GH, reluctantly agree that employment is over-rated (I've always been good at making virtue of necessity).

Also could add that it has been a while since we've been treated to a call from the favorite "sun" of the Carolinas, Sebastian. Are there any states, or counties, that have held their job numbers? If there were a way to spin the numbers to make it so, you can bet we'd read all about it on yahoo finance.

Know of many people getting laid off here in the Bay Area. Good news is about 1/5ths of the jobs are in India now. So US exports are still healthy.

More good news is that the unemployed are liquidating their stocks and savings now while they still have some value.

Toshiba to shed 3,900 jobs

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/18/technology/companies/18toshiba.html?_r...

Where are those 4 million jobs Nobama said he was going to save? The other 160 million jobs are getting nervous...

duck duck goose

Pretty soon there will be more public sector jobs than private sector jobs in CA... oh well better raise those income taxes

Rob Dawg (member) wrote on Fri, 04/17/2009 - 8:52am.
It's going to be real hard to stare across the Rio Grande at millions of starving refugees and do nothing.

Are you talking about the Mexicans or the Americans doing the looking?

GH

I know for a fact that the banks were heavy buyers of SRS and SKF back in July 08. I wouldn't be suprised if they were buying calls on XLF. Pump their stocks before the capital raises Ala GS

'We need to stop relying on slave labor.'

Chinese exports to America are trending the right way then.

"Well, my ancestors came here from somewhere else, and so did everybody else's except those who trace their ancestors to back to before Columbus. So I agree with Hoops to a certain extent, but I can't find any justification ethically to keeping the newbies out."

Mine came through the front door the legal way. Big difference!

Hoopajoops LTD (member) wrote on Fri, 04/17/2009 - 8:40am.

You need to go to

1. www.numbersusa.com

2. www.fairus.org

and get involved in stopping illegal immigration and tidal wave of family based legal immigration (if you haven't already)

Immigration is fine if it respects and benefits BOTH immigrants and citizens. Right now I think the net affect on citizens is negative and certainly is negative on the environment. With 1 + million plus legal immigrants a year the USA will never be energy independent., and our quality of life will decline with increasingly crowded spaces.

"Well, my ancestors came here from somewhere else, and so did everybody else's except those who trace their ancestors to back to before Columbus. So I agree with Hoops to a certain extent, but I can't find any justification ethically to keeping the newbies out."

unless you live in africa your ancestors came from somewhere else ...

Illegal immigration is no different then having no lock on your homes front door and allowing any and all kinds of people enter. Would you allow that? If so please post your address and expect many for dinner.

Wow, check this out-- a map of unemployment by counties, from the BLS, across the U.S. This tells you a lot more than the state rates do, IMO.

http://www.bls.gov/lau/maps/twmcort.gif

nuthin but good news today

Turbo wrote on Fri, 04/17/2009 - 9:10am
Yeah, better get rid of that H1-B visa program now. Have to stop that flow of foreign born engineers into the country, otherwise they'll continue to do untold damage by continuing to found 50% of all silicon valley start-ups
---------------------------------
C'mon turbo, H1B is a huge scam. You could tighten up the requirements by a large margin and not effect sv startups one bit. Probably >80 of the H1B's in my industry (Software) suck. Why let people in to do a sub-par job when you have unemployed Americans who may or may not suck just as bad? Oh, that's right, b/c you pay them half. And in today's outsourcing world, a warm body in a chair that bills and you only pay half is a win for you (still don't understand how Bearing Point could go bankrupt with that model, but I am sure the fat cats at the top have funneled off a huge amount of cash.)

Sebastian was my Mentor

Anything about Sebastian is a+1

That Time article is still indicating that everyone is looking through rose-colored glasses on this depression.

What, exactly, do they think the kids of the working class and disenfranchised ex-middle-class strivers are going to do in a generation or so? Just sit there and watch "illegals" or the offspring of illegals get the jobs?

