How Not To Increase The Black Employment Rate

This morning on the way to work, I listened to NPR's Scott Simon interviewing Darrick Hamilton, an economist from "The New School".  (I often listen to NPR since I'm forced by the government's men with guns to help pay for it.)
The topic was the incredible disparity between black and white unemployment rates.  It's now a 2 to 1 ratio.

I interviewed black guys for about four hours yesterday, so I listened to the whole thing.  It took an ACT OF GOD to keep me from shoving my fist through the windshield. 

Go here to listen to the whole thing.  If you're a regular reader of this blog, stay away from glass and sharp objects. 

Perfesser Hamilton wants to have a Federal Job Guarantee.  Hit the link for the whole thing. 

By creating a National Investment Employment Corps (NIEC), states and municipalities could develop inventories of needed jobs for all who are able to work, matching skilled and unskilled alike with full employment opportunities. Jobs would address physical and human infrastructure needs, including building, repair and maintenance of bridges, damns, roads, parks, museums, mass transit systems, school facilities, health clinics, child care centers, even restoration of our damaged postal system. Pay would range from a minimum of $20,000 to a maximum of $80,000, each job also providing benefits, opportunities for advancement, on-the-job training and professional development.

Christ Almighty in a sidecar.  Wealth is created by moving assets from lower valued uses to higher valued uses.  Nobody becomes better off in the long run by hiring more government munchkins to train more and more black unemployed drug war victims in the skills needed to build museums, or the "restoration of our damaged postal system" LOL.  But enough about Perfesser Hamilton's FDR-era fantasies....

I interviewed 5 black guys yesterday.  One of my supervisors (who happens to be black) sat in with me.  We heard 5 depressingly similar stories. 

All 5 candidates had a criminal record related to the Nixon-Ford-Carter-Regan-Bush-Clinton/Rodham-Bush-Obama Drug War. 
All 5 candidates would have cheerfully taken $5.00 an hour.  It would be illegal for them to work for that amount, BTW.  I could hire all 5 at $5.00 an hour.  Barack Obama, in his wisdom, will only let me hire 3 of them at $8.00 an hour and stay within my semi-budget. 

A couple of these guys were really, really sharp.  They have absolutely no business coming to work for me, unloading shipping containers.  One of them was an honor student and captain of his high school basketball team, and had had a fairly good Air Force gig. 

When we didn't have a minimum wage, black folks sometimes had a higher employment rate than whites. 
When we didn't have a drug war going on, we weren't locking up so many black guys and totally ruining their employment prospects. 

The disparity between black and white unemployment is a solved problem.  Eliminate the minimum wage.  End the idiotic drug war.  We could do this tomorrow. 

But we're just too compassionate. 

Jobs update !!!

It's been a busy weekend, and there's been little or no time to blog. 
So let's update the biggest fraud ever perpetrated on a gullible public !!!

The bottom line reflects what The Teleprompter Jesus promised we'd see if we just gave him 3/4 of a trillion dollars to spend on his buddies. 
The next line from the bottom was his "scary" number - the numbers we'd see if we didn't let him loot The Treasury. 
The next line shows the official government unemployment numbers. 
The little dot closest to the top shows the unemployment number we'd see if so many people weren't saying "screw it, I quit". 

So seriously, what do you think would've happened if The Porkulus Package had been even bigger? 

Why You Shouldn't Hire Anyone In The United States Of America

Barack Obama has has sent Congress a ridiculous "To Do" List, a ragtag collection of feel-good proposals to help the economy, help the unemployed, and mostly to help Washington bureaucrats. 

All of them would be unnecessary if he'd just do the right thing and resign in disgrace. 

Here's #1 on the list:

Reward American Jobs, Eliminate Tax Incentives To Ship Jobs Overseas: Attract and keep good jobs in the United State sby passing legislation that gives companies a new 20 percent tax credit for the cost of moving their operations back to the U.S. Congress should pay for this credit by eliminating tax incentives that allow companies to deduct the costs of moving their business abroad.


If Congress doesn't vote in favor of this stuff, they'll be known as the "do-nothing Congress".  They're already the "do-nothing Congress".  They haven't passed a budget in more than three years, and for two of those years, they were controlled by Democrats.  Since 2010, the House has been Republican, but the Senate has been Democrat.  And it looks like the Dems still run the show. 

Enough about that.  Here's something from the world of reality.  This is what it's like for an employer in Obama's America:

My employer, Jukt Micronics, runs wood, metal and plastic shops in Texas.  I run a warehouse and shipping operation for them where my employees receive, assemble, and transport products made overseas. 

The total product mix is probably 60% manufactured in the U.S., 40% imported from outside of the U.S. 

Before we started outsourcing, we had about 300 employees in the U.S.  

After we started going overseas to purchase the easy stuff, we grew to 600 U.S. employees.  It's funny how that works, isn't it? 

We've now dropped to about 500 U.S. employees, primarily because of the Thief In Chief in the White House. 

The guy who runs our wood operation, who I'll call "Woodchuck", is a great person.  He is a wood god. 

About a week ago, Woodchuck got a complaint about a nighshift employee sleeping on the job.

Woodchuck checked the video cameras, and sure enough, the dude was driving to remote corners of the wood shop on a forklift, kicking back and catching some serious naps. 

Woodchuck fired him. 

The employee, who I'll call "Snoozy", filed for unemployment compensation, saying that he was unjustly terminated. 

The case actually went to a Texas Workforce Commission hearing.  We were armed with the videos, and expected an easy victory. 

The TWC lifer asked Woodchuck if he ever posted signs in the factory about NO SLEEPING ON THE JOB, or NO SLEEPING ON FORKLIFTS. 

Woodchuck replied that he had not.  (He also doesn't have signs about NO SHITTING ON THE BREAKROOM FLOOR, and NO RAPING EMPLOYEES ON THE SLIDING TABLE SAW). 

Because of this glaring oversight we lost the case.  Jukt Micronics will have to pay for Snoozy's unemployment compensation for up to 99 weeks. 

I'll go to my grave believing that the ridiculous number of people collecting unemployment is a campaign strategy.  Increasing the duration of unemployement compensation is a campaign strategy.  (I've lost some compensation claims that I know I'd have won five or six years ago.  One instance involves firing someone for Indecent Exposure.  There were multiple witnesses to the crime.  And Jukt Micronics now has to pay the perverted sonofabitch unemployment for 99 weeks because I supposedly threatened the guy.) 

