by James Glaser
June 17, 2003

It is bad to have the highest unemployment rate in nine years, that was last week, but it is just horrible to have the highest unemployment rate in twenty years, which we have this week.

While President Bush is doing everything he can to keep those men and women in uniform working in exotic places, the capitalistic sector of our economy is failing. 3,800,000 people are out of work, the most since April of 1983.

Now keep in mind that this number is only the people that are actively looking for work and registered with Job Service, while there are millions more that have given up looking. If all of those that have given up, went down and signed up again we might have unemployment numbers like the 1930s.

If you listen to the experts on the radio or those in the newspapers, everything is looking up. They will claim that retail sales rose by 0.1% in April and would have been higher, but gas prices declined. Those oil companies did it to us again!

The Commerce Department claims that April sales really fell by 0.3% and if you exclude auto sales it fell by 0.9%. The "experts" are undaunted by Government figures and market strategist like Brian Piskorowski of Prudential Securities claim that unemployment "is a lagging indicator."

Rosalind Wells of the National Retail Federation says, "It appears that consumers have begun to bounce back from Iraq induced doldrums." You see, facts have little bearing on what these "experts" say. Just because the Commerce department says the sales numbers are down and unemployment numbers are at a twenty year high, let us all be happy and look the other way and hey, while you are in such a good mood, why not take on some more debt.

President Bush and those in Congress have no idea of what to do about us, that is you and me and our kids. They have nothing to offer when it comes to talking about jobs, debt, Social Security, or any of the other Domestic problems we have right here in the United States.

You want to talk about other peoples problems. Congress and the President have answers for anybody other than the good old USA. We know what is best for Iraq, Israel, and the Palestinian people. We can fix the drug war in Columbia, at least we think we can, but even those guys in Washington will tell you that North Korea has them stymied.

Ask these same guys to work on the Home Front and all they can talk about is terrorism. War is so easy. All the President has to do is start one, send the troops and start shooting. Congress will give him any money he needs, because if they don't, it will look like they are unpatriotic and don't support the troops.

Every Defense contractor starts running three shifts and poll numbers start to rise and the President and any Congressman that wants to can give a speech to the cheers of those workers making tanks or bullets. No one looks at the people standing in line at the employment office and if it isn't a company with at least several hundred employees, layoffs don't even make the evening news.