The Sky is falling.

[DREDIOCK]

Originally posted by LePaul
Good news doesnt sell or draw viewers

When's the last time you sat and watched the nightly news on the big three, then got up feeling good about the world?

exactly. I mde this point on Thanksgiving  her on another thread.

Go look up the headline stories on any of the major news outlets and count the negative stories and compair them to th amount of positive stories.

The News media no longer reports the news. They primarily report the bad news.
and if the news isnt bad enough they try to spin and create a story to make it worse.

Saw a classic example of this on CNN the other night.
They were interviewing a doctor who was at that coal mine incident where those 12 minors lost their lives and they were without question trying outright to get the doctor to say that there was a good possibility that the 12 were still alive even though they had been determined dead by the rescue teams and tht the doctor wasnt allowed down there to save them..

I was so disgusted I changed the channel

[DREDIOCK]

Originally posted by Thrawn
Which is bad.  It makes the businesses in that area with the increased minimum wage less conpetitive.  Less people invest in the business, and that hurts the economy.  The labourer might make more money, but their standard of living falls.

actually in many cases it just make the prices of the goods and/or services the buisnesses provide go up.
I know speaking for myself and people I know anytime my costs go up  I simply pass on the cost to the customer.

in the end the outcome is the same. because of the rise in min wage and the pass along in the end the labourer might make more. but he is still only able to buy what he did before because the costs have gone up.

This is why I never bought into the "tax the rich because they can afford it more" idea in the end they still make their money by passing their costs onto the littlle guy to make up for it so in the end the little guy is no better off then he was before and often worse. But hey he cant say he makes more money now. He just cant do anything more with it.

In any event min wage doesnt effect me as far as having workers goes as I've always paid more then minimum wage. and I pay what I think your worth to me reguardless of what min wage is.
If Im paying you $10 per hour and min wage goes up from $7 to $8 that doesnt mean your getting a $1 raise because as far as im concerned your still only worth $10 per hour to me untill I determine otherwise.
The companies with problems are the ones with alot of Min wage employees as well as alot of those making above min wage

[DREDIOCK]

Originally posted by midnight Target
That is from the Republican party platform for the 1996 election.. I seem to remember a record economy in the 90's.

Yes but largely based on illusion and overvalued stocks.
As soon as reality hit. the economy went in the toilet.

The economy in the 90s was good for sure. But the problem was is it was too good.
Had it not been as good. Had it been based more in realism it probably would have been a good economy for much longer.

[DREDIOCK]

Originally posted by *NDM*JohnnyX
I have no idea how Canadas economy is doing and I'm not going to speculate.

I'd even be willing to bet you dont care either.
Least not nearly as much as they seem to care about ours;)

[*NDM*JohnnyX]

Hey a strong neighboring economy only helps ours. Cheers to their economy! If they start hurting I may not get my Molson

[midnight Target]

Originally posted by DREDIOCK
Yes but largely based on illusion and overvalued stocks.
As soon as reality hit. the economy went in the toilet.

The economy in the 90s was good for sure. But the problem was is it was too good.
Had it not been as good. Had it been based more in realism it probably would have been a good economy for much longer.

And our economy is booming partially due to a housing market bubble that will have the same effect. Point being, that pointing a finger at the party out of power just leaves 3 more pointing back atcha.

[SOB]

"...just leaves 3 more pointing back atcha."

I hate you.

[mauser]

Originally posted by Bodhi
I have to agree that the economy is booming right along.  I always find that the best indicator of the economy is a T crane.  Before 2000, very few were up, now, I see many up in every city I travel through, now where is that money coming from?

Even on our little rock in the middle of the pacific, there are lots of T cranes with their condo projects going up.  There are about six 30+ story projects going up within a couple blocks of where I used to live (which was a 40 floor condo).  In the central downtown business area, there are two more slated to start soon.  We're glad we moved out of the main city before it gets even more crowded.  In addition, everybody is tearing down their old homes and building brand new ones because of the low interest rates - around 5% versus the double digit 14-15% during the 90's.  Gosh those rates would've hurt.  Construction and related companies are busy - some won't even return your calls because they're already overbooked.  I was supposed to get new rain gutters early last year.  They came to measure, and never came back since (fortunately we were never charged anything).   Unfortunately all this booming and increasing property values also sent our property taxes soaring.  We've been in our single family home about a year and a half and our property tax is going up 20% in one year.  

[DREDIOCK]

Originally posted by midnight Target
And our economy is booming partially due to a housing market bubble that will have the same effect. Point being, that pointing a finger at the party out of power just leaves 3 more pointing back atcha.

Thing is. I never pointed any such finger.

Still the current housing bubble isnt nearly as large as the market bubble of the 90s. When it pops. it wont have nearly the same effect

[Thrawn]

Originally posted by Holden McGroin
According to the Office of Personnel Management, the total civilian labor force for the federal government was:

July 2005; 2,725,117

Jan 2005; 2,686,591

Jan 2004; 2,701,015

about a 24,000 increase from Jan '04 to July '05

4 million (+/-) take away 25,000 = 3,975,000

Fed gov't employment accounts for 0.6% of the job growth.

That's the number of people that explicitly work for the US federal government.  It doesn't include all people working for US federal tax dollars.



Drediock,

"actually in many cases it just make the prices of the goods and/or services the buisnesses provide go up."

Right, which decreases standard of living because peoples purchasing power has decreased.  And not only that...

"The companies with problems are the ones with alot of Min wage employees as well as alot of those making above min wage"

Right again, if minimum wage rises high enough, it just because non-viable to run a business that employees a number of minimum wage labours and people don't invest them or even take thier investment out of the company.  Company folds and now people can't buy it's product.  

Or more likely the company off shores it's labour and unemployment increases.

[FuBaR]

Originally posted by BlueJ1
From what Ive read, seen, and heard humans enjoy predicting their downfalls. And when they know they are wrong they dont admit it but just move on to another.

Holy Nobel Prize winner Batman.

[joowenn]

[Holden McGroin]

Originally posted by Thrawn
That's the number of people that explicitly work for the US federal government.  It doesn't include all people working for US federal tax dollars.

Okay it seems you agree that the employee growth of the federal gov't didn't add much.

The GDP grew about 900 billion in those two years, and gov't spending grew from 2,292B to an estimated 2,567B accounting for 275 B of the 900B GDP growth (31%).  

So the majority of the GDP growth was related to private sector rather than the budget growth.  

So it follows that maybe 2/3 of the jobs created were outside of government spending as well.

[bj229r]

Originally posted by Urchin
1.  What sort of jobs has the US economy created? There are only so many kids in the country that'll fill the burger-flipping jobs.
 
2.  IIRC, most "home sales" now aren't new residences, they are investments.  So while it might be accurate to say that wealthy Americans own more homes than ever before, I doubt it'd be accurate to say that more Americans own homes.

3.  Yea, gas prices are friggin weird like that, huh?

Hmm...in the 80's, ALL of Reagans' new jobs were 'hamburger flipper' jobs...but in the 90's, Clintons' WEREN'T, but in  2000-2008, Bush has managed to again figure out how to fully employ all the burger chains:rofl