7% & dropping

[bluehenbillk]

The unemployment rate continues to drop as I've said. It could be below 6% sometime in 2014. The "unemployable" rate still is the part that needs attention. Take it from somebody that sees resumes come across my desk everyday - there are a lot of people out there that are unemployed for a reason. Individuals & government agencies need to look at re-training opportunities or else there are a whole bunch of people that will be in line for food stamps & welfare....

[mrklean]

Bring back good paying Manufacturing jobs. That will grow the middle class. Poor people don't spend money on vacations and trips to the movies.

[ASUG8]

Bring back good paying Manufacturing jobs. That will grow the middle class. Poor people don't spend money on vacations and trips to the movies.

True, but we've become too spoiled on cheap Chinese-sourced goods to bring back much of a manufacturing presence in the US unfortunately.

[GannonFan]

Bring back good paying Manufacturing jobs. That will grow the middle class. Poor people don't spend money on vacations and trips to the movies.

That's not going to happen. Manufacturing isn't going to de-automate and create processes that today take a person or two to run and de-engineer them to need double or triple those people. That's the real cause of the drop in manufacturing jobs - America still makes a heckuva lot of stuff (and is still the manufacturing leader in the world), many times more than we ever did. The problem is, technology is advanced enough that even though we may make say 100x more than we ever have, we need just a fraction of the people we used to have to do the work.

I agree it's a problem, because we basically need to find jobs and things for people to do that in past generations, could get by doing menial and low-skilled jobs. We just don't have enough menial and low-skilled jobs and, as BHBK indicates in his post, what are we going to do with all those people that don't have a skill or talent to do something harder than that?

[bluehenbillk]

Yep, the cost of goods sold with manufacturing jobs is the killer there. Are companies going to pay more to make things in the US vs overseas & would the consumer pay more for the same item?

[ASUG8]

Yep, the cost of goods sold with manufacturing jobs is the killer there. Are companies going to pay more to make things in the US vs overseas & would the consumer pay more for the same item?

Patriotism and "buy American" only work to a point. Given the choice of a Chinese made $499 flat screen vs. a US made $799 TV of equal quality it's a no-brainer.

[mrklean]

Yep, the cost of goods sold with manufacturing jobs is the killer there. Are companies going to pay more to make things in the US vs overseas & would the consumer pay more for the same item?

Patriotism and "buy American" only work to a point. Given the choice of a Chinese made $499 flat screen vs. a US made $799 TV of equal quality it's a no-brainer.

1000%

[Pwns]

So I guess more folks have resigned themselves to drifting between part time jobs.

[mrklean]

Bring back good paying Manufacturing jobs. That will grow the middle class. Poor people don't spend money on vacations and trips to the movies.

That's not going to happen. Manufacturing isn't going to de-automate and create processes that today take a person or two to run and de-engineer them to need double or triple those people. That's the real cause of the drop in manufacturing jobs - America still makes a heckuva lot of stuff (and is still the manufacturing leader in the world), many times more than we ever did. The problem is, technology is advanced enough that even though we may make say 100x more than we ever have, we need just a fraction of the people we used to have to do the work.

I agree it's a problem, because we basically need to find jobs and things for people to do that in past generations, could get by doing menial and low-skilled jobs. We just don't have enough menial and low-skilled jobs and, as BHBK indicates in his post, what are we going to do with all those people that don't have a skill or talent to do something harder than that?

Something has to happen. We cant afford to have our jobs shipped over to china. Poor people dont buy T.V's, go to the movies, go out to eat or buy new cars.

[D1B]

Bring back good paying Manufacturing jobs. That will grow the middle class. Poor people don't spend money on vacations and trips to the movies.

That's not going to happen. Manufacturing isn't going to de-automate and create processes that today take a person or two to run and de-engineer them to need double or triple those people. That's the real cause of the drop in manufacturing jobs - America still makes a heckuva lot of stuff (and is still the manufacturing leader in the world), many times more than we ever did. The problem is, technology is advanced enough that even though we may make say 100x more than we ever have, we need just a fraction of the people we used to have to do the work.

