The American Economy.

[Je Nique vos Merdiers]

The rose in spring

The economic recession was caused by the inflation in housing prices which while growing to the point where 2 parents working 2 college jobs while their teens helped could not have payed for it. That caused people to lose faith in loans, it caused defaults, the defaults hurt the banks and the banks went out of business. That caused more unemployment and fewer loans. The markets simply collapsed like they did in 1929. However the reason we didn't face a catastrophe similar to the Great Depression is because we had several safety nets and government programs put in place that prevented investors in banks from losing money. We have the FDIC, Welfare, Unemployment, all which gave money to the unemployed to stimulate the economy. Even with Republicans trying to make the recession worse, the economy started to improve anyway due to those regulations.

The economy has improved, in what regard?

[Disa Uniflora]

Je Nique vos Merdiers

The rose in spring

The economic recession was caused by the inflation in housing prices which while growing to the point where 2 parents working 2 college jobs while their teens helped could not have payed for it. That caused people to lose faith in loans, it caused defaults, the defaults hurt the banks and the banks went out of business. That caused more unemployment and fewer loans. The markets simply collapsed like they did in 1929. However the reason we didn't face a catastrophe similar to the Great Depression is because we had several safety nets and government programs put in place that prevented investors in banks from losing money. We have the FDIC, Welfare, Unemployment, all which gave money to the unemployed to stimulate the economy. Even with Republicans trying to make the recession worse, the economy started to improve anyway due to those regulations.

The economy has improved, in what regard?

Economic Conditions Improving

[Je Nique vos Merdiers]

Disa Uniflora

Je Nique vos Merdiers

The rose in spring

The economic recession was caused by the inflation in housing prices which while growing to the point where 2 parents working 2 college jobs while their teens helped could not have payed for it. That caused people to lose faith in loans, it caused defaults, the defaults hurt the banks and the banks went out of business. That caused more unemployment and fewer loans. The markets simply collapsed like they did in 1929. However the reason we didn't face a catastrophe similar to the Great Depression is because we had several safety nets and government programs put in place that prevented investors in banks from losing money. We have the FDIC, Welfare, Unemployment, all which gave money to the unemployed to stimulate the economy. Even with Republicans trying to make the recession worse, the economy started to improve anyway due to those regulations.

The economy has improved, in what regard?

Economic Conditions Improving

I see nothing but regression to the mean. Is that what "recovery" is supposed to mean? They don't even have the correct unemployment rate.

[Disa Uniflora]

Je Nique vos Merdiers

Disa Uniflora

Je Nique vos Merdiers

The rose in spring

The economic recession was caused by the inflation in housing prices which while growing to the point where 2 parents working 2 college jobs while their teens helped could not have payed for it. That caused people to lose faith in loans, it caused defaults, the defaults hurt the banks and the banks went out of business. That caused more unemployment and fewer loans. The markets simply collapsed like they did in 1929. However the reason we didn't face a catastrophe similar to the Great Depression is because we had several safety nets and government programs put in place that prevented investors in banks from losing money. We have the FDIC, Welfare, Unemployment, all which gave money to the unemployed to stimulate the economy. Even with Republicans trying to make the recession worse, the economy started to improve anyway due to those regulations.

The economy has improved, in what regard?

Economic Conditions Improving

I see nothing but regression to the mean. Is that what "recovery" is supposed to mean? They don't even have the correct unemployment rate.

Having looked into regression to the mean, I don't understand what bearing it has on these numbers at all, and if the unemployment rate they and everyone else I know is working from is incorrect, then what, in your opinion, is the correct unemployment rate?

[N3bu]

Disa Uniflora

Je Nique vos Merdiers

Disa Uniflora

Je Nique vos Merdiers

The rose in spring

The economic recession was caused by the inflation in housing prices which while growing to the point where 2 parents working 2 college jobs while their teens helped could not have payed for it. That caused people to lose faith in loans, it caused defaults, the defaults hurt the banks and the banks went out of business. That caused more unemployment and fewer loans. The markets simply collapsed like they did in 1929. However the reason we didn't face a catastrophe similar to the Great Depression is because we had several safety nets and government programs put in place that prevented investors in banks from losing money. We have the FDIC, Welfare, Unemployment, all which gave money to the unemployed to stimulate the economy. Even with Republicans trying to make the recession worse, the economy started to improve anyway due to those regulations.

The economy has improved, in what regard?

Economic Conditions Improving

I see nothing but regression to the mean. Is that what "recovery" is supposed to mean? They don't even have the correct unemployment rate.

Having looked into regression to the mean, I don't understand what bearing it has on these numbers at all, and if the unemployment rate they and everyone else I know is working from is incorrect, then what, in your opinion, is the correct unemployment rate?

His version likely involved discouraged workers.