There is nothing in this scenario that accounts for the millions of non-immigrants who are falling out of the middle class as we type. "College degrees all around!" is an unsustainable plan. The new, modern fields they are supposedly training for are not guaranteed to exist and generate tons of jobs. Americans refuse to believe that the middle class is anything but "too big to fail." But it is failing right now. Massive numbers of families are being winnowed out. Americans simply aren't used to contemplating a failure of upward mobility on such a massive scale. Or worse, a massive wave of downward mobility.

It's sad and scary, but there is no sugarcoating that illegal immigrants (and their children especially) in the U.S. are now caught in a vise - even if they choose not to see it that way. The backlash against the multicultural Camelot we're hoping to have in the Obama Era, will be ugly and intense. The shoes haven't even dropped yet.

Some investor guy. We need immigrants to support asset prices in the future. Although one could agree or disagree where the immigrants with the best skills are coming from we have not done enough to encourage the talented ones already here to stay IMO

--
A reality check on the bank rescues…
http://online.barrons.com/article/SB123940701204709985.html?page=1

"XXXX -- this guy has an impeccable reputation as he led the Savings & Loan task force. Clearly he is pointing to the scale of corruption pervading Wall Street and Washington at the moment."

I have been screaming for the past 6 years that crooks of Wall Street control the Fed and the USG. Now it is obvious to more people.

"I guess London is the same."

Where do you suppose the NYC crooks learned their game? The ruling elite in both countries have the same cultural and ethnic traits.

"Just shows there are some great Americans out there who could fix this thing."

Fix things? This guy, even though well meaning and smart, is a born-and-bred American dope. There is no "fixing things" short of real threat to lives, families and property of all that belong to the Network of the Crooks. Crooks that control the govt have no reasons to change unless they are forced to at the gunpoint.

Jas "the broken record" Jain

'They don't have an economy that can support the importation of oil.'
And we do, having wisely invested in massive amounts of firepower since the end of the cold war.

'No doubt humanitarian in country aid.'
Spearheaded by the 82 Airborne around the Bay of Campeche.

'I'd also suggest that US privatization of their petroleum industry will be part of the price.'
Certainly worked in making Iraq a top 5 exporter of oil to the U.S.

'Land reform is likely as well. At the low end a "40 acres and a mule" concession.'
Wow - you really don't know much Mexican history, do you? 'When it comes to inefficiency, few areas can compete with Mexican
agriculture. In the wake of the Mexican Revolution of 1910, the government handed out small parcels of land _ called ejidos _ to landless peasants. Over the years, however, those plots were divided and subdivided; they also lacked investment and economies of scale.'
The Dallas Morning News, August 9, 2001

In other words, they already did that, leading to a major cause of today's problems in the countryside.

Tell these deadbeat unemployed asswipes to start spending. There's plenty of credit out there....they need to go get it. They need to step up to the plate and be the champ. They need to be a real american and spend beyond there means.....some more.

Amen Borocco

What happened to the GOOG rally???? Triple digit decline today????

The answer to the drug cartel issue is to decriminalize drugs. If we could grow our own weed, legally, we wouldn't need Mexico's.

Bernanke says the government's challenge is to come up with regulations that will protect consumers without stifling innovation.

Nobama said the same thing when he was at Georgetown. He used the word "innovation" and "finance" in the same sentence. At least the Telepromter told him to say it... Could have been a typo.

Finance "finances" innovation not the other way around.

Lobbyi$t Ben Dover wrote on Fri, 04/17/2009 - 9:03am.
Mine came through the front door the legal way. Big difference!

Did they? Can you prove it? Would you leave if there were paperwork irregularities or are you content as an "anchor baby"?

Also, many of sadistic drug cartel members were trained at Fort Benning. I guarantee you they learned how to behead at The School of The Americas. Are we a great country, or what? Our tax dollars hard at work.

... [ with --> without ] picking winnners ....

solly.

Silver is getting killed today?????????

Michigan is all washed up. We need to start building nuclear power facilities and send the waste to Michigan.

Canada won't like that one bit, Borocco.

But I do wholeheartedly agree that we have to get the nuclear waste issue under control. Too many damn disasters waiting to happen.

