Downward mobility in Obama's jobless recovery

[Rion]

All part-time minimum wage employees, that don't receive health care benefits, may only work up to 25 hours per week.

 

[Thekla]

It's not solely Obama's fault. You've got to go back to Barney Frank and his dealings with fannie (the mortgage one).

And those who opposed implementing predatory lending laws (Ryan included).

Also those who over-borrowed, "Liars loans" (evidence is that borrowers information was changed after their signature), MERS, inflating property values (assessment fraud), ridiculously complex mortgage products (the subject of Greenspan's legendary quote), etc.

 

[conamer]

Michael Savage coined it appropriately, Trickle Up Poverty

Churchill called it the equal sharing of misery.

 

[Thekla]

To be fair, the depth of the problem was not evident in 2009, or was misread.

An economist cited in Romney's white paper noted that housing-sourced recessions typically require a longer recovery period. The foreclosure backlog is pretty deep (4 years still by some accounts).

We also have record high debt levels in the public sector - and the 'incredibly shrinking income' is compounding that (and may have partially caused the record levels of debt).

Iirc, deleveraging statistics include defaults - and I would think were defaults weeded out, it would look more gloomy.

 

[Assuredcw]

What I don't understand is that Obama claims to "reward" his "friends" and "punish" his "enemies", yet the map suggests that Obama's friends haven't done as well as his enemies.

I shudder to think how bad off Obama's "friends" would be now if Obama hadn't "won" the last election.

"Friends?" "Enemies?" He's the President of the entire country, for crying out loud!

Moving right along, here is another map for you, Nighthawkeye. Those people might be working, but they appear to still be going hungry. Note the areas of the country where hunger is the highest -- there appears to be a disturbing level of overlap:

Daily Kos: Going hungry: Nearly one in five Americans has been short of money for food in the past year

Whether people are working or not, doesn't tell you if that work pays the bills and puts food on the table. In many places, these are minimum wage jobs and the people remain under-employed and, as Rion says, without health insurance, and they are going without enough food. In a lot of instances, these people were replaced by a lower-wage worker in some other country, and the loss of those jobs probably changed the structure of our economy for the worse.

 

[variant]

Well for one thing, the job-creators at my company are cutting back all part-timers to under 25 hours. Why? Because of Obamacare. I'd wager to guess that Barry's brand of economic justice is making them rather paranoid when it comes to expanding their business.

Where was the boom in job creation for the ten years before Obamacare?

Why did the economy collapse under after a decade of instituting Republican policy?

 

[Paradoxum]

Why do people seem to think that Obama has some magic wand he could wave but isn't doing it? Why do you think recovery from the crisis is so easy and that it should be so quick? I thought it would be quick when I was 18, but that's because was (and still am) ignorant about economics.

And I'm not being biased towards Obama, I say the same thing about our largely conservative government.

 

[variant]

Why do people seem to think that Obama has some magic wand he could wave but isn't doing it? Why do you think recovery from the crisis is so easy and that it should be so quick? I thought it would be quick when I was 18, but that's because was (and still am) ignorant about economics.

And I'm not being biased towards Obama, I say the same thing about our largely conservative government.

The alternative is facing up to the reality that the problems that we are now facing are the long term consequences of long term problems that our political system probably doesn't have a quick fix for or even a slow fix that will magically make everything be the way it used to be.

 

[Assuredcw]

The 20 years of outsourcing we have have had, threaten to dismantle our production capacity, and with it our ability to create jobs. There have been real and lasting effects on average incomes and all the rest of it:

Daily Kos: Is the American middle class starting to lose hope?

I'm telling ya, Obama is the only one who is willing to do something about the outsourcing. The GOP's in Congress won't even discuss it.

 

[Thekla]

The alternative is facing up to the reality that the problems that we are now facing are the long term consequences of long term problems that our political system probably doesn't have a quick fix for or even a slow fix that will magically make everything be the way it used to be.

 

[MachZer0]

Where was the boom in job creation for the ten years before Obamacare?

Why did the economy collapse under after a decade of instituting Republican policy?

We achieved what economists consider full employment during the Bush administration after the tax cuts

 

[variant]

We achieved what economists consider full employment during the Bush administration after the tax cuts

Due to the phantom glut of borrowed good fortune of the housing boom.

Notice the Clinton Economy is better before the tax cuts and had us on track to fix SS and Medicare problems before they got out of hand.

It would be a good argument, if we didn't know the rest of that Bush era employment story too.

 

[MachZer0]

Due to the phantom glut of borrowed good fortune of the housing boom.

Notice the Clinton Economy is better before the tax cuts and had us on track to fix SS and Medicare problems before they got out of hand.

We know the rest of that story too.

Thanks for that chart which reflects the Clinton recession inherited by Bush and the recovery following the tax cuts with unemployment dropping from over 6% to almost 4%. Those are the jobs you asked about.

 

[NightHawkeye]

"Friends?" "Enemies?" He's the President of the entire country, for crying out loud!

Hi, Assuredcw.