I agree it's a problem, because we basically need to find jobs and things for people to do that in past generations, could get by doing menial and low-skilled jobs. We just don't have enough menial and low-skilled jobs and, as BHBK indicates in his post, what are we going to do with all those people that don't have a skill or talent to do something harder than that?

Good post.

One way to deal with this is to seriously tackle overpopulation. Like you said, there are too many people. Birth control and abortion should not only be on-demand and free, but birth control should be strongly promoted world-wide as a virtue. Of course your church, which has decimated whole continents (Africa, South America and soon North America) with its "have a shitload of kids to honor god" message, will and has strongly opposed any efforts to promote meaningful change here.

The other way to deal with it is through sustainable energy, specifically weaning ourselve off fossil fuel. Here's an article I posted a while back on the how our nation and economy would change (for the better) as fuel prices rise:

Excerpt adapted from $20 Per Gallon, How the Inevitable Rise in the Price of Gasoline Will Change Our Lives for the Better, by Christopher Steiner.

There's something guttural, something personal, about the price of gas. Even though we've pared our driving, there's a feeling that there's more to this, more than $2 versus $4, more than the price of our weekly fill-up. At the gas pump, we're egregiously offended by big numbers and comforted by small ones. Big numbers make us sick. But why?

The price of commodities, the price of nearly everything we use in abundance, has shot up during the last five years. So what makes gasoline so special? We don't have the same visceral reaction to, say, the price of grain—even though it goes into half of everything we eat and its price has more than doubled in recent years. Why does gasoline set off different, shriller alarms than other things we consistently buy? Perhaps that's our human intuition — an evolved sense that there's more to a situation than the mere face of it. It turns out that our intuition, honed by millennia of survival, is quite canny. The inexorable rising price at the pump represents several worlds of change beyond smaller cars and cumbersome gas station charges.

The price of oil — and thus, gasoline — affects our lives to a degree few realize. It's not just the BP or Shell portion of your Visa bill. It's the bricks in your walls, the plastic in your refrigerator, the asphalt on your roads, the shingles on your roof, the synthetic rubber in your ball. With every penny that gasoline moves up, so, too, does the price of most things we consume. Stop what you're doing. Look around. Look on your desk, at your shoes, at your shirt, at your windows, your kitchen — how much of it comes from oil? More than you think. Look out your window — look out at the world—how much of it owes its existence to oil? Again, more than you think. The United States imports 67% of its oil, but only 40% of that goes into our vehicles' fuel tanks. The rest is used to make, fortify, and shape just about anything you can imagine.

But there's more to this than the price of our stuff. The mounting cost of gas will dictate cultural changes, housing changes, civic changes, education changes — it will leave nary a spot on the globe, or how we live, unchanged. There will be pain involved in our adaptations, yes, but not all of the change we face is gloomy. In fact, many people's lives, including many Americans' lives, will be improved across a panoply of facets. We will get more exercise, breathe fewer toxins, eat better food, and make a smaller impact on our earth. Giant businesses will rise as entrepreneurs' intrepid minds elegantly solve our society's mounting challenges. The world's next Google or Microsoft, the next great disrupter and megacompany, could well be conceived in this saga. It could be a battery company, a breakthrough solar outfit, or a radically innovative vehicle manufacturer. This revolution will be so widespread and affect so many that it will evoke the Internet's rise in the late 1990s.

But this revolution will be even bigger than that. The Internet allowed us to buy a book online, to peruse information at will and with speed. The rising price of gasoline, however, will reshape your house, your car, your town, your stores, your job, your life. America has never seen so great an innovation spur as escalating petroleum prices. This tale will bring with it all the global impact of a World War and its inherent technology evolutions — minus all the death. Some people even welcome oil's coming paucity and expense as one of humankind's grand experiments.

