as well.
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Think long and hard about the brilliant idea of paying people more not to work so that we can demand working people make more money. You already noted that offshoring is used to keep US widget prices down - what do you suppose that mandating higher wages for US widget makers will do for US made widget sales?
 
ttwtt78640 said:
what do you suppose that mandating higher wages for US widget makers will do for US made widget sales?
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Not much, but why exactly do widgets need to be made here again? We already have a surplus of jobs despite tons of them going overseas.
 
MrWonka said:
Not much, but why exactly do widgets need to be made here again? We already have a surplus of jobs despite tons of them going overseas.
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Can you back up that (bolded above) assertion with a link or two? You must understand that medical, technical, teaching and STEM jobs, mostly requiring a degree, are not apt to be filled by any of these laid off widget makers.

Healthcare professional and technical, healthcare support, STEM, community service and education occupations will be the fastest growing, with increases ranging from 24 to 31 percent in each area.
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https://www.usnews.com/news/article...ll-face-shortage-of-5-million-workers-in-2020
 
ttwtt78640 said:
Can you back up that (bolded above) assertion with a link or two?
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http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/08/news/economy/job-openings-record-high/index.html

ttwtt78640 said:
You must understand that medical, technical, teaching and STEM jobs, mostly requiring a degree, are not apt to be filled by any of these laid off widget makers.
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Whose fault is that? Go to ****ing school. We're giving you discounted student loans, and if you'd elect more democrats college would likely be free by now. Already there are states around the country offering free trade school tuition.
 
MrWonka said:
America has record-high 6.2 million job openings - Aug. 8, 2017


Whose fault is that? Go to ****ing school. We're giving you discounted student loans, and if you'd elect more democrats college would likely be free by now. Already there are states around the country offering free trade school tuition.
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Great plan there, Skippy, let's have everyone go to college/trade school on credit (or "free") and demand that no US citizen accept a crappy (not requiring beyond a HS education) job - we can always open the borders and let immigrants do those crappy jobs.
 
MrWonka said:
http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/08/news/economy/job-openings-record-high/index.html


Whose fault is that? Go to ****ing school. We're giving you discounted student loans, and if you'd elect more democrats college would likely be free by now. Already there are states around the country offering free trade school tuition.
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By extension, doesn't this mean that every person currently working a minimum-wage Walmart/McDonalds job is there because they didn't feel like getting extra training?
 
MrWonka said:
Why do you need anecdotal evidence? There's a **** load or real evidence to prove that the economy has been doing very well for quite some time now. Conservatives have just been deserately trying to convince the world otherwise because they don't want to admit what a good Job President Obama did of fixing the ****ty economy Bush left us with. They don't want to admit that eliminating the Bush Tax cuts actually had no negative impact whatsoever on the economy, and that many of President Obama's policies did much better.

So when Trumpites try and tell you we need to cut taxes to improve the economy remember what you saw at McDonald's and subway. Trickle down economics does not work, and even if it did there is absolutely no reason we need it right now. The economy is doing just fine. We have exceptionally low unemployment, and we currently have more job openings available in this country than we ever have in history. We shouldn't be deporting immigrants we should be trying to bring more of them here to fill all these job opening we're struggling to fill.
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Why do I need anecdotal evidence? Because this is Indiana and we are always behind the rest of the country in more ways than one. Been told people with good skills and education don't stick around.
 
MrWonka said:
America has record-high 6.2 million job openings - Aug. 8, 2017


Whose fault is that? Go to ****ing school. We're giving you discounted student loans, and if you'd elect more democrats college would likely be free by now. Already there are states around the country offering free trade school tuition.
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There is no way we have labor shortage when the labor participation rate is 62%, unemployment is at 4.3%.
If employers are hurting to find people then they need to raise their wages. Look at how many people are on welfare.
 
jdog21 said:
There is no way we have labor shortage when the labor participation rate is 62%, unemployment is at 4.3%.
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Ummmmm why not? We would expect a labor shortage with such low unemployment.
 
pinqy said:
Ummmmm why not? We would expect a labor shortage with such low unemployment.
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USA population = 323,100,000
Of the population the number of people who are working age and are not in the military or instituationalized is
Labor Force N/I = 255,357,000
Of the labor force the amount that are employed
Employment = 153,439,000
Of the labor force the amount of them that don't work but are looking is
Unemployment = 7,132,000
Employed & unemployed = 160,571,000
This leaves 94,786,000 for people who go to school or are retired or just flat out dont want to work.

Also a better indication is to look at the employment percentage for the age group 25-55 year olds. To take in acount the baby boomers and those in college. In 2006 the employment rate for this age group was 80%. It fell sharpely during the recession and is now back up to 76%. No one was screaming labor shortage back then, actually it was the exact oposite. People were screaming for more jobs and less moving jobs over seas. So now why all the hoopla over a labor shoratge when we havent even gotten back to our prerecession numbers?
 
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jdog21 said:
USA population = 323,100,000
Of the population the number of people who are working age and are not in the military or instituationalized is
Labor Force N/I = 255,357,000
Of the labor force the amount that are employed
Employment = 153,439,000
Of the labor force the amount of them that don't work but are looking is
Unemployment = 7,132,000
Employed & unemployed = 160,571,000
This leaves 94,786,000 for people who go to school or are retired or just flat out dont want to work.

