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The reports on unemployment are ridiculous. Unemployment is because of a shortage of jobs not a shortage of workers. Adding more people to the group of active job seekers - presuming Republican analysis is correct - doesn't create jobs but compounds the problem of unemployment. I thought the Republicans said the rogue billionaires are the "job creators", now they're saying the unemployed are creating their own jobs, presumably, because the economic recovery continued after unemployment insurance was cut off for millions of people. If Republicans want to reduce the number of people on unemployment insurance they should offer people jobs, the rules of unemployment insurance say you get cut off if you refuse work.
What they really want is to cut people off instead because in some sick, twisted sense UI, food stamps and other parts of the safety net compete with wages. IOW, if more people are more desperate then the more employers can get away without compensating their workers decently.
Reply to #16: Chuck, if Hillary Clinton is our “best hope”, we might as well just hang it up. Like I said, she’s a warmonger and a free trade toadie; and like Tellio said, she and her family are “married to Wall Street”. She represents the same old status quo, and I have had enough of that.
I’m sick of fear votes. I voted for Obama, twice, out of fear, and got a smooth talking corporate fascist and a con artist. I have had ENOUGH of this abusive crap and I swear, I’ll write in Donald Duck for president before I vote for that bitch. She and her toadie husband need to retire to their McMansion and disappear before they do any more damage fo this country!
Reply to #19: Streetkid, I feel your pain and frustration. I'm 64 years old and totally agree. Those boomers now occupying seats of power are, with few exceptions, the worst of our generation. I refuse to be associated with them either, and that includes HILLARY CLINTON! - AIW
P.S. Reply to post #21: Thank you Richard.
It seems that rich people can buy anything with their money, no matter what is fair for the world or is hampering the entire nation and democracy.
After I took my first job after getting married, I bought my first house. After down payment, my payment including insurance, Interest and other charges amounted to about35% of my gross monthly income on a 30 year mortgage.
Today the GNP, corresponding to the gross salary of an individula is aboiut $21T. The current debt is aproximately $4.7T which is about 5% of the GNP. We can certainly afford increasing debt in order to be the employer of last resort and get people back to work. I personally think the unemployment rate should be the total potential labor force of individualss between the ages of 18 and 65 minus the number of individuals working at least 40 hours per week. The proportion of unemployed should then be about 18%.
I think they are just compensation but proper as they are other than being too meager. Private compensation wouldn't be as cost effective and wouldn't yield some other benefits in those areas.
Much of the safety net is grossly too meager and then stigmatized as "charity". Outrageous insult to injury.
Thom talked about Wikipedia changing information . . . I just sent this below:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sound_of_Fury_(film)
I just watched 1950 noir film and found a piece of information in the Wikipedia! has been changed. I had just watched the film via Amazon.com (Prime).
Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sound_of_Fury_(film)
Under "Reception," second paragraph is a quote from film critic Dennis Schwartz . . .
Quote:
Film critic Dennis Schwartz liked the film and discussed the political and social aspects of the film. He wrote, "Endfield's social consciousness film hits hard at uncontrolled violence in small-town America in much the same way as did Fritz Lang's Fury (also based on the same factual episode). The director was soon after making this film blacklisted due to his leftist positions on social and political issues. It's a superb characterization of America's thirst for crime and violence; one of the most powerful statements ever from a Hollywood film about the class divide in America and the yellow rag press that incites the public with poisonous newspaper coverage to sell papers (in modern times think NY Post or MSNBC cable TV). It calls attention to something about the 'cowboy attitude' in Americans that they don't like to acknowledge about themselves, but Europeans are quite aware of how uncivilized Americans can be."[4]
------
Please note the MSNBC listed in the article. That surprised me, because as the movie was finishing, I thought, this is like what Fox News would have reported that caused the riot in the first place.
Well, when I read the Wikipedia! article, I clicked on footnote #4 and it took me to the original article By Dennis Schwartz. Everything was the same except he DID NOT WRITE MSNBC -- but Fox Cable TV instead.
