Ok... I suppose I'm stupid

[Jenny_Jackson]

Open memo to George W. Bush

All through the 1960's, 70's, 80's and 90's I heard the term "Leading Economic Indicators" in every financial news cast. What are they? And why don't we hear about them any more?

First the list of indicators are:

Gross National Product
Real Gross Domestic Product and the Implicit Deflators for GDP
National Income (Real Dollar Personal Income for People)
National Income (Real Dollar Income for Companies)
Sources of Personal Income
Disposition of Personal Income
Farm Income
Cororate Profits
Real Gross Private Domestic Investiment
Business Investments
Unemployment and New Applications for Unemployment
Non-Agricultural Employment
Weekly Hours Worked and Average Hourly Earnings
Index of Worker Productivity
Industrial Productivity and Utilization of Capacity
New Construction (Both Homes and Commercial)
Business Sales and Inventories
Manufacturer's Shipments
Produce (Vegitable) Prices
Consumer Price Index
Producer Price Index
Farm Prices
Money, Stock and Debt Measures
Bank Credit
Interest Rates and Bond Yields
Common Stock Prices and Yields

The list goes on. From time to time, you hear about consumer prices going up, especially oil and oil products. You hear about the Dow Jones average. But what do 30 industrials and 20 rails mean in 2007 when the railroads haven't paid a dividend in 40 years and the great mass of American Production has been out-sourced to other countries?

You hear about the 4% unemployment rate, but that is only those people who are receiving benefits. What about those who don't qualify for benefits or who's benefits have run out? Do the beggers standing at the freeway offramps holding their cardboard signs asking for pocket change qualify as "employed"?

Somehow, I just don't get it. Why can't you just give us the truth and let us make up our own minds?

By the way, I hope you lost your ass in the stock market over the past few days, asshole.

 

[The_Fool]

No different that corporate annual reports.


Liars figure and figures lie...


PC disclaimer: This statement is made with no intent what so ever to imply that Liar is, was or will be an accountant engaged in shady financial transactions resulting in him becoming fabulously wealthy at the expense of the working masses downtrodden into financing their entire 401k in overvalued company stock.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Somehow, I just don't get it. Why can't you just give us the truth and let us make up our own minds?

Now, there's a self-answering question if I ever did hear one!

 

[kendo1]

Somehow, I just don't get it. Why can't you just give us the truth and let us make up our own minds?

It's the same over here.

 

[amicus]

Open memo to George W. Bush

All through the 1960's, 70's, 80's and 90's I heard the term "Leading Economic Indicators" in every financial news cast. What are they? And why don't we hear about them any more?

First the list of indicators are:

Gross National Product
Real Gross Domestic Product and the Implicit Deflators for GDP
National Income (Real Dollar Personal Income for People)
National Income (Real Dollar Income for Companies)
Sources of Personal Income
Disposition of Personal Income
Farm Income
Cororate Profits
Real Gross Private Domestic Investiment
Business Investments
Unemployment and New Applications for Unemployment
Non-Agricultural Employment
Weekly Hours Worked and Average Hourly Earnings
Index of Worker Productivity
Industrial Productivity and Utilization of Capacity
New Construction (Both Homes and Commercial)
Business Sales and Inventories
Manufacturer's Shipments
Produce (Vegitable) Prices
Consumer Price Index
Producer Price Index
Farm Prices
Money, Stock and Debt Measures
Bank Credit
Interest Rates and Bond Yields
Common Stock Prices and Yields

The list goes on. From time to time, you hear about consumer prices going up, especially oil and oil products. You hear about the Dow Jones average. But what do 30 industrials and 20 rails mean in 2007 when the railroads haven't paid a dividend in 40 years and the great mass of American Production has been out-sourced to other countries?

You hear about the 4% unemployment rate, but that is only those people who are receiving benefits. What about those who don't qualify for benefits or who's benefits have run out? Do the beggers standing at the freeway offramps holding their cardboard signs asking for pocket change qualify as "employed"?

