Quote from wartrace:
Fine- Apple has a few openings in California.The fact remains the majority of their workforce is in China. Oh, read up one one of their main manufacturing sub-contractors "Foxx-con" - they had to put up suicide nets at the company facility as an employee benefit.....LOL. What is the unemployment rate in California right now? Pointing to a few jobs at Apple does not address the lack of employment in our economy.
Icemans comment has to be one of the most inane I have seen lately. Pointing to stock market valuations as a counter to my statement that businesses are hurting is just plain ignorance. It shows he has no clue about small/midsized business conditions. Even Wal-Mart is feeling the lack of consumer demand.
As I stated in an earlier post, one of my clients has seen raw material prices increase substantially yet he can not pass this on to his customers. This margin compression is being felt by business at all levels, even large publicly traded companies.To further complicate matters his revenues are off by almost half. Look at the construction industry, housing starts are at the lowest levels since the early 1960's. How many businesses rely on the housing industry?
As you will recall, the original post was in regards to Bloombergs concern about civil unrest due to the lack of employment. Initial claims remain above 400,000 a week which is what we saw near the HEIGHT of the last recession in 2000. Zero job growth in August and previous months not even meeting the levels needed for new entrants into the labor market?
I agree with Bloomberg- there is a very strong possibility we will see civil unrest at some point due to the lack of employment.
I also stand by my statement that business is hurting right now. I am not taking the narrow view of only considering publicly traded companies. I talk to business owners on a regular basis, I see their accounting records.