patrick.net

The Fucknuts are already talking about $4.00 gasoline by summer, for the whole week. Of course that's going to kick any glimmer of hope for an election time recovery sugar rush. Oil ended today over 104.00 after a week of the Policy makers reiterating, to a skittish market that wouldn't dare touch it for a little over 100, "Gas will be $4.00 by the Summer."

It's counter productive and just more incompetence of this administrations, that will screw up a good opportunity to have a productive year, with good job growth. That wont happen if we have to Give Exxon an extra 15% to 20% extra on every single purchase across the board to get raw goods and materials from source, manufacture, distribution, wholesale, retail, to consumer.

You want more labor on top of that? Good luck.

This pattern comes up every 6 months or so. People grow bored with Oil, leave it alone. Oil and Gas prices goes down. Growth happens, jobs get added, policy makers tout the virtue of high Oil prices. Everything goes south, and takes a chunk of the Stock market with it. Rinse and repeat.

2012 may be the best yet.

LOL, you must be a realtor. You need to stop drinking the coolaid and come back to reality. You dont remember the 1980's real estate bubble do you?

2012 may be the "best yet"is unintentionally funny.
That's like being happy you have a broken neck because at least the brain cancer diagnosis was wrong.
We have 1. higher taxes coming 2. higher deficits and total debt 3. unfunded social security and medicare (passed again) 4. higher oil, energy, gasoline prices 5. california has cap and tax 6. california has impossible deficits from illegal aliens 7. california has ever increasing foreclosures 8. fewer people employed every month. 9. more people on government assistance every month 10. falling value of dollar every month 11. increasing food and commodities prices
Did I leave anything out?

All the things that don't fit with your argument.

let's see bigsby
1. we were not yet hit by an asteroid
2. global warming is a hoax and earth is not buring up
3. mexican flatulence is not causing destruction of the ozone layer
4. locusts, pestilence and floods haven't gotten us yet
5. arab spring is not coming over here
6. 50 million people on food stamps means no unsightly bread lines
7. high speed rail between stockton and fresno will become reality
8. long term unemployed are cleverly filing for permanent disability, for being "depressed" over being unemployed.
Bigsby, you are correct. I did leave out all of the good news.

Approximately 80% of the jobs created were burger-flipping, service sector, low wage-type jobs.
The twenty percent or so that were manufacturing were nice, but so small as to not matter much.

"These indicators are the most positive they have been for at least 4+ years."

Wow, we are in trouble.

clambo says

let's see bigsby

1. we were not yet hit by an asteroid

2. global warming is a hoax and earth is not buring up

3. mexican flatulence is not causing destruction of the ozone layer

4. locusts, pestilence and floods haven't gotten us yet

5. arab spring is not coming over here

6. 50 million people on food stamps means no unsightly bread lines

7. high speed rail between stockton and fresno will become reality

8. long term unemployed are cleverly filing for permanent disability, for being "depressed" over being unemployed.

Bigsby, you are correct. I did leave out all of the good news.

I presume you are trying to be funny. There's a lot of ridiculous hyperbole on this website these days. Some of the posts would make more sense if it was back at the peak, but we are a long way from that now, and US prices in general are relatively inexpensive compared to pretty much all other Western nations. Even CA isn't that expensive comparatively, and the US has a stronger economy than many and a relatively straightforward path to solving its issues (read taxing appropriately), so I'm not quite sure why there is such an increasing level of doom mongering on here.

Yes, Tony, because that's clearly what I said.
I couldn't care less if people want to buy a house or not. That's up to them, but clearly houses are very affordable in many parts of the US and particularly with current interest rates. This site seems to completely revolve around the bay area where prices are much higher, but far too many people on here generalise that situation outwards for the entire country. I guess that is the nature of discourse these days - facts don't matter, you just have to keep shouting loud enough.

Aha,finally those $8.50/hr jobs are coming back and that will thrust the housing market into new highs,higher then the 2006 highs. LOL.

.

The BLS this month admitted that their 8.3% is total BS. At that rhythm, they'll soon invent the world's first negative unemployment rate. They made 1.2M people disappear from the stats last month, while every 4 months there are 1M more Americans.

robertoaribas says

bring on $4 gas, my properties are all located near light rail and/or close in to employment centers. I ride my bicycle to work..

Wow Robert, you don't say? What is your secret for being unscathed with the important drawbacks of higher gas prices. Like paying double for minimal food, than we were before this all started, because gas is more expensive, everyone is paying 20% inflation a year, for everything across the board, as a direct result of our last and current President Rat fink bastards selling the American people out to Wallstreet and greedy ass speculators.

I think that's great Robert, you live in your own little Snow Globe, wow, no I mean WOW! how in the hell did you fit your over inflated since of bike riding self, in such a little space?

bubblesitter says

Aha,finally those $8.50/hr jobs are coming back and that will thrust the housing market into new highs,higher then the 2006 highs. LOL.

Let's get back to the boom times! Give these burger flippers who earn $18k/yr a zero down zero percent ARM mortgage on a $600k home, and we're once again back in the boom times.

Last year population rose 3.5 million, labor force rose 1.1 million. The labor force participation rate is the lowest since the 70's. There's a long way to go. That's not gloom and doom, just an objective look at facts.

Nomograph says

Wow. I'm shocked at this reaction.
Employment is trending up with manufacturing leading the way. It's amazing how the pessimists, doom-and-gloomers, and permabears seem genuinely threatened by positive economic news that is good for everyone.

Im shocked by your ignorance.. when was the last time you saw a mfg plant in the South Bay... Semiconductor Fab, Drive, component, PC or any other gadget being manufactured...
At least back in the 80s we had 3 day/night shifts 24/7 employing well over 100,000s people. See any of these numbers lately! We certainly have more retail today..

Nomograph says

It's amazing how the pessimists, doom-and-gloomers, and permabears seem genuinely threatened by positive economic news that is good for everyone.

The only thing that's good for everyone is the deleveraging of debt and lower house prices which future generations can actually afford. A return to growth without either, is the return to a fake economy driven by more debt and money printing.

Nomograph says

You're living in the past; low-margin mass production using decades-old, public domain technology isn't where it's at.

Yes, we are living in the new jobs era now. The era of burger flipping and toll booth operators. Soon the burger flippers will be using i-phone 4's to flip those burgers. Then, I'll say we've really seen progress!

Nomograph says

Yeah, and there aren't any Frisbee plants in the Bay Area either. You're living in the past; low-margin mass production using decades-old, public domain technology isn't where it's at.

Correct.

Like I've said before manufacturing cannot be viewed as a place as a dumping ground for the unemployed. Grunt work, assembly line work probably isn't going to comeback mostly because it isn't sophisticated. But when you talk about inspection of things so precise then you have to be able to diagnose the problem.

I had a great aunt that put together spark plugs. It was the same constant work each time so it wasn't that sophisticated.
(such a job would be pointless in europe because most use diesel and diesel engines don't use let alone need spark plugs)

Sometimes even jobs that were around in the 80's would be baseless today because there's electronics. I know people that were paid to watch a meter and if it redlined to call someone up. Modern electronics pretty much eliminated the need for that.

There's nothing wrong with establishing a set of standards for any job. It might be a degree, a certification, some industry standard etc.
http://www.sme.org/certification/
http://asq.org/manufacturing/training/certification.html

There's never going to be some simple job that requires little training or effort that pays a viable wage for someone.

I work in biotechnology development, a profession that did not exist 30 years ago. For those of us who have 'updated our skill sets' that may be utilized in this work environment, things have never been better. There are jobs galore, all in the six figures. I tried for years to encourage friends who were in dying industries to go into my line of work by simply updating their skill sets. Apparently, too much work was involved. They would rather bitch about doom and gloom and their poverty. I came to believe that there was a payoff for them. Victim thinking. I stopped trying to help them...'you can lead a horse to water but you cannot force them to drink' applies here.