Somehow, I just don't get it. Why can't you just give us the truth and let us make up our own minds?

By the way, I hope you lost your ass in the stock market over the past few days, asshole.

~~~

Dear Jenny...gonna try to couch my response in homesy, folksey terms so that maybe you won't bite my head off or scratch and claw.

And because of one of your stories about 'grandmas's house', I think, that I enjoyed.

Also, not fully convinced you really want answers but are content just venting.

First off, you and I both know it is not stupidity or ignorance that clouds your comprehension of economics and the contributing factors. Most likely it is a lifetime of subtle indoctrination from all quadrants that has turned you cynical and somewhat jaded in terms of economics and politics.

Turning folksey again with a little trip down memory lane as to how, as a young boy, I was introduced to the realities of basic economics.

I learned that if you wanted milk for your oatmeal, you had to corner a cow and squeeze her tits. Didn't stop there unless you like warm milk with cow hairs here and there, so you strain, and refrigerate and wait a day until the cream rises to the top of the container, you skim that off to make butter and you have nice cold nutritious milk to drink. I also sold it to nearby cowless neighbors at fifty cents a gallon, but they had to return the glass gallon jugs.

I also learned that if you want a boiled egg in your lunch box, you have to fight a hen and steal her eggs, sometimes they objected strenuosly and squawked for big daddy rooster to come peck my ankles.

And if your mouth waters for a fried chicken dinner on Sunday, you had to capture a chicken that you had raised and fed since the egg stage, grab it by the feet, take it to a chopping block, lay its head down and whack it off, carefully holding it away from your school clothes so the arterial blood didn't spatter you.

There was also an acre of garden to tend, carefully and judiciously as it provided winter victuals after you sweated in the kitchen to place to produce in Kerr Mason Jars and boil the piss out of them, and you better do it right or salmonella and such other nasty things turned up.

Someone moaned over the poor Chinese getting only $2.00 an hour for their labor. I worked for fifty cents an hour in the fields, picking strawberries and raspberries and green beans and hoeing mint. I got a raise to a whole dollar an hour when it was discovered I could drive a tractor, pull a hay bailer or a combine.

I offer all that and could much more, but the intent is to describe an early, 'real', understand of basic economics, the means of food production and storage.

Nothing is free; it all requires hard physical work to produce food. I found that that knowledge, gained the hard way, applied to all endeavors of life, we have to work and produce that which we consume.

There was no time or energy left through my early teenage years to think or plan about a future, it was enough and took all the effort I could give just to survive.

Then I punched my step-father, who was punching my mother and got a cracked rib and dismissal from my mother as a reward; no good deed goes unpunished, eh?

At age seventeen, the Navy, working in mysterious ways, determined that I should go to a six month electronics school. Well, I could plug the old Philco in and turn it on and even find Elvis singing away, more than that about electronics, I hadn't a clue.

But...the Navy did teach me something about myself that I also didn't know; I had a mind, and it could learn more than how to pluck a dead chicken.

Let's skip on through a whole bunch of years and events to where I accumulated hundreds of interviews and newpaper articles about economic and political events from the city, county, state and federal levels.

Economics and politics for that matter, are very dry sciences. Very dry. The people who professionally engage in those activities are for the most part fulfilling the definition of a government employee: "An individual that performs predetermined tasks without the use of intellectual decision making input. Bean Counters, Accountants, number crunchers, followers who function according to the 'book'.

All those things you mentioned at the outset of your post were created and modeled by University professors in the various skills, to measure, gauge and predict the daily/weekly/mothly and annual output of first one then two and now three hundred million individuals in this country alone.

A daunting task.

I had my share of talking to real live government administrators and the equally onerous task of sitting through endless hours of lectures in economics and political science and sociology and human and market behavior.

Dear Jenny...there is no simple truth to give you, save one.

