Jobless Rate, Recession, and Obama

Are you using a report abstract as your source, or have you studied the entire report? The abstract finds: "We consistently find a significant but modest negative relationship between minimum wage increases and teenage employment using alternative controls or allowing employer responses to the policy to occur with some delay." Can you explain how this rather narrow study based on decades old data supports your current statement?



An interesting and indeed important table of statistics. But how does it support your statement, "Increasing the cost of hiring workers will do the following..."



The abstract appears to support the notion that it's important to gain skills and education so that those entering the job market do so at a level above minimum wage... appearing to make the point that those relying on the minimum wage tend to stay at minimum wage jobs. This has nothing to do with your open post statements (in my mind). Have you purchased the entire study? If so, can you share the details beyond the abstract if those details support your position?



You've made a potentially incendiary statement and conclusion in your opening post, when questioned, it is incumbent upon you to substantiate your claims.

However, the latest data from August regarding the payroll decreases reported by ADP are dominant in job segments typically not considered "entry level" or "unskilled" as are typical of minimum wage positions. This data mirrors the types of losses seen over the past 18 months.


(typo correction)

[edit on 6-9-2008 by mister.old.school]

I have found these threads of "Obama Bashing" to begin bordering on dis-information/propaganda only to further perpetuate the distraction of the masses from the real issues at hand.

Just to quell the Obama paranoia a bit...
The Executive branch of government doesn't pass laws, the Legislative branch does. If Obama were president, any of his proposed laws would first have to meet congressional approval before being passed into law.

The minimum wage was recently raised in 2007 for the first time in 10 years and passed into law by congress as well as a law that provided tax breaks to small businesses. The measure would raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour from $5.15 in three stages over two years. The bill also includes $4.84 billion in tax breaks for small businesses.

The costs of maintaining a US presence in Iraq now runs a tab of about $435 million a day -- $3 billion a week, or $12 billion a month. The US has siphoned some $500 billion taxpayer dollars into Iraq, for a war that was supposed to be "sharp" and brief. Interest payments add another $615 billion, and the price tag of repairing a depleted military is projected at $280 billion.


Live Free or Die.

reply to post by jamie83

---

Isn't our economy going down because a republican is in power? Why choose another republican?

"anything, absolutely anything has to be better 'for' the economy, than a government that prioritises corporate greed & war over the American people.
Any anyone who disagrees with that is a traitor, because the American people are what comes first, no matter what."


Wow.... your blind hate is exactly what gave hitler his power. You are not capable of debate. You are gone, off the deep end, sleep well.

Jamie and Lou Dobbs have the same hobby -

"I have to tell you Senator Obama: you’ve just become my hobby. You are a dangerous, illogical, inaccurate, and, I think soulless, pandering fool." - Lou Dobbs 2008-05-27





- You forget it's a DEMOCRATIC controlled congress that runs these things.
(and they have a lower approval rating then Bush43)

- You forget Jimmy Carter, and that Barry wants to bring back Carternomics. (remember gas lines? unemployment and layoffs?)

The way I see it, it is too late to save our economy now anyway.

We are 10 trillion in debt with 500 billion dollar a year deficit. This means we need to cut spending by a trillion dollars a year (nearly one third of total spending) just to stop from going in more debt and paying the interest on our debt if our costs stayed at the same level as today.

The problem is our costs are only going up, we have no money for social security saved and the baby boomers are soon to start collecting. Medical costs have gone up 100% in the last 8 years and show no signs of slowing down with our population aging quickly, and the medical complex gaining more and more control of our government. Add to this the demon that is compounding interest on our national debt and you soon realize that even a massive effort to cut spending would likely be to late now.

Our education system is the worst it has been in years and no longer can we depend on having the vast majority of the brightest minds to grow economy faster than everyone else. Students are taking jobs in homeland security and becoming lawyers in increasing numbers - jobs that do nothing to grow the economy. At the same time fewer and fewer study science the biggest engine of economic growth.

The government simply cannot pay down the debt and pay social security and medicare, the money is not there if we are taxed at twice the level we are now. If you are counting on the government paying your Social Security or Medical costs even 15 years from now, you better think again - it's not going to happen.

We are broke, the only thing that has stopped 98% of Americans from knowing it is our military threats against anyone who dares to start selling oil in something other than dollars, and their lack of understanding of what inflation is.

Bottom line is this neither candidate is good for the economy, neither wants to talk about it because the people might actually figure out how bad of shape we are in if they did.

The current Congress has had the lowest approval rating in history. Since the Dems took it over two years ago, the ratings have plummeted.

Why? Because Dems want the government to run all major facets of economy, much like Communism does. Socialism is a lighter form of Communism (Communist Lite). Obama is more of a Marxist than an American Socialist.

