Jobs, Jobs, And More Jobs

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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This post is about jobs.

You might have guessed that from the title.

Not the late Steve, the other kind.

During the past months America has been creating approximately 200,000 jobs. At least that’s what the official figures are saying. It has helped to indicate the underlying strength of the economy, led to official unemployment figures of 5.5% and propped up the USD on the foreign exchange markets.

And no one is questioning any of it.

It’s as if it’s really real.

Again it’s all a question of what you do with the numbers.

The May 2015 figure for the labor force is 157.5 million. That is the figure the government uses to calculate it’s unemployment rate of 5.5%.

That’s what they call the ‘U3’ number. U3 is the official unemployment rate.

But there is also a ‘U5’ number that includes discouraged workers and all other marginally attached workers; and a ‘U6’ number that adds on those workers who are part-time purely for economic reasons.

Don’t ask me what happened to ‘U1’ or ‘U4’ because I don’t know. However ‘U2’ is a very successful pop group from Dublin, Ireland.

The problem is that the “official” unemployment rate (U3) does not count discouraged workers who have settled for part-time jobs or have given up looking altogether because they believe there are no jobs out there for them.

There are about another 7.5 million or so people who were not considered ‘unemployed’ because they were employed part-time for economic reasons. Those people are also called involuntary part-time workers – working part-time because their hours were cut back or because they were unable to secure a full-time job.

If you include those individuals, (the U6 number), you get a very different figure for the nation’s unemployment rate. Unlike other jobs figures, the U6 rate actually got worse in June.

So the real unemployment rate is well in excess of 12%, more than double the official figure.

But it is even worse than that.

The economy is growing, BUT it is growing slowly, and it is growing from a very low base caused by the financial crisis that the banksters brought upon us with their fraud and greed.

In that light, an increase of 200,000 jobs or so each month is basically just replacing some of the millions of jobs lost during the bank-caused recession, not creating ‘new’ jobs as such. In other words we’re just slowly getting back to where we were.

The forecasts aren’t optimistic either. If and when the workers laid off during the recent recession find new jobs and we get to what the government calls full employment, the labor force is forecast to grow at a rate of only 0.5% for the rest of this decade. At 0.5%, we grow at a rate of about 66,000 a month — nowhere near 200,000. Next decade it’s even worse, at 0.2%.

Add to that the fact that a great number of the jobs being created are government bureaucratic jobs that cost the country money, not real jobs that produce wealth for the country and you can see that there is little for the politicians to crow about.

As I noted in my post on Wednesday, with statistics you can ‘prove’ anything. Take any government figures with a great big pinch of salt.

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Silly Statistics!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Mark Twain is famous for having said, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.”

Well, just to prove you can have a bit of fun with statistics have a look at this set of nonsense that came to me in an email a while ago.

They are a complete reversal of the usual figures which continually highlight the increasing world population and the problems that will cause in the future.

These numbers look at the world if it was scaled down to just one hundred people.

It might make you think or it might not.

But it is a new way of looking at population statistics, so I hope you enjoy them anyway.

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 If The World

Was Scaled Down

To Only 100 People

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SEVEN

would have a college degree

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TWENTY-TWO

would own a computer

.

TWENTY-SIX

would be children

 

THIRTEEN

of those children would live in poverty

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SEVENTY-FOUR

would be adults

.

EIGHT

of those adults would be 65 years or older

.

FIFTY FIFTY

There would be an equal

number of males and females

.

There would be

SIXTY

Asians,

FIFTEEN

Africans,

FOURTEEN

people from the Americas,

and

ELEVEN

Europeans

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SEVENTEEN

wouldn’t be able to read or write

.

TWENTY-THREE

wouldn’t have any shelter

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ONE

would be dying of starvation

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FIFTEEN

would be undernourished

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TWENTY-ONE

would be overweight

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THIRTEEN

wouldn’t have access to clean water

.

FIFTY-ONE

would live in cities

 .

TWENTY-TWO

wouldn’t have electricity

.

Of those that do have electricity,

most would only use it for light at night

 .

SIXTEEN

wouldn’t have toilets

.

SEVENTY-FIVE

would be cell phone users

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THIRTY

would be active internet users

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FORTY-EIGHT

would live on less than $2 per day

.

SEVEN

people would own an automobile

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THIRTY

would be employed in Agriculture

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FIVE

would own 32% of the wealth

.

The poorest

THIRTY-THREE

people would only receive 3% of the income

.

By the end of the year

ONE

person would die and

TWO

new people would be born.

 

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First Fasab Fact File Feast For 2015.

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Hi and welcome to the first fasab fact feast for 2015.

If you like a random selection of interesting tidbits this is the place to be.

