The real problem in the unemployment figures
posted at 10:06 am on February 8, 2009 by Ed Morrissey
We read plenty about large layoffs by firms in financial trouble in the economic crisis, but CNN’s Chris Isidore says we mostly miss the real problem in labor in this crisis. Hiring has dropped to decade-long lows, and while that may sound redundant, Isidore says the subtle difference makes a difference in how we need to approach the problem:
But the real problem in the U.S. labor market today isn’t layoffs. It’s a hiring freeze that is gripping most work places – and has not gotten nearly as much attention as the job cuts.
“The hiring rate has caved. That’s why the job market is as bad as it is,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist with Moody’s Economy.com. “Given this low hiring rate, unemployment would still rise even if layoffs were falling.” …
During the last recession in 2001, there was not nearly as sharp a drop in hiring and job openings. In fact, the hiring and job opening rates, which compare new hires and openings to the overall number of workers, are both at their lowest level on record.
And economists say that even if the number of layoffs peaks soon, the pace of hiring and job openings may remain soft for months to come.
Why has this recession generated such bad job opening rates? Isidore quotes Robert Brusca of FAO Economics as saying that “fear is running the show right now,” and small wonder. Instead of trying to calm the nation, Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi have transformed themselves into Chicken Littles, abandoning FDR’s “All we have to fear is fear itself” in favor of “We’re all going to DIE!” Why? Their stimulus package keeps losing support, and only fear can propel it to passage, but that same hysteria has employers locking their doors, which creates a self-fulfilling prophecy of economic doom.
The proper salve for a lack of job creation would be an infusion of capital into the markets. The failure of businesses normally creates openings for small start-ups to take their place, or for innovators to find new solutions to new problems and bring them to market. The Obama administration should encourage capital to come to market by lowering the risk cost through cuts in the capital-gains tax rates, or eliminating them entirely, for the next four years.
That will create jobs and expand opportunity, and would balance the layoffs of firms that had shaky business models even before the latest financial crisis. In fact, that’s why the 2000-1 recession managed to absorb the dot-com bubble collapse as well as the 9/11 attack collapse so well. The Bush administration lowered taxes and kept capital working to create jobs. Instead, the Obama administration wants to re-create the WPA, digging ditches just to refill them later, and paying for it by eventually seizing the capital that could have created real, long-term employment.
Obama could learn something from George Bush. I doubt he’ll stop screeching hysterically long enough to figure it out.
Blowback
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DrStock on February 8, 2009 at 12:00 PM
With ACORN subsidies and census/gerrymandering, elections will be effectively abolished.
Obama is very Hitlerian in the sense that he gives the appearance of “following the law” …. while actually gaming the system and owning the propa…er…media.
Hitler actually had his own troops killed on the Polish border to gin up animosity toward Poland as a prelude to invading Poland……O’barry has done the same with “greedy Wall Street.”
Bend O-ver America ….. Larry Sinclair’s lover is coming, and with no lube.
ex-Democrat on February 8, 2009 at 12:02 PM
The problem is that Congress is made up of people who have no earthly idea of how to make anything anyone actually wants and would pay for.
It’s easy to criticize others and to give away what others have earned. That’s the joy of being in Congress.
But trophy wives/husbands (e.g. Pelosi/Kerry), mob errand boys (Reid), useless legacies (e.g. Kennedy(s)), failed lawyers (e.g. Shumer), professional perverts (e.g. Frank) and race baiting poverty pimps (e.g. Obama) have never produced anything anyone wants.
Hence, Democrats in Congress are the problem, not the solution.
NoDonkey on February 8, 2009 at 12:03 PM
hicsuget on February 8, 2009 at 11:57 AM
Ah, so to make your point you tie it all together with abortion clinic bombers.
Ok then.
Bishop on February 8, 2009 at 12:03 PM
Nafta has had a far reach. Living in Michigan I’ve seen all the manufacturing plants close. Jobs have been relocated to Mexico ( even with inferior products resulting ), India, Spain.. you name the country. We have been sold down the river.
Without manufacturing, other jobs disappear, for nobody has the money to spend on other services. This is fast becoming a service country.
Our corporations cannot compete when the playing field isnt level. Other countries have tarrifs, regulations to prevent us from ever selling our goods as they do here. Foreign car companies are subsidized by their governments. They manufacture the vehicles in their own country, then assemble them in America and call them American cars.
There is an endless list of companies just in our state that have closed up shop and moved elsewhere.. and not to your neighborhood.
Try to buy something at your local Wal-Mart. You’ll have to look far and wide to find something not made in China. Finding something from the U.S.A. takes dilligent looking.
Being dependent on oil is crippling our country. Being dependent on all manufacturing is killing it.
Just how will this country revive with only services to offer as occupations. It’s going to be a long, slow, non-recovery until we make this country once again the industrial country that made us what we were.
This administration will only magnify the problem.
Heaven help us.
mollymack on February 8, 2009 at 12:06 PM
I understand your sentiment, and *feel* likewise. However, I see no way of doing what you suggested, if we let price be defined completely by the marketplace, which is one of the hallmarks of fiscal conservatism. There will always be countries willing to make products at prices lot cheaper than ours, just because they enjoy a lower standard of living. So, to ensure we start manufacturing more, we need to increase the prices of the products because we have to pay the workers more. Just look at the auto industry to figure out why that won’t work.
peter_griffin on February 8, 2009 at 12:14 PM
Meanwhile, sailing through under the radar…by accident or intentionally on the part of all the major news outlets…you make the call…25,000 U.S. non-unionized construction and trade businesses are on the verge of going under, because of President Obama enacting law to keep non-union construction and trade businesses from receiving government contracts. No union equals no work.
