Obama and Geithner - Back to the Future on Corporate Tax Breaks and Derivative Deregulation

http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/obama-and-geithner-back-future-corporate-tax-breaks-and-derivative-deregulation

Speculation reigns supreme in your nation's capital. Who is next in line after the bin Laden operation? The bipartisan coalition directing the war on terror forgot one important fact about the security of the United States of America. It doesn't matter who they kill overseas, the assault on almost all citizens continues unabated at home. No one is doing anything to stop it. Only the financial and political elite remain immune. (Image-WikiCommons)

According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the national economic collapse (aka recession) ended June 2009. That's news to the 55% of the public that believe we're in either a recession or depression (April 2011).

Official unemployment is around 9%. That excludes the marginally employed and under employed. Adding those two groups takes unemployment up to 15.9%. Add the long-term unemployed and the figure climbs to nearly 23%.



When you have 23% real unemployment/underemployment among those willing and able to work, you have budget deficits at every level of government. Businesses fail or slow down. Governments reduce or eliminate services. People lose their homes and health insurance. Credit ratings dive, making it more expensive or impossible to borrow for any reason, including emergencies. The unemployed contribute much less to the economy, which shrinks substantially, leading to more under or unemployment. There future darkens. All that's left is hope, a commodity of little use today.

More at the link --

when you read the horror stories in this country regarding poverty and also the damage that we are doing overseas. Not to mention the BILLIONS of dollars spent on war equipment.

What Mr. Williams claims he does is add in people who say they want a job, could take a job if offered, but are not looking for a job because they don't believe they'll find one. To meet the BLS description of "Discouraged" they also have to have looked in the previous 12 months and Mr. Williams claims he adds in all those who would be Discouraged except for the time requirement. HOWEVER, let's do the math. The official rate is Unemployed/Labor Force which is 13,747,000/153,421,000 = 9% Table A-1 The U-6 measurement adds in all Marginally attached (want and available to work, looked in last 12 months but not last 4 weeks for what ever reason, not just discouragement) http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t16.htm">Table A-16 plus part time for economic reasons (hours cut or can't find full time job) http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t08.htm">Table A-8 as a percent of the Labor Force plus Marginally attached, and that's (13,747,000+2,466,000+8,600,000)/(153,421,000+2,466,000) = 15.9%[br />
Instead of Marginally Attached, let's substitute EVERYONE who says they want a job, not just Marginally Attached (or Discouraged) and including those not available to work and those who've never looked for a job. This would include all of Williams' Discouraged not counted plus more, so we're using an even broader definition. The number of people who "want a job now" (from table A-1, already linked) is 6,539,000 so our new calculation is (13,747,000+6,539,000+8,600,000)/(153,421,000+6,539,000) = 18.1% But wait...that's smaller than the SGS claim, but I'm using an even broader definition. So how many is his category?

We'll just say 22% is his claim and see how many more people he's adding than "want a job now." So: 13,747,000+6,539,000+8,600,000+X)/(153,421,000+6,539,000+X) = 0.22; (28,886,000+X)/(159,960,000+X) = 0.22; 28,886,000+X = 35,191,200 + 0.22X ; 0.78X = 6,305,200; X = 8,083,590

In other words, he's including 8 million people who say they don't WANT a job. Or his math is horribly off.