What % of Americans Are Working?

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]pittbulll wrote:
this is the path to a one world economy [/quote]

So economies stop at imaginary lines drawn up on maps?[/quote]

No economy, Singular

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]pittbulll wrote:
this is the path to a one world economy [/quote]

So economies stop at imaginary lines drawn up on maps?[/quote]

Where there is an economy there will also be a governing body.

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]pittbulll wrote:
this is the path to a one world economy [/quote]

So economies stop at imaginary lines drawn up on maps?[/quote]

Where there is an economy there will also be a governing body.[/quote]

we agree

If you believe the bible , it would be a fullfillment of prophecy

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]pittbulll wrote:
this is the path to a one world economy [/quote]

So economies stop at imaginary lines drawn up on maps?[/quote]

Where there is an economy there will also be a governing body.[/quote]

we agree

If you believe the bible , it would be a fullfillment of prophecy [/quote]

Eh, I’m not trying to interpret Revelation here. Just an observation of where we’ve been and where we’re at. Larger economy means more laws and regulations. Larger and more interconnected global economy, the bigger the future crises. The bigger the crises, the bigger the regulatory responses. More regulations, laws, oversight, and power, the bigger the governing body will be. And as it grows, the more it will be entrusted with governing other aspects of global society, besides that of the economy. Big means big crises. Big crises bring even bigger responses. Bigger responses leads to bigger bigness ;p And so the cycle goes on and on.

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]LankyMofo wrote:
[
Ah, again with this “gap”. Sure, the gap between the rich and the poor (say the top 20% of earners and the bottom 20% of earners) is growing. HOWEVER, this does NOTHING to explain that people are moving in and out of both of these categories over time. The bottom 20% of earners today are NOT the same bottom 20% of earners 10 years from now. The same can be said for the top 20% of earners. So what does the gap matter?

For instance, the bottom 20% of earners historically includes many young people. The reason is obvious - without having any substantial work experience they don’t have the necessary skills to obtain higher paying jobs. However, over time they acquire these skills and move out of the bottom 20% into middle classity.

Mentioning the “gap” is totally misleading in that it makes people think that someone who is poor is just consistently getting more poor when this is not the case when we look at real INDIVIDUALS and FAMILIES instead of just a sub group of people.[/quote]

This isn’t an answer. Not everyone moves in and out. And not everyone that moves out of the poor/lower class forgets what it was like. Nor, do they imagine it impossible that a crises or two just might throw them back down into misery. And if that gap continues to grow, even if just a bit more, limited government ideas will no longer even get a hearing.

Republicans and Libertarians had better provide a plan to actually deal with the issue. Paying low wages and buying cheaper goods sounds great on paper, but when the masses can plainly see increasing stratification…well, we might just end up with Democratic Socialism becoming a respectable ideology in this country. [/quote]

What does the “gap” matter as long as the standard of living for EVERYONE is increasing? It’s almost as if some people are happy when the rich lose wealth even if it means everyone loses wealth and the “gap” closes.

[quote]LankyMofo wrote:

What does the “gap” matter as long as the standard of living for EVERYONE is increasing? It’s almost as if some people are happy when the rich lose wealth even if it means everyone loses wealth and the “gap” closes.[/quote]

Defending a centralization of wealth does not help decentralize federal power. It just doesn’t work. And, standard of living is quickly forgotten when stratification increases. With an increase in stratification, the stability of a society will only decrease. That, our you’ll have to placate those left behind with universal health care and other goodies. Or, simply rule them with a police state. Politically, it’s a losing argument to defend the gap. Republicans and Libertarians better put forth some ideas on how to reverse the trend, or the Democrats will do it for them. And you might not like their plans.

Something to consider. Chicago Booth Professer, blogger, and author, Raghu Rajan, is of opinion that the growing income gap led to our present situation. In short, where there’s a growing gap, fill it with credit.

http://blogs.chicagobooth.edu/faultlines/

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]LankyMofo wrote:

What does the “gap” matter as long as the standard of living for EVERYONE is increasing? It’s almost as if some people are happy when the rich lose wealth even if it means everyone loses wealth and the “gap” closes.[/quote]

Defending a centralization of wealth does not help decentralize federal power. It just doesn’t work. And, standard of living is quickly forgotten when stratification increases. With an increase in stratification, the stability of a society will only decrease. That, our you’ll have to placate those left behind with universal health care and other goodies. Or, simply rule them with a police state. Politically, it’s a losing argument to defend the gap. Republicans and Libertarians better put forth some ideas on how to reverse the trend, or the Democrats will do it for them. And you might not like their plans.

