Re: For Trucker

"Negloid" <negloid@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1123887280.210063.111700@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> The Trucker wrote:
>> "Negloid" <negloid@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>> news:1123614724.541832.114960@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> >
>> > 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.
>>
>> I suppose one of my big questions/reservations about
>> what happened is the why of it. I could see many more
>> office workers telecommuting instead of burning up all
>> that gasoline. I could see FedEx like delivery vans
>> bringing groceries and shirts made to exact specifications.
>> I could see far fewer shopping malls and a lot more
>> quality time at home or at the soccer field. But that
>> didn't happen.
>>
>> I have my own assessment of why:
>> Conservatives HATE progress. All that downtown real
>> estate would have taken a horrendous hit, and the boys
>> on the top floor would not have the minions to look
>> down upon and the oil people would have been taken
>> down a notch. We gotta stop this technology stuff quick
>> or the people will get out from under the thumb.
>
> Office workers do telecommute much more than they used to. I haven't
> run any polls, but just from observation I would guess that people at
> my company (at least in this building) are only here an average of 3-4
> days a week and many of them only put in part of a day before going
> home and working there. Typically people use laptops and VPN
> connections to the company's intranets to do most of what they need to
> do during the day. However in many cases there is just no substitute
> for face-to-face meetings. There are still a lot of resources that can
> only be found at the company. There is a lot of work that can only be
> done inside the brick and mortar building. I think maybe you were a
> bit rosey-eyed about telecommuting but I also think that it may have
> made greater strides than you realize.

We seem to have two different conceptions of what
telecommuting might be. You are talking about e-mail
and browsers and I am talking about closed circuit
(security wise) television communication. In my view
of telecommunication I have an "office" in one room
with whatever it might take for a face to face meeting.
The individual with whom I will meet may need to
actually travel a short distance to get to his temporary
"office" location where I can "view" him just as he
will "view" me. (like microwave ovens not everyone
has a "view" room in his home, but after a while
most would). There is simply no reason to go all
the way downtown and climb up in one of the rich
boy pyramids so as to have a "meeting". And
you might also take a tip from C-span on how to
have a really big meeting. The podium is constructed
in each home-office and whoever might "have the
floor" will be seen in all the other home offices.

> Two different grocery stores in my town will delivery groceries to your
> door step, picked online from a web-based store. I'm sure they
> probably do in your town as well, unless you live in a fairly rural
> area. Just because one or two businesses modeled around this service
> didn't make it back in 2001 doesn't mean that no one is providing the
> service. But most consumers just aren't interested in it. For any
> number of reasons, people prefer to buy at the grocery story. They can
> see whether the fruit they are buying is fresh. They can drop off and
> pick up their film (or memory stick) for photo processing. They can
> browse. They get better prices. They have a better selection.
> (Creating a web-store grocery can be quite onerous to suppliers)

Perhaps when regular gasoline is $10 per gallon they will
change their tune? But that should not be the issue. There
are surely much more entertaining and/or productive
was to spend ones time. And here again, you are using old
methods to do what needs doing because the Repugnicans
have less imagination than a lizard and they lust for stability
and maximizing rents. I can see a consolidation of the
delivery service with a straight truck delivering all sorts of
stuff including groceries and home improvement stuff all
in the same truck. Maybe the ice cream man will be on
the same truck. Maybe teens on bicycles delivering point
to point (a return to an older method). But this kind of thing
(any change at all) scares the hell out of a conservative. Then,
of course, there is the Georgist solution which encourages
closer proximities. The distance to the shopping place is so
close that you just walk. The speed with which bullet trains
and area trucks can deliver make local inventory problems
much less daunting. You touch and feel on Tuesday and the
"stuff" arrives on Thursday.

But the Pugs must have the sprawl that increases land
prices and oil consumption. Rent, rent rent.

> As far as delivering shirts or any number of other items? Coburn, you
> can buy custom-ordered widgets in just about any category imaginable.
> In fact shirts in particular...I'd have a hard time guessing how many
> companies out there sell fully customizable shirts to serve any number
> of markets, all completely over the 'net. However no one is going to
> shop for their entire waredrobe online.

Well that no one would include me. If I lived in a house as
opposed to living in a highly mobile truck I would most
certainly order my Levis and gummy soles and shirts and
socks and underwear over the net and have em all delivered
to the front door. I do not like shopping in the least.
Now that I think about it, I did oeder my last batch
of Levis on line and I got em when I went home.

