subject:"re\: employment"


I know some people are probably sick of the
topic, but reading through all those posts, I
can't help but think at least two individuals
mucked it up more than added to it (not Daniel's
recent post, which did add considerably).

We discussed this on another list, I've forgotten
the name, and this is more or less what I said
then:

US statistics were often not in conformity with
other OECD countries. 

I thought the US sample too small, and the
statistical 'adjustments' made to the data were
not clearly explained.

Also, the federal government seems to rely on
states for a lot of this data, and they can be
extremely unreliable and not uniform. Some of
these states are about as good at managing their
'employment security offices' where 'active job
searches' take place as they are their voting
rolls, o.k.? 

I'm fairly convinced that in order to understand
the unemployment issue in the US you have to take
the official figures and multiply by at least two
to see a more realistic figure, reflective and
representative of the social reality. Nothing
I've read here has convinced me otherwise.

Two million plus and rising in jail also takes an
awful lot of people (mostly men) out of the
unemployment picture, if they were ever in it in
the first place. 

C. Jannuzi

various pieces from around the net below, with
links

--

http://www.stat.go.jp/english/data/roudou/qa-1.htm

9 The actual unemployment rate [in Japan] is said
to exceed 10%. Is it true? 


The unemployment rate is calculated using the
number of the fully unemployed and the total
labor force. Like other major advanced countries,
the definitions of these terms used for Japan's
Labor Force Survey conform to the international
standards stipulated by the ILO to grasp the
employment and unemployment status objectively.
Therefore, like other nations that create
statistics in accordance with ILO international
standards, those who gave up job-seeking
activities because of their severe economic
situation, that is, who lost a will to find a
job, are not regarded as unemployed. 
However, it is said to be important to grasp the
real situation of such people. To achieve that,
the Special Labor Force Survey is undertaken. 
Note: 
According to Special Survey of the Labor Force
Survey (August 2001), of all persons not in the
labor force who want to find a job, 2,160,000
people do not seek work because no suitable work
is likely to be available. Of them, 880,000 are
currently available for work. Of them, 580,000
actually sought work during the past one year.

-

http://business.baylor.edu/Steve_Gardner/LECOUT02C.DOC

Comparative Economic Statistics: Unemployment 


A.  Despite International Labour Office
conventions, differences continue. See this
article and this one by Constance Sorrentino of
the U.S. Department of Labor.
Also, see OECD Standardized Rates .

1.  Without work?  Contractually (Europe, Japan)
or physically (U.S.). 
2.  Available?  During survey (N. America, Japan)
or within 2 weeks (E.C.).
3.  Seeking work?  During past 4 weeks (N.
America), 4 weeks with exceptions (most E.C.), 60
days (Italy), or unspecified (Japan).  Thus,
Italian unemployment was 11.1% in 1989 by Italian
definition or 7.8% by U.S. definition.  Passive
jobseekers who conduct their research for work
strictly by reading newspaper ads are included in
the labor force (and among the unemployed) in
Canada, but not in the United States (reduces
Canadian rate 1% point by U.S. definition or
raises U.S. rate 0.15% point (in 1998) by
Canadian definition). Will the former planned
economies consider a person unemployed if they
reject a job offer? 

B.  Standard definition can be adjusted for:
1.  Duration (U-1) E.C. countries have high rates
of long-term unemployment 
2.  Underemployment - improper use of skills
(unmeasured) or involuntary part-time work (U-6).
 Latter problem was largest, as % of labor force,
in Netherlands and U.S. and smallest in Germany. 
Underemployment may also mean overstaffing, as in
former planned economies.
3.  Discouraged workers (U-4, U-5) Defined
culturally.  Biggest increases for Japan and
Italy, especially Japanese women with temporary
jobs.

C.  Methods of Data Collection
1.  Sample surveys - Considered the best method.
Conducted monthly in U.S., annally in E.C.  Still
are sensitive to wording of questions.  Still may
miss underground employment.
2.  Registrations at unemployment or social
security offices - most developing countries.

U.S. Unemployment Rates in 1999
by Alternative Definitions
Percent
U-1 Persons unemployed 15 weeks or longer, as a
percent of the civilian labor force 1.1
U-2 Job losers and persons who completed
temporary jobs, as a percent of the civilian
labor force 1.9
U-3 Total unemployed, as a percent of the
civilian labor force (official unemployment rate)
4.2
U-4 Total unemployed plus discouraged workers, as
a percent of the civilian labor force plus

Re: RE: Re: employment


DD writes:
 
CJ: I know some people are probably sick of the
 topic, but reading through all those posts, I
 can't help but think at least two individuals
 mucked it up more than added to it (not
 Daniel's
 recent post, which did add considerably).
 
DD:  Thanks, but hang on a minute.  If by two
 individuals you mean Jim and
 Doug, then it is important that we be
 absolutely clear that on the purely
 factual aspects of the argument, they are
 *right* and their interlocutors
 are wrong.
 
 I have never, ever, in any series at all, been
 aware of a single area of
 macroeconomic statistics in which the USA is
 not head and shoulders above
 the rest of the world in terms of timeliness,
 comprehensiveness and
 accuracy.  

That wasn't the issue, but rather the whole
concept the US government uses to determine
unemployment. Did you read most of what was
written? The thing you are talking about was more
an issue to two people, one of whom stormed out
of the discussion. Whether or not I learned
anything, it was certainly a good discussion. Any
topic that gets that many people to participate
has to be good overall.  

This is really quite important to
 understand; the BLS has a much
 bigger budget than any other statistics agency
 anywhere in the world, spends
 it well, and is admirable in its independence
 of mind.

What is that budget, by the way? I mean, they
don't actually generate the real data, you know. 
 


Doug was absolutely
 right to praise the staff of the BLS.  The UK's
 statistics used to be as
 good (they're still not bad), but the guts were
 ripped out of them in the
 Thatcher years.

The US's were gutless from the start if you ask
me. 
 
 Therefore, any debate on the statistics has to
 take place from the starting
 point that the USA's stats are best, and other
 countries' are worst. 


That's a rather unfair place to start a debate. I
mean, it sounds like a good argument to argue,
but it's tendentiousness and completely
unsupported here. Four out of five people who
play with the stats love the guys who peddle
them. 

 In
 particular, I've never had to deal directly
 with Japanese employment
 numbers, but I've found all the Japanese
 statistics I've had to deal with in
 other areas (mainly money supply) to be of
 abominable quality, out of date
 and subject to massive revisions.  

Probably because you are waiting for the English
language version of everything, which takes time.


It is really
 quite difficult to take
 seriously any position which relies on the USA
 not having the best-collected
 statistics.  

Try, you'll feel better, I think. 

Furthermore, I'd go out on a limb
 and argue that it is very
 likely that, on any question of definitions of
 labour force participation
 and similar matters, the BLS will have devoted
 more time and effort to the
 question of which definition most accurately
 reflects slack and tightness in
 the labour market, and will be right.  This
 should certainly be the
 presumption.

Yes, but the conception is too limited, as I have
explained before. 

 
 Second, playing around with international
 comparison numbers in an attempt
 to find something interesting to say which
 makes it look as if the USA's
 unemployment record is much worse than it looks
 is probably a waste of time.

Not at all. As my post showed. I'm fairly sure
it's twice what the official read says. You
haven't said anything to impress me otherwise
other than than you are impressed with US stats. 


 The GDP per capita numbers and the employment
 rate all, until very recently,
 were telling exactly the same story; the USA in
 the 1990s did very well at
 putting people into jobs, including good jobs,
 and for much of that time,
 most other economies which followed policies
 different from the USA did not
 (not necessarily for that reason, and solely
 against that specific
 performance criterion).  

Yeah, we also re-invented the terms 'profit' and
'earning', too. 


Up until about the
 beginning of last year, this
 statement would not have been remotely
 controversial; the whole interesting
 point in my view is that since that point, the
 picture painted by the
 unemployment numbers has been sharply at
 variance with anecdotal evidence,
 and (in my view), we should not necessarily
 jump from this to the conclusion
 that the anecdotal evidence is wrong.

If you were unemployed and lived in an area where
there was only one way to get counted as
unemployed, you might think differently. 

  I'm
 probably shaped in this view by
 my own background at the Bank of England; the
 BoE famously missed the early
 1990s recession by putting too much reliance on
 official statistics and not
 enough on the reports from its Agents.

What a surprise!
 
 Then we have the more metaphysical debate,
 which should not be confused with
 either of the other two, except to say that it
 is highly unlikely that
 anyone will be able to make a case that the
 statistical agency of any
 country other than the USA has a really

Re: Re: employment

2002-10-09 Thread Michael Perelman


I thought Daniel did an excellent job of responding to this note.  I don't
think any one or two people mucked anything up but the discussion just got
ugly step by step.

On Wed, Oct 09, 2002 at 04:07:47AM -0700, Charles Jannuzi wrote:
 I know some people are probably sick of the
 topic, but reading through all those posts, I
 can't help but think at least two individuals
 mucked it up more than added to it (not Daniel's
 recent post, which did add considerably).
 

-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: employment



--- Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
 I thought Daniel did an excellent job of
 responding to this note.  I don't
 think any one or two people mucked anything up
 but the discussion just got
 ugly step by step.

I don't think Daniel responded at all well to my
note because he ostensibly acted like he was
responding to my note, but failed to respond to
anything said in my note. His argument was
basically he believed US stats to be superior to
the rest of the world because he believed US
stats to be superior to the rest of the world. At
best you could say it was an argument from
previously established authority, but most profs
would throw it out of discussion 101.

The substance of my note was not the said quality
of US stats, but the concepts that underlie them.
And I think that is an issue that a lot of people

have with them.

 And now you are yourself mucking things up by
not moderating to substance yourself, Michael.

CJ 

__
Do you Yahoo!?
Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos  More
http://faith.yahoo.com

Re: employment


JD
 
 I don't agree with that theory. 

I have no doubt that the US's extremely large
jail populations and active duty military help
keep unemployment quite a bit lower than if the
US fit the OECD pattern in these areas. It
doesn't, not by a long shot. Especially in the
prison pop.


But the main
 point is that this comment
 pointed out a strange combination of opinions
 floating on the list. On the
 one hand, some people criticized the official U
 rate because it doesn't
 capture the full experience of unemployed
 workers. I said it wasn't designed
 to do so (and shouldn't be interpreted as doing
 so). It was suggested that
 this view implied reductionism. On the other
 hand, other people _want_ to
 create a single index number that captures all
 of the experience of
 unemployed workers. I don't think this is
 possible. Having a few numbers
 might help, but even those would miss the whole
 picture. Statistics can
 help, but they're not the whole story.
 JD


You have to understand no one person controls
what gets said in a conversation or discussion.
So to hold the whole list responsible for what
one person thinks at one point in time is
ridiculous. True, I have myself been ridiculous
on more than one occasion.

I think also you have to understand the basic
mistrust of gov't stats. If the gov't compiles
these to lie and mislead on so many other things,
why then should we trust their approach to
unemployment. Again, how rational is it to say,
Here is our unemployment figure, multiply by two
and you are getting close to the real number of
people kept out of full-time employment?

Just what were the stats designed for? They
certainly haven't evolved in some organic
relationship to the actual
employment/unemployment picture of the current
US.

C.J.   


__
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Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos  More
http://faith.yahoo.com

RE: Re: Re: employment

Title: RE: [PEN-L:31147] Re: Re: employment





Michael Perelman wrote:
 I thought Daniel did an excellent job of responding to this 
 note. I don't
 think any one or two people mucked anything up but the 
 discussion just got
 ugly step by step.


Hey, just yesterday a Zionist professor told me to go muck myself because I criticized Ariel Sharon. Or maybe I didn't hear what he said exactly... 


Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED]  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine

RE: Re: employment

Title: RE: [PEN-L:31150] Re: employment

I don't agree with that theory.

Charles J writes:
I have no doubt that the US's extremely large
jail populations and active duty military help
keep unemployment quite a bit lower than if the
US fit the OECD pattern in these areas. It
doesn't, not by a long shot. Especially in the
prison pop.

imprisonment and the draft, among other things, lower the U rate. However, I was rejecting the natural rate hypothesis, not the idea that imprisonment lowers U.

But the main
point is that this comment
pointed out a strange combination of opinions
floating on the list. On the
one hand, some people criticized the official U
rate because it doesn't
capture the full experience of unemployed
workers. I said it wasn't designed
to do so (and shouldn't be interpreted as doing
so). It was suggested that
this view implied reductionism. On the other
hand, other people _want_ to
create a single index number that captures all
of the experience of
unemployed workers. I don't think this is
possible. Having a few numbers
might help, but even those would miss the whole
picture. Statistics can
help, but they're not the whole story.

Charles:
You have to understand no one person controls
what gets said in a conversation or discussion.
So to hold the whole list responsible for what
one person thinks at one point in time is
ridiculous.

heck, I wasn't holding the list responsible. Rather, by pointing out an inconsistency, I was saying lets you and him fight.

True, I have myself been ridiculous
on more than one occasion.

say it ain't so!

I think also you have to understand the basic
mistrust of gov't stats. If the gov't compiles
these to lie and mislead on so many other things,
why then should we trust their approach to
unemployment. Again, how rational is it to say,
Here is our unemployment figure, multiply by two
and you are getting close to the real number of
people kept out of full-time employment?

Just what were the stats designed for? They
certainly haven't evolved in some organic
relationship to the actual
employment/unemployment picture of the current
US.

you're right to suspect the gov't, but the powers that be find a value in having some sort of measure of unemployment. As unemployment falls, ceteris paribus, the profit rate rises, because falling U is associated with higher rates of capacity utilization (greater profit realization). Many capitalists like this, among other things because they want to avoid being purged from the market. But if U falls _too far_, suddenly, the motivation to work is undermined, worker bargaining power rises, etc., so that either profitability is squeezed or inflation results. The policy elite wants to avoid the too far part. One way to do this is to have reasonable measures of U. (This is less important to the elites of countries of economies in which foreign trade is much more important than in the U.S. or can't afford decent statistics, etc.)

I have likely attributed too much consciousness to the power elite, but they act as if the above were so. In any event, examinations of the minutes of the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee by Tom Dickens indicate that they are quite conscious of the class dimension.

Jim

RE: Re: employment (apologies: long)

2002-10-09 Thread Davies, Daniel

-Original Message-
From: Charles Jannuzi [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: 09 October 2002 15:13
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [PEN-L:31148] Re: employment

best you could say it was an argument from
previously established authority

Absolutely, because I have no real specialist knowledge of the subject of
unemployment statistics and no real prospect of having the time to get any.
But look at it this way:

What's the knock-down argument to say that people who only skim want ads
*should* be counted as actively looking for work?  I haven't heard it.
Same with the long term sick.  I don't even understand the argument about
the unemployment rate which seems to be arguing that people who have jobs in
the armed services ought to be counted as unemployed.  What I do know is
that there are a lot of people doing good, honest work on this subject,
trying to measure what effect various kinds of non-worker populations have
on the operations of the labour market, and that the most and the best of
them work for the BLS.  So in the absence of anyone making a contrary
argument to me, I'm going to assume that the inclusion of these groups makes
the BLS number worse, rather than better, as a measurement of what it's
meant to measure.  My understanding of what the BLS unemployment rate is
meant to measure is this:  it's meant to measure the number of people who
would be employed if the labour market were to clear at the current
prevailing wage rate, but who are not employed.  It's a measure of labour
market disequilibrium.

