Apr. 13, 2004 - 14:42 PST

THE WONDERING JEW

Figured That

It's hard for us to be split between Eugene and Denver. Heather talks with son's sister who stays close. She took him to his first chemotherapy today, five hours worth. She says they told him that it will be forty eight hours before he feels the bad effects. She said he is holding up pretty well, considering. Yet our feeling is that we shoulld be there. What more could be done ? Don't know, moral support is about it I guess and daughter tells him that we are calling. We don't call him as it is difficult for him to make himself understood due to his extreme hoarseness.

We are enjoying being here with our family too and find things to do, while wishing son could be with us - he loves it here. ten or so days until we return, sorry to be leaving and glad to get home

Seems to be a conflict between Webtv.net -- Microsoft and Diaryland somehow. My notifies are getting through to others but not to me. E-mails addressed to me at my Diaryland address are being bounced back. Possibly I can do something at home about it.

The business section of The Register Guard this morning. "New jobs are for lower pay, study says"

In part.

"The U.S. hasn't replaced any of the 2.8 million factory jobs lost since President Bush took office, forcing many workers to accept lower-paying alternatives. The industries adding jobs, such as retail and health care, pay on average 21 percent less than manufacturing according to a study of government data by the The Economic Policy Institute." California, Delaware and Massachusetts are among states where the new jobs pay on average 40 percent less than manufacturing positions.

"Wage and salary income didn't go up much last month despite the 300,000 new jobs,' said Joshua Feinman, chief economist at Deutsche Asset Management in New York."

"Bush credited his $ 1.7 trillion in tax-cuts for helping spur March's job report to blunt criticism about what had been a net loss of 2.2 million U.S. jobs since he took office in 2001. "This economy is strong; it is getting stronger,' Bush told small-business owners and students in West Virginia the day the March jobs data were released. The tax relief we passed is working. The small-business sector in this country is strong."

"Kerry released a 'misery index' that measures how rising costs and stagnant incomes have hurt working families under Bush. From 2000 to 2003, inflation-adjusted figures show U.S. wages dropped 0.2 per cent, and income fell by $20,462 per family from 2000 to 2002, the Kerry side said, citing the U.S. Census Bureau."

"Michigan's job count has dropped 5 percent since January 2001, Ohio is down 4.2 percent and Pennsylvania 2.5 percent. the types of jobs remaining pay 29 percent less. than the jobs that were lost , 26 percent less in Ohio, and 23 percent lower in Pennsylvania, the Economic Policy Institute found."

"Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania, in particular, are going to be really tough states for the president to win because they have lost so many good paying middle class jobs,' said McMillion of MBG Information Services. The failure of states such as Ohio and Michigan, home to manufacturers such as Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. and General Motors Corp., to create more manufacturing jobs often means workers must settle for doing a different job for less pay."

"The new jobs pay less, and if they are service" sector jobs, often max out at 30 or 35 hours,' McMillion said. 'Manufacturing jobs can easily go to 50 hours a week."

"Retailers and food companies such as McDonald's Corp. that pay an average of $6.72 an hour will create more than 10,000 jobs in Ohio in the next six years, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services predicts. Factories paying 60 percent more, will account for half as many new positions."

"Try putting a roof over your head working at Taco Bell,' Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Dennis White said."

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Brer Bush sez, "Black is white unless I decide it isn't." Articles I read frequently cited by different sources say that big corporations pay no taxes, so his tax cuts were for the millionaire class I guess. I don't think they made more jobs. And his vaunted new jobs pay less, for the most part.

Familiar figure, "The U.S. hasn't replaced any of the 2.8 million factory jobs lost since President Bush took office in 2001," and from what I read those jobs will not return. Of course not, not when those factory jobs can be done so cheaply overseas and out of country. So it looks like, to me, those of us who used to be middle class are sinking to the bottom of the heap.

Maybe the lady who came up with the idea of shipping welfare recipients, Social Security payments offshore and medicare folks to Canada for prescription medication because the cost of living in the lands where so much of our work is sent and medical attention, is so much cheaper has a comical solution, but I think she made the point.

Once more, the news today didn't seem to be news to me, just some of the same old stuff. Almost like reading something I wrote, you know I Figured That . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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