NOVEMBER UNEMPLOYMENT RATES AT RECORD HIGHS: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED?

(Stock photo: public domain)




It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose your own.
-Harry S. Truman



WITH UNEMPLOYMENT CLIMBING TO 6.7% IS IT TIME TO PANIC?

The simple truth is that most of us could of guessed that unemployment rate was going in only one direction. Up. Even the hypertensive Wall Street just purred along with hardly a burp as the Bureau of Labor Statistics came out with their monthly unemployment report. So, should you be worried. Yah, but not to the point of frantic hair-pulling.


WHEN KNOWLEDGE V.S. FEAR, KNOWLEDGE WILL ALWAYS WIN.

At this point in my blog I could spew out a plethora of tired yet recycled cliches used by pundits and journalists alike. "For warned is for armed." This is particularly apt here. Knowledge of the economic situation even at my low education level, having a BA and PH.D in absolutely nothing has nothing to do with accumulating knowledge and using it to protect your future; it is just an instinct. Look around. Have you ever thought that as you sedately clod along at your job, the environment around you may ruin your life? Or even as you complacently think how easy it use to be to find a job, the area in which you live now is actually going to put you in chap. 11? In my last blog THE FUTURE OF UNEMPLOYMENT I made it quite clear that I thought instinct should kick in. Find a State that you think you could work in. Personally, I found Florida a deplorable working environment. It almost ruined me. And what I would have been looking at if I stayed there into October? A 7 % jobless rate. Up from 6.6 % in September.
Now I know the average Joseph and Josephine out there would find all these percents unexciting. But it was the one thing I looked at as I moved far far away from the so-called "Sun Shine State." I now receive interviews and call backs from interested employers. I won't tell you where I am, but I guarantee you it is a State with a lower unemployment rate.

AVOID UNDER UTILIZATION: Or in other words, underemployment

It is strange to romance about a part-time job I once had. I realize now I took it for granted. A part-time job that not only paid the rent, but also gave me health benefits. Those days are long over. The underutilized are people in a awkward situation. If they quit, they lose any kind of income they may ever get for some time, but by keeping it, they may not earn enough to live on. It is not a situation that I particularly ever want to be in. Even a full time job at a burger joint would be more alluring then a part-time job that did not even give you cash enough to feed your fish. Consider this if thinking of applying for a part-time job. Can you get unemployment? Look at the State in which you live. For you, the underemployed, unemployment compensation does not look good.

A IRKSOME LAST THOUGHT:

Does it bother no one that in the waning days of this administration, their last efforts seem constipated. I mean no harm. I am basically apolitical. But they seem to be at the hands-in-the-air, duh point.

So is President-elect Obama our enema?

Think of all the vast crisis-filled days that this administration has weathered, all their efforts seem anti-climatic. From Katrina to the hands off approach with the Israel v.s. Palestinian issue. How with 533,000 people out of work in November, this president, President George W. Bush accomplished what few have even dared when things got so bad: Absolutely nothing. I don't blame him for the greed that left us in such a dire situation. But I can't help but think this man has given up, even though he has until January 20, 2009 to make a mark in this nation. Okay, lets talk remorse. Chatting to reporters about personal remorse is one thing, yet unable to show emotion in that direction makes me think that emotion never really existed.

-Courteous Navigator