Posted on 10/17/2016 6:32:27 AM PDT by bobsunshine
Imagine you are an editorial writer of the New York Times (a stretch to be sure, but stay with us). Your biggest problem in the Age of Obama has to be that despite all the Democrats’ claims to have steered us into a recovery, jobs are lacking. Supposedly the unemployment rate has been brought down to 5%. But that’s because the job participation rate is at its lowest point in decades as millions of Americans are still too discouraged to look for work. How do you work around this pesky problem?
Dang, if the Times hasn’t come up with its most creative angle yet – oxycontin. It’s out with an editorial this morning suggesting that the reason millions of men are missing from the job market is the rampant addiction to pain killers. It has nothing to do with the Federal Reserve, or the high taxes that force companies to park their profits overseas (when the profits could be building plants here). It has nothing to do with the flight of corporations to Mexico (heaven forfend that Donald Trump has a point).
No, the Times has stumbled onto a study by an economist at Princeton University. It reckons that as of a month ago, 11.4% of men between the ages of 25 and 54 were both not employed and not seeking a job. The Times notes that this percentage, which was less than 4% in the 1950s, has been “rising for decades.” It also reports that recent surveys show that 40% of “prime working age men who are not in the labor force report having pain that prevents them from taking jobs for which they are qualified.” Nearly half take painkillers daily.
(Excerpt) Read more at nysun.com ...
I don't completely agree with this measure because I think it provides a distorted view unless it is adjusted to account for what I call "non-monetary productivity" among Americans. But he said that by this measure, the U.S. economy has been in a consistent decline since about 2000. I agree with him 100% on that count.
Our country has been lead by dishonest people so long a lay person decides not to believe any of it, news or politicians. It is most imperative that Trump succeeds in his run for president to clear the air of these shysters.
The easiest way is to have "pain", usually in the back. Most of it likely starts out as a legit issue to be dealt with. But after the loss of a job, coupled with the difficulties in getting a decent job along with the ease of money collection and the ability to collect for deeds on the side in cash..... The "pain" may "not go away" and you get some money and some medicine to boot. For a 2-income family, this is not a bad arrangement. For a person trying to keep out of poverty, add some welfare, subsidized living and some foodstamps, and there is NO incentive to get back into a productive role in society.
I'm not sure if the study have any legitimacy. I'm sure a loose correlation in data somewhere gave someone the opportunity to divert from the actual nexus of the problem. And the NYT won't miss an opportunity to find some obscure problem to fix that will SOLVE all the problems, regardless if it is real or imagined. Remember, the goal is not actually to solve a problem, just sell more funding for efforts to investigate, research, redistribute, etc.
I’m surprised the NYT hasn’t defined a new economic statistic, the ‘Freedom Index’ defined as the number of people who no longer have to be ‘wage-slaves’ in the capitalist system, but now have lives of luxury and fulfillment on the public dole. I believe Mr. Romney once calculated it as 47%. I’m sure it’s risen since then.
It’s kind of bizarre, when you think about it. The guy who gets an H1-B visa to immigrate to the U.S. is basically working and paying taxes to support more and more Americans who have no interest in working.
“But he said that by this measure, the U.S. economy has been in a consistent decline since about 2000. I agree with him 100% on that count.”
I think it should be obvious when one considers that it used to be quite common for a young man to finish high school, go to work and become a married homeowner with children at an earlier age than most who go to college now are able to obtain a bachelor degree and land their first job which is usually something that would have been done by a high school dropout back in the fifties.
It’s an old story, remember the line in Poke Salit Annie, her daddy was lazy and no count, claimed he had a bad back. I know what real back pain is and I know that it is something that can put you down for days and then go away so most people who have not experienced this simply don’t believe it. I have learned what to do to prevent it and at 72 I am cutting up the trees that fell on my land when Matthew came through and have little to no pain and I never even take an aspirin now but a lot of people do wind up on pain killers and many become addicted. Americans are far too prone to look for an easy fix rather than take the trouble to figure out what they really need to do to prevent back pain. For most it is as simple as learning to do the right kind of physical training to keep the muscles toned properly and knowing what you can do and what you can’t do.
Maybe we are thinking about this all wrong and the liberals are right. Maybe we just get a bunch of foreigners in the us to work for peanuts so they can fund us Citizens to sit around in lavish luxury and collect their taxes. Maybe the liberals want slavery/indentured servitude from imported peasants so Americans don’t have to work.
