Tweet
Stop what you’re doing right now and watch this video of unemployed workers.
This is a heartbreaking video of unemployed workers from all walks of life, all of whom are about to run out of their unemployment benefits.
These are the people President Barack Obama is using as a human sacrifice in order to extend Bush’s tax cuts for the incredibly wealthy, just to avoid being accused of “raising taxes” in 2012.
Congratulations to the AFL-CIO for a phenomenal video – go write to Congress on their site now.
88 Comments
Wow.
Powerful stuff.
That was the subject line used to send this email from Working America. There’s not many other ways to respond to this video.
This needs to be played on a loop in both Chambers until they pass the extension.
My heart goes out to these people. Amazing that anyone can firmly state that unemployment benefits shouldn’t be exteneded, especially when it’s likely that zillionaires will benefit from unending tax cuts that should’ve never been done in the first place.
Thanks for posting this.
They don’t give a flying monkey fuck about you. Not. A. Flying. Monkey. Fuck.
They’ve got theirs and the rest of us can go straight to hell as far as these bastards are concerned.
“I’ve got mine, fuck you. Go get your own.”
That is the overriding Republican and increasingly, the Democratic philosophy.
Tell me please what is the answer. To help the unemployed or to give the rich their tax cuts. Their is no guarantee that if you give the rich the tax cut they will even then agree to unemployment insurance. I just listened to Adam Green on the Ed Shultz show say we should not give in to the tax cuts and we should bombard Collins, Snowe and Brown in their home districts. Bob Shrum had the opposite advice: give the thugs what they want b/c without it the unemployment situation will get worse (i.e.if taxes go up on everyone.)
although I am concerned and I ‘get it’ regarding the class warfare and denial of unemployment extensions…
admit that I have a hard time watching these purposely designed heart-tugging stories, and blew off watching the vid, ‘coz i know it’s a major bummer….is that so terrible?
May Day Rising…
This is why we must force BO to do the right thing. iirc he already said make me do it!! Maybe just maybe this IS part of his eleventy seventy dimension chess and if we ALL push real hard he will/might do what is right for the 99% percent of citizens and let the rest pay fair taxes on their ill gotten gains!
What kind of organization would it require to raise funds to sponsor the unemployed to be our lobbyists?
I mean bus them in waves to D.C., set them up with lodging, give them a stipend for food, and give them one mandate: clog the halls of the Capitol.
How far could a couple hundred thousand Dollars be stretched to sustain such an effort? The message would be simple, “Hello Mr. Congressman. If you want us out of your hair, give us something to do. I know, simple huh?”
It is a stunning video. Dems in Congress and in the White House need to get a backbone and also decide who they care more about – the wealthy and their campaign contributions, or this country’s long term health and citizenry. We are all watching.
And one line I hear from GOP is that people aren’t trying hard enough to find a job. Cut off the benefits and they’ll try harder. One thing they don’t discuss is the predicament of people in their 50′s and 60′s. It is very, very hard for them to find a job in this competitive environment.
Yes!! Where is your compassion for your fellow man?? I learned that from my family we must all try and work together for the common good and not for the few privileged!! I have given my kids that gift and I see it in their lives. Good people not saying “I got Mine” crap and giving back to family and community. That is what this country was founded on.
Even passing the extension won’t address those of us who have run out of benefits or those who were deemed ineligible.
This is outrageous! Especially in light of the $700,000 grant recently given to a university to study cow burps!
Okay, Congress, we are taking names!
I’m not going to watch it because I know their story. Firsthand. Sounds like one of the people who needs to see it though is you.
I have compassion, just don’t want to watch the vid…it’s designed to be emotionally manipulative, and i don’t feel like being manipulated right now, thank you very much…
LOST!
I hear you Peg I hear you. I was in the same boat until I got old enough for early retirement… In five years of trying I got 2 interviews 2 just fucking two. And things now are a whole worse now!
I hope you won’t be offended by my telling you I just responded to your same question over on this link at masaccio’s thread:
http://firedoglake.com/2010/12/03/the-opposite-of-leadership-president-obamas-tax-cut-for-the-rich/#comment-2262773
(no link tools here)
Gist of my response is Shrum is an idiot, Adam Green is right, which is why AFL-CIO is running this video campaign. PCCC is probably supporting the AFL-CIO campaign.
