titusonenine Comments About The NY Times Article

titusonenine
from Canon Kendall Harmon

• Thank you for posting this. I have noticed this trend, but have yet to read it so “succinctly put.” It appears that no one reported on here in this story is actively seeking God’s will for their lives; either that or the reporter neglected to print mentions of God knowing all, being in control, providing recommendations for life and living and taking responsibility for such in the Bible, etc. I wonder how the children being raised with such an approach to employment will approach employment when they are able.

• We don’t know that none of the people interviewed are seeking God’s will for their lives. We only know that that question either wasn’t asked or wasn’t reported. And even if they are seeking God’s will, God doesn’t generally reveal that will by means of flashing neon signs, emails or telephone calls. Most people are doing the best they can with what they’ve got, but the bills keep coming in while you’re waiting for God to reveal his will. I’m not an economist, but I do have a lot of pastoral experience, and my experience is that in this economy, people with advanced degrees are competing for low-wage hourly jobs–if they can even get those. The clerk at the local convenience store has a doctorate and makes $7 an hour. The swing manager at McDonald’s has a master’s and makes $6.15. And that person beat out other candidates with masters’ degrees. Most people will do what they have to to survive, including applying for assistance, but it’s galling for people who once had good jobs, and the attendant satisfaction and sense of self-worth that goes with them, to be reduced to jobs that they’re overeducated for, overqualified for, and which society looks down upon. It’s true that pride won’t feed you, but a person’s dignity isn’t something to be treated lightly. You do what you can to pay your bills and take care of your family. If this guy has thousands of dollars in savings or equity to live on, good for him. I wish everyone were so fortunate.
  

• As one who has been jobless several times over the course of my career, I think this guy is making a big mistake. No honest work is demeaning. He will be mentally much healthier working at a low-paying job, than sitting around loafing. Eventually his wife is going to tire of supporting a selfish, overgrown teen-ager, and give him the boot.

• And now for my rant: These kinds of stories just irritate the daylights out of me. It’s not really the story but the people they highlight. IMHO the attitude of the men highlighted in this piece is wholly selfish. The quotes, “I have come to realize that my free time is worth a lot to me,” and “If things really get tight, I might have to take a low-wage job, but I don’t want to do that,” point to this selfish attitude. When the piece stated, “he could not find a job that, in his view, was neither demeaning nor underpaid,” is when my blood started to boil. Demeaning? Like what, washing floors or cleaning toilets? Why would it be demeaning (someone has to do it)? Is it demeaning only for someone who has a degree, or is used to making big money? Grow up, Gentlemen. You do what you have to do to put food on the table and a roof over your head. Maybe even working two low wage jobs if that is what becomes necessary to eat. Living off the government dole is wrong unless one is truly (TRULY) physically or mentally handicapped to the point where one can not work. Thirteen and a half years ago, I left a low level management job in a telecommunications company to take the best unpaid (monetarily speaking) job in the world: stay-at-home-dad. As my kids transitioned into elementary school, and our household budget needed an infusion of cash, I took on a job. I was able to find jobs paying $10.00 per hour, and on a part time basis to boot. I don’t have a degree. I am a high school graduate, and I don’t find working at any job for low pay demeaning. Why? Because my self-worth doesn’t come from my job, my paycheck, my kids, my wife or my societal status, my self-worth and dignity comes from my knowledge in who I am in Christ. Through Christ Jesus, I am a child of the Most High God. Is there any better realization than this for one’s self-worth? If any of these men are Christians, maybe a little reading of St. Paul (Colossians 3:23-24, or better yet, 2-Thessalonians 3:6-13) or some reflection on Brother Lawrence’s life would open an eye or two when it comes to working. And if they aren’t Christians, they need someone to lead them to our Lord Jesus Christ. End of rant
  

• Seeking a fulfilling job is not sinful at all. It would be a very bad idea to ask a foot be an eye.

• There is nothing too small, if given in Jesus name, that is not worth working for. To sit idle while a good work could be done is a sin. Mar 9:41 For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward. Jam 4:17 Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth [it] not, to him it is sin. I honor those who mow lawns or clean toilets if it is done in charity. I scorn those who have strength and talent and yet refuse to do some small thing for someone who needs help. I had a christian employer (many years ago) who told me to always do the $20.00 per hour work first and when you finish that work do the $15 per hour work and when you finish that…………. and he conluded with, “…and if you can’t find anything more valuable to do then sort screws.” The sum of the message is, if our god is the almighty Dollar then we can hold out for the most money, if our God is also the One who created us, then we will will fill our lives with that which is most valuable - however humble that might be.
  

