Who Cares about the Long-term Unemployed?

The Washington Post (March 24, 2014) The long-term unemployed are not lazy, coddled, hammocked or enjoying a taxpayer-funded vacation. They are extremely unlucky — and getting unluckier by the day. It was already known that the longer workers have been out of a job, the lower their chance of finding work. From 2008 to 2012, only one in 10 people who were already long-term unemployed had returned to steady, full-time employment a year later. The rest had been toiling in part-time or transitory jobs or had dropped out of the labor force altogether.

The Longest Bar in the World (In Las Vegas?)

In the 1930's the longest bar in the world was at the Subway Cafe (pictured below) on 507 N. Wabash Avenue in Chicago, Illinois. Check out the rest, and see the world's longest bar.

Farewell or so Long? Or taking a Break?

Just a quick note...just in case.

I've been blogging for over 5 years now—more than 3 years here and for 2 years on a previous website that I used to maintain. I'm getting pretty tired. Sometimes I think I've already said all that I've had to say, often repeating myself because sometimes, some things can't be said enough. But did anything I ever write make any difference? Did I do my small part to change the world for the better? Or have I just been spinning my wheel like an insignificant hamster in its cage?

America's Race to the Bottom Continues

Congress made sure that America drastically cut costs for infrastructure spending to give rich people and their unpatriotic "multinational" corporations big tax breaks.

Meanwhile, countries such as China invests in their country by building roads, bridges, dams and transportation. See the before and after photos of Shanghai after the past 26 years of China's growth.

Hail to the Job Creators!

9 more major retailers are closing more stores (Dah! It's the economy stupid!)

Old and Angry White People

Neither the GOP or the "Third Way" Democrats (like Hillary Clinton) will save this country. Only those in the Progressive Caucus have a REAL plan to restore America's middle-class. The progressive's “Better Off Budget” sounds like something everyone could get behind: 8.8 million new jobs by 2017, $4 trillion in deficit reduction over ten years and the end of the universally-maligned sequestration cuts.

Losing Dignity: The Fall from Grace, Once Middle-Class

This article in the Atlantic is one of the best (and the most depressing and sad) stories I've read about a successful middle-class person's fall from grace after losing their job. This is a perfect example of what millions of Americans have been going through since the onset of the Great Recession.

Retirees and the Declining Labor Force

The unemployment rate stood at 5.0 percent when the Great Recession started in December 2007. According to Labor Secretary Perez this week: "For four years uninterrupted now — 48 consecutive months — private-sector employment has grown, to the tune of 8.7 million new jobs."

According to the Economic Policy Institute, we should be DEAD EVEN today, because over the last four years the labor market has gained back all of the 8.7 million jobs we lost during the Great Recession.

Dumb Americans think XL Pipeline will Create Jobs—Ha, ha, ha!

Bill Maher once said most Americans are dumb and uneducated. But what's really frightening is, he wasn't kidding. Many of us really are.

Debate: Is There a STEM Worker Shortage?

Hal Salzman, Professor at the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers, wrote an excellent article about the claim of STEM shortages and the need for H-1B visa immigration proceeding an upcoming debate.

The Top 1% of the 1% of the 1%

1% of the U.S. population is 3,100,000 people (congress, lawyers, lobbyists, etc.) — but it is 1% of this (31,000 individuals, the top 0.01%) who have all the money and who are destroying democracy and the middle-class.

Countdown to Armageddon with End of Windows XP

It's the end of the world as we know it --- and thousands of point-of-sales for retailers and banking ATMs will be soon be at risk.

Corporate Welfare Fuels CEO Pay

Good Jobs First, a Washington, D.C.-based research group, has been tracking the subsidies that state and local governments shell out to businesses (in the name of “job creation”) ever since 1998. They developed their own “Subsidy Tracker” database. Findings from their new report is the most thorough analysis to date of corporate welfare.

The Band Played On as the Job Market Sank

The anti-union billionaire Penny Pritzker, Obama's Secretary of Commerce, was on MSNBC this morning saying Americans needed to be trained for the jobs that are available to close the skills gap (she's big on the tech sector). Like most government officials, business leaders and economists, Pritzker, didn't specifically mention what jobs were open and/or identify what skills were needed by millions of unemployed Americans. Many say the STEM crisis is just a big myth—especially those who are unemployed and have decades of experience with just such skills, and are more than willing to train for any additional skills if needed, if someone would just tell them what skills employers are looking for.

Fox News Brainwashed my Family

After reading my sister's Facebook wall, I came to the conclusion that she thought that people like myself (who were on food stamps) were all a bunch of lazy "takers" on the dole—and preferred being dependent on the government.

CBO Wrong on Labor Force Participation Rate (LFPR)

I have serious concerns about the CBO's analysis of the labor force participation rate. According to David Brauer and Charles Whalen in the CBO’s Macroeconomic Analysis Division: