1545 Un-Unemployment

I'm always heartened by the consistency of humanity. I get a little worried sometimes when I only hear of the dastardliness of rich people. They lie, they cheat on taxes, they cause worldwide economic meltdowns...
But hey, they're human. And a couple of stories recently show that neither the rich nor the poor have a monopoly on immorality.
One story was that despite the high unemployment, bad economy and stagnant wages for most workers, the average paycheck for top executives in 200 big companies in 2010 was 10.8 million.
Now before you go pointing fingers about what a disgusting amount that is, consider that it's a mere 23% gain. Of course they are the ones giving themselves raises but who says they have to be fair. The economy wasn't bad for them and those pitiful line workers whose hours they're increasing and pensions and benefits they're cutting back to increase profitability probably didn't deserve a 23% raise anyhow.
But you don't have to be rich to be crooked. In another story, according to the U.S. Labor Department, about $17 billion in unemployment benefits last year—a full 11.6% of the total amount paid out—was obtained through fraud. People continued to cash checks after they found a job or claimed benefits for which they were not eligible. Imagine…
So here's my question. If the top CEOs think they can afford to pay themselves a 23% increase, and 11.6% of the unemployed are actually employed, is the recession over? I mean, they come up with unemployment figures by counting people claiming unemployment benefits. And if 11.6% of them are un-unemployed...
Now if we could only get the cheaters on both ends to take out flaky mortgages on new houses and bring the construction industry back...
Happy days are here again.
America, ya gotta love it.