Economy of the Miserable - Realities of Unworking/Underemployment (NPR)

@AndyLouis" was listening to NPR and shared an interesting story with the is definitely worth sharing.

BLS is creative about reporting the unemployment number each month. Many models feed off of the monthly BLS statistics.

Underemployment and unworking are not inclusive for a true representation of labor force participation.

There are a couple of faults here.

  • The general public does not check the FRED stats to have multiple avenues for a sanity check.
  • Statisticians can lie when they want to and they often do
  • This guy, as my Political Science friend said, is smart but this interview is also a shameless plug for his book (promotion/sponsored content)

These key questions have to be asked:

  1. Why are we Miserable?
  2. What makes us happy?
  3. What is your personal American Dream and are you fulfilling it?

My take is that there is an enormous gap between social expectations and our own. Furthermore, most aren't self aware and driven by their own goals if they know what they are in the first place.

Being miserable and having that feedback is a wonderful thing. Finding out the Why and How to do better follows in the root cause analysis if a person is willing is a meaningful way to progress. Most get stuck in the feeling and not the solution process.

Reference: An Economist On The 'Miserable 21st Century' (6.5 mins podcast + transcript)

17 Comments
 
Best Response

Men used to be the breadwinners. Now after decades of feminist policies (which demonize the nuclear family) men are checking out of work. This isn't surprising to any actually looking at the rules of the game. Marriage rates are down 50%, divorces occur in half of all marriages, and the family courts are extremely anti-men. This leads to growing isolation for men, and they're electing to check out of work. Doesn't seem particularly surprising. There's really nothing to work for.

Extra context: check male suicide rates, male homelessness, and male performance rates in elementary/high school in comparison to University.

 

You are 100% correct we are literally subsidizing single parents. I think the negative impacts of this can be seen from the massive prison population.

Only two sources I trust, Glenn Beck and singing woodland creatures.
 

Automation is catching up and adding a whole lot more value than we can ever manage. The shareholders are winning hand over fist while the trick down Economy will take decades to catch up if ever possible at all.

 

Right off the back, there's a very understated context on which the speakers are starting and building their arguments. Why do men lack inspiration? I read an article not long ago, about sexual liberalization. The context of that article was that women began entering the mainstream economy in the mid-1900s (about around the 60s). With this, progressivism led to the decline of male dominance, increased male and female interaction, and with it, sex. This ultimately led to a decline in the price and value of sex. Essentially, men just don't care to pursue more laborious efforts, because they're less worried about achieving enough social and monetary wealth to attract their female counterparts. Either women are already too liberated and are filled to capacity for sex, or the women just remain too far ahead for the males to 'catch up'.

 

In class the other day we were reading a textbook and I said why are women considered to be in a disadvantaged group of society along with Disabled people and Aboriginals (Australian natives) to my teacher and he was like oh because of child birth (pretty weak argument and I didn't bother arguing anymore)

Then this feminist bitch yelled Men get payed more then women and there is a rape culture in society. I then pointed out to her that Male's have a shorter life span, have a higher suicide rate, higher mental illness rate and higher chance of being assaulted, but yet you think Males have it so well. Safe to say everyone went quiet after that because I went against the PC agenda

 
"Shoreditched"

Statisticians lie when they want to?

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Ya, based on the stats I gathered from my research, growth of tree is highly correlated with growth of S&P index over the years.

 

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