To: +T.R. (3966 )
From: +Dennis R. Duke Saturday, May 30 1998 1:01PM ET
Reply # of 3973
O.K., I have had enough of "unemployment is really low". That is Clinton administrative B.S. Period. There are 60,000,000 people doing office at home according to one of the major office supply companies. That is nearly 30% of the entire population of the United States. Ask yourself why?
The unemployment data is only those people who are currently collecting an unemployment check. I have been unemployed for over 4 years. I collected unemployment for the allowable period which was 6 months as I recall. If that were indicative then the unemployment rate is misstated by a factor of 8.
I am the President of the local chapter of Experience Unlimited, the volunteer group for helping professional get back into the work place, and a member of the First Group in the Bay Area, a group of CFO's sharing job leads. I can tell you that of the 80 people in EU Monterey, only about 15 are currently getting unemployment, or are currently in the statistics. Using that statistic the national data is understated by a factor of 5 1/3 times.
In the First Group, there are about 60 qualified, good CFO's who can't find jobs in the rapidly expanding Silicon Valley. If you can not find a job there what can you imagine the rest of the country is like. The San Jose Mercury reported that there are over 50 CFO vacancies. Yet they are not hiring available people who apply.
So the unemployment data on how well the economy is going is in accurate nonsense.
Further, as to potential wage inflation. Again it is nonsense. We have one candidate a EU that as lost out on 3 jobs because they were able to hire a woman at as much as 50% less than this male. Now they get points for hiring a woman, but as for potential wage inflation and its effect on the economy, that is mere fantasy. There is real wage deflation going on in this economy.
My wife is a Nurse Practitioner. HMO's and Hospitals are off loading work from Doctors to NP's at wages that are less than half of the Doctor's pay. And because NP's are relatively new, and to gain experience they are willing to work for less. They are even lower cost than RN's in some cases. My wife makes 31% less on an hourly basis as an NP than she did as a Labor and Delivery RN. And she sees as many patients as the Doctors. Do you think the HMO bills less for NP care? Do you think there is wage inflation when you can hire for half the wage and get the same work product accomplished?
What about those 60 million office at home people? They are most likely corporate middle Americans laid off in corporate downsizing and barely making a living compared to where they used to be before down sizing effected their lives. Would they make more money if they could be on unemployment? Should they really be included in the unemployment data? Will they take jobs at substantially lower pay than they had in their last jobs, just to go back to work? And isn't that also wage deflationary?
And how many of these people are now like me trying to make a living playing the market? What type of risk does that add to the economy?
The above in my opinion is why the unemployment data means nothing. We have real wage deflation possibilities in this economy. In my opinion the entire market scare is because the fund managers with their respective pieces of the $4 billion per week coming into this market want the little people to be scared and run for the exits so they can buy at lower levels. One of them even said this on CNBC this last week.
Sorry, but you got me started with that "unemployment" statistic stuff.
Dennis
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