There is an Employment Crises

Today the U.S. Labor Department reported that the unemployment rate for the U.S. declined to 7.7% in February. The stock market is making news highs, apparently taking this as a good omen and an indicator that the Fed's Quantitative Easing is working. Yes, there are some good things happening in the U.S. economy, but the advances being made are not enough to substantially reduce unemployment over the next year or so.

I have written about our longer-term employment problems in past blogs, but I haven't said that things were at a crises level, and they aren't in the U.S. But there is a lesson to be had by observing what's happening in Europe where unemployment is much higher.

As a result of not being able to pay their bills, some countries are tightening their belts (they are being forced to by the bond market which increases interest rates such that these countries cannot borrow the money to pay the bills). As a result, the austerity measures have sent most European countries into recession raising the unemployment rate to very high levels. In Greece and Spain, the unemployment rate is over 20%. In Italy it is 11.2%.

Is this a crises? Look what's happened lately. In Spain there is a serious separatist movement (The Catalan Independence Movement) to secede from Spain because that area of Spain is much more prosperous and the people there are unhappy that their Spanish brethren are not carrying their weight. In Greece, it is the Golden Dawn party that is gaining seats in the Grecian parliament. The Golden Dawn party has been described as neo-Nazi and fascist. Then, there were the recent elections in Italy that were won by the Five Star party which is a populist movement headed by a professional comedian.

But there is really nothing funny about what's happening. Its not that any one of these political movements are bad in and of themselves, but it shows how bad economic conditions can cause serious social and political unrest. These political movements may actually be good in the long run, but they also show that if we don't get our economy going much better than it is right now, there may be social and political unrest here in the good ole USA.

What's the answer? In a word, Growth!. But spending our way to growth no longer works because there is so much debt. So how do we provide for growth? This sounds simple, get the government out of the way! The specific cure is two-fold, reduce the size of government by cutting Federal government budgets and reducing regulations that hinder businesses doing business, and secondly, reform taxes so that rates can come down, particularly for corporations.

Be Interesting by Being Interested

Its the time of year when New Year's resolutions abound. My resolution has usually revolved around the number of pounds I resolved to lose or the strategy I would employ to lose weight. This year I resolved to stop making those kinds of resolutions. I'm speaking about the kind of resolutions that I can never seem to achieve. Don't get me wrong, I still think its a good idea for me to lose 10 or 15 pounds. It's just that I'd like to try to do something that I can achieve. So, I going to try to do something that I'm already pretty good at -- making friends.

My wife, Mary Ann and I have been blessed with lots of friends. Making friends is mostly about being a friend. It is something you have to be conscious about doing, about placing yourself in the fertile situations, about sacrificing and being interested in people and what they do. The reason I'm making this New Year's resolution about making a new friend is because, I'm at an age (71) where the number of friends start to dwindle. I lost one friend this year and a few more are faced with serious illnesses.

I like to think of a friend as someone with whom you have a mutual regard and affection. That differs from acquaintances, who are people you know, but don't necessarily like. A friend is someone with whom you are ready to stand by and defend, but also one with whom you can be honest and forthright when your friend is taking a wrong "fork in the road." Friends are good to have because they can expand your horizons and elevate your way of thinking about things. Mainly, they are good because a friend will be there for you when times are tough.

In addition to developing a new friend, I want to strengthen current friendships and that begins with Mary Ann, my best friend and wife of, ummm, somewhere between 45 and 46 years, or thereabouts. She is already my friend on Facebook as are many others, but most of those people are not the kind of friends I'm talking about. However, Facebook could be a "fertile field" to develop friends as is church and Rotary.

I read a book a long time ago that taught me one thing about making friends. It's Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. What I remember about that book was this, "You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get people interested in you." We all like to talk about what we do and are doing, but I think you'll find it better to talk about that subject if someone inquires and seems interested in you. Think about it, don't you tend to have an affinity for those who seem interested in you? What would happen if you became interested in someone else. Try to find someone you can be interested in. That's what I'm going to try to do. And, in that way I might become interesting.

GO FORTH and DO GOOD