Probably a reflection of where the press thinks its future is heading (i.e., into the ground).

> Gas prices are falling

Nice to see you're "fair and balanced" enough to report bad news! :-)

the only way you can not have a job is through superhuman effort...

I'm sure The Wife appreciates all you do in that regard.

Gas prices are only low compared to how high they were before. Coincidentally the oil companies made record profits that quarter. Also, long term unemployment and underemployment are still at very high levels. Just keep your head in the sand. I'm sure it will all workout.

Mr. Gillnitz:

Both are low by comparison to historical standards.

Yes, but not all of us can be paid to shill for the administration.

I don't want to be employed, Mr. Gillnitz. Which category do I check off, underemployed or long-term unemployment.

madmatt:

Sure you can.

Uh, when they say consumer confidence was not expected to rise, they mean ECONOMISTS did not expect it. Which means your point about the media is a complete non sequitur, since the economists actually look at the numbers, not the presentation.

Since real wages are DROPPING, it's not surprising they were surprised, but of course there's more to it than that. Since there is a backlog of several YEARS of folks who graduated without getting jobs, your comment about jobs is completely idiotic.

If you can show me that YOU predicted a rise in consumer confidence BEFORE it was published, I'll take it all back and proclaim you a genius.

unemployment is at "high" levels ? do you recommend we adopt a european solution to that problem ? please tell me what levels you think we are at now...must be all those un-employed people driving up the cost of housing.

If you want to understand the employment levels, try the Bureau of Labor statistics. Too reality-based? Need it spoon-fed? Try this:

unemployment rate is relatively low at 5.2 percent

If that link is too long to appear, click the URL by my name. Short and simple: worst in 20 years.

Reality, friends. It may hurt, but it's worth it in the long run.

Here's a tiny url to cut and paste:

http://tinyurl.com/b529t

If you to claim that the Bush admin BLS is making the numbers WORSE than reality (???), go ahead. Remember that Okrent tried to challenge Krugman for pointing out the govt figures and got his ass handed to him on a little dessert plate. See

http://tinyurl.com/7szr8

Tubino

Tubine:

You're citing a story about how "unemployment rate is relatively low at 5.2 percent"?

"unemployment rate is relatively low at 5.2 percent and overall hiring has started to pick up again, particularly for younger workers coming out of college and professional schools;"

that's from the article you provided a link to.

you seem all fired up for some reason, is it your turn to work the tv remote today ?

i guess it was just too much trouble for you to quote the unemployment levels directly. jeesh, the minutiae of a leftist "victory".

Obviously some of you can't read, and you want to take out your frustrations on me.

Sorry for your plight.

See if you can make sense of these words:
-------------------------------
After World War II, when traditional industries dominated the economy, the usual pattern was for long-term unemployment to surge during recessions and die away quickly as recoveries took hold. That changed during the early 1990's and is even more evident in the current recovery, which began in November 2001.

Rather than subside as growth resumed, long-term unemployment as a share of total joblessness continued to rise, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It peaked 17 months ago at 23.3 percent and has only gradually tapered off since then, to 21.2 percent in April.
--------------------------

Long-term unemployment is the key factor. How bad is it? Well, depending on how you look at it, as bad as any time since the Depression.

I don't understand why high unemployment is a "leftist victory." Seems a bad situation for quite a few people. The winners are those who win when real wages go down, as they have been. Gosh, who would that be? Hmmm... leftists?

You've got some choice idiots here.

Okay, even though I pointed you there once, here it is again:

http://stats.bls.gov/

The claim that Krugman made, substantiated by BLS but upsetting to Okrent, was "40 percent unemployed out of work for more than 15 weeks was a 20-year record". You can see Krugman was right.

But hey, plenty of sand for you to stick your head in. And Cheney says we're winning in Iraq. And WMDs have been found. Major combat was over years ago. It's all great.

20 years? I thought this was the worst economy in 50 years. Oh, that was 1992....

tubino:

Why is it the key factor? Isn't a more imoportant factor that there are plenty of jobs available but that those folks aren't choosing to fill them--waiting for the return of the industrial economy which is never going to happen--and unemployment is still low by historical standards?

Jim Hamlen confuses "long-term unemployment" with "economy", strangely enough, though manages to bring up a date from the last time a Bush left the country with a soaring deficit.

Reminder: The title of this post asserts that we all feel so good. Is consumer confidence high in a historical sense, or only a little bit better than expected under the circumstances?

