Romney is under attack for his remarks which began "I am not worried about the very poor. We have safety nets for them." The media and the left are ignoring the safety net part and the "very" adjective. The right is attacking him for supporting the safety net.
But what Romney said is logical and rational. Not that it matters. He will be attacked no matter what he says. This is called politics and it is a nasty, vicious game. Remarks will be taken out of context, misconstrued and thrown back at the speaker. The hard core left and right will believe what they want to believe. The barely conscious (unfortunately, there are way too many of these... they are usually called the "undecided") will be unaware what was said and what was said about what was said. And the non-hardliners of both sides will likely fall back to the "vote the party" mode come November.
There are people in this country who believe that corporations want to kill their customers. We are being told to hate the rich, Big Oil, Big Pharma, the banks, Wall Street, and pretty much anyone who is deemed successful.
We have young people protesting the "1%" while taking a break from the over-priced universities they think will lead to their becoming a member of that elite group as they text each other and keep in touch with their Facebook pages on their iPads.
I am lost in confusion and dismay.
But then I read something like this:
It's 'Marshall' Dillon to the rescue
Which tells the story of a Welsh Corgi and a lost child.
Now, let's look at the unemployment situation. The unemployment rate presented by the administration is not the whole story nor is accurate in terms of the actual unemployed. It is a manipulated figure which can be (and is being) used for political purposes.
Here's another way to look at it:
| Measure | Not seasonally adjusted | Seasonally adjusted | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan. 2011 | Dec. 2011 | Jan. 2012 | Jan. 2011 | Sept. 2011 | Oct. 2011 | Nov. 2011 | Dec. 2011 | Jan. 2012 | |
U-1 Persons unemployed 15 weeks or longer, as a percent of the civilian labor force | 5.6 | 4.8 | 4.9 | 5.5 | 5.3 | 5.1 | 5.0 | 5.0 | 4.9 |
U-2 Job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs, as a percent of the civilian labor force | 6.2 | 5.0 | 5.4 | 5.5 | 5.2 | 5.1 | 4.9 | 4.9 | 4.7 |
U-3 Total unemployed, as a percent of the civilian labor force (official unemployment rate) | 9.8 | 8.3 | 8.8 | 9.1 | 9.0 | 8.9 | 8.7 | 8.5 | 8.3 |
U-4 Total unemployed plus discouraged workers, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus discouraged workers | 10.4 | 8.8 | 9.4 | 9.7 | 9.6 | 9.5 | 9.3 | 9.1 | 8.9 |
U-5 Total unemployed, plus discouraged workers, plus all other persons marginally attached to the labor force, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force | 11.4 | 9.8 | 10.5 | 10.7 | 10.5 | 10.4 | 10.2 | 10.0 | 9.9 |
U-6 Total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force | 17.3 | 15.2 | 16.2 | 16.1 | 16.4 | 16.0 | 15.6 | 15.2 | 15.1 |
| NOTE: Persons marginally attached to the labor force are those who currently are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the past 12 months. Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached, have given a job-market related reason for not currently looking for work. Persons employed part time for economic reasons are those who want and are available for full-time work but have had to settle for a part-time schedule. Updated population controls are introduced annually with the release of January data. | |||||||||
Source: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm
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