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Thread: weekend commentary - former OMB director opens up on CNBC re Jobs Report

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    Banned Melonie's Avatar
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    Default weekend commentary - former OMB director opens up on CNBC re Jobs Report

    commentary from


    (snip)"There is propaganda, and there are facts. For anyone seeking just one concise, definitive and completely true (as in fact-, not hope- based) explanation of what has happened to the American economy in the past 2 years, we suggest this presentation by former OMB director David Stockman, whose 10 minute appearance on the CNBC's strategy session left the hosts with absolutely nothing to retort.

    Among his observations: the government sector for the first time in history is shrinking: "the reason is that governments are broke... we are going to have to cut back government employment." And it gets scarier: "if you take core government plus the middle class economy (65 million jobs), that's the breadwinning economy, if we take some numbers - how many jobs in the "core economy" in November - zero; how many jobs since last December: net zero; how many jobs since the bottom of the recession in June 2009: still a million behind from when the recession ended." As to whether the economy can grow without employment growth: "I can't imagine how it can because employment growth generates income growth which is the basis for spending and saving ultimately and we are not getting income growth out of the middle class." And the stunner: the job "growth" has come almost exclusively from the part-time economy (two-thirds). Why is this a major problem: "there is 35 million jobs in that sector, with an average wage of $20,000 a year: that is not a breadwinning job, you can't support a family on that, you can't save on that. Those jobs will not generate income that will become self-feeding into spending."

    As for the biggest condemnation, it is reserved to what Zero Hedge has been claiming for two years now is a completely broken market: "I can't explain the market... I don't know what it is pricing today, I don't think the market discounts anything anymore, it is purely a daytraders' market that is trading off the Fed, trading off the headlines. One day it is manic, the next day it is depressive, and we can't draw any conclusions."(snip).

    CNBC video clip at with the OMB director showing up around the 3:00 mark !

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    Default Re: weekend commentary - former OMB director opens up on CNBC re Jobs Report

    About part-time jobs. This is an artifice of a troubled commercial sector, either that or of an overly greedy commercial sector.

    The overhead - benefits of hiring/training/maintaining/motivating 2.5 times as many part-timers as equivalent full-timers is quite significant. Their benefits avoided by hiring 2.5 times as many part-timers as equivalent full-timers is even more significant. Think of the clerks/salesmen, skilled and unskilled workers who are really only phoning in their work because they feel they are not treated as real employees (and the moonlighting hours spent not preparing the mind and body for the next day's work schedule.)

    I suppose one could say that if there were fewer state and federal rules regarding benefits (versus average weekly working hours), there would be fewer part-timers. But there would also be fewer workers of any class. We have a very inefficient system of matching workers to jobs as it is. But the existing rules of benefits versus average weekly working hours are making an inefficient matching system even weaker. Especially if you consider the variations in bottom-line benefits variability that exists from state-to-state.

    One can go even farther and complain about the education system, and social ills and predominant lifestyles of the underpaid. But I won't.

    Basically what we need is a rationally-based employment system, which we will never get. It would be too much of a shift from the patchwork system we have evolved into.
    I loved going to strip clubs; I actually made some friends there. Now things are different for the clubs and for me. As a result I am not as happy.

    Customers are not entitled to grope, disrespect, or rob strippers. This is their job, not their hobby, and they all need income. Clubs are not just some erotic show for guys to view while drinking.

    NOTE: anything I post here, outside of a direct quote, is my opinion only, which I am entitled to. Take it for what you estimate it is worth.

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