There are, I think, two further important questions which arise from this,
and part of the reason why we're all talking past each other is that we're
taking these two questions out of order.  The questions are:

1) Assuming that unemployment is used by the official statisticians to
measure the extent to which the labour market has failed to clear, should it
be measuring something else?

and -- and this can most likely only be answered conditionally on a specific
answer to 1) above --

2) Can adjustments be made to the official statistics in order to transform
the BLS number into something which works well as a measure of whatever it
is that the unemployment rate ought to be naming?

Taking these questions in order, I'm much less sure of my ground than I was
when I decided to stick my oar in.  There's a whole menu of different things
which could be reasonably regarded as being named by the words the
unemployment rate:

a) the number of people not employed due to the labour market not clearing
at the current wage rate and rate of profit
b) the number of people who would be unemployed due to the labour market not
clearing at some other level of the wage rate and rate of profit
(presumably, one which we would regard as fairer
c) the entire population of those who could conceivably be press-ganged into
the labour force, minus the employed
d) c) , but minus people who would genuinely choose leisure rather than work
given the current level of social benefits
e) c), but also minus the people who would choose leisure rather than work
given some other (lower or higher) level of social benefits
f)  d) or e), but assuming people who would choose leisure rather than
work if they were in some Rawlsian state of maximally rational reflective
equilibrium, rather than the choices they might contingently happen to make
-- I think that this is what we're thinking about when we start adding back
disenchanted workers.
g) any of the above, but adding back in people who have enough non-labour
income not to need to work

-- the above six are all more or less quantifiable people; I would guess
that you could twitch the BLS numbers to give you any of these, albeit that
b),  e) and f) would require the making of some fairly tendentious
adjustments and would give you a number useless for discussion with anyone
not already disposed to agree with you.  But there is also

h) the number of people who regard their lack of a job as being a bad thing
for them
i) the number of people who regard their lack of a job as being a harm
caused to them by outside agency
j) the number of people who would be better off if they were given a(ny) job
tomorrow
k) the number of people for whom there is some specific job which they could
do, and which it would make them better off if they were given it tomorrow
l) k), but with the constraint that the job must be one which could be
offered to them under some organisation of the economy which meets some
criterion of fairness relative to the currently prevailing organisation
m) variants of all of the above, but defining job in a way which does not
necessarily imply participation in the wage economy.

--- it's probably one of the above that one would want to be thinking of
in order to support intuitively attractive propositions like even one
person unemployed is too much; it's also what I was twittering on about
when I was talking about the misery of unemployment.  I would guess that you

Re: Re: employment

2002-10-09 Thread Christian Gregory




 Finally, think about how so many of these
concepts are culturally determined. If 'unemployment' in the US were
determined the
way it is in Japan, the figure would jump about 1%
with one calculation.  

I'm not sure I follow the argument that, b/c Japanese statisticians define
employment differently, that is due to cultural difference. That seems more
like an institutional choice.

Also, do you know what the Japanese count that the US doesn't? In the US, if
you count marginally attached and discouraged workers, the rate is 6.4%. But
no one seems shocked and that is publicly available.

Christian

RE: Re: Re: employment

Title: RE: [PEN-L:31127] Re: Re: employment





Michael:
 Several times in the past, I mentioned that the unemployment 
 rate should
 include something to adjust for the quality of available 
 jobs. My idea
 never resonated. I am sure that it could not be calculated with any
 exactitude, but I agree that an unemployment rate of 1% with everyone
 flipping burgers might not be better than a rate of 5% with 
 better jobs.


I think that it's a mistake to try to shove too much information into the various U rates, to try to get it to be some measure of social illth. The quality-of-jobs issue can and should be measured in some other way. Both sets of numbers deserve our attention.

Hey, I said I was going to stop discussing this stuff, but it's one of my fields.


JD

re: employment

2002-10-09 Thread Tom Walker


Daniel Davies wrote,

 I have never, ever, in any series at all, been
 aware of a single area of
 macroeconomic statistics in which the USA is
 not head and shoulders above
 the rest of the world in terms of timeliness,

My understanding was that Statistics Canada is the best in the world,
overall. I don't know if this holds for macroeconomics specifically.
Sometimes I've found BLS series more useful; other times not.

Speaking of statistics, I would like to mention two books that I use
frequently. One is _Statistics for Social Change_ by Lucy Horwitz and Lou
Ferleger, published by South End Press, 1980. It gives a good popular
account of how statistics are used in argument and what are the pitfalls.
The other book is _The Taming of Chance_ by Ian Hacking, Cambridge
University Press, 1990. Hacking traces the historical development of the
concept of probability and how that interacted with state institutions.

I find it frustrating to be always arguing the honesty and accuracy
questions, which in my view are beside the point(s). One of the points
(Hacking) is that the things statististics measures have been shaped
historically by their position vis-a-vis the state and its statistical
apparatus. It becomes a cycle -- this is important because it is measured
and it is measured because it is important. It also changes and those
changes are a function of its importance and measurability.

The other point is that statistics are inevitably part of arguments and the
misuse of statistics in arguments is so pervasive it was already a truism in
the 19th century -- there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and
statistics. Good statistics -- in the sense of accuracy, timeliness and
comprehensiveness -- in themselves do not innoculate us from bad arguments
that use those good statistics.

And by bad arguments, I don't mean only other people's bad arguments. If
one assumes that phenomena gauged by state statistics are simply facts that
are out there independent of the role of the agency that gathers them, then
one eventually becomes swept into the discussion about how to fine tune (and
only fine tune) this marvelous machine -- the best of all possible machines.

As an after thought, another book I would suggest is _Labor Statistics and
Class Struggle_ by Marc Linder, International Publishers, 1994. Linder takes
a closer look at the institutional politics and history regarding specific
BLS series and class issues. Linder shows that the class struggle inherent
in labor statistics not a matter of top-hatted capitalist meanies rubbing
their hands together and cackling as they think up clever accounting tricks
to deceive and enslave the workers. Nor is it a matter of noble, slightly to
the left of centre civil servants stoically cranking out an objective,
politically neutral account of the facts for the edification of all.

We hear so much about preemptive self-defence these days, it may be
seeping into the rhetorical strategies on this list. Either that or I missed
the message where someone recklessly attacked the intelligent, scrupulous
use of statistics by other people on the list.

By the way, notwithstanding Michael's not seeing any reason for the
nastiness,  there may indeed be a reason. And that reason may also help
explain the we're having big fun over here on the right phenomena
(http://www.laweekly.com/ink/02/41/on-powers.php). I did a quick scan of the
fun guys on the right and spent a little more time looking at one particular
fun guy on the right and noticed one distinctive feature that contrasted
with left discourse. There was a lot of jocular kill talk. Not all of it
was graphic. Some was euphemistic, like take out Saddam. But the kill talk
seemed to me to be playing a crucial role in bonding between the righties.

There are obstacles to a comparable kill talk on the left. For one thing,
many of us hold the opinion that killing is not sport and that talking about
killing doesn't advance progressive politics. There are also possible legal
complications if people on the left routinely made jokes about killing
people _we_ don't like. We're not on a level playing field with the right in
regard to kill talk. They can rhetorically murder with impunity.

Before anybody concludes that I'm calling righties a bunch of blood-thirsty
cretins, I want to clarify that I don't take the kill talk literally. There
is, of course, always the danger it may get played-out literally in some
psychopathic spectacle of preemtive self-defence but I don't see that as
an integral part or inevitable consequence of the rhetoric. What I do see as
an integral part is the bonding that takes place around the kill talk.

Nietzsche wrote that all instincts that do not discharge themselves
outwardly turn inward. And it may be worth asking whether the internal
rancor of the left may have something to do with the self-imposed and
societal constraints that the left feels about rhetorical violence. Remember
I am talking about *rhetorical*

RE: Re: Re: Re: employment

Title: RE: [PEN-L:31131] Re: Re: Re: employment





Thiago Oppermann:
 Wouldn't the quality of unemployment also be relevant? A rate of 1% where the 
 unemployed end up indentured to credit companies might be a lot worse than 5% 
 if they are free to enjoy productive unemployment. ...


there's another, related, issue: any given unemployment rate tends to have more oomph these days in the U.S. than it used to, in terms of protecting profits and detering inflation. This fact might be captured by noting that unemployment is only one part of the cost of job loss (a concept developed by Julie Schor and Sam Bowles). For example, the cost of job loss is larger for any given unemployment rate if the availability of unemployment insurance is lower. 

(cf. Schor, Juliet. 1987. Class Struggle and the Macroeconomy: The Cost of Job Loss. In Robert Cherry et al., eds. The Imperiled Economy, Book I: Macroeconomics from a Left Perspective. New York: URPE.)

JD

Re: employment

2002-10-09 Thread Michael Hoover


 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 10/08/02 05:33PM 
How the hell does a simple discussion about data evoke such nastiness?
Michael Perelman


i'll try to avoid making an analogy here for reasons that should be obvious... i can't 
help but recall fanon's assertion that violence is turned inward in colonial society; 
people kill each other rather than their subjugators...

so while most pen-lers are probably comfortable (relatively speaking), i've a hunch 
that many have been rendered politically impotent...   michael hoover

RE: Re: employment

2002-10-09 Thread Mark Jones


Michael Hoover wrote:

 i'll try to avoid making an analogy here for reasons that should
 be obvious... i can't help but recall fanon's assertion that
 violence is turned inward in colonial society; people kill each
 other rather than their subjugators...


Yes, as Marx used to say, it's the violins in the cistern that make the
plumbing rattle.

Mark
PS I admit that a 98kb posting of a badly-translated, seemingly-obscure
debate among Russian commentators may be a bit daunting, but if anyone wants
to understand why Russian president Putin is Just Saying No to Bush right
now (over Iraq)--and what are the momentous implications thereof--this was
required reading.

Re: RE: Re: employment (apologies: long)

2002-10-09 Thread Paul Phillips

On 9 Oct 02, at 16:14, Davies, Daniel wrote:

 -Original Message-
 From: Charles Jannuzi [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
 Sent: 09 October 2002 15:13
 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Subject: [PEN-L:31148] Re: employment

 best you could say it was an argument from
 previously established authority

 Absolutely, because I have no real specialist knowledge of the subject of
 unemployment statistics and no real prospect of having the time to get any.
 But look at it this way:

 What's the knock-down argument to say that people who only skim want ads
 *should* be counted as actively looking for work?  I haven't heard it.
 Same with the long term sick.  I don't even understand the argument about
 the unemployment rate which seems to be arguing that people who have jobs in
 the armed services ought to be counted as unemployed.  What I do know is
 that there are a lot of people doing good, honest work on this subject,
 trying to measure what effect various kinds of non-worker populations have
 on the operations of the labour market, and that the most and the best of
 them work for the BLS.  So in the absence of anyone making a contrary
 argument to me, I'm going to assume that the inclusion of these groups makes
 the BLS number worse, rather than better, as a measurement of what it's
 meant to measure.  My understanding of what the BLS unemployment rate is
 meant to measure is this:  it's meant to measure the number of people who
 would be employed if the labour market were to clear at the current
 prevailing wage rate, but who are not employed.  It's a measure of labour
 market disequilibrium.

 There are, I think, two further important questions which arise from this,
 and part of the reason why we're all talking past each other is that we're
 taking these two questions out of order.  The questions are:

 1) Assuming that unemployment is used by the official statisticians to
 measure the extent to which the labour market has failed to clear, should it
 be measuring something else?

 and -- and this can most likely only be answered conditionally on a specific
 answer to 1) above --

 2) Can adjustments be made to the official statistics in order to transform
 the BLS number into something which works well as a measure of whatever it
 is that the unemployment rate ought to be naming?

I am a little curious of how dd comes to the conclusion that BLS 
statistics are the best in the world and on what basis.  They are 
perhaps the quickest to be published and perhaps the most 
voluminous but, if I remember correctly, there have been quite huge 
changes in recent months to growth and productivity measures due 
to statistical revisions and the reason given was the rush to get the 
data out means that the input figures to the statistics are 
themselves preliminary and subject to adjustment.  One result of 
such a revision was a drastic fall in the rate of productivity growth in 
the latter 1990s  which contradicted the assertion of a 'new 
economy.'
In any case, a little nationalism here, I believe the UN system 
of national accounting was adopted from that developed by 
Statistics Canada at the end of the 2nd WW, because of the 
quality of the Canadian statistical services.  Indeed, I use Stats 
Canada statistics a lot and though I often curse them because of 
changes in definitions etc. their quality is excellent and they 
always give full details of how each are collected and the margins 
of error etc.  I am not sure that the US stats are any better and, 
given their speed of release, unrevised US data may be less 
reliable than that available from stodgy Statscan.  They also 
publish quarterly a journal Perspectives on Labour and Income 
which does in depth studies of such things as unemployment 
exploring all the variables that we have discussed on this thread 
and incorporating a lot of statistics that are otherwise not reported --
 including stuff on the quality of jobs and what people do with their 
'leisure;' also on the grey economy and so on.

This raises a second point.  Some economists measure 
macroeconomic unemployment not by the unemployment rate, but 
by the employment rate and its divergence from the potential 
employment rate.  Just recently I saw graphs (I don't remember 
where) showing the divergence of US employment rates over the 
last ten years from the long term trend.  What they showed was 
not a large rise in unemployment, but rather a sharp drop in the 
employment rate coinciding with the recession.

Thirdly, and this has only been hinted at on this thread as I recall, 
(I could be wrong), one problem is that the unemployment rate 
(strict definition or otherwise) does not take into account 
institutional changes.  But to be a real measure of the welfare cost 
one has to consider the institutional context.  In 1911, the definition 
of potential labour force included those 10 years of age and over.  
This was revised to 14+ and then 15+ somewhere around 1951 I 
think

RE: RE: Re: employment (apologies: long)

Title: RE: [PEN-L:31157] RE: Re:  employment (apologies: long)








Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED]  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine




 -Original Message-
Daniel Davies writes: 
 ... My understanding of what the BLS unemployment rate is
 meant to measure is this: it's meant to measure the number 
 of people who would be employed if the labour market were to clear at the current
 prevailing wage rate, but who are not employed. It's a measure of labour
 market disequilibrium.


The BLS isn't thinking of the idea of market-clearing when they do surveys to figure out the unemployment rate. In theory, the labor-power markets are in macro-equilibrium (macro market clearing) when the number of unemployed workers equals the number of vacancies. The BLS doesn't measure the latter (so that economists have to use help-wanted ads and the like). This macro equilibrium coexists with micro-disequilibrium (non-clearing of markets), where there are unemployed workers and vacancies but the two can't get together. 

JD

Re: Re: employment

2002-10-09 Thread Michael Perelman


As usual, Michael H. is correct.  I tried to say something similar a
couple days ago when Doug suggested that the left had a tendency to root
out heretics.  I cryptically suggested that it was not some political
tendency but rather it reflected powerlessness.