I hope you enjoy.

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There are

169,518,829,100,544,000,000,000,000,000

ways to play the first ten moves of any chess game.

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James Bond works for MI6,

which is a real agency,

except of course that he isn’t real,

so therefore he doesn’t.

I hope that’s cleared that up.

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Although the phrase ‘get out of hand’

has several different meanings nowadays,

still the most common is to describe when

someone loses control of things or a situation.

The phrase has its origins in the old days

when failure to keep a firm grip on the reins

would result in a team of horses

getting “out of hand.”

 

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The estimates of the number of workers

involved in the construction of the pyramids

differ significantly but it could have

been as many 100,000 people.

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A polar bear has particularly developed

sense of smell and can track an

icebound seal up to 20 miles (32 kilometers) away,

or sniff-out a seal’s breathing hole in the ice

more than half a mile away, even if the seal is absent.

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Harry S. Truman’s middle name

was just S.

According to Truman,

the S as his middle name was a

compromise of his two grandfathers,

Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young.

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Football star and American war hero Pat Tillman

rejected a multimillion-dollar contract to play

the game professionally and instead

chose to serve his country.

In 2002 he enlisted in the U.S. Army,

but sadly his career and life were cut short

when he was killed in action in 2004.

Even though the exact circumstances

of his death are still in question,

his legacy is not and Tillman is considered

one of the bravest American athletes

who turned his back on a comfortable,

luxurious life for the love of his country.

A great man.

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YouTube was founded

by three former PayPal employees,

Chad Hurley, Steven Chen, and Jawed Karim.

They registered the domain name in February 2005

and the site was officially launched that December.

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On the planet Mars there exists

what is known as the “face on Mars”.

It is believed to be an optical illusion

created from natural looking Martian hills.

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Greece’s national anthem

has 158 stanzas.

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In 1938 Adolf Hitler was named

Time Magazine’s Man of the Year

and in 1939 was nominated

for the Nobel Peace Prize.

World War II began in 1939!

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Male mice sing love songs for female mice.

The songs they sing are ultrasonic,

and humans are unable to hear them,

but presumably the female mice can.

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The scene in the movie ‘Titanic’

when the band members continue playing

to calm down the passengers as the ship is sinking

is based on fact.

The band did continue to play for hours

after the ship hit the iceberg.

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Alcohol more easily causes dehydration

and dilates blood vessels

which can result in headaches;

it also increases stomach acid and

decreases the rate the stomach empties itself

which can lead to vomiting.

We call this infliction a hangover.

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Contrary to what you see in the movies,

real Tequila does not have a worm in it.

The worm, or gusano, actually originated

with tequila’s ‘lower-quality’ cousin, mezcal,

largely as a marketing ploy.

The gusano is the larvae of a type of moth

that lives on the agave plant.

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Would You Take The Bubble Baba Challenge?

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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We’ll find out later whether or not you would take the Bubble Baba Challenge.

In the meantime have a look at this week’s selection of facts.

Enjoy.

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Harry Potter shares the same birth day

as his creator J K Rowling,

his is July 31, 1980 and

Rowling’s July 31, 1966.

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A Yew tree located in the churchyard of

the village of Fortingall in Perthshire, Scotland,

is estimated to be 3,000 – 5,000 years old

which many believe makes it Europe´s oldest tree.

With its massive trunk of 52 feet (16 meters) in diameter,

the yew is still in good health and may last for many more centuries.

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Thames Town is a little town situated in the heart of China

that is an imitation of a classic British city

with traditional English architecture, cuisine,

and even those classic red phone booths

we all identify with London.

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Still in China, “The Great Wall of China”

did not get that official name

until the end of the 19th Century.

Previously it had been known by names

such as “barrier”, “rampart”, “fortress”,  

“Purple Frontier” or “Earth Dragon”.

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The United States has had some remarkable successes

in the field of space flight and exploration.

However it wasn’t always that way.

The very first time they tried to launch a satellite into orbit,

on December 6, 1957 (Vanguard TV3),

the rocket lost thrust only 4 feet (1.2 m) above the launch pad

and fell back to the ground, its fuel tanks

rupturing and creating a massive fireball,

damaging the launch pad and destroying the rocket.

Due to limited data measurement methods in these early days,

though, the cause was never fully determined.

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If you like Vodka then look out for a bottle of

“The Billionare Vodka“,

the world´s most expensive vodka.

It is first ice-filtered, then filtered through

Nordic birch charcoal and lastly passed

through sand made from crushed diamonds and gems.

It is sold in a platinum and rhodium encased,

diamond encrusted crystal bottle and

will set you back only $3.75 million dollars.

Cheers!