> They want to try things on,
> see the newest styles in the windows, browse,

If you measure yourself you need not "try it on".
and the other stuff can be done on line.

> feel and touch...

But I admit that I can't feel and touch the stuff. One
pair of Levis is supposed to be the same as the next.

> What
> did you expect would happen? We would all just stay home all day
> because there would be no need to ever go to a store?

NO! I thought we would all go hiking or bowling
or on a picnic or maybe even spend some time extending
our knowledge of our world, or improving the appearance
and functionality of our home or, or, or lots of other
things more rewarding than shopping.

> It's not a conspiracy keeping web-based consumer sales from replacing
> BAM. Many of the problem you are finding is that consumers demand
> certain value that cannot be provided entirely over the web. It's what
> people demand, not what "the man" is preventing from happening.

Nope. There is no public discourse or planning with
regard to improved/innovative infrastructure. All we
get is another giant highway bill.

>> > 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 might even agree with your point but for the knowledge
>> that the Bushies have tried to claim that making hamburgers
>> is a "manufacturing" job, and to claim that someone
>> who works 2 days a week is "self employed" though that
>> individual WANTS/NEEDS more income than he can currently
>> earn in his self employed role.
>
> Just remember, these people *are* counted, just not in U-3.
>
>> These things are changes
>> in the qualification of "data" and they distort the time series
>> correlation to the past. The Pinocchio regime is not the first
>> to do this. Reagan did it even more, and Clinton somewhat
>> less.
>>
>> There is also the sharp increase in illegals that are not
>> accounted in the current statistics. Those that get jobs
>> displace others who may be counted, but there are
>> a great number of illegals that WANT work and can't
>> find it and thus should be counted according to the
>> definition of "unemployment". And _ALL_ of this
>> depresses wages and creates more "I give up"
>> unemployment that is also not accounted. To use
>> your terminology, the marginal workers have been
>> exorcised and a new set of workers have been
>> marginalized. There are just one hellova
>> lot of people that need an income and who do not
>> have an income and a hellova lot of people who did
>> have a good income that now have a lower income.
>>
>> >> 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.
>>
>> And all of that is well and good. But if less labor is now
>> required to produce the "goods" then why are we all
>> working even more hours
>
> Well in manufacturing, we are working fewer hours, not more.

(snicker) And manufacturing accounts for almost none of the
economy any more.

> This
> number has been dropping pretty regularly since at least 1962, and I
> would just guess longer than that.
> http://www.bls.gov/ces/home.htm
>
>> with our new "skills" than
>> we were before the great leap in technology replaced
>> us? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?
>
> Do you know the history if iron and steel? For iron to be useful we
> first need to get it really hot to turn the oxidized iron ore back in
> to iron. But the process was extremely slow. First you had to get a
> furnace up to a thousand degrees or so. After using up huge amounts of
> fuel, you could pull out a mass of apparently useless material that you
> had to beat on, and beat on, and reheat, and beat on again, and reheat
> some more, and beat on it some more until you got all of the slag out.
> Now you had wrought iron. Now if you really wanted to put some more
> time in to it, you could put it back in the fire and keep beating on it
> in order to pound some carbon in to it. Now you had an early form of
> steel. This is pretty much how we made iron for centuries. The
> furnaces grew larger and hotter and the process more stream-lined but
> throughout the history of iron and steel, it took extraordinary
> man-hours and resources to produce tiny little chunks of steel until
> one day a guy named Bessemer found a solution to mass-produce the
> stuff.
>
> Suddenly the world could produce iron in massive quantities. All of
> those blacksmiths were out of business. But the improvement in
> steel-making didn't represent an automation of the process. It didn't
> mean that suddenly a bunch fewer people needed to work now. Instead
> what it meant was that there were hundreds of new things to produce
> with steel. You cannot expect that just because we revolutionize the
> world by making processes more efficient that mankind will slow down
> and rest on its laurels. We are driven by what can be achieved.
> Speeding up one process means it takes fewer hours to produce the same
> thing. Your argument, if I understand it, is that if it takes fewer
> hours to produce the same thing then we should be working fewer hours.
> But streamlining the steel-making process didn't mean that people were
> satisfied being able to make their garden tools and swords in less
> time. People wanted the new stuff that massive quantities of steel
> could produce. If mankind acted as you seem to think it should have,
> there would be no such things as a high-rise buildings, modern ships,
> automobiles, or trains.

