The job market is booming...if you believe it

The employment report on Friday was without a doubt a blowout success.

The U.S. economy added a healthy 235,000 jobs in February, according to government data released Friday morning, surpassing economists' expectations and likely clearing the way for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates this month.

People should be dancing in the streets.
It seems weird that the job market is doing so good, but wages aren't going up.

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It's a curious contradiction...but only if you believe the official numbers.
What should grab you attention here is that most people no longer believe the numbers that the government is shoveling.
When Americans were polled to say if they’re confident that the currently reported 4.7 percent unemployment rate is correct, a large majority said "no".
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Of those who voted "not confident", the opinion of the economy was near unanimous.
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As for that booming labor market, well, the people have other ideas about that?
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This lack of faith in the official reports didn't just happen with Trump winning.
It begs the question: if people don't believe the numbers, then what is the point of them?
Is it all just some political exercise?

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What the model of the Dept of Labor doesn't account for is the warmest February since 1954. This, to me at least, means seasonal hiring, like in construction of all types, was at March or even April levels and the seasonal adjustment factor skewed the results. More jobs were reported as being created than actually were. I think this is the main cause of the numbers, though properly done by DOL, being higher than in reality.

Then there's the problem of the media using U3 when people exist in U6. The wage earners know better than the headlines.

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"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"

divineorder's picture

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-39277539

Jobless rate down but wage growth slows

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

ZimInSeattle's picture

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"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." - JFK | "The more I see of the moneyed peoples, the more I understand the guillotine." - G. B. Shaw Bernie/Tulsi 2020

@ZimInSeattle
But what good is propaganda if no one believes it?

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dance you monster's picture

. . . over at TOP. It was a discussion he visibly ducked.

The government numbers look good because they are supposed to look good. They're the measures that indicate not how Americans as a whole are doing but how those whose job it is to make Americans look like they're doing better are doing. And because the people deciding which numbers to highlight are those whose job it is to make Americans look like they're doing better, the numbers favor that perception, that perspective. That's why the Clinton Administration deep-sixed the U6 in favor of the U3.

Some of the numbers also are meant to tell investors how they are doing, and they will do well if the system is stacked to help them do well. The outcome is predetermined and steered to make those at the top feel good about themselves and keep us at the bottom from severing their self-serving heads in the city squares.

If we wanted to know how Americans as a whole are doing, we'd look at how their overall economic health was faring: do they have full-time jobs or part-time ones? Are those jobs covering health care and vacations and family leave? Do those incomes cover rent, and health insurance, and auto/commuting expenses and insurance, and utilities and education and prescriptions, etc.? Do their jobs (full- or part-time) permit them to pay attention to their families, or their neighbors, or the community? Do those jobs enable them to sock something away for retirement or emergencies? These are the measures that American lower and middle classes use to determine how they are doing, and little of this shows up in the U3 or the Dow or the trade balance or other leading indicators of economic health. And that's for a reason: the leading indicators aren't supposed to report our well-being and concerns, but the 1%'s well-being and concerns. And that's why Americans don't believe what they are told about recoveries they haven't seen in their own lives.

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@dance you monster @dance you monster

Small wonder Hillary wanted to put Bubba in charge of money. /sarcasm

Among other things, he left office after having lobbied hard for the two bills that, together, gave us the crash of 2008, the CFMA and Gramm, Leach, Blilely, the crash of 2008 being especially hard on low income and the poor because he had also ended welfare as we know it. On the bright side GoFundMe is booming. /sarcasm

Then, Bush gave us war in Iraq and Afghanistan, which Obama liked enough to keep them both and surge in Afghanistan. Obama also covered up for Clinton and let Bush and the banksters off the hook,ramped up drone killings far beyond the Bush years and gave us the slowest economic recovery in history. Though, thanks to Clinton, the anemic recovery looked a lot better on paper than in the paycheck. Circle of life.

And that's only skimming the surface on all three. At this point, the USA sure needs a hug. And a lot more.

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dance you monster's picture

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-15/wells-fargo-s-ceo-get...

Like they say, it's all about being in the right place at the right time.

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thanatokephaloides's picture

@dance you monster

Like they say, it's all about being in the right place at the right time.

The "right place" being in That Big Club Which We're Not In It.

[video:https://youtu.be/i5dBZDSSky0 width:500 height:306]

Diablo

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

shaharazade's picture

the 82% who think they up juice up the employment numbers are right. This isn't just a Trump thing they have been dicking with the unemployment numbers even before 'The Great Recession'. As Obama recommended people with no jobs should all get re-schooled and take up robotics. Find work creating your mechanical replacement. On a related story I read today Bezos is going to staff his Go Retail stores with robots.

http://www.investopedia.com/news/amazon-go-retails-stores-may-be-staffed...

After teasing the concept of a store without cashiers last December, Amazon.com Inc may introduce one staffed with robots. (See also: Amazon May Have Just Killed The Grocery Store http://www.investopedia.com/news/amazon-may-have-just-killed-grocery-sto...).

