Why we need a jobs guarantee
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Remember though that 6.7 million people have now been unemployed for more than six months — 46% of the total unemployment figure. We’ll literally never find jobs for all of them: many will never be employed again. Which is the real underlying tragedy of this recession, and of the jobless recovery.
If you don't want to think about the pain and suffering caused by this -- and remember, that the pain and suffering is just only policy tool among others for our elites, since they don't experience any of it -- think about the tremendous waste of productivity, and all the bad social effects, like crime, drunkeness, domestic violence, and so forth.
But there's a very, very, very simple solution:
Our government should guarantee a job for everyone who wants one. Why send people checks when they could be working? And what are the 99ers supposed to do? Go die? (Don't answer that.) And look around: Don't tell me there's a shortage of work to be done.
NOTE * A real job. You show up on time, can get fired, and so forth. Not a make-work job.
UPDATE For an alternative view, the great Stop Me Before I Vote Again.
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Comments
Oh, it's a great idea
If your objective is to fund Social Security and other tax-dependent programs. If your objective is to starve SS by denying it tax contributors so you can then say the system is failing and the only guys who can save it are the fucktards on Wall Street, well, that wouldn't work very well.
You do realize that is the end game, right? To starve SS until the government says it's forced to use/pay Wall Street? Not enough workers to support boomer retirees is one of the major arguments for addressing SS now, now, now, like yesterday, already!
That is an interesting take on it.
I have thought all along about the wasted talent, the loss of tax revenue and the huge social costs that this prolonged, mass unemployment means.
It's really a waste of human resources. Eventually people will lose their skills.
Even when I was a child and learned about the Great Depression, it made no sense to me. You had people who needed work and you had work that needed to be done. Why not put them together? I did not know that it was the system, that is supposed to put them together, that is supposed to make things work, that was itself 'broken'.
But, even as a child I did understand that you cannot have everyone pushing paper or selling things; you need people who produce food and products.
I figured it was all a mystery to me because I was only a child..........
I am a 99er, and I realized at a certain point, that I would probably never again have a 'real' job. Like many 99ers, I am well educated and experienced, but too old. I actually found myself competing for jobs with my son's friends!
Fran
My heart aches for people like you. My Mom's in bad shape too. Fired from a job she had and loved for 22 years ("downsized"), she found another, lower-paying job only to lose it in the fallout from this recession. She is now 64 years old, a nurse, and working for a temp agency, struggling to pay the mortgage on her house. She may lose it. It's killing me, because I was helping her until I recently became unemployed myself.
It's this kind of thing that makes it so personal, and why all incumbents up for election have to worry. I'll personally seek revenge through whatever legal means necessary. I have no hope for progress; I just want them stopped, or at least disorganized and scared enough to freeze.
Anyway, I hope you make it, and that you find that real job I know you so desperately need. Good luck.
We're all just a heartbeat away
from being there. Those who are working should be thinking of how they can take their talents/skills to an independent self-employed level. If independent is scarey, then grab all those who got laid off from the same job title together and form your own start-up if at all possible. Those who are working at jobs that can't really go independent would do well to be taking classes in business management and/or sales.
UI is also strained, and randomly chooses people to harass into giving back their payments for "breaking a rule," or not keeping records properly, or not looking hard enough or the right way for work. The people would win if they beat the gov't at this dreadful game they are playing.
I was delighted to see Senator Bennett (R) Utah was beat out of his primary race, and hope 100% of the House & those Senators who are trying to keep their jobs get the boot this year. Unless we return to the gov't fearing the people, we're doomed to more of what Corporate Congress is told to do. It no longer seems to matter if the Rs or the Ds are in the majority.
Couldn't agree more
with your last paragraph. I want 100% turnover too. I've been saying for almost a year that we have to make their jobs as insecure as they've made ours.
With regard to your other comments, I am with you. I will find out tuesday if I qualify for unemployment (I think I will) and if I do, while I will earnestly look for a job, I'm also going to attempt some independent moves, see if I can make something work. I'll be forty next year, and I am just really tired of starting over, and I'm tired of wasting my talents on people who won't appreciate them and just want to exploit them. If I can start a business venture or establish a writing career that would allow me to stay out of the employment marketplace permanently, I think that would be the best case scenario. We'll see.
qualifying for unemployment
i don't know if this is national or depends on the state, but if you make any moves to start your own business, you may not qualify for unemployment.
Thank you, annabellep.
I appreciate your thoughts. I feel relatively fortunate because I paid off the mortgage a few years ago. I have been laid off from a couple of jobs in the last few years. That's the problem. You keep being the newest person. Anyway, tell your Mom to stay in her house as long as possible. A person very close to me stopped paying his mortgage and applied for HAMP. That was 2 years ago. It has been a 2 year process and he has made no payments during that time! (Also, I told him the quickest way to get some money was to get a roommate, which he did, with a good outcome.) I hope that you and your Mom will be all right.
Annabellep....
Also tell your mom to make her lender produce her note before she leaves her house. Many times the original note has been sold so many times no one can produce it....and if they can't produce the original note, they can't prove in court that they own the house and can force anyone out.
It's worth the effort.
Thanks Fran.
Glad to hear that you have some security. I will pass along your advice to my mother.
Remember the movie "Dave"
Ahhh, if only he were POTUS! An honest man who cared about the people.
Jobs
What kills me is all the "temporary jobs" that the government says they are creating. It seems to me that they are only looking for a quick fix to make their numbers look good and then when the jobs are completed (when another party is in office) it will look bad on that party.