The Economy Is Even Worse Than You Think

Wall Street Journal

Here are 10 reasons we are in even more trouble than the 9.5% unemployment rate indicates:

- June's total assumed 185,000 people at work who probably were not. The government could not identify them; it made an assumption about trends. But many of the mythical jobs are in industries that have absolutely no job creation, e.g., finance. When the official numbers are adjusted over the next several months, June will look worse.

- More companies are asking employees to take unpaid leave. These people don't count on the unemployment roll.

- No fewer than 1.4 million people wanted or were available for work in the last 12 months but were not counted. Why? Because they hadn't searched for work in the four weeks preceding the survey.

- The number of workers taking part-time jobs due to the slack economy, a kind of stealth underemployment, has doubled in this recession to about nine million, or 5.8% of the work force. Add those whose hours have been cut to those who cannot find a full-time job and the total unemployed rises to 16.5%, putting the number of involuntarily idle in the range of 25 million.

- The average work week for rank-and-file employees in the private sector, roughly 80% of the work force, slipped to 33 hours. That's 48 minutes a week less than before the recession began, the lowest level since the government began tracking such data 45 years ago. Full-time workers are being downgraded to part time as businesses slash labor costs to remain above water, and factories are operating at only 65% of capacity. If Americans were still clocking those extra 48 minutes a week now, the same aggregate amount of work would get done with 3.3 million fewer employees, which means that if it were not for the shorter work week the jobless rate would be 11.7%, not 9.5% (which far exceeds the 8% rate projected by the Obama administration).

- The average length of official unemployment increased to 24.5 weeks, the longest since government began tracking this data in 1948. The number of long-term unemployed (i.e., for 27 weeks or more) has now jumped to 4.4 million, an all-time high.

- The average worker saw no wage gains in June, with average compensation running flat at $18.53 an hour.

- The goods producing sector is losing the most jobs -- 223,000 in the last report alone.

- The prospects for job creation are equally distressing. The likelihood is that when economic activity picks up, employers will first choose to increase hours for existing workers and bring part-time workers back to full time. Many unemployed workers looking for jobs once the recovery begins will discover that jobs as good as the ones they lost are almost impossible to find because many layoffs have been permanent. Instead of shrinking operations, companies have shut down whole business units or made sweeping structural changes in the way they conduct business. General Motors and Chrysler, closed hundreds of dealerships and reduced brands. Citigroup and Bank of America cut tens of thousands of positions and exited many parts of the world of finance.

Even more info in the article..... more realistic than we have come to expect from most MSM sources.

And using the "TREND" formula, also excludes out of work auto workers who seasonally may be off a few weeks this time of year.

This year however, the time off is permanent.

Why do firms and the Government use data that is inherently flawed when calculating numbers, trends, ratings, etc...?

What happened to the simple truth? Manipulating mathematics is corrupting one of the few rigid subjects that does not lie, for the most part..

For those who are corrupt, when they meet their maker, He, the creator will render judgement and this is what they will hear to know they are truly comdemned.

"Immach Scheme Vezikro"

Originally posted by imd12c4funn
And using the "TREND" formula, also excludes out of work auto workers who seasonally may be off a few weeks this time of year.

This year however, the time off is permanent.

Why do firms and the Government use data that is inherently flawed when calculating numbers, trends, ratings, etc...?

What happened to the simple truth? Manipulating mathematics is corrupting one of the few rigid subjects that does not lie, for the most part..

For those who are corrupt, when they meet their maker, He, the creator will render judgement and this is what they will hear to know they are truly comdemned.

"Immach Scheme Vezikro"

They dont want to create panic

I live in Palm Harbor Florida which is right outside of Tampa. There are actually whole neighborhoods where there is hardly nobody living. The year long residents either got foreclosed on or gave it up too the bank and moved.. The seasonal residents have mostly put there houses on the market because they can't afford two homes any longer.. It's strange riding my bike through these beautiful neighborhoods with big homes all empty. There's for sale signs on just about every home. I know Florida is one of the hardest hit states in the US but man you really get a sense of the problem.
One benefit i noticed is the traffic is much better esp. during rush hour. The Florida job market is awful unless your in the medical field or your retired.
The HQ for the special ops is at Macdill AFB which is where I work.. So I see all the Delta and CIA teams coming and going in the C130's.