It's not a hard question.

Wow, where did the Krugman f[an] come from?

Must be one of his grad students or something.

To be fair to tubby tho, there is a Hooverville full of Okies going up next door to me.

oj wonders, "Isn't a more imoportant factor that there are plenty of jobs available but that those folks aren't choosing to fill them--waiting for the return of the industrial economy which is never going to happen--and unemployment is still low by historical standards?"

[me slapping forehead] Why you're RIGHT! And THAT's why "we all feel so GOOD"!!! Because so many people are suffering from longterm unemployment! Why didn't I see that before?!?!

/snark

You didn't really think that one through, did you.

tubino:

It's high:

http://slate.msn.com/id/1007025/

It's ridiculously high by comparison to opinions like yours and Krugman's.

tubino:

Exactly. If such people existed in any significant numbers the confidence number wouldn't be so high. They're artifacts.

tubino:

Isn't there a problem with the Krugman number that you're citing in that roughly 20% of the only 5% unemployed now are being compared to roughly 20% of the 7% unemployed in 1985?

oj decides to abandon rationality and claim that a consumer confidence index of 102 is "high". Baseline is 100. The high is 144. From his UR about the year 2001:
"This January's index dropped 14 points to land at 114.4. It was the fourth decline in a row and one of the sharpest downturns since a drop from July to August of 1990 signaled that recession. The highest the index ever reached was 144.7 in both January and May 2000."

Now 102 is HIGH? Talk about moving your goalposts!!! Now the average is "HIGH"? Yeah, and your C+ is a "high" grade. Sheesh. Try that on your mom.

oj: "Exactly. If such people existed in any significant numbers the confidence number wouldn't be so high. They're artifacts."

You're flailing, man. Now you're trying to claim the number aren't significant, without ever facing up to the fact that of a historical record.

Look, all you have to do is calculate how many new jobs have been added each month for the past 4 years, and how many new people are looking for work to realize how bad the situation is.

Your last post: I don't know why you think 20% = 40%. You might reconsider that. Also, you don't seem to grasp that the 5% number also underreports the long-term unemployed. Kinda crucial here.

What point are you trying to make, anyway? That we all feel good, except for the record number who don't? That consumer confidence is high, if you ignore that it is only mediocre, and not indicative of a rebound by historical standards?

Stick with 40% = 20%. It's your best argument. After that you'll be ready for down is up.

Yes, it's above the baseline, though not at the record highs of the late '90s.

If underemployment is chronically undercounted then we can just use the unemployment number which as the story you cite says is relatively low.

You said that long-term unemployment as a share of total joblessness continued to rise, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It peaked 17 months ago at 23.3 percent and has only gradually tapered off since then, to 21.2 percent in April.

Isn't 20% of 5% a pretty low number?

oj, you're going to have to do the math for him.

i don't get it.

he's not going to be able to multiply 5% by 20% and get 1%, he's going to end up with 100%

Repeated: "40 percent unemployed out of work for more than 15 weeks was a 20-year record".

Did you get it this time? Go back and reread if not.

Then you have this gem: "If underemployment is chronically undercounted then we can just use the unemployment number which as the story you cite says is relatively low."

Look, this isn't hard to understand. For perfectly obvious reasons, repeated above, the undercount of the longterm unemployed, the ones who fall off the count because of time is at record highs. The 20% of 5% you keep harping on is just a snapshot of how many are in the process of rolling off the (arbitrary) time frame used by BLS. The fact that matters is that over the past 48 or so months, the numbers that were in the BLS longterm count were a record %, due to the duration of the bad job situation. And when they were on too long, they were no longer counted. Not normally a big deal, unless it's a record number over a record amount of time, followed by a jobless recovery.

Which is what happened. So the corrected figures are more like 8-9%, and some would calculate higher, depending on where you draw the "underemployed" line.

When my nephew graduated with a Chem Eng degree about 3 years ago, it was the worst hiring year for new grads, ever. Lots of his college buddies didn't fare as well as he did, and were or are unemployed for months or years, which is very very unusual for chem engineers from a top school.

Plenty of other grads without jobs aren't in the unemployment numbers, and never were.