Many people, quite understandably, don't consider the implications of expensive gasoline so grand. The fact remains that the price of oil will inevitably rise, however. Two simple factors are responsible: first, we're running out of oil (albeit slowly) and second, world demand will continue to rise for decades. We use six barrels of oil for every one we find. Half of the world's petroleum comes from 3% of its oil fields — and those fields are old. The average age of the world's 14 largest oil fields: 50 years, the exact age when most fields' productions start an irreversible ebb. On the demand side, consider this: There are 1 billion people on the globe living what would be considered an American-style life, including ourselves. By 2040, that number will triple. The world's burgeoning middle class will demand oil and it will get oil. Steady price increases are academic. Economics 101: Supply down, Demand up = higher prices.

The changes to our society will begin at $6 per gallon and continue on from there, affecting things far beyond the kinds of cars we drive and how often we drive them. America's obesity rate will fall. Mass transit will spread across the country. Plane graveyards will overflow. We'll lose the option to cheaply travel by plane, but high-speed train networks will slowly snake state to state. Disneyworld will lock its gates, Las Vegas' strip will shrink to half its size. Our air will be cleaner. Cities like Detroit, St. Louis, Pittsburgh and Milwaukee will revive at $12 per gallon, their streets rife with commerce, people and stores. The exurbs of America, where we've poured so much of our wealth during the last several decades, will atrophy, destroying the equity of those who held fast. Wal-Mart will go bankrupt at $14 per gallon and manufacturing jobs will return to the U.S. en masse. When gas reaches $16 per gallon, Michael Pollan will get the food world he lobbies for in The Omnivore's Dilemma.

Change, especially on such a wide level, is never easy nor is it popular. But this is the next step in mankind's evolution. We will adapt, and we will adapt well. Civilization's tale doesn't end here — it just gets more interesting. The easy stream of oil remade our world; so, too, will its demise.

More stuff here http://content.time.com/time/nation/art ... 70,00.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[ASUG8]

Something has to happen. We cant afford to have our jobs shipped over to china. Poor people dont buy T.V's, go to the movies, go out to eat or buy new cars.

I think that's Bill's point - we somehow need to find ways to fund and motivate people to get training. Also, I mentioned sometime back that here we've had openings for some $12/hr labor (mostly warehouse work) and we have the issue of having to interview 10 people to find 2 who can pass the drug screen.

[CID1990]

We just don't have enough menial and low-skilled jobs

I agree with most of what you said except for this part.

It would blow some of you away to know the number of employment-based immigrant visas we issue to foreign nationals. These arent H1B seasonal worker non-immigrant visas, mind you, I am talking about emplyment based visas where the recipient actually comes to America to work and automatically adjust status to legal permanent resident (pursuant to citizenship).

Businesses that want to petition for these workers merely need to get a labor certification from the Dept of labor, and part of that process is to show how they have been advertising for workers and no Americans will take the jobs. I'm talking about unskilled jobs here- working in restaurants, construction, etc.

So from my side of the fence, I dont see a shortage of menial and low skilled jobs if we are issuing immigrant visas to fill them.

[D1B]

Something has to happen. We cant afford to have our jobs shipped over to china. Poor people dont buy T.V's, go to the movies, go out to eat or buy new cars.

I think that's Bill's point - we somehow need to find ways to fund and motivate people to get training. Also, I mentioned sometime back that here we've had openings for some $12/hr labor (mostly warehouse work) and we have the issue of having to interview 10 people to find 2 who can pass the drug screen.

Quit drug testing then.

[D1B]

We just don't have enough menial and low-skilled jobs

I agree with most of what you said except for this part.

It would blow some of you away to know the number of employment-based immigrant visas we issue to foreign nationals. These arent H1B seasonal worker non-immigrant visas, mind you, I am talking about emplyment based visas where the recipient actually comes to America to work and automatically adjust status to legal permanent resident (pursuant to citizenship).

Businesses that want to petition for these workers merely need to get a labor certification from the Dept of labor, and part of that process is to show how they have been advertising for workers and no Americans will take the jobs. I'm talking about unskilled jobs here- working in restaurants, construction, etc.

So from my side of the fence, I dont see a shortage of menial and low skilled jobs if we are issuing immigrant visas to fill them.

I think he's talking bout low-skill menial jobs where white people can make a livable wage, i.e auto, logging, steel production, big manufacturing, textiles....