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No more time in the joint for smoking a joint,

at least not in the U.S. state of Washington,

the first state to officially legalize cannabis

in a state law in December 2012,

with the state of Colorado following close behind.

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Ant queens can live for up to 30 years,

about 100 times longer than solitary insects of a similar size.

Workers live from 1 to 3 years.

.

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Eight US Presidents were born British subjects:

Washington, J. Adams, Jefferson, Madison,

Monroe, J. Q. Adams, Jackson, and W. Harrison.

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Jim the horse, a former milk wagon horse,

was responsible for curing diphtheria.

He was infected with diphtheria

but unlike other animals he didn’t die.

Doctors found that Jim’s immune system

was able to create antibodies to fight the disease

and this allowed doctors to make a serum for humans,

with great success, helping to save the lives

of millions of humans and animals around the world.

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. 

Al ‘Wallpaper’ Wolff is best remembered

as having been the last surviving member

of the group of eleven federal law-enforcement agents,

led by Eliot Ness, known as the Untouchables.

Wolff was the fearless agent and a ferocious

persecutor of those who obtained illegal alcohol.

Strangely, once he retired from law enforcement

and alcohol was legal he got involved in

the cocktail lounge business in Chicago.

He died in March 1998 at the age of 95.

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In 1827, world famous author Edgar Allan Poe

enlisted in the United States Army

using the false name “Edgar A. Perry”.

He claimed to be 22 years old

even though he was just 18.

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James Dean’s silver Porsche 550 Spyder,

the car he died in following an accident in 1955,

was known as the “Little Bastard”

and said to be cursed.

After it was sold for parts,

the car fell and crushed a mechanic’s legs;

later, a doctor who bought the car’s engine

was killed in a car accident;

another victim who bought the transmission

was severely injured in a crash;

the tires sold from Little Bastard

blew out simultaneously,

sending their buyer to the hospital;

and lastly a truck carrying the car’s shell crashed,

killing the driver.

Hmmmm….

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The Bird´s Nest Restaurant, located in

the Soneva Kiri Eco Resort in Thailand,

gives the customers privacy,

as well as the unique opportunity to

admire spectacular views while dining.

Tree nests hang 16 feet above the ground

and are served by waiters who use a zip line

to deliver the food and drinks.

A typical dinner for two costs about $450.

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Finally, time for those of a nervous disposition to look away.

Officially known as the “Bubble Baba Challenge”,

this is an unusual (to say the least) sporting event

where participants float down a river

embracing a rubber woman.

The idea was apparently dreamt up

by a Russian, Dmitry Bulawinov,

initially as a joke at a party

where the men got drunk! 

(It could have been worse!)

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Dirty Harry? It Must Be Fact Day!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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No dirty facts here. That’s someone else’s job.

Just good clean fun with another selection from the fabulous fasab fact file.

Enjoy.

..Oh, and spare a thought for poor Betty Stobbs who for one split second thought she had made it.

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Dirty Harry’s badge number is 2211.

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Frisian, a language native to the Netherlands,

is considered the easiest foreign language

for English speakers to learn

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The amount the U.S. military spends annually

on air conditioning in Iraq and Afghanistan: $20.2 billion.

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The Milky Way has four spiral arms, not two.

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The main ingredient for chocolate are technically cacao beans,

but they are known throughout the cocoa industry as cocoa beans

because of a misspelling.

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Cacao has been around for millions of years and

is probably one of the oldest of nature’s foods.

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It has been calculated that in the last 3,000 years

there have only been 240 years of peace in the world

.

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During the An Lushan rebellion in China in the mid 700s

nearly 40 million people died.

This was 1/6 of the world’s population.

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Your brain is the fattest organ in your body at around 60%

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Curfew comes from a combination of two French words

– “couvrir” and “feu”. Literally this means to “cover fire”.

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In 1999, Betty Stobbs, 67, of Durham, England,

took a bale of hay to feed her flock of sheep

on the back of her motorcycle.

Her hungry sheep, however, charged her bike and

knocked her into a deep ravine.

She survived the fall but was killed

when her bike landed on top of her.

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Andrew Jackson was involved in as many as 100 duels,

most of which were fought to defend the honor of his wife.

Not surprisingly he was shot multiple times during his life.

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Alexander the Great is famous for a spying technique still used today.

He had all his soldiers write home to their families

and then intercepted the letters.

Whoever didn’t have something nice to say was executed.

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If you are referred to as a “treasured guest”

in Disney don’t get carried away.

That means you’re an asshole and

workers are being warned about you

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The voices of Yoda and Miss Piggy

were done by the same person.

His name is Frank Oz.

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Did You Know? – Americans, Chinese, French, Greeks, There’s Facts About All Of Them In Here!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Yes, today is a bit of a multi-cultural fact feast.

