.

[eyeball]

19 minutes ago, cybercoma said:

 

 

It's about being proudly self-sufficient. They feel the government is lining up against them to undermine their self-sufficiency. They're wrong but it doesn't matter that they're wrong. It's what they believe and so they make electoral decisions based on that.

Except their self-sufficiency is threatened - as a result of so many politicians lining up with corporations.  They're right but that doesn't seem to matter either.

[cybercoma]

Impossible. Self-sufficiency can never be under attack. That's why it's self-sufficiency.

[Argus]

3 hours ago, GostHacked said:

With manufacturing the jobs went south to Mexico, and west to China ect. Cheaper labour, and the corps don't care at all, as long as their margin of profit increases all the time, and at the expense of practically everything else, and at the same time, government essentially facilitating that downward spiral with notions of 'free trade' agreements.

The biggest killer of manufacturing in the US and Canada has been technological advances. An auto plant which used to have a thousand workers only needs a few hundred now. The same goes for everything from sawmills to farming.

[Argus]

42 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

Then clearly you "support" Trump's rhetoric to abandon NAFTA and never ratify the TPP.    Let Canada and Mexico fight it out.

No, Trump says nothing about retraining workers. He seems to think that abandoning trade agreements will sudden bring jobs back. It won't. The US deliberately cultivated Mexico for cheap labour jobs which would otherwise have gone to China. You stop importing cheap trade goods and all those lower income Americans who now get lousy wages in the "right to work" states won't be able to buy anything they presently take for granted. So putting up huge tarrif walls will not only increase the price of local goods and cost the jobs of Americans who export it won't lead to any huge surge in jobs. US manufacturing, contrary to what Trump says, is at an all time high. It's just that it doesn't take nearly as many workers in a factory as it once did, so there are a lot fewer jobs involved with manufacturing.

[bush_cheney2004]

4 minutes ago, Argus said:

No, Trump says nothing about retraining workers.

 

Not the job of government to do this.   The U.S. does not want to become another Canada/Maritimes, low productivity, low automation.  We already have enough call centers.

[Argus]

3 hours ago, Hal 9000 said:

I think the seeds for the Trump revolution began with the Bill Clinton presidency.  I think "affirmative action" was a problem, political correctness, NAFTA eventually became a problem, the housing crisis and wall street was an issue that began in the Clinton years that eventually burst during Bush's tenure, and terrorism became front page news during the Clinton years.

This is an interesting historical rewrite, but it has little basis in reality. If you really want to peg where things started to go wrong for the American workers (and to a lesser extent Canadian worker, you have to go back to the the early nineteen seventies and the Powell Memorandum. The Powell Memorandum was a call to arms to corporate America, telling them free enterprise (and their profits) were under threat, and they had to mobilize to defeat the forces of liberalism.

The organizational counterattack of business in the 1970s was swift and sweeping — a domestic version of Shock and Awe. The number of corporations with public affairs offices in Washington grew from 100 in 1968 to over 500 in 1978. In 1971, only 175 firms had registered lobbyists in Washington, but by 1982, nearly 2,500 did. The number of corporate PACs increased from under 300 in 1976 to over 1,200 by the middle of 1980.[5] On every dimension of corporate political activity, the numbers reveal a dramatic, rapid mobilization of business resources in the mid-1970s.

The Powell Memorandum

Something is out of balance in Washington. Corporations now spend about $2.6 billion a year on reported lobbying expenditures—more than the $2 billion we spend to fund the House ($1.18 billion) and Senate ($860 million). It’s a gap that has been widening since corporate lobbying began to regularly exceed the combined House-Senate budget in the early 2000s.

Today, the biggest companies have upwards of 100 lobbyists representing them, allowing them to be everywhere, all the time. For every dollar spent on lobbying by labor unions and public-interest groups together, large corporations and their associations now spend $34. Of the 100 organizations that spend the most on lobbying, 95 consistently represent business.

How Corporate Lobbyists Conquered American Democracy

3 hours ago, Hal 9000 said:

Obama!  Obama was going to provide a change you can believe in.

I'm not a big fan of Obama, but never in history has a president faced a more irresponsible and intransigent congress, one which simply doesn't care what people think because most of their members are in gerrymandered districts it's almost impossible to lose - except to a primary challenge from the billionaire funded Tea Party. They have set it as their goal that there be absolutely no success or victories for Obama in anything, and that any Republican who dares to compromise will be challenged and unseated in their next primary. The result is a lot of nothing getting done.

[Argus]

8 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

Not the job of government to do this.   The U.S. does not want to become another Canada/Maritimes, low productivity, low automation.  We already have enough call centers.

Education isn't the government's job? So the choice is either spend some money to retrain workers so they can get employment and pay taxes, or do nothing and let them fester angrily on the sidelines, consuming taxes. I know which I'd choose.

[bush_cheney2004]

Just now, Argus said:

Education isn't the government's job? So the choice is either spend some money to retrain workers so they can get employment and pay taxes, or do nothing and let them fester angrily on the sidelines, consuming taxes. I know which I'd choose.