 On Wed, Oct 09, 2002 at
01:38:55PM -0400,
Michael Hoover wrote:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] 10/08/02 05:33PM 
 How the hell does a simple discussion about data evoke such nastiness?
 Michael Perelman
 
 
 i'll try to avoid making an analogy here for reasons that should be obvious... i 
can't help but recall fanon's assertion that violence is turned inward in colonial 
society; people kill each other rather than their subjugators...
 
 so while most pen-lers are probably comfortable (relatively speaking), i've a hunch 
that many have been rendered politically impotent...   michael hoover 
 
   
 

-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: Re: Re: employment

2002-10-09 Thread Louis Proyect


Michael Perelman wrote:

As usual, Michael H. is correct.  I tried to say something similar a
couple days ago when Doug suggested that the left had a tendency to root
out heretics.  I cryptically suggested that it was not some political
tendency but rather it reflected powerlessness.
  

I guess that a different kind of left is being described here than the one that 
existed in historical reality. I am working my way through an extended study of the 
life and writings of John Reed. If you look at the period after 1917, the amount of 
bickering that goes on in these email lists is pale by comparison. In Reds, the 
battles between the SP, and rival CP's led by John Reed (Warren Beatty) and Louis 
Fraina (Paul Sorvino) routinely ended in fisticuffs. And these were parties that had 
relatively mass working class followings. I think the complaints heard here frequently 
to the effect of why can't we all get along presumes that we are equal partners in 
the disputes taking place. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The Nation Magazine, 
the Boston Globe, the LA Weekly, etc., where all the attacks on the radical wing of 
the left are taking place, are *mass* circulation print publications. I suppose that 
some people would be happy if I ignored these attacks, but that is!
 not in my nature. As Ravi pointed out, he never had an ill thought about Marc Cooper 
until he lashed out at Amy Goodman. Same thing is true for me. I used to donate 
hundreds of dollars to the Nation in the 1980s when the magazine was publishing strong 
articles against intervention in Central America. Marc Cooper was one of my favorite 
Nation Magazine writers. I still remember his penetrating analysis of post-Pinochet 
Chile. Same is true of Hitchens. But things have changed. Since the mid 1990s at 
least, the magazine has shifted to the right. Unfortunately, there is no opportunity 
to answer it adequately in the letters section. Even Edward Herman had an article 
trimmed. So, too bad, folks. If you want me to stop answering items that hammer the 
radical movement, use your powers of persuasion on Doug Henwood to convince him to 
tell his colleagues at the Nation to stop lacerating people who think like me. This is 
a case of self-defense and nothing less.


-- 

Louis Proyect
www.marxmail.org

Re: Re: Re: Re: employment

2002-10-09 Thread Michael Perelman


Nice post, Lou, except for the personal dig at the end.  I remember when
the New Republic was my fave.  Kopkind and Ridgeway were great.

On Wed, Oct 09, 2002 at 06:26:18PM -0400, Louis Proyect wrote:
 Michael Perelman wrote:
 
 I guess that a different kind of left is being described here than the one that 
existed in historical reality. I am working my way through an extended study of the 
life and writings of John Reed. If you look at the period after 1917, the amount of 
bickering that goes on in these email lists is pale by comparison. In Reds, the 
battles between the SP, and rival CP's led by John Reed (Warren Beatty) and Louis 
Fraina (Paul Sorvino) routinely ended in fisticuffs. And these were parties that had 
relatively mass working class followings. I think the complaints heard here 
frequently to the effect of why can't we all get along presumes that we are equal 
partners in the disputes taking place. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The 
Nation Magazine, the Boston Globe, the LA Weekly, etc., where all the attacks on the 
radical wing of the left are taking place, are *mass* circulation print publications. 
I suppose that some people would be happy if I ignored these attacks, but that !
is!
  not in my nature. As Ravi pointed out, he never had an ill thought about Marc 
Cooper until he lashed out at Amy Goodman. Same thing is true for me. I used to 
donate hundreds of dollars to the Nation in the 1980s when the magazine was 
publishing strong articles against intervention in Central America. Marc Cooper was 
one of my favorite Nation Magazine writers. I still remember his penetrating analysis 
of post-Pinochet Chile. Same is true of Hitchens. But things have changed. Since the 
mid 1990s at least, the magazine has shifted to the right. Unfortunately, there is no 
opportunity to answer it adequately in the letters section. Even Edward Herman had an 
article trimmed. So, too bad, folks. If you want me to stop answering items that 
hammer the radical movement, use your powers of persuasion on Doug Henwood to 
convince him to tell his colleagues at the Nation to stop lacerating people who think 
like me. This is a case of self-defense and nothing less.
 
 

-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: employment

2002-10-09 Thread Tom Walker


Michael Perelman wrote,

 As usual, Michael H. is correct.  I tried to say something similar a
 couple days ago when Doug suggested that the left had a tendency to root
 out heretics.  I cryptically suggested that it was not some political
 tendency but rather it reflected powerlessness.

I mentioned Nietzsche's all instincts that do not discharge themselves
outwardly turn inward from Genealogy of Morals. I'm re-posting the comment,
below, because I originally sent it at the bottom of a longer message so it
may have gotten overlooked.



By the way, notwithstanding Michael's not seeing any reason for the
nastiness,  there may indeed be a reason. And that reason may also help
explain the we're having big fun over here on the right phenomena
(http://www.laweekly.com/ink/02/41/on-powers.php). I did a quick scan of the
fun guys on the right and spent a little more time looking at one particular
fun guy on the right and noticed one distinctive feature that contrasted
with left discourse. There was a lot of jocular kill talk. Not all of it
was graphic. Some was euphemistic, like take out Saddam. But the kill talk
seemed to me to be playing a crucial role in bonding between the righties.

There are obstacles to a comparable kill talk on the left. For one thing,
many of us hold the opinion that killing is not sport and that talking about
killing doesn't advance progressive politics. There are also possible legal
complications if people on the left routinely made jokes about killing
people _we_ don't like. We're not on a level playing field with the right in
regard to kill talk. They can rhetorically murder with impunity.

Before anybody concludes that I'm calling righties a bunch of blood-thirsty
cretins, I want to clarify that I don't take the kill talk literally. There
is, of course, always the danger it may get played-out literally in some
psychopathic spectacle of preemtive self-defence but I don't see that as
an integral part or inevitable consequence of the rhetoric. What I do see as
an integral part is the bonding that takes place around the kill talk.

Nietzsche wrote that all instincts that do not discharge themselves
outwardly turn inward. And it may be worth asking whether the internal
rancor of the left may have something to do with the self-imposed and
societal constraints that the left feels about rhetorical violence. Remember
I am talking about *rhetorical* violence. In his _Rhetoric of Motives_,
Kenneth Burke questioned what the literary function of suicide and murder
was in a number of texts, among them Milton's Samson Agonistes. To make a
long story short, Burke saw these themes as figuring change. I don't know if
my short story does justice to Burke's long one, but the point is that kill
talk projects a metaphor for profound change that people can identify with
(can, not necessarily will). Sorel was saying something similar (although
not identical) with his theory of social myths.

Rhetorical violence, taken literally, may well be the mother of all weapons
of mass destruction. Let's ignore it and hope it goes away. On second
thought, haven't we tried that?





  On Wed, Oct 09, 2002 at
 01:38:55PM -0400,
 Michael Hoover wrote:   [EMAIL PROTECTED] 10/08/02 05:33PM 
  How the hell does a simple discussion about data evoke such nastiness?
  Michael Perelman
  
 
  i'll try to avoid making an analogy here for reasons that should be
 obvious... i can't help but recall fanon's assertion that violence is
 turned
 inward in colonial society; people kill each other rather than their
 subjugators...
 
  so while most pen-lers are probably comfortable (relatively speaking),
 i've a
 hunch that many have been rendered politically impotent...   michael
hoover

Re: employment



--- Christian Gregory
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 
 
  Finally, think about how so many of these
 concepts are culturally determined. If
 'unemployment' in the US were
 determined the
 way it is in Japan, the figure would jump about
 1%
 with one calculation.  
 
 I'm not sure I follow the argument that, b/c
 Japanese statisticians define
 employment differently, that is due to cultural
 difference. That seems more
 like an institutional choice.
 
 Also, do you know what the Japanese count that
 the US doesn't? In the US, if
 you count marginally attached and discouraged
 workers, the rate is 6.4%. But
 no one seems shocked and that is publicly
 available.
 
 Christian
 

It's a good point. In this case I stated it
sloppily and really meant 'specific to a
country', and implying that these differences
might actually be quite arbitrary (a lot of what
the BLS does in the US just seems to go back to
traditions started under FDR).

However, attitudes about unemployment do differ
and they might follow cultural patterns (though
every time I try to find one I'm hanged for sure
that there is nothing sure). One possibility is
that people avoid being counted officially as
unemployed because they are too ashamed to admit
it. I mean, if you can't qualify for
'unemployment compensation payments' (and to get
these the requirements are quite strict in the
US), then you might not have any reason
whatsoever to go into an 'employment security
office' in the first place and find the whole
bureaucratic rigamarole a pain. Consider, you
only have ten offices for the whole of Chicago
and might be inclined to say, Oh, f- that sh-,
I'm out of here. The employment security offices
do not take in the entire population. In Japan,
many middle aged men just retire early rather
than accept part-time jobs or admit they are
unemployed. But I am not saying these are
culturally specific.

As for what the Japanese count and the US
doesn't, the Japanese site explains in detail how
Japan differs from ILO and OECD patterns and that
was in the links I sent earlier. I do know if
Japan had male incarceration like the US, it
would have 1 million men in jail and 500,000 in
direct court supervision , but it doesn't even
have 50,000 men in jail. And it's armed forces
would be 5 times the size they are to match the
US. On the other hand, I also know that Japanese
cultural practice still keeps a lot of working
age women out of the full time job market, though
this is changing and will have to change further
with the 'greying' of society. This is a complex
trend, because it is in part due to the fact that
so many women now work that so many are delaying
having children or not having children at all. 
Finally, I think the Japanese unemployment count
is too low too.  

C Jannuzi

 


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Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos  More
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Re: employment


--- Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
   I don't agree with that theory. 
 
 Charles J writes: 
  I have no doubt that the US's extremely large
  jail populations and active duty military
 help
  keep unemployment quite a bit lower than if
 the
  US fit the OECD pattern in these areas. It
  doesn't, not by a long shot. Especially in
 the
  prison pop.
 
 imprisonment and the draft, among other things,
 lower the U rate. However, I
 was rejecting the natural rate hypothesis,
 not the idea that imprisonment
 lowers U.

Sorry, JD, my quote of you got cut off. I reject
the hypothesis, too, btw.   

 
   But the main
   point is that this comment
   pointed out a strange combination of
 opinions
   floating on the list. On the
   one hand, some people criticized the
 official U
   rate because it doesn't
   capture the full experience of unemployed
   workers. I said it wasn't designed
   to do so (and shouldn't be interpreted as
 doing
   so). 

But at a popular level, that is how it is often
used. I and some others objected that it isn't
just misused statistics but misused concepts.  


It was suggested that
   this view implied reductionism. On the
 other
   hand, other people _want_ to
   create a single index number that captures
 all
   of the experience of
   unemployed workers. I don't think this is
   possible. 

I don't think so either. But as Michael and
others have offered, it could certainly be done
better. 

Having a few numbers
   might help, but even those would miss the
 whole
   picture. Statistics can
   help, but they're not the whole story.

Statistics are often the whole story gone wrong.
First, the data are not always as CLEAN as people
think. I see this in education all the time,
where this or that number are excluded so the
researchers can say their distribution is normal.
But the fact is, teachers don't get to exclude
individuals just because they would skew a
population. Moreover, not only do stats get
misused, but quite often they are used to
disguise incoherent conceptualizations underlying
the research. Such as the example I brought up
about 'phonemic awareness' research and how it
has been translated into billions being spent on
phonemic awareness training for kids who don't
need it. For one thing, if the concept of the
'phoneme' is just a structuralist abstraction,
who has ever convincingly shown it has any
psychological reality whatsoever? No one has.
Many linguists have just dropped any discussion
of the topic as nonsense. 
  
 
 Charles:
  You have to understand no one person controls
  what gets said in a conversation or
 discussion.
  So to hold the whole list responsible for
 what
  one person thinks at one point in time is
  ridiculous. 
 
 heck, I wasn't holding the list responsible.
 Rather, by pointing out an
 inconsistency, I was saying lets you and him
 fight. 

I don't think it was an inconsistency in any one
mind, nor do I think it a rationale for an
argument--though maybe some do. 
 
  True, I have myself been ridiculous
  on more than one occasion.
 
 say it ain't so!

O.K., I just said that to sound humble. 
 
  I think also you have to understand the basic
  mistrust of gov't stats. If the gov't
 compiles
  these to lie and mislead on so many other
 things,
  why then should we trust their approach to
  unemployment. Again, how rational is it to
 say,
  Here is our unemployment figure, multiply by
 two
  and you are getting close to the real number
 of
  people kept out of full-time employment?
 
  Just what were the stats designed for? They
  certainly haven't evolved in some organic
  relationship to the actual
  employment/unemployment picture of the
 current
  US.
 
 you're right to suspect the gov't, but the
 powers that be find a value in
 having some sort of measure of unemployment. As
 unemployment falls, ceteris
 paribus, the profit rate rises, because falling
 U is associated with higher
 rates of capacity utilization (greater profit
 realization). Many capitalists
 like this, among other things because they want
 to avoid being purged from
 the market. But if U falls _too far_, suddenly,
 the motivation to work is
 undermined, worker bargaining power rises,
 etc., so that either
 profitability is squeezed or inflation results.

You make it sound like data on unemployment are
kept for a theory about employment and profits
and inflation. This is why economists are
interested in it, but it is not the social cause
of the phenomena supposedly being measured. 

At a microeconomic level, the best way to boost
productivity is simply to fire a bunch of people
and tell the fewer who remain they will meet
deadlines and quotas. At least short term, this
often does boost productivity. There is bundles
to be saved in health care alone. 

I think a lot of this happened at the telecoms.
They might have gone belly up because they took
on too much debt and overinvested and bought out
too many other companies. But it would seem a lot
of companies remade

Re: employment

2002-10-08 Thread Charles Jannuzi


 Also, I don't see why the sins of modernism
 (a.k.a., capitalist
 rationality) should encourage rejection of
 logic, scientific thinking, the
 use of evidence, etc. I doubt this is what you
 advocate. 
 Jim

Well what sort of 'rationality' is it that says,
Here, this is our 'unemployment figure' (but by
the way, it doesn't really measure the numbers of
people who are unemployed)?  

C. Jannuzi

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RE: Re: Re: employment

Title: RE: [PEN-L:31033] Re: Re: employment






OK fellas,


I am going to imagine what Sabri could have meant. JD's are not the the
only perspectives on how we can treat statistics, government or
otherwise. Yes, even statistics are subject to perspective, numbers may
be objective but their presentation has its purposes. Here are some
alternative attitudes about statistics which arise from my own
experiences:


* we can recognize that statistics can be manipulated in order to
shape public opinion...


* we can realize that the government has its own agenda and that
the statistics the government releases and the way those statistics are
handled will reflect that agenda. 


* we can realize that statistics don't mean much when the point is
to build a better world beginning with your own here and now. ...


---
you're saying that I didn't recognize all of this? Please don't tell me what I think. 
JD

Re: Re: employment


Sabri Oncu wrote:

Jim said:

  Like Doug, I don't get this, Sabri.