[ASUG8]

I think that's Bill's point - we somehow need to find ways to fund and motivate people to get training. Also, I mentioned sometime back that here we've had openings for some $12/hr labor (mostly warehouse work) and we have the issue of having to interview 10 people to find 2 who can pass the drug screen.

Quit drug testing then.

You're right...hitting the meth pipe before you start moving pallets stacked 3 stories high with a forklift. What could go wrong?

[D1B]

Quit drug testing then.

You're right...hitting the meth pipe before you start moving pallets stacked 3 stories high with a forklift. What could go wrong?

Just don't test for rec use weed and you'll get a good employee.

[ASUG8]

You're right...hitting the meth pipe before you start moving pallets stacked 3 stories high with a forklift. What could go wrong?

Just don't test for rec use weed and you'll get a good employee.

I'm on record that weed use IMHO is preferable to alcohol. I'm not sure what drug in particular people are failing with, but I hope it's not simply weed.

[bluehenbillk]

We just don't have enough menial and low-skilled jobs

I agree with most of what you said except for this part.

It would blow some of you away to know the number of employment-based immigrant visas we issue to foreign nationals. These arent H1B seasonal worker non-immigrant visas, mind you, I am talking about emplyment based visas where the recipient actually comes to America to work and automatically adjust status to legal permanent resident (pursuant to citizenship).

Businesses that want to petition for these workers merely need to get a labor certification from the Dept of labor, and part of that process is to show how they have been advertising for workers and no Americans will take the jobs. I'm talking about unskilled jobs here- working in restaurants, construction, etc.

So from my side of the fence, I dont see a shortage of menial and low skilled jobs if we are issuing immigrant visas to fill them.

Immigrants have little to do with what I'm talking about. There are PLENTY of good jobs available right now with a very small pool of people to fill them simply because too many people are unemployable.

[D1B]

Just don't test for rec use weed and you'll get a good employee.

I'm on record that weed use IMHO is preferable to alcohol. I'm not sure what drug in particular people are failing with, but I hope it's not simply weed.

Agree with testing for opiates, pills, meth, cocaine and alcohol.

[GannonFan]

That's not going to happen. Manufacturing isn't going to de-automate and create processes that today take a person or two to run and de-engineer them to need double or triple those people. That's the real cause of the drop in manufacturing jobs - America still makes a heckuva lot of stuff (and is still the manufacturing leader in the world), many times more than we ever did. The problem is, technology is advanced enough that even though we may make say 100x more than we ever have, we need just a fraction of the people we used to have to do the work.

I agree it's a problem, because we basically need to find jobs and things for people to do that in past generations, could get by doing menial and low-skilled jobs. We just don't have enough menial and low-skilled jobs and, as BHBK indicates in his post, what are we going to do with all those people that don't have a skill or talent to do something harder than that?

Good post.

One way to deal with this is to seriously tackle overpopulation. Like you said, there are too many people. Birth control and abortion should not only be on-demand and free, but birth control should be strongly promoted world-wide as a virtue. Of course your church, which has decimated whole continents (Africa, South America and soon North America) with its "have a shitload of kids to honor god" message, will and has strongly opposed any efforts to promote meaningful change here.

The other way to deal with it is through sustainable energy, specifically weaning ourselve off fossil fuel. Here's an article I posted a while back on the how our nation and economy would change (for the better) as fuel prices rise:

I actually couldn't disagree more with your post to be honest with you.

Let's take them one at a time. Overpopulation. It's not that we are overpopulated, per se, it's that we are overpopulated with people who don't have the knowledge or skills or both to do more or be more than they are. People tend to throw that into an education issue and maybe it is, but people just don't have the initiative or the skills they need to thrive in a more and more competitive and technologically advanced world. That has nothing to do with the number of people who are alive - even if we cut the population or, as you say, limit the births, the problem would be we would still have the same percentage of people that just can't do things they need to do to be a productive employee.

