Jobless and hopeless in America

[helpme2010]

Too true. I was having a discussion about taxes and the other person wants everyone to pay "income" tax -- he would like a flat tax. Didn't care if as an example it was 10% and someone who only made $1,000 per month with that tax liability would have to worry about buying food with that $100 or pay the tax vs the person who makes $10,000 would pay his 10% and have $9,000 left for everything else. Also didn't like the fact that anyone could go to the ER even if they don't have insurance or money. With my parochial education I don't understand. Even more sad though is it is a very myopic position. He is a business person and all his customers are the middle class. When they are gone who is going to buy his services? Also, businesses are able to be successful in this country in large part because of the relative safety and stability. With no government or middle class we will be no different then many third world countries. People are always complaining about taxes but without them we would not have the environment to promote the hight standard of living for so many.

I agree. Unless or until you walk a mile in someone elses shoes, in this case the poor, you can't relate to the extreme differences in living or surviving.

Not only are we heading down the direction of a third world country, but taken to the extreme, we can eventually replace 95% of the work force with machinery and robots (also of course outsourcing the remaining physical labor to 3rd world countries with the cheapest of slave labor).

Humans and especially the poor are such a nuisance aren't they? This conjures images of sci-fi movies like Logans Run where they terminate people over 30 or the Twilite Zone episode of the greedy CEO replacing every department of his manufacturing plant with machines, until all the thousands are gone and he is the only one remaining. The final scene shows the robot who eventually replaces him. This is of course just crazy sci-fi talk, but I think the point comes across as to how we decide as a society to value our citizens, especially those deemed the least valuable or the largest resource intensive.

[msm859]

My bad. I forgot, compassion for our fellow man, morality, ethics, that is so last century!!!

Too true. I was having a discussion about taxes and the other person wants everyone to pay "income" tax -- he would like a flat tax. Didn't care if as an example it was 10% and someone who only made $1,000 per month with that tax liability would have to worry about buying food with that $100 or pay the tax vs the person who makes $10,000 would pay his 10% and have $9,000 left for everything else. Also didn't like the fact that anyone could go to the ER even if they don't have insurance or money. With my parochial education I don't understand. Even more sad though is it is a very myopic position. He is a business person and all his customers are the middle class. When they are gone who is going to buy his services? Also, businesses are able to be successful in this country in large part because of the relative safety and stability. With no government or middle class we will be no different then many third world countries. People are always complaining about taxes but without them we would not have the environment to promote the hight standard of living for so many.

[helpme2010]

It wouldn't matter. Most of the greedy people you are talking about are not human beings, so they don't really scare that easily.

My bad. I forgot, compassion for our fellow man, morality, ethics, that is so last century!!!

[banca rotta]

Just like the movie a Christmas Carol, it's so easy to turn a blind eye on the poor, I only wish those greedy people would get visited by 3 ghosts.

It wouldn't matter. Most of the greedy people you are talking about are not human beings, so they don't really scare that easily.

[helpme2010]

I get frustrated when I see how much we give in foreign aid to so many countries, yet we have to borrow this money which further puts us in debt. All those billions that could be invested here at home to help the poor and help build the economy as well.

I also want to rip my hair out when I see how much we allow corporations to outsource, including the visas. So many people lose their jobs because they simply can't compete with the rate of say a programmer coming from Russia or India. Manufacturing and so many other industries shut down so foreign countries can take over. Imagine how close we came to shutting down the entire car industry (yes GM is run poorly and yes restructuring is necessary to better compete), but that would be another entire industry of unemployed with no replacement jobs to give these people.

I get angry when people complain about the unemployed getting extensions, yet there is no other alternative. The people that caused this to happen are the same ones who complain about the victims just trying to survive.

Just like the movie a Christmas Carol, it's so easy to turn a blind eye on the poor, I only wish those greedy people would get visited by 3 ghosts.

[discouraged]

I'm a little tender right now. I have worked since I was 16 and now am 57 and was laid off over 2 years ago. I worked 6 months as a temp in 2009 and then again as a temp from Oct 2010 until Jan 14 2011. I am on state aid for healthcare and just found out my bad back may be much more serious than just a bad back so I am very thankful for the healthcare (which I pay $75 a month for) is in place.

I have applied for jobs since I have been laid off and even had some interviews but, they see my age and I do not get a call back.

I agree that able bodies should work. Trust me, I would love to have a full time job again. I enjoyed getting up and getting to the temp jobs I had. It felt so good.

