It Depends On The Meaning Of 'Crisis'

Matt Yglesias points to a chart showing unemployment of college grads the less-educated and  explains why everyone who's anyone is out of touch:

Virtually every single member of congress, every senator, every Capitol Hill staffer, every White House advisor, every Fed governor, and every major political reporter is a college graduate. What’s more, we have a large amount of social segregation in the United States—college graduates tend to socialize with each other. And among college graduates, there simply isn’t an economic crisis in the United States. This is not the best of times, but it’s perfectly rational in gradland to be balancing concern about the labor market situation with dozens of other concerns.

The chart he presents is a mere snapshot from this table showing July 2010 college grad unemployment at 4.5% and high school grad unemployment 10.1%.

But this BLS page has tables for high school grads and college grads going back to 2000 (or start from scratch here).

Back in the dark Bush years, unemployment for college grads peaked at 3.2% in 2003; it was roughly 2% in 2006-2007, reached 5% in December 2009, and is now 4.5%.

For high school grads, the early Bush peak unemployment was at 5.7% in 2003; it was roughly 4.4% in 2006-2007, reached 10.5% in December 2009, and is now 10.1%.

So, should college grads be feeling pain and fear?  Compared to high school grads, no; compared to past recessions or the 2006-2007 period, yes.

BONUS ANGST:  Run the figures for male and female unemployment to check out the mancession.  In the July 2003 downturn, unemployment was 5.9% for men and 5.3% for women.  In July 2010, it is 9.7% for men and 7.9% for women.

And the big new federal initiative lauded by Matt?

If you did anything, you’d probably step in to prevent teacher layoffs, which is a clear and present danger to a large bloc of college graduates. But beyond that, no need to panic.

Yeah, that'll help the guys...

Comments

[Rob Crawford]

What’s more, we have a large amount of social segregation in the United States—college graduates tend to socialize with each other.

Anyone else think this is more of a coastal issue than a flyover-country issue?

[matt]

I think it's also a large city issue. Clans tend to stick with their own. In smaller towns and suburbs, the available options reduce this and enhance greater interaction between groups and individuals.

Of course, in places like Washingtion, New York, and Chicago, the elites stay within their bubbles, never hearing a dissenting or discouraging word in their non-judgmentalist, equal outcome, amoral weltanschaung.

[Clarice]

I think this latest teacher bailout is brilliant. I've been wondering how to get the people to pay attention to the thievery of the teachers unions-Dem pols coalition. Stealing food money from the poor should do it.

[bgates]

It depends on the meaning of the word "economic". For the guy whose proudest accomplishment is an attendance certificate from the oldest library in Massachusetts, that word doesn't include house prices, government debt, interest rates, insurance costs, inflation, deflation, stagflation....

[Dave (in MA)]

I'd like to propose a federal initiative to help with the problem. It's a little thing I like to call Make the Bush Tax Cuts Permanent.

[Pagar]

Not only are they stealing from the poor but they are going to give interest free loans to many of the ones they are taking the food stamps away from. I don't have exact figures but my guess is that if you are in serious trouble on your house mortgage you might be more likely to qualify for food stamps than someone who did not take on too large a house payment.

[Extraneus]

Ah, come on. Nobody is going to lose food stamps. They'll have a fix which greatly increases the budget for food stamps before that would ever happen.

[MikeS]

The country needs a 'leadership initiative' to restore business and consumer confidence.

Our leaders must do something to give people confidence that somehow, someday, someway, we're going to turn the country around and head back toward 4% unemployment, and balanced budgets.

[Extraneus]

That was directed at the flim-flam artists, not you, Pagar.

(Firefox thinks flim is mis-spelled, not flam.)

[Pofarmer]

I'd like to propose a federal initiative to help with the problem. It's a little thing I like to call Make the Bush Tax Cuts Permanent.

Let's wait on that a while. Sure, it'll hurt a little, but the point needs to be made.

we're going to turn the country around and head back toward 4% unemployment, and balanced budgets.

My oldest son is 10, I hope he sees less than 10% unemployment by the time he's an adult. I don't see it happening any faster than that. We're too far in, and we're getting farther.

[anduril]

Interesting article: Is this finally the economic collapse?

The Great Depression. Wall Street in 1987. Japan in 1997. Points of economic collapse are generally crystal clear in the rear-view mirror. Professional politicians in Japan have been telling stories for 20 years as to why they can prevent economic stagnation. In the US, the storytelling started in 2007. All the while, stock market and real-estate prices have repeatedly rallied to lower-highs, then collapsed again, to lower-lows.

Despite the many differences between Japan and the US, there is one similarity that continues to matter most in the risk management model my colleagues and I use at Hedgeye, our research firm -- debt as a percentage of GDP. Now that the US can't cut interest rates any lower, the only option left on the table is what the Fed just announced it would start doing -- buying Treasury debt. And that could lead the country to the brink of collapse: According to economists Carmen Reinhart & Ken Rogoff, whose views we share, crossing the 90% debt/GDP threshold is the equivalent of crossing the proverbial Rubicon of economic growth. It's a point from which it's almost impossible to return.

...

[anduril]

Here's the end of the article, and why I focus on the income tax:

1)The US dollar is battling for resuscitation after 9 consecutive down weeks -- down 9% since June.

2) US Treasury yields are making record lows on the short end of the curve, with 2-year yields striking 0.49%.

