U.S. job growth soars; annual wage gain largest since 2009

[Brunolem]

41 minutes ago, jcsmith said:

Here's an easier to read chart of actual wage growth. It's been stagnantfor a couple of years, after slow increases following the recession. It's October numbers are a spike but it's generally been flat.

More interesting is the long term evolution...showing that, despite the "best economy ever", Americans make on average less today than in the early 70s... 

[EVENKEEL]

2 hours ago, wonder6281 said:

More hot air the US economy bubble. I fear what happens when it pops! It won't be pretty. 

Very original.

[riclag]

8 hours ago, alex8912 said:

How much better than a 3.7% unemployment rate can there be? It’s a huge country too and many states are below that figure.  With people between jobs and looking for work etc it’s hard to be below 2/3% ever! 

Well except in Thailand of course! I’m sure there will be posters coming along with links etc to prove the States are a mess.  In real non link America that I just spent six months in, everyone was getting raises, getting promotions , getting BETTER higher paying jobs and I meet a lot of people in my line of work and socially. Many legal people from outside the states are coming in also for very high paying jobs as well.  

Two years of PT, I have gained $60k on my Boeing and TJX stocks!My kid sells new and used cars for a living,he said sales have prompted him to buy $23k of solar panels  for his house he just purchased in July . My daughters restaurant just expanded and she's hired 4 new employees. She's been in business for 3 years, sales have doubled 30k to 58k a month .  She just recently purchased the property and building that occupy's the facility !She works M_F and on the weekends and holiday's she has traveled to Norway,Peru,Costa Rica,Thailand(2 week holiday),Mexico,Canada, France and several times to visit her mom on the east coast. Consumer confidence is a good indicator of the economy!

If one googles  "consumer confidence under trump economic environment" ,you get a mixed bag of links,some encouraging and some discouraging of PT's economy! 

[Phuket Stan]

3 hours ago, alex8912 said:

I’ll take back more than half if that’s what I said but not much less than half. I’m not saying it’s good but I know it is extremely widespread in the states in an extremely large group of different professions. Just like I responded to the carpenter just now. His profession and others like electricians and plumbers are making incredible $$$$ under the table. In those professions it’s more than 50% and often even if you bribe them with more $$ for some emergency that comes up they are too busy or too rich to take on another job. It’s really widespread especially in Boston and New York City area where I have first hand experience just this past six months. I know 27 year old plumbers making 175K a year and reporting much much less. Others as well. Not bragging and not saying it’s a healthy way to go , but but but that money is going back into the economy as well.

This happening world wide....20 years ago no one wanted to work with their hands and were not encouraged to do so....everyone was going to be a computer engineer etc etc and that was what education systems were built around....no the penny has dropped and there are fewer and fewer tradesmen hence they are in such high demand and the market has to pay what they want.....20-30 years ago u got real car mechanics....now its replacement experts and the game goes on

Edited November 3, 2018 by Phuket Stan

[riclag]

4 hours ago, sirineou said:

 i belong to the international brotherhood of carpenters union, Local 212 and the teamsters union ,local 282.

In the carpenters union we are having a $5 per hr pay cut effective Jan 1, the teamster union has cut its pension 29% to keep the fund from running out of money. 

 

Sorry to hear that brother! 

Summary of the pension cutback provisions in the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014

Thousands of Teamsters through out the country have been effected by this bipartisan bill that was signed into law in 2014.

I was a teamster in Massachusetts .They told us for many many years, your pension is solvent!

[attrayant]

1 hour ago, riclag said:

If one googles  "consumer confidence under trump economic environment" ,you get a mixed bag of links,some encouraging and some discouraging of PT's economy! 

 

Interesting.  What happens if you google 'argument by anecdote'?

[riclag]

5 minutes ago, attrayant said:

 

Interesting.  What happens if you google 'argument by anecdote'?