The problem is the government has a very poor track record at running things. Having larger government means less choices for you, along with increased censorship.

If the US government gets control of the Internet using Google by proxy, then you will be censored and will only see what the government wants you to know (just like in China).

If you elect Obama, the government will certainly get control of the Internet's ISPs in America.

We need to keep our civil liberties as much as possible. By voting McCain, you will ensure more civil liberty retention. By voting Obama, you guarantee your liberal liberties will be taken from you.

The last thing the government should control and make you dependent on is the Internet. The Internet belongs to you, not the Government. Obama and Google do not see it that way.

Mental Modulator feels like mental modulator is debating with people who live in an alternate form of reality.

I gave you an answer to the questions you asked earlier . It seem that DT and Jamie have not yet brought a counter argument???

.

Jamie your obama bashing threads are getting quite old.

45 obama threads and counting people.

Yeah, you're right. I must have overlooked this. The entire economy is going down because of the evil republican in power.

Let's vote for a Democrat. That will solve all the problems.

Wow... just when you think you've seen everything you get stuff like this.

"A potentially incendiary statement and conclusion"????

What is incendiary about this thread? Are Obama supporters so enamored with him that any suggestion of fallibility is now considered incendiary?

Sure. I give up. You're right. Increasing labor costs and raising corporate taxes is such an OBVIOUS solution to the economic problems we're facing. Why didn't anybody ever think of this before!?

You Go Obama!

I'm sure it's what's best for the country and hos NOTHING to do with pandering to organized labor to get votes.

Jamie, good thread man!'

What people don't seem to understand about Obama is that he tells people what they want to hear. The truthis, the man is an out and out socialist. He wants to redistribute the wealth in this country. Problem is, like Ted Kennedy, and the other fat cat democrtas, he wants to redistribute my wealth. I don't see him gining his money away. I don't see any of the Kennedys donating their fortunes to charity and moving into a small middle class home.
Does anyone else have a problem with this? Have any of the Obamacrats on this site stopped and really THOUGHT about what this man proposes? Can you say Unitied SOCIALIST States of America?
Wake up sheeple!

reply to post by jamie83

---

JAMIE what you and John Mccain fail to recognize is the AMERICAN voter is hurting financially. Regardless of elite terms and definitions of recession, it does not change the electorate perspective.
The American voter has tried the trickle down approach for eight years with negative results...
Now much of the electorate wants a different approach to contrast the BUSH/MCCAIN approach.

TRICKLE down is a gimmick, and this last eight years have served as a clear example
why we need to try something new.


I am under the impression that the spending ratio of 200,000,000 million people will out perform the spending ratio of 10,000 companies. JUST look at the zeros...


TRICKLE down supporters forget the main tennet of FOR the PEOPLE by the PEOPLE.

A company is not a person Jamie... A company is an entity that has 1 goal
which is earning money.

the companies have gotten to greedy and to powerful to fast.

Once again I cite DWIGHT EISENHOWER (R) tax code top 1% at 90%

WAS EISENHOWER a socialist Jamie?

DID our country fall apart because of this tax code?

Were people losing their jobs and homes at a staggering rate?


[edit on 6-9-2008 by mental modulator]

reply to post by jamie83

---

One word for you, neither Obama or McCain can fight corporate greed and the take over of America politics by private agendas.

It doesn't matter what any of they preach or lie about what they can do or plan to do, our government doesn't belong to the people anymore.

Lobbyist for private interest rules Congress, our president and our nation.

I understand the current challenges.

I also understand the challenges of running a manufacturing business, and the opportunities to cut costs by outsourcing work overseas.

And I also understand that no government program can create wealth.

From this starting point, what CAN the government do to provide an environment in which the economy will flourish?

We need businesses to provide jobs. We need markets for businesses to sell products. We need demand for products.

What Obama is proposing *might* work out in good economic times. But when times are tough, imposing new taxes, new regulations, and a completely new health care system on struggling businesses is going to cause problems.

And if businesses go under, the jobs disappear with them. Then consumer spending dries up. And the cycle will continue.

What seemed to work well in the past was a balanced approached like Bill Clinton and the Republican Congress implemented in the 1990's.

Praise God, Jesus, Allah, Moses, Zeus, Quetzacoatl......

We have a winner

In 1999 Clinton signed into law the Republican created and sponsored Gramm-Leach-BLiley Act which repealed the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933

Try to read closely without politics clouding your thoughts

The Glass Steagall act separated commercial banking from securities/investment banking.

This current economic crisis was not Bush's fault directly, but he can be fairly blamed for a bad fiscal policy that raised inflation and for inaction against the snowball effect that started in the 90's.

