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luni, 21 martie 2011

President Obama and the First Family Visit Latin America

Your Daily Snapshot for
Monday, March 21, 2011

President Obama and the First Family Visit Latin America

Seth's Blog : Reject the tyranny of being picked: pick yourself

Reject the tyranny of being picked: pick yourself

Amanda Hocking is making a million dollars a year publishing her own work to the Kindle. No publisher.

Rebecca Black has reached more than 15,000,000 listeners, like it or not, without a record label.

Are we better off without gatekeepers? Well, it was gatekeepers that brought us the unforgettable lyrics of Terry Jacks in 1974, and it's gatekeepers that are spending a fortune bringing out pop songs and books that don't sell.

I'm not sure that this is even the right question. Whether or not we're better off, the fact is that the gatekeepers--the pickers--are reeling, losing power and fading away. What are you going to do about it?

It's a cultural instinct to wait to get picked. To seek out the permission and authority that comes from a publisher or talk show host or even a blogger saying, "I pick you." Once you reject that impulse and realize that no one is going to select you--that Prince Charming has chosen another house--then you can actually get to work.

If you're hoping that the HR people you sent your resume to are about to pick you, it's going to be a long wait. Once you understand that there are problems just waiting to be solved, once you realize that you have all the tools and all the permission you need, then opportunities to contribute abound.

No one is going to pick you. Pick yourself.

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duminică, 20 martie 2011

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Alliance for Main Street (Walmart and Target) Press Amazon on Taxes; In Praise of Amazon
Qaddafi Pledges "Long War"; Photographs of the Wreckage; Usurpation of Legislative Power
Ben Bernnake Ponders Food Prices

Alliance for Main Street (Walmart and Target) Press Amazon on Taxes; In Praise of Amazon

Posted: 20 Mar 2011 06:43 PM PDT

Mom and pop bookstores and other retailers have had enough. They cry foul on Amazon for not collecting state sales taxes. Moreover, Walmart and Target have now entered the battle and have sided with mom and pop against purported evil-doers like Amazon that have an unfair advantage.

The Wall Street Journal reports Retailers Push Amazon on Taxes

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Target Corp. and other large retailers are ratcheting up a political campaign to force Amazon.com Inc. to collect sales taxes, sensing opportunity in the budget crises gripping statehouses nationwide.

The big-box stores are backing a coalition called the Alliance for Main Street Fairness, which is leading efforts to change sales-tax laws in more than a dozen states including Texas and California.

Until now, the group has been largely associated with mom-and-pop stores, spotlighting stories of small toy shops and booksellers who argue Internet merchants that aren't legally required to collect sales taxes enjoy an unfair advantage with shoppers.

"The rules today don't allow brick-and-mortar retailers to compete evenly with online retailers, and that needs to be addressed," said Raul Vazquez, Wal-Mart's executive vice president of global e-commerce.

Amazon has feverishly fought efforts to compel it to collect sales taxes. The Seattle-based online retailer says it complies with the law. Under a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, only merchants who have a physical presence, such as stores, in a state have to collect sales taxes. Amazon currently gathers those taxes in just five states: Kansas, Kentucky, North Dakota, its home base of Washington, and New York.

U.S. Sens. Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, and Mike Enzi, a Wyoming Republican, are considering more direct legislation to force online retailers to collect sales taxes, people familiar with the matter said.

Hours after Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, a Democrat, signed the Internet sales-tax law last week, Amazon cut ties with its roughly 9,000 Illinois affiliates to avoid collection there. Amazon took similar actions in Hawaii, North Carolina and Rhode Island after those states passed legislation similar to the New York law, which Amazon is challenging in court.

Wal-Mart, Sears and other store chains publicly offered to work with the Amazon affiliates. A group representing the affiliates estimates they paid $18 million to Illinois in the form of income taxes, and are likely to see that amount drop by 25% to 30% this year.

Targeting affiliates is just one of the tactics retailers are supporting to pressure Amazon.

In states including Texas and Arkansas, store chains are also backing legislation that seeks to make clear that Amazon must collect sales taxes if it controls in-state warehouses through related companies.

Amazon last month said it would close a Texas distribution center amid a tax dispute with Republican State Comptroller Susan Combs, who contends that Amazon owes $269 million in uncollected sales tax because of the facility's physical presence in the state.

