Economics is simple, yet apparently nearly impossible to learn.

“What have you there my pretty?”
The Wicked Witch of the West

Nancy, is that you?

What is the point? If you work incredibly hard on grades and get an engineering degree, you won’t have to work hard to find work.Accounting, engineering and healthcare are still hiring. Companies still need strong sales people.

seven on November 23, 2009 at 2:37 PM

My son is in college now, and it co$t$ beaucoup buck$. I’m an engineer by day, and moonlight as a private math and science tutor in the evenings, and there’s no shortage of parents wanting their kids to get ahead of the class.

With a good education, there’s work out there, but it takes work to find it.

Badger40 on November 23, 2009 at 2:22 PM

I paid my own way through an expensive private college–Drake–and had to stay out a semester here and there to save up money to pay for the next semester. I also had two jos while going to college. Your daughter will live if she has to stay out a semester and replenish her college funds. Thereby learning a great life-lesson.
Do the tough-love thing, which it sounds like you are doing, btw…

RagTag on November 23, 2009 at 1:31 PM

My ex (58) tried for a year and a half to get work, and finally had to settle for a $9/hr no benefits, no holidays off job as a security officer…He was actually becoming severely depressed. His unemployment ran out, and he almost lost the home our kids were raised in…

Badger40 on November 23, 2009 at 2:08 PM

Unemployment will not pay the mortgage or the bills, it will help, but is like a slow leak in the boat. Only those who have someone to help supplement this income will live off of it until they “have” to go look for a job.

REALLY?!?!

To most of us here at HA it’s a palmface worthy “no s#!t” moment but to the MSM it appears to be “news” somehow. Go figure.

AP: Porkulus killing new jobs

Gee, ya think?

People are simply spending less because they are unemployed, think they could be at any time, fear coming inflation, or higher taxes…or several combinations of the above.

It is kind of interesting how the unemployment seems to start at the east and west coasts and move inward. What is it about the central states that keeps the unemployment down? Farming?

Count to 10 on November 23, 2009 at 1:36 PM

You wanna know how s-to-o-o-o-o-pid these clowns are? All they need to do to turn the middle part of California tan (eliminate a serious unemployment problem) is to turn the pumps on again and grind up a few Delta Smelt.

There’s a whole bunch of poor, immigrant voters tout there in the Central valley that are ready to take Obama’s and the Dems’ heads off because of their environmental policies.

Thanks Associated Press! You didn’t have anyone who could have reported this 10 months ago?

We’ll get the same thing once Obamacare passes.

All the horror stories, inefficiencies, waste, fraud, etc. will get plenty of air time a few months after it takes effect.

I can’t help but wonder what he would think of matters today.

ya2daup on November 23, 2009 at 2:30 PM

Rhame is not too far from me. I drive through there when I go to SD or MT.
I think your GG-grandad would really be disgusted at the way things have turned out.
I know I am.

Why does a business have to save for YOUR rainy day?

Badger40 on November 23, 2009 at 1:50 PM

Because govt decided that private insurers could not be trusted with unemployment insurance, it had to be a govt program.

The same reason why there is no privatly available bank deposit insurance.

I think that still breeds dependency bcs let’s face it, if you can stay at home & make $$ for a while, why would you bother to go & work to make the same amount of $$.

Badger40 on November 23, 2009 at 1:50 PM

Because unemployment payments lasts longer. At least that was how it worked in Florida. In Florida unemployment was a fixed amount, that was paid out at a fixed amount. If I worked a part time job, the amount paid out each week decreased, but since I was burning through the fixed amount more slowly, it lasted longer. I was able to make 9 months worth of unemployment last the 12 months it took me to find another job.

What is it about the central states that keeps the unemployment down? Farming?

Count to 10 on November 23, 2009 at 1:36 PM

HEARTLAND PROSPERITY: When the furrows fly.

Badger40 on November 23, 2009 at 1:39 PM

I had a great-grandfather who lived in Rhame, ND during the Great Depression. He and a brother had been grain buyers in the Dakotas and Minnesota for decades until the market dried up. After that he and his wife ran a boardinghouse / hotel in Rhame until his death from heart disease sometime around 1940. I can’t help but wonder what he would think of matters today.

What is it about the central states that keeps the unemployment down? Farming?

Count to 10 on November 23, 2009 at 1:36 PM

Lower taxes, a belief that a person should look to himself and his family first, govt later.

What in the hell did people do 200 yrs ago when there was no govt to take care of them?
That’s right-they sucked it up.
And it wasn’t fun.
Great motivator to save for that rainy day, let me tell you.