 

Education is not the same as Training.    Employment rates are at historical, non war time lows.   Taxes are being paid, but spending is out of control.

[cybercoma]

12 minutes ago, Argus said:

Corporations now spend about $2.6 billion a year on reported lobbying expenditures—more than the $2 billion we spend to fund the House ($1.18 billion) and Senate ($860 million). It’s a gap that has been widening since corporate lobbying began to regularly exceed the combined House-Senate budget in the early 2000s.

Jesus.

[Wilber]

money = free speech, remember.

[Argus]

50 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

Education is not the same as Training.    Employment rates are at historical, non war time lows.   Taxes are being paid, but spending is out of control.

US federal spending as a percentage of GDP is lower now than it was during the Reagan years.

 

And labour force participation has been trending downward since 2000. It's 5% lower than it was then. And if you think 5% isn't anything to bother about that's about 15 million adults who are not working, who used to be working.

Edited October 15, 2016 by Argus

[cybercoma]

1 minute ago, Argus said:

US federal spending as a percentage of GDP is lower now than it was during the Reagan years.

Yeah but Reagan was out of control! He was practically a socialist! /s

[bush_cheney2004]

19 minutes ago, Argus said:

US federal spending as a percentage of GDP is lower now than it was during the Reagan years.

 

Deficits will be going up, and the debt has nearly doubled under the present administration and Congress.  

This is the main reason why I will not vote for Trump, as his tax cuts would make things worse:

From a numerical standpoint, Trump is correct that the debt has almost doubled in dollar terms since Obama's first inauguration. Using the gross debt figure Trump cites, debt grew from $10.6 trillion on Inauguration Day 2009 to $19.4 trillion as of July 21. Using the more economically meaningful figure of debt held by the public, which excludes money that the government owes to itself, debt more than doubled from $6.3 trillion to $14 trillion.

http://crfb.org/blogs/has-president-obama-doubled-national-debt

Bring back Ross Perot !

Edited October 15, 2016 by bush_cheney2004

[msj]

16 minutes ago, Argus said:

And labour force participation has been trending downward since 2000. It's 5% lower than it was then. And if you think 5% isn't anything to bother about that's about 15 million adults who are not working, who used to be working.

 

oh, I wonder what all those people could be doing? 

Maybe retirement accounts for half of the change? 

Then there is just plain business cycle reasons. The GFC, after all, was a recession built upon by debt and bubble asset prices. Those types of recessions have a history of slow recovery. 

But yes, there is no doubt discouraged workers are still too high and employment among the 25-54 crowd still too low. Once again, see the history of recoveries from debt/asset bubble recessions.  It is not different every single f'ing time for those who know their history. 

As for the BLS participation? 

See this link: http://qz.com/286213/the-chart-obama-haters-love-most-and-the-truth-behind-it/  

 

 

 

 

[cybercoma]

10 minutes ago, msj said:

Maybe retirement accounts for half of the change? 

Retirement doesn't count towards labour force participation rates.  It's the ratio between people ages 16-64 who are employed against those who are unemployed and looking for work. Retirement does play a role but only for those who retire early and might be looking for other work. I suspect that's not a significant enough number of people to make that big of an effect.

[msj]

According to my link and the CBO it accounts for half so take it up with them.  

Edited October 16, 2016 by msj

[cybercoma]

8 minutes ago, msj said:

According to my link and the CBO it accounts for half so take it up with them.  

I'm still not following, since the research in the article you posted is saying that the number of people working past the age of 65 has declined. However, the BLS defines the LFPR as those aged 16-64 who are employed versus those who are unemployed and looking for work. Unless the BLS doesn't use upper age restrictions at all and LFPR is the total number of people employed over the age of 16, regardless of retirement age. I know it's a minor point but if we're going to say that it's people retiring out of the workforce then we need to be clear about what the numbers mean. As far as I've ever known, LFPR does not include retirees.

[msj]

No I don't think that is right. 

See glossary definitions of labour force participation rate, unemployed, employed, and civilian non institutional population where it talks about being 16 years and older (but no mention of a cap at 64). 

Also see this chart which clearly shows participation rates for those > 64:

http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_303.htm

 

[msj]

I note from the CBO link contained within the article that it is an aging workforce that is to blame for half the change: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/45011

That may not be so much retirees as it is just plain demographics: as people move from their high spending years (30-50) and into the empty nest and saving for retirement years (50-65) the economy is going to see a shift. 

Funny that with millenials growing up we will now see a reversal of this trend. 

Hillary is going to oversee an economy with better demographics than Obama had and, of course, unlike Obama, she is inheriting a better economy than he did.  

[cybercoma]

8 minutes ago, msj said:

No I don't think that is right. 

See glossary definitions of labour force participation rate, unemployed, employed, and civilian non institutional population where it talks about being 16 years and older (but no mention of a cap at 64). 