If Barack Obama wants to bring jobs back to the U.S., there are some simple ways to do it.  He could make the U.S. a less hostile place for employers.  He could stop rigging the tax code in favor of people who do things that he likes.  He could resign. 

When I get to work today, I'm putting signs up about NO SLEEPING ON THE JOB and NO SLEEPING ON FORKLIFTS, just to be safe.  And I'm going to explain why. 

Anyone who hires someone in the United States is taking a huge, huge risk. 

If the economy is improving....

Here's Michelle Obama, speaking to some mannequins, clothes-horses and talking heads in Hollywood:

First Lady Michelle Obama cited "remarkable progress" on the economy during a speech for a small crowd of high-profile Hollywood names in Los Angeles on Tuesday evening.

"In the last three years, we've worked hard to get out of this mess and we've made some remarkable progress," the first lady told a group of about 135 supporters at a private campaign event for her husband. She listed President Obama's accomplishments on healthcare reform, the removal of troops from Iraq and the repeal of "Don't ask, don't tell" among other items on the list of "promises kept" touted by Obama's reelection campaign.

This is from the ever-cheerful Economic Collapse Blog, via a link from Instapundit:

When they try to convince you that the economy is getting better, ask them these questions....

If the economy is getting better, then why did new home sales in the United States hit a brand new all-time record low during 2011?

If the economy is getting better, then why are there 6 million less jobs in America today than there were before the recession started?

If the economy is getting better, then why is the average duration of unemployment in this country close to an all-time record high?

If the economy is getting better, then why has the number of homeless female veterans more than doubled?

If the economy is getting better, then why has the number of Americans on food stamps increased by 3 million since this time last year and by more than 14 million since Barack Obama entered the White House?

If the economy is getting better, then why has the number of children living in poverty in America risen for four years in a row?

If the economy is getting better, then why is the percentage of Americans living in "extreme poverty" at an all-time high?

If the economy is getting better, then why is the Federal Housing Administration on the verge of a financial collapse?

If the economy is getting better, then why do only 23 percent of American companies plan to hire more employees in 2012?

If the economy is getting better, then why has the number of self-employed Americans fallen by more than 2 million since 2006?

If the economy is getting better, then why did an all-time record low percentage of U.S. teens have a job last summer?

If the economy is getting better, then why does median household income keep declining? Overall, median household income in the United States has declined by a total of 6.8% since December 2007 once you account for inflation.

If the economy is getting better, then why has the number of Americans living below the poverty line increased by 10 million since 2006?

If the economy is getting better, then why is the average age of a vehicle in America now sitting at an all-time high?

If the economy is getting better, then why are 18 percent of all homes in the state of Florida currently sitting vacant?

If the economy is getting better, then why are 19 percent of all American men between the ages of 25 and 34 living with their parents?

If the economy is getting better, then why does the number of "long-term unemployed workers" stay so high?

When Barack Obama first took office, the number of "long-term unemployed workers" in the United States was approximately 2.6 million. Today, that number is sitting at 5.6 million.

But there is some good news.

When Barack Obama first took office, an ounce of gold was going for about $850. Today, the price of an ounce of gold is over $1700.

The era of great prosperity that America has enjoyed for so long is coming to an end.

In fact, our long-term economic decline is about to accelerate.

So enjoy this "bubble of hope" while you can, because it won't last long.

Lrdy, that was depressing.  Go to the Economic collapse blog to read their recommendations for your money, your business, and your stuff.

Here's a compilation of the world's funniest dog videos. I wouldn't want to send you out of here without some kind of mood stabilizer. 



 

How To Improve The Unemployment Rate - (encourage more people to give up)

I've heard a lot of Lamestream Media members almost pissing their pants for the last few weeks, gushing over the improvements in the U.S. unemployment rate. 

Yes, some people have gone back to work.  But here's why appearances are deceiving. 

The Washington drones who monitor the nation's employment stats don't count people who give up looking for work.  If you haven't applied for a job in several months, you don't count as "unemployed".  You enter the ranks of Obama's Disappeared. 

Nearly ONE MILLION WORKERS have disappeared from the work force under the regime of Barack Obama.  That's ONE MILLION WORKERS who have said "screw it", and moved back in with Mama, decided to work off the books, become a kept man, or go into the drug trade.  ONE MILLION. 

Here's a chart showing the increased number of workers in each post-recession recovery, going back to 1954:

Hey, if you operate from Chicago, where a massive number of dead people still vote, it's just as easy to assume that ONE MILLION WORKERS don't exist.

Robert Reich is a racist

Robert Reich was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. 

As best I can tell from his Wikipedia entry, he's never done anything but teach school, practice law, or help screw up the country as a government employee.  I don't think he's ever manufactured anything but regulatory burdens. 

Reich recently came up with a list of things that The Teleprompter Jesus could do to create jobs.  Half of the suggestions were the standard "give employers a tax credit for doing things that their Lords And Masters like".  The other half were the standard "take money from one group that I don't necessarily like (rich people, unborn fetuses, banks, etc.) and give it to another group". 

But the tenth proposal perfectly reflects the lunacy to which we've all descended, and that's the one that got my blood boiling.  Here goes:

10. Impose a "severance fee" on any large business that lays off an American worker and outsources the job abroad.

Before I unload on this Statist sonofabitch, let me get in some full disclosure.  I'm proud to work for an American manufacturer.  We make things in the United States, which, considering the regulatory environment, is just about impossible.  We also outsource some work to China.  We're warehousing some stuff in Canada.  We're about to get something big going with a manufacturer in Brazil. 

But in addition to bringing things in from other places, I routinely ship our American-made (and outsourced) products to stores all over the world.  Before my vacation this past week, we loaded out 5 full-sized shipping containers of freakin' fruitstands to Chile.  Yeah.  Fruitstands.  You can make fruitstands anywhere, but people in Chile like ours.  So do our customers in Mexico, Canada and Colombia.  "Trade" works both ways. 

Before we started bringing some of the simpler products in from China, our company had 300 employees in the United States.  And less than a decade after "outsourcing these jobs", in Reich's phrase, to China, we had....

600 employees. 

Yep.  We started making some things in China and this allowed us to double our U.S. workforce.  (We've cut back to around 500 since our peak a couple of years ago, but then, there's a madman in the White House.) 