So, if you are not a member of a union, don’t even bother to try to apply for a job anymore…
coldwarrior on February 8, 2009 at 12:15 PM
One of the problems with this debate on stimulus and banking, is the flawed premise which we use to define success.
GDP is esentialy a number based on how fast money within a society a spent… not a measure of what is produced and consumed.
If two people “sell” an item back and forth 1000 times, for the same price… then all 1000 transactions count towards GDP… even though nothing productive or real was accomplished.
All of our politicians use these numbers to define success… which is why the Dems think that the problem is that people are not SPENDING fast enough… so if the Gov spends instead, then the problem is fixed…
The problem is NOT the amount of money in the system, its that none of that money is being used to CREATE anything…
And JOBS will not come back until the Governemnt gets out of the Way of Business to MAKE things in America again.
Romeo13 on February 8, 2009 at 12:19 PM
Okay. Let me try to put this together. FDR extended the recession by several years with the WPA and other Government Programs and Mr. President wants to do the same thing. The Democrats want to pass this Porkulous Bill that will drive the country even further in debt. In fact, they’re trying to pass it as fast as they can so the public won’t catch on as to how horrible this bill is. And the right doesn’t understand Capitalism? Get Real.
I just had to change professions after 30 years in Corporate Video and A/V Services. I’m going to be selling Supplemental Insurance. Yeah, it’s scary, but, it’s just what I had to do. Americans are individualists. We are tough people. We will survive. Just don’t lie to us about our money.
kingsjester on February 8, 2009 at 12:20 PM
coldwarrior on February 8, 2009 at 12:15 PM
And the balloon just went up.
Bishop on February 8, 2009 at 12:20 PM
RED ALERT, man your battle stations. Incoming!!!!
izoneguy on February 8, 2009 at 12:22 PM
If you mean dump truck drivers working a government project getting $35 to $40/hr. or project proposals restricting bids to minority owned vendors or the women loading groceries into an Escalade that just used food stamps to purchase them you may have a point. The generalizations you have made in this thread are an insult to all honest people and reveal what a pathetic little tool you are.
dmann on February 8, 2009 at 12:27 PM
RED ALERT, man your battle stations. Incoming!!!!
izoneguy on February 8, 2009 at 12:22 PM
My battle station is up north, complete with fishing tackle, hand-pump well and pot belly wood stove.
When the government starts making my business decisions for me, I’m closing the doors.
Bishop on February 8, 2009 at 12:30 PM
Some years ago I worked for a large (now bankrupt) telecom company. They were hiring insanely in 2000, then within a 6 month turn-around, were laying people off at the rate of 10,000 people per quarter, for the next two years. The turn was so fast the jobs were eliminated between the job offer and acceptance, and the new employee’s start date.
There was a running joke about the directory who was given the mission to lay off 100 of his people. But he only had 60 people working for him, so he had to hire 40 new people to meet his objective.
NeighborhoodCatLady on February 8, 2009 at 12:32 PM
Another angle:
Everyone has access to too much information, too quickly.
20,30,40 years ago what was known on Wall Street or Washington D.C. took a few days, a week or so to get filtered down to most of Main Street. By the time Main Street got and understood the bad news or information it had already changed or been acted upon. Any hot tip on a stock you read in the newsweekly was already a week old and the stock at already reacted.
Today with the internet, blogs, 24-hour cable news TV everyone gets the bad news at the same time and all panic together. In the “good old days” it took a while for the “panic” or bad news to pass through society and people reacted over a longer period of time.
Today everyone instantly hears the bad news and instantly reacts – stop buying, stop hiring, cut back, shut down.
Perhaps have not yet learned how to live with this everyone having the same news and information at the same time and this causes too much over reaction?
——–
Plus with the unemployment figures. has the Obama administration quietly instituted a new way to count the unemployed to make it look a lot worse than if counted under the old system?
albill on February 8, 2009 at 12:33 PM
He could be. His stock in trade is manipulation. After watching him the last three weeks, I think his counting skills don’t exceed 2 + 2. And as for reading skills, I bet he hasn’t even skimmed the stimulus bill.
sherry on February 8, 2009 at 12:37 PM
Hit a nerve did I?
Having worked in software / IT for the past 10 years I have heard it all. Those damn H1Bs are stealing American jobs. Those damn CEos are sending my job to India or China. Blah blah blah.
As a consultant I’ve seen the insides of countless companies big and small over the years. And the level of incompetence is staggering. As an employee you often don’t see much of it. As an outside like me it hits you in the face on day 1 and you often wonder how the hell does this company manage to keep the lights working?
