And do you have no response, DD, after we rather discredited your "8.3% unemployment and 243,000 jobs created = republican spin machine" rant from earlier?

actually these numbers are quite detailed the labor dept does as good a job tracking this as can be done, check this out:

"The unemployment rate appeared to be falling because people were genuinely securing jobs rather than merely leaving the work force. The Labor Department adjusted its data to account for new population estimates from the 2010 Census. The labor force had a net gain of 250,000 people in January from a month earlier. Although the pool of unemployed people has been shrinking, the number remains high — 12.8 million — about equal to the population of Pennsylvania, and long-term unemployment is one of the most crushing legacies of this recent recession. For January, the Labor Department reported that 5.5 million people had been out of work for six months or more, about 43 percent of the jobless.

And according to an analysis of December’s job numbers released this week by the Pew Fiscal Analysis Initiative, nearly a third of the jobless have been unemployed for a year or more.

Underemployment is another stubborn problem. The number of people working part time because they cannot find full-time work was 8.2 million in January. Including that group and the 1.1 million who stopped looking for work altogether, and the broader measure of unemployment was 15.1 percent. "

that doesnt mean the numbers are fudged, unemployment just counts people who are on the unemployment benefits roll and people on unemployment who are currently looking for work it is NOT meant to count those who stopped looking for work, there are other figures for that

the labor dept calculates six different unemployment rates if you didnt know called U1 though U6


U1:[Percentage of labor force unemployed 15 weeks or longer.
U2: Percentage of labor force who lost jobs or completed temporary work.
U3: Official unemployment rate per the ILO definition occurs when people are without jobs and they have actively looked for work within the past four weeks.
U4: U3 + "discouraged workers", or those who have stopped looking for work because current economic conditions make them believe that no work is available for them.
U5: U4 + other "marginally attached workers", or "loosely attached workers", or those who "would like" and are able to work, but have not looked for work recently.
U6: U5 + Part time workers who want to work full time, but cannot due to economic reasons (underemployment).

http://stats.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

regardless, unemployment can def be lower and tons of people are still out of work and suffering I will not argue that fact with you thats for sure.

dude, there is ALWAYS a demand for health care it never decreases, and there is no such thing as a "future balance sheet" in the sense that a company does one now for the future

the balance sheet is the only statement which applies to a single point in time of a business calendar year, which is usually at the end of a companies financial year


By December 2011 it was reported that Hostess Brands was on the verge of filing for bankruptcy a second time after it suspended payments for union pensions and was struggling to remain current on its $700 million loan.

On January 10, 2012 Hostess Brands filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy for the second time. In a statement in its filing, the company said it "is not competitive, primarily due to legacy pension and medical benefit obligations and restrictive work rules." The company said it employs 19,000 people and carries more than $860 million in debt. The company said it would continue to operate with $75 million debtor-in-possession financing from Monarch Alternative Capital, Silver Point Capital and other investors

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostess_Brands

that has nothing to do with impending health care mandates, it has to do with obligations which the company already committed to

Eloquently?

I thought you were from the Bronx. We're smart, but not eloquent. Not ever .

haha true, i can never get rid of my nyc accent, but ive incorporated ways of speaking ive learned while off at college which help

Now I understand why you drive that nice car DD. I also love the song on a different thread. NY

^thanks bro

You deserve it !

"and there is no such thing as a "future balance sheet" in the sense that a company does one now for the future"


Oh my God it's called a Pro forma Balance sheet and it's used to project how the business will be managing its assets in the future. You can forecast i.e. change parameters in the Balance sheet for current and future years.

You say you're an economics major? I take it that means you couldn't gain acceptance into your school's business program. However you can still take finance and accounting courses for non-business majors if you're that interested.

But it's about real-life experience and talking to small business owners who aren't hiring or expanding and are sitting on cash because of the shaky economy and impending individual mandate.

Either way, the Hostess example would make a good case study, that's why I brought it up.

Although our politics are different, Nitti, I have to agree with you there. Small business owners will unfortunately be the last to recover from the economic downturn. There's no arguing that fact. I live in an area where there are still quite a few "Mom and Pop" stores, and to a man, they're all still reeling financially.

I got my haircut yesterday and the guys were crying the same financial blues they've been crying for the past couple of years. It's not that there's no end in sight to the downturn, the problem is that a lot of these small businesses won't survive to see the recovery.

And PB I'm not blaming this mess entirely on the current administration. But small businesses face an annual regulatory cost of $7647 per employee and you can bet this number will go through the roof if they're required to provide health insurance. If you run a restaurant with 50 employees how do you even begin to account for the expenses you're going to face in an already desperate economy?

There are THOUSANDS of regulatory costs that are set to take place soon. Hiring markets, financial markets, housing markets, all of them are still stagnant right now in anticipation of these astronomical rises.

How very true pb, and the years that they worked many and many hours and it is taken away ! This is when America and the USA should stand up and say "WHAT " and do something about it instead of sheep for slaughter !

Businesses don't exist to put people to work. Businesses employ people as a byproduct of being in business. Their being in business is predicated on anticipated consumer demand for the products or services the business provides or intends to provide.

shit, your right i overlooked that aspect when writing that up. im more into the management aspects of orgs but also take finance, accounting, etc, for the record im an mba student at an ivy league school so saying i couldnt get accepted into my school's business program is horseshit

considering the dire straights hostess was in i doubt they had the individual mandate in mind in the short term as they couldnt even meet their immediate payments that were upon them


heres a little more on the health care law


"The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (P.L. 111-148) helps small business in a number of ways. Beginning in 2014, small businesses will be able to participate in small business health options programs or SHOP exchanges. These programs are simply state-based health insurance purchasing pools where small businesses are able to pool together to buy insurance. Small businesses are defined as those that have no more than 100 employees. States have the option of limiting pools to companies with 50 or fewer employees through 2016. Companies that are currently defined as small businesses and grow beyond the size limit will be "grandfather in". The purchasing pools are intended to lower the costs of insurance.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, exchanges are estimated to ease small business insurance costs. They forecast that premiums in the small group market will fall between 1 percent and 4 percent. The amount of coverage in the small group market is expected to rise by 3 percent.

