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Not a fact that I was aware of, nor something that would annoy me. His habit of putting forward pseudo-facts that he has uncritically adopted from right-wing web sites is aggravating, to an extent that is comparable with your claiming that the US unemployment rate is 18%, when you mean that your idiosyncratic reading of the figures accompanying the the offical 9.3% rate leads you to believe that the "real" rate - at least for right-wing nitwits - is "actually" 18%.

Why? =A0

All skis do - that's why they work.

As if anybody cared.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

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It seems perfectly affordable in Germany, despite the rather better protection of workers rights there, and the more generous social security provisions. Sadly, US right-wing nitwits seem to like the hole they've dug for themselves, and want to keep on digging it deeper. Their grandfathers were frightened by the International Workers of the World, and their grandchildren haven't outgrown their infantile anxieties.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

Excuse me, that graph was a little small. Here's a bigger copy:

Now, after 5 years and two monster spendulus programs, FDR had driven unemployment down to 9% by 1937? When foolhardy fiscal restraint drove it back up to 17%?

Nope, still don't see it. Hold on a sec while I smash my glasses...

Sorry. Still looks to me like FDR got a small, fake dip with his jobs- for-clunkers programs, which snapped back the moment he stopped them, 'til the war put everyone to work.

-- Cheers, James Arthur

I thank Bebe for that. She's a genius.

I can ski, crash, get up, repeat, and still get down the hill in time to have a beer before you and Dan show up. Last time we were up, I crashed so hard once that Dan fell over from just watching me.

My new K2 skis are unaccountably fast. Even on a nearly flat road, just cruising along, I pass everybody. They "sing" too, on certain kinds of snow. I suppose that means they're happy.

They're delaminating on top, of course, like all K2s do.

John

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No, actually it's an official government figure; I just explained to you how it's calculated.

Like with the money supply's M1, M2, & M3, the government publishes a number of stats on unemployment. You cited the "for dummies" number, the number the President uses when he says 652,000 people--in one month--giving up entirely and dropping out of the work force is a good thing.

So, wait a minute, if they all quit looking, everyone will be employed! Hooray! You've solved it! Better, job-hunting should be banned! It's un-American!

Meanwhile I added it up for your convenience, but you yourself can find that (and all the various official unemployment measures) from official .gov sources if you look. You might have to dig--this administration doesn't put them front and center. Bad for business, you know.

Cheers, James Arthur

Oh, labor is affordable. It's employment that's unaffordable. People are cheap and productive. Government isn't either.

All he needed to pull the country out of the Great Depression was to do the census a few years early.

It's called the "U6" (unemployed looking for work + unemployed no longer looking - "discouraged" + underemployed). The normally reported "survey" numbers are known as the "U3".

U1 through U6 are defined about half way down:

makes U3 look good, but U6 won't look so great.

Kinda like M3?

U7: fraction of population who could work but who aren't working.

U8: fraction of population that isn't working.

U9: Like U8, but exclude government employees as "working."

U9 is the one that really matters, of course.

John

As long as it doesn't include those who don't want employment (retired, stay at home mothers, etc.).

What matters is the net fraction of the population that is actually doing productive work. Retired people, kids, students, people who choose not to work, stay-home mothers, government types... all consume food, housing, health care, and other stuff and don't produce any. It's got to come from the output of the people who do work, namely the

John

Bzzzt! Wrong answer. Retirees have investments which certainly do produce. Stay at home moms produce the next producers.

Nope. It only comes out of the rest of the population if they're getting welfare.

Only those people producing stuff, well, produce stuff. "Investments" don't produce anything, especially when the money is "invested" in government obligations or the casino called the stock market. Mothers at home feed themselves and their kids. That's admirable, but food and electricity enter the house every day, and it's got to come from somewhere.

John

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From the BLS link I gave Bill earlier

"In June, the average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm pay-rolls decreased by 0.1 hour to 34.1 hours. The manufacturing workweek for all employees decreased by 0.5 hour to 40.0 hours; this followed an increase of 0.4 hour in May. The average workweek for production and nonsupervisory employees on private nonfarm payrolls was unchanged at 33.4 hours in June. (See tables B-2 and B-7.)

Average hourly earnings of all employees in the private nonfarm sector decreased by 2 cents, or 0.1 percent, to $22.53 in June."

That's what traders call seriously "bearish."

-- Cheers, James Arthur

"So how's that hope and change workin' for ya?" --Sarah Palin

I wonder what is the average hours worked per week across the entire US population.

John

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Oh, bullshit. Investments are where the money comes from to build things. Were it not for the stock market these investments wouldn't be negotiable, so people would not invest in making things.

It enters your building every day, too. You don't make it. Grow up!

ISTR it's usually 44 hours or so (USA, less in Europe). 33.4 hours and falling means there isn't much out there, and that employers won't be needing more people. IOW no jobs--current employees are already underutilized.

-- Cheers, James Arthur

No, I mean total hours worked per week divided by total population. Guess 15? Maybe even less.

John

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Does it? Most personal investments are in government bonds, which are just ponzi promises, or stocks, which have nothing much to do with furnishing capital for production past IPO. If I buy a stock on the market, I'm just buying it from somebody else. The company that the stock symbolizes isn't usually involved at all.

There are lots of private businesses that make things.

The point is that you can shuffle all the green paper, or its computer equivalents, around all you want, but in a closed system you can't consume more than you make. Retired people who have invested their savings, and women at home feeding babies, students who are "our future", make nothing but continue to consume. *Somebody* has to actually make real stuff.

But I do make stuff, much more stuff than I consume. In fact, I make stuff that's used to make electricity.

John