CPCFTW

Your link says around 11mil with 8mil in the labour force, so let's stop exagerating. And like I said, illegals almost certainly have higher unemployment than 7.9%. That means counting illegals in the US would actually raise unemployment numbers. I guess your point is that illegals are not actually people and if the US euthanized them all then their jobs could be taken by Americans for a better wage (probably unionized too). Sorry but I don't agree with euthanizing illegal immigrants. How is comparing unemployment numbers of those seeking work a better measure? Do you really think that people leaving the labour force is a good thing for the economy? Do you think that if the US had 20% of the labour force working, and 80% not actively seeking work and collecting big unemployment cheques that they'd be better off because of 0% unemployment among those seeking work? You're more lost on this issue than I thought.

What's your point? Do you believe all those illegal immigrants are working? If so, how much taxes are they paying on their sub-minimum wage? Jobs are meaningless if they do nothing for the economy. The only thing illegal immigrant employees do for the economy are to lower fast food and landscaping prices (oh and cause a massive increase in crime). We're talking about real employment here punked. The kind that you build an economy on. Facts are facts. Let me remind you: By the way, I would suggest the illegal immigrants have a much higher unemployment rate than American citizens... so I'm really not sure where you're going with this. Counting illegal immigrants would likely make the job situation look even worse. As usual, you're not making any sense.

I'll wait for your citation on the US numbers. FYI you said "estimates are 10-15mil".. which is about 3-4% of the US population. Why should I find 5% for Canada?

Yes only the US has undocumented workers... "Apples to apples"... You always give me a good laugh.

Yes it's a sad state of affairs. People in this world think democracy is about voting for a government to be robin hood for them.

Wait wait wait Canada has a 66.8% labour force participation rate vs Obama's 63.7%. Sorry you can't use you're lefty statistics with me around. Real employment numbers: 61.8% employed in Canada (17.56M employed out of 28.41M working age population) 58.7% employed in US (143.384M employed out of 243.983M working age population) 3% more people employed in Canada. And on top of that, 15 year olds are part of the working age population in Canada, whereas the US only counts those 16 and over. Why don't you take a guess what the 15 year old unemployment rate is like? There's no question: Canada's current employment situation is far healthier than what Obama has created in the US. But I'm not surprised you tried to mislead people otherwise. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/121102/t121102a001-eng.htm http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

Maybe the problem is government making a class of people feel like victims?

Yes he can't. That's why the markets are selling off. Millions of investors know that Obama, as the leader of the free world, is not capable of righting the boat. Unfortunately it's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy (markets sell off because they have no faith in Obama fixing the economy, investors selling and companies laying off makes it harder to repair the economy).

Yes we "knew" when Obama won. Millions of investors who don't think Obama is good for the economy, and who did not have your crystal ball prior to the election, are now selling or shorting the market. That's how the stock markets work Smallc. It's not that complicated.

All the "reports" you saw from reporters who voted for Obama? Yes I watch the news too... but I also work in the industry and am capable of critical thinking. Can you put away your Obama pom poms and do some critical thinking for once? Look at the friggin chart I just posted. The Dow drop was led (significantly) by financials and coal companies... Obama's scapegoat industries who he intends to choke with regulations. The rest of the pullback in other sectors was because of higher taxes on investment proposed by Obama, and people who just wanted to get out of the market when things started to sell off. It's funny to see you twist and turn trying to say the market priced in a 100% probability of an Obama victory, then try to blame it on the fiscal cliff which has a 100% probability of occurring. I know that's what someone with a journalism degree on CNN tells you, but try to use your brain and think about that for a second. "Almost a sure winner". Give me a break. Enough with the Obama cheerleading smallC. The election was always about either making a bigger pie, or dividing a smaller pie up more equally. Now you're trying to say the smaller pie isn't a result of the election? You're quite the contortionist. And, as you should know, the market is an aggregation of the beliefs of millions of investors. Was intrade, another aggregation of the beliefs of investors, pricing a 0% chance of a Romney win? Hell no. You see, if equities were at the current prices prior to the election, investors would be buying them up believing them to be undervaluing the possibility of a Romney win. It's supply and demand. It's really not even arguable. Your argument is essentially that every investor was betting on an Obama win... or you just don't understand markets that well. The American people chose this. You're supposed to be happy because now the rich will "pay their fair share". The problem is they'll be paying out of a smaller pie.

