IS IT TRUE October 6, 2012
IS IT TRUE the eyes of the people of Evansville should be on the Evansville City Council meeting on Monday night?…this will be the first opportunity for this elected body to have an official say on the failure of the City of Evansville and the Water & Sewer Utility to reconcile the accounts of the people of Evansville for 21 months?…not only were the books not balanced monthly as they are mandated to be by Indiana law but that fact was kept quiet for 20 months according to those who should have known?…that front and center stage on Monday night will be Councilman John Friend, CPA from the 5th Ward who served as Chairman of the Budget Committee during the entire AuditGATE fiasco?…that Councilman Friend has been quite adamant that he did not know about this until the State Board of Accounts Auditor brought it to his attention in August of 2012, a full 20 months after it began?…that Councilman Friend has in all fairness been nearly ranting for an audit of the City of Evansville’s IT Department for longer than we can remember?…that leads us to believe that the accountant in him may have sensed that something was not kosher in the Civic Center and that he was doing what he could to try to expose the suspected rat?…the people of Evansville will be counting on Councilman Friend to lead the effort to expose a system that is so porous that two administrations with two different controllers could just let balancing the books slide for 21 months before the truth came out?…this is Councilman Friend’s opportunity to step up and show his stuff as Mayor Winnecke is on record as saying “all is well in River Cityâ€?
IS IT TRUE that after the fur stopped flying at the Presidential Debate from Denver that one statistic that the candidates disagreed on was still fanning the fires of spin?…that statistic is the actual statistic of just how many people in this United States are unemployed?…that Mitt Romney and the Republicans have asserted that the number of unemployed in America are about 23 Million?…President Obama and the Democrats are crying foul and lies in asserting the number is only about half of that?…the statistics behind the claims were released by the Labor Department on Friday and the CCO has decided to examine these numbers to see what the truth is?
IS IT TRUE that of the numbers of the “official†unemployed people according to the Labor Department as used to calculate the “official†unemployment rate are made up of 7.3 Million people who were unemployed in August and still are, 1.9 Million people who lost their job in August and just joined the ranks of the unemployed, and 2.9 Million new job seekers who looked for a job but did not find one?…this group of people totals 12.1 Million people which would give credibility to President Obama and the Democrats when “official†numbers are the statistical criteria used?
IS IT TRUE there are at this point in time according to the same data set released by the Labor Department a total of 82.1 Million people who are old enough to be in the workforce and able bodied enough to work who are statistically considered to be “not in the labor forceâ€?…that many of these people truly do not wish to be employed, are not looking for a job, and are perfectly content with life outside the labor force?…aside from that there were 3.5 Million people who were employed in August who are no longer considered to be in the workforce?…the truth of the matter is that most of these people are in that purgatory of not yet processed into the those of us who are in need of unemployment benefits but not yet entered into the system?…such people are unemployed and should be considered so by any metric that pretends to be accurate?…there are 2.8 Million people who were officially unemployed in August but are no longer in the workforce?…that is government code for people who have used up all of their benefits?…the total of these two sets of intentionally forgotten citizens or “ghosts†is a full 6.3 Million people bringing the real and countable number of unemployed to 18.4 Million Americans?…the numbers that are not available from the Labor Department period are how many people who have been productive and would love a job are so discouraged from years of failed job searching who have used all of their benefits or self employed people who are temporarily out of work?…it is not even a small stretch to estimate that number to be at least enough to raise the total unemployed people to 23 Million giving credibility to Mitt Romney and the Republicans when it comes to the number of job actually needing to be created to fix the economy?
IS IT TRUE that the unfortunate truth is that the participation in the labor force is at a 30 year low, the official unemployment numbers do not reflect the reality of the economy, and the United States is in danger of seeing a significant number of its labor force withdraw and do odd jobs to survive?…that those who do odd jobs to survive in most cases do find a way to get by but do not participate as taxpaying engaged members of society?…that technically we must say that where the cold and misleading statistics are concerned President Obama is right?…we must also add that when the reality of the economic human conditions in the United States are considered that Mitt Romney has a much better grasp on the real magnitude of the problem of unemployment?
Tell it like it is. Mr. Editor
Masterful job CCO Editor Joe Wallace!
“IS IT TRUE that after the fur stopped flying at the Presidential Debate from Denver that one statistic that the candidates disagreed on was still fanning the fires of spin?…that statistic is the actual statistic of just how many people in this United States are unemployed?” (CCO)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Before he won election in 2008 he was running around the country singing this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBciqJMscGQ&feature=share&list=PL49C048E06B583ECD
Obama continued to sing that tune right up to now, just before the elections, and now all of a sudden the employment situation is looking great. Sure it is.
___
I’ve heard SBR will have John Friend’s back and if the pace isn’t of proper gate, my take the reins. Won’t miss this edition, wish JW could be made to appear, Mitch could give him a govenor’s pardon before he gets out of office.
Can’t wait to see Councilman, John Freind take Russ Lloyd and Jenny Collins to task this coming Monday evening at City Council meeting.
It will televised on WINN at 5:00 sharp.
Can’t wait to hear the past and present City of Evansville Controllers try to defend why they didn’t balance city accounting records for the last 21 months.
It’s now up to CPA Friend and his fellow council members to take Collins and Lloyd to task!
Final point, if Lloyd and Collings both worked in the private sector and let this happen they would had been fired!
Seems that a lot of people are expecting Friend to lead the attack, but do you think he will point that smoking gun at himself? He is hardly the White Knight riding in on a White Horse. I expect SBR to call the shots, and several of them will be aimed at the White Knight.
The main function of the public meeting being opened on this subject should be to identify and innumerate the problems.
The council can certainly look at any contracts that it approved to see if they have been honored, and they can certainly issue a joint resolution on the performance of any departments within city government that have contributed to the problems, and thereby put pressure on those who have the statutory authority to take corrective action.
The corrective action itself will most likely have to come from the city executive.
___
Councilman Friend won’t do anything about Jenny or Rumplebeancounter. He’ll spend more time blaming the State Board than anything else. The Council will also look the other way while the City is surely going to have a credit rating downgrade in the near future. Councilman Friend wants the uneducated “internal auditor” in the Controller’s Office who is a big cause of the software mess to report to the Council in the Future. They also want to give her a big raise.
50K/year with a GED education…I am sure that the bums that hang outside the Civic Center are equally as qualified.
Comments are closed.