When looking at factual, although horrible, consequences is being “manipulated” is your only source of facts going to be pablum?
People can justify anything they want to remain comfortable, can’t they?
It’s been done. With earth-shaking impact. Look up the “Bonus March” on yer googles or wikis.
I saw it and was hoping someone would respond. I also responded to you. I would like to agree about Shrum but I think he has a point. Please check it out and leave your thoughts. I have to go out for awhile but would like to get ideas about this.
“Lost” indeed. That always seems lost in every discussion about extending unemployment benefits. I(f they get passed, conservatives will squall and liberals will declare victory and the 99ers will still be out of work and unable to pay their bills.
And that’s what it’s about, isn’t it? “I won’t feel uncomfortable or guilty if a cover my eyes and say ‘La, La, La…’ really loud.
There is fucking terrible human cost here and we have to find a way to respond. I dislike Bob Shrum but for reasons I left on another post, I can’t get around him. BTW, my son has been unemployed for 9 months. It ain’t no fucking joke, I promise you that.
i can handle the truth and am quite comfortable remaining comfortable.
Rush Limbaugh is now recommending anyone receiving gvt. benefits not be permitted to vote. Tea Party leadership is calling for limiting the vote to property owners.
They are coming for us and I don’t think many if any Democrats in power understand that.
They need to be replaced by hard nosed young folks this Adam Green, Alan Grayson, Glenn Greenwald, our own Jane Hamsher to name a few.
Almost two fucking years! And I have education. I have many skills. I’m a people person. Obama, you suck every bit as bad as your predecessor and I defy anybody to tell me why he doesn’t. At some point it stops being about Bush who wrecked the economy and starts being about Obama who made sure that it stayed wrecked, (for everybody who isn’t really wealthy). We’ve passed that point in my opinion.
Very True! Until there is money for small businesses to grow & hire there Will be very few jobs. And if the masses can’t buy the essentials there will never be any growth in jobs… Cutting unemployment is spite plain and simple by the PUKES!
Can’t watch. I am one of them.
Hence my point at 3:50.
I agree. Tis a very sad state of affairs we have for all who do not earn $250k and above. The rest us Will just havt’a eat cake I guess…
Where is my damn pitch Fork honey?? I have some business to attend to..
I concur with this. Tax cuts are a terribly ineffective way to spur the economy–more spending is the way to get ‘er done.
stewartm
Yeah, that’s why I didn’t watch.
Bob Shrum had the opposite advice: give the thugs what they want b/c without it the unemployment situation will get worse (i.e.if taxes go up on everyone.)
*NO*. Do NOT cave. Do NOT link the tax cuts with anything. Do NOT let the Repugs link them or anything else. Either we have a middle-class tax cut, or none.
Extending unemployment benefits is stimulative, but should not be tied to the tax cuts. Already the Repugs are demanding that any unemployment extensions be “paid for” while their precious tax cuts, which blow a gigantic hole in the budget, is not.
Sometimes, you just have to play MAD. The Republicans do not understand any other message than punishment. Letting the tax cuts expire punishes them.
stewartm
This IS the President’s fault. We elected him to make all this unnecessary. He is a MASSIVE fail.
I watched and I’m one of them
62 years old
college degreed.
My personal story: my tenant downstairs has been unemployed for over a year. I have not charged him rent and have in fact made some of his truck payments for him.
Another friend, I have paid his rent and other expenses.
But both of these people have gotten jobs recently–maybe tenuous jobs, but work nonetheless. I fear that caving to the Repugs on tax cuts will lead next year to austerity cuts over cries about the deficit, and that *will* throw the economy back into the tank. These two, and maybe who knows–me–could all end up unemployed.
Since spending is far more stimulative then tax cuts, the best road forward (and its’ not much of a road) is to not to give the deficit peacocks any excuse to carve up spending the next 2 years. Unfortunately, that probably means fighting Obama as well.
stewartm
Wow, from here: http://www.lib.niu.edu/1993/ihy930564.html
Is it at all appropriate that I’m also from Portland, OR? :-)
This needs to happen again. Michael, what do you think the chances are of FDL facilitating something like this? Perhaps in concert with other blogs, both left and right?