Something to consider. Chicago Booth Professer, blogger, and author, Raghu Rajan, is of opinion that the growing income gap led to our present situation. In short, where there’s a growing gap, fill it with credit.

http://blogs.chicagobooth.edu/faultlines/[/quote]

I do plan on reading the blog you have posted, but my initial reaction is simply to say that I’m not speaking in political terms, I’m speaking about what will benefit society as a whole in reality. Taking theories which won’t work but sound good to fool the masses isn’t something I’m interested in researching. I have no interest in polishing turds.

I’m sure during a political debate any defense of the gap will be met will resistance, but in reality all talks of the gap is pure propaganda. I don’t see anything I can do to convince the average American to actually learn about the subjects at hand as opposed to being convinced with statistics that only cover the surface.

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Death Cross

Tomorrow, in confirmation of the Head-And-Shoulders that both the labor markets and the stock market made, the market will likely make what is called a ‘Death Cross’. This means that the 50 day moving average will go below the 200 day MA. The accuracy of a Death Cross is roughly 90%.

This means a fall of 30 or 40% is likely, with 90% confidence interval.

What this does to the rest of the economy I will leave to your imaginations.

[/quote]

Here is a blog link for someone who discusses Prechters Dow 1000 prediction, which has a pretty sobering chart. Look at the chart of the 1929 drop, 60% climb, then ~75% fall. The pattern looks very similar with the head and shoulders off the steep rally. If you believe history repeats, this is frightening. Im pretty sure they will announce more quantitative easing if it starts to look like a Great Depression repeat, and the dollar will be one giant leap closer to toast.

Hopefully the funds going broke and selling their PM winners will allow some nice entry points in precious metals.

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]pittbulll wrote:
this is the path to a one world economy [/quote]

So economies stop at imaginary lines drawn up on maps?[/quote]

Where there is an economy there will also be a governing body.[/quote]

we agree

If you believe the bible , it would be a fullfillment of prophecy [/quote]

Eh, I’m not trying to interpret Revelation here. Just an observation of where we’ve been and where we’re at. Larger economy means more laws and regulations. Larger and more interconnected global economy, the bigger the future crises. The bigger the crises, the bigger the regulatory responses. More regulations, laws, oversight, and power, the bigger the governing body will be. And as it grows, the more it will be entrusted with governing other aspects of global society, besides that of the economy. Big means big crises. Big crises bring even bigger responses. Bigger responses leads to bigger bigness ;p And so the cycle goes on and on. [/quote]

I agree, totally

[quote]milktruck wrote:

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Death Cross

Tomorrow, in confirmation of the Head-And-Shoulders that both the labor markets and the stock market made, the market will likely make what is called a ‘Death Cross’. This means that the 50 day moving average will go below the 200 day MA. The accuracy of a Death Cross is roughly 90%.

This means a fall of 30 or 40% is likely, with 90% confidence interval.

What this does to the rest of the economy I will leave to your imaginations.

[/quote]

Here is a blog link for someone who discusses Prechters Dow 1000 prediction, which has a pretty sobering chart. Look at the chart of the 1929 drop, 60% climb, then ~75% fall. The pattern looks very similar with the head and shoulders off the steep rally. If you believe history repeats, this is frightening. Im pretty sure they will announce more quantitative easing if it starts to look like a Great Depression repeat, and the dollar will be one giant leap closer to toast.

Hopefully the funds going broke and selling their PM winners will allow some nice entry points in precious metals.[/quote]

The first thing I thought of: Imagine its July 1932 and I’m sitting on $500,000 in T-Bills. Oh the stocks I could buy… :slight_smile:

Didn’t see the H&S in their chart; I’ll have to Google it and investigate further.

Funny how none of the other guys are commenting. Maybe they don’t understand or worse, don’t WANT to understand. When a chart pattern with 90% accuracy says we’re doomed, guess most can’t handle that.

[quote]Headhunter wrote:

[quote]milktruck wrote:

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Death Cross

Tomorrow, in confirmation of the Head-And-Shoulders that both the labor markets and the stock market made, the market will likely make what is called a ‘Death Cross’. This means that the 50 day moving average will go below the 200 day MA. The accuracy of a Death Cross is roughly 90%.

This means a fall of 30 or 40% is likely, with 90% confidence interval.

What this does to the rest of the economy I will leave to your imaginations.

[/quote]

Here is a blog link for someone who discusses Prechters Dow 1000 prediction, which has a pretty sobering chart. Look at the chart of the 1929 drop, 60% climb, then ~75% fall. The pattern looks very similar with the head and shoulders off the steep rally. If you believe history repeats, this is frightening. Im pretty sure they will announce more quantitative easing if it starts to look like a Great Depression repeat, and the dollar will be one giant leap closer to toast.

Hopefully the funds going broke and selling their PM winners will allow some nice entry points in precious metals.[/quote]

The first thing I thought of: Imagine its July 1932 and I’m sitting on $500,000 in T-Bills. Oh the stocks I could buy… :slight_smile:

Didn’t see the H&S in their chart; I’ll have to Google it and investigate further.

