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Painting by Numbers

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George Orwell had it all wrong you know, rather than a monolithic Big Brother enforcing conformity, there are thousands of Big Brothers. Choirs of angels singing a siren's song as devil sings along in three-part harmony, in this, the misinformation age. Hosanna, halleluiah! Great news, a great victory for Oceania!

The Huffington Post dedicated its entire front page: "The unemployment rate dipped in June from 6.3 percent in May to its lowest level since the financial crisis struck at full force in the fall of 2008 with the bankruptcy of the Wall Street firm Lehman Brothers."

Bloomberg News called it: "Payroll Surge Fuels Self-Sustaining U.S. Expansion"

224,000 new jobs in May and now, 288,000 in June, with unemployment falling to 6.1 percent! It's all good, isn't it? It's all good, proof positive, the participation rate now stands at 62.8 percent and that's great, isn't it? Last June, the participation rate stood at 63.5 percent.

"Orthodoxy means not thinking--not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness." ~ George Orwell

America's labor force bulges to 155,694,000 with the addition of 288,000 new jobs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the number of unemployed workers fell this month by 325,000, leaving 9,474,000 still unemployed. That's the keyhole view, the media view, the headline view. For while the federal government can tell you how many endangered newts might live in a particular stream bed. Their concern for living, breathing and formerly tax paying citizens, isn't quite as precise. They began as unemployed and when their unemployment benefits expired, they became "marginally attached to the labor force." From there it's just a hop, skip and a jump to the "discouraged worker" category.

Like a pinball machine, once these unemployed miss that last flipper, they go down a hole and just disappear. They're Americans who aren't employed and are no longer counted as unemployed; they just disappear from the labor force, from the headlines and from their government's concern. 3.8 million Americans are down that hole with 293,000 more circling that dark vortex this month.

"Under the spreading chestnut tree I sold you and you sold me:
There lie they, and here lie we
Under the spreading chestnut tree."
~ George Orwell

Every new job is a good job, right? If we forget that 19th century cotton planters in the south had achieved full employment. There is what is known as "part-time for economic reasons" it is also known as involuntary part-time and this month the number of Americans working part-time for economic reasons rose by 275,000 to 7,544,000. The numbers who could only find part-time work rose by 111,000 to 2.6 million. It is somehow difficult to explain this self-sustaining economic expansion, when the other 4.5 million Americans are working part-time due to slack work or business conditions.

The number of hours worked by Americans each week is unchanged from a year ago at 34.5 hours. The economy added a 138,000 new construction jobs since last June and that's down from 142,000 in April. The improvements are incremental, trumpeting 288,000 new jobs is wonderful, if we can forget that for every one of those new jobs this month, 540 unemployed Americans found none.

"The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation. These contradictions are not accidental, nor do they result from ordinary hypocrisy: they are deliberate exercises in doublethink" ~ George Orwell

The average retail worker in the US, have seen their paychecks rise by a whopping, nine dollars a week, since last June. Professionals and business services have seen their incomes rise by less than $25.00 per week. Average hourly income has increased this month by six cents per hour, against an annual inflation rate of 2.1 percent.

Ground Beef + 10.4%

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I who am I? Born at the pinnacle of American prosperity to parents raised during the last great depression. I was the youngest child of the youngest children born almost between the generations and that in fact clouds and obscures who it is that (more...)
 

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