Bill Gates

I originally posted this on the Daily Gotham earlier in the week.

Mark Twain said there are lies, damn lies and statistics and his adage applies to unemployment measurement. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) publishes six unemployment metrics monthly, each referred to in ascending order of inclusiveness of the unemployed as U-1, U-2, etc.

The measure reported by the media as the unemployment rate that severely undercounts the unemployed is referred to as U-3. The U-3 rate is obtained by dividing the narrowest definition of the unemployed by the work force.
The U-3 definition does not include whom the BLS calls discouraged and marginal workers, those who want a job but have given up the search because market conditions and personal experience indicate the process is futile.

U-6 Unemployment counts the marginal and discouraged plus those seeking full time employment but can only find part time work. The Federal Reserve tracks what it defines as the Augmented Unemployment rate, which I’ve read is equivalent to U-6 less part time workers. I couldn’t find any Augmented Unemployment releases on the Fed site and despite major data inclusion differences, some bloggers have used U-6 and the Fed’s stat interchangeably.

Naive supply side economics fans and the heartless and often evil advocates of cutting the wealthy’s taxes as a means to kill the beast of New Deal and Great Society programs love to brag that the historically low recent unemployment numbers (April’s seasonally adjusted U-3 was 4.5 percent) are evidence that their tax policy scam truly does trickle down to those who are not tax cut direct material beneficiaries. Despite those wishing to give handouts to Gates and Buffett’s (who personally don’t even want the cuts) spin, the economy just isn’t that robust. The seasonably adjusted April U-6 numbers, which are a much more accurate economic suffering barometer than what the media regularly announces, increased to 8.2 percent.

So what do we think about The School That Oprah Built?

Not many hand-picked groups of 150 girls have $40 million standing behind their learning . . .

I heard about it on National Public Radio yesterday, and then today Newsweek arrived and Favorite Daughter read it to me in the car. Quite the personal project. It reminds me of

Last week was one of the most intensely intellectual and emotional weeks I've had so far this year. It was a great week for exchanging great ideas with some of the most interesting net evangelists doing advocacy work in the United States.

Whether it was talking about impeachment in Philadelphia, describing the state of the feminist blogosphere in Barnard University, inspiring ethnic media publishers and policy advocated to turn to the blogosphere or brainstorming with the political technorati at Rootscamp; it all has been incredibly good and intellectually stimulating.

Yet this week was also marked by the emotional jolt of Lorraine's loss. The death of her boyfriend has been so overwhelming to me that I haven't been able to read her posts about it.

It's the first week though that, due to all the traveling I had to do, I really reckoned with the reality that my kids are better off now in school than with me homeschooling. I have been in denial since September about them being in school and I am just starting to grieve our separation.

So, why am I writing this? Well, I almost never get to write anything personal these days. At least that's how I feel. But also, I wanted to talk about what I do when I'm overwhelmed and grieving : I use cooking and web design to do what some people describe as work meditation, when others talk about active meditation.

Money can't buy you a FIFA Cup.

[via Celebrations in Accra after Ghana beats USA - Google Video]:

Ghana is one of the poorest countries in the world. Here's some stats from Wikipedia's entry on Ghana

Population
- 2005 est. 22,113,0001 (49th)
- Density 88.2/km² (83th)
228.4/sq mi
GDP (PPP) 2005 estimate
- Total $51.8 billion (77th)
- Per capita $2,500 (169th)

Here are the same stats for the United States:

Population
- 2006 est. 298,217,215 (3rd)
- 2000
- Density 30/km² (143rd)
83/sq mi
GDP (PPP) 2006 estimate
- Total $13.05 trillion (1st)
- Per capita $43,555 (3rd)

Just so you understand the enormity of these numbers, Bill Gates' net worth is US$50 billion; down from an all time high of US$100 billion.