That sounds like someone I know...
Posted on 06/25/2011 7:53:11 AM PDT by Kaslin
Roughly 14 million people are formally labeled as unemployed, but “there’s probably 22 million to 23 million people who are unemployed, mal-employed or under-employed,” said Andrew Sum, an economics professor at Northeastern University in Boston, as reported by DailyCaller.com.
The professor didn’t define “mal-employed,” but I’m thinking it includes the over-employed—those in full-time jobs way over their heads who screw up life for the rest of us.
Consider Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, who’s blown through nearly $2 trillion taxpayer dollars trying to fix the economy. He admitted Wednesday that he’s clueless about why the economy has a “soft patch,” and insists that Congress increase the debt ceiling. He said that “the Fed still had several tools at its disposal to pump up the economy.”
Can somebody get word to him that a monkey wrench isn’t a fiscal tool?
Next are members of the House of Representatives who supposedly have the expertise on gainful employment—but not so much in their own houses.
Rep. John F. Tierney (D-Mass.) sits on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. He also tinkers at reforming the tax code. His wife Patrice, a jewelry designer, can’t attend his “Women Taking the Lead for Tierney” fundraiser because she’s under house arrest after pleading guilty to “aiding and abetting the filing of false tax returns by her brother,” according to Redstate.com.
Maybe her failed venture as a tax-preparer will revive her career as a jewelry designer. There’s a huge underserved market for designer GPS ankle bracelets.
Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) is understandably “committed to a full employment economy.” His wife will increase Detroit’s 11.1 percent unemployment rate when she completes her three-year federal prison sentence for bribery and corruption during her tenure on the Detroit City Council.
Conyers could create jobs by hiring a crew to mow his grass and paint his dilapidated house. Better still, he could stay home and do it himself. Instead, he’s in the People’s House pushing his 22-year-old reparations bill, “H.R. 3745, “Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act,” and trying to increase taxes on the rest of us.
Despite being kicked off the federal bench by the Senate following his impeachment by the House for bribery, Democrat Alcee Hastings got himself another federal job in 1992 representing Florida’s 23rd District in Congress. The Office of Congressional Ethics is investigating Hastings on a charge of sexually harassing a woman on his staff.
Rest assured. Hastings says he’s “committed to improving women’s lives, empowering them in the workforce, and ending gender inequality.”
Over in the taxpayer-funded “private” sector, Al Gore, CEO of Greening Gore, announced his latest theory on what’s overheating the planet—Women are stupid.
The Goracle said in a New York appearance Monday that we have to “stabilize the population. … You have to have ubiquitous availability of fertility management so women can choose how many children [they] have, the spacing of the children,” according to The DailyCaller.com.
The father of four is channeling the infamous population control eugenicist Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood. Gore wants girls and women educated about where babies come and where to go to get rid of them.
The average number of children under 18 per family household in the United States is .94. The peoples of Europe are dying in the literal sense of the word. In Germany and Italy the annual number of deaths exceeds the number of births. Gore should stop spreading his gasbag global warming theories and start funding rehab facilities for sexually harassed massage therapists.
“We now have more idle men and women than at any time since the Great Depression,” according to Mort Zuckerman, editor in chief of U.S. News & World Report. As the adage warns, however, some of the “idle” are busy in the “Devil’s workshop.”
New York Atheists President Ken Bronstein is hell bent on renaming a street that was named in honor of seven Brooklyn firefighters killed on 9/11. Bronstein claims that changing Richard Street to “Seven in Heaven Way” violates the “separation of church and state,” according to Fox News. He says that atheists have concluded “there’s no heaven and there’s no hell.” David Silverman, president of American Atheists, also wants the city to remove the sign. “It implies that heaven actually exists,” Silverman told Fox News Radio.
You can tell they’ve never been in a falling building, which is a lot like a foxhole.
Some over-employed lawyers on the Supreme Court, past and present, share the blame for opening the door to absurd “separation of church and state” claims such as Bronstein’s. The Court’s Establishment Clause jurisprudence is convoluted and virtually incomprehensible.
Lastly, we have a poster boy for Prof. Sum’s “mal-employed.”
A 65-year-old cross-dressing business consultant clad in women’s blue underwear, black stockings and spike heels boarded a US Airways flight from Ft. Lauderdale to Phoenix on June 9. I’m guessing he chose the TSA grope instead of the scan. One of several objecting passengers snapped his picture, a striking pose, indeed.
He doesn’t want his name published, according to the San Francisco Chronicle: “I have a lot at stake here. I'm a business consultant and would be extremely vulnerable to being discredited.” Yes, especially if his client is the Men’s Wearhouse.
