The News Was So Boring Last Week, I Didn't Want to Write Anything

The biggest news story I could find last week about U.S. politics was focused on the Presidential vacation.  Leave the man alone.  Have you seen the before and after pictures of recent U.S. Presidents?  Four years in the oval offices takes 10 years off your life.  Mainstream media often gives distraction instead of news.  This weekend I was thinking and remembered what over 1in 10 adults in America are struggling with - unemployment.  Why isn't this in the news more?

So What's the Government Doing About Jobs?

Nothing yet...but they're planning something...  That about sums up the responses from Congress and the White House on job creation so far.   In the halls of Congress and the White House, corporate executives enjoy access to lawmakers that the regular person just doesn't get.  That's fine, especially if they are there in the name of creating jobs.  I've worked with many of them from the Silicon Valley.  The question I have, however, is how and where are jobs being created?  A few numbers that some multinational corporations refuse to report has to do with the number of people hired outside of the U.S., total foreign workers, and the comparisons against U.S. numbers.  There is no law that requires businesses to report these numbers.

If a business does not have a good recent record of increasing U.S. jobs, should we really be taking advice from them on how to shape public policy on job creation?

How Many People Are Out of Work?

The government routinely reports on the unemployment rate during hard times and they would have you believe it is at a bad (but better) 9.2 percent.  This number, however, does not include those who have give up searching and others that could be counted among "discouraged" instead of unemployed. The number is higher than you are being told and it's not because it's too hard to count everyone.  The numbers are being manipulated on purpose.

Certain Information Should Be Made Public and Easy to Understand

 I'm not one of those people who needs to know everything.  I don't want to know a lot of things and I support the idea that certain government and business information should be kept secret.  I'm a big fan of respecting the personal privacy of others.  But asking for employment figures isn't like asking a company for the tech specs for their new cell phone or the recipe for their secret sauce.  And I think people deserve to know how bad things like unemployment really are in our country.  It should also be free of any jargon that would confuse people.

It's easy, here's an example of honest business and honest government answering these questions:

Government - We estimate 11 percent of America is out of work.  This is our best guess without leaving anyone out on purpose.

Business - We employ 2,000 people in the U.S. and 2,400 overseas.  Last year we hired 200 Americans and 1,000 foreigners.  We do this because it's cheaper and while we did hire more foreigners, don't forget about those 200 new American jobs.

"If you look like you're hiding something, you're probably hiding something." - Captain Obvious