To what degree should we be punished?  And who will decide how much we should have to pay for sending work to Chinese People and then hiring more American People in the United States as a result of our increased efficiency? 

Let's get to the next bit o' goofiness in Reich's proposal...   I once spent a phenomenally dull Spring welding these weld nuts into 7 3/4 lengths of steel tube. 

Before long, we had doubled the size of our metal shop, and instead of 4 employees, we had 8.  Somebody else welded those things into the steel tubes.  Then 3 people welded them.   

Next thing you know, we've got 3 shifts and 90 people working in our metal shop.  We don't have room to breathe. 

But at the same time, customers decided that they didn't want any more weld nuts tacked into 7 3/4 lengths of steel tube.  Instead of 3 people welding the things, we cut back to just one person doing the job.  Then, for a brief period of time, we occasionally set up a robotic welder to do it. 

Now we order a couple of thousand of the things from China a couple of times a year. 

How is the law firm of Reich, Rodham, and Reid going to determine what "severance fee" we should pay?  And to whom?  Especially since the metal shop has grown to 150 employees since we sent the simpler stuff to China and since no one purchases enough of them to keep an American busy full-time? 

I bet Uncle Sam would have to hire 5 Regulatory Gremlins to monitor our company alone, which is probably the goal of Reich's proposal.  Who knows.  Moving on....

Let's assume that we're succesful in our attempt at manufacturing fruitstands in Brazil.  Let's also assume that Robert Reich persuades The Teleprompter Jesus to slap a "severance fee" on any company that manufactures anything overseas. 

Do you really think that our customers in China, Colombia, Chile, Canada and Mexico will be able to continue ordering things from me at the same price?  Or will their governments turn around and slap a "severance fee" of some sort on manufacturers who purchase my component parts and complete products?

Remember, Robert Reich was educated/indoctrinated at Oxford and Yale.  He's one of the brightest and best.  God help us all. 

Next, put yourself in a company owner's position.  If there was even a remote chance that a new product could be made in China, would you ever consider making it in the U.S. if doing so meant you might one day be required to pay a "severance fee"? 

Hell no, you wouldn't. 

You would keep your U.S. workforce on your old product line.  The new product would be made exclusively in China from Day One so no one at Reich, Rodham, and Reid could ever accuse you of laying off someone and sending that job to China.  

Finally, let's get to the racial issue.  We recently put up a new Martin Luther King Memorial on the National Mall in D.C.  Here's a quote from the base of the statue:

"our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective."

Yeah.  What King said. 

I don't give a rip about the lines of latitude and longitude where something is manufactured.  Robert Reich wants to take that into account when HE decides what HE will allow in and out of what HE thinks of as our little cage.

I don't care about the nationality of the people my employer sells to, or the arbitrary borders on a map that show where they were born.  The ones I've met have been good folks, almost without exception.  I can say the same thing about the people oversease who we purchase from.  Robert Reich thinks that nationality matters more than "the content of their character".   

I don't give a rip about the skin color of the people making my fruitstands.  Robert Reich appears to be obsessed with it.  I wonder if Reich is disturbed that the MLK statue was outsourced to a Chinese dude....

I see no other explanation than to say that I believe Robert Reich is a racist of the worst possible sort.  (And an economic idiot.)  

The cure for unemployment that we're waiting to discover

There are hundreds if not thousands of potentially devastating videos just waiting to be created about The Teleprompter Jesus and his ability to make bad situations worse.

Note the unemployment rate early on in this video, as employers defensively react to every word that this guy says.

Kinda like the way the stock market reacted during his speech on the economy.

Here's the Obama speech that employers are waiting to hear:

"Yeah, we made some mistakes.
We're not going to try to do anything else to create jobs for the rest of our lives.

Why not?

Because we suck at it.
Taking money from group A to give to group B so they will hire more people from group C ? That merely causes group A to hide their money, causes group B to create projects that Washington likes rather than consumers, and creates a nastly little political bloc out of group C.


Also, we're going to settle in on a Flat Tax system. It's going to slide between 5% and 15%. If you're homeless, you're still going to pay 5% of your "profits" to Washington. If you're Bill Gates, you're going to pay 15%. No loopholes in exchange for campaign donations. Ever.


Oh, and one other thing. ObamaCare is now over. If you hire someone, you're not expected to be his nursemaid, doctor, surgeon, or insurance agent.


I almost forgot... CardCheck is now over. If you hire someone, you don't have to worry about him banding all of your labor vendors together to force you to hire from a certain group.


I'm going to remain on vacation for the forseeable future.


Hope this helps.

Now, watch this swing....

You can program The Teleprompter Jesus, but you can't program its audience

Last week, some of the spokesmodels for The Teleprompter Jesus got booed and jeered at the lefty-ish Netroots convention. 
Now people are starting to laugh at the content of the programs that are projected through The Teleprompter's neural interface, also known as Barack Obama. 

According to Politico, The Teleprompter and its Obama hardware were sent to a fundraiser and programmed to broadcast the following statement:

"Over the last 15 months we’ve created over 2.1 million private sector jobs."

Granted, this is an idiotic statement.  For instance, I now employ about 20 good temp employees.  But because of their dismal public school educations, I've had to go through about 60 temp employees to find these 20 decent workers.  40 of them either couldn't read, couldn't write, or couldn't remember the "righty-tighty, lefty-loosey" rule for using an end wrench.  I had to release those 40 people back to the marketplace. 

The Teleprompter Programmers are counting situations like those 40 short-term jobs, some of which ended at 10:00 a.m. on the day they began, as a "job created".  (That's what they did with census workers who were re-hired for the same job multiple times.)  This is total bullshit.  The "jobs created" statistic doesn't matter.  The unemployment rate is all that matters. 

Sorry for the digression.  Back to my point....

Programmers, for the most part, are very literal people.  If you ask them to write lines of code that will cause one of the animatronic Barack Obamas to recite sentences like "Over the last 15 months we’ve created over 2.1 million private sector jobs", that's what you'll get. 

And dammit, if you ask them to record the reaction to the speech in an official White House transcript, that's what you'll get.  This is from the official transcript of Monday's fundraiser, which went out to the press around 11:30 Monday night:

"Over the last 15 months we’ve created over 2.1 million private sector jobs. (Laughter.)"

Whoops. 

