Smart money knows about this graph taken from an insiders news letter called Shadowstats. What’s happening above is a clear difference in direction between the official government numbers and reality.
The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. That estimate is added to the BLS estimate of U-6 unemployment, which includes short-term discouraged workers.
# 32 Ah_Yea: Thanks for the link. We all knew it, of course, but I missed that it had gone to court.
# 35 Olo : This is the sort of poll that just shows you can prove anything you want in a poll. Ask a preselected group of Southern Baptists if they’d want their daughter to marry a Tea Partier or a Muslim and then see which one is more popular. The poll is junk and, therefore, not interesting at all.
#38 Bob : It was only a couple of days ago I was accused of being a flaming liberal. Now, you, in one post take me from conservative to dogmatic libertarian! It’s enough to make a country doc into a raving schizo!
I certainly did not mean to sound depressed. I intend to live a lot longer. But I fear it will be even longer before the US has a solution to healthcare. (Hope I’m wrong but, in your heart -you DO have a heart?- you know I’m right.)
“After 62 years on earth, what is your accumulated wisdom?” Don’t pick your nose with chopsticks.
Fair enough Animby. I personally don’t have any gaping contradictions in what I think/post. If it ever looks like it, then its bad writing or bad sense of humor, or perhaps just maybe I need to resolve a conflict I didn’t realize I had. To me, that is the value of this blog. A word here, a statement there, a link or two and we get a new idea, an old idea changes. What else is life for?
Its rhetoric but there is something “wrong” in thinking there is a conflict between a government providing healthcare and desiring a small government. Just think about the structure of that meme. It is malignant. You wind up voting against services because you think you want small government which is in opposition.
What we all want is the government to do what we want it to do===and then we have to pay for it by “right sizing” the government.
As with any/all goverenment programs ALL of the possible wants cannot be met. There is more healthcare desired by the public than can possibly be paid for. Same with all the other wants. Government is about making those judgment calls: no heart transplants for 80 year old terminal cancer patients. A fleet of F-35 raptors of 120 instead of 360. Military bases in 68 countries instead of all of them. Things like that.
To go at these issue from the prespective that we want smaller government is to put the cart before the horse.
I note your bedside manner though. Purposefully chosen, or unconscious. We all should have it.
#40 I lost the patient to sift thru garbage long ago.
Make that patience