Archive for the ‘unemployment’ tag
The morality disconnect
Bob Herbert wrote a very good column today about what he calls the “campaign disconnect” between Democrats, Republicans, and average Americans. I highly recommend reading the whole thing, but essentially Herbert makes the argument that neither party has adequately addressed the economic desperation of citizens. Democrats have decided to humor the disastrous idea of austerity measures, while Republicans behave as though they’ve “lost their minds completely,” an assessment that I think is way too generous on Herbert’s part.
I prefer his latter description when he accuses Republicans of “peddling a fantasy that has already damaged the country profoundly.” That definition contains the acerbity needed to fully grasp how poisonous the GOP’s philosophy is these days.
Yesterday, I briefly recapped the blatant hypocrisy displayed by certain Republicans in regards to the stimulus. Bobby Jindal and Jeb Bush, two “stalwart Conservatives” both greedily gobbled up stimulus cash before returning to their roots: bashing any recovery plan the Democratic administration proposes.
But hypocrisy aside, the GOP, and the elite in general, have genuine disdain for the underclass. The truly sad part is that they’ve brainwashed poor Republicans into going along with their scheme to permanently quarantine the undesirables. That’s when you get elderly people showing up at healthcare reform town hall meetings, screaming that they want the government to keep its hands off their Medicare. Sigh.
Senator Orrin Hatch proposed an amendment that would demand mandatory drug tests for welfare and unemployment beneficiaries because, as we all know, the only people out of work these days are worthless drug addicts. Sharron Angle implied unemployment benefits make people lazy, and that there are lots of jobs out there, but workers just refuse to buckle down and find them, and Rand Paul told them to quit being cry babies and go flip fries at McDonald’s so they can feed their children.
Permanent structural unemployment ‘recovery’ continues
Listening to all the blather about deficits and stimulus, it’s easy to forget that a whole lot of people are out of work, and that’s sort of considered normal these days (Very Serious People call it “structural unemployment.”)
The poverty rate has jumped to 14.3 percent, the highest levels since the 1960s. Wages have been stagnant for thirty years. One in eight Americans needed food assistance last year.
I recently interviewed journalist Doug Henwood about the deficit hysteria, and if a recovery can ever truly happen when the unemployment rate is so high, wages have flatlined, and workers are barely scraping by using their exhausted credit (barring any unforeseen medical emergencies, which will likely instantly bankrupt them).
Doug is a super articulate guy, who possesses a gift for clearly explaining complex issues. His summarized reply was: no. (I’ll post the entire interview when it’s up…probably some time early next week). Obviously, a recovery can’t be defined as simply getting Wall Street back on its feet (which it has…they even started handing out nifty bonuses again!) Average citizens need to have access to work, education, shelter, and food, which they should be able to pay for – even if they only have access to minimum wage jobs — in order to define an economy as “functional.”
We also chatted about the Obama administration, which has made it pretty clear they have no interest in protecting labor, and workers’ rights. EFCA has dropped off the radar. Big Business rules Washington to the point where Obama couldn’t even make a side remark about “fat cats” without Wall Street jumping down his throat. Oh, and let’s not forget the UWA, who can go fuck themselves.
Tea Party favorite continues class war against the poor
I write a lot about how certain elite (pundits, politicians) have made it their quest to criminalize poverty. David Walker, a lackey of billionaire and Social Security pirate, Pete Peterson, openly pined for the days of debtors’ prison, which is actually already a reality in six states. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) proposed an amendment that would demand mandatory drug tests for welfare and unemployment beneficiaries. A particularly enlightened commenter on my blog summarized the logic behind the amendment thusly: “you gotta make sure they’re not on the crack pipe.”
Previously, I have also written about hiring practices that act to preserve America’s permanent underclass, and how some employers are now making it a practice to check potential employees’ credit scores. Poor people are buried under extravagant loans, which they might never fully pay back, simply for attempting to pursue higher education. Some students actually resort to killing themselves to escape debt, but these are isolated instances that shouldn’t overly concern anyone.
