Thursday, April 1, 2010
Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, April 1, 2010
Ahh... my beloved readers...
(All two of you...)
(*GRIN*)
It was almost a "no newsbites day" and in fact it might yet become a no (or perhaps just low) newsbites day. This morning when I attempted to make my daily journey into cyberspace I could not escape the confines of my physical surroundings.
After a chat with the fine folks at my ISP it was determined that my modem was on the fritz.
Low and behold, however... all of a sudden it's off the fritz!
Keep your fingers crossed for me.
(*WINK*)
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15 comments:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Tea-partiers-embrace-liberty-not-big-government-89556562.html
Over the past 14 months, our political debate has been transformed into an argument between the heirs of two fundamental schools of political thought, the Founders and the Progressives. The Founders stood for the expansion of liberty and the Progressives for the expansion of government.
It's an argument that has been going on for a century [impassioned now] by the expand-government policies of the Obama administration and Democratic congressional leaders.
Those policies, thoroughly in line with the Progressive tradition, have been advanced by liberal elites in government, media, think tanks and academia. The opposition, roughly in line with the Founders tradition, has been led by the non-elites who spontaneously flocked to tea parties and town halls.
The conservative rebellions of the late 1970s and middle 1990s were focused on taxes. The tea partiers are focusing on the expansion of government - and its threat to the independence of citizens.
* EXACTLY RIGHT! THE TAX PARTIERS ARE FIRST AND FOREMOST CONSTITUTIONALISTS.
The first mention of tea parties came in February 2009 from CNBC's Rick Santelli on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, when he asked "if we really want to subsidize the losers' mortgages? How many of you people want to pay your neighbor's mortgage, that has an extra bathroom and can't pay their bills?"
The Progressives have always assumed that people needed safety nets and would welcome dependence on government. The public's clear rejection of the Democratic health care bills has shown that this assumption was unwarranted. Americans today prefer independence to dependence on government, just as they did 200 years ago.
* AND EVEN IF THE PUBLIC DIDN'T REJECT PROGRESSIVISM, THE ONLY LEGITIMATE METHOD OF CHANGING THE CONSTITUTION TO ALLOW REPLACEMENT OF THE CURRENT "RULE OF LAW" - RULE OF THE CONSTITUTION AS WRITTEN AND INTENDED - IS VIA THE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT PROCESS GIVEN US BY THE FOUNDERS AND THE CONSTITUTION ITSELF.
* FOLKS... FOR GOD'S SAKE, UNDERSTAND... THE U.S.A. IS A CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC, NOT A PURE DEMOCRACY. THE CONSTITUTION WAS - AND MUST REMAIN - OUR ULTIMATE "CIVIL RIGHT."
[C]entralized experts are not as wise and ordinary Americans are not as helpless as the Progressives thought. By passing the stimulus package and the health care bills the Democrats produced expansion of government. But voters seem to prefer expansion of liberty. The Progressives' scorn for the Founders has not been shared by [a majority of] "The People."
The Declaration of Independence's proclamation that "all men are created equal" with "unalienable rights" to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" has proved to be happily elastic. In contrast, the early Progressives' talk of an "industrial age" and an outmoded Constitution sounds like the language of an age now long past. Their faith in centralized planning seems naïve...
Polls and recent election results tell us that racial minorities and the so-called "educated class" - the people who expect their kind will administer centralized institutions - still take the side of the Progressives. Most Americans, however, are rejecting the path of dependence and are intent on declaring their independence once again.
* AMEN.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100401/D9EQ3RD00.html
A crowd sprayed with bullets in a drive-by that killed four and wounded five had just returned from the funeral of man slain nearby...
Two men and a 14-year-old boy accused of driving the minivan from which the bullets were fired were charged with first-degree murder in Tuesday night's shooting, the worst in D.C. in at least 16 years. One other person who was in the van was not caught, court documents said.
One of the suspects, Orlando Carter, also has been charged with second-degree murder in the March 22 death of Jordan Howe, whose funeral was earlier that day. On March 23, Carter was shot in the head and shoulder hours after his brother was charged in Howe's death, court documents said.
Assistant Police Chief Peter Newshan said at a news conference that by finding out if there are beefs between two neighborhood groups he called crews, police hope to stop paybacks. Crews are more loosely affiliated than gangs, he said.