Good grief...

> Why are we working more hours? Because now we have microwaves,
> computers, cell phones, online web shopping, heart transplants, and
> flat screen TVs. People want that ***. That is why we don't go home
> at noon. It's not as if we are more product with nothing to show for
> it. All of that extra productivity is producing new goods and services
> that did not exist before.

But instead of using technology to provide more freedom for
everyone, the conservatives use it to maximize rent. It is
somewhat like Bessemer forming a guild and keeping all
the interest for himself and those that believe in HIS god.
Instead of changing the tax system to a more progressive
form that recovers and redistributes the rent created by
technological advance, the Repugnicans give the rentiers
a tax break and use any additional rent to fund a crusade
to extend their rent collection system to the entire world.

>> > Do you think that there
>> > are an unusually large number of such people today?
>>
>> Absolutely. There a great number of technologically
>> competent people out of work. They are being told
>> by "the market" to go back to school and get a degree
>> in business admin or law (actually a degree in how
>> to milk the government for privileges).
>>
>> > If there is going
>> > to be technological progress, we have to expect that certain jobs will
>> > become obsolete.
>>
>> the objective is for _ALL_ jobs to become obsolete:)
>
> This will never happen. This is Utopian dreaming. Every time we make
> one process more efficient, we make a new process possible. We don't
> just keep making the same goods and services using less time to do it.
> We use the extra time it freed up to produce brand new stuff. And then
> later on we make that process faster and some new opportunity presents
> itself. Blame it on consumerism if you want but I call it human
> nature. If you ask someone if they would be willing to work less for
> the same money, they would usually say "sure". Now throw in the caveat
> that they can only use their money to buy something that was available
> to the average consumer in 1904. Most of the people are going to
> retract their answer. They like their turbochargers, DVD players,
> microwaves, playstations, computers, web stores, air travel, pace
> makers, and calculators and they do not want to live like people did a
> hundred years ago, even if it does cut back on their work hours.

There is, of course, much validity to your point. But it is not
the ALL of our shared existence nor is it even the most. We
want for knowledge and we want for the exchange of ideas
and ideals. I should have used the word goal as:

The goal is for _ALL_ jobs to be obsolete.
And, unlike objectives, goals may never be reached
and it is known that they cannot be reached.

>> This is one of the big problems in latter day capitalistic
>> economics. It assumes that human wants are insatiable
>> (that may not be far off the mark), but it also assumes
>> that everyone "wants" more _stuff_. The fact is that many
>> people "want" more freedom from drudgery and from
>> prancing aristocratic "leaders".
>
> You can have it. Hell Mike, you can live off 5-10k a year if you want.
> All you need to buy is some food and some plywood to build yourself a
> nice, retro living in the mountains.

You would freeze to death in the winter.

> You won't have any "stuff" but
> you can probably milk enough from the government to never work a single
> day of your life.

It should be possible to
live significantly closer to the "stuff" with much less
expended labor. It is a question of degree, and many
people do want stuff and they must work more so as
to have the stuff. Nothing wrong with that. But in the
current scheme of things there is no middle ground.
There is simply not enough choice.

> You just can't have any "stuff". That's the real
> problem. Everyone wants stuff. They see my stuff and they want some
> of it too. Most of them will work 8 hours a day so that they can have
> some of that stuff for themselves. Now you might argue that fancy
> packaging or advertising is all that really drives that demand but I
> think you would have a tough time selling that line to the guy who just
> bought his first microwave.

This guy would have to be a recent immigrant.

> He thinks there is value in owning the
> item that you cannot argue was invented by a TV commercial. Im sure
> where we will differ on this is in what drives "consumerism" but the
> fact is that it is the driving force in our economy.

Yes. It is the driving force of OUR economy. I do not
think that the current borrow and spend economy can
go much longer. Of course I didn't think it could go
much past 1989 and it didn't until Pinocchio replaced
Clinton.

>> Many people "want"
>> to stay home and tend the yard, the garden, the structure
>> itself, and to be creative and thoughtful. Many want to
>> LEARN, to study history and literature, and to be more
>> involved in the political system. Many want to learn a
>> new language instead of seeing how much lip gloss and
>> fancy cars they can manage to accumulate by organizing
>> and directing the labors of everyone else. The true
>> measure of economic performance is the amount of
>> _leisure_ the average man has at his disposal.
>
> I think that human history proves you wrong. You are entitled to your
> opinion of what qualifies as economic performance but humans have
> always desired "stuff" and they have always proven willing to work to
> obtain it.

