The Reflux

Friday, September 3, 2010

August Jobs

The latest unemployment numbers are out – 9.6%. The country lost a net of 54,000 jobs. The private sector actually added 67,000 jobs, but the government cut 121,000. Since most of those government cuts were temporary census workers, those cuts come as no surprise. What is surprising is the loss of 54,000 jobs is being hailed as “progress”. That’s because the losses were worse in July, so I guess it is progress – about like the way a kid going from a 10 to a 15 on an Algebra test is “progress”. But in both cases, it’s still an ‘F’.

But its’ surprising to see how low we’ve come in our expectations. From Jan. 2001 to Dec. 2006, 7.5 million jobs were created and countless others were "saved". That's an average of 100,000+ net jobs created per month. Now we're hearing how wonderful it is that we lost "only" 54,000, by the same folks who complained that the 7.5 million weren't enough. Oh, and in Dec. 2006, unemployment was 4.6%.

So what happened? Here's a hint: Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid took control of their respective chambers in Congress in Jan. 2007 and have held it ever since. That "mess" Obama keeps saying he inherited came courtesy of his own party!

Stress Diet

A Diet For Dealing With Stress

1. If you eat something and no one sees you eat it, it has no calories.
2. If you drink a diet soda with a candy bar, the calories in the candy bar are canceled out by the diet soda.
3. When you eat with someone else, calories don't count if you do not eat more than they do.
4. Food used for medicinal purposes NEVER counts, such as hot chocolate, toast and Sara Lee Cheesecake.
5. If you fatten up everyone else around you, then you look thinner.
6. Movie related foods do not have additional calories because they are part of the entertainment package and not part of one's personal fuel. Examples: Milk Duds, Buttered Popcorn, Junior Mints, Red Hots & Tootsie Rolls.
7. Cookie pieces contain no calories. The process of breaking causes calorie leakage.
8. Things licked off knives and spoons have no calories if you are in the process of preparing something.
9. Foods that have the same color have the same number of calories. Examples are: Spinach & Pistachio Ice Cream; Mushrooms & Mashed Potatoes.
10. Chocolate is a universal color and may be substituted for any other food color.
11. Anything consumed while standing has no calories. This is due to gravity and the density of the caloric mass.
12. Anything consumed from someone else's plate has no calories since the calories rightfully belong to the other person and will cling to his/her plate. (We all know how calories like to cling!!)

REMEMBER: STRESSED SPELLED BACKWARDS IS DESSERTS.