You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Unemployment’ category.
Although support for the TDC power plant may look like a chance to support jobs, the reality it that it is an environmental disaster.
When you support a disaster, you eventually lose….
Labor Unions will lose public support if this TDC center goes through…. Withholding the environmental dangers from the public may work short term and get approval, …
But once built, and when ash particles the size of golf-balls begin to fall on Newark, Stanton, Elsmere, Wilmington and Claymont, the public will ask,,, how on earth could this have been approved?
The truth will come out at that point, that bad people sneaked it through using bad ways…..
You will eventually lose prevailing wage if this TDC goes through…. The public will turn on you. I almost turned on you before I calmed down. Economics are a strong suit. But one’s life trumps economics. The environmental consequences of this TDC are gigantic. Everyone who gets cancer will blame you… Anything they can do to hurt you will become their dying wish, if you know what I mean….
What to do….
- Support a data center without a power plant.
- Support building a data center in a rural area close by so we get the same jobs… 20 miles into Cecil County or east of Middletown would do the trick.
- Support something else being built on the same location…. One that has no environmental impact.
Putting your loyalty and support behind the Data Center, is like putting your loyalty and support behind a candidate who unknown to you committed child abuse 25 years ago… At some future point, you lose all your investment…… and are left to fight a defensive war to keep more from being taken away by business groups…..
You did not know this would turn on you. But it has, and will get worse…. Now is the time to sneak out of the back of the crowd while no one is really looking or counting…..
Signed: Your most ardent supporter.
K
Delaware’s finest performing Full of Bees… The great…. Todd Chappelle
Coupled with Rick Jensen’s comment on 9 million new immigrants, we are in the middle of a beesy weekend of puns… I predict…..
Mine? The new state logo above in my Title… (You’re very welcome….. 🙂 )
Ok…. one more then….
=========
You get up every morning
From the sound of your alarm clock’s warning
Then leave at 8:15 to go into the city…
You see sinage smilin’ down
Warnin’ bees swarmin” all around…
And marshmellow-like foam gumming up all the highways….
And if your lane’s lucky and on time
You can get to work by nine….
And start your slaving job to carry your own load…
But if you ever get annoyed
Just think of being self-employed
Cause us apiarist just dip up honey all day
(Till ‘they’ call…(ringtone) saying…. Hey! Do you know anything about…. bees?)
Then I’ll be
Takin’ care of beesness, every day
Takin’ care of beesness, in every way
I’ll been takin’ care of beesness, it’s all mine
Takin’ care of beesness while working overtime
(Work it out)
If it were easy being an apiary-ist
And your face could contort like a Drew Carey-ist
And you would squeal when stung, like a newborn colt
But if your windows are rolled down,
Warning. You’ll never make into town,
Unless you can sprint super fast like a Hussein Bolt.
But chances are that you’ll go far
With windows rolled tight up in your car….
But with traffic you might not make it into town…..
So if you’re stuck in traffic,
Don’t do anything that is graphic…
Just sit calmly and look at things from afar….
Tell your boss it’s not your fault….
95 is one big, huge car lot
If that if he fires you, Governor Markell with him will be annoyed…..
Cause you’ll been sittin’
Takin’ care of beesness, every day
Takin’ care of beesness, every way
You’ve been takin’ care of beesness, it’s all mine
Takin’ care of beesness, and working overtime
Take good care of beesness
When I’m away, every day whoo
Remember you get up every morning
From the sound of your alarm clock’s warning
Then leave at 8:15 to go into the city…
You see the sinage smilin’ down
With bees still swarmin’ ’round…
And marshmellow-like foam gumming up all the highways….
Frightened people pushin’, people shovin’
Performing their last rites and their last lovin’
Just praying they make it alive into the city…..
But, if you ever get annoyed
Consider me, I’m self-employed
Then respect what I have to do all day
*While you’re slavin’ ) I’ll be….
Takin’ care of beesness …every day
Takin’ care of beesness ….every way
I’ll bee taking care of beesness, …they’s all mine
Takin’ care of beesness and working overtime ….
Takin’ care of beesness
Takin’ care of beesness
Takin’ care of beesness
Takin’ care of beesness
Takin’ care of beesness
(Not as good as Todd’s but it is a try… nevertheless…. )
Hey, anybody got a buzz?
Image Courtesy of Newark High School.
Steve Newton, one of Delaware’s ablest analysts, issued the warning early in the year… I have since been on the lookout for what he called…. I believe…. The Great Distractor”….