"Amazon is choosing to be a bully" by dropping affiliates instead of collecting taxes, said California Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, a Democrat who is carrying legislation supported by Wal-Mart and other retail chains, similar to what became law in New York and Illinois.

I Commend Amazon

I commend Amazon. The real bullies are the states raping taxpayers and handing money over to pubic unions for untenable pension benefits.

Regardless of how you feel about that statement, mom and pop stores are for the most part dead. Ironically, most blame stores like Walmart, Target, and Amazon.

However, If you want to blame someone, blame consumers. They are the ones shopping at Walmart, hoping to save a buck. They are the ones using a Kindle or an iPad instead of buying a book. They are the ones shopping at Amazon.

I happen to think Walmart is a godsend. The country needs lower prices. Walmart provides them. If you disagree, you are free to shop elsewhere. For the record, I generally shop elsewhere, but my vote is meaningless in the grand scheme of things. I am outvoted by Walmart lovers but I am with the Amazon lovers.

Affiliates Dropped, Including Me

If anyone is entitled to speak out as to who is the bully is, then I am. Every month I get an affiliate check from Amazon. Rather I used to.

Here are my last three checks.

$214.99
$356.47
$246.62

The average of those is $818.08 or $3272.32 annually. Thus, I expect this move by Amazon will cost me somewhere between $3,000 and $4000 a year.

Do I feel bullied? Yes, I do, but not by Amazon. I feel bullied by California Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner and by Illinois Governor Pat Quinn.

Am I going to stop linking to Amazon? No I am not, unless Amazon service degrades or some other issue props up.

Meanwhile, I will be out $3000 to $4000 annually and Illinois will be out taxes on that amount (multiplied by everyone who feels the same as I do). Thus, instead of Illinois getting any benefit from my affiliation with Amazon, the money will all go to Amazon because I am still going to promote them unless and until I have a reason not to.

Amazon provides excellent service to me (I use them all the time) and I assume they provide excellent service to everyone who orders from my book list on the left as well. That is what matters to me, not $3,000.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Qaddafi Pledges "Long War"; Photographs of the Wreckage; Usurpation of Legislative Power

Posted: 20 Mar 2011 12:24 PM PDT

Once again the New York Times leads the way with excellent coverage of happenings in the Mideast and Africa. Please consider Qaddafi Pledges 'Long War' as Allies Pursue Air Assault on Libya

A day after American and European forces began a broad campaign of strikes against the government of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the Libyan leader delivered a fresh and defiant tirade on Sunday, pledging retaliation and saying his forces would fight a long war to victory.

He was speaking in a telephone call to state television, which, apparently for security reasons, did not disclose his whereabouts. The Libyan leader has not been seen in public since the United States and European countries unleashed warplanes and missiles in a military intervention on a scale unparalleled in the Arab world since the Iraq war. On Sunday, American B-2 stealth bombers were reported to have struck a major Libyan airfield.

In a first assessment from Washington, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the first day of "operations yesterday went very well," news reports said. Speaking to NBC's "Meet the Press," he said a no-flight zone over Libya to ground Colonel Qaddafi's warplanes — a prime goal of the attacks — was "effectively" in place and that a loyalist advance on the eastern rebel stronghold of Benghazi had been halted.

Despite those major setbacks, Colonel Qaddafi said his forces on the ground would win in the end. And he repeated an assertion made on Saturday that he had opened military depots to his supporters and the Libyan people were now fully armed. Instead of an image of the Libyan leader, state television showed a statue of a golden fist clutching a crumpled American fighter plane, a monument to an American strike on his compound in 1986.

Speaking of a "long war," Colonel Qaddafi said: "We will not leave our land and we will liberate it."

In a Field of Flowers, the Wreckage of War in Libya

Please consider In a Field of Flowers, the Wreckage of War in Libya.

Rebel fighters watched burning vehicles belonging to loyalist forces after an air`strike near Benghazi on Sunday. Image by Goran Tomasevic/Reuters

The attack seemed to have come out of clear skies onto a field of wildflowers.

Littered across the landscape, some 30 miles south of Benghazi, the detritus of the allied airstrikes on Saturday and Sunday morning offered a panorama of destruction: tanks, charred and battered, their turrets blasted clean off, one with a body still caught in its remnants; a small Toyota truck with its roof torn away; a tank transporter still on fire. But it did not end there.

