Ooooh! I get it now, everyone is "Self Employed"!!!! (the new mantra)

[JanMichael]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=568&ncid=568&e=6&u=/nm/20040131/bs_nm/bizeconomy_employment_dc

That explains it all. Thanks Reuters, you've explained everything out so well that I give up.

All Hail Bush!

EDIT: Isn't the main unemploymet number a telephone survey of some 600,000 households? If so wouldn't the "self employed" numbers be counted anyway?

[JCMach1]

1. The article is BS

It claims labor numbers are skewed because of self-empoyment...

Sorry, but the statistic is already skewed because it does not account for people who are NO LONGER LOOKING for jobs. If you give up, you don't count.

Actual unemployment right now is 10-12%...

[JanMichael]

3. You know that I was being facetious, yes?

I hope so at least!

[JCMach1]

33. But of course

the article is spreading the BS :)

[POed_Ex_Repub]

5. What was it, like 300,000 that stopped looking?

I'm betting people starting their own businesses, the number is much, MUCH smaller.

What are you going to start a business in if the economy is so bad you can't find work through regular employment!

:puke:

[SharonAnn]

35. I'm self-employed and currently have no contracts. Does that

make me unemployed? No, not according to their measures.

Sigh.

[MikeG]

2. We have a jagoff in Pittsburgh named Jerry Bowyer who wrote a

book called the "Bush Boom". Mr. Bowyer tries to explain away the lack of job creation by saying that these people are all starting businesses.

[aquart]

8. Did he explain how people can start businesses without capital?

Because the venture capital market is doornail dead in this country. The foreign flight capital we used to depend on has fled from us to more stable nations, as it always does.

No capital, and no markets, because the unemployed have no buying power.

[tigereye]

9. well there is something to be said for the flexiblity of

running your own show, but that begs the question that many of these folks would not have had to be consultants/starting their own businesses if they were not victims of corporate cut-backs and a faltering economy. Not having health care or having to pay for it out-of pocket is a big concern and one of the reasons many people would prefer or have to have a full-time job.

[POed_Ex_Repub]

4. Yeah... I read that one...

Shrub is getting so desperate he's trying to squeeze every (favorable) employment number he can and burying the unfavorable indicators. Spin at it's sickest.

I know of about 3 million people who have lost their jobs in this economy that will attest that this story is utter crap.

[SoCalDem]

6. It's actually masking UNEMPLOYMENT

Probably more people answered that survey "employed", when in reality, they were self employed out of desperation.. I am sure that lots of these endeavors turn into wonderful opportuinities, but there are few people who look forward to this "opportunity".. They have it thrust upon them, and have no choice..

Of course the *bots will fall on this and "readjust" the figures..

[latebloomer]

7. Ran out of unemployment, cleaning houses, barely getting by...

unable to afford health insurance. . .

Oh, the joys of self-employment!!

[JanMichael]

31. Jeez. Good luck.

This 21st Century thing just isn't what I thought it would be. Why haven't we evolved as a nation? Why are we skipping back? Where the hell are the Jetsons?!

[latebloomer]

37. actually I wasn't talking about myself

but about someone I know-- and I'm sure there are many, many others in that boat.

But thanks for the good wishes!

[nolabels]

10. Does that mean * is a "Self Employed Cowboy"

Everytime I reading about the works of *, he has got a gunin for something

From the link at the original post
(snip)
The failure of the survey to count independent contractors has come under fire by President Bush
(snip)

I have nothing to do with NRA, I am just reading what they wrote, Johnnny Dear :-)

[LibDemAlways]

11. The repuke gov of NH was on c-span the other morning

parroting this same line. People haven't really given up on finding jobs. They've all become successful entrepreneurs and are on their way to wealth and happiness. What a load of horseshit.

[Skittles]

12. YUP - I see the republicans a have a new talking point

and the whores are running with it. I bet, however, they'll be testing a few more because the problem they have is ALL OF KNOW PEOPLE WHO ARE UNEMPLOYED.

