
The Economy That Wasn’t Supposed to Happen: Booming Jobs, Low Inflation - joker3
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/03/upshot/unemployment-inflation-changing-economic-fundamentals.html
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sigillum
If the conclusions are clearly wrong or look suspicious it's high time to
verify input data and methodology. In this case unemployment rate should be
called active job seeking during past month rate.

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fred_is_fred
The definition of "unemployed" only includes those actively looking and it's
been that way, in economic parlance. It's not a new suspicious trick.

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mikhailfranco
There was a conspiracy to de-fang capitalism after the financial crisis.

Central banks printed a tsunami of reserves to prop-up the banks, and reduced
interest rates to allow debtors to survive. The well-funded banks did not
foreclose on those companies who struggled despite zero rates. Companies did
not lay off workers, but fixed or reduced wages, under the threat of
redundancy. Workers kept their jobs in under-productive industries, but were
stressed and frightened about the pressures of competition from foreign labor
and technology. Many stopped looking for work and dropped out of the
unemployment statistics. There was no Schumpeterian creative destruction.

The economy stabilized, but the regime of easy money and depressed wages
persisted. Savers bailed-out debtors. Workers bailed out companies, whose high
profits provided record returns to capital, not to workers in the form of
higher wages. Low oil prices helped to reduce inflation and prevent an
inflationary shock. The printed money was corralled by the elites, fuelling
huge inflation in assets, and funding stock buybacks, to artificially boost
share prices, EPS and the options and bonuses tied to them.

 _There is unemployment_ for those who have dropped out of the workforce.

 _There is inflation_ for assets owned by the elites closest to the trough of
printed money (Cantillon Effect), and services that do not face international
competition (healthcare, education).

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RaceWon
What is wrong with this Trump character? This guy actually tries to accomplish
the things he said he would... WTF??

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avmich
I think there could be a simple explanation. There is no "booming jobs". It's
an illusion. Employers just decide that they don't mind to advertise some
jobs, in hopes that a cheap labor will come and they'll "optimize" their
process. In fact, if nobody will come, employers will go just fine, but just
in case somebody will, they keep doors open. This keeping the door open costs
comparatively little, especially given the alternatives (when everybody else
does the same). So, we do see some wage increases, above inflation, but only
when it's really, positively critical - which in fact in many cases today is
not. So - no real need, no wage increases.

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Zanni
Except that's not how unemployment is measured. It's measured by people
seeking work, not by job openings. [0] If you really think it's an illusion, a
better argument would be that people are dropping out of the workforce, i.e.
no longer seeking jobs.

[0] [https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-
economics/chapte...](https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-
economics/chapter/measuring-unemployment/)

