Tea Leaves and Crystal Balls
US Employment May Never Recover
US Lost 1 Million Workers in November - December 09
US Employment Collapsing Toward Historical Lows
Next Real Estate Bust
ClimateGate scandal reveals urgent need for transparency and integrity in science
US Government and Media Merge Strengths in Holy Wedlock
Unemployment has now become a leading economic indicator -- just as Al Fin predicted a year ago. Unemployment drives mortgage defaults which drive bank failures which drive lower credit, lending, and economic startups down, down, down.
Best bets for employment at this time include the federal government and elite financial organisations such as Goldman Sachs. Fox News also seems to be doing fairly well, as the only network willing to point out a few of the many weaknesses of the reigning US reich.
Remember: Social Justice doesn't mean that anyone does well. Social Justice simply means that everyone receives an equal slice of an ever-shrinking pie.
Labels: Doombama
posted by al fin at 10:45 am
2 Comments:
Sluggish job growth is a function of productivity gains. In past decades productivity gains were isolated to process innovations within an industry. Because the rate of adoption and diffusion was slow and methodical the productivity gains did not impact job growth. What marked the "oughts" was disruptive and universal productivity gains across the entire economy. With the speed of adoption accelerating the economy could not grow fast enough to keep up.
If it takes fewer manhours to accomplish a task then its labor content falls. If this true across all tasks in an economy then labor content continues to fall and the remaining workforce can continue to increase production to accomodate the demands of population growth and household formation. Since labor in the aggregate is paid based on labor content of all goods and services and the relative value of those goods and services in trade then if all of labor is more productive at the same instance then returns to labor will fall. This fall in returns explains stagnant wage gains over the last decade. It also explains the job losses that appear to be permanent. Since net importation of goods and services other than petroleum represents only about 2% of GDP in any given year then we can't rely on international trade as other than a minor contributor or explanatory variable of the composition of the labor sector or labor compensation.
Good points, Steve.
But consider this: Due to obscure rules of accounting, US GDP includes economic activity by US company plants located overseas. The resulting higher GDP makes it look as though US workers are more productive when (on this count) they are not.
Such accounting also inflates estimates of economic growth in the US.
Post a Comment
“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act” _George Orwell
<< Home