From the "No shit, Sherlock Department"

BOSTON (AP) - Some leaders of towns are saying the federal stimulus package is neglecting the cornerstones of community life.
They say there's plenty of money for things like highways and solar panels but little or none to build new town halls, swimming pools, community centers or police stations.
Many local officials hoped the money would arrive in huge blocks with few strings. In the end, Congress opted to funnel much of the money through existing federal channels.
The scale and complexity of the stimulus package has added to the confusion.
For instance, state officials were first told there would be no money to build schools. They later found out the construction of new elementary and high schools is allowed.

The unemployment rate for all college grads is closer to 6%, not under 3% - engineers have the lowest u-rate amoung college grads.
If the US actually trained more engineers, scientists, etc and fewer lawyers and mba's, then the need for an H1-B program would be reduced.
I'd agree that a general track immigration policy that favors educated or related immigrants makes sense, but face it, US immigration policy is a mess, and targeting the program that brings in the most highly skilled immigrants to be shut down makes no sense at all.

head removal adds such a piquant touch to mayhem, never stoop to terrorism i say

Anak wrote on Fri, 04/17/2009 - 9:16am.
My forefathers too came the legal way, via manifest destiny!

I only got to be "white" within my lifetime. When I was born, I was a subhuman slav who felt less pain that normal people, was prone to animal rage, too stupid to be trained for complex thinking or labor. Then they stopped having enough guys who came over on the Mayflower to be "really white" and so all us Micks, Pollacks, Eye-talians and others got to be white.

That taught me everything about white people I ever needed to learn. Bring on the darkies. I'm more one of "them" than one of "you" -- I know, I used to hear it so often growing up.

Payback is a bitch, huh gringo?

Mexico will always be a problem for America as there is no legitimate way to get ahead there. The wealthy and corrupt make the hated Wall St bankers look like Mother Theresa.

I do not say that perhaps the best thing for Mexico is for it to go into anarchy lightly, as if it would be nice for everyone and we should pack a picnic and go watch from a hill across the Rio Grand. But until there is a revolution or similar pivotal event there will be no chance for change there. That event may be at hand with the current confluence of events.

I work with a lot of Mexicans. They do not go home much anymore because it has gotten so bad. They all get robbed. They are in fear for their families when they travel. Tehy cannot go home and farm because if you bring anything there it WILL be stolen, unless you have your own security force and pay the right criminals for protection.

Also, I know quite a few Mexicans in Oxnard who are buying new homes and walking from the one's that they bought for 600k. It is the new paradigm. There will be a lot of demand for homes in Oxnard as every Mexican with a good cash flow is thinking the same thing. Buy homes at cheaper prices and rent it out to multiple families. More power to them. Oxnard is a Mexican American community. If you want to live somewhere more European American go to Ventura or Camarillo.

debtinator,

Farm labor is a subsidy to farmers. That is not their fault. The goverment quietly subsidizes industries like farming because there is no way to compete with the free trade agreements we have. They have to subsidize it quietly because our citizens rail against any kind of guest worker system. If you want your fresh produce grown in a third world country fine, but I don't. I have worked there and seen the utter disregard for basic sanitation and pesticide safety.

Oh, and having 300 million back yard farmers would be an ecological nightmare.

scone at 916

thanks for the map

hey way interesting...looks like one county has the 0 to 1 plus UE rate

looks like the county that includes pinedale and jackson hole

lots of royalty money there (from movies, music and oil!)

w wrote on Fri, 04/17/2009 - 10:15am.

Oh, and having 300 million back yard farmers would be an ecological nightmare.

It's a problem with no solution except doing exactly what we're doing no, which doesn't work! You can't upset the apple cart, even if the axle's broken!

"What is a vested interest for 1000, Alex?"

Waiting for dry weather and then they can deliver my dump load of garden soil. Screw imported produce.

The 50% of silicon valley companys started by immigrants are mostly Indian IT sweat shops - they under-cut IT companies that employ Americans with crazy low project bids and then send the work to India. It is absolutly no different then US manufacturing sent to China except its high-paying white collar jobs vs. blue collar.

American kids now have no incentive to go into engineer schools, that is why there are not American engineers, why become an engineer and then make $10 per hour? Engineering used to be a solid job in the USA with benefits and retirement, no longer.