And your second point about sustainable energy, to be polite, is jibberish. When we finally do run out of fossil fuels, and that could be 100 years from now, or 300 years, or even futher, we're going to still have a similarly cheap energy source somewhere. SImply from the idea that we need to have one and mankind is pretty resourceful and we'll find one. Solar power is just a nascent technology today, and it probably will take a good century to see it advance. But what really will make it advance is the need to have it advance if fossil fuels really do start to decline (and thanks to natural gas exploration, that decline has been postponed for a few decades at least). We don't have an alterante, viable replacement for fossil fuels right now simply because we don't need one. When the need arises, we'll develop something that will allow us to continue on the forward path we are on right now. We will never fall back to the weird scenario described in your link, to some kind of symbioitic realtionship with everything around us. Maybe we should do that, but that's not what the discussion is, the discussion is about what we will do. And we will develop/find an alternate cheap source of energy. We will keep moving in that direction. It's what we humans do, whether it's a good thing or not.

[kalm]

Good post.

One way to deal with this is to seriously tackle overpopulation. Like you said, there are too many people. Birth control and abortion should not only be on-demand and free, but birth control should be strongly promoted world-wide as a virtue. Of course your church, which has decimated whole continents (Africa, South America and soon North America) with its "have a shitload of kids to honor god" message, will and has strongly opposed any efforts to promote meaningful change here.

The other way to deal with it is through sustainable energy, specifically weaning ourselve off fossil fuel. Here's an article I posted a while back on the how our nation and economy would change (for the better) as fuel prices rise:

I actually couldn't disagree more with your post to be honest with you.

Let's take them one at a time. Overpopulation. It's not that we are overpopulated, per se, it's that we are overpopulated with people who don't have the knowledge or skills or both to do more or be more than they are. People tend to throw that into an education issue and maybe it is, but people just don't have the initiative or the skills they need to thrive in a more and more competitive and technologically advanced world. That has nothing to do with the number of people who are alive - even if we cut the population or, as you say, limit the births, the problem would be we would still have the same percentage of people that just can't do things they need to do to be a productive employee.

And your second point about sustainable energy, to be polite, is jibberish. When we finally do run out of fossil fuels, and that could be 100 years from now, or 300 years, or even futher, we're going to still have a similarly cheap energy source somewhere. SImply from the idea that we need to have one and mankind is pretty resourceful and we'll find one. Solar power is just a nascent technology today, and it probably will take a good century to see it advance. But what really will make it advance is the need to have it advance if fossil fuels really do start to decline (and thanks to natural gas exploration, that decline has been postponed for a few decades at least). We don't have an alterante, viable replacement for fossil fuels right now simply because we don't need one. When the need arises, we'll develop something that will allow us to continue on the forward path we are on right now. We will never fall back to the weird scenario described in your link, to some kind of symbioitic realtionship with everything around us. Maybe we should do that, but that's not what the discussion is, the discussion is about what we will do. And we will develop/find an alternate cheap source of energy. We will keep moving in that direction. It's what we humans do, whether it's a good thing or not.

I went to a public meeting with our superintendent of schools, and they are planning not 5 or 10, but at least 25 years into the future regarding growth, technology, facilities, etc. By some reports, the US military and CIA are even more future thinking regarding energy and climate change.

But it's good to see you at least acknowledge the question of morality when It comes to these issues. If only you could do that regarding "free trade."

[D1B]

Good post.

One way to deal with this is to seriously tackle overpopulation. Like you said, there are too many people. Birth control and abortion should not only be on-demand and free, but birth control should be strongly promoted world-wide as a virtue. Of course your church, which has decimated whole continents (Africa, South America and soon North America) with its "have a shitload of kids to honor god" message, will and has strongly opposed any efforts to promote meaningful change here.

The other way to deal with it is through sustainable energy, specifically weaning ourselve off fossil fuel. Here's an article I posted a while back on the how our nation and economy would change (for the better) as fuel prices rise:

I actually couldn't disagree more with your post to be honest with you.

