Obama economy continues to roar ahead

[Endus]

The American people suffer from a low workforce participation rate, which artificially keeps the unemployment number low. The statisticians count them as having "left the labor pool" and so are not counted an unemployed. Instead of creating jobs for these people, these people are resorting to living at home and living off of food stamps. The number of people using food stamps has exploded under Obama.



Take that extra 5% and add it to the unemployment rate to see where we truly are.

No, this is deliberate and blatant statistical manipulation. You don't get to just change the measures because their performance doesn't match what you, ideologically speaking, wish were true.

You are simply making up numbers, because the real data doesn't fit your assumptions, and you'd rather make stuff up than acknowledge that, just maybe, your ideological views don't hold water.

Hell, if nothing else, there's nothing about being on food stamps that even requires that someone be unemployed.

What your data there DOES suggest is that there's something wrong with wealth inequality in the USA, not economic strength overall. And that's something that's part of the Democratic platform, to be addressed. You're making the Democrats' case for them.

[Lenonis]

The number of people using food stamps has exploded under Obama.

Huh, from the graph you displayed it looks to me that the growth exploded after the economy crashed, which is entirely expected, but has been declining the last couple of years as the economy has continued to improve. I'm not sure this really supports your narrative. It would be expected that food stamp usage would lag behind unemployment and other indicators given that people don't turn to food stamps the second they lose their job, in general.

[Xires]

225 jobs add. People who haven't worked in years returning to work. 4.9% unemployment which is very good for the US. Wages are rising.

Why should you care? It's a big boost for Hillary, it could get her elected.






http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworst.../#424cbf0e782f

We’ve just got the July employment numbers for the US and they look like there’s strong job growth going on. 255,000 new jobs this month along with an upward revision of the previous month’s numbers. It looks like the US economy is growing well – and what is most important is that those discouraged workers seem to be coming back into the economy and also that they’re able to find jobs. Thus we might say that Janet Yellen’s little gamble on keeping interest rates low for the moment is working and eradicating that rump of long term unemployment that is blighting the US economy as a whole.

The numbers:
The American economy roared ahead last month, as employers added 255,000 jobs, a bigger-than-expected gain that suggests the country’s growth rate may be more robust than thought just two months ago.
Despite the rise in jobs the unemployment number was flat at 4.9%. That would indicate that some more of those dissuaded workers coming in out of their hidden unemployment.
Payrolls climbed by 255,000 last month, exceeding all forecasts in a Bloomberg survey of 89 economists, following a 292,000 gain in June that was a bit larger than previously estimated, a Labor Department report showed Friday. The jobless rate held at 4.9 percent as many of the people streaming into the labor force found jobs.

The importance of this is that we know we’ve got two different sets of unemployed people out there. There’s the short term unemployed and as far as they go we think we’re pretty much at full employment. There always will be some number of people because it takes time to get hired, or to choose between possibilities, between jobs. Thus, given that about 20% of all people move jobs each year, it takes a month or three to make the move, there will always be some percentage of “frictional unemployment”. The other group are those who have been out of work for too long to be getting unemployment insurance and so might not even be registered as unemployed. We want to get these people back into the labour force. And what seems to be happening is that they are coming. Thus we can have jobs growth and no change in the unemployment rate.
Yellen’s gamble has been that this might happen so why not keep interest rates lower for longer. It would appear to be working too.

Fake numbers. After a year of not working you cease to be counted by the census. The REAL numbers are more like 12%.
The ONLY President in History to not gain more then 3% with the economy.
Jobs returning? You mean the part-time jobs that come with no medical, dental, or 401k? Returning jobs? You mean the minimum wage jobs? Returning jobs? You mean SEASONAL/TEMP JOBS? Thanks.....

No- inflation went up 3% this year and yet wages went up 1.8% or less (that is bad)
Obamacare- unaffordable and the insurance company's are backing out of it because they are losing hundreds of millions which will further drive up costs. Costs for Obamacare have continually increased with a 17% increase coming in January 2017 and it will only go up from there.
If you have a life threatening disease/injury- your insurance drops you. My neighbor has been sick a while and he is going to die so what happened? His insurance dropped him and his hospital bill is over $300,000. His wife told me she will pay them $1 a month.
No- Obama';s economy is inflated with fake numbers and even then they still are not good.

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Any look at the data makes it clear this argument is pretty much nonsense.

