Intel Corp (INTC)

[Tim May]

Look at the labor participation rate, which is 63%. Multiply by the population of U.S. adults.

Look at the fact that a woman with 3 children needs to be earning $69K a year before she is better off that just working a minimum wage job one week a month and collecting benefits while not paying any taxes.

(Cf. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-27/when-work-punished-tragedy-americas-welfare-state )

And with today's bum culture, she's not likely to get a $69K job. Most Americans are making much less than half that. Hard to believe, but look at the rise of "retail" culture. Even in my relatively affluent area, most employment is at retail stores selling fashion to those without the money to afford such fashion. "Put it on the credit card." Fast food rounds out the employment picture.

The disk drive company, Seagate, which used to be a big local employer, moved operations to Asia. As did the other big maker, Western Digital. The two remaining giants. Most chip production is of course now centered in Asia. No fab facilities, except for a handful of boutique fabs, running noncompetitive process nodes, in California. A state which makes it easier to get on "disability" than just about anywhere. And those with their "bipolar disorders" and "ADHD" deals get $900-1400 a month. Some system we have funded....except there's no money for it, actually. Unfunded liabillities and stuff on the national credit card now exceed $150 trillion. Calculate what this is for each of the 20% or so who actually pay taxes that are above the noise.

The hundred million not in the labor force, just living in the underground economy, cashing their welfare and disability checks, they will not be part of this $150 trillion unfunded liability debt bomb. (The official national debt, while bad enough, tells only a small part of the story.)


The "entitlement state" is not working, least of all in the various slum cities and in much of the center part of the U.S. where welfare, "disability," and unfunded pensions are the norm.



(It also isn't working in Europe, as news shows. Even with an official unemployment rate of 30% in many regions (Spain, Italy, France), the labor participation rate is even more dismal than ours.

"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money," Margaret Thatcher once pointed out.