Jobless misery loves company

At least L.A. County's jobless rate of 12.3 percent in May was lower than that of Ireland, the Slovak Republic and Spain, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Unfortunately, it was higher than a lot of nations, including France, Japan, Australia, Canada - well, just look at the chart. It's also higher than the overall U.S. rate of 9.7 percent. Of course, let's not confuse unemployment rates with fundamental economic conditions - Mexico had a relatively low 5.7 percent jobless rate in May, and that's hardly a beacon of prosperity.