Beats me ! I'm more concern about the glass being half full,instead of empty

Edited November 3, 2018 by riclag

[Brunolem]

1 hour ago, riclag said:

Two years of PT, I have gained $60k on my Boeing and TJX stocks!My kid sells new and used cars for a living,he said sales have prompted him to buy $23k of solar panels  for his house he just purchased in July . My daughters restaurant just expanded and she's hired 4 new employees. She's been in business for 3 years, sales have doubled 30k to 58k a month .  She just recently purchased the property and building that occupy's the facility !She works M_F and on the weekends and holiday's she has traveled to Norway,Peru,Costa Rica,Thailand(2 week holiday),Mexico,Canada, France and several times to visit her mom on the east coast. Consumer confidence is a good indicator of the economy!

If one googles  "consumer confidence under trump economic environment" ,you get a mixed bag of links,some encouraging and some discouraging of PT's economy! 

From an external observer point of view, it makes one really wonder...

 

Mid 90s: "America has found the recipe for perpetual growth"

 

Mid 00s: "The subprime crisis is contained"

 

We know how this ended, yet many Americans appear to have a very short memory, and so we are back with the same kind of statements about this incredible economy...an economy based on a cycle of bubbles inflated by the Fed, then popped by the same Fed, with the bubbles and the ensuing crisis getting bigger each time!

 

It wil! be interesting to read again all these enthusiastic comments in a couple of years from now...

 

[sirineou]

2 minutes ago, Brunolem said:

From an external observer point of view, it makes one really wonder...

 

Mid 90s: "America has found the recipe for perpetual growth"

 

Mid 00s: "The subprime crisis is contained"

 

We know how this ended, yet many Americans appear to have a very short memory, and so we are back with the same kind of statements about this incredible economy...an economy based on a cycle of bubbles inflated by the Fed, then popped by the same Fed, with the bubbles and the ensuing crisis getting bigger each time!

 

It wil! be interesting to read again all these enthusiastic comments in a couple of years from now...

 

I like your signature statement "Education is the progressive discovery of our ignorance " isn't it funny when we were young how we used to know it all and how life's education has taught as otherwise? Yet some remain in arrested development and a state of historical amnesia. 

Everybody is doing so well yet 59% of americans are $500 away from bankruptcy .

Does not compute (robot voice)

And don't think we are safe, our pensions and savings can easily be wiped out. 

Automation is coming at as  like a freight train , and there will be major social and economic disruption while the rich get richer and the poor resist socialism. It is inevitable that the Rich (the investment class) will get richer because investment grows  at a much higher rate than wages, (poor working class) 

It is simple math. The two classes will increasingly diverge IMO and the opinion of many others.

 

[Brunolem]

1 hour ago, sirineou said:

I like your signature statement "Education is the progressive discovery of our ignorance " isn't it funny when we were young how we used to know it all and how life's education has taught as otherwise? 

 

 

Young people are not educated by schools and universities, they just go through a selection process in order to determine where each of them will "fit" in the system!

 

I had to reach my thirties to discover that I knew nothing outside of my professional specialty, despite having a bunch of diplomas.

 

Only by reading, a lot, did I discover how much I had to learn and how much knowledge is easily available to anyone, if only people had not so many more pressing priorities...

[direction BANGKOK]

4 hours ago, sirineou said:

I like your signature statement "Education is the progressive discovery of our ignorance " isn't it funny when we were young how we used to know it all and how life's education has taught as otherwise? Yet some remain in arrested development and a state of historical amnesia. 

Everybody is doing so well yet 59% of americans are $500 away from bankruptcy .

Does not compute (robot voice)

And don't think we are safe, our pensions and savings can easily be wiped out. 

Automation is coming at as  like a freight train , and there will be major social and economic disruption while the rich get richer and the poor resist socialism. It is inevitable that the Rich (the investment class) will get richer because investment grows  at a much higher rate than wages, (poor working class) 

It is simple math. The two classes will increasingly diverge IMO and the opinion of many others.