GDP per capita in the USA has grown steadily since 2009, a year after Obama took office. Unemployment, comparably, has dropped steadily since 2009. While yes, there's some seasonal variation, the overall trend is VERY clear; this isn't about ideology or politics. If you think unemployment's gotten worse under Obama, you're just flat-out wrong, and haven't been paying attention to any of the data available for years.

And before anyone says "yeah, but more people just aren't looking, what about REAL unemployment?" Well, that's the U6 (the standard unemployment is the U3 measure; the U6 includes other categories including discouraged workers, which are those who've stopped looking). And the U6 behaviour matches the trend in the U3; if anything, it's improving even more rapidly.

The current unemployment rate is already at healthy levels. If you're claiming unemployment is an issue, then you don't understand the issue.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm For raw data, the BLS.

http://unemploymentdata.com/wp-conte...3-Jul-2016.jpg If you want a graph of the history of U3/U6 data, so you can see the clear downward trend.

This isn't a seasonal bump. Unemployment's at healthy levels, after Obama's 2 terms.

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Which is nonsense, since nobody has ever included them in the unemployment rate. The U6 isn't any more "real" than the U3; that's just a bit of deliberate propaganda being played by some on the right wing, since the actual data represents a healthy trend and they have to find some way to misrepresent it, to pretend there's a problem.

And like I said; they HAVE been counting them. Since the early '90s. In those other measures. You not realizing that this data has been widely available isn't my problem.

Read my first post and realize that those numbers are fake as shit, Endus. Just like Obama.

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No, this is deliberate and blatant statistical manipulation. You don't get to just change the measures because their performance doesn't match what you, ideologically speaking, wish were true.

You are simply making up numbers, because the real data doesn't fit your assumptions, and you'd rather make stuff up than acknowledge that, just maybe, your ideological views don't hold water.

Hell, if nothing else, there's nothing about being on food stamps that even requires that someone be unemployed.

What your data there DOES suggest is that there's something wrong with wealth inequality in the USA, not economic strength overall. And that's something that's part of the Democratic platform, to be addressed. You're making the Democrats' case for them.

Hate to break it to you, but people on food stamps and welfare have only gone UP since Obama took office. You can choose to ignore that fact all you want- it won't change the fact that you are 100% wrong.

[Endus]

Fake numbers. After a year of not working you cease to be counted by the census. The REAL numbers are more like 12%.

One measure's as "real" as the other. If you'd rather talk about the U6 than the U3, that's fine, but recognize that it follows the same pattern, and has been improving steadily since 2009.

Jobs returning? You mean the part-time jobs that come with no medical, dental, or 401k? Returning jobs? You mean the minimum wage jobs? Returning jobs? You mean SEASONAL/TEMP JOBS? Thanks.....

These are all factored into the U6, other than the minimum-wage thing (and there's been no real decline in median wage to reflect that). And, again, the U6 measure shows that all of those have been improving since 2009, not getting worse.

No- inflation went up 3% this year and yet wages went up 1.8% or less (that is bad)

And has nothing to do with unemployment. It has to do with wealth inequality, and again, the Democrats are the only ones planning to do anything about that, platform-wise.

Again; you do not just get to make up your own numbers because reality doesn't fall in line with your "Obama sucks" rhetoric.

[Bollocks]

The American people suffer from a low workforce participation rate, which artificially keeps the unemployment number low. The statisticians count them as having "left the labor pool" and so are not counted an unemployed. Instead of creating jobs for these people, these people are resorting to living at home and living off of food stamps. The number of people using food stamps has exploded under Obama.



Take that extra 5% and add it to the unemployment rate to see where we truly are.

We are also in a late stage in the economic cycle, with a recession liking coming soon. In the last 20 years, we've become a credit-driven society. That means the flow of credit is the single biggest factor in determining when recessions hit. Credit has a cycle. When you first recover from a recession, credit is still a little tight and many people are afraid to take on credit out of fear of more recession. The more time elapses without a recession, credit gets easier to acquire AND groups are less risk-averse, making it more likely credit is granted. The late stage of an economic cycle is marked by a surge in corporate mergers and acquisitions as a total loss of fear takes hold.



As you can see, mergers and acquisitions exploded just before the 2001 recession and again just before the 2008 recession. They exploded again in 2015, so experts agree a recession in 2017 is a serious threat.

But you may ask why mergers cause recessions? What is the correlation?