An interview with Normograph's ideal employee

Yeah I push a Name tag it's 5 days a week, it's an honest living.
Hey, I feel like I'm making a difference and you can rest a sure, with the name printed on this Name Tag, that Jerrod, that's me, you are getting the best service I can provide. (ring ring) excuse me, let me get this...
"Oh no you'll have to call back Monday, nobody is here that authorize that. Oh no can't I leave in ten minutes. OK well good luck with that..."(click)...
Where was I... Oh yeah, there's a certain amount of pride that goes into counter customer interfacing. It's a long great American tradition, this country was founded on a good corporate formula. People ask me all the time, "But wouldn't you like to be building something?" Well I am building something. I'm building trust with the public. excuse me...
"I'll ring you up here when you are ready. Oh no we don't honor those Coupons, and the sale ended on this item two weeks ago. No I can't take anything off the display price, we have to either keep them or sell them full price. Well you most certainly are welcome to take your business else where. OK bye now."
Sorry about that, that's me taking care of business, and that's my business taking care of the customer. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a ton of work to do?

[Takes out iPhone and starts playing angry birds]

Buster says

I work in biotechnology development, a profession that did not exist 30 years ago. For those of us who have 'updated our skill sets' that may be utilized in this work environment, things have never been better. There are jobs galore, all in the six figures. I tried for years to encourage friends who were in dying industries to go into my line of work by simply updating their skill sets. Apparently, too much work was involved. They would rather bitch about doom and gloom and their poverty. I came to believe that there was a payoff for them. Victim thinking. I stopped trying to help them...'you can lead a horse to water but you cannot force them to drink' applies here.

Okay, no... Jobs galore in the six figures is pure BS. Biotech pays crap compared to High tech and other industries. Always has and likely will until overhead such as the FDA gets streamlined among other things. Sure some do well in marketing, sales etc. It is possible to make six figures in R&D - I do but that is really rare. Biotech gets hyped a lot but I haven't heard anyone say anything like that before and have worked at 7 companies. Yup, mass layoffs, bankruptcies; that sort of thing goes along with the trade as well.

Scan the headlines - mostly sad:

http://www.biofind.com/rumor/

Horrible histories:

http://www.biofind.com/rumor-mill/are-there-lot-unemployed-phds-and-masters-degree-holders-out-there

Advice for a new kid:

http://www.biofind.com/rumor-mill/tips-ms-biotechnology

Most people work like slaves for well under 6 figures and often in toxic conditions with plenty of overtime that they don't get paid for.

I'm continuing the career as long as I'm getting paid as well as I do and because I enjoy it but always have my second career in the back of my mind. Biotech is getting offshored as fast as high tech was but is much smaller. More people work at walmart for instance than our industry as a whole. I think that nanotech companies will be the next 'boom' and we'll be skipped entirely for the most part. We've been money pits since the 80s as a whole and so far haven't dug our way out.

just_passing_through says

Okay, no... Jobs galore in the six figures is pure BS. Biotech pays crap compared to High tech and other industries. Always has and likely will until overhead such as the FDA gets streamlined among other things.

As a high paid developer I'm amazed at what shitty wages graphic people get. I think a good graphics person that can conceptualize innovative UI graphics, that aren't copies or cookie cutter crap. Are worth as much as any developer on their best day. Of course I've only worked with two of such people in my career.

Though Graphics people aren't long term minded. They want what ever you'll pay them now for their job performed now. They aren't interested in building companies on the ground floor, and deferring potential earnings until the company takes off. Developers are bigger risk takers in that regard.

So as a result, they are stuck at the relative low wage they we're willing to accept early on. So when the company does take off, they don't have a reward coming to them. Since it's industry standard, they are all stuck in low wages, as none of graphics guys blow up with the companies as they hit it big.