According to Politico 44, this brought on a frenzy of wagering amongst the White House Press Corps, many of them betting on how long it would take the programmers to correct the reality-based transcript of the event. 
Whoever wagered closest to 4:04 p.m. Tuesday won the bets; that's when the program was altered to state "applause" instead of "laughter". 

I came of age hearing the following mantra from computer programmers:  "Computers cannot make a mistake.  People make mistakes". 

In this case, who made the mistake?  The programmers, by allowing The Teleprompter Jesus to display and broadcast an idiotic statement?  Or the audience, with their inappropriate laughter? 

Dammit, why aren't people following the program?  When can they be replaced with voters whose software doesn't have a "laughter" glitch? 

I had some really cool pictures selected to accompany this post, but the Blogspot software I use has a programming problem this morning.  Either that, or the White House programmers are already intervening and working on the "inappropriate laughter" bug that has infected the citizenry. 

Blue State Blues, Bluer Than Blue, and The Massachusetts Job Fair

A Massachusetts employment organization has canceled its annual job fair because not enough companies have come forward to offer jobs.

Richard Shafer, chairman of the Taunton Employment Task Force, says 20 to 25 employers are needed for the fair scheduled for April 6, but just 10 tables had been reserved. One table was reserved by a nonprofit that offers human services to job seekers, and three by temporary employment agencies.

Shafer tells the Taunton Daily Gazette the lack of employers means the task force won't have enough money to properly advertise the fair.

The task force has been organizing the job fair nearly every year since 1984.

Shafer says the cancellation reflects the current economy -- even though things are getting better, companies are still cautious about hiring full-time workers.

Why would Massachusetts companies be reluctant to take on new workers?
Obamacare?
Threat of new taxes?
They're in a Blue State?
Card Check has not yet been defeated?
Uncertainty?
The Fed printing money?
The White House seems determined to punish success?
Regulatory Hell?

Pick one.

Here's Michael Johnson, singing a late '70's classic.

In Praise Of Temp Services

A friend and I have been having Spontaneous Entrepreneurial Seizures (that means we want to start a small sideline business). 

We've been brainstorming the thing for a while, looking at possibilities. 

This afternoon, I was going through an online checklist of things to consider before taking a large step like this one.  One of the items was employees.  Where are you going to find them?  What are you looking for?  How much will you have to pay to attract the talent you need? 

Without even thinking about it, I made a note to myself to call a couple of Temp Services on Monday. 

Temp Services?  What the heck? 

1) Temp employees cost anywhere from 50% to 100% per hour more than the same employee is willing to work for as a permanent employee. 
2) The temp will leave you at the drop of a hat if he finds something better (and he often has the temp service in his corner working to achieve that objective.)
3) My "keep to hire" rate with temps is somewhere below 2%, and I bet I've worked with more than 100 this year alone.  I spend a lot of time re-training. 
4) My "keep for the lifetime of the project" rate with temps is somewhere below 25%.  Many of those guys are not invited back to work the next day.  Some don't even last until the first 15 minute break. 

So why in the world would anyone hire a temp, instead of hiring the worker outright? 

1) The employer doesn't have to mess with tax witholding (income tax withholding has been a temporary wartime measure since 1943).  I don't want to be in charge of paying anyone's taxes for them.  It is totally insane. 

 
2) If I hire an employee who doesn't work out, he or she can sue me for a large number of real or imaginary offenses should I end the work relationship.  It is totally insane. 

3) There's something in the works called ObamaCare ® .  You may have read something about it.  It is totally insane. 

 

4) The business we're considering is not particularly dangerous.  But have you looked at Worker's Comp insurance rates lately?  I'd rather insure an offshore oil rig than 10 typists.  It's totally insane.  Temp Services take care of insurance for you.  Yeah, it's included in the rate you pay, but the Temp Service deals with the government, not you.     

5) Then there's the gloriously mis-named Employee Free Choice Act, which would do away with secret ballots in unionization votes.  It's totally insane.   

6) In all of our conversations about starting this little sideline, we haven't had a single conversation about "Saving And Creating Jobs".  Not a single one.  We've only talked about creating something that people will value more highly than the amount it will cost us to produce it.  Can you imagine us pitching our idea to a legit bank or investor and starting the conversation with "We've come up with a way to create 50 jobs ! ! !"

No, if we want to be taken seriously, we'll have to walk in the door with a scheme that involves fewer people, not more.  The current bunch of Thieves & Looters in D.C. seem to reward people for taking the opposite approach, don't they? 
So until that mindset changes, I don't see us hiring anything but short-term temps.  The current political mess it totally insane.   

7) All businesses are forced to pay into an Unemployment Compensation Fund.  The amount you are charged depends on the number of people you release back into the marketplace without just cause.  I don't want to go through a demeaning song and dance of finding reasons to fire someone who hasn't done anything wrong, when I could pay a bit extra and have the problem taken out of my hands.  The mess my employer goes through in Human Resources is....totally insane.   

That's the way I see it right now, on 10-10-2010.  I could change my mind tomorrow.  Temp Services rule ! !

OK, Next question:  Why aren't more businesses hiring?

Fresh coats of Whitening to here and here and here and here for the pics. 

South Africa's minimum wage laws are working.

From The New York Holy Times:

....16 years after Nelson Mandela led the country to black majority rule, more than half of blacks ages 15 to 34 are without work — triple the level for whites.

....The sheriff arrived at the factory here to shut it down, part of a national enforcement drive against clothing manufacturers who violate the minimum wage. But women working on the factory floor — the supposed beneficiaries of the crackdown — clambered atop cutting tables and ironing boards to raise anguished cries against it.

Go here to read more about the racist origins of the U.S. minimum wage laws.  The authors of this legislation wanted to guarantee full white employment at the expense of blacks.  The issue was debated along those lines in Congress, and is one of the most successful pieces of legislation ever written, IF you look at it from the point of view of a Klansman.  
 
The cartoon above came from Carpe Diem, Professor Mark J. Perry's blog about economics and finance.  This next cartoon is somewhat off-topic, but I think it illustrates the same mindset. 

It's not about helping you.  It's about how I feel while I pretend to help you. 

