Unemployment to stay high until 2017

[mtnlaurel]

We had an emergency fund and it saved us during my DH's 1.5 yr of unemployment '08-'10. And praise the Lord we sold our house with slight profit in fall of 08. The call to our realtor was the first one after hearing of my DH's job loss. So we were fortunate. We put our furniture in storage and hit the road (I had been laid off in 07 and turned it into an 'extended maternity leave' -- my biological clock was running out for Kid 2.)
And part of that 1.5 yrs was with various family taking us in - for our pride we all played it off as extended holiday visits and a house sitting job
And super praise the Lord that our in-law's have a rental home that became available to us for a while.

But another jobless stretch is always in the back of our minds and we do not have an emergency fund for another 'double dip' quite yet.
We're not buying a home because we don't want to get stuck and we're not in an area of the country that we see ourselves long term.

Thankfully unemployment benefits kept us afloat (and I found a job in the Public Sector, directly Stimulus related) until my DH finally found a job comparable to his previous one. It's in an area of the country that we never thought we would live, far from family-which is hard with 2 small kids, but we are grateful. We totally felt like his shelf life was on the verge of expiration.

It just burns me up because either I'm just listening to too much lefty news or the Repub. controlled House really is just a bunch of obstructionist pigs.
It just seems like the TeaParty strangled GOP is willing to watch our country go over the cliff, just so Obama will fail. And I am no super backer of Obama, I thought his lack of fist-a-cuff political experience was a real negative - I was going to go McCain until he brought Palin on board.
I'm particularly hot under the collar tonight because I heard that Republicans don't want to extend the Payroll Tax Cut (please correct me if this is not right) -- So let me get this straight... You guys are for tax cuts, just not ones that help regular people?

I just have to believe that there are some big brain economists out there that can map a way out of this that both sides can swallow. I mean we can't just sit around and wait from election to election and not get any real work done. And so, sorry Tea Party -- but ever since the Moral Majority took over your movement, the whole country does not march your drum!

I would love a new party to form called Compassionate Calculator Owners -- take out all the social agenda b.s. until we have the luxury of arguing over those things, crunch some #s, delete inefficiencies, cut spending that isn't giving ROI, tax some people or corp.s that can take it, make trade policy and tax code conducive to real job growth (Not MickeyD Jobs), keep people safe, air clean and encourage new tech sectors, keep the impoverished from bread riots in the streets

I've only worked for a gov. organization once and it was a total joke -- people wouldn't get fired no matter how much they stunk and the mentality was just foreign to me. The whistle blew - it's time to go home, I don't care that this time sensitive project is teetering on collapse, it's not in my job description, see sub-section A. You will have to take this before the pro-active whatever committee. Huh?

At the same time private entities are charged to make money for their share holders, not look out for the collective good of a nation.

It's not black or white, either/or -- it's a fine balance of the two.

If they flat out kill the American Dream -- that anything here is possible through hard work and/or education -- then we are all screwed because that is the opium that keeps this country going.

[Zigzagman]

It's important to listen very carefully to what those make promises are really saying in terms of jobs these days. There is talk of not extending unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed in hopes of pushing them into jobs that are at the level of minimum wage. I think that will have mixed results. It will show job growth but I think will also result in long term lower wages for workers.

I also see the continued push for de-regulation in hopes of stimulating growth. In areas such as oil/gas this will result in continued degradation of our environment - clean air and water. In Texas the only growth we see lately is the movement of companies (mostly from California) to Texas because of the lower tax burden. Keep in mind that this is not job growth but rather job re-location for the most part and in some cases actual net reduction of jobs. For the private sector consumption is the key to job growth and without improved employment numbers people tend to conserve and save if possible.

I think time not political promises will be the only thing that brings us out of our present situation and there is the possibility that it will get worse before it gets better (hope not). I also hope that we do not become so desperate that we give away many of the gains made in terms of environment, health and safety during this process.

This seems to be one of those times in history that is ripe for flim-flam salesman, religious extremism, and corporate control. I hope we are careful about what we willing to give up during this process. Try and keep in mind what got us into this present situation because if we don't change somethings will probably get the same results.

Peace

[Alan]

Try and keep in mind what got us into this present situation because if we don't change somethings will probably get the same results.

