Blue Waves and Red Waves

[Cow Poke]

No. It's a simple way to call out an irrelevant sidetrack from the topic at hand.

Nope - it's a liberal attack to pretend not to be a hypocrite. It's ... um.... puckywhistle. Yeah, that's what it is!

[rogue06]

Whataboutism is a flawed argument. It doesn'tmatter who does it.

Look at what X is doing!
Yeah - well what about Y?

That someone else did something equally wrong/immoral/stupid doesn't justify the person in question. Its just a distraction so folks don't actually have to look at the person in question. It's a common tactic on Fox. John Oliver had a hilarious segment on it several months ago.

The left just hates it when their blatant double standards and hypocrisy gets exposed but not so much that they don't stop engaging in said double standards and hypocrisy.

[rogue06]

Nope - it's a liberal attack to pretend not to be a hypocrite. It's ... um.... puckywhistle. Yeah, that's what it is!

You know what mom would do after such a shameful display of coarse language

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[carpedm9587]

Nope - it's a liberal attack to pretend not to be a hypocrite. It's ... um.... puckywhistle. Yeah, that's what it is!

Sorry, CP, but I have made many comments about Trump - which I equally criticized when done by others. I STILL get "whataboutism," and then a defense of "whataboutism," and then the discussion becomes about hypocricy or whataboutism and the original observation is sidetracked. It's a debate tactic - not an honest response to a point.

[Sparko]

So I'll respond, but I think you and I are on the same page. Obama inherited a nasty economy. The labor market shed almost 4 million jobs in his first year, and it took the next three years just to break even. If you look at his entire presidency, the labor market grew by 121K jobs/month. If you exclude his first year, it rises to 187K jobs/month. If you focus on his second term, it's an amazing 217K jobs/month. So far Trump's average is 191K jobs per month. The labor market is considered healthy at 150K/month. So under the Trump administration - healthy, but not as good as Obama.s second term.

As for unemployment, it peaked at 10% in October of 2009. When Obama left office it was at 4.8%, a drop of 5.2% or just below .07%/month. As of July, unemployment was at 3.9%, a further drop of 0.9% in 18 months, or .05%/month. Most of the happened in the first 15 months, and it has been flat for the last 3. To be fair to Trump, Obama had it near record lows (it crossed into record lows after Trump took office), and there was only so much more it could drop.

Obama also had a trick where they stopped tracking the people who were unemployed and had stopped even looking for work because there were no jobs out there. That made his unemployment numbers look better.

[carpedm9587]

The left just hates it when their blatant double standards and hypocrisy gets exposed but not so much that they don't stop engaging in said double standards and hypocrisy.

See my response to CP. I'm not "the left." I'm one person. You cannot claim hypocrisy when I make a point by pointing to things other people have said. That's not how it works. You have to show that I am being inconsistent. If you can't, then this entire rant is just a sidetrack from the original points made.

And, as likely intended, they are now long forgotten and the discussion has become about "whataboutism" and "hypocrisy."

The original discussion, now largely forgotten, was about the inappropriateness of "compartmentalizing" with regards to Trump's behavior. The argument that this is justified simply does not hold up. Trump is not the ONLY Republican who can implement the policies Trump is implementing. There are MANY Republican politicians with a moral spine that could enact these policies AND maintain the honor and dignity of the office. That Republicans are not decrying the moral and civil misdeeds of this man is, IMO, a sad reflection of the depths to which the party as a group has sunk.

That is what the original points were, before the "whataboutism" sidetrack started.

[carpedm9587]

Obama also had a trick where they stopped tracking the people who were unemployed and had stopped even looking for work because there were no jobs out there. That made his unemployment numbers look better.

As best I can tell, the Bureau of Statistics has not changed its methodology for tracking unemployment for at least the last 5 decades. If you have evidence that there is a difference between the statistics in the various months reported at the site I linked, I would very much like to see it.

[Sparko]

As best I can tell, the Bureau of Statistics has not changed its methodology for tracking unemployment for at least the last 5 decades. If you have evidence that there is a difference between the statistics in the various months reported at the site I linked, I would very much like to see it.

Sure...

When Barack Obama entered office in January, 2009, the labor force participation rate was 65.7%, meaning nearly two-thirds of working age Americans were working or looking for work.

When the recession supposedly officially ended in June, 2009, the labor force participation rate was still 65.7%.

In the latest, much celebrated, unemployment report, the labor force participation rate had plummeted to 63.7%, the most rapid decline in U.S. history. That means that under President Obama nearly 5 million Americans have fled the workforce in hopeless despair.

The trick is that when those 5 million are not counted as in the work force, they are not counted as unemployed either. They may desperately need and want jobs. They may be in poverty, as many undoubtedly are, with America suffering today more people in poverty than in the entire half century the Census Bureau has been counting poverty. But they are not even counted in that 8.3% unemployment rate that Obama and his media cheerleaders were so tirelessly celebrating last week.

If they were counted, the unemployment rate today would be a far more realistic 11%, better reflecting the suffering in the real economy under Obamanomics.

Just last month, while the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported finding 243,000 new jobs, they also reported in the same release that an additional 1.2 million workers had dropped out of the work force altogether, giving up hope under Obama. If labor force participation had remained the same in January, 2012 just as it was the month before in December, 2011, the unemployment rate would have risen to 8.7% in January rather than supposedly declining to 8.3% as reported.