It’s probably better if he stays employed. The last thing the jobless need is seeing this guy in line at the unemployment office.
And about that monumental mal-employment problem on Pennsylvania Avenue, don't get me started.
“Consider Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, who’s blown through nearly $2 trillion taxpayer dollars trying to fix the economy.”
Professor Ben came to the job with virtually zero experience in the private sector, although it does appear that he has ‘close associations’ with corporate executives and ‘appreciates their needs’. /sarc
That sounds like someone I know...
It won’t do any good because obastard appointed judges will just overturn!
Time to rename the "Peter Principle", the "Dickhead Principle".
I think mal-employed is people who work for a first class anal orifice and would bolt as soon as the economy turns & they can find a job where they’ll be treated better. I know exactly how that feels.
“The Goracle said in a New York appearance Monday that we have to “stabilize the population.”
The native cultures of Japan and Europe are disappearing fast because of this silliness. And because of the growing proportion of old people relative to those of working age, it is becoming increasingly difficult for their decreasing working populations to support those living on retirement. It will get much worse. Non-assimilated, mostly muslim immigrants are breeding like rabbits and probably won’t be particularly interested supporting old European atheists who couldn’t be bothered to have their own children.
Many years back I watched a round table discussion among several distinguished financial “planners” concerning how best to set up a retirement portfolio. Most were aging gentlemen who were at least mid fifties if not older. They droned on and on about what percentage should be in stocks, bonds, precious metals etc. Finally the only young man in the bunch was allowed to speak. He looked to be under thirty and he blew the whole circle jerk apart with one short statement. He told the others they were ignoring the elephant in the living room which was demographics. The only thing that really matters he said is the ratio of younger people who are still working to the number who are older and want to retire. If there are not enough people still working to support those who wish to retire, nothing else matters he said. He was absolutely right, no amount of stocks, bonds, gold, silver or anything else will build cars, refine gasoline, operate cruise ships, grow food, prepare food etc., the list goes on and on. If there are not enough young folks willing and able to do these things then we old fogies must either do it ourselves or perish.
They were basing things on the same fallacy as the renowned genius who was reported to have said that there are enough resources on the Earth for everyone to live like a “billionaire”. The problem is that living like a billionaire means having the ability to hire hundreds of other people to do what you pay them to do. This obviously means that there is no possible way for everyone to live like a billionaire.
I’d categorize “over-employed” as being worked to death because companies are fearful of adding employees, despite managing to do well under the current economic conditions. I’m in that category, over 60 hours a week since last year.
Nearly had the second week of August out on Hatteras Island pulled out from under me because they didn’t think they could afford my absence. I’ve been taking that same week and going out there since I shut down my own company and went to work for them. They were a former customer of mine.
I keep telling myself that it’s a blessing and a good problem to have, but there just comes a time when you need a break. Hatteras Island is the furthest sense of remove I’ve found within a day’s drive of here, it’s like another world. Love it. Needing it along about now, lol.
If and when the economy clearly rebounds, you’re going to see a tremendous amount of turnover and resulting wage pressure. I’m far from alone.
I went to a gathering yesterday, my wife’s high school classmates, a cookout with a nice meal served under a large picnic shed. One woman asked why people don’t do that sort of thing much any longer and a man opined that people just don’t have the time any more, there is so much to do, he said he just hardly ever had the time to take a break like that any more. Having grown up walking behind a mule myself I replied that it certainly is amazing how people who used to do everything be hand had time for such things and now we don’t. Apparently the amount of actual leisure time available is INVERSELY proportional to the amount of labor saving machinery in use! Actually I believe the problem is that all the real work falls on a very small percentage who are still willing to work. The rest of us just pretend to work or don’t even bother to pretend.
Actually, back when people did work very hard on the farm they tended to work many hours a day when they worked but take certain days off to fish, hunt or visit with others. They may have worked more hours than we do now but they would squeeze two or more weeks into one in the busy times and relax at other times.
If they have school age kids, that’s the black hole that sucks away free time. Always something, neverending treadmill. Wasn’t like that when I was a kid. Summer off was summer off, unless you went to vacation Bible school or summer camp.
No more. Relentless. We’re programming a generation of robots.
I still think kids should be allowed to be kids, to have a chance to figure things out on their own rather than be scheduled and managed by parents and others every minute of their lives. Generation of robots? Yep, sounds about right to me.
When I’m elected POTUS, my TS is going to be some guy who works at a midwest bank that’s been in business for 150 years.
I believe there are two effects of the Baraqqi economy that will prove deadly to his re-election chances.
1) Widespread underemployment of recent college graduates.
2) “Lockup” of those currently employed. Being worked like rented mules because there are minimal opportunities to switch to.
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