Unemployment under 5%?

In today's (Thursday, March 15) NY Times, Bob Herbert writes:

The national unemployment rate came in at 4.5 percent last week and was generally characterized as pretty good. But whatever universe those numbers came from, it was not the universe that black men live in.

You can read the column, The Danger Zone if you have TimesSelect ... which I recommend if for only having regular access to Bob Herbert and Paul Krugman.

The core of Herbert's column is that unemployment for large groups of black men is a third or more.

Their employment histories are gruesome. Over the past few years, the percentage of black male high school graduates in their 20s who were jobless (including those who abandoned all efforts to find a job) has ranged from well over a third to roughly 50 percent. Those are the kinds of statistics you get during a depression.

For dropouts, the rates of joblessness are staggering. For black males who left high school without a diploma, the real jobless rate at various times over the past few years has ranged from 59 percent to a breathtaking 72 percent.

Our nation is living in such a deep state of denial regarding our economy that we have no realistic chance of turning it around for the common good before we crash.

We have become the Theater of the Absurd ... The Alice In Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass of industrialized nations ... because we call ourselves a Christian nation and we do not heed the demands of Christianity's core values:

Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:

For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:

I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.

Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?

Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did [it] not to one of the least of these, ye did [it] not to me.

And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

Matthew 25:41-46 New Testament KJV, www.blueletterbible.org

Another theme from the book of Daniel in Old Testament that fits us is the story of the hand writting on the wall:

And this [is] the writing that was written, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.

This [is] the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it.

TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.

PERES; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.

Daniel 5:25-28 Old Testament KJV, www.blueletterbible.org