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A comment on Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016? by lowpro on Sunday December 11, 2016 @05:25AM (#13150454)
This isn't necessarily true. The US dollar is actually increasing in value as people want their money to be safe. If Trump does bring back American jobs, meaning less jobs in Asia, the dollar buy will continue, depressing Asia and strengthening the US for now.

But you're right, the OP definitely needs to tread lightly with property and the contracts. The devil is always in the details.

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Re:Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016? by threeseed on Sunday December 11, 2016 @05:53AM (#13150522)
The unemployment rate in the US is 4.9% which is basically full employment.

Now sure there are a number of people who don't report and those who wish to work more. But I don't think it's going to be easy to get those people back into work. Most are either in industries that are disappearing due to automation. Or they lack the skills/training to re-educate themselves.

And without tariffs (which will impact exports) there is little chance of US being all that competitive in most industries that compete with Asia (I assume you actually mean China).

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Re:Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016? by bb611 on Sunday December 11, 2016 @10:26AM (#13151419)
Unemployment is only 4.9% because the participation rate dropped 3% points in the last 10 years: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000

That's close to 10 million people who have stopped looking for jobs who we would otherwise expect to have them.

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Re:Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016? by berdario on Sunday December 11, 2016 @01:59PM (#13152504)
But the participation rate can float for a few different reasons

http://qz.com/286213/the-chart-obama-haters-love-most-and-th...

(clickbaity headline, but the contents seem sound)

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Re:Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016? by krakensden on Sunday December 11, 2016 @01:23PM (#13152299)
Baby Boomers should be leaving the labor market though.
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Re:Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016? by icebraining on Monday December 12, 2016 @01:32AM (#13156087)
It's not just old people: "in 2000, if you happened to be a 20-year-old man with less than a Bachelor's Degree--and when I say 20-year old, I mean in their 20s--21 to 30. About 8% reported not working at all during the prior year. That number, today: About 18%."

http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2016/11/erik_hurst_on_w.htm...

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Re:Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016? by FrancoDiaz on Sunday December 11, 2016 @07:47AM (#13150843)
4.9% isn't even close to being the real unemployment rate.
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Re:Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016? by StevePerkins on Sunday December 11, 2016 @09:17AM (#13151149)
Nor does it reflect the stagnant/decreasing income of the jobs that people DO have.
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Re:Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016? by enraged_camel on Sunday December 11, 2016 @01:32PM (#13152354)
Not to mention hordes of underemployed college grads.
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Re:Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016? by 551199 on Sunday December 11, 2016 @08:00AM (#13150883)
You want to look into participation rate. Compare participation and unemployment rate over time and it's clear '4.9%' is pure fallacy.
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Re:Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016? by bigboris on Friday December 16, 2016 @02:00PM (#13195758)
Roughly 100 million people in the US are out of work or no longer looking for work. That's approx a third of the population. "4.9% is basically full employment" is a terribly naive statement. The trend clearly shows things getting worse, not better.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=4CRu

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