I can see my next door neighbor kissing Pinocchio's ass for a
microwave. That is very sad. But I do not like him being
duped into making it necessary for me to do likewise.

>> >> 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.
>>
>> The jobs situation and the workforce situation do not
>> need to be "historically bad" in order to prove that
>> neoconomics is a failure. When we consider the
>> technological innovation and capital development
>> that has taken place over the last 50 years it is
>> difficult to find any good reason for a work week
>> that is not significantly shorter than what was the
>> norm in 1955.
>
> The manufacturing workweek aside, what this comes down to is a
> difference in opinion between what you and I think drives human nature
> and how that affects economic progress. I think people desire more
> wealth and they are willing to work for it. You think people desire
> more leisure and will sacrifice wealth for it. I don't know how we
> could reconcile that since we are now talking about Sociology. But we
> *can* look at how humans have acted in the past for a clue about what
> drives us. I see a history of humans preferring more wealth over more
> leisure.

Why not allow them to chose. Single Payer National Catastrophic
Health Insurance funded by rent redistribution does that.

>> Capital creation is suppose to dramatically reduce
>> the labor necessary to the provisioning of goods
>> and services, yet we see the opposite situation.
>> The only explanation for this seems to be that
>> we are all working our butts off so that Pinocchio
>> can prance around the world on a big white horse
>> and so that Bill Gates and Warren Buffet can each
>> have more personal jets.
>>
>> But even the drab (it ain't so bad) economic numbers
>> are based on borrowing and it is beginning to look
>> as though the Gates era is ending and we will, instead,
>> all be tending rice paddies for chaiman Mao's
>> grandkids.
>>
>> >> 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.
>>
>> But why has it taken 5 years of Republican "leadership" to _start_.
>> perhaps, getting back to even?
>
> The point is that we will never, or rarely ever see the kind of numbers
> we saw in 2000. It was a unique situation and obviously it was
> unsustainable.

I will never accept that. There is no good reason why those
who want to earn more stuff should not be able to find a
way to do it (unemployment), and no good reason why those
who want to work part time and accept less stuff should
not be able to do that also (labor participation). The primary
thing that gives us unemployment is wage taxes and fear of
wage demands. The primary thing that prevents part time work
is the lack of universal catastrophic health insurance. Neither
of these obstacles is necessary.

>> And why have we had to borrow
>> tremendous amounts of money to prop up the economy? The
>> statistics we are seeing are WORSE than the stats we had when
>> the Republicans were not in control, and these stats are being
>> produced on borrowed funds. While we give one another hair
>> cuts in the "services" economy and import all the real "goods",
>> the Chinese are buying our country out from under us.
>
> Well we can start comparing numbers and policies of Bush and Clinton if
> you like, but I prefer to take the intellectual high road and just
> conclude that who happens to be President doesn't effect the economy
> that much.

That is obviously wrong. It should be correct and it isn't. For
when a single party controls all the branches of government then
there are no checks and balances and there will be hell to pay.
And Republicans have abused their station to consolidate power in
a way that Democrats have never done. A true democrat could
never do what the Republican party has done. Any person or
group that believes in freedom and choice could never do what
they have done. It amazes me that these lying filth can prance
around talking about democracy in the middle east and elsewhere
while they stomp all over democracy here at home. The right
HATES democracy and freedom.

>> >> 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.
>>
>> When you bring up the loss of teen jobs it is not a "new
>> discussion".
>
> The new discussion would be one of college attendance by American
> youth, which is indeed a completely different. I do have a hard time
> that attendance rates are dropping, at least for any meaningful amount
> or period of time.

When you curtail the loans and the jobs then there is no
way to go to school.

>> >> > 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.
>>
>> They have only "improved" when compared to how
>> bad they were as Pinocchio restarted the "supply side"
>> horse*** again. What happens across the board is
>> that people settle for less and go back to work for
>> whatever wages they can get in whatever job they can
>> get. The S&P 500 looks really good and the unemployment
>> stuff looks better than it did, but the middle class just
>> got kicked in the teeth.
>
> Well you seem to want to compare presidents' records and try to blame
> the recession on Bush. If you really want we can dig in to those
> figures. We have done it many times before. But I think that deep
> down somewhere you know that Clinton didn't "make" the '90s economy any
> more than Bush "made" the recession.

