UE

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"Already, U.S. unemployment stands officially at 8.7 percent. However, if it is calculated by the pre-Clinton method to include those who have been unemployed for longer than one year, those who have been forced to accept part-time employment, and those who have given up seeking re-employment, the figure stands at 19.2 percent, or just 0.8 percent below Great Depression levels!" - Schiff
 
Not good, but not surprising. Will get worse...
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What? ....an honest UE number? We've been way above the ideal 5% unemployment rate for a long time.

You've really got to wonder how you can construct an economy that is happiest when 5% of your population is unemployable. Above it, you're in recession. Below it, you're in inflation.

For the 5% ..it's 100% miserable.
 
The measure should be revised to a totally sociological one. You could measure the percent of time the average person spends doing useless stuff just to pass time, and divide that by the total time people could be working. This would be a good way to predict political instability that might arise from too many people sitting around with nothing to do. It would count people doing their own car and house repairs, and people going to church, and things like that.
 
Well, you've got to be careful there, oily.

Would you call it a productivity index ..or a leisure index? One spin means that you're under utilizing your population's time ..the other implies that your productivity is so high ..that people don't need to work much.
 
I too wonder how they measure unemployment. I remember when I finished school during the Carter era. I worked hard when America was clamoring for engineering talent, did what I thought was needed to prepare myself to earn a decent living, and finished school, only to find all the firms closed their doors to hiring once I graduated. I couldn't find work for a year. You had to previously have a job to qualify for unemployment, so I couldn't even get that.

Nobody asked me if I was employed or not, so I wonder how they arrive at their figures.
 
They morphed over the years. They use new applications ..but not those who drop off of the benefits. They also started to consider someone who worked one hour per month (it may have been a week) as employed.

So, as an example, you can have 100k new jobs added ..while ignoring that there were 300k dropping off of the benefits ..but not due to being hired. You can also lose a billion dollars worth of earnings and replace it with half that in new employment.
 
Originally Posted By: oilyriser
It has to be measured in a simple and objective way, so accurate data can be collected and accurate decisions formed with the data.


Sure ..but it depends on how you want to influence market trends (based on perception). Using fuzzy numbers allows you to inspire confidence where there is no merit for it. It allows things to look better than they are.

It allows more marks to be fleeced as the late comers show up at the corral.
 
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