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Post from the The Little Book of Economics: How the Economy Works in the Real World forum
“In the short run, the number of jobs rises and falls with the business cycle. In the long run, though, the growth in jobs usually tracks almost perfectly the growth in the number of people who want jobs.”
The chapter on labor and unemployment is somewhat comforting in terms of longterm recovery but also hints to the rosy picture painted by the official unemployment rate, or simply the people available and actively looking for work for a minimum of 4 weeks. (The US unemployment rate as of August 2025 is estimated to be around 4% which is lower than the typical ‘healthy’ or ‘natural’ rate per the author of 6%.)
More interesting is the consider an expanded definition of unemployment called the U-6 unemployment rate, which includes people who are “marginally attached” meaning they aren’t looking but would like a job, and people who are part-time but would like a full time job. (August 2025 u-6 comes in at 8% indicating many Americans are under-employed even before the significant layoffs we’ve seen recently.)
I also found it helpful to get a clear understanding of what is the BLS report that has not been getting released as it is supposed to on the first Friday each month.
This book which is published in 2013 notes that “US politicians certainly abuse statistics but virtually never interfere with them,” instead citing examples in Argentina and China tampering with economic reports.
The BLS report comes in two reports, the payroll report and the household survey. The payroll report is considered to be more reliable than the household survey because it takes a significantly larger sample size (30% of US workers) vs just the 0.1% sample size of the household survey. Additionally the payroll report does get revised as more data comes in, and it is typical for those revisions to be big.
Post from the The Little Book of Economics: How the Economy Works in the Real World forum
“The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.”
Shots fired
punkerella commented on beloved404's update
beloved404 completed their yearly reading goal of 36 books!







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punkerella TBR'd a book

The Art of Community: Seven Principles for Belonging
Charles H. Vogl
punkerella wrote a review...
This was my first Chomsky book and I found it both intriguing and digestible due to accessible, conversational language pulled directly from lectures.
Surprise, basically all the bad stuff you know about is capitalism functioning as intended, but wait, there’s more: you’re living your entire life in an extreme authoritarian environment and early Americans would consider you a “wage slave”.
I’m glad there was a tidbit of hope at the end but I’m really not sure what I’m supposed to be doing with this information next to my mountain of student loan debt.
punkerella TBR'd a book

The Art of Community: Seven Principles for Belonging
Charles H. Vogl
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punkerella finished a book

Consequences of Capitalism: Manufacturing Discontent and Resistance
Noam Chomsky
punkerella finished a book

Consequences of Capitalism: Manufacturing Discontent and Resistance
Noam Chomsky
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punkerella TBR'd a book

Necropolitics (Theory in Forms)
Achille Mbembe
punkerella commented on BooksErgoSum's review of Necropolitics (Theory in Forms)
I have a new philosophy book obsession.
When a book published in 2019 warns us about a new form of politics and says that, 👉 “Gaza is the paradigmatic example,” and, “Gaza might well prefigure what is yet to come,” and, “the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories serves as a laboratory.”
It has my FULL attention.
This new form of politics? It’s the far-right, deportations, mass surveillance, a politics of hate, it craves apartheid, it increases insecurity with one hand and dominates in the name of security with the other, it’s the MAHA death cult…
I think we’re all watching our democracies gleefully descend into anti-vaxx, anti-intellectual, nationalist authoritarianism and we’re just like “WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?!” This book is why—it’s NECROPOLITICS.
The philosophy nerd argument in here demystified the WHY?! through a critique/development of philosophers Foucault and Agamben. But this also synthesized a bunch of other philosophical ideas I've been thinking about with respect to the current state of politics: Aimé Cesaire, Frantz Fanon, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Hegel, Judith Butler (on grievability, violence, and the reactionary right's beginnings in the Global South), Anthony Loewenstein, Quinn Slobodian (particularly Crack Up Capitalism), Lacan, and Žižek.
This book was so good. One of the best explanation for the rise of the far right, tyranny, and exit neoliberalism I’ve ever seen.
punkerella TBR'd a book

Medieval Misogyny and the Invention of Western Romantic Love
R. Howard Bloch
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notbillnye started reading...

The End of Policing
Alex S. Vitale
punkerella commented on a post
I’m kind of bored with this and haven’t picked it up in days. Should I persevere? Jeez, the last book I read I paused because it was too heavy, and now I want to pause this one because it’s too light 😂
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one_crazy_eliott is interested in reading...

The Great Displacement: Climate Change and the Next American Migration
Jake Bittle
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