Tim McMahon, Editor of UnemploymentData.com

My grandfather lived through the Hyperinflation in Weimar, Germany--to say he was an original “gold bug” would be an understatement. I began reading his “hard money” newsletters at the age of 16 and the dividends from gold stocks helped put me through college. I began publishing the Financial Trend Forecaster paper newsletter in 1995 upon the death of James Moore editor of Your Window into the Future and the creator of the Moore Inflation Predictor©. FTF specializes in trends in the stock market, gold, inflation and bonds. In January of 2003, I began publishing InflationData.com to specialize in all forms of information about the nature of Inflation. In 2009, we added Elliott Wave University to help teach you the principles of Elliott Wave analysis. In January 2013, we began publishing OptioMoney. Connect with Tim on Google+.

Protect Yourself Against Retirement Fraud

March 6, 2013 by Tim McMahon

People who retire have worked many years to earn what they have. Retirement accounts such as pensions, 401Ks and IRAs are carefully funded and managed over the employee’s working life to ensure there will be enough money in them to provide for the person’s retirement. Unfortunately, there are many people out in the world whose goal is to take the very money these workers have spent so many years earning and saving.

After all, they reason, why spend years accumulating it when you can steal it all in a few minutes? Retirement fraud is big business to some, and they will stop at nothing to get other peoples’ hard-earned money. Senior citizens have long been targets of scams. So after retiring, there are many scams you should be wary of, so that you are not left broke and wondering what to do next. Here are some tips to help you avoid becoming a victim.

Don’t Be Rushed

Don’t allow anyone to [Read more…] about Protect Yourself Against Retirement Fraud

Keeping Your Small Business Taxes Organized

February 8, 2013 by Tim McMahon

Tax season is coming up, and if you’re a small business owner and haven’t been keeping careful track of your business expenses this year, you could have a lot of work ahead of you. As you gather everything for 2012, you should also take the time to get 2013 on the right track and get yourself organized. A little bit of planning now will go a long way when next January rolls around.

Keep all Business Receipts

As a small business owner, it’s absolutely imperative that you keep every receipt connected to your business expenses. Looking at old bank statements, trying to remember why you spent seventy dollars and eighty-three cents at Home Depot a year ago, and if it was a business expense or not, is frustrating in the extreme. Keeping a file for receipts for all business purchases you make throughout the year will allow you to start 2014 without the anxiety. On top of that, if you can do a once a week categorizing of all of the receipts will help you keep organized, and at the end of the year, will give you a list of total expenses, rather than having to go back through all those receipts. If you want to get really high tech you could try using the NeatReceipts Mobile Scanner and Digital Filing System.

Small Business Tax Deductions- Vehicle and Property Costs

If you use a vehicle for work or [Read more…] about Keeping Your Small Business Taxes Organized

Government Salaries 35% Higher than Private Industry in 2012

January 31, 2013 by Tim McMahon

EMPLOYMENT COST INDEX – DECEMBER 2012

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released their employment cost index for the 2012 year on January 31st, 2013. It included both annual data and information on salary costs for the last quarter for Civilian workers which is composed of two major sectors i.e. Private Industry Workers and State and Local Government Workers. Seasonally adjusted compensation costs for civilian workers for the 3-month period ending December 2012, increased 0.5%. Wages and salaries (which make up about 70% of compensation costs) increased 0.3%, and benefits (which make up the remaining 30% of compensation) increased 0.6%.

Annual Compensation Costs

For the period of January through December 2012, compensation costs for civilian workers [Read more…] about Government Salaries 35% Higher than Private Industry in 2012

Use Facebook for your Job Search?

December 20, 2012 by Tim McMahon

Need a job? Have you considered using Facebook to find work?

Social networking sites today are not just for sharing informal information. Facebook, can also be a powerful tool that can lead you to a job. Because millions of people use Facebook, take advantage of it and put your job search efforts on a success track. With a good handle on how to use Facebook for your job search, you can gain a competitive edge in your job hunt.

Leverage your Facebook Friends for Job Searches

If you let your Facebook friends know that you need a job, they can refer you to their employers or friends that are in a position to hire you. Or, they can point you to valuable resources. Further, your friends can leverage their Facebook network – friends of friends – and help you land a job. The old saying about 6 degrees of separation applies here. According to Wikipedia, Six degrees of separation is the idea that everyone is six or fewer introductions away from any other person in the world, so that a chain of “a friend of a friend” can connect any two people in six steps or less.

Why Facebook for your Job Search?

A job ad in [Read more…] about Use Facebook for your Job Search?

5 Best Male Nursing Jobs

December 14, 2012 by Tim McMahon

Are Male Nursing Jobs Different?-

You may think that men enjoy different jobs than women when it comes to nursing. In reality, people love the different nursing careers because of their personality, not because of their gender. If you’re a man and are considering entering the nursing profession, there is no better time than now. The demand for male nurses is at an all-time high; here are five of the best careers in nursing currently available:

1.Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA)-

While less than ten percent of the nursing profession is made up of men, only about 50 percent of CRNAs are women. As a CRNA, you will help provide anesthetics to people undergoing a wealth of procedures; from major surgeries to minor tune-ups. As a male CRNA you may find work in a bustling hospital in the city or in a small, quaint hospital in the country. CRNAs are well-respected in the medical profession, working in conjunction with anesthesiologists and doctors.

2.Psychiatric Nurse Practitioners-

Male psychiatric nurse practitioners work in a wide variety of settings, including mental health clinics, hospitals, prisons and even for themselves in their own practice. As a psychiatric nurse practitioner, you can reasonably expect to make up to $85,000 per year helping people deal with various mental disorders and diseases. In your professional life, you’ll be asked to [Read more…] about 5 Best Male Nursing Jobs

State Employment and Unemployment Rates- September 2012

October 29, 2012 by Tim McMahon

Unemployment Rates by State-

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has released the individual state unemployment rates and once again NORTH DAKOTA has the lowest unemployment rates… literally begging for employees. They have “man camps” where men from all over the country are showing up and parking RV’s and cashing in on the high paying jobs available in the pipeline industry. And because the pay is so good it is driving up the wages everywhere else as Denny’s and McDonalds have to pay $15/hr in order to attract employees. Stories abound of labor being so scarce that Walmart quit stocking shelves and just places the pallets straight on the floor in the aisles and people grab the stock straight from the pallet.

On the other end of the spectrum we have Nevada where the gambling industry is hurting and they have 11.8% unemployment. This is followed by Rhode Island, California and New Jersey at 10.5%, 10.2% and 9.8% respectively.

Source: BLS Data is based on Unemployment rates for selected states, seasonally adjusted, September 2012

The full Unemployment Data for all 50 States plus D.C. is:

Unemployment, Part-time Workers and Obamacare

October 26, 2012 by Tim McMahon

When the most recent unemployment data was released just a couple of days after the second Presidential debate, there was some speculation that the numbers were “rigged” or “fudged”. We’ve been saying for a long time that even though they should be two sides of the same coin, the “Employment” numbers don’t track with the “Unemployment” numbers.

See: Employment vs. UnEmployment.

Basically, what the comparison chart shows is that unemployment is falling faster than employment is rising. Historically, in a recovery employment rises faster than unemployment falls.

But this time somehow “magically” unemployment is falling faster than employment is rising. How can that be?

Discouraged Workers are not the Answer

Some possible explanations up until this point were that people had given up looking for work (became “discouraged workers”) and so they were no longer counted as unemployed under the standard U-3 definition. This would of course make the U-3 number look better but wouldn’t indicate an improving economy. However logical this possibility sounds, the data does not hold up. If we look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers for Unemployed persons by duration of unemployment we can see that the number of people unemployed for more than 27 weeks in September 2011 was 6,217,000 but in September 2012 that number had fallen to 4,835,000 so the long term unemployed had fallen considerably.

In the table below we see the number of “discouraged workers” in thousands according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Once again we see [Read more…] about Unemployment, Part-time Workers and Obamacare

Was Jack Welch Right on Twitter? Are Unemployment Numbers “Unbelievable”?

October 9, 2012 by Tim McMahon

Jack Welch on Twitter: Unbelievable Jobs Numbers

Unemployment Numbers “Surprisingly Good”-

On Friday, October 5th, just two days after the first Presidential debate the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the unemployment data for September, which were “surprisingly good”. The experts were not expecting such a large drop. The Seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 8.3% in July and had fallen to 8.1% in August and then the unemployment numbers for September came in at a shocking 7.8%.

Upon hearing these numbers, Jack Welch sent a Tweet from his Twitter account that has enraged Democrats. He said,

Jack Welch

@jack_welch
Unbelievable jobs numbers..these Chicago guys will do anything..can’t debate so change numbers.

Jack Welch has an amazing resume, the former CEO of General Electric, a best-selling author, a lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management and the founder of the Jack Welch Management Institute, etc.

Media Pounces on Jack Welch for Twitter Comments

But of course, that didn’t stop the Media from pouncing all over him. Huffington Post called his Tweet “Demented” and of course, the White House dismissed him as “ludicrous”.

“That’s a ludicrous comment. No serious person believes that the Bureau of Labor Statistics manipulates its statistics,” said Alan Krueger, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

I don’t know where Mr. Krueger has been over the last 20 years, but John Williams of Shadowstats.com has made quite a name for himself disbelieving BLS numbers for some time now. And we have published several articles about how the Unemployment numbers don’t match up with the Employment numbers. See: Employment vs. Unemployment and Is the Government Fudging Unemployment Numbers? We published both of these articles long before the Presidential debate and Jack Welch’s Tweet.

As a matter of fact, James Dale Davidson founder of the National Taxpayers Union and author of Blood in the Streets, The Sovereign Individual, and most recently Brazil Is the New America: How Brazil Offers Upward Mobility in a Collapsing World wrote many years ago that he believed that Bill Clinton was fudging BLS numbers. So accusations of BLS fudging are nothing new.

As a matter of fact, it might be [Read more…] about Was Jack Welch Right on Twitter? Are Unemployment Numbers “Unbelievable”?

Will Big Bird Lose His Job?

October 7, 2012 by Tim McMahon

In the presidential debates in Colorado on Wednesday Mitt Romney said, that although he likes Big Bird (and debate moderator Jim Lehrer), if elected he plans on cutting the $400 million subsidy that goes to PBS. PBS of course is the corporate home of Sesame Street and loveable “Big Bird“. Since that statement the Democrats and the blogosphere has errupted with crys against the big mean man who wants to kill big bird.

Big Bird Won’t Lose Job

But according to Sherrie Westin, executive vice president for Sesame Workshop, Sesame Street actually receives very little funding from PBS anyway.

About 12% of PBS’ revenue comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. For 2015 Congress has budgeted $445 million for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The remainder of the funding, as they are so fond of saying, “Comes from Viewers like you…”

PBS CEO Paula Kerger said PBS too will be just fine, as it too isn’t funded directly by the government. “In fact, the money that comes from the government into the Corporation for Public Broadcasting goes to our member stations.”

One blogger put it this way… “I think the fact that taking government funding away from PBS will not hurt it is kind of Romney’s point. Isn’t that basically the definition of unnecessary spending? “

Big Bird is a “Cash Cow”

The show is very profitable in its own right. Big Bird probably has more licensing deals than Michael Jordan… he’s a virtual “cash cow”. So don’t worry Big Bird will still have a job if Romney is elected.

On the day after the debate Big Bird posted on his Twitter page, “Big Bird: My bed time is usually 7:45, but I was really tired yesterday and fell asleep at 7! Did I miss anything last night?”

Did you even know that Big Bird had a Twitter page?

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What is the “Real” Unemployment Rate?

Worldwide Unemployment Rates

October 6, 2012 by Tim McMahon

Unemployment Rates Around the World

Worldwide unemployment rate have started to moderate with the notable exceptions of France and Italy.

The worldwide unemployment rate seems to indicate a bit of improvement as unemployment has been trending down over the most recent months that data is available. Unfortunately, it takes several months to collect the data from around the world so the most recent data is July 2012. The best performing country was Japan with an unemployment rate of only 3.9%. At 5.2% and 5.3% respectively we have Australia and the Netherlands. Germany was at 5.7%, Canada had 6.3% unemployment, Sweden had 7.4%, the U.S. had 8.3%, France was at 10.0% and Italy had 10.8% unemployment.As you can see [Read more…] about Worldwide Unemployment Rates