John, I think the number of illegals you cited (6M) is low. Many more have reportedly crossed during the Biden regime (over 8M I think). What period are you addressing with that number?
john-- this is a good piece, but i have a few questions
U-6 doesnt appear to include U-3, so the suggestion might be that actual unemployment would be the sum of U-3 and U-6. am i understanding that correctly?
i also get the absurdity of saying when people who looked for work give up looking for work this reduces unemployment
however there are some economic issues to consider here
are people who give up looking for employment really not working? what if they decide to go into business for themselves, either as freelancers or by starting a small business? what about women who often leave the workforce and return to domestic work for their husbands and/or families? that is not strictly-speaking 'employment' but it is absolutely a form of work in economic terms and i'm not sure how to best handle it statistically
i do think there would be economic value in a statistic that would report a fraction, the numerator of which is the number of people who want to find work but have not found work, and the denominator of which is the sum of the numerator and the number of people who are employed. it's just very hard to measure how many people want to find work, and i can understand different ways of trying to do that
i also think another statistic would be useful, and i'll call that an employment rate. the idea is to report what portion of GDP is wages. i my view, the lower this number is, the happier people tend to be and the more robust the economy tends to be compared to those based on lots of capital-intensive activity and international trade. for that i might reference nassim taleb's concept of 'anti-fragile.' in other words, when people give up looking to be servants who want to be told everything they have to do and instead work productively outside of the employment situation without being told what to do, that's a favorable point for 'the economy', even if it means GDP goes down. so we're talking about an economy based on small farms, small business, and entrepreneurs
it's a change of topic, but my points about reducing dependence on employment are completely aside from the intense and mounting over-regulation of the employment relationship, beginning with barring race, sex, disability and other forms of discrimination in hiring and otherwise deviating from entirely voluntary at-will terms, pro-union laws that force employers into bargaining with a collective, unemployment taxes where people who work have to pay people who dont work for not-working, disability insurance that forces healthy workers to pay for unhealthy workers to not-work, mandatory health care, mandatory vacations or child care leave that impose automatic and opaque wage reductions, mandatory breaks and working hours and on and on. you look at the cumulative burdens on employment and it's amazing anyone ever hires anyone
i am not opposed to large business and i am opposed to the kinds anti-trust measures we see coming from the EU right now. i am also opposed to subsidizing any businesses and the overregulation of the employment relationship is effectively a negative subsidy favoring very large businesses
well how is that, you may ask, since it's very large businesses that have the most concentrated reliance on their employment pool? the answer is that most regulatory burdens on employment decrease substantially at scale. therefore every new burden makes it harder for small business to compete with larger businesses or even to start up
so the way it works now is you subsidize larger businesses by regulating employment, and then you punish these same large businesses with tyrannical 'anti-trust' actions for achieving the market dominance you helped them achieve by regulating employment
My recollection is that after a year, discouraged employment seekers are dropped off of the "unemployed" list, lowering the number. The official number doesn't account for underemployed individuals (PhD's working at Walmart). Also, a person working for the government (the area of greatest job growth) typically adds a net negative amount of wealth to society through over-regulation to the point of costs greatly outpacing benefits. After all, they must justify their existence. Perhaps we should add another category to Twain's list for governmentally developed data.
Definitions have been changed to obscure the facts. The Unemployment Rate is no longer the % of people who are capable of working, want to work, but cannot get a full time job. The term vaccine no longer means a treatment that produces long-term immunity. They are fooling many people but not everyone. Critical thinkers must fight!!!
