Unemployment Benefits

[EweSheep]

Ugh!

Permanent layoffs at the Big Yellow...all of 450 people, mostly supplemental employees but that's not all of it, there will be more layoffs for the permanent employees since there is NO orders for June and July...absolutely NO orders. CAT predict another 500 will be laid off in June and rolling layoffs will occur right now until the market for mining equipment stablizes, not this year but hopefully next year before they can recall some of the people back.

Writing on the wall is on for CAT but I know they survived the worst in 1980's and they will again. But all those poor 450 people, would have a hard time finding jobs in this town. Many of them wanted to leave the state and go elsewhere.

 

[rufus]

Mean while, the EPA and some radical, left wing environmentalist are doing their best to prevent the development of copper mines here in the US by the greedy, money grubbing capitalist.

http://resolutioncopper.com/

http://rosemontcopper.com/

Looks like we will be importing copper from some other countries, and they will probably be using Komatsu equipment.

http://www.komatsu.com/CompanyInfo/press/2013012915351715008.html

 

[rufus]

I guess that means clean air and empty bellies.

 

[bakerjw]

My son works for Cat in East Peoria running heat treat furnaces. He's been on rolling layoffs for quite a while here lately

Back when I contracted in at Cat in the late 90's, it was explained to me by a Cat manager that Caterpillar senses economic downturns 6 months or more before they happen and recovers from them about 6 months after the recovery. He was a manager at what was called "Parts and Service Support". When the economy would turn down, people would repair their old equipment rather than buy new. So PSS profits would take off in a downturn.

With Cat starting to hurt again, I believe that we're about ready to take another drop on the economic roller coaster.

 

[rufus]

Lets see what happens when Obama care hits company budgets. I suspect bigger companies will either produce abroad or become sales agents for foreign companies. Small companies will probably fold. That is just my suspicion, but I guess we will find out soon enough.

 

[hemet dennis]

More Than 101 Million Working Age Americans Do Not Have A Job
The jobs recovery is a complete and total myth. The percentage of the working age population in the United States that had a job in March 2013 was exactly the same as it was all the way back in March 2010. There are now more than 101 million working age Americans that do not have a job. But even though the employment level in the United States has consistently remained very low over the past three years, the administration keeps telling us that unemployment is actually going down. In fact, they tell us that the unemployment rate has declined from a peak of 10.0% all the way down to 7.6%. And they tell us that in March the unemployment rate fell by 0.1% even though only 88,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy. But it takes at least 125,000 new jobs a month just to keep up with population growth. So how in the world are they coming up with these numbers?

Well, the reality is that the entire decline in the unemployment rate over the past three years can be accounted for by the reduction in size of the labor force. In other words, the administration is getting unemployment to go down by pretending that millions upon millions of unemployed Americans simply do not want jobs anymore. We saw this once again in March. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 600,000 Americans dropped out of the labor market during that month alone. That pushed the labor force participation rate down to 63.3%, which is the lowest it has been in more than 30 years. So please don't believe the hype. The sad truth is that there has been no jobs recovery whatsoever

 

[rufus]

Dennis, you are so right. They cannot lie us out of an economic depression. The worse is yet to come. When the government cannot continue transfer payments like unemployment, food stamps, Social Security and SSI we will really have it tough. Increasing the money supply just steals value from the dollar.

Then there is the question of how long the dollar will have any worth? Those holding massive amounts of dollars in the Middle East and the Far East will begin to dump the dollar, and it will no longer be a reserve currency. When the silver backing of the US currency was removed in 1965, the US government convinced the oil producing nations to price oil in dollars rather than pounds sterling. That gave the dollar value because everyone needed it to buy oil and settle trade transactions.

Now China is dealing in Australian dollars and settling trading accounts in other currencies.

I can see the disaster coming, but I cannot see a way around it.

 

[EweSheep]

Dennis you are so right and I don't see any recovery any time soon either. So many of us are looking for work even our newspaper only got one column of employment to hire status, but mostly it is in the higher professional jobs like surgeons, upper managements or needing a master's degree.

when a major company here get two to three openings ad in the paper, you would get slammed with people lining up for applications and it takes about two to three blocks of people lining up. That is how bad it gets around here. PPG Industries here said they have ten positions opening short term and over 250 people showed up and only two got hired on. They are still looking for "selective" prospects.

 

[rufus]

Well supposedly North Korea is going to start a nuclear war tomorrow, oops, it is after midnight, so I guess it is on for today. I guess I will put off cutting the lawn just in case one of their petards lands in our neighborhood.

The North Koreans are advertising the event like a fourth of July fireworks show. If they weren't so dangerous, it would pathetically funny.

 

[newfoundland]

This massaging of statistics happens in the UK as well. When my daughter, unemployed for a year, maried 4 weeks ago she lost her entitlement to benefits. She was told by the job centre to stop coming and registering for work since she was not receiving unemployment benefits.She of course has now been removed from the unemployment figures. The good news is she has found a job not because of any help they have given her but in spite of their so called help! The whole system is an absolute travesty!