 

The way I interpret that quote, may be a bit different, is that we are essentially much dumber, or less knowledgeable, than we think we are. I think that is absolutely true. Everyday we see stuff all around us that I think should just absolutely astonish us. Little things, like why can't an airplane seat be at least a little more comfortable. Why can't buildings and other roads be constructed on time? Why can't we learn that we always underestimate those time frames?You'd think we could handle all this given how much we tend to pat ourselves on the back. Weather forecasting, the predictions for the last US election. We think we know things, and we do not seem to learn that we don't seem to know anything, and we refuse to acknowledge this. 

[pegman]

4 hours ago, sirineou said:

I like your signature statement "Education is the progressive discovery of our ignorance " isn't it funny when we were young how we used to know it all and how life's education has taught as otherwise? Yet some remain in arrested development and a state of historical amnesia. 

Everybody is doing so well yet 59% of americans are $500 away from bankruptcy .

Does not compute (robot voice)

And don't think we are safe, our pensions and savings can easily be wiped out. 

Automation is coming at as  like a freight train , and there will be major social and economic disruption while the rich get richer and the poor resist socialism. It is inevitable that the Rich (the investment class) will get richer because investment grows  at a much higher rate than wages, (poor working class) 

It is simple math. The two classes will increasingly diverge IMO and the opinion of many others.

 

No worries, there are bread and circuses (guns & bibles) to distract while the uber rich take direct control of government and give themselves more tax breaks. 

[EVENKEEL]

Whatever downfalls in life we have had or have, don't blame the rich or the government. Blame yourself. Especially in the USA. Who you can blame is yourself for raising kids who are too lazy to help themselves. 

Raising the minimum wage won't help anyone succeed in life if they don't have the ambition to go beyond that kind of job. When you look at unemployment rates they should include wages.

[Brunolem]

2 hours ago, EVENKEEL said:

 

When you look at unemployment rates they should include wages.

Wages are shown in post #31 and are much less impressive than the official unemployment rate...

[Brunolem]

8 hours ago, direction BANGKOK said:

The way I interpret that quote, may be a bit different, is that we are essentially much dumber, or less knowledgeable, than we think we are. I think that is absolutely true. Everyday we see stuff all around us that I think should just absolutely astonish us. Little things, like why can't an airplane seat be at least a little more comfortable. Why can't buildings and other roads be constructed on time? Why can't we learn that we always underestimate those time frames?You'd think we could handle all this given how much we tend to pat ourselves on the back. Weather forecasting, the predictions for the last US election. We think we know things, and we do not seem to learn that we don't seem to know anything, and we refuse to acknowledge this. 

For info, the quote is from Will Durant, an American historian and philosopher who lived during the mid twentieth century.

 

It is not so much that we are dumb or ignorant, but that we have no idea of the amount of knowledge available these days, and how little of it we have come accross, even if we went to Harvard, MIT, Oxford or any other ivy league school.

 

Among the many eye opener books on the market, I particularly recommend those from Bill Bryson, most notably "A short history of nearly everything".

 

The reason is that Bryson is neither an academic, nor a scientist, but a regular guy (he usually writes about travelling) who realized how little he knew and went trough the trouble of spending 3 years gathering data from multiple sources (persons, not internet) and put them in the shape of a book.

 

The reading is easy and when you arrive at the end you have learned more than during your whole school "education"...and yet there is still much much more that is left to learn...

[direction BANGKOK]

53 minutes ago, Brunolem said:

For info, the quote is from Will Durant, an American historian and philosopher who lived during the mid twentieth century.

 

It is not so much that we are dumb or ignorant, but that we have no idea of the amount of knowledge available these days, and how little of it we have come accross, even if we went to Harvard, MIT, Oxford or any other ivy league school.

 

Among the many eye opener books on the market, I particularly recommend those from Bill Bryson, most notably "A short history of nearly everything".

 

The reason is that Bryson is neither an academic, nor a scientist, but a regular guy (he usually writes about travelling) who realized how little he knew and went trough the trouble of spending 3 years gathering data from multiple sources (persons, not internet) and put them in the shape of a book.

 

The reading is easy and when you arrive at the end you have learned more than during your whole school "education"...and yet there is still much much more that is left to learn...

