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It's more than not even remotely true. It's so wildly incorrect, it borders on comedy;



Medicare and SS make up more than half of Federal Spending. Foreign Aid is such a small expenditure relatively that it doesn't even get a spot on the pie chart! It just gets lumped in with "Remainder."

Lets also note that Stockton, CA is not a terribly great place to measure the rest of the nation or typical standards for most people by, a place with historically high crime, high unemployment, lower than average levels of higher education, and a median family income that is ~25% lower than the national average and more than 40% lower than the CA statewide average.

That said, there's also some truth in the fact that many people don't have support networks to give them minimal aid like phones and whatnot, though the lack of even a phone is becoming increasingly rare.

 LordofHats wrote:
Medicare and SS make up more than half of Federal Spending. Foreign Aid is such a small expenditure relatively that it doesn't even get a spot on the pie chart! It just gets lumped in with "Remainder."

Unless of course, they are lumping it in with "international affairs"

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
Medicare and SS make up more than half of Federal Spending. Foreign Aid is such a small expenditure relatively that it doesn't even get a spot on the pie chart! It just gets lumped in with "Remainder."

Unless of course, they are lumping it in with "international affairs"

Int'l Affairs covers the HRC/Merkel femfic I'm working on. It's a pretty big budget sensation.

I would assume international affairds is the cost of our embassies and such, but yeah I guess they could be in there. Even then, it's still a miniscule % of the budget lumped in with a bunch of other costs. Doesn't even come close to what we spend on SS, or Medicare and is less than what we spend on education and veterans.

Foreign Aid is in International Affairs but it's a small proportion. (Also it includes "security assistance", i.e. military aid.)

http://www.usglc.org/what-is-the-international-affairs-budget/

This web site is a couple of years old so things might have changed, but probably not.

 feeder wrote:
Int'l Affairs covers the HRC/Merkel femfic I'm working on. It's a pretty big budget sensation.

And suddenly, the thread takes a turn for the sensual.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Asterios wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

Asterios wrote:

 sebster wrote:
Nope, the sample is selected, and if people don't have a phone then a live interview is arranged.

and I repeat nobody I know has ever been asked and thats a lot of people.

I don't believe I've ever seen anyone use this metric to gauge the veracity of a given statistic before. By this method, I can claim that there is no such thing as outer space, because I don't personally know anyone who is an astronaut.

and where is the evidence these surveys take place?

Just to summarize, when confronted with numbers on what unemployment actually is, you claim there is no evidence of what the rate actually is, that there is no evidence that any actual sampling or surveys take place since no one you know has been surveyed, and as a result, you are free to just make up a number that feels right to you via your anecdotal evidence.

\_(ツ)_/¯ Shine on, you crazy diamond.

 Ouze wrote:

 feeder wrote:
Int'l Affairs covers the HRC/Merkel femfic I'm working on. It's a pretty big budget sensation.

And suddenly, the thread takes a turn for the sensual.

Power and secrets make for a heady aphrodisiac.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Asterios wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

Asterios wrote:

 sebster wrote:
Nope, the sample is selected, and if people don't have a phone then a live interview is arranged.

and I repeat nobody I know has ever been asked and thats a lot of people.

I don't believe I've ever seen anyone use this metric to gauge the veracity of a given statistic before. By this method, I can claim that there is no such thing as outer space, because I don't personally know anyone who is an astronaut.

and where is the evidence these surveys take place?

Just to summarize, when confronted with numbers on what unemployment actually is, you claim there is no evidence of what the rate actually is, that there is no evidence that any actual sampling or surveys take place since no one you know has been surveyed, and as a result, you are free to just make up a number that feels right to you via your anecdotal evidence.

\_(ツ)_/¯ Shine on, you crazy diamond.

It's like watching a wacky waving inflatable arm tube man, powered by anger and frustration. If only that passion could be channeled to something productive!

 LordofHats wrote:
I would assume international affairds is the cost of our embassies and such, but yeah I guess they could be in there. Even then, it's still a miniscule % of the budget lumped in with a bunch of other costs. Doesn't even come close to what we spend on SS, or Medicare and is less than what we spend on education and veterans.

