Welcome to the great depression 2. Hope you all enjoy your visit.
where is the 16.8% # coming from?
Huh. So, this is true? That’s how the unemployment rate was measured during the great depression? That is, including the discouraged and the–oh, I don’t know–working a ‘McJob until I can find something with my skillset/education?’ If so, it’s not encouraging when you see the same measurement yields a 16.8% unemployment rate, today. Closing in on the big 25%, after all.
When you take into account everything they did in the great depression, its 16.8%. Thats about .5% up from last month.
[quote]jehovasfitness wrote:
where is the 16.8% # coming from?[/quote]
The BLS U-6 report, I believe.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Huh. So, this is true? That’s how the unemployment rate was measured during the great depression? That is, including the discouraged and the–oh, I don’t know–working a ‘McJob until I can find something with my skillset/education?’ If so, it’s not encouraging when you see the same measurement yields a 16.8% unemployment rate, today. Closing in on the big 25%, after all.[/quote]
Yes, it is true. Another point that I have looked for info on, and was addressed by one of the posters at the bottom of this video, is how are all the independent contractors accounted for in the unemployment numbers. As far as I have been able to tell, they are not included in the stats. These are people that are either unemployed, working at about 25% of their previous levels, and are not eligible for unemployment compensation. Add them to the number and we are ever closer to 20%.
And it’s mostly GWB and the GOP’s fault. They like to spend all the money on war, weapons, and prisons.
[quote]JEATON wrote:
Sloth wrote:
Huh. So, this is true? That’s how the unemployment rate was measured during the great depression? That is, including the discouraged and the–oh, I don’t know–working a ‘McJob until I can find something with my skillset/education?’ If so, it’s not encouraging when you see the same measurement yields a 16.8% unemployment rate, today. Closing in on the big 25%, after all.
Yes, it is true. Another point that I have looked for info on, and was addressed by one of the posters at the bottom of this video, is how are all the independent contractors accounted for in the unemployment numbers. As far as I have been able to tell, they are not included in the stats. These are people that are either unemployed, working at about 25% of their previous levels, and are not eligible for unemployment compensation. Add them to the number and we are ever closer to 20%.
[/quote]
I’m not really familiar with that type of employment, independent contracting. Do we know if independent contractors are a larger share of the work force today than during the period of the Great Depression? If so, yeah, that would be a crucial piece of the puzzle.
[quote]Producer wrote:
And it’s mostly GWB and the GOP’s fault. They like to spend all the money on war, weapons, and prisons. [/quote]
Not true. Most people, liberal and conservative, recognize that our current issues stem from the collapse of the housing bubble. The housing bubble was the result of Democrats in congress putting artificial restraints on common sense through the abandonment of lending standards. It was no longer a question of if you could afford a house. It was now simply a question of if you “deserved” a house. And the liberal answer is always “Yes”. Now you took true risk and reward valuation out of lending.
It came to the point where it was almost impossible not to qualify for a loan. This created a whole new class of homeowner. Actually two. You had the “optimist” that had no skin in the game, with little to no down payment and an artificially low interest rate, who’s eyes were bigger than their wallet. Then you had a new class of real estate investor (read gambler/speculator) that was just riding the wave of artificially induced appreciation. As all waves do, this one eventually crashed on the shore. We are now dealing with the aftermath.
Had the government, particularly the socialist elements, stayed out of the operation of the free markets we would not be where we are today.
[quote]JEATON wrote:
Producer wrote:
And it’s mostly GWB and the GOP’s fault. They like to spend all the money on war, weapons, and prisons.
Not true. Most people, liberal and conservative, recognize that our current issues stem from the collapse of the housing bubble. The housing bubble was the result of Democrats in congress putting artificial restraints on common sense through the abandonment of lending standards. It was no longer a question of if you could afford a house. It was now simply a question of if you “deserved” a house. And the liberal answer is always “Yes”. Now you took true risk and reward valuation out of lending.
