If you were unemployed, would you prefer a job or a handout? Most people would say a job because of the self-respect that comes with being productively employed. What is not widely recognized is both the emotional and physical damage long-term unemployment does to many people.

Over the past several decades, there have been many studies about the effects of long-term unemployment on individuals. If you do a Google search of such studies, you will find a remarkable consensus among the researchers -- even though some are funded by government, some by labor groups and some by employer groups.

In sum, all agree that death rates increase markedly for those who lose their jobs. The unemployed, not surprisingly, are much more prone to develop stress-induced conditions such as diabetes and depression. Not being able to find work is stressful, particularly for those with family responsibilities.

It is interesting that even though nearly all agree that involuntary unemployment is harmful to the individual and society, many policymakers are willing to accept it rather than focus on what can be done to prevent it.  President Obama certainly seems to be among them.

The deluge of teeth-gnashing, hair-pulling grief-tormented hysteria washing over every liberal media outlet in the Milky Way Galaxy has reached a high-water mark with space-patrol talk about secession - as in the Kerry-voting “Blue” states actually seceding from the United States. Here’s Geraldine Ferraro fomenting on Fox’s Hannity & Colmes November 6:

You know what? Just let me make one point. You were talking about the map before. If indeed all those blue states all got together and seceded from the union, think what would be left for those red states, nothing. There would be no educational system. You would have nothing. What would be left to you? I mean, where is all of this talent in this country? It's on both sides, the Northeast corridor.

Contrary to what you may have heard, there is no "bee-pocalypse." There is lots of alarmist talk about "colony collapse disorder," people are blaming pesticides and talking about hundreds of billions of dollars at risk. But a closer look tells a very different story.

Yes, honeybees are dying in above-average numbers, but the most likely cause is the varroa destructor mite and associated viruses.

Moreover, if you look at the actual numbers, they undermine much of the catastrophic rhetoric. In the United States, where we have good data, beekeepers have adapted to CCD. Colony numbers were higher in 2010 than any year since 1999. The beekeepers are not passive victims.

Yet, scare stories abound. We are being warned that "bee deaths may have reached a crisis point for crops," and some commentators go as far as invoking an impending "bee-pocalypse" or a "bee-mageddon."

They fondly  employ a quotation attributed to Albert Einstein: "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the Earth, man would have no more than four years to live." The implication seems to be that if the smartest guy on the planet was alarmed, we should be too.

However, the quote seems to have been made up, first appearing in 1994 in a pamphlet distributed by French beekeepers, protesting the high cost of sugar for feeding bees and opposing a proposed reduction of tariffs on imported honey.

What a hornet's nest on the TTP Forum got stirred up by that Congressista's questioning of Social Security in The Traitor in the White House.  I guess some clarification is required.

He meant it as a "teachable moment," a thought experiment to demonstrate that just as his conservative audience was determined no matter what to demand their Social Security payments, so is everyone else in America who's receiving some sort of government payout.  He thus sees truly cutting government spending as a hopeless task.

He was not questioning Social Security, and was quite interested - as were his two colleagues - in the concept of selling off federal lands (1/3 of the entire US) to pay owed SS benefits when I mentioned it.  But his thought experiment backfired, both in his townhall meeting and the TTP Forum because of the visceral emotions surrounding SS.

Here's my perspective.  People have been conned by government scammers into thinking that SS taxes are somehow different from income or other taxes.  All the money taken by force or extortion by the federalies was earned by those from whom it was taken. Social Security is a government racket, a gigantic Ponzi Scheme.  There is no Trust Fund.  It does not exist.  Your money has been spent.

Further, the purpose of Social Security is to make people dependent on government.  Even conservatives, most especially conservatives.  I personally look at SS taxes as stolen and gone just like all others. Stealing money is what governments do, and SS money is no different.

Why should the federal government bother to impose taxes when it can use the Federal Reserve to "print" all the money it needs to pay its bills?

Last year, the Fed bought 77 percent of all of the government's new debt, which is the equivalent of printing money. The government borrowed almost 40 cents for each dollar it spent, with the Fed printing 30 cents of each dollar spent through its bond purchases (creating new money) -- an amount equal to about 7 percent of gross domestic product.

What would happen if the Fed printed enough money each year to cover the cost of the federal income tax of approximately $1.4 trillion? Most people who have taken a course in economics know that it ultimately would result in ruinous inflation.

Can one envision a world where there is both apparent price stability and no income taxes? The following is to encourage you to think about possible alternatives to the existing economic order.