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None of this is surprising if three elements are considered: 1. Productivity has soared 2. Wages have stagnated / wealth gap has widened significantly 3. US
by 6stringmerc 10y ago
None of this is surprising if three elements are considered:
1. Productivity has soared
2. Wages have stagnated / wealth gap has widened significantly
3. US Corporate Culture is currently rife with an attitude "Let the Boomers Retire, we have a Hiring Freeze"
There are too few people doing the work of too many, which chokes the upward mobility of the youth, increases the wealth gap between Working and Investing class citizens, and essentially is masochism in the "modern era" of US Consumerism as an economic engine.
Don't believe me? Do some math on stock buybacks 2015-2016 versus publicly announced hirings and layoffs. You'd be surprised how easily this amounts to justification for putting Greenspan and Bernanke in jail. Those guys stole from tens of millions of Americans to benefit a few hundred.
- surfmike 10y agoOnly #2 is affected by the Fed/QE, points 1 and 3 would still be true. And look at Europe for an example for what would have happened without our Fed's intervention. The ECB did too little too late and this led to massive youth unemployment; on the other hand our unemployment rate is nearing historical lows. Not being able to get a job (which happened to a lot of grads in 2008) is devastating to people's careers. The employment rate matters!
- pmichaud 10y agoI think it's fair to say that regardless of the historical precedent, the way we measure unemployment now is not representative of the situation out there. Huge numbers of people are chronically underemployed, and an unprecedented number of people have simply given up finding work, neither of which is reflected in the top line "historically low unemployment."
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- npongratz 10y agoIndeed, the official participation rate may perhaps offer a better indicator of overall employment in the US [edit: than employment rate alone]: https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000 https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000 Zooming out and eyeballing it, it appears the last time such a small proportion of people were working was circa 1978.
- 6stringmerc 10y agoThat is correct, the 'counted' workforce is at 1978 levels. It's systemically dangerous to have a large disenfranchised population for too long. Eventually they get to the point where they're so beaten down they'll be okay with beheading a King. I mean, it sounds extreme but just look at the last electoral process - a resounding message of sending a demented Chimpanzee with a razor blade to destroy the Federal Government under the guise of helping. Heh.
- sgt101 10y agoThis! "Economic inactivity" is UNEMPLOYMENT! LOOK https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LRIN25MAUSM156S https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LRIN25MAUSM156S v.interesting that the UK's looks completely different and UK productivity has been in a tailspin vs US!
- surfmike 10y agoThat is especially interesting since they also did massive QE like the US. So it seems other factors are at play.
- gthtjtkt 10y ago> 3. US Corporate Culture is currently rife with an attitude "Let the Boomers Retire, we have a Hiring Freeze" I would add: 4. US Corporate Culture is currently rife with an attitude "If you're not sacrificing your life for the company, you don't deserve your job."
- draw_down 10y agoYeah, I feel like I see the sentiment "you should feel lucky you even have a job" often.
- 6stringmerc 10y agoSometimes I get chastised for taking too rough of a tone, too cynical, but I was extremely tempted to include that perspective as a variant of #3, which is a difficult one to pin down. In short, I am in complete agreement with you and the above #4 concept.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]