Conservatives like to say that the current unemployment is a “structural” problem, meaning there is work out there, but workers don’t have the skills to do it. That’s another way of saying unemployment isn’t a problem for workers, it’s a problem of workers. The real problem with the American middle class isn’t that they can’t work, it’s that they can’t spend. The economy is in trouble because the wealthy have squeezed all the money out of the middle class. Here’s a little something you think would be obvious—if you have a consumer-driven economy, you can’t take all the money away from the consumers.Over the past few days, Joe Biden has told Democrats to “stop whining” and “buck up.” I’ll give Joe Biden this much advice—a guy that’s known for his verbal gaffes should probably avoid the word “buck” entirely. There’s no telling how the phrase “buck up” is going to come out. You could really buck it up.
Last night Sarah Palin got booed on Dancing with the Stars (video below). And she didn’t even have to dance. Actually, nobody has ever gotten booed for their dancing on Dancing with the Stars. But nothing on Dancing with the Stars has ever been as offensive and wrong as what Sarah Palin does. And I include Michael Bolton’s dancing in that. The lesson here: you can’t build a career on divisiveness and then be surprised when people take sides wherever you show up.
Finally, a new survey of the religious knowledge of Americans shows that, when it comes to knowing what we’re talking about in terms of religion, we don’t have a prayer. The people who scored the highest on the test of religious knowledge were atheists and agnostics. So I guess it’s easier to retain that sort of thing if you don’t believe it. It turns out that people who believe in the literal truth of the Bible did poorly on the religious knowledge survey. So I guess they think it’s the literal word of God, but they’re not too interested in what he has to say. Or maybe they just don’t like to read non-fiction.
Today’s Homework Discuss
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