29 grand

In 2014, the median American worker earned $28,851.21.

austerity triplex (conforming loans only, please)

And here's the "real news" from Germany where a political leader, representing the more marginalized citizens, states, and pardon my possible paraphrase, that "austerity is the ideology of the ruling class." As you might imagine, it's the poor who go with less or without under such policies, and the video considers how German businesses are also hurt when citizens in Greece and Spain have little to no spending power beyond that which will go to the most basic necessities.

Back home, a recent year's worth of Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs-growth reporting was revised upward by almost 400,000, and although that is but a small dent in the supposed 23 million without work, or without as much work as they'd like, it is somewhat ironic that the "year" reported on seems almost entirely contained within the period where there was intense gridlock and a blocked jobs bill in Congress. Here's an excerpt from the Forbes article:

The Bureau of Labor Statistics is out with its annual update to benchmark unemployment numbers (for the more cynical among you, the BLS does this every fall so this is not a number being ‘timed’ for the election), and the numbers reveal that 386,000 more non-farm jobs were actually created between March, 2011 and April 2012 than what had been originally reported.

The figures represent a variance from the previous data of 0.3 which sits right at the norm for annual benchmark adjustments which are typically up or down by 0.3 percent.

As a result of the revision, the Obama administration can now claim a net job increase of 125,000 rather than what had previously been believed to be a net loss of 261,000 jobs.

Of course, it remains a muddle, but it still feels like things are bad and not improving, or not improving fast enough, for millions and millions of workers throughout Europe and America. And, in some countries and counties, of course, they seem to be getting worse.

men in their prime

I just posted on the recovering economy, and so it makes sense that one of the very next articles I read online would suggest that this is hardly your father's recovery--particularly in the sense that he might not be working. Middle-aged male worker participation rates (what Brett Arends calls "the Guy Rate") remain among the lowest ever recorded:

http://www.smartmoney.com/invest/strategies/what-does-bernanke-know-1332799616772/?link=SM_hp_ls4e#article_tab_article

And the past couple weeks, Atticus Books has shared some rough-draft memoir about my father's experiences in relation to his father and son, and although the year is 1991, the song resonates somewhat with the current situation, or at least the malaise we're hopefully climbing out of.

Here's part two:

http://atticusbooksonline.com/summer-1991-broke-and-back-in-philly-part-2

and in case you missed it, part one:

http://atticusbooksonline.com/summer-1991-broke-and-back-in-philly-part-1

and an earlier section posted at When Falls the Coliseum:

http://whenfallsthecoliseum.com/2011/06/19/no-returns/

For now, we'll let the URL links hang out in public, but maybe banish them to hyperlink status later in the week.

willing to work? able? qualified? the usual questions remain

Here's another article about American companies recruiting overseas to find capable workers--in this case, in manufacturing jobs. Together with all the article's comments below, you a get sense of the strongly divergent discourses surrounding the issue. Are Americans being ignored? Is the pay too low to attract "qualified" Americans? Are we sending too many of our teenagers off to colleges and universities and not enough to trade schools? Are we unwilling to work? Do we blame corporations, our government, or ourselves?

I don't know, but I do know that during economic booms in America, such as the late nineties, urban school districts routinely recruited abroad because the college educated Americans who would be qualified refused the work. The teachers would come countries like India, Austria, and Romania-- places where English is not the first language, but you can find a math or science teacher who speak it well enough. I suspect that the school districts were grateful to have these teachers, and yet, it could still be the case that Americans with educational certification felt ignored.

And now, we're hardly in boom times from the perspective of most Americans. We have the usual mush of positive and negative economic indicators, and from the hog slaughterhouses of North Carolina to Silicon Valley's rewarding tech economy, the multiple questions and perspectives remain, and not even a Cyrus Duffleman can offer a unified thesis.

Yeah, you had to bring that guy into it. You've got nothin', Kudera. Go back to your hole and grade papers.

LATE BREAKING NEWS: 227,000 jobs added in February and January numbers revised upward! Unemployment stays at 8.3%, gas snuggles close to $3.50 a gallon in SC, and everything remains the same, and yet will be fine.