Let's Talk Unemployment
Have you wondered why the Elmo and the delinquents want to get rid of as many Federal workers as possible?
Yeah, yeah “efficiency”. But no. That’s not it.
The simple answer is that they want people to suffer directly, to be terrified for themselves and their families, and to obey in advance.
As we’ll see, they have not thought this through.
The national unemployment rate is 4%. January’s data will be out in early February. 4% is good. “Full employment”1 is considered to be between 4% and 6%. But we all know, that as Tip O’Neill said about politics - it’s all local.
Axios has this map about what has happened regarding unemployment rates over 2024. More than 2/3 of US metro areas had increasing unemployment last year.
If you know which state voted which way, you can see that with the exceptions of Massachusetts and Colorado, most of the increases were in red states. If you dig down into the numbers, you’ll find that certain industries were harder hit than other, for example, manufacturing in MIchigan.
And of note, especially hard hit is tech. IT unemployment is currently running about 5.7%, and with the announced layoffs, this year that number will go higher. Why? AI. While you might see data indicating that tech unemployment is lower than it’s been, that’s because there are many fewer jobs in the field.
The humans losing Federal jobs will, more often than not, have trouble finding reasonable employment in their fields. First, most (not all) of the jobs being left are white-collar, and overall white-collar employment is decreasing. There are a lot of state and local government jobs, but they are often different from what the fired workers have done with their careers. In addition, since most of the Federal workforce is outside of DC, and spread around the country, a person would need a good fit in their geographic area.
Further, much of the Federal workforce is older. About 29% are age 55 or older. If you think it’s easy to get a job when you’re over 55, and in some instances over 40, you’ve never faced the wall of age discrimination. While illegal, it happens all the time, and is difficult to prove. Even if you can prove it in court, that takes a long time, and in the interim you still don’t have a job.
They Didn’t Think Things Through
Since these yutzes know nothing about history, and either don’t remember, or didn’t live through 1973 - 1982, they don’t know “stagflation”, which is combination of high unemployment, high inflation and stagnant economic growth.
They’re increasing unemployment directly in terms of the layoffs and firings, and will create indirect unemployment from the local businesses that rely on workers to eat at restaurants, buy from stores, etc. etc. etc. Plus, states will be burdened by the obligation to pay unemployment insurance, potentially impacting state budgets.
The regime is going to increase inflation with the tariffs, and more targeted retaliation from other countries2.
Economic growth is going to tank from the combination of unemployment, inflation, lack of government investment and a lack of immigrants. This article shows how an ICE raid in 2006 is impacting one town even through today.
How do you eventually get out of stagflation? For Japan, during the “Lost Decade”, it involved government policies to undercut deflation. For the US, if you were Paul Volker, you raised interest rates to a high of 19%, causing a serious recession, and eventually we came out of it. No matter what you do, it’s ugly. The best course of action would be to avoid CAUSING stagflation, but the fascist regime is just not that smart.
But Elmo and the juvenile delinquents also have not thought through how they get things done with a lack of workers. While they will rely on AI every chance they get, they still need bodies to do things that AI cannot3. For example, Federal workers responsible for overseeing the nuclear arsenal. These people need to be “out with the equipment”. The DOGE boys scrambled to rehire them.
There is an old joke that I won’t tell because it is offensive in all its various iterations, but the punch line is “don’t forget to feed the monkey.” There are things that only humans can do, and AI cannot, and since Federal workers are being fired haphazardly, with no consideration of what their roles are, the monkey (AI) will not get fed.
We are starting to see UNDER THE RADAR Congressmen/women and Senators up in arms about the direct impacts on their constituents due to the firings, and the canceling of various programs and funding.
If they would just STAND UP, and BE BRAVE, like the DOJ lawyers who quit rather than bend down to Emil Bove and his request to drop the Eric Adams charges, things would cease very quickly.
Tomorrow’s post is kinda sorta a follow-on to today’s post. There is something ALL Congressmen/women and Senators can do, and since every single Rethuglican lacks the anatomy to stand up, it will be up to Democrats. Tomorrow’s post is on the budget blueprint, and includes a really important Action Item for YOU.
If I didn’t explain something enough, or you want more information, please use the comments.
Everything you ever wanted to know about '“Full Employment” is here. It theoretically means everyone who wants a job can get a job.
One example of “other retaliation” relates to money markets. SWIFT is used for international money transfers between banks, as well as currency exchange. When sanctions were first launched after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, the Russians came up with SPFS as an alternative. It’s now used by 20 countries including, in addition to Russia, China, Iran, Belarus, Armenia, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan. If SPFS becomes the standard over SWIFT, that’s very bad for the US.
For the record, I am completely opposed to AI.
AI, just like GMOs and a host of other things, are not bad in and of themselves. It's how they are used. I'm working on a project to restore old 8mm family movies. They had been transferred to VHS, then to DVD and the original quality was never all that great. I'm using a program with AI to literally bring them back to life. It's a very slow process and there's a definite learning curve, but the results are pretty good!
That being said, AI should NOT be used to try and undermine our democracy, or replace human jobs that RELY on a human. They really haven't thought anything through in their coup.
I TOTALLY agree that AI is a copout for actual learning and should not be allowed in schools and that CURSIVE is an invaluable tool - not only for the reading skills, but for motor skills, hand/eye coordination, retention, critical thinking... (I still write with a fountain pen - in cursive.)
I no longer remember the year or the name of the affected slaughterhouse in a town in Iowa whose name also escapes me but is enough to recall the disaster that befell all of us who have missed good pastrami and corned beef ever since. The feds rate resulted in the loss of almost all of the plant's immigrant workers who were found to be undocumented (who else would do that kind of dirty work ?); they were arrested and promptly deported. The owners of the plant, all of whom were Jewish, were arrested and ultimately sentenced to long prison terms. The plant practiced Kosher slaughter and supplied Kosher meat products nationwide. More importantly, they produced the briskets for the fabrication of kosher corned beef and pastrami and the tongue for similar use.
Result: horrors, haven't had a decent corned beef or pastrami sandwich ever since. OY VEY !!!
Tell me some time in a private message or phone call the monkey joke; I no longer remember that either.