First Blog

I have long, as in long-in-the-tooth, tried to determine changes in the American society over several decades of observing. Today’s topic about is about one of them, lies and liars.   First, technology dominates the world scene, but reliance on knowledge has been diminished by instantly recovered resources. “Let’s look it up on the WIKI,” is a statement we often hear and rely upon.   Me too. So many say “I’ll look it up if I need it,” not understanding if they don’t know (of) it, they will not know to look it up.   Many machines dominate our world, most of which we cannot understand.   Repair your TV?   Impossible.   This skill was lost nearly 50 years ago.   However, not technological in any way is a rarely mentioned advent of all large civilizations, is that of large numbers and anonymity and loss of community. Anonymity allows countless outrages against us – from terror to thievery, and even to perversion.   Indeed, anonymity allows internal terrorists to breed unnot

Jobs?  "I don't want one," is the response from 34.3% of people.  This is the latest statistic from the Wall Street Journal, where it is noted this is up from 30% just two decades ago.   In a recent paper, Declining Labor Force Attachment and Downward Trends in Unemployment and Participation, by economists Regis Barnichon and Andrew Figura divided those out of the labor force using a simpler standard: whether or not the person says they want a job.  the paper is rather technical, but understandable.  But it does render a couple of questions.  (1) How much unemployment by those not wishing employment can a prosperous nation absorb - and remain prosperous?  (2) What is the critical mass whereby this "don't want a job" attitude toward work becomes epidemic in society?  The answer the the second question is unexplored. There is another population out there not yet analyzed.  This group, those people employed by in totally non productive venues.  Many governm