3) The yield spread (in this case the difference in return between 10-year and 2-year Treasury bills, which shows a long-term confidence when high) continues to collapse, down another 4 basis point day-over-day to 223 basis points.

4) The S&P 500 is down below its 200-day moving average (a common signpost for the health of a market or stock) of 1115.

5) US Volatility (VIX) is spiking from its recent stability.

6) In Japan, long time quantitative easing specialists found their markets closing down overnight by 2.7%, which makes them down 11.9% for the year to date.

Lest our doom and gloom seem built entirely on technical measurements, what they boil down to is actually quite simple -- an idea about our country which dates back to 1835. Alexis De Tocqueville, author of Democracy in America, which was published that year, seemed to warn of this day when he wrote: "The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."

[Ignatz]

--"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."--

Don't think De Tocqueville ever actually said that, nor AF Tytler the similar one attributed to him.
Pretty spot on, whoever first said it.

[Pagar]

Thanks Extraneus, You saved me a lot of typing, my thoughts at this point there is no way the Obama Administration is going to do a more efficient job of doing food stamps. The Obama Admin just does not anything more efficiently.

I doubt if scaring people by threatening to take away their food stamps will win them voters in Nov--So why on earth bring it up?

[anduril]

It's just my innate modesty. You caught me out. My blushes!

[Rick Ballard]

Mohammed & Mohammed

Islamic Outreacharound

Better Than Goats!

[anduril]

Them good ol' boys can play: Johnny Gimble & Texas Swing. That's Johnny's daughter on the electric piano.

[Neo]

The country needs a 'leadership initiative' to restore business and consumer confidence.

535 members of Congress at the bottom of the ocean would be a "good start."

[anduril]

btw, johnny's playing his 5-string fiddle.

[anduril]

It's worth listening to Gardenia Waltz if for no other reason than to hear Johnny's cornball joke at the end.

[Neo]

Rep. Alan Grayson (Fla.) Wednesday became the second congressional Democrat to call for White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs’ ouster, using colorful moniker to describe him.

Now this is a tough choice .. fire both of them.

[anduril]

Whoa! Patsy Cline doing Faded Love !

[tommy mc donnell]

stop electing lawyers to run the country. what the hell do they know about economics, engineering, the military, ect. all they know is how to go into court in front of another lawyer and confiscate other peoples money.

[AL]

Engineering grads unemployment is about 2.5%. Real education does provide real jobs (about 60 grand for graduate + 3 year experience).

[Gabriel Sutherland]

Matty is just practicing what his elders taught him. Education is an infinite resource. It is, but what isn't infinite is the cost of providing it.

Matty is a son of indefinite schooling. A product that jumped right from the classroom to a policy position at a weak rag and then over to a think tank. His means are drawn from resources where the profit motivation is a ponzi scheme. He needs more grads to read his material to direct more students to read his material. How else does he profit?

Inherently, Matty isn't going develop a customer base if people complete high school, go out into the real world to earn some income, and then select a school based on where they discover the best course of study for themselves. That person is a threat to Matty. They would acquire skills such as budgeting, projected earnings, and the costs of binge drinking, promiscuous sex, and the general dissatisfaction with walking everywhere.

In short, Matty needs every dollar he can get for "education". Each dollar denied is another void in the pyramid.

[Neo]

I'm surprised that the stock market is only down double digits today.
Given Cisco is "the" bellwether high tech stock, up there with Intel and Microsoft, CEO John Chambers has become the high tech oracle. Chambers comments on the conference call indicated that he really had lost his powers to forecast the future, even into the Q3, let alone any further. After the Cisco Systems call yesterday, where Cisco did good but not as good as expected for the first time in forever, the analysts were saying the high tech marketplace is slowing down to a growth rate of "flat."
Can you say "double dip" ?

[glasater]

It Begins

If anyone watches this video notice the bulk of the crowd have black heads.
Zero-this is your constituency--where are you?

[squaredance]

Typical Yglesias, he is just shill.

A shoeshine stand owner knows more about economics than this idiot. This bit of propaganda, BTW, is not meant for the general public but rather the PBS/NPR useful idiot crowd. I rather doubt that Yglesias even believes it himself.

(It goes without saying that it would be an interesting thing indeed to see a break down of his "College Grad" crowd by sector. My guess is that the sectors that has stronger employment are those that have a high dependency on government support.)

The central point here is that the Democrats WANT this to happen. They are doing this all with real intention. They are thus far succeeding grandly. They are just positively giddy with expectation, zeal and alacrity.

As they destroy the very nation and the prosperity built up over generation they publicly focus on support for homosexuals, illegal immigrants and our Islamic enemies. They are literally laugh in our faces.

If they do get clobbered this Nov.--and this is by no means a foregone conclusion--just watch that lame-duck session hack away at our liberties and prosperity with a fury and rapacity that will stun even rank and file Democrats.

They have been working toward this for generation; they are almost there.

It is hard to see how this cannot be reversed without a broad repudiation of the whole lot. This, at the very least will mean throwing the whole lot out of power and into the clinker, starting with Obama himself.

If that were to happen today we would still be a decade to just begin to get things turned around economically. Socially it would take at least a generation.

What hideous people. The only solution is to purge all institutions of them and reform these institutions such that these skunks and rats can never filthy them up again.

[Wind Rider]

In light of his body of work, followed up with his recent advocacy that it's ok to lie to press an agenda home, my only impression of Matt Yglesias is that if he is ever forced to get a real job commensurate with his actual skills, that's one 7-11 I'll be avoiding with a passion.