Both the drive-by and Howe's killing were in a neighborhood known for drugs and related violence about 7 miles from the White House.
* MAKES YOU PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN, DOESN'T IT... (*SNORT*) (*SMIRK*)
* HEY... PERHAPS THIS WEEKEND PRESIDENT OBAMA CAN FIT IN SOME... er... COMMUNITY ORGANIZING? OR... HOW'BOUT A "BEER SUMMIT?" (CRACK SUMMIT...???)
Carter and Nathaniel Simms, 26, were arraigned and ordered held without bail. The teen also faces a murder charge and a family judge ordered him held at a juvenile facility, saying he was a danger and a risk for fleeing. He has nine convictions dating to 2005.
* NINE CONVICTIONS... (*SHAKING MY HEAD IN DISGUST*)
Police Chief Cathy Lanier called the drive-by an egregious type of retaliation. "It's ridiculous and the community is tired of it," she said. "There is no excuse for it."
* RIDICULOUS...??? RIDICULOUS...?!?!
* THE COMMUNITY IS... er... "TIRED" OF IT...???
* THERE'S NO EXCUSE FOR IT...???
* YEP... (*SNORT*)... THE "AUTHORITIES" REALLY SOUND LIKE THEY'RE ON TOP OF THINGS IN OUR NATION'S CAPITAL.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/31/arctic-sea-ice-about-to-hit-normal-what-will-the-news-say/#more-17970
Barring an about face by nature or adjustments, it appears that for the first time since 2001, Arctic Sea ice will hit the “normal” line as defined by the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) for this time of year.
NSIDC puts out an article about once a month called the Sea Ice News. It generally highlights any bad news they can find about the disappearance of Arctic ice.
Last month’s news led with this sentence: "In February, Arctic sea ice extent continued to track below the average, and near the levels observed for February 2007."
But March brought good news for the Polar Bears, and bad news for the Catlin Expedition and any others looking for bad news. Instead of ice extent declining through March like it usually does, it continued to increase through the month and is now at the high (so far) for the year.
If it keeps this trend unabated, in a day or two it will likely cross the “normal” line.
* LISTEN... I DON'T POST SNIPPETS LIKE THIS AS EVIDENCE DENYING GLOBAL WARMING. NOPE. I POST THESE SO THAT THOSE OF YOU WHO ORDINARILY RELY UPON "MAINSTREAM" SOURCING THAT (IN MY NOT SO HUMBLE OPINION) IS TAINTED BY "IDEOLOGICAL POLLUTION" ARE AT LEAST EXPOSED TO SOME FACTS YOU MIGHT NOT OTHERWISE BECOME AWARE OF.
* HEY... AS ALWAYS... THE LINK IS PROVIDED; READ THE FULL STORY.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9EQDSTG0&show_article=1
Commercial bankruptcy protection filings rose by more than 50% last year... Commercial filings hit 117,659 last year, up 52% from the 77,638 filed in 2008, Equifax reported.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62U60220100331?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews
Attorneys for the eight ["militia members"] sought to fight government efforts to have the defendants detained for the duration of the proceedings, a court case that one of the lawyers predicted would be "a mega-trial that will take years to unfold."
* FIRST... NO, A FAIR TRIAL SHOULDN'T TAKE "YEARS TO UNFOLD." SECOND... TAKE THEIR GUNS, TAKE THEIR PASSPORTS (IF THEY EVEN HAVE PASSPORTS; I'M GUESSING DOUBFUL) AND TREAT THEM AS YOU WOULD ANY OTHER AMERICAN CITIZENS WHO HAVEN'T BEEN CHARGED WITH ACTUALLY ASSAULTING - LET ALONE KILLING - ANYONE OR DESTROYING PROPERTY.
* HEY... I WANNA SEE THESE BOMBS NEWS REPORTS KEEP FOCUSING ON. (*SHRUG*)
The group's leader, 45-year-old David Brian Stone, had planned to take over three or four rural counties in southeastern Michigan...
* OK. YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE A "RIGHT WINGER" (OR EVEN A MODERATE OR "INDEPENDENT") TO REACT TO THAT SENTENCE WITH A BIT OF A SNORT AND SNICKER.
