VI, Six, 6

I'm always stunned when I hear the percentage of jobs in the financial sector -- 9.5% of America. One out of ten Americans are needed to handle the monetary affairs of the other nine.

It seems to me that I could well do without Bear Sterns or AIG...I really only need access to my money, and my local bank branch does a good job of that. However, with a 401(k), whoa! Now I "need" advisers, mutual fund managers, management analysts, fund counselors, accountants, auditors, SEC oversight regulators, and fund insurance underwriters -- and all these folks have done a bang-up job recently, haven't they?

And I'm further stunned by the percentage of jobs in the sales sector -- 11% of America. One of of ten Americans are needed to handle the exchange of goods for the other nine. And the vast, vast majority of these jobs are retail sales associates.

Say there's a new retail sales opening at the local Old Navy...$6.66 an hour, an exceedingly good rate. The problem I see is that this new retail sales position is not a net gain, it's a net drain. This is a job that isn't self sufficient. It doesn't generate enough tax payments to offset the services the person uses. The Old Navy is built on the edge of town in a strip mall in the middle of a public transit no-man's-land, so most of the costs of the public infrastructure of longer sewers, longer sidewalks that no one walks on, longer roads and longer utility services used to support the Old Navy's employee's commute and store breakroom are borne by someone else...not to mention the billions and billions of public freeway costs we subsidize to allow Old Navy trucks to deliver cheap goods from a Chinese container ship in Long Beach to a store in Roanoke, VA. The $6.66 hour employee is forced to drive back and forth to work, incrementally adding to the health care costs for everyone in lost time accidents and asthma attacks.

Creating more of these kinds of jobs is not healthy. Not healthy to have two out of ten Americans engaged in the selling of retail junk and engaged in the management of the finances needed to carry out these sales of retail junk.