[JCMach1]

34. Yep, the guy selling apples on the corner during the

Depression would be counted as employed if the repigs had their way...

[Elwood P Dowd]

13. Us self-employed folks are getting rich

Didn't you know? The way the Bush economy is going, I'll be down to what I was making in the Army during Vietnam before long. I've been losing money for two years now. The savings are gone, credit cards almost maxed, and I'm down to selling personal items on eBay to stay afloat. Six more months of this wonderful Bush recovery, and it's bankruptcy for me. Well, at least the VA will take me now that my income has fallen so low. Under the new Bush rules, I only have to stand in line 6 months to get a broken leg fixed. I understand Bush will relax the rules for emergencies. If you're shot in the head and bleeding to death, the wait is only 3 months.

[Touchdown]

26. Well, there you go!

Selling something on e-bay makes you "self employed" now.:eyes: Don't laugh. You just wait until bartering on the internet becomes a talking point, if it hasn't already.

[Democat]

14. They want to change the way the numbers are counted - for campaign reasons

The problem with this is that they've been counted one way for years and suddenly making a change would give whoever decided on the change a huge advantage, during an election year.

If they want to make a change, they will need to re-do the counts all the way back into the 90's to make it relevant, and even then, who is doing the counting? If it's Bush and the White House, they will just make numbers up to try to make themselves look good in an election year.

There is no way they should be allowed to change the system just to make themselves look better.

But we know that Bush is a crook and he will do whatever he wants, regardless of the truth or what is best for America.

[Don_G]

15. I've Been Self-Employed For Years

I may not make a whole lot, but whatever I do is outside the "charted" economy and from 25 to 50 percent above what I would be making if I filed taxes and allowed BushCo to "hold" my taxes for a year.

Just call me an "illegal" American.

[shrike]

24. Me, too

My totals have been down an average of 30 percent since the Boy Blunder took office. And my number of new clients is zip -- everyone's in a holding pattern, including me.

[SpaceCatMeetsMars]

16. Sounds like a lot of BS

"But experts also take issue with the household survey, saying it is too small, too volatile and possibly overstates population growth. Moreover, it registers a worker as employed even if he or she works only one hour in the survey week."

......

"Self-employed consultant Temescu agrees. For much of 2003, she was one of 60,000 surveyed for the household report. Trying to categorize herself as "employed" or "unemployed" was tough in a week when she had no paying clients but was busy marketing. And she said the Census Bureau (news - web sites) questioners were just as confused about her employment status."


Oh please. Every self-employed person goes into it knowing that most small businessess fail. If you make a go of it, it's because you are working for paying clients for most of your waking hours, not spending all your time marketing yourself. This woman sounds like she is in denial.

[Don_G]

17. You Only Have To Look At Four Figures

The rate of GDP growth in the US, the yearly population growth in the US, the number of people who bother to file taxes and the number of people who can't collect squat because the rules keep changing.

[sweetheart]

18. Some truths about self employment

The article gets more honest near the end, and this particular quote is the closest, IMO, to the truth:

"Businesses have been looking to temporary help or outsourcing to lower their employment -- and therefore their health care and pension and other responsibilities,"

I've been "self employed" for many years and am so now. It means you only get paid for the days you work (no holidays) and that you make a good rate.

Despite the good rate, i've never had health insurance, and have no retirement provision at all...

If you're not working, then that "high" rate is averaged across those days, months and years... that in truth contractors make less than permanent employees over the long haul.

Its part of the "flexible labour" myth of the american workforce. I've worked in over 50 of the world's largest companies, yet never on the payroll.. i don't exist. Thanks for the work, here's your cheque, get out.

Frankly, i like the ideal of self employment, but i think it should be done different under the law. I think that all people should have their lifetime employment with the government. Then, the human resources system would be on the web and be the same as the tax and universal healthcare system. If you were "on contract" to a company, then the company would pay through the government. This way, healthcare and pension can be assured, and yet flexible labour can be in place. Tax filing would be radically simpler and "unemployment" statistics would be very appearant by simply checking with the computer.