Funny how none of the other guys are commenting. Maybe they don’t understand or worse, don’t WANT to understand. When a chart pattern with 90% accuracy says we’re doomed, guess most can’t handle that.[/quote]

Well the one back then wasnt as pretty as the one we had recently.

The problem is, if you are sitting on bonds, nobody is going to ring the proverbial bell at the bottom. Though Im not saying anything about how you or anyone else will act, most people back then were probably convinced everything was going to zero in short order in July 1932.

Also, theres the Japan Scenario where it just ends up going lower over the next 30 years, but I doubt BB would stand for that without blowing up our currency, in which case its good to be in equities.

[quote]LankyMofo wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]LankyMofo wrote:

What does the “gap” matter as long as the standard of living for EVERYONE is increasing? It’s almost as if some people are happy when the rich lose wealth even if it means everyone loses wealth and the “gap” closes.[/quote]

Defending a centralization of wealth does not help decentralize federal power. It just doesn’t work. And, standard of living is quickly forgotten when stratification increases. With an increase in stratification, the stability of a society will only decrease. That, our you’ll have to placate those left behind with universal health care and other goodies. Or, simply rule them with a police state. Politically, it’s a losing argument to defend the gap. Republicans and Libertarians better put forth some ideas on how to reverse the trend, or the Democrats will do it for them. And you might not like their plans.

Something to consider. Chicago Booth Professer, blogger, and author, Raghu Rajan, is of opinion that the growing income gap led to our present situation. In short, where there’s a growing gap, fill it with credit.

http://blogs.chicagobooth.edu/faultlines/[/quote]

I do plan on reading the blog you have posted, but my initial reaction is simply to say that I’m not speaking in political terms, I’m speaking about what will benefit society as a whole in reality. Taking theories which won’t work but sound good to fool the masses isn’t something I’m interested in researching. I have no interest in polishing turds.

I’m sure during a political debate any defense of the gap will be met will resistance, but in reality all talks of the gap is pure propaganda. I don’t see anything I can do to convince the average American to actually learn about the subjects at hand as opposed to being convinced with statistics that only cover the surface.[/quote]

Deng Xioping’s famous line to defend stratification went along the lines of ‘All China will become wealthy; it is okay for some to get wealthy before others.’ I’ll grant you that he didn’t have to win any elections (well, public ones), and he didn’t really have to campaign for too much support (the Cultural Revolution had everyone of the mind that ‘anything is better than this’), but I think its a pretty good positive spin.

Right-leaning candidates could copy this, and attack everyone that wanted to ‘share the wealth’ as being a communist. Apparently, America is still really afraid of communism (witness most common attacks on Obamacare).

I don’t think stratification is as big a problem as you say. Hong Kong and Singapore both have higher GINI indices than America, and less popular unrest. This is not accomplished with draconian laws, much one would assume, since these are both pseudo-authoritarian states. The point is that, as long as people see the process as legitimate and have means of employment, crime and unrest will exist at tolerable levels.

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

Globalization lowers the price for the consumer but also lowers the price of labor . That translates into disposable income that would go to more afluent countries going to third world countries where the purchasing power is so much greater,

I could go for eliminating the minimum wage , but would require that we do away with all imigration until unemployement is below 2 or 3 percent. Farm wages would exceed retail on the pay scale because the job is more valueable. The costs of your goods would go up . but so would wages[/quote]

Your lack of understanding of manufacturing is astounding…

Globalization if anything, increasees the price of labor because the skill of said labor increases. Globalization would work great if all things were created equal. However, you have countries like china who artificially keep their wages low compared to ours. However, that is even starting to fail as the chinese workers are expecting more money and less hours just like their american counter parts…

In an industrial engineering class I TA for I gave them a great article about the production of “Pool Noodles” those foam pool toys. The chineese workers feel producing these are their old pay is below them and demanded more money. Consequently it became cheaper to produce the pool noodles in the US again and they recently built a new plant for these in arizona…

read the title and thought . . . (based on most jobs I have had) . . . employment does not mean they’re actually working - lol

[quote]Ratchet wrote:

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

Globalization lowers the price for the consumer but also lowers the price of labor . That translates into disposable income that would go to more afluent countries going to third world countries where the purchasing power is so much greater,

I could go for eliminating the minimum wage , but would require that we do away with all imigration until unemployement is below 2 or 3 percent. Farm wages would exceed retail on the pay scale because the job is more valueable. The costs of your goods would go up . but so would wages[/quote]

Your lack of understanding of manufacturing is astounding…

Globalization if anything, increasees the price of labor because the skill of said labor increases. Globalization would work great if all things were created equal. However, you have countries like china who artificially keep their wages low compared to ours. However, that is even starting to fail as the chinese workers are expecting more money and less hours just like their american counter parts…