It came to the point where it was almost impossible not to qualify for a loan. This created a whole new class of homeowner. Actually two. You had the “optimist” that had no skin in the game, with little to no down payment and an artificially low interest rate, who’s eyes were bigger than their wallet. Then you had a new class of real estate investor (read gambler/speculator) that was just riding the wave of artificially induced appreciation. As all waves do, this one eventually crashed on the shore. We are now dealing with the aftermath.
Had the government, particularly the socialist elements, stayed out of the operation of the free markets we would not be where we are today.
[/quote]
To be fair to the Democrats, the GoP played the same liberal game. Remember Bush’s “ownership society?”
True. It is never completely black or white. That is the good and bad of internet forums. Whole books have been written on these topics. We have generally a paragraph to get our point across. By necessity, a great deal of info is omitted. The good side of forums is that it forces one to focus on main points and communicate as clearly and simply as possible.
You’re still glossing over a lot.
Why were people unable to pay their mortgages? Because they were losing their jobs, getting sick and going broke, variable mortgage rates were jumping, and so on. People didn’t buy with the intention of not paying their mortgages. The shaky economy caused that.
Also, the mortgage default problem is bad, but that’s not what brought us to the brink of economic collapse. That would be the mortgage brokers bundling all these bad mortgages together and selling and re-selling them with A1 ratings. If people were simply defaulting on their mortgages, the scale of the problem would be much smaller, and not threaten to wreck our entire economy.
[quote]K2000 wrote:
You’re still glossing over a lot.
Why were people unable to pay their mortgages? Because they were losing their jobs, getting sick and going broke, variable mortgage rates were jumping, and so on. People didn’t buy with the intention of not paying their mortgages. The shaky economy caused that.
Also, the mortgage default problem is bad, but that’s not what brought us to the brink of economic collapse. That would be the mortgage brokers bundling all these bad mortgages together and selling and re-selling them with A1 ratings. If people were simply defaulting on their mortgages, the scale of the problem would be much smaller, and not threaten to wreck our entire economy.[/quote]
No what happened is people who couldn’t afford houses where buying houses because Acorn strong armed the banks.
Now our fearless leader has set the interest rate to 0%-.5% ARM. This has nothing to do with a shaky economy, the economy was shaky because they where rocking it.
Face it this was a government cause problem, the federal government is an abomination.
The Nazis had jobless people too.
[quote]John S. wrote:
Acorn strong armed the banks.
[/quote]
Yea its hyperbole. But this could never ever possibly happen. The banking industry could bring down an entire nation if it wanted.
You can never completely eliminate unemployment - it’s impossible. A part of that figure will be people changing jobs, where they might not work for one day during that transition but would still be technically unemployed.
At least 83.2% are employed.
[quote]John S. wrote:
Welcome to the great depression 2. Hope you all enjoy your visit.[/quote]
John,
Over the past 70 years, we built an economy on ever-increasing debt. We are at the saturation point. So, yes, we are entering a great depression.
[quote]John S. wrote:
Welcome to the great depression 2. Hope you all enjoy your visit.[/quote]
If unemployment today was calculated like it was during the great depression we’d be OVER 20%
FDIC Failed Bank List…5 more this week.
http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/banklist.html
It won’t be long now…
[quote]K2000 wrote:
You’re still glossing over a lot.
Why were people unable to pay their mortgages? Because they were losing their jobs, getting sick and going broke, variable mortgage rates were jumping, and so on. People didn’t buy with the intention of not paying their mortgages. The shaky economy caused that.
Also, the mortgage default problem is bad, but that’s not what brought us to the brink of economic collapse. That would be the mortgage brokers bundling all these bad mortgages together and selling and re-selling them with A1 ratings. If people were simply defaulting on their mortgages, the scale of the problem would be much smaller, and not threaten to wreck our entire economy.[/quote]
Exactly. The relaxing of mortgage standards was foolish and contributed to this. And government did have a hand in that. But that is the biggest problem or contributing factor. Securitization and bogus use of financial instruments to resell things with no value at a high price (done by the financial sector and not the government) is what’s bit us in the ass and caused us to be where we are.