Unemployment falls below 9%

Personally I prefer the Trantor 873,000,000,000.

Sure, some say that it privileges Core stocks over Spiral stocks in weighting the planetary averages, but it's the only way to be truly comprehensive as to the full Empire economy.

Which is doing just fine, no matter what Raven Seldon says.
 
Kestrel said:
Time for a reality check. The DJIA is not an accurate measure of the US equities market due to the way the stocks are chosen and the index is calculated.

If you are going to talk about the market, us a more rational index such as the S&P 500.
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But the discussion is about the health of the economy in general.

Muldur made the observation that the state of the health of the stock market doesn't necessarily give you an idea of the state of the health of the economy in general.

I agree, but I pointed out that no one here is suggesting that we rely on a single measure to get an accurate picture of the health of the economy--at least not a single stock market measure anyway.

I've observed that at least politically, many people will rely on the unemployment rate by itself.

I've also observed that at least the way things are right now, the unemployment rate and jobs announcement for January agrees with a lot of other measures of the state of the economy. They all point to a fragile and slow, but now sustained, recovery.
 
AvalonXQ said:
Personally I prefer the Trantor 873,000,000,000.

Sure, some say that it privileges Core stocks over Spiral stocks in weighting the planetary averages, but it's the only way to be truly comprehensive as to the full Empire economy.

Which is doing just fine, no matter what Raven Seldon says.
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Sure. Untill you install the psychohistory app.
 
Mike! said:
When I got out of trade school, I thought I knew it all. A week working in an actual production shop showed me I'd barely scratched the surface. After a month I knew more than all the years of school had taught me.
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I spoke especially good English for over fifty years before I figured out how to write acceptable poetry. The former has to precede the latter.

You got out of tech school knowing how not to blow yourself up with a welding torch and still get a decent bead between two pieces of steel. They didn't need to teach you every welding technique in the world, because you might go your entire life without having to do some of them.

You would, without a doubt, have been dangerous to those around you had you not gotten at least the basics before you hit the production floor.
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
So this spike in gasoline prices could derail the fragile recovery.
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It won't make-or-break it, but gas prices, because they affect delivery prices of... everything, tend to inflate prices. But the biggest problem for politicians is that gas prices, for the reason above, but also because of their visibility, enrage the public like no other commodity. An increase in the price of a basic foodstuff, like flour or sugar, will also migrate to lots of other products, but it is not as if every supermarket has the price of flour posted on its marquee. So for incumbent politicians, high gas prices are extremely bad news, even though politics have very little to do with them, and whether the economy as a whole gets better or worse, you cannot change the public's perception.

ETA: Slightly relevant derail:
When I was about thirteen, some climatological calamity badly damaged the sugar crop. Within weeks of the news, prices for candy bars (the commodity I was most knowledgeable about) tripled or quadrupled. Eventually the price of sugar went back down. Candy bar prices never did.
 
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Tricky said:
So for incumbent politicians, high gas prices are extremely bad news, even though politics have very little to do with them, and whether the economy as a whole gets better or worse, you cannot change the public's perception.
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What I find odd about this spike is that the news and speculation of it seems to have happened before the actual price spike. I've read several articles speculating that we may have $5/gallon gas soon (and Ron Paul's flat out lie in the debate that gas was already at $6/gallon in Florida), but so far, the price here only went up to about $3.60-ish.
 
Puppycow said:
ETA: It's also started back in the right direction as the unemployment rate in Illinois fell by 0.2% last month. The new state numbers won't come out till later in the month, but I'll bet they show that the recovery is continuing.
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Just came across this story and remembered this thread. Basically the unemployment rate continues to recover in Illinois, by .3% in each of the last two months, faster than the national average for the same months.

The point is just that recoveries tend to be uneven and just because Illinois lagged behind the rest of the country in 2011 doesn't mean it will this year too. In fact it seems to be making up lost ground.
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
What I find odd about this spike is that the news and speculation of it seems to have happened before the actual price spike. I've read several articles speculating that we may have $5/gallon gas soon (and Ron Paul's flat out lie in the debate that gas was already at $6/gallon in Florida), but so far, the price here only went up to about $3.60-ish.
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Even at $6 per gallon, it would still be cheaper than many Americans happily pay for bottled water.

-Bri
 
Bri said:
Even at $6 per gallon, it would still be cheaper than many Americans happily pay for bottled water.
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That's a false comparison. If I had to drink 24 bottles of water every morning to get to and from work, I would probably be a little more sensitive about the price.
 
AvalonXQ said:
That's a false comparison. If I had to drink 24 bottles of water every morning to get to and from work, I would probably be a little more sensitive about the price.
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You must live very far away from your work and get terrible gas mileage if you use that much gas every day.
 
Puppycow said:
You must live very far away from your work and get terrible gas mileage if you use that much gas every day.
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Using three gallons of gas a day to get to and from work is not at all unreasonable if you're driving into a metropolitan area from the suburbs, as I have been my whole adult life.

The point is that it's a false comparison; you're going use between two and three gallons of gas per hour that you're on the road, which is way higher than your rate for drinking bottled water. You might as well compare the cost per gallon of toothpaste; then suddenly the cost of gas will seem far less ridiculous.
 
AvalonXQ said:
That's a false comparison. If I had to drink 24 bottles of water every morning to get to and from work, I would probably be a little more sensitive about the price.
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Plus, you can buy a gallon of distilled or spring water for under a dollar. When you buy the small bottles you're paying for the bottle and a really big "convenience" mark-up.
 
AvalonXQ said:
That's a false comparison. If I had to drink 24 bottles of water every morning to get to and from work, I would probably be a little more sensitive about the price.
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I think it's a poor comparison for a different reason: I was talking about the spike in gasoline prices. I don't think bottled water has had any such a change. In fact, I was talking specifically about news and chatter about an impending gasoline price spike. That's something that certainly doesn't happen with bottled water.
 
Tricky said:
Plus, you can buy a gallon of distilled or spring water for under a dollar. When you buy the small bottles you're paying for the bottle and a really big "convenience" mark-up.
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Since we're wandering off topic anyway--I get very good quality filtered water for free (no incremental cost) right from my tap. Part of what you're paying for in any bottled water is transportation costs which is at least in part related to the price of gasoline (especially diesel).
 
BenBurch said:
Let me see, 13 miles to work, 13 miles back, 51.6 mpg is just over a half gallon. Work would have to be 75 miles away before I would be using three gallons.
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Some people drive that far, but I still tend to wonder why they get worked up about gas prices. It's still less than what I pay for parking when I drive and if you calculate what you time is worth a drive that long costs you a lot more than the price of the gas.

OTOH my 12 Km (7 mile) bike ride is basically free because it's less time I have to spend working out, (for 9 months of the year anyway). Even ignoring that, with traffic it's just about as fast and parking is free.

If it costs you a lot to drive to work, in the end it comes down to choices you have made. IMO, if you don't like it, make better choices.
 
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