This is a outrage so great, it dominates all discussion, to the extent no controversy can exist beyond it… It gets covered in the News Journal. It is the sole subject for weeks on end on the talk shows… etc…
Even bloggers take up the outrage, so inflamed are they and smelling blood, all want some credit for a kill….
Meanwhile, real bills that transfer the building blocks put in place over centuries of public schooling , get pulled and shuffled over to private enterprise….
Bluntly put, the rich get richer by picking all our pockets while we focus on the bar fight taking place on the floor directly in front of us, little realizing the entertainment is completely staged for our own fleecing…..
Yesterday the same topic dominated both the morning show, and afternoon show on WDEL…. Jonathan Starkey’s piece in the News Journal had done its part…..
There was considerable buzz; legislators were being called up on air, and duly pitching their outrage to get their name out in front of the voters….
The controversy is over the unclaimed property issue… Basically everyone is upset over how the government can claim unused gift cards… Yes, if you listened… that is what the entire controversy boiled down to. , The Republicans think they have an issue. The Government is taking private property because…. they can….
So let us pop this “distractor” and get back to reality… All this controversy is about who should own unclaimed property… Two people see a dollar bill in the road… Who should get it? Why does one have more right over it than the other? Should corporations be allowed to keep money that is not theirs? If I find a wallet with $500, should I keep it and spend it on me? Or should I turn it in to the police, and if no one comes and claims it, they then get to use the proceeds in their service to all….
Obviously, the latter is the more fair. I certainly have no right to that wallet, except by some made-up rule …. finders-keepers. Who does that money belong to? It belonged to someone, one of those who are protected by the police, and who are an individual just like me… Who is more likely to get an inquiry requesting whether anyone turned in a wallet with $500? A random stranger (me)? Or the police?….
Again, it is obvious to which one society would benefit having ownership of that dollar found in the street….. And the amounts of money are paltry… dollar bills for the most part….
Oh, but the outrage!! The Outrage! The outrage…..
“Look, Buzz, an alien…… Ha, made you look…… ”
There are some rather serious crises currently nibbling the foundation of the Markell and Democratic party.. Primarily they are two fold. The economic folly of cutting taxes on the top 1% of Delawareans, who should be funding the state with their windfall capital gains earnings, and that folly’s impact on stifling job growth…. and the crises of building charter schools for “Friends of Jack Markell” by dismantling the public schools that have carried Delaware to prominence up to this point……
They almost need this distraction… In a very bad way….
- Meanwhile they they insist on pushing forward the TDC, to the detriment of all those 30,000 Newarkians who will soon be breathing cancerous particles 24/7….
- Meanwhile they insist on pushing a Charter School agenda forward when next year’s charter schools can only muster 40% capacity.
- Meanwhile they insist on pushing Common Core, by now a completely debunked curriculum, that was so obviously created to summarily give one educational-material corporation an advantage over all others….
- Meanwhile, Delaware’s budget shortfall grows as the economy suffers under too low taxes and way too few government jobs.
- Meanwhile, Delaware is seeing global warming increase all costs statewide, while those wealthy who were to blame for it, get to keep a majority of their earnings off of it, tax free…
- Meanwhile, Delaware is giving far to much of our precious few resources to corporations who repeatedly, had always failed to deliver any return for our investment….
- Meanwhile, Delaware is destroying the 39th best teaching school in America, the educational department of the University of Delaware, to water it down to the abysmal Common Core standards…..
What this administrations sorely needs….
Is ” A Great Distractor”……. “Look, Buzz, an alien!”
Instead we should be watching out for……..
- House Bill # 334
- HB #333
- SB #210
- Looking forward to the necessary modifications to SB 51 and HB 165.
- And the fact that during these 8 years… Delaware’s children in poverty…. DOUBLED!
- Meanwhile, our cronyism allows our top income earners, to pay little or nothing in taxes……
That last one…… is the real outrage.…. one future generations will hold us accountable for decades to come………
Meanwhile
First Connecticut and New York raised their heat allowance from $1 dollar to $20 dollars in order to qualify millions for SNAP food stamps, who would otherwise get cut off.
Today, in a very surprising move, PA, did the same…
Where is Delaware? Every dollar spent puts $4-7 thousand back into our economy! It’s the fastest way to grow our economy!
