[ale] Off topic - And now, Arizona

[Jim Kinney]

On Sun, Jul 11, 2010 at 5:24 PM, Greg Freemyer <greg.freemyer at gmail.com>wrote:

> On Sun, Jul 11, 2010 at 2:04 PM, Jim Kinney <jim.kinney at gmail.com> wrote:
> <snip>
> > We have nearly 10% unemployment. That sounds
> > scary. We have better than 90% employment. That's great!
>
> 90% of what?
>

if 10% is unemployed the rest must be employed or not looking.

Yes it's wildly inaccurate. I was trying for a "see the bigger picture"
process. The assumption is "of the people wanting to work, nearly 10% are
unemployed so the other 90% must be employed".

I'm well aware of the numbers that aren't visible, people who are no longer
eligible for unemployment are no longer counted as "unemployed" (I think).

It sucks and there's no end in sight as long as people aren't getting hired
faster than people are getting laid off.

The last time we had a mess this bad it took WWII to really end it. But we
are already in 2 shooting  wars! How many more do we need to be in? What
kind of public work programs do we need to keep things stumbling along? $1B
will fund basic paychecks for 25k teachers at $40k. That's education for
600,000 students at 24 kids per teacher. Surely that's a worthwhile cause.
Pay for it with a special  tax on incomes over $500k. Add a surcharge to
professional sports events that directs $1/ticket and 1% of TV revenues
towards the edu systems of the team home state. Ditto on movies. Reduce the
congress critter paychecks by 10%. Create an S&L (Stupid&Lazy) tax on
reality TV shows. Give a discount for people that can recite the Declaration
of Independence and Constitution correctly. Raise the fees on oil and
mineral extraction groups. Screw the dead poeple and take ALL their assets
when they die. Sell Florida. something.

hmm. sell florida....



> Certainly not able bodied adults between 18 and 65.
>
> I don't now the details but:
>
> 100% = Employed + Unemployed + other.
>
> And other is close to 50% I do believe, maybe more.  ie. Students,
> non-working spouses. those that have given up looking for work etc.
>
> Greg
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-- 
-- 
James P. Kinney III
Actively in pursuit of Life, Liberty and Happiness
Doing pretty well on all 3 pursuits

  Faith is a cop-out. If the only way you can accept an assertion is by
faith, then you are conceding that it can’t be taken on its own merits.
    Dan Barker, "Losing Faith in Faith", 1992
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