In an industrial engineering class I TA for I gave them a great article about the production of “Pool Noodles” those foam pool toys. The chineese workers feel producing these are their old pay is below them and demanded more money. Consequently it became cheaper to produce the pool noodles in the US again and they recently built a new plant for these in arizona…

[/quote]

Your arogance is amusing , lets take a point where transportation would be no factor. In some instances things are cheaper to Manufacture in America . But a labor intensive product is going to be cheaper at .03$ a day rather than $13.00 an hour and I am being conservative

[quote]milktruck wrote:

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Death Cross

Tomorrow, in confirmation of the Head-And-Shoulders that both the labor markets and the stock market made, the market will likely make what is called a ‘Death Cross’. This means that the 50 day moving average will go below the 200 day MA. The accuracy of a Death Cross is roughly 90%.

This means a fall of 30 or 40% is likely, with 90% confidence interval.

What this does to the rest of the economy I will leave to your imaginations.

[/quote]

Here is a blog link for someone who discusses Prechters Dow 1000 prediction, which has a pretty sobering chart. Look at the chart of the 1929 drop, 60% climb, then ~75% fall. The pattern looks very similar with the head and shoulders off the steep rally. If you believe history repeats, this is frightening. Im pretty sure they will announce more quantitative easing if it starts to look like a Great Depression repeat, and the dollar will be one giant leap closer to toast.

Hopefully the funds going broke and selling their PM winners will allow some nice entry points in precious metals.[/quote]

I hope you are right. I am saving my FRNs right now hoping to get a better buying oportunity in the PMs.

[quote]dmaddox wrote:

I hope you are right. I am saving my FRNs right now hoping to get a better buying oportunity in the PMs.[/quote]

I am scaling in very slowly to silver, going to the coin shop every monday is like my new 401k contribution. Im hoping to make some gold purchases if we get a downleg in PMs and I liquidate my equity puts in the next few months. My trigger finger is getting itchy and pressure for quantitative easing is mounting, which will throw a monkey wrench into things if it happens.

[quote]milktruck wrote:

[quote]dmaddox wrote:

I hope you are right. I am saving my FRNs right now hoping to get a better buying oportunity in the PMs.[/quote]

I am scaling in very slowly to silver, going to the coin shop every monday is like my new 401k contribution. Im hoping to make some gold purchases if we get a downleg in PMs and I liquidate my equity puts in the next few months. My trigger finger is getting itchy and pressure for quantitative easing is mounting, which will throw a monkey wrench into things if it happens.[/quote]

I plan on starting to visit the local PM dealer. I have been visiting dealers online, but the shipping is killing me. I am slowly picking up Silver, and looking to purchase some 1/4 oz gold pieces mainly because of the price. This is turning into my savings account.

I do not recall where I read that if you buy precious metals , to make sure you have phsical possesion of them . The article claimed there are brokers selling metals they do not have to sell

[quote]Headhunter wrote:

[quote]milktruck wrote:

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Death Cross

Tomorrow, in confirmation of the Head-And-Shoulders that both the labor markets and the stock market made, the market will likely make what is called a ‘Death Cross’. This means that the 50 day moving average will go below the 200 day MA. The accuracy of a Death Cross is roughly 90%.

This means a fall of 30 or 40% is likely, with 90% confidence interval.

What this does to the rest of the economy I will leave to your imaginations.

[/quote]

Here is a blog link for someone who discusses Prechters Dow 1000 prediction, which has a pretty sobering chart. Look at the chart of the 1929 drop, 60% climb, then ~75% fall. The pattern looks very similar with the head and shoulders off the steep rally. If you believe history repeats, this is frightening. Im pretty sure they will announce more quantitative easing if it starts to look like a Great Depression repeat, and the dollar will be one giant leap closer to toast.

Hopefully the funds going broke and selling their PM winners will allow some nice entry points in precious metals.[/quote]

The first thing I thought of: Imagine its July 1932 and I’m sitting on $500,000 in T-Bills. Oh the stocks I could buy… :slight_smile:

Didn’t see the H&S in their chart; I’ll have to Google it and investigate further.

Funny how none of the other guys are commenting. Maybe they don’t understand or worse, don’t WANT to understand. When a chart pattern with 90% accuracy says we’re doomed, guess most can’t handle that.[/quote]

Would now be a good time to point out that there is literally zero empirical evidence suggesting that charting produces any returns over and above what you could get from a simple S&P index fund? i.e., charting has not demonstrated any significant predictive power.

Your “Death Cross” has sure nailed it so far this week.

I am aware that sometimes a prediction is correct in the long-run despite getting killed in the short-run, so how about you give us a timeline? You know, “The 30%-40% drop will occur by ______”? Or “If ______ happens, then that is clear evidence that this event fell outside of the 90% CI”? Something like that.