----- Original Message ----- From: "Erik Reuter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, March 04, 2004 5:59 AM Subject: Re: Race to the Bottom
> I don't mean to dispute your suggestion of looking at the employment vs. > unemployment numbers, I actually think that is a good idea. Perhaps we > have both been too cavalier with drawing conclusions from the limited > data set we were looking at. That doesn't seem unreasonable. >I don't really like looking at numbers that > show monthly changes, since the data looks so noisy, but that seems to > be what is most readily available. I decided to test this by plotting monthly employment from 1940 to now (2-2004). There is, of course, monthly noise, but I was surprised at how smooth the overall curve looked. I think decided to plot a variable I called job loss. That variable is ((Maximum number of jobs) -(Present number of jobs))/(Maxium number of jobs) As you can see, during upswings, this number is zero because the maximum number of jobs is the present months total. It is only positive during downturns. What is interesting about the present downturn is that it is, since 1940, the longest span where this number is positive. The most comperable span was 1980-83, but there was half a year in the middle where this variable was zero. Unfortunately, I do not have a website to post this, but I can send it to you if you are posting charts. That we we can split the work in getting numbers. (I have it in an .xls file now, but I can put it in a number of different formats.) Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