Then there was the embarrassing spectacle of the ruling elite dangling the carrot of unemployment relief before the noses of millions of jobless Americans. There were actual lengthy debates about if the country could really afford the lavish benefits ($300 a week per person) to help people survive the recession during a time when the U.S. is engaged in two separate tremendously expensive military occupations – not to mention the shadow wars in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, etc. – and after taxpayers spent trillions bailing out the crooks on Wall Street.
Now, a Tea Party favorite Carl Paladino has thrown his hat in the poor-bashing ring.
Paladino said he would transform some New York prisons into dormitories for welfare recipients, where they could work in state-sponsored jobs, get employment training and take lessons in “personal hygiene.”
Don’t worry. The program would be totally voluntary.
Arming the Middle East while America’s empire collapses
The other day, Greenwald wrote a very good summary of America’s collapsing empire. Basically, we are entering year nine of the Afghanistan occupation, and Republicans are leading a crusade to cut benefits and Social Security during the worst economic recession since the Great Depression. Greenwald highlighted this disturbing passage from a NYT article:
Plenty of businesses and governments furloughed workers this year, but Hawaii went further — it furloughed its schoolchildren. Public schools across the state closed on 17 Fridays during the past school year to save money, giving students the shortest academic year in the nation.
Many transit systems have cut service to make ends meet, but Clayton County, Ga., a suburb of Atlanta, decided to cut all the way, and shut down its entire public bus system. Its last buses ran on March 31, stranding 8,400 daily riders.
Even public safety has not been immune to the budget ax. In Colorado Springs, the downturn will be remembered, quite literally, as a dark age: the city switched off a third of its 24,512 streetlights to save money on electricity, while trimming its police force and auctioning off its police helicopters.
I occasionally feature bits of empirical evidence to prove the existence of the collapsing empire in this blog, like the inevitable Republican-inspired Mad Max future of no firefighters, or parks, and endless water shortages. And we’ve seen signs of the decay everywhere – the real unemployment of 16 percent, and certain counties’ decision to switch from pavement to gravel roads in order to save money, not to mention the woeful state of the nation’s other infrastructure (water mains, bridges, etc.).
I don’t need to tell you shit is bad. But what’s so amazing about all of this is Washington’s utter indifference to the state of the decaying empire. (Quick digression: Don’t get me wrong. I don’t wish to imply empires are a good thing. We know the true toll of colonialism and empire expansion, and I reject the notion that America must remain an all-powerful empire in order to survive and thrive.) If the ruling class isn’t made to understand the effects of their detrimental policies, the U.S. will not only lose the empire, but the very fabric of society itself.
Ben Stein: the unemployed possess poor work habits, personalities
I know. You’re sitting there, wondering why I’m wasting precious bandwidth on trashing the dude from those commercials for free credit scores, which aren’t really free, and landed freescore.com in a heap of trouble when they were accused of misleading consumers.
Anywho. When he isn’t lending his mug for the purposes of misleading the public, Stein is an economist, atheist-basher, and had a semi-regular columnist gig at the godless New York Times.
Oh, he also hates poor people. Or rather, he thinks they’re poor, or unemployed, because they’re lazy philistines who can’t keep their shit together for the span of a job interview. (via)
One million Americans to lose their homes this year
A new report from RealtyTrac, Inc. predicts that lenders may foreclose on one million homes this year (via). In the spirit of accuracy, I should write “at least one million Americans,” since more than one person undoubtedly lives in a majority of those doomed residencies.
Nearly 528,000 homes were foreclosed in the first six months of 2010. As lenders work through a huge backlog of borrowers behind on their mortgages, even more home repossessions could occur before the end of the year.
According to RealtyTrac, Inc., a foreclosure listing service, the number of households facing foreclosure in the first half of the year climbed 8 percent when compared to the same time frame last year. In June, 1 in every 411 households received a foreclosure filing.
The fastest growing group of foreclosures involved homeowners with good credit who took out conventional fixed-rate loans. Many of these borrowers have fallen behind in their mortgages due to unemployment or reduced income.
It takes about 15 months for a home loan to go from being 30 days late to the property being seized and sold. Between January and June of this year, about 1.7 million homeowners received a foreclosure-related warning. At the time of this writing, more than 7.3 million home loans are in some stage of delinquency. The states experiencing the highest foreclosure rates are California, Florida, Michigan, Illinois, Arizona and Nevada.