There is an entire spectrum of economic theories that go back in history as far as you care to learn. Essentially, they boil down to three possibilities: A complete 'command' economy where the endeavors of each individual is directed by a central power, pick your own poison, a 'mixed' economy, where varying degrees of command and free market principle are applied, and of course, an unfettered, free market, laissez-faire economy.

As 'free market', or Classic Economics is seldom if ever taught in schools at all levels, it is not surprising that most do not understand the basic working of Capitalism.

The Ayn Rand, or 'Objectivist' school of economic thinking is available if you are truly interested in understanding. Throughout each of their books, essays and newsletters, you will find a wealth of reference material to lead you through the difficult path of comprehension.

That "one thing", that one truth I can offer that I mentioned earlier is that underlying and supporting any political or economic theory is human philosophy, ethics and morality.

The free market system is the only system that permits and engenders the growth of human freedom and free choice among individuals. Captitalism is a moral and ethical economic system and the only one that rational and honorable men advocate.

And that is not a matter of belief or ideology, it is, by definition, factual and true.

Oh, well...I gave it a shot...you deserve that.


Amicus...

 

[Carnevil9]

All through the 1960's, 70's, 80's and 90's I heard the term "Leading Economic Indicators" in every financial news cast. What are they?

"Leading Economic Indicators" are indicators that predict, in advance (hence, leading) major economic trends. For example, stock prices rise in advance of an overall rise in the economy. So do construction permits, and manufacturing orders for durable goods. When these rise, you can expect overall rises in GDP, personal income, etc., within a few quarters. That's all it means.

There are also "coincident indicators" that reflect the immediate state of the economy (the aforementioned GDP and personal income) and "lagging indicators" that don't change until several quarters after the overall economy (unemployment rate, Consumer Price Index, etc.).

 

[only_more_so]

Open memo to George W. Bush

All through the 1960's, 70's, 80's and 90's I heard the term "Leading Economic Indicators" in every financial news cast. What are they? And why don't we hear about them any more?

Why are you blaming George W. Bush for something that's the media's fault? The government still produces all the same data, it is just that the media no longer disseminates it to the public. Why? Because the public doesn't care. Yes, people care if the economy is good or bad, mostly so they can bitch and complain, or put their "suffering" in perspective.

But the truth is, the News is dying. People care more about the "child of the week" or the "rescued animal of the week" or whether Britney Spears has done something to prove you can take the girl out of the trailer park, but you can't take the trailer park out of the girl.

BTW, the official definition of "unemployed" is someone who is capable and available to work, and has actively sought work. The last is what keeps retirees, house-wives and vagrants from being included.

 

[gauchecritic]

Jenny,

Simple economics is for simple folk (supply and demand, economies of scale, elasticity of coal miners) the press believe you are simple.

Complex economics where the price of a company fluctuates not on what it produces but on how much someone is willing to pay for a share of it although extremely important in terms of how it affects the wealth of the nation has very little to do with actually producing anything.

The main thing to remember is that economics is a measuring device and any predictions therefrom are as likely to come true as they are to fade away.

The public, in the press's estimation are generally too volatile to be trusted with economic forecasting. They tend to think an oil shortage means they have to go fill up the car with gas, or that futures in winter wheat are likely to take a beating due to global warming means they have to clear the shelves in the kwiki-mart of any bread product they can lay their hands on.

Simple economics can't be applied to complex economics and complex economics can't be reported as news because it gives the game away.

 

[cantdog]

Open memo to George W. Bush

All through the 1960's, 70's, 80's and 90's I heard the term "Leading Economic Indicators" in every financial news cast. What are they? And why don't we hear about them any more?

First the list of indicators are:

Gross National Product
Real Gross Domestic Product and the Implicit Deflators for GDP
National Income (Real Dollar Personal Income for People)
National Income (Real Dollar Income for Companies)