For miles leading south, the roadsides were littered with burned trucks and burned civilian cars. In some places battle tanks had simply been abandoned, intact, as their crews fled. One thing, though, seemed evident: the units closest to Benghazi seemed to have been hit with their cannons and machine guns still pointing toward the rebel capital.

To the south, though, many had been hit as they headed away from the city in a headlong dash for escape on the long road leading to a distant Tripoli.

"They were retreating," said Col. Abdullah al-Shafi, an officer in the rebel forces, which had clamored desperately for the allied air help that arrived on Saturday. "Soldiers had taken civilians' cars and fled. They were ditching their fatigues."

"This is all France," a rebel fighter, Tahir Sassi, told a Reuters correspondent as he surveyed the devastation on Sunday. "Today we came through and saw the road open."

The monuments to the loyalists' last maneuver were not the victory so often trumpeted in their propaganda. Empty ammunition boxes lay discarded among the flowers. Armored personnel carriers still smoldered alongside wrecked rocket-launchers. Craters pitted the fields, as if there had been multiple strikes, apparently by the pilots of the French warplanes that took credit for firing the first shots in the international, American-backed effort to contain Colonel Qaddafi's forces.

There is much more information in the above articles that inquiring minds may wish to read.

Images of War

Here are a few images from Detritus of War, an excellent slideshow series of 10 images on the allied attack.

A bomb from an allied aircraft exploded among vehicles belonging to forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi during an airstrike Sunday on the highway outside of Benghazi. Credit: Goran Tomasevic/Reuters

The air strikes seem to have halted the loyalist advance on the eastern rebel stronghold of Benghazi. Rebel fighters celebrated along the highway. Credit: Goran Tomasevic/Reuters

A rebel supporter waved the rebellion flag atop a burned tank. Credit: Patrick Baz/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Usurpation of Legislative Power

However just this course of action may be, bombing airfields in another country is clearly an act of war. However, only Congress has the power to declare war. For a discussion please consider Declaration of war by the United States

Missing Pieces

What makes this war different from President George W. Bush's war in Iraq is an outright request for action from the Arab League, a buy-in from the UN Security council, a buy-in from neighboring countries, and a request from Great Britain and France.

It is near-miraculous to get a buy-in from Russia and China on this. Five Nations abstained but neither Russia nor China vetoed the action.

However, where where was the debate in the US? How are we going to pay for this? How long will it last? How much can we spend?

Questions abound.

We were not attacked and there was clearly enough time for the president and Hillary Clinton to make the case to Congress and the citizens of the United States.

Slowly but surely, powers granted Congress in the constitution have been steadily usurped by the executive branch. This sad state of affairs applies to Republican and Democratic president alike.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Ben Bernnake Ponders Food Prices

Posted: 20 Mar 2011 10:28 AM PDT

It's been a while since my last Sunday Funnies. Here is a timely submission from reader Bill regarding Ben Bernanke, bank bailouts, and food prices.

If you wish to contribute, please do so. The cartoon must be yours, not something you saw elsewhere.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Seth's Blog : Idea tourism

Idea tourism

It's possible for a tourist to visit Times Square in New York City, see nothing new or unexpected, and leave the city unchanged.

Same with the Eiffel Tower in Paris or a shopping mall in Dubai. Tourism doesn't always open your mind, but when it works the way it supposed to, it sure does.

Which brings us to the notion of idea tourism.

It's possible to do a drive-by of some of the big ideas of science or politics or technology and see only what you want to see. I don't think there's a lot of point in that. If you want to truly understand Darwin, then go to a lab and do some experiments. If you want to understand a gun lover, go to a shooting range for an afternoon. If you want to see how social networking will actually change the way ideas spread, go use it. Intensely, and with a purpose in mind.

Only when we try the idea on for size and actually use it do we understand it. With more ideas offering visitation rights than ever before, learning how empathize with an idea is critical.

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sâmbătă, 19 martie 2011

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Medicare Provider Bureaucratic Nightmare
French Jets Strike Libyan Forces, Attack Tanks, Crowds Cheer; Hillary Clinton Influential in Decision to Attack
Gallup Poll Pegs Unemployment Rate at 10.2%, Underemployment at 19.9%, Same as Last Year

Medicare Provider Bureaucratic Nightmare

Posted: 19 Mar 2011 10:57 PM PDT

John Peters, a practicing psychologist, just sent me an email regarding a complete bureaucratic nightmare that has prevented his firm from obtaining a Medicare Provider Number.

