Blog Archives
The Restaurants folks eat in as an economic indicator…
The New York Times has pointed out that…
…when Americans feel better about their finances, they are more likely to eat at restaurants with full service, including bringing the food to the table, rather than at restaurants with limited service. At the moment, both the restaurant sales and the falling unemployment rate indicate the economy is doing better than the Gross Domestic Product figures would seem to show.
Here are the stats:
So where have you been eating lately? I’ve been going over our cc receipts for the last month or so and discovered that my wife and I fit right in with this recovery crowd… we don’t eat at fast food joints at all and our sit-down restaurant visits have been predominant.
Where have you been eating?
Some distressing facts we should review from the US Census Bureau:
WASHINGTON — Continued high unemployment drove the number of Americans living in poverty to a record high in 2010 and dragged down median household income for the third straight year since the Great Recession first darkened the nation’s economy in 2007.
More than a year after the economic recovery officially began in June 2009, 46.2 million people had annual earnings below the poverty line last year, up from 43.6 million the previous year, according to new U.S. Census Bureau figures released Tuesday. That’s the largest number in the 52 years for which poverty estimates have been published.
So the question is, how do we get back on track and IMPROVE the well-being of the 99%. If you don’t think it’s by increasing revenues as well as cutting some unnecessary expenses ( and healthcare, education and unemployment relief are NOT unnecessary) then you are living with a blindfold on.
And if you are a White non-Hispanic like me, resting on your current advantages will also not improve the lot of all of us. Remember, we are soon to be a minority group compared to the rest.
Related articles
- Two fact sheets on new health care, poverty data from the U.S. Census Bureau (franklinmatters.blogspot.com)
- Poverty Rate Increased in 2010 (onebluestocking.wordpress.com)
- The “Near Poor” (psychologytoday.com)
- The Truth on US Poverty (talesfromthelou.wordpress.com)
- Down But Not Quite Out: The “Near Poor” in America (neatorama.com)
- Poverty and Financial Distress Would Have Been Substantially Worse in 2010 Without Government Action, New Census Data Show (bespacific.com)
- CENSUS: New poverty calculus: Cause for alarm or political deception? “When the Census Bureau star… (pjmedia.com)
- Trade News: From the U.S. Census Bureau and Department of Commerce (worldtradedaily.com)
Ben Bernanke interviewed on 60 Minutes: Income Inequality Is ‘Creating Two Societies’
Gosh… Has Bernanke just figured this stuff out after helping to make the inequality himself?
Here’s a snip they had on HuffPo this morning:
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You notice he’s not saying what happens if you are a college graduate over 55 who became unemployed at the end of the Bush Debacle. I’ll bet our unemployment rate is at about 15%.
Related Articles
- The omnipresent – not omniscient – Ben Bernanke (ftalphaville.ft.com)
- Bernanke on CBS’s ’60 Minutes’ (blogs.wsj.com)
- Fed Chair Bernanke talks tax policy (dontmesswithtaxes.typepad.com)
- This Was The Scariest Thing Ben Bernanke Said Last Night (businessinsider.com)
- Bernanke takes defense of Fed to ’60 Minutes’ (msnbc.msn.com)
- Bernanke: More Fed bond buys “certainly possible” (reuters.com)
A look at how unemployment has grown in the past 4 years…
… from figures at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Click on the expand button so it fills your monitor and watch your area of the country. I saw the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia go from 2% to over 10% in the 4 year coverage (which includes me!)… and look at how the whole country changes.
Neither Republicans nor Democrats, nor Tea Baggers, nor anyone else has done anything to solve this problem. So what do we do?
Jobs. The Problem and the Solution.
I should have linked you to this article on Ramona’s Voices a week ago…Ramona has put together a great summary of where we are with the unemployment problem, and has put together the obvious solution… and backed it up with a number of links.
Here’s the beginning of her article:
The consensus, no matter who says it and why, is that American manufacturing industries are no longer of Americans, by Americans, or even for Americans. It’s beyond a worrisome rumor, it’s an established fact: American manufacturing, compared to manufacturing world-wide, fills a niche no bigger than the size of an ant farm box.
