Posted on 10/30/2011 2:11:08 PM PDT by Kaslin
Has the country gone mad? No need to answer; the question is rhetorical. (In other words, I know the answer, too.) According to the Bureau of Labor, 14 million Americans together make up our dismal national unemployment rate of 9.1 percent. That figure doesn’t include the 9.3 million who have uncomfortably settled into part-time work, or the million additional folks who have become discouraged and stopped looking for work altogether.
This is a depression. No doubt, some agency of government spares no expense cataloguing the psychiatric records needed to substantiate that diagnosis.
President Obama campaigns across the country for his jobs bill — or to get re-elected next year on the slogan, “Republicans are even worse than me.” Only one effort stands any chance of success.
This jobs bill is predicated on two central ideas: (a) drop-shipping crates of cash to state and local governments, tallying each tiny statistically detectable response to stimulus as credit to Mr. Obama’s heroism, audacity, and sagacity, and (b) when people decide whether or not to vote for him next year, he’d prefer they be employed (if they’re not too discouraged) or, at the very least, to blame Republicans.
Thankfully, the Obama Jobs Bill is fully paid for. How? By raising taxes in the future on rich people who can afford it and don’t pay their fair share.
So, what does that tax share look like now? America’s top ten percent of income earners pay 73 percent of all income taxes collected. The bottom 47 percent of Americans certainly pay plenty in many another tax, but pay nothing in federal income taxes . . . in many cases receiving money from Uncle Sam over and above what they’ve paid in.
Fairness has a whole new meaning.
A proposal by U.S. Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., makes more sense than Obama’s bill — if the goal is to make sure everyone has a job. It makes no sense at all, but Jackson’s idea is for the federal government to simply hire every unemployed American at roughly $40,000 a year.
That’s more than 15 million people.
But that’s not the half of it. Think of all the millions making less than $40K who will quit their jobs to take the sinecure with the salary bump.
Hmmm. Why didn’t we think of that?
But count on congressional Republicans to stand in the way of Obama and the Democrats. Not out of a principled belief in free markets and antagonism to government taking money from one person to give to another, mind you. Something else will be at play, here.
With all the jaw-boning over jobs, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson’s proud declaration that as governor he never created a single job is the only statement with any merit — proving he understands the difference between politically-created, walking-around-money jobs and productive private sector positions financed through profits earned.
Funny, unemployed Americans don’t want jobs badly enough to travel to Alabama to pick the crops not now being harvested by illegal immigrant labor. Obama’s administration doesn’t want Boeing to open up a plant in South Carolina. Even in my neck of the woods, in Arlington County, Virginia, the county board moved unanimously to prevent a Wal-Mart, Target or other big box store from opening for business.
The message is: We want jobs, but only the jobs we want. We want high-paying jobs, with lots of perks and lavish health benefits and a pension paying more in retirement than one makes while working.
These days you won’t find many of those jobs . . . outside of government.
Maybe the government will start growing money trees.
12 million illegal immigrants and 14 million unemployed Americans. What a weird coincidence.
There is only one solution: slash the corporate tax rate.
One of the major problems with companies that say they can’t find the skills they want in workers is this:
Companies have laid off job A, job B and job C. Now when they decide to hire they want to collapse all three jobs into one. They want someone that can do A, B and C. That’s nearly impossible. It’s unrealistic.
I’d like to see the numbers of the people who have exhausted their unemployment benefits and are now sitting around with no job and no umemployment check. Where do they count those people? What are those numbers?
There, FIXED!
It irritates me when people accept the statistician's spin about "people no longer looking for work".
Unemployed figures are based on the numbers of people drawing unemployment. When your unemployment runs out, magically you are no longer counted as "unemployed". Yet, you haven't found a job yet. So they shift you into another column, "discouraged workers". That way you don't mess up their artificially low "unemployed" figure.
I figure, if they claim nine percent unemployed, the real figure is about double that.
12 million illegal immigrants and 14 million unemployed Americans. What a weird coincidence.
How many of the 12 million are unemployed, receiving benefits?
According to the Bureau of Labor, 14 million Americans together make up our dismal national unemployment rate of 9.1 percent. That figure doesn’t include the 9.3 million who have uncomfortably settled into part-time work, or the million additional folks who have become discouraged and stopped looking for work altogether. This is a depression.
>>Companies have laid off job A, job B and job C. Now when they decide to hire they want to collapse all three jobs into one. They want someone that can do A, B and C. That’s nearly impossible. It’s unrealistic.
Very true. The government is not 100% to blame. The corporations are not 100% to blame. Wall St is not 100% to blame. The banks are not 100% to blame. The four have conspired to rob America of a healthy economy for decades by deferring the costs of profits and programs today into the distant future. The future is now and there’s no place left to defer the costs.
I dunno.
They know you can’t live on nothing. If you drop off the unemployment benefits list and you don’t show up in the morgue or prison, obviously you found some way to survive.
Sure. Its called “brother-in-law”.
Or “working wife”.
section 8 housing
food stamps
WIC
energy assistance
earned income credit
free cell phones
10 buck high speed internet
free school brkfst and lunch
the taxpayer is a generous benefactor....
or “work for cash under the table”
The MSM was going gaga over 2.5% “growth” last quarter. Where is this “growth”? Wouldn’t that represent a lot of economic activity going on, lots of jobs being created, etc.?
While you are receiving unemployment benefits, you are counted as “unemployed”. Once your benefits run out, you are no longer counted under that heading. You may not have found work, but you are no longer counted.
You might be working under the table while receiving benefits, who knows? The point is, what they call “unemployed” is strictly a function of who receives benefits. If you come out of high school or college and can’t find work, you aren’t counted because you don’t qualify for unemployment. If you lose your job and live off your savings, you aren’t counted because you didn’t apply for benefits. If you lose your job and go live in the woods and hunt coons you aren’t counted if you aren’t receiving benefits.
My point is that the real unemployment figure is much higher than the official one.
“One of the major problems with companies that say they can’t find the skills they want in workers is this:
Companies have laid off job A, job B and job C. Now when they decide to hire they want to collapse all three jobs into one. They want someone that can do A, B and C. That’s nearly impossible. It’s unrealistic.”
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I hadn’t thought of it that way but that probably is having a large effect. Even years ago when there were SUPPOSEDLY plenty of jobs I saw ads such as, WANTED, MAINTENANCE MAN, MUST BE ABLE TO DO CARPENTRY, ELECTRICAL, PAINTING, WELDING, PLUMBING ETC. HVAC CERTIFICATION REQUIRED PAY ELEVEN DOLLARS AN HOUR. Sounds like a real opportunity, doesn’t it?
“Wouldn’t that represent a lot of economic activity going on, lots of jobs being created, etc.?”
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Not when the method of computation has been adjusted to suit the needs of the government. What they call two and a half percent growth might be a slight shrinkage in reality.
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