Fact of the matter is there are millions upon millions of Americans making $40, $50, $80K a year who could be replaced at a moment’s notice with someone in India or China for 1/5 of the cost. That is fact. You can pretend otherwise and keep railing about those big bad CEOs or evil H1B workers. Or you can accept that the days of American dominance in terms of middle class income is over and prepare accordingly.
angryed on February 8, 2009 at 12:42 PM
Yep, and now companies like IBM are asking American workers to move overseas. If I could do that I would. I will come back after the collapse.
izoneguy on February 8, 2009 at 12:45 PM
I saw this coming years ago. I fired 12 employees, shut the office and went home. I have worked from home for years now and will not go back to being a slave of my employees.
izoneguy on February 8, 2009 at 12:47 PM
Stay classy, please. A large number of jobs that have been outsourced include manufacturing jobs. An average auto worker in the US earns about $40,000 a year, while the same job in China costs a tenth of that price. Mind you, that job has nothing at all to do with the government. If you let free market dictate the price of a job, there will be heartache from outsourcing. Calling people names will definitely not help.
peter_griffin on February 8, 2009 at 12:50 PM
Well put. I just don’t know what the “prepare accordingly” means for the American middle class. I do not see any long term solutions to this, other than protectionism, which of course makes things a lot worse. Sigh.
peter_griffin on February 8, 2009 at 12:53 PM
Who is John Galt, indeed.
It is as though, just as Rand postulated, we have divided into two groups, the producers and the moochers/looters.
The unemployment spike, coupled with the dearth of job creation is easily explained by a collective shrug of the nation’s producers, the millions of small businesses that cannot get lines of credit from banks, flush with government cash, that no longer want to risk lending at the same rate that they once did. No short term cash for payroll and supplies? Customers taking out the red pen and slashing their budgets? Government being taken over by people who have nothing but contempt for those who make the economy run? A government whose first act of business is to spend us down the river in a manner heretofore unimaginable and unfathomable, all the while blaming the prior administration for leaving a deficit that will dwarf the one that is coming? Do you blame any of these employers from reducing their payrolls?
So, who is our John Galt?
He (or she) is the first one to hold up the Declaration of Independence and adapt it to the current crisis, firing the first salvo upon the very government that the document created.
turfmann on February 8, 2009 at 12:55 PM
izoneguy on February 8, 2009 at 12:47 PM
I still have as much work as I can handle, and I foresee business getting better in my arena as things go to shiite everywhere else.
But eventually the socialists will come looking for me too and when that day comes, I’m done; I’ll head north and work on a cash-only system.
Bishop on February 8, 2009 at 12:58 PM
No nerve, just put off by your arrogance and the expertise you claim on having “seen it all” in 10 years….of consulting. American manufacturing has been killed off by over regulation, unions and socio-economic engineering all of which arise out of big government and moral relativists. These “costs” have made us uncompetitive, not your myopic view on the failings of American workers. Please move to India or China and uphold the role of the Ugly American.
dmann on February 8, 2009 at 12:58 PM
peter_griffin on February 8, 2009 at 12:50 PM
Wow I’m getting tag-teamed by a fat moronic cartoon character!
dmann on February 8, 2009 at 12:59 PM
But George Bush started this whole government bailout frenzy with TARP. If he or McCain were in office, they’d be doing pretty much the same thing as Obama, with a little less pork and a little more tax cuts. And that’s why the Republicans lost.
Socratease on February 8, 2009 at 1:12 PM
I mean prepare by getting your affairs in order ahead of the curve. Life after a permanent layoff will be much easier if you don’t have a mortgage payment, a car payment, 4 visa payments, a Rooms To Go “no payments until 2010 and in 2010 the interest rate on your $800 couch goes to 27%” payment and a “only $179 a month for the rest of your life” boat payment. You don’t need any of it.
Lots of people will be amazed how little actual income you need to live a decent lifestyle once you get rid of all the fluff in your life. Hell I live on about 20% of my income, the rest goes to savings and has been the case for years. Which is why I am not worried and actually welcome this depression. I stand to make a killing buying assets (like the boat) at pennies on the dollar.
I also foresee this happening: the cost of labor in the US will fall precipitously over the next decade. One of the unintended consequences will be a rebirth of manufacturing. The reason manufacturing left America was because unions drove wages to insane levels with GM’s $73 an hour UAW worker the ultimate in insanity.
But you get that back to $15 or $20 an hour and companies will bring manufacturing back. Now of course it will take some convincing to get the middle class interested in those (GHASP) blue collar jobs.
Change is coming to this country. It will – like Obama – be radical. And it will not be fun. But it is coming and trying to stop it will be like trying to stop gravity.
angryed on February 8, 2009 at 1:12 PM
I still have yet to read a counter argument to anything I’ve said. Using personal insults doesn’t count.
angryed on February 8, 2009 at 1:15 PM
Tarp was started with Bush in control, but he was the lamest of lame ducks with the Pelosi/Reid led congress. And please don’t forget that this whole mess was started by Democratic desire to give everyone housing. See Carter in 1977 and the CRC. See Clinton’s loosening of the regulations. See Bush’ attempts to tighten them and the subsequent Democratic refuse/denial to do so.
To ignore this reality is to doom America. Now, with Hollow Man as our president he wants to use EVEN MORE debt to make the problem worse. He is assinine. He is clueless. He is going to damage America more than any terrorist that he cares to protect. And you sir, are an idiot for thinking otherwise. (I only use name calling because Liberals actually understand when you call them names… they are confused by facts.)
cannonball on February 8, 2009 at 1:23 PM
Same here. I closed down a successful retail business and started working by myself selling online. Eight employees gone. I don’t miss working for them a bit. Given the current economy, I get up every morning and thank god I don’t have to deal with the 30-50K a month in bills to keep a brick and mortar store going.