Here is the reason. Mergers can go wrong. When merger activity spikes, a LOT of mergers go wrong at once. But they don't go wrong immediately, it takes 1-2 years for the damage to hit. Company A buys Company B. But Company B turns out to be a terrible purchase, their revenue collapses, or costs spike, and it hurts Company A a year or two later. Mergers are financed by banks. When mergers go wrong, they can default on their bank loan. This now hurts the banks. The banks can repair their balance sheet by refusing to lend money. They take the money they might have lent out and use it to cover the cost of the bad loan. The upshot is that a spike in mergers means that many banks start tightening credit 1-2 years later. Presto! Recession!

When you see a lot of huge mergers like Verizon and Yahoo!, comcast and time warner, budweiser and some european brewing company, etc., its a sign a recession looms.

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President can easily affect the economy. A president can cut government regulations on business via executive order which can be a massive stimulus to growth. Obama could issue executive orders to either allow to ban the Keystone XL pipeline. Depending on how he rules, Obama can personally create or destroy thousands of high paying jobs and boost the economy by billions or not at all.

He absolutely has a VERY large effect on the economy.

http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_303.htm
Cmon dude.

[Endus]

Hate to break it to you, but people on food stamps and welfare have only gone UP since Obama took office. You can choose to ignore that fact all you want- it won't change the fact that you are 100% wrong.

While at the same time, unemployment has gone down. Neither food stamps nor welfare require that someone be not working and not looking for work.

I never claimed that there were no issues with the American economy. I was correcting the false claims that the economy has grown weaker, and that unemployment has grown. Both of those are false.

Yes, wealth inequality is a problem; the working and middle class are no longer getting a fair share of the productivity. But again; the Democrats are the ones talking about doing something about that.

[alexw]

Fake numbers. After a year of not working you cease to be counted by the census. The REAL numbers are more like 12%.
The ONLY President in History to not gain more then 3% with the economy.
Jobs returning? You mean the part-time jobs that come with no medical, dental, or 401k? Returning jobs? You mean the minimum wage jobs? Returning jobs? You mean SEASONAL/TEMP JOBS? Thanks.....

No- inflation went up 3% this year and yet wages went up 1.8% or less (that is bad)
Obamacare- unaffordable and the insurance company's are backing out of it because they are losing hundreds of millions which will further drive up costs. Costs for Obamacare have continually increased with a 17% increase coming in January 2017 and it will only go up from there.
If you have a life threatening disease/injury- your insurance drops you. My neighbor has been sick a while and he is going to die so what happened? His insurance dropped him and his hospital bill is over $300,000. His wife told me she will pay them $1 a month.
No- Obama';s economy is inflated with fake numbers and even then they still are not good.

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Read my first post and realize that those numbers are fake as shit, Endus. Just like Obama.

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Hate to break it to you, but people on food stamps and welfare have only gone UP since Obama took office. You can choose to ignore that fact all you want- it won't change the fact that you are 100% wrong.

Ok this has me scratching my head. What you are in essence saying is inequality is too high and jobs simply don't offer what they used to in terms of pay, benefits, conditions, etc, and that has resulted in lots more people with a low standard of living and lots more on welfare.

That being the case you must align with the democrats and Obama then? Because him/democrats are the only ones who want to do something about it? If not why are you blaming him for something he wants to tackle but cannot because the other side won't let him? Really really scratching my head in befuddlement at your position......

[chrisfover87]

A lot of the folks posting on this forum dont even work. Of course based on their "experience" the job market is good.

[Wells]

A lot of the folks posting on this forum dont even work. Of course based on their "experience" the job market is good.

Or, you know, there are numbers.

[Milchshake]

A lot of the folks posting on this forum dont even work. Of course based on their "experience" the job market is good.

So they're waiting until Obama leaves office... then they will get a job? That will really teach Obama a lesson on unemployment numbers. Its like that time, the same guys all boycotted The Force Awakens to bring down box office numbers.

These guys are really determined to go around teaching people lessons, especially on the internet.

When that fails, they can go heap their bodies on the growing pile of Case-Deaton suicides.

[PC2]

Endus is a dishonest and inconsistent person. He gushes about the current economic system and metrics only when the context is directly about Obama/Hillary, but hates that same economic system when the Democrats are not being mentioned, 'because inequality'. You cant have your cake and eat it too, you have to take the good with the bad.

