The Misery Index

Listeneing to the Bill Bennett radio show this morning the fill in guy  (I can't remember his name) mentioned the Misery Index. I had forgot all about this little index made popular during Jimmy Carter's administration. This index is simply adding the unemployment rate and the inflation rate.

You can find the misery  index here.

It is interesting to note that the largest drops in the misery index were where the Presidential administrations of Truman (10.18 reduction) and Reagan (9.61 reduction) lowered taxes and the largest growth was during spending hike years of Nixon (9.21 increase), Carter (increase 7.00). B, Hussain has already grown the misery index by 3.01 to the current index of 10.74.

What scares me the most about Obama's number is that we have had deflation and no inflation to note of yet during his term.  When is the other shoe going to drop? When inflation starts (and I believe it will soon) I can see that misery index going through the roof.  Welcome home.... 1970's.

The good thing about all this economic "malaise" is, that I think it will bring us another Ronald Reagan and we sure use another Ronald Reagan now.

Employment Declines

I got this video by e-mail and I saw it again on Glenn Beck's website, it is very telling of our employment situation...

99 Weeks

The Senate passed a $34 billion unemployment package today and it will be voted on by the House tomorrow. The Republicans filibustered the bill in an attempt to find a way to actually pay for the benefits (Remember Pay-go? You don't? That's OK, neither does the Congress). The filibuster was broken by the Maine Republicans (Collins and Snowe should just change the letter behind their name to a D already) and the newbie from West Virginia.

I have been in the unfortunate position of receiving unemployment benefits for about three weeks. I was living in Nevada and I was laid off a mining job. At that time in Nevada you used to have to apply at three potential employers every week. You had to have a card signed by the potential employer as proof you made an attempt. I was living in a very small town of less than 200 people. There were only 2 businesses in the whole town. So I commuted 60 miles (one way)to a town slightly larger (25,000 people)twice a week and flooded it with applications. Because of the expense of the trip and time required, I had to take a job that paid about 1/2 of what my former position paid. In addition I had to commute 60 miles which I didn't have to at my former employer.

I was going to be working for a small gold mine that had a bit of potential. I scraped by for a year until I finally could afford to move closer to work. I ended up staying with that company for 8 years and made much more money than at my prior job.

I told that long story to help me explain my thoughts on unemployment. I always thought of unemployment insurance as just that, insurance. Enough to get you by until you find your next job. I'm sorry but 99 weeks of unemployment insurance is a bit much. That is no longer insurance that is an income.

I have had to hire people within the last year as I am sure other business people have. I have offered several folks positions which they refused to accept, because the unemployment they are getting exceeds what we can pay them (usually these are people that had a much more lucrative job which allows them higher benefits). There is no incentive for people to actually take a job that might be less than what they were making (If I was in the same situation, I might do the same thing. Why would you take a job and have to actually go to work when you can get paid more for walking to your mailbox).

I think this is where a little tough love comes in handy. It is time to say enough extending the insurance. Let's not make career unemployed.

I have another little story that I can't remember if I have told in this blog or not, but if fits nicely here. During the Great Depression work was so hard to find that my grandfather would go to the feed lot in the morning with several other guys. They would just start cleaning the stalls. They didn't ask, they weren't interviewed or hired. They would just start cleaning. All day, doing the best job they could on the stalls. At the end of the day the owner would come out, look at how good of job you did and then make his hiring decisions for the day... you just worked. So if the owner didn't have enough money or you did a less than perfect job, you may not get paid for that days work.

What I am getting at is, you do what it takes, and everything it takes, to take care of your family. If you are subsidized by the government it removes the incentive for Americans to do what it takes to get a job, even if it is a lower paying or menial job. You never can tell, it could be the move of a lifetime.

By the way that little gold mining company I started working for, that had a bit of potential...was Barrick Goldstrike Mines, last year they mined 1.3 million ounces of gold. You never can tell what can happen with a little faith and no government subsidy.

Teenage Unemployed

When I was a teenager I had many different jobs; I was a busboy in a restaurant, I cleaned ditches on the Colorado National Monument for the Youth Conservation Corps, I washed dishes at another restaurant. I helped farm corn, mowed my share of lawns, etc...

In other words I did a whole bunch of jobs that "Americans wouldn't do". I learned a lot of different things, worked real hard, and made very little money. Was I upset at the poor wages or long work days? Nope, and I wouldn't take it back for anything.

As of April 2010 the unemployment rate for kids between the ages of 16 to 19 is 25.4%. That is about 1,500,000 teenagers with nothing to do this summer. I think that there are multiple problems for teenagers getting jobs this summer. To start with there are many "underemployed" adults. Because there are no jobs for adults, they have to go back to doing the jobs they once did as teenagers. The second is the higher minimum wage laws. Businesses are forced to pay teenagers the minimum wage even though they have no experience, so businesses will take a employee candidate that has more experience over the unexperienced teenager.

Then of course is the illegal immigrant problem. With an influx of up to 20,000,000 illegal immigrants in this country, there are no lower paying jobs available for the teenagers to even apply.

The teenage job seeker also has yet another problem that stacks the deck against them...People that are currently unemployed or underemployed do not hire a teenage kid to mow their lawn or babysit their children.

So what happens when all these kids are without work? They "veg out" in front of the computer or television. They have no chance of learning the responsibility of having a job, so when we get through the Obama Depression we are not going to have few teenagers (or young adults) that know what it is like to hold a job responsibly.

It is almost like the Obama Administration is building a group of people that are completely dependent on the Government for their needs. So if you see a group of teenagers "hangin out" on the corner or in a parking lot playing their music too loud, don't get too upset, they are bored and have no work so what else are they going to do?

For you teenagers that will soon be voting age (or are voting age now), remember these times, and cast your vote appropriately. The "change you can believe in" has only left you change in your pocket and dependent on government to take care of you.

Only 36,000 job losses today....

This is a "good day" for Harry Reid. I think a good day for America would be 1 job loss...his....

Recession Barometers

I get stuck in a rut every day digging through all the bad news of the day, so I think I need to write a bit of uplifting stuff so here it goes...

I know that some people use the Dow Jones Industrial Average, unemployment statistics, the latest GDP numbers and other such statistics to gauge the depths of a recession. I use some different methods to do the same thing.

The grocery store line
If you wait for an excess of 30 minutes in a grocery store line, the economy is doing real well.

Traffic
If you can drive down North Ave. and hit most of the traffic lights green, that means traffic is light, because no one has any money to be driving around.

Home "for sale" signs
If you see more than 4 realtor signs per block, the economy is on the decline.

More cars than pickups on the road
As more of the drillers pack up, the less pick-up trucks that are about town. Plus cars are less expensive than trucks.

So I look forward to...
standing in line for an hour at a grocery store...
or hitting every light red on North Ave...
or getting caught listening to my neighbor complaining about something...
or just getting stuck behind a big smokey diesel truck...

Not everything in a recession is bad either....
We are healthier because we can't afford eating out, alcohol, tobacco.
We spend more time at home with our families.
We break the "credit card" lifestyle.
Many entrepreneurs and inventors start up during bad economic times.
We relearn what is truly important in our lives.

I know it is not the season, but here's a little Christmas story...
About a decade ago, Pam (my wife) and I were working, and failing, at trying to stay ahead of all the bills and trying to get Christmas gifts for the kids. So that year we got some very small priced gifts (dollar store kinda stuff) for the kids, didn't really decorate anything, and Pam made a Christmas tree out of construction paper that we taped to the wall. The ornaments were all construction paper. To be quite honest we were really depressed we could not do better for the kids. But you know what, it is one Christmas that we all remember as being one of the happier Christmas' we have had.