Well it gets crazier ....
Yesterday Bank stock drove the Stock markets higher on news form an analyst "Meredith Whitney" who predicted Financials would increase 15% sounds like good news right?
in the same report is was predicted the U-3 Official unemployment rate would climb above 13%

So lets look at those numbers
U-3 Total unemployed, as a percent of the civilian labor force (official unemployment rate).......... In June was at 9.5%

The U-6 Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers...(Unofficial total) stood at 16.5%
DOL Report

Now if we bump those number to the suggested U-3 of 13+% that brings the U-6 up to if not over 25% the same as we saw during the Great Depression...

THings are as bad as I thought... and they will get worse than I feared


[edit on 14-7-2009 by DaddyBare]

Originally posted by Molan27
I live in Palm Harbor Florida which is right outside of Tampa. There are actually whole neighborhoods where there is hardly nobody living. The year long residents either got foreclosed on or gave it up too the bank and moved.. The seasonal residents have mostly put there houses on the market because they can't afford two homes any longer.. It's strange riding my bike through these beautiful neighborhoods with big homes all empty. There's for sale signs on just about every home. I know Florida is one of the hardest hit states in the US but man you really get a sense of the problem.
One benefit i noticed is the traffic is much better esp. during rush hour. The Florida job market is awful unless your in the medical field or your retired.
The HQ for the special ops is at Macdill AFB which is where I work.. So I see all the Delta and CIA teams coming and going in the C130's.

I live in tampa, job market is awful sent out so many resumes, no one returns calls. Kinda hopin for a hurricane lol. Atleast then there will be work picking up.

reply to post by Spartak_FL


I live in Cincinnati, you are seeing more and more of a Detroit like attitude here, are jobs are being packed up and sent overseas or to another part of the country. Construction as all but halted and police and firefighters are next on the list to go. Just tank the damn economy already so we can lynch you bastards and fix it our selfs.

Originally posted by poedxsoldiervet
reply to post by Spartak_FL

 

tank the damn economy already so we can lynch you bastards and fix it our selfs.

This is some real talk right here.

Times are tough. Just watch the Big 3 automakers - Their layoffs are not even finished yet, with plenty more to come.

Banking, mortgage, finance - And any industry tied to real estate such as construction, etc. - is all in the tank.

Automotive manufacturing is in the tank. Auto Dealers are in the tank. Even some newspapers are reporting 500+ applicants for minimum wage jobs, such as janitors, etc.

Medical is still good, although even hospitals are cutting hours for nurses, etc. I have never seen anything quite like this, and the government isn't doing a thing about it.

The stimulus package was a complete joke - Fox was reporting about 100 or so projects around the country that were total boondoggles with few, if any jobs created. Things like ridiculous bridges to nowhere, money for bogus research, money for antique restorative street lamps, etc. What a crock.

This country is going to heck in a handbasket, and no one seems to care or want to do anything to change it. The downfall of GM was practically the nail in the coffin for the state of Michigan, where even the suburbs are having record numbers of people in bread lines and food pantries. It's pure insanity.

Where is the leadership? Where is the "change we can believe in"? I understand these are complex problems that take time to correct, but give me a break. The wasteful spending by our government at all levels is just sucking the American taxpayer dry.

Someone told me the other day that in some areas of the country, they are reassessing all the real estate - because of so many foreclosures. So the people lucky enough to hang onto their home are actually now paying even higher property taxes - paying for all the vacant houses foreclosed that are not paying property taxes. So you have to pay more because your neighbor isn't paying. How crappy is that?

Originally posted by poedxsoldiervet
reply to post by Spartak_FL

 

I live in Cincinnati, you are seeing more and more of a Detroit like attitude here, are jobs are being packed up and sent overseas or to another part of the country. Construction as all but halted and police and firefighters are next on the list to go. Just tank the damn economy already so we can lynch you bastards and fix it our selfs.