Yeah, a WPA 2.0 might well have passed in 2009. He was given a historic opportunity to implement real change here as with everything else, but instead of an FDR we got a James Buchanan.
stewartm
Jesus H. Fucking Christ on a Rye-Krispwith cream cheese and caviar. This whole fucking debate is a fucking ruse. Any simpleton can understand this shit yet the media dimwits won’t even broach the idea. If a tax cut for the richest created jobs we would be drowning in jobs. Giving a cut to a zillionaire making widgets will not create jobs unless there is a demand and money in the pockets of consumers to buy the fucking things. To keep the pockets of these poor people empty is just wholly counterproductive and economically fucking stupid beyond belief.
Though I’d hope for a better final outcome than our predecessors.
Nathan, that idea sounds great to me. I am very poor but would gladly contribute to this fund.
Our ‘leaders’ have a very cushy place to hide away from us (the small people). That place is inside the beltway. Let’s send our new lobbyists there in large numbers and see them continue to deny we exist.
He’s worse. We knew what to expect from Bushes. Obama was hope. He lied and leaves us with no personification of hope.
I wonder if you may be avoiding the truth your emotions will tell you. We h ave too much of ignoring the human and, yes, emotional, price is being extracted by this situation.
You don’t have the kick the economy. You have to give people jobs and with full employment, the economy will do just fine.
Wow, just wow. I would say: unbelieveble, but it’s not. And rightwingers, who will lose their votes because they get Medicare or Soc Sec or bc they don’t own property, will be the first to clap, cheer and get in line to be screwed over.
Unfortunately, too many Dems these days will join in that communal screwing.
I’m at a loss as to what it takes to wake citizens UP.
Where is our President? Saying he will bribe the rich to help the poor. Extend the benefits for a year and we will let you keep your money for more years even if that means ALL Americans in USA have less for many years. OOOH that’s why I voted for him.
Tell me please who is left who would vote for Barack Obama? The poor? the liberal? the middle class whites who are clinging to guns, God and ? The Black people he has done so much for these two years? Whose left? Maybe he will become an independent to run again and join Joe Lieberman.
The class of 99ers being left behind again. Unemployment insurance for everyone damn it! N
Everyone here and in many other places across the country know damn well how all this FUCKING CHARADE is going to end. The elites and their puppeteers and puppets are in charge of EVERYTHING! Obama is a TOTAL ASSWIPE! Period! The Dems are asses, the Repubs are asses, and don’t even mention the extreme right…they are the product of asses = SHITE!
What is needed is that which history has echoed for time after time. The People rise up and crush their oppressors…show me some other solution that has a snowball chance in hell of working and perhaps we can work on it together…otherwise I continue to self-censor suggestions for a real solution and it’s fast approaching inevitability!
I would chip in for that.
I’m calling for an “Empty Plates” demonstration:
As the year comes to a close, the rising tide of hunger, unemployment and homelessness in this country grows, unabated. The policies of our government are creating an unconscionable number of tragedies for the American citizenry, focused only on supporting corporate profits and ignoring the criminal frauds that permeate our entire system. I propose a series of demonstrations, throughout the land, at city halls, Representative’s offices, or State capitols, on 12/12. It is time for us to stand up and be counted, all of those who are appalled at the egregious suffering being forced upon us. I see now, millions of people in the streets, in Iceland, Ireland, England, Greece, and elsewhere, yet we Americans are not visible, yes we blog, write letters, call, but there are no bodies in the streets. I propose this street demonstration, I call it “Empty Plates” for the lack of even the “crumbs” of unemployment benefits. I call for all of us who reject the economic terrorism of our legacy parties to RISE UP and hit the pavement! I want to see grandmothers and mothers, grandfathers and fathers, children, union members, students, Greens, Socialists, any group that rejects the idea that forced starvation can in any way “be good for our country”, become a visible, palpable, physical presence, and demonstrate on December 12th (I don’t foresee any positive political change before then, if ever). Can we make it go viral? Can we have men and women beating pots and pans in the streets? Can we demand that Obama sign EO 7034 and create a WPA? A thousand small fires can light up this country, the beginning of a movement that rejects the savaging of our safety nets, that disavows the idea that throwing millions of children into poverty, hunger and homelessness is the answer to our economic problem, while corporations and CEOs enjoy ever-larger profits and income at our expense. Please, can we join together for this one, small outcry? For a few hours in the middle of this holiday season we can make a statement that could reverberate around the country and begin to show our true strength.
