Sunday Roundup

This week, as summer's vacation high season began (at least in countries other than the unhealthily vacation-averse U.S.), the latest jobs numbers brought more evidence that our economy continues to be on a very extended holiday. We added only 162,000 jobs in July. Over half of them were in the low-wage retail and restaurant sectors, which is likely why hourly wages fell 0.1 percent. At this rate, it will still take up to a decade to erase our 8-10 million job deficit. In response, our leaders in Washington have done... nothing. Actually, worse than nothing, since they're currently wrangling over which job-killing budget cuts should replace the sequester's job-killing cuts. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Kerry said that he expected U.S. forces to remain in Afghanistan after 2014. To paraphrase a, you never have to ask a man to be the last man to die in Afghanistan if you make the mistake of never leaving.