Are Americans Going Galt?

Independent Women's Forum (IWF) ^ | 12 Janaury 2014 | Charlotte Hays

[Lorianne]

Ninety-two million Americans are not in the work force—they don’t have jobs and they aren’t looking for jobs.

These 92 million Americans aren’t just out of work—they are resigned to being out of work as a way of life.

The ballooning numbers of Americans who are resigned to long-term joblessness inspired Roger L. Simon to suggest in a bleakly humorous piece over at PJ Media that Americans are going Galt:

Tell all your “Objectivist” friends and the libertarian gang at Reason magazine to break out the champagne. Americans may have skipped the movie of Atlas Shrugged, nor have many read any of Ayn Rand’s works, but they have taken the author’s advice anyway and gone John Galt, quitting the work force in record numbers. According to Zero Hedge, the latest figures show the labor participation rate at 35 year low.

Realistically, it’s even more than 35 because that figure reflects an employment bump when larger numbers of women joined the work force in the seventies and eighties. (They’re gone now, with or without Gloria Steinem.)

Currently a record 91.8 million Americans are no longer looking for work. That’s almost one and a half times the entire population of France.

We are heading for a disaster. A shrinking workforce won’t be able to pay for the nation’s vast array of entitlements. Moreover, many of these non-working adults, men and women who in previous generations would have met their own financial needs, are now receiving assistance. This is an unsustainable economic situation.

But this situation is not merely economically unsustainable. It is spiritually unsustainable:

[Tau Food]

People who aren’t lazy work. Is that so hard to understand?

[OneWingedShark]

The lawsuit filed in 1997 cited Article 4 of the Constitution, which says that the United States “shall protect each of [the states] against invasion.” But U.S. District Judge Judith Keep in San Diego and the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco threw out the lawsuit on grounds that California and Arizona are not being “invaded” by a hostile, foreign power.

My guess is the same thing would happen again.

Invasion doesn't require armament, or even hostility, see definitions #2, #3, and #4:

invasion

noun
1. an act or instance of invading or entering as an enemy, especially by an army.
2. the entrance or advent of anything troublesome or harmful, as disease.
3. entrance as if to take possession or overrun: the annual invasion of the resort by tourists.
4. infringement by intrusion.

If a governor had the balls to declare a state of invasion, then I'd think he'd have the balls to issue warrants for arrest/trial of Treason to such judicial pronouncements.

[bert]

interesting

The slope of the Shadow stats is positive While the U6 slope is negative.

There is a growing discrepancy......... perhaps criminal growth.

[Mears]

“You can only mooch for so long.
“

—

If you know the system You can mooch for generations.

There are plenty of “advisers” to help you find your way around the system

It’s pathetic.

.

[Hoffer Rand]

How are the 92 million able to live? You can only mooch for so long.

Not everyone mooches. Hubby was laid off in September. Because we've always been frugal and lived below our means, we're able to live on my salary. He thought about looking for another job, but after we weighed all the variables, it just didn't make sense for him to try to find a job just to work for the couple more years before retirement, and pay whopping taxes to boot. He's not getting unemployment. Next time you want to paint everyone who ended up out of the job market as a moocher, let's see your family take a two-thirds pay cut without warning, not take any government hand-outs, and see how you do.

[rawhide]

I did not mean to offend you. Sorry.