1261 Boondoggle

Some people know things that we don’t. Take health care. To hear one side of the aisle describe the new bill, it’s all gloom and doom. An affront to our freedoms. A huge multi-paged complex boondoggle.
There’s an interesting word—boondoggle. A boon is something good isn’t it? I’m not sure what a doggle is, but it sounds like a toggle. Which is usually a switch-like thing, but not always connected to anything. You can have a fake toggle switch and it’s still a toggle.
Interestingly, the term boondoggle actually comes from the time of the New Deal. It was invented to contemptuously describe some of Roosevelt’s make-work projects.
Which, from what I can see from the economic news, is what the health care bill will do. Actually make work. At least Wall Street thinks so. Even though you’d assume Wall Streeters are mostly on that complaining side of the aisle, since the healthcare bill passed, healthcare-oriented stocks have really gone up.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently identified the 30 occupations most likely to grow in the next decade. Seventeen of the 30 are in health care. I’m sure this has nothing to do with the fact that the baby boomer bulge is about to sag permanently over the age of 65.
Or that a huge part of health care is dedicated to the maladies associated with aging.
Once again, the great baby boomers fuel the economy. From household gadgets in the 60s and 70s. To bigger and bigger households in the 80s and 90s. To exploding 401ks and catfood in the noughts.
And now in sickness to the economy’s health.
Are aging baby boomers going to bring the economy out of the dumps, now that they’ll get more help purchasing eldercare services and products?
Depends.
America, ya gotta love it.