The real story behind the worker shortage
A massive sinkhole is opening up under America’s economy in the form of Americans who have no interest in getting a job, Mike Rowe is warning.
Rowe was interviewed Thursday on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” and said that for years, the country has been experiencing a “slow sort of unraveling of what we loosely call work ethic.” And now, he said, there is a worker shortage unlike any other.
“We’re in a place where 7 million able-bodied men are not only not working … they are affirmatively not looking for a job,” he said, according to Fox News. “That’s never happened in peacetime — ever.”
Rowe touched on anOp-Edin The Wall Street Journal by economist Nicholas Eberstadt that talks about the “flight from work.”
“Economists like Nick Eberstadt take a dim view of it. They’re worried, and they’re trying to inject that into the conversation at a time when we’re still looking at the unemployment number as the true harbinger of what’s really going on,” Rowe said.
Eberstadt believes the unemployment rate is no longer relevant because it is based on the number of people looking for work who cannot find a job.
“We’re looking at the wrong thing. We’re looking at not what it means to have a bunch of people unemployed, but what does it mean to have a bunch of opportunity that nobody gives a damn about?” Rowe said.
Rowe said he asked Eberstadt what young Americans are doing if they do not work. “On average, over 2,000 hours a year on screens,” Rowe said was the answer.
He summed up the problem by saying, “You know, 4 million fewer people are in the workforce today than before the lockdowns and 4 million more jobs have opened up. It’s almost a perfect mirror image and the reflection is kind of hideous.”
In his Wall Street Journal Op-Ed, Eberstadt said there is a “troubling paradox about the state of work in America.”
“We now face an unprecedented peacetime labor shortage, with employers practically begging for workers, while vast numbers of grown men and women sit on the sidelines of the economy,” he wrote.
“Never has work been so readily available in modern America; never have so many been uninterested in taking it.”
Eberstadt said the cash flowing from Washington during the pandemic served as a catalyst for the current crisis.
“In 2020-21, Washington pulled out all the monetary and fiscal stops to avoid an economic collapse. Those extraordinary interventions may have forestalled world-wide depression. But they also created disincentives for work as never before,” he wrote.
Noting that eschewing jobs is prevalent among Americans 55 and older, Eberstadt said his research also shows “a grim portrait of unworking prime-age men: checked out from civil society; largely disengaged from family care and housework; sitting before screens as if that were a full-time job.”
In a podcast released in September, Eberstadt said the issue is not a lack of resources. “What we are lacking is the internal gyroscopes to give our life meaning with the time that we have,” he said.
“We’ve had this simultaneous explosion of wealth and explosion of misery in our society that can’t be explained unless we take a look at morals, values and personal ethos.”
Eberstadt said solving the problem requires acknowledging mistakes made along the way.
“What we should recognize is that, for unintended reasons, government has been more of a problem than a help with what we’d call the men-without-work problem. During the post-pandemic era, unintended consequences of the emergency rescue programs had the result of incentivizing millions of people to leave the labor force,” he said.
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Emerging Evidence of Puberty Blockers' Perils
As the number of adolescents who identify as transgender grows, drugs known as puberty blockers have become the first line of intervention for the youngest ones seeking medical treatment.
Their use is typically framed as a safe — and reversible — way to buy time to weigh a medical transition and avoid the anguish of growing into a body that feels wrong. Transgender adolescents suffer from disproportionately high rates of depression and other mental health issues. Studies show that the drugs have eased some patients’ gender dysphoria — a distress over the mismatch of their birth sex and gender identity.
ImageEmma, now 14, has identified as a girl since toddlerhood and feels that she’s on the right path.
Emma, now 14, has identified as a girl since toddlerhood and feels that she’s on the right path.Credit...Verónica G. Cárdenas for The New York Times
“Anxiety drains away,” said Dr. Norman Spack, who pioneered the use of puberty blockers for trans youth in the United States and is one of many physicians who believe the drugs can be lifesaving. “You can see these kids being so relieved.”
But as an increasing number of adolescents identify as transgender — in the United States, an estimated 300,000 ages 13 to 17 and an untold number who are younger — concerns are growing among some medical professionals about the consequences of the drugs, a New York Times examination found. The questions are fueling government reviews in Europe, prompting a push for more research and leading some prominent specialists to reconsider at what age to prescribe them and for how long. A small number of doctors won’t recommend them at all.