I plan to stay as far under the radar as I can. This is going to be really ugly.
trigon on February 8, 2009 at 1:26 PM
You forgot that whole thingy about white males need not apply………
Seven Percent Solution on February 8, 2009 at 1:27 PM
As I have pointed out before, this is an over-generalization. None of the IT or engineering jobs that are being outsourced *ever* had unions, and yet they fell prey to the lower costs of operating overseas, and advances in technology.
You know your arguments are really lame when even a fat moronic cartoon character can figure that out :)
peter_griffin on February 8, 2009 at 1:28 PM
The business community, especially small businesses, had to factor the election into their 1Q plans of 2009. The verdict by most businesses was a hiring freeze or actually deciding to close down the business if the owner was close to retirement age. Very few had planned on expansion. Businesses are faced with the increased cost of regulation, taxation and the burden the citizenry does not take up and moves over to business. Businesses formed over 20 years ago know the problems faced in the late ’70s and early ’80s and examined how to weather that situation out now.
The result is not surprising: it is not the people being laid off that is the problem, that is a normal part of ‘churn’ in the economy. It was the plans for 1Q 2009 not to hire people or to lay them off so as to make economic adjustments to the businesses that we see now. This does not come from nowhere – and it is the collective wisdom of the business community that we are seeing. They had to examine what the election meant and act on it… and so they did. The place to look for a turnaround is not the monthly figures, but the confidence in the economy figures and expected expansion figures.
Finally manufacturing now moves behind Services and Government employment to third place in the economy. We cannot survive on those as they have no downstream need of jobs… until manufacturing reaches a turning point and the services sector goes south. That will leave you with Government (at all levels) as the employer of last resort… save organized crime, and the two don’t look too different from each other at that point…
ajacksonian on February 8, 2009 at 1:30 PM
Good point. We Americans spend way, way too much without even realizing we are. Hopefully, this crunch can teach us to keep the ‘pork’ out of our lives (sorry, couldn’t resist the lame pun). Seriously though, tightening our belts is a good idea, even when the economy is not in recession.
peter_griffin on February 8, 2009 at 1:31 PM
But you get that back to $15 or $20 an hour and companies will bring manufacturing back. Now of course it will take some convincing to get the middle class interested in those (GHASP) blue collar jobs.
Interesting point, I’m wondering how that will effect the idea of “value” in a product, specifically thinking of German versus American cars or Japanese versus American electronics. People have been willing to pay what I consider a premium just to get the label, and then the device they bought breaks down as much as anything else.
Also, who would that effect foreign competitors in what they are willing to pay people who have absorbed so much of the 1st world manufacturing base? Would they drop their wages even lower, to the point that even a rural Chinaman might balk at?
Bishop on February 8, 2009 at 1:31 PM
Seriously though, tightening our belts is a good idea, even when the economy is not in recession.
peter_griffin on February 8, 2009 at 1:31 PM
Yet that de-spending attitude hurts the economy and magnifies the effect, at least in the short term. It’s a tough learning curve, no doubt.
Anecdotally, my family and business are on the shortest leash possible, we don’t even order pizza anymore because I now get miffed that a pizza from a pizza joint costs three or four times as much as one I get at the grocery store.
My kids are letdown that they are only getting a “crummy” store-bought pizza…that right there is a sign that I’m not doing enough to teach them value.
Bishop on February 8, 2009 at 1:37 PM
It’s not always about just the ‘label’ though, Japanese cars have indeed proved to be less of a maintenance to the average consumer than the American cars. I cannot over-emphasize this difference between a ‘label’ and a ‘value proposition’ – the former is a luxury that falls to the wayside when incomes are slashed, the latter is a necessity that people gravitate towards, specifically during a recession.
Most of the Japanese electronics that people buy, are made of Chinese manufactured components, and they are not known for breaking down because they have a tight quality control on their products. It comes at a price, but that price is still a lot less than the cost of hiring an American employee.
peter_griffin on February 8, 2009 at 1:37 PM
I absolutely agree. Less discretionary spending does hurt a LOT in the short term. In fact, it’s hurting the industry I am in, because not a lot of people are interested in buying fancy computers or gaming consoles when the jobs are AWOL.
peter_griffin on February 8, 2009 at 1:40 PM
Actually, scratch my previous comment about value proposition – I think you were trying to point out the same thing in a different way. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
peter_griffin on February 8, 2009 at 1:41 PM
Obama: All spending = net stimulus.
Ed: All cuts in/elimination of capital gains = net stimulus.
I remain unconvinced of both.
MB4 on February 8, 2009 at 1:45 PM
I’ve always wondered what it would take to get manufacturing jobs back in the U.S. Considering the problems that products from China have been having, would the public pay a bit more for merchandise made here? When you consider all the costs of producing overseas, what is the reasonable wage for workers in the U.S.? If it is $20 an hour as someone noted above, I would think that is a good income for a lot of people. But would the Unions allow that to be the rate of pay?
Cindy Munford on February 8, 2009 at 1:45 PM
The best evidence of this is Japanese “luxury” cars. People will spend 20-30% more for a Honda Accord because it has the word Acura on the back. The cars are 95% identical, save for the quality of the leather and stereo being a little better in the Acura. Yet the American consumer will pay an extra $10 or $20K just to have the word Acura on the back instead of Honda.
