----- Original Message ----- From: "John D. Giorgis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2004 1:06 PM Subject: Re: Race to the Bottom
> At 04:11 PM 3/2/2004 -0600 Dan Minette wrote: > >> Clearly, the 90's were unusual. > > > >In some ways, but not in employment. The job growth from '92 to '00 was > >21%. The average job growth over 8 years, since the '40-'48 comparison, > >was 18%: higher than average, but not unusual. The sixties saw far higher > >growth than this, peaking out over '61 to '69, with a 30% job growth. Even > >'72 to '80 saw better job growth than '92 to '00, at 23%. > > I'm sorry Dan, but I suspect that you could not find a single PhD economist > who would agree with your assertion that the 1990's were, quote, "not > unusual in employment." And, if I do? Is that PhD economist then wrong. The PhD ecconomist on this list has indicated that his view of how much you and he agree and your view of how much you and he agree vary significantly. You may write him off, but I can't see why you should expect the rest of us to. > I may be off slightly off on the top of my head here, but IIRC the > unemployment rate hit 3.8% during the 1990's. If this does not qualify > as "unusual employment" in your mind, then I don't know what does. Something lower than the average unemployment between 66-69. The lowest yearly unemployment rate under Clinton was > >2002 and 2003 were the first consecutive years with a net loss of jobs in > >each year since the end of WWII. 2003 compared to 2000 shows a net job > >loss of 1.4%. The next worse performance was -0.3% from '79-'82. > > Is it just me, or do "'79-'82" qualify as "consecutive years?" No, I made two statements. 1) 2002 and 2003 were the first consecutive years with job losses since the end of WWII. 2) there was a job loss over a 3-year time span of 1.4% between 2000 and 2003. The next worse performance was -0.3% from '79-'82. > Anyhow, I think that our economic situation is unusual, since the US > economy is recovering from its largest asset-bubble since, well the end of > WWII. (Actually, its probably the largest asset bubble since the 1920's.) But, then why did this just effect employment growth and not GDP growth. This is the first jobless recovery every president could have excuses. Jimmy Carter presidied over the biggest increase in prices for commodities in history. Yet, I'm sure you'd cut him no slack. > In terms of analyzing job gains, it is important to consider that from > 1960-1990, female labor force participation was increasing significantly. > I am sure that that had to play a role in the time series of employment > gains, and I would suspect that female labor force participation was > probably beginning to level-out by 2000 (although it may have been > increasing a bit in the late 1990's due to the 1996 welfare reform.) What about the simple fact that the jobs are not there? I've read analysis after analysis by PhD ecconomists that have stated this is the most likely cause. > Anyhow, the point is that the current economic times are highly unusual. > In particular: > 1) The US is recovering from the largest asset price bubble since the 1920's > 2) During the 2001 recession, very few jobs were lost relative to previous > recessions Sigh, have you ever plotted the numbers? Here are the percentage job losses for the recessions since '60 1960 2.16% 1969 1.46% 1974 2.76% 1980 1.27% 1981 3.10% 1990 1.47% 2001 2.05% This gives us the mean and standard deviation of the fractional job loss as: 2.04% +/-0.70%. So, 2001 is just barely above average. But, you might argue that 1980 should be tossed as part of a double dip recessio;n. Throwing out the low 1980 number (accepting a single "double dip" recession), we have: 1960 2.16% 1969 1.46% 1974 2.76% 1980 2.45% 1990 1.47% 2001 2.05% This gives us 2.06%+/-0.52% With 2001 being just a bit below average. Indeed, 2001 has, by far, the closest to average job loss of any recession. Also, its not just me that notices the lack of job creation: "Economists were hard-pressed to explain why job growth had fallen far short of expectations yet again, although some said poor weather may have played a role. For the most part, however, they cited the ability of businesses to boost output without taking on new workers.....Some economists said the relative dearth of hiring more than 27 months into an economic recovery was unprecedented. 'We are in uncharted territory,' said David Rosenberg, chief North American economist at Merrill Lynch." > 3) Historically speaking, US employment levels, while they could be better, > aren't exactly "bad" either. This is the longest time by far since we've started measuring between the bottom of the recession and the time that total jobs exceeded the previous peak....and we are still counting. > For example, in 1996 when Bill Clinton was re-elected on the strength of > the economy, 63% of Americans had jobs. Today, the figure is 62.2%. > In 1982, around 57.9% of Americans had jobs, by 1989, when Reagan left > office, over 62% of Americans had jobs. By contrast, Bill Clinton took > until 1996 to match the peak employment of 1989-1990, Not true. The peak employment of 1989-1990 was 109.8 million in June 1990. The bottom of the jobs recession was May 1991 at 108.2 million. Employment was 110 million in February, 1993...roughly 1 year after Clintion took office. (and Clinton didn't > have the after-effects of a bubble to deal with) and by the end of > Clinton's eight-year term he had only increased the employment rate by > something on the order of 2.5 percentage points, compared to Reagan's > increase of over 4 percentage points. I thought you just said that the '90s were unusually high in job creation. If the above statement is true, then how can that also be true? > Here is an article with the data, and an interesting discussion of this topic: > http://www.economist.com/PrinterFriendly.cfm?Story_ID=2446951 I needed to pay, AFAIK, to get the story. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