People talk big, but in all honesty, if Joe Public were left in charge of the economy among other things, we'd tank back into the dark ages. Just look at a small selection of folks on the Internet. I shudder to think if any of these folks where in charge of anything important.

reply to post by CookieMonster09


Im an RN and depending on what area of the country you work in Hospitals may be cutting nursing hours but not at my hospital. We are a level II trauma center in SoCal and we are VERY BUSY! Our unit is SWAMPED and at full capacity everyday. Hospitals will do whatever it takes to stay in business and they will cut hours and manpower but they CANNOT cut nursing. They are just too busy. We are not hiring any new nurses (poor new grads who thought nursing was the hot field) and all pay increases have been frozen. However, there is no way most hospitals can cut back in nursing hours. Hospitals are just too busy nowadays and nursing is the backbone of healthcare. What I'd love to see is nurses start to collectively band together and become stronger and give a nice middle finger to the healthcare industry after all those years of mistreatment, #ty wages, and #ty work conditions. A little karma if you will. As much as I want to get out of the profession I'm thankful to have a pretty secure job in this economy. But we nurses chose our profession for those very reasons, atleast I did. While my business friends went into the mortgage and finance industry with dreams of making it big I entered the trenches and garnered a real job.

reply to post by fleabit


You have little faith in your country and its people then. Your average middle class town would be able to manage themselves and be productive just fine. I understand what you are saying but maybe people need the chance to prove themselves. If we sit there and bitch and complain about government and can't do any better maybe your right. But the town I live in we would manage just fine handling our own economy and governing ourselves.

reply to post by johnny2127


The media is also failing to report on the hundreds of thousands of American's whose unemployment has run out or those that lost their jobs but were unable to draw benefits. Many many people are not counted because they use the people drawing unemployment benefits as a way to calculate the unemployment rate. In all reality I honestly believe the rate is around 18% and climbing but the government will never allow the media to report on this because they do not want to cause panic. When and if they do report the true numbers that is when SHTF.

reply to post by fleabit


Well then let me ask you this.

When was the last time you were in debt over 10 trillion dollars?

Personally I've owed no one any money for at least 6 years now in fact many people owe me. But I don't bother to collect because I don't need it.

Don't see how anyone could do any worse.

Worse case scenario a drug cartel takes over the country and turns a profit selling trillions in drugs world wide. It's pretty sad that a drug cartel can make huge profits when a govt. whom takes 40+ percent of our earnings can't even pay off the interest on the money they borrowed. Much less have enough gonads to shut down the federal reserve and issue govt. currency at a fixed rate as opposed to just print more when you need it.

In fact it's worse than a drug cartel economically speaking. If the drug cartel sells bad drugs they are either going to go out of business or be killed. When the feds issue phony money that has no need to be backed by gold because it's digital currency and not paper they get richer off interest that has no backing to begin with. This leads to total control of the economic system because the govt. owes exponentially more even though it is not backed by say gold. And there is no paper currency to repay it in the first place because the paper currency was never issued.

This in return depletes the paper currency to a point that the govt. is forced to give more control to the fed. When you scratch my back I'll give you a buck but when I have to scratch yours you are required to give me 10.

It's the same original scheme just different people and different loop holes.

Put any average person off the street in control and they will make so much more money than they are now, they will have no need to be bribed because it would just be a waste of their time. I already have 10million I don't know what to do with why would I want another 500K? Where as the folks now in power think the more they have the better they are which is just media propaganda.

The economy is heading towards total collapse. TPTB have temporarily halted the collapse by creating a new bubble, the "stimulus bubble". This new bubble will not have long before it pops. The stimulus package was passed just to give them enough time to loot the US taxpayers money to line their own pockets before total collapse occurs and they can get out of dodge.

As stated in the article the real unemployment number is around 16.5%. That is a staggering amount of US workers out of work (about 25 million people!). We lost most of our manufacturing economy and have become a consumer economy. So the only way we can recover under the current system is to get people back to work earn money so they can spend it. It's a catch 22. Because we are a consumer economy we need people to spend money to get out of the recession but there are not enough people earning money to spend so it just gets worse and worse until it snowballs out of control.

This is why the government and the MSM is trying to promote the idea the the economy is improving. They want people to not be afraid to go out and spend money. It's all BS the wheels are falling off and there is not much that can be done to stop it. At this point it may be better to just let it go so we can rebuild and restore our great nation. We need to bring back manufacturing jobs to this country and start taking care of ourselves.

Be prepared, the worst is yet to come...


[edit on 7/14/2009 by Erasurehead]

Im an RN and depending on what area of the country you work in Hospitals may be cutting nursing hours but not at my hospital.