According to a report in the New York Post, the e-commerce behemoth has “contemplated” a two-story physical retail offering manned with robots on the top floor picking out items for shoppers. The company may have a prototype store ready by late 2017. The ground floor of such a store would be stocked with items that shoppers typically like to touch, such as fresh produce and alcohol.

There is a business rationale for Amazon’s enthusiasm for robots. The Seattle company, which already uses robots extensively for its fulfillment operations, could significantly cut down on employee costs through their use. The Post’s reports quotes an anonymous source as saying that the company is aiming for an average of six employees per location. That is a significantly low number for a store the size that Amazon is planning.

.....There is a business rationale for Amazon’s enthusiasm for robots. The Seattle company, which already uses robots extensively for its fulfillment operations, could significantly cut down on employee costs through their use. The Post’s reports quotes an anonymous source as saying that the company is aiming for an average of six employees per location. That is a significantly low number for a store the size that Amazon is planning.

As someone pointed out on my fb feed are the customer's going to be robots? Why bother feeding them snacks that humans eat.

Then today I read a depressing as hell long article from The Guardian by some economist of the geek persuasion about how artificial intelligence and this Brave New World is going to end capitalism and bring forth a utopian global new world. Oh brother. Can't find the article but it was just one more binary AI geek writing about how this globalized hell is inevitable and it will lead to an anti-capitalist utopia cause people won't have to work. Upside down ass backward economic geek assholes who do not ever even think about what the purpose of an economy is. Thanks gjohnsit. Glad to see that most people know this economy and it's numbers are not believable to working stiffs.

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@shaharazade @shaharazade thanks for that funny quote, they sure know what they're doing, eh? Quick access to a head of Iceburg and a fifth of Jack, Great America.

The ground floor of such a store would be stocked with items that shoppers typically like to touch, such as fresh produce and alcohol.

Why do people still buy crap from one of the worst humans alive, Jeff Bezos? Perhaps they think crap is useful and healthy, I don't.

I am realizing the phrase "be careful what you ask for" a lot lately. Even good-sounding advancements like "robots" turn out to be tools of oppression, no thanks to millionaires and their bubble-head cronies.

I am vicariously happy for the few people who get good jobs, but I don't know anyone with a conscience who is doing better, they all must be in the cities, I guess.

Peace & Love
Edit: Typo in subject Alchohol: combo of booze and ouch?

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@eyo

about robots coming to earth "to serve and protect and guard man from harm." They do. Turns out to be not so much fun.

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@Sunspots thanks I looked it up and now have a bigger reading list.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/With_Folded_Hands

... They state that they only follow the Prime Directive: ''to serve and obey and guard men from harm". Offering their services free of charge, they replace humans as police officers, bank tellers, and more, and eventually drive Underhill out of business. Despite the Humanoids' benign appearance and mission, Underhill soon realizes that, in the name of their Prime Directive, the mechanicals have essentially taken over every aspect of human life. No humans may engage in any behavior that might endanger them, and every human action is carefully scrutinized. Suicide is prohibited. Humans who resist the Prime Directive are taken away and lobotomized, so that they may live happily under the direction of the humanoids.

Reminded me of drunkards joke, "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy." That's why!

What I really wanted to say right now, TV is EVIL and so is YouTube. This is a recursive kibitz. I laugh every day because of Jimmy Dore, thanks Jimmy! I mean really, I laugh my ass off. It blows my mind what gets stirred up from what I call the lint trap of my brain's memory banks.

Watching this show; CIA Chief Blames Millennials For Vault 7 Leaks!, made this song pop right up: The Dillards and Andy Griffith - Pick a Bale of Cotton It really disturbs me when racist entertainment gets dislodged, and there is some weird fondness attached, sentimental what now? I don't know, Andy turned out to be a pretty decent human I thought.

"Was Deep Throat a millenial? Lordy, lordy." LOL! Irish irie. Thanks

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John William's Shadow Government Statistics maintains a database of more belivable, unadulterated statistics. His unemployment numbers are based on U6 but adds in long term discouraged numbers. He gets unemployment numbers that better explain the really poor labor participation rates. His numbers do not include the underemployed, folks that lost their jobs and had to settle for low wage work.

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Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.

artificial intelligence and robotics will generate a world without work. period. that world will be either a post capitalist utopia or a post capitalist hell on earth. one or the other.

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On to Biden since 1973

shaharazade's picture

@The Wizard @doh1304 their power seems the most rational option for now. The trouble is since both our political options R and D's are for deregulation to the point of madness I doubt any regulation or restriction is possible via the messed up globalized disaster cappies that own and run our world. Trump seems to me to be their wet dream of a president. He is a carney barker, developer, of the worst order and they can all rely on him to destroy all the regulations on the free market maniacs that are in power and do not want to get the heat from the populist. He is nothing but unrestricted capitalism at the maniac level. As far as the unemployed go they are just collateral damage in this Brave New World.