(Sarcasm)
When you think about it, there's something anachronistic about an economy where millions of people work for someone else, yet can afford a standard of living that would have been the envy of 19th-century robber barons.
They've always been a leftist rag that tells lies to support oppressive regimes. Always.
Depends on how you judge the standard of living. Yes, everybody has a cell phone, a big flatscreen TV etc. but those robber barons could do some things that even Bill Gates cannot afford now. Have you seen the Biltmore House? I doubt that that house, gardens and the original land purchase could be duplicated for a billion dollars now but it only cost three million when it was originally put together.
I don't doubt that Bill Gates could build a home like that if he wanted to. Better yet -- he could build about two dozen homes much smaller than that all over the globe ... and he could fly to any one of them in less than 24 hours. That's something the Vanderbilts couldn't even dream about.
We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Our "posterity," of course, are our lineal descendants. A purpose that is 100% consistent with Donald Trump's call to put America First. It is 100% consistent with the Fifth Commandment, and traditional Western values, in general. Mrs. Clinton's call for open borders, and the failure to properly vet immigrants from lands with very different value systems, is 100% inconsistent with the Constitutional purpose.
How can any American refuse to vote for Donald Trump, who not only understands & accepts what the Constitution requires. He strenuously exposes Mrs. Clinton on issue after issue!
Trump is willing to risk a lifetime of success--his whole career & fortune--to take on a corrupt media, that tries in every unfair, intellectually dishonest, way to cover up Mrs. Clinton's crimes and repeated acts of betrayal, in order to stand for us, our Constitution and our clear interests, on a host of vital issues. Consider:
1. Trump supports and has been endorsed by the border guards. Mrs. Clinton has shown only disdain for those trying to keep America safe from a flood of unauthorized invaders.
2. Trump supports the rights of Americans to efficiently arm themselves, both for their own protection and for the protection of America! Mrs. Clinton has repeatedly sought means to disarm American families.
3. Trump has supported local Police in violent confrontations with neighborhood thugs; while Mrs. Clinton & Obama have allied themselves with virulently anti Police groups--some funded by George Soros--groups determined to deny their law abiding neighbors, the Police protection, necessary to make those neighborhoods safe.
4. Trump understands that making any neighborhood safe, is the key to increasing constructive activity in such neighborhood;--the key to people being able to start local businesses, with some hope of success; the key to better job opportunities, better credit ratings, etc. Mrs. Clinton has shown herself more intent on encouraging and supporting those Soros funded groups.
5. Donald Trump supports all forms of American energy production! He wants to let the coal miners get back to work; to take advantage of improved technology that allows a cleaner use of coal. Mrs. Clinton has insulted the coal miners, by refusing to help them get back to work, while she patronizes them; offering them a new dependence on even more Governmental meddling.
6. Returning to the Constitution--the solemn compact (or contract) that authorizes us to even have a Federal Government;--the charter, that once--when truly honored--made us the envy of the earth:
Donald Trump has pledged to appoint only those who honor the clear intent of that charter, to the Federal Judiciary. Mrs. Clinton has promised to only appoint Judges who agree with her ghoulish view of Feminist issues: such as the idea that it is O.K. for a woman--on mere whim--to have a healthy, already half born baby, killed in cold blood, in something euphemistically labeled a "partial birth abortion!"
7. Donald Trump, daily addresses great rallies, to discuss these and other vital issues; such as the damage to American workers & communities, resulting from trade deals, and immigration policies, that do not protect our rooted population. Mrs. Clinton has avoided in depth discussion of issues; preferring, instead, an incessant attack on Donald Trump's personality; his tone; his supporters;--in each case misrepresenting the same by a combination of lies, cherry picked but misleading data, gross exaggerations, and citations of spurious media smears, engineered by a slavish press, which covers up actual crimes, in a blind, but determined, support for the perpetrator.
Under such circumstances: How can any American vote for Mrs. Clinton? How can any American refuse to vote for Donald Trump?
Note further: There are thousands of organizations, some Faith based (both evangelical & social); some secular, but ideological; some based on Humanist arrogance (Return To Babel). Among them there is something to represent just about any imagined human interest. Our written Constitution is the sole organizational effort focused solely on the interests of the rooted American. How dare any American betray or trivialize our organization; the Constitutional Republic, as it was intended by the Fathers, who won it for their posterity?! How can any American refuse to vote for Donald Trump?
May the living God Bless all those who understand what is truly at stake!
William Flax
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