Jobs

   More people in America found work last month, and wages rose, according to the latest government statistics.
   Payroll employment increased by 156,000, even as the unemployment rate held steady at 4.7 percent, the Labor Department said. This means discouraged workers were successful in finding jobs.
   Meanwhile, average hourly earnings moved up by 10 cents to $26 an hour, the department said.
   Separately, the Department of Commerce said Americans bought more stuff from overseas than they sold to foreign customers, which increased the goods and services deficit by $2.9 billion, to a total of $45.2 billion in November.
   Reality check: This simply means Americans have more money, and they are spending it buying stuff. And when people buy more stuff than they sell, the result is a deficit.
   American companies don't see this as a good thing, because they lose business to foreign competitors. They would rather corner the market and have American customers buy only stuff made by American firms. They say this even as they praise the benefits of free competition. Presumably, competition is a good thing only when they win.
   Taken as a whole, the latest numbers support the trend that the American economy is doing reasonably well, and has been steadily recovering from the Great Recession of eight years ago.
   There are, of course, those who are not doing as well as they hope and want to, and some politicians are preaching to that choir to get more votes and advance their own agenda of what they call free market economics.
   But a totally free market, unrestricted by regulations to ensure fairness for all, only results in an increasing gap between the haves and the have nots.
   Claiming the economy is in a disastrous state is not only false but self-serving, as the free-market few try to increase their leverage to control the workforce many.