Mowing yards, unemployment, the joys of the lake, and perverse incentives

Imagine that you need to find a neighborhood kid to mow your lawn. 
You bang on three different doors, but none of the kids want to come outside.  You learn that the parents at all three houses are paying their children to "house sit".  The kids could make a little more money mowing yards than house-sitting (i.e. - doing nothing) but not much.  It's not worth their while to get up and mow yards just for an additional, say, $1.00 per hour. 
For you, the frustrating thing is that all three groups of parents owe you money.  They are using your money to pay the kids to sit and play video games, watch TV, and surf the internet all day. 
So you either mow your own yard or you hire a lawn service whose employees are already putting in 60 hours a week. 

*******

I've been unemployed before, once for about 4 weeks.  It wasn't fun, but it was comfortable.  I went to the unemployment office downtown, filled out some paperwork, and then checked my mailbox for a check every week. 
I made a few efforts to find jobs that paid as much as the one I had lost.  There were none. 
Every two or three days I put on a suit and made the interview rounds, but The Cooking Channel beckoned.  Blockbuster Video had tons of movies I'd not yet rented.  Short trips to the lake were suddenly possible every day. 
Various companies offered me jobs that were almost exactly the amount of my unemployment compensation.  But why in the world would I want to take one of those and work for 40 hours a week when I could get the same amount by staying at home and learning how to cook Peking Duck and watching old episodes of Monty Python?  Where were the incentives? 
The incentives eventually came in the form of Mrs. Whited, who told me to take a job, any job, because she was tired of coming home from working all day and seeing me unshaved, unwashed, and on the couch. 
I took a job that paid around .75 cents an hour more than my unemployment compensation.  Within about a year and a half, I was up to my old salary again. 
But man, it was hard to tear myself away from cable TV, Blockbuster Video, and the lake. 

******

I've interviewed three different people in the last month who knew that the jobs I was trying to fill were perfect for them.  They knew that they would fit in well.  They had friends who worked for me.  They were perfect for what I needed. 
But dammit, the government was also paying them (with your money) to sit at home.  The government's pay rate is about 80% of what I offer to start at some of those jobs. 
Unemployment insurance is a good thing.  But when it is automatically extended and extended and extended, just to show how compassionate politicians are in an election year, it can totally destroy incentives.  But get ready for a barrage of political ads denouncing the evil meanies in Congress who voted against extending unemployment benefits through the end of The Obamessiah's term.   

******

Hope everybody had a good 4th.  I'm gonna go get they guys started in one of the warehouses and then see if I can find a kid to mow my yard.

******

Addition: Go here to see a totally different point of view from The Obamessiah's pet journalist/economist Paul Krugman.  Mr. Krugman neglects to mention the root cause of so much of the unemployment we're seeing - The Teleprompter Jesus demonizing employers, forcing corporations to become nannies, and demanding that those who put their capital at risk pay even more tribute money to Washington if they're succesful.  
I've been able to see things from Paul Krugman's point of view a few times in the past, but it was uncomfortable having my head that far up my ass.    

What "Turning The Corner" Looks Like

To paraphrase Vice-President Biden, this is one Big F***ing Graph:

I found it over at the Ace Of Spades HQ. 

From the comments: 
So this is what Barry's laser like focus on the economy gets you.

And then:
Yeah, if he applied such focus to foreign policy we'd be at war with everybody but the Cubans.

John Jay Myers explains why government shouldn't try to create jobs

Check out this video, where John Jay Myers takes a deep breath, briefly sets aside his non-aggression policy, and fisks an Obama Town Hall meeting.
He explains why the government has absolutely no business running a job creation crusade. (Look how well it worked out for FDR.)

This is why Texas needs John Jay Myers in Congress.

In the words of one of John Jay's friends, everyone in this Town Hall meeting should be beaten about the head and shoulders with a copy of Atlas Shrugged.
JJM is having a fundraiser/campaign kickoff this Thursday night at Sambuca in Dallas. 6:00 p.m.

Are you unemployed?????

Like so many other good things in life, this came from Instapundit.

Saturday Morning Reading

Where to begin, where to begin....
Let's start with the left, briefly pause in what passes for the center, move through the right, and then get to the good stuff.
From Talking Points Memo.

President Obama took questions today after giving a speech on the economy at a community college in Pennsylvania. The first question, from a college sophomore, challenged Obama to look at new ways of creating jobs.
"I really appreciate how you're trying to stimulate the economy," the student said. "Maybe, if you checked out some of the statistics about legalizing prostitution, gambling, drugs and non-violent crime in order to stimulate some of the economy."
The audience broke into giggles.
"I appreciate the boldness of your question. That will not be my jobs strategy," Obama responded, to more giggles. "Part of what you're supposed to do in college is question conventional wisdom. So you're doing exactly what you're supposed to be doing."

But there was no response from The Teleprompter Jesus on why he's going to continue spending billions fighting victimless crimes and imprisoning the participants.

Also from Talking Points Memo, an ugly little story on 8 million incidents of police requesting GPS data. I don't think any warrants were required....

Under a new system set up by Sprint, law enforcement agencies have gotten GPS data from the company about its wireless customers 8 million times in about a year, raising a host of questions about consumer privacy, transparency, and oversight of how police obtain location data.

What this means -- and what many wireless customers no doubt do not realize -- is that with a few keystrokes, police can determine in real time the location of a cell phone user through automated systems set up by the phone companies.
And while a Sprint spokesman told us customers can shield themselves from surveillance by simply switching off the GPS function of their phones, one expert told TPM that the company and other carriers almost certainly have the power to remotely switch the function back on.

They know where you are. They know when you are there. They aren't bothering to get 8 million warrants, either.
One more thing from Talking Points Memo:

The New Jersey state senate is scheduled to vote on legalizing gay marriage next week.
Sen. Ray Lesniak (D) announced Thursday on the Statehouse steps that the Judiciary Committee will take up the bill on Monday. The full senate will vote on the measure Thursday.

Coming just days after the New York state senate defeated a gay marriage bill, the New Jersey votes present a big risk. It's not clear if the votes are there.

That's enough of Talking Points Memo. Reading their other crap about Copenhagen, the merits of a Pelosian Healthcare System, and.....well, it makes my head hurt. Let's move on to the mainstream middle:

CNN has a link on their front page entitled Big Improvement For Job Market. Our unemployment rate, according to those who keep the books, has gone from 10.2% to 10.0% ! ! ! Hit the second link. I think so many people were laughing about it that they took down the story.
That's enough from CNN. In the words of God in the Book Of Revelation, Chapter 3, verse 16, "But since you are like lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth."
Here's some stuff from Real Clear Politics, one of the best political aggregator sites:

The Washington Post is waking up from its Rip Van Winkle-ish slumber to report on Climaquiddick a little more. Those poor guys have been distracted by the giant sucking sound of all the potential grant, research, and stimulus money going back to the taxpayers as a result of the leaked emails.

It began with an anonymous Internet posting, and a link to a wonky set of e-mails and files. Stolen, apparently, from a research center in Britain, the files showed the leaders of climate-change science discussing flaws in their own data, and seemingly scheming to muzzle their critics.
Now it has mushroomed into what is being called "Climate-gate," a scandal that has done what many slide shows and public-service ads could not: focus public attention on the science of a warming planet.
Except now, much of that attention is focused on the science's flaws. Leaked just before international climate talks begin in Copenhagen -- the culmination of years of work by scientists to raise alarms about greenhouse-gas emissions -- the e-mails have cast those scientists in a political light and given new energy to others who think the issue of climate change is all overblown.
The e-mails don't say that: They don't provide proof that human-caused climate change is a lie or a swindle.

Well, yeah, they do. They were government funded, they were trying to raid The Treasury, they were acting to silence criticism, and they've thrown away all the original data. Much like the outfit in East Anglia, NASA has been ignoring Freedom Of Information Act requests for two years.

The RCP guys also link to a New York Times piece by Obama Economics Apologist, Bush Basher, and therefore Nobel Prize Winner, Paul Krugman, who says that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has done a very bad thing.

At his confirmation hearing for a second term as chairman, Bernanke emphasized that the government has spent less than half of the money in the $787-billion package passed earlier this year and that analysts are still determining its impact.

“Only about 30 percent of the funds have been disbursed,” Bernanke said. “It’s a little bit early to make a strong judgment, a little bit early to decide whether or not to do additional fiscal actions.”

Krugman responded to the Bernanke quote with the following: "Bear in mind also that fiscal policy is slow to get underway. Waiting to be absolutely, totally sure that we really need more strikes me as deeply irresponsible."

"This was a very unhelpful statement."

You're dang right, it was unhelpful. There's going to be some kind of changing of the guard in 2010, the clock is ticking, and the Red Digital Readout is working its way down to zero.

Bernanke's most irresponsible acts? He won't allow an audit of The Fed. He won't shut down The Fed. But he has one advantage that Paul Krugman doesn't.
Bernanke isn't totally full of bullshit. Bullshit is not leaking from his ears. Bullshit doesn't impact Bernanke's ability to walk without slipping in it.

This is taking longer than I thought, and I have to go help with a church project we're doing with a low-income family. I'm gonna hit "Publish Post", and comment on some other links later today. Sorry.
*********************

Ok, I'm back. Let's move on to the good folks at Hot Air. They've got a story about some Afghan guerillas parading into an abandoned U.S. military facility in Nuristan province.

“Glad Tidings of Victory,” a video released by the Taliban’s Al-Emirat video production unit, shows the Afghan guerrillas strutting around an abandoned U.S. military base in Nuristan province. Taking a filmed “victory” lap around an American facility might make some sense as a propaganda tool. But taking a giggly victory lap on an elliptical in said base – as two Taliban enthusiastically do in the video – is a big infowar fail."

"....While some items can make for effective propaganda symbols, the display of (of Taliban fighters exercising on) lower body exercise machines, generally speaking, tends to dilute their impact."

I've brought this story to the attention of The Jihadist Safety Consultant, and he'll probably chime in sometime next week. We can't have terrorists working out on infidel exercise equipment without proper training, can we?
They've got another link to a Pajama's Media piece on the Dutch team that's been studying the ice cap on Mount Kilimanjaro.

Newspapers and news sites in the Netherlands today extensively broke the news of the findings of a research team led by Professor Jaap Sinninghe Damste — a leading molecular paleontologist at Utrecht University and winner of the prestigious Spinoza Prize — about the melting icecap of the Kilimanjaro, the African mountain that became a symbol of anthropogenic global warming.

Professor Sinninghe Damste’s research, as discussed on the site of the Dutch Organization of Scientific Research (DOSR) — a governmental body — shows that the icecap of Kilimanjaro was not the result of cold air but of large amounts of precipitation which fell at the beginning of the Holocene period, about 11,000 years ago.

The melting and freezing of moisture on top of Kilimanjaro appears to be part of “a natural process of dry and wet periods.” The present melting is not the result of “environmental damage caused by man.”

....DOSR calls Al Gore’s iconic use of the melting cap of Kilimanjaro “unfortunate” — since it now seems to be mainly the result of “natural climate variations.”

With the exception of handing Ross Perot some portraits of Smoot and Hawley, Gore's entire career has been "unfortunate". His Grammys, Oscars, and Nobels were "unfortunate". But his iconic use of the melting cap of Kilimanjaro has been a godsend.
Yes, we should be grateful for Gore's choice. We are fortunate.
There would've been no way to disprove an Al Gore scam to save the melting ice cap on Mount Asfertimondig Hoittpifflesteinin Grogger on the forbidden planet Nekthar.

Hot Air also links to a Weekly Standard piece on Climaquiddick:

No drug company could get through the FDA approval process with data handling this slapdash, yet the climate policy process contemplates trillions of dollars in costs to economies around the world based partially on this incompetent work. Worse, it suggests the possibility that the CRU circle might not be able to replicate its own findings from scratch, let alone outside reviewers. No wonder Mann keeps issuing new versions of his hockey stick....

Climate change is a genuine phenomenon, and there is a nontrivial risk of major consequences in the future. Yet the hysteria of the global warming campaigners and their monomaniacal advocacy of absurdly expensive curbs on fossil fuel use have led to a political dead end that will become more apparent with the imminent collapse of the Kyoto-Copenhagen process. I have long expected that 20 or so years from now we will look back on the turn-of-the-millennium climate hysteria in the same way we look back now on the population bomb hysteria of the late 1960s and early 1970s--as a phenomenon whose magnitude and effects were vastly overestimated, and whose proposed solutions were wrongheaded and often genuinely evil (such as the forced sterilizations of thousands of Indian men in the 1970s, much of it funded by the Ford Foundation).
Today the climate campaigners want to forcibly sterilize the world's energy supply, and until recently they looked to be within an ace of doing so. But even before Climategate, the campaign was beginning to resemble a Broadway musical that had run too long, with sagging box office and declining enthusiasm from a dwindling audience. Someone needs to break the bad news to the players that it's closing time for the climate horror show.

