Tell It To Al

High unemployment isn’t going to last forever, but it sure seems to be lasting a while.

So far, the recession has left us with an unemployment rate of over 9% for more than 20 months – unprecedented since the Great Depression.

Murat Tasci, a research economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, does not believe – as some have proposed – that the “natural rate of unemployment” has permanently reset at a higher level. He sees unemployment trickling lower over the next few years.

Click here to read Tachi’s analysis, released today.

Even given Tasci’s optimism for the labor market, it’s still not a pretty picture. Millions of Americans idled in a stagnant labor market has negative effects on the economy, too, from extended unemployment benefit payouts to strains on social services and charities, such as food banks.

Lot’s of bad things can happen in a melodrama: Little Nell could be tied to the train tracks or run through the saw mill. But a reader reminds me that one of the biggest tragedies occurs when Granny takes out a mortgage.

Click here to read my column in The Sunday Wall Street Journal.

The U.S. Marshal’s Service auctioned off the spoils of Ponzi schemer Shawn Merriman on Saturday. Merriman is now service a 12.5-year prison sentence for bilking 67 investors out of about $37 million. Many of his victims were fellow members of the Mormon Church. He used their money to buy toys, inlcuding a $687,000 land yacht. I talk about the case with 9News weekend anchor Aristea Brady.

Taco Bell took out full-page adds in major newspapers today headlined “Thank you for suing us.”

A lawsuit challenging whether Taco Bell beef is really beef, has given the fast-food chain an opportunity to talk about it’s beef.

Click here to read more from USA Today.

I’m sure glad this issue is coming up for national scrutiny. I’ve always wondered what’s in those Taco Bell treats. Whatever it is has a texture and granularity to it you just don’t get from the hamburger meat at the grocery store.

When was the last time you ate at Taco Bell? How was the beef?

It may be time for me to finally start thinking more positively about the economy.

Robert Z. Aliber, who foresaw the devastation the housing bubble would wreak, predicts economic growth may average as much as 5% this year. Growth in the nation’s gross domestic product, reported today, fell far short of that for the fourth quarter of last year – at only 3.2%. But it is growth nonetheless and Aliber explains why things can get better.

Aliber is a professor emeritus at the University of Chicago who once worked beside economics icon Milton Friedman, and he has just published a new book: “Your Money and Your Life: A Lifetime Approach to Money Management.”

Click here to read column.

What’s wrong with Wikileaks? Nothing.

The Associated Press reports that a company Visa asked to investigate WikiLeaks’ finances found no proof the group’s fund-raising arm is breaking the law in its home base of Iceland. But Visa Europe Ltd will continue blocking donations to the site for now.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has rattled the world, releasing top-secret documents and exposing folly and corruption wherever he finds it. Publishing secret diplomatic cables seems to have put him over the top. He’s been battling shadowy allegations of rape on top of a banking industry that refuses to do business with him.

Click here to read the AP story. I hate international banking conspiracy theories, but it sure seems like the world is full of powerful people who will do anything to shut this guy up.

It’s a mistake. Get rid of Julian Assange and the next guy committed to this same mission won’t be so transparent. He’ll be invisible. He’ll light all kinds of fires and no one will be able to figure out his true identity.

Kinda like the Green Hornet or Batman.

There will always be a misunderstood hero trying to set the truth free.

Reminds me of my favorite newspaper masthead motto, which belongs to the Aspen Times: “If you don’t want it printed, don’t let it happen.”

Maybe RadioShack should have changed its name to Cell Phone Shack.

The Fort Worth, Texas,-based retailers seems to have made a big bet on selling cell phones that are available just about everywhere.

Now margins on cell phones are shrinking. And guess what?

RadioShack’s warning of disappointing fourth-quarter earnings.

It’s chairman and CEO Julian Day is stepping down in May.

Go figure.

RadioShack’s problem – besides intense competition, a prolonged downturn in the economy, etc. – is that nobody knows what it is anymore.

Click here to read my column.

When was the last time you went to RadioShack? What did you buy?

I knew Chicago Bears fans were sore losers – particularly when they lose to the Green Bay Packers for the Superbowl.

Hey, I I’m from Chicago wanted the Bears to win, too. But the fan news here is just insane.

A car dealer in Oak Lawn, Illinois fired one of his salesmen for wearing a Packers tie to work after the Bears’ loss. Click here to read all about it in the Chicago Sun Times.

I know what some of my pals from Chicago are thinking: Good!

Hey, it’s not like he actually roasted a bear and ate it, like that bar owner up in Minnesota. Click here to read about that.

Clearly, what we need is another economic calamity, or another war, or another natural disaster, or another disease to give some of these football fans a little more perspective.

Geez, it’s just a game. And please, Chicago, you should be used to this thanks to the Cubs.

Al: You’re basically the only columnist that returns an acknowledgment to my emails and I thank you knowing that they are not falling into a black hole.

A thought that has occurred to me over the last several news cycles is with the appointment of Jeff Immelt to council of economic advisors and selling of Boeing aircraft to China that will supposedly create thousands of jobs, I wonder if corporate America has basically written off the American worker/consumer for the Chinese and Indian consumer?

The logic is as follows:

1) Jeff Immelt has followed in the footsteps of his predecessor, Jack Welch, and exported hundreds of jobs overseas to do production under the GE label. Jack Welch took it further by single-handedly decimating the machine tooling industry in this country. That GE90 engine that hangs on the wing of that 737 you fly around in has parts made in Switzerland, Germany, France, Italy, Israel, Sweden, Romania, South Africa and China with very little made here other than final assembly.

2) Boeing has many airframe components already made in China. Boeing is laying off 1100 workers at its Long Beach, CA facility. Could they shift production there for aircraft components destined for China? So what is the gain?

3) Why is Congress attempting to repeal the Affordable Healthcare Act? I think the real cost of repeal is attached to this link: http://docs.house.gov/energycommerce/health_2011/CO5.Lamborn.pdf. This link is for CO5th but you can back into the cost for the rest of the country by congressional district. You may have to Google it.

4) Looked at a pair of Levi’s in Kohl’s department store last night and they were made in Kingdom of Lesotho, a small country surrounded by South Africa. There are 380 textile companies in violation of the minimum wage laws there and are on the verge of closure. The pants are priced at $34.00.

5) I’ll add in the quest to drive wages down, reduction of worker safety, elimination environmental laws and regulations, attempted reduction of SS & Medicare/Medicaid benefits, the USCoC financing campaigns ( I wonder whose side they are really on? Is sure isn’t the American worker/consumer.)

I sent this link to every council and county commissioner member in Colorado Springs and got two responses back—could not believe the cold and calloused responses. These two could care less about their constituents. FYI: All elected city and county officials are conservative Republicans.

These examples lead me to the conclusion that the American people have been written off.

Thanks for your time and putting up with me. Cheers.

Gary Casimir

McRib season came and went at McDonald’s last year and somehow I did not stop to get one of those tasty, gelatinous molded-pork sandwiches.

I did shoot this photo, thinking that maybe the McRib had some significance and would soon earn it’s place in the news.

So here it is: McRib helped boost McDonald’s fourth quarter earnings by 2%.

Click here to read more on McDonald’s earnings from The Associated Press.

I don’t know what booming McRib sales have to say about our economy. Some say McDonald’s should sell it year round. But it won’t.

Apparently, it’s the limited-time offer that gives the McRib its appeal.

If it was available all year, it wouldn’t be such a treat.

The McRib might even become McNormal.

So how many McRibs did you eat last year? Describe: