"A Grave Social Ill": America’s Unworking Men
 

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-idle...men-1472769641

There are now over 93 Million people not in the labor force. These numbers compare to the recessionary days of 1977.

According to the WSJ article: "During the past half-century, work rates for U.S. males spiraled relentlessly downward. America is now home to a vast army of jobless men who are no longer even looking for work—roughly seven million of them age 25 to 54, the traditional prime of working life."

Sad.

Damn robots and wimmin are sapping our precious bodily fluids. :rolleyes:

CNS News? Brent Bozell? Even you can do netter than that. Or was that story on the hot sheet from your employer this morning?

I wonder what the real number is and how many of them are trust fund babies.

http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_303.htm Interesting numbers.

The disenchanted/disgruntled white male is The Donald's base. While a bit disenchanted, I enjoy competing and am not disgruntled. :)

There was another thread about 10 million missing men.

http://www.politicalchat.org/showthread.php?t=10769

Ten million down to seven million?

Thanks Obama! :D

In major American metropolitan areas and with the current unemployment rate at 4.9%, able-bodied and competent people have little problems finding work. A large component of your cited number is the large cohort of baby boomers retiring.

FWIW, Romney promised to reduce the unemployment rate to 6% by the end of his first term. It seems Obama has been that by nearly 20%.

Here's a few truths about Republican promises on the economy in 2008 vs what Obama actually delivered.

https://thinkprogress.org/4-things-t...a5a#.c10w3x80h

Thank you for your post, indicating that you didn't bother looking at WSJ story. :rolleyes:

Thank you for your post. Your off-the-shelf responses are at least rapid, if not germane to the OP.

I got past the paywall and read it. At least it didn't accuse Obama of being responsible for this phenomena as the Right has been claiming for the past 8 years. This problem, that the article says has been ongoing for several decades, was not a concern nor addressed by the conservative press during Dubya's 8 years of trashing the economy. For that matter, what has the GOP done and what does it plan to do for the less educated, never married, native born and African-American who suffer the most from this phenomena (other than incarcerate them)?

Furthermore, the BLS anticipates that the problem is likely to worsen in the coming years. They project that participation rate will drop from it's current 62.9% to 60.9% by 2024. This appears to be baked in to the trend toward automating some skilled labor jobs and moving others offshore.

I have noticed that it is finally dawning on some of my non-union, southern countrymen that being non-union and southern does not necessarily protect them from being outsourced. Alas, the denizens of the boardroom really are insatiable. Well fancy that!

Tell me; What fool undertakes the errand of trying to satisfy the insatiable by reducing himself and others to peasantry?

Since you're throwing stones, maybe you can tell me how the current occupant of the White House has done?

Nor does being in a union and northern.

Not much, although significantly more than the GOP.

All he could given the GOP's obstructionism.


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Another off the shelf response. The GOP has given Obama nearly free reign. The first two years the didn't have the votes to stop the Dems on anything. Later, the GOP dumped the Speaker of the House because he was perceived as too cozy with Obama, got a new Speaker, and that one has been busy staying out of the Dems way as well.

Sorry, but Obama has gotten most of his agenda pushed through, including a $1 Trillion stimulus which was supposed to get the economy going again (remember the summer of growth that never happened?). And his biggest obstacle in his first term was likely with the left flank of his own party, particularly on healthcare reform.

You posts are worthless, whell. So far spun from reality as to constitute disinformation.

Can't you see that it is Obama's fault that the baby boomers are reaching retirement age. Those death panels turned out to be worthless.

Speaking of "off the shelf" responses.:rolleyes: It was much less than two years. The Republicans refused to seat Al Franken, for one thing.

60 days but you know whell. He lies a lot.

http://factleft.com/2012/01/31/the-m...uper-majority/

It wasn't the left wing of the Democratic party that prevented implementation of the full Obama agenda - it was the right wing - the "Blue Dogs." That prevented there being enough votes to overcome the mountain of filibusters. And the death of Ted Kennedy and his subsequent replacement by a Republican further hampered the ability to overcome a filibuster. It is rewriting history to suggest that a majority in the Senate was sufficient to move forward with Obama's legislative agenda. Minority leader Mitch McConnell, in his quest to make Obama a one term president, undertook an unprecedented number of filibusters. One can only hope that he is returned to minority leader again.

Right back at'cha Don.

Thanks for your post, demonstrating that you failed to read the article in the OP.

facleft.com is your unbiased source, huh? LOL!

