Like most writers, I am a tiny bit obsessed with music. Which is, admittedly, wholly unrelated to the fact that I cover Wall Street and noticed this week that more than 10 million Americans remain out of work, at least according to the latest blizzard of stunningly disappointing data from the U.S. Department of Labor.
In the past, our tired, poor, and huddled masses of unemployed could at least take some solace in not-happy-to-be-unemployed noises (think Irving Berlin's “Slumming on Park Avenue” or Bing Crosby's “Brother Can You Spare a Dime?”).
Not so this time around, despite the protracted pain in the labor market. Last month, unemployment rates fell in four-fifths of U.S. states, mostly due to jobless Americans throwing up their hands and giving up on their job searches.
The change in numbers had nothing to do with employers adding jobs to the pool. In fact, only 74,000 new jobs were added - a pitiful number, and the lowest in three years.
Before David Miranda was detained for nine hours at London's Heathrow Airport, there was me. The news of Miranda's detainment on Aug. 18 came while I was cooking dinner in my kitchen, when my mobile phone and email blew up simultaneously. A longtime Wall Street source sent me a...