Of course Climate Change is a genuine phenomenon. It's a freakin' cliche. "If you don't like the weather in Texas, just wait a few minutes", etc etc etc.
Thank God this farce is almost over. But think of the millions that industry, interest groups, and individuals have had to spend to protect themselves from the Statist Chicken Littles.

That's enough from the Left, the Right, and the bland Center. On to the Libertarian-leaning forces of goodness.....
Here's some stuff from Reason magazine's Hit & Run section.

First, they link to something in The Nation, where you can get a Garden Noam For Your Killing Fields. (It's a Noam Chomsky pun. Lefty academic Noam Chomsky was an apologist for Cambodia's Killing Fields. Get it? A Garden Noam For Your Killing Fields?)

....along with a Karl Marx plush toy,

....and some Great Revolutionaries Finger puppets.

That's Gandhi on the far left, whose non-materialist philosophy required the wealth of 3 princes to maintain, and whose peaceful approach required hundreds of thousands of soldiers to implement.
Then there's mass-murderer Che Guevera.
Then there's Leon Trotsky, whose revolution resulted in the death of millions from purges, starvation, or worse. Yeah, worse.
And finally, on the far right, Nelson Mandela.
Chomsky, Marx, Gandhi, Che, Trotsky, and Mandela. Treat those guys like an SAT question. Five were famous statists, one was a victim of the state. Circle the correct answer.

But wait, there's more. They've also got a link to a Bowlsheviks bowling T-shirt that you can order through Mother Jones for only $39.95. It has Lenin's profile on the bowler !

Lord have mercy. I guest if you're dense enough to continue buying into The Nation's post-Marxist, death of the Bolshevik dream, collectivist nostalgia, you're probably dense enough to purchase a $39.95 T-shirt.

Reason also has some good stuff on Climaquiddick.

Americans honor the courageous informant, the gutsy citizen who stands against the savagery of the profit-mongering conglomerate. Well, sometimes. It appears, believe it or not, that there are those who aren't religiously tethered to this sacred obligation.

....Yet Barbara Boxer, the Democratic chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, is off hunting bigger game.

"You call it 'ClimateGate'; I call it 'E-mail-theft-gate,'" Boxer clarified during a committee shindig. "We may well have a hearing on this; we may not. We may have a briefing for senators; we may not." Boxer, as steady as they come, went on to put the focus where it belongs: on hackers. She warned: "Part of our looking at this will be looking at a criminal activity which could have well been coordinated. ... This is a crime."

If this hacker(s) is unearthed on U.S. soil (or anywhere in the Middle East, actually), Boxer can jettison the guilty party to Gitmo for some well-deserved sleep deprivation.

The more we get into this mess, the more it looks like a whistleblower, not a leaker. Remember when Whistleblowers were Time magazine's Person Of The Year a while back?

Somehow, I don't think this anonymous whistleblowing (or hacking) hero will get that honor. This hit 'em all where it hurts.

Let's move on to Radley Balko's Agitator blog. Mr. Balko has a link to the greatest newspaper correction ever published.

And here's a surprising story on Senator Max Baucus....

....the man who is apparently going to save health care for all of America nominated his girlfriend to be a U.S. Attorney. So yeah. I can’t see any problem with having our health care system dictated by politicians. No problem at all. I’m sure all decisions will be made based on what’s best for America and stuff. Never on what’s best for the politicians themselves.

It's because Free Market Capitalism is just too corrupt.

Now let's move on to Instapundit.

Instapundit has a link to something written by Free Market Goddess Virginia Postrel called "Gifts And The Knowledge Problem".

An article in Sunday’s NYT travel section carries the season-appropriate headline, “Brad Pitt’s Gifts to New Orleans.”

The piece suggests, rather gently, that the actor has made a common mistake: giving what pleases him rather than what the recipient wants.

The displaced residents of the Ninth Ward would like comfortable, inexpensive, and quickly available houses.

Pitt prefers cutting-edge architecture. Residents are grateful for his generosity and good wishes, but their gratitude is tinged with regret for what might have been if he’d heeded their desires.
....The problem of buying good presents for other people, even people you supposedly know well, illustrates that old familiar Hayekian concept, the knowledge problem. If you can't even give your loved ones the right presents, how likely is it that a central authority could make the right decisions for everyone?

Well, Virginia, I believe in Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. I trust them to make the best decisions for my health, my company, my family, and whether or not we should go to other continents and shoot people. Who needs knowledge when we have this level of trust?

Finally, Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit shares an update to one of his favorite charts. The lines in blue were provided by The Teleprompter Jesus Economic Team. The red lines are provided by employers who are scared shitless about what those Messiahs are going to do next, and are understandably reluctant to invest anything with this batch of goobers at the helm.

Please remember this chart the next time you hear them call for another Stimulus Package.

That's it for today, Saturday November 5th, 2009. I can't believe there are bloggers out there who claim there's never anything to write about.

Jacob Weisberg - Obama's Brilliant First Year

Jacob Weisberg has an article at Slate.com called "Obama's Brilliant First Year".
The subheading reads "By January, he will have accomplished more than any first-year president since Franklin Roosevelt".

They always say that like it's a good thing.

The idea of busier equals better has always mystified me. When people say that FDR got us through the depression, it's kinda like saying that Kennedy and LBJ got us through Viet Nam.

Here's the unemployment rate for FDR's term(s) in office. Remember, he was jacking around with the economy, Congress had jacked around with imports and trade, and no one had any idea what insane stunt they were going to try next.

Disregard that line running through the 20% mark. We're probably at about 11% unemployment right now, and the worst mark the year after the stock market crash was 14%.

We wouldn't see those happy times again until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Business will not expand in an unstable environment. As long as The Teleprompter Jesus is publicly considering Cap And Trade, as long as he's considering Card Check, as long as he's considering adding to inflation with a second Stimulus Package, as long as he's considering making health insurance mandatory for all employers, employers aren't going to put their money at risk. You wouldn't either.

We won't see anything below 10% unemployment until after the 2010 elections, an event future historians will call "The Great Rebuke".

Update from Monday a.m., November 30th.... Go here to read a Roger Kimball dissection of the Weisberg piece. It's called "Humor from Jacob Weisberg", and is worth the trip.