You're contradicting yourself. The movement in the market is a result of the market adjusting from a 30-40% chance of a Romney win to a 0% chance. It is entirely on the re-election of Obama. Anyone who works in the financial services industry could tell you that. Clients/coworkers don't keep it a secret why they are selling (or buying puts).

Yes that`s why coal companies and banks led the dow losers... because of the fiscal cliff of course! Of course he does because he actually follows the market. You see there's thing thing called probability. The 30-40% probability of a Romney win was priced into the market. Now you are seeing the market pricing a 0% probability of Romney winning. The S&P 500 would be over 1500 if Romney had won, since the market would be pricing a 100% probability of a Romney win into stock prices. But by all means, continue to stick your head in the sand and blame the (widely expected) fiscal cliff. "It's the fiscal cliff stupid!"

Neat image. Where on reddit did you find it? Now plot average disposable income (PPP) on it.

The US should raise consumption taxes IMO. They should also remove tax deductions for home ownership (ie. property taxes and mortgage interest). They also need to stop allowing people to deduct state income taxes from their federal taxes. This has a similar effect as Canada's transfer payments to Quebec. The funny thing is that the states with the highest state tax rates are the "blue" states. So the "blue" states are able to pay less to federal coffers, and redirect that revenue to the state level, then they complain that there isn't enough federal revenue and that "we all need to pay our fair share". Maybe when that kind of stuff is fixed, we can start talking about raising federal income tax rates slightly in conjunction with heavy cuts to entitlements.

Aggregate demand would decrease. Corporate revenues would decrease. Companies would need to cut costs. Jobs would be lost. Expenditures to support the unemployed would rise. Hello recession. The fact that you think raising taxes to cover a deficit would not take money out of circulation (vs the alternative of borrowing money), shows that you really don't understand the economy. The thing about the hoards of cash that corporations hold is that the banks lend out 5 times that money to consumers. So yes, taking cash from corporations to reduce the deficit will indeed reduce money in circulation.

No it wouldn't. It would crash the economy... Just sayin'

That's called usury and it's illegal. I think you're imagining things. If you mean the pawn shop owner charged him one day interest then so what?

That's backwards thinking. The problems in other places only arose because the US economy (ie. the global economy's engine) did not recover. Greece would not have a sovereign debt crisis if they weren't mired in negative growth for years. Greece`s growth is dependent on Eurozone and US growth. Realistically, they are interdependent. But you`re kidding yourself if you think the economy can`t correct itself without Greece solving its issues. Point is that the world economy could recover with or without Greece, but not without the US.

This appears to be where you guys got lost. Now here's a question for you: if the US economy had rebounded to full employment (5-6% unemployment), what effect do you think that would have on the EU economy and Greece's economy? Now what happens to government revenue and expenditures when the economy expands and the unemployment rate decreases? Now what happens to sovereign debt yields when a country's budget improves? Yes it all comes back to slow growth/recovery in the US.

So what's Greece's GDP? Greece (and the other sovereign debt crisis countries) would be able to service their debt if the US had fully recovered in the past 4 yrs. It's pretty simple guys.

Disagree. US is essentially the world economy's engine. Greece would be an afterthought if the US had its fiscal situation resolved and returned to full employment.

Disagree. US is essentially the world economy's engine. Greece would be an afterthought if the US had its fiscal situation resolved.

I disagree with the notion that the Republicans need to moderate to win. Reps made significant gains in the swing states even though Obama had the post-recession bounce in jobs/gdp/market. I think Obama's 2nd term will do to the Dems what Bush's 2nd term did to Republicans. It's gonna be a painful 4 years for the stock and jobs markets though.

Finally we can stop talking about polls and start talking about results.

You seem confused. He's just saying that the election will be too close to be won by a landslide. Reading comprehension is obviously not your strong suit.