US Economy looks depressing, Black Christmas, Rate hike? Charts Tell Us

WELCOME TO WAL-MART!

So the job report for October has come out and it looks.... great? Well, not entirely.

They added some 378K jobs in the past month, representing virtually the entire increase in payrolls. And more troubling: workers aged 25-54 actually declined by 35,000, with males in this age group tumbling by 119,000! - Zerohedge

Looks like the elderly are filling the slots of cash registers for Christmas!

Gee, looks like retirement wasn't enough! Working with retirement benefits explained.

Consumer Credit Has Biggest Jump In History, Led By Government-Funded Car And Student Loans - Zerohedge

Hey, that chart looks familiar to what Qualitative Easing has caused.

In relation to this chart,

College Board Says Tuition Rose Faster Than Inflation Again This Year -TIME

"Financial aid isn't keeping up with tuition increases, so college is costing students and parents more, a new report finds."

The Americans are uncomfortable! - Zerohedge

Initial Jobless Claims Jump Most In 8 Months As Energy Sector Layoffs Spike Back To 6-Month Highs

Spike in Energy sector layoffs - to six-month highs. For context, energy sector layoffs are 9 times higher in 2015 than 2014 and Texas - with 103,422 layoffs - is the worst state for job cuts (despite Dallas Fed Fisher's previous insistence that the state is 'diversified'). Despite the ongoing side in initial jobless claims, employers have announced 543,935 job cuts in 2015 so far, 31% higher than 2014.

Rate hike or no rate hike? Others say otherwise.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/06/us-usa-economy-idUSKCN0SV0HQ20151106

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/06/economy-adds-271000-jobs-in-october-unemployment-rate-at-5-percent/

Wow it's almost like the economy is complicated. It can be doing well in one way and bad in others. Regardless though private sector hired far more people than predicted. Now if only there was a group of people who wanted to help with the less than rosy aspects of the economy.

#feelthebern

The person you want doesn't exist in either party.

@magicalclick: It's time for the entitlement generation to fall on their faces and know the value of earned cash.

Looks like typing in proper English is the first thing to go.

Your grammar sucks.

If it makes you feel better I make a shit ton cause I have valuable skills.

The economy is fantastic. Best ever.

I'm happy for you.

Let me guess, only the gold standard can save us?

Nah, man. The Trans-Pacific Partnership will save us by enslaving us on what we can or cannot buy or sell.

I'm just telling it as it is. One day you will thank me for sharing these valuable insights. :-)

I know who famous people who took that advice.

• knowing which arses to kiss - Hillary Clinton
• knowing how to screw over one's coworkers and take credit for other people's work - Steve Jobs

No, you are doing what you always do. Trolling for attention. I know it amuses you, but not many else. And if you really think being good at your job isn't needed, then you never held a job.

Are you his alt?

@TheWalkingGhost: No. I just threw that in for amusement. I know not all companies are like that. I've experienced a nice work environment at a radio station once. Sometimes ass kissing could get you ignored.

Ass kissing won't save your job if you suck at it. A chick were I work was friends with everybody, kissed tons of booty and still got fired.

ive reached the point where every room in my house has a tv in it. I've bought 3 ps4s, one for myself and two as gifts. And miraculously, the tvs still work. Guess I'll be watching football this thanksgiving on one of them. The only thing I might waste money this Christmas, is a drone, in case the nanny state makes them illegal during the next legislative session.

Millennials are getting fucked every other way.

Get paid, get laid, gatorade!

@sonicare: I hope you are jesting.

ZeroHedge, huh? They generally use true numbers but cobble together the pieces into batshit insane conspiracy theories perpetually pointing to total economic collapse any day now. That's been their schtick since 2009.

On a more grounded line of thought, I don't really see any strong need to raise rates yet, but I'm not sure if a small bump will hurt that much (just as I doubt another small dip would help that much). Monetary policy seems to have been hamstrung by the zero lower bound (as well as fiscal measures both here and across the globe). I'm actually starting to think that they might want to target a higher inflation rate (say, 3%) to make encountering the effects of the zero lower bound less likely. Or even better, switch to a NGDP target.

Wow, Minnesota is pretty high on that lay off list. I actually got laid off along with everyone else who worked at a Macaroni Grill in Minnesota at the end of August this year. Apparently the owner decided to shut down all Mac Grills in Minnesota (there were at least three in the Twin Cities metro) for whatever reason. I still wouldn't mind introducing a steel-toed boot to his balls.

I also know a bunch of programming languages, actual languages, have a B.S. and experience in robotics and chemical engineering.

I'm sure it has nothing to do with any of that.

I was afraid that my remarks might be interpreted as an attack on your personal skills/qualifications. That wasn't my intention at all.

As it happens, I have a postgraduate degree in computer science and a graduate degree in chemistry and have worked for several corporations and companies both inside and outside the US, including for almost nine years at a certain Redmond WA corporation that most gamers would recognize.

My caustic remarks are based on several years' worth of experience.

For what it's worth, not all US companies that I've worked for have had toxic work environments like the one I described. And not all of the companies I've worked for that did have toxic environments were US companies.

Perhaps I've just been less fortunate than you have in the colleagues I've landed with. Perhaps I'm just more inclined to remember the bad and forget the good than you are.

I'm not bitter or resentful, though. I sincerely wish you the best in your career. And hope that you never see the likes of:

• contractors who rip off subcontractors, not only taking credit for their work, but even falsifying invoices so that they can underpay the subcontractors and keep disproportionately high remuneration for themselves
• managers who grant their favored "prima donnas" exclusive access to every high-profile, high-prestige project before their equally-or-better-qualified and equally-or-better-experienced colleagues even know that the projects exist, time after time after time after time
• colleagues who brazenly and openly use every cheap trick in the proverbial book to sabotage their coworkers' work, and get away with it because they can hoodwink dull-witted managers, or just because they're of the right gender to get away with it.

Russia sucks. Putin sucks. lol

wow, MS sounds like a shitty place to work...

i guess i too am more fortunate as everyone i've worked with over the past 15 years of work have been awesome. no politics, no ass kissing, no sabotage, no bullshit.

young people dont like to work and everybody knows it now

To be fair, MS wasn't the worst. It wasn't the best, but it certainly wasn't the worst.

MS is like a big conglomerate of companies, so it was possible to have a very good experience in one division and a very poor experience in another.

I never worked in the Internet Explorer division, but I heard some rather bad rumors about the quality of some of the management there. And, well, everybody knows what became of Internet Explorer. ;-)

Dude, he is lying. He is the most famous troll on these forums.

@TheWalkingGhost: Regardless of whether he is, MS is exactly as he says it is according to numerous sources - both firsthand and secondhand in my case. Each division is run more or less separately with vastly different experiences between them, and some truly horrific stories have arisen from some of them.

For what it's worth, I've seen all three of the things he mentions in the corporate world (as well as some others such as collusion and price fixing). That's not saying that I endorse his point as I've also had some good experiences, but what he mentions most certainly does exist.

Because like...corporatism maaaan....and profits before people......and free trade is evil bro.

America...from success to mediocrity in just two generations!!!

Why work hard in a phony market?