In the process, I took the old floor speakers I've had since early 1991 and tested them, figuring that if their decade (!) in the basement had ruined them I'd throw them away. When I started cleaning the basement I moved them into the living room to get them out of the way; but they couldn't stay there and I wasn't planning to leave them there ad infinitum. Now there's enough room in the basement for me to work around them, so down they went.
But first, testing, once all my chores and errands for the day were complete; and when they were, I hooked the speakers up to my stereo system and let 'em blare. I listened to music for about an hour and a half, and there was absolutely no sign of deterioration whatsoever. The sound was crystal-clear and everything worked beautifully.
...I had half-hoped they had deteriorated to unusability, because that way I could have toted them out. But they've suffered only minor cosmetic injuries over the twenty-five years that I've had them, and they work perfectly, and I cannot--I am constitutionally unable to--throw away a pair of perfectly good speakers.
Next alternative, Craigslist, I suppose. But if I can ever get the basement as clean as I want to get it, I intend to use them with the old stereo as part of the console game system down there. That'll be cool.
And the living room looks great.
* * *
I think it's fair to say that if you're in the top 10% of income earners in the country you qualify as "rich". That threshold is surprisingly low. $190,000 puts you in the top 5%; $300,000 puts you in the top 1%.
If you want to be "middle class" these days $100k is where you have to be, though. That was "rich" a couple of decades ago. The middle class is shrinking.
But there's no inflation.
* * *
The Greater Depression continues with an unemployment rate around 23%. We are told it's 5% because our government can't afford to tell us the truth, which is that the economy sucks.
...[U]pon inspection, you can see that the alarming 23%...unemployment rate is merely unemployment calculated as it was until the Kennedy administration, when out-of-work Americans who had suspended an active search for jobs--primarily because none could be found--were relabeled "discouraged workers" and dropped from the tally of the unemployed.The government has found it necessary to modify the way statistics are calculated because if we continue to use the same methods to calculate critical economic numbers the way we always have, it would be obvious how shitty things have become on their watch. And of course the press is careful not to remind us that this year's unemployment figure of 4.7% is not equivalent to 2005's 5% unemployment figure because while there are a hell of a lot more people out of work in 2016 than were in 2005 we simply don't count them.
Because that would make Barack Hussein look bad.
If Trump wins the election this year you can bet that suddenly news reports will be full of such caveats.
Related: with her promotion, Mrs. Fungus is handling screening applicants and scheduling interviews. So far, in the past month, she's had six applicants fail to show for interviews. Her brother reports that where he works there is a similar tale being told.
WTF.
I'm of the opinion that there are people who must apply for jobs to retain their government benefits, but of course the last thing they want is to actually get a job, because then they'd have to work. This is not helping the unemployment figures, but since our government isn't even counting right, what difference does it make?
* * *
Today is Wednesday, and mostly it's been a gloomy day. They're predicting severe thunderstorms, and flash flooding; and right now it's moist enough outside that I'm not going to be cutting the grass this week. Still, it's been so dry over the past two or three weeks that it doesn't need cutting.
Last night we watched 10 Cloverfield Lane; Mrs. Fungus really enjoyed it. I didn't like it as much as she did but it was reasonably entertaining. 80% of the movie took place in a bomb shelter and there were eight people in the movie, three of whom never appeared on screen and two of whom had bit parts. Not exactly a "cast of thousands". It was entertaining enough, though.
Tomorrow the workweek begins anew. Whee!