H1-B visas must be 100% stopped as long as a single American is still out of work. The IT shops should be forced to bring jobs back to the USA if they want to sell thier services in the USA.

There is no shortgage of US engineers and IT workers, it is just that being a real estate agent paid twice as much, was twice as fun, and an easy job.

That is true, very little innovation in SIlicon valley is done by Indians. Unless you call Wal-Mart IT innovation. What India did was take over American IT services in the exact same way that Wal-Mart took over US manafucturing.

India = IT
China = Manufuacturing.
Mexico = Janitors, Construction Workers

So we now have 3 slave states dependent on the US market and the only job markets left in the US market are finance, government, and military (security clearance).

We are only in the 2nd inning of this huge mess. We will see nationalization at some point as the masses wake up.

I would be more impressed with India, China, & Mexico if they could build a functioning society that is not based on slave labor in the USA.

I would impressed in Mexico could figure out basic plumbing.

When Americans lived in poverty there were still able to build communities with plumbing, why?

Organization. Anglo-Saxon culture is very good at organizing social structures OUTSIDE OF THE FAMILY structure. These leads to cities, companies, and nations.

Spanish culture is built around the family (think Mafia) and so places like Mexico are incapalbe of even organizing enough local families together into building a city with basic plumbing that they all then share. Eventually some family loses trust with thier nieghbors and you get a mafia like structure.

100% of sucessful firms in Mexico are run by a single family in a Mafia like structure.

Mexico will never get out of poverty unless the culture changes, and scariest scenario is that kind of culture taking hold in the USA. It also has in Los Angeles which is fast becoming a Mexican cess-pool Mafia run city.

That is true, the only clean Mexican toilets are in the high-end tourist centers, why is that? Ancient Rome was able to build better toilets then Mexicans.

Take a drive around Los Angeles, the city does look like Mexico. Falling into disrepair except for the few non-Mexican enclaves left.

Living in a civilized society has nothing to do with wealth, all to do about culture.

Certain cultures are able to organize around the individual and built great societies, others are stuck with the family at the center and unable to build any type of social structures including demcratic governments outside the family unit.

These family based society like Mexico love to bash America on the fact that American's have no respect for the family. This is true, Americans hold the individual about the family.

You don't need to be tied down because of your family, this was the great American innovation and is at risk. The question is will the next generation of Mexicans be able to assimulate and lose thier Mexican family culture or not.

Los Angeles is Meximerica.

Many local officials are now Mexican and most local governments (exceptions such as Santa Monica where things still seem to work) are Mafia like organization. No respect for the individual, only respect for which family you are in or connected to.

Scary, scary place. Once the film industry moves out, Los Angeles then becomes a third world nation within a nation.

Once GM and Chrysler go bankrupt, Unemployment in Michigan will go up another 2%. As it is, the tier 1s are shedding people left and right which is worth 1/2 of 1% per month. Michigan will exceed 15% easily.

No you can't convert a 50 year old blue collar worker into an engineer (although it does happen, exceptions) but you can provide the incentive for all his children to become engineers.

The reason that they do not is economic, nothing else. The best American jobs are finance (MBAs), Laywers, Doctors, Government, Military so that is what SMART American kids go into.

Only losers go into engineering, go hang out at any upper class public or private high-school in America. The kids are warned NOT to go into engineering because they will work very hard (compete with sweet shops) and get paid nothing in comparison. Just get an MBA or Law degree, you will work less and get paid more.

The really smart kids become Doctors because that will the last field to be outsourced.

Your typical white american would rather work in the FIRE economy and be one of California's 2 million real estate agents. I think we need to make people value again, that manufacturing is not a shameful job , and that there is some honor in it and that doing something worthwhile is a good thing.

The typical white American just wants to make a decent living. The FIRE economy paid far more than any manufacturing job, so Americans headed there. However, you aren't going to attract that many white Americans if you're paying minimum wage (or below to illegals) with no benefits in a dead end job.