Courtesy of Disney’s Alice in wonderland
Someone stirred the embers of John Sweeney’s soul. They shouldn’t have…. Sometimes it IS better to rest on one’s laurels…
In a News Journal op-ed Mr.Sweeney tries to shame the Democratic Party… It is worth the read, for in its chutzpah, it reminds old timers still left, of how the very brave Poles road their horses with swords drawn in calvary formation towards the fully armored German Panzer divisions attacking them….
On the rank of futility, his efforts are similar. On the rank of bravery, his efforts are similar.
I think what we are experiencing is the passage of one century into another… Mr. Sweeney is a product of the last century. Things were very different then from how they are today. As one ages one is prone to becomes sentimental, and emotional, and embrace those good things they remember in ones youth…. As a result those things called facts, which depart from the other side of the brain, get vetoed out of existence in editing, and their interference with a fictions narrative is negated…
We get a nice story that if it stayed on the porch in the company of old men rocking their hours away, would remain that, a nice mixture of observation and opinion….
The problem is that this is not staying on the old folks home porch, but is attempting to interject itself into policy and plans for our future. Therefore, it must also be served alongside a complete rebuttal, so that policy makers are given a clear view or our future, both the dreams and reality, and not just the one sided wistfulness of one single old man.
Mr. Sweeney remembers Wilmington of a different era… 1973…. He doesn’t remember it very well for his piece is entirely devoid of any mention of the riots and subsequent war zone imposed on the city of Wilmington 5 years just before. He conviently fails to even mention the despondency of that time captured by then City Supervisor O. Francis Biondi in his telling the New York Times, “the National Guard here has become a symbol of white suppression of the black community. That may be a useful way to get elected, but who wants to run a city under those circumstances?”
He also fails to bring up the Court ordered desegregation rule that evolved from the ashes of that occupation and racial pot stirring. A rule that has the blessing of no political party, and still is the predominant problem underlying New Castle County’s education today..
These alone throw cold water on his assertions that life was ideal back in 1973. Just maybe… if you were a wealthy white; but certainly not for any black… Sweeney simply sweeps all blacks aside as he continues his claim.
Let us take and break down his opening paragraph….
- Is Wilmington a better place to live today than it was in 1973? Why, yes. Yes it is.
- Is crime worse or better? Crime is better. Despite overall shootings in and among drug traffickers, all other crimes are fractions of what they were in 1973.
Are the schools better? Public schools are; particularly for those of Afro-American descent who come from the city. Charter schools suck though. - Are more kids going to college? More kids are going to college than back in 1973. And at higher percentages too.
- Is business booming?Walk down market street some evening and tell me. Yes, business is as good, if not better than before the ’68 riots.
- Is the city’s future brighter? We have the Riverfront, a baseball team, a civic center, a walk along the river. A very attractive city. Market Street, an Art School. Two state universities and a state college. I would certainly say our city if much brighter than 5 years after we had our national guard overextend their record.
So even his opening assertions, which he never attempts to defend, are at their very starting place, horribly misconceived…
If ones entire premise is horribly misconstrued, then everything afterwards is such as well… Were anyone to make a mistake and use sand instead of flour to make bread, their end product would not be bread would it not? Logic works the same way….
The second gigantic flaw in Mr. Sweeney’s reasoning just oozes out of this statement right here…. (I should warn readers that even in Sweeney’s advanced age, two parts of what he will ring true… both are about his abysmal party, the Republicans…) ==“The easy – and accurate – answer is that there are barely any Republicans left in town. A second – and only slightly more complicated – answer is that the Republicans of late have shown little interest in cities and their problems. The final answer comes directly from the first two: Since the Republicans are no threat, the Democrats do not have to do anything to retain the voters loyalty. They will win automatically.
Did you catch the flaw? If not, allow me to point it out.. Mr. Sweeney seems to totally forget something called “primary elections” Perhaps he can be forgiven for that; Republicans have only had a few primaries in my entire lifetime, and they were only because of Mike Protack. Yet Democratic primaries have been some of the closest, competitive, promise driven contests in this state. If you are voted in, and don’t listen to your constituents, you are going to face 11 challenger for your seat the next session… Hell, the only way to get re-elected in this town, is once lucky enough to get in, you take damn good care of your client base….. And as Mr. Sweeney himself points out, those clients aren’t Republican voters…
You see, Wilmington voters are not voters who follow party rule as Mt. Sweeney so blandly assumes. The reasons they don’t vote for Republicans is because Repulbicans don’t care about them. Republicans only care about big money and is why they can’t get votes in Wilmington. Party has nothing to do with it. In fact you could make Wilmington flip Republican in just one election cycle. Just run a Republican who says he is going to tax Charlie Copeland and his friends 100% out the gazoo. Then you would find it was the issues keeping Republicans off the roster, not the name of their party… Republicans can’t get elected because they are wrong for Wilmington.
