Concrete vs Us

(we lost)

The concrete is all poured. Twenty-one 80# bags of quikcrete later, we finally have a front porch. Victor did all the mixing (you know men; macho and all that) and it kicked his hiney. I did the spreading and smoothing (I'm sure it has another, accepted name, but that's what I did so that's what I'm gonna name that job). It kicked my knees (but not my hiney, so I made out better than Victor). So I guess that means the concrete won.

I found out that one of the houses just up the way is for sale. 32 acres, and a 2 bedroom house for $149.9K. The house is a tear-down. 12 monkeys with hammers built that house. The land is good, though. Which really makes me happy with what I paid for my house. And the neatest part is I finally found out what they call our holler. We are the "Long Fork area of Shelby Valley". Who'da thunk? I always thought a long fork was something you used when grilling steaks. Now it turns out I live there. But I like the "Shelby Valley" thing...it's pretty. Although "Shelby Holler" would be more accurate. But that probably wouldn't sell real estate quite as well.

We took Victor to the Unemployment office today for his regularly scheduled meeting. The unemployment situation here is so bad that they are no longer seeing each person individually. They now take them in groups of 45-50 at a time. And the guy checking them through told the group that 60% of their jobs were gone for good. And the only thing he could suggest was to lower their sights (i.e. minimum wage job) or go back to school to train for a new career. So tomorrow, Victor is going over to the college to see what-all he can do.

I see no way that with unemployment at 17-18% (U6), if 60% of those jobs are not coming back, you can have a "recovery". How are the people whose jobs don't come back supposed to live? Eventually, most will end up on welfare, just to survive. And America can't afford keep taxing the people who have jobs to feed and house the people who don't. Some quick figuring here: call it 150,000,000 working adults. 17% is 25.5 million. Just to be generous, let's take away the 5% that were unemployed at the begining of this fiasco. So we're left with 18 million people who had jobs a year ago who don't have jobs now. 60% of those jobs makes +/- 11 million people who will have no job or any income at all once the unemployment runs out, added to the 7.5 million who didn't have jobs before. 18.5 million people with no job or income. And if we're a 70% consumer driven society, and you remove those 18.5 million unemployed adults, and their families, from the pool of consumers, tell me; how exactly is our economy supposed to recover? What exactly do they mean by a "jobless recovery"?? And all indications are that the unemployment numbers are just going to get worse.

Well, enough Doom and Gloom. I have to run down the street and talk to Arabella's dance teacher. She wants to move Arabella up to the next level ballet class!! Yay, Arabella!! I'll let everyone know how it all turns out, next week.