An FBI agent said Piatek had nearly 50 firearms and thousands of rounds of ammunition in his home.
* YET... NO MENTION OF ANY ILLEGAL WEAPONS. STRANGE... NO? I WONDER HOW MANY FIREARMS AND HOW MUCH AMMO LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT HAD AT IT'S DISPOSAL - LET ALONE THE COMBINED POLICE DEPARTMENTS OF THE FOUR RURAL COUNTIES IN QUESTION.
(*SHRUG*)
* I DON'T KNOW... PERHAPS THERE'S MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE HEAR... BUT I SIMPLY DON'T SEE EVIDENCE POINTING TO A VIABLE CONSPIRACY TO OVERTHROW THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT.
* HELL... FREQUENT USUALLY RIGHT COMMENTER RODAK (aka: Rob) HAS IN THE PAST ON A DIFFERENT BLOG BEEN QUITE... er... OUTSPOKEN IN DEMONSTRATING HOSTILITY TO POLICE OFFICERS IN GENERAL.
(*SHRUG*)
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Oil-rises-above-84-extending-apf-4241859432.html?x=0&.v=5
Oil prices rose above $84 a barrel Thursday...
* THE NEWS JUST KEEPS ON GETTING BETTER AND BETTER, HUH?
(*SMIRK*)
* OH... AND BTW... AS TO YESTERDAY'S NEWS CONCERNING OBAMA'S "ALLOWING NEW OFFSHORE DRILLING"... ASK YOURSELF: IF THAT NEWS WAS ON THE UP AND UP WOULDN'T OIL FUTURES BE FALLING IN RESPONSE...???
(*SHRUG*)
Olivier Jakob of Petromatrix [opined] Nymex contract soon could be on its way to $90 a barrel. "With the break of the previous highs, the positive momentum is starting to be created in WTI and the next target will be $85 a barrel, then $85.70," Jakob said. "Above $85.70 there will be no solid resistance until $90 a barrel."
* OUTSTANDING...! AIN'T THE AGE OF OBAMA GRAND?!
In other Nymex trading in May contracts, heating oil rose 1.69 cents to $2.1959 a gallon, and gasoline gained 1.29 cents to $2.3201 a gallon. Natural gas advanced 1.7 cents to $3.886 per 1,000 cubic feet. In London, Brent crude was up 61 cents at $83.26 on the ICE futures exchange.
(*SLOW SARCASTIC CLAPPING*)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304252704575156491684233892.html
The Obama administration's new fuel-efficiency rules for automobiles due out Thursday will undercut the auto industry's marketing claim that electric cars are "zero emission" vehicles, and instead score against them carbon dioxide emitted by electric-power plants, according to an administration official.
The change is to "recognize that there are indeed emissions associated with producing electricity," said a senior Transportation Department official who helped draft the rules. "The electricity that's coming out is coming from sources that are fired by a whole bunch of things," including nuclear and coal-fired power plants, the official said.
Environmental groups lobbied for the change, saying electric vehicles aren't entirely "clean" unless the power plants are, too. They worried that car makers would use "zero emission vehicles" to effectively subsidize sales of gas guzzlers.
The oil industry had also lobbied for the change, saying greenhouse-gas emissions associated with electric vehicles are significant and should be quantified.
(*APPROVING NOD*)
* OK. MAKES SENSE. CONCRETELY ADDRESSES A POINT I'VE OFTEN MADE ABOUT ELECTRIC CARS. GOOD SHOW, MR. PRESIDENT!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303960604575157913435468630.html?mod=WSJ_hps_MIDDLEForthNews
House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D., Mass.) instructed his committee employees Thursday to sever communications with a former staffer who took a job at IntercontinentalExchange Inc., after the financial-overhaul bill was approved by the House.
Peter Roberson used to work as a professional staff member for the House Financial Services' capital-markets team where he played a key role in crafting the derivatives part of the financial bill, which would move some products onto clearing and trading platforms, including those operated by ICE.
But in late January, after learning that Mr. Roberson was interviewing for a position with ICE, Mr. Frank asked him to leave his post, removed him from the payroll, de-activated his email account and took his BlackBerry, keys and identification credentials, according to both Mr. Frank and Mr. Frank's spokesman.