Yes, there are people who abuse the system, but the reality is, in this economy you would advocate taking away benefits from people like me, who have worked their whole lives. It scares me to think I may have to have an operation on my back, but I certainly couldn't do it without public assistance at this point. It scares me more to think of never walking again - which would certainly limit my employment abilities much more than I am now.

Right now, in this economy, we have to look at the broader picture. Yes, as I said, there are people who abuse the system, but you can't penalize all of us for those that do abuse it.

The OP first started this thread to show what is happening to people just like me. We are actively seeking work,desperate to find jobs and without some sort of lifelines, we will be lost.

[RichM]

Eliminate the Federal Programs? Well, that would certainly get rid of the poor, since they can't afford Dr's. Gosh, let's just let them die I guess. How about school lunches? Gee, the poor would just not eat. This would enable the 'richer' kids to get ahead and again, the poor would just have to survive the best they can. This, of course, would lead to more crime as the 'have nots' reduce the wealth of the 'haves'.

I don't know the answer, but if the plan is to get rid of anyone middle class and under, it's working.

I was thinking more along the lines of getting rid od DHS, TSA (especially TSA), ATF, DOE, and other utterly useless departments.

I would also close all foreign military bases except those required by treaties, reduce the size of our active-duty armed forces, and express our national defense policy in these terms:

"We will leave the rest of the world alone, as the rest of the world has requested.
We will not try to be the world's policeman.
We will not attempt to interfere with your politics in any way.
But if you attack us, we will nuke you into oblivion."

As for public assistance, food stamps, etc., I would indeed ban from receiving any sort of government assistance all able-bodied adults who refuse to either participate in workfare or go to school. I'd rather educate a person to be a doctor than pay him/her to sit around watching daytime talk shows.

As for school lunches (and schools in general), I would move to vouchers to give the poor kids (of whom I was one, incidentally) a choice in where they go to school.

We can certainly debate the specifics, and your ideas may in fact be better than mine. But frankly, I think pretty much anyone's make at least as much sense as what's being done now, which is utterly incomprehensible.

-Rich

[discouraged]

Eliminate the Federal Programs? Well, that would certainly get rid of the poor, since they can't afford Dr's. Gosh, let's just let them die I guess. How about school lunches? Gee, the poor would just not eat. This would enable the 'richer' kids to get ahead and again, the poor would just have to survive the best they can. This, of course, would lead to more crime as the 'have nots' reduce the wealth of the 'haves'.

I don't know the answer, but if the plan is to get rid of anyone middle class and under, it's working.

[RichM]

Jack, there are more than one way to solve a problem, even one of the scale of the sad state of the U.S. economy.

I would favor drastic cuts in spending, elimination of the majority of federal programs and departments, the lowering of the debt ceiling, and the gradual elimination of the income tax (and its replacement with nothing), implemented by successive increases in the minimum income which is taxable. So every year, more and more people would pay no income tax at all, and wealthier people's total taxable income would similarly decrease as a higher amount becomes non-taxable; so in actual dollars, everyone would get the identical tax cut (except those who are already paying no tax).

The immediate increase in disposable income would be enough to stimulate the economy, in my opinion.

Marxism might also work, in theory. The problem is that it hasn't performed spectacularly well where it's been tried, nor is there very much chance that it ever could be implemented as Karl intended. Corruption and greed are not confined to politicians in Capitalist nations. In fact, my friends from the former Soviet Union tell me that even those few U.S. politicians whose corruption was so blatant and egregious that they went to prison, couldn't hold a candle to even an average rank-and-file bureaucrat in the former Soviet Union, much less a political office holder. Corruption, bribery, graft, payola, and so forth were the norm, rather than the exception to it, in the U.S.S.R.

I know: It's hard to believe, but there actually are politicians more crooked than our own. But it is this tendency that tends to make Leftist economic systems unworkable in real life, even assuming that you are philosophical agreement with those systems.

-Rich

[JackBondLove]

but obama thinks the US needs more skilled workers from other countries
wants to open our borders to allow even more foreigners to come here and work

HERE HERE! His former senior senator (Durbin of Illinois) needs to have a good talk with the POTUS. He's a lead senator in going after the job destroying H1B & L1 visa programs, which have left me and many other STEM workers functionally unemployable.

[JackBondLove]

Between Bush's wars and Obama's Socialist initiatives, our budget is again a complete mess, our debt has grown to record levels, and our ability to repay it questionable at best. If this situation continues unabated, the only thing that can "save" the U.S. Government is the very thing that would hurt the rest of U.S. society: massive inflation that would reduce the Dollar's value enough that the government could afford to pay back all of its obligations. (If this doesn't make sense to you, consider that inflation effectively decreases Dollar-denominated debt because the Dollars used to pay back the debt are worth less than the Dollars received when the debt was incurred.)

