Showing posts with label unemployment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label unemployment. Show all posts

Monday, December 25, 2023

America is beginning to look like Germany in the early 1930s: Ten dollar mayonaise

In his novel, titled 1984, George Orwell described a world in which an all-powerful government manipulated reality to deceive the citizenry. For example, when the government cut the chocolate ration from 30 grams to 20 grams, it announced that it was raising it to 20 grams--a bald-faced lie.

When Orwell's novel was released in 1958, it was considered a utopian tale about a world that didn't really exist. Today, we are living in 1984.

President Joe Biden, our demented Big Brother, recently made this pronouncement about the American economy. “Today, we saw more progress bringing down inflation while maintaining one of the strongest job markets in history.” That's just bullshit.

Everyone I know expresses shock at the price of groceries. I went to the grocery store not long ago and discovered that the cost of Kraft mayonnaise was almost $10 a jar!

People who are retired and living on fixed incomes find their dollars’ buying power shrinking month by month. Yet the Biden administration claims that Bidenomics has made us all more prosperous.

The government’s official employment rate is more bullshit. Federal bureaucrats claim unemployment is below 4 percent, but that number hides the fact that millions of people are not working and not even looking for work. 

The United States is beginning to look like Germany in the early 1930s. Like the United States today, Germany was governed by a man suffering from dementia. Paul Von Hindenburg, president of Germany from 1925 until he died in 1934, drifted in and out of senescence.

Like Hindenburg, who appointed an Austrian corporal with a funny mustache as chancellor of Germany, Biden has made some terrible personnel decisions. Who believes Kamala Harris is qualified to be Vice President?

Germany, in the years leading up to World War II, was wracked by political violence from the left and the right. America, too, is plagued by a rising tide of political violence.

Then, there was inflation, which wiped out the German middle class and drove the German mark down to a million marks to the U.S. dollar. Likewise, America is teetering on the edge of hyperinflation, with millions of elderly people already reduced to poverty.

Evil days are ahead of us. The time may come when we will fondly reminisce about the days when mayonnaise only cost $10 a jar.




Monday, November 20, 2023

America is beginning to look like Germany in th early 1930s

In his novel, titled 1984, George Orwell described a world in which an all-powerful government manipulated reality to deceive the citizenry. For example, when the government cut the chocolate ration from 30 grams to 20 grams, it announced that it was raising it to 20 grams--a bald-faced lie.

When Orwell's novel was released in 1958, it was considered a utopian novel about a world that didn't really exist. Today, we are living in 1984.

President Joe Biden, our demented Big Brother, recently made this pronouncement about the American economy. “Today, we saw more progress bringing down inflation while maintaining one of the strongest job markets in history.” That's just bullshit.

Everyone I know expresses shock at the price of groceries. I went to the grocery store not long ago and discovered that the cost of Kraft mayonnaise was almost $10 a jar!

People who are retired and living on fixed incomes find their dollars’ buying power shrinking month by month. Yet the Biden administration claims that Bidenomics has made us all more prosperous.

The government’s official employment rate is more bullshit. Federal bureaucrats claim unemployment is below 4 percent, but that number hides the fact that millions of people are not working and not even looking for work. 

The United States is beginning to look like Germany in the early 1930s. Like the United States today, Germany was governed by a man suffering from dementia. Paul Von Hindenburg, president of Germany from 1925 until he died in 1934, drifted in and out of senescence.

Like Hindenburg (who appointed an Austrian corporal with a funny mustache as chancellor of Germany), Biden has made some terrible personnel decisions. Who believes Kamala Harris is qualified to be Vice President?

Germany, in the years leading up to World War II, was wracked by political violence from the left and the right. America, too, is plagued by a rising tide of political violence.

Then, there was inflation, which wiped out the German middle class and drove the German mark down to a million marks to the U.S. dollar.

Evil days are ahead of us. The time may come when we will fondly reminisce about the days when mayonnaise only cost $10 a jar.

 


 

Friday, June 4, 2021

Is Monday is the new Friday? Let's get back to work

When I was fifteen, I "hoed peanuts" one summer, weeding the peanut fields of Caddo County for one dollar an hour.  Oklahoma summers are brutal, and temperatures were above 100 degrees Fahrenheit for weeks at a time.

Hoeing peanuts is hot, tedious work. If a government agent had offered me $1.25 an hour not to hoe peanuts, I would have accepted that offer.

Thus, I sympathize with American workers who prefer enhanced unemployment benefits to frying burgers for $8 an hour. Who would willingly take a pay cut for the privilege of working a menial job?

Nevertheless, I think it is time for Americans to go back to work. Why?

First, it is well known that the likelihood of getting a good job goes down the longer someone is out of the workforce.  And that is true whether you are a fast-food restaurant employee or a lawyer. 

People lose work skills if they are unemployed for an extended time, and long periods of joblessness are hard to explain to a prospective employer.  A "gap year" is easily explained; a "gap decade," not so much 

Second, the longer you stay away from the workplace, the more likely your employer will discover that it doesn't need you. In fact, I think a lot of employers realized during the pandemic that they were overstaffed.

Finally, unemployed people miss out on the nonmonetary benefits of going to work.  Employed people learn all kinds of skills that are transferable to other jobs. They learn time-management skills, people skills, and various mechanical skills as well. 

Besides, you are more likely to meet Mr. or Ms. Right if you have a job--another nonmonetary benefit of working. Who wants to form a long-term relationship with someone who watches television all day?

You may be saying to yourself that it is easy for me to urge people to get back to work because I am retired.  And that's a good point. 

But I have made my living as a writer, and I still write every day, and I still work as a volunteer editor for a couple of research journals.  I think I am healthier--both physically and mentally--due to having daily work tasks.

Besides, I never took up golf.

Do you want to tell your mom that you are in a serious relationship with Jeff Lebowski?



Saturday, January 2, 2021

Say goodbye to your golden years: 100 million Americans have no retirement savings

According to the  National Insitute on Retirement Security, more than 100 million Americans have no retirement savings whatsoever. 

As Diane Oakley, NIRS executive director, observed:

The facts and data are clear. Retirement is in peril for most working-class Americans . . . When all working individuals are considered--not just the minority with retirement accounts--the typical working American has zero, zilch, nothing saved for retirement.

The NIRS partly blamed the 2007 recession for the bad news. But the report was issued in 2018--before the coronavirus put millions of people out of work.  Over the past year, Americans have dipped into their savings and their retirement accounts just to pay today's bills.

 A 2019 survey also reported bad news for American retirees. A GobankingRanks survey concluded that almost two out of three Americans (64 percent) will retire broke. And--shockingly--nearly half of the people surveyed said they'd didn't care!

Clearly, millions of Americans are not preparing for their retirement years. Many workers don't make enough money to fund a retirement account, and others are overwhelmed with consumer debt--home mortgages, car payments, and credit card bills.

And student-loan debt is a significant contributor to Americans' precarious financial status. More than 40 million people have outstanding student debt, and less than half that number are paying it off. Nine million student-loan debtors are in long-term income-based repayment plans, which means they will never pay down their loan balances.

What is going to happen to all these impecunious Americans when they reach retirement age?

A great many will just keep working until they die or become too incapacitated to be a Walmart greeter. Others will tap the equity in their homes or draw down their meager savings just to pay their utility bills. Some will move in with their kids--who will have their own financial troubles.

As a recent New Yorker article noted, there is a growing movement to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour. I hope Congress does exactly that.

Nevertheless, even if the minimum wage is roughly doubled, elderly Americans who work full-time at Wendy's for $15 an hour will generate just enough income to keep them above the poverty line.

Working on their feet for eight hours a day will be difficult for people in their seventies.  Many will have to pop Chinese-manufactured Advils to keep their arthritis under control.  But it can be done.

But the days when Americans referred to retirement as the Golden Years are over.  For many Americans, their last years will not be golden. They will be difficult, bitter, and depressing.

photo credit: finance.yahoo.com



Wednesday, July 22, 2020

Portland protesters: Are student loans and a crummy job market driving the anger?

Like many Americans, I have been surprised by the intensity of the Black-Lives-Matter protests that take place nightly in Portland, Oregon. Why Portland?

USA Today speculated yesterday that Oregon's racist past is fueling the city's protests.  As the newspaper pointed out, Oregon's territorial constitution, adopted in 1857, barred people of color from entering Oregon Territory.  And Oregon had a very active Ku Klux Klan during the early 1920s, as USA Today noted.

But I don't think Oregon's "dark history" of racism explains the violence in Portland's streets.  Portland is, after all, one of the most progressive cities in America. US News and World Report recently listed Portland as one of the nation's top ten best cities.

And no one can accuse Portland's politicians of being racist. The city's progressive political scene is so famous that the television series Portlandia lampooned it for eight seasons.

Nor is Portland torn by racial strife. Portland is a mostly white city in a primarily white state.  Only two percent of Oregon's population is Black, and only about one in twenty Portland residents is African American.  Compare that ratio to Baton Rouge, where I live. My city is 52 percent African American, and no one is rioting.

Watching the Portland protests night after night, I have been struck by the fact that most of the protesters are young, white people. I find myself wondering whether these enraged wokesters have college degrees, whether they have good jobs, and whether they have student-loan debt.

We know that millions of Americans are burdened by student loans that hinder them from getting married, buying homes, or saving for retirement.  And we know that a majority of these debtors are not paying down their loans.  Education Secretary Betsy DeVos admitted as much almost two years ago.

I'm guessing that a lot of the people who are protesting on Portland's streets have student-loan debt that is completely unmanageable. Although the demonstrators may have college degrees, those degrees did not lead to good jobs for many of them.

I am not questioning the sincerity of people who have taken to the streets of Portland this summer. I am sure most of them are genuinely disturbed by racism and economic injustice.

But I wonder: How many people who are throwing bricks and bottles at the police would stay in their homes at night, munch on popcorn and watch a Netflix movie if they believed they were financially secure, had a good job, and were not weighed down by student loans.

Portland protesters: most are young and white

Sunday, May 31, 2020

To hell with social distancing: Let's loot the liquor store!

Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd on Memoria Day. Riots began in Minneapolis on the following day and quickly spread across the country. Within a week of Floyd's death, more than half the states had called out their National Guard.

Dozens of police officers have been injured over a week of rioting. In New York City, almost four dozen police cars were damaged or destroyed. In Chicago, a policewoman was assaulted by rioters who tried to keep her from making an arrest.  In Minneapolis-St. Paul, more than 250 buildings were damaged or destroyed by rioters, including a police station and a post office. 

All this mayhem was triggered by the unjust killing of a black man, but I think there are other causes for all this violence. After all, there are 40 million Americans who are out of work.  Surely some protestors are on the streets simply because they are unemployed and bored.

For example, while watching the television coverage of the riots last week, I saw a slightly obese white guy in his fifties who was out on the streets of Minneapolis.  A television camera captured the man verbally abusing a police officer from a distance of about six inches from the officer's face. Does that guy have a job, I wondered? 

I don't wish to disparage the motives of the people who are demonstrating in our cities, but I think there would have been a lot less vandalism, arson, and looting if there were not so many jobless people.

A dude with a job would probably turn down an invitation to set fire to the post office. "It's a lovely invitation," he might say, "but unfortunately, I have to be at work tomorrow by 8 AM." 

He might also beg off from joining an expedition to loot the local liquor store. "I wish I could join you," he might explain," but I have to get the kids off to school tomorrow morning.

Requiring people to wear masks when they appear in public is also playing a role in all this chaos.  Many states passed anti-mask laws back in the 1920s to help bring down the Ku Klux Klan. But this past week, thousands of protesters were wearing masks that cloaked them in anonymity should they decide to throw a firebomb at a police cruiser.

George Floyd's death has fueled legitimate anger all over the United States. Everyone realizes that. But in my opinion, these riots will not be quelled so long as millions of Americans are jobless and required to wear masks when they are on the streets.

Burning police cars: requiring people to wear masks is part of the problem.



Wednesday, April 15, 2020

As the economy spirals downward,take charge of your mental health


Let us pause in life's pleasures and count its many tears
While we all sup sorrow with the poor

Hard Times
Stephen Foster (1854)

Make no mistake. America is spiraling downward toward a major Depression. Seventeen million people have already lost their jobs, and the unemployment rate will undoubtedly rise later in the year. Many unemployed people won't be able to pay their rent or make their mortgage payments.   Laid-off workers who had employer-provided health insurance will lose it and find they can't afford to pay for it themselves.

Financial stress has mental-health consequences and people who have suffered financial setbacks will be understandably depressed.  Thus, if you are one of the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs or a substantial part of their retirement savings, you need to pay close attention to your own mental health.

First, if you find yourself slipping into clinical depression, let your doctor know. Depression is a fairly common malady and is treatable. Your family physician can prescribe an antidepressant that can alleviate this medical condition.

Second, get some physical exercise, but don't overdo it. You don't need to run a marathon to get the benefits of physical activity. Just take a walk or ride your bicycle. Exercise is a proven way to reduce stress and depression, and relief is usually immediate.

Third, pay attention to what you eat. If you are down on your luck and scraping by on unemployment checks and food stamps, you may need to cut your food budget. But try to continue eating foods that you enjoy.  A good meal, especially a meal shared with family and friends, helps relieve depression.

If you are pinching pennies, you will probably stop eating in restaurants. But you can buy a cheap grill and broil hotdogs in the backyard.  You can also learn to cook inexpensive food so that it tastes delicious. I once swore I would never eat collard greens, but my wife cooks them so well that greens taste like a gourmet dish. 

Fourth, don't neglect relaxation. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, people went to the movies, which provided cheap entertainment. Today, a movie, a soda, and some popcorn will set you back about fifteen bucks.

But a Netflix subscription doesn't cost much, and you can see a new movie every night of the week. Don't cancel that subscription to cut costs unless you are desperate.

Fifth, take up a hobby.  If you are poor, you will probably not take up golf or skiing. But you can plant a small garden, even if it is nothing more than a potted tomato plant by your back door. You will find it immensely satisfying to grow and eat vegetables you grew yourself.

Finally, remember that the financial hardship you are experiencing is not your fault. You are the victim of twin evils: corporate greed and the coronavirus. 

If you've been laid off precipitously, told to clean out your desk, and walked to your car by a security officer, you have not lost your human dignity or the capacity to live a rewarding life. Do everything you can to take care of yourself and your family, and remember to manage your mental health.


Monday, April 13, 2020

Fighting for milk: Now is the time to take any kind of work you can get

In the movie Cinderella Man, Russell Crowe plays the part of James J. Braddock, a professional boxer who breaks his hand in the ring, forcing him to leave his chosen profession and work as a common laborer. Then the Depression comes, and Braddock's family faces starvation. Braddock returns to boxing with ferocious intensity and winds up winning the World Heavyweight Championship.

In the movie, a reporter asks Braddock to explain why he had become a better boxer. Braddock answered that he was a better boxer because he had discovered what he was fighting for.  And what was that, the reporter asked?

"Milk," Braddock replied.

Washington Post columnist Michelle Singletary made a similar point to people who have been laid off or furloughed from their jobs.  "Apply for any kind of work," she advised. Despite the economic downturn, some companies are still hiring, and all jobs bring in at least some money.

There was a time when experts advised people not to take menial jobs if they had been laid off from a professional position. A stint as a restaurant worker does not look good on the resume of someone who applies for a job as a financial analyst.

Also, many employers are reluctant to hire people who appear to be overqualified for the jobs they are seeking. Unemployed lawyers, for example, have difficulty getting employed as paralegals because the law firms believe that a licensed attorney working as a paraprofessional will be perpetually dissatisfied.

But these are desperate times, and they are becoming more desperate. If you have a home and a family, it makes sense to take any kind of work at all--any money you earn helps protect what is important to you.

After all, as the cinematic version of James Braddock showed us, working for milk is a dignified occupation.


Russell Crow as James J. Braddock: Working for milk

Monday, March 23, 2020

This Recession is different: Unemployed Americans should be wary about going to graduate school

Traditionally, graduate school has been an excellent place to hang out for people who are unemployed or clueless about their life's vocation.

 In the old days, tuition was cheap, and a grad student had a good chance of picking up an instructor's job or a research assistant position to help pay the bills. The cost of living was low in a lot of college towns, and there were plenty of bars, live music, and sexually active young people.

Not a bad life! And you could tell your parents that you were in graduate school instead of admitting that you were out of work.

It's not surprising then that in the recession of 2008-2009, a great many unemployed Americans flocked to graduate school.  Graduate school seemed like the right place to park until the economy rebounded. And a master's degree, students told themselves, would help them get back in the job market.

To meet the growing demand, the universities ramped up their graduate programs. Like a medicine-show huckster at the county fair, the colleges rolled out all sorts of new master's degree programs in such fields as sports management, emergency management, hospital administration, criminal justice, and law enforcement.

And of course, the big lure for a lot of young people struggling in a faltering economy was the MBA degree.  All the elite universities have had MBA programs for years: Harvard, Stanford, M.I.T., etc.  But, a few years ago, the regional public universities and second-rank private colleges got in on the act. Some rolled out online MBA programs or so-called "executive" MBAs that offered classes on weekends.

Unfortunately, many of the people who got graduate degrees over the past decade saw little or no economic benefit. So many people obtained them for a time that employers saw them as nothing special. As The Economist observed in an article published almost four years ago, "Simply put, MBAs are no longer rare, and as such are no longer a guarantee for employment."

But the most significant danger of going to graduate school is cost. Under the Grad Plus program, students can take out federal student loans for the entire cost of their degrees, including living expenses, no matter how much tuition that a college or university charges.

The University of Texas, for example, now pegs the cost of getting an MBA degree at its Austin campus at $100,000 for its two-year program. Graduates who borrow the entire sum will enter the job market with $100,000 in debt.

So if the current Recession throws you out of work, don't go to graduate school without giving it a great deal of thought. A master's degree might improve your chances of getting a good job, but it might leave you with no prospect of a job and a mountain of student-loan debt--debt that is virtually nondischargeable in bankruptcy.


Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, and sign up for our prestigious executive MBA program.