Dutch doctors first offered puberty blockers to transgender adolescents three decades ago, typically following up with hormone treatment to help patients transition. Since then, the practice has spread to other countries, with varying protocols, little documentation of outcomes and no government approval of the drugs for that use, including by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
But there is emerging evidence of potential harm from using blockers, according to reviews of scientific papers and interviews with more than 50 doctors and academic experts around the world.
As growing numbers of adolescents who identify as transgender are prescribed drugs to block puberty, the treatment is becoming a source of confusion and controversy.
The drugs suppress estrogen and testosterone, hormones that help develop the reproductive system but also affect the bones, the brain and other parts of the body.
During puberty, bone mass typically surges, determining a lifetime of bone health. When adolescents are using blockers, bone density growth flatlines, on average, according to an analysis commissioned by The Times of observational studies examining the effects.
Many doctors treating trans patients believe they will recover that loss when they go off blockers. But two studies from the analysis that tracked trans patients’ bone strength while using blockers and through the first years of sex hormone treatment found that many do not fully rebound and lag behind their peers.
That could lead to heightened risk of debilitating fractures earlier than would be expected from normal aging — in their 50s instead of 60s — and more immediate harm for patients who start treatment with already weak bones, experts say.
“There’s going to be a price,” said Dr. Sundeep Khosla, who leads a bone research lab at the Mayo Clinic. “And the price is probably going to be some deficit in skeletal mass.”
Many physicians in the United States and elsewhere are prescribing blockers to patients at the first stage of puberty — as early as age 8 — and allowing them to progress to sex hormones as soon as 12 or 13. Starting treatment at young ages, they believe, helps patients become better aligned physically with their gender identity and helps protect their bones.
But that could force life-altering choices, other doctors warn, before patients know who they really are. Puberty can help clarify gender, the doctors say — for some adolescents reinforcing their sex at birth, and for others confirming that they are transgender.
“The most difficult question is whether puberty blockers do indeed provide valuable time for children and young people to consider their options, or whether they effectively ‘lock in’ children and young people to a treatment pathway,” wrote Dr. Hilary Cass, a pediatrician leading an independent review in England of medical treatments of adolescents presenting as transgender.
On her recommendation, England’s National Health Service last month proposed restricting use of the drugs for trans youths to research settings. Sweden and Finland have also placed limits on the treatment, concerned not just with the risk of blockers, but the steep rise in young patients, the psychiatric issues that many exhibit, and the extent to which their mental health should be assessed before treatment.
In the United States, though, there is no universal policy, and the public discussion is polarized.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/14/health/puberty-blockers-transgender.html
**********************************************************Target Takes Extreme Measures in Desperate Bid to Stop Shoplifting
The crime of retail theft has become a major problem for stores across America, and it is driving big chains to take drastic action to stem losses reaching into the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Retail giant Target reported in a conference call this week that its profits have taken a major hit due to shoplifting, a crime referred to as “shrink” in the retail industry, WNYW-TV in New York reported Thursday.
The company called “inventory shortage or shrink” a “growing problem” resulting in expected lost profits of more than $600 million this year alone.
“At Target, year-to-date, incremental shortage has already reduced our gross margin by more than $400 million vs. last year and we expect it will reduce our gross margin by more than $600 million for the full year,” Chief Financial Officer Michael Fiddelke said, according to WNYW. “This is an industry-wide problem that is often driven by criminal networks.”
Company officials added that while the theft was spinning out of control in certain localities, they are now seeing it extending outside those areas.
“This is primarily driven by organized crime,” Target COO John Mulligan said.
The growing retail theft problem has led the company to begin locking up a number of small items that are easily stolen from the shelves, including cosmetics, toothpaste and razors.
The theft has become such an issue that Target has launched its own “forensic sciences” division to help identify at-risk products and devise solutions to stem the tide of theft.
The team uses video analysis, computer technology and even latent fingerprint forensics to help solve organized retail crimes.
Target is not alone.
Walgreens was hit so hard by retail theft that it announced the closure of five stores in downtown San Francisco last year.
“Organized retail crime continues to be a challenge facing retailers across San Francisco, and we are not immune to that,” Walgreens spokesman Phil Caruso said, according to SFGate.