You know if they intercut that with video of the keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention, they might really have something:
Yes, the fault lies at the feet of our President. And he should be ashamed. Not that I expect him to read it, but here’s the letter I sent today
“So the new jobs report is out, and once again there are five people applying for every one job. Yet the Republicans and conservative Democrats are perfectly prepared to allow unemployment benefits to expire.
Dear God, Mr. President, these people will be living on the streets. And if they’ve use their retirement savings, what do we think they will do when they become too old and sick to work any longer??? Even if they find work tomorrow, they won’t have the decades it’ll take to rebuild their savings. Is America really prepared for the sight of elderly men and women literally sleeping under bridges and in our alleys? Or living in squalor, bug infested homes with little heat, no cooling in the summer and no food?
Do you really think this is won’t happen? It WAS the reality just a few decades ago in America. What do we think these people are going to do now that we’ve forced them to spend every, single penny they had?
And if you wonder why I hate Republicans with every fiber of my being, this is why. To watch those smug faces in Washington working to get more cash in their pockets and into the pockets of their fat cat donors, while we’re facing a crisis in the heartland with housing, food and medical expenses out of control….. It absolutely turns my stomach to know that this is what Regan and all those that followed him did to my country.
And you, Mr. President, you should be ashamed of yourself. You had a window of opportunity when you came into office with the public firmly behind you and huge majorities in both houses, and you WASTED it trying to play nice with the very people who have gutted our nation. You caved and waffled at every turn.
Shame on you.”
I’ve thought it over. I have retitled my prior post. It’s now “BankRun2010.Com: Give the Gift of Life and Give Death a Holiday!” (link: http://my.firedoglake.com/mzchief/2010/12/02/give-the-gift-of-life-and-give-death-a-holiday )
Read on:
Bonus Army – wikipedia
Then Hoover gets defeated and FDR gets elected (I like it!), although it’s still not a fairytale:
“it’s designed to be emotionally manipulative, and i don’t feel like being manipulated right now, thank you very much…”
… i’m busy right now, being being manipulated by billionaires to help screw over the workers …
What’s particularly galling is that the “I got mine” group got theirs from US.
I have a simplistic view about this that makes grovelling before Congress especially galling.
Like SS, we pay unemployment insurance premiums each time we get paid. That money we contribute when we are employed (which for me is 30 years worth of contribution)is ours. The whole point is self funding a small safety net for the (previously) low probability that we would find ourselves out of work for an extended period of time over our working lifetimes.
This is not welfare, not charity. Its a program we all prudently provide for.
If the premiums were too low because of actuarial miscalculations, tough. That’s a second order issue that can be rethought once the exceptional unemployment crisis passes. That’s govts error, not ours.
Its appalling to penalize the unemployed for this error by not using our contributions to keep us alive.
Every Congressman who votes NO is saying to his constituents, piss off, those excess contributions you made over your career simply don’t belong to you. I decide.
I don’t buy that, and I despair that I never see anyone confront Congress with this basic argument.
I’m 52 yrs old, and have been out of work for 18mos and expect to be out for at least another 6 mos. I didn’t even apply for unemployment till a year after I got laid off, operating under a delusional nobility principle, that I’d done well enough that I could take care of myself for a year, till I couldn’t.
WTF does Congress think 400 a week buys? It buys time to hang on for another week. It buys 7 days of hope that a life is salvageable.
Its my 400 a week and I want to spend it saving my life. Its a no brainer.
Whose life isn’t worth 400 a week?
Congress?? Can you answer that question?
Not too long ago, I considered Dick Durbin to be a senator who actually was concerned about the welfare of his constituents. I knew he wasn’t perfect but I believed that he had a certain amount of respect for what I always thought of as the bedrock principle of the Democratic Party: provide a modicum of leveling through government action of upper class privilege and entitlement.
I’ve written to Durbin on several occasions about my concerns, mostly about the state of the economy and any legislation that I believed would impact it in a negative way (i.e., “free” trade agreements, bank bailouts that were anything but transparent, the huge cost of our ongoing wars). His office never, not once, responded to any of my emails.
Durbin has spent almost all of his working life becoming extremely well nourished on the public teat. He has no idea what it is to look for work and he has no ambition to find out. He doesn’t care. Neither do any of the fourteen senators (plus Conrad) who signed that letter calling for austerity. They simply do not care. Dick, in particular, seems to take special delight in being a lap dog for Obama and promotes whatever destructive measures The One favors.
