If only the registrar of voters could hire as well

The number of newly laid-off workers seeking unemployment benefits rose last week, a sign that jobs remain scarce even as the economy recovers.

The increase also may result from the difficulty the Labor Department has in seasonally adjusting the claims around the Easter holiday, which falls on different weeks each year.

Or simply because of the fact that the current economic policies in place aren't working.

"This is ... a volatile time when the numbers move around quite a bit," a department analyst said.

The Labor Department said Thursday that first-time claims increased by 18,000 in the week ended April 3, to a seasonally adjusted 460,000. That's worse than economists' estimates of a drop to 435,000, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters.

California also closed its state offices for a holiday on March 31, which likely held down the claims figures. On an unadjusted basis, claims rose by 6,500 to nearly 415,000.

(sigh)

We were promised unemployment wasn't going to go above 8% if we passed the $787 billion Porkulus bill. With unemployment at 9.7%, how's that working? And these numbers will start looking really good when the 1.2 million census workers that were hired are back out on the streets again in a few months and just in time for the November elections.

When is it time? When is it time to finally stick a fork in Keynesian economics?

Census dilemma?

... we've gotcha covered.


The constitutionally-mandated census is coming up and we’re debating answering anything other than the first two questions which concern how many people live at the residence and which was all that the census was intended for in the first place.

Question 9 asks for the race of each one of the inhabitants of the residence. If we do decide to answer that question, instead of lying by claiming to be something we are not, we might roll with “American” which while technically is not a race would not be a lie and would throw a monkey wrench into the government’s efforts balkanize this country.

So, on question 9, say it loud, say it proud: I’m an American.

H/T: W.C. Varones

Betcha didn't know...

… that the census counts illegal immigrants as well as legal.

The decennial census, which counts all people regardless of immigration status, is used to allocate federal funds for education, housing, healthcare, transportation and other local needs. By some estimates, every person counted results in $1,000 in federal funds.

It’s this reality that is at the heart of a battle between two pro-illegal immigrant factions.

The Washington, D.C.-based National Coalition of Latino Clergy & Christian Leaders, which says it represents 20,000 Latino churches in 34 states, recently announced that a quarter of its 4 million members were prepared to join the boycott as a way to intensify pressure for legalization and to protect themselves from government scrutiny.

Of course, this has angered many other pro-illegal immigrant groups who rightly recognize the census as the key to the Federal goody bag and the further subsidization of the criminal act that is illegal immigration.

So what’s the logic behind the D.C. group’s call to boycott the census? They are fearful that because illegal immigrants are counted in the census it would result in more federal funding coming to California which would be “used against them to increase arrests and harrassment by local law enforcement”, or as is known in saner circles, “enforcing the law”.

At any rate, it will be fun to see which strategery prevails. In the coming months, we also will be looking into the ethics of participation/non-participation in a questionnaire that wants to know our ethnicity, how much we make and, of course, whether or not our crib has a flush toilet... and yeah, census ludditism.