The Biden Presidency

Julio3000 said:
I think it’s a pretty easy argument that if a company (or, more likely, its corporate parent) is making a profit, paying dividends to shareholders, etc, with its lower-end employees making, say, $10/hr, and that it literally can’t open its doors without them, than it *can* afford to pay those employees more, it just doesn’t *want* to. It’s habituated to a system that normalizes the exploration of labor, and feels entitled to the perpetuation of that system, which allows them to extract more of the surplus value of that labor.
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It's a bargaining issue. Not necessarily collective bargaining. But firms and their workers are constantly making decisions about how to divvy up the pie. Sometimes the owners keep more. Other times the workers get a bigger slice. Having been on both sides of the divide, I generally abstain from making moral judgments about how the pie should be sliced.
 
thethe said:
The revisions downward in prior months may indicate something something more structurally wrong with the economy and not just the pandemic reason. We will see.

I don’t see much job growth proposals coming aside from more government spending and favor to the consolidated big corporations. Couple that with business owners not having safe cities to transact business in and you are left with something that could potentially look bad after the sugar rush is over.
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February was initially reported at +374,000 jobs.

Then with the March report, the February numbers were revised up to show +468,000 jobs.

Then with the April report, the February numbers were revised up again to show +536,000 jobs.

So I see what you mean.

But some people will just focus on the downward revision to March. These revisions go up and down. The final numbers won't be known until something called rebenchmarking is done about a year from now. But meanwhile we can all cherry pick the revisions that help us tell the narrative we like most.
 
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Julio3000 said:
I think it’s a pretty easy argument that if a company (or, more likely, its corporate parent) is making a profit, paying dividends to shareholders, etc, with its lower-end employees making, say, $10/hr, and that it literally can’t open its doors without them, than it *can* afford to pay those employees more, it just doesn’t *want* to. It’s habituated to a system that normalizes the exploration of labor, and feels entitled to the perpetuation of that system, which allows them to extract more of the surplus value of that labor.
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The goal of maximizing shareholder capital has led to negative outcomes for sure. Seeking efficiency at all costs has a massive cost.
 
Julio3000 said:
I think it’s a pretty easy argument that if a company (or, more likely, its corporate parent) is making a profit, paying dividends to shareholders, etc, with its lower-end employees making, say, $10/hr, and that it literally can’t open its doors without them, than it *can* afford to pay those employees more, it just doesn’t *want* to. It’s habituated to a system that normalizes the exploration of labor, and feels entitled to the perpetuation of that system, which allows them to extract more of the surplus value of that labor.
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I don’t think most mom and pops pay many dividends to shareholders other than the owners.
 
nsacpi said:
February was initially reported at +374,000 jobs.

Then with the March report, the February numbers were revised up to show +468,000 jobs.

Then with the April report, the February numbers were revised up again to show +536,000 jobs.

So I see what you mean.

But some people will just focus on the downward revision to March. These revisions go up and down. The final numbers won't be known until something called rebenchmarking is done about a year from now. But meanwhile we can all cherry pick the revisions that help us tell the narrative we like most.
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You know those jobs are just states opening up. To have a slowdown as states continue to open up is certainly cause for alarm. We aren’t talking about a 5-10% miss here on the expectation.
 
I'll share a little secret sauce about the employment data. There is one piece of information that no one (except me and a select few) look at but is extraordinarily useful to assess what is going on. It is a series with a somewhat awkward name: part-time workers for economic reasons.

These are people who would like to work full-time but because of economic reasons are working part-time. When that number drops it is a good thing. Not just for the month that it occurred, but also for the future. It is a leading indictor of sorts.

And that number dropped by 624,000 in April. A very big drop. This is part of why I'm very confident the May and June data are going to reveal that this apparent slowdown in job growth in April is just a fluke. When 624,000 people move from part-time to full-time work, it doesn't show up as a job gain, but it is a very big deal.
 
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thethe said:
You know those jobs are just states opening up. To have a slowdown as states continue to open up is certainly cause for alarm. We aren’t talking about a 5-10% miss here on the expectation.
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I didn't say anything one way or another on why. I just responded to your post about "downward revisions" by pointing out the substantial upward revisions to the February data.

The April miss by professional forecasters is a yuge one for sure. But when you are in a period that is literally unprecedented you can't evaluate forecasting misses by using standard errors in normal times. The rest of this year we are going to keep seeing very big forecasting misses on pretty much all the economic data. Just get used to it. The markets seem to already realize these things are to be shrugged off.

Btw forecasting misses on all sorts of data last year were also very large. Some of the biggest misses ever.
 
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nsacpi said:
I'll share a little secret sauce about the employment data. There is one piece of information that no one (except me and a select few) look at but is extraordinarily useful to assess what is going on. It is a series with a somewhat awkward name: part-time workers for economic reasons.

These are people who would like to work full-time but because of economic reasons are working part-time. When that number drops it is a good thing. Not just for the month that it occurred, but also for the future. It is a leading indictor of sorts.

And that number dropped by 624,000 in April. A very big drop. This is part of why I'm very confident the May and June data are going to reveal that this apparent slowdown in job growth in April is just a fluke.
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That’s only because the states are opening. My wife will be one of those in that statistic. She just got back to work in May for weddings. Gig workers are not impacted by minimum wage discussions because for most of them their rate is higher because they are sole props or llcs.

So again, a statistic changing means little if the change is because the government isn’t preventing people from working anymore.
 
thethe said:
That’s only because the states are opening. My wife will be one of those in that statistic. She just got back to work in May for weddings. Gig workers are not impacted by minimum wage discussions because for most of them their rate is higher because they are sole props or llcs.

So again, a statistic changing means little if the change is because the government isn’t preventing people from working anymore.
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I'm not commenting one way or another on the whys. I'm just saying the apparent slowdown in the April job growth data is very likely to get reversed in the May and June data.

With respect to the unemployment benefits, there are pros and cons to the extra 300 bucks per week. I would let it lapse after it is scheduled to do so in September.
 
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Nothing like a little 23% increase in food costs since the 2020 reading

The useful idiots call for MOAR stimulus

[Tw]1391177744956878850[/tw]
 
That has almost nothing to do with the rising food costs. Infact many issues were starting before COVID and have only gotten worse cause of COVID. I would talk to you about them, but you're so bit by JBS there's not any use of explaining things.
 
Sad message to read.

But obviously, as goldy will explain, the restaurant industry which makes 4% margins should just double and triple their labor costs. And if they can't afford to do that... Well they don't deserve to be in business anyway.

Obviously

Dominoes it is

[tw]1390808957283876868[/tw]
 
CUUR0000SAF1_347734_1620519523793.gif


12-Month Percent Change
Series Id: CUUR0000SAF1
Not Seasonally Adjusted
Series Title: Food in U.S. city average, all urban consumers, not seasonally adjusted
Area: U.S. city average
Item: Food
Base Period: 1982-84=100
 
Thank you for the cart up through 2020.

The useful idiots avert their gaze.

You will be one of the early bug eaters, I'm sure
 
sturg33 said:
Thank you for the cart up through 2020.

The useful idiots avert their gaze.

You will be one of the early bug eaters, I'm sure
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the last data point is March 2021

Last 4 data points are:

December 2020 3.9%
January 2021 3.8%
February 2021 3.6%
March 2021 3.5%
 
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I am curious though why, in your endless obsession to defend the norm busting administration, that you post data titled "food in US city"

When I posted the raw FAO numbers above for all to see
 
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