Look at that headline. Look at it! I know I was excited in my 6,000 word election recap to observe that the problems with our reported unemployment figure and its relationship to labor force participation data had become a mainstream…
Category: It’s the Stupid Economy
All Politics is Personal: The Epic and Foreseeable Failure of Hillary Clinton
Disclaimer: I have deliberately waited a week to post this since the election because most of my friends and people I care about have spent the week grieving. If you are still grieving, if you are tender from the election…
The Problem is Poverty
Domestically, we have one disease that kills more people than any other. That imprisons people in a life that falls short of their potential, that forces people into crime, addiction, homelessness, and illness. It’s a scourge upon men, women, and…
What We Talk About When We Talk About Unemployment
It’s been a while since I’ve visited the question of our unemployment figures in the United States and what they imply for the real state of our economy and our future, such as it is. When I first started posting…
Unemployment Jumps in September, Reporting Gap Hits Record 6.52%
For every person listed as officially unemployed in yesterday’s jobs report, there are another 1.28 people who are really unemployed, but are not captured because they have left or never entered the labor force. In total terms, this means that…
Volkswagen and Corporate Impunity
“Corporation, n.: an ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.” -Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary, 1911 The only thing shocking about the recent incident involving Volkswagen lying about the emissions of their so-called “clean diesel” vehicles is that…
Democracy at the Crossroads
“Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” -Winston Churchill It is the fundamental human assumption that one lives at the time of terminal understanding of the world, the universe, and human affairs. This, I think,…
Free (Market) Fallin’
Who doesn’t love Tom Petty? I realize that what I’m about to discuss is not a glib and lighthearted topic for most of you out there. Largely because of the reasons I discussed here six months ago, involving retirement accounts…
Trumpemployment
I promise this isn’t just becoming a Donald Trump blog. Though it would be a way to get more traffic. Trump is one of two candidates in the race, along with the person I actually support, Bernie Sanders, who is…
Finance Lessons
I don’t know when we decided that someone’s moral worth, both individually and collectively, depended entirely on their ability to manipulate financial arrangements. But I think we should probably go back and un-decide that, posthaste. Unfortunately, recent steps to increase…