Brace yourself, David Stockman.

In rural areas (and inner-city areas) in this country, a $20,000 a year FULL-TIME job would be something to write home about.

Part time -making $20,000 a year in rural areas would be insane, in a joyous way.

The jobs here -if you can find a job- pay minimum wage -less what gets done for free-.

And all the jobs are all part time. The attitude is -people get too tired -and you cannot get enough out of them- if you work them full time. And -they get uppity.

You think I'm kidding.

Here, you can show up for work five days in a row, and be told four of those days -when you get there- "No work today."

And, you are expected to show up the sixth day on Saturday -like you're excited about getting to actually punch the clock -for a half-day of work- before you get sent home early.

Minimum wage is got around by making employees do work -to get ready for work, and -to end work, -off the clock-.

And, "Take that home with you and work on it and turn it in tomorrow," is regularly required -at no pay.

You think I'm kidding.

Things can only get worse, far worse, as more jobs go global, more retail purchasing becomes foregone-discretionary purchasing, and as the the desperation and the pool of applicants continues to rise.

You think I'm kidding.

People will do anything.

There are "jobs" where you get to come in for a few days to see if you'll work out. It's part of the application process, -unpaid, and "No," you didn't get hired.

The government may not count these people as unemployed, -but they are still looking for work. I'm they are gouged at every turn as they try to find work.

People are shutting off their electronic accessories, their cable TV, their cell phone, their telephone, and more than most would believe -are even shutting off their electricity.

The electricity goes off before you go homeless, folks, before the final eviction papers -and often long before you go homeless.

Restaurants and even Pizza shops in Maine (and most every other rural area) are closing -and being auctioned off- the ones that haven't already failed and were already auctioned off.

In the town I'm in, a grocery store was auctioned last year. It went for $10k to the one bidder who was interested.

You think I'm kidding.

No jobs go begging in rural America. People are fired very easily in rural America. If you are sick for a day, you can get fired.

Nationwide -many federal government jobs are having literally tens-of-thousands of applicants come from miles away, for a pointless interview.

Federal government human services personnel -the people on the payroll- are just making busy-work for themselves interviewing and doing background checks on these many thousands of hopeful -if desperate- applicants, knowing full well, none will get a job for all the expense and effort.

Here, if you tell your employer that you are looking to get ahead, you will more likely than not -get yourself summarily fired.

You think I'm kidding? No one gets ahead.

You're doing well-enough just to -not- fall further behind. Most, the vast majority, are not doing that well.

Oh, and on a same day when the Wall Street yellow-rag -Bloomberg.com- is reporting gasoline prices have risen to $2.91 a gallon, (horrors!) -here- gasoline is selling for a remarkable $3.19.9

Or perhaps I should say it is NOT selling for $3.19.9 -because everyone is staying home.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-05/u-s-gasoline-rises-3-9-cents-to-2-91-a-gallon-lundberg-says.html

Lying about economic recovery is as much about justifying the numbing price gouging that is occurring in the fuel market -as it is about trying to make things look better than they are.

Everyone knows things are not good.

Some -think they are better than others.

And yet -even though the worldwide demand for crude oil has dropped every single month for over two years now (when oil was trading at under $35 a barrel), BIG OIL and OBAMA have escaped any bad press about how the price of gasoline, fuel oil and diesel fuel seems to be so incredibly buoyant in these times when everyone is so broke, and oil consumption has literally fallen off a cliff.

There is no better indication of economic activity -than the consumption of fuel- unless it is the number of lies being told in the press.

Belief in anyone's numbers about anything -just isn't justified.

What GW? You will not print my comment? Mr. Stockman clearly stated the job loss attributed to moving industry and jobs out of the US, yet you did not report it in your piece.
As revealed, Mr. Stockman stated it will take at least 50 years to recover from the loss of American industry and the 7 million high paying industrial jobs that were moved out of the United States of America (I am not an economist but the lower paying support jobs would have a multiplier of about 5 or 35 million job loss) by the same shyster criminal banking cartel who are still in charge, by proxy, of our Federal government today.

The racketeering World Banksters LIE that “Financial Services” will be the new savior for employment in America. During the boom and crisis, the banking cartel made trillions from the financial chaos that they created and the illusion that is Wall Street is doing great.

In reality, Americans are facing a Depression that is far worse than the Great Depression when there were family farms and most people knew how to subsistence farm. Back then, our timber land was virgin and we had natural resources to turn to, like dam projects. Today those clear-cut timber lands lay in neglected ruin, the Forestry principles of Sustained Yield and replanting was ignored for bankster economic expedience.

There is no economic recovery plan for the United States, not one dime of the QE series will address the development of new technology to create and build new American industry that is protected from outside exploitation (isolationist!). That would require “Fair Trade not “Free Trade” (Free to whom?).

For example, there are no unencumbered grants for independent inventors or financing for developing new independent industry. The Federal government is sitting on electro-magnetic inventions that would outmode the internal combustion engine and begin a new era of transportation but that would upset the power of banksters and Big Oil that control them.

World Banksters consider people who can not or will not pay them as “human garbage” so what is their evil plan for debt enslaved America?
http://www.usdebtclock.org/

FEMA camps and Homeland Security! The banksters can compete with the rest of the world with the new emerging American industry --prison labor!

Congress is openly BRIBED (Roberts Supreme Court said it was OK) and are in the World Banksters bag (Treason). Put their names on a list of things to do.