[Je Nique vos Merdiers]

Disa Uniflora

Je Nique vos Merdiers

Disa Uniflora

Je Nique vos Merdiers

The rose in spring

The economic recession was caused by the inflation in housing prices which while growing to the point where 2 parents working 2 college jobs while their teens helped could not have payed for it. That caused people to lose faith in loans, it caused defaults, the defaults hurt the banks and the banks went out of business. That caused more unemployment and fewer loans. The markets simply collapsed like they did in 1929. However the reason we didn't face a catastrophe similar to the Great Depression is because we had several safety nets and government programs put in place that prevented investors in banks from losing money. We have the FDIC, Welfare, Unemployment, all which gave money to the unemployed to stimulate the economy. Even with Republicans trying to make the recession worse, the economy started to improve anyway due to those regulations.

The economy has improved, in what regard?

Economic Conditions Improving

I see nothing but regression to the mean. Is that what "recovery" is supposed to mean? They don't even have the correct unemployment rate.

Having looked into regression to the mean, I don't understand what bearing it has on these numbers at all, and if the unemployment rate they and everyone else I know is working from is incorrect, then what, in your opinion, is the correct unemployment rate?

If you were to draw a best fit line through the graph, (and it's not really important that you have a precise one here, so just approximate what looks like the general trend of the graph) these changes in the cited indices are simply returning to that best fit line. If that's all they mean by recovery, that a few figures that they say are indicators of economic recovery (though I've never seen a very adequate demonstration of why this is so, not that I've looked for one), then I guess we're in a recovery. But employment does not necessarily equate to recovery, nor does auto sales by number. I would like to know where people are getting such up-to-date stats, though, so I can check them myself.

As for the unemployment figure, there are two major problems with it that I recall offhand:
1. The BLS excludes anyone who hasn't been looking for work for more than 6 months, because for some reason they don't "count". This makes for an especially distorted unemployment figure after 6 months past a recession.
2. The BLS conducts their survey over the phone, which excludes households that do not have a phone (which, if you're unemployed, is far more likely)

[N3bu]

Je Nique vos Merdiers

1. The BLS excludes anyone who hasn't been looking for work for more than 6 months, because for some reason they don't "count". This makes for an especially distorted unemployment figure after 6 months past a recession.

People who don't look for work are not in the labour force. From that we can deduce that unemployment isn't a figure with which to extrapolate some kind of level of poverty through joblessness. However the commonality of economic figures throughout the public arena have led the populace to deduce it as such. What it more realistically reflects is the trend by which employers employ. They cannot employ someone not looking for work, well they can given the nature of the data but that isn't a situation you can account for in trend analysis.

From this we can deduce that unemployment, that is, those looking for but cannot find work should not be used to analyse the level of which the country is without paid work, but in fact the trend in which companies are hiring.

Now if I remember correctly, the previous two quarters, or maybe just before that saw improving figures, but were noted to be created by a drop in the size of the labour force, more then improved hiring. But more recently a number of increasingly nicer figures had appeared to be improving confidence, which led to better hiring. Still all very slow, but improving none the less.

You could probably find that in some backdated Reuters articles a month or so back I'd imagine, which is where I remember reading that.

[Complex Systems]

Je Nique vos Merdiers

Disa Uniflora

Je Nique vos Merdiers

Disa Uniflora

Je Nique vos Merdiers

The economy has improved, in what regard?

Economic Conditions Improving

I see nothing but regression to the mean. Is that what "recovery" is supposed to mean? They don't even have the correct unemployment rate.

Having looked into regression to the mean, I don't understand what bearing it has on these numbers at all, and if the unemployment rate they and everyone else I know is working from is incorrect, then what, in your opinion, is the correct unemployment rate?

If you were to draw a best fit line through the graph, (and it's not really important that you have a precise one here, so just approximate what looks like the general trend of the graph) these changes in the cited indices are simply returning to that best fit line. If that's all they mean by recovery, that a few figures that they say are indicators of economic recovery (though I've never seen a very adequate demonstration of why this is so, not that I've looked for one), then I guess we're in a recovery. But employment does not necessarily equate to recovery, nor does auto sales by number. I would like to know where people are getting such up-to-date stats, though, so I can check them myself.

As for the unemployment figure, there are two major problems with it that I recall offhand:
1. The BLS excludes anyone who hasn't been looking for work for more than 6 months, because for some reason they don't "count". This makes for an especially distorted unemployment figure after 6 months past a recession.
2. The BLS conducts their survey over the phone, which excludes households that do not have a phone (which, if you're unemployed, is far more likely)

I'm in a good mood today, so here's a little write up I just did about regressing towards the mean, and why you're shooting the gun here. I have no issue with really talking about unemployment figures that include discouraged workers, etc.

Complex Systems

Regressing towards the mean is the idea that if you take enough data points of a particular event, eventually the average will be towards the mean. So just because one day is particularly good/bad, doesn't mean that overtime things won't "return to normal" I guess. Imagine a goalie in hockey one game lets in 10 goals. Does that mean one should always expect him to let in 10 goals? I doubt it, overall his average will regress towards the mean.