It is a very interesting quote. Thank you for the discussion. I find myself frequently uttering similar sentiments to myself and friends. 

 

Take for example eating habits. For years doctors have been telling folks to eat three times a day and snack in between. Essentially, to eat as often as possible. Yet, there is research now that suggests restricting your eating severely can prolong life, help your brain to function better, decrease your risk of cancer, all while losing fat and not losing muscle! 

 

So, for decades we have been told to eat in a way that actually did the opposite of all those effects in the above paragraph. I find that astounding, and very supportive of the quote. I do not mean to disagree of course, and I could be wrong, but I believe the quote to mean we essentially know nothing, even when we seem to think we do. 

[Brunolem]

49 minutes ago, direction BANGKOK said:

but I believe the quote to mean we essentially know nothing, even when we seem to think we do. 

We know nothing, whoever we are, at least for two reasons:

1. too much knowledge available

2. too many distractions that keep peop!e from educating themselves

 

This thread is typical of this situation, with a large number of people applauding on the basis of one little stat (unemployment rate) provided by a highly biased authority.

 

They won't bother, and invest the time, looking behind the curtain, dig a little deeper and find out by themselves if said stat is reliable.

 

This can be extended to almost everything...people have bias, and generally listen to one or two persons who say what they like to hear...hence the confirmation bias for which the internet is a major enabler.

 

Once their bias confirmed, they believe that they are knowledgeable, at least regarding the limited issues that concern them.

 

The rest, the missing 99.99999999%, of the available knowledge they are not aware of, is of no interest for them.

 

 

 

[Sir Dude]

Wilbur Ross probably deserves the credit for all this really. Trump appointed the right man to be in charge of commerce.

[roobaa01]

what an impressive, clean snowwhite record report thk u donald, not possible with dem socialist looser policy-it is really great to be a white skinned person.

 

wbr

roobaa01

[direction BANGKOK]

4 hours ago, Brunolem said:

We know nothing, whoever we are, at least for two reasons:

1. too much knowledge available

2. too many distractions that keep peop!e from educating themselves

 

This thread is typical of this situation, with a large number of people applauding on the basis of one little stat (unemployment rate) provided by a highly biased authority.

 

They won't bother, and invest the time, looking behind the curtain, dig a little deeper and find out by themselves if said stat is reliable.

 

This can be extended to almost everything...people have bias, and generally listen to one or two persons who say what they like to hear...hence the confirmation bias for which the internet is a major enabler.

 

Once their bias confirmed, they believe that they are knowledgeable, at least regarding the limited issues that concern them.

 

The rest, the missing 99.99999999%, of the available knowledge they are not aware of, is of no interest for them.

 

 

 

Maybe it is a bad example simce it is based in Hollywood, but one situation that struck me recently was the judge's decisions in the Brendan Dassey case in making a murderer. 

 

Now, in theory we are supposed to have objective judges. This may be arguable, but it would seem once you make that assumption, that the same judges should be able to look at certain evidence, and come to the same conclusions. Sure, in borderline cases maybe this does not always have to be the case. But, in this case the judges were lookimg at the same facts and videotape, and all reached wildy different conclusions. This even went as far as judges stating on the record things like "any judge who would find different I do not find to be comprtent (I am paraphrasing, i forget the exact wordage)".

 

What I deduce from all that, is once again, we think we have a good understanding of things. Like the law for example. You would think we have a good understanding if what is in fact right and wrong, and then we can apply it case by case. Yet, in this instance, which seemed quite clear to be honest, judges were in direct opposition. How can that possibly be? I think it can only be possible if "the more you educate yourself, the more you find out how little you know". 

 

 

[Brunolem]

10 minutes ago, direction BANGKOK said:

I think it can only be possible if "the more you educate yourself, the more you find out how little you know". 

 

 

True!

 

With legal issues things get much more complicated because much is left to interpretation.

 

Knowledge is not enough, experience and the personality of the people involved also have a major influence on the outcome.