I have family in nursing, and hours are getting cut. Pay is frozen as well, and they aren't hiring if they can avoid it.

We are not hiring any new nurses (poor new grads who thought nursing was the hot field) and all pay increases have been frozen.

I just wonder if nursing and healthcare will be the last shoe to drop. It hasn't gotten hit as hard as the rest of the economy yet, but I don't think it will be very long. If things continue their downward spiral, it won't surprise me if we start seeing layoffs in healthcare too.

But the town I live in we would manage just fine handling our own economy and governing ourselves.

I agree with this line of thought. First, if you get rid of the shackles of the Federal government (taxes, bloated debt, overspending, etc.), I think most states and cities could do just fine on their own. Just about any governance at the local level would be better than the goofballs we have running Congress. Aside from national defense, I don't really see how the Federal government does much of anything to help the average Joe.

In all reality I honestly believe the rate is around 18% and climbing but the government will never allow the media to report on this because they do not want to cause panic.

In some parts of the country, real unemployment is north of 20%. We are already in a Depression whether people realize it or not.

The economy is heading towards total collapse. TPTB have temporarily halted the collapse by creating a new bubble, the "stimulus bubble". This new bubble will not have long before it pops.

Yep. The stimulus is a complete joke.

We lost most of our manufacturing economy and have become a consumer economy.

Agreed. We need a manufacturing revolution in this country:

Cut taxes to the bone,
encourage entrepreneurship,
give incentives to small business owners to invest in their companies and hire American employees,
punish companies that ship jobs overseas,
stop giving money to foreign countries,
end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,
cut the deficit to the bone,
close the U.S.-Mexican border,
break up the large banks into smaller community banks,
start a Pecora investigation into the bailout and sub-prime mess, and
give huge incentives to get us off foreign oil and onto cleaner energy.

So very true. Many people seem to be realizing what is going on, and where things are really going. There is strength in knowing the truth (even a bad one) and being prepared for it.

reply to post by fleabit


Really? You don't think "Joe (and Jane) Public" are capable of fixing a damned mess created by dishonest politicians trained in 'business'. Now, I don't have a business degree, but I can think creatively.

So, here is a scenario. Instead of bailing out the 'hedge funds' (they aren't banks by the way), we create low interest loans for businesses. Small businesses with viable models, that produce something! Not webspace, not celebrity aggrandizement, but a real product.

Like a tracked robot that could be used to fight forest fires, a single pane solar cell that could run all the non essential electric appliances in your home (ie computers, cell phone chargers, tvs.), or a low cost electric trike for running around town (like an electric rickshaw). Or other 'grandiose' ideas of these pesky "J & J Publik" entrepreneurial types. You know, these massive failures like the PC, the light bulb, the internal combustion motor. Yeah, lets keep our eye on the prize, proppin' up bankers.

Unfortunately, our leaders think that "industry" means: Hollywood, reality TV shows, Jerry Springer shows, Wal-Mart, $5/per hour retail jobs, violent computer games, etc.

Oh, and the wonderful "stimulus"?

Being used to "improve landscaping at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Billings, Montana", $1M to pay for the "removal of crickets" in Utah, covered bike "garages" in Oregon, an $11M bridge to "connect Microsoft headquarters"...and "gang tattoo removal" in Southern Cal... Need I continue? What a joke.

Real manufacturing and real job creation means creating tangible products that people actually want to buy. Cars, steel, textiles, parts, etc. We have a nail in the coffin of heavy manufacturing in this country. We are a nation of "retail" consumers, with very few manufacturers left.

GM sold Hummer to China. I wonder how that will work out when we need these patented designs for military use, eh?

America is like a candy shop getting robbed of all of its goodies: jobs, manufacturing, housing, etc. The American way of life is going to be degraded to a Third World country if things continue the way they are.

And there is no end in sight. Our politicians haven't got a clue. Our culture is becoming morally corrupt, we are being taxed beyond belief, and unemployment is skyrocketing through the roof. Talk about a bridge to nowhere - America is on a road to ruin if it doesn't start steering in the right direction soon.

I work for a large state agency. Yesterday they announced all part time jobs will be eliminated in the next 60 days. True it does not affect us fulltimers, but there are about 150 part time people who depend on the paycheck they get. I have been here 23 years and this is a first.