Agreed, although some aspects of those costs would be under defense spending (since, unless things have suddenly changed, it is the Marines who typically guard embassies). And I guess my point was that IF aid is lumped into the category of "international affairs," then the aid budget is ridiculously small, since I know that much of that budget would be spent on securing, maintaining or establishing embassies and their facilities around the globe.

Asterios wrote:
really where is this utopia where you live? I see a bunch of 20 somethings with no homes and no means around here(Stockton,Ca.)?

As someone currently living in Oakland, it baffles me that you'd attempt to use any areas in the Sacramento-Bay Area as a standard for how the US works in general.

You're aware that the SF Bay Area out to Sacramento has one of the highest wealth inequality distributions in the country?

I'm looking forward to seeing how all the homeless people in the neighborhood who cannot be reached by any means because they have no support network of any kind will be able to pack up and travel throughout the country to apply for these jobs we will create by building a wall in New Mexico.

Asterios wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The US has economic problems and is experiencing major social changes, but we're still wayyy ahead of most of the rest of the planet and almost all of US history. The economic issues the US faces are not unique either. We're not on the brink of an implosion anymore than we were in 2008, 2001, the early 90's, the 80's S&L collapze, 70's stagflation, 30's depression, etc.

I disagree our "Actual" unemployment rate is exceedingly high and expected to get higher, this country is running out of jobs and the unskilled demanding higher wages is forceing companies to look at other avenues, already Carl's Jr, Wendy's and Mcdonalds and so forth plan on placing robotic/computerized units in their establishments and thereby removing jobs from the market, already a Chinese business has replaced 50K jobs with Robotics, we are not far behind doing that, yes this country is ready to implode.

Here's the thing though. The Second a Touchscreen can do it cheaper, regardless of what the Minimium Wage is, a Human will be replaced. We've seen it happen with Self Check out lines already with the Minimum wage as low as it is.

Most American jobs are to help other Americans. John the DirecTV guy doesn't want to cook, so he takes his family to Burger King where Steve the Cashier takes his money and gives his order to Susie the Cook, who makes the Food. Steve and Susie take the money from their tax Returns and place an order with Home Depot for New Flooring, Home Depot sends the order to Joe the Tile Installer, who lays new Tile Planks in their Studio apartment because they're sick of cleaning carpets. Joe the Tile guy takes the Money given from Susie and Steve and uses it to purchase a DirecTV Subscription from DJ in Sam's Club, Who with the Help of Josh in a Call Center many miles away, builds the order and assigns the Install to John who goes out to install the service.

And many many more transactions like that happen every day and it's just about the only reason anyone has a job. Somewhere along the line however Steve and Susie's lives became Irrelevant regardless of the fact that they both have Master's Degrees in The Medical field and are just not lucking out getting a job in that field because at the end of the day, SOMEONE has to flip burgers, stock shelves, those other "unskilled" jobs.

When I worked in Fast food, about 5 years ago I spoke with someone from the Corporate Office during one of those stupid "pep rally state of the company things that every store has to send an employee from" things who told me that, despite the fact that he has never made a single sub for this company or even knew how to use the register, he made 900% more than I did every payday.

Instead of looking at the Major Corporations replacing those Minimum wage jobs with machines to keep costs down, despite the executives bringing home significantly more as much as their average worker, as inevitable and the worker being the downfall of the system, why not look at those same executives to take a small hit in their pockets to allow their workers to eat more than ramen noodles every day?

It makes for a stronger company if at all possible,those people at the checkout that get replaced when machines come in are redistributed elsewhere in the company and cross trained.
Just about any business I know of that invests in it's people instead of treating them like interchangable parts does better. It saves money on training, scrap, hiring procedures, orientation, etc., and ends up with a highly skilled core that can more readily innovate the businesses methods.
Where I work, for instance, people had to be laid off because of market conditions, but others were put in other areas of the company in order to maintain skill levels. The company followed up with the ones laid off and helped most of them get other jobs.
Several people that worked on the line where I do ended up in management positions at better pay elsewhere because of the things they were taught.
One man I trained in Job Instruction went to a local supermarket chain to apply as a stocker. At the end of the interview he was instead offered a job as general manager because of all the things he had been taught where I work.
When a company sees fit to invest in people, there is a positive ripple effect that not only affects that company, but the surrounding community and far beyond.