[Garnier Fructis]

Endus is a dishonest and inconsistent person. He gushes about the current economic system and metrics only when the context is directly about Obama/Hillary, but hates that same economic system when the Democrats are not being mentioned, 'because inequality'. You cant have your cake and eat it too, you have to take the good with the bad.

Pointing out that someone else's overly negative characterization of the economy sucks and is downright wrong is not the same as saying the economy is good or how he would like it to be.

There's no inconsistency, just a lot of oversimplification of what he's saying for the purpose of bashing him.

[PC2]

Pointing out that someone else's overly negative characterization of the economy sucks and is downright wrong is not the same as saying the economy is good or how he would like it to be.

There's no inconsistency, just a lot of oversimplification of what he's saying for the purpose of bashing him.

Wrong, his arguments regarding the healthiness of the economy are entirely bipolar depending on whether the specific context is defending Obama/Hillary or criticizing the same economic system and policy they support when the subject isn't about the Democratic party.

[Endus]

Endus is a dishonest and inconsistent person. He gushes about the current economic system and metrics only when the context is directly about Obama/Hillary, but hates that same economic system when the Democrats are not being mentioned, 'because inequality'. You cant have your cake and eat it too, you have to take the good with the bad.

I never "gushed" about the economy. Dig back through my posting history; you'll see that I've been critical of wealth inequality for pretty much my entire time here. What I did do was to correct outright misinformation that was being spread, claiming that the economy was growing "weaker" or that unemployment was "growing". Neither statement is factually true.

That there are other issues with the economy is completely separate from those points.

[Garnier Fructis]

Wrong, his arguments regarding the healthiness of the economy are entirely bipolar depending on whether the specific context is defending Obama/Hillary or criticizing the same economic system and policy they support when the subject isn't about the Democratic party.

That his posts seem bipolar to you is your problem, not his.

[Endus]

Wrong, his arguments regarding the healthiness of the economy are entirely bipolar depending on whether the specific context is defending Obama/Hillary or criticizing the same economic system and policy they support when the subject isn't about the Democratic party.

You've failed to bring up any actual examples. You're claiming I have a political bias when I'm not even American. I've spoken, at length, in other threads about why I thought Clinton was a poor candidate choice (albeit still way better than Trump). I've been critical of Obama for giving the Republicans too much credit and expecting them to be willing to compromise. And so forth. There are Republicans I respect, even if I might disagree with them politically.

You're projecting, or inventing a bias, rather than actually addressing the points. Which is kind of silly, when my points in this particular thread have been almost entirely based on actual data, not some ideological theory.


Edit: I'll also note that I don't believe I've called the American economy "healthy". I used the adjective "strong". Something can be strong in its current structure, while still having systemic issues within that structure that lead to negative outcomes, which I think should be addressed. Those are two largely unrelated arguments. In fact, it's that strength that leads me to argue that such a shift is possible; a weaker economy may not survive that kind of overhaul.

Short version; there are positions other than "OBAMA IS THE ANTICHRIST" and "OBAMA IS THE SECOND COMING".

[PC2]

I never "gushed" about the economy. Dig back through my posting history; you'll see that I've been critical of wealth inequality for pretty much my entire time here.

Then you wont mind distributing blame across more than one party, since they are largely in agreement. I dont believe that Obama's stated policy is anywhere near what you agree with, if you were king policy maker you would steamroll the same economy you are gushing about towards socialism.

[Endus]

Then you wont mind distributing blame across more than one party.

For the state the USA is currently in?

Absolutely. Both parties' fault. Never claimed otherwise, nor would I. See? This is where you literally just made up nonsense and then blamed me for it.

Hell, one of my big issues with Clinton has always been that she's too friendly to corporate America. Like in this post, from way back in March, when Sanders was still looking like he had a serious shot;

It just means she's pro-establishment and pro-corporation. It's one of the reasons I dislike her, politically speaking

She's amended her platform significantly since that, largely due to Bernie's push, so I'm cautiously optimistic about what she might achieve, but I'm certainly not rah-rah-Clinton.

[Dystemper]

The US economy is not all that great as we have far too much debt, as does the world economy .

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/03/whats...ommentary.html



In a recent interview, former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan (the "Maestro") warned that the economy was experiencing, "the early signs of stagflation." This is a very rare occasion where Mr. Greenspan and I are actually in agreement.

