The Pain of Coping When a Job Is Snatched Away

The New York Times ^ | December 1, 2003 | JILL ANDRESKY FRASER

[Jackson Brown]

When people loses jobs, it's always tough

Excuse me, it lose, not loses.

[Luke Skyfreeper]

Aaaaand once again at Free Republic, the chorus of insults against those of us who are doing our best, and still literally struggling to barely survive, reaches a frenzied pitch.

Tell ya what, if you're looking for compassionate conservatism, ya better contact the White House, 'cause it's frequently in short supply around here.

I say all this while agreeing that the people who were raking in $250,000 were unbelievably foolish not to save it while they had it.

In my case, that was never the case.

All I can say is, I believe there's justice in the world. If you believe in kicking the crap out of others while they're down, well... we'll see. It may well be that your time is coming, someday, to understand what it's like.

[speedy]

Thanks, Gramps. The real test of the Bush Boom will be New York Times layoffs as a nauseated public cancels its subscriptions.

[usadave]

There were, on average, 8.4 million unemployed Americans in 2002.

In a related story, it is estimated that there are approximately 8.4 million illegal aliens working in the United States.

[Rome2000]

Pravda on 42nd St.

Embarassing,and totally futile attempt to sabotage the good news of the economic recovery

[Grampa Dave]

I long for the day when Willie writes the tearful stories of the NY Slimes, Washington Compost, LA Slimes and SF Gay Rhonicle being unemployed maggots. No one will hire them.

[speedy]

Yep, sounds like these two were spending it faster than they made it when the getting was good. It still doesn't make sense to me how you could have the capacity to make a quarter of a million one year and only 25 thousand the next. You don't think the Times would lie to us, do you?

[Poohbah]

Yep, sounds like these two were spending it faster than they made it when the getting was good. It still doesn't make sense to me how you could have the capacity to make a quarter of a million one year and only 25 thousand the next. You don't think the Times would lie to us, do you?

Is "Jill Andresky Fraser" Jayson Blair's pen name?

[mountaineer]

Nobody's kicking the crap out of anyone. The people profiled in the story don't deserve our sympathy, though. They seem to have frittered their money away, and do not appear willing to do whatever it takes to support themselves, whether it's menial labor or working two jobs. Most of us aren't quite so arrogant or prideful. If we have to clean toilets to support our families, we will.

[Sam's Army]

"Good. If there are enoght of them maybe they will help to vote our present globalist turkey out of the White House and we can get someone who knows something about economics or anything else other than bombing ragheads."

Thus speaks another Dean supporter.

[Skooz]

Yeah, things sure are bad out there.............

Stocks Jump; S&P 500 Hits 18-Month High...

Factories Hum, Construction Booms...

Manufacturers hit 20-year record pace...

[zencat]

Thank heaven people get laid off. Otherwise we'd all be making wagon wheels and candles. While this may be unfortunate for the individual, it is what allows a capitalistic society to advance and create such a high standard of living for so many.

[mountaineer]

Lots of luck finding a steel plant hiring right now, but that is what a lot of the workers have been making in recent years.

[Ron in Acreage]

Victims of the Bush inherited Clinton recession. The Clinton era corporate scandals came home to roost. It's simple. Corruption under Clinton. Convictions under Bush.

[Poohbah]

I'm sure they switched to the cheaper cuts of brie and caviar.

[Poohbah]

Shh. You weren't supposed to notice that there wasn't any "there" there.

[Grampa Dave]

Here is a look at the real unemployment rates not was cited by the Jayson clone writing this pos posing as an article:

Herbert Hoover Hooey! The Bush Boom is not a "jobless recovery."

http://www.nationalreview.com/script/printpage.asp?ref=/nrof_buzzcharts/buzzcharts200311130856.asp

November 13, 2003, 8:56 a.m.
Herbert Hoover Hooey!
The Bush Boom is not a "jobless recovery."

By Jerry Bowyer



A week ago we learned that new unemployment claims had been dropping for five weeks straight. We also learned that the unemployment rate for October had dropped from 6.1 percent to 6.0 percent. Furthermore we learned that the job-creation rate for the prior two months had been better than we expected, and had been revised upward.

In other words, we learned that the Bush Boom is not a "jobless recovery," and that you are either an economic moron or a blind partisan if you continue to refer to the Bush economic legacy as "the worst economy since Herbert Hoover."

BuzzCharts believes in putting things in historical perspective. When the latest unemployment numbers are compared with those of the presidents who followed Herbert Hoover, we find that Bush is not the worst in the jobs department. In fact, he ranks among the best. At 6.00 percent, the current Bush unemployment rate ranks better than the rates achieved during Clinton's first term (6.03%), Clinton's first three years (6.23%), George H.W. Bush's tenure (6.28%), Reagan's second term (6.48%), Carter's tenure (6.56%), the Ford/Nixon period (6.64%), and finally Reagan's first term (8.58%). FDR's unemployment rate hovered in the high teens until the initiation of World War II.

BuzzCharts would also like to make sure that no angry left-leaning bloggers waste valuable key-stroke time accusing us of cherry-picking a particularly low unemployment month for the Bush administration. So we calculated the average unemployment for Bush's first three years, and found that it compares even more favorably with previous presidential terms at 5.45 percent.

However you slice the data, the Bush presidency is a low unemployment presidency. No amount of repetition of mindless slogans will change that fact.

— Jerry Bowyer is a radio and television talk-show host and the author of the recently released book, The Bush Boom. He can be reached through www.BowyerMedia.com.

[Desert88]

Maybe the individuals featured in the stories are not real people, but composites instead. Using composites is standard procedure at the Times, isn't it?