I don't know how to describe it, although I am sure I would sound
racist if I say this but I think you don't get this because you
are Americans. You don't know the difference because you have
never experienced it.

As I said I don't know how to describe it. It is just a matter of
tasting it, at least, for once.

Life is not as rational as you think it is.

This borders on the insulting. The statistical apparatus of the U.S. 
gives us a pretty good idea of inequality, forced idleness, 
under-employment, poverty, ill-health, and deprivation. And that's 
the big picture. I live in New York City, and see poverty and 
suffering every day. I don't have to cross a street to see people 
picking for lunch in a wastebasket. So dismount your high moral 
horse, unless it makes you feel good to sit way up there.

Doug

Re: Re: Re: employment

2002-10-08 Thread Louis Proyect


The US unemployment rate appeared steady earlier this year, despite the 
slowing economy and mounting job cuts, but it eventually climbed well above 
last October's 30-year low of 3.9 per cent. Many economists expect the rate 
to rise to more than 6 per cent next year.

The Labor Department conceded it might have understated September's losses 
since it counts payrolls that were active and includes workers who were 
employed only part of the month.

(FT, Oct. 6, 2002)

---

A new stimulus package in the neighborhood of $100 billion, or 1 percent of 
G.D.P., is needed now. The Federal Reserve will probably cut rates at its 
next meeting, but interest rates are already so low that further cuts may 
not help much.

Much of the federal money should go to workers, who need it and will spend 
it. The rising jobless rate has understated the jobs weakness. Discouraged 
workers are leaving the work force in droves and are not counted as 
unemployed.

(NYT, Oct. 3, 2002)

---

In the case of unemployment, analysts fear the new jobless numbers will 
convince ordinary Americans that what most have treated as little more than 
a pause in economic growth may be something more durable and dangerous.

The psychology is beginning to change, said Mark A. Zandi, chief 
economist of the West Chester, Pa., research firm Economy.com. People have 
been acting like the slowdown was a blip. Now, they're starting to think 
this could last for a while and they had better prepare by reducing their 
spending.

To the extent that people treat the unemployment rate as a barometer of 
economic uncertainty, there is some reason to think they should have begun 
to trim their spending earlier. That is because up until now it's likely 
the rate has understated the true dimensions of job loss, analysts said.

In contrast to some other periods of economic slowdown, a substantial 
fraction of workers has been reacting to the economy's weakness by dropping 
out of the labor force when they are laid off and can't find a new job. 
Their departure reduced the number of people working, but it also removed 
them from the unemployment calculations.

Analysts said the trend helps explain how the jobless rate managed to stay 
so stable and low in the face of layoffs. But it may also have helped lull 
people into a false sense of security, a conviction that whatever cutbacks 
companies were announcing were not translating into an overall economic 
decline.

It's meant the unemployment rate is not as good an indicator of economic 
pain as it used to be, said Manpower's Hueneke. He said that, had workers 
not dropped out of the work force at a faster-than-usual pace, the official 
jobless rate would be about 6%, rather than about 5%. Others have estimated 
the number of people counted as unemployed would be more than 8 million, 
rather than 6.96 million, the official number.

(LA Times, Sept. 9, 2001)
---

et cetera, et cetera, et cetera


Louis Proyect
www.marxmail.org

re: employment

Title: re: employment





No one said that the US BLS main official measure of unemployment was perfect. Instead, Doug and I pointed to the various other data that the BLS collects -- and not as a perfect measure. In fact, all of the articles below rely on BLS data to indicate the shortcomings of the main offical measure. 

JD


-Original Message-
From: Louis Proyect
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: 10/8/2002 7:52 AM
Subject: [PEN-L:31046] Re: Re: Re: employment


The US unemployment rate appeared steady earlier this year, despite the 
slowing economy and mounting job cuts, but it eventually climbed well
above 
last October's 30-year low of 3.9 per cent. Many economists expect the
rate 
to rise to more than 6 per cent next year.


The Labor Department conceded it might have understated September's
losses 
since it counts payrolls that were active and includes workers who were 
employed only part of the month.


(FT, Oct. 6, 2002)


---


A new stimulus package in the neighborhood of $100 billion, or 1 percent
of 
G.D.P., is needed now. The Federal Reserve will probably cut rates at
its 
next meeting, but interest rates are already so low that further cuts
may 
not help much.


Much of the federal money should go to workers, who need it and will
spend 
it. The rising jobless rate has understated the jobs weakness.
Discouraged 
workers are leaving the work force in droves and are not counted as 
unemployed.


(NYT, Oct. 3, 2002)


---


In the case of unemployment, analysts fear the new jobless numbers will 
convince ordinary Americans that what most have treated as little more
than 
a pause in economic growth may be something more durable and dangerous.


The psychology is beginning to change, said Mark A. Zandi, chief 
economist of the West Chester, Pa., research firm Economy.com. People
have 
been acting like the slowdown was a blip. Now, they're starting to think


this could last for a while and they had better prepare by reducing
their 
spending.


To the extent that people treat the unemployment rate as a barometer of 
economic uncertainty, there is some reason to think they should have
begun 
to trim their spending earlier. That is because up until now it's likely


the rate has understated the true dimensions of job loss, analysts said.


In contrast to some other periods of economic slowdown, a substantial 
fraction of workers has been reacting to the economy's weakness by
dropping 
out of the labor force when they are laid off and can't find a new job. 
Their departure reduced the number of people working, but it also
removed 
them from the unemployment calculations.


Analysts said the trend helps explain how the jobless rate managed to
stay 
so stable and low in the face of layoffs. But it may also have helped
lull 
people into a false sense of security, a conviction that whatever
cutbacks 
companies were announcing were not translating into an overall economic 
decline.


It's meant the unemployment rate is not as good an indicator of
economic 
pain as it used to be, said Manpower's Hueneke. He said that, had
workers 
not dropped out of the work force at a faster-than-usual pace, the
official 
jobless rate would be about 6%, rather than about 5%. Others have
estimated 
the number of people counted as unemployed would be more than 8 million,


rather than 6.96 million, the official number.


(LA Times, Sept. 9, 2001)
---


et cetera, et cetera, et cetera



Louis Proyect
www.marxmail.org

Re: RE: Re: Re: employment

2002-10-08 Thread ravi


Devine, James wrote:
 
 Please don't tell me what
 I think. 
 

did you hear the one about the two behaviourists who were having sex? at
the end of the steamy session, one of them said to the other it was
good for you. was it good for me?.

most of the time i couldn't even tell what you write, thanks to that
tiny font ;-). but thanks to a new feature in mozilla, which strips away
 htmlization from email, i can read your messages again! as for
employment, i am glad the money from aol/tw is able to sustain the good
programmers at netscape/mozilla! (there, i made the post on-topic).

--ravi

RE: Re: employment

Title: RE: [PEN-L:31041] Re: employment





I wrote:
 Also, I don't see why the sins of modernism
 (a.k.a., capitalist
 rationality) should encourage rejection of
 logic, scientific thinking, the
 use of evidence, etc. I doubt this is what you
 advocate. 
 Jim


C. Jannuzi:
Well what sort of 'rationality' is it that says,
Here, this is our 'unemployment figure' (but by
the way, it doesn't really measure the numbers of
people who are unemployed)? 


But the BLS doesn't say this is our 'unemployment figure,' unless you read them superficially. They present several unemployment statistics, including ones that include the discouraged workers. 

In what way do the various measures of unemployment that the BLS presents mis-measure the number of people who are unemployed? what are the systematic biases in their measures? 

JD

RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: employment

Title: RE: [PEN-L:31048] Re: RE: Re: Re: employment





ravi: 
did you hear the one about the two behaviourists who were having sex? at
the end of the steamy session, one of them said to the other it was
good for you. was it good for me?.


-- no, one would say: my behavior clearly reinforced your behavior, because you did it again and again. Did your behavior reinforce mine? 

most of the time i couldn't even tell what you write, thanks to that
tiny font ;-). but thanks to a new feature in mozilla, which strips away
htmlization from email, i can read your messages again! as for
employment, i am glad the money from aol/tw is able to sustain the good
programmers at netscape/mozilla! (there, i made the post on-topic).


I wish I could fix the damn font. The IS people are useless.
JD

Re: RE: Re: Re: employment


Devine, James wrote:

OK fellas,

I am going to imagine what Sabri could have meant.  JD's are not the the
only perspectives on how we can treat statistics, government or
otherwise.  Yes, even statistics are subject to perspective, numbers may
be objective but their presentation has its purposes.  Here are some
alternative attitudes about statistics which arise from my own
experiences:

*   we can recognize that statistics can be manipulated in order to
shape public opinion...

*   we can realize that the government has its own agenda and that
the statistics the government releases and the way those statistics are
handled will reflect that agenda.

*   we can realize that statistics don't mean much when the point is
to build a better world beginning with your own here and now. ...

---
you're saying that I didn't recognize all of this? Please don't tell 
me what I think.

Yeah, me either.

There's this extremely annoying habit in left discourse (cue to 
Carrol Cox to say that the left doesn't exist) that requires you to 
invoke a whole set of positions and pieties, and failure to include 
them in every statement is a sign that you're ignorant, insensitive, 
or straying from the fold. The hell with that.

Doug

Re: Re: employment


I think I understand a little of what Sabri is getting at -- the 
intellectual and accepting way we look at the statistics -- seeing 
them as economic factorum and not as poor, suffering people.  
What I think he is saying, certainly what I am saying, is ONE  is 
too many.  When we remember that in the 1960s we were outraged 
when unemployment went above the four per cent mark and now 
we are blythely talking about standard rates in the US of (counting 
discouraged workers and involuntary part-time plus the 1% Richard 
Freeman estimates should be added to count for the million or so 
in gaols etc.) of 8-10 %, I am deeply saddened.  Particularly so 
because this increase in the researve army has contributed to the 
growth of contingency work, low wages, job insecurity, decline in 
unions, income inequality, illness, crime, etc. affecting a majority 
of the population.  In other words, a fixation on a single measure of 
unemployment, the unemployed statistic, serves to distract 
attention from the human tragedy of which the unemployment 
statistic is just the tip of the iceberg.

Paul  Phillips,
Economics,
University of Manitoba


Date sent:  Mon, 07 Oct 2002 20:46:30 -0700
From:   Sabri Oncu [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:[PEN-L:31029] Re: employment
To: PEN-L [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Send reply to:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

 Jim said:
 
  I hope you're not saying that it's a Turkish thing;
  you wouldn't understand it.
 
 Not at all. It is about that Western Rationality thing that I
 personally object.
 
 But I took the risk of being misunderstood nevertheless. At
 least, I took the risk with you and Doug, which made me barve
 enough to take it. Otherwise, I am not as brave as I may have
 sounded.
 
 Best,
 
 Sabri

RE: Re: Re: employment

Title: RE: [PEN-L:31054] Re: Re: employment

Paul, can you name a participant of pen-l who is fixated on a single number measuring the reserve army of the unemployed?

Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Friday, October 04, 2002 5:08 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [PEN-L:31054] Re: Re: employment

I think I understand a little of what Sabri is getting at -- the
intellectual and accepting way we look at the statistics -- seeing
them as economic factorum and not as poor, suffering people.
What I think he is saying, certainly what I am saying, is ONE is
too many. When we remember that in the 1960s we were outraged
when unemployment went above the four per cent mark and now
we are blythely talking about standard rates in the US of (counting
discouraged workers and involuntary part-time plus the 1% Richard
Freeman estimates should be added to count for the million or so
in gaols etc.) of 8-10 %, I am deeply saddened. Particularly so
because this increase in the researve army has contributed to the
growth of contingency work, low wages, job insecurity, decline in
unions, income inequality, illness, crime, etc. affecting a majority
of the population. In other words, a fixation on a single measure of
unemployment, the unemployed statistic, serves to distract
attention from the human tragedy of which the unemployment
statistic is just the tip of the iceberg.

Paul Phillips,
Economics,
University of Manitoba

Date sent: Mon, 07 Oct 2002 20:46:30 -0700
From: Sabri Oncu [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [PEN-L:31029] Re: employment
To: PEN-L [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Jim said:

I hope you're not saying that it's a Turkish thing;
you wouldn't understand it.

Not at all. It is about that Western Rationality thing that I
personally object.

But I took the risk of being misunderstood nevertheless. At
least, I took the risk with you and Doug, which made me barve
enough to take it. Otherwise, I am not as brave as I may have
sounded.

Best,

Sabri

Re: Re: RE: Re: Re: employment


Don't we see the same thing in every anti-war statement?  X is a very bad
person.  I don't support X, but .

On Tue, Oct 08, 2002 at 11:23:05AM -0400, Doug Henwood wrote:

 There's this extremely annoying habit in left discourse (cue to 
 Carrol Cox to say that the left doesn't exist) that requires you to 
 invoke a whole set of positions and pieties, and failure to include 
 them in every statement is a sign that you're ignorant, insensitive, 
 or straying from the fold. The hell with that.
 
 Doug
 

-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: employment


Jim Devine wrote,

What is the problem with using some (but not all) government statistics
as a half-bad/half good way of understanding what's going on, in
conjunction with other information and reasoning?

Sabri Oncu wrote,

Life is not as rational as you think it is.

For that matter, the rate's rationality may not be all its cracked up to be.

My answer to Jim's question is: nothing is wrong if we fully acknowledge the
limitations of the government statistics -- or any statistics -- to
measure the phenomena they purport to measure. The problem is that we _do
not_ acknowledge those limits but become indignant or uncomprehending when
someone once again raises the usual objections, let alone unusual ones.

The basis of rationality is non-contradiction: the same person cannot at
the same time hold the same to be and not to be. By the same token,
presumably, the same person cannot be employed and unemployed at the same
time. Voila, we have a statistic!

However the same person *can* be employed and unemployed at successive
moments. The definition of unemployed includes that the person is actively
looking for work and therefore, implicitly at least, will be employed at
some time in the future. To qualify for unemployment benefits, one must have
worked a minimum number of weeks in the recent past. Thus unemployment is
only unemployment in relation to a past and/or future employment, usually
both but not certainly either. In other words, the state of unemployment
implies a movement toward or away from itself.

Dynamically, the concept relies on contradiction. Only statically does it
appear to be non-contradictory. The statistic necessarily treats
unemployment at rest, so to speak. A statistic gives a static picture. It is
no coincidence that both words begin with the same four letters.

Zeno's paradox shows the problems inherent in treating a moving object as if
it occupies successive positions of rest. I won't go into the details.
Contradiction isn't necessarily a bad thing, it simply points to the limits
about what we can say about dynamic phenomena.

The illusion of a dynamic picture of unemployment is created by placing last
month's or last year's static picture beside this month's. We say
unemployment is up or unemployment is down when we really have no idea
of how many employed people are moving toward unemployment, and how fast
they are moving in that direction or conversely how many unemployed people
are moving how rapidly toward employment.

I'll just mention in passing that gross movement into and out of the labour
force typically swamps net change in the ratio between employed and
unemployed labour force participants. In fact, people in the U.K. who have
studied this have found that much of the movement occurs directly from
non-participation to employment or from employment to non-participation and
not incrementally between non-participation, unemployment and employment.
The U rate thus refers to something quite different than what is happening.
(The expected response here is that we know this but it is useful as an
indicator of what is happening. The caveats on an indicator have worn
smooth, plus or minus 3%, 19 times out of 20, before that indicator enters
into general circulation.)

