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Unemployment drops to 0% as last worker leaves labor force


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2014 May 9, 12:59am   13,398 views  31 comments

by zzyzzx   ➕follow (5)   💰tip   ignore  

President Obama today became the first to achieve a milestone coveted by enlightened central planners everywhere, as the Bureau of Laborious Statistics announced the much-followed meaningless headline: "U3 unemployment rate for last month was ZERO PERCENT," which clearly implies that the glorious economic recovery he engineered after the disastrous Bush years has now resulted in full employment.

It appears that Professor Obama succeeded in finding the Holy Grail, which eluded history's greatest economic thinkers like Lenin, Stalin and Mao. This landmark achievement, along with his establishment of free healthcare for everyone via the Affordable Care Act, cements his reputation as the Greatest Leader in this or any other universe for all time.

The dramatic moment occurred at 12:03 PM, four weeks to the day after Lyman Yilk, a pipe-fitter from Bittcling, Pa, finally gave up looking for work.

Mr. Yilk has been unemployed since 2005, but was on a celebratory bender since the day after Mr. Obama's first election and failed to notice that the Keystone Pipeline (which Mr. Yilk was hoping to find work on) had been cancelled due to environmental concerns. When he finally sobered up four weeks ago and learned the project was dead, he abandoned his search to find a job.

Mr. Yilk was the last worker to leave the labor force and turned the lights out as he left.

According to the Bureau of Laborious Statistics, "Official unemployment rate (U3) per the ILO definition occurs when people are without jobs and they have actively looked for work within the past four weeks."

Without Mr. Yilk, there was no one actively looking for work any longer, hence the U3 rate was now zero percent, praise Obama!

Naysayers were quick to note that the labor force participation rate had also dropped to zero percent, which, according to them, was not a good thing as it meant no one was employed. Rep. Nancy Pelosi brilliantly countered their racist, straw-man argument by observing that it also meant no comrade was any longer "job-locked" and each was free to be an artist, writer, or hooker, pursuing their passion.

"There is no underestimating this tremendous achievement of Barack Obama," said Paul Klugeman, an expert on hiding declines and fudging economic statistics, as well as on being the self-proclaimed "Conscious Liberal."

"Comrade Obama has achieved the socialist dream of freeing all of The Peopleâ„¢ from the slavery of work and permitting them to live off someone else's dime - as God, if he existed, would've wanted."

When asked if he was concerned that since no one was working, there would also be no one to pay for the benefits to all the non-workers, Dr. Klugeman responded: "Nonsense! The Fed will simply print money for artists, writers, and hookers so they can buy goods coming from China. What could go wrong?"

"The genius of Dear Leader Barack Obama lies in its simplicity," Dr. Klugeman added.

Now that he has made it look so simple, it's a wonder no one ever thought of it sooner.

#politics

Comments 1 - 31 of 31        Search these comments

1   Dan8267   2014 May 9, 1:32am  

The free market is saying that corporations need to pay more in order to attack talent. If a job pays so shitty that it can't compete with food stamps, it's not a job worth doing. The value of one's free time is greater than the value of such jobs.

Why do conservatives hate the free market so much?

There isn't single job that won't be filled if the pay is right. Hell, you can find people to give hand jobs to bulls and collect their semen if the pay is right. Yes, this is an actual job.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/bIZ_B4aBnpE

If corporations need more people to work for them, they can pay living wages. There is no reason our society should create a class of slaves for corporations to use and discard.

2   zzyzzx   2014 May 9, 1:35am  

Dan8267 says

The free market is saying that corporations need to pay more in order to attack talent. If a job pays so shitty that it can't compete with food stamps, it's not a job worth doing. The value of one's free time is greater than the value of such jobs.

The free market is saying that welfare benefits need to be reduced.

3   Dan8267   2014 May 9, 1:42am  

zzyzzx says

Dan8267 says

The free market is saying that corporations need to pay more in order to attack talent. If a job pays so shitty that it can't compete with food stamps, it's not a job worth doing. The value of one's free time is greater than the value of such jobs.

The free market is saying that welfare benefits need to be reduced.

Oh, I see. Conservatives think the free market is the imaginary voice in their heads. It's not. It refers to how people change their behavior as a reaction to changing conditions.

4   FuckTheMainstreamMedia   2014 May 9, 1:55am  

Dan8267 says

The free market is saying that corporations need to pay more in order to attack talent. If a job pays so shitty that it can't compete with food stamps, it's not a job worth doing. The value of one's free time is greater than the value of such jobs.