 Ouze wrote:

Just to summarize, when confronted with numbers on what unemployment actually is, you claim there is no evidence of what the rate actually is, that there is no evidence that any actual sampling or surveys take place since no one you know has been surveyed, and as a result, you are free to just make up a number that feels right to you via your anecdotal evidence.

\_(ツ)_/¯ Shine on, you crazy diamond.

and my question is still sidestepped, all i'm asking is where does it say that BLS does phone surveys asking people who are not collecting Unemployment if they are looking for work? its a simple question and if true should be easy to prove.

Relapse wrote:
It makes for a stronger company if at all possible,those people at the checkout that get replaced when machines come in are redistributed elsewhere in the company and cross trained.
Just about any business I know of that invests in it's people instead of treating them like interchangable parts does better. It saves money on training, scrap, hiring procedures, orientation, etc., and ends up with a highly skilled core that can more readily innovate the businesses methods.
Where I work, for instance, people had to be laid off because of market conditions, but others were put in other areas of the company in order to maintain skill levels. The company followed up with the ones laid off and helped most of them get other jobs.
Several people that worked on the line where I do ended up in management positions at better pay elsewhere because of the things they were taught.
One man I trained in Job Instruction went to a local supermarket chain to apply as a stocker. At the end of the interview he was instead offered a job as general manager because of all the things he had been taught where I work.
When a company sees fit to invest in people, there is a positive ripple effect that not only affects that company, but the surrounding community and far beyond.

never worked fast food I take it? one of the jobs with the highest turnover rate(outside of Security) since it does not take much to teach one to do any of the tasks there.the amount of training is about 15 minutes to an hour, orientation? doesn't exist, hiring procedures? minimal at best.

 Iur_tae_mont wrote:

Asterios wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The US has economic problems and is experiencing major social changes, but we're still wayyy ahead of most of the rest of the planet and almost all of US history. The economic issues the US faces are not unique either. We're not on the brink of an implosion anymore than we were in 2008, 2001, the early 90's, the 80's S&L collapze, 70's stagflation, 30's depression, etc.

I disagree our "Actual" unemployment rate is exceedingly high and expected to get higher, this country is running out of jobs and the unskilled demanding higher wages is forceing companies to look at other avenues, already Carl's Jr, Wendy's and Mcdonalds and so forth plan on placing robotic/computerized units in their establishments and thereby removing jobs from the market, already a Chinese business has replaced 50K jobs with Robotics, we are not far behind doing that, yes this country is ready to implode.

Here's the thing though. The Second a Touchscreen can do it cheaper, regardless of what the Minimium Wage is, a Human will be replaced. We've seen it happen with Self Check out lines already with the Minimum wage as low as it is.

Most American jobs are to help other Americans. John the DirecTV guy doesn't want to cook, so he takes his family to Burger King where Steve the Cashier takes his money and gives his order to Susie the Cook, who makes the Food. Steve and Susie take the money from their tax Returns and place an order with Home Depot for New Flooring, Home Depot sends the order to Joe the Tile Installer, who lays new Tile Planks in their Studio apartment because they're sick of cleaning carpets. Joe the Tile guy takes the Money given from Susie and Steve and uses it to purchase a DirecTV Subscription from DJ in Sam's Club, Who with the Help of Josh in a Call Center many miles away, builds the order and assigns the Install to John who goes out to install the service.

And many many more transactions like that happen every day and it's just about the only reason anyone has a job. Somewhere along the line however Steve and Susie's lives became Irrelevant regardless of the fact that they both have Master's Degrees in The Medical field and are just not lucking out getting a job in that field because at the end of the day, SOMEONE has to flip burgers, stock shelves, those other "unskilled" jobs.

When I worked in Fast food, about 5 years ago I spoke with someone from the Corporate Office during one of those stupid "pep rally state of the company things that every store has to send an employee from" things who told me that, despite the fact that he has never made a single sub for this company or even knew how to use the register, he made 900% more than I did every payday.