In Japan, Lexus didn’t exist until 2005. The brand was invented by Toyota purely for the American market in the 80s. Probably the greatest marketing coup of the 21st century. And in 2005 they figured hey we can get Japanese suckers to pony up an extra $20K for the Lexus badge on their Toyota cars.
angryed on February 8, 2009 at 1:45 PM
peter_griffin on February 8, 2009 at 1:37 PM
I was using cars as an example though if I had to pick one thing to highlight my point it would be Monster Cable; overpriced, glitzy, average performing products but one hell of an advertising budget. $50 difference between its cables and that of competitors, yet the performance characteristics are roughly the same.
Specifically I was wondering what the effect would be if American manufacturing made a turnaround and started producing the things we made long ago. Will consumers quickly make the jump back to the American-made label when we’ve been told for decades that foreign makers will always produce better products?
Bishop on February 8, 2009 at 1:48 PM
Why a child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five to explain it to Chris Isidore.
- “Groucho”
MB4 on February 8, 2009 at 1:52 PM
Tough to say. Walmart has proven that price trumps all. So as long as the price is competitive, people will buy American. But as soon as country XYZ sells it for less, they will get the sale.
Not that I am bashing Walmart by the way. I’m a big fan of the company and own quite a bit of WMT shares.
angryed on February 8, 2009 at 1:52 PM
Peter, your observation is really irrelevant in todays world. Computerization has eliminated many of the skills that used to require ‘touch’. The next ‘industry’ to see elimination of tactile skill is medical. Robots have already entered the operating room. The robot can do procedures that a human cannot. The only thing lacking is the automation to eliminate the human tele-operator. But even if they did not, I am surprised that some hospital has not figured out that they could hire a tele-operator surgeon in India to do a heart operation on an American in LA. The tools are already there to do so.
We are in a race to the bottom in regards to cost of labor on a global basis. Have been for years.
Dr. Dog on February 8, 2009 at 1:53 PM
But would the Unions allow that to be the rate of pay?
Cindy Munford on February 8, 2009 at 1:45 PM
There you go, manufacturing capability will be hamstrung by the unions and there is a new Unionizer-in-Chief inhabiting the White House. No one in my shops make over $20/hour and those boys manage to do just fine. I can be done.
My biz isn’t union and never will be, though I have a feeling that soon enough someone will come knocking to tell me it’s time to become more patriotic and unionize my workers.
Bishop on February 8, 2009 at 1:54 PM
Don’t these people have archives? I love how everything is new, worse than every, a disaster! Add to that a total lack of common sense and you wonder how they sell a single paper or magazine.
Cindy Munford on February 8, 2009 at 1:57 PM
I think that is what I was trying to say.
MB4 on February 8, 2009 at 2:00 PM
I do trained monkey data entry and make no where near twenty dollars an hour. Nor should I. But if I was young I would consider taking on physically demanding work for that much. And you could be working on a better education while you work. I couldn’t nag any of my children through college and two of them would love to make $20 per hour.
Cindy Munford on February 8, 2009 at 2:02 PM
I agree, although not on the robot doctors (at least not in the near future). There are a lot of admin people in hospitals, clinics, insurance companies that push papers.
I will give credit to THE ONE for mentioning digitizing medical records. It amazes me how every time I go to a new doctor, I have to fill out volumes of paper that say the exact same thing the volumes I filled out at my old doctor say. A centralized medical records repository does have the potential of saving a ton of health care money.
And this is one of those areas where I could live with the government running it. It’s so massive in scale, it might have to.
angryed on February 8, 2009 at 2:02 PM
25,000 US construction companies, consider if each one employs an average of 10 people, say goodbye to 250,000 jobs. Yes Obama is bringing us change you can believe in.
doriangrey on February 8, 2009 at 2:04 PM
And why is the news media always shocked when the Stock Market goes up when they lay off people? Lean, well running businesses make more profit, especially when their market share is declining. I have just the slightest grasp of business and how it runs but I swear I am not as stupid as the people who write these articles.
Cindy Munford on February 8, 2009 at 2:05 PM
So has CSI figured out which of the 40 people had a hand in his unfortunate demise yet?
MB4 on February 8, 2009 at 2:13 PM
True, it’s just that the pace of this race to the bottom has picked up a lot in recent years, largely because of advances in technology. Incidentally, I was not talking about just ‘touch’ jobs, but in a general term about jobs that do not require a huge amount of R&D, so that a new bachelors coming out from an educational institution in India or China can pick them up.
peter_griffin on February 8, 2009 at 2:14 PM
Learn to make your own pizza. We do it all the time. Make the dough the night before. Make enough for 4 pizzas. Roll it all out the next night. Top it off and bake it. The other three shells you freeze for later. I can make a pizza for $5 using all new toppings or $1 if I use items already in the fridge.
The other $5-10 is money back in my pocket.
————————–
I would offer to those that moan about the family adjustments hurting the economy. So be it. Capitalism every once in a while has to revitalize itself. But to do the the dead wood has to be cut away. So as things contract the unneeded, the inefficient, the unessential are cut away. New players take their place of the function disappears altogether. Its part of the process.
Folks right now this from my view was worse by half what was hitting the SW oil patch of the 80′s. We’ll make it through to the other side.
Dr. Dog on February 8, 2009 at 2:15 PM
The next ‘industry’ to see elimination of tactile skill is medical.