Let’s face it, the people in charge of keeping Americans working are not just incompetent or oblivious, they’re the next best thing to the enemy. The public sector is beyond just aiding and abetting the private sector, they’re right down in the trenches with them. Such a cacophony from Big Money, from the Right Wing, from the keepers of the status quo. Who could blame the people in charge for lending them an ear?
You kidding? We could! We should! A whole lot of us DO!
You can go in and read the fest HERE.
And let’s consider the real solution here… taxing the rich and creating jobs through social problems, a la FDR. One more selection:
Oh, and by the way: We need to tax the hell out of the filthy rich and make them pay. Then we need to spend what they’re forced to fork over on social programs and American outlets for gainful employment.
Tax and spend, that’s the ticket. (Note that I can say that without even once gagging or flinching.)
Thanks, Ramona… I certainly agree with you.
Depression.
When a show I have directed ends it is often the thing that spurs a bout of depression with me, and the end of Hunting Of The Snark is no different for me. When I combine it with my current unemployed situation, the taking down I received from at least one of the Full Circle Theater founders (who made it clear that, since I hadn’t put $30,000 into the place I was not a decision maker… or even a recommender), and the cold I have also developed, I am considerably down for a Monday morning.
If I didn’t take my regular medication for depression it would probably be a lot worse… a depressing thought in and of itself. The rainy weather doesn’t help either.
I’m on my way to the store this afternoon to pick up necessary test-strips for my blood-test meter. Maybe a ride in the car will be a pickup.
Why are we the only stupid industrialized country in the world?
by Thom Hartmann
I had to pass this article by Thom Hartmann along, since it tells us a lot of how our government thinks…or doesn’t…and how decades of anti-union Labor Departments have put our concern for workers in the toilet. Pass this one on to folks you know. – Bill
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A Note From Jenean Gilstrap
I just finished watching Al Franken make a speech in the Senate on the freezing of unemployment as of last night at midnight due to Senator Bunning’s “One-Man Filibuster.” As I was listening to Al, I checked my e-mail and found this note from Ms. Gilstrap.
I pass it on to you:
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hi bill – my sister, jerelyn gilstrap [jcgcollaborations.blogspot.com] and i were just discussing the news of senator bunning’s hold on the passage of an unemployment benefits extension bill that would allow those whose unemployment benefits expired the end of february to obtain an extension of those benefits – in any event, i am one of those impacted upon by this republican’s power play over the unemployed – jerelyn and i were thinking you might be interested in doing a post on this issue – an issue that sorely needs a rambunctious forum such as yours!!!
below is the little ditty i placed on my facebook page – [since my facebook site is just a communications forum for my own family, i was a bit freer in my verbal language than i might have been otherwise]:
THIS REPUBLICAN SENATOR IS BLOCKING SINGLE HANDEDLY THE EXTENSION OF UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS TO THE UNEMPLOYED, INCLUDING ME, WHOSE BENEFITS EXPIRED THE END OF FEBRUARY – HIS MAIN CONCERN DURING THE LATE DEBATE WAS THAT HE WAS MISSING A BASKETBALL GAME – OBVIOUSLY A MAN OF DISTINCTION AMONG THOSE WORTHY TO SIT ON THE SENATE IN THE FIRST PLACE – WELL, HE CAN DISTINCTLY KISS MY UNEMPLOYED ASS – OH, AN ASS THAT WAS LAID OFF FROM A NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION WHOSE FUNDING WAS CUT IN THE MIDST OF ALL THE OTHER ORGANIZATIONS ALSO LAYING OFF EMPLOYEES THROUGH NO FAULT OF THEIR OWN – DID I MENTION HE IS A REPUBLICAN!!! KISS MY ASS AGAIN!
as you can see, i hold rather strong feelings about this, especially because i am a senior citizen, was laid off through no fault of my own and struggle daily with just the necessities, a story familiar to way too many others, as well – necessities like medicare/additional insurance for which i struggle to pay and upon which this suspended income now impacts –
again, it would be wonderful to see this issued addressed in one of your fabulous posts!!!
thanks very much for your time and energy!
jenean
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jenean c gilstrap
Let’s deal with the jobs problem…
I’m taking a personal look at this, since I’ve been out of work for some time and this past week I was turned down for employment at a job I thought I was uniquely suited for… after an interview that I thought went well on the phone and another one in person.