Also according to the principle of non-contradiction, a person cannot be an
unemployed certified aircraft mechanic at the same time he or she is an
employed telephone salesperson, for as little as one hour a week. Perhaps
Jim or Doug would like to point out that we can tease out the extent of
underemployment or discouragement from various supplementary sources. Indeed
we can tease out, somewhat, the extent of these but not their intensity.
Subjectively, it is the intensity of unemployment or underemployment that
matters (e.g., did I make enough this month to pay the rent) and here you
have a phenomenon that is utterly absent from the numbers.

Don't ask me what data would describe this intensity of un/underemployment.
It is a qualitative fact and not a quantitative one. One might say, given
the bounds of rationality, that the government statistics are not all that
far from the best we can do quantitatively, especially if we are hoping
for a single number that summarizes the whole damn thing. Admittedly 5.6%
tells me a whole lot more than some number pulled out of the air, say 1068
or six of one, half a dozen of the other. A large part of what that 5.6%
means to me, though, is constituted by what I know the number doesn't tell
me. Namely, it doesn't tell me that unemployment is down this month (or up
this month). Unfortunately that is *precisely* how it is talked about in the
media, by government officials etc. and thus that is the discursive frame
imposed on it.

Remember the definition of rationality: not believing something to be and
not to be at the same time. If the discourse about unemployment rate were
rational, it wouldn't be about ups and downs.

Even when we are talking about the measurable equivocations of

Re: Re: employment

2002-10-08 Thread Carrol Cox




Tom Walker wrote:
 
 
 
 My answer to Jim's question is: nothing is wrong if we fully acknowledge the
 limitations of the government statistics -- or any statistics -- to
 measure the phenomena they purport to measure. The problem is that we _do
 not_ acknowledge those limits but become indignant or uncomprehending when
 someone once again raises the usual objections, let alone unusual ones.

I would agree with this with a qualification. I don't know how to
express it abstractly so I'll try a hypothetical example.

1) A cites a given set of statistics -- S(X)

2) B objects to those statistics.

So far, so good, UNLESS,

3) B is not criticizing the _usefulness_ of S(X) to a given question,
but merely asserting that he/she prefers or believes in S(Y)

It's a wash, and both parties ought to go home and read a little Homer.

Carrol

Re: re: employment


The articles, if anything, say more about the precision of the BLS measure
than anything else. If the unemployment numbers missed people who only worked
part of the month for September, it stands to reason that they will be counted
as unemployed for October. (Note that the article says that the BLS might
understate the losses in September, not that it will miss them entirely
forever.) The errors are by definition, not intentional omission. 

But, just in case: total unemployed plus discouraged workers, as a percent of
the civilian labor force plus discouraged workers: 

Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 

1996 6.6 6.3 6.1 5.7 5.6 5.7 5.9 5.4 5.3 5.1 5.3 5.2 5.7 
1999 5.0 4.9 4.6 4.3 4.1 4.6 4.7 4.3 4.3 4.0 4.0 3.9 4.4 
2000 4.6 4.6 4.5 3.9 4.1 4.4 4.4 4.3 4.0 3.8 3.9 3.9 4.2 
2001 4.9 4.8 4.8 4.5 4.4 4.9 5.0 5.1 4.9 5.2 5.5 5.6 5.0 
2002 6.5 6.4 6.3 6.0 5.8 6.3 6.2 5.9 5.6 

You don't really start getting numbers substantially higher than this until
you add workers on part-time basis for economic reasons, which suggests that
the marginally employed, as a fraction of the labor force, is pretty small. 

Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed
part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus
all marginally attached workers: 


Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Annual 

1996 10.8 10.7 10.3 9.7 9.5 10.0 10.0 9.3 9.0 8.8 8.9 9.2 9.7 
1999 8.5 8.2 7.9 7.4 7.1 7.9 7.7 7.2 7.0 6.7 6.8 6.9 7.4 
2000 7.8 7.6 7.4 6.7 6.8 7.3 7.3 7.0 6.6 6.3 6.8 6.7 7.0 
2001 8.1 7.9 7.6 7.2 7.2 8.2 8.1 8.1 8.3 8.7 9.0 9.3 8.2 
2002 10.5 10.1 9.8 9.4 9.2 9.8 9.9 9.5 9.0 

(BLS Note: Marginally attached workers are persons who currently are neither
working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for
a job and have looked for work sometime in the recent past. Discouraged
workers, a subset of the marginally attached, have given a job-market related
reason for not currently looking for a job. Persons employed part time for
economic reasons are those who want and are available for full-time work but
have had to settle for a part-time schedule.)

Christian 


 -Original Message-
 From: Louis Proyect
 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Sent: 10/8/2002 7:52 AM
 Subject: [PEN-L:31046] Re: Re: Re: employment
 
 
 The US unemployment rate appeared steady
 earlier this year, despite the 
 slowing economy and mounting job cuts, but it
 eventually climbed well
 above 
 last October's 30-year low of 3.9 per cent.
 Many economists expect the
 rate 
 to rise to more than 6 per cent next year.
 
 
 The Labor Department conceded it might have
 understated September's
 losses 
 since it counts payrolls that were active and
 includes workers who were 
 employed only part of the month.
 
 
 (FT, Oct. 6, 2002)
 
 
 ---
 
 
 A new stimulus package in the neighborhood of
 $100 billion, or 1 percent
 of 
 G.D.P., is needed now. The Federal Reserve will
 probably cut rates at
 its 
 next meeting, but interest rates are already so
 low that further cuts
 may 
 not help much.
 
 
 Much of the federal money should go to workers,
 who need it and will
 spend 
 it. The rising jobless rate has understated the
 jobs weakness.
 Discouraged 
 workers are leaving the work force in droves
 and are not counted as 
 unemployed.
 
 
 (NYT, Oct. 3, 2002)
 
 
 ---
 
 
 In the case of unemployment, analysts fear the
 new jobless numbers will 
 convince ordinary Americans that what most have
 treated as little more
 than 
 a pause in economic growth may be something
 more durable and dangerous.
 
 
 The psychology is beginning to
 change, said Mark A. Zandi, chief 
 economist of the West Chester, Pa., research
 firm Economy.com. People
 have 
 been acting like the slowdown was a blip. Now,
 they're starting to think
 
 
 this could last for a while and they had
 better prepare by reducing
 their 
 spending.
 
 
 To the extent that people treat the
 unemployment rate as a barometer of 
 economic uncertainty, there is some reason to
 think they should have
 begun 
 to trim their spending earlier. That is because
 up until now it's likely
 
 
 the rate has understated the true dimensions of
 job loss, analysts said.
 
 
 In contrast to some other periods of economic
 slowdown, a substantial 
 fraction of workers has been reacting to the
 economy's weakness by
 dropping 
 out of the labor force when they are laid off
 and can't find a new job. 
 Their departure reduced the number of people
 working, but it also
 removed 
 them from the unemployment calculations.
 
 
 Analysts said the trend helps explain how the
 jobless rate managed to
 stay 
 so stable and low in the face of layoffs. But
 it may also have helped
 lull 
 people into a false sense of security, a
 conviction that whatever
 cutbacks 
 companies were announcing were not translating
 into an overall economic 
 decline.
 
 
 It's meant the unemployment rate is not
 as good an indicator

Re: Re: Re: RE: Re: Re: employment


Michael Perelman wrote:

Don't we see the same thing in every anti-war statement?  X is a very bad
person.  I don't support X, but .

No, it's not the same. X (= Saddam, Slobo, etc.) generally is a very 
bad person. I was at an antiwar demo - a very good, inspiring one - 
in NYC just the other day where you heard very little of that in fact.

Look at the shit Marc Cooper takes from people busily policing left 
ideological boundaries. There are American leftists - I won't name 
names, for the sake of amity - who spend more time denouncing him and 
The Nation magazine than they do actually engaging with American 
politics. It's self-marginalizing and stupid.

Doug

Re: Re: re: employment


Christian Gregory wrote:

You don't really start getting numbers substantially higher than this until
you add workers on part-time basis for economic reasons, which suggests that
the marginally employed, as a fraction of the labor force, is pretty small.

Don't forget forced overtime and multiple jobholders. There's at 
least as much overwork in the U.S. economy as there is underwork. But 
since that wasn't the case in the 1930s, most American leftists can't 
think about it.

Doug

marc cooper part n+1 (was Re: Re: employment)

2002-10-08 Thread ravi


Doug Henwood wrote:
 
 Look at the shit Marc Cooper takes from people busily policing left 
 ideological boundaries. There are American leftists - I won't name 
 names, for the sake of amity - who spend more time denouncing him and 
 The Nation magazine than they do actually engaging with American 
 politics. It's self-marginalizing and stupid.
 

one could argue that its marc cooper who is policing the left in a
stupid way. i would not say he is self-marginalizing, for his intent
seems to be to stay as close to the mainstream as possible while
sporting a leftist philosophy. i am not american, and i am not a leftist
of any consequence, but i had no quarrel with marc cooper until his
ill-reasoned ad hominem attack on amy goodman.

--ravi

Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: Re: Re: employment

2002-10-08 Thread Louis Proyect



Look at the shit Marc Cooper takes from people busily policing left 
ideological boundaries. There are American leftists - I won't name names, 
for the sake of amity - who spend more time denouncing him and The Nation 
magazine than they do actually engaging with American politics. It's 
self-marginalizing and stupid.

Doug

This is topsy-turvy. Most of the policing of left ideological boundaries 
have in fact come from Nation Magazine contributors like Doug, Liza 
Featherstone, Eric Alterman and Marc Cooper. (And Christopher Hitchens 
before his mutation was complete, like Jeff Goldblum in The Fly. Has 
anybody seen Hitch walking across the ceiling yet? Wouldn't surprise me at 
all.)

In a series of articles in the Nation and other venues like LA Weekly, 
these folks have attacked elements of the anti-war movement over and over 
again. They don't like the ISO. They don't like Ramsey Clark. They don't 
like apologists for all those icky people who end up in the gunsights of 
US imperialism. Meanwhile, the WWP, the ISO and other groups out there 
organizing people scarcely pay attention to this kind of attack.

However, I do pay attention and plan to continue to answer the Marc Coopers 
of the world on the Internet, as is my democratic right. Michael Perelman 
might be uncomfortable when I express myself democratically, but I don't 
plan to ease up any time soon. This is an ongoing debate on the left and 
since giving an adequate answer to Cooper in the pages of the letters 
section of the LA Weekly or Alterman in the Nation is about as likely as 
winning the lottery, I intend to continue speaking my mind through email 
where I won't be censored.


Louis Proyect
www.marxmail.org

Re: RE: Re: Re: employment


Devine, James wrote:

Paul, can you name a participant of pen-l who is fixated on a single 
number measuring the reserve army of the unemployed?

See - we didn't invoke the standard litany, therefore we're either 
ignorant, insensitive, or on the verge of heresy.

I'd laugh, but I care about this stuff, though sometimes I wonder why.

Doug

Re: Re: Re: employment


[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

I think I understand a little of what Sabri is getting at -- the
intellectual and accepting way we look at the statistics -- seeing
them as economic factorum and not as poor, suffering people.

And who the hell isn't saying that?

Is this is the best progressive economists can do?

Doug

Re: RE: Re: employment


Devine, James wrote:

I _do_ acknowledge these limits, as does Doug (in my experience). 
Who is this we you refer to? I really hate being a straw man.

Using statistics intelligently (or scientifically) always involves 
two different things: (1) actually using them and (2) being aware of 
the limitations of the statistics. This is a key point that critics 
of Doug and myself on this issue miss.

I think our interlocutors are more interested in proving their 
greater sensitivity and moral superiority than they are in making an 
argument.

Doug

RE: Re: employment

Title: RE: [PEN-L:31067] Re: employment

I wrote What is the problem with using some (but not all) government statistics
as a half-bad/half good way of understanding what's going on, in conjunction with other information and reasoning?

Sabri Oncu wrote, Life is not as rational as you think it is.

Who said that life was rational? One of things we should strive for is for life to be more rational.

(I'll beg off on the definition of rational for now -- who has the time? Put it this way, it's not the instrumental rationality of Western enlightenment thinking. There's more than one kind of rationality.)

Tom Walker:
For that matter, the rate's rationality may not be all its cracked up to be.
My answer to Jim's question is: nothing is wrong if we fully acknowledge the
limitations of the government statistics -- or any statistics -- to
measure the phenomena they purport to measure. The problem
is that we _do not_ acknowledge those limits but become indignant or
uncomprehending when someone once again raises the usual objections, let alone
unusual ones.

I _do_ acknowledge these limits, as does Doug (in my experience). Who is this we you refer to? I really hate being a straw man.

Using statistics intelligently (or scientifically) always involves two different things: (1) actually using them and (2) being aware of the limitations of the statistics. This is a key point that critics of Doug and myself on this issue miss.

The basis of [one version of] rationality is non-contradiction: the same
person cannot at the same time hold the same to be and not to be. By the same token,
presumably, the same person cannot be employed and unemployed
at the same time. Voila, we have a statistic!

This ignores the fact that there are statistics on involuntary part-time workers, who can be seen as both unemployed and employed at the same time.

However the same person *can* be employed and unemployed at successive
moments. The definition of unemployed includes that the person is actively
looking for work and therefore, implicitly at least, will be employed at
some time in the future.

If you look, you can find some stats on people's experience over time with unemployment, and I presume, employment. You can also find estimates of hours worked per week, too.

To qualify for unemployment benefits, one must have
worked a minimum number of weeks in the recent past.

In the U.S., at least, there is no connection between such eligibility and officially being counted as unemployed.

Thus unemployment is only unemployment in relation to a past and/or future
employment, usually both but not certainly either. In other words, the state of
unemployment implies a movement toward or away from itself.

this last sentence doesn't make any sense. But it's quite easy to get a time series of unemployment data (measured in different ways). In fact, the time series makes more sense, as long as one doesn't focus on month-to-month changes: a year-to-year increase in the official unemployment rate has a very simple meaning: all else constant, workers are being screwed. Of course, all else isn't always constant, so that workers can be screwed without unemployment rates rising.

Dynamically, the concept relies on contradiction. Only statically does it
appear to be non-contradictory. The statistic necessarily treats
unemployment at rest, so to speak. A statistic gives a static
picture. It is no coincidence that both words begin with the same four letters.

how about statistics? if you take a time series of statistics, it doesn't provide a static picture, even though it it begin[s] with the same four letters as that word.

The monthly unemployment rate does represent a snap-shot. But put enough of them together, you get a movie, or at least a slide-show.

Zeno's paradox shows the problems inherent in treating a
moving object as if it occupies successive positions of rest. I won't go into the details.
Contradiction isn't necessarily a bad thing, it simply points to the limits
about what we can say about dynamic phenomena.

the contradiction disappears if you realize that changes in unemployment rates are more important than the level.