Peace

I think it's called 'Bread and Circuses'

"The
America of my time line is a laboratory example of what can happen to
democracies, what has eventually happened to all perfect democracies throughout
all histories. A perfect democracy, a ‘warm body’ democracy in which every adult
may vote and all votes count equally, has no internal feedback for
self-correction. It depends solely on the wisdom and self-restraint of citizens…
which is opposed by the folly and lack of self-restraint of other citizens. What
is supposed to happen in a democracy is that each sovereign citizen will always
vote in the public interest for the safety and welfare of all. But what does
happen is that he votes his own self-interest as he sees it… which for the
majority translates as ‘Bread and Circuses.’

‘Bread and Circuses’ is the
cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy
often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to
every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the
end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves
bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body
politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or
in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader—the barbarians enter
Rome." ~ Robert Heinlein

[mtnlaurel]

I wasn't familiar with Bread and Circuses, so I looked it up on Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses

So only people with jobs or landowners should vote?
I must totally not be understanding where you were going with Heinlein's quote.
I'm not wanting to attack you, I just want to better understand where you are coming from.

If you are simply saying that we need more effective policies to deal with freeloaders and greedy opportunists in our society (both welfare freeloaders and corp. subsidy freeloaders) -- then I couldn't agree more.

But blaming poor people for bringing down the country is nuts. They have no real power.
The folks that have the power are those that have the resources to hire armies of lobbyists and tax attorneys.

We have got to start getting along and find middle ground and get some legislation through that is going to encourage job growth in the private sector.

[Lainey]

But blaming poor people for bringing down the country is nuts. They have no real power.
The folks that have the power are those that have the resources to hire armies of lobbyists and tax attorneys.

+1

[Alan]

I wasn't familiar with Bread and Circuses, so I looked it up on Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses

So only people with jobs or landowners should vote?

I think there is much to be said for only allowing net contributor's to vote.

If you are simply saying that we need more effective policies to deal with freeloaders and greedy opportunists in our society (both welfare freeloaders and corp. subsidy freeloaders) -- then I couldn't agree more.

When those who vote their individual self-interest out-number those who vote the collective self-interest, we shouldn't be surprised at the results.

But blaming poor people for bringing down the country is nuts. They have no real power.

That's a mis-interpretation of the concept. Many well-to-do people place their temporary self-interest above the collective interest. It's not a state of finances as much as a state of mind.

We have got to start getting along and find middle ground and get some legislation through that is going to encourage job growth in the private sector.

The best way to do that is to take the uncertainty out of the market. That means stop looking at legislation as a means to an end.

[JaneV2.0]

"I think there is much to be said for only allowing net contributor's to vote."

Who the hell gets to decide who the "contributors" are? I suspect we'd have very different definitions.

[loosechickens]

And you don't think that the RICH vote their own self interest, Alan??? You don't??? HAH.

I've gotten that "bread and circuses" email from SO many rightwing friends, most of whom are also born again Christians. I always smile at their adoration of ole Robert Heinlein, and wonder if they also think so highly of this quote from him......

""The most preposterous notion that Homo sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history."
— Robert A. Heinlein

[Alan]

And you don't think that the RICH vote their own self interest, Alan??? You don't??? HAH.

I've gotten that "bread and circuses" email from SO many rightwing friends, most of whom are also born again Christians. I always smile at their adoration of ole Robert Heinlein, and wonder if they also think so highly of this quote from him......

""The most preposterous notion that Homo sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history."
— Robert A. Heinlein

If we step outside the bounds of identity politics, we may see that rich/poor have little to do with the equation. It's more about give/take. I'm not sure why these conversations always devolve to this type of emotional attack on "right wing", "conservative", "whatever I'm not".

By the way, could you send me a copy of one of those emails. I've never gotten one.

[loosechickens]

The emails I got, Alan..... (o.k. I was engaging in a bit of hyperbole, as there were only three of them, all within the last few days), quote Heinlein and link to this piece:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/...-american.html

I'm sure you agree with this thinking.....I definitely do not.

If I were to disenfranchise any group of voters, (which I would not do), personally, I'd dump the selfish, grasping, no matter how much they have it isn't enough people who will keep on piling up shekels in excess of what any human being could spend in ten lifetimes, while denying health care, education and a decent life to their fellow citizens. Those folks wouldn't be missed at all in my perfect world. YMMV and I'm sure it does.