And that’s as the (real, not finessed) unemployment rate looks dismal. Why, it’s almost as if one were to take out a slide rule or a fancy calculator or even an abacus, they could find some kind of correlation — if not causation — between the expansion of government, the shrinking of the private sector, and the continued horror of obstinately high unemployment rates.
Were one so invested, I mean.
CNS:
In June, a total of 142,415,000 people were employed in the U.S, according to the BLS, including 19,938,000 who were employed by federal, state and local governments.
By November, according to data BLS released today, the total number of people employed had climbed to 143,262,000, an overall increase of 847,000 in the six months since June.
In the same five-month period since June, the number of people employed by government increased by 621,000 to 20,559,000. These 621,000 new government jobs created in the last five months equal 73.3 percent of the 847,000 new jobs created overall.
I’ve been saying this for years now, but if you want to glimpse the future, check out the full version of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil. Then, when you’re finished, marvel at the irony of the movie having been directed by a leftist who clearly hasn’t understood the trajectory of his own political views — having failed to notice the influence on the screenplay (which Gilliam himself had a hand in) by Czech-born British playwright Tom Stoppard, who is rather notorious for his darkly comical and almost surrealist attacks on censorship and the systemic crushing of freedom and morality.
One of the universe’s little inside jokes, if you ask me.
You must be mistaken Jeff, all the newsreaders today are saying the unemployment rate dropped to 7.7 % on the strength of 142K jobs.
Just listening to them, and doing a little quick math in my head, I figure another couple hundred thousand jobs, and we”ll have a negative unemployment rate, and will have to encourage more Illegal immigration!
I’ve made the “correction,” Lee.
C’mon. Barack is finally getting this country back to the heady days of the Clinton economy. Number Of Workers Aged 25-54 Back To April 1997 Levels | ZeroHedge
It bears noting again in this thread that government dependents — think all those economy-boosting disability cases Pelosi was so proud of — are crossed off the unemployment rolls.
…which accounts for unemployment going down while employment…goes down too. The newly employed number about one quarter of the newly dependent.
As with all things progressive, not only can you change physical reality but you can change the terms and language used to describe your work.
In fact it’s required.
The half million that gave up looking and fell off the BLS radar is the most important thing.
Of course people don’t just “Give up”, they start entering the underground cash/barter economy to scramble some bucks…but those are generally totally undeclared untaxed bucks (good for the serf, not so good for the Federal govt).
If we got a half million people going off grid every month, its pretty obvious the Federal govt has a crisis on its hands — the underground economy don’t care how much congress or the president wants to raise taxes, because it ain’t paying them anyway
Yes, well, it’s easy to say double everyone’s income taxes when your current rate is 0.
Also worth noting that September’s and October’s employment numbers were revised downward by 60,000+. How convenient.
Doubtful. Most of them get on government assistance which, like our modern prisons, are sufficiently comfortable enough that there’s no reason to find honest work.
Meanwhile, the government (read: our ruling elite) borrows some extra numbers, prints up some matching dollars, and enjoy the extra votes from their new constituents.
FTFY. Turns out they think Animal Farm was a manual too.
Hey Jeff — OT, but whenever I try to link one of your posts in facebook, the summary under the headline is an advertisement for something instead of content from the post. I am afraid that tends to disincline people from actually clicking over.
church, you can double-click both the headline and intro text in your FB links and edit them.
Ha, thanks JH.
Church —
You can just delete that tax by clicking on it, clearing the box, and writing in whatever you like. That’s how I do it.
Gotta build those union numbers up somehow.