straightUp Loc: California

There's no point in continuing with this Seth. I would be more interested if you actually made the attempt to understand my arguments where maybe you can point out my flaws in a logical manner. But I don't think you even bother, maybe you're not capable, I dunno. But I do get the impression that because you see me as a liberal, anything I say is a wordy endorsement of left-wing ideology, or wh**ever the hell you think it is and I'm really not interested in getting into a narcissistic character clash with you.

You don't agree with me, that's fine.

Have a nice day Seth.

Seth

Works for me.

The problem is that all the flaws in your arguments have been pointed out by myself and others over and over again until it's become tired, and all you really do, as did "John Correspondent," is rephrase the same BS in a wordier context. Ciao.

Kickaha Loc: Nebraska

I didn't fault Obama for the rising unemployment when he first took office. I did disagree with some of his proposals to fight it, just as I did with policies of Bush before him. You are right in saying the unemployment numbers can be confusing. There are numerous classifications of unemployment. That gives politicians some wiggle room to claim their policies are bringing down unemployment or that their opponent's policies are increasing unemployment. That is why I said there are more people employed today than at any time in the past. Since it is possible to argue it doesn't mean much because there are more people in the country than in the past, what is most often used is a percentage basis of those of actually employed versus the number of people eligible to be employed. This eliminates those considered too young, past retirement age, or those who are classified as disabled by governmental standards. This is not perfect as there are some in each category that are employed, but it provides a consistent basis to measure economic participation across time.

straightUp Loc: California

Albert Einstein walks into the principal's office at the elementary school where he was invited to speak in front of a class of third graders. He's wearing a frown. The principal asks... "What's wrong?"
"One of your students says my theory of relativity doesn't makes any sense."
"Oh, come now. They're third graders, what do they know? Who was it? Henry?"
"You don't understand!" Einstein said as he burst into tears. "It wasn't just him, it was other third graders too and they kept saying it over and over again!"

Seth

Those third graders must have seen their grandchildren go on to become today's mainstream media.

straightUp Loc: California

Yes, unemployment figures have always been expressed as a ratio. I don't really find it all that confusing I just know that hundreds of thousands of people who don't have jobs and can't get unemployment benefits are factored into the calculation as being employed. This is because the only people counted as unemployed are those claiming benefits for the purpose of the calculation everyone else within an age range is assumed to be employed. I've seen figures published that suggest the real jobless rate is around 28% but I can't vouch for their accuracy.

Overall, I don't consider presidents to be huge factors when it comes to the economy. I would say Bush Jr was the one exception in my lifetime but even there, we can't blame the crash entirely on him. I think the mire significant factors are in the private sector, as are the most significant indicators, the biggest in OUR economy probably being consumer confidence.

No news is better for the U.S. economy than strong consumer confidence. It drives up demand in a consumer-based economy like ours and it means consumers feel confident in their finances which for the vast majority of us means we have jobs.

Kickaha Loc: Nebraska

I don't know if you have any education background in economics. What I do remember from college economics classes was there are several different ways the government counts the number of unemployed. These different ways of counting leads to different percentages of unemployment. The most accurate way of counting the employment level is expressing it as a percentage of economic participation. In other words, not the raw number of people with jobs, but the percentage of the population with jobs. This enables you to judge the economies over time. It doesn't matter if the population is 50 million or 1 billion, by seeing the percentages you could say one eras economy was stonger or weaker than another. For example, the population is 1 billion and 600 million are employed, or a participation rate of 60%. As compared to an era with a population of 100 million and 75 million are employed. While the population of 1 billion has many more people employed, the economy is weaker because it has a lower percentage of economic participation (60% versus 75%). This is an over simplification, but it conveys the general idea.

lindajoy Loc: right here with you....

Excellent rebuttal... I would simply say what’s wrong with it is, everything and with this “ pending recession they say ”Trump brought us”, even though it is the dems and their states that shut down everything tanking the economy and employment, etc the last thing you need is to increase taxes on people who have no income and won’t be getting “ survival benefits” anytime soon either.. Thank you Pels!

lindajoy Loc: right here with you....

Agreed, Only those who are in the labor force are counted in the unemployment rate snd it is by percentages.. those who have given up looking for a job are not, a controversial position if you ask me.. The unemployment rate is not measured by calculating the number of people on unemployment at all..

I call it all fabricated numbers created by the diversity of “how” unemployment is calculated period.. They start with a percentage and they finish with the percentage.

Seth

Thanks!