Mr. Frank said there is a rule which bans staffers who leave for industry positions from interacting with committee members for one year, but he doesn't think this rule goes far enough.
Mr. Frank said Thursday he has instructed staff "to have no contact whatsoever with Mr. Roberson on any matters involving financial regulation for as long as I am in charge of that committee staff."
(*SINCERE APPLAUSE*)
* WHEN BARNEY FRANK DESERVES APPLAUSE... HE'LL GET IT.
(*NOD*)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304370304575151864062976200.html
Last Friday the White House announced its latest plan to prevent mortgage foreclosures...
We're supposed to believe that this latest effort to build an artificial floor under home prices will perform better than the Hope Now Alliance announced by President Bush in October 2007; better than the revised Hope Now program announced two months later; better than Hope for Homeowners, which was passed by Congress and signed by Mr. Bush in 2008; better than the foreclosure moratoriums promoted by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Representative Barney Frank into early 2009; better than the $127 billion that taxpayers have thus far poured into Fan and Fred, much of it for foreclosure relief; better than the Federal Reserve's purchase of $1.25 trillion in mortgage-backed securities; better than last year's expansion of the 2008 First-Time Home Buyer Tax Credit to up to $8,000; better than the billions in stimulus dollars that have been spent "to restore neighborhoods hardest hit by concentrated foreclosures," according to the White House; better than the $1.5 billion announced earlier this year to state housing finance agencies in the electorally hard-hit areas of Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan and Nevada, and $600 million more this week for other states certified as political disaster areas; and certainly better than Mr. Obama's year-old Home Affordable Modification Program to offer mortgage modifications to troubled borrowers or his companion program to offer generous refinancing.
We could go on, but you get the joke, even if the housing market hasn't.
Here's a heretical thought: What if Washington had simply let housing prices fall on their own to find their natural bottom? The pain would have been more severe more quickly for some owners who bought more expensive homes than they could afford. But the pain might also be over by now as housing markets cleared faster, and housing might be contributing to a healthier economic expansion.
Instead we are heading toward year five of the housing recession, with Washington proposing even more ideas to prolong the agony. One senior banking regulator we talk to calls it "extending and pretending."
A lower mortgage bill is surely a relief to an unemployed worker, but what he really needs is a job, and we see nothing in this plan (or any other Washington scheme) to encourage job creation. [T]hese payments are merely unemployment [or "underemployment"] benefits laundered through the mortgage system...
Potentially the most expensive part of this plan for taxpayers is the new Federal Housing Administration refinancing option. (Yes, that is the same FHA that is already struggling under mortgage losses and announced last year that its capital had fallen below the level required by law.) Taxpayers will be required to stand behind a "homeowner" who owes mortgage debt equal to 115% of the value of the home and whose monthly mortgage bill is up to 31% of total income.
Message to owners who borrowed responsibly: Next time, don't be such a sap.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/30/AR2010033003857.html
Confronting the prospect of ever-increasing operating losses, the U.S. Postal Service this week officially proposed terminating Saturday home deliveries and pickups from street corner mail boxes.
Recent polls find that a solid majority of Americans is willing to live without Saturday mail service, but the idea still faces stiff opposition in Congress, which has nixed it in the past.
In the context of a $15 trillion U.S. economy, this is a relatively small, $5 billion item. But in many ways it is a preview of things to come. Because if we don't have the will to accept even this modest and relatively painless reduction in our collective standard of living, then we are never going to make the hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to annual consumption, both public and private, required to bring our over-indebted economy back into balance.
"We've shifted from a position of having too much private debt to a position of having too much government debt," says Ken Rogoff, the Harvard economist who last year co-wrote the definitive book on financial crises, "This Time Is Different." "We still are facing the prospect of having to make huge adjustments in a way that we haven't done in generations, and the country doesn't appear to be even remotely ready to confront this."
Rogoff's co-author, Carmen Reinhart of the University of Maryland, says it's not the near-term aftermath of the financial crisis she's worried about but the "aftermath of the aftermath," as fear gives way to complacency and people begin to think that they can return to the way things were. The urgent challenge, she said, is not just to stop taking on new government and household debt, but to whittle down the debt we already have -- a level of debt that leaves us vulnerable to that inevitable but hard-to-predict moment when creditors lose faith, interest rates rise and debtor countries get sucked into a vicious downward spiral in which increasing debt payments, slower growth and currency devaluations all feed off one another until the economy collapses.
Government debt is certainly the biggest part of the problem. At the end of last year, total outstanding federal debt equaled 84 percent of GDP, and by the end of this year it should be close to 90, which according to Rogoff's and Reinhart's analysis puts us dangerously close to that unknown tipping point. And that figure doesn't include the hundreds of billions of dollars in unfunded pension and retiree health liabilities of state and local governments that weigh heavily on the nation's balance sheet.
Household balance sheets aren't in much better shape. Because of excessive debt from credit cards and home-equity loans, consumers are vulnerable to any significant increase in interest rates...
* ENOUGH. BOTTOM LINE... THE POLITICIANS ARE DESTROYING ARE COUNTRY. THE BUSHIES AND RINOS WERE A DISASTER... THE PROGRESSIVES - OBAMA, PELOSI, REID, ET AL - ARE STEPPING ON THE ACCELERATER WITH REGARD TO OUR NATION'S DRIVE INTO EVENTUAL CATASTROPHE.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/the-fed-in-hot-water_b_522059.html
The Fed has finally came clean. It now admits it bailed out Bear Stearns - taking on tens of billions of dollars of the bank's bad loans - in order to smooth Bear Stearns' takeover by JP Morgan Chase.
The secret Fed bailout came months before Congress authorized the government to spend up to $700 billion of taxpayer dollars bailing out the banks, even months before Lehman Brothers collapsed.
The Fed also took on billions of dollars worth of AIG securities, also before the official government-sanctioned bailout.
The losses from those deals still total tens of billions, and taxpayers are ultimately on the hook. But the public never knew. There was no congressional oversight. It was all done behind closed doors. And the New York Fed - then run by Tim ["The Tax Cheat] Geithner - was very much in the center of the action.
[O]nly Congress is supposed to risk taxpayer dollars. The Fed is not part of the legislative branch. Its secret deals, announced almost two years after they were done, violate the democratic process, if not the Constitution itself.
Thomas Jefferson put a stop to Alexander Hamilton's idea of a powerful central bank out of fear it would be unaccountable to the public. The Fed has just proven Jefferson's point.
[I]f the Fed can secretly bail out big banks, the problem of "moral hazard" - bankers taking irresponsible risks because they know they'll be rescued - is far greater than anyone assumed after Congress and the Bush and Obama administrations bailed out the banks.
Big banks will always be too big to fail because they know the Fed will secretly back them up if they get into trouble, even if Congress won't do it openly.
The Fed has a big problem. It acts in secret. That makes it an odd duck in a democracy. As long as it's merely setting interest rates, its secrecy and political independence can be justified. But once it departs from that role and begins putting billions of dollars of taxpayer money at risk - choosing winners and losers in the [supposedly] capitalist system - its legitimacy is questionable.
* AMEN, BROTHER ROBERT... AMEN!
That it chose to reveal the truth about its activities during a week when Congress is out of town, when much of official Washington and the Washington media have gone on vacation, and only after several federal courts have held that the Fed must release documents related to its bailout of Bear Stearns, suggests it would rather remain secret than become transparent.
The public doesn't even know who else the Fed has bailed out, or what entities it will bail out in the future. All we know is the Fed secretly bailed out Bear Stearns and AIG and thereby subjected taxpayers to risks that remain even today, without informing the public.
That's not a record on which to build public trust.
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2010/04/column-new-health-care-law-isnt-what-this-doctor-ordered-.html
While President Obama and Democrats in Congress are running a victory lap to celebrate passage of health care reform, many doctors are less pleased, to put it mildly. ... I am one of those doctors who believe the new law is bad for doctors and, therefore, patients.
Insurance premiums are bound to go up as patients with pre-existing conditions are covered. We've seen this time and again, most recently in 2006 after Massachusetts passed universal health insurance. If Congress institutes national caps on premiums, private insurers will need to cut services to maintain even slight profits. If at the same time, Medicare is gutted by half a trillion dollars - as the new law intends - a decrease in services and reimbursements will follow. Private insurers will follow Medicare's lead. The bottom line: I will be seeing more patients for less money amid increasing federal oversight and an inevitable restriction in services.
