Saturday, October 07, 2006

Best Song of the Year: "Clinton Got a Blow Job"

Friday, October 06, 2006

Terrible Employment Numbers for September

I can't believe what I just read. For the month of September employers only added 51,000 new jobs. 51,000! By my estimation that is 150,000 too low, just to keep in pace with population growth.

Check this: Lets say we have 300,000,000 folks in the country. Then figure we have a population growth rate of 1.5% annually. That means we create approximately 4,500,000 new residents annually. Now figure that some of that number constitute adult new residents- either new citizens or aliens. Also, figure that every month a certain number of current residents, actual citizens or aliens, turn 18 and are of independent working age- employable. As a rule of thumb, you figure that approximately 50% to 65% of the annual growth rate in population is of employment age. So, to round things off, lets say we need to generate 200,000 new jobs a month in order to just keep up with our population growth and aging population. (4,500,000 / 12 months=375,000 new resident a month) (375,000*50%=187,500 new jobs needed to be created per month) Obviously, this is a rough estimate, but is a fairly conservative look at the whole picture.

Now here is the kicker! In September employers created 51,000 new jobs, well below expectations, but at the same time, the unemployment rate actually went down 0.1 percent. How does that make any sense. How can you miss the mark by such a far margin in employment growth, yet still see the unemployment rate go down at the same time.

I'll tell ya. After about 6 months an unemployed person is no longer counted in the unemployment numbers. So, now we see a large portion of the unemployed population no longer being counted. And this number is increasing.

The economy is not in good shape.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

The Words of Howard Beale

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I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth; banks are going bust; shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter; punks are running wild in the street, and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it.

We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat. And we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be!

We all know things are bad -- worse than bad -- they're crazy.

It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out any more. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we're living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, "Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials, and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone."

Well, I'm not going to leave you alone.

I want you to get mad!

I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot. I don't want you to write to your Congressman, because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street.

All I know is that first, you've got to get mad.

You've gotta say, "I'm a human being, goddammit! My life has value!"

So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell,

"I'm as mad as hell,

and I'm not going to take this anymore!!"