Sources of Personal Income
Disposition of Personal Income
Farm Income
Cororate Profits
Real Gross Private Domestic Investiment
Business Investments
Unemployment and New Applications for Unemployment
Non-Agricultural Employment
Weekly Hours Worked and Average Hourly Earnings
Index of Worker Productivity
Industrial Productivity and Utilization of Capacity
New Construction (Both Homes and Commercial)
Business Sales and Inventories
Manufacturer's Shipments
Produce (Vegitable) Prices
Consumer Price Index
Producer Price Index
Farm Prices
Money, Stock and Debt Measures
Bank Credit
Interest Rates and Bond Yields
Common Stock Prices and Yields

The list goes on. From time to time, you hear about consumer prices going up, especially oil and oil products. You hear about the Dow Jones average. But what do 30 industrials and 20 rails mean in 2007 when the railroads haven't paid a dividend in 40 years and the great mass of American Production has been out-sourced to other countries?

You hear about the 4% unemployment rate, but that is only those people who are receiving benefits. What about those who don't qualify for benefits or who's benefits have run out? Do the beggers standing at the freeway offramps holding their cardboard signs asking for pocket change qualify as "employed"?

Somehow, I just don't get it. Why can't you just give us the truth and let us make up our own minds?

By the way, I hope you lost your ass in the stock market over the past few days, asshole.

He would vanish utterly, Jenny, if he lost his ass.

Ever since Nixon left office, many of the official figures, the market basket, the employment rate, average wages-- they have been fudged. They have little to do with reality, now. No administration wants to show worse figures than when they came in, come re-election time, so they lie.

Many of the figures we see are unrelated to Bush, of course. Even oil profits, because of the power scarcity commands in the marketplace, are going to become, inevitably, higher, whether Bush is in there pitching or not.

Inflation is not controllable so long as credit cards exist-- collectively, credit card users can actually 'print money' at a rate not amenable to control by any authority. The debts the banking firms which issue them hold are assets, and give banks inordinate power, but the assets are soft-- a certain proportion of the debts will inevitably be written off. Thus, more money is in circulation, effectively, and much of the assets involved are less valuable, being debt, than the face value, by a proportion. Therefore inflation cannot be curbed by any planning agency. Add that to the growing scarcity of fossil fuels, which affect nearly every price, and there is little the current fiscal systems can accomplish to rein the inflation numbers in.

Wages and prosperity in the working class are going to continue to deteriorate so long as offshoring continues. America is full of places that used to make shoes, used to make tractors, used to make fabric, used to make shirts, used to make electronics, used to make furniture. Lots of things. But both parties are content to see those jobs go overseas and content to see unemployment rise, because it puts management in the driver's seat.

Not that everything is being done for the corporations, without regard to America.

Iraq will be key, here. He who controls Iraq will be able to dictate the terms of the economy of a good part of the world, over the next generation; that was the reason we actually went into the country. They had nothing to do with the hijack-crashdives of 9/11, and they execrated al-Qaeda and their ilk more than we did, BUT the country sits atop the largest known oil reserves on the planet.

When Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states are long dry, Iraq will still be sitting on a pool of oil. We know this. Everyone knows it. There are now being built between six and twelve megabases in Iraq-- billion dollar bases, including the biggest embassy in history. We will never leave Iraq in your lifetime. Those extra, uncounted appropriations you have heard of? Better than half that money, billions a year since 2003, has gone to building those facilities. Empire. We aim to keep control of this place.

To have control, if we can achieve it in the face of opposition at a level we, for some reason, never anticipated, at the cost of less than five thousand troops is a bargain. Control of that oil is control of the world, to an extent, for the next two or three decades. Cheap at six times that price in blood.

The United States has been an enduring presence in that part of the world for a long time, and we will be there for a long time to come, make no mistake.

