JOBS???

GOOD MORNING WORLD

I have been busy this last 10 days or so and have only heard dribs and drabs of news.  Much of what I heard was about jobs or lack of them.  The unemployment numbers are up.  I did catch – actually watched – the President tell us ‘the private sector is doing fine”.   He went on to say that the public sector needs help.  If I had not heard it myself I would not believe he said that.  Knowing how hard it is to find a job I was very surprised by these statements.

Got me to thinking just what is the ‘private sector’ and just what is the ‘public sector’.  Simple person that I am I looked it up and Dictionary.com had answers to both.

private sector – noun-the area of the nation’s economy under private rather than governmental control.

public sector – noun-the area of the nation’s affairs under governmental rather than private control.

Fairly simple.  This said ‘nation’s affairs’.  Teachers, fireman, policemen – all nation’s workers?  In a discussion about this I wondered when teacher’s became public sector workers.  They used to be paid by their schools or the school districts from the area in which they taught.  Assuming that the property taxes paid this bill.  The firemen and policemen were paid from the municipalities which of course is a form of government.  So government is a very large umbrella. 

Then I thought of unions and wondered how many public sector employees are in unions.   Had a hard time finding that answer.  I did find that 12% of workers in theUSare in unions.  Of that 12% the public sector is 37% and teachers are 36.9%.  The private sector workers make up 6.9% of this 12% number.  So was the President referencing these numbers?  It is all very confusing to me.  I am learning. 

Is ‘public sector’ the code word for union employees?  Are there public sector workers that are not in unions?  Oh think I can answer some of that one.  Our Representatives and Senators are public sector workers.  They are not a union are they?  Wait they do have their own special healthcare?  There really is much to learn.

Then I wondered why is the President speaking about job creation.  I did not remember that as part of his job description.  Back to google.  I found his description in scholastic.com – teaches the kids so keeping it simple for me.  It said the following:

The Constitution assigns the president two roles: chief executive of the federal government and Commander in Chief of the armed forces. As Commander in Chief, the president has the authority to send troops into combat, and is the only one who can decide whether to use nuclear weapons.

As chief executive, he enforces laws, treaties, and court rulings; develops federal policies; prepares the national budget; and appoints federal officials. He also approves or vetoes acts of Congress and grants pardons.

I do not see job creation here unless it comes under the budget part.  Didn’t his budget just get defeated by all the members of congress?  Wasn’t this the second or third year his budget was defeated? 

I am going to look more into private and public sector workers – union and otherwise.  If the union is 12% of our workers in the wholeUnited Stateswhy are we paying much attention to them.  There is another whole 88% somewhere and what are they called???  Are they all private sector? Some public sector? Combination of both?  Why are they not being heard?   Didn’t we just have some protests that the 1% was not supposed to be or have more than the 99%?  Then how come we pay more attention to the 12% than the 88%?  Fairness – think I did that last week.  Just asking???   

…..ONWARD TO MORE MISADVENTURE…