• Who told these guys that work must always be fulfilling? It’s just another idol set up by secular culture… a job well done can always be satisfying, no matter what it is, and even the job that I love (in my case, teaching) isn’t always fulfilling. But it puts food on the table and a roof over our heads and otherwise provides for my family, and that’s what’s really asked of it. As your mother told you, life ain’t always fair.
  

• I agree with every comment about how no honest work is truly demeaning. But I think that “truly” is the key word. It’s a process–and a sometimes painful one–to re-align one’s identity (even if that identity is found primarily in Christ), because what one does for a living is a major part of that identity. PhD’s and CEO’s are not worth more in God’s eyes–only in the culture’s. But we still have to live in the culture.

• I’m thinking his wife is probably not totally ecstatic with his decisions.

• The posts talk about “those with doctorates” earing $7.00 an hour at the local convenience store, or “someone with a Master’s” having to compete with others with Master’s degrees for low-paying jobs. The job market is tough. But there is one other thing that needs to be acknowledged here that I havent’s seen anyone address so far. And that is - - some folks have doctorates and master;s degrees who wasted their time getting them. They were able to perform the academics, they were able to absorb the theory, but they aren’t worth a darn translating all that stuff into solid skills in creating product, problem solving, supervising other people with both compassion and good direction, etc. Where did we ever get the idea that “I have a degree” is somehow a guarantee of anything, except that we will probably have to buy a frame to hold it? I have a couple of degrees, but still had to start on the floor of the plant, forty years ago, had to learn to weld from a guy who had no degree but, man, could he weld - - and I was able to “work up” to my current job. And somedays, no kidding, I wish I could remember how to weld!!
  

• You want to eat? You gotta work. And I write that not as a greedy capitalist, but as a graduate student who produces next to nothing and lives off the good will of the state (below the poverty level). Should I not be able to get a “worthy” job when my doctorate is earned, I will indeed flip burgers if necessary (particularly if I have dependents). This is the life I have chosen. Risks are always present. That’s life. Hopefully we still have a government that seeks to make opportunities for the working poor. And, more importantly, Christ is still with us, nonetheless.
  

• But I don’t see either our society or our political system making opportunities for the working poor. It’s the largest growing segment of the population in the US. People who have skills and training are unable to make a living wage. For many people, it doesn’t matter how hard you work, you can’t make it. These aren’t people looking for any sort of luxury; they just want to get by. The middle class is shrinking, and most of those people are sliding into that class where hard work seems like nothing but running on a treadmill. Doesn’t mean they shouldn’t work hard, but it would be nice for the work to offer a living wage, and in most cases it doesn’t.

• Would someone please let me know what would happen if we asked a foot to be an eye? All the answers here are too pat. I want to make films. Why should I not pursue that? Based on what you all are saying I should be just as happy and fulfilled as a tow truck driver or museum guide. If God doesn’t care what my job is, why not follow my passion? I can honor Christ as a filmmaker just as much as a janitor or CPA. SO WHY SHOULD I NOT SEEK THAT GOAL?????? If I have worked hard and saved money, what is wrong with living off of that while I pursure my interests? You all seem to think that God doesn’t care if enjoy this life or not. It is rather sick and twisted to say that God loved us so much that he gave his only Son for us and backhandedly mean that your life is still not worth God’s care for your works. Faith and works are woven together. Saved by faith, but my works are the actions of that faith.
  

• Saint,By all means, you should pursue your film-making goal. And I sincerely hope that you achieve that goal, we need good Christ-loving film-makers. But perhaps you will not. And if you do not, I also sincerely hope and pray that you do not decide that, since you did not achieve your film-making goal, you can accept nothing “less.” And the reason is because - - perhaps it won’t be “less.” Maybe the cure for cancer lies within you, and the rest of us would never benefit from that, because you decided that, with your “advanced film-making degrees” and your deep desire to be a filmmaker, you simply cannot work on cancer. It is too demeaning. The example is a ridiculous one, I suppose. But that is what I am bemoaning; there are a lot of folks out there right now who, since they are unable to “use” their doctorates and their masters’, have decided to simply opt out, since the world clearly does not recognize their great talent in the same way they do. I pray you will not do that, should God decide to send you down a different path! Godspeed in your filmmaking pursuits!

