On Friday, the government reported statistics that would indicate that the job market is robust. The unemployment rate is near an historic low at 5% and the economy appears to be growing (at a 4.3% rate in the third quarter). On the news Friday night I saw a report that said workers were in short supply in certain areas and that jobs were going unfilled. Oh, yes, and inflation is under control. This, many of you might conjecture, debunks much of the doom and gloom about which Jimbo has moaned and groaned over the past year. Based on these data, it appears that life is good and that the current administration is doing a superb job of managing the economy. I can only borrow a phrase from that rotund young man, Eric Cartman to describe my feelings about the accuracy of the government’s statistics.
“That’s a bunch of crap.”
Mark Twain said that there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics. I have not seen around me evidence that there is an economic boom. I have always asserted that the unemployment numbers reported by the government are based on claims for unemployment insurance. I contend that the number would be higher if people who are not eligible, don’t file or have run out of benefits were included, and my own empirical data have brought me to come to a different conclusion about the economy.
As a minion of a manufacturing company that has difficulty paying its bills and whose management frequently reminds us we are navigating through troubled waters, it is my habit to look through the want ads in the Sunday morning newspaper to see what else is available. I can’t help but notice that the employment advertisement section of the paper continues to get smaller. As far as jobs in my own field, there are rarely more than one or two and they are rarely better than the tenuous one I already occupy.
When they announced to us last week that our health care benefits would be reduced after the first of the year—resulting in what is basically a salary reduction for everyone—they pretty much told us it was “take it or leave it.” They could do that, knowing that because of a tight job market, we would, for the most part, “take it.” After work on Friday, one of the senior managers told a group of us that he would be hit hard by the change. Then he told us that the company hadn’t given us raises for years and that they had been reducing benefits as well. He said that, perhaps, if things turned around and our business picked up, that perhaps the salary increases and improvement of benefits would follow. I don’t think he actually believed it, and none of the rest of us bought into it either.
Being new at the company, I was not aware that we were not getting raises. At job offer time, the HR Manager didn’t tell me that and my boss indicated he had the authority to give us salary increases commensurate with our performance at any time he saw fit. Unfortunately both of those people have been laid off since I came aboard and the part about raises, I notice, was omitted from my offer letter.
When we go to the grocery store to buy food and go to the discount store to buy necessities, I can’t help but notice the price of most everything is going up. When I look at the financial stability of our country, I can’t help but be concerned.
By the way, the area where workers are in such short supply and that jobs are going unfilled is New Orleans. This is a city of half a million that is currently occupied by 60,000 people—many of them construction workers, clearing debris and rebuilding. Well, duh. Of course workers are going to be in short supply under those conditions.
As the government has cut our taxes, telling us that this is “our” money and it should be returned to us, somehow they have managed to piss away billions and billions on themselves, looting the treasury and social security fund. You can figure that when they have spent every last dime, they’ll slither away like serpents and leave a mess for the Democrats to try to fix.
“Well, Jimbo,” I’m sure many of you are saying right now, “You certainly know how to brighten up a Sunday morning. Do you have any predictions of Armageddon or thermonuclear war?”
Well, no. I do have a prediction of better times, though. Like a cheap trollop or a gold digger, when all our money is spent and our debt is even more astronomical, this administration will take out a third mortgage, take the money and our car and book it out of town. They’ll leave us with our pockets turned inside out and not knowing where our next meal is coming from.
“How, Jimbo,” you may ask, “does that qualify as ‘better times?’”
Well, at least we won’t have to look at Dubya’s dumb-ass sneer on the television, telling us how good we have it.
At least, that’s our take here in Jimbo’s world.
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