OK, deep breath.
The job market was weaker than expected in August, as employers added no new jobs, on net (this 'net' business is important -- some jobs were created last month, some lost -- this month, creation equaled loss, so net is zero).
There were some extraneous factors, but they don't change the dismal result: the now-ended Verizon strike took 45,000 jobs out of the private sector count in August, but going the other way, 22,000 Minnesota state employees previously shut out, went back to work.
Since monthly numbers can always jump around, it's important to average over a few months to get a feel for the trend. The figure below does that for payroll jobs.
You can clearly see the deceleration in job growth. From Dec 2010-May 2011, we were adding around 150,000 jobs per month, not enough job growth to push down the unemployment rate, but about enough to hold steady.* But over the past three months, we're crawling along the bottom with 35,000/month. (Add in the factors noted above -- strike, end of shutdown -- and that number goes to 43,000... no real difference.)
Other points of note:
In sum, very weak labor demand, no matter how you cut it.
And there's a first dose of my colleague Chad Stone's analysis here.
The problem is that years of cheap excessive credit combined with bad housing regulations has restructured our economy through malinvestment into unsustainable sectors, construction, housing, finance, insurance, government, etc. Stimulus does not work when the economy is structured improperly, and misguided attempts to re-inflate those unsustainable sectors, housing and finance, just adds to the misery and prolongs our economy getting back on solid footing predicated on real economic fundamentals.
Government intervention has failed, time to let capitalism and free market forces correct for the failure.
Kai
A national security crisis exists: 16 trillion dollars in bailouts, hyper-inflation is in the food supply, austerity and budget cuts for the population. Perpetual War is still expanding, so is unemployment and contraction of production. The MIC is making a killing.
The stabilization of the United States is the only imperative, the only power on earth that can save humanity. The President, the Fed, Congress has done everything to destroy that power. Terminate the corrupting monetary financial system or it will terminate the United States.
Implementing the Glass-Steagall standard in US banking is absolutely crucial, separating the legitimate debt from the illegitimate, cancelling all obligations to the Inter Alpha Group of Banks, the Wall St cabal. Create the US National Bank that funds the 50 states, then fund the power dynamic economy platform, its facilities that support the population's physical economy, enhancing our standard of living. Stop Perpetual War or economic recovery is impossible. No other options exist and time is running out.
Outsourcing has accelerated to historic levels --- all under Obama's watch. Countries like India and China are awash in new jobs. Jobs that people here in America used to do.
I wonder how he described Bush's last couple months when we were losing 700,000 jobs a month.
There is nothing that government can do about this except to provide effective regulation, oversight, and enforcement of standards and practices to provide robust, equitable, and transparent financial markets.
Each advance, by breadth and depth, of industrial automation renders semi-skilled human industrial production labor less valuable.
Until we come to terms with the actual forces at work, and acknowledge the limitations of government is dealing with these issues, nothing in the public dialog will get better. We will remain isolated communities, shouting at each other.
I'm not convinced the regulations do much more than cost the economy a lot of money. Like, what good is a regulation on bundled mortgages when nobody in their right mind would buy them after seeing what happened to people who bought them in the 2000s.
..."was never paid back"?
Because if we can stop pretending the bailouts "saved the economy", we can stop it by restoring Glass-Steagall and charging back Wall Street/City of London for the 16 TRILLION in bailouts.
Solution: Glass-Steagall and a MASSIVE PROJECT, such as NAWAPA.
It appears that the mechanization and automation of 'work' has outpaced the evolution of jobs and workforce deployment. Why did not the think tanks and futurists forsee this?
Why is there a persistence in the paradigm of working to earn the means of life's necessities when the available technology (know-how) and resources exist for an alternative construct?
I have been wondering for years why humans must continue to "work" when the human condition has theoretically advanced beyond such archaic social organization.
Not out of laziness, mind you but the recognition that the purpose of existence is not material accumulation, but conscious expansion.
My working theory is that the "controllers" have no use for people who actually have the time and interest to overcome their mundane world-view and worker-bee existence.
The end-game of the capitalist's manifesto does not bode well for the human condition, and will culminate in ideological confrontation.
The danger to The United States is that the established political apparatus is NOT SERVING the interests of corporeal "people." When the majority come to accept this, because it is recognized, something will have to give.
Productivity has increased greatly in the last 30 years but wages have not - this is unsustainable.
Yes, but in the meantime, people's bodies need food, clothing, shelter, an iPhone, and wireless service. Here is the reality: There are 168 hours in a week. People need about 56 of those hours for sleep and ablutions. So folks have 112 hours a week of wide-awake conscious time to fill. 95% of the people on Earth have not the inclination or capacity to spend 56 or so of those hours per week writing a critique of Plato's "The Republic". So people join a structured setting that either actually does, or else simulates, useful labor. School, or work.
In return, people get the money to buy food, clothing, shelter, an iPhone, and wireless service.
Your observations on industrial automation displacing human labor are spot on.
I work for a medium-sized corporation, and I see the effect of the Congressional ineptitude every time we bring up a project, whether it involves hiring people, spending capital dollars, evaluating an asset purchase or sale, or anything else. From the highest level of the largest corporations down to a small business with 10 employees, people won't make any decisions with a backdrop of political warfare at a time when leadership unity is needed. This has been going on for three years now, and it's time for Democrats to get together and say, "Enough". Whether you like all the president's policies or not, you need to support him because he's a darn sight better than the alternative. And that goes for Democratic Congresspeople too. Send those people email after email telling them you have their backs, and we need to get some rallys going on saying we support the Democratic party even when we might disagree with specific policies.
We're losing our country because there's a war going on in Washington and we won't support our troops unless they do EVERYTHING EXACTLY LIKE WE WANT IT.
When an imported car costs $5,000,000 we will have to go back to making them ourselves.
From "green shoots", to the current talk about jobs, Obama administration has done very little beyond talking to change our negative reality. In this respect Obama has been an utter failure, in my opinion, not worth supporting. With this kind of record, another four years of this will cement our impoverishment for generations. I have my doubts that whatever is left of our democratic republic will survive next five years without descent into some kind of overt dictatorship. It would not surprise me at all that it happens under Obama.
Your paranoid vision of a dicatorship is the result of your lack of economic research that's working with an overactive imagination. Go to the numbers and you'll understand this better.