John writes ...

Hi Mish,

I'm writing at the request of Customer Service at Palmetto GBA, the firm which handles all our Medicare processing.

As a practicing psychologist with offices in Fairfield and Albany, California, I have been attempting to obtain a Medicare Provider number.

I applied despite horror stories from doctors who informed me that just the enrollment process takes a few years and I may need to hire a professional to assist me.

Being a geek by nature, and already on the panels of five insurance companies and workman's comp, it seemed like a trivial matter to get one additional certification.

The first problem involved needing to complete a mandatory electronic payment form that I found via a Google search since the provider analyst never responded to any of my inquiries.

Months later I received a notice telling me that my application had been rejected with no reason given. By phone, I found out that they needed a canceled check which hadn't been included. However, I had received no request for a canceled check.

The provider analyst then said I needed to seek permission to re-enroll, a process that takes up to three months.

Persevering, I went through the process, getting "permission" to re-apply. After carefully seeking help going through exactly what would be needed in the new application, resubmitted it.

Months later I received another rejection. This time it was because they wanted a specific contact person's name from the bank on the electronic payment form instead of the general customer service name and number.

I was told that the provider analyst had sent me a request for the needed information, but that she had sent it to the wrong email address. Still, there was "nothing that they could do," since my application number no longer existed and I needed to once again seek permission to re-apply with another three month wait.

Persevering, I noted the reasons for the rejection, and reapplied for permission to re-apply. Months later my request was rejected on the grounds that I had exceeded the 60 day period for requesting reconsideration.

It turns out the provider enrollment analyst used the initial versus current request number, despite my including the current request number in bold letters at the top of my letter.

Next, I send a letter which noted the error, and enclosed a copy of the rejection letter which confirmed that my response had been the following week. A month later, I received another rejection letter from the same analyst that merely copied her original reason for rejection. Clearly, the analyst had not even looked at the letter.

Since the customer service representative has no access to records, she can only direct me to a number for "complex cases." I have tried for a month at various times of day, and have never been able to get through to anyone. Generally, after an extended message, the call is disconnected, or I am put on hold for about an hour before it disconnects. I was told that the reason for this is that they are "busy."

In a period where the issue of government involvement in healthcare is being considered, I ask myself why there is absolutely no accountability for the worse than horrible management of Medicare?

The customer service representative at Palmetto noted that she deals with phone calls similar to mine all day, every day, that involve pure incompetency and the unwillingness of provider enrollment analysts to do their jobs. The representative went on to say that she is helpless to do anything, because they do not give her access to any records, and that contacting a congressman is about the only option available.

I've sent this email out to several congressional representatives in California.

Sincerely,

John Peters, PhD

If anyone out there can help John, please shoot me an email. I will pass it on.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

French Jets Strike Libyan Forces, Attack Tanks, Crowds Cheer; Hillary Clinton Influential in Decision to Attack

Posted: 19 Mar 2011 11:43 AM PDT

The Libyan intervention has begun, led by French military jets. The attack goes beyond a no-fly zone, striking at Libyan forces in the city of Benghazi, which is under heavy bombardment by Qaddafi's forces. At least one Libyan tank has been destroyed.

Please consider Obama Takes Hard Line With Libya After Shift by Clinton

In a Paris hotel room on Monday night, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton found herself juggling the inconsistencies of American foreign policy in a turbulent Middle East. She criticized the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates for sending troops to quash protests in Bahrain even as she pressed him to send planes to intervene in Libya.

Only the day before, Mrs. Clinton — along with her boss, President Obama — was a skeptic on whether the United States should take military action in Libya. But that night, with Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi's forces turning back the rebellion that threatened his rule, Mrs. Clinton changed course, forming an unlikely alliance with a handful of top administration aides who had been arguing for intervention.

Within hours, Mrs. Clinton and the aides had convinced Mr. Obama that the United States had to act, and the president ordered up military plans, which Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, hand-delivered to the White House the next day. On Thursday, during an hour-and-a -half meeting, Mr. Obama signed off on allowing American pilots to join Europeans and Arabs in military strikes against the Libyan government.

