Re: For Trucker


The Trucker wrote:
> "Negloid" <negloid@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:1123518459.252925.4690@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >
> > The Trucker wrote:
> >> Negloid" <negloid@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> >> news:1123223040.937492.49130@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >> >
> >> > The Trucker wrote:
> >> >> Negloid" <negloid@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> >> >> news:1123182161.620609.87480@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >> >> >
> >> >> > jrw wrote:
> >
> >> > I never
> >> > wrote anything about personal failures. Perhaps you need to figure out
> >> > what I mean by "marginal worker".
> >>
> >> Even better it might be good for you to tell us what
> >> you mean.
> >
> > The marginal worker is the last worker a company hires. A marginal
> > worker is not necessarily dumber, lazier, sicker, uglier, or fatter
> > than other workers. He is just the most recently hired. But there is
> > some reason he was hired most recently and in economic models,
> > typically he is the least productive employee. (The logic being, for
> > example, that the company will hire the most productive first and least
> > productive last.) The marginal worker, under low unemployment, often
> > is less productive just because he has *less experience*. He is a kid,
> > or he is not trained for that job, or he is usually a stay-at-home
> > parent who only entered the workforce because the pay was so damned
> > good.
>
> Using that definition (that is an economics thing and it
> refers to the workers at the "margins") then I retract my
> heated objection to the term. Obviously there will always
> be marginal workers. When the current marginal workers
> are removed from the board then they will be replace with
> workers that would be right up against the margin. And this
> "margin" thing works both ways. It not only includes the
> dudes that are not real productive, but the dudes that are
> not all that much in NEED of a job in the first place.

....following this, another way to characterize my point is to say that
in 1999 and 2000, many of those marginal workers were of the later
sort. Companies were recruiting extremely hard, offering stock options
to everyone. People who would likely have not even entered the
workforce were attracted by the promises of high pay or even better,
groud-floor equity in the next Amazon.com. These days its not nearly
as common for students to take time off school to get a job coding HTML
or for housewives to try to start up their own .com businesses as it
was a few years ago. They aren't in the workforce anymore but most of
the time they wouldn't be anyway.

That is just my suggestion for why we have had a loss of jobs that
never produced quite the expected unemployment rate, as well as the
slower growth of the labor pool. There are always people who don't
work for economic reasons. Today I don't believe that level is high by
historical standards. The take home point is that the unusual
situation was in 2000, not 2005.

> I
> want to see a situation in which the people must be
> ENTICED into giving up their freedom in exchange for a
> J_O_B. Unemployment = 0.
>
>
> >> > I "left out" nothing. I *pointed out* that half of the drop in the
> >> > labor force participation rate occured because 16- to 19-year-olds
> >> > dropped out of the labor force in larger numbers. Do you dispute that
> >> > fact, or claim that it is meaningless?
> >>
> >> But you suggest that we leave out all sorts of data so as
> >> to make the numbers look good.
> >
> > I suggest only that we pay attention to some of the details. I do not
> > suggest that we ignore the 16-19 year old data. In fact I think we
> > should give it extra scrutiny. That's the point, "Look everyone, half
> > of the people who left the workforce were under 20 years old."
> >
> > Look at it, don't ignore it.
>
> Agreed. But think about what it ALL means. I always
> come back to the question: "In a totally capitalistic
> economy, what do you do with the people displaced
> by technology?".

They do what they have always done: adapt. They adapt their skills to
a new application or they learn new skills. Do you think that there
are an unusually large number of such people today? If there is going
to be technological progress, we have to expect that certain jobs will
become obsolete.

> You want to claim that a bunch of
> people stopped working because they _could_ stop.

Oh they lost their jobs for economic reasons, not because they wanted
to. But that isn't the same as saying that most of the time these
people would be in the workforce and that today the jobs market is
historically bad.

> But that does not "fit" the definition of unemployment,
> nor does it "fit" the reality. The unemployment statistics
> are supposed to show the number/percentage of people
> that _want_ work and yet cannot find work, and
> that _should_ include those forced to give up
> and join the folks down at the flop house.

Well the metric does what it does. It provides an indication of how
many people are looking but unable to find work. There are other
official statistics available, just not as often reported. Right now
you and I are discussing the labor force participation rate, which is
one of those statistics. In addition there are different unemployment
numbers published by the BLS/census.

http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cpsatab12.htm

This gives you the option of looking at both the unemployed as well as
the marginally attached (want work but not in the labor force because
they stopped looking). You will note that about 1% of the labor force
falls in as marginally attached, which is about the same, or perhaps
10-20 basis points higher than the rate in 2000. This translates to
about 1.5 million marginally attached individuals last month, versus
1.1 million marginally attached individuals in July of 2000.

