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Shadowstats puts the current unemployment rate at over 20%: http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data. We don't yet kn

by sutro 17y ago

Shadowstats puts the current unemployment rate at over 20%: http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data. We don't yet know which is worse. The worst of the current downturn may be yet to come.

BrentRitterbeck 17y ago
Unemployment will likely go higher from here. I'll give you that as history has shown that it is likely for unemployment to rise even after the worst is over, but we're certainly on the upswing now. I wouldn't be surprised if the NBER comes out sometime later this year and says that the recession officially ended in the Q2.
- moe 17y ago
  I'll give you that as history has shown that it is likely for unemployment to rise even after the worst is over, but we're certainly on the upswing now. This constant focus on "jobs" worries me quite bit. It's not just you but politicians worldwide seem to operate that way. More jobs in the short term trump stability in the longterm. This results in painfully wrong tradeoffs being made left and right (billions pumped into dead auto-companies) which only drives up the bill that someone has to pay later. IMHO jobs are not the main metric we should be looking at anymore. At least not without differentiation. I'm not from the US but as I'm told many americans already need multiple jobs to stay afloat. Over here in germany we have millions of people in subsidized "jobs" that don't quite deserve to be called that (mostly to keep them out of the unemployment statistics, afaik). All of that is is probably looking even less rosy in other countries. I think much more interesting topics would be the overall concentration of wealth (e.g. along the lines of an improved gini coefficient) and the size of the "middle class" which seems to be shrinking everywhere. These are ofcourse just examples but I think this is the area where we should be looking for metrics, because the gap between "low-skilled" and "high-skilled" (or low/high income, low/high education) workers is widening so rapidly.
  - BrentRitterbeck 17y ago
    That was my point exactly. I was merely giving the previous post a concession. There are numerous other signs that the economy is now on the upswing. Not all lights are green right now, but we are certainly in a better position than we were at the turn of the year.
nostrademons 17y ago
One of my favorite blogs: http://newsfrom1930.blogspot.com http://newsfrom1930.blogspot.com It publishes excerpts from the Wall Street Journal on this day in 1930. The interesting thing is that the stock market was at nearly the same place relative to its peak at this time in 1930, the newspapers were all saying the same thing ("The worst is behind us", "Look for a slow recovery in the fall", "Businesses report anemic earnings but the pace of decline has slowed"), and it seems unemployment was fairly similar too. Make of that what you will.
- philwelch 17y ago
  In 1930 we had yet to see a lot of the government policies that turned that recession into The Depression, including the Hawley-Smoot Tariff. People always compare this to the Great Depression, but they never talk about the recessions and stock market crashes (e.g. in the 80's) that did not, in fact, lead to depressions.
  - nostrademons 17y ago
    It's debatable whether it was government policy that turned the 1930 recession into the Depression. Personally, I think it was because of the huge level of consumer debt racked up in the 20s. We have that feature in common with them. The big difference between this recession and the 1973 or 1980 recessions, IMHO, is that the perception back then seemed to be that we were doomed. According to my parents and the books/news accounts I've read from then, people thought that American supremacy was permanently on the wane, the Japanese would kick our asses, and we just had to get used to a new era of austerity and lack of opportunity. While now, the mainstream news media seem to think a recovery is just around the corner, the worst is behind us, etc. Much like the 1930s. In other words, we were not doomed then because we thought we were doomed and acted accordingly, and we are doomed now because we think we're not doomed. Which makes sense in a perverse way, if you think of a recession as an economic signal to stop doing what you were doing, and find something new to do. Like how many young people in the 70s eschewed the corporate paper-pushing jobs and started playing around with computers. Something similar could happen here, but it'll take more than social networking sites and fart-noise iPhone apps.

by sutro 17y ago

BrentRitterbeck 17y ago

Unemployment will likely go higher from here. I'll give you that as history has shown that it is likely for unemployment to rise even after the worst is over, but we're certainly on the upswing now. I wouldn't be surprised if the NBER comes out sometime later this year and says that the recession officially ended in the Q2.

moe 17y ago
I'll give you that as history has shown that it is likely for unemployment to rise even after the worst is over, but we're certainly on the upswing now. This constant focus on "jobs" worries me quite bit. It's not just you but politicians worldwide seem to operate that way. More jobs in the short term trump stability in the longterm. This results in painfully wrong tradeoffs being made left and right (billions pumped into dead auto-companies) which only drives up the bill that someone has to pay later. IMHO jobs are not the main metric we should be looking at anymore. At least not without differentiation. I'm not from the US but as I'm told many americans already need multiple jobs to stay afloat. Over here in germany we have millions of people in subsidized "jobs" that don't quite deserve to be called that (mostly to keep them out of the unemployment statistics, afaik). All of that is is probably looking even less rosy in other countries. I think much more interesting topics would be the overall concentration of wealth (e.g. along the lines of an improved gini coefficient) and the size of the "middle class" which seems to be shrinking everywhere. These are ofcourse just examples but I think this is the area where we should be looking for metrics, because the gap between "low-skilled" and "high-skilled" (or low/high income, low/high education) workers is widening so rapidly.
- BrentRitterbeck 17y ago
  That was my point exactly. I was merely giving the previous post a concession. There are numerous other signs that the economy is now on the upswing. Not all lights are green right now, but we are certainly in a better position than we were at the turn of the year.

nostrademons 17y ago

One of my favorite blogs: http://newsfrom1930.blogspot.com http://newsfrom1930.blogspot.com It publishes excerpts from the Wall Street Journal on this day in 1930. The interesting thing is that the stock market was at nearly the same place relative to its peak at this time in 1930, the newspapers were all saying the same thing ("The worst is behind us", "Look for a slow recovery in the fall", "Businesses report anemic earnings but the pace of decline has slowed"), and it seems unemployment was fairly similar too. Make of that what you will.

philwelch 17y ago
In 1930 we had yet to see a lot of the government policies that turned that recession into The Depression, including the Hawley-Smoot Tariff. People always compare this to the Great Depression, but they never talk about the recessions and stock market crashes (e.g. in the 80's) that did not, in fact, lead to depressions.
- nostrademons 17y ago
  It's debatable whether it was government policy that turned the 1930 recession into the Depression. Personally, I think it was because of the huge level of consumer debt racked up in the 20s. We have that feature in common with them. The big difference between this recession and the 1973 or 1980 recessions, IMHO, is that the perception back then seemed to be that we were doomed. According to my parents and the books/news accounts I've read from then, people thought that American supremacy was permanently on the wane, the Japanese would kick our asses, and we just had to get used to a new era of austerity and lack of opportunity. While now, the mainstream news media seem to think a recovery is just around the corner, the worst is behind us, etc. Much like the 1930s. In other words, we were not doomed then because we thought we were doomed and acted accordingly, and we are doomed now because we think we're not doomed. Which makes sense in a perverse way, if you think of a recession as an economic signal to stop doing what you were doing, and find something new to do. Like how many young people in the 70s eschewed the corporate paper-pushing jobs and started playing around with computers. Something similar could happen here, but it'll take more than social networking sites and fart-noise iPhone apps.