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Apparently Friedman is unaware of how many engineers, IT people, airlines people, retail, etc have been layed off and how many factories have been closed in the last few years. Friedman is also unaware of the dollar, the balance of trade, the federal and state budget deficits, the stock market, the number of corporate and personal bankrupcies, etc. Friedman is only looking at company profits, not jobless. People dont vote based on company profits.

I remember when economists thought that a 4% unemployment rate was not good for the economy -- too low. Now we've got a rate that just hit 6%. Lower would be nicer, but we live in a strange world where 6% unemployment is considered a huge national problem. Sure, if you look at specific sectors you'll find the rate to be higher. But that just means you can look at other sectors and find the rate to be lower.

I'm in the technology sector. There are plenty of signs that it will be coming back shortly. Probably just in time for the election.

Being a computer systems engineer, and being in the 3rd job this year (one voluntary change, one not), I can categorically state that any IT person or engineer who is out of work needs only to be willing to move, or isn't looking in the right place. There are TONS of jobs. I get recruiter calls on a regular basis. In fact, I make 20% more than when I lost my first job, and I'm 1/3 the distance away, cutting my commute from 1 hour to about 24 minutes.

The problem is that a computer professional in the age range of 25-45 spent the bulk of their careers in the mid-90's, where they could name their price. They never had to do a real job search, and they have unrealistic expectations of salary they should make. Case in point: I have a friend qualified to be a unix systems administrator. He was making 90K + for a dotcom, and is looking in that range. Realistically, he should be looking in the 55-70K range instead (I got offered 3 jobs in six weeks in that salary range when I got laid off).