Why do conservatives hate the free market so much?

There isn't single job that won't be filled if the pay is right. Hell, you can find people to give hand jobs to bulls and collect their semen if the pay is right. Yes, this is an actual job.

If corporations need more people to work for them, they can pay living wages. There is no reason our society should create a class of slaves for corporations to use and discard.

Apparently you are never around poor people.

I can assure you that if the choice is not working and receiving food, shelter, cable, and cell phone for free and nothing more vs. a very hard manual labor job with great benefits and paying $30/hr, there are a substantial number of people who will choose the freebies.

5   Strategist   2014 May 9, 2:10am  

Dan8267 says

The free market is saying that corporations need to pay more in order to attack talent. If a job pays so shitty that it can't compete with food stamps, it's not a job worth doing. The value of one's free time is greater than the value of such jobs.

If the free market was saying that, the corporations would simply pay more. There are no restrictions on corporations or anyone to pay more then minimum wage. They are only restricted from paying less then minimum wage.
All the businesses in the country that are barely surviving will instantly go out of business with a large jump in minimum wage. You end up with a situation where people are willing to work for less, businesses are willing to hire for less, but the law says no, and the businesses remain closed.
How does that benefit anyone?

6   dublin hillz   2014 May 9, 2:18am  

There's a way to monetize the benefits if someone is living off the dole. Add up up the total value of cash and subsidies received and divide by 0.04. That is the value of portfolio equivalent to a trust fund baby or wealthy baller who can sit by the pool all day and implement 4% withdrawal rate in perpetuity. Both groups are subsidized - the former outright, the latter by the higher tax rate on earned income vs capital gains/qualified dividends.

7   Dan8267   2014 May 9, 2:29am  

dodgerfanjohn says

very hard manual labor job

This is the 21st century. We should be behind "very hard manual labor". We have machines for that. What we should be doing is very hard intellectual labor. Is cancer cured yet? Is there a maglift spiral to outer space yet? Have we automated politicians out of their jobs yet?

There is plenty of actual useful work to be done. If the corporations aren't providing jobs to do this work, that's a flaw in our economic system, not laziness on behalf of the unemployed.

How many people with advanced degrees are unemployed right now? Shitloads. We have an entire generation that graduated from college only to find the only jobs available are to flip burgers. I don't blame them for that.

And if living a minimal lifestyle on a small guaranteed income is more appealing than working your ass off for luxuries, then that again is the free market of values playing out. Maybe the problem with the Millennials that everyone is bitching about is that they refuse to participate in the rat race simply to keep up with the Jones's.

Strategist says

All the businesses in the country that are barely surviving will instantly go out of business with a large jump in minimum wage.

A job that doesn't produce enough wealth to keep a person alive from day to day is a job that isn't worth doing. The free market demands that such low-productive uses of human capital are removed from the economy. Economic Darwinism requires the death of such malinvestment of resources. The prospective worker is better off growing yams to sustain himself.

8   Strategist   2014 May 9, 2:39am  

Dan8267 says

Strategist says

All the businesses in the country that are barely surviving will instantly go out of business with a large jump in minimum wage.

A job that doesn't produce enough wealth to keep a person alive from day to day is a job that isn't worth doing. The free market demands that such low-productive uses of human capital are removed from the economy. Economic Darwinism requires the death of such malinvestment of resources. The prospective worker is better off growing yams to sustain himself.

Dan, what the free markets demands can only be determined by the businesses in the free markets. You and me are nobody in the huge ocean of free markets.

9   dublin hillz   2014 May 9, 2:42am  

Dan8267 says

Maybe the problem with the Millennials that everyone is bitching about is that
they refuse to participate in the rat race simply to keep up with the Jones's.

That is far from certain. I have not seen any millenials disavow materialistic pursuits. What I have seen though and quite often is them hitting up their parents for entertainment expenses, going out to eat, car purchases, etc. Which leads me to believe that they don't want to do the jobs that they feel they are too good for and instead in a parasitic manner attempt to gain access to desired goods/experiences at someone else's expense. Ultimately it's up to the parents to enable this pattern or arrest this conduct.

10   Dan8267   2014 May 9, 2:46am  

You ever notice that social conservatives like the ones in this thread viscerally hate social safety nets, while fiscal conservatives like me consider them to be essential to preventing greater economic failures?