As Susie Madrak and Atrios have been saying, HAMP was a total failure that actually ended up prolonging the agony of homeowners. Additionally, Congress has thus far failed to extend unemployment benefits, which will result in more waves of foreclosures.
America’s loud desperation
I’ve been wondering lately if anyone in Congress has an idea of what “the breaking point” looks like – the time when the oligarchy will acknowledge the loud desperation of Americans, say “enough is enough,” and vote to ease their suffering. Thus far, the elite clearly think citizens can agonize a little longer before society’s foundation completely collapses.
People like Rand Paul and Sharron Angle frequently deride the unemployed as being lazy and unmotivated, but “moderate” politicians also participate in this stigmatization. Even though Americans’ primary concern is unemployment, the House failed to extend benefits, and it is uncertain if the Senate will vote to help the 9.5 percent of citizens who remain jobless (6.8 million people or 45.5 percent of the total are long-term unemployed, or jobless for 27 weeks or more.)
It’s probably difficult for politicians, individuals who generally enjoy the rewards of privileged lives, to imagine the utter hopelessness and desperation of the long-term unemployed – particularly individuals who have zero job-hunting resources at their disposal. (via)
Sorry, you’re too stupid for employment
Go home, morons
The persecution of the poor continues with employers now accusing the unemployed of being too stupid (or let’s be generous and say “inexperienced”) to be find jobs with decent salaries. (h/t)
Here in this suburb of Cleveland, supervisors at Ben Venue Laboratories, a contract drug maker for pharmaceutical companies, have reviewed 3,600 job applications this year and found only 47 people to hire at $13 to $15 an hour, or about $31,000 a year.
As Atrios points out, it never occurs to the good people at Ben Venue Labs that they’re not paying enough to attract skilled workers, or that maybe they should provide on-site training to attract new talent.
It’s become a commonplace line of attack to hear right-wing loons like Rand Paul and Sharron Angle place the onus of unemployment on the unemployed, and of course this has been the territory of Conservatism for years: it’s your fault you’re unemployed. Intellectual giants like Rush Limbaugh constantly say things like unemployment benefits “do nothing but incentivize people not to find work.”
The end is nigh…unless it's not
The hysterical debt Armageddonists have been screaming about the need to adopt all sorts of insane austerity policies because if we don’t, China is going to invade and enslave our children…or something. This irrational frenzy is, of course, bipartisan. Both sides of the aisle, for example, recently voted against extending unemployment benefits.
Tea Party sweetheart, Sharron Angle, specifically said citizens are “spoiled” by jobless benefits, and the US should cut unemployment benefits in order to motivate people to find work. Because – as we all know – unemployed people are just too lazy to toil, and there are millions of jobs in some secret industry sector only teabaggers know about, waiting for capable employees to fill them.
No matter how loudly Krugman tries to tell these idiots that cuts are the very worst possible thing they could do right now — what does he know? He only won a Nobel Prize in economics – Republicans refuse to listen. Actually, the world doesn’t seem to be listening, either.
White House finally realizes people like jobs
Image via Wikipedia
Coming off one of the most difficult weeks of his presidency, Barack Obama has beefed up his political staff and is expected to deliver an uncompromising State of the Union address. Aides said Sunday that the White House wasn’t making any abrupt policy shifts, even as the message was retooled to focus more sharply on job creation.
Look at that! Uncompromising! Jobs! Man, this is going to be sweet.
If anything, an unfinished agenda from 2009 will grow larger as, in addition to tackling health care and unemployment, the president presses for a bipartisan commission to tackle the budget deficit against resistance from Republicans.
Uh-oh. Mayday! Mayday! Either Obama’s use of the word “bipartisan” has evolved into meaning he intends to tell the Republicans to go fuck themselves, and the government shouldn’t prioritize reducing a budget deficit during economic crisis (a position held by multiple Nobel Prize-winning economists,) or this is going to end up being another shining moment in incremental pragmatism when Obama gives the Republicans everything they want, including any money and/or lint in his pockets.