Second, Id didn't say the Dems has a super-majority for the first two years. However, I did say the Repubs didn't have the votes to stop legislation. They did have the filibuster, but in spite of that, Obama in his first term and the Dems still got (and this is not a complete list):

American Recovery and Investment Act
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act
Children’s Health Insurance Re-authorization Act
Omnibus Public Lands Management Act
Serve America Act
Protecting Incentives for the Adoption of Children with Special Needs Act of 2009
Helping Families Save Their Homes Act
Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act
Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act
Veterans Health Care Budget Reform and Transparency Act of 2009
Worker, Homeownership, and Business Assistance Act of 2009
Credit CARD Technical Corrections Act of 2009
Human Rights Enforcement Act of 2009
Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010
PATRIOT Act Extension
Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act of 2010
Prevent all Cigarette Trafficking Act
Haiti Debt Relief and Earthquake Recovery Act of 2010
Cost of Living Adjustment for Members of Congress
Small Business Act and the Small Business Investment Act
Homebuyer Assistance and Improvement Act of 2010
Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act
Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2010
Small Business Jobs Act of 2010
Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010
Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Reauthorization Act of 2010
Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010
Medicare and Medicaid Extenders Act of 2010
Omnibus Trade Act of 2010
Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act
Helping Heroes Keep Their Homes Act
America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010
Reduction of Lead in Drinking Water Act
FDA Food Safety Modernization Act

So, sorry that those pesky Repubs made the job of running up the deficit a bit harder, but I think there was still an abundance of legislation signed in the first two years - and beyond. To say that the Prez has not been able to enact a significant portion of his agenda is absurd.

I read the second link. I will not spend a penny on the WSJ. I did see enough of the article above the pay wall to show that it was an opinion piece. Why do you persist in calling commentary an article as if it were objective reporting?

Wow. Even I'll pop into places like Huffpo every so often, if for no other reason than to see what the left's latest perturbation is. Closed minds are a bitch. Hope you consider getting that fixed soon.

There's no paywall at HuffPo, whell. I wouldn't pay to read the WSJ either.

The Huffpost has no paywall. I would read the article if it was open to people with open minds, but I refuse to add value to Rupert Murdoch's media empire. Isn't that the way capitalism works - one only spends money if he believes he is getting value for the expenditure. I don't see the value in paying for a subscription to the WSJ when there are more credible sources that are not behind a paywall.

Have you purchased a subscription to the Wapo? If so, you might have a scintilla of a point. Otherwise, you can take your sanctimonious BS and fertilize your garden with it.

Isn't it funny how immediately obvious that his fallacies are?

Ah, the hostility. :rolleyes:

Yes, I have a subscription to WaPo, so thanks for conceding the point. :p

Now you're just being ridiculous Mike.

"Now"?

No, I answered a question. What other baseless critique would you care to make?

I should've highlighted your "Ah, the hostility" comment but maybe I gave you too much credit for seeing that.

So what? His comment was a bit nasty. Didn't bother me at all. As I've said elsewhere, forum leans left and non conformists here should expect such comments. Identifying it for what it is falls far short of "silly", though.

One man's nasty is another man's descriptive.

More broken-record, off-the-shelf answer bull shit. Try this for a bit more balanced view about why the Senate has been dysfunctional. No paywall either, so no worries about sending money off to any evil empire with views that might differ from yours. :rolleyes:

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stor...-the-tree.html

It isn't bullshit. Your article is bullshit. Unlike you, I'm not just going to namecall. I'm going to explain why.

The article says basically that the Democrats are as bad as the Republicans when it comes to preventing action in the Senate, because the Dems are in the habit of 'filling the tree,' that is, filing lots of meaningless amendments on their own bills so that the amendment limit is reached and the Republicans can't offer any. It goes into detail about how meaningless and silly these amendments are.

But this is false equivalency, typical of modern monopoly newspapers who don't what to offend a single reader, including in this case the many supporters of the popular Republican Senator Portman. Attentive readers will note what sort of Republican amendments are prevented by this maneuver. Here's one example: "Among the proposed amendments was one by Sen. David Vitter, R-La., that would slash federal subsidies for congressional staff members forced to buy individual health insurance through the federal exchanges created by the 2010 health-care law."

This is what is known as a 'poison pill.' A senator voting for the bill with that tacked-on would be voting for a big pay cut for his own staff. That's an amendment designed to be a bill-killer. With Republicans pulling stuff like this, the maneuver of 'filling the tree' can be seen as necessary.

With poison pills and truckloads of filibusters, it's Republicans that have broken the Senate. This article that bends over backwards to find false equivalency is bullshit.

Missing from the linked article is the inordinate fear of a Republican of being punished in a primary.