...Jobs

Where are the jobs? The jobs report for August showed that there were NO new jobs created. Also, the job creation totals for July were cut to 85,000 from 117,000, and for June to just 20,000 from last month’s estimate of 46,000. We will all be watching the President's speech this Thursday about his plan for creating jobs, but it will be a lot of talk and just talk, nothing he can do. His administrations said they expect the unemployment rate of 9.1% to stay that way until the end of 2012... Black or white, educated or not, man or women unemployment seems to be affecting everyone. I keep hearing about companies looking for people who are "qualified" for the positions the need filled. They claim that they just cannot find them. That may be true, but why not train them? In 2011 most people are trained to do tech jobs over labor and skill jobs, but if trained anyone could get the job done. Of course everyone want sot blame Washington now and they may be able to, but for how much of it? Taxing companies may or may not work. For sure that will give the government more money but it will not change the unemployment situations. Basically this is becoming the new norm. If you have a job keep it and if you do not... I am giving this news a Digit Down. I am also preparing for another recession.

...North Dakota

Are you looking for a job? Well pack up and move to North Dakota! It is the state way up North, close to Canada, the state that no one lives in, no one has cared about since the movie "Fargo" and the floods, but has a surplus of jobs. In May non farm payroll employment was up 4.3% from the year before, and the unassuming state sported a gaudy 3.2% unemployment rate. In several counties, the rate is below one percent. The state jobs office has 15,205 listings, up 64% from May 2010. North Dakota, which is one of the smallest states by population (about 670,000) and one of the largest geographically, has .7 unemployed persons for every job opening. In the U.S., the labor force participation rate is an anemic 64.2%. In North Dakota, it stands at 74%. Oil is a major part of this increase of money int he state. Last year they produced 113 million barrels of American oil, yay! President of the North Dakota Petroleum Council said, "On any given Monday, we've got 1,700 job openings directly related to the oil industry." If that is not a job you would want think about McDonalds. There an entry level job pays $12.50 to $15.00 an hour. Even low-skilled jobs can command high wages: $1,500 per week for cooks or $1,000 per week for housekeepers. Could North Dakota be the new Texas? Possibly. I cannot imagine a lot of people rushing to move there, it is a dull place, but you cannot beat jobs with great pay, even if you are used to the city life. I am giving North Dakota a Digit Up for rising up in this horrible economic time. They are doing things with oil that many other states could, but they refuse to because they are afraid of the possible toxic side effects. Do you know what is worse than possibly getting toxic waste in your water? Not having any water at all because you are homeless and jobless and your kids are crying and asking you to fix it but you cannot fix it because you are just as lost as they are. Shame on you states...shame on you. Ha!

...Jobless Actors

This first jobless actor is the guy we loved, loathed, hated, and then kind of missed. Paul Marcarelli, though still under contract, will be phased out of his acting job. Who is Paul Marcarelli? If I said "can you hear me now?" would that ring a bell? He is the Verizon guy known for his signature phrase. He has been doing those commercials for the last 9 years, wow time flys. He is happy to be moving on with this new chapter in his life, so he says. In an interview with The Atlantic he told them how at his grandmother's funeral a family friend whispered "Can you hear me now?" as her body was being lowered into the ground. Also he told them how as a gay man kids used to drive past his home in Guilford, Connecticut, at night, yelling, "Can you hear me now?" and spewing gay slurs. He says he never filed a police report because he was afraid of the publicity. He needed the $6,000 per commercial job, and he did not want to jeopardize that at all. Now he is moving on and he has already written and co-produced "The Green," about a gay couple who are ostracized living in a small town. He added, "I still want to make something of value." Good luck to you with that I say.

Now we move on to the actors and actresses of "All My Children" and "One Life to Live". ABC announced that they will bee cancelling these daytime soap opera classics. CBS has already cancelled most of theirs so why not follow. I guess they plan on replacing them with future talk shows...oy. "All My Children" will end in September 2011 while "One Life to Live" will finish its run in January 2012. "All My Children" premiered on January 5, 1970 and has received more than 30 Emmy Awards. "One Life to Live" debuted on July 15, 1968, and received its first Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series in 2002. I am sure there will be a lot of elders and a lot of housewives and some househusbands, who are going to very upset with this news, but I do know for a fact that they are not going to reverse their decision. I think we will all miss the ageless Susan Lucci, what will she do now? I am not sure but we will see her somewhere, though I doubt she will look older. I am going to give these newly jobless actors and actresses a Digit Down. I will also say this, welcome to the other side of America!