The illusion of a dynamic picture of unemployment is created by placing last
month's or last year's static picture beside this month's. We say
unemployment is up or unemployment is down when we really
have no idea of how many employed people are moving toward unemployment,
and how fast they are moving in that direction or conversely how many
unemployed people are moving how rapidly toward employment.

we don't really know many employed people are moving toward unemployment, and how fast they are moving in that direction or conversely how many unemployed people are moving how rapidly toward employment from the unemployment rate, but that doesn't mean we can't find out -- or at least get some idea -- from other statistics that are available. Absolutely

Re: Re: employment


 
 Dynamically, the concept relies on contradiction. Only statically does it
appear to be non-contradictory. The statistic necessarily treats unemployment
at rest, so to speak. A statistic gives a static picture. It is no coincidence
that both words begin with the
same four letters.

So what if you don't get existential intimacy or subjective versimiltitude
from a BLS statistic? Do you keep shoving bread into your VCR and complain
when it doesn't come out toasted? 

Christian

Re: RE: Re: Re: employment

From:   Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:[PEN-L:31057] RE: Re: Re: employment
Date sent:  Tue, 8 Oct 2002 09:06:30 -0700 
Send reply to:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

 Paul, can you name a participant of pen-l who is fixated on a single number
 measuring the reserve army of the unemployed? 

 Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine

Well, I sure read a lot this past day on the list about THE 
unemployment rate and its defects and adjustments. Kind of 
looked like fixation to me.

Paul

Re: employment


Doug Henwood wrote,


 Don't forget forced overtime and multiple jobholders. There's at
 least as much overwork in the U.S. economy as there is underwork. But
 since that wasn't the case in the 1930s, most American leftists can't
 think about it.

...and another thing I was going to mention was overtime and multiple
jobholders. Oh but wait, Doug just mentioned it. I'm glad you mentioned it,
Doug. And yes, I find it rather peculiar that most American leftists can't
think about that. I'm not sure if the generalization is accurate, but it
feels as though it is.

I view multiple jobholding and forced overtime as pathological symptoms, not
as signs of vibrant labour demand. With regard to the unemployment rate,
there is no category for full-time composite from two or more part-time
jobs. Nor is it regarded as overemployment when somebody who works
overtime would prefer not to. Besides what would the statisticians do if
there was such a thing as overemployment? Would the overemployment cancel
out the underemployment or would the two add together as undesired hours
employment? My preference would be for the latter, but nobody's asking me.

With regard to the whole schmozzola of under-, over-, un-, and just plain
unpleasantly employed, later today I'll post to Pen-l a piece on the work
ethic and its discontents I started writing for the shorter work time list.
Those of you who may have encountered difficulties following my last re:
employment message will be happy to know that in the forthcoming message I
clear up any possible confusion.

Tom Walker
604 255 4812

RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: employment

Title: RE: [PEN-L:31084] Re: RE: Re: Re: employment

I wrote:
Paul, can you name a participant of pen-l who is fixated on
a single number
measuring the reserve army of the unemployed?

Paul responded:
Well, I sure read a lot this past day on the list about THE
unemployment rate and its defects and adjustments. Kind of
looked like fixation to me.

the number I cited included discouraged workers, which is not THE official unemployment rate. I prefer the kind of treatment that Dean Baker employs: he goes through all of the official stats in the BLS press releases and tries to draw out the implications.

This discussion is pretty useless, not to mention involving too many messages.

On the one hand, Doug and I think that official statistics such as the BLS-calculated unemployment rate --or the equivalent in Canada -- conveys some information that is useful to leftist economists; despite its obvious limitations, the official U rate isn't like Enron accounting. (Christian Gregory has lept on our mini-bandwagon, it seems.)

On the other, people incorrectly believe that just because we use the U rate, (1) we think that this is the _only_ statistic we think is relevant to understanding labor-power markets or (2) that we aren't familiar with the limitations of the statistic. Maybe there are people who think bourgeois statistics are nothing but propaganda, and thus should be avoided, though no-one has said so.

I think Ian said the right thing in an off-list discussion: The BLS stats are solid as far as they go; it's the norms and behaviors that lead to unemployment that concern us far more than the stats. regarding unemployment, no?

Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine

Re: Re: RE: Re: Re: employment


Did I say that you were insensitive and did not concern yourself 
with the context of the unemployment rate? -- a rate which I use 
every day in my labour and economic problems classes, btw.  Nor 
was I responding to either Doug or Jim's posts but to Sabri's 
lament.  Every month when the U rate is published the local 
newspapers and media stations phone me up to ask what is the 
significance and what does the most recent .1 change in the rate 
mean for the future of mankind.  I spend half an hour every time 
explaining the measurement and meaning of the rate and what 
other data one needs (discouraged workers, participation rates, 
part-time and contingent employment, age/sex structure of jobs, 
etc.) without which one can not make any sense out of even fairly 
large changes in the U rate.  I know Doug and Jim are not fixated 
by the single rate -- but the public and the media tend to be, as do 
an unfortunately large number of mainstream economists.

I wish Doug and Jim wouldn't take any criticism of othodox 
statistics and the way that they are defined or the way they are 
perceived in the media, the political arena and by the media as a 
personal attack on themselves.  This was neither in the post nor 
intended and I don't appreciate being damned as a dissident leftist 
because others don't read carefully the posts to see what is really 
being said. 

Paul Phillips

Date sent:  Tue, 8 Oct 2002 14:04:06 -0400
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From:   Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:[PEN-L:31077] Re: RE: Re: Re: employment
Send reply to:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

 Devine, James wrote:
 
 Paul, can you name a participant of pen-l who is fixated on a single 
 number measuring the reserve army of the unemployed?
 
 See - we didn't invoke the standard litany, therefore we're either 
 ignorant, insensitive, or on the verge of heresy.
 
 I'd laugh, but I care about this stuff, though sometimes I wonder why.
 
 Doug

Re: employment


Christian Gregory wrote,


 So what if you don't get existential intimacy or subjective versimiltitude
 from a BLS statistic? Do you keep shoving bread into your VCR and complain
 when it doesn't come out toasted?

BLS? VCR? FYAH.

Tom Walker
604 255 4812

Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: employment


But Jim,
As my last post pointed out, when I responded to Sabri's original 
post your whole discussion about the problems and additions to 
the U rate was not being considered.  My original post was in 
response to someone (not you) suggesting that  because the 
figures on registered unemployment were much higher than for 
survey unemployment, the figures for survey unemployment were 
deliberately meant to undermeasure unemployment.  My point was 
that they were not measuring the same thing and there is good 
reason for the difference.

I know you and Doug know the meaning and limitations of the 
unemployment rate and are concerned with the income distribution 
issues that are affected by unemployment and nowhere have I 
every said or suggested you don't.  I was saying that I understand 
Sabri's sadness if it is because he believes that most public 
discussion about unemployment abstracts from the reality and 
fixates upon the number -- and that makes me equally sad, eh!

And that is the last I am going to say on this issue.

Paul

From:   Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' pen-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:[PEN-L:31088] RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: employment
Date sent:  Tue, 8 Oct 2002 12:05:55 -0700 
Send reply to:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

 I wrote:
   Paul, can you name a participant of pen-l who is fixated on 
  a single number
   measuring the reserve army of the unemployed? 
 
 Paul responded:
  Well, I sure read a lot this past day on the list about THE 
  unemployment rate and its defects and adjustments. Kind of 
  looked like fixation to me.
 
 the number I cited included discouraged workers, which is not THE official
 unemployment rate. I prefer the kind of treatment that Dean Baker employs:
 he goes through all of the official stats in the BLS press releases and
 tries to draw out the implications. 
 
 This discussion is pretty useless, not to mention involving too many
 messages. 
 
 On the one hand, Doug and I think that official statistics such as the
 BLS-calculated unemployment rate --or the equivalent in Canada -- conveys
 some information that is useful to leftist economists; despite its obvious
 limitations, the official U rate isn't like Enron accounting. (Christian
 Gregory has lept on our mini-bandwagon, it seems.)
 
 On the other, people incorrectly believe that just because we use the U
 rate, (1) we think that this is the _only_ statistic we think is relevant to
 understanding labor-power markets or (2) that we aren't familiar with the
 limitations of the statistic. Maybe there are people who think bourgeois
 statistics are nothing but propaganda, and thus should be avoided, though
 no-one has said so.
 
 I think Ian said the right thing in an off-list discussion: The BLS stats
 are solid as far as they go; it's the norms and behaviors that lead to
 unemployment that concern us far more than the stats. regarding
 unemployment, no? 
 
 Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine

Re: Re: Re: Re: employment

2002-10-08 Thread lisa stolarski


Doug, don't be mad, just say yes, yes, perhaps I took that point for
granted when I made this other point. Sometime people just want to point
the qualitative stuff out.  We are all on the same side here, there is so
much work to do.  I hope the list won't crumble over this.
Lisa S  


on 10/08/2002 1:59 PM, Doug Henwood at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 
 I think I understand a little of what Sabri is getting at -- the
 intellectual and accepting way we look at the statistics -- seeing
 them as economic factorum and not as poor, suffering people.
 
 And who the hell isn't saying that?
 
 Is this is the best progressive economists can do?
 
 Doug

re: employment

Title: re: employment





Paul Phillips writes:
 But Jim,
 As my last post pointed out, when I responded to Sabri's original 
 post your whole discussion about the problems and additions to 
 the U rate was not being considered. My original post was in 
 response to someone (not you) suggesting that because the 
 figures on registered unemployment were much higher than for 
 survey unemployment, the figures for survey unemployment were 
 deliberately meant to undermeasure unemployment. My point was 
 that they were not measuring the same thing and there is good 
 reason for the difference.
 
 I know you and Doug know the meaning and limitations of the 
 unemployment rate and are concerned with the income distribution 
 issues that are affected by unemployment and nowhere have I 
 every said or suggested you don't. I was saying that I understand 
 Sabri's sadness if it is because he believes that most public 
 discussion about unemployment abstracts from the reality and 
 fixates upon the number -- and that makes me equally sad, eh!
 
 And that is the last I am going to say on this issue.
 
 Paul



me too.



Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED]  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine

Re: employment


Jim,

It looks to me like you reacted to my message paragraph by paragraph without
treating the message as an unfolding whole. This in itself should be a
warning against the cinematographic method you uphold. What I have to say is
even more objectionable if you take it sentence by sentence. Word by word,
it's incomprehensible. Letter by letter, it is a totally meaningless
sequence.

Jim Devine wrote:

Using statistics intelligently (or scientifically) always
involves two different things: (1) actually using them and
(2) being aware of the limitations of the statistics. This is
a key point that critics of Doug and myself on this issue miss.

but elsewhere Jim writes:

The monthly unemployment rate does represent a snap-shot.
But put enough of them together, you get a movie, or at least
a slide-show.

I was trying to point out the methodological limitations that arise
precisely from the cinematographic illusion. You seem to think the illusion,
far from being a limitation, is a redeeming feature. This would suggest to
me that you are not aware of the limitations.

Later on, Jim  wrote,

this tells us we should ignore rising measures of
unemployment produced by the BLS?

For someone who doesn't appreciate being told what you think, you sure are
free and easy with the non sequitur reductio ad absurdums, if you'll pardon
my French.

brevity is the soul of wit.

Shit. Shinola. Remember that, Jim, and you'll be alright.

Tom Walker
604 255 4812

Re: Re: employment



 BLS? VCR? FYAH.
 
 Tom Walker
 604 255 4812
 

FYAH? Fuck you ass hole?

Inquisitively,
Christian

RE: Re: employment

Title: RE: [PEN-L:31098] Re: employment





Tom W writes: 
 Jim,
 
 It looks to me like you reacted to my message paragraph by 
 paragraph without
 treating the message as an unfolding whole. This in itself should be a
 warning against the cinematographic method you uphold. What I 
 have to say is
 even more objectionable if you take it sentence by sentence. 
 Word by word,
 it's incomprehensible. Letter by letter, it is a totally meaningless
 sequence.
 
 Jim Devine wrote:
 
 Using statistics intelligently (or scientifically) always
 involves two different things: (1) actually using them and
 (2) being aware of the limitations of the statistics. This is
 a key point that critics of Doug and myself on this issue miss.
 
 but elsewhere Jim writes:
 
 The monthly unemployment rate does represent a snap-shot.
 But put enough of them together, you get a movie, or at least
 a slide-show.


Tom replies: 
 I was trying to point out the methodological limitations that arise
 precisely from the cinematographic illusion. You seem to 
 think the illusion,
 far from being a limitation, is a redeeming feature. This 
 would suggest to
 me that you are not aware of the limitations.


that is not true. 
JD

Re: Re: employment



 BLS? VCR? FYAH.
 
 Tom Walker
 604 255 4812
 

Seriously, the critique of representation only gets you so far. Then, if you
can't come up with something else, you're left muttering that it's all
representations and so can't be trusted, etc.

So, sure there should be some index of job holders who have two temp (or
full-time) jobs as a composite of one. But pointing out that this statistical
measurement is missing from a statistical data set is different (and more
germane) than saying that statistics don't capture suffering and therefore
can't be trusted or are incomplete. The latter amounts to beating your head
against the wall.

Christian

Re: Re: Re: employment


I have been teaching all day and I am bit groggy.  How the hell does a
simple discussion about data evoke such nastiness?  I see that Doug has
already left.


Why can't we just communicate?  If you want to get angry, direct it towad
the war mongers.


On Tue, Oct 08, 2002 at 04:27:44PM -0400, Christian Gregory wrote:
 
  BLS? VCR? FYAH.
  
  Tom Walker
  604 255 4812
  
 
 FYAH? Fuck you ass hole?
 
 Inquisitively,
 Christian
 

-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: Re: employment


We are going to war and you guys are getting nasty over BLS data.  Give me
a break!

Cut the crap.  This is not directed at any single individual, but the
entire thread.


On Tue, Oct 08, 2002 at 12:45:30PM -0700, Tom Walker wrote:
 Christian Gregory wrote,
 
 
  So what if you don't get existential intimacy or subjective versimiltitude
  from a BLS statistic? Do you keep shoving bread into your VCR and complain
  when it doesn't come out toasted?
 
 BLS? VCR? FYAH.
 
 Tom Walker
 604 255 4812
 
 

-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: Re: Re: employment


Doug is only gone temoporarily.I don't think attacking him or Liza is
appropriate here.  I wish that Doug had not brought up Cooper.  I agree
with Lou that the policing does no good.  


On Tue, Oct 08, 2002 at 01:58:02PM -0400, Louis Proyect wrote:
 
 Look at the shit Marc Cooper takes from people busily policing left 
 ideological boundaries. There are American leftists - I won't name names, 
 for the sake of amity - who spend more time denouncing him and The Nation 
 magazine than they do actually engaging with American politics. It's 
 self-marginalizing and stupid.
 
 Doug
 
 This is topsy-turvy. Most of the policing of left ideological boundaries 
 have in fact come from Nation Magazine contributors like Doug, Liza 
 Featherstone, Eric Alterman and Marc Cooper. (And Christopher Hitchens 
 before his mutation was complete, like Jeff Goldblum in The Fly. Has 
 anybody seen Hitch walking across the ceiling yet? Wouldn't surprise me at 
 all.)
 
 In a series of articles in the Nation and other venues like LA Weekly, 
 these folks have attacked elements of the anti-war movement over and over 
 again. They don't like the ISO. They don't like Ramsey Clark. They don't 
 like apologists for all those icky people who end up in the gunsights of 
 US imperialism. Meanwhile, the WWP, the ISO and other groups out there 
 organizing people scarcely pay attention to this kind of attack.
 
 However, I do pay attention and plan to continue to answer the Marc Coopers 
 of the world on the Internet, as is my democratic right. Michael Perelman 
 might be uncomfortable when I express myself democratically, but I don't 
 plan to ease up any time soon. This is an ongoing debate on the left and 
 since giving an adequate answer to Cooper in the pages of the letters 
 section of the LA Weekly or Alterman in the Nation is about as likely as 
 winning the lottery, I intend to continue speaking my mind through email 
 where I won't be censored.
 
 
 Louis Proyect
 www.marxmail.org
 

-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: employment


That's more like it. You're right, the critique only gets you so far. The
rest of the journey is grounded in experience, which can be narrated but not
reduced to a set of statistics -- even a fairly comprehensive set.

I use official statistics all the time. I charge clients real money to dig
up and describe the most meaningful statistics to support their case. I even
compile statistics from raw data. Good numbers support a well-constructed
argument, but even the best numbers can't construct the argument for you.

From my perspective the biggest political defect of statistics is that they
necessarily refer to something that has happened in the past. Doug H.
referred to the rather dire state of the world. Michael P. wrote, we are
going to war. Would it be too coy of me to ask where is the statistical
evidence for either of those statements? But that is precisely the kind of
question that gets thrown at us when we raise questions about, say,
precarious employment or the polarization of working hours. The first
question is about the numbers (which, unlike the unemployment data are often
between two and five years old). The second question is what makes you
think it is anything other than peoples' preferences being revealed?

The classic way to not take action is to refer a matter for further study.
In that respect, representation can't get you any further than can critique.
Whatever you come up with can always be referred for even more study. Do I
sound like someone who's been there and done that?

Christian Gregory wrote,

 Seriously, the critique of representation only gets you so far. Then, if
you
 can't come up with something else, you're left muttering that it's all
 representations and so can't be trusted, etc.

 So, sure there should be some index of job holders who have two temp (or
 full-time) jobs as a composite of one. But pointing out that this
 statistical
 measurement is missing from a statistical data set is different (and more
 germane) than saying that statistics don't capture suffering and therefore
 can't be trusted or are incomplete. The latter amounts to beating your
head
 against the wall.

For your arcane hermeneutics...

Tom Walker
604 255 4812

Re: Re: employment

2002-10-08 Thread ravi


Michael Perelman wrote:
 Doug is only gone temoporarily.I don't think attacking him or Liza is
 appropriate here.  I wish that Doug had not brought up Cooper.  I agree
 with Lou that the policing does no good.  
 

i hope doug does not find me in the list of those he finds unreasonable.
whether it be my general responses to his posts, or to the particular
issue of marc cooper (and i agree that we should avoid discussing
personalities), i have tried to be honest and friendly. if that
impression is untrue, i apologize.

--ravi

RE: Re: Re: employment

2002-10-08 Thread Mark Jones


ravi wrote:

 i hope doug does not find me in the list of those he finds unreasonable.
 whether it be my general responses to his posts, or to the particular
 issue of marc cooper (and i agree that we should avoid discussing
 personalities), i have tried to be honest and friendly. if that
 impression is untrue, i apologize.


Doug Henwood's emails are full of words about his extreme annoyance, anger,
frustration, irritation etc;  all of that is humiliating and insulting to
his possible interlocutors. It also looks like a cry for help, it's not even
repressed rage any more, but open and in-your-face anger and capriciousness.
There is no need to apologise. Doug is or was a psychoanalyst, wasn't he? He
ought to recognise some warning signs. Probably his Oedipal struggle with
the patriarchal Gods of socialism will soon be over, he will slough off that
skin and re-emerge as the rock-ribbed repug he really is. Will they still
have him though? That's the problem. After all, he already was a repug, long
ago before imagining that he was of the left after all. Maybe he upset a few
people during his commute up and down the Damascus road and now they don't
want him either.

Mark

Re: RE: Re: Re: employment



Come on, let's cool it with the personalities.

On Wed, Oct 09, 2002 at 12:37:06AM +0100, Mark Jones wrote:
 ravi wrote:
 
  i hope doug does not find me in the list of those he finds unreasonable.
  whether it be my general responses to his posts, or to the particular
  issue of marc cooper (and i agree that we should avoid discussing
  personalities), i have tried to be honest and friendly. if that
  impression is untrue, i apologize.
 
 
 Doug Henwood's emails are full of words about his extreme annoyance, anger,
 frustration, irritation etc;  all of that is humiliating and insulting to
 his possible interlocutors. It also looks like a cry for help, it's not even
 repressed rage any more, but open and in-your-face anger and capriciousness.
 There is no need to apologise. Doug is or was a psychoanalyst, wasn't he? He
 ought to recognise some warning signs. Probably his Oedipal struggle with
 the patriarchal Gods of socialism will soon be over, he will slough off that
 skin and re-emerge as the rock-ribbed repug he really is. Will they still
 have him though? That's the problem. After all, he already was a repug, long
 ago before imagining that he was of the left after all. Maybe he upset a few
 people during his commute up and down the Damascus road and now they don't
 want him either.
 
 Mark
 

-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: employment

2002-10-08 Thread Charles Jannuzi


I hope this topic is not completely verboten. Any
thread that gets that many responses can't be all
that bad, even if the exchange got heated.

I'd like to point out--without inflaming anything
I hope--that 'employment' and 'unemployment'
figures are kept and analyzed as economic
indicators. Also, unemployment statistics really
are the result of bureaucratic activities in
regards to official job searches and unemployment
payments (which is a type of job insurance). The
real issue in the US is just how ungenerous that
insurance actually is.

Finally, think about how so many of these
concepts are culturally determined. If
'unemployment' in the US were determined the way
it is in Japan, the figure would jump about 1%
with one calculation. This would probably cause
the markets to peel off a thousand points as fast
as their little 'circuit breakers' would allow.
Also, some in the US would be relieved to have
levels of unemployment at the level reported in
Japan while many Japanese talk ominously of
post-war highs in such a troubling economic
indicator. But then again, the Japanese full-time
job market is now very much against working
women, more so than the US, I think.

C Jannuzi



__
Do you Yahoo!?
Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos  More
http://faith.yahoo.com

Re: Re: employment


Several times in the past, I mentioned that the unemployment rate should
include something to adjust for the quality of available jobs.  My idea
never resonated.  I am sure that it could not be calculated with any
exactitude, but I agree that an unemployment rate of 1% with everyone
flipping burgers might not be better than a rate of 5% with better jobs.

On Tue, Oct 08, 2002 at 11:55:15AM -0700, Tom Walker wrote:
 Doug Henwood wrote,
 
 
  Don't forget forced overtime and multiple jobholders. There's at
  least as much overwork in the U.S. economy as there is underwork. But
  since that wasn't the case in the 1930s, most American leftists can't
  think about it.
 
 ...and another thing I was going to mention was overtime and multiple
 jobholders. Oh but wait, Doug just mentioned it. I'm glad you mentioned it,
 Doug. And yes, I find it rather peculiar that most American leftists can't
 think about that. I'm not sure if the generalization is accurate, but it
 feels as though it is.
 
 I view multiple jobholding and forced overtime as pathological symptoms, not
 as signs of vibrant labour demand. With regard to the unemployment rate,
 there is no category for full-time composite from two or more part-time
 jobs. Nor is it regarded as overemployment when somebody who works
 overtime would prefer not to. Besides what would the statisticians do if
 there was such a thing as overemployment? Would the overemployment cancel
 out the underemployment or would the two add together as undesired hours
 employment? My preference would be for the latter, but nobody's asking me.
 
 With regard to the whole schmozzola of under-, over-, un-, and just plain
 unpleasantly employed, later today I'll post to Pen-l a piece on the work
 ethic and its discontents I started writing for the shorter work time list.
 Those of you who may have encountered difficulties following my last re:
 employment message will be happy to know that in the forthcoming message I
 clear up any possible confusion.
 
 Tom Walker
 604 255 4812
 

-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: Re: Re: employment

2002-10-08 Thread topp8564


On 9/10/2002 12:49 PM, Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 Several times in the past, I mentioned that the unemployment rate should
 include something to adjust for the quality of available jobs.  My idea
 never resonated.  I am sure that it could not be calculated with any
 exactitude, but I agree that an unemployment rate of 1% with everyone
 flipping burgers might not be better than a rate of 5% with better jobs.
 

Wouldn't the quality of unemployment also be relevant? A rate of 1% where the 
unemployed end up indentured to credit companies might be a lot worse than 5% 
if they are free to enjoy productive unemployment. As the anarchists around 
here put it, unemployment for all, not just the rich!

Thiago Oppermann



-
This mail sent through IMP: www-mail.usyd.edu.au

Re: Re: Re: Re: employment


makes sense to me.

On Wed, Oct 09, 2002 at 01:41:25PM +1000, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 On 9/10/2002 12:49 PM, Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 
  Several times in the past, I mentioned that the unemployment rate should
  include something to adjust for the quality of available jobs.  My idea
  never resonated.  I am sure that it could not be calculated with any
  exactitude, but I agree that an unemployment rate of 1% with everyone
  flipping burgers might not be better than a rate of 5% with better jobs.
  
 
 Wouldn't the quality of unemployment also be relevant? A rate of 1% where the 
 unemployed end up indentured to credit companies might be a lot worse than 5% 
 if they are free to enjoy productive unemployment. As the anarchists around 
 here put it, unemployment for all, not just the rich!
 
 Thiago Oppermann
 
 
 
 -
 This mail sent through IMP: www-mail.usyd.edu.au
 

-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: employment

2002-10-07 Thread Louis Proyect



Employment has held up fairly well.  Where are the new jobs coming from to
balance off the large layoffs in the news?
--
Michael Perelman


Frankly, I would be skeptical about labor statistics at this point 
considering all of the garbage that came down the pike about corporate 
profitability in the 1990s. We have a tendency to put a halo around data 
coming from impartial government sources, but when you really get down to 
it, the top directors of such agencies come from the same class that made 
Enron possible.

 From Bureau of Labor Statistics website:

Kathleen P. Utgoff Commissioner*

---

The Houston Chronicle, June 29, 1995

Firms must disclose underfunded pensions

Large companies that do not have enough money in their pension plans to pay 
promised benefits must send their workers letters this year disclosing the 
shortfall and the potential consequences under a new federal rule.

(clip)

The need for many of the letters was questioned by Kathleen P. Utgoff*, who 
was the agency's executive director during President Ronald Reagan's second 
term.

Most pension plans are very healthy, but that was true a year ago,'' said 
Utgoff, an economist who represents some of the large companies on the list.

She said many healthy pension plans appear underfunded because the agency 
uses the wrong interest rate and the wrong mortality table. ''

Utgoff contends that tables used by other government agencies are more 
reliable. Such tables would produce more favorable results for many large 
companies in projecting their pension liabilities.



Louis Proyect
www.marxmail.org

RE: Re: employment

Title: RE: [PEN-L:30994] Re: employment

Even though pension numbers are iffy, the employment numbers are calculated using a relatively simple sample survey. One of the things that they indicate is that even though (in recent months) the over-all unemployment rate has fallen, so has employment. A lot of people have left the labor force (those with jobs + those actively seeking employment). In fact, some have gone back to college. Others are discouraged workers.

For example, employment by businesses has fallen from 132,135 thousand in Sept. 2001 to 131,151 thousand in Sept. 2002 (not seasonally adjusted). (This is from http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t11.htm.) Over the same period, the unemployment rate including discouraged workers rose from 4.9 to 5.6 percent (n.s.a.) (From: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t08.htm.)

The most common view I've seen is that the stats indicate that even if we avoid the second dip of the Dubya recession, the economy is growing too slowly to provide enough jobs to avoid rising unemployment -- or constant high unemployment.

Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine

Employment has held up fairly well. Where are the new jobs
coming from to
balance off the large layoffs in the news?
--
Michael Perelman

Frankly, I would be skeptical about labor statistics at this point
considering all of the garbage that came down the pike about
corporate
profitability in the 1990s. We have a tendency to put a halo
around data
coming from impartial government sources, but when you
really get down to
it, the top directors of such agencies come from the same
class that made
Enron possible.

From Bureau of Labor Statistics website:

Kathleen P. Utgoff Commissioner*

---

The Houston Chronicle, June 29, 1995

Firms must disclose underfunded pensions

Large companies that do not have enough money in their
pension plans to pay
promised benefits must send their workers letters this year
disclosing the
shortfall and the potential consequences under a new federal rule.

(clip)

The need for many of the letters was questioned by Kathleen
P. Utgoff*, who
was the agency's executive director during President Ronald
Reagan's second
term.

Most pension plans are very healthy, but that was true a
year ago,'' said
Utgoff, an economist who represents some of the large
companies on the list.

She said many healthy pension plans appear underfunded
because the agency
uses the wrong interest rate and the wrong mortality table. ''

Utgoff contends that tables used by other government agencies
are more
reliable. Such tables would produce more favorable results
for many large
companies in projecting their pension liabilities.

Louis Proyect
www.marxmail.org

Re: RE: Re: employment


Devine, James wrote:

Even though pension numbers are iffy, the employment numbers are 
calculated using a relatively simple sample survey.

And, fevered claims to the contrary, they're not cooked by 
Enron-style accountancy. The people who collect and process the U.S. 
jobs data are honest, competent professionals. If anything, the 
political sympathies of BLS employees are slightly to the left of 
center.

  One of the things that they indicate is that even though (in recent 
months) the over-all unemployment rate has fallen, so has employment.

There are some strange seasonal adjustment quirks that may be 
affecting the unemployment figure - for example, all the drop in 
unemployment for September was the result of a fall in teen 
unemployment, a calculation that's highly complicated by 
back-to-school adjustments. Employment - as measured by the survey of 
employers, not households - is basically flat. Were this a normal 
recovery, employment would be rising by around 300-400k/mo; instead, 
it's virtually unchanged from December 2001.

Doug

Re: employment


Michael Perelman wrote:

Employment has held up fairly well.  Where are the new jobs coming from to
balance off the large layoffs in the news?

If you're talking about layoff announcements from large public corps 
of the sort collected by Challenger, Gray,  Christmas in their 
monthly tally - well, they're fairly meaningless. They don't 
correlate with employment numbers or the BLS's count of mass layoffs. 
The reason is that lots of them are PR intended to please 
stockholders and scare workers into productive submission. Or they're 
a cover for replacing older, expensive workers with younger, cheaper 
ones.

Doug

Re: Re: RE: Re: employment

2002-10-07 Thread Louis Proyect



And, fevered claims to the contrary, they're not cooked by Enron-style 
accountancy. The people who collect and process the U.S. jobs data are 
honest, competent professionals. If anything, the political sympathies of 
BLS employees are slightly to the left of center.

Doug

I don't have time to delve into this question in any depth, but a five 
minute search on Lexis-Nexis turned up the following:

The Gazette (Montreal), September 15, 1994, Thursday, FINAL EDITION

U.S. jobless rate is much higher than commonly thought

In his column, Main problem in Quebec is the government itself, (Gazette, 
Sept. 8), Jay Bryan states that there isn't any excuse for our unemployment 
rate, 10.2 per cent in July 1994, to be nearly twice as high as that of the 
United States.