Yet Mr. Sweeney makes no mention of that either… And here is where Mr. Sweeney loses it.
He blames Barack Obama. Yep, blame the black man not just for this cities problems, but all cities problems… In his statement that all cities have democratic mayors and Barack Obama is not helping them, her forgets a couple of other observations by which only his statements could have the hint of truth.
He forgets that prior to Barack Obama, there was George W. Bush, a Republican, and he ignored cities too. (Remember New Orleans?) He forgets that not all mayors are Democrats. There are Republican mayors too… New York, Fresno, Miami, Mesa, Tulsa, Virginia Beach, are just a few Republican mayors experiencing the same city problems as is Wilmington. The truth is, that running a city on cutting taxes, getting rid of government, and instilling disciplined religion in all aspects of life, is a very hard sell. The reason almost all town mayors are Democratic, is because Democrats are the only ones who make sense. So if one has Republican mayors and a Republican Executive Branch, and a Republican State government, and still have the same problems, Sweeney’s argument is completely undercut.
He also seems to have had a tad memory slip up, and has forgotten that despite Democrats holding the presidency, and despite the Senate being blue, there is a Republican house. which has proposed nothing, and which has voted down every expenditure brought before it, even Hurricane Sandy aid. (It took Democrats to finally get that passed). With political realities like that, making grandiose plans that never get off the ground is nothing but an exercise in futility. Sweeney fails to mention the elephant in the room: that there can and will be no help for cities as long as they is not a super-majority of Democrats in both houses…
In a complete disembowelment of disbelief, Sweeney states that national politicians have stopped wooing City voters. Two things are missing on Sweeney’s radar. One, Republicans have tried to make inner city voting next to impossible by limiting voting machines and forcing intimidating long lines, and two, it is the growth of urban areas that propelled Democrats in every state. All states have counties red and blue. If a state is more urban, it’s blueness wins out…and more than anything, that is why Republicans are losing.
It is no ones fault but their own…
Is anyone shaping Wilmington’s future Sweeney asks? It is bizarre questioning, because Sweeney already answered it….
In some areas, the city is safer. In others, there are more jobs. Certainly, some schools are better today than they were in 1973. And individual organizations and people, including elected officials, have worked hard and have put together effective coalitions. The Financial Center Development Act brought new banking and credit-card jobs to town, a federal judge desegregated the area’s schools, the decaying dock areas were redeveloped into the Riverfront, with an I-Max movie theater, a convention center and a host of new businesses and condos and apartments
I’d say we had some good plans for our future. We’ve come a long way since 1973…
Is Wilmington better off? Hell yes… If so, that makes Sweeney’s argument that we need to go back to 1973 rather pointless and odd. I can think of no afro-American who wants things returned to 1973….
In the end, Sweeney’s arguement breaks down. We should have one political party he says, and that should include Democrats and Republicans. Well, (confused) that’s what you’ve been complaining over what we had?
Since Sweeney’s arguments boggle th logical mind, I struggle to find a box to put them in. At best, it is someone wistful of their younger days, of back when they were in power and who wishes their privileged class like that of Nicholas and Alexander, could once again rein supreme and not have to deal with “those people”…
The rest of us, are better off with all we got since then.
What do you think?
From the CBO, we have it outlined like this… If we raise minimum wage to 10.10, we lose 500,000 jobs. If we raise it to $9.00 we lose 100,000 jobs…
Is it better to work and receive more money, or is it better to have more people working for less, but at least they are working….
Great question. There were 3.3 million people making minimum wage in 2013…. The wage will jump from $7.25 to $10.10 or jump from $7.25 to $9.00. The first is an increase of $2.85; the second is an increase of $1.75… The impact of that increase on 3.3 million people are as follows.
3.3 million X $2.85 = $9.405 million/hour increased purchasing power
3.3 million x $1.75 = $5.775 million/hour increased purchasing power
3.3 million X $0 (no change) = $0.00 No change; same as it every was.
But wait. Job losses are bound to occur. If we take the CBO’s estimate, we get the first minus 500,000; the second minus 100,000.
