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The Worst of Daytime TV

6/7/2012

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I’ve been on vacation this week, and recuperating from a bug I managed to pick up. Because I can’t be very active, and I can’t spend every waking moment writing, I have had the unpleasant opportunity to be exposed to day time TV. It is not the programming that I find objectionable. With the myriad of channels there is usually something I can stomach, and there is always TiVo. No what I found objectionable, bordering on disgusting is the commercials.

I generally don’t watch commercials. Since discovering TiVo, I merely delay when I begin watching a program and skip the commercials when they come up. But, this week Margo is in charge of the TV as I refused to just camp in front of it, and she will use it for background while she works a puzzle, game, or on the internet. So, I will sit down and get engrossed in some 50s or 60s black and white program and watch it live.

Doing so has unwittingly subjected me to in my opinion the worst part of capitalism; commercials geared towards stealing money; legally. You know the type. In the 45 minutes or so I watched today I saw two different legal firms touting how they could get you disability payments from
Social Security. I saw two different companies telling you how you could get a mobility scooter to wheel you around, and I didn’t even try to count the number of ads from online colleges or trade schools.

So what’s wrong with that you ask? Every one of these ads are geared towards someone sitting on their ass at home. They sell a promise of something for nothing. I will grant partial dispensation for the educational ads; at least they will be attempting to teach a trade or marketable skill. But, face facts, the vast majority of people these ads appeal to are the people sitting at home wanting to be given something. 

They want a quick education to earn them a job that will earn six figures. They want a free scooter. They want a check from the government. Well we can’t afford this compassion at someone else’s expense. That scooter is not free; taxpayers are footing the bill. The education is not free; someone takes out a loan that is guaranteed by the taxpayers. That disability check is not free; again the taxpayers are on the hook. 
 
I am not against helping out people in need. But the manner in which we do it invites fraud and is inefficient. Do you wonder why education costs have far out stripped the pace of inflation? The federal government guarantees the loans. The schools know this, so they don’t care who they sign up. If they can qualify for a student loan they are in. Aptitude, intelligence, and desire, are secondary. When the graduate, or drop out for that manner, and can’t pay, the taxpayers stand behind the loan. The schools have minimal incentive to lower their costs. They raise their rates and the government guarantees more loan money. There is currently more student loan debt
than credit card debt in America. How scary is that?

I genuinely applaud every person out there who takes out a loan, gets an education, and then works to pay back what they owe. That situation applies to the vast majority of

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Obama is Driving People Crazy

3/4/2012

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Last week I told you about the Bureau of Labor Statistic’s (BLS) created entity call the Marginally Attached Person. A Marginally Attached Person is “Persons not in the labor force who want and are available for work, and who have looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months (or since the end of their last job if they held one within the past 12 months), but were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.”

In real English that is someone who is not working and is not longer trying to find a job. To listen to the leftstream media, these people have stopped looking for work because they are so incredibly frustrated with the job market that they have given up all hope. They paint a picture of a person spending hour after hour, day after day, week after week, diligently searching for a job, any job. They fill out hundreds of applications and when called for the rare interview they are eventually disappointed. 

Well, the anecdotal evidence I, and people I talk to about this situation paints a different picture. Most stories start out the same, with said person losing his job for one irrelevant reason or another, and then getting on unemployment. At that point their situation changed from
unemployed to “on vacation” The quote I hear often is “I’ll start looking for work when my unemployment gets close.” That means when the money starts to run out I’ll find a job. 

But sitting at home and not having to work to get your money is additive. You get used to it, you want it to continue. You don’t want to have to get up each morning and be someplace at a certain time, and do what someone else tells you to. You want to be free to do what ever you want, and have the bills paid by someone else. I was seriously injured by a drunk driver 25 years ago, and I had money coming in without working. It was nice. Towards the end I was a bit resentful that it could not continue. But, do you know why I willingly and happily returned to work? I healed and that stopped the money. It was work or starve, in my mind. Milking the system, via my neighbors never crossed my mind.

The Labor Participation Level (LPL), which is essentially everyone except the Marginally Attached Person and the elderly, has shrunk steadily under Obama. His high pointwas the day he took office in Jan 2009, at 65.7%. It is now 63.7%. Each percentage point is about 1.5 million
workers. Some of that is due to the elderly reaching retirement age. But, that is mitigated by those turning 16 and entering the labor market. The number of people working in Jan ’09 was 142.2 million. Now it is 141.6 million. The number of MAPs was 2.13 million. Now it is 2.81 million, and steadily growing.

The Marginally Attached Person (MAP) still has to eat and support a family. So rather than go back to work a very large segment of the unemployed are devoting their time and efforts not to finding a job, but to milking the rest of us via the myriad of government programs to assist “the
poor” 

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    Why this Blog?

    I'm 60, conservative and sincerely hope that my blog can make a difference. I think the Democrat Party has been taken over by America haters, career victims, and those who believe that the federal government should be your daddy. I'm looking to give those who vote for the "D" no matter what, something to think about.

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