It is so bad in San Francisco that even security guards hired to protect the retail outlets have been reduced to powerless observers as large groups of thieves swarm stores stealing products by the armful.
The drugstore chain Rite Aid said last month that retail theft had become so bad in New York City that it was considering redesigning all stores to put nearly every item behind locked displays, WNYW reported.
An employee of the company was killed last year when trying to intervene to stop thieves at a Los Angeles store.
Citing New York City as the main source of the loss, Rite Aid CEO Heyward Donigan said the chain had lost $5 million in just the last three months thanks to “shrink.”
Company officials hinted that city prosecutors were falling down on the job by refusing to prosecute retail theft.
“The environment that we operate in, particularly in New York City, is not conducive to reducing shrink just based upon everything you read and see on social media and the news in the city,” Chief Retail Officer Andre Persaud said. “We’re looking at literally putting everything behind showcases to ensure the product is there for customers who want to buy it.”
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is one of the reasons retail theft in New York has gone so wildly out of control.
Early this year, for instance, Bragg announced that his office was set to begin downgrading charges for many felonies and would seek prison sentences for only a handful of crimes.
As a candidate, he was supported by leftist billionaire philanthropist George Soros.
“Mr. Soros also pledged $1 million to the super PAC Color of Change, aimed at helping another district attorney candidate, Alvin Bragg. A spokeswoman for the super PAC said that nearly $500,000 had been spent on Mr. Bragg’s behalf as of Friday,” The New York Times reported last year.
Many other retailers — including Best Buy and the Home Depot — have reported a growth in retail theft and shoplifting.
While these big corporations might be able to withstand the loss from “shrink,” organized theft from small stores is a business-killing problem and is devastating for local mom-and-pop stores.
With the influence of the soft-on-crime Soros, coupled with years of attacks on police, America has become swamped with crime of all kinds. It is long past time that we reverse this anarchy.
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12 Republican Senators Just Sided with Democrats to Advance Gay Marriage Bill
How times have changed! Even the Mormons agreed with it! The constitution does not mention marriage so SCOTUS cannot intervene.
At most, I think that homosexual marriage could be approved only if the marriage certificate plainly stated that the marriage was a same-sex one
With 12 Republican senators joining Democrats, a bill to protect same-sex marriages cleared a major procedural barrier Wednesday by a 62-37 vote.
The bill requires that marriages that are valid under the laws of any one state be recognized as such by every other state, according to The Washington Post.
The bill repeals the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which declared marriage to be between one man and one woman and allowed states to reject marriages that other states ruled valid. The law was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 2015 in the Obergefell v. Hodges decision, but had remained on the books.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was among the Republicans opposing the bill, according to ABC.
The bill had support from several church and religious groups, including the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Post reported.
“The doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints related to marriage between a man and a woman is well known and will remain unchanged,” it said in a statement.
“We are grateful for the continuing efforts of those who work to ensure the Respect for Marriage Act includes appropriate religious freedom protections while respecting the law and preserving the rights of our LGBTQ brothers and sisters. We believe this approach is the way forward,” the statement said.
When the initial version of the bill passed the House over the summer, 47 House Republicans joined Democrats to pass it, according to The New York Times.
The Senate must still give the amended bill passage. The bill then goes back to the House for its approval of the changes made in the Senate. It will then go to President Biden, who has indicated he will sign it.
The law was developed after Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas suggested in the opinion in which the Roe v. Wade abortion ruling was overturned that the 2015 ruling allowing gay marriage should also be examined.
Some have argued the bill is not necessary.
“I don’t know why we’re doing that bill; there’s no threat to its status in America,” Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida said, according to the Times. “I know plenty of gay people in Florida that are pissed off about gas prices.”
Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said the bill was an attempt to scare Americans “that somehow that decision by the Supreme Court is in jeopardy,” the Times reported. “I don’t believe it is.”
One Senate revision to the bill included an amendment ensuring that churches, universities and other nonprofit religious organizations would not be punished for refusing to recognize same-sex marriages and that churches could not be compelled to marry same-sex couples.
As noted by ABC, the law covers interracial marriages as well as those of same-sex couples.
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair
Bliss: What every woman wants: to feel safe and secure in the arms of her man. Robert Irwin and Rorie Buckey. See 
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