(3.3 million -500,000) X $2.85 = $ 7.98 million/hour economic benefit
(3.3 million -100,000) X $1.75 = $ 5.60 million/hour economic benefit
(3.3 million- 0) X $ 0 (no change) = $0.00 no change from the past
There you go… We get more economic push by going with the $10.10 number despite the possible loss of jobs. .We got an answer. Gee. What was so hard about that?
====
Appendix:
Someone else brought up the idea that those people put out of work, have a negative influence upon the equation… To be honest prior to their mentioning it, at first, I really hadn’t thought about it. It never occurred to me, because mathematically they would be zeros. Interesting, huh? How the brain works? My focus was on how much positivity a minimum wage increase would generate… And because of my positivity I have trouble accepting that there is a negative influence for letting those people go. But just in case there is, let me put it down here as well since someone brought up the fact that those leaving the work force would be decreasing the total pool of potential earnings by their future estimated earnings with which had they been previously working. Which in this case, would be the minimum wage rate… applied at both the levels of 500,000 and 100,000….
((3.3 million -500,000) X $2.85) – (500,000 X $7.25) = $ 4.355 million/hour economic benefit
((3.3 million -100,000) X $1.75) – (100,000 X $7.25) = $ 4.875 million/hour economic benefit
(3.3 million- 0) X $ 0 (no change) = $0.00 no change from the past….
That changes the impact. There are several problems with this last model. One, is that its total, is a theoretical rate representing everyone working per hour. Those being laid off can’t really be a negative against this because everyone who is still working, IS making that much… This is the net increase amount which will be reported, earned, and taxed. Secondly, if you are out of work you are making zero dollars, and not an actual negative amount which challenges whether the principle is sound to deduct a cost away from the benefit when making this particular comparison. One could do so, if one was expostulating a potential benefit which would have to be benchmarked against full employment, and not against the incremental amounts. For example if we had access to the number of hours worked at minimum wage in this country over a set time period, we could actually make that comparison by plugging in these two rates..
As it stands we can already compare these totals to the status quo, and there is a definite positive bump in economic activity… Plus, if those temporarily laid-off people get other jobs, ones that actually pay more than minimum wage, then they are off the chart, and that negative is not there at all. The underlying assumption for there to be an existing negative, is that these people losing their jobs, immediately and forever stop contributing to the economy…
Therefore probably the best comparison to achieve that would be painted like this…
3.3 million X $2.85 = $9.405 million/hour increased purchasing power – (.5 million X 7.250 = $9.405 – $3.625 = $5.78)
3.3 million x $1.75 = $5.775 million/hour increased purchasing power – (.1 million X 7.250 = $5.775 – $0.725 = $5.05 )
3.3 million X $0 (no change) = $0.00 No change; same as it every was.
That probably is the best description since it contrasts against the potential possibility of earnings.
But as policy this shows Delaware’s Tom Carper to be very wrong when he was quoted as saying that the lower amount of increase would be best for this country…
..
Last December I’d stumbled across this interactive map put up by the PEW foundation, which had accumulated each state’s research of how many people were unemployed long termed back then, and how many were slipping off the roles this upcoming year… What I want to show, is the economic consequences of not continuing unemployment benefits, and to show it on a state by state basis. The economic cost is nothing to ignore….As you may remember, Walmart is reeling from the food stamps (SNAP) cutbacks last November. Their figures for this quarter come out early April. But having some of their biggest clients drop out of society’s economics, jolted them last quarter..
The numbers for my state were estimated lower than reality.. PEW underestimated in December what Delaware actually reported in January by about 10%… Therefore these numbers should be considered baseline conservative estimates only, and very believable.. If they shock you, the reality is probably much worse….
As you know, all those already on long termed unemployment stopped receiving benefits on December 28th of last year. Subsequently each week, every state has some members on its state’s unemployment roles who expire, and normally would get dumped into the federal program and continue being able to contribute to our economy while they look for work…That number gets bigger each week…
The idea occurred to me (and I did a piece on my own state), that we could figure the economic damage relatively easily by finding the number of unemployed, calculating their economic worth by extending the average check amount, and applying a multiplier to account for the increase economic activity that unemployment creates. These multipliers are all over the map. The Dept of Labor predicts a 2.0 multiplier. and Moody’s predicts a 1.55 multiplier… Every dollar given through unemployment, creates $2.00 (1.55) in overall economic benefit as it continues to filter up the economic ladder to the top….
