The Wall Street Journal featured a rather disturbing article this weekend about how Americans -- primarily men, but also some women -- are working less than ever before, and not because we have suddenly become more productive, but because we're simply choosing to watch our screens instead of going to a job.
Key portion:
*The sum of these trends is a lot of missing workers. [AEI political economist Nicholas] Eberstadt estimates that if the U.S. maintained its employment-to-population ratio from 2000, we’d have more than 13 million more workers today. That would be more than enough to fill the record number of open jobs.
Instead, “America has been overtaken by the European Union” Mr. Eberstadt says. “This is not a bad joke.” Thirty years ago, America’s prime-age work rate was “nearly 10 percentage points above Europe’s. Now Europe’s is a couple of points higher than America’s.” The drop reduces household income, corporate earnings and government revenue.
The personal consequences of mass worklessness may outweigh the economic ones. Beyond the top-line labor numbers, Mr. Eberstadt’s research reveals the dreary lifestyles of a rising number of nonworking Americans.*
This week's show will be slightly different from the norm: we'll focus on clips and topics, rather than guests -- and that, hopefully, will mean more input from the callers (unless you are all watching football on opening weekend).
Topics:
- The state of the economy
- The fight against crime
- The midterm election fight
- The struggle for peace between Russia and Ukraine
- The airstrike on the Venezuelan drug cartel
- The attempt to sink Kennedy
- The war in Gaza
- The case against Harvard
- The Trump presidency
Tune in: SiriusXM Patriot 125, 7-10 p.m. ET / 4-7 p.m. PT
Call: 866-957-2874
This week's Torah portion includes several laws about conduct in civic and personal life, the common theme of which is boundaries -- setting bounds to what one may do at home, at work, and even in the battlefield.
One noteworthy passage concerns Amalek, the evil nation that attacked the Children of Israel as they made their Exodus from slavery to freedom. Deuteronomy 25:17-19 commands Jews to obliterate Amalek's memory.
The South African government accused Israel of genocide on the basis of a story about Amalek in the Book of Samuel, in which King Saul was commanded to wipe out the entire evil Amalekite nation.
Because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quoted this week's portion -- "Remember what Amalek did to you" (25:17), the South African government claimed he was commanding soldiers to commit genocide.
It was an absurd and malevolent misreading of the Bible and of Jewish tradition. The commandment, as observed by Jews today, is to remember the evil of Amalek and fight ...