I've seen tubino in action on another blog. Righteous indignation and flailing fanatical attacks are his stock in trade and he is far too emotionally invested in his positions to enter into rational discussion. He is the sort of leftist that makes Brother Perlstein a right leaning centrist. OJ's Marquis of Queensbury blog rules weren't designed for such a visitor.

tubino:

these were the numbers you offered from the BLS:

long-term unemployment as a share of total joblessness continued to rise, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It peaked 17 months ago at 23.3 percent and has only gradually tapered off since then, to 21.2 percent in April.

We needn't figure out how Mr. Krugman manufactures his numbers, but assume he at least has ratios correct and we'll say long term unemployment is as bad now as it was twenty years ago, when unemployment was 7% instead of 5%. Any way you slice it the problem is dimishing and quite small to begin with.

There's no real way to argue with the bizarre assertion that the uncounted are at record highs because then they're counted, no?

The Right, of course, has its own version of the uncounted--the self-employed. So take our uncounted and your uncounted and assume they balance out and we're back to the regular unemployment number which, as you say, is relatively low.

Jobless recovery?

Nephew graduated three years ago?

Okey doke. Three years ago maybe one could argue a la Krugman for a jobless recovery. But now?

Please.

How many millions of jobs has the economy added over the two years?

You might tell your nephew that these guys are always glad to hire engineers. Honest work, too. Just a thought.

My nephew has a great job now. It's his dream job.

Then Jim spills this: "How many millions of jobs has the economy added over the two years?"

Answer: In almost every single month, not enough to keep up with the number of eligible workers added, let alone enough to make up for the shortfall of previous years/months.

Jeez. BASIC MATH, folks!!!!

all this picking of nits over BLS numbers, for what? why does anyone proceed from the assumption that gov't labor stats are anything other than wildly inaccurate? get away from your CRT and drive around your town or your city, your village or your wherever you might live and look around. check the lines at the free kitchens in your community and count the number of doorways and public parks that serve as places for people to sleep each night. crowing about a one month drop in unemployment, about a blip of a rise in "consumer confidence" and a temporary lull in the skyrocketing price of fuel to declare an economic "recovery" and ask "if things are so bad, why do so many of us feel so good?" reminds me of a poser i saw once standing on an aircraft carrier mumbling some blather about a mission accomplished. if so many of you feel so good it's most likely because you live in a gated community and the congress just made your tax cuts permanent.

From the
Bureau of Labor Statistics :

In April 2005, the total population of the U.S. was 296 million.
The employment-population ratio--the proportion of the population age 16 and over with jobs*--was 62.6 percent.

In 1985, the total population of the U.S. was 238 million.
The employment-population ratio was 62 for the year.

Therefore, roughly 1.5 million more people are working now than would have been if 1985 employment levels were applied to the 2005 population, and thus employment must be growing faster than population growth among those aged 16 and up.

* People are classified as employed if they did any work at all as paid employees during the reference week; worked in their own business, profession, or on their own farm; or worked without pay at least 15 hours in a family business or farm.

lonbud:

Or pick up a paper or got to the mall and see all the jobs they can't fill.

tubino:

So you're complaining because your nephew had to look for a job? Brother, can you spare a dime time, huh?

In 1979, Chem. Eng. and Petroleum Eng. grads were kings of the hill, with at least 6 to 8 job offers each. In 1983, they were unemployable. In 1988, things were suddenly better (for the grads.). Then came 1990/91. But 1994 followed, and the 90s were on (with a few bumps along the way).

Oddly enough, 1994/95 were about the worst years for my engineering discipline, but that is completely different now.

Of course 2001 was a terrible year. But a Chem. Eng. grad who doesn't have a job now isn't looking. Period.

oj destroys last shreds of credibility by inventing this:

"So you're complaining because your nephew had to look for a job? Brother, can you spare a dime time, huh?"

Okay, you need remedial reading BADLY. He has his dream job. No one ever complained.

When my nephew graduated with a Chem Eng degree about 3 years ago, it was the worst hiring year for new grads, ever.

I merely tried to illustrate how the job market changed, even for chem engineers. In other disciplines, many grads are still waiting for the job recovery. As lonbud mentions, you can just ask around or look for the clues.

You, my friend, can't carry a thought in a bag, and you can't read for s**t. You just invent and slime to distract, since you can't argue on facts. Typical repub strategy.

