Since the government can't solve the problem, it's time the people start facing unemployment with their own ingenuity:

http://bit.ly/ozqT6

(satire)

Anecdotally, the job market in Phoenix and LA suck. People who
were relatively well positioned in movie studios/ labs are
considering things like one of our friends, who is seriously
thinking about working at a car wash. It's not ALL bad -- he
likes to be outdoors and LA in the winter is not even Norway in
August.

So going from being the assistant to the head of post production
at a movie studio and dining at the Ivy, he's going to have to
take a crash course in taco truck menus and how to say, "Please
don't hit me, I didn't scratch your car" in Korean, Vietnamese,
Thai, and what's that other language commonly spoken in LA
beyond Yiddish??? Oh yes -- Spanish.

Another friend of ours is going to lose her beautiful home after
being let go of a very good job that she's had for decades.
She's got five Chihuahuas to feed and might end-up having to
sell them in Little Saigon for dog food, by which I mean they
make their food out of dogs down there.

And then, here in Phoenix, again anecdotally, my brother is
much younger than I am and has even younger friends because
he has fantasies of being a child molester.

Almost every single one, from early 20s-mid 30s, has lost their
job. They aren't at the same skill level as our LA friends, but
they all want to work and most were relatively good at what were
pretty much low paid jobs, like credit card collections - which
must be a non-stop party. They can't even get those now.

So among my circle of acquaintances, people at a high skill/
educational level are losing their jobs with no prospect of
employment, as well as people who are literate, hard-working,
high school graduates.

But yet we have endless money for war.

It goes back to my theory that for years this has been building -
- the ruling elite dumbo-ed down the educational level and
destroyed the economy so that the only prospect for many
young people is to be cannon fodder or eat out of trash bins,
although there's not going to be much food left in those trash
bins if the economy continues to self-immolate.

It also goes back to my empirical thesis:

* money is best spent by the community for the community.
Local level, because each locality knows what it needs.

Even within the state of Arizona, we've been known to have the
highest and the lowest temperature in the nation on the same
day, so a person in Yuma doesn't have the same needs (a bikini
and a hose) as a person on the White Mountain Apache
reservation ( a down parka, a shotgun and some killer skis)

Keep taxes spent local.

* Federal government should only address federal issues, like
interstate highways and faux flu scares.

* Standing army (by which I mean highly trained reserves) for
defense not offense. "Walk softly and carry a big stick or rather
thousands of nuclear weapons") So we keep the sticks. We sure
have enough of them already.

The bottom line is that the amount we spend on war is not cost-
effective and has obviously led to blowback on so many different
levels.

I'm going to post this until every single one of TWN readers is
forced to look at it, the National Priorities Project and how the
cost of war affects individual US communities.

http://www.nationalpriorities.org/

Questions is obviously off making policy/ wallowing in self pity
because she didn't win Miss The Washington Note this year,
although she, Nadine and Wig tied with me for Miss
Congeniality, with POA being second runner up.

Otherwise Question's would be writing some utter rubbish about
how the Pentagon budget has no affect on state and local
budgets.

Steve, can you get this across as well as GET US OUT OF THESE
FUCKING WARS -- to your friends in DC?

All these unemployed kids, or rather 30-60 + year olds-- rather
than spend money on war start a national works program,
replete with whips and manacles for the supervisors.

Give everyone a free quality education from pre-school to any
graduate degree they prove themselves to merit.

Single payer health insurance!

We are done if we keep going down this warpath. And it's
probably too late -- Israel has us in her vice like grip and
already 5 feet under, once we hit six, China, here Israel comes.

Thanks so much for this Hindery sequel, another refreshing voice of reason and reality.

This tendency for a government to offer its citizens make believe (Alabama's Senator Shelby proclaimed the U.S. health care system the best in the world comes to mind)rather than real products reminds of what the Soviets did prior to their collapse.

Private pharmaceutical corporations spend 1.5 times as much on marketing than they do on R&D, with the FDA allowing new drugs as long as they are not clearly WORSE than existing products.

We count nuclear weapons as part of GDP, rather than subtracting for the opportunity cost of REAL products we could have had, ignoring accounting for natural capital depreciation, etc, etc. In sum current government measurements are so rife with ideologically driven numbers, to make much of what is produced in terms of government data suspect. So kudos to Hindery for offering a more realistic interpretation.

As far as the making of Tang and instant coffee, and other "do-it-yourself" projects as solution, I am speechless.

Real wealth is a function of COMMON property, and the ability of society to COOPERATE and work more efficiently.

If you want to leave government out of the solution, we will need some other institutions to enable us to collaborate. Better than homemade "Tang" are things like google wave. What the government has done to privatize the benefits of seiniorage is something NOT countered by being selfish, but by building alternative institutions- private money comes to mind, starting with more credit unions, county issued "chits", or other forms of slow money.

To disassemble the vast network of cooperation we have built, to accept state layoffs of workers especially teachers, shows me just how far we have gone with the disconnect of politicians as agents of individuals interested only in SR profits- ie how much silverware can be stolen before the ship goes down. It's all about Me, Me, Mine and a bastardization of what Adam Smith really said.

It's NOT government per se that is the problem, but the Ayn Rand type of government as limited to police and courts in protecting the rights of the elite. Somehow we need to find a way to a government that is based on the consent of an enlightened public, and acknowledges that wealth creation is a community, and not an individual, effort. Countries that are able to develop fair and efficient governments thrive, those that can't eventually crumble.

erich, Unemployment isn't going to improve until businesses start hiring again. Businesses aren't going to start hiring until they can feel some security in predicting their environment a year from now. No business in America can look at the healthcare battle in DC and predict what its tax load will be a year from now. That has to put a big damper on hiring.

You guys are doing it again. You love jobs but you hate employers. That doesn't work.

Steve, maybe you can use your contacts in cuba and get fidel to send one of his supersharp advisers to help socialize the american work force...because there is no way out of the hell that the wallstreet crowd and our political ubermenschen have gotten us in.

maybe they can bring back the spirit of that super economist che guevara to help us in our hour of need.

marx and lenin uberalles.

Thank you for writing this brief on the "real" rate of unemployment including those no longer collecting unemployment benefits - those individuals who have effectively been dropped from the workforce. I beleive ths situation is far worst than the public knows. Officials in Washington have better wake up. I'm in my late 50's and have been unemployed for 3 years. I had a successful career in mid-management, but was laid off with my job eliminated or absorbed by my immediate manager. In addition, I'm watched our country outsource thousands of jobs and product manufacturing - not to mention the illegal immigration issue. Our nation is in trouble. Meanwhile, no one wants to hire an experienced worker in his 50s or 60s....sad.