Let's take them one at a time. Overpopulation. It's not that we are overpopulated, per se, it's that we are overpopulated with people who don't have the knowledge or skills or both to do more or be more than they are. People tend to throw that into an education issue and maybe it is, but people just don't have the initiative or the skills they need to thrive in a more and more competitive and technologically advanced world. That has nothing to do with the number of people who are alive - even if we cut the population or, as you say, limit the births, the problem would be we would still have the same percentage of people that just can't do things they need to do to be a productive employee.

And your second point about sustainable energy, to be polite, is jibberish. When we finally do run out of fossil fuels, and that could be 100 years from now, or 300 years, or even futher, we're going to still have a similarly cheap energy source somewhere. SImply from the idea that we need to have one and mankind is pretty resourceful and we'll find one. Solar power is just a nascent technology today, and it probably will take a good century to see it advance. But what really will make it advance is the need to have it advance if fossil fuels really do start to decline (and thanks to natural gas exploration, that decline has been postponed for a few decades at least). We don't have an alterante, viable replacement for fossil fuels right now simply because we don't need one. When the need arises, we'll develop something that will allow us to continue on the forward path we are on right now. We will never fall back to the weird scenario described in your link, to some kind of symbioitic realtionship with everything around us. Maybe we should do that, but that's not what the discussion is, the discussion is about what we will do. And we will develop/find an alternate cheap source of energy. We will keep moving in that direction. It's what we humans do, whether it's a good thing or not.

Don't agree with first point. The more people, the more technology and skill (or tyranny) needed to manage them and their needs. We need to slow it down.

Agree with: "Maybe we should do that, but that's not what the discussion is, the discussion is about what we will do. And we will develop/find an alternate cheap source of energy. We will keep moving in that direction. It's what we humans do, whether it's a good thing or not."

[Ibanez]

Between 2000 and 2009, pregnancy rates for U.S. women fell by 12%, or nearly 6.4 million pregnancies. The pregnancy rate is the lowest it has been in 12 years.

In fact, the rates for teenage pregnancy reached historic lows in 2009, for all three major race groups: non-Hispanic whites, non-Hispanic blacks and Hispanic teenagers. In 2009, there were 39% fewer teen pregnancies than the 1991 peak rate of 61.8 teen pregnancies for every 1,000 teens.

"Research suggests that more teens are delaying initiating sex, waiting longer to have sex," said Rachel Jones, a senior research associate with the Guttmacher Institute, who was not associated with the study.

http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2013/12/0 ... ?hpt=hp_t2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[kalm]

Between 2000 and 2009, pregnancy rates for U.S. women fell by 12%, or nearly 6.4 million pregnancies. The pregnancy rate is the lowest it has been in 12 years.

In fact, the rates for teenage pregnancy reached historic lows in 2009, for all three major race groups: non-Hispanic whites, non-Hispanic blacks and Hispanic teenagers. In 2009, there were 39% fewer teen pregnancies than the 1991 peak rate of 61.8 teen pregnancies for every 1,000 teens.

"Research suggests that more teens are delaying initiating sex, waiting longer to have sex," said Rachel Jones, a senior research associate with the Guttmacher Institute, who was not associated with the study.

http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2013/12/0 ... ?hpt=hp_t2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Yep...but not in the third world and this is a global economy.

[BDKJMU]

The unemployment rate continues to drop as I've said. It could be below 6% sometime in 2014. The "unemployable" rate still is the part that needs attention. Take it from somebody that sees resumes come across my desk everyday - there are a lot of people out there that are unemployed for a reason. Individuals & government agencies need to look at re-training opportunities or else there are a whole bunch of people that will be in line for food stamps & welfare....

No, the rates that needs attention are the U6, and while that dropped from 13.8% to 13.2%, which is still way above historic norms:

By month since 2000:
http://www.portalseven.com/employment/u ... ate_u6.jsp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

and the workforce participation rate, which inched up from last month's 62.8%, the lowest month of the last 30+ years to 63%, the 2nd lowest month of not only the last 5, but the last 30+:

Month by month:
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Of the millions that dropped out of the workforce in the last 5 years, most haven't come back, and you won't see that till the U6 gets below 10%, and the workforce participation rate gets back up to around 66%. And I don't know when we'll ever see that again...