Dick’s latest bill and one of Obama’s key projects, S. 510, the so-called Food Safety Modernization Act, had language in it that called for the Senate to raise revenues to support the oversight outlined in the bill. After decades in the U.S. Congress, Dick would have us believe that he is ignorant of the fact that it is the House that dictates how revenues are raised. The result of this “error” is that, after passing in the Senate, it will have to go back again to the Senate where it will be amended and voted upon next year under the new Congress. Kraft, General Foods, and the American Federation Farm Bureau (a Big Ag lobbyist group) all spent big money lobbying for S. 510. AFB spent $9.5 M since 2009 lobbying for S. 510 and against the House version. This alone should tell you all you need to know about Durbin.
http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/2010/12/02/s510-lobby-dollars/
Obama and Congress take or ignore specific actions because they want to, not because they are forced. They are fully aware of the unemployment rate (over 22% if calculated using the method used in 1980 – link below). This is the situation they want and the one they want to normalize.
BTW, I had to home school my son for a time in U.S. history (long story). One of the first things I taught him about was the Bonus Army. I think it would be a good idea if any of us who are parents school our children in history OUR way.
http://globalpoliticalawakening.blogspot.com/2010/11/big-lies-little-lies.html
Congress would rather protect the financial interests of British Petroleum, a foreign corporation than the lives and liberties of Americans. The US spends trillions to conduct war securing access to oil which is in turn sold to US. We then get to waste .80 cents of every dollar spent on just gasoline alone fueling a basic liberty, travel. The aggregate “economic value” squandered via inefficient wasteful utilization of potential energy escalating in cost has decimated a society. After all every dramatic increase in the cost of oil has resulted in a loss of jobs. Politically leveraged economic servitude to monopolistic corporate interests is not liberty.
America is like a drunk in denial and with the undue influence of money on the political process Congress has undermined the liberties of a people and the economic security of a nation. America has dealt with such issues before. The labor force available in ironically communist countries, is utilized by Corporate Interests motivated by the lowering of cost. In this case, the cost of “human energy.”
A slave is property exploited for its energy. Gasoline a commodity is utilized for its stored potential energy. In both instances the energy utilized fueled and fuels a way of life. Today Americans are a casualties of this retarded energy equation, where corporations are given carte blanc to engage international wealth extraction……
Bob Schrum is an idiot. You do not negotiate with terrorists. You do not pay the ransom. You do not give in to hostage takers. If you do, you normalize their behavior. You make it acceptable. You cannot do that. Their behavior is unacceptable. It cannot be allowed. If you allow it, you are helping to destroy civilization.
These people have no honor.
Did they vote?Did they make the calls and walked the streets in their district to make sure they had a dem congressman? I know i did. Some ninety niners said they were going to sit out the vote. Well, if the people in the video are part of that movement then what is happening to them at this moment, this crucial moment when the Rethugs got the progressives swimming downstream, then I don’t feel sorry for them. We needed more Dems in the Senate and also in the House. I begged people in my part of the City to vote, vote, vote.
Dems Put Jobs And The Deficit On Back Burner Again For $6.2 Billion DREAM
Act! Contacted your elected officials, this is not acceptable when Americans need the jobs illegal aliens are taking!
Reid, Pelosi & Obama Put Jobs And The Deficit On Back Burner Again For $6.2 Billion DREAM Act!
Contact your elected officials, this is not acceptable when Americans need the jobs illegals are taking!
No. the DREAM Act is a critical piece of legislation that not only is designed to help kids who only know America but also reduces the deficit more than Obama’s ridiculous federal pay freeze.
They’ve been pushing tax cuts for the wealthy as a cure for economic problems since Friedman got hold of some Big Name Republicans back in the 70s.
It’s been 30 years, and none of the promised benefits have ever been delivered.
i think it’s time to tell the tax-cut believers that they had their chance, it failed, and they should shut up and leave.
I’m not going to watch, because I know people who are already there.
There Are No Jobs for 60-year-old Programmers.
And anyone who suggests retraining gets to provide the training and the jobs, because these people have heard that one before.
didn’t read because it’s a solid block of text.
Can you put in some white space so it’s readable?