Among The Missing

From blogs for industry...blogs for the dead

The NYT profiles men who are not in the job market:

Alan Beggerow has stopped looking for work. Laid off as a steelworker at 48, he taught math for a while at a community college. But when that ended, he could not find a job that, in his view, was neither demeaning nor underpaid.

So instead of heading to work, Mr. Beggerow, now 53, fills his days with diversions: playing the piano, reading histories and biographies, writing unpublished Western potboilers in the Louis L'Amour style - all activities once relegated to spare time. He often stays up late and sleeps until 11 a.m.

"I have come to realize that my free time is worth a lot to me," he said.

Sure, but it's not worth jack to the rest of us, grasshopper.

Apparently there are now record numbers of men like this.

About 13 percent of American men in this age group [30-55] are not working, up from 5 percent in the late 1960's. The difference represents 4 million men who would be working today if the employment rate had remained where it was in the 1950's and 60's.

I'm not sure which is more a sign of the country going to the proverbial hell in a handbasket...that people are in this situation, that banks will give these guys second mortgages, or that they are willing to have their lifestyles plastered all over the NYT website.

Now This Is A Trend I Can Get Behind

From StepBlog:

August 2, 2006

The New York Times ran a front page story Monday about a new trend - men who are laid off or lose their jobs and are unable to find suitable replacements are deciding to just stay home. The guy profiled in the story, Alan Beggerow, is using his time play the piano, read non-fiction and write Westerns, after getting a really good night’s sleep every night. “I have come to realize my free time is worth a lot to me,” he says.

No kidding! Coincidentally, the same day the story ran, Loverman stayed home from work. He was feeling puny, as we say in the South, after having gotten all dehydrated playing that rock and roll music the night before at an outdoor party. After a nap, he worked on a beautiful cabinet he is building, worked in the yard, played guitar and started dinner.

I was reminded after reading the article and thinking of Loverman happily puttering at home of a line from Office Space, when a consultant says to the main character, Peter, “Looks like you’ve been missing a lot of work lately.” “I wouldn’t say I’ve been missing it, Bob,” Peter replies with an ironic smile. Amen, brother.

This all plays into a strange neo-feminist slacker fantasy I have of getting to a place where Loverman doesn’t have to work, and can stay home and do all those things he did on Monday and other such things that will improve the quality of our home and our lives. Sure, I would love to be able stay home too, but for some reason seeing Loverman getting dressed in his togs of oppression to go off to the office everyday seems like such a WASTE of his talents.

So, as one that embraces and supports loafing, I was cheering on Mr. Beggerow. Many readers of the story felt quite differently about it, according to several of the letters to the editor.

But c’mon, surely you’ve felt this way? Wondering why you go work for the Man day after day after day when you could be hanging with the kids, doing yoga, sewing, gardening, blogging, etc.? I know why we do it - mortgages to pay, kids to feed and make happy and be secure, etc. But even though I like my job I am not one of those blessed people who skips off to the office every day to receive deep personal fulfillment from work.

Mr. Beggerow and his wife aren’t independently wealthy. He’s decided to just… care less about money. His wife is pictured laughing in the article ,so she doesn’t seem to mind too much, though it sounds like they’re getting kind of close to the edge financially. But, they’re not overly worried, living instead in a new paradigm.

“When you are in the mode of having money coming in,” he explained, “naturally you are thinking about planning and saving. And then when you don’t have the money coming in, you think less about the future, at least moneywise. It is still a concern, but not a concern that keeps me up at night, not in this life that I am now leading.”

I have long harbored a fantasy of not working myself, in addition to making it possible for Loverman to do so. Buying the occasional lottery ticket is as close as I’ve gotten to doing anything about it, and let’s face it, it will never happen. But it’s nice to dream of being a slacker. One can dream.

August 9, 2006

So last week, I blogged about an article I read in the New York Times about people choosing not to work, getting off the merry-go-round, out of the rat race, on the slow train to happyville. The article focused on one guy, Alan Beggerow, and I wrote about him. Then he read my blog and wrote back! In the comments! The dialog continues! How cool is that? To me, it’s the coolest thing about all this new communications stuff. Dialog. Strangers not being so strange. Making the big world somewhat smaller, or at least more accessible.

