Every so often, I’m told that I’m tough to live with because I talk about the world all the time. In fact, many readers often email me and ask “why such a backwards slant?”
In addition, some radio listeners also opine and inquire how I could be so negative on a daily basis.
My response to all of them is that my job is to educate, inform, and present the truth. Thus, if the truth of the world is backwards slanted, and even negative, then you have just been awakened.
The most recent email came from a reader who said “please remove me from your list, we do not wish to receive these negative statements anymore.”
Done — but not without comment. What apparently inspired this particular email was my most recent discussion about the February jobs report released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS.)
The people who wish to live in their bubble acknowledge on face value the reported 236,000 jobs that were created.
Yet, these very same people, along with the mainstream media, totally ignore the birth/death statistics.
They ignore the number of part-time jobs counted as full-time jobs; they ignore the number of people not counted in the jobs participation figures; they ignore that civilian employment per capita is currently at a thirty-year low; they ignore median household income which is now the second lowest in the decade; they ignore the record number of people (47 million) currently on food stamps; they ignore the number of bachelor’s degree holders who are either unemployed or waiting tables and living at home; they ignore the number of seniors who are forced to reenter the workforce; they ignore the corporatism strategy of only hiring contract labor in order to avoid paying benefits; they ignore the fact that full-time employment as a percentage of the U.S. population has regressed to levels last witnessed in the early 1980s; and they really love to ignore the fact (always questionable using government data) that the Federal Reserve spent $1.2 trillion in order to create 39% fewer jobs than a year ago. (The quality and wage level of those jobs is a discussion for another time.)
If the people living in their own little bubble don’t want to hear about the U.S. employment picture in great detail, imagine how they must feel when I talk about the government, the economy, and even the world.
Perhaps I could reshape my political thinking by going to see that captivating Washington, D.C. documentary film which has just been released entitled Oz the Great and Powerful.”
And then, I too, could escape to the land where ignorance is bliss.