Quote from Schwartz:
Endfield's social consciousness film hits hard at uncontrolled violence in small-town America in much the same way as did Fritz Lang's Fury (also based on the same factual episode). The director was soon after making this film blacklisted due to his leftist positions on social and political issues. It's a superb characterization of America's thirst for crime and violence; one of the most powerful statements ever from a Hollywood film about the class divide in America and the yellow rag press that incites the public with poisonous newspaper coverage to sell papers (in modern times think NY Post or Fox cable TV). It calls attention to something about the 'cowboy attitude' in Americans that they don't like to acknowledge about themselves, but Europeans are quite aware of how uncivilized Americans can be.
---
I choose to write to you to make the change -- and see what some people are doing from the "right" political side -- trying to change stories and articles to suit their belief.
Please fix the article,
Thank you,
Rev. Dr. Roger M. Sobin
Rmsobin@aol.com
Oh, we'll become Greece all right!
Mark J Saulys ~ It could also be equally argued that Social Security, Disability Insurance, Medicare and Medicaid are also public compensation for that which should naturally be privately compensated. If we are going to state the truth, let's state the whole truth, don't you agree?
It works both ways Marc. Ever watch Watters World on fox. The scary thing is the people he interviews are mostly in University.
The social safety net is an attempt to make up for workers' criminal undercompensation, their getting a grossly short share of the profits. It's returning to the workers a small part of what was stolen from them adding insult to injury to a most outrageous degree.
Thom says....." The right-wing spin machine will lie about anything, if it means those lies will help the right-wing lawmakers slash beneifits, eat away at the social safety net, and throw working class Americans out into the cold. And, behind the right-wing spin machine are America's billionaires and wealthy elite."
Thomas Paine said in 1787...." An insinuation, which a man who makes it does not believe himself, is equal to lying. It is the cowardice of lying. it unites the barest part of that vice with the meanest of all others. An open liar is a thief in his profession, but an insinuating liar is a thief skulking in the night."
The right-wing spin machine is clearly made up of of the insinuating/cowardice of lying type, all for the Koch Almighty Dollar! ..... low life scum skulking in the night!
The multinationals and manufacturers have no loyalty - and no reason for loyalty - to the United States. Now they can manage production from the other side of the world they'll trash one society and move on to the next.
Matt, that sounds like a wild idea. I don't see how it'd work. I think it would further encourage capital flight and cause the multinationals to write off America even more - if that were possible - writing off the American consumer in favor of the Indian and Chinese consumer whose middle class is growing.
When I found myself unexpectly without an income I was comforted to know that my unemployment benefits would get me by till I could find another job, its not a handout its a handup, unlike the subsidies that many profitable corporations receive from the government, all at the tax payers expense. FOX/GOP and its echo chamber are loud and repetitive and that has brainwashed the low informed. We have to fight not only money which gives them power we have to fight propaganda which makes them that much more stronger. How did America get so uneductated?
Reply to #4: Anyone like Perdue who claims he's "proud" of outsourcing jobs would have to be a psychopath.
There you go again, Thom, "Back in December of 2013, Republicans gave Americans a really nasty Christmas present: they cut off long-term unemployment insurance for 1.3 million people. The party of Scrooge left Americans high and dry in the cold, and unable to provide for their families during what’s supposed to be one of the most joyous times of the year. "
is there not a disconnect between voters and the Republican Party. Where were the Democrat Georgia voters last November, huh, Thom??? Did they vote, did they vote in droves......or they prefer to be unemployed, homeless, improvished? Or, perhaps, their thinking is--as long as it's not their job being outsourced or impacted, why should Joe 6-pack care?
"Republican Senate candidate David Perdue defeated Democrat Michelle Nunn in the race for the U.S. Senate in Georgia. ..During the last few months of the campaign, Democrats sought to portray Perdue as a Mitt Romney-type Republican by drawing attention to comments made years ago in which he admitted spending most of his career outsourcing jobs. Rather than renouncing them, Perdue said he was "proud" of the work he did outsourcing jobs as an executive with Pillowtex Corp., a failed textile manufacturer." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/04/david-perdue-wins-georgia-senate-race_n_5839128.html
No wonder Mississippi is the poorest state. It's also the stupidest. That dumb-ass cracker who says he's willing to starve for his "moral beliefs" oughta go right ahead and do that, and remove himself from the gene pool. We don't need another generation of those yahoos voting Republican, that's for damn sure! - AIW
The repugnicans and billionaires need to take a lesson from structural engineers:
If you destroy the foundation, the bulding will collapse. They just don't realize how dependant they are on us "low life scum". (McCain has lit the match...the fires of revolution have started.)