Bye, kids.

tubino:

the job market changed

wow, it's like 9-11 times a million...

tubino, what's your take on all the illegal immigrants taking jobs from these "still waiting" grads ?

oj:

all the jobs they can't fill? like the ones that pay $3.75 an hour for ringing a cash register, or taking out the garbage, or cleaning the toilets at some chain store, or playing step 'n fetchit for some "entrepeneur" in the "ownership society"?

give me a break.

bad as it is, america is still seen as the land of opportunity in many parts of the world. and lord knows we can use some hardworking immigrants to come fill all those jobs our lazy, unemployed workers refuse to fill.

yes, there's plenty for those of us willing to compete with workers in mexico, or china, or india, but the market for jobs on which one adult can support a family of four -which used to define the kind of opportunity promised in america- is toast.

lonbud:

No, the service jobs paying $8 and $9 with benefits because they can't find people to take them. Work two of them and you can raise a family of four rather comfortably.

aha, now we come to the crux of the matter, a shortage of executive v.p. positions.

lonbud, what are you doing to address this problem ?

and how is this a governmental issue ?

do you like the way europe is dealing with these same issues ?

I notice, not surprised really, that Tubby didn't respond to Michael's post.

Nor did he acknowledge that millions of jobs added, whether or not these keep pace with additions to the potential workforce, still do not a jobless recovery make.

Of course, neither did he provide even a shred of evidence that job creation over the past 2 years failed to keep pace with additions to the potential workforce. I know that Krugman tried to argue that before the election. I also saw it debunked various places at the time.

The thing I'd like to know is where this fellow came from. What website linked to OJ's post and brought him frothing at the mouth over here?

Sidenote-- one of the nice things about this site is the lack of flamethrowing by OJ and almost all the regular posters. I admire that, tho I sometimes don't live up to those standards myself.

Hi kids, one last stop.

It was the DAOU Report that linked me over here.

Strange that I get called a flamethrower because I use facts.

Jim gingerly tries to regain ground: "Nor did he acknowledge that millions of jobs added, whether or not these keep pace with additions to the potential workforce, still do not a jobless recovery make."

Of course jobs were added. If you add jobs at the same rate that new eligible employees join the market, then you have a jobless recovery.

Duh. Simple consistent definitions for basic terms. All I can figure is that you all are so full of rightwing BS hackery that you are miseducated on these points.

We are now at the point where one can say the FACTS are biased against Repubs. Anyone who remains reality-based can be smeared as a leftwing radical flamethrower. Mere accuracy makes you a leftist partisan.

Bad times, folks.

How about that Downing Street Memo? Any of you actually capable of facing the evidence of being lied to by Glorious Leader?

Oops, there I go again. Citing a document whose authenticity and accuracy has never been denied? I must be wildly leftwing.

Thanks for the additional namecalling.

However, you still haven't provided a shred of evidence that job creation failed to keep pace with additions to the labor market.

In fact you tried to change the subject to Iraq.

BTW: what makes you think I called you a flamethrower? I merely congratulated OJ for not being one, and actually tried to imply that I regreted a post that I made earlier referring to your relations with the Krugster.

It's not all about you Tubby.

tubino:

Of course they lied--Blair needed it to try and bring the Brits along.

Sure, if we keep adding jobs at the rate of employee growth we'll maintain this low unemployment rate for ever and we've got the large pool of unfilled jobs. Every other nation would kill for such a performance. No wonder American consumers are confident.

I'll bet this guy doesn't know that the Humphrey-Hawkins full employment bill NEVER became law, back when the Democrats controlled everything. Even the post-Watergate class wouldn't dare pass it.

And, "miseducated"? Sounds ominous to me.

wow, the pathological behavior demonstrated on this thread is a real eye opener to me. i genuinely feel sorry for someone who is so twisted up inside about how life is treating them.

in any event, there is no way adding jobs == jobless

maybe there are more people entering the workforce than there are jobs being created, but that is a different thing all together.

What's really funny is that consumer confidence is probably based on people looking around as lonbud suggests and goggling at the evident prosperity. I live in small farming / university city in the MidWest and She Who Is Perfect In All Ways and I frequently just stop and look in amazement at the incredible amounts of money being spent on construction around here. It's simply stunning. I've never seen it like this and I've been here for 40+ years.

As for the other metrics cited by lonbud, they're all positive here (although last I checked the county unemployment rate had spiked to 2.3%).

over 2% in a university town? What a Hooverville...

i think it's the prosperity that is driving the hard core left so batty; they aren't participating in it and are enraged that so many "inferior" types are.

something other than the things they are raving about is really causing a lot of psychological distress in these people.

maybe this is just left over from the dot-com crash.