The law also assists small businesses and small tax-exempt organizations afford the cost of covering their employees’ health insurance. If a small business has fewer than 25 employees and provides health insurance it may qualify for a small business tax credit of up to 35 percent (up to 25 percent for non-profits) to offset the cost of insurance, starting with the 2010 federal tax year. This will make the cost of providing insurance significantly lower. Starting in 2014, the small business tax credit goes up to 50 percent (up to 35 percent for non-profits) for qualifying businesses."

obcourse this conversation about the health insurance mandate doesnt obscure the fact that i COMPLETELY agree that small businesses are struggling and they are the ones that do most of the hiring in the united states, as the economy slowly improves and people start finding employment then they will spend their earnings in their neighborhoods and hopefully this will in turn improve the local economic situation for many, everybody is struggling i agree.

Economic activity is predicated on demand. As demand increases, certain macro indicators of economic activity will usually increase or decrease such as the employment or unemployment rate. So will micro indicators such as business sector prosperity. There are just too many variables associated with economic activity for we on this Board to even begin to address it intelligently with anecdotal information or, much less, to draw conclusions from it. So many of our postings seem to be a function of our political ideology. Some of those postings attempt correlations which are null, at best (afterall, everytime I wash my car, it rains. Obviously, one causes the other). Well, I have to admit that in an election year, it's fun.

^^^your absolutely right

I don't know if folks read this LONG article or not but it was chock full of fun facts and human interest stories about where government spending is going and what people think about it.

Critics of safety net depend on it

This paints a very good picture IMO whats going on with the economy and where things are headed for the future...


Conference Board Economists: U.S. Economy Transitioning To A New Normal

"The economy that we had before the recession is gone," said Kenneth Goldstein, economist at the Conference Board. "It's not coming back."

The U.S. economy is transitioning to a new normal in which businesses invest less and consumers spend less than before the recession, Goldstein told The Huffington Post in an interview last week. As a result, he said, economic growth and job growth will be slower than before.

He said that businesses, consumers and the government would need to spend at least $1 trillion more than they are likely to spend in order for the economy to return to its pre-recession growth rate. But he added that no one is willing to spend the money necessary to jumpstart the economy, since the government is cutting spending, consumers are saving more, and businesses expect a lower return on their investments.

"Where's the money?" Goldstein asked.

The Conference Board, which counts half of all Fortune 500 companies among its members, provides economic and business advice and research to its member companies.

The main problem is that consumers' expectations for the future have plunged, Goldstein said. They suffered from such a large economic shock in 2008 and 2009 that many older people now do not expect to return to work, and many younger people no longer expect to make that much money, he continued. As a result, Americans have cut back on spending.

Consumers are indeed saving more than they did before the recession. They saved 3.7 percent of their incomes at the end of 2011, in contrast to less than 2 percent of their incomes during all of 2005, according to government statistics. Their wages, when accounting for inflation, actually fell in 2011.

Consumer confidence has been at recessionary levels for the past four years, according to the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index.

Like consumers, businesses are spending less because they have lowered their expectations of future income, Goldstein said. While businesses could expect returns of 8 to 12 percent on their investments before the recession, they are now expecting returns of about half that amount. If they raise prices too much, consumers will choose cheaper alternatives, he said.

Exports are one of the only bright spots sustaining U.S. economic growth at this slower pace, he added.

Now that people's homes are often worth less and credit is expensive, people are relying on their wages to be able to spend money -- and their wages have barely been growing, said Lynn Franco, director of the Conference Board's Consumer Research Center. She said this means that economic growth will be slower than it was before the recession for the foreseeable future, since consumer spending comprises two-thirds of the U.S. economy.

"If you just take a look at the fundamentals alone," she said, "you cannot get back to the levels of consumer spending that we had prior to the crisis."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/13/conference-board-us-economy_n_1265884.html

One change; a couple of years ago Dave Ramsey said that full employment should now be considered to be at about 5%.

David Frum tweet:

Priceless!!!!

GM's profit at $7.6 billion, the largest ever.

God, when will this end!

Not for nothing, but what line of work did you go into after completion of your undergraduate studies?

Maybe they didn't need that bailout after all.

i was down in dc working on the hill, i wont get more specific than that due to privacy concerns, how about you what did you study in college and line of work your in?

Good for you, DD.

I'm a lowly day trader, fretting this impending capital gains increase which will shrinken my already meager salary. ;))

Nice, I do some personal trading on the side occasionally as well. I feel you on the capital gains but personally I am for it going up to Clinton era levels as long as it is coupled with other strategies to help promote economic growth and fairer taxation from those years as well. Guess I am saying that cause I miss old Bubba in the White House...

I hear ya. Speaking of Bubba, did anyone see the Clinton documentary currently airing on PBS/KLRU?

I'm watching the last half of part 2 right now. The Lewinsky/Starr/Jones years.

^^^i want to see that, i heard its like 4 hrs tho, i hope i can find it online somewhere or if somebody posts it up that would be awesome...