Though i've always paid taxes in my work, the added flexibility and benefits of "self employment" are really being paid in cash for medical care and pension. Since the government is the underwriter of last resort. This corporate irresponsibility is a form of moral hazard, dumping the responsibility for their workforce on to the public purse to squeeze profits.

I once had a contract in new mexico to build a computer software system years back. I got 2000$ at the outset, 1000$ 2 months later and was never paid the 40000$ that i was owed by the end of the contract as the company went bust. I had no money to take legal action. Were i an employee, i would have had rights to get my pay from the owners, but as a contract worker, i was fucked.

It is a way to circumvent labour protection, pure and simple, just like NAFTA and the WTO... anything that interferes with free trade is a BAD thing, and all social contract issues are discounted to zero.

[shrike]

25. I'm lucky

I get health insurance and a future widow's pension through my husband (he has a great union.) And an inheritance from my dear father has allowed me to put money away for my own retirement. Without the two great men in my life I'd he sh*t out of luck. I love the self-employed life, but would I recommend it to anybody with a family? Hell, no!

[JanMichael]

30. It's funny how technology *could* make things much better for labor...

...yet for the time being it's being used against it.

Oh well, they turn the screw for too long and frankly the apple cart will get turned over.

[OneTwentyoNine]

19. And when the economy is crappy it doesn't affect the self-employed?? LOL

Bullshit,I've been self-employed in the floor covering industry since 1975. When the economy gets bad people in my line of business are one of the first to suffer. Last Jan/Feb were the slowest I've seen since the Reagan years and this Jan/Feb are shaping up the same.

Just because we can't trot down to the unemployment center after not working for a week or two doesn't mean that we're GAINFULLY employed--it means we're hanging on hoping things improve. Basically its like being unemployed but not covered by anyone.

Before they did such a ridiculous article they should have actually done some research,talked to some self employed people and got the real story. Honestly,things are so slow right now I'd make more if I worked for minimum wage at Walmart.

David

[snippy]

20. This Supply Side Jesus theory of unemployment is Bushshit.

If more people are making a living through self-employment there would be fewer workers available for businesses to hire. A decrease in the supply of labor would put upward pressure on the price of labor. But the percentage increase in average hourly earnings for 2003 was the smallest in at least 11 years. At 1.8% it was the only year in the last 11 under 2%.

http://data.bls.gov/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet

[leftchick]

21. Uh-Oh! Grover Norquist Talking Point Alert!!

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2004/01/12_402.html

From MoJo's Article: The Soul of the New Machine:

<Norquist calls it the "Leave-Us-Alone Coalition," a grouping of gun owners, the Christian right, homeschoolers, libertarians, and business leaders that he has almost single-handedly managed to unite. The common vision: an America in which the rich will be taxed at the same rates as the poor, where capital is freed from government constraints, where government services are turned over to the free market, where the minimum wage is repealed, unions are made irrelevant, and law-abiding citizens can pack handguns in every state and town. "My ideal citizen is the self-employed, homeschooling, IRA-owning guy with a concealed-carry permit," says Norquist. "Because that person doesn't need the goddamn government for anything.">

....E-Gad that guy is scary!

[SpaceCatMeetsMars]

22. Norquist is an idiot

My husband and I are self-employed and we need the government to restrain the health insurance companies from gouging us and to lower medical costs becaue the whole system is screwy.

The Democratic governor of my state has come up with a plan that I am tentatively hoping will lower the outrageous insurance payments. My state has few corporations and a lot of self-employed people, so we are at the mercy of the health insurance companies because they don't want to cover us.

Just one example of why government is needed. And we know that the small businesses would hire more people, but they can't because the burden of paying high health insurance to bloated corporations is too high.

[snippy]

23. America has tried Grover's vision of Utopia.

Men worked 16 hour days, six days a week, until they died or were killed or maimed on the job, while children worked only 12 hour days. Rivers caught on fire and suffering from industrial caused disease was the national pastime.

