Long-winded, rambling, probably pointless, TOPIC-DRIFTED post alert!
Did the original 4.9% include underemployed workers?
No, I don't think it does.
I think that that number was the offical (smallest) unemployment number they posted. I think if you look back to that date you'd find a couple other unemployment numbers that were larger than the 4.9%. Those would include underemployment and discouraged workers, too. My guess (cause I'm too lazy to look it up) is that number was more like 7%
But the end point of this video does include those those classes of people, thus we start out with the rosier number and then include the less rosy numbers at the end of this video.
Basically they're moving the goalposts but for some reason they neglected to mention that.
Topic rip tides start here.
No lifeguard on duty.
Weak readers (or the easily bored) advised to stay out of the ASCII
No lifeguard on duty.
Weak readers (or the easily bored) advised to stay out of the ASCII
The unemployment problem has been with us for a much longer period than since 2008.
In fact it was really the unemployment problem, the steady decline in purchasing power for those who were working, and the continued erosion of decent employment, that has been happening pretty much for the last 40 years that brought us to this unhappy state today.
Now, I'm certainly NOT apologising for how piss poorly I think this stimulus been structured.
But I'm not about to pretend that this state of economy doesn't have a much longer history than most partisans hereabouts seem willing to acknowledge, either.
There's plenty of blame to spread around, folks, cause that's the way economies work, ya know?
They are the combined outcome of everything that's happening --not just one or two foolish policies that we can identify -- but the combined outcome of everything that's happened already.
This depression took decades of stupid policies before it happened because this nation (thanks mostly to its strong middle class) was richer than hell in the 50s 60s and early 70s.
So let's remember that we've had shocks to the system, bubbles in the markets, massive corrections, huge unemployment,bailouts of banks and credit markets, and feeble recoveries long before this depression happened, too, right?
Thinking that one President or one Congress should get all the credit for making this mess happen demands that one forget everything that has happened before that president or congress was in charge.
It also presumes that every stupid policy in place the current regime is responsible for, too, doesn't it?
It's almost as though some of you think that the President and Congress can change every law in place when they take office.
I cannot believe that any of you really think that where we are today is entirely the result of the 2008 election or Obama's messes.
Neither, for that matter, can I believe that any of your really and truly believe that this mess is entirely because of Bush II's idiotic policies, either.
Economies are ONGOING EVENTS. Today we deal with the mistakes -- all the mistakes and all the sucesses, too -- we made in the past.
And those mistakes (and sucesses) that were made decades ago compound with mistakes that were made yesterday!
And inside each solution we find is the seed of some future disaster we neglect to predict because the whole economy is just too complex to fathom.
And here's a heads up for yas...neither party has the solution to this today's mess.
The economy will grind on to wherever it's going regardless of which party is in charge.
Their ability to really change the economy is rather limited. They can exacerbate or mitigate the problems only to a small degree.
Thinking that somehow we can control the worlds economy is equivalent to thinking that we can control history.
It just doesn't work that way, folks.
Things change that are entirely out of our control or our ability to predict, even if those changes are the partially the result of policies we put into place.
NOBODY has the crystal ball to know how exactly to make it work all the time for all of us.
There's just too much going on for anybody to really get handle on it.
How many times do we need to see macro-economic predictions fail us before we get that?
There's so many random variables effecting it that nobody can predict the future economy and certainly we cannot engineer a perfect economy, either.
The invisible hand of the market doesn't give a rat's ass one way or the other, it will dopeslap us or caress us in its own good time.
So stick this in your Keynsian or Hyeckian pipes and smoke it....nobody really knows nuttin'.
CAn we agree that macro economies are more complex than a chess game?
Yes?
Okay, who wants to predict after the first move, what the chess board is going to look like 30 moves later?
Are ya getting my point?
That's ONLY trying to predict an outcome where there's ONLY two players, a fully understood set of rules, a very limited board and still we cannot come up with what the board will look like in just a few moves.
But we think we can predict the future state of a macro-economy?
Que sera sera,
Whatever will be will be
The future's not ours to see
Que sera sera
Whatever will be will be
The future's not ours to see
Que sera sera
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