To hans:

I hire H1-B visas for a living. The reason we do is so that we can paid less per hour and then all corresponding American engineers need to accept less per hour. Over the years the wage rates and benefits all get pushed down.

Saying that H1-B visas get paid the same as Americans is like saying Mexican fruit pickers get paid the same as Americans that want to go pick fruit in the fields. True but completely ignorant. I hope that you are not one of India's brightest!

I can hire a new H1-B Java programmer for 40K limited benefits in this market and make him work like a dog, evenings and weekends for free for 5 years minimum. Try hiring a Lawyer with equivalent education and do the same? You completely lack understanding of how labor markets work.

Again, engineers in America used to get paid very well and retire with full pensions at 50! Just like Lawyers and Doctors do today. No American kid would be stupid enough to go into engineering.

Remember pay has to do with "total compensation for hours work" this includes training - learning new technology ever 5 years or so. Lawyer and Doctors get PAID while training and engineers used to in America.

Quality has nothing to do with it. Offshore quality is as good as onshore quality, you get what you pay for. If you pay offshore workers well you can infact get better quality then in the USA. The problem with offshore quality is that the pay is at the minimum so you get fake Indian engineers for fake Indian engineering schools (kind of like Pheonix online in India).

The way to fix engineering in America is to STOP H1-B Visas and allow engineering wages to rise back to par with Lawyers and Doctors, then you will see a huge influx of American kids into engineering schools. Simple economics.

Yes, the H1-B problem is not a shortage of American engineers but a shortage of CHEAP engineers willing to work like dogs with low salaries relative to thier education levels and without pensions.

At my company, the American project managers make more then of most of the engineers, work less, and have liberal arts degrees. LOL, it is crazy.

If you do the numbers in California, working as a state college teacher with full pension, top benefits, and job security you make much much much much more over your lifetime or hours worked then an engineer in silicon valley or some IT sweet shop.

Ha Ha, also most technology recruiters without college educations make more then the highly educated engineers that they place into the IT sweat shops.

>>>>> ................the problem is born-and-bred American kids dont have enough math and science skills to follow engineering curriculums ..........it's not a wage issue .......basic science education should be overturned and remedied..........simply you cant replace foreign born engineers with natives..........

Complete rubish. They demand and develop the skills that pay the most in society. Currently they develop skills to become finance majors, lawyers, and doctors.

Are you telling me finance, law, and medicine is easier then engineering? LOL. They simply have not been hit with a H1-B wage push down.

The reason there are so many MBA and LAW school is become DEMAND, every kid wants one.

If you pay entry level engineers 180K at a top firm and then provide an almost guarenteed path to retirement at 40, then engineering schools will pop up like daisies! You obviously have no clue as to how labor markets work.

I love losing traders like you - a steady suplly of income for me. Really, you should practice strict risk management/position sizing.

...................hans ............do you know what you have calls in this severe time?............engineering job is mostly dirty , hard and dangerous with near minimum wages .......nobody wants it , somebody have to do it..........

>>>>Why not get a constructin job during the day and bartend at night for 50K each and you'll work the same and make the same? LOL

That was funny. If they guy is a computer engineer, then this will probably help him get laid as well and provide some social skill development.

Oh, and you are correct about 100K not being much money. I sell car insurance, have no college education, and make much more then 100K per year. I could not imagine raising a middle-class America family, my wife stays at home, on only 100K per year. Not possible where I live.

.....................last year was boom time for your kind of people , but what do you make on average , saying since your are on this trashing biz , seriously........

The states that recorded record unemployment rates in March -- noting, of course, that state data only go back to January 1976 -- were Florida (9.7%), Georgia (9.2%), California (11.2%), North Carolina (10.8%), Rhode Island (10.5%, though tied with February), and South Carolina (11.4%). Note that a few of these states were not well-defined "housing bubble" states, and that the current recession is not even remotely just a "housing related" recession.

That was a response to the SoCal poster who didn't see anything bad around him/her.

Also: can we just stop the immigration whoo-ha, please? Also the white/minority stuff, where it is assumed that all us folks are white... many of the asian kids at ucb et al went to school with me and are third/fourth etc generation americans..