By my best guess, I’ve applied for over 350 jobs in the past eighteen months and, as the economy dropped into the toilet, I have been turned down without interview by most of these… many that have just ignored the on-line application. Of these, at least half of them I was more than qualified for and of the rest I could have done them with little or no retraining.
None of these jobs said “don’t apply if you are over 60”, but I think that my being 63 (and even if I don’t tell my age, they want to know my college degrees and graduation dates and it’s not hard to figure out how old someone is who got a Bachelor’s degree in 1968 and a Masters in 1969) has a lot to do with it. People look at you when you’re 63 and think about how much their benefit expenses are going to increase… or how soon you will drop dead after they pour expense into your training.
I’ve revised resumes, stressing different strengths depending on the jobs. I’ve listed the support letters I got from previous managers. Hell, on at least 2 occasions I;ve offered to volunteer for free for a few months so they could find out if I was worth hiring.
So I’m trying to deal with the job problem. I can’t afford early retirement and I’m eating up retirement funds I started backing up forty years ago. They could all be gone in another two years. That would leave me with the possibility of retirement, which I am totally uninterested in, and meager Social Security funds.
So I’m counting on the government, this ongoing war zone between two extreme parties, to come up with some way to stop losing thousands of jobs a month (although I am supposed to be relieved that it’s gone from hundreds of thousands a month to merely tens of thousands.) And I’m counting on my own ability to keep looking and not to take being turned down too seriously. But it is getting very hard.
Occasionally I get a freelance job… but given the economy, many of these no longer show up, and those that do are trying to spend very little money. Not a bright sign.
And, of course, I am living in a region that is not overly populated with jobs in the first place… but the life turns that got me here are not easily changed: moving is not possible right now. I look for jobs in one hour driving distances… but that only makes a small increase in possibilities.
Now, am I in a different position from hundreds of thousands of other people? No. I ran an article last week that showed 1 out of 5 men in the working age bracket are unemployed (the figure for women is half that). That’s 20%. So when I here there is a 10% unemployment rate but know that 20% of men can’t get hired, then it is clear that statistics don’t mean a thing in the real world.
In my life I have made money for employers, never looked for other jobs when I thought I had a position with a company, and never put money ahead of the job. I suppose that makes me stupid… I’ve seen many around me who play their game on employers and actually get ahead. I can’t seem to do that… I have to be an “honorable employee”. But I could be changing out of necessity.
Today I will apply for another half-dozen positions. I’ll follow up on a bunch of applications I did last week. I’ll look into pushing for more freelance work as I search the web.
And I won’t give up what has become a very slim hope.
1 in 5 Working-Age American Men Don’t Have A Job
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Remember the CETA program in the 70s?
Well, according to this article in the HuffPo, Democrats are contemplating bringing CETA back to help solve the unemployment problem. Here’s the first few paragraphs, but go to Huffington Post because there is much more:
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Now you tell me!
Watching Dylan Ratigan’s Morning Meeting I heard White House reporter Chuck Todd comment on the fact that there are 6 people looking for every 1 job available (while meanwhile the banks are showing record profits.)
Either jobs aren’t a number one priority at this point, or profit triumphs over work.
Anyway… I wish the five other guys who are looking for work at the jobs I’ve been going after would take a couple of days off.
Quote of the Day
Commenting on whether the USA will experience a “Lost Decade” as a result of recession, like Japan in the 1990s:
“There’s no way we’re going to tolerate a Lost Decade in this country. It’s a fantasy, because the House of Representatives has elections every two years. The country is not going to tolerate 10 percent unemployment indefinitely. People (in power in Washington) need to be aware of that. If they don’t take the opportunities now . . . someone else will.”
-James K. Galbraith, Economist.