April 10, 2013

"Discouraged" Workforce? Or Peter-Pan Syndrome?

Hatched by Dafydd

A "grand bargain" on immigration reform looms, and a new study shows that (legal) immigrants are less assimilated than they used to be, and much less American than native-born Americans:

All sides in the debate agree that assimilation is critical, but in a report being released Monday, the Hudson Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank, says the country has failed on that account in recent years.

They found that immigrants -- even those who earn U.S. citizenship -- have far less attachment to their new home than native-born Americans. Among the findings are that native-born citizens are more likely to view the U.S. as “better” than other countries, more likely to see English as central to the American experience, and more likely to see the U.S. Constitution as a higher legal authority than international law.

The core data comes from 2008, before Barack "Transformer" Obama took office. But it's hard to believe that the years since have ushered in a new era of patriotism and American exceptionalism among legal immigrants... when we already know it has usherd in a new era of unAmericanism among the general population.

Take last Friday's monthly employment report. With an additional 626,000 folks dropping out of the labor force in March, with the labor participation rate at its lowest level since 1978, we seem to be living in the era of so-called "discouraged workers."

Don't you believe it: It's actually the era of mass merging into the mindless ministration and manipulation of the Mommy State; more and more Americans have reverted to childhood, if they ever left it -- the classic Peter-Pan Syndrome, or "puer aeternus."

Under Obamunism, millions of Americans have fled the workforce for Mommy, where Mommy has become the super-State. From January 2003 (when the recession ended) to January 2009, the labor participation rate dropped from 66.4% to 65.7% -- 0.7% over six years, or 0.12% per year. But between 2009 and today (January 2013), the participation rate dropped from 65.7 to 63.6, 2.1% over four years -- 0.53% per year, almost four and a half times the rate during the Bush administration.

That 2.1 % represents 3.3 million fewer workers than we would have had had the rate remained constant. These former workers (or never-workers) escape into "permanent and total disability" status, welfare, and endless unemployment-compensation extensions. Net result is an ostensible adult who:

  • Has no job and no real interest in getting one.
  • Pays no income or payroll taxes ("taxes are for suckers!").
  • Spends his time engaged in childish (gluttony) or adolescent (lust) pursuits.
  • Often lives with his aged parents, leeching off their employment end-game or retirement pension; or alternatively has obtained government-paid free housing -- at taxpayer's expense.
  • And "lives" (if one can call it that) on the allowance paid by the federal, state, and local doles -- and ultimately supported by the remaining few working men and women.

He contributes nothing to society. He contributes nothing (well nothing positive) to the economy. He innovates nothing, creates nothing, has nothing interesting to say, has no interest in either joining the social compact or being a rugged and self-supporting individualist. He learns nothing, but likely spends eight to twelve hours a day ranting on "social media." He has dropped out of civilization and wants only to be coddled for the rest of his life.

By this means has Obamunism brought us low by the utter destruction of the American work ethic. Any family which supports itself without suckling at the Leviathan's teat must fight daily not to feel like a world-class chump, destiny's doormat.

This cycle can be fatal to democracy or even a republic; to repeat what is likely a spurious quotation from Alexander Fraser Tytler:

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy.

"Benefits," as in, free stuff. Well, the Obamunists have not only discovered that bit about voting themselves largess; Barack "O.P.M." Obama trumpets it in every stump speech he has ever given.

This brings us to begging. Has anybody else noticed an increase, not necessarily in begging per se, but an increasingly cavalier attitude by what we used to call "middle class" Americans? My eyes were first opened many years ago, was when I was shopping in a Galleria. As I walked in, two girls about thirteen or fourteen and dressed in what looked like expensive clothes approached and put the bite on me for quarters.

They might have gotten more sympathy from me if they weren't begging directly in front of the videogame arcade.

Since then, I have seen more and more people begging while nonchalantly swilling Jack Daniels; while wearing expensive jewelry and clothing (or $300 Reeboks); while chatting on a smart phone or listening to an iPod; while wearing large and outlandish, full-color, pricey tattoos; and a whole passel of people begging me for money when they look like they just finished eating the regular beggar for that station -- boots, buckles, blood chemicals, and all.

(The idea that begging can be more lucrative than working has existed for more than a century, as evinced by the 1891 Sherlock Holmes story, "the Man with the Twisted Lip.")

Used to be that people had a sense of shame; when did it become acceptable, even fashionable, to beg -- or nowadays, to demand! -- money for nothing, without the slightest sense of remorse? Whether from a naive sucker who buys the beggar's sob story, or from a government Ponzi scheme, they all still want money for breathing.

But at least street beggars don't take your "spare" change willy nilly, whether you offer it or not; in that sense, I'd rather a beggar than a welfare queen or king!

I don't know what percent of America has fully surrendered itself to Never Never Land, but I'd bet a thousand dollars of your money that it's a lot higher today than it was even in 1980 -- and parsecs beyond what it was in "the worst depression in American history," the Roosevelt catastrophe of the 1930s. The gullible believe that wealth grows on a mighty wealth tree (and should be exactly the same amount for each person), that any and all spending is "stimulative" (no matter how stupidly wasted), and that the Smart Man can surely run the economy better and more efficient than a horde of millions of plain folks, each working for his own enlightened self-interest. (The fatal conceit!)

We have become a nation of beggars, moochers, and looters. So what are we going to do about it? (See next post for an answer, for good or for ill.)

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, April 10, 2013, at the time of 2:37 AM

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