Jobless Rate: The Truth Bubble?

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Jobless Rate: The Truth Bubble?

Cow, I really couldn't say. My usual supply house claims they have a reliable version for about $150, but like I said, no one will take me up on the offer.

Dang.

If I could find a good one, I'd buy it and install it. I do my own minor electrical and carpentry work, and am fixing to replace the failed motion sensor controlled light over my front doorway, once I can find something that works, and keeps on working. I'm no professional installer; it can take me two days to do what you'd do in 45 minutes. But my time is cheap these days and such futzing around makes a nice break from browsing iTulip .

[raja]

Re: Jobless Rate: The Truth Bubble?

. . . . am fixing to replace the failed motion sensor controlled light over my front doorway, once I can find something that works, and keeps on working.

I can't recommend a reliable motion detector light, since I don't deal with them that often. But the one I replaced 5 months ago is still working well, and it was a cheapy I got on clearance at Wal-Mart or Lowes.

One thing I can suggest . . . just replace the motion detector part, not the whole light. The light socket part almost never goes bad. The motion detector part is pretty generic, i.e., it can be put on any light.

Another tip that may work for you -- I just stick in one or two 60-watt or smaller fluorescent bulbs, instead of using a energy-draining floodlight. I don't need a huge amount of light for security . . . just enough to aim and fire. :eek:

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Jobless Rate: The Truth Bubble?

I can't recommend a reliable motion detector light, since I don't deal with them that often. ...

Another tip that may work for you -- I just stick in one or two 60-watt or smaller fluorescent bulbs, ...

Oh well, guess I'll have to expect to continue replacing them (at least the detector part.)

I find that fluorescent bulbs don't hold up well to frequently repeated on/off cycles and fluorescents don't achieve maximum brightness in their first minute of lighting, so I expect to put an incandescent in this time (though likely a lower watt-age than the fixture allows.)

Thanks for the good information.

[flintlock]

Re: Jobless Rate: The Truth Bubble?

I can't recommend a reliable motion detector light, since I don't deal with them that often. But the one I replaced 5 months ago is still working well, and it was a cheapy I got on clearance at Wal-Mart or Lowes.

One thing I can suggest . . . just replace the motion detector part, not the whole light. The light socket part almost never goes bad. The motion detector part is pretty generic, i.e., it can be put on any light.

Another tip that may work for you -- I just stick in one or two 60-watt or smaller fluorescent bulbs, instead of using a energy-draining floodlight. I don't need a huge amount of light for security . . . just enough to aim and fire. :eek:

Good tip except like so many things these days, the replacement sensor is often more expensive than buying a whole new fixture. Strange, but true.
I was also told CFL bulbs were not recommended in these fixtures. Can't verify that though.

There isn't much you can screw up installing a fixture PC. It's when people start running new wires the trouble can begin.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Jobless Rate: The Truth Bubble?

I was also told CFL bulbs were not recommended in these fixtures. Can't verify that though.

I can verify that. In locations subject to frequent (say a couple dozen per day) activations, motion sensor lights are hard on CFL's.

For maximum useful hours, CFL's like to stay on a long time and cycle infrequently. Otherwise they don't last long.

[tsetsefly]

Re: Jobless Rate: The Truth Bubble?

It seems obvious and predictable to me.

People are generally paid more because their skills are more valuable and harder to find. It therefore seems perfectly logical to me that unemployment rates would be higher in lower-paid workers, where skills are easier to find. Also, as unemployment rates go up for a certain type of employee, it becomes less risky for an employer to layoff those types of people, because the risk of not being able to re-hire them when they're really needed also declines (less competition among employers).

Also, low-wage jobs are often easier to offshore, which becomes increasingly appealing for employers as their domestic regulatory burden increases, as unions become more demanding, as benefits costs increase, etc, etc. However, after offshoring is complete, higher-paid staff are usually still needed, to manage domestic processes.

BTW, another way to look at this is that the average wage paid by employers will actually increase (at least in the early phases of cutbacks). Doesn't the Left think that's a good thing? It's the same process that's behind the minimum wage, right? (better to be unemployed or starve than to work for a wage that's "too low")

+1 . Lower skilled workers are the first one's " crowded out" in economic contractions, that is just how it is. Higher skilled workers become available at cheaper rates...