I refuse to fantasize about a robotic nurse. Nope, ain’t doin’ it.
Bishop on February 8, 2009 at 2:16 PM
Agree wholeheartedly. I am just trying to figure out how it can revitalize in a way that eventually ends up helping the American middle class, instead of leaving them belly up.
peter_griffin on February 8, 2009 at 2:18 PM
LOL, that was a good one.
peter_griffin on February 8, 2009 at 2:18 PM
Dr. Dog on February 8, 2009 at 2:15 PM
Made the pies with Boboli crusts but haven’t yet ventured into rolling my own dough, it seems awfully intensive? We do buy the rise-overnight bread dough though.
Heh, this is weird, exchanging homemaking advice; will it come to the point where we discuss the best way to butcher raccoons and squirrels via Ham radio from our survival compounds?
Bishop on February 8, 2009 at 2:22 PM
Well if that’s true then our politicians are just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic so this whole discussion is mute.
MB4 on February 8, 2009 at 2:25 PM
Not in the near future is already here. Lasik is to a great extent a robot lazing your eyeballs. All the doc is doing is the preop work and lining up the corneal surface with the start marker for the computer program to run through the procedure. Microvascular procedures are increasingly robotic. Neural surgery the same way.
Government running health care documentation? Not necessary. If you look at the data rate that Google, Yahoo, Microsoft handle, doing medical records is a snap in comparison. Quickest way to facilitate medical computerization? Form a working group of insurance, medical and IT that can come up with a XML documentation standard. Implement it. Its not a matter of ‘who’ holds the data. Its a matter of ‘commonality’ so that it can be shared easily. And if you want to get fancy about it, place the XML health record on a data card held by the patient.
Dr. Dog on February 8, 2009 at 2:30 PM
Heh. Palin slaughters moose for meat. She might have been a better leader for the times ahead than many expected. :)
Dr. Dog on February 8, 2009 at 2:34 PM
“Today, people are beginning to understand that the government’s account is overdrawn, that a piece of paper is not the equivalent of a gold coin, or an automobile, or a loaf of bread—and that if you attempt to falsify monetary values, you do not achieve abundance, you merely debase the currency and go bankrupt.”
—Ayn Rand, “Moral Inflation,” The Ayn Rand Letter, vol. 3, no. 12, p. 1
izoneguy on February 8, 2009 at 2:37 PM
That would be great if it could be done in the pvt sector. I just have doubts about being able to standardize it with so many competing interests. There are hundreds of thousands of of doctors, clinics, hospitals, insurance companies. To get them all to agree on one standard would be next to impossible.
Plus you’d have the inevitable ACLU lawsuits that google, yahoo, etc might just say screw it, not worth the effort.
I see this like the interstate system. Yeah it could have been built by individual companies on their own. But the govt building it was a better idea and more efficient too.
angryed on February 8, 2009 at 2:37 PM
“One of the methods used by statists to destroy capitalism consists in establishing controls that tie a given industry hand and foot, making it unable to solve its problems, then declaring that freedom has failed and stronger controls are necessary.”
—Ayn Rand, 1975
These words were written more than 30 years ago, but they apply exactly to today’s financial crisis. Today’s problems are the result of a government-controlled financial and housing system that rewarded irrational behavior and punished responsible behavior. Yet they are being blamed on “the free market”—with more controls offered as the solution.
Why? For the same reason that the controls were passed in the first place. The dominant moral and political ideas in our culture lead Americans to believe that a free market, with its unfettered pursuit of self-interest, is immoral and destructive—whereas a government that controls and manipulates the economy in some indefinable “public interest” is seen as a source of economic security and prosperity.
izoneguy on February 8, 2009 at 2:37 PM
The Dems have proven over and over again that their success is measured in the nation’s failure, with toxic leaders in charge the only solution is new leaders.
Goad the vampires and shadow warriors out into the sunlight where they must shrivel and die.
Speakup on February 8, 2009 at 2:41 PM
The government planned it. Private concerns built it. States through contract now maintain the system. Some States better than others.
The point is, Practically most any standard you use in regards to data have little government intervention. Wifi, TCP/IP, USB, etc all were done by industry working groups. The IT biz has known for years it is more profitable to know a small slice of a shared standard than to own all of a nonstandard.
Doctors don’t give a whit how information is stored just that they can view it. The geeks can figure it out and it will spread from there. Have a geek whisper “I can save 20% on the IT budget…” into the insurance CEO’s ear and his project will be funded tomorrow. Keep one other thing in mind. Any medical record system would store only the past and future procedures. The billing for those services would be a separate issue.
Dr. Dog on February 8, 2009 at 2:46 PM
Architecture is taking a tremendous hit the last year. There are severe layoffs going on at firms of all sizes in Dallas. I am almost sure that I will not have a job in March. It looks like I am going to have to go back into the restaurant industry as I did in the early nineties. I have been preparing; I canceled my satellite, cell phone and eat at home every single day. It has been a worrisome year and my hopes are pretty much gone.
carbon_footprint on February 8, 2009 at 2:49 PM
Heh. Palin slaughters moose for meat. She might have been a better leader for the times ahead than many expected. :)
Dr. Dog on February 8, 2009 at 2:34 PM
The Palin Presidential fireside chats would have been more interesting; Sarah dragging out a caribou carcass and showing Americans how best to butcher it.
Added bonus: millions of sensitive liberals falling over dead in abject shock.
Bishop on February 8, 2009 at 2:51 PM
This is good. link Welcome to Oceania.
Dr. Dog on February 8, 2009 at 2:52 PM
It has been a worrisome year and my hopes are pretty much gone.
carbon_footprint on February 8, 2009 at 2:49 PM
Never give up your hopes, it only leads to despair or worse.
Life’s what you make it and all that happy horseshit; don’t sell yourself short. *off the soapbox now*
Can you wrench cars? If you can, come up to Minnesota and I’ll get you a job.
Bishop on February 8, 2009 at 2:55 PM
Could you imagine the apoplexy in the NYT food section as she does a YouTube of ripping out a bloody caribou liver and roasting over an open fire on a spit?
Dr. Dog on February 8, 2009 at 2:55 PM
Bishop on February 8, 2009 at 2:55 PM
Brother, cut it out. Some deer chili or deer tenderloins would taste good right about now.
kingsjester on February 8, 2009 at 2:58 PM
Nope, they are far too busy blowing holes in the ships hull to bother rearranging the deck chairs.
doriangrey on February 8, 2009 at 2:59 PM
Awww… What a lovely dream…. ;)
doriangrey on February 8, 2009 at 3:00 PM
Thank you.
No, I only have experience in architecture and food.
carbon_footprint on February 8, 2009 at 3:02 PM
Dr. Dog on February 8, 2009 at 2:55 PM
Preferably while the caribou is still twitching.
Then Sarah could make an “innocent” verbal mistake, “You see here how I tore Obama’s liver…er…I mean the caribou’s liver from the abdominal cavity….
Bishop on February 8, 2009 at 3:02 PM
No, I only have experience in architecture and food.
carbon_footprint on February 8, 2009 at 3:02 PM
You should learn. Tough economic times mean more people holding onto their older cars which break down and need fixin’.
Even in a cash or barter system, I figure I’ll still have some sort of income.
Bishop on February 8, 2009 at 3:05 PM
I agree totally!I have been waiting for the President & his administration to inspire the people & encourage them, yes times are bad, but they have been much worse and we have survived.
Obama needs to eliminate the words disasterous & catasthrope(misspelled I know, but you get the picture) from his vocabulary.
It seems like his hope changed to doom on Nov 5th. If he is wanting to lower expectations so he will look better when things improve, well I think he has loweredthem enough. Start leading Mr. President! Fear created this to a large extent, but fear isn’t going to lead us out of it. Is he really that dense to not see that?
Kevin in Southern Illinois on February 8, 2009 at 3:07 PM
Ask Nancy Pelosi if her hubby runs his enterprises the way that she and Obama, Reid, and the rest of the Democrats want to command this economy.
onlineanalyst on February 8, 2009 at 3:13 PM
Kevin,
Obama maybe using the pulpit of fear for his purposes. But I have a feeling he might be running fear because he is scared himself. Nothing more fearful that a person who having gotten the brass ring; awakes in a cold sweat one night realizing they are not up to the task and have it all to lose.
Dr. Dog on February 8, 2009 at 3:15 PM
Very true, he said.
In what way, then, will our city be moved, and in what manner the two classes of auxiliaries and rulers disagree among themselves or with one another? Shall we, after the manner of Homer, pray the Muses to tell us ‘how discord first arose’? Shall we imagine them in solemn mockery, to play and jest with us as if we were children, and to address us in a lofty tragic vein, making believe to be in earnest?
How would they address us?
After this manner: –A city which is thus constituted can hardly be shaken; but, seeing that everything which has a beginning has also an end, even a constitution such as yours will not last for ever, but will in time be dissolved. And this is the dissolution: –In plants that grow in the earth, as well as in animals that move on the earth’s surface, fertility and sterility of soul and body occur when the circumferences of the circles of each are completed, which in short-lived existences pass over a short space, and in long-lived ones over a long space. But to the knowledge of human fecundity and sterility all the wisdom and education of your rulers will not attain; the laws which regulate them will not be discovered by an intelligence which is alloyed with sense, but will escape them, and they will bring children into the world when they ought not. Now that which is of divine birth has a period which is contained in a perfect number, but the period of human birth is comprehended in a number in which first increments by involution and evolution (or squared and cubed) obtaining three intervals and four terms of like and unlike, waxing and waning numbers, make all the terms commensurable and agreeable to one another. The base of these (3) with a third added (4) when combined with five (20) and raised to the third power furnishes two harmonies; the first a square which is a hundred times as great (400 = 4 X 100), and the other a figure having one side equal to the former, but oblong, consisting of a hundred numbers squared upon rational diameters of a square (i. e. omitting fractions), the side of which is five (7 X 7 = 49 X 100 = 4900), each of them being less by one (than the perfect square which includes the fractions, sc. 50) or less by two perfect squares of irrational diameters (of a square the side of which is five = 50 + 50 = 100); and a hundred cubes of three (27 X 100 = 2700 + 4900 + 400 = 8000). Now this number represents a geometrical figure which has control over the good and evil of births. For when your guardians are ignorant of the law of births, and unite bride and bridegroom out of season, the children will not be goodly or fortunate. And though only the best of them will be appointed by their predecessors, still they will be unworthy to hold their fathers’ places, and when they come into power as guardians, they will soon be found to fall in taking care of us, the Muses, first by under-valuing music; which neglect will soon extend to gymnastic; and hence the young men of your State will be less cultivated. In the succeeding generation rulers will be appointed who have lost the guardian power of testing the metal of your different races, which, like Hesiod’s, are of gold and silver and brass and iron. And so iron will be mingled with silver, and brass with gold, and hence there will arise dissimilarity and inequality and irregularity, which always and in all places are causes of hatred and war. This the Muses affirm to be the stock from which discord has sprung, wherever arising; and this is their answer to us.