You see, the argument isn't about money. Warfare spending, which is the most despicable welfare spending, dwarfs anti-poverty programs including food stamps and assisted housing put together. And these anti-poverty programs prevent violent crime. The number one and number two causes of violent crime are inequality and poverty, respectively.

So, this argument isn't about money or economics. It's about culture. The people who are against government assistance simply have a cultural bias against certain people receiving anything of monetary value that they haven't paid for with sweat and pain. In other words, these social conservatives just really hate certain people.

Unfortunately, these social conservatives are ignorant about who really is on the receiving end of these benefits. It's not lazy blacks having five kids before their 20, smoking pot, and playing rap music. People of all ethnic, social, and cultural backgrounds are on welfare programs of some form or another including the veterans that social conservatives pay so much lip service to.

The Coming Food Stamp Cut Will Hit 900,000 Veterans

Oh wait, but that article is coming from ThinkProgress, a site ran by people so liberal they read. We need to get some redneck, wife beating, macho, homophobic site to confirm this statistic. You know, the type of site ran by people who wouldn't be caught reading, learning another language, or asking about the history of a region before invading it. OK, here's your sign.

Nearly 1 Million Vets Face Food Stamps Cut That's from Military.com News.

So, are you willing to call 1 million veterans of war a bunch of lazy ass pussies to morally bankrupt to do an honest days work?

I'm as anti-war as you can get without inviting invasion, but at least I support these troops with the willingness to pay taxes to make sure they aren't malnourished or homeless or can't get medical care for all the problems they get in the wars I opposed. Yeah, I oppose the war, but I support the troops' physical and mental needs when they get back home. In contrast, the social conservatives kick these troops to the side.

Of course, it's not just veterans who should have a social safety net. Without these protections, you are far more likely to get shot and killed in a robbery by some desperate person trying to feed his kids. Just like you value the lives of your family more than anyone else's, that guy values the lives of his children more than you or your children. And preventing violent crime is a damn good reason to support social safety nets even if you only care about yourself, your family, or your tribe.

11   zzyzzx   2014 May 9, 3:03am  

Dan8267 says

This is the 21st century. We should be behind "very hard manual labor". We have machines for that.

Not true. Somebody has to do the dirty work. Your commentary is typical of a liberal elitist.

12   Dan8267   2014 May 9, 3:34am  

zzyzzx says

Dan8267 says

This is the 21st century. We should be behind "very hard manual labor". We have machines for that.

Not true. Somebody has to do the dirty work. Your commentary is typical of a liberal elitist.

Most manufacturing has been automated. What hasn't been automated should pay enough to live on otherwise the job, by definition, is not worth doing.

One shouldn't engage in activity that's so low-productive that you can't even survive day-to-day doing it.

The free hand of the market is setting the price to get Americans to do these jobs. You just don't like how high the free market is setting the price. And considering you aren't doing these jobs yourself -- as evident by the fact you want these wages to be lower -- that makes you a hypocrite.

Lead by example. Do these shitty jobs for low pay yourself. After a few decades, then your opinion about how good they are will be valid.

13   corntrollio   2014 May 9, 3:46am  

Dan8267 says

There isn't single job that won't be filled if the pay is right. Hell, you can find people to give hand jobs to bulls and collect their semen if the pay is right. Yes, this is an actual job.

Obligatory:

"It's important to have a job that makes a difference, boys. That's why I manually masturbate caged animals for artificial insemination."

14   dublin hillz   2014 May 9, 4:26am  

Dan8267 says

One shouldn't engage in activity that's so low-productive that you can't even
survive day-to-day doing it.

Right, but the problem is not simply that their pay is shitty. The true issue is that other citizens get paid much more which makes it hard for those on the other side to survive. We need to look no further than high wealth disparity SFBA to see the pressure that high tech salaries are placing on those who work in service industries especially in regards to housing costs whether rent/buy.

15   FuckTheMainstreamMedia   2014 May 9, 5:35am  

Good god lefties are delusional.

16   Y   2014 May 9, 5:43am  

Your laptop needs a governor...

Dan8267 says

There isn't single job that won't be filled if the pay is right. Hell, you can find people to give hand jobs to bulls and collect their semen if the pay is right. Yes, this is an actual job.

17   FuckTheMainstreamMedia   2014 May 9, 9:07am  

Ok. You won at internets today. Good job.