I know how you feel. I'm highly offended, too, that our president would say such a thing.
Obama to Latinos, punish our enemies.mov - YouTube

Moving right along, here is another map for you, Nighthawkeye. Those people might be working, but they appear to still be going hungry. Note the areas of the country where hunger is the highest -- there appears to be a disturbing level of overlap:

Daily Kos: Going hungry: Nearly one in five Americans has been short of money for food in the past year

I guess it's a good thing that the "blue" states are looking out for the "red" states which consistently vote against all the blue state programs. You'd think they'd know better. What's wrong with all those people?

Maybe one day they'll see the light. Who can say?

Whether people are working or not, doesn't tell you if that work pays the bills and puts food on the table. In many places, these are minimum wage jobs and the people remain under-employed and, as Rion says, without health insurance, and they are going without enough food. In a lot of instances, these people were replaced by a lower-wage worker in some other country, and the loss of those jobs probably changed the structure of our economy for the worse.

Hmm ... I happen to notice that the highlighted states in your map are ones with high illegal immigrant populations. One might wonder if there's a connection.

If only Obama had seen fit to enforce immigration laws.

 

[Assuredcw]

Thanks for that chart which reflects the Clinton recession inherited by Bush and the recovery following the tax cuts with unemployment dropping from over 6% to almost 4%. Those are the jobs you asked about.

You won't find very many people talking about a Clinton recession.

Edited: Don't believe me? Here's a link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_2000s_recession

(Note the other countries who were affected. Clinton had nothing to do with it.)

 

[Assuredcw]

Hi, Assuredcw.

I know how you feel. I'm highly offended, too, that our president would say such a thing.
Obama to Latinos, punish our enemies.mov - YouTube


I guess it's a good thing that the "blue" states are looking out for the "red" states which consistently vote against all the blue state programs. You'd think they'd know better. What's wrong with all those people?

Maybe one day they'll see the light. Who can say?

Hmm ... I happen to notice that the highlighted states in your map are ones with high illegal immigrant populations. One might wonder if there's a connection.

If only Obama had seen fit to enforce immigration laws.

I'd settle for getting the higher wage manufacturing jobs back. So far the illegals with criminal records are being deported, and more of them than a lot of people want, because in the Los Angeles area there are some people who want to only deport those with violent convictions, but everyone with any kind of a record is being shipped out, and at a rapid pace. Sheriff Baca wants to obey the Feds, which seems like a pretty good idea to me:

Baca may defy proposed law easing immigration enforcement - Los Angeles Times

But Obama isn't going to make everyone happy, and a lot of "liberals" are upset with him, but he is enforcing immigration laws.

 

[Thekla]

The 20 years of outsourcing we have have had, threaten to dismantle our production capacity, and with it our ability to create jobs. There have been real and lasting effects on average incomes and all the rest of it:

Daily Kos: Is the American middle class starting to lose hope?

I'm telling ya, Obama is the only one who is willing to do something about the outsourcing. The GOP's in Congress won't even discuss it.

Outsourcing of jobs is a huge problem !

 

[blueapplepaste]

As I recall the forecast in 2009 from the administration was 6% unemployment by now and a deficit halved by now. How has that worked out?

Sort of like how Iraq was only going to be a few billion? Administrations fudge numbers and overestimate all the time, do you really expect anything different?

 

[DarkManX1]

Let's talk about this outsourcing concept for a minute because I think it is very important and actually a good thing.

We can take the very simplified economic theory approach and talk about absolute and comparative advantages. It can get a little complex but it's not unreasonable to say that the United States has lost any advantage our workers once had in engineering and information technology. The sector where we still dominate is in the finance industry; New York is second only to London.

I know that the fact that jobs are leaving the country is disheartening for people and some economists have predicted that it's only going to get worse. For the period 2000-2015 the economy is expected to lose 3.3 million jobs (Korn, Yahoo.com). However, if firm's are profit-maximizing entities then outsourcing is completely within the realm of basic economic theory.

On the upside we are the world's third largest exporter behind China and Germany as of 2010.

 

[Assuredcw]

Let's talk about this outsourcing concept for a minute because I think it is very important and actually a good thing.

We can take the very simplified economic theory approach and talk about absolute and comparative advantages. It can get a little complex but it's not unreasonable to say that the United States has lost any advantage our workers once had in engineering and information technology. The sector where we still dominate is in the finance industry; New York is second only to London.

I know that the fact that jobs are leaving the country is disheartening for people and some economists have predicted that it's only going to get worse. For the period 2000-2015 the economy is expected to lose 3.3 million jobs (Korn, Yahoo.com). However, if firm's are profit-maximizing entities then outsourcing is completely within the realm of basic economic theory.

On the upside we are the world's third largest exporter behind China and Germany as of 2010.

By whose definition?

Those goods (that we actually import from China where they have been manufactured) should be charged a tariff. The rug is being pulled right out from under the 98% of us who are just trying to make a living, but when compared to the slave wages they can get away with paying elsewhere, apparently we cost too much. It's unspeakable.