The president had a caveat, though. The American involvement in military action in Libya should be limited — no ground troops — and finite. "Days, not weeks," a senior White House official recalled him saying.

The change became possible, though, only after Mrs. Clinton joined Samantha Power, a senior aide at the National Security Council, and Susan Rice, Mr. Obama's ambassador to the United Nations, who had been pressing the case for military action, according to senior administration officials speaking only on condition of anonymity. Ms. Power is a former journalist and human rights advocate; Ms. Rice was an Africa adviser to President Clinton when the United States failed to intervene to stop the Rwanda genocide, which Mr. Clinton has called his biggest regret.

Now, the three women were pushing for American intervention to stop a looming humanitarian catastrophe in Libya.

In joining Ms. Rice and Ms. Power, Mrs. Clinton made an unusual break with Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, who, along with the national security adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, and the counterterrorism chief, John O. Brennan, had urged caution. Libya was not vital to American national security interests, the men argued, and Mr. Brennan worried that the Libyan rebels remained largely unknown to American officials, and could have ties to Al Qaeda.

"Hillary and Susan Rice were key parts of this story because Hillary got the Arab buy-in and Susan worked the U.N. to get a 10-to-5 vote, which is no easy thing," said Brian Katulis, a national security expert with the Center for American Progress, a liberal group with close ties to the administration. This "puts the United States in a much stronger position because they've got the international support that makes this more like the 1991 gulf war than the 2003 Iraq war."

Allied Intervention Begins as French Jet Strikes Libyan Forces

The New York Times reports Allied Intervention Begins as French Jet Strikes Libyan Forces

President Nicolas Sarkozy said French military jets had begun enforcing the no-fly zone over the eastern city of Benghazi, which is under heavy bombardment by Qaddafi's forces.

American, European and Arab leaders began the largest international military intervention in the Arab world since the invasion of Iraq on Saturday, in an effort to stop Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi's war on the Libyan opposition.

Leaders meeting in Paris on Saturday afternoon announced that air operations to enforce a no-fly zone and protect civilians had begun over Libya, as approved by the United Nations Security Council on Thursday. And the French military announced that a Rafale jet fighter had destroyed a government tank near the de facto rebel capital, Benghazi, in eastern Libya.

Earlier in the day, people in Benghazi reported heavy bombardment and fighting, despite an ultimatum from Western powers that Mr. Qaddafi hold to a cease-fire. A rebel fighter, speaking over the phone, described a procession of tanks as well as rooftop snipers fighting for the Qaddafi forces in the west of the city. And a steady stream of vehicles, some bearing rebel flags, was seen pouring out of Benghazi toward the rebel-held city of Bayda, where crowds were cheering the first French overflights.

"Our assessment is that the aggressive actions by Qaddafi forces continue in many places around the country," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said after the meeting in Paris concluded. "We saw it over the last 24 hours, and we've seen no real effort on the part of the Qaddafi forces to abide by a cease-fire despite the rhetoric."

Even as Colonel Qaddafi defied demands to withdraw his military, he issued letters warning Mr. Obama and other leaders to hold back from military action against him.

The tone of the letters — one addressed to Mr. Obama and a second to Mr. Sarkozy, Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain and Secretary General Ban Ki-moon of the United Nations — suggested that Colonel Qaddafi was leaving himself little room to back down.

"Libya is not yours. Libya is for all Libyans," he wrote in one letter, read to the news media by a spokesman. "This is injustice, it is clear aggression, and it is uncalculated risk for its consequences on the Mediterranean and Europe.

"You will regret it if you take a step toward intervening in our internal affairs."

Colonel Qaddafi addressed President Obama as "our son," in a letter that combined pleas with a jarring familiarity. "I have said to you before that even if Libya and the United States enter into war, God forbid, you will always remain my son and I have all the love for you as a son, and I do not want your image to change with me," he wrote. "We are confronting Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, nothing more. What would you do if you found them controlling American cities with the power of weapons? Tell me how would you behave so that I could follow your example?"

The initial stage of the military operation will be run by France and Britain with significant American help, including radar planes, command and control, and precision-guided munitions, including cruise missiles and B52 bombers, NATO officials said.

But Mrs. Clinton emphasized that the United States was not leading the effort. "We did not lead this," she said. "We did not engage in unilateral actions in any way, but we strongly support the international community taking action against governments and leaders who behave as Qaddafi is unfortunately doing so now."