In fact, the U.S. economy—and indeed the entire developed world—is in the beginning stages of an unprecedented breakout of stagflation. The number one reason for this can be summed up in a single word…debt. Debt not only steers an economy towards low growth but it also mires the nation with inflation.

Global debt increased to more than $200 trillion, nearly three times the size of the entire global economy, and that number is from 2014, the most recent available. All this debt engenders the stag part of stagflation because it is difficult to grow and invest for growth in an economy under such high debt burdens. The baneful part of this worldwide debt buildup is that it didn't lead to the accumulation of capital goods for the purpose of expanding productivity. Instead, it was spawned for the fruitless Keynesian ruse of what amounts to not much more than hole digging and filling.

While it is true that debt service payments are currently at historic lows, it is also true that debt levels are at a record high both in nominal terms and as a percentage of the economy. Therefore, low-interest payments are the direct result of an unprecedented bubble in the bond market. Individuals are intuitively aware of this unstable rate environment and must prepare their balance sheets for rising carry costs.

Most importantly, a debt saturated economy can't function properly because it is marred by capital imbalances and asset bubbles that must be unwound for the credit and savings channel to work efficiently. But our economic leaders seem intent on obduracy.

A perfect example of this condition is Japan. Despite multiple recessions and lost decades, the government is still clinging to the deluded fantasy that a debt to GDP ratio greater than 240 percent is needed to jump start the economy.

"Global debt increased to more than $200 trillion, nearly three times the size of the entire global economy."

But, the effects of this unproductive debt pile aren't just evident in Japan. U.S. GDP averaged just 2.1 percent since 2010. And that anemic growth rate is headed even lower; up just 1.2 percent over the past year and only 1 percent for the first half of 2016. 5

Indeed, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently lowered its 2016 forecast for the entire global economy to just 3.1 percent. 6

So where does the inflation part of stagflation come from?

If there is one thing that all central bankers foolishly agree on it's that a 2 percent inflation goal is now mandatory for growth.

In pursuit of this fatuous task, ECB and BOJ balance sheets are ascending at the blistering pace of a combined $180 billion per month of newly created fiat credit 7. But unlike what most Keynesians will tell you, inflation doesn't come from a low unemployment rate but rather from too much money chasing too few goods.

Therefore, it would be silly to assume that central banks can achieve their 2 percent inflation targets with precision. Reckless deficit spending, surging debt to GDP ratios and an unmanageable increase in central banks' balance sheets will eventually erode the confidence of central bankers to maintain the purchasing power of fiat money. Inflation won't just magically stop at 2 percent; it will eclipse that level and continue to rise.

This return of inflation will cause a mass exodus from the bond market, just as short sellers begin to pile on top. The bond market will respond in violent fashion—taking yields up 100's of basis points rather quickly—as bond bids from yield-agnostic central bankers are supplanted by a genuine market that will justifiably demand higher rates. And of course, the inevitable surging debt service payments will subsequently render debt-saturated governments completely insolvent.

An unprecedented accumulation of unproductive government debt that is fueled by a massive increase in the global base money supply is a perfect recipe for worldwide stagflation. But the truth is that stagflation isn't something on the horizon, it has already arrived.

The hallmark of a healthy economy is to have its real growth rate to be double the pace of inflation. Today, this sign of prosperity has been turned completely upside down. The core Consumer Price Index is up 2.3 percent year over year while real GDP has grown just 1.2 percent. Inflation is now running at twice the rate of real economic growth! 8,9

Stagflation is not an economic peril we only need to fear in the future; but rather it is something consumers are forced to deal with right now. The former "Maestro" is perhaps getting better with age. Investors should prepare their portfolios for a protracted period of rising prices and slowing growth.

[Cerus]

While at the same time, unemployment has gone down. Neither food stamps nor welfare require that someone be not working and not looking for work.

I never claimed that there were no issues with the American economy. I was correcting the false claims that the economy has grown weaker, and that unemployment has grown. Both of those are false.

Yes, wealth inequality is a problem; the working and middle class are no longer getting a fair share of the productivity. But again; the Democrats are the ones talking about doing something about that.

No it hasn't.

Unemployment numbers have never included underemployed or those not looking for work anymore. Those figures count too when most of the jobs added are temporary, part time, minimum wage jobs. That's not a sign of a healthy economy.

The actual unemployment numbers are much higher.

Stick to debating your own countries problems...you don't know jack about ours and have no say in it at all anyway.