The Solutions to Everything

by Michael Ventura

It's happened once too often. Somebody says or writes to me, "You talk about what's wrong but you don't offer solutions," or "My girlfriend - boyfriend - lawyer - therapist says you should suggest solutions, not just talk about bad stuff." And maybe they're right. Maybe to detail one's visions and let readers take it from there is they feel like it just isn't enough. Maybe there are solutions, and maybe I should know them.
So I sat down and thought real hard, and here, numbered for your convenience, are my solutions to everything.

00. Indulge in secrets. Without one or two major secrets, your life will surely fade. (If you're over forty and don't understand this . . . you're in big trouble.)
A conundrum: secrets aren't lies--they're mysteries, havens, passageways. Lies wreck your life; secrets can save your life. But sometimes you have to lie to keep the secret. Ugh oh.

1. Make mistakes. As Coleman Hawkins said, "If you don't make mistakes, you aren't really trying."

2. Stop lying about yourself. To yourself. To your friends. To your family. To your business associates. Maybe even to your enemies. (Your enemies oppress you as much by your fidelity to your own lies as by anything else.)

3. Stop tolerating in your leaders what you wouldn't tolerate in your friends. But...

4. Tolerate impurity. Trying to be pure about anything is a way of setting yourself up to fail. Asking other people to be pure is a way of setting them up.

5. Read one book a month--a book that you didn't find out about in a magazine or newspaper. Browse an independent bookstore and wait till some book says, "Read me" and read it.

6. Listen to the voices. The wee inner voices. Even if they don't speak, even if they only breathe a little, like dirty phone calls. Do anything they tell you to do except rape, kill or pillage. (The voices make mistakes sometimes, but they don't make boring mistakes.)

7. Leave people alone when they tell you to leave them alone. If they mean it, they need it. If they don't mean it, they're trying to manipulate you, so fuck them. (Note: This rule applies to grownups only.)

8. Don't make the "sophisticated" error of thinking that a negative voice is automatically smarter than a positive voice.

9. Eat real food but don't be a fanatic about it.

10. Don't be a fanatic about anything.

11. Do only exercises that take you somewhere. Walk, ride a bike, roller-skate, swim. All other exercise is ego- and/or fear-driven, and if you listen to ego and fear you will drown out the voices you most need.

12. Don't run. Really, don't. American likes to run because running from (fill in the blank) is what we do best. Everybody who runs is running down an alley away from something terrible. Stop running and find out what's behind you.

13. Don't dye your hair unless you're a woman over forty and you dye it the color of my obsessions. Even then, don't cover up all your gray. Gray is gorgeous. And if you're a man, then really don't dye to cover gray. Dig it: EVERYBODY KNOWS. And they talk about it in a snide way behind your back. I'm not kidding.

14. Eat Italian food. Italians went from being oppressive Romans to being the inefficient, wonderful Italians they are today. It's probably the food.

[15. No longer applicable.]

16. Given that you're living in a city where driving is necessary, learn to drive. You may think you know how, but my experience of the way you drive is that you probably don't. So here's how:
Drive for space, not for speed. Space in front of you is the safest thing you can have with a car. Darting in and out of traffic doesn't change anything, it just makes you older. You can't beat the average traffic flow on any given street or freeway by more than five minutes, which only makes a difference if you're having a baby. And don't you feel like an idiot when you've passed six cars and they pull up beside you at the next light? They're laughing at you. And they hate you. Which isn't good for you. Drive for space.
If the move ain't smooth, it ain't right. There's no excuse for a jerky turn, stop or acceleration. It's hard on the car, it's hard on the other passengers, it confuses other drivers, it's not aesthetic. Such moves are for emergencies only.
Ninety percent of the time you drive with your habits, not your head, so figure out what your bad habits are--gunning it through yellows? not signaling? tailgating? Your worst habit will turn into your worst accident. So stop it. Drive for space. End of lesson.

17. Dance. Jesus said, in one of the Gnostic gospels, "He who does not dance does not know what happens."

18. Don't worry so much about being fat. Fat feels great in bed.

19. Have at least one other living thing in your abode. Rhododendrons, for instance, are fantastic creatures. They give much, ask little, have marvelous names, and they don't shit where I walk.

