P.S. If we got rid of stupid employer based health insurance, that would remove a large disincentive for hiring older workers.

Punkkitty,

Please hang in there and don’t give up hope, and in the meantime we all have to (A) stop Obama from cutting the safety net even futher, and (B) try to push for Medicare for all, or at the very least Medicare for everyone over 45, or 50, whatever age employers are currently tossing older workers into the trash. There must be be millions in the same boat who could mobilize. Be Karl Marx’s reserve army of the unemployed. I just wish that tool Oboma would take even a minute to consider the plight of people in your position. But why do that when he could have a grand bargain = sell out the poor, get giant speaking fees in return?

Good luck, and whatever you don’t commit suicide.

Steve

Maybe so. I prefer to save my schadenfreude for people who deserve it like George W. Bush or Barack “grand bargain” Obama.

And it comes from teaching dumbed-down University of Chicago economics (I know, that’s an oxymoron) to law students like Barack “mean old Blanche Lincoln won’t let me have a public option” Obama

Why indeed? I’m an atheist, but this strikes me as pointless and nasty bashing of Tim Tebow because of his religion. This doesn’t belong on FDL.

“Duke Energy is quitely giving the DNC a $10 million dollar gift.”

Eddie Murphy as he is being strangled by Dan Akroyd: “It was the Dukes, it was the Dukes…..”

Hyatt was involved in firing and replacing 100 union housekeepers with a non-union contractor in Boston shortly after President Obama was first elected and not only did he not “walk on the picket line” he did not so much as call his buddy Penny or lift a finger to help them. Another bad choice — we do not need yet one more person in the upper echelons of his administration who does not realize that low wages and union busting are bad for the workers and for the overall economy.

It’s funny you bring up Dorothea Lange because that is exactly the firt thing I thought of when I saw that Wall Street Journal graphic — those illustrations reminded me of her pictures of the families coping with the dust bowl/great depression/poverty. I think we’re due for a Ken Burns documentary on the families struggling to get by on $400,00 take-home now that he’s already done one on the dust bowl.

P.S. The Worst Hard Time about by Timothy Eagan about the dust bowl is a GREAT book and compelling reading.

“It’s hard to fake sincerity like that, but Obama is a master at it.”

You know what they say, the key to being a successful lawyer (politician?) is sincerity — if you can fake that you’ve got it made!

Because he’s the center of the universe and has to show that he can get a deal regardless what the deal actually is. I almost puked at his press conference a week ago when he was talking about Republicans wouldn’t come to an agreement with him because they don’t like him personally. What a narcissist.

President Obama has boxed the Democrats into a corner. With the threshold for upper income tax increases set so high, the giveaway on the estate tax, and the still low dividend and capital gains rates, any new revenues will come from cutting deductions for the middle class, cuts in discretionary spending, or cuts to programs that help the elderly and the poor (as bluedot said, SSMM). And certainly there will be no money to address burgeoning student loan debt, our crumbling infrastructure, increasing poverty, loss of homes and any kind of a progressive agenda. This is a terrible deal imho.

I listened to the press conference and it was all about him. The great conciliator. I’ve gone more than half way. The Republicans won’t agree with me because they don’t like me. He wants a bargain for the sake of getting a bargain.

Conspicuously absent was invoking any actual principles or explanation of why achieving deficit reduction was necessary, why it shouldn’t be accomplished by increasing revenue, and why he should be comprominsing with the Republicans and dropping his demands for every non-specific Republican offer. I think he’s already picking out his office in the Pete Peterson building.

Of course, he’s been lying, and lying, and lying, and no one seems to care. I long for a simpler day and age, when saying something that was true (you read an article that (incorrectly) said you were the inspiration for a character in the movie love story, and saying something that was arguably true — you were present at the creation of the internet — got you branded a serial liar in the mainstream media.

Romney also lied about the binders of qualified women candidates. He didn’t request them.

I have to agree with kapock. The Chinese capitalist imperialists and their running dog lackeys, when not opressing the working classes, are trying to expand their territory on all fronts, whether it be Tibet in the west, the South China sea, or the East China sea. All of these “disputes” seem to have one common element, China expanding its territory and control of resources. Chairman Mao must be rolling over in his grave.

Newcarguy: I can see you are a fellow noble and compassionate soul. I’m bursting with pride at our innate goodness.

Thanks for the good advice. I need to work on the sweat 5 minutes a day part but I’ll try to take it to heart.

You’re welcome! I’ve always wondered too when they talk about Republicans spending 3 times as much as Democrats on hookers and strippers at their conventions whether it means Democrats have more family values, or whether it just means Republicans have more money to spend. For partisan purposes, I’ll assume the first one. Or maybe it’s because Democrats have more women attending their conventions.

I know it’s tempting to be snarky at a time like this, but you do have to think of the innocent victims should this hurricane hit Tampa. The economic losses to the hookers and stippers coming to town for the convention would be devastating.