Instead of looking at the Major Corporations replacing those Minimum wage jobs with machines to keep costs down, despite the executives bringing home significantly more as much as their average worker, as inevitable and the worker being the downfall of the system, why not look at those same executives to take a small hit in their pockets to allow their workers to eat more than ramen noodles every day?

because those CEO's jobs entail much more then pushing buttons on a screen or making a sandwich, i have never worked a Subway, but can run the register and make sandwiches, its not rocket science nor does it require a degree, unlike being a CEO does.

and then there is the CEO's of average corporations which make up maybe 1% of the entire companies workforce if even that much. in larger corporations maybe .0001%, executives maybe .01%

I worked in fast food. Had a solid 2 week orientation period and received additional orientation when I was moved from kitchen to register, and then additional orientation when I was promoted to trainer, and additional orientation when I becae the maintenance person. I was hired after verifying my references and experience (which consisted of one previous job at the time). The majority of the people I worked with have been there for at least a year.

Maybe "that's not my personal experience" isn't a very good model to use as a base for your entire understanding of economics across the US.

 d-usa wrote:
I worked in fast food. Had a solid 2 week orientation period and received additional orientation when I was moved from kitchen to register, and then additional orientation when I was promoted to trainer, and additional orientation when I becae the maintenance person. I was hired after verifying my references and experience (which consisted of one previous job at the time). The majority of the people I worked with have been there for at least a year.

Maybe "that's not my personal experience" isn't a very good model to use as a base for your entire understanding of economics across the US.

that does not sound like a fast food establishment like McDonald's and such (maintenance person? Trainer?) I think we have 2 different ideas of what is fast food.

also all fast food jobs I've seen they show you how to do everything in the first hour of starting. if it took you 2 weeks to learn that, welll.

Asterios wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
I worked in fast food. Had a solid 2 week orientation period and received additional orientation when I was moved from kitchen to register, and then additional orientation when I was promoted to trainer, and additional orientation when I becae the maintenance person. I was hired after verifying my references and experience (which consisted of one previous job at the time). The majority of the people I worked with have been there for at least a year.

Maybe "that's not my personal experience" isn't a very good model to use as a base for your entire understanding of economics across the US.

that does not sound like a fast food establishment like McDonald's and such (maintenance person? Trainer?) I think we have 2 different ideas of what is fast food.

Do you honestly think that McDonald's does zero training and no maintenance?

 d-usa wrote:

Asterios wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
I worked in fast food. Had a solid 2 week orientation period and received additional orientation when I was moved from kitchen to register, and then additional orientation when I was promoted to trainer, and additional orientation when I becae the maintenance person. I was hired after verifying my references and experience (which consisted of one previous job at the time). The majority of the people I worked with have been there for at least a year.

Maybe "that's not my personal experience" isn't a very good model to use as a base for your entire understanding of economics across the US.

that does not sound like a fast food establishment like McDonald's and such (maintenance person? Trainer?) I think we have 2 different ideas of what is fast food.

Do you honestly think that McDonald's does zero training and no maintenance?

Depends on the McDonald's. I'd hate to eat at whichever one Asterios is thinking about.

Then again, I'd hate to eat at McDonald's anyway.

 d-usa wrote:

Asterios wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
I worked in fast food. Had a solid 2 week orientation period and received additional orientation when I was moved from kitchen to register, and then additional orientation when I was promoted to trainer, and additional orientation when I becae the maintenance person. I was hired after verifying my references and experience (which consisted of one previous job at the time). The majority of the people I worked with have been there for at least a year.

Maybe "that's not my personal experience" isn't a very good model to use as a base for your entire understanding of economics across the US.

that does not sound like a fast food establishment like McDonald's and such (maintenance person? Trainer?) I think we have 2 different ideas of what is fast food.

Do you honestly think that McDonald's does zero training and no maintenance?

McDonalds has a 30 minute training period, and any maintenance required is brought in from outside of the place, in fact they tell you specifically if anything breaks tell the manager and the manager calls the repair guy once getting approval from the owner, I've been an assistant manager and manger at a couple fast food places, but when I worked there we usually had 3 people working the night shift, one front and drive thru and expediting orders, one on the fryer and one on the grill.

Asterios wrote:
unlike being a CEO does.