Just today, the paper in the Lehigh Valley said that employment was coming back (finally). The unemployment rate in NE PA is 5%, give or take a tenth or two.

And this is supposed to be a rusty area (still). But Mack is on full shifts.

All is fine.

All is well.

Drive your Hummer down to make a payment on your interest only loan.

well, i sure do wish i had more time during my workday to kick it and catch up on my blog threads; i wouldn't feel so tardy to the party.

but i have to keep moving wigits for the man or else i'll soon have to hoof it out to the mall for a couple of those $8.50 an hour + benefits jobs making cookies for mrs. fields to make ends meet.

let's just take a look now and consider the kind of "prosperity" you folks are comfortable with these days.

i mean, oj thinks nothing of having someone work TWO $8.50 an hour jobs to support a family of four, although i'm not sure what planet that will do the trick on.

my math says at 80 hours a week that's $2720 pre-tax dollars per month, or $32,640 before any kind of social security, medicare, or income taxes per year. exactly where is the support for a family of four in that scenario?

after payroll witholding and income taxes, after a reasonable amount for rent or a mortgage, after a little for food and clothing, there might be something left over to pay the cable bill, but there sho-nuff ain't jack to put away for johnny and susie to go to college and get one of them chemical engineering jobs that don't exist anymore.

besides that, support for a family includes time spent with the family, and if someone is working 80 hours a week there's not any of that to go around.

and exactly what kind of "benefits" do these unfilled $8.50 an hour jobs offer? free day-old cookies?

there's not a single person reading this thread who would accept the proposition that holding down two of these kinds of jobs would make them feel prosperous.

at that level of income you pay very little in taxes and might even qualify for a net credit.
somehow many people in exactly those circumstances do manage to put their kids through college.

you seem to be under the impression that every person is guranteed a "prosperous" life, and if they (you?) don't get it then someone is cheating them.

just what exactly is your beef, anyway ? extra points if you can avoid using sarcasm...

lonbud:'

it's over 175% of poverty level, with a stay at home mom.

No one has noted that due to job-churn in a country the size of the US, 4% unemployment is actually 0% unemployment.

And all this nonsense about $8.50 an hour jobs completely misses reality at one place I work (Ford software engineer).

90% of the employees there are Indian or Chinese.

They are willing to emigrate from their home countries to take $40+/hour jobs that Americans won't.

Oh, and one other thing.

People don't go into debt to buy a cup of Starbucks.

Which is raking money in by the barge load because of the millions of Americans have money far beyond their needs.

Tubby and Ionbud's arguments are perfectly sensible, except they bear no relationship to reality.

Dropped back in, and found these odd ones:
_________________________
However, you still haven't provided a shred of evidence that job creation failed to keep pace with additions to the labor market.
__________________________

Er, I did show you where to find the data, and even gave you another link to a discussion of the data. But since this stuff is published every FREAKIN' MONTH in the business press, how hard do you imagine it is to find??????? Just because you haven't been paying attention doesn't give you any particular credibility. If you didn't hear this during the presidential campaign, what are the odds you'll hear it now???

But since fewer jobs were produced than needed, month after month after month, and the situation never really reversed, just evened out during recovery, that's "jobless."
______________________________
"in any event, there is no way adding jobs == jobless

maybe there are more people entering the workforce than there are jobs being created, but that is a different thing all together."
_________________________

You are making up your own definitions of terms, then insisting everyone else use them. Did you know that idiosyncratic and idiot have the same root, meaning self? I think that's interesting.

Incidentally, what you describe in your second sentence, when it happens in a so-called recovery after months of few jobs than new workers, is the new phenomenon for which we now have the term JOB-LOSS recovery, as opposed to jobless.

Thanks, George.

"Tubby and Ionbud's arguments are perfectly sensible, except they bear no relationship to reality."

The record numbers of bankruptcies occuring apparently also bear no relationship to Jeff's "reality."