The issue with this is it requires the event to be what's called a martingale, that is, each event is independent of all of the events that came before (ex: a coin flip). That's not the case with economics. The growth rate in a given time period is tied to decisions made in the previous time period (this is called trending). Therefore, regression towards the mean here doesn't apply. Added: Most economists model the economy as a dynamic stochastic system. This has given rise to DSGE models used by central banks and macroeconomic forecasters. They are not the best thing ever, but they understand both the deterministic parts and the stochastic parts that occur as an economy moves over time.

There are a variety of sources used for statistics, the BLS and BEA tend to publish regular statistics, and places like FRED do a good job of lumping them all together. At jobs I've held staff economists have also used a variety of private data bases that we use and maintain, or pay groups to allow us access to theirs.

[Wendigo]

They ought to take discouraged workers into account, I say. Unless it's a lifestyle choice for that person not to work, rather than a response to circumstances.

[Complex Systems]

Wendigo

They ought to take discouraged workers into account, I say. Unless it's a lifestyle choice for that person not to work, rather than a response to circumstances.

Like they do? They always report what the numbers are, they're not including it as it's very difficult to tell when someone is taking a break from working because they want to, and when they are truly discouraged. People can quite easily calculate those numbers anyway they want.

[Wendigo]

Complex Systems

Wendigo

They ought to take discouraged workers into account, I say. Unless it's a lifestyle choice for that person not to work, rather than a response to circumstances.

Like they do? They always report what the numbers are, they're not including it as it's very difficult to tell when someone is taking a break from working because they want to, and when they are truly discouraged. People can quite easily calculate those numbers anyway they want.

I mean that when they give the "unemployment" figure, there should be a definition for "unemployed" that encompasses "of working age, eligible for work but not presently working" and have "not employed but looked for work in the last six months" as the secondary definition buried in a BLS jobs report that policy makers and the general public will skip ever reading in their lives.

[Complex Systems]

Wendigo

Complex Systems

Wendigo

They ought to take discouraged workers into account, I say. Unless it's a lifestyle choice for that person not to work, rather than a response to circumstances.

Like they do? They always report what the numbers are, they're not including it as it's very difficult to tell when someone is taking a break from working because they want to, and when they are truly discouraged. People can quite easily calculate those numbers anyway they want.

I mean that when they give the "unemployment" figure, there should be a definition for "unemployed" that encompasses "of working age, eligible for work but not presently working" and have "not employed but looked for work in the last six months" as the secondary definition buried in a BLS jobs report that policy makers and the general public will skip ever reading in their lives.

No, here are the reasons. First off, generally news reporting on economic issues is atrocious, and comes down to a lot of theater. Therefore, the fact that those numbers aren't at the front of the report, but are publicly available, is enough. People often do calculate alternative values, and write op-eds about it.

Secondly, for the vast majority of time, we are not recovering from financial crises. This means that during those time periods the amount of "discouraged" workers is relatively small. Data must be consistent, or else even rudimentary analysis is impossible. Given that in the "non-bad" times discouraged workers tend to be relatively small, there is no immediate reason to make it the primary unemployment figure published. Especially, as it's difficult to tell the exact reason for someone to leave the labor force.

[Wendigo]

Complex Systems

No, here are the reasons. First off, generally news reporting on economic issues is atrocious, and comes down to a lot of theater.

Certainly it does. I am saying that it should not.

Quote:

Secondly, for the vast majority of time, we are not recovering from financial crises. This means that during those time periods the amount of "discouraged" workers is relatively small. Data must be consistent, or else even rudimentary analysis is impossible. Given that in the "non-bad" times discouraged workers tend to be relatively small, there is no immediate reason to make it the primary unemployment figure published. Especially, as it's difficult to tell the exact reason for someone to leave the labor force.

Data can't consistently reflect what a layman would use words to mean, and expect them to mean when they are used by a newscaster or politician? Data collected prior to a change in perspective on the U-3 v. U-4 debate can't be adjusted to incorporate the new definition for the information we've just finished saying has been collected all along?

Moreover, if the number is insignificant now, in the bad times, and insignificant also in the non-bad times, constituting a line budging .2 or .3% on the y axis, then what harm exactly does it do to one's now inconsistent analysis to use that definition? That is, accepting my proposition that data for comparison can be adjusted without major hiccups in much the same way dollar values are adjusted for inflation.

[azulmagia]

Steven Hawkings

azulmagia

Wendigo

azulmagia

Done and done.

BTW, for the border, I recommend redrawing it by giving all the land stolen from Mexico in a shameful war of naked aggression back to them.

Kind of an odd way to describe it. We did fight a shameless war of naked aggression in 1898, but this'n was more the finishing touches on this'n, what the US government had relatively little to do with.

That's more to do with...well, somewhat misguided incentivized immigration into a poorly settled area.

So, open and shut case I would say. Give the land back, it's stolen goods.

Sure thing. After they give back land which they stole, same goes for Canada. Give back the land that was stolen. Ship out of Canada and go home to your "native" land.

I'm so mongrelized that what that "native" land is, is a good question.

All land is stolen, but some land is more stolen than others, if you catch my meaning.