I agree with your analysis that W really screwed the pooch. As for the effects of inflation, I'm not so sure it would be a bad thing. Like you said, it would reduce the effective cost of the national debt. While it would increase the cost of imports, it would also make American corporations want to hire American workers again, which would solve the current mess. It would cause the price of energy to go up so much that it would make economic sense for Americans to support mass transit, fuel efficient cars, solar power manufacturing and deployment, etc. And the high cost of medical services would equally drop in effective terms - to say nothing of solving the problem with all the underwater homes.

Simply stated, the U.S. Government, according to the rest of the world's economists, is on its way to bankruptcy: And they don't want to be invested in Dollars when that happens. So they're getting out -- in spades.

Good, they can take the loss in value of the treasury bonds.

Another problem that people grumble about, but which defies any easy solution, is the almost-sinful income inequity in American society. CEO salaries, for example, have reached absurd levels, with some CEOs "earning" compensation in the hundreds of millions of dollars per year. Many, many more "earn" packages in the tens of millions. In the meantime, they offshore the jobs of people making thirty or forty grand a year, and blame the problem on the "greedy workers" and their unions.

Hmm ... first you deride the "socialism" of Obama, but then present a symptom that is remedied by real Marxian policies.

Blaming worker salaries for the export of jobs is just a smokescreen, by the way. Intel CEO Craig Barrett claims that 90 percent of the cost difference between building and operating a microchip factory in Asia, compared to building and operating the same factory in the United States, is due to government regulations. Only about ten percent of the difference is due to employee salaries. Simply stated, Asian nations want manufacturing, and their governments will bend over backwards to get it.

But those governments don't have a problem with pollution, worker exploitation, etc.

Most CEOs aren't quite so honest as Barrett, however; so they pin the blame on "greedy workers and their unions" in order to discourage their remaining U.S. workers from asking for pay increases. And so we have the unprecedented situation in which CEOs of major American firms are making as much as 800 times the incomes of their average employees.

The obvious problem with this degree of income inequity is that the United States is a consumer economy, driven by purchases rather than production. And when you systematically impoverish the common people, no one has any money to buy all the shit that has to be bought to prevent the economy from toppling. But despite falling sales, those on the top of the economic pyramid refuse to accept any loss to their own incomes without a fight. They have a mentality of entitlement, as if their wealth is something divinely ordained.

That's also another one of the reasons why this recession is dragging on for so long. During most previous recessions, CEOs and shareholders recognized that they had to lower prices -- both because of supply and demand and to encourage recovery -- even if doing so meant foregoing profits and dividends for a while. So prices tended to fall during recessions, which in turn encouraged recovery.

But the greedy bastards who dominate American industry nowadays refuse to accept less for themselves. As sales have declined because more and more people are broke, the greedy son-of-a-***** bastards on the top have tried to keep their own bottom lines from falling by raising prices on basic commodities, which serves only to deepen the recession by further suppressing spending. They're trying to make up lost profits due to reduced sales by increasing the profit per item, totally blinded by their own greed to how stupid and counterproductive that approach is.

And so we have the incongruity of a prolonged recession during which prices for basic, essential items have sharply increased -- in some cases by more than 100 percent -- and most of the reason is an essential greed on the part of shareholders and CEOs that convinces them that even if the rest of the country is broke and starving, their own incomes shouldn't have to suffer.

In 1942, a similar attitude on the parts of the wealthy led FDR to effectively impose a "salary cap" by issuing Executive Order 9520, which set the marginal tax rate at 100 percent for incomes over $25,000. So any and all income over that level would become the government's. The order was rescinded by Congress. The point I want to make, however, is that in 1942, $25,000 would be equivalent to roughly $335,000 today, which was considered super-wealthy by 1942 standards. Nowadays, a CEO whose salary isn't at least in the tens of millions of dollars per year is laughed at by his or her peers.

The government is still reluctant even today to tax the super-wealthy at a high rate, both because of political reasons and because of a persistent myth that it's the super-wealthy who generate new jobs. That myth lingers on from the "old days" when we actually manufactured stuff in the United States, and we needed the wealthy to capitalize the construction of factories and so forth needed by a manufacturing economy. Those days, however, are over. Nowadays, the only jobs the wealthy create are likely to be in Asia. Most jobs created in the United States are created by small businesses.

