What is going on?

We are living in the age of propaganda. We talk about new jobs created, and ignore the jobs lost. We have a fundamental problem in our economy, and our solution is band aids on a patient that is bleeding out.

I know, someone here will accuse me of RW Talking points. Baloney. Most of the falling unemployment number has nothing to do with improving economy, it has far more to do with despair. People are just giving up after months of frustration trying to find a job.

http://bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t11.htm

Permanent Job Losers in January 2014. 3,341,000. Three and a third million permanent job losers.

http://bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t16.htm

Total not in the workforce? That is people we should consider unemployed, but we don't because they are not "Actively" seeking employment. 55 Million. Let me spell that out for you. 55,000,000 people are not in the workforce.

Minimum wage is a band aid. We have 3.4 million people who hold multiple jobs. These are people who are working themselves to death trying to provide for their families.

We have a fundamental problem with our economy, but we celebrate raising stock prices, while ignoring those who are not actively seeking employment. We have given up on them because they are inconvenient. If we recognize them, we have to admit that we are not doing well by a massive portion of our population. These are kids living with parents, parents who have moved in with their children. Brothers who are living with siblings. These are people who are homeless, hopeless, and forgotten by our political establishment.

There is a fundamental flaw in our economy, because we are determined to ignore the bad news, it might give our political opponents some sort of advantage. But what about those 55 million people we are ignoring? People living in storm drains in our cities.

I feel sick when I read celebratory posts on sites like this, cheering the "low unemployment" numbers as proof we're doing the right thing and we're awesome. Our unemployment numbers are down, but not because more people are working, but because more have surrendered to the despair and the depression.

So what is going on? Everyone in the economy is holding on waiting for someone else to do something that turns the fucking thing around. Money is not being invested in new jobs, it's being put into the stock market where it continues to hold itself high based upon psychology. People want to believe the good news, so the reports are great for the nation and the world.

We have a fundamental problem with our economy. The solution is not job killing trade agreements. The solution is not more band aid fixes and ways to fiddle with the numbers so it looks good. Look at those who are employed, in thousands. http://bls.gov/web/empsit/ceseeb1a.htm

We have more people in Government than we do in health care. 17.8 million working in health and social services. 21 million working in Government. Are you telling me that of those 21 million people working for the Government that none of them realizes how bad it is out here among us? Do they read the stories of homeless in storm drains? Do they realize that 55 million people have just given up?

America has been great in the past based upon the drive and determination of our people. We all strove to get to the moon. Everyone felt like a part of that drive. We all strove to win World War II. Everyone was a part of that effort. If we could get one more plane, one more tank, one more ship into the war, that was our duty. Even if we weren't building them, we planted gardens to grow our own food to make more available to those fighting because they needed it desperately.

Now, we have another war. The war of our economy. We denounce those who shout that things are fucked up. We ignore 1/6th of our population, and cheer when more of them give up and surrender to despair. That drives the unemployment numbers down.