As in PARAGRAPHS?
Either you didn’t read the response the first time you posted this, or you’re spamming the thread. Please don’t.
(BTW, the DREAM act will help people who can’t get jobs now, because they came as children (many as infants), grew up here, and are undocumented. Including at least one law school graduate.)
What I think would help right now is having every strong Democrat get on Sunday morning news, and this week every morning, noon and evening news program they can to hold the GOP up to ridicule. The GOP has been screaming for 2 years about a deficit, and now will not back down on having THEIR OWN tax cuts eliminated. Lets face it, is there a Republican in Congress who isn’t a millionaire, or at least not earning over $200,000? When they have a chance to decrease the deficit they will not do it, when it affects their own wallet, but they want the rest of America to suffer.
Let the out of work go without ANY money, so Senator GOP can keep an extra 1.2 million this year. Or, Senator GOP 2 can keep an extra $950,000. The really strong Dem. would have the nerve to use an actual Republican Senators name, and I would love to hear it. After all, they deserve to be called out for denying average Americans a roof over their heads.
class war.
Why should I continue to pay what amounts to welfare to a bunch of people who can’t even find a minimum wage job in TWO YEARS? I really do symapthize with these people and their families, but I fail to see why I should finance their joblessness.
I HAVE collected UI in the past (twice). I have never had a more humbling experience in my professional career. But I always saw it as a bridge until I could find another job. I’ve given up my chosen field of employment because I could not find new work in that area. I did not continue to rely on the teat of society.
In TWO YEARS, you’re telling me these people could not find even a minimum wage job (pays about the same as UI)? They did not enroll in an education program to learn new skills? Come on, be realistic.
The one lady who says it’s essentially not her fault that she is unemployed is half right – she did not control her layoff perhaps, but she DOES control what happens after that.
Sorry, I fail to see why that is my problem.
Actually, PJ, it will hurt people who can’t get jobs now, because it will inflate the supply of employees while doing nothing about the supply of jobs.
With at least five applicants for every job, yes, even minimum wage jobs, the jobs just are not available.
I’m saying this as someone who has a part-time barely more than minimum wage position and an awareness that I will most likely never work in my chosen field of Software Quality Assurance again since I am 58 years old.
But please feel free to go John Galt on us all so we won’t have to compete with such a vibrant and caring individual
Halfway there. I used some of the money I made oppressing the masses to buy a nice parcel in Costa Rica. Three years from full-Galt. I’ll rely on myself and my wife for our day-to-day existence.
Ironic, though: I’ll pay US taxes on the money I pull from my retirement accounts and won’t get much in return. But I can’t afford to live in the US once the dollar plummets, taxes soar, and our Congress decides to extend UI for people entering their 8th year of unemployment.
How does it reduce the deficit, Michael? It adds more people to the roles elegible for welfare, and it will almost inevitably add more funding for college scholarships and loans, so that these undocumented aliens can complete their DREAM by going to college and qualifying for citizenship. Where’s the offset?
Are you thinking that these people will pay income taxes on their wages, now that they are American citizens? Think again. If they are employed now, their employers will be financing those new taxes in the form of having to pay higher wages to keep them. That ain’t gonna happen; the employers will just take some fo the money they give the alien and send it to Uncle Sam instead – just depressing the economy. OR, if they are not currently employed, they will take tose jobs from others, and the difference will net out.
Please, if I have some of this wrong, enlighten me.
Enjoy your life in hiding as that is what you will be doing.
Which is really a rather cowardly way of living, all in all.
Hiding, why? Because I will be spending my days doing what I want to do, and not what I have to do? I’ll be 51 and will be taking up my long-ignored hobby of woodworking. I’ll also be spending time in one of the most ecologically-rich areas of the world and hopefully finding ways to keep it that way.
Finally, I’ll most likely be visiting other corners of the world with the money I can save by not paying the enormous taxes (other than on income) that I am sure will be coming to the US. It gets rather rainy in CR at times.
Look, pal, I choose not to base my life on the needs of others. I choose NOT to let others stake a claim on my life in any way, just as I choose not to place a claim on the lives of others.
Go back to school – maybe there’s a new version of HP Mercury testing tools coming out and you’ll have a leg up in the workforce. Learn a new trade. Cut back on your expenses. But it’s 2 PM EST on Monday – maybe you should be out looking for a job and not lurking on this board….