20. Look into people's eyes when you talk to them.

21. Call your parents by their real first names the very next time you see them. Try it. Watch their faces. Then do it at least half the time you talk to or about them from now on. (If people all over the world did this, nations would cease to war.)

22. Have candlelight in your life. (If you should get into rituals, it'll come in handy.)

23. No matter how rushed your schedule is, spend at least five minutes in the morning quietly in bed with your loved one just being gentle together. Perhaps drinking tea.

24. Tell your mother and father, individually--and your children, if you have children--what you really think. Once a year, minimum. If more people did this, it would save more lives than arresting drunk drivers.

25. Do not avoid the eyes of the homeless.

26. If you think something's wrong--at work, in your family, in your self, in your country--agitate for change. If you won't do that, it doesn't matter how tan you are.

27. As regards No. 23: Assuming that you want a loved one but don't have one, my bet is it's not because you're fat, ugly, crazy, old, a failure, a drunk, a ninny or a clod. Lot of fat ugly crazy older failing drunk ninnying clods have loved ones. Lots who don't have lovers want one, and would probably even put up with you. So there's some lie at the heart of your loneliness; being with someone would reveal the lie, and you don't want that.

28. Tape this to your bathroom mirror:

One can only face in others what one

can face in oneself.

--James Baldwin

29. Work is a sacrament. Don't despise anyone's.

30. Don't talk down to kids.

31. Don't chicken out about sex. Given that you're with a consenting adult, do whatever you fantasize. This is much more important than quitting smoking.

32. Watch at least one black-and-white film per month.

33. Regarding No. 6: Entertain the notion that there are . . . voices. Some come from within, some from the plants and objects and such around you, and some come from what I call, for shorthand purposes, the Infinite. If you don't listen for them, you life will be more difficult than it has to be.

34. Pay more taxes--and insist that those taxes, and the taxes you already pay, go for education. Giving the young a lively, thorough, truthful education is the most important environmental issue today, even more important than acid rain, tropical rain forests and ozone holes.

35. Let me make that a lot clearer. Recycling and shopping ecologically are almost pointless when one-third of California's high-school students drop out, and most who graduate can't read much and have no skills to speak of. How can these people inherit a world? Even if we give them a greener world, are they equipped to keep it that way? You want a solution, so here's a solution: Take to the Streets for the Education of the Children.

36. Pray.

37. Stop looking for other people to supply the solution. You're the solution. If you're not, there is no solution.

38. Be aware of the Network. We live by a network of connections and links. Your connection to yourself, to your intimates, to your place, to the collective, to the planet, to the Infinite. (Each is a distinct connection.) Equally powerful are the collective's connections to you (not at all the same as yours to it), to groups of intimates, to itself, to the planet, to the Infinite. Finally, the connections of groups of intimates to one another, to the collective, to the planet, to the Infinite. All these levels and connections interweave. All are equally important.
All the links or connective points of this network (call them the acupuncture points of our universe) both take and generate energy. Any link out of sync weakens the others. (The West, for instance, has concentrated too much on the individual; the East, too much on the collective; both approaches have been catastrophic on every level of the network.) This network, from you all the way to the Infinite, is a living whole, ceaselessly changing. Some of these changes take millions of years. Some happen instantaneously.

May the links of the network shine.

From 'North County Forum'

I don't recall which right-wing scumbag called people who earned less than 12K annually "Lucky Duckies" in a WSJ op-ed a few years ago because they didn't have to pay income taxes but I'm sure David Brooks agrees with him.

According to Brooks long-on-anecdote, short-on-facts rant (below) -

"Through some screw-up in the moral superstructure, we now have a plutocratic upper class infused with the staid industriousness of Ben Franklin, while we are apparently seeing the emergence of a Wal-Mart leisure class – devil-may-care middle-age slackers who live off home-equity loans and disability payments so they can surf the History Channel and enjoy fantasy football leagues."

Fuck him.

As if some elitist pig who sits on his ass and receives a handsome salary shilling for the economic aristocracy like Brooks would know anything about real work or the mountain of shit middle class workers must scale every day, day in, day out in order keep low paying, no-benefit, dead end jobs with ungrateful, greedy, downright abusive and often literally predatory employers in our so-called "globalized" economy.