Record numbers of households declaring bankruptcy. Apparently that's another reason why "we all feel so good."

record number for which year ?

people declare bankruptcy for a variety of reasons.

tubino, it's obvious you are very unhappy about your own situation but why do you insist that this is a time of widespread misery ? i suspect this is another case of kael's syndrome.

the irs website says federal payroll deductions and income taxes on a head of household income of approximately 32k amount to about $8000. That leaves 24k for 4 people to live on for a year. I don't believe anyone here can seriously argue that's any amount of money anyone can get ahead on, and it's almost impossible for that kind of a family to put two kids through college on. and no, cjm, i don't believe anyone is "entitled" to prosperity, but isn't that what all the free marketeers and capitalist boosters are always harping on as the benefit of their system?

the fact is the entire wage and taxation structure in this country is designed to make it hard for people of few means to ever rise above their lot through mere hard work and dedication. it's also designed to keep people of means fully supported and subsidized without regard to their work ethic or habits of consumption.

lonbud;

It's 175% of poverty level.

Do you know any professors or college admninistrators? Everyone who wants to go to college and can get in can pay for it.

oj: what do you know about poverty, brother? the only people professors and college administrators know are the people who can get into college and can pay for it.

Show of hands here: give me a shout if you interview prospective new hires as part of your job. If yes, would you recommend someone, for hire or even for a second interview, if you caught the sort of attitude that lonbud and tubino are sporting in here. If no, how successful do you think they'd be at covering up?

Attitude, gentlemen. It counts, and it shows. If you're unhappy with your situation you might try checking the mirror first.

joe s, i don't think there are many (if any) "tax eaters" here, so we wouldn't ever come across this kind of person in our workaday lives. only a government sponsored lifestyle can support this kind of perverse mindlessness.

lonbud:

Yes, that's the point. Everyone can.

joe:
what kind of business do you hire for, chief? got any jobs you can't fill where i can pay my 3k per mo. mortgage and my $300 car note and still sock away over $500 a month for the next 16 years so i can put my only child through college on in-state tuition at ole miss? i bet not only could i get you to hire me but you'd be begging me to bring my brothers and cousins in, too. my attitude on this thread is nothing compared to the attitude i've been trained to affect in the "real" world.

oj:
so then if someone can't afford to go to college they must not want to go; is that it?

lonbud:

Everyone and his brother goes and an absurd 95% graduate from high school for no apparent reason. We've a wildly over-educated workforce.

an interesting perspective. can't tell by the way they vote.

No, you can tell by the jobs that go begging--anything that requires skills and training but not education.

which, not that you intended it, is a fine critique of the educational system in this country. high school is little more than a holding pen and baby-sitting enterprise.

we are not interested in training our children or giving them skills so much as we are in keeping them out of our hair.

embarking on an endless global campaign to eradicate "terrists" from the face of the earth is obviously a long-term plan of sheer genius in that regard.

The attitude I've been trained to affect...
That would be your first problem, lonbud.

au contrer mon ami... thing is, I don't have nearly the kinds of problems the vast majority of statistically disappearing americans have. i come from the class of wealth and favor GWB et cie are so desperately trying to preserve. but i recognize it for what it is. lucky sperm should count for zero, yet here it is all one needs to have to "feel so good."

you still haven't said what kind of positions you are hiring for, giuseppi...

lonbud, I live in Seattle and employ over 130 people and I have the only college degree in the company. At least a third of my employees don't have high school diplomas yet the average employee earns $22hr. I constantly have job openings that require no previous training that pay almost $20hr, but I can't find responsible people to hold these jobs. I get people that want to call in 4 times a month, get high at work, or get paid from not putting forth the modest effort required. What kind of jobs are these. Cocktail waitresses and cashiers in a cardroom. All you need to do is show up. $40 thousand a year jobs that go begging. Why do you think that is?

lonbud:

No, that's exactly what I intended. Over education is at war with skilled jobs.

Tubby:

Note also there are a record number of Americans, hence, households.

Rate, not quantity, is the important number here.

You're a long way from needing to worry about that, lonbud. But keep a civil tongue in your head for the length of one post -- for example, try addressing me as "joe" next time -- and we'll call it a start.

lonbud;

$3K/month mortgage? There's your problem. I pay just under $4K/month for a near-mansion in a ritzy neighborhood here. My previous house, which was a nice, brand new middle class house in a good neighborhood, had a $1200/month mortgage. I could have dropped that almost in half had I been willing to live another 10 miles out of town or in an older section of town. And because it's a university town, it has what's considered an expensive housing market for the area. I personally know a family of 5 who's getting by quite well on one job and less than $40K/year. As for college, what's wrong with the trades? Looking at how the contractors who work on my house live, I don't see what's wrong with that as a career choice (not to mention that it can' be outsourced).