Limiting the US role to support would be wise, assuming one believes we should do anything at all. Other than provide radar guidance for British and French jets, that decision having clearly been made already, the less US intervention the better.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
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Gallup Poll Pegs Unemployment Rate at 10.2%, Underemployment at 19.9%, Same as Last Year

Posted: 18 Mar 2011 11:49 PM PDT

I am very skeptical of BLS unemployment rates inching lower. Not only do the BLS reports discount millions of marginally attached and discouraged workers but BLS seasonal adjustments seem more than a bit unusual.

Gallup polls paint a far different picture. Please consider Gallup Finds U.S. Unemployment at 10.2% in Mid-March

Unemployment Rate

Part-Time Workers Wanting Full-Time Job

Underemployment

Click on any chart for a sharper image.

The only valid way to compare not seasonally-adjusted numbers is to compare the numbers to the same month a year ago. I added the red circles on the above charts to show just that.

Note that year-over-year comparisons of the unemployment rate, the underemployment rate, and the part-time for economic reasons rate, all show no significant change compared to a year ago.

Meanwhile the BLS would have you believe the unemployment rate fell from 9.7% to 8.9% over the course of the last year.

Jobs Situation About the Same as It Was a Year Ago

The government's February report on the U.S. unemployment situation suggests that 192,000 jobs were created last month and the unemployment rate declined to 8.9%, down from 9.7% a year ago. Federal Reserve Bank of New York President William Dudley and others said they were encouraged by this report.

However, Gallup's unemployment and underemployment measures have not shown the same gains in early 2011. Gallup finds an unemployment rate (10.2%) and an underemployment rate (19.9%) for mid-March that are essentially the same as those from mid-March 2010.

In part, the difference between Gallup's and the government's current job market assessments may be due to the government's seasonal adjustments. Gallup's U.S. unemployment rate is also more up-to-date -- its mid-March data include jobless figures for much of March, whereas the government's latest unemployment rate is based on the jobs situation in mid-February.

Most importantly, a key reason the government's unemployment rate is dropping apparently has to do with the so-called participation rate: the percentage of Americans who are counted as being in the workforce. The government's participation rate in February was at its lowest level since 1984. In essence, this tends to suggest that the government's unemployment rate may be declining because many people are becoming discouraged and leaving the workforce -- not because they are getting new jobs.

If this is the case, then neither Gallup's unemployment report nor that provided by the government is good news for the economy. It is equally bad news if people are out of work and looking for a job or just too discouraged to say they continue to do so. Either way, a lack of sufficient job creation to increase employment among those who want to work remains a major obstacle to U.S. economic growth in the months ahead.

Gallup offers reasonable commentary. There is no reason to be excited over the BLS dip in the unemployment rate.

Here is another way of looking at it, using the BLS' own numbers.

Nonfarm Payroll Employment - Seasonally Adjusted Total

According to the BLS, non-farm employment is lower than it was in 2002!

Household Data

In the last year, the civilian population rose by 1,853,000. Yet the labor force dropped by 312,000. Those not in the labor force rose by 2,165,000.

In January alone, a whopping 319,000 people dropped out of the workforce. In February (this months' report) another 87,000 people dropped out of the labor force.

Were it not for people dropping out of the labor force, the unemployment rate would be over 11% (Rosenberg pegs it at 12%).

On a year-over-year basis the number of people employed dropped by 125,000 yet we are supposed to believe things are getting better. From a jobs standpoint the best we can say is things are no longer getting worse. However, we can also state the BLS unemployment rate is a complete distortion of reality.

Finally, take a look at that employment chart and tell me where the demand for housing is going to come from. Here's a hint: you can't do it. For further discussion of housing, please see Shrinking Labor Pool Means Shrinking Demand For Housing.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

luni, 21 martie 2011

President Obama and the First Family Visit Latin America

Seth's Blog : Reject the tyranny of being picked: pick yourself

Reject the tyranny of being picked: pick yourself

More Recent Articles

duminică, 20 martie 2011

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Seth's Blog : Idea tourism

Idea tourism

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sâmbătă, 19 martie 2011

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

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luni, 21 martie 2011

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duminică, 20 martie 2011

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sâmbătă, 19 martie 2011

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