Also see this chart which clearly shows participation rates for those > 64:

http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_303.htm

Okay, that makes sense then. Sounds like they may include everyone over the age of 16 but I think if you retire, you're no longer part of the labour force because you're not "actively looking for work." I don't think retirees should count towards the LFPR though because if you're retired you're not part of the labour force anyway. It's not that you've chosen not to participate. It's that you're done participating. You've reached retirement. There must be some clearer metrics or maybe I'm not understanding how this stuff is calculated. The answers to these questions changes the meaning of the figures. I'm not trying to deny your overarching point. I just want to have a clear understanding of the figures being used here.

[cybercoma]

Here's the BLS definition of LFPR. People aren't participating in the labour force if they're over the age of 16 and are neither employed nor unemployed (actively looking for work). The problem is that retirees are not actively looking for work so they're not participating. I don't think it's informative to lump them in with the working-age population who has given up looking for work due to lack of opportunities or are being dependent on family for support. Retirees looking for work being included in the "labour force" for the LFPR conflates different issues. Anyway, it's clear now. Retirees are included as being absent from the labour force in the LFPR because there are some people of retirement age that are still working or looking for work and are unemployed, rather than being retired and withdrawn from the labour force.

[msj]

Agreed. Those working or seeking work are counted if they are over 16 years old. 

The CBO reference talks about an aging population as it effects the economy rather than retirees effecting the participation rate which is a different effect. 

But I think the point remains: demographic change is big and should be considered even though there may not be much we can do about it. 

I wish China had the same quality of stats as the US as I'm pretty sure they are going through a demographic nightmare which started last year (at least). 

Also too bad they don't have democratic elections which provide outlets for sociological gnashing of teeth.

But then, China may be ripe with revolutionary forces within the next 10 to 15 years because they don't have democracy. 

Now think about that as we ponder a future of Trump voters feeling rejected within a rigged system meme. 

 

[Hal 9000]

20 hours ago, Argus said:

This is an interesting historical rewrite, but it has little basis in reality. If you really want to peg where things started to go wrong for the American workers (and to a lesser extent Canadian worker, you have to go back to the the early nineteen seventies and the Powell Memorandum. The Powell Memorandum was a call to arms to corporate America, telling them free enterprise (and their profits) were under threat, and they had to mobilize to defeat the forces of liberalism.

The organizational counterattack of business in the 1970s was swift and sweeping — a domestic version of Shock and Awe. The number of corporations with public affairs offices in Washington grew from 100 in 1968 to over 500 in 1978. In 1971, only 175 firms had registered lobbyists in Washington, but by 1982, nearly 2,500 did. The number of corporate PACs increased from under 300 in 1976 to over 1,200 by the middle of 1980.[5] On every dimension of corporate political activity, the numbers reveal a dramatic, rapid mobilization of business resources in the mid-1970s.

The Powell Memorandum

Something is out of balance in Washington. Corporations now spend about $2.6 billion a year on reported lobbying expenditures—more than the $2 billion we spend to fund the House ($1.18 billion) and Senate ($860 million). It’s a gap that has been widening since corporate lobbying began to regularly exceed the combined House-Senate budget in the early 2000s.

Today, the biggest companies have upwards of 100 lobbyists representing them, allowing them to be everywhere, all the time. For every dollar spent on lobbying by labor unions and public-interest groups together, large corporations and their associations now spend $34. Of the 100 organizations that spend the most on lobbying, 95 consistently represent business.

How Corporate Lobbyists Conquered American Democracy

I'm not a big fan of Obama, but never in history has a president faced a more irresponsible and intransigent congress, one which simply doesn't care what people think because most of their members are in gerrymandered districts it's almost impossible to lose - except to a primary challenge from the billionaire funded Tea Party. They have set it as their goal that there be absolutely no success or victories for Obama in anything, and that any Republican who dares to compromise will be challenged and unseated in their next primary. The result is a lot of nothing getting done.

I'm not trying to be historically accurate.  I'm sure the decline in America happened earlier than what I suggested, some might point to the 70's - sure and i'm also sure many books will be written and many have already been written, however, almost zero people will know what the hell you're talking about with the Powell Memorandum and regular people really have no idea about money or debt when it streams into the 10's or 100's of billions or trillions.  Regular people know that affirmative action or NAFTA hurt them, and they know that they can't afford a healthcare system being forced on them etc.etc.  

Whether it is blamed on The Clintons, Obama or Bush makes little difference to the Trump revolution, all they know is things have gotten progressively worse since the Reagan years.

Edited October 16, 2016 by Hal 9000

[eyeball]

12 minutes ago, Hal 9000 said:

 

I'm not trying to be historically accurate.  I'm sure the decline in America happened earlier than what I suggested, some might point to the 70's -

I'd look to the 1950's....53 to be more precise.

[Hal 9000]

4 minutes ago, eyeball said:

I'd look to the 1950's....53 to be more precise.

Sure call it 53 if that turns your crank, it's still not the point of anything.