A problem easily remediated by confiscatory tax rates and other Marxian policies.

The third reason why the U.S. economy is headed for collapse is simply that the government spends too much money. The average American pays more than half their income back to the government in some form or another: Income taxes, FICA, sales taxes, property taxes, utility taxes, fuel taxes, motor vehicle registration fees, tolls, and so forth, and so on. And yet every single state is on the verge of bankruptcy (were that allowed), along with most municipalities.

The most common "solution" that these governments look to is raising taxes -- which further suppresses the economy by taking even more money away from the people. The more money people have to pay to government, the less money they have to spend on other shit, and the longer the recession drags on.

But those taxes pay for benefits that support people in some way. Huey Long "Share the Wealth" Marxian policies would alleviate this problem.

[tobee43]

tobee, I can relate to your postings. If you are unemployed and looking for work, should the richest country in the world leave you without healthcare. Hell no. I think every human being should receive the minimum necessities to survive. Food, medical care, and shelter. I'm not suggesting a fancy car, a fancy home, vacations, the right to see higher end doctors even, just the basic necessities to LIVE.

When I get a job again, I will want those nicer things and will of course have to pay for them, that is why I will work. But I will also continue to pay my taxes to help those that are struggling and trying to survive.

Nationwide healthcare is the moral thing to do for those that can't fend for themselves. As for telling them to go to the emergency room, try it. I had a clogged ear, I waited 10 hours in the emergency room and they didn't help me, I had another medical problem, went and they gave me an appointment to be looked at it 3 months later. They never worked on me or helped me. I just let it go. I am going to learn how to operate on myself instead.

yes, i'm sure most have us have experience the 10 er visits...even with good insurance.

but NO operating on yourself helpme...K?? LOL!!!

[helpme2010]

and thus...the title to this article....is clear to us all ...many of us are indeed jobless and hopeless in American....health care will be an issue, most likely it will have to socialized at one point or another....

if someone feels and it's true...i know this was just spoken about on the news the other day in, i believe it was AZ where the people were dying because the transplant programs were cut....it cost 200k for a transplant and the money was no longer there so...the people are dying. yet, and i hate to say this, my sister, just had a transplant and she was number 1 on the list...why??? she had the means and of course the insurance to cover it. (thankfully for our family)....but what about the other families??? my heart is broken for them...so i think the point here is the system needs to be more balanced, if nothing else.

where is the money suppose to come from...US?? we are all broke...where is the care suppose to come from...or whom is it suppose to come from....other than the government...or a privatization of a social health care system.

what a mess!

tobee, I can relate to your postings. If you are unemployed and looking for work, should the richest country in the world leave you without healthcare. Hell no. I think every human being should receive the minimum necessities to survive. Food, medical care, and shelter. I'm not suggesting a fancy car, a fancy home, vacations, the right to see higher end doctors even, just the basic necessities to LIVE.

When I get a job again, I will want those nicer things and will of course have to pay for them, that is why I will work. But I will also continue to pay my taxes to help those that are struggling and trying to survive.

Nationwide healthcare is the moral thing to do for those that can't fend for themselves. As for telling them to go to the emergency room, try it. I had a clogged ear, I waited 10 hours in the emergency room and they didn't help me, I had another medical problem, went and they gave me an appointment to be looked at it 3 months later. They never worked on me or helped me. I just let it go. I am going to learn how to operate on myself instead.

[tobee43]

and thus...the title to this article....is clear to us all ...many of us are indeed jobless and hopeless in American....health care will be an issue, most likely it will have to socialized at one point or another....

if someone feels and it's true...i know this was just spoken about on the news the other day in, i believe it was AZ where the people were dying because the transplant programs were cut....it cost 200k for a transplant and the money was no longer there so...the people are dying. yet, and i hate to say this, my sister, just had a transplant and she was number 1 on the list...why??? she had the means and of course the insurance to cover it. (thankfully for our family)....but what about the other families??? my heart is broken for them...so i think the point here is the system needs to be more balanced, if nothing else.

where is the money suppose to come from...US?? we are all broke...where is the care suppose to come from...or whom is it suppose to come from....other than the government...or a privatization of a social health care system.

what a mess!

[BKOnce]

One word in mind-- Overpopulation!

Unless we can handle & control that word... I don't see a permanent solution to everything---everything will be collapsed sooner or later... because human beings have tendency to getting crowded, designing many rule$ & working closer together while trying to compete fiercely for limited lands & limited resources that's all.. (3/4 water expanding & 1/4 land receding)