[Slimprofits]

Re: Jobless Rate: The Truth Bubble?

For those such as myself, who are engineers at heart but lack an HVAC clue, could someone drop a hint as to what's wrong with 5-1/2 inch HVAC ducting?

Thanks!

4" and 6" are the typical sizes.
For example, most clothes dryers or your standard shower exhaust fan use the 4" ducting. 6" for the bigger jobs, but you can get them in many sizes.

[Sharky]

Re: Jobless Rate: The Truth Bubble?

What would you have those people do when government aid evaporates?

Something along these very lines just happened the other day: unemployment benefits were not renewed for 1M Americans.

http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14635

Now what? And this is only the first wave of "hiccups"...

[Raz]

Re: Jobless Rate: The Truth Bubble?

Yes, the Chinese have poor medical care and no pensions.

Did they have those things before they started making cheap plastic toys?

What about food? An average Chinese factory worker is a helluva lot better off than one of his countrymen who is still working in the fields.

Same goes for child labor. Sure, it's bad. But is it worse than having the children starve? That's the alternative; it's not work-or-don't-work; it's work-or-starve.

So actually, no, buying stuff made in China doesn't shave years off the lives of people working there. If anything, it adds to them. It may, however, shave years off of your life, by moving jobs from the US to China--including perhaps your own--and thereby reducing your standard of living.

Thanks, Sharky, for the reminder that no matter how much we want the world to be other than it is, reality "is what it is".

bcassill's heart is in the right place, but you have placed those thoughts within the context of reality.

[Chris Coles]

Re: Jobless Rate: The Truth Bubble?

Raz, Sharky, You are both wrong. You both have lost sight of what it was that made the US so successful in the first place. It was not low wages, it was massive inputs of what I like to call "hidden" prosperity. Roughly, the capacity to employ the majority at better rates than before.

You did not become the power house of industry on super low wages, you got there by many more being able to earn enough to be able to afford the products being sold.

It was increasing prosperity, right across the board that made the US economy successful.

[Raz]

Re: Jobless Rate: The Truth Bubble?

Raz, Sharky, You are both wrong. You both have lost sight of what it was that made the US so successful in the first place. It was not low wages, it was massive inputs of what I like to call "hidden" prosperity. Roughly, the capacity to employ the majority at better rates than before.

You did not become the power house of industry on super low wages, you got there by many more being able to earn enough to be able to afford the products being sold.

It was increasing prosperity, right across the board that made the US economy successful.

With all due respect, Chris, I haven't lost sight of anything.

Nor are we defending low wages. The United States economy didn't instantly evolve from a mostly rural, agricultural economy of low wages (or no wages) into a massive, prosperous industrial giant. It took many decades and during much of that transition there were no minimum wage laws, health and safety regulators, pensions or anything else for the workers. Sharky only pointed out that the factory workers in China were far more prosperous than those who live in the rural countryside and make up the overwhelming majority of the present population.

The propellor driven aircraft came before the jet engine. Everyone must learn to walk before they can run. That's really all I intended to point out, certainly not that minimum wage Chinese workers staying in that position for the rest of their lives is a good thing. And our refusal to buy their products because their employers don't immediately raise their wages would only retard the process of growth for them and their country as well.

[Sharky]

Re: Jobless Rate: The Truth Bubble?

Raz, Sharky, You are both wrong. You both have lost sight of what it was that made the US so successful in the first place. It was not low wages, it was massive inputs of what I like to call "hidden" prosperity. Roughly, the capacity to employ the majority at better rates than before.

Actually, I never said it was low wages that made the US great. It was production: creating products and services that were consumed by others, and doing so at a cost below what they could be sold for. The resulting profits were reinvested into the economy, resulting in a continuous process of more effective capital utilization.

The producers got wealthy in the process, and so did their employees, and indeed so did the whole country. Unfortunately, the process now seems to be working in reverse.... The US is driven by consumption, profits have become evil, employers are now the enemy of the people, etc, etc.

[Chris Coles]

Re: Jobless Rate: The Truth Bubble?