I have even stated that fact in regard to Clinton The 90's
economy was created by a tax hike on higher incomes put in
place by the Democratic Congress and signed into law by
Clinton. There was also increased minimum wage in exchange
for more stringent controls on welfare and that was somewhat
bipartisan. But then came business deregulation and increased
H1B visas by the Gingrich Republican Congress that started
the bubble and then came Greenspan to pop it. Clinton
rode the bubble, but he didn't make it. That honor is
bestowed on Gingrich and the Republican congress that
deregulated and allowed the lying filth white collar Republicans
to overstate earnings and project enormous profits from
using H1B computer scientists as opposed to Americans.

>> >> 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.
>>
>> Ok. You win on the "unemployment" thang, but you
>> don't win the labor participation point, the GDP point,
>> or the "inflation is under control" point, or the "wages
>> are not sagging point". Oh but that S&P 500
>> profit sure does look good.
>>
>> >> 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.
>>
>> No. The data are more flawed under Republican control
>> than they are under Democratic control.
>
> You're just being partisan.

I'm just being honest. It only looks partisan because
the rest of you people are all smoking each other's
dope.

>> Reagan was the
>> first to include military people as "employed"
>
> The military is not considered employed. It is completely excluded
> from the unemployment rate.

That is as it should be, but I think you must be wrong.
Or maybe that was readjusted after Reagan rigged it.
And of course it can't be excluded from the UNemployment
rate. All those people would be unemployed if they were
not in Iraq. If you look at the unemployment statistics
over time you will see a huge swell in the unemnployment
at the end of the Vietnam war. That LOOKS like cause
and effect to me. All those people came home from the
war and needed jobs while the bomb manufacturing
business was in a downturn.

http://greatervoice.org/econ/data/unemployment.jpg

>> so as to
>> improve the unemployment numbers. And, of course, we
>> have Pinocchio's Iraq war sucking a lot of otherwise
>> unemployed people into the military.
>>
>> >> 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?
>>
>> I propose some _real_ capital development like a
>> very high speed multihubbed rail system.
>
> I think that there are probably obstructions to such a plan that you
> haven't considered. There are limitations on rail freight that are
> just plain insurmountable. The kind of capital you would have to
> invest to create such a system would far outweigh the time and
> resources you would save on trucking.

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZTTT.

> And if you wish to break it all
> out in to man-hours, while your plan might reduce the work load of the
> trucking industry, it is going to increase the workload of workers in
> rail-building, bridge building, tunnel building, train building, and
> maintenance of everything involved. You aren't going to save any
> man-hours, you are going to use a helluva lot more of them.

It is called capital development. It will employ many people
and then they can all take a part time job and we are
all better off. Or some of them will enter the wirlygig
industry. Conservatives and aristocrats HATE _real_
capital development.

> We transport with trucking because it is the most efficient way to get
> stuff from 2347 180th street, NY to 14745 W. Maple Ave, Miami. There
> is no rail that goes between those points. That point I see that we
> both agree on. What I think you fail to see is that trying to build
> enough rails to substitute for the limitations inherent in rail
> transport would be incredibly *less* efficient.

I never proposed a point to point system.

>> Local
>> trucks (no sleeper), bring loaded trailers from
>> points less than 300 miles to a hub where the
>> trailers are placed in the high speed system and
>> delivered 600 to 3000 miles away. The trailer
>> is then removed from the high speed system and
>> delivered by local drivers within a radius of
>> 300 miles. With a high speed rail system you
>> are looking at two day transit times in most cases.
>> But we have a problem here: Such a system is
>> too large for corporate America or Global
>> corpotopia. Creation of the system would require
>> eminent domain and real government power.
>> And such a thing will not happen in Republican
>> America unless we can find a way to give
>> Bill Gates, Tom Delay, Kenny Lay, and
>> Halliburton a large piece of the budgeted
>> funds.
>>

Conservatives and neoconomists HATE progress.

The reality is that

So long as there is even one unemployed person
there is sufficient capacity for increased
capital development. The highly touted "savings"
already exists in the earth. We merely need to
employ currently unused labor to set this free
and create more _real_ capital.

--
"I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers
of society but the people themselves; and
if we think them not enlightened enough to
exercise their control with a wholesome
discretion, the remedy is not to take it from
them, but to inform their discretion by
education." - Thomas Jefferson
http://GreaterVoice.org



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