45. Act naturally
44. Found missing
43. Resident alien
42. Advanced BASIC
41. Genuine imitation
40. Airline Food
39. Good grief
38. Same difference
37. Almost exactly
36. Government organization
35. Sanitary landfill
34. Alone together
33. Legally drunk
32. Silent scream
31. Living dead
30. Small crowd
29. Business ethics
28. Soft rock
27. Butt Head
26. Military Intelligence
25. Software documentation
24. New classic
23. Sweet sorrow
22. Childproof
21. “Now, then …”
20. Synthetic natural gas
19. Passive aggression
18. Taped live
17. Clearly misunderstood
16. Peace force
15. Extinct Life
14. Temporary tax increase
13. Computer jock
12. Plastic glasses
11. Terribly pleased
10. Computer security
9. Political science
8. Tight slacks
7. Definite maybe
6. Pretty ugly
5. Twelve-ounce pound cake
4. Diet ice cream
3. Working vacation
2. Exact estimate
1. Microsoft Works

Shared by Sue Clayton on Facebook, who shared it from David Carpenter, who shared it from …

…. not cynical, just somewhat dependably skeptical. I want to know the details. Yes, that’s me … in an optimistic way.

We all watch carefully the various employment numbers that come out each month.

We all know, or think that we know, that the economy is not growing as fast as we would like.

How fast it should grow is a question that we should all ask and seek answers for — as far back as 2009 a great many economists did not see it growing faster than it currently is; 2017 is and has long been the predicted year for earliest full jobs recovery at 2007 levels — which is not necessarily great news considering that we must create 150,000 new jobs per month just to keep up with population growth.

Politicians and their predictions for jobs recovery are a different lot with their predictions often much rosier and seldom reflective of factual reality. Their reality is that they wouldn’t get reelected so often if they focused on the general facts and models used by the academics (models are indeed a theory, but a model that is mostly right 70-80% of the time is fairly accurate for practical purposes).

As for good news, and not so good news:

– Employment for women ages 20+ has dropped 9/10th of 1% over the last year.

– Employment for men ages 20+ has dropped 2/10th of 1% over the last year.

The above is not good news for those that lost jobs, BUT their jobs were not lost in a purely bookkeeping sense of things. Those jobs migrated.

GOOD NEWS for younger teen workers: employment for those aged 16-19 has risen a full 2.8% over the last year … which fully offsets the jobs loss by older workers, regardless of gender.

Essentially companies have begun hiring the young, energetic and generally childless. And they are cheaper too.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Table A-2. Employment status of the civilian population by race, sex, and age, updated April 2012.

Is it morally superior for the rich to take from the poor through unfettered capitalism or for the poor to take from the rich through socialist policies? Since both involve a government-sponsored ‘redistribution’ of wealth, it is difficult to see which scheme is more ‘right’. Never mind the fact that whichever side a politician stands, his interest is, primarily, about votes and, only secondarily, at best, about what is better for the economy and the country.

My thoughts:

If all is in balance then life is good.

The less well off will always accuse the rich of taking advantage of them. And indeed they will.

The better well off will always accuse the poor of wanting to share in their acquired wealth. And they do.

One feeds off of the other. They both need each other. They both create each other.

There are tons of facts … but reality is that facts seldom matter.

As a libertarian-minded person I believe that minimal government regulation is best … and yet I know that on most days those with power, or able to buy it, will always seek to rewrite the rules in their favor while bemoaning the loathsomeness of those that they profit from. The counterbalance is that those without power have the power of numbers and the ballotbox … which they often sheepishly use.

If all is in balance then life is good.

That sounds a lot like Newt Gingrich’s promise of $2.50 per gallon of gasoline if we elected him.

Only once — in 1978 — has the economy topped 500,000 jobs two months in a row and that was when Jimmy Carter was president … Obama had one such month in May of 2010 with 516,000 jobs. Reagan had one such month in 8 years of his presidency, and neither Bush ever hit this level. Clinton also got just one 500,000+ month.

Paper or plastic? Private Jobs Increase More With Democrats in White House – Bloomberg.

Since President Kennedy, private industry jobs growth has been much greater under Democratic presidents. Government growth records go to the Republicans.

Isn’t that the opposite of what we constantly hear?

While I remain a Reagan fan — his legend should be that he was a generally inspirational figure that was the right person at the right time — jobs creation under Reagan was strong but not any kind of record setter.

Jobs growth under the different presidents — although I am not sure that they all deserve credit/discredit for the jobs created — am not a political partisan:

Kennedy/Johnson 3.12%
Johnson 3.63%
Nixon 2.17%
Nixon/Ford 1.96%
Carter 2.3%
Reagan 81-84: 1.75%
Reagan 85-88: 2.53%
Bush 41: .69%
Clinton 93-96: 2.6%
Clinton 96-2000: 1.6%
Bush 43 ’01-04: .51%
Bush 43 05-08: .84%
Obama: .75%

Noting that jobs growth has slowed significantly since Clinton’s second term, what can we do to create jobs?

What can we really do?

… And if I can learn from that and make money, and I do, then I will.

Life happens. Learn from it. Don’t fight it. Go around walls.

Ragged Old Flag, 1974, by Johnny Cash

The dysfunction was present even before George Washington finished his first term.

Neither Madison nor Jefferson could persuade their own home state to adopt the first 10 amendments to the Constitution — and Madison was their primary author and patron saint. No one cared.

Alexander Hamilton ‘the ultra federalist’ agreed to sell the amendments in exchange for some deals … Washington is what it always was. So while Madison was the Constitution’s primary author, and author of the first 10 Amendments, it is his philosophical rival in every way that got the deal done.

Folks that wistfully wish for the days of yore are seriously on drugs if they believe that things were better.

President Washington started his first term with $75 million in debt and it took succeeding presidents 45 years to pay it off.

There was a rebellion against taxes even then … and Ol’George didn’t hesitate to go shoot em up to prove that DC was DC and rules were to be followed. Unlike today when folks talk about ‘the next time we return our guns will be loaded’, George Washington faced an actual armed military force … and he sent a small army of 13,000 to go put the rebellion down … In the end, Washington got his national sales tax on certain items … and not a cheap tax either: 18 cents per gallon of whiskey.

The election of 1800 was total trash talk (and Jefferson became the semi-official first American anti-Christ) … while Jefferson’s vice president Aaron Burr killed the former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton in a duel just as Jefferson’s first term ended … Burr was running for governor of New York at the time since Jefferson planned to dump him as his VP.

1832 or 1834 is still considered to be the ugliest campaign year in history … although by the end of the century there were 5 Republican senators that openly declared in favor of the Democratic nominee for president. We now know those Republicans as the Mugwumps.

And let us not forget how former president Theodore Roosevelt bolted the Republican Party to run as a Moose candidate.

What we got in 2012 is pretty damn tame.

– Martin Luther King

“People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid….and remember anything good in life is either illegal, immoral, or fattening. Anything not fitting into these categories causes cancer in rats…. just sayin.”

– Pamela Cara Cherry Manley