Awol Bush

[CarneVaca]

Originally posted by jwd
Here's a link to what Greenspan thinks about jobs. I thought it was interesting.

You know, I am tempted to tell you to put that link and all the nonsense about job creation in a very dark place where your head already is. But I won't, because that would be rude.

Fact: I live in what is considered probably the fourth or fifth most affluent region of the country (I ain't rich though).

Fact: At about 2:30p.m. on Sunday Feb. 1 a black middle-aged black and his two young sons were rummaging through the dumpster behind the local Walgreens picking up damaged packages of Oreos and other assorted food items.

Hunch: This man is either unemployed or makes very little money.

Fact: Not even two miles away are some of the region's most expensive homes, and a little beyond that is some of the most expensive waterfront real estate in the nation.

Hunch: This man and his two young boys don't live in one of those expensive homes.

Hunch: The folks who live in said homes probably have no idea, or don't care, about this man's plight, and everyone else living in poverty. They probably even blame the country's ills on the poor people who are "keeping our taxes high" with by drawing from welfare and so forth.

Conclusion: If this kind of thing is happening in the shadows of so much affluence, I have to believe it probably is a lot worse in other parts of the country.

The point: The job indicators you cite are just plain wrong. They don't even count the people who have given up on finding new jobs. For all I know, the man mentioned above is one of them. But most importantly, as long as a father of two children has to rummage through a dumpster to feed his family, we are doing something terribly wrong as a society.

Suggestion: Save your job-creation smugness and face reality. We've got problems.