The "right-wing" spin machine is so effective because there are so many clueless, racist Americans who buy into it. Let us not forget this short; but, very revealing piece by Bill Maher.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWcVSRXDpTY
It’s cheaper for society on the whole to pay the Unemployment benefits, rather than paying the myriad of costs that society would incur as a consequence of People being completely up-ended as a result of their job loss.
Believe it or not, it pays to occasionally tend to your country’s greatest assets – its People. But it is more profitable for corporations if their work force is made desperate to do anything at any wage because the alternative is sleeping out in the ditch and stealing to feed your kids. And that speaks in a manner to the problem of under employment – under employment means your economy is not maximally productive. Just like when your Government invests most of its resources in Corporations that don’t really return to American Society what the People who work in live in America return to American Society.
Also, this is a America! EVERYTHING has to do with who can consume in the most enviable fashion! When was the last time you met somebody new and you weren't asked to the effect "So, where do you work?" or "So, what do you do for a living?" Unemployment in America connotes an air of being somehow personally defective. Nobody wants that. But then again, Republicans, and increasingly Democrats, are so stupid they'd fuck up a wet dream (can I say that out here?)
Streekid RE #20 -- I suggest getting involved with Progressive Democrats of America (PDA). Thom says it has nothing to with the democratic party.
Remember! movetoamend.org
Hi SteetKid , this is the question of our time .The Answer is though our beliefs .Beliefs Crete our behaviours .
Go to the evolution revolution website because we all matter as well as our precious planet which sustains us !
We are a primitive species but if we implement our highest understandings and observe more we have a chance .We have to ask ourselves a few questions first .A good one for me is what is the Human race trying to do ?
stecoop01, in response to the belief that violent revolution in US is inevitable. I certainly hope your prediction is wrong because it would be a slaughter, and that slaughter would be one sided. With the utter contempt that the ruling class, along with their well-educated (indoctrinated) functionaries, have for the American public, the carnage unleashed against the US citizenry would make the American Civil War look like a meager skirmish in comparison. Be careful what you dread for it might just fruition into apocalyptic realities.
Raypc800, exactly who will you’re guns be aimed at? At the American military, the most professionally violent war machine in the history of the world? I will refer you to my comments to stecoop01. The American people would not be safe from state aggression, and I am not sure what small arms fire can do against an unbridled American military response. Believe me, if things devolve into violent revolution in American, all pretense of rules of war will be abandon against America’s ruling class’s greatest enemy the American public. A violent revolution is not an option for the American people. If there is any hope in changing our country, it will have to be done non-violently.
AIW, with the excellent point you have made about Hillary Clinton. I don’t feel the need to address Thom as well. It would be redundant.
I do like you’re comment addressing Raypc800 post. – To suggest otherwise would be like trying to cure alcoholism with whisky.
I did feel; however, the need to share my humble or not so humble opinion with Raypc800. I felt, I could, expound on the futility in a violent response against a belligerent unrivaled mindless war machine like the US military. The wildly exaggerated romantic delusions of the American Revolution would be savagely, viciously, cruelly shell shocked into the cold heartless realities of war. All violent revolutionary fantasy would quickly dissolve into a bitter puddle filled with tears of disappear and regret of those unlucky survivors of America's Second Violent Revolution.
Is that too much.. LOL
So true and so sad RLTOWNLEY, I totally agree with you! This country would be so much better off if Roosevelt's Second Bill of Rights had been enacted. WE would have single payer insurance! I don't know if many people realize that.
But I truly believe that when ANGER outweighs the FEAR maybe people will take to the streets, ORGANIZED and INFORMED, perhaps we may stand a chance. I am ready to do whatever it takes-I just don't know where to begin. But I am willing to learn - MY anger already outweighs any FEAR I may have.
We are becoming a Fascist nation, I cannot in good conscience leave this mess to my grandchildren! It's bad enough they may not have water and have their bodies destroyed by Monsanto and the antibiotics they are pushing in to my children.
My question to all of you out there - HOW DO WE SAVE OURSELVES, OUR NATION and OUR CLIMATE????
Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have interviewed several American-born ambassadors from foreign countries to the U.S. or the U.N. Usually, however, they represent nations with tiny populations.