{"id":48597,"date":"2014-10-27T12:00:17","date_gmt":"2014-10-27T17:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=48597"},"modified":"2014-10-27T09:37:31","modified_gmt":"2014-10-27T14:37:31","slug":"hunky-dory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=48597","title":{"rendered":"Hunky Dory"},"content":{"rendered":"

SCENE:\u00a0 Mitch BERG is driving down the road, when he notices Avery LIBRELLE by the side of the road.\u00a0 LIBRELLE is standing by the trunk of a Chevy Volt; on the trunk is perched a miniature windmill, attached by cables to a terminal under the Volt’s open hood.\u00a0\u00a0 LIBRELLE is blowing on the windmill.\u00a0<\/p>\n

BERG sighs, pulls over.\u00a0 He gets out of the car, notes that there is no wind – it’s a flat calm – and walks up to LIBRELLE.<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 Hey, what’s…<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Hah, Merg!\u00a0 The economy is doing fantastic!\u00a0 You were wrong!<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 Um, what now?\u00a0<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Unemployment is under 6%<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 That’s that’s because so many people have left the workforce<\/a>, as we see on this chart here…:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\"\"<\/p>\n

…which is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Labor Force Participation Rate, representing the percentage of the labor force – able-bodied people between 16 and 70 – that are actually working.\u00a0 As you can see, since Obama’s election, that number has plummeted from the mid-sixties to under 63%.\u00a0 .<\/p>\n

And six percent of them <\/em>are unemployed, which means that the actual share of the population that’s working <\/em>is more like this:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

That’s the labor force participation rate minus the unemployed.\u00a0 Now, if there were an economic recovery going on, that number would be ticking back up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Hah, Hah, Hah, Merg!\u00a0 You’ve been watching too much Faux News!\u00a0\u00a0 (Goes back to blowing on the windmill, spinning the blades madly)<\/p>\n

BERG: That’s pronounced “foh”, not “fowks”.<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Standard pronunciation is a microaggression of the patriarchy!\u00a0 Anyway – you lie.\u00a0 The labor force participation rate is dropping because Baby Boomers are retiring!\u00a0 Hah!<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 That’s a great theory – because statistics show that older people are <\/em>working less, and that hours and productivity are ticking up among people in their prime working years.<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Hah!\u00a0 Got that right! (LIBRELLE blows on the windmill some more)<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 Except that both of those statements are untrue.\u00a0 Neither is actually the case.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Older workers are the only group of workers who are actually increasing <\/em>their share of the workforce:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And the “inactivity rate” of men between the ages of 25 and 54 – the prime income-earning years – is double what it was during the Reagan Administration…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

…and a good third above what it was under Dubya.\u00a0 And since the “end” of the recession, it’s just kept climbing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 So you admit you lied to me?<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 Huh?<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE: By saying that the stats said one thing, and then showing that they said another!<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 Uh…right.<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 (Resumes blowing on windmill)<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 What are you doing?<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 My car ran out of battery.\u00a0 I’m trying to give it a sustainable jump start.\u00a0<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 With a…<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 With a Personal Wind Generator.\u00a0<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0\u00a0 Er…where…<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 I got it at Sharpened Image.\u00a0 It was $499.\u00a0<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 Don’t you mean “Sharper Image?”\u00a0<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 No. Sharpened.\u00a0 It’s from Nigeria.\u00a0<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 Huh.\u00a0 Have a great week.<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE continues blowing on windmill as BERG walks to his car.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

And SCENE.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCENE:\u00a0 Mitch BERG is driving down the road, when he notices Avery LIBRELLE by the side of the road.\u00a0 LIBRELLE is standing by the trunk of a Chevy Volt; on the trunk is perched a miniature windmill, attached by cables to a terminal under the Volt’s open hood.\u00a0\u00a0 LIBRELLE is blowing on the windmill.\u00a0 BERG […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,74],"tags":[236],"class_list":["post-48597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy-and-the-market","category-the-great-recession","tag-dramatization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48597"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48600,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48597\/revisions\/48600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}