Then it is the difference between our outlook that is what we are talking about. I believe that the driving force for the increase of prosperity was access to the capital, particularly equity capital; that makes the difference. But both of you centre on wages and cost. From my viewpoint, no one goes into business to quickly go out of business, so all costs have to be contained. But the one thing that will always prevent any chance of prosperity is no access to the capital required to start that ball rolling forward. That todays' problem is a lack of access to the capital. Most of which is caught up in "Trading" existing assets at the moment.

If everyone continues to concentrate upon arguing that wages, unions, etc. etc. etc. are the reason for the lack of prosperity, then IMHO, they are l dodging the real issue, which is a lack of capital.

I am an excellent example. I have several separate ideas that are stuck fast, unmoving, for a very simple reason, lack of access to capital. Wages, unions, labour laws, are all a part of the business world I will have no option but to deal with. So in which case, to comply, requires more capital input than if they did not exist. So What?

Using such arguments is simply dodging the real issue, the responsibility of those with capital who must invest again, right back at the grass roots of any society to increase prosperity.

Then the next question is the most important; do you want to live in a free society, allowing those you invest in to remain free individuals..... or, do you have an innate desire to be in absolute control of everyone and everything you have any contact with.

If the former, you must leave the recipient of the equity capital in control of their new business.

If the latter, then you will just continue the economy of your respective nations along the feudal mercantile economic road that has so far repeatedly failed to deliver over the long term and keeps running into difficulties every few decades.

What has gone wrong is that we do not live in a free, capital based society, we live in a feudal mercantile economy, not unlike that which pertained in the Middle Ages in Europe. Yes, today we have a patina of respectability called democracy, but no real understanding of the responsibility of the holders of that capital to keep reinvesting back into the freedom of the industrious of each nation.

Keep trading, yes, you are successful; but your nation is not. Please, think about that.

[Sharky]

Re: Jobless Rate: The Truth Bubble?

Then it is the difference between our outlook that is what we are talking about. I believe that the driving force for the increase of prosperity was access to the capital, particularly equity capital; that makes the difference. But both of you centre on wages and cost.

I generally agree with you.

However, I would add one thing: where does capital come from? It's retained earnings, right? So one must earn before one has capital. You can't borrow capital. Once you've earned it, you should then be free to invest it as you see fit--perhaps in your own business, or perhaps in another.

What has gone wrong is that we do not live in a free, capital based society, we live in a feudal mercantile economy, not unlike that which pertained in the Middle Ages in Europe. Yes, today we have a patina of respectability called democracy, but no real understanding of the responsibility of the holders of that capital to keep reinvesting back into the freedom of the industrious of each nation.

I think I see what you're saying, but I see the problem somewhat differently. The issue isn't so much a lack of reinvestment back into the freedom of the industrious as it is too much involvement of government in the affairs of business. Rather than allowing companies to compete in an open and free market, some looters conspire with government to enact penalties or barriers against their competitors, or to create coersive monopolies, or to distort the market through manipulated interest rates, or to grant them special favors, to unfairly leverage the force of government through taxation, etc, etc. Those actions, in turn, distort the flow of capital; we get horrible malinvestments and the inevitable (and increasingly extreme) business cycles. Such a system also feeds corruption; the looters become protected by government instead of prosecuted by it.

The solution is to break the tie between business and the state, in the same way and for same reasons that we have a separation of church and state.

[Raz]

Re: Jobless Rate: The Truth Bubble?

I generally agree with you.

However, I would add one thing: where does capital come from? It's retained earnings, right? So one must earn before one has capital. You can't borrow capital. Once you've earned it, you should then be free to invest it as you see fit--perhaps in your own business, or perhaps in another.



I think I see what you're saying, but I see the problem somewhat differently. The issue isn't so much a lack of reinvestment back into the freedom of the industrious as it is too much involvement of government in the affairs of business. Rather than allowing companies to compete in an open and free market, some looters conspire with government to enact penalties or barriers against their competitors, or to create coersive monopolies, or to distort the market through manipulated interest rates, or to grant them special favors, to unfairly leverage the force of government through taxation, etc, etc. Those actions, in turn, distort the flow of capital; we get horrible malinvestments and the inevitable (and increasingly extreme) business cycles. Such a system also feeds corruption; the looters become protected by government instead of prosecuted by it.

The solution is to break the tie between business and the state, in the same way and for same reasons that we have a separation of church and state.

Excellent. Well said, and I couldn't agree more.;)