Plato’s Republic. How prophetic.
Dr. Dog on February 8, 2009 at 3:21 PM
Because no one with even fundamental knowledge of economics has confidence in him or his policies.
onlineanalyst on February 8, 2009 at 3:29 PM
Yeah that too, you can see the fear &hear itin his speeches, but you can’t just give up. If he would step asidewe would get Biden so is that any better? They played music on the Titanic when itsank so at least encourage me, even if it is false hope. What do wehave to lose1
Kevin in Southern Illinois on February 8, 2009 at 3:39 PM
I work for a major automaker(not big 3) and we are having a major announcement this week on more measures to be enacted, probably 401k match going, among other things.everybody is worried, but I have been down before and won’t give up if worse comes to worse. That’s what I want Obama to say, don’t give up. America is still a great Nation.
Kevin in Southern Illinois on February 8, 2009 at 3:43 PM
Kevin in Southern Illinois on February 8, 2009 at 3:43 PM
Tomorrow night he’ll probably give another doom and gloom speech. He’ll predict the end of our nation if the Porkulous Bill is not passed. What he has not realized yet, possibly due to the fact that he has been given everything all of his life, is how hard-working and individualistic most Americans are. We are like Gunny Highway in “Heartbreak Ridge”. We adapt. We overcome. This is why we have always been different than Europe. We are individuals who come together when our nation has been threatened. Do not talk down to us and do not lie to us about how you will spend our money. Americans will not put up with it.
kingsjester on February 8, 2009 at 3:55 PM
Amen brother! Love that movie!
Kevin in Southern Illinois on February 8, 2009 at 4:04 PM
Winston Churchill speech telling Britons nottogive up during WW2. Just something to remind us of a time when real Leaders led!
Kevin in Southern Illinois on February 8, 2009 at 4:08 PM
Jazz, I think ajacksonian summed it up rather well for you:
Some people (read successful business types) look to the future and try to forecast the coming business enviroment. To many it appears rather bleak.
Dawnsblood on February 8, 2009 at 4:15 PM
angryed: How do you see manufacturing coming back if the Greenies are hell-bent on not allowing any through their absurd regulations?
onlineanalyst on February 8, 2009 at 4:19 PM
This is what the total absence of leadership looks like.
hillbillyjim on February 8, 2009 at 4:27 PM
FEAR, False Evidence Appearing Real, never has worked in any situation other than to get out of a burning house or jump over a fence to avoid a pit-bull. However, FEAR has been used by every president during the last 80 years to ram through every piece of seriously flawed rules and legislation that either promotes a self seeking agenda or line the pockets of their friends. This is no different than the emergency bailout last fall except the President now has a “D” after his name instead of an “R”…. As FDR said, “There is nothing to fear, but, fear itself!” Let us instead have some real leadership on the part of our President and Congress that gives us hope, which will be much more effective than the FEAR based, empty rhetoric that we have been getting. Any legislation that comes out of a team effort, where all are aligned on a positive outcome, will be much more effective than a pork laden bill that will drive our economy further into the tank.
DL13 on February 8, 2009 at 4:32 PM
To paraphrase FDR — “There is nothing to fear but Obama itself.”
As for the CongressCritters, my rallying cry is — “No representation without taxation.” Like in they pay their taxes just like the rest of us.
Dr. Dog on February 8, 2009 at 5:10 PM
This is what I don’t get. Unless the greenies are from another planet and never get hot, cold or hungry then what do they think they are accomplishing?
A pristine planet for cockroches? That is all that will be left. These idiots have to have power, heat, a/c, water & food just like the normal people. In order to get most of these things you still have to pay for them. Without a viable economy and people acting like MadMax let’s see how long the greenies last. These wankers should be first on your hit list.
izoneguy on February 8, 2009 at 5:44 PM
Knowing how to hunt & survive are two skills that Palin has. Obama no.
Who do you think will come out on top in a MadMax world?
izoneguy on February 8, 2009 at 5:46 PM
Thats what obamas new condom porkulus bill will do
hand out free condoms so the owners of the condom plants
will make a few more billion
while hiring no one..
i wonder how many dems and liberals
own stock or maybe the entire production plant
for Trojans?
jcila on February 8, 2009 at 5:48 PM
Well duh! What business would hire new people and try to expand their business with tax hikes coming? Just like the investors, they can’t plan ahead because they have NO idea what is coming. Well, they know tax cuts aren’t coming I guess. Just like the banks that got all of that cash they are diggin’ in for an extended period of hurtin’ from the gumminent.
Until the gumminent fixes the housing finance problem and dump that stupid “mark to market” rule, nothing is going to work.
darwin-t on February 8, 2009 at 5:57 PM
The condoms are being passed out so members of Congress don’t catch anything while they are screwing every American.
darwin-t on February 8, 2009 at 5:59 PM
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