Tell me then, which school did Steve Jobs and Bill Gates graduate from? How about Matt Mullenweg, Arash Ferdowsi, Mark Zuckerberg, David Karp, or Daniel Ek... where did they graduate from? Guess David Neeleman, founder of Jet Blue... didn't really do that, since he also didn't graduate from college.

I mean, I could keep going, but I'll just put up a link, and let you educate yourself, if you so choose:

http://www.businessinsider.com/most-successful-college-droputs-2013-9?op=1

Asterios wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

Asterios wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
I worked in fast food. Had a solid 2 week orientation period and received additional orientation when I was moved from kitchen to register, and then additional orientation when I was promoted to trainer, and additional orientation when I becae the maintenance person. I was hired after verifying my references and experience (which consisted of one previous job at the time). The majority of the people I worked with have been there for at least a year.

Maybe "that's not my personal experience" isn't a very good model to use as a base for your entire understanding of economics across the US.

that does not sound like a fast food establishment like McDonald's and such (maintenance person? Trainer?) I think we have 2 different ideas of what is fast food.

Do you honestly think that McDonald's does zero training and no maintenance?

McDonalds has a 30 minute training period, and any maintenance required is brought in from outside of the place, in fact they tell you specifically if anything breaks tell the manager and the manager calls the repair guy once getting approval from the owner, I've been an assistant manager and manger at a couple fast food places, but when I worked there we usually had 3 people working the night shift, one front and drive thru and expediting orders, one on the fryer and one on the grill.

Weird, my old McDonald's in Elk City, Oklahoma has online job postings for maintenance workers. And I have no idea why they paid me an extra buck an hour when I was promoted to a trainer just in case I happened to have someone to train for 30 minutes on any random day. I would hate to see the McDonald's that is busy enough to train someone how to open a store, close a store, prep, cook the breakfast and lunch menu, switch over from breakfast to lunch, inventory, rotate stock, unload the truck, break down equipment, clean it, reassemble it, and do all that consistently in only 30 minutes.

Maybe I'm just the Forrest Gump of McJobs, or maybe my experience is just completely out of the ordinary and I happened to work at the one McDonald's that cares (even though that has been my experience at all my fast food jobs through college), or maybe you just need to stop thinking you have a lot of factual knowledge based on your personal experience and realize that there is more to the world than "the government never called me, so unemployment statistics are useless".

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

Asterios wrote:
unlike being a CEO does.

Tell me then, which school did Steve Jobs and Bill Gates graduate from? How about Matt Mullenweg, Arash Ferdowsi, Mark Zuckerberg, David Karp, or Daniel Ek... where did they graduate from? Guess David Neeleman, founder of Jet Blue... didn't really do that, since he also didn't graduate from college.

I mean, I could keep going, but I'll just put up a link, and let you educate yourself, if you so choose:

http://www.businessinsider.com/most-successful-college-droputs-2013-9?op=1

how many of those are CEO's of their company's? and not just an honorary title, furthermore they are ones who created their companies, you think a company is going to hire someone to be their CEO without schooling?

 d-usa wrote:

Asterios wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

Asterios wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
I worked in fast food. Had a solid 2 week orientation period and received additional orientation when I was moved from kitchen to register, and then additional orientation when I was promoted to trainer, and additional orientation when I becae the maintenance person. I was hired after verifying my references and experience (which consisted of one previous job at the time). The majority of the people I worked with have been there for at least a year.

Maybe "that's not my personal experience" isn't a very good model to use as a base for your entire understanding of economics across the US.

that does not sound like a fast food establishment like McDonald's and such (maintenance person? Trainer?) I think we have 2 different ideas of what is fast food.

Do you honestly think that McDonald's does zero training and no maintenance?

McDonalds has a 30 minute training period, and any maintenance required is brought in from outside of the place, in fact they tell you specifically if anything breaks tell the manager and the manager calls the repair guy once getting approval from the owner, I've been an assistant manager and manger at a couple fast food places, but when I worked there we usually had 3 people working the night shift, one front and drive thru and expediting orders, one on the fryer and one on the grill.