No one ever expressly explained to the American public what this war was about, but it is an imperial venture. What use our incredibly expensive, high-tech military establishment, if not to rule? Whichever party you put into the White House, whichever controls the Capitol, this will continue to be the case. And you, the people, were not told because this is not a republic any longer. Get used to it, you are citizens of an empire. Of course they will lie.

Thanks for listening.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

First of all, people, I have a masters degree in Finance, so I do understand the indicators. I do understand what each indicator means and the affect of each. Fortunately, I was educated before both the government and the media decided I was too ignorant to understand what they could not.

In fact, the U.S. Government does work out the "Leading Economic Indicators" and they do publish them. They are published on-line at site http://www.gpoaccess.gov/indicators/index.html.

So, why aren't they referred too? Because they give a completely different picture of the U.S. Economy than the Bush White House wants us to see.

Manufacturing shipments are 42% of the 1995 level. If you don't believe me, just as the Auto Workers.

Real Unemployment is 14%, not 4%.

The NY Stock Exchange and Dow Jones Average do not reflect the strength of business. It only reflects the productivity of "outsourced" production.

Real Personal Income is not up 9% as they would have us believe, but down 7 - 11% since 2000.

Real Industrial Income is not up by some nebulous percentage, except among the Oil Companies. Income in all other sectors is either down slightly or flat.

If you look at Business Income, the only major gains there since 1999 have been with Wal-Mart, Insurance Companies and the largest banks. Yes, McDonalds is way up too, but not in the U.S. Their raise is in foreign operations.

According to the White House there were "255,000 new jobs" created in 2005. This is a nice number until you look at 382,000 jobs "outsourced" to Thailand, Taiwan, China and India in the same year.

Now, with the "low-ball" mortgage companies (can you say, "Sub Prime Lender?") in receivership and the Insurance Companies and Banks trying to recoup their losses by jacking ARM interest rates, we are seeing a 156% raise in home foreclosures. (A 1/2% raise in the Prime Rate equates to a 5% rise in mortgage interest?)

Adam Smith is dead. Keynes is rolling over in his grave. And someone is getting rich, but is sure ain't the common joe on the street.

Side note to Amicus. I do appreciate the comment about Grandma's House. That story is not only true, but somewhat more revealing that I had intended.

 

[Taharial]

First of all, people, I have a masters degree in Finance, so I do understand the indicators.

strange....I read that you had a master's in Anthropology. Which is it?

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

strange....I read that you had a master's in Anthropology. Which is it?

Nope... I have a BS in Anthropology, a BA Business and an MBA in Finance. I discovered no one in the world can support themselves in Anthropology.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Nope... I have a BS in Anthropology, a BA Business and an MBA in Finance. I discovered no one in the world can support themselves in Anthropology.

I like the Austrian School and claim to know nothing important or expansive about economics at all. But, having a psychology background, I like anything that founds itself on a study of human behavior.

 

[Taharial]

Nope... I have a BS in Anthropology, a BA Business and an MBA in Finance. I discovered no one in the world can support themselves in Anthropology.

hmmm...

You said, in this post:

Physical Anthropology. My thesis was on the development of the foreum magnum connection with the spine in various animal groups. That was a waste of time.

I don't recall many schools that require a thesis for a BS.

 

[CeriseNoire]

hmmm...

You said, in this post:



I don't recall many schools that require a thesis for a BS.

Really? My school required one (or a capstone project) for all members of the honors program, and several of the major departments offered a thesis option as an alternative for the last 6 credits or so.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

hmmm...

You said, in this post:



I don't recall many schools that require a thesis for a BS.

I went to Ole Miss... I had a thesis for my Philosophy BA. A buddy of mine had a thesis for a CS degree.

*shrug*

Nevermind...

...let the witch-hunt continue!

*plays ominous "chase-style" music*

 

[Taharial]

I went to Ole Miss... I had a thesis for my Philosophy BA. A buddy of mine had a thesis for a CS degree.

*shrug*

Nevermind...

...let the witch-hunt continue!

*plays ominous "chase-style" music*

No witch hunt, although nice try at shit-stirring. I just found it odd, that's all.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

