Does anyone care about the economy?

[4/5]

Question: If jobs rose during the shutdown, is it possible the numbers are inflated by people who tried to get a second one to make up for the loss of their OG paycheck?

That's possible. I haven't gotten a chance to read about the jobs report yet, but I did see that the unemployment rate ticked up and that's also probably explained largely by the shutdown as well. But the economy has been adding jobs every single month for years, I can't even remember the last time we had a month where jobs declined, so the increase is probably not mostly caused by 2nd jobs by federal employees, though it may have accounted for some of it.

But...even if that is the case, there were still jobs for them to obtain and I think that's the key point now that I really think about it. Just because somebody wants a job (in this case because their job didn't pay them for 5 weeks) it doesn't mean they'll be able to get one. So either way it still appears to indicate a growing economy with increased job opportunities.

[bune]

Cool, thanks for the explanation.

[4/5]

Cool, thanks for the explanation.

Np.

Here's WSJ's key takeaways from the report:

The U.S. economy continued to create jobs at a fast clip in January, with employers adding to payrolls for the 100th consecutive month. The unemployment rate ticked higher due in part to the partial government shutdown.
Hiring rose across most sectors, led by leisure and hospitality, professional services and health care. Construction firms, which have come under pressure recently, added 52,000 jobs.
More strong hiring could make the Fed change course. While Friday’s numbers boosted markets, some analysts fear that more steady economic data could force the Fed to reverse its stance again and raise interest rates. That could reignite worries that tighter financial conditions will slow economic growth.
Muted inflation continues to keep investors at ease. While wage gains have been steady, they haven’t surged in a way that is making analysts panic about a sharp uptick that pressures corporate profits. And many commodities including oil are in what some analysts call a sweet spot that signals sufficient demand without causing inflation jitters.

[bune]

[4/5]

I wouldn't have paid him for that either.

[bune]

For tweet blockers.

[Biff Pocoroba]

Gas jumped over 20 cents here this past weekend.

[bune]

Spring break just started so yeah gas prices are up. Steal while you can.

[Biff Pocoroba]

But more than 20 cents in less than two days?

[bune]

I mean, I'm no gas economist but that sounds right. It's spring break here next week so I expect the same to happen.

[Bi_3]

For tweet blockers.

Well played


And yeah, computers are some powerful shit

[Dscans]

For tweet blockers.

Scott Alexander had a long post about wage decoupling. It's ... complicated.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/25/w ... d-to-know/

[Bi_3]

Huh.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/09/tech ... nials.html

[Dscans]

Has anyone else been keeping up with the "Why Are the Prices So Damn High?" report? ()https://www.mercatus.org/system/files/h ... igh_v1.pdf

The authors attibute the rise in education and healthcare spending to the Baumol effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol%27s_cost_disease

I work at a college, so of course this was of interest to me. I work in administration, so I'm used to the administrative bloat accusation. However, they cite data (page 17, fig 10) that shows that the administrative share of spending has stayed right around 16% for the last three decades. Granted this was for public colleges and I work at a private one. I couldn't find any private data but tuition increases tend to follow public trends.

The Baumol effect basically says that when productivity rises in a sector, the cost of labor goes up with it. But in sectors that don't have increasing productivity (education, healthcare, etc.) you still have to pay more just to keep people from leaving and going to one of those growing sectors of the economy.

I hate explanations that don't have a bad guy. I need someone to blame for all this shit.

[Monkey_Driven]

State college employee here. The increase in tuition here has a direct correlation to the decrease in contributions from the state. Student fees have increased a bit to for student related services, but not nearly at the same rate.

[Dscans]

State college employee here. The increase in tuition here has a direct correlation to the decrease in contributions from the state. Student fees have increased a bit to for student related services, but not nearly at the same rate.

I think every college has gone through that, but is the drop in donations commensurate with the increasing cost? Seems like cost has gone up a lot more.

[BurtReynolds]

hello economists, is the Deutsche Bank situation a concern?

also this:

[bart]

The new version of carrying a sack with a dollar sign on it

[Mickey]

[Matthew McConaughey beating on his chest with his fist] "It's not fucking real"

[BurtReynolds]

Proper diversification in magic internet money is a must.


I hope that suit is paid off.