If the boys in the boardrooms are working their asses off, it's only because they laid off 40% of the workforce to achieve a temporary spike in profits so they can cash out their stock options and move on to some other company where they can do it all over again.

Moreover, I cannot possibly concieve of a more worthless, contemptible "profession" than that of "Conservative Pundit".

Crack dealers and prostitutes have more personal integrity and provide a much more valuable service to society than sleazy albeit, high-class journalistic call-boys like Brooks ever will. It's literally impossible to fathom the depths of moral depravity, arrogance and indolence that would compel an individual to take up the cause of the wealthiest, most powerful members of society against those they victimize and bleed dry.

Is it possible to sink any lower than that?

I don't think so.

And aside from bare subsistence, I really wonder what motivates many mid-to-low income workers to keep working at all, much less working hard, under current economic circumstances.
I can certainly see why Bill Gates and Michael Eisner would be willing to put in 100 hrs/wk-plus doing what they do. If my hourly wage was well into six figures, I might be inclined to put in a little O/T too.

But when you consider that executive compensation has incresed over 300 fold in the past 15 years while middle class earnings and purchasing power remain stagnant and in most cases have lost economic ground, a minor point Brooks conveniently chose to overlook, it becomes pretty easy to see why many workers simply get discouraged and drop out of the workforce altogether and why many who remain have little incentive to kill themselves so the CEO can buy his mistress a new Lexus again this year.


The truth is, Big Business in general and upper management in particular simply does not value or appreciate good, hard, honest work.
It places a much higher premium on Bullshit-Artists, Ass-Kissers and Schmoozers (otherwise referred to as Team Players) than it does on maintaining a competent, qualifed, experienced labor force.

How do I know this?
Because management has told me as much. Repeatedly.

And even when they don't come right out and say it, they clearly demonstrate it by their actions.
To most managers, good workers are "a dime a dozen" but a smooth-talking, boot-licking suck-up (ie; an individual with "outstanding interpersonal, networking and communication skills" ie; David Brooks) is worth his weight in "new business opportunities" and worth at least a dozen good workers. Whether a company can adequately service those new clients once they've secured their business is generally irrelevent.


Few, if any of Brooks' moronic assertions in this article are anywhere close to accurate and any resemblance to reality is purely coincidental.
But if US Business thinks the American workforce lacks incentive, it only has itself to blame.

Business should know better than anyone that you can't always expect to get more out of something than you put into it. Unfortunately, years of easy, often obscene profits that come even more often at the expense of their workers have caused many employers to forget that. Rewarding good work, loyalty, efficiency, innovation, etc, simply isn't budgeted in this quarter's operating funds. It would adversely affect the company's bottom line, undermine investor confidence, and put the P/E ratio right in the old shitter.

Sorry old boy, a raise now would be out of the question. How about a new title with increased responsibility (at your current pay rate of course) or a nice coffee cup emblazoned with the company logo instead?
Oh! And keep up the good work.

"It's class warfare, and my class is winning" - Warren Buffet

Perception, Meet Reality Part II

Or, Are Immigrants Taking Away Jobs from Americans?

One of the common arguments against illegal immigration is that illegal immigrants take jobs away from Americans:

[Mark] Flanagan [Republican candidate for the 13th Congressional District in Florida] said illegal immigration is "taking away jobs from Americans . . . and overburdening our social services and costing taxpayers dearly."

Lets set aside the "overburdening of social services" and "cost to taxpayers" issue. Each of those deserves its own blog entry.

Could it be possible? Maybe, if you realize that things like these are going on in the U.S.:

Alan Beggerow has stopped looking for work. Laid off as a steelworker at 48, he taught math for a while at a community college. But when that ended, he could not find a job that, in his view, was neither demeaning nor underpaid. . . Millions of men like Mr. Beggerow — men in the prime of their lives, between 30 and 55 — have dropped out of regular work. They are turning down jobs they think beneath them or are unable to find work for which they are qualified, even as an expanding economy offers opportunities to work. . . About 13 percent of American men in this age group are not working, up from 5 percent in the late 1960’s. The difference represents 4 million men who would be working today if the employment rate had remained where it was in the 1950’s and 60’s.

