As a percentage of population, the broadest measure of unemployment is lower now than in 2006

Recent history shows that recipients of lower top marginal income tax rates haven't invested the money . . . here

The top marginal rate averaged 70% from 1960, 73% shown is from 1956. The investment data starts in 1960.

Individuals and businesses need incentives to invest here in the United States. They won't do it naturally.

Recent tax history shows this to be the case. For decades when top marginal income tax rates were very high before 1986, the most successful in our society plowed money into domestic investment to grow businesses through which they could derive income, which was taxed at lower long term rates than ordinary income which was taxed at very high rates. Not only did they themselves benefit handsomely, but the whole country benefited because people found useful employment and government received tax revenue. It was an arrangement which made America great.

After the 1986 tax reform which lowered top marginal rates, this stopped being true. The record shows a steep fall-off in domestic investment, which is one reason why incomes and jobs have been stagnant and deficits have piled up. 

The other reason, of course, is free-trade, euphemistically called globalization, which made it possible for businesses to invest internationally instead of domestically. This has been a boon to the growth of middle classes in other countries, but not in our own.

It's not very patriotic, is it?

What we need now is government policy which rewards domestic investment, and punishes its export. The best way to do this is to abolish taxation on domestic business completely to attract more of it, and heavily tax foreign business. We should also reinstate the correct mix of high top marginal income tax rates to incentivize business investment, coupled with attractive long term capital gains tax rates as a reward to the true risk-takers.

Needless to say, the Republican shift away from worldwide taxation to territorial taxation in the "reform" is about reducing risk to established business. This is simply going to make matters much worse for the American middle class, as is the obsession with making money the easy way through lower top marginal ordinary income tax rates.

The American character and spirit I once knew appears to be truly dead.

If you're among the 59% who think this is the lowest point in American history, you're a dumbass

In 2009 in Obama's America, nearly 30 million people filed first time claims for unemployment. That high point is the lowest point in recent memory. And if you can't remember that, you're either a moron, on drugs, or NINE.

Story here.

Just when you think you are talking to a sane person, he cites Paul Craig Roberts

"Others maintain the U.S. government seriously undercounts the national unemployment figures for political effect. Paul Craig Roberts is one whose view I would take over yours, no offense intended. He is a highly respected authority on political/economic issues."

You know Paul Craig Roberts:

Today, April 15, 2017, is the fourth anniversary of the Boston Marathon Bombing, a hoax event performed by crisis actors and tell-tale bright red Hollywood blood. Sheila Casey has done a good job of exposing the hoax just by using the time line and photos of the event. https://truthandshadows.wordpress.com/2013/05/08/false-flag-theatre-boston-bombing-involves-clearly-staged-carnage/

A number of agencies run training programs in which amputees working as crisis actors have a prosthesis afixed to resemble a bone as a remaining piece of a leg or arm. Casey examines the Boston event by timeline. First the crisis actors are assembled. Then the prosthesis is attached. Then the blood appears. ...

A person has to be extremely gullible and inattentive to believe the official story. But that is what most Americans are.

Average total employment is up about 5.1 million since the Great Recession by age groups, but the net increase comes from those over 54

Have you noticed that all the dumb ass conservatives in talk radio have stopped talking about this number?

And it's not because they have finally come to understand what this number means. No, it's because they have a different president now, and they're not going to beat him over the head with it.

That's all.

Hey Rush, 94.8 million people not working but still eating! Take the food away! Kids in high school and college and retired people on Social Security have no right to eat if they're not working!

Dumb ass.

Italy's jobs debacle continues while stupid leaders let in refugees by the millions

From the story here:

Italy's chronic unemployment problem has been thrown into sharp relief after 85,000 people applied for 30 jobs at a bank – nearly 3,000 candidates for each post. ... It is not the first time that huge numbers of young Italians have applied for a small number of posts. When the region of Umbria advertised 94 public administration jobs in 2015, more than 32,000 people applied. A hospital in Milan that needed to recruit 10 nurses was inundated with more than 7,000 candidates.

Your kid probably isn't working this summer like he should be, because of the minimum wage and cheap immigrant labor

The population level of teenagers in 2017 has recovered to 1978 levels, but only 29% are employed in May 2017 vs. 47% in May 1978.

The minimum wage has made it too expensive to hire your kid to recover shopping carts at the grocery store, and soaring immigration means your kid competes against Francisco to cut the grass and Sanjay to sell ice cream.

Marine Le Pen is popular with France's multitudes of unemployed youth

From the profile, here:

Part of her allure is rooted in the plight of young people in the world’s sixth-largest economy, nearly a quarter of whom are unemployed. On the eve of Le Pen’s rally in Metz, 20-something supporters from across the country came together in the city’s party headquarters to discuss their plans for the following day. It had more the feel of an awkward school dance than a strategy session – they had put out bowls of potato chips and bottles of soda.

Emilien Noé, a former Socialist who coordinates the youth movement in the region, says young people are drawn to the FN’s promise to restore French glory, something they’ve never known. “A lot of young people are living abroad instead of in France, and this is sad for a country like ours,” he says.

Marine Le Pen sounds just like Michael Savage, calling on France to choose French borders, language and culture

Quoted here after coming in 2nd in the first round of the French elections yesterday: 

It is a very simple choice for France. Either we carry on towards total deregulation without any borders or protection, and all that entails. With international unfair competition, mass immigration, the free trade, and the free circulation of terrorists. 

Or you choose the France with borders that are going to protect her, employment, and a national identity. 

So you have two choices. ...

I am the candidate of the people. I appeal to all sincere.. patriots to join us and abandon old-fashioned quarrels and particpate in the best interest of our country... and the survival of France. We will unite behind the project of renewal and they will be our brothers.

Pew: 23 states still struggle with less revenue than in 2007

From the summary here:

Twenty-three states still collect less tax revenue than at their recession-era peaks, after adjusting for inflation, and most have a thinner financial cushion than they did before the last downturn. In addition, 18 states’ employment rates still trail 2007 levels. 

FOMC minutes from November 2011 show Federal Reserve presidents laughing at us, quick to blame unemployment on the unemployed

Including at the time Dennis Lockhart, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Charles Plosser, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, and Jeffrey Lacker, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.

Story here.

Plosser

Lockhart

Lacker

All Obama gets credit for is the extra 4.483 million jobs since the July 2007 peak: 47,000 jobs a month net increase after 8 years

Make teenagers work again: Repeal the minimum wage

3.3 million fewer teens work in 2016 than in 1978 even though

the size of this population in 2016 is the same as in the late '70s

The minimum wage of 30 cents an hour which prevailed throughout World War II is the equivalent of $5.12/hr today using CPI, not the federally mandated $7.25/hr.

The minimum wage today has outpaced CPI by almost 42% since its inception. Meanwhile teenage employment has contracted by almost 40% since the late 1970s peak.

Already by 1978 the minimum wage was wildly out of whack. It should have been only $1.41/hr instead of the federally mandated $2.65/hr, outpacing inflation by a whopping 88%. No wonder employers have sought cheaper labor abroad, wrecking it for everyone, not just teenagers.

Do we believe in free market capitalism, or not?