So I took it upon myself to show how many people were initially cut, how many more increased the totals weekly, how much economic loss this costs each state, and where the states will be at the end of this week, the beginning of March… The next step, since I won’t have the time, would be for someone to compare these estimates of people getting booted off an income, with each individual’ states data on weekly new hires. simply to prove whether or not unemployment was due to laziness and not the lack of good full-time paying jobs… It would be easy to determine,. If one would find that 10,000 are getting the boot, and if the state is showing no new hires, that we are creating a large class of people who will soon be creating large problems, stemming from simply the necessity of survival…. Call it our Third World Quotient. (I used this source for each states unemployment benefit)
===
Alabama 12.100 lost benefits on Dec. 28th. 925 added each week. Total off roles as of March 1st =20,425 @ $265 Alabama benefit = now hitting with impact of $5.4 million per week. March 1st -Dec.28th Cumulative Lost Income Damage.= $43.9 million. Times 1.55 Multiplier effect, $68,045,000 dollars…
Alaska 23,300 lost benefits on Dec. 28th. 448 added each week. Total off roles as of March 1st =27,332 @ $442 Alaska benefit = now hitting with impact of $24.1 million per week. March 1st -Dec.28th cumulative Lost Income Damage = $111.9 million Times 1.55 Multiplier effect, $ 173,439,916 dollars
Arizona 17,100 lost benefits on Dec. 28th. 1288 added each week. Total off roles as of March 1st = 28,962 @ $240 Arizona benefit = now hitting with impact of $6.9 million per week. March 1st -Dec.28th cumulative Lost Income Damage = $55 million Times 1.55 Multiplier effect. $ 85,173,120 dollars
Arkansas 9,300 lost benefits on Dec 28th. 775 added each week. Total off roles as of March 1st = 16,275 @ $ 451 Arkansas benefit = now hitting with an impact of $ 7.3 million per week.. March 1st -Dec.28th cumulative Lost Income Damage = $57.6 million times 1.55 Multiplier effect $89,39,018 dollars.
California 214,800 lost benefits on Dec 28th. 16,078 added each week. Total off roles as of March 1st = 359,502 @ $ 450 California benefit = now hitting with an impact of $161 million per week.. March 1st -Dec.28th cumulative Lost Income Damage = $1.29 billion times 1.55 Multiplier effect $ 2,002,878,225 dollars.
Colorado 17,900 lost benefits on Dec 28th. 1400 added each week. Total off roles as of March 1st = 30,500 @ $ 466 Colorado benefit = now hitting with an impact of $14.2 million per week.. March 1st -Dec.28th cumulative Lost Income Damage = $37.7 million times 1.55 Multiplier effect $ 58,434,070 dollars.
Connecticut 26,000 lost benefits on Dec 28th. 1636 added each week. Total off roles as of March 1st = 35816 @ $ 665 Connecticut benefit = now hitting with an impact of $23.8 million per week.. March 1st -Dec.28th cumulative Lost Income Damage = $221.8 million times 1.55 Multiplier effect $ 343,878,815 dollars.
Read the rest of this entry »
1. Increase Taxes on Top Echelon at a 60/40 split. They keep 60; they pay 40.
2. Allow capital improvement inside the geographical USA to be written off the year it is expensed.
3. Return Federal Jobs to levels before 2008.
4. Return State jobs to levels before 2008.
5. Return Local jobs to levels before 2008.
————–
The arguments have been long expounded as to how, as to why, and as to the details of when. I’ll save time by not repeating them. …
Every county in America would get a jump on their own unemployment immediately.
Deal is sweetened by stretching pension plan payments for big business and is down to 3 month of extension. The Bill not only pays for the $6.4 billion price tag but also reduces the deficit by $1.2 billion.
There is no reason for Republicans to vote against it, except to screw the middle class over one more time..
Check back to see which choice they make….
As the weeks sneak past, the cry of the unemployed becomes fainter and fainter. It’s official. The Republicans won. They were right; we were wrong. For them, indeed, it was a good political move. They were right. Everyone cares about money saved; no one cares about people anymore, even those suddenly destitute, hit almost without warning.
I guess since there are no stories out there now of what it is like to have no money, the Republican got it right about our concern over the long term unemployed. Those unemployment checks were going to freeloaders and as soon as the money quit, they all got jobs. At least that is what one would certainly think, from the silence, from the complete lack of stories, lack of diaries, or even lack of pleas to get something moving again on the assisting the unemployed. It’s like the Republicans said “no”, and that was it… no more long term unemployment… Gravy train—> over… Back to work you scum….
