Private sector jobs up, sort of

Unemployment claims were up again last week and pretty much stay above 400,000 due to the churn in jobs as companies fire fulltime employees and hire younger, lower paid people and contract workers or temps to fatten the bottom line. A consistent number over 250,000 should indicate declining employment but according to the private payroll processor ADP there was a spike in hiring in December. They estimate the government report on Friday will show close to 300,000 new private sector jobs which would be one of the few months with a net gains in jobs over population growth in ten years.

Unfortunately ADP turned out to be wrong with actual government numbers showing only 103,000 new jobs in December but they also increased the number of jobs created in the previous two months by 90,000 as more accurate numbers are now available. In total 1,100,000 new private sector jobs were created in 2010 which is more than Bush created in his entire term. The never elected President did create a million new government jobs, mostly in the Security State.

The endless war on a tactic is also keeping several million people employed. Obama finds himself between a rock and a hard place, the war is draining the Treasury but ending it would plunge the country into the mother of all Depressions. Weapons systems are one of few areas where we still do any significant manufacturing but even that is draining away to China.

We need between 150,000 jobs for new adults and perhaps another 100,000 new jobs every month to cover the immigrants coming in and with no manufacturing base this is impossible. The Republicans have a stranglehold on all aspects of the economy and for Obama to change this would require a commit this country hasn’t had since FDR’s wartime economic martial law. The average American has no clue about this history, how economics really work or who is screwing them over since 99% of media is under the control of the enemy force.

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Giddy up!

William Daley of the Chicago Daleys is to become Obama’s new chief of staff, he’s currently a senior executive at JP Morgan Chase and former Commerce Secretary for Bill Clinton. He certainly knows what’s wrong with the economy from first hand experience with setting the policies we now suffer from. He’ll be taking a considerable pay cut, probably on the order of 99% from what he’s getting now, his base salary at the bank has been $5 million plus bonuses and perks. With Wall Street banks giving out almost 150 billion a year in bonus money, you can guess that he‘s been doing okay.

Bill also got an immediate and ringing endorsement from the US Chamber of Commerce. The people who represent the large multi-national corporations and would glad see us all enslaved and care not a wit if the US were to even survive. Indeed our complete collapse would indicate they have rung every last cent out of the US.

For Bill Daley to be slumming it on a government salary that’s hardly in six figures it’s almost like he’s one of FDR’s dollar a year men, except they were fighting WWII and Daley has been fighting the class war (and he’s been on the other side). I like to think he’s come back from the enemy camp with the information needed to help us win. Oh, and on personal note, I met some nice Russians online and they sold me a nifty unicorn. I expect it to come in any day now and I hope it was worth the money I paid, one trained for riding isn’t cheap.

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Useless Eaters Unite!

Today’s headline from the Financial Times of London, “Global food prices hit record highs, the UN raises alarm“. In case you were wondering where all that free money from the Federal Reserve is going. The markets are way up!

In the US, some food processors and manufacturers of consumer products like toilet paper and shampoo are sharply reducing the content of their standard sizes and are using clever packaging to hide the fact they are doing so. Things like big dents in the bottom of the jar, tapered necks to make them look the same height or by leaving more head room at the top. They often obscure the true size by changing the way the label is written to conceal the size reduction even if the consumer bothers to read it. The price hasn’t changed and that’s what most consumers look at.

The food behemoths claim they had to do this because of increased costs for food commodities and higher fuel prices. But smaller manufacturers haven’t done this basically because the actual food in a package is usually the smallest input cost. So reducing size doesn’t really save them all that much money considering all the changes needed for entirely new packaging and added handling required for the increased number of containers.

Why not just raise the price instead of completely changing the packaging?
Because if they can reduce the content by 20%, then instead of using 5 units you the patsy (I mean savvy consumer) will buy 6 ¼ units increasing their profit by 25%, even if the profit per unit stays the same. And, if the profit per unit is a little higher, multiply that too! Isn’t math wonderful. They are selling you nothing and making a profit on it, almost as good as a Wall Street derivative contract.

On this day in history: in 1914 Henry Ford introduces the concept of the minimum wage, paying no less than $5 a day. On this day in the future: in 2014 the Republicans achieve the century old dream of eliminating the minimum wage forever.

But, but the rich need to have consumers spend money for them to make money, don’t they? No, they don’t, during the gilded age before Henry Ford when most Americans lived in grinding poverty, the size of their mansions was even bigger than the ones they are building now (but not by much). The super rich are consumers unto themselves, they don’t buy mass produced goods. (how droll) Rolls Royce doesn’t need to make a million units. Ford got rich doing mass production but he didn’t invent the car, nor did he put Rolls Royce out of business.

It’s often attributed to Henry Kissinger that he created the designation “useless eaters” but it’s really just the view of his class. Rand Paul upon getting elected stated that “we all work for the rich“. In the brave new world that we are entering this will be the only other designation. You will work for a rich man and maybe get enough to eat or you will be a “useless eater” and get the consideration you might expect, none.  www.prairie2.com

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I looked and there before me was a pale horse!

The epicenter of the Apocalypse appears to be in Arkansas with a massive outbreak of deadly tornados on New Years Eve. Mid-winter tornadoes aren’t unheard of but are usually of the “lose a few shingles” variety as opposed to the “scour the earth and leave nothing standing” kind that they had in this occurrence.

Overnight they had an outbreak of “madness” among the huge flocks of Black Birds that winter there, they took wing in the dark of night and summarily dropped dead en masse. There are reports that this “bird madness” phenomenon also occurred in Louisiana.

The secular explanation for all this would be that the winter storms are more severe from the global warming caused by the pollution of huge corporations. The birds behavior can probably be traced back to the same sort of corporate malfeasances. It was an otherwise cool, calm night and no “natural” cause is apparent.

This would be the same corporations run by a cadre of men like Dick Cheney that want to make us all slaves and don’t care how many of us they kill to achieve world domination…. Okay, so it is the Apocalypse.

I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, "Come!" I looked and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hell was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.    

Have your canned Holy water ready.
www.prairie2.com

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