My waiting room is already filled with patients whom I see more for a sense of personal satisfaction than any recompense. Take one recent morning. My first patient was a Medicaid recipient whom I have been seeing gratis for five years. I stopped filing Medicaid claims and dropped out of Medicaid because the time to file paperwork and collect wasn't worth the meager payment.
My second patient was an older gentleman on Medicare, which pays me 80% of a predetermined fee. So I receive $56 to care for him. Because he doesn't have secondary insurance, I sometimes write off the remaining 20%. Over the past 10 years, his list of ailments and medications has tripled. His care takes longer, but the fee remains the same: $56.
My third patient is self-employed and struggles to pay his ever-rising insurance premiums. New York, where I practice, has among the highest premiums in the nation because of a 1992 law that made it difficult to exclude patients with pre-existing conditions. He now might benefit from a federal subsidy or qualify for Medicaid, but I'll be unlikely to keep him as a patient. I am in the process of dropping out of low-pay HMOs, and I am unlikely to sign up again with Medicaid unless its reimbursement rates quadruple.
Doctors will walk away from this nonsense.Without the doctors to take care of these patients (the Association of American Medical Colleges estimates a shortage of 160,000 doctors by 2025), [President Obama's] health "reform" efforts will fall flat.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9EQEAHG0&show_article=1
The last car has rolled off the production lines at California's sole auto plant.
Workers are trickling out of the New United Motor Manufacturing plant in Fremont as they complete their tasks and the plant readies to shut down.
Nearby, job centers have been set up to help the newly unemployed figure out benefits, retraining and other options.
(*KINDA NUMB*)
* "JOB TRAINING CENTERS," HUH...
(*SIGH*)
State officials are pursuing federal grants to help those impacted by the closure.
* AND THE FEDERAL GRANTS ULTIMATELY ARE FINANCED BY...???
(*ANOTHER SIGH*)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=acOdGHWujF9I
Verizon Communications Inc., the second-largest U.S. phone company, became the latest company to record a cost related to the U.S. health-care overhaul, saying it will incur a $970 million expense.
* HEY... IT'S UNDER A BILLION... RIGHT...??? (*SMIRK*)
Verizon follows AT&T Inc., the biggest U.S. carrier, Deere & Co., Caterpillar Inc. and other companies in disclosing similar expenses after losing a tax benefit for retiree plans. The costs may reduce corporate profits by as much as $14 billion as companies account for the impact of the health-care reforms, according to benefits consulting firm Towers Watson. .
* OH... WHAT'S $14 BILLION BETWEEN FRIENDS... RIGHT...??? (*SNORT*)
http://www.gallup.com/poll/127091/Underemployment-Rises-March.aspx
Gallup Daily tracking finds that 20.3% of the U.S. workforce was underemployed in March - a slight uptick from the relatively flat January and February numbers.
These results are based on March interviews with more than 20,000 adults in the U.S. workforce, aged 18 and older. Gallup classifies respondents as underemployed if they are unemployed or working part-time but wanting full-time work. Gallup employment data are not seasonally adjusted.
A rise in the percentage of part-timers wanting to work full time (from 9.2% to 9.9%) is responsible for the March increase in underemployment.
As unemployed Americans find part-time, temporary, and seasonal work, the official unemployment rate could decline. However, this does not necessarily mean more Americans are working at their desired capacity. It will continue to be important to track underemployment - to shed light on the true state of the U.S. workforce, and the millions of Americans who are searching for full-time employment.
* NOTE: OFFICIAL BLS STATS SHOW U6 UNEMPLOYMENT (FEBRUARY 2010 LATEST DATA AVAILABLE) AT 17.9% (NOT SEASONALLY AJUSTED).
* NOTE: NOW I MAY BE CRAZY... BUT SEARCHING FOR THIS STAT ON THE BLS WEBSITE... THE SITE SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN... er... "GLOSSED UP" (DUMBED DOWN!) WITH GRAPHICS TAKING THE PLACE OF THE OLD "BLACK AND WHITE" STAIGHT NUMBERS CHARTS. VERY INTERESTING...
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