It's also interesting that, having done exactly what you prescribed to realize the "truth" of the economy, you immediately dismiss my observations.

old guy:
which of your observations have i dismissed? i don't doubt that things are booming in your area and i'm happy for you that you can make the 4k house pmt work. there's absolutely nothing wrong with the trades -college certainly ought not be a prerequisite for prosperity, although there is a very strong correlation between wealth and higher education. my beef with the current administration has to do with the deceit and hypocricy of the ruling cabal, with their spending priorities, and with the looting of the treasury by which their friends are being enriched.

patrick:
i'd say much of the problem with being unable to find responsible waitresses and cashiers willing to work for $20+ an hour can be laid at the feet of our educational system, big media (TV), and the high sodium/high fat/high sugar diet most kids grow up on.

joe s:
in my community, giuseppi is a term of endearment for people named joe, but i'll stick with your preference. so, what are the $20+ per hour jobs you can't fill again?

oj:
there are very few overeducated people in america, in my experience. in fact, vast swaths of this great land are populated by people with very little facility for critical thought and the most minimal capacity for thinking about or doing more than one thing at a time. the fact that 95% of people graduate from high school (a highly dubious statistic but one i'll grant in the interest of the larger discussion) has nothing to do with how educated they are.

http://www.lonbud.com/

lonbud:

Very few people have the capacity for critical thought--education won't change that.

i saw dean's hand moving, when you posted that.

there is a grand diversity of opinion and experience here, but you are too blind with anger to see it. hate has a fearful price.

i don't watch press conferences; what's the point its not like any of the reporters ever ask anything interesting or useful.

bush and the administration come in for plenty of criticism here, but it is generally well thought out and reasoned.

you won't win any arguments here with name calling or smoke and mirrors.

whatever your politics, its the merits of your ideas that count. drop the attitude, if you have the courage, and see what happens.

lonbud,
I was hoping to show you that there are plenty of jobs available that pay a wage that will support a family, even for the unskilled and unschooled. The problem isn't diet or television and the schools are only marginally to blame. Any person with the discipline to work a scheduled shift, avoid drug and alcohol abuse can find work. Unfortunately, too many people today are "too good" to take the jobs available. They want what they want and will take nothing less and if there are no jobs doing what they want, they will not work. The problem isn't what the jobs pay, but what the jobs are.

oj:

why, i believe you are one of the very elitists you purport to decry! very few people have the *capacity* for critical thought???

right, and some people are just born to do certain kinds of jobs and if they are not happy with what those jobs pay or with the breadth of jobs available to them, they can just forego their lump of coal.

patrick:

i hear you, bro. the society and the culture are in poor shape. i maintain it actually does have a lot to do with diet and television, but i respect your right to disagree with me on that.

cjm:

what are you talking about, man?

lonbud:

The liberal elite doesn't have the capacity in any greater measure.

gamma's are the best

its hard to say what is the cause and what is the effect, regarding weight, diet, attitudes, etc.

here is my take: if a person is exposed to high levels of stimulation, then normal life is boring to the point of painful. tv, games, concentrated fats and sugars, all contribute to this. and once the body gets messed up, a positive feedback loop starts kicking in.

ionbud: this is more like it, bro :) what's the story behind the nick ?

oj:

eschewing the use of labels would improve your debating style immeasurably. how do you justify a statement like "very few peole have the capacity for critical thought"?

would you admit to being a social darwinist? how about a platonic idealist? an aristotelian pragmatist?

in the immortal words of frank zappa, "what kind of a guru are you?"

cjm:

in capital letters it would be LONBUD, and like most nicknames, it's just a play on my given name, which is Lon.

gotcha. that 'l' looks a lot like an 'i'.

i used to read a yahoo message board and whenever a nick started with a letter that was easily misread, someone would create a login with the wrong letter (if that makes sense) and post under the other person's nick. i always thought that was funny.

those goofy yahoo users... what a bunch of kidders!

it's the simple things that make life worth living.

on that particular message board, the nick spoofing was the most worthwhile aspect. it's not called "yahoo" for nothing

lonbud:

It's not pejorative. Critical thought isn't particularly useful in itself and is almost never used wisely. All the necessary thoughts were thought a long time ago. And, yes, I'm a Darwinist/Platonist/Aristotelian.