Weird, my old McDonald's in Elk City, Oklahoma has online job postings for maintenance workers. And I have no idea why they paid me an extra buck an hour when I was promoted to a trainer just in case I happened to have someone to train for 30 minutes on any random day. I would hate to see the McDonald's that is busy enough to train someone how to open a store, close a store, prep, cook the breakfast and lunch menu, switch over from breakfast to lunch, inventory, rotate stock, unload the truck, break down equipment, clean it, reassemble it, and do all that consistently in only 30 minutes.

Maybe I'm just the Forrest Gump of McJobs, or maybe my experience is just completely out of the ordinary and I happened to work at the one McDonald's that cares (even though that has been my experience at all my fast food jobs through college), or maybe you just need to stop thinking you have a lot of factual knowledge based on your personal experience and realize that there is more to the world than "the government never called me, so unemployment statistics are useless".

sounds like you had an assistant managers job, or managers job, thats the same stuff I did, but we are not talking about assistant managers or managers we are talking a basic employee, also open a store? close a store? you mean your fast food joints open and close? out of curiousity how many employees work at any given time at your store?

Sorry, I didn't realize I actually worked for you and that I didn't really know what my actual job was, where I worked, and what our actual policies and positions were.

Well, good luck with Calvinball.

Asterios wrote:

sounds like you had an assistant managers job, or managers job, thats the same stuff I did, but we are not talking about assistant managers or managers we are talking a basic employee, also open a store? close a store? you mean your fast food joints open and close?

I work nights, usually getting off my shift at two in the morning. There's a Taco Bell between my work and my house, and I'd be in serious trouble if it didn't close at midnight.

Ironically, the only local fast food place open past that is a McDonald's.

 Spinner wrote:

Asterios wrote:

sounds like you had an assistant managers job, or managers job, thats the same stuff I did, but we are not talking about assistant managers or managers we are talking a basic employee, also open a store? close a store? you mean your fast food joints open and close?

I work nights, usually getting off my shift at two in the morning. There's a Taco Bell between my work and my house, and I'd be in serious trouble if it didn't close at midnight.

Ironically, the only local fast food place open past that is a McDonald's.

around here, if you get the munchies at 2 am or even 3 am you can go by a McDonald's and get a big mac or a breakfast sandwich, or you can make a run for the Border at Taco Bell or a lot of other places

as it goes when I worked fast food we had 3 people on at night and not much more in the morning, when I go into a fast food place now a days they have like 12 or more employees working at a time, and thats even at their not busy times, surprised they can even fit that many employees in there, d-usa sounds like the places he worked for had very few employees if any since he seemed to be doing everything. around here, you have one position and that is it, one job to do.

just checked with my wife my local McDonald's has 20 people working there at any given time, cashiers only work as cashiers, cooks only work as cooks and they have cleaning staff and maintenance is called in. all training is done in first day from watching videos, filling out paper work, being trained on the register or whatever position you are placed on.
d-usa your McDonalds may have much fewer employees, but then again when I worked at a BurgerKing back int he 80's we only had 3 employees at night and if something broke it was shut down for the night till a person could be called in, so not sure why your fast food place is ran different then just about any fast food place I have seen or gone too around here.

Asterios wrote:
McDonalds has a 30 minute training period

Why do you make gak like this up?

My stepson's friend worked at McDonalds, and he was in training for 3 or 4 days. I can't imagine very nearly any job that only has 30 minutes of training. This was a few years ago. My wife worked for Mcdonalds when she was a teenager and she said training was ongoing for the first week on various roles.

Man, I thought the last version of this thread was crap, but turns out, could have been worse. At least people weren't just making up crazy gak left and right.

Asterios wrote:
and where is the evidence these surveys take place?

Just for everyone to get a full scope of what's happened here, one day ago Asterios thought the unemployment rate was just calculated based on the number of people collecting unemployment. He has since learned that it's based on survey figures collected by the BLS.

Instead of just accepting this however, he has instead decided to create a new fantasy in which the BLS isn't actually running these surveys in co-ordination with Census Bureau. He's actually creating this vast conspiracy in which the thousands of people directly employed in collecting this survey information just... don't exist, or possibly they do exist but are instructed to just make up survey answers each month or something.

