True U.S. Unemployment is 17%

FROM TODAY'S WASHINGTON POST:

"The government’s broader measure of unemployment, sometimes referred to “true unemploytment,” now stands at 17.1 percent. As  the Washington Post’s Frank Ahrens puts it, you are not included in the “official” unemployment rate if, a) you would like to have a full-time job but can find only part-time work, and b) if you’ve grown so discouraged at finding work, you’ve simply given up

 Writing recently about increasingly bleak unemployment picture, Paul Krugman, NY Times' economics guru, says, "enormous harm" will come to American families. "You just need to think about how many people are unemployed now for long periods of time. Large numbers of people who have lost their jobs and will never get another if we don't change our policies."

Now that virtually one out of six American workers is out of a job and very little hope of finding one in the near or foreseeable future, it is the duty of the U.S. government to treat the situation seriously and take aggressive steps to find some real solutions.  When the people of France were unable to buy bread, Louis the XIV's doxy, Marie Antoinette, suggested "Let them eat cake" in reply French citizens cut off her head and Louis' as well.

The causes of our current debacle are many but not least of these is obsession with profits "uber alles" Social responsibility and moral integrity have vanished. Currently, our "captains of industry" are stockpiling cash for the moment when (and maybe if) the economy turns around and the American consumer starts another buying spree that will lift us out of the pits we are now mired in up to our necks. However these business leaders seem to ignore the simple fact that we can't spend what we haven't got.