John, I think the number of illegals you cited (6M) is low. Many more have reportedly crossed during the Biden regime (over 8M I think). What period are you addressing with that number?
john-- this is a good piece, but i have a few questions
U-6 doesnt appear to include U-3, so the suggestion might be that actual unemployment would be the sum of U-3 and U-6. am i understanding that correctly?
i also get the absurdity of saying when people who looked for work give up looking for work this reduces unemployment
however there are some economic issues to consider here
are people who give up looking for employment really not working? what if they decide to go into business for themselves, either as freelancers or by starting a small business? what about women who often leave the workforce and return to domestic work for their husbands and/or families? that is not strictly-speaking 'employment' but it is absolutely a form of work in economic terms and i'm not sure how to best handle it statistically
i do think there would be economic value in a statistic that would report a fraction, the numerator of which is the number of people who want to find work but have not found work, and the denominator of which is the sum of the numerator and the number of people who are employed. it's just very hard to measure how many people want to find work, and i can understand different ways of trying to do that
i also think another statistic would be useful, and i'll call that an employment rate. the idea is to report what portion of GDP is wages. i my view, the lower this number is, the happier people tend to be and the more robust the economy tends to be compared to those based on lots of capital-intensive activity and international trade. for that i might reference nassim taleb's concept of 'anti-fragile.' in other words, when people give up looking to be servants who want to be told everything they have to do and instead work productively outside of the employment situation without being told what to do, that's a favorable point for 'the economy', even if it means GDP goes down. so we're talking about an economy based on small farms, small business, and entrepreneurs
it's a change of topic, but my points about reducing dependence on employment are completely aside from the intense and mounting over-regulation of the employment relationship, beginning with barring race, sex, disability and other forms of discrimination in hiring and otherwise deviating from entirely voluntary at-will terms, pro-union laws that force employers into bargaining with a collective, unemployment taxes where people who work have to pay people who dont work for not-working, disability insurance that forces healthy workers to pay for unhealthy workers to not-work, mandatory health care, mandatory vacations or child care leave that impose automatic and opaque wage reductions, mandatory breaks and working hours and on and on. you look at the cumulative burdens on employment and it's amazing anyone ever hires anyone
i am not opposed to large business and i am opposed to the kinds anti-trust measures we see coming from the EU right now. i am also opposed to subsidizing any businesses and the overregulation of the employment relationship is effectively a negative subsidy favoring very large businesses
well how is that, you may ask, since it's very large businesses that have the most concentrated reliance on their employment pool? the answer is that most regulatory burdens on employment decrease substantially at scale. therefore every new burden makes it harder for small business to compete with larger businesses or even to start up
so the way it works now is you subsidize larger businesses by regulating employment, and then you punish these same large businesses with tyrannical 'anti-trust' actions for achieving the market dominance you helped them achieve by regulating employment
My recollection is that after a year, discouraged employment seekers are dropped off of the "unemployed" list, lowering the number. The official number doesn't account for underemployed individuals (PhD's working at Walmart). Also, a person working for the government (the area of greatest job growth) typically adds a net negative amount of wealth to society through over-regulation to the point of costs greatly outpacing benefits. After all, they must justify their existence. Perhaps we should add another category to Twain's list for governmentally developed data.
EXCELLENT!!!!! Multi Kudos!!!!
I've been following Williams' Shadow Stats for many years and believe he is very accurate.
Here is the correct statistic: https://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts
all the government figures are lies.
See here: http://www.shadowstats.com/article/c810x.pdf
How about our federal debt?
Not $30-some Trillions, but with all unfunded liabilities kicked down the road, over $300 Trillions!
People need to start some critical thinking about those numbers and impending consequences.
L. M. Schwartz, Chairman
The Virginia Land Rights Coalition
POB 85
McDowell, Virginia FOC 24458
540-396-6217
"Working to Protect the Rights of Virginia's Property Owners"
And thank you, in return.
edit:"I can't resist plagIArizing"
Mark Twain quipped "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics."
Unemployment banter…good one. It had me laughing!!
Definitions have been changed to obscure the facts. The Unemployment Rate is no longer the % of people who are capable of working, want to work, but cannot get a full time job. The term vaccine no longer means a treatment that produces long-term immunity. They are fooling many people but not everyone. Critical thinkers must fight!!!