Who would have expected it could have worked out this well? Certainly no one I know. We are all shell-shocked that any concern for these fellow citizens has just gone, evaporated. It appears that people are indeed, despite their lip-service, privately tired ot those lazy, cheapskates, mooching off the public dole, and that, though they say “tisk, tisk, you shouldn’t cut them”, there simply is no heart in them anymore to treat people more humanely than say, corporations….
Just out of curiosity over how this could be so, how we could have been so wrong, I wanted to crunch numbers for myself to see if it was true.
It is estimated that there are 4 million workers who are over 26 weeks unemployed. As of December 28th, there were 1.3 million who would lose benefits. That would be week zero of the crises. From December 29th through January 4th. 70,000 more were Immediately dropped high and dry. Then the following week, January 5th through the 11th, another 70,000 tumbled off the roles.. The week following, January 12th through the 18th, 70,000 more…. Last Saturday, saw the grand total rise by another 70,000 people…. We have now gone a full month, at four times 70,000 and have added 280,000 more destitute families to our national roster…. 1.58 million families are facing their own personal Grapes of Wrath… In the silence of public outcry, Republicans just laugh and laugh while they swim in the Congressional pool and wipe their clean butts now with clean towels, (now that the sequester and shutdowns are over)….
What’s the effect of all this? I do Federal Budgets so these numbers are small to me… What’s a million?. Chump change… or 1 X 10^-12 or 0.000000000001 of my problems….It is so small it is very hard to visualize the human cost. It is far easier to visualize the dollars saved.. The initial cut saved approximately . $ 397 million ($306 listed as the average unemployment check amount)… Each subsequent week that total climbs as 70,000 X $306 or $21,420,000 gets added to the amount the Republicans are saving America….So as of last week, January 25th the chart of weekly savings looks like this….
- $397 million as of January 4th
- $418 million as of January 11th
- $440 million as of January 18th
- $461 million as of January 25th.
Total saved America courtesy of the Republicans of the United States of America is… $1.76 billion dollars! Roughly one thousandth of our budget….
Hats off to them. They saved money by taking care of a problem Democrats were too squeamish to handle. Why have extended unemployment at all? There was no where else that money could be saved, and it was time those lazy, useless freeloaders went back to work anyways. There is no where else to make up that money.
For last month they already let tax breaks expire for college tuitions. That’s been done; $4 billion saved.. Last month they let teachers writing-off their classroom expenses, expire. That saved almost a billion. No mortgage insurance premiums can be now be deducted. That saved over $5 billion dollars. If you lived in a state with no sales tax, where you used to be able to deduct state and local sales taxes, .. you can’t now. Savings of $16 billion. The mortgage-modification tax break expired… meaning if your home was under water, and you got relief from a bank, you get taxed on the amount of relief, thousands more than you can afford…. Got to love those Republicans, saving America money..
And of course no one can make changes to these tax breaks... The Cato Institute estimates that direct federal subsidies to corporations costs taxpayers almost $100 billion every year. Furthermore, the tax code gives corporations special tax-breaks which reduced what is supposed to be a 35 percent tax rate to an actual tax rate of 13 percent, saving these corporations an additional $200 billion annually,,, Likewise, special tax breaks for hedge fund managers allowing them to pay only 15% rate? (This is the break where the multimillionaire manager pays less of a percentage in taxes than her secretary). Estimates are that this costs taxpayers $83 billion annually and 68% of those who receive this special tax break earn far more than $462,500 per year (the top one percent of earners).
So Republicans are laughing all the way to the bank. None of their money was touched, and $1.6 billion was saved on the backs of people who apparently live inside the cone of silence… I don’t hear outrage anymore, do you?
After all, what they did all those freeloaders, was apparently a favor. They finally got them off their ass and made them get a job. No lazy asses in a Republican-run world.. Bring on 2014…
They did all get a job, right? No one is saying anything to the contrary, so surely, they all got a job, right? All you have to do is walk up to a business and say, “I need a job” and they give it to you on the spot, right? Of course, right? Isn’t that how it’s done on TV sitcoms? If you need a job, you just go out and get one. Like Drake and Josh? So, everybody is now working, right, except those lazy butts whose long term still has not run out!
Let’s look. Here is the unemployment table for December 2013….
- A) According to the BLS 37.7% or over one third of all our unemployed are over 27 weeks…
- B) 24.4% or one fourth land a job in 4 weeks and start in 5…
- C) Another quarter or 24.4% get a job their second month… that’s up to 8 weeks between jobs.
