Tag Archives: baby boomers

The Black Swan Looms Over Budget

BY STEVE BELL

             As I write this, cable and broadcast television, radio, and bloggers, and government officials, are giddy with the news released 90 minutes ago that the economy created almost 300,000 jobs last month. 

     “We’ve turned the economic corner.”

      “The recovery has become self-sustaining.”

      “That 1,000 point drop in the Dow was merely because of a human being putting erroneous sell information into a computer,”

      Yet, the official unemployment rate increased to 9.9 per cent and the broadest measure of unemployment continues to rise.  How can this be?  Are good times here again?

      In short, “no.”

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America’s Mid-Life Crisis

BY JOHN FEEHERY

I have a theory.

America is going through its version of a mid-life crisis.

According to Wikipedia, the term midlife crisis was first coined “in 1965 by Elliott Jaques and used in Western societies to describe a period of dramatic self-doubt that is felt by some individuals in the “middle years” or middle age of life…The result may be a desire to make significant changes in core aspects of day-to-day life or situation.”

How do people who are going through a mid-life crisis show it?  The “acquisition of unusual or expensive items such as motorbikes, boats, clothing, sports cars, jewelry, gadgets, tattoos, piercings, etc.;  depression; blaming themselves or their partner for their failures;  paying special attention to physical appearance such as covering baldness, wearing “younger” designer clothes etc.;  entering relationships with younger people (either/or sexual, professional, parental, etc.)”

Here are some signs that the nation is going through the political equivalent of a mid-life crisis:

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