18   marcus   2014 May 9, 9:32am  

I can't believe that observing the fact that it's as tough as it is these days, that upward mobility is FAR less than it was a few decades ago, and that all the wealth is quickly moving in to the hands of the few, is somehow a leftist or liberal point of view.

We need a modern day progressive republican.

19   smaulgld   2014 May 9, 9:49am  

Dan8267 says

One shouldn't engage in activity that's so low-productive that you can't even survive day-to-day doing it.

Guess people shouldn't mow their lawns anymore or shovel their driveway

20   dublin hillz   2014 May 9, 9:55am  

Every dollar that gets vaporized in wages is one less dollar that can be invested into mutual funds to actualize the wealth effect!

21   zzyzzx   2014 May 9, 10:26am  

Umm..you did notice that this is satire, didn't you?

22   zzyzzx   2014 May 9, 10:34am  

It's pointing out the fallacy of the official bogus unemployment numbers. Presumably they are fudging them even more now due to Obama's low popularity numbers, since it's really not particularly close to election time.

23   zzyzzx   2014 May 9, 10:36am  

marcus says

all the wealth is quickly moving in to the hands of the few

Only in the US, parts of Europe, and Japan. In places like India, China, Korea, Mexico, etc. the money seems to be going to ordinary people.

24   Strategist   2014 May 9, 11:09am  

dublin hillz says

Every dollar that gets vaporized in wages is one less dollar that can be invested into mutual funds to actualize the wealth effect!

Are you trying to say it is more productive to invest rather then spend? Remember, the eventual purpose of investing is to produce goods and services that people want to buy and consume.
I would apply your comment towards welfare given to people who could, but refuse to work. That is where other peoples hard earned wages get vaporized.

25   marcus   2014 May 9, 11:13am  

zzyzzx says

Only in the US, parts of Europe, and Japan. In places like India, China, Korea, Mexico, etc. the money seems to be going to ordinary people.

SO are you saying that I shouldn't fear our move toward being a third world country, because when we get a little further along in the process (down to the level of those countries) things will be better ?

26   Bellingham Bill   2014 May 9, 12:27pm  

marcus says

We need a modern day progressive republican.

that's not what this movie's about.

we're talking locked-down police-state nominal-democracy endgame here.

GOP cargo-cult ideology will keep people waiting for the "job creators" to come from the sky. Not sure how long their game's going to last, or how long it has to last.

27   FuckTheMainstreamMedia   2014 May 9, 2:07pm  

marcus says

I can't believe that observing the fact that it's as tough as it is these days, that upward mobility is FAR less than it was a few decades ago, and that all the wealth is quickly moving in to the hands of the few, is somehow a leftist or liberal point of view.

We need a modern day progressive republican.

How in the universe has it escaped you that the same government agents giving the handouts to the poor are also the ones implementing the policies that further enrich the ultra wealthy while simultaneously raping the middle class and the entrepreneurs?

28   Dan8267   2014 May 9, 4:03pm  

smaulgld says

Dan8267 says

One shouldn't engage in activity that's so low-productive that you can't even survive day-to-day doing it.

Guess people shouldn't mow their lawns anymore or shovel their driveway

If it costs more money in terms of time than it would cost money in terms of hiring someone else to do it, then yes.

Of course, it would be more economical not to have lawn to mow in the first place.

As for shoveling your drive way, unless you can walk to work, the time spent shoveling is far less than the time spent commuting without a car.

29   carrieon   2014 May 9, 8:09pm  

The IRS doesn't mind telling the truth that only 45% of the population today files a return.

30   indigenous   2014 May 10, 12:59am  

Strategist says

Bill O Reilly

You mean Ted Baxter.

31   corntrollio   2014 May 12, 10:41am  

carrieon says

The IRS doesn't mind telling the truth that only 45% of the population today files a return.

Where are you getting that stat? I'm pretty sure you made it up.

The real number is estimated at 15%. You probably don't understand enough about our tax system to know that it's good for the other 85% when those 15% don't file and that those 15% are likely stupid for not filing. Legally, they may not be required to file one, but they would likely get money back if they did.

When I had a job as a 16-year old, I was not legally obligated to file a tax return because I didn't make enough money to meet the threshold. However, because I wasn't a moron, I filed anyway and got all of my federal tax refunded. Federal tax had been automatically withheld from my paycheck, even though I didn't actually owe any. Most of these people who don't file are probably in the same boat, so the rest of us actually benefit from this behavior. And those over 25, especially if they have kids, could get additional money back through the EITC. Viva ignorance!

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