> The
> statistics do not show this. And taking jobs away
> from teens while raising the cost of education is about
> as Republican as it gets. How would you "work your
> way through college" if the costs are astronomical and
> there are no jobs?
>
> >> >> I too have a religious perspective. But I don't
> >> >> manipulate the "data" around whatever
> >> >> conclusion I have already adopted.
> >> >
> >> > There was a major drop in labor force participation amongst teenagers
> >> > over the past few years. That is a fact. Do you not see the
> >> > difference between a 40-year-old dropping out of the labor force and a
> >> > 16-year-old not entering the labor force?
> >>
> >> I see the difference between teenagers working at Mickey D.
> >> and old people working at Mickey D. The oldsters have to
> >> work if they want other than dog food for dinner.
> >
> > This is pretty much what I was getting at. If a 40-year-old drops out
> > of the labor force, that tends to be more indicative of labor market
> > problems than if a 16-year-old does. The kid doesn't need the job that
> > bad. Heck you might be able to prove that lower participation amongst
> > kids indicates that parents feel more secure in their own abilities to
> > fund their kid's activities so they don't force their kids to go get
> > jobs. Maybe, maybe not. But certainly if fewer kids are in the labor
> > force this year than last year, I am much less concerned than if they
> > were adults.
>
> All of that is fine and good, but what about education for
> those not born with the silver foot in their mouth?

Well this is a whole new discussion. I seriously doubt that fewer kids
are going to college these days, though I have not looked up any
studies on the matter. Perhaps they are more willing to borrow.

> > Think of it the other way, Coburn. What if the labor force
> > participation rate for kids had risen substantially? With your
> > ever-cynical view of the labor market under Republican leadership,
> > wouldn't you think it was significant that labor force participation
> > for people aged 20+ was even lower than the one being promoted?
> > Wouldn't you want to point that out in your effort to prove that even
> > more bread-winners than we realize are dropping out of the labor pool?
>
> I would be raising hell about kids in the work force and
> the parents using them as income generators. But I would
> like to see the labor force participation numbers go WAY
> down across the board while the wages/income of the
> lower and middle class INCREASES. The unemployment
> numbers (being a reflection of those who _*WANT*_ a
> job and cannot find one) should also fall as the economy
> IMPROVES.

They have improved, by several different measures.

> A really good economy is one in which
> very few family members (maybe even just ONE family
> member) need to be employed outside the home in order
> to see to the needs of the family (includes education) and
> to the needs of retirement. The numbers we are seeing
> seem to be misinterpreted and/or misrepresented. The
> neoconomist WANTS more labor participation and lower
> wages. The neoconomist WANTS everyone working their
> butts off just to get along because the unemployment numbers
> would look better

Now hold on a second. Women and children entering the work force does
not necessarily make the unemployment rate go down. It may help
economic growth or certain measures of productivity but I fail to see
how having more potential workers translates in to a greater percentage
of those potential workers having a job.

> and the serfs have no time to think about
> how they are getting the wrench. The problem with the current
> numbers is at least two fold: The data are controlled to some
> degree (spin) so as to put a better light on things

Perhaps, (I would argue that many of the problems you might cite are
unavoidable,) but the important thing to remember is that we still have
a time series. We can compare today's flawed data to yesterday's
flawed data and still get a pretty good idea of what is going on in
America.

> but even
> more significantly, the numbers are then presented in a manner
> that does not really reflect desired reality. The labor participation
> numbers are the prime and shining example. I see liberal
> Democrats ranting about a fall in this number as an indication
> that there are insufficient jobs, and Pugs, instead of being
> informative and straight forward about it are cringing over it.
> Ridiculous. If productive effort were rewarded MORE and there
> was less flow to the rentier then the labor participation numbers
> would fall. If rent redistribution allowed every family to spend
> more time on home and family in a decent place to live, then the
> number of people looking for jobs would fall very quickly and
> so too the unemployment rate when properly assessed.
> People left the farm and moved to the city so as to
> reduce their drudgery per mouth full of food. The next
> move is not so easy. It will require a loosening of the bonds
> of pure "capitalism".
>
> >> There are
> >> also those that were in technology that now work at Mickey
> >> D.
> >
> > ...as well as those who were in technology that are now staying in
> > school until they graduate.
>
> That may be true and that's a good thing. But coots like
> me won't be going back to school. When you are 60 it don't
> make a lot of sense. Unfortunately, I see far too many young
> people out here driving trucks (and far to many coots for that
> matter). Trucks are a pretty inefficient way to deliver stuff over
> long distances.

Probably the greatest advantage of trucks is being able to choose exact
delivery dates and locations. Blame the American consumer. They would
rather pay more for the item to always be in stock at a store down the
street. Trucking is actually a compromise for most shippers. It is a
relatively quick way to transfer stuff without being nearly as
expensive as air freight. Shipping via boats or trains is just not
acceptable for quite a lot of freight.

What do you propose as an alternative?

.

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