Hope you enjoy.

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Brown eyes are actually blue,

under a layer of melanin.

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Billionaire Chuck Feeney donated most of his fortune

anonymously and with no recognition,

while flying coach, owning a $15 watch,

and having no cars or homes.

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George Washington was surprised to discover

that the Chinese were not white.

(I wonder how surprised they were to find out he was?)

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When it first opened in 1955 Disneyland had

a lingerie store on Main Street called The Wizard Of Bras

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In the mid 1800s France gave a crucial patent

in photography as a free gift to the world…

except for Britain who had to pay for it!

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Disaster comes from the Greek

“dis” meaning bad,

and “aster”, meaning star.

The ancient Greeks used to blame calamities

on unfavorable planetary positions.

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If you are in a room with 23 people,

there’s more than a 50% chance that

two of the people have the same birthday.

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There are more tigers living in Texas

than in the rest of the world.

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While serving as sheriff of Erie County, N.Y.,

Grover Cleveland had to spring the trap

at a hanging on two occassions.

This earned him the unflattering nickname

“Buffalo Hangman.”

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Workers at Amazon’s distribution centers

can be expected to walk up to 11 miles per shift,

picking an order every 33 seconds.

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The shortest French word with all

five vowels is “oiseau” meaning bird.

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Des Moines has the highest per capita0

Jello consumption in the U.S

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In 1770 the British parliament passed a law

condemning lipstick, stating that

” women found guilty of seducing men

into matrimony by a cosmetic means”

could be tried for witchcraft.

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Mr Feng, a Chinese father, hired a bunch of assassins

to kill his son’s online World of Warcraft character.

Apparently his son was wasting too much time after being laid off.

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Spencer Eldon was the name of the naked baby

on the cover of Nirvana’s album

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Did You Know? – More Interesting Facts.

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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More interesting facts today.

Hats definitely off to James Harrison, but my favorite is Bill Morgan.

Enjoy.

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We’ll start with one in honor of the recently passed St Patrick’s Day.

St Patrick’s given name was Maewyn Succat.

After becoming a priest, he changed his name to Patricius,

from the Latin term meaning “father figure.”

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Esperanto is an artificial language,

but is spoken by about 500,000 to 2,000,000 people,

and 2 feature films have been done in the language.

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After the bible,

the most translated book in the world is

Pinocchio.

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Hall of fame boxer Sugar Ray Robinson backed out of a fight

because he had a dream that he was going to kill his opponent in the ring.

After a priest and minister convinced him to fight, Robinson went into the ring

and killed his opponent Jimmy Doyle.

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The German word for birth control pill is ‘antibabypille’

and in Switzerland they have pregnancy tests

called ‘MaybeBaby’ in vending machines.

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After 9/11, 1600 people died in automobile accidents

after they switched travel plans from flying to driving.

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If officials awarded Lance Armstrong’s Tour de France title

to the next fastest finisher who has never been linked to doping,

they would have to give it to the person who finished 23rd.

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When US Army officer Braxton Bragg held both the job of

the company commander and the post’s quartermaster,

he made a request to the quartermaster (that is, himself)

and when he received the request as quartermaster he denied it.

He continued to argue back and forth with himself through letters.

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In 2010 workers at Ground Zero found an 18th century wooden ship

underneath the World Trade Center rubble.

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When child actor Jackie Coogan turned 18,

he found out all his money, $68 million,

had been spent by his mother, who argued

“No promises were ever made to give Jackie anything.

Every dollar a kid earns before he is 21 belongs to his parents.” 

Coogan’s Bill was then passed to protect child actors.

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In Samoa, it’s a crime to forget your own wife’s birthday.

(Isn’t that true for most places?)

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Ryan Gosling was cast as Noah in The Notebook

because the director wanted someone “not handsome.”

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After needing 13 liters of blood for a surgery at the age of 13,

a man named James Harrison, aka “The Man With The Golden Arm”,

pledged to donate blood once he turned 18.

It was discovered that his blood contained a rare antigen

which cured Rhesus disease.

He has donated blood a record 1000 times

and saved 2,000,000 lives.

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In 1942 in Mississippi there was a man known as the Phantom Barber

who would break into peoples’ houses at night and cut their hair.

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In 1999 an Australian man, named Bill Morgan

was declared dead for 14 minutes after an allergic reaction to drugs

given to him in hospital after a car accident.

To celebrate his survival he bought a scratch card

and won a $27,000 car.

A news team covering the story asked him to re-enact

the scratch card moment for their story,

so he went into the shop, bought another scratch card,

and won  $250,000 jackpot.

Here he is….

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