Also a better indication is to look at the employment percentage for the age group 25-55 year olds. To take in acount the baby boomers and those in college. In 2006 the employment rate for this age group was 80%. It fell sharpely during the recession and is now back up to 76%. No one was screaming labor shortage back then, actually it was the exact oposite. People were screaming for more jobs and less moving jobs over seas. So now why all the hoopla over a labor shoratge when we havent even gotten back to our prerecession numbers?
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If those stats are accurate, then we should begin to see some upward trends in wages due to supply and demand.
 
Dittohead not! said:
If those stats are accurate, then we should begin to see some upward trends in wages due to supply and demand.
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Yes when labor is in short supply employeers have a harder time filling job openings and the competition for the jobs will raise the workers wages. Which is a good thing seeing how we have 14.5 of the population living below the poverty line.
On the other side the economic growth for the country tends to stall due to business having a harder time expanding and we also see greater price inflation due to the higher labor costs.
 
jdog21 said:
USA population = 323,100,000
Of the population the number of people who are working age and are not in the military or instituationalized is
Labor Force N/I = 255,357,000
Of the labor force the amount that are employed
Employment = 153,439,000
Of the labor force the amount of them that don't work but are looking is
Unemployment = 7,132,000
Employed & unemployed = 160,571,000
This leaves 94,786,000 for people who go to school or a153,439,re retired or just flat out dont want to work.
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Correct. For the second week of August, Available Labor was 160,571,000. Available unused labor was 7,132,000. And there were 6,170,000 job openings as of 31 July. So that's 1 million more people available to work than jobs available. That's a labor shortage, assuming there is not a perfect match for geography and demanded and available skills.

Those not in the labor force are not available to work. They cannot be hired until/unless they start looking for work, and over 90% state they don't want a job now and considering that more than half of those not in the labor force who say they do want a job now, over half have not done one single thing to find a job between September 2016 and August 2017.



Also a better indication is to look at the employment percentage for the age group 25-55 year olds. To take in acount the baby boomers and those in college. In 2006 the employment rate for this age group was 80%. It fell sharpely during the recession and is now back up to 76%. No one was screaming labor shortage back then, actually it was the exact oposite. People were screaming for more jobs and less moving jobs over seas. So now why all the hoopla over a labor shoratge when we havent even gotten back to our prerecession numbers?[/QUOTE]
 
Gonzo Rodeo said:
But but but... immigrants are willing to do that job at that wage!

I really hate this argument, because it basically says that subsidized slave labor is totally ok, so long as we enjoy cheap food.
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Ilegal immigrants recieve federal funding as well. So here we have a situation were the tax payer is giving money to the government to give to an ilegal to help them live so they can pick our fruit for cheaper wages so the tax payer can pay less for the fruit at the store.

I'd rather the government allow me to keep my money and i'll pay the higher price for fruit and vegetables.
 
pinqy said:
Correct. For the second week of August, Available Labor was 160,571,000. Available unused labor was 7,132,000. And there were 6,170,000 job openings as of 31 July. So that's 1 million more people available to work than jobs available. That's a labor shortage, assuming there is not a perfect match for geography and demanded and available skills.

Those not in the labor force are not available to work. They cannot be hired until/unless they start looking for work, and over 90% state they don't want a job now and considering that more than half of those not in the labor force who say they do want a job now, over half have not done one single thing to find a job between September 2016 and August 2017.
The labor shortage is a good thing for most americans. Lets celebrate.
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jdog21 said:
Ilegal immigrants recieve federal funding as well. So here we have a situation were the tax payer is giving money to the government to give to an ilegal to help them live so they can pick our fruit for cheaper wages so the tax payer can pay less for the fruit at the store.

I'd rather the government allow me to keep my money and i'll pay the higher price for fruit and vegetables.
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Ilegal [sic]immigrants recieve [sic] federal funding as well from where? How? How do you know?
 
EnigmaO01 said:
IFound out the next day that the Subway closed early because they didn't have enough help..
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Some fast-food restaurants here in France have had the same problem. Fast-food in France prior to 1980 was any three course meal you could eat in less than an hour!

That all changed with the advent of MacDonalds in the 1980s. I had just arrived. My colleagues who had studied in the US were all agape at the news, so we hurried down to the Champs-Elysees where we found it. A real hole in the wall, but clean and serviceable. Macdonalds went on to change everything in the pattern of eating, and now France is just like the US. Eat anything you want, anytime you want, and in any large city you want.

Some are having the same problem of hiring people for night-work, so they installed a "night-side" where the hamburgers and chips are kept warm by a vending machine. In fact, more than a machine, it's an entire wall, and the beverage machine is separate. (But, there's red-wine as a choice. ;^)

Which is why, as well, obesity is increasing by leaps and bounds in France, just like it is in the US ...
 
Best economic indicator for my area I have found is this one road that runs about 12 miles. When traffic is heavier, things are going well. When there is no traffic during the day, things are sucking wind. It is the road off which the hospital, some shopping centers, and neighborhoods across the economic spectrum feed from the wealthy to the poor. It has some fast food, some sit down, etc etc etc. A real microcosm for the whole local economy.
 
MrWonka said:
I believe it was around 2012, and largely because he couldn't just get rid of the tax cuts for the wealthy without getting rid of the middle-class cuts as well.


...
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There were no Obummer tax hikes (or elimination of the Bush tax cuts), except on the top 1%, and some Obummercare related taxes.
 
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