You and I keep echoing the same theme on these threads. Absent a significant shift in the US economy the jobs are gone and will not be coming back. The few jobs that will be added over the next few years will be for less money. Overall wages will continue to decline for the most workers.

And who cares what the hell the bloody stock market does? The stock market did great from 2002-08 but WAGES fell, employment sucked, cost increses in healthcare sucked up whatever raises did happen and 90% of the public fell further and further behind. The stock market is a measure of corporate profits and the wealth of the investment class. It has little to nothing to do with health of the middle class which continues to get worse.

Is that a whole lot of them don't pay well. For all the talk of rich doctors, they make up a very small percentage of healthcare workers. A lot of those grunt work jobs you talk about pay only $20-35k a year or less. That's not a good trade off for unionized manufacturing jobs that paid $35-50k a year. Such jobs also tend to have little to no benefits.

As I keep repeating, absent stuctural changes in how the US economy operates we are looking at a jobless 'recovery' at best. We might see upticks in the stock market but real wages will continue to decline and the middle class will continue to shrink.

You have to take the good with the bad. If you allow women the right to choose an abortion then you can't start cherry-picking the reasons why they make the choice. That means some people are going to make those choices for reasons you do not like.

I accept that living in a society that allows free expression means that racists and skinheads are allowed to speak their minds. I don't like it. I'd prefer to put a muzzle on most of them. But I accept it as the price for my right to speak my mind.

2012 is way too far away to know what's going to happen. In 2005 most people had McCain written off as a has been and 80% of the public didn't even know Obama's name. While some of these preliminary moves look interesting its far too soon to start making bets on who's going to be the Republican nominee.

Which are the things everybody deals with day in and day out. My grocery bills are still going up. I paid more for gas today than I did a month ago. That's money out of my pocket. Just because economists don't choose to recognize those things as having an effect does not mean they don't exist. I am poorer today becuase of rising food and fuel prices than I was yesterday.

Food and Fuel are excluded because they are considered too 'volitile' to measure effectively. That's crap. They have an direct and constant effect on household budgets. I can postpone purchasing new clothes or a new tv if prices spike. I can't put off buying food or gasing up my car.

Once again I offer a quick primer on how earmarks work.

#1 - Congress allocates $5 billion to the Department of the Interior.

#2 - A congressman comes along and attaches an 'earmark' to the bill stating that $500k of that money needs to used for wetlands restoration or road improvements or a research project or whatever.

In other words the congressman is merely directing how ALREADY ALLOCATED funds should be spent. If earmark was removed the money WOULD STILL BE SPENT. Earmarks have ZERO effect on how much money the government spends.

The only difference between the two is who directs the funds. If the earmark is removed the funds would be directed by the executive branch and the departments (with backroom deals being made between members of congress, industry etc etc). At least with earmarks there is more visibility to HOW the money is being used and who is pushing for what.

This is such a stupid and idiotic argument fueled entirely by ignorance and rhetoric completely separated from reality.

In other words is a typical 'policy' argument in mordern American discourse.

Absent some type of structural change in the economy the jobs are gone. I do not see anything coming in the next few months/couple of years that will create a signifigant amount of new jobs. And nothing is coming that will raise WAGES in line with inflation or the wealth created through the massive increases in worker productivity.

We are trapped in a system that does not reward work. Wages have been stagnant or declining for over a decade. Only by over leveraging their homes and relying on credit cards has the middle class been able to maintain the illusion of prosperity. That door is closing.

Whatever improvements happen the economy will not spread down to the middle class. The stock market may go up. Good for the investment class, but it does nothing to help pay my monthly bills (which keep getting bigger). Corporate profits will go up. Good for executive bonuses, but that won't translate to hiring or bigger paycheck.

And the members of congress, the White House and the press people who camp out in those buildings pissed their pants when they realized THEY were the targets. Not some soldiers, diplomats overseas or civilians in a cafe. They were being targeted by Al Qaeda. Since that point in time almost every action in Washington has been based on simple cowardice. And the mewling twits in the Washington Press Corps go along with it, even portray those actions as sensible, because they are scared.