 

 

[jcsmith]

15 hours ago, EVENKEEL said:

Whatever downfalls in life we have had or have, don't blame the rich or the government. Blame yourself. Especially in the USA. Who you can blame is yourself for raising kids who are too lazy to help themselves. 

Raising the minimum wage won't help anyone succeed in life if they don't have the ambition to go beyond that kind of job. When you look at unemployment rates they should include wages.

That's a very naive way of looking at things. Some people don't have those opportunities. Some people don't have great brains. Some people are far more likely to get breaks than others due to race, connections, etc. There are plenty of people who work hard and will never get the opportunity to move up too far ahead in life. And others who will always have it easy, without putting in any type of hard work. And the amusing thing is those who belong in that latter category typically have the opinion that you just gave.

 

Are there some people who are lazy and waste the opportunities they have? Certainly. But there are other people who spent their lives working blue collar jobs, and are now facing automation. Or worked in industries that are not being phased out. And who lack the education, or the intelligence to change. And there are plenty of people who took stabs at being entrepreneurs, or living their dreams, and were smacked hard by reality. 

People can't decide what family they are born into. They can't decide their own race. Their own physical or mental capabilities. Their parents immigrant status. Their natural appearance. Their genes or DNA. Yet all of those things will affect how successful they are in life.

 

It's naive to think that everyone has the same opportunities in life. Some people will receive a top notch education by birthright. Others will find themeselves in debt for the much of their lives to receive a lesser education. Now that's no excuse not to try to achieve whatever you can. But to say that those people who are stuck in low paying jobs, working way harder than the corporate bosses who are making hundreds to thousands of times their salaries are in their positions just because they are lazy is an unfair and unrealistic take. The odds are stacked against some people, and stacked in the favor of others. Unfortunately, many of those who had are holding a golden deck are eager to keep it that way at the expense of others. 

Edited November 4, 2018 by jcsmith

[Kiwiken]

You have a supposed 5 cent average increase in wages. Is this based on 100% for the top and 0% for the lowest paid?

[metisdead]

A troll post has been removed. 

[Brunolem]

3 hours ago, Kiwiken said:

You have a supposed 5 cent average increase in wages. Is this based on 100% for the top and 0% for the lowest paid?

That's an average...and the top doesn't get its money from wages anyway...

[Brunolem]

10 hours ago, jcsmith said:

The odds are stacked against some people, and stacked in the favor of others. Unfortunately, many of those who had are holding a golden deck are eager to keep it that way at the expense of others. 

It is not only about education and life opportunities, but also about personality.

 

To reach the top, you need to be ruthless!

It's an animal thing...really.

 

I have seen plenty of, say mid-level executives, who were more knowledgeable and smarter than their boss, but who lacked the confidence (arrogance).

 

Just watch top executives walking around and see how shy they are...

 

The guys at the top have a superiority complex, and if you don't have it you will never reach the top because the selection process is based on cooptation.

 

Of course, the guys who "made it" see things differently, being convinced that they are indeed superior: smarter, more hard working and so on.

 

[EVENKEEL]

11 hours ago, jcsmith said:

That's a very naive way of looking at things. Some people don't have those opportunities. Some people don't have great brains. Some people are far more likely to get breaks than others due to race, connections, etc. There are plenty of people who work hard and will never get the opportunity to move up too far ahead in life. And others who will always have it easy, without putting in any type of hard work. And the amusing thing is those who belong in that latter category typically have the opinion that you just gave.

 

Are there some people who are lazy and waste the opportunities they have? Certainly. But there are other people who spent their lives working blue collar jobs, and are now facing automation. Or worked in industries that are not being phased out. And who lack the education, or the intelligence to change. And there are plenty of people who took stabs at being entrepreneurs, or living their dreams, and were smacked hard by reality. 

People can't decide what family they are born into. They can't decide their own race. Their own physical or mental capabilities. Their parents immigrant status. Their natural appearance. Their genes or DNA. Yet all of those things will affect how successful they are in life.