Some additional facts highlight how misleading the reported unemployment rate, and the political rhetoric around it, can be. One year ago, 99 million Americans were unemployed or otherwise not working, and the unemployment rate was 9.1%. Today, while the reported unemployment rate is 8.3%, over 100 million Americans are unemployed or otherwise not working.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterfe.../#39d5a3467818

---

Here's something that many Americans -- including some of the smartest and most educated among us -- don't know: The official unemployment rate, as reported by the U.S. Department of Labor, is extremely misleading.

Right now, we're hearing much celebrating from the media, the White House and Wall Street about how unemployment is "down" to 5.6%. The cheerleading for this number is deafening. The media loves a comeback story, the White House wants to score political points and Wall Street would like you to stay in the market.

None of them will tell you this: If you, a family member or anyone is unemployed and has subsequently given up on finding a job -- if you are so hopelessly out of work that you've stopped looking over the past four weeks -- the Department of Labor doesn't count you as unemployed.

https://news.gallup.com/opinion/chai...mployment.aspx

---
The big lie about jobshttps://www.washingtontimes.com/news...e-by-not-coun/

[Leonhard]

Obama also had a trick where they stopped tracking the people who were unemployed and had stopped even looking for work because there were no jobs out there. That made his unemployment numbers look better.

There's also a simpler explanation. The baby boomers are retiring. People are living longer and spending more time in retirement.

[Leonhard]

Sure...

When Barack Obama entered office in January, 2009, the labor force participation rate was 65.7%, meaning nearly two-thirds of working age Americans were working or looking for work.

When the recession supposedly officially ended in June, 2009, the labor force participation rate was still 65.7%.

In the latest, much celebrated, unemployment report, the labor force participation rate had plummeted to 63.7%, the most rapid decline in U.S. history. That means that under President Obama nearly 5 million Americans have fled the workforce in hopeless despair.
...

I think its much more likely that the drop comes from the fact that the baby boomer generation entered the job market at a faster rate than the population was growing, so that no we're just seeing the job market stabilise back towards a more accurate reflection of the work force available at current population levels.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK148824/

Sparko, if you're right, shouldn't we be seeing a sharp rise in job market participation under Trump, seeing as apparently all the job growth is almost exclusive (in your estimation) due to his pre-election work? If we don't see that, wouldn't that count against your hypothesis, and favour this much simpler one?

Source: Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on the Long-Run Macroeconomic Effects of the Aging U.S. Population.

Changes in labor force size and composition in the United States over the past 60 years may be attributed to three main trends. The first, as described in Chapter 3, was the overall growth of the population after the Second World War. Beginning in the early 1960s, the surge in labor force size was propelled by the large number of postwar babies who began to enter the labor force. A second contributor to labor force growth was the increase in the number and proportion of women, especially married women, undertaking employment. The third factor was an increase in the number foreign-born workers, which accelerated in the 1970s.

Between 1950 and 2010, the labor force grew more rapidly than did the population as a whole. Whereas the total U.S. population increased 102 percent over the 60-year period, the corresponding increase in civilian labor force size was 148 percent. The highest rates of labor force growth were seen in the 1970s, when large numbers of the baby boom generation entered the prime working ages (Figure 5-1). By the 1980s, the majority of the baby boomers were of working age. While the absolute size of the labor force has continued to rise since the 1970s, the decadal growth rates have declined.

© Copyright Original Source

Its a pattern we see across multiple countries. I don't see why the US would be the exception. People across the world are living longer, and the retirement age is still mostly the same.

[rogue06]

There's also a simpler explanation. The baby boomers are retiring. People are living longer and spending more time in retirement.

I remember posting somewhere recently that in spite of everyone thinking that Obamacare would lead to earlier retirements (primarily because folks didn't need to worry about pre-existing conditions and needing stay employed until Medicare kicked in) that to everyone's surprise retirement rates have actually slowed and the average retirement age has increased.

[Cow Poke]

Sorry, CP, but I have made many comments about Trump - which I equally criticized when done by others. I STILL get "whataboutism," and then a defense of "whataboutism," and then the discussion becomes about hypocricy or whataboutism and the original observation is sidetracked. It's a debate tactic - not an honest response to a point.

So quit derailing the derail with the silly "whataboutism".

[Charles]

Sorry, CP, but I have made many comments about Trump - which I equally criticized when done by others. I STILL get "whataboutism," and then a defense of "whataboutism," and then the discussion becomes about hypocricy or whataboutism and the original observation is sidetracked. It's a debate tactic - not an honest response to a point.

You are completely right, it is not an honest response but a debate tactic. I am starting to wonder why they so willingly expose themselves.

[Leonhard]

I remember posting somewhere recently that in spite of everyone thinking that Obamacare would lead to earlier retirements (primarily because folks didn't need to worry about pre-existing conditions and needing stay employed until Medicare kicked in) that to everyone's surprise retirement rates have actually slowed and the average retirement age has increased.

That's true Rogue06, looking up I can find that over the past two decades (more than Obama's presidency) there seems to be a very slight tendency for people to stay on the work force longer. But its only grown by a year or so. I don't think this can discount the effects of what I was talking about.

http://ritholtz.com/wp-content/uploa.../05/retire.jpg

[Cow Poke]

You are completely right, it is not an honest response but a debate tactic. I am starting to wonder why they so willingly expose themselves.

Carpe - Charles sides with you -- that is PROOF POSITIVE you are wrong.