Anyways, now that commercial banks can get into the speculation activity of securities, the human greed factor took over.

A bank can only loan a certain amount of money depending on how much deposits they had on hand, well after 1999 they had a way around it. Now they can loan someone money and not worry about them not paying it back because they can sell the debt off to someone else. They don't have to worry about deposits because they just bypassed the entire fractional banking requirements. Grant a loan, securitize the loan, make commission, make new loan.

The loan agents and brokers made tons of money selling homes to people who couldn't afford them. The banks didn't care because they can just pass off the liability.

Loan origination became big business. Banks bundled and sold loans to investment houses on the basis that the American homeowner was good at paying on -time. The increased mortgage activity just churned the market more and increased property value which made buying bundled mortgages even more attractive to pension funds, annuities etc. The real kicker though is that many of these loans were Fannie and Freddie insured How can anyone lose?

Whatever loans the banks didn't securitize, they kept themselves and used them to boost their asset sheets. (big mistake) They did this because of the rise in housing prices, if a home forecloses they will repossess and some new flipper will just make the purchase.

The government (both parties) entirely approved of this whole affair, they were making money in the bucketloads from property and income taxes. The government regulators turned a blind eye.



source

The above translates into : the bigshots in government didn't want to do anything and probably stopped the FBI from investigating when it was most crucial. I have no proof of this, but it is a logical assumption.

About the foreign debt, especially to China, this is where a lot of it is from. The Chinese needed to lower the value of their currency so they threw a ton of money , $300 billion, into these FHLMC and FHMA (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) backed loans. They seemed to be attractive investments and they were insured.

The current economy is the fault of huge moral hazards and the resulting market churning created by the repeal of a safeguard law.

Well there is one guy at the end holding the loser bag. We all should know that the government has taken over Fannie and Freddie. So the guy holding the loser bag at the end of all the churning is the American tax payer.

That's right the American tax-payer in general is the guy paying for the house flippers, lying loan applicants, shady loan originators, corrupt regulatory officials, greedy investment managers, unwise foreign investors, and Chinese currency manipulators.

Doesn't it feel good to know this fiasco was all started by a bunch of politicians that decided to listen to their lobbyists instead of studying history?

Doesn't it feel good that politicians decided to REPEAL a SAFEGUARD that was instituted to PREVENT rampant speculaltion that started THE GREAT DEPRESSION?

Doesn't it feel good that we are paying for all this?

Doesn't it feel good to bicker about which party is better for the economy when they all freaking suck?

Obama isn't immune from all this because he is an "outsider". He has friends in places www.upi.com... es_Countrywide_ties_at_issue. McCain has lots of experience and he is a maverick. Why didn't he have the wisdom to call out what was going on and make an attempt to do something about the subprime mess before it all got out of hand?

reply to post by jamie83

---

This economy is now beyond the point of Obama and his policies, whether good or (most likely) bad.

If any candidate wanted to do something they would make people responsible for their actions.

Both Obama and McCain backed the housing bail-out. This doesn't help the economy, it just allows for more mistakes and more greed to poison the system.

The Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac takeover was just a bailout to the Chinese who gambled on the housing market.

This is almost a plutocracy, not a representative republic.

But I would rather have high inflation and rich fat cats controlling the system under McCain than ultra high Carter inflation and rich fat cats controlling the system under Obama.

reply to post by jamie83

---

This is an absolutely fascinating thread. I felt compelled to toss in my two cents.

It seems the major question is, "How does a higher corporate tax rate and a higher minimum wage spur economic growth?". I think the short answer is it doesn't alone. The long answer is if all the other initiatives proposed by Obama are implemented, the economy has a far better chance than the bulk of McCain's proposals suggest. The problem as I see it is that the likelihood of Obama's economic plan succeeding is VERY doubtful given the corporate interest/obstacles. Other's may doubt his sincerity and that's a moot point. He and McCain ARE politicians. McCain's plan seems to accelerate current economic policy (which has so far been disastrous for the majority of Americans, IMO) rather than redirect course for the benefit of a sustained standard of living for Americans and not continued record profits for corporate entities.

My own experience in the health care field coupled with Milton Friedman's axiom that the only social responsibility corporations have is to maximize profit suggests that these massive multinational sociopaths are pitbulls to be restrained before they devour the livlihood of our citizenry. Just my opinion

reply to post by Dronetek

---

Speaking of Clinton; one of the first things he did when he took office was raise taxes. That, of course, was followed by years of unprecedented growth and a surplus. Gee what happened to the surplus? Where are we now?

Hey how come you guys don't discuss the national debt (largest in history) and the squandered surplus that was handed over to the Republicans?