Even the most obtuse Democrat in the House (except perhaps the DisHonorable Mr. Schitt) has got to be having buyer's remorse by now over returning Pelosi to the Speaker position, not to mention their empowerment of "The Squad," as they realize that while they put on a brave face and the mainstream media does its propaganda thing the Democratic Party is fast losing supporters as their v**ers wake up to the fact that the party they originally hooked up with is no longer, well, the party they originally hooked up with. The Democrats have simply moved too far left for the palate of the average American and there are too many loose lips in their party embracing ideological ambitions that scare v**ers away.

Not to mention that they're bleeding minority v**ers, because their denial of what Trump has done for b****s and Latinos can't conceal the realities.

It doesn't help that the president they oppose is short on political correctness and long on speaking his mind, not in the least subject to intimidation and perfectly willing to saturation bomb their slingshot brigades, from blatantly calling their p**********l candidate out on his corruption to taking on the media without compunction.

I believe what we hear about there being closet Trump supporters who comprise the largest silent majority in U.S. history, Americans who simply don't want to be attacked by fanatical lefties over their views as we've been seeing the left's Brownshirts, B*M and A****a, and numerous other misguided souls making a habit of doing, who will be v****g straight Republican tickets with Trump at the top.

straightUp Loc: California

So, Kickaha... What is it that you think I'm missing? I mean, the unemployment rate has always expressed as a percentage, that's why it's called a unemployment *rate*. So I'm not sure why, twice now, you felt a need to tell me that it's not a raw number.

Also, I don't know how long ago you went to college but you don't have to think that far back to figure out how the unemployment rate is calculated. In fact, I specified exactly how it's calculated in my first response to you... When I said...

It may help if you understood how the unemployment rate is actually calculated. The basic calculation is to divide the number of persons unemployed by the number of persons in the labor force then dividing the answer by 100.

https://www.onepoliticalplaza.com/tpr?p=3492917&t=198884

How did I get that answer? I looked it up on the website for the U.S. Department of Labor which is responsible for publishing the rate on a quarterly basis. What better source than the agency publishing the numbers, right? But if you prefer there are other sources such as Investopedia that also explain the calculation.

Now, regarding your assertion that the current unemployment rate signifies a stronger economy under Trump I'm just going to repeat the same two counter-arguments that I have already presented...

1. The unemployment rate has been declining at a consistent rate since 2012, so there is literally no evidence that anything in the economy affecting the unemployment rate has changed since then.

Put it this way, the Porsche 918 Spyder can accelerate from 0 mph to 60 mph in 2.5 seconds. Just because at 1 second the car hasn't reached 60 mph yet doesn't mean it sucks and when it does reach 60 mph it's not because it was reengineered in the last 1.5 seconds.

The same applies to the unemployment rate. Here's the trend from 2012 to now.



...just because, it was only at 5% in 2016 doesn't mean the economy sucked and when it did reach below 4% in 2020 it's not because the economy was reengineered in 4 years. The trend is consistent, which indicates the cause of the decline is more likely to be found where you see an actual change in the pattern, like what you see in 2020 when the p******c hit. Prior to that, the change that started the downward trend was during the Obama Administration not the Trump Administration. In fact if anything, looking at the chart, you can see that the rate of decline actually slowed down a little bit in the Trump years.

2. All that being said... the unemployment number is still an inaccurate read on joblessness! Yes, the unemployment rate is a percentage. And yes, that percentage is defined (using your words) as "the percentage of the population with jobs".

But maybe you didn't understand me when I said THAT percentage of population is only based on those claiming unemployment benefits. For a lot of folks, unemployment benefits ran out before they could find a job and now they're still looking for work but they are no longer counted in the calculation.

Put it this way... Trump could theoretically bring the unemployment rate (as it is presently calculated) all the way to 0% just by cutting unemployment insurance. (I say "theoretically" because unemployment benefits are managed by the states not the president.)

Kickaha Loc: Nebraska

I'll try one more time before I give up on you. The unemployment rate has always been expressed as a percentage, but the government tracks different measures of the unemployment rates. Some people are counted in some of the formulas and not others. Like I said it has been close to forty years since I studied economics, I want to say there are five or six different methods of calculating the unemployment rate. I've moved several times since college, but if I took the time I could dig up my old textbooks and find the exact number of different calculations, their names and what each is specifically designed to measure.
Also the government has been known (under both Democrats and Republicans) to tweak the calculations to make themselves look better or the other side look worse.

bilordinary Loc: SW Washington

Makes you wonder, a virtue or a pain.
I would have given up on him long ago.