Here's another example:

“To be honest, I’m kind of looking for the home run,” said Christopher Priga, who is 54 and has not had steady work since he lost a job with a six-figure income as an electrical engineer at Xerox in 2002. “There’s no point in hitting for base hits,” he explained. “I've been down the road where I did all the things I was supposed to do, and the end result of that is nil.” Instead, Mr. Priga supports himself by borrowing against the rising value of his Los Angeles home. Other men fall back on wives or family members. . . Despite their great numbers, many of the men not working are missing from the nation’s best-known statistic on unemployment. The jobless rate is now a low 4.6 percent, yet that number excludes most of the missing men, because they have stopped looking for work and are therefore not considered officially unemployed. That makes the unemployment rate a far less useful measure of the country’s well-being than it once was.

So it's OK to kick back and not look for a job because "the job is not worthy of you." I think that's insane. I wouldn't want to risk losing everything before saying "well, I guess it's time to find any job after all." But that's just me. They have the "money" or "equity" or "understanding spouse," so it's their choice.

What would you say about this, though?

The fastest growing source of help is a patchwork system of government support, the main one being federal disability insurance, which is financed by Social Security payroll taxes. The disability stipends range up to $1,000 a month and, after the first two years, Medicare kicks in, giving access to health insurance that for many missing men no longer comes with the low-wage jobs available to them. No federal entitlement program is growing as quickly, with more than 6.5 million men and women now receiving monthly disability payments, up from 3 million in 1990. About 25 percent of the missing men are collecting this insurance. The ailments that qualify them are usually real, like back pain, heart trouble or mental illness. But in some cases, the illnesses are not so serious that they would prevent people from working if a well-paying job with benefits were an option.

And, as the article further explains, a determination of disability makes it more difficult for these people to return to work.

So, the next time someone tells you that immigrants - illegal or otherwise - are taking jobs away from Americans, or the next time someone rails about companies hiring or contracting technical staff from India or other less-developed countries, keep this in mind. They may be taking the jobs some Americans won't take because it's beneath them.

TDL/NYT EXCLUSIVE: CAPITALISM CAUSES LAZYNESS

by Arthur Slutzburger, Jr. of The Dick List/The New York Times

WASHINGTON- A growing number of perfectly healthy American men have chosen not to work any job at all, and this extreme lazyness is caused by capitalism.

Many of these men could find work if they had to, but with lower pay and fewer benefits than were once standard, they have decided they prefer the alternative. It is a significant cultural shift from three decades ago, when men almost invariably went back into the work force after losing a job and were more often able to find a new one that met their needs.

“Men don’t feel a need to be in a career, not as much as they once did,” said Ruth Milkman, a sociologist at the University of California at Los Angeles. “Nor do men have the incentive they once had to pursue a career, not when employers are no longer committed to them.”

"If employers gave guaranteed positions for life," continued Ms. Milkman, "these unemployed men would gladly take jobs and become productive workers. Further, if they got automatic raises and full benefits, it would inspire them to be the best workers they can possibly be."

In Rock Falls, Illinois, Alan Beggerow has stopped looking for work. Laid off as a steelworker at 48, he taught math for a while at a community college. But when that ended, he could not find a job that, in his view, was neither demeaning nor underpaid.

So instead of heading to work, Mr. Beggerow, now 53, fills his days with diversions: playing the piano, reading histories and biographies, masturbating, and writing unpublished Western potboilers in the Louis L’Amour style — all activities once relegated to spare time. He often stays up late and sleeps until 11 a.m.

“I have come to realize that my free time is worth a lot to me,” he said. To make ends meet, he has tapped the equity in his home through a $30,000 second mortgage, and he is drawing down the family’s savings, at the rate of $7,500 a year. About $60,000 is left. His wife’s income helps them scrape by. “If things really get tight,” Mr. Beggerow said, “I might have to take a low-wage job, but I don’t want to do that. It's below me. Who do these guys think I am, that I should have to work to make a living?”

"What really pisses me off" said Mr. Beggerow, "is that the government won't subsidize my slothful behavior. Why couldn't I have been born in France or something? Why couldn't the Democrats have been elected? If the government would just give me money, maybe I would feel good enough about myself to get a job. Yeah, that's the ticket."

Truly, not wanting a job and not working at all has nothing to do with being a lazy, disgraceful, self-absorbed waste, but rather it is a product of the pernicious capitalist system that strips people of thier feelings of adeqacy and forces them to work in a state of quasi-slavery.