Exactly why he's created a conspiracy bigger and more elaborate than anything the JFK or 911 Truthers could ever have imagined is a pretty good question. Is it just because he wants to believe that unemployment is a bigger number than the figures say? Or is it as simple as Asterios really, really not wanting to admit he made a claim that was wrong - better to invent the largest conspiracy in the history of man, than admit that he didn't know an economic stat.

Who knows? But it's probably worth taking a second to stop and realise how ridiculous Asterious has gotten on this one minor point, to maybe keep in mind how much or how little value there is in pushing him on any other issue.

 Ouze wrote:

Asterios wrote:
McDonalds has a 30 minute training period

Why do you make gak like this up?

My stepson's friend worked at McDonalds, and he was in training for 3 or 4 days. I can't imagine very nearly any job that only has 30 minutes of training.

Man, I thought the last version of this thread was crap, but turns out, could have been worse.

not made up, this is from the manager of the store themself, all training, paperwork, video watching and so forth is done the first day, if it takes longer then that, well what can I say.

 sebster wrote:

Asterios wrote:
and where is the evidence these surveys take place?

Just for everyone to get a full scope of what's happened here, one day ago Asterios thought the unemployment rate was just calculated based on the number of people collecting unemployment. He has since learned that it's based on survey figures collected by the BLS.

Instead of just accepting this however, he has instead decided to create a new fantasy in which the BLS isn't actually running these surveys in co-ordination with Census Bureau. He's actually creating this vast conspiracy in which the thousands of people directly employed in collecting this survey information just... don't exist, or possibly they do exist but are instructed to just make up survey answers each month or something.

Exactly why he's created a conspiracy bigger and more elaborate than anything the JFK or 911 Truthers could ever have imagined is a pretty good question. Is it just because he wants to believe that unemployment is a bigger number than the figures say? Or is it as simple as Asterios really, really not wanting to admit he made a claim that was wrong - better to invent the largest conspiracy in the history of man, than admit that he didn't know an economic stat.

Who knows? But it's probably worth taking a second to stop and realise how ridiculous Asterious has gotten on this one minor point, to maybe keep in mind how much or how little value there is in pushing him on any other issue.

and once again you misquote me, I said you are going by one number when its not the factual number, and this so called survey you claim and have yet to prove(just checked their site, they do a survey, but not for who is working or seeking work, but for who bought what and where (its called TPOPS) every other source says that the unemployment rate announced by the government is taken from U3 line, when the most up to date information is on the U6 line for unemployment.

@Asterios, here is a link to BLS where it answers pretty much all of your questions, including sample selection methodology and the exact questions asked. http://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm#questions

In particular, they ask "Have you been doing anything to find work during the last 4 weeks?
For those who say "yes," the next question is:

What are all of the things you have done to find work during the last 4 weeks?
If an active method of looking for work, such as those listed at the beginning of this section, is mentioned, the following question is asked:

Last week, could you have started a job if one had been offered?
If there is no reason, except temporary illness, that the person could not take a job, he or she is considered to be not only looking but also available for work and is counted as unemployed."

It was literally the first hit on a Google search for "how is the unemployment rate calculated."

 sebster wrote:

Asterios wrote:
and where is the evidence these surveys take place?

Just for everyone to get a full scope of what's happened here, one day ago Asterios thought the unemployment rate was just calculated based on the number of people collecting unemployment.

Well, a couple of pages ago, he was saying that businesses were going down at a record rate because of the high minimum wage. Now on this page, it's

Asterios wrote:
as it goes when I worked fast food we had 3 people on at night and not much more in the morning, when I go into a fast food place now a days they have like 12 or more employees working at a time, and thats even at their not busy times, surprised they can even fit that many employees in there.

I mean, it's just pure, unadulterated clownishness.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Asterios wrote:
not made up, this is from the manager of the store themself, all training, paperwork, video watching and so forth is done the first day, if it takes longer then that, well what can I say.

I'm telling you that I know people who have worked there, and they don't do all their training in the first 30 minutes. No, I'm not going to let you slowly move the goalposts to "the first day". The people I know who have worked at McDonalds train to do various things at various times over the course of a few days. Of course, by continuing this argument with you, I'm the donkey-cave.