Like so many others, Bryan appears to have been misled by the official U.S. 
employment figures, which commonly peg the American unemployment rate at 
somewhere around 6.4 per cent. U.S. unemployment figures are determined by 
polls, whereas most other nations use the number of persons actually 
registered as unemployed.

The American means of determining unemployment levels is so inaccurate that 
both the U.S. Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, and the U.S. Bureau of 
Labor Statistics consider the official figures to be grossly inexact; in 
fact, their calculations led them to conclude that the real unemployment 
rate in the U.S., as of the end of 1993, is 12.47 per cent.

Even the American Express Bank considers the official figures inaccurate 
and itself calculated a U.S. rate of unemployment of 9.3 per cent.




Louis Proyect
www.marxmail.org

Re: Re: Re: RE: Re: employment

2002-10-07 Thread Michael Perelman


I don't think that there is a contradiction between Doug and Lou.  There
are criticism's about the method of calculating unemployment -- the
discouraged workers being excluded.  But such matters are transparent, not
the result of skulduggery.

On Mon, Oct 07, 2002 at 05:21:30PM -0400, Louis Proyect wrote:
 
 And, fevered claims to the contrary, they're not cooked by Enron-style 
 accountancy. The people who collect and process the U.S. jobs data are 
 honest, competent professionals. If anything, the political sympathies of 
 BLS employees are slightly to the left of center.
 
 Doug
 
 I don't have time to delve into this question in any depth, but a five 
 minute search on Lexis-Nexis turned up the following:
 
 The Gazette (Montreal), September 15, 1994, Thursday, FINAL EDITION
 
 U.S. jobless rate is much higher than commonly thought
 
 In his column, Main problem in Quebec is the government itself, (Gazette, 
 Sept. 8), Jay Bryan states that there isn't any excuse for our unemployment 
 rate, 10.2 per cent in July 1994, to be nearly twice as high as that of the 
 United States.
 
 Like so many others, Bryan appears to have been misled by the official U.S. 
 employment figures, which commonly peg the American unemployment rate at 
 somewhere around 6.4 per cent. U.S. unemployment figures are determined by 
 polls, whereas most other nations use the number of persons actually 
 registered as unemployed.
 
 The American means of determining unemployment levels is so inaccurate that 
 both the U.S. Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, and the U.S. Bureau of 
 Labor Statistics consider the official figures to be grossly inexact; in 
 fact, their calculations led them to conclude that the real unemployment 
 rate in the U.S., as of the end of 1993, is 12.47 per cent.
 
 Even the American Express Bank considers the official figures inaccurate 
 and itself calculated a U.S. rate of unemployment of 9.3 per cent.
 
 
 
 
 Louis Proyect
 www.marxmail.org
 

-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: Re: employment


Michael Perelman wrote:

I don't think that there is a contradiction between Doug and Lou.  There
are criticism's about the method of calculating unemployment -- the
discouraged workers being excluded.  But such matters are transparent, not
the result of skulduggery.

On Mon, Oct 07, 2002 at 05:21:30PM -0400, Louis Proyect wrote:

  And, fevered claims to the contrary, they're not cooked by Enron-style
  accountancy. The people who collect and process the U.S. jobs data are
  honest, competent professionals. If anything, the political sympathies of
  BLS employees are slightly to the left of center.
  
  Doug

  I don't have time to delve into this question in any depth, but a five
   minute search on Lexis-Nexis turned up the following:

Well, damn, I only spend my life with this stuff, so I guess I'm at a 
disadvantage not having just done a five minute Lexis search.

The reason we know how many discouraged workers there are - and how 
many people are classified as not in labor force - want job now 
(BLS series ID LFS7300) - is because the BLS counts them and 
publishes the data regularly. Ditto part time for economic reasons, 
other measures of marginal labor force attachment, and the 
employment/population ratio.

Doug

RE: Re: Re: Re: RE: Re: employment

Title: RE: [PEN-L:31008] Re: Re: Re: RE: Re: employment





Michael Perelman: 
 I don't think that there is a contradiction between Doug and 
 Lou. There are criticism's about the method of calculating unemployment -- the
 discouraged workers being excluded. 


The BLS currently calculates an unemployment rate that includes discouraged workers. In fact, I cited it in my previous missive on this subject. 

 But such matters are 
 transparent, not
 the result of skulduggery.


Even if the estimates are totally wrong, there is no way that the BLS could hide the rise of unemployment. Unless, that is, they changed the definition of unemployment. This is something the Thatcherites did again and again, but in the US, it's only been done once: the Reaganauts decided that domestically-stationed U.S. military personnel should be counted as employed to lower the unemployment rate. This didn't have much effect and the attempt was eventually abandoned. This doesn't say that it won't be tried again, though. 

I guess an alternative method would be to tell the BLS samplers to be sloppy. But if that happened, it would come out pretty quickly. It's not like corporate finance, where it's easy to fudge if one has a captive board of directors and auditors.

JD

Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: Re: employment

2002-10-07 Thread phillp2

There are some minor differences in the definition/determination of  the rate of unemployment in the various western, industrial  countries.  Canada's definition  (I'm not sure exactly what the  difference is) results in a rate that is slightly higher than the US  definition, but most conform to the ILO definition which does not  include the registered unemployed which greatly inflates the  unemployment rate -- I think because it includes all those who  register who want to change jobs and for other reasons.  For  instance, the Slovenian rate using the ILO method (similar to the  US and Canadian method) is in the low 7% range, but using the  registered method is in the 13-14% range.  The ILO method is done  by a labour force survey -- a sample survey of x number of  households over a sample week.  There is one problem in that  workers are considered 'employed' if they work one hour per week.   However, at least in Canada, we have statistics on the number of  'involuntary part-time' which allows for a truer estimate of  unemployment and underemployment.  (My estimates, for  instance, show that in the late 90s, female unemployment was  slightly higher than male unemployment due to involuntary part- time employment, whereas the basic statistic shows female  unemployment slightly lower than male unemployment.)  Also, the  labour force survey also gives the numbers for discouraged workers  so it is possible to correct the figures.  Nevertheless, it should be  noted that these corrections don't make *huge* changes in the  reported rates, nothing comparable to the differences between the  survey method and the 'registered' method.  i.e.  if the survey  unemployment is 7%, the 'corrected' (for discouraged and  involuntary part-time) rate will be ~ 10% compared with a registered  rate of 14%.  In any case, all countries adjusted rates tend to move  together.  Nevertheless, there are some differences in definition  that make the published US rates lower than in other countries.   My understanding is, however, that this is only a fraction of a per  cent.

Paul Phillips,
Economics,
University of Manitoba

Date sent:  	Mon, 7 Oct 2002 14:39:46 -0700
From:   	Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: 	[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:	[PEN-L:31008] Re: Re: Re: RE: Re: employment
Send reply to:  	[EMAIL PROTECTED]

> I don't think that there is a contradiction between Doug and Lou.  There
> are criticism's about the method of calculating unemployment -- the
> discouraged workers being excluded.  But such matters are transparent, not
> the result of skulduggery.
> 
> On Mon, Oct 07, 2002 at 05:21:30PM -0400, Louis Proyect wrote:
> > 
> > >And, fevered claims to the contrary, they're not cooked by Enron-style 
> > >accountancy. The people who collect and process the U.S. jobs data are 
> > >honest, competent professionals. If anything, the political sympathies of 
> > >BLS employees are slightly to the left of center.
> > >
> > >Doug
> > 
> > I don't have time to delve into this question in any depth, but a five 
> > minute search on Lexis-Nexis turned up the following:
> > 
> > The Gazette (Montreal), September 15, 1994, Thursday, FINAL EDITION
> > 
> > U.S. jobless rate is much higher than commonly thought
> > 
> > In his column, "Main problem in Quebec is the government itself," (Gazette, 
> > Sept. 8), Jay Bryan states that there isn't any excuse for our unemployment 
> > rate, 10.2 per cent in July 1994, to be nearly twice as high as that of the 
> > United States.
> > 
> > Like so many others, Bryan appears to have been misled by the official U.S. 
> > employment figures, which commonly peg the American unemployment rate at 
> > somewhere around 6.4 per cent. U.S. unemployment figures are determined by 
> > polls, whereas most other nations use the number of persons actually 
> > registered as unemployed.
> > 
> > The American means of determining unemployment levels is so inaccurate that 
> > both the U.S. Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, and the U.S. Bureau of 
> > Labor Statistics consider the official figures to be grossly inexact; in 
> > fact, their calculations led them to conclude that the real unemployment 
> > rate in the U.S., as of the end of 1993, is 12.47 per cent.
> > 
> > Even the American Express Bank considers the official figures inaccurate 
> > and itself calculated a U.S. rate of unemployment of 9.3 per cent.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > Louis Proyect
> > www.marxmail.org
> > 
> 
> -- 
> Michael Perelman
> Economics Department
> California State University
> Chico, CA 95929
> 
> Tel. 530-898-5321
> E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>

Re: employment

2002-10-07 Thread Tom Walker


Well, gosh, I spend my life with this stuff, too as do the follks on the
unemployment statistics list. Michael Perelman is right. There isn't really
a contradiction between saying the methodology is flawed and the numbers are
misleading yet recognizing that the people who collect the data are honest
and well-intentioned.

Doug Henwood wrote,

Well, damn, I only spend my life with this stuff, so I guess I'm at a
disadvantage not having just done a five minute Lexis search.

Tom Walker
604 255 4812

Re: employment


Tom wrote:

 Well, gosh, I spend my life with this stuff, too 
 as do the follks on the unemployment statistics list. 
 Michael Perelman is right. There isn't really a 
 contradiction between saying the methodology is 
 flawed and the numbers are misleading yet recognizing 
 that the people who collect the data are honest
 and well-intentioned.

Thank you Tom!..

There is a saying in Turkish that goes like this:

Hislerime tercuman oldun.

Which would literally translate as: 

You became a translator to my emotions.

I know it sounds awkward in English but hey!

Maybe I am just a dreamer, but I am not the only one!

I hope,

Sabri

Re: Re: employment


Tom Walker wrote:

Well, gosh, I spend my life with this stuff, too as do the follks on the
unemployment statistics list. Michael Perelman is right. There isn't really
a contradiction between saying the methodology is flawed and the numbers are
misleading yet recognizing that the people who collect the data are honest
and well-intentioned.

But I also said that the agency produces additional numbers that give 
you a more accurate idea of what's going on under a better definition 
of unemployment. The unemployment rate is a measure of labor market 
slack, which is what employers care about. They want to know the 
state of the labor market and the limits on militancy. The reserve 
army is important but it doesn't enter immediately into the wage 
equation. That's why bourgeois governments define unemployment the 
way they do. But bourgeois governments are kind enough to produce 
enough additional statistics that tell you a lot of the rest of the 
story. It's silly to say they're Enronish, too.

Doug

RE: Re: Re: employment

Title: RE: [PEN-L:31015] Re: Re: employment





Tom Walker writes:
There isn't really a contradiction between saying the methodology is flawed and the numbers are misleading yet recognizing that the people who collect the data are honest and well-intentioned. 

Tom, could you explain, specifically, what's methodologically flawed with the various U.S. BLS measures of the amount of labor market slack (unemployment, the size of the reserve army)? What phenomenon or phenomena would you like to have measured? how do the various BLS measures fail to gauge these phenomena? what systematic biases do you find? or do you reject measurement _per se_? 

JD

Re: employment


I said:

 Maybe I am just a dreamer, but I am not the only one!

After reading Jim's and Doug's comments, I came to the conclusion
that I am the only one.

This is sad, very sad.

Not best,

Sabri

Re: Re: employment


Sabri Oncu wrote:

I said:

  Maybe I am just a dreamer, but I am not the only one!

After reading Jim's and Doug's comments, I came to the conclusion
that I am the only one.

This is sad, very sad.

About what? We're talking about life under capitalism. The conditions 
of the labor market matter to working people. The limits to our 
social imaginations aren't defined by BLS categories. Could you parse 
your sadness?

Doug

Re: Re: employment

2002-10-07 Thread Michael Perelman


I am not reading anyone saying anything terribly different from what Tom
and I said.

I believe that the BLS people do a good job with the parameters that they
are given.  Doug is correct that they collect much of the information
necessary to give a better picture of unemployent -- except for the
general problem of counting the people who live at the very margin of the
economy or even beyond.

The common unemployment rate gives a reassuring picture of the economy
relative to the actual number of unmployed, but we can dig out better
indicators from the data they supply.

On Mon, Oct 07, 2002 at 06:12:02PM -0700, Sabri Oncu wrote:
 I said:
 
  Maybe I am just a dreamer, but I am not the only one!
 
 After reading Jim's and Doug's comments, I came to the conclusion
 that I am the only one.
 
 This is sad, very sad.
 
 Not best,
 
 Sabri
 

-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: employment

Title: Re: employment





Like Doug, I don't get this, Sabri. What is the problem with using some (but not all) government statistics as a half-bad/half good way of understanding what's going on, in conjunction with other information and reasoning?

There seems to be a spectrum of positions on this debate. Which do you fit?
(1) we can reject all statistics, even as a part of a more complete analysis; 
(2) we can reject all government statistics; 
(3) we can accept some government statistics, suitably massaged; 
(4) we can accept some government statistics, but treat them critically; 
(5) we can accept most government statistics, as a good estimate of what's going on in the phenomenal world;
(6) we can accept all government statistics as a good estimate of what's going on in the phenomenal world. 


Perhaps there's a 7th position: we can accept all those statistics (government-produced or otherwise) that reinforce our pre-determined political position and rect all those which conflict with that position. 

BTW, I fit under #3 or #4. 
JD




-Original Message-
From: Sabri Oncu
To: PEN-L
Sent: 10/7/2002 6:12 PM
Subject: [PEN-L:31020] Re: employment


I said:


 Maybe I am just a dreamer, but I am not the only one!


After reading Jim's and Doug's comments, I came to the conclusion
that I am the only one.


This is sad, very sad.


Not best,


Sabri

Re: employment


Jim said:

 Like Doug, I don't get this, Sabri.

I don't know how to describe it, although I am sure I would sound
racist if I say this but I think you don't get this because you
are Americans. You don't know the difference because you have
never experienced it.

As I said I don't know how to describe it. It is just a matter of
tasting it, at least, for once.

Life is not as rational as you think it is.

Best,

Sabri

RE: Re: employment

Title: RE: [PEN-L:31027] Re: employment





I hope you're not saying that it's a Turkish thing; you wouldn't understand it. 
JD


-Original Message-
From: Sabri Oncu
To: PEN-L
Sent: 10/7/2002 7:13 PM
Subject: [PEN-L:31027] Re: employment


Jim said:


 Like Doug, I don't get this, Sabri.


I don't know how to describe it, although I am sure I would sound
racist if I say this but I think you don't get this because you
are Americans. You don't know the difference because you have
never experienced it.


As I said I don't know how to describe it. It is just a matter of
tasting it, at least, for once.


Life is not as rational as you think it is.


Best,


Sabri

Re: employment


Jim said:

 I hope you're not saying that it's a Turkish thing;
 you wouldn't understand it.

Not at all. It is about that Western Rationality thing that I
personally object.

But I took the risk of being misunderstood nevertheless. At
least, I took the risk with you and Doug, which made me barve
enough to take it. Otherwise, I am not as brave as I may have
sounded.

Best,

Sabri

RE: Re: employment