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I’m mad as hell
That’s My Opinion
By Bob Robinson
Contrasting local anger
to national indifference…
First of all, a huge THANK YOU to CBS News! A “legitimate” news source
finally reported that the latest unemployment figures were bogus...
although they didn’t express it quite like that.
CBS reported that unemployment figures don’t include those who have
given up looking for a job. When someone gets so frustrated at not
being able to find one - and his or her unemployment runs out - they
just give up!!
Does a lower unemployment rate mean that the person is working again?
No. Of course not. They are just dropped from the statistics. But the
Obama administration touts the “drop” in unemployment from 8.2 percent
to 8.1 percent as “progress.”
I did a search for the hard-to-find stats on unemployment dropouts but
could find little more except one from Yahoo (posted today), and
another Blog (posted Sunday).
Conservative Bloggers (don’t misconstrue that term to mean the
anonymous blogs you find on local web sites... these people willingly
identify themselves) have been trying to hammer this home for months.
I tried to hammer it home about a month ago and got hammered for my
efforts. That might have been fair... maybe my estimate of 20 to 25
percent “real” unemployment was a little off, but maybe not - I
couldn’t back it up because I had no data...
“Main Street media focuses on the 8.1% jobless rate, with idiots on
many television channels knowingly lying to the public about what that
number really means. People continue to drop out of the American Dream
in all facets. In just the past month “not in labor force” rocketed up
522,000 to 88,419,000, an absolute all-time record as the participation
rate of 63.6 percent is the lowest since 1981.” Townhall Finance.
Do you read the same 36.4 percent “real” unemployment – people who
could be working but aren’t - that I do? That number probably includes
those who could enter the workforce for the first time but have chosen
not to because there are simply no jobs. Whether it includes those
working 2-3 part-time jobs with no benefits, I don’t know.
“About 12.5 million Americans were unemployed in April, including 5.1
million who have been looking for work for more than 27 weeks. But many
more millions of Americans have given up looking for work altogether.
The labor force participation rate is at the lowest point since 1981.”
Yahoo.
And now CBS! How much more in-your-face does it have to get to sit up
and take notice that we are on the same path to destruction as has been
brought about by so many other “spread the wealth” and “big government
spending” policies in the past, and the economic disasters occurring in
Europe today?
By contrast, I keep getting comments from people that I meet - as well
as emails - regarding the Lucas-Mong fiasco in the Commissioner’s
Office. The recent posts by Don Wright and Bob Rhoades have once again
been at the top of CNO reading charts. The questions? How much taxpayer
money has been wasted by our sitting Commissioners, how much more WILL
be wasted, and when are they going to do something about it? Was there
fraud involved with Mong? If so, why didn’t they pursue it? Now that
it’s been brought into the spotlight, why are they still pretending it
will go away?
Frankly, I don’t think it will go away. The following email from a
reader echoes what I’ve been hearing from people who have walked up to
me at the post office or elsewhere in Greenville...
“I just finished the article by Bob Rhoades and yesterday’s by my
friend Don Wright. It seems clear that the commissioner’s problem is
not going to go away until we force them to take notice that the
general public is tired of their procrastination.
“We need to come up with a program to hit them where it is a problem
for them to ignore. Mainly, their wallets. With that being said, I
would suggest that we mount a campaign to hold our individual second
half property taxes in an escrow account in a local bank, draw some
interest and could be released when the public is finally satisfied
with the progress of the commissioners. I feel certain that just the
public notice that this was being considered would make the
commissioners think twice about what they were doing. This would also
be a lot faster getting action than filing law suits that will be drug
out for years, and nothing happens while it is in the courts.”
Will the Commissioners sit up and take notice? Probably not, but this
is the mindset I’m hearing from local citizens.
So what does our local situation have to do with the brewing national
disaster? A lot. By its contrast.
I’m hearing “I’m mad as hell and I won’t take it anymore” from an
increasing number of local citizens regarding the shenanigans in the
Commissioners Office.
I’m NOT hearing “I’m mad as hell and I won’t take it anymore” from
voters nationwide... most polls still show the leader of an
unbelievably inept administration in a dead heat with the only viable
alternative surfacing to challenge it.
Locally, I don’t think the public anger is going to go away. The vast
majority of Darke County voters still pay taxes. They are struggling in
a poor economy and they are fed up with what they have been seeing from
our local elected officials.
Nationally, half of our country is receiving federal assistance in some
manner. How many of them are going to sacrifice self-interest for the
future of this nation and our children? Look at the polls, then you
tell me.
Personally, my anger comes from so much of my time being spent with the
youth who will be paying off the debts of our selfishness and
ineptitude for generations to come. From kindergarten to college, I
look at these kids and wonder if they are going to hate what we have
done to them...
I think they will. That, my friends, makes me mad as hell!
That’s My Opinion. What’s Yours?
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