- D) The remaining 16% or one seventh of the unemployed, get their replacement job somewhere between the 3rd and 6th month….
- It is the first third, or 37.7%, who will lose benefits…. They are the losers….
“These had better get off their sasses, get over to Burger King, and start flipping (cooking) burgers.” (actual statement by Congressman on Budget Committee). So are they?
The advanced number for seasonally-adjusted insured-unemployment during the week ending January 11, was 3,056,000, an increase of 34,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 3,022,000. The 4-week moving average was 2,939,000, an increase of 31,000 from the preceding week’s revised average of 2,908,000.
What? Unemployment claims are rising? That can’t be. People should be going back to work, not more people getting laid off! How will those long-term people now with no income, courtesy of the laughing House Republicans, get all those jobs they were supposed to walk in, demand, and get? You say there are now even more unemployed?
December’s unemployment for the month, was at a 6.7 %… The last monthly rate below 6.7% occurred in October 2008... the month after Lehman collapsed. (Amazing this Obama) Unemployment is almost at pre-recession levels. But wait! Something must be wrong… 1 million unemployment claims just disappeared overnight on December 28th… What jobs did they all get? Burger King?
January’s jobs data is embargoed until February 7th…. But based off of December’s estimates, here is what HAS to happen for Republican wet dreams to come true. Over the course of last year, across all of 2013, the ranks of the long-term unemployment declined by 897,000. For Republican dreams to materialize, this month of, January 2014, total employment must rise by 1.58 million workers or by a total equal to all those left unpaid by long term employment…. For the record, that would be a 60% increase in one single month, over the entire past year’s hirings decreasing the totals of the long-term unemployed….
It probably won’t happen.
Since the unemployed usually spend all their check each week, the economy for January just toof a hit of $1.67 billion dollars from the lack of money these unemployed would have spent.. Most of that was felt immediately in retail. Retail just hired 55,000 new hires in December. I hope most still have jobs.
One further factor which sort of smudges up the calculations, making things not so clear cut, … is the the huge number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) which has remained essentially unchanged at 7.8 million through December. These individuals who are working part time because their hours have been cut back or because they were unable to find full-time work.
I expect this to probably be where most of the absorption of the ex-communicated long termed unemployed will be found…..
Now so far, all I’ve talked about is money. But being unemployed is much more. It is about people…Human beings less fortunate than you or I, but, at a moment’s notice, at the whim of a boss and having no protections, we know we could be there too.(let’s hope the swirling rumors over HSBC’s imminent Lehman-sized collapse, aren’t true.)
How does one possibly show the human cost that this Republican obstinance is doing to the optimism, and the pride of this nation, the United States of America? Many of you are too young to remember this image ingrained in us, but try to imagine a map of the United States of America and that it is under attack by nuclear weapons… When a strike hits, a white circle flashes on the map showing each lost city….
December 28th 2013….. San Diego…… Gone…… 1.3 million people.
January 4th 2014….. Wilmington Delaware…. gone… 70,000 people
January 11th 2014….. Canton, Ohio…… gone…. 70,000 people.
January 18th 2014….. Rapid City SD … gone…. 70,000 people.
January 25th 2014….. Scranton PA…… gone…. 70,000 people.
If these were real nukes dropping on our fellow citizens, launched by a sub-class of our fellow citizens, would we still be as silent, afraid to step out of line and express concern over fear of how we’d look to our corporate bosses and the snitches we work beside, and just shrug off the laughing Boehner and Cantor as they dry off with clean white cotton towels in the U.S House of Representatives members-only pool? I’m worried the answer is yes.
Well, guess what? There is something you can do. Act. Stop waiting. Do something. Act. Phone. Email. Text… Just act and tell your friends to act too.
Addendum: I saw this afterwards… it’s so ironic. After snuggly bashing the Soviets for years (and I was good at it) as being softly inferior to us tough, old capitalists, I with pure admiration today see their progeny in the squares of Ukraine, who won’t accept injustice lying down, who won’t see their dreams arbitrarily squelched, who won’t let something just get taken away from them because that entity is so powerful and distant, it seems senseless to contest it… I see them, and I say… wow, we really suck as human beings.. What is wrong with us?
And then I again see by the pool, Boehner and Cantor, just gaffawing away at us timid Democrats… Oh well. I guess that is how it goes. Sigh.
.
kavips 