Badger40 on November 23, 2009 at 2:08 PM

This brings to mind a story of one of my kids-
she left home & had a little $$ saved up for college.
She maxed out on her loans & when shool was out, instead of looking for a job like we begged her to do, she coasted on the $$ she had saved & went back to her dorm every night to sit on Facebook for 8+ hrs/day.
When we dropped her off at college in Aug she was so paranoid about not having enuff $$ she went & applied for Taco Bell & they offered her $8/hr starting out right away.
She didn’t take the job bcs she said the workplace looked to ‘rushed’ & that she didn’t want to work ‘that hard’.
So now she starts looking at the $$ she needs to come up with for nex semester & she starts panicking she won’t have enuff, even with her loans.
So she goes & works at K-mart, a place she swore she’d never work.
Only now it may not be in time for her to save enuff $$ for next semester & she’s all crazy about how she may have to quit the next semester & get a job to save up enuff $$ for next fall.
I told you so-a parent’s wort nightmare.

LadinPlaid on November 23, 2009 at 12:11 PM

Damn! I guess the last person working — and it looks like they’ll be in Cherry County, Nebraska — will need to turn out the lights.

AP: Porkulus killing new jobs.

Basically what they are saying is “the whole situation sucks.” My response is “What else can you expect from Democratic rule?” And here are 30 Daffynitions by myself and others which express the whole thing even more astringently:

BEST WAY TO ENTERTAIN A SENATOR: Sit down and listen. (Based on a statement by Leonard Louis Levinson)

CODE PINK DEMONSTRATIONS: The politics of personal derangement. (Inspired by a statement by Peter Wood)

DARWIN’S LAW OF POLITICS: He who beats his sword into a plowshare usually ends up plowing for those who kept their swords. (Based on a statement from http://www.ahajokes.com/ bus059.html)

DEMOCRACY: The art of running the circus from the monkey cage. (Variation of a statement by H. L. Mencken)

DEPRESSION: When business is so bad that even the accounts that don’t intend to pay ain’t buying. (Based on a garment center adage)

DEPRESSION: Being broke enough to go to KFC and lick other people’s fingers. (Loosely based on a statement from http://www.taglinesgalore.com/tags/d.html)

DEMOCRATIC FIGHT SONG: “Cantaffordya, here we come!” (Statement by CGW)

DESTROYING FREE MARKETS: Creating black markets. (Based on a statement by Winston Churchill)

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GOD AND THE GOVERNMENT: God helps those who help themselves, and the government helps those who don’t. (Based on a statement in E. C. McKenzie, ed., 14,000 Quips & Quotes for Writers and Speakers, 1980)

ECONOMICS: The way things would work out, if we let them. (Statement by Leonard Louis Levinson)

FIRST LAW OF ECONOMICS: If your outgo exceeds your income, your upkeep will be your downfall. (Based on a statement by Gerald F. Lieberman)

FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN REPUBLICAN AND DEMOCRATIC ADMINISTRATIONS:
Republicans rule the country as if it were classless; Democrats rule the country as if they were classless.

HARD TIMES: When you get married for the rice. (Statement from http://www.octanecreative.com/mediatower/bitohumor/oneliner.html)

“HELP WANTED!”: Sign of prosperity. (Loosely based on a statement by Kin Hubbard)

HORRENDOUS POLICY DECISIONS: Frank-‘N’-Dodds. (Statement by CGW)

JOEY’S JEST: My uncle is in trouble with his union. They caught him working on the job. (Based on a statement by Joey Adams)

LOBBYISTS: People who are paid to tell congressmen how to vote. (Based on a statement by Leonard Louis Levinson)

OUR MOST EFFECTIVE AMBASSADORS: Aircraft carriers. (Loosely based on a statement in Gerald F. Lieberman, ed., 3,500 Good Quotes for Speakers, 1983, p. 73)

PARTY ANIMAL: Political hack.

POLITICAL APPOINTMENT: A job in which the work consists of getting the job. (Statement by Leonard Louis Levinson)

POLITICAL REHAB CENTER: Betty Fraud Clinic.

RADICAL MULTICULTURALISM: Tolerating the intolerant. (Based on a statement by Mark Steyn)

RECESSION: Lapse of luxury. (Statement by Lane Olinghouse)

SERIOUS DEBT: Having more attachments on you than a vacuum cleaner. (Loosely based on a statement by John Barrymore)

SOCIALISM: Eurotopian vision. (Inspired by a statement by Mark Steyn)

THE STATE: “The great fiction by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.” (Variation of a statement by Frédéric Bastiat)

THATCHER’S THESIS: The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money. (Based on a statement by Margaret Thatcher)

UNION LABOR: A system devised to protect the inept from the unconscionable. (Statement by Frank Dane)

WAUGH’S LAW OF SOCIAL SERVICES: Social needs always exceed existing revenues. (Statement by CGW)

WILSON’S WISDOM: A man who thinks of himself as belonging to a particular national group in America has not yet become an American. (Based on a statement by Woodrow Wilson)