Everyone is shocked—shocked—that “[a]mong the most distressing” information buried in the “jobs report for August” was the following, as reported by Economix’s Catherine Rampell:
The share of men actively participating in the labor force — that is, working or looking for work — was at an all-time low. Just 69.8 percent of all men over age 16 were in the labor force in August, compared to a long-term average of 78.3 percent since the Labor Department began tracking these data in 1948. The share has been falling pretty steadily over the last six decades but has declined sharply in the last few years.
All manner of explanation is floated for the increasing marginalization of men in the US labor force. Nary a mention is made of the gender-centric policies that govern both state and big-business bureaucracies.
Every one of us knows men who slog under these conditions. All too well do we know too that the ladies are getting a leg-up.
In certain fields—say, electrical engineering—women are so rare that no matter how mediocre an engineer the woman is; the men around will be expected, if implicitly, to valiantly compensate for her intellectual deficiencies. Their reward? She-devils that not only get credit for work they have not done, but begin to believe their own hype.
Understand, this is not to say that there are no outstanding females in the applied sciences; of course there are. But many more are the outstanding men who’re being sidelined to showcase what are, on average, mediocre women.
Speaking of a performative contradiction, Catherine Rampell, the reporter, should look to her left, on the perch at the Economix blog. What is the ratio of men to women among the “Featured Contributors”? Two to three.
See if you can spot the trend wherever you go. I do.
Glenn Beck has chronicled in detail the ghastly treatment he received, over the Labor Day weekend, while dining at a New-York establishment, and on board an American Airlines flight. There, an airborne pollutant in the form of a flighty waiter—who claimed to have served in the IDF—served Glenn worse than one would a stray dog in a pound.
Beck, as usual, reverted to sermon-style sanctimony where he called on Jesus for strength and grace.
Give me a break!
First, doesn’t Glenn fly first class? Any flight attendant who treats his first-class customers as Glenn was treated is a liability to the business, however poor its practices (and it is clear from this episode that American Airlines is a crap carrier. That’s been my experience with them).
Expose this IDF waiter, Glenn.
Show the runt responsible some Old-Testament justice, not New-Testament forgiveness. You’re not going to change a poorly raised retard. Teach him responsibility; teach him where his bread is buttered.
Glenn’s a wealthy, charitable, self-made man. He doesn’t have to take this.
MSNBC was my first port of call, right after Mitt Romney completed his address to the 2012 Republican Convention. Romney’s sworn enemies would be the best gauges as to how well the speech resonated.
The cobra head at MSNBC—Rachel Maddow, Al Sharpton, Lawrence O’Donnell, Ed Schultz—all were remarkably mild in their reactions. Other than the hissing Chris Matthews, these people were partial to the man and his message.
O’Donnell: ‘It was an effective presentation’ Chuck Todd: ‘optimistic nostalgia’ Ed Schultz: a ‘pitch to women’ HuffPo: “Solid.” “Competent.” “Workmanlike.” Chris Matthews, aka The Snake, was the only one to rightly condemn Romney’s “jingoistic language about war,” as “bad for the country.”
AND FOR THE WORLD!
Tomorrow these pundits will have returned to their default position. But, for now, they seemed to have finally seen that, while Romney’s political positions are horrid, he’s a lovely man. As incongruous as this may seem, it is nevertheless true.
I’ve seen enough of life to know a lovely man when I see one. Ann Romney, herself a delightful lady, is a lucky woman. Romney is a great provider, fabulously devoted to family and church, consistently generous and charitable to all those around him, and brilliant in all endeavors, academic and other.
Unlike those of Obama, Romney’s university transcripts will stand scrutiny.
Sadly, Romney is wrong on almost all issues of policy.
American cable commentariat is dominated by horrible bimbos, sporting big hair, overbites, and grating voices that sound as though they’ve been squeezed from the other end of the woman’s anatomy (to use a Greg-Gutfeld analogy I’ve refined). That’s the ubiquitous TV tart’s better angle. Even when these females are kind-of on the right side of the issues, they are boring, second-handers, who spout mind-numbing banalities with great confidence. (I don’t know how a husband or boyfriend puts up with That “Creaky Voice.”)
Unlike the practically unknown Dominic Frisby, the teletart’s assets are not between her ears.
Why can’t cable hosts be more like Max Keiser? Notwithstanding his program’s many idiosyncrasies—lefty nooks and crannies and conspiracy theories—RT’s Keiser Report always introduces its viewers to highly intelligent, often original, individuals who have a great deal to impart and add.
“…gold pays no interest. True. But then, nor does cash – unless you lend it to people. The world needs to realise that by putting cash in the bank you are lending it. Gold can pay interest – if you lend it out. And lots of people do (though for what purpose I cannot say). But in this environment of negative real rates (when the central bank rate of interest is below the rate of inflation), who gives a hoot about interest anyway? 1 or 2% interest. Whoopee-do.”
[SNIP]
Exactly. You lose money by keeping cash. Anyone with some savings knows that you might as well not have them, if you are after the yield on your savings.
…Next, there’s this idea that “gold has no use”. Really?
Gold has very little industrial application, yes. It’s too expensive. But no use? Gold, unlike bubbles and government bonds, lasts forever. This makes it a highly effective form of money, as I’m about to explain.
But how can gold be money, runs the next argument, when you can’t go into a shop and buy stuff with it? Absolutely. You can’t.
Err … actually, you can. The gold sovereign is still legal tender. But it only has a face value of one pound, when it’s worth over £250. You’d be a plum if demanded that some poor shopkeeper accept it as payment. (And he’d be a plum if he refused it). But I’m splitting hairs.
As a day-to-day medium of exchange, gold has never found much use. A piece of gold the size of a penny (about £125 or $200 in today’s money) contains too much value for anything other than expensive transactions. Copper, nickel, silver, paper and now digital money have all found far more prolific use.
But to assert that you can’t buy stuff with it therefore it isn’t money, is a facile and ignorant argument. Money is more than just a medium of exchange. Indeed, this is just one of the three essential functions of money: it also has to act as a store of wealth and as a unit of account.
It is gold’s very inert, intrinsic, eternal uselessness – and we have Mother Nature to thank for that – that makes it such an effective form of money. It has no other function other than to be a store of wealth. Even its use in jewellery is an extension of that function – to store (and display) wealth.
Governments can’t print gold, they can’t ‘quantitatively ease’ it, they can’t loan it into existence. They can’t debase it the way they do their own currencies. It just stays there, unconsumed, forever. Which all means that gold is constant – and therefore an excellent unit of account, far better than government money.
Max Keiser stepped in to correct the record about Buffoon Buffest’s stock, which has been down 90% versus gold over the past 10 year.