Mr. Kimball and I once had an email exchange about Lewis Lapham, editor of Harper's magazine. I remember that he used the word "egregious".

Roger Kimball. Interesting guy.

Paul Krugman - Lets imitate Germany

Here's Paul Krugman, who won a Nobel in Economics for consistently saying that the economic policies of George W. Bush, the failed economic policies of the past 8 years, were bad, bad, bad.

Free to Lose - Paul Krugman

Consider, for a moment, a tale of two countries. Both have suffered a severe recession and lost jobs as a result — but not on the same scale. In Country A, employment has fallen more than 5 percent, and the unemployment rate has more than doubled. In Country B, employment has fallen only half a percent, and unemployment is only slightly higher than it was before the crisis.

Don’t you think Country A might have something to learn from Country B?

Well, if someone were genuinely curious about the question, he would first ask "From what baseline are both countries starting?"

This story isn’t hypothetical. Country A is the United States, where stocks are up, G.D.P. is rising, but the terrible employment situation just keeps getting worse. Country B is Germany, which took a hit to its G.D.P. when world trade collapsed, but has been remarkably successful at avoiding mass job losses. Germany’s jobs miracle hasn’t received much attention in this country — but it’s real, it’s striking, and it raises serious questions about whether the U.S. government is doing the right things to fight unemployment.

Mr. Krugman might want to amend that to read "has been remarkably successful at avoiding additional mass job losses."
He goes on to suggest new programs to pay employers for employees that they don't need, using money from, uhmmm....you.
But, I digress.
Here's the German unemployment rate, relative to the U.S.

Go here to see some additional history. Any U.S. political party that tried to emulate Germany's economic policies and results - 10% unemployment during the previous economic boom - would be thrown out.

Every now and then, we have to drop back and punt. If we aren't happy with the results, we throw out the current regime and put in a new one.

Don’t you think Country A might have something to learn from Country B?

No.

In closing, here's an October, 2009 article about German Chancellor Angela Merkel's next challenge: Germany's rising unemployment rate.

What the hell was Krugman thinking?

Die quickly, mainstream media. Die quickly.

Update from 8:00 p.m. Here's what Don Boudreaux of George Mason University had to say about Krugman's article. Posted a couple of hours after mine, and making the same points and then some.

What does this mean? It means that if GMU Economics Professors and Fort Worth Shipping Managers take time out of their day to rip your editorials to shreds, just because its so dang easy, you should consider hiring a fact-checker.

Projected Unemployment - with Porkulus, without Porkulus, and Reality Based

This is from Greg Mankiw's blog. Mankiw is an Economics professor at Harvard, where he teaches Econ 101 to our future elites, so they can forget everything he's taught them when they go to be our Lords And Masters in government (ahem) "service".

The light blue line shows what the Teleprompter Jesus predicted would happen if he wasn't allowed to throw $750,000,000.00 to Wall Street, the Unions, Detroit, ACORN, and various manufacturing friends. This 3/4 of a Trillion was to be spent on bridges, roads, and Turtle-Tunnels. This line blue line was generated by Team Obama prior to the bailout. At the time, this line represented the scariest unemployment number imaginable.

The dark blue unemployment line shows what the Teleprompter Jesus predicted would happen if we would just allow his buddies to get into your wallet. Or purse. Or, more accurately, your childrens' savings. This line looks a lot better than that light blue scary line, doesn't it? Once again, these were Team Obama's estimates. What a nice, soothing dark blue line.... Too bad it's as fake as....well....as fake as a thing that somebody made up to get their hands on some money.

The line composed of the red dots represents what has actually happened with unemployment in the real world, as opposed to the scenarios fabricated by The Chicago Gang. What direction do the red dots seem to be going?

Let me state this one more time, and I'll try to be brief. If you take money from taxpayers to "create" a job, it doesn't count. You're just moving money from the shallow end to the deep end of the pool. The people you're taking the money from don't get to choose which job the money is spent on. Nancy Pelosi gets to decide.

If you print money to "create" a job, that doesn't count either. It produces inflation, now or in the future. We've got a certain amount of money, and a certain amount of stuff. We use one to swap for the other.

Want to create some jobs, some great jobs? Lower the tax burden on business and individuals. Give entrepreneurs a reason to open a factory here, as opposed to, say, North Korea. Encourage the entrepreneurs to get filthy rich, Social Justice be damned. Otherwise, they're going to keep going John Galt on you, and sit on their hands until someone takes over in Washington who is slightly less full of Llama manure.

Want to create some more great jobs? Drop all this business about tax cuts for small and medium-sized businesses. Regardless of the Newspeak coming from D.C., corporations don't pay taxes. Individuals in those companies pay the taxes. Owners, investors, and employees. You don't think that the janitors at a mega-company receive less pay because of corporate taxes? Guess again. At least some of the money flushed to Washington comes out of their potential pay.

Next time some Student Council Refugee starts blathering about tax cuts for small and medium-sized business, he's talking about a tax cut for the #1,#2, and #3 people at those small companies. The #53,487th employee at the mega-corporation isn't eligible for this compassionate tax relief.

Want to create some more great jobs? De-regulate. De-regulate. De-regulate. Remember that the subprime mortgage/real estate crisis was caused by people following regulations to the letter.

Remember that employers aren't looking to hire indentured servants, dependents, or vassals who are going to be with the family for decades. Do you want to set up a business and be required to provide for the health insurance of other people? Do you want a piece of that? Well, most people don't. They also don't want to be lectured on the subject by a 3rd rate Community Organizer who couldn't organize a Chinese Fire Drill in a dead K-mart parking lot.

Let insurance companies operate anywhere in the U.S., so that changing jobs isn't such a risky endeavor. Is there anything that locks someone into a job more than insurance?

Want to do even more, especially for teenagers? End the fake "minimum wage". (The real minimum wage is Zero, and 26% of teenagers are now earning it, the most since World War II.) Let employers pay whatever they want to pay. Let workers agree to work for whatever wage they're willing to take. The teenagers would get some experience. The employers would get some help in a tough time. New businesses would take off. Next thing you know, the employers would have to pay the good workers more and more as they established themselves. It really would be "stimulative" for the economy. Millions of people would find work and make money, but we'll never do it. We're too compassionate.

Oh well. Those are the numbers. This is what we get when government must intervene. For government to do nothing would be irresponsible.

Note to the turtles: I hope you like the tunnels.