You’re running away and hiding as you’re not willing to stand up and fight for what you believe in in the US.
And you will be paying taxes in Costa Rica as well. You might even come to regret not having things like police and fire protection, roads, and all those other social services that come with being a member of society.
For you have benefited by the actions of others, even when you assert “not to place a claim on the lives of others”
And as I said, I do have a part-time job and I have worked with Mercury tools.
But when the jobs have been sent to India or the jobs are not there because the businesses or agencies are not doing any buying, it doesn’t make much difference how fresh a skill set one has.
Nope, no taxes in CR on what I earn in the US. And vice versa. And the social services there are quite good. Sure, perhaps not the quality of the US, but I don’t expect them to be so. But it IS lovely, and in many ways more advanced than the US.
There is a difference between benefitting from the actions of others, and placing a claim on their lives. There are certain duties of government, and things like defense, infrastructure, and improving the general welfare are among them. But I don’t count among these subsidizing the livelihoods of others who will only be quite so happy to allow me to do so.
BTW, I know you will probably totally write me off when I tell you that I sold IT services for the largest Indian IT company in America. But I was only able to do so because other people were more than willing to accept a wage here in the US that others were not. In other words, you were more than likey outbid for your services by a neighbor, not someone in Chennai.
You do realize that the average Unemployment compensation check is $293 per week? Which is basically a minimum wage in itself.
No one that I’m aware of is actually happy to be collecting unemployment but with at least five applicants for every job, minimum wage or not, it is a reality. You must be one of the believers that the way for the US to prosper is for all wages to be repressed to the third world levels. Of course, then the excuse is the “burdensome environmental regulations” will stop jobs in the US so we will then have to revert to totally without regulations then.
And since most of the last ten years I was employed, I was working on Child Welfare, Child Support enforcement, TANF, Food Stamps, WIC, and Medicare/Medicaid applications, states have quite spending on those types of social service applications as well as mostly quit spending on the services themselves
But please do keep patting yourself on the back and self congratulating on your awesomeness in screwing others.
Thanks, my arm is getting tired but I will take a rest and then pat away some more. Or hire someone to do it for me.
You are a marvel of reliance on the welfare teat, aren’t you? Is there a government handout you have not yet engorged yourself with? Maybe there is some artists’ subsidy that would allow you to pursue your dream of throwing pots?
No, my belief is that the economy is efficient in and of itself. If the economy needs 50 Mercury QC engineers, it will acquire them in the most efficient way possible, UNLESS the governments regulate them to acquire 51. Or levy taxes that unduly cause those companies to buy most of them in the Ukraine or Namibia.
Do I believe in regulations? Yes, many of them are very valid and needed. Many others are not.
Look, if you were schooled in Cathode Ray repair instead of SQA, would you be asking the government to continue paying you a salary even after the world moved on to LCDs and Plasmas? How about if you were a buggy whip salesman in the budding age of the automobile? I would imagine the answer is No. So why do you expect the government to pay your salary when no one wants what you’re selling?
I have only collected unemployment but have worked, yes, for both federal and state level governments, helping them to develop tools that allow the government to actually provide some of those “provide for the general welfare” tools, especially in support of abused and disabled children or children who had the misfortune of having a dead beat father who had abdicated his responsibilities. And that has been DoD as well as social service application
Obviously you have developed a pre-conceived notion of what my skills are and how I work so you toddle on off to Costa Rica and go into your little hidey hole and we’ll get along fine without the benefits of your Galtness
Well, thanks for your service. I’m assuming you got paid for the hours you put in. And probably a better pension than I get, which is only the 401ks and IRAs that I have funded personally.
I’ll make sure to send you a note from CR. And maybe I’ll get a cool bird to sit on my head down there as well.
Pura Vida, amigo.
I received no pension whatsoever. I had only 401k/SEP-IRA that I have had to cash in to survive these last six plus years.
My only consolation was even with paying an early withdrawal penalty, I still got to spend most of it on myself to survive rather than watch it swirl down the drain when the market crashed.
Well, the best of luck to you. Really. But please understand that I don’t want to be anyone’s long-term safety net. I’ll be happy to help construct the bridge to the other side, but when the road I’m helping build becomes an endless highway, I reserve the right to put my energies elsewhere.