Topic: Unemployment Duration - page 2. (Read 2876 times)

i'm a big follower of Calculated Risk.  here's one of his graphs that puts things into perspective.

+1

thats really stupid.  of course it does.

Cut spending now and you'll have a disaster. Wait for the system to collapse, and you'll have an enormous catastrophe.

abandon, get back when it gets better
title: crossing the ocean

You've got it spot-on: the current course is 1. Sadly, the second is rapidly decreasing in probability of occurring anytime during the next couple of years. I think most politicians will move even further away from that, actually.

The problem is the debt. If all debt were forgiven tomorrow, this coiled mess of insolvency would be free to begin anew; of course we all know that's an unrealistic impossibility.

The problem with the first solution, that's currently being pursued by western nations, is that the entire financial structure is completely unstable. It's a confidence game - our illustrious "leaders" are simply hoping to keep the system and its established status quo limping along until the next big thing comes along to save them. They have no way of contributing to any advancement because they largely do not even understand the problem and won't until it's far too late. You think unemployment is bad now?

The two realistic results are:

1. Intranational/Civil war(s) resulting from genuine austerity measures and efforts to implement true reform, involving militaries turned inward as with Syria (though probably not as outwardly brutal in western countries).

2. International/Global war as nations either attempt to secure needed resources (energy, food) that are rapidly becoming hotly contested or protect them from other predatory nations.

So far, it's looking like 2 is more probable for the developed world. Few areas of the planet will be spared the coming insanity as the old guard is gripped by its death throes.

A taste of rising domestic issues: www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/rise-of-the-mob-wisconsin-fairgoers-attacked-violently-beaten_08052011

Exactly why you need to let them go bankrupt instead of propping them up, so other or new companies can occupy their places. But as long as bankrupt companies are using resources because they are being artificially proped up (bailouts, stimulous, ultra-low interest rates) there wont be a change and the capital structure will stay distorted and weak, because other or new companies can not take their place.


There is some true to this, specially in (and I believe only related to) the banking system. The banking system is a government created oligopolly and the government has regulated the amount and type of leverage they can achive. This has lead to a unsustainable situation. If we allow the market to correct it through the natural method (bankruptcy) the correction would be very quick, but also very brutal, with a lot of people loosing their savings, etc... I dont think this would be true in any other sector, IMO only the banking sector needs some kind of special solution. There are two sensible options.

1. What sweden did in the 90's. Its a government managed bankruptcy process. The government takes care of the banks for a while, so it can guarantee the deposits, but (and this is very important) completely wipes out the shareholders and the debtors. Both groups gave their money to a badly managed company so they deserve to loose their money. After a while, the government sells the banks to the private sector to recover part of the price of saving the banks. The BIG difference to what it is being done now, is that now we are rescuing the banks, including the shareholders and the debtors. The present "solution" is insane, its pure robbery by the plutocracy.

2. End the monpolly on money by removing legal tender laws, allowing to pay taxes in any currency, etc... By doing this you allow competing currencies and a competing financial system around these new currencies. This would allow for new investment to happen, that is now blocked because the banking system is bankrupt. Also, as the USD loses marketshare it would devaluate making the USD denominated debt easier to pay helping to solve the debt crisis much quicker.

I preffer the second solution as its better long term (the first solution does not change the present monetary system), but given what we have now the first solution would be very welcome. You can imagine we wont get any of both, we will keep saving the plutocrats through taxes and inflation, and will suffer stagflation for years until all the debt is wipped out and the capital structure has recover.

Labor gets cheaper and the companies that aren't bankrupt hire the people looking for work. Now that also requires that regulations that increase the cost of labor to be repealed.

How do you mine with no money?  How do you pay for your mining equipment?  Your electricity? 

There's 50 other threads in this forum that talk about economics in general.  If you don't think it belongs here, I suggest you start reporting all of them.

No, it wouldn't because someone somewhere will be mining for bitcoins. What you're talking about is improbible. This still doesn't belong in this section of the forums -.-

Bankrupt companies do not hire people.  If we cut government jobs and let the private sector go bankrupt, what's left?  I understand what you're saying, our current path is unsustainable.  Eventually we will have to pay the piper.  It's just not as easy as let everything go to shit and then pick up the pieces afterward.  The risk that it turns systemic is rather high.

The majority of American citizens that are unemployed are such for three reasons, roughly.  They have no idea how to live comfortably in the great outdoors by their own means as millions of people did on this continent for 20,000 years before Europe found the damn thing.  They have no idea what their employers value most and so are easily fired or layed-off.  They were never told that going into business for yourself and being your own employer is an act of will, a decision that has nothing to do with paying a lawyer to help you incorporate, paying the town to approve your building permits, paying the State and the Fed more than double what employees pay in withheld varieties of rape...none of those mean anything other than tactical details. Being a business owner is more a point of view than anything else, and that point of view has been forcibly stolen from us.

Produce.  Make.  Invent.  Solve.  Service.  Trade your excess value for what you need with someone that needs your excess...  Modern "progressive" "conservative" "patriotic" or "liberal" ideas are so far removed from the original meaning of the words as to render them useless as words.  

So if none of us had jobs, and no money, it wouldn't impact Bitcoin?  Yeah, you might want to think about that for a while.

The problem in your reasoning is that cutting government spending does not cut jobs, or better said, cutting government spending leads to a reduction of government jobs on the short term but favours creation of jobs in the private sector (productive jobs). On the contrary increasing government spending makes the statistics look good short term but its a disaster middle and long term. The increase of government spending along with not allowing bankruptcies (keeping bad business alive) is what is causing this depression to last so long.

You want jobs? Cut government spending, let bankruptcies happen (no bailouts and no bullshit), basically take the short term bullet and after a bit you will see a real recovery, not this jobless, stock bubbly "recovery".

PS: 100 years ago if a politician spoke about "jobless recovery" the citiznes would have taken him to the pitchfork. Now we just discuss why its happening...

um.. probly because the unemployment rate of what looks like of the US, has nothing to do with ecomonics of the bitcoin market imo.

Um it's the economics section?  And since when does unemployment have nothing to do with the economy? 

If you need another "zomg BTC is falling, Sell sell!" or "get aboard the train, buy! buy!", the speculation section is thataway.

Edit:  I'll edit the title so it's clear what this thread is about.

so if this has nothing to do with bitcoins or the bitcoin econemy, why is this chart here?

Spending for things that we simply do not need, spending to foot the bills of murderous thieves, liars and paper-pushers, spending for vanity and shiny and sugary.  No, we could all use a bit of common sense.  You ain't got nothing if you spent your loot on nothing worth having.

S&P wants us to cut spending.  The politicians want to cut spending (okay they want votes, but they say they want to cut spending).  We need to cut spending.  UNFORTUNATELY when you cut spending you cut jobs.  Looking at that chart, is this really the best time to be cutting?  Damned if we do, damned if we don't.