 

It's naive to think that everyone has the same opportunities in life. Some people will receive a top notch education by birthright. Others will find themeselves in debt for the much of their lives to receive a lesser education. Now that's no excuse not to try to achieve whatever you can. But to say that those people who are stuck in low paying jobs, working way harder than the corporate bosses who are making hundreds to thousands of times their salaries are in their positions just because they are lazy is an unfair and unrealistic take. The odds are stacked against some people, and stacked in the favor of others. Unfortunately, many of those who had are holding a golden deck are eager to keep it that way at the expense of others. 

Some of your points are true, but I'm far, far from any elite class. Making it..... is an individual's interpretation. Too many people today don't want to get their hands dirty or work hard anymore. Cars have to be new, homes have to be double the size of an average home of 40 yrs ago, no more saving up for something.....just lay a credit card down, folks want instant gratification. Stop eating out, no more new cars, work a second job, look for a better job everyday.

Oh and here is my favorite pet peeve......Today if folks can't find a decent job where they are, how many look elsewhere.....different states. No, they would rather stay in the same crappy location and become a statistic.

When fracking started in the Dakotas blue collar jobs were paying well, you have off shore jobs in the Gulf of Mexico, Truck Driving still pays a decent wage. 

 

It's a lot different today than it was in the 70's when you could take a job in a factory that allowed you to buy a house and raise a family. But it doesn't excuse the lazy mindset of folks today. Perhaps lazy isn't the correct word for many, but opportunities still exist without an expensive college degree.

 

And the 10+ million illegals in the US has also contributed to low wages.

[jcsmith]

2 hours ago, EVENKEEL said:

When fracking started in the Dakotas blue collar jobs were paying well, you have off shore jobs in the Gulf of Mexico, Truck Driving still pays a decent wage. 

 

It's a lot different today than it was in the 70's when you could take a job in a factory that allowed you to buy a house and raise a family. But it doesn't excuse the lazy mindset of folks today. Perhaps lazy isn't the correct word for many, but opportunities still exist without an expensive college degree.

 

And the 10+ million illegals in the US has also contributed to low wages.

Truck Driving jobs will be gone in a few years, and they don't pay nearly as well as they used to. I worked in the fishing industry for a number of years to pay my way through school, that used to be great money but it's not what it used to be and like trucking jobs automation is going to make things worse and worse. There are still jobs working on oil and such which pay reasonably well. But all of that stuff is hard work. To give an example, when I worked in Alaska we worked 16 1/2 hours on, 7 1/2 hours off... 7 days a week on 3 month contracts. And it was as manually hard work as you there is. The money was good, but after a few years you can't keep doing that. From there I moved on to programming in the late 90s and was making far more than I ever made in Alaska while working a much shorter day at home, and the work was easy. But not everyone can do that. Most people are going to work in an office, retail, or a factory their whole lives and they will never get very far ahead from where they began. 

 

Those who have success will often contribute it to their hard work, and that's not to say that this didn't play a role. But many of the people who never do and spend their entire lives without ever getting too far ahead are working just as hard.  America does offer opportunity, but hard work doesn't guarantee success. And moving forward, with automation all of those manual labor jobs, driving jobs, will be disappearing. Social programs with incentives are probably going to be the way of the world in the future. It will need to be. It's really unfair that some people have a much easier run in life than others. Of course, life isn't fair. But part of the government's job is to help ensure a quality of life for their citizens. And we've been stagnant for ages. That hasn't changed no matter who has been in office. The tax breaks here definitely helped corporate profits. But it never seems to trickle down.

 

I don't think illegal immigration has done all that much to contribute to low wages. We're at under 4% unemployment. And illegal immigrants are working for below minimum wage. They are working jobs that other people don't want. That's not to say they should be working at all, illegal is illegal. But we're pretty much at full employment right now. If you want a job you can find one that pays at least minimum wage. I think the larger problem is that it's really hard for anyone to live reasonably on minimum wage. 

Edited November 5, 2018 by jcsmith

[Rimmer]

Off topic post removed

[Kiwiken]

10 hours ago, Brunolem said:

That's an average...and the top doesn't get its money from wages anyway...

Wages and salaries, dividends are the  way of describing the same thing