[cheapbeemr]

27. I made $150 selling tomatoes last summer.......

went a long way towards replacing the 50k I made in telecom before the layoffs. Not.

[snippy]

28. Perhaps many of the self-employed are selling apples.

That has happened before.

[JanMichael]

29. Oranges here in Florida!

By jove I think we've discovered our future occupations!

[snippy]

36. Supply Side Jesus is proud of that entrepreneurial spirit.

[Cleita]

32. I guess those homeless guys hanging around

strip mall parking lots holding up signs that say, WILL WORK FOR FOOD, are self-employed too.

I always thought the unemployment numbers were taken from those collecting unemployment, which means if they are earning money consulting or whatever it is called today, it would be taken into consideration and they would not be entered into the statistics. :shrug:

[gristy]

38. This IS a scandal, the way they are counting the "self-employed"

I am a contracting engineer, and actually feel fortunate to be working right now. I am also fortunate that demand for my skills is increasing, and I am hoping to land a full-time job in the next couple months.

BUT, I am very suspicious that this administration is using a "self-employment" rock under which they are hiding hundreds of thousands if not millions of underemployed. Some might argue that this is the way unemployment has always been counted. To that I have to wonder what effect has an increase in contractor-friendly labor regulations (or, maybe, their lack of enforcement?) on the NUMBER of people pushed into contract labor (no benefits, no stable employment). I imagine the gov't counts these people as "employed", though their effective annual income may be half what a full-timer in the same position would earn.

I am contracting for a very large semiconducor company right now, and I am working ON-SITE, using THEIR TOOLS, following THEIR DAILY DIRECTION. Only a few years ago it would have been ILLEGAL for them to employ me as a contractor. I know this for a fact - there was a checklist I had to review when I myself was hiring contractors not too many years ago.

What changed???

[berry]

43. laws re contractors

Like many here, I'm now unemployed. But for a few years, I was a contract employee--I was called a "visiting lecturer". Funny that. Universities have been doing this forever. Though tuition is going through the roof, the people doing the teaching are increasingly people without benefits--hired to teach just little enough to not come under the rules. At some schools (including the very elite ones), these contract employees are doing 40% or more of the teaching. Not to mention the work that graduate students do.

I wish I could find the article I read a few years ago about the academic "sweatshops". When I read it, I thought it was a problem specific to academia. I have since realized that it is a very widespread practice. And now I see (from reading this thread) what I should have realized before--that "consulting" is, for many, the first step towards real, desperate unemployment. At least, that is what it can mean now, in this awful economy.

Oh, and I know for sure that I'm not included in any unemployment data. My path to unemployment was not direct, and I had no right to unemployment insurance. I have never believed that the unemployment figures were correct. I have as much faith in these govt. statistics as I would have in Enron's.

Great thread--I continue to learn from DU!

[Hippo_Tron]

39. Well people could be self-employed...

If our president actually cared enough to help people find jobs or start their own businesses.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

40. Although I am a real self-employed person

(working for the past ten years in a field different from my previous one), I know a number of unemployed business and high tech people who tell everyone that they're "consultants." Occasionally they even get hired for short-term projects.

By the way, my income is 40% lower than it was in 2000, and if I didn't get most of my clients from Japan, I'd be in real trouble.

[JanMichael]

41. 40%? That's certainly not a *good* thing.

While there are legitimetly "Self Employed" people the Bushites seem determined to use the ones you mentioned to offset terribly bad economic policy.

For you sake I hope that Bushco's destruction of the Dollar doesn't sink the Japanese too.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

42. A weak dollar is paradoxically good for me

My prices are stated in yen for the convenience of my Japanese clients, and when the yen is strong, I reap the benefits.

When the dollar is strong, I get a dollar for every 120-130 yen. When the dollar is weak, I get a dollar for every 90-110 yen.

Thus a 50,000 yen job brings me about $400 with a strong dollar and $500 or more with a weak dollar.

My patriotism and my pocketbook are at odds. :shrug: