Every month, there's a brief flurry of news about mass layoff totals, then everything goes quiet until the next monthly announcement. Few people bother to track them for an entire year, and fewer still bother to add up the cumulative totals for several years.
So I visited the Bureau of Labor Statistics site and plowed through it to come up with the totals for 1996 through November of 2005. In plain English, the total number of Americans who lost their jobs in mass layoffs during this roughly 10-year period is astounding: almost 18 million. Enough to make its own decent sized country.
Another tidbit that President Bush can add to his "our economy's great" propaganda campaign. When the government's economists added up the data last week, they confirmed that November was yet another month in which America truly "lived on credit." Yes, the amount of money spent by all of us is estimated to have been more than all of us received in income during November. And the entire year of 2005 may, as noted in the San Francisco Chronicle, produce the first savings rate of "less than zero" since the great depression of the thirties. It may have slipped by you that our president issued a proclamation on December 9, 2005, proclaiming "December 10, 2005, as Human Rights Day; December 15, 2005, as Bill of Rights Day; and the week beginning December 10, 2005, as Human Rights Week."
How fitting that Bill of Rights Day fell the same date that the NY Times disclosed the warrantless surveillance program, eh?
Kind of makes you wonder whether there should have been some kind of commemorative ceremony for most ironic coincidence of the year. Or decade.
Apart from the irony, how great are freedom and democracy doing in the world that George Bush inhabits? Check the excerpt below, and compare his vision to your own.
Ever wonder where those magic statistics come from when the people on television somberly announce that "unemployment in the U.S. fell to 5 percent last month, while there was a slight rise in the total number of people employed"????
Well, they come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). And the way they are compiled/computed seems to come as a shock to most Americans. The statistics aren't based on the number of people collecting unemployment benefits, and they aren't based on an actual national tally of all American households.
They are derived from a statistical sampling survey conducted by the Dept. of Labor, using methods and definitions that are described in a BLS pamphlet titled How the Government Measures Unemployment".
Here's some useful info excerpted from that publication. It's a bit lengthy, but definitely worth reading if you want to understand why the official government statistics are so much rosier than what you see when you look around. I've boldfaced some of the more interesting info if you just want to scan looking for the boldfacing.
In particular, think about (1) who might get omitted from the survey due to frequent changes of address, lack of telephone, etc., (2) the definition of "employed", and (3) how many people are omitted from the computation altogether because they are in jail or prison. On Thursday, Jan. 6, 2006, according to the Washington Post "President Bush summoned most of the living former secretaries of state and defense to the White House...for what participants described as a cordial but pointed discussion about the future of Iraq."
The Seattle Times remarked that "The session included a photo opportunity and presidential statement after the president spent an hour with" the 13 advisers. To my mind, that pretty well tells the story: mention the photo-op and be sure to convey the idea that the discussion must have been p-r-e-t-t-y limited. One hour--60 minutes for the time-challenged--to get input from 13 sage advisers. That works out to about 4.6 minutes per sage adviser, even if you don't deduct time for the hi, how are you's, and the so long, nice to have seen you's. Four and six tenths minutes to impart your cumulative wisdom. Let's face it, folks, on a subject like the invasion and occupation of a foreign country, which you hope to transform from a tyrannical dictatorship to a well-spring of democracy, 4.6 minutes is akin to having a chat about relativity theory during a coffee break at which Einstein happened to drop by. If any knowledge worth having was conveyed from the wise to the wisdom seeker, it was by osmosis.
One definition of osmosis: the passage of water from a region of high water concentration through a semi-permeable membrane to a region of low water concentration. Substitute knowledge or wisdom for "water" and you have a likely scenario for osmosis involving Mr. Bush and the collection of sages.
It's a sad day when I feel this sad after reading the words to "My Country 'Tis of Thee". Its a song of pride, one that most of us learned by heart during grammar school. As written by Samuel Francis Smith, the song is a celebration of several concepts that I cherish: liberty, freedom, pride in being part of good things, love of the beauty that this country's varied geography provides us all, free of charge. Tom Delay, as you've probably heard, has sent a letter of resignation from his ex-post as House Majority Leader.
His letter is available on several sites, but what the H, let's let Fox news do the honor. It's short and sweet, which I hope is the exact opposite of his eventual prison term.
An annotated version of the letter appears below, my annotations in brackets. Is it cold in this part of hell yet AGAIN?
Bush and the Republicans keep spinning and spinning, Fox news heads keep grinning and grinning, the religious right keeps sinning and sinning, but it looks like common sense may be winning and winning.
New polls. Did the Abramoff indictments surprise you? Did the plea agreements? How about the news that an Ohio congressman seemed to work/vote to order for Abramoff?
Ohio, imagine that. Now who could believe that anything there is corrupt? Not after the election, Blackwell, Taft, Noe and coingate, and on and on, right?
The interesting thing to me is to watch the reaction of the media, and of "the public," to revelations that really did no more than put a few dates and details to a story that everybody with a brain and any interest already knew.
Now that it's "official" knowledge, the media can say what it already knew: these guys are sleazy and corrupt beyond belief, and far too many of our elected officials are just as much for sale as that rhinestone ring in the jewelry case at the discount store.
National Journal's The Hotline is reporting that there's a movement afoot among Republicans in the House of Representatives to force new elections for the party's leadership positions.
Not surprisingly, the major goal is to ensure that Tom DeLay's tenure as majority leader be laid to rest, once and for all. I've seen commentary lauding this move by the Repubs--supposedly jointly sponsored by conservatives and moderates--but I have a hard time getting too excited.
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