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shaharazade's picture

@doh1304 is insane. Yeah the industrial age is over but robotics will not deliver anything other then a dypsonian nightmare world. WTF is wrong with you? There is no such thing as a world without work. Work is life every alive organism does it. AI is an oxymoron concept. Your being snarky, right? Do you really think that the crap you get from Google or any binary vehicle has anything to do with intelligence? Get real asshole, intelligence is more then binary data, apps or some crazy geek's visions of a world without humanism. One or the other my ass. Intelligence is not mechanical it's inherent and rational. As far as humans and nature goes it involves using all of the mind, body and spirit we're wired to. Weren't you one of the reasons I left dkos? So what are you doing here with your inhumane mind set? 'Be off or I'll kick you down stairs' and furthermore 'So much for the life of the mind'.

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divineorder's picture

@shaharazade

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

shaharazade's picture

@divineorder is a concept I agree with. Hasn't this always been the case? My resistance to this brave new world with robots and artificial intelligence running everything has nothing to do with change. Change is the nature of life. My bitch has nothing to do with change as nothing in this universe or in the history of humans or reality is static. However when change is harnessed to the insane anti-humanist capitalist global system that proclaims we as humans are redundant and replaceable by both a robotic work force and AL it goes beyond progress and enters a strange anti-human, anti-nature reality. Computers are nothing but a a tool. Data is factoids and important but it has nothing to do with intelligence.

In my opinion human intelligence is not just a system of O's or 1's. All these so called intelligent machines can do is measure and diminish the capacity we humans have for comprehending and understanding truths that have nothing to do with binary data or artificial intelligence. It may be good at winning Go but AI sure as hell has nothing to do with the capacity we humans have for creativity, compassion, empathy, understanding or any 'intelligence' that makes being human tolerable or not a threat to the real nature of being alive and part of the universe. Intelligent units my ass. 'Send more Chuck Berry'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence exhibited by machines. In computer science, the field of AI research defines itself as the study of "intelligent agents": any device that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chance of success at some goal.[1] Colloquially, the term "artificial intelligence" is applied when a machine mimics "cognitive" functions that humans associate with other human minds, such as "learning" and "problem solving" (known as Machine Learning). As machines become increasingly capable, mental facilities once thought to require intelligence are removed from the definition. For example, optical character recognition is no longer perceived as an exemplar of "artificial intelligence", having become a routine technology. Capabilities currently classified as AI include successfully understanding human speech, competing at a high level in strategic game systems (such as Chess and Go, self-driving cars, intelligent routing in content delivery networks, and interpreting complex data.

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@shaharazade

AI can only deal with the information it's given or designed to collect, and, more critically, it can only work toward the goals it's given, as they are defined by its developer.

Knowledge is not at all the same as wisdom.

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divineorder's picture

@shaharazade

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

thanatokephaloides's picture

@shaharazade

Yeah the industrial age is over but robotics will not deliver anything other then a dypsonian nightmare world. WTF is wrong with you? There is no such thing as a world without work.

Actually, there could indeed be such a thing. And I think that you're quite right here: it would be a VERY. BAD. THING. INDEED.

(And I think the word you wanted there was "dystopian".) Smile

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

For thirty years I worked at a mind numbing, soul crushing job where I did no good for anyone except enriching and empowering abhorrent, evil people. Then I retired. Now my life isn't perfect, but I am doing what I've always wanted to do - my life finally has meaning.
Soon automation will make it unnecessary for the vast majority of people to allow capitalists to enslave them, in fact, it will be capitalistically counterproductive. People will be forced to find a meaningful life without slavery. I sincerely hope that you will be able to do so, because there will be no other option.

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On to Biden since 1973

@doh1304 thanks for the discourse and the opportunity to voice a different opinion.
"because there will be no other option" is what most people who are "okay" financially think, it seems.

I'll say that is not what I see with my not-so-financially-secure eyes. Before starvation comes homelessness, and that we have plenty of in California. It is all around me, every where I look is the detritus of human misery. Robots already caused much of it, so it is hard to imagine some miracle change is going to happen to suddenly make things better. I sort of envy my old denial now, because ignorance is bliss. If you think California is doing great then you haven't been paying attention to the collapse of infrastructure, or the boondoggle that Prop64 has become.

Taxing robots is not an answer either. Tax the asshole monopolists like Bill Gates and Larry Ellison until their "net worth" becomes sane again, that's what I think. Stop the predation.

Peace

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I know a few people who were laid off from a major high tech company. A few were Russians so I will turn myself in later. From talking to one of the laid off engineers who is helping with support groups, etc., only about 1/2 of the laid off engineers have found jobs, and many had to uproot themselves.

My take is that the large to medium high tech companies is that many have moved or are in the process of moving most engineering functions to either China or India, and/or use H1bs rather than Americans to fill many positions. If an American loses their job after the age of 35 in high tech, better consider a career and job outside high tech.

The bright side, again what I can see around me, is the rise of small boutique companies doing specialized internet application based applications. They do not use H1bs and are not outsourcing the work so far.

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thanatokephaloides's picture

@MrWebster

If an American loses their job after the age of 35 in high tech, better consider a career and job outside high tech.

And you'd best be completely prepared for that career as you stand, on the very day your high tech job dries up. Retraining options for post-35ers are few and weak tea at best.

Sad

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides