I went to a business seminar yesterday where the presenter went into the details of the current unemployment rate. It is fairly well known that the rate does not include people who have given up looking. This has always been the case, but the current situation - said the presenter - is different. In past recessions, people lost their jobs, but when the economy picked up they went back to their previous jobs (or comparable), but today it is likely that the replacement job, if one arises, will be substantially less lucrative, or it will be one or more part-time jobs with essentially no benefits. We now have millions of baby boomers who had planned to work to full retirement, but have decided to start collecting SS early. Technically, they have decided to retire and not just give up looking, but that's not entirely true. Although the "real" unemployment number is subject to speculation, it is HIGH - undoubtedly more than 10%.
We have the perverse situation where productivity is increasing nicely (mainly due to technology and workplace innovations), while wages are at best stagnant. The people at the top - no matter how you define it - are doing nicely indeed, but that prosperity is not "trickling down" to the middle class. Indeed, the number of "good" jobs available to Everyday People - a smart, hard working person with a HS diploma - is small and shrinking.
The near-death of private-sector organized labor in this country is understandable given the need of producers to be competitive in the global economy, but it has had dire results. Millions and millions of good-paying jobs are gone, gone, gone.
The pockets of relative prosperity are equally depressing. The most prosperous area of the country is the Washington, D.C., area, which is populated by various populations of government teat-suckers. The banking sector is doing fine, but produces nothing. More and more people are working in health care and in health insurance, which is lovely but produces nothing. Regulators, inspectors, code enforcers, and their counterparts in the companies they regulate are a depressing growth "industry." The public sector overall has not contracted a bit with the recession, and is on the whole well compensated with incredible benefit packages and early-50's retirements. And of course, it produces nothing of value.
The so-called middle class is under tremendous pressure. Costs are rising, debt is increasing, and home ownership is becoming near impossible to a large swath of the middle class, even those with college degrees.
And with all of the bloviating, I haven't heard any of these Presidential candidates even hint at a solution. The Democrats keep thinking of more costly government programs they want to implement - with no clue about how they intend to pay for it, and the Republicans either talk about prosperity generally (which only benefits the top 10%), or getting rid of the illegals so that Americans can do those crappy, low-paying jobs!
And not to get overtly political, but essentially everything the President is doing now will harm the American economy. Obama-care's increased insurance premiums will more than absorb any wage increases that working Americans are likely to get for at least the next five years. Declaring CO2 a "harmful pollutant" will cost thousands of jobs in the power (and related) industry, increase our electric bills significantly, and NOT DO A DAMN THING TO THE CLIMATE, EITHER NOW OR IN THE FUTURE. I could go on but I won't. What do you expect from a President who has never actually had a real job?
It's a sad situation and not likely to get better in the near future.
We have the perverse situation where productivity is increasing nicely (mainly due to technology and workplace innovations), while wages are at best stagnant. The people at the top - no matter how you define it - are doing nicely indeed, but that prosperity is not "trickling down" to the middle class. Indeed, the number of "good" jobs available to Everyday People - a smart, hard working person with a HS diploma - is small and shrinking.
The near-death of private-sector organized labor in this country is understandable given the need of producers to be competitive in the global economy, but it has had dire results. Millions and millions of good-paying jobs are gone, gone, gone.
The pockets of relative prosperity are equally depressing. The most prosperous area of the country is the Washington, D.C., area, which is populated by various populations of government teat-suckers. The banking sector is doing fine, but produces nothing. More and more people are working in health care and in health insurance, which is lovely but produces nothing. Regulators, inspectors, code enforcers, and their counterparts in the companies they regulate are a depressing growth "industry." The public sector overall has not contracted a bit with the recession, and is on the whole well compensated with incredible benefit packages and early-50's retirements. And of course, it produces nothing of value.
The so-called middle class is under tremendous pressure. Costs are rising, debt is increasing, and home ownership is becoming near impossible to a large swath of the middle class, even those with college degrees.
And with all of the bloviating, I haven't heard any of these Presidential candidates even hint at a solution. The Democrats keep thinking of more costly government programs they want to implement - with no clue about how they intend to pay for it, and the Republicans either talk about prosperity generally (which only benefits the top 10%), or getting rid of the illegals so that Americans can do those crappy, low-paying jobs!
And not to get overtly political, but essentially everything the President is doing now will harm the American economy. Obama-care's increased insurance premiums will more than absorb any wage increases that working Americans are likely to get for at least the next five years. Declaring CO2 a "harmful pollutant" will cost thousands of jobs in the power (and related) industry, increase our electric bills significantly, and NOT DO A DAMN THING TO THE CLIMATE, EITHER NOW OR IN THE FUTURE. I could go on but I won't. What do you expect from a President who has never actually had a real job?
It's a sad situation and not likely to get better in the near future.
