Source: The Heritage Foundation, "Job Numbers Show a Strong Economic Recovery," May 5, 2006.
Posted on 08/01/2006 11:30:04 AM PDT by Republicain
A strengthening dollar would have the effect of continuing the financial reward for holding real estate in this country, by those outside the country.
If you could've factored in illegal immigration to your comment in some fashion, it would've been priceless.
how many foreigners are in the US real estate market, outside the urban areas? sure, they are driving up prices of apartments in manhattan and houses in LA and Malibu, but that's about it.
speculative investments by real estate flippers, 40 year interest only mortgages (I expect to see 50 year ones soon), is keeping the bubble afloat. private sector middle class wages, although showing a slight improvement in the last 18 months, are still doing poorly since 2001.
"If you could've factored in illegal immigration to your comment in some fashion, it would've been priceless."
I actually contemplated doing just that but it's 106 degrees in my shop now and I couldn't handle the heat from the illegal apologists here on FR when they accuse me of hijacking the thread
;)
"but that's about it"
They're a large component in the runup of south Florida real estate. Venezuelans (and others) are buying themselves a hidey-hole for when the other shoe drops.
Nothing like facts to kill a thread. Good job!
a real unbiased source.
once upon a time in the US - General Motors was the nations #1 employer - paying good hourly wages, with benefits and pension.
today, the country's #1 employer is walmart - average salary $18-19K, with generally poor benefits.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics, or the Heritage Foundation? And speaking of bias, do you wish to support your assertion about wages since 2001, or are you simply sharing your feelings?
And we know American consumers get no benefit from WalMart. We know American investors get no benefit from WalMart.
how about taking a look at what real people are seeing, such as:
http://ktla.trb.com/news/ktla-latwages,0,6522117.story?coll=ktla-news-1
some clips here:
"Wage stagnation, long the bane of blue-collar workers, is now hitting people with bachelor's degrees for the first time in 30 years. Earnings for workers with four-year degrees fell 5.2% from 2000 to 2004 when adjusted for inflation, according to White House economists."
"The White House economists did not lay out wage trends for people with master's and other advanced degrees. But other studies have found that their inflation-adjusted wages were essentially flat between 2000 and 2004, and the studies have confirmed a decline for people with four-year degrees."
"Offshoring, which has shifted manufacturing and call-center jobs to such nations as Mexico and India, is increasingly affecting white-collar sectors such as engineering and software design.
"And companies have continued their long effort to replace salaried positions with lower-paid, nonsalaried jobs, including part-time and freelance positions without benefits. Those contingent positions make up nearly half of the 6.5 million jobs created since 2001, said Paul Harrington, a labor economist at Northeastern University in Boston.
Harrington said the number of salaried jobs increased an average of 11.5% during the last five economic recoveries, compared with 2.5% during the current recovery."
you have to remove wage earners making over $200K from any of these macro statistics - for them to have any meaning at all with regards to what the broad spectrum of the american middle class is seeing/feeling with regards to the economy.
The LA Times? Yeah, they're unbiased. LOL!
Source: The Heritage Foundation, "The Real Story on 'Stagnant' Wages", April 27, 2004.
Why not remove anyone making over $100K? Then the results would be even more dire. LOL
Did you notice that the article heavily relied on the EPI?
that's the way the data should be published - to remove the concentration effects of wages.
when Oracle sends 200 $75K engineers to India, 10 of their executives get million dollar bonuses - and those 300 engineers end up with salary declines. what happens to the overall macro wage numbers? you can't see the effects of that, unless you remove those at the top.
Check out this.
The recession started three years ago in March 2001. Now, 36 months later, real hourly earnings are 1.85 percent higher. Compare that to the 1.95 percent loss on the 36-month anniversary of the 1990-91 recession. Three years after the 1980-82 recession started, real earnings had also declined by 1.49 percent.
Source.
In any case, looks like the reporter wasn't too concerned about challenging EPI's data. Now why would that be?
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