nice try at shit-stirring

Heh, says the guy going multi-post about someone's background on the thread rather than PM. *rolls eyes*

I just found it odd, that's all.

Well... "let the oddity-hunting-threadjack continue!".

*plays somewhat wacky ominous "chase-style" music*

 

[Guest]

I went to Ole Miss... I had a thesis for my Philosophy BA. A buddy of mine had a thesis for a CS degree.

*shrug*

Nevermind...

...let the witch-hunt continue!

*plays ominous "chase-style" music*

.....

 

[Taharial]

Heh, says the guy going multi-post about someone's background on the thread rather than PM. *rolls eyes*


Well... "let the oddity-hunting-threadjack continue!".

*plays somewhat wacky ominous "chase-style" music*

"Two posts" says the girl, rolling her eyes at how you like to assume things.

 

[rgraham666]

What my favourite author has to say about economics.

ECONOMICS The romance of truth through measurement.

An understanding of the value of economics can best be established by using its own methods. Draw up a list of the large economic problems that have struck the West over the last quarter-century. Determine the dominant strand of advice offered in each case by the community of economists. Calculate how many times this advice was followed. (More often than not it was.) Finally, add up the number of times this advice solved the problem.

The answer appears to be zero. Consistent failure based on expert methodology suggests that the central assumptions must have been faulty, rather in the same way sophisticated calculations based upon the assumption that the world is flat tended to come out wrong. However, streams of economists are on record protesting that they weren't listened to enough. That the recommended interest rate or money supply or tariff policy was not followed to its absolute conclusion.

The "science" of economics seems to be built upon a non-scientific and non-mathematical assumption that economic forces are the expression of a natural truth. To interfere with them is to create an unnatural situation. The creation and enforcement of standards of production for example. Even economists who favour these standards see them as necessary and justifiable deformations of economic truth.

Economic truth has replaced such earlier truths as an all-powerful God, and a natural Social Contract. But what evidence has been produced to prove this natural right to primacy over other values, methods and activities?

The answer is usually given is that economic activity determines the success or failure of a society. It follows that the economists are priests whose necessary expertise will make it possible to maximize the value of this activity. But economic activity is less a cause than an effect - of geographical and climactic necessity, family and wider social structures, the balance between freedom and order, the ability of the society to unleash the imagination, and the weakness and strength of neighbours. If anything the importance given to economics over the last quarter-century has interfered with prosperity. The more we concentrate on it, the less money we make.

John Ralston Saul - The Doubter's Companion

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

hmmm...

You said, in this post:



I don't recall many schools that require a thesis for a BS.

You are quite correct. In 1984 I received both my BS and BA. I went on to Grad school. I finished my thesis in Anthropology and submitted it at the end of 1985. At that time I discovered I couldn't find a job and switched to Finance. I was given the choice of continuting to an MBA or receiving my MS, but not both from the same University. I recieved my MBA in Finance in 1987. No mystery there.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

"Two posts" says the girl, rolling her eyes at how you like to assume things.

Two is still multiple. Maybe just a multiple of two, but its definitely not singular.

Assuming you're a guy is far from a sin or a crime. Let's be a wee-bit more gender specific in our choice of handles if we're going to be touchy about it.

 

[Taharial]

Two is still multiple. Maybe just a multiple of two, but its definitely not singular.

Assuming you're a guy is far from a sin or a crime. Let's be a wee-bit more gender specific in our choice of handles if we're going to be touchy about it.

I'm not touchy. I'm amusing myself at your expense. Sorry.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

*pretentious "I'm amused at you" type comment in 3... 2... 1...*

I'm not touchy. I'm amusing myself at your expense. Sorry.

Hey, I've been keeping it light from the get go... if /this/ it you not being touchy? I'd hate to see you /actually/ touchy. Its bound to have more in common with truly buhjiggidty.

I'm not amused by you, though. Maybe notch the humor up a bit? Dunno.