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Does Washington care about unemployment? - 6/3/2010 1:03:19 AM

Fellow

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I have long wondered why nothing serious is not being done to reduce unemployment (the same applies to EU countries).

Brad Delong in The Week asks the question: Does Washington care about unemployment?
http://theweek.com/bullpen/column/203544/does-washington-care-about-unemployment
He brings up the previous high unemployment period and he notices:
"In 1983, Ronald Reagan's Washington regarded high unemployment as a national emergency. Today, with unemployment kissing 10 percent, Barack Obama's Washington scarcely seems perturbed. Why?"

His guesses:

"Have decades of widening wealth inequality created a chattering class of reporters, pundits and lobbyists who’ve lost their connection to mainstream America? Has the collapse of the union movement removed not only labor’s political muscle but its beating heart from the consciousness of the powerful? Has this recession, which has reduced hiring more than it has increased layoffs, left the kind of people who converse with the powerful in Washington secure in their jobs and thus communicating calm while the unemployed are engulfed in panic? Are we passively watching an unrepresented underclass of the long-term unemployed created before our eyes?"

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RE: Does Washington care about unemployment? - 6/3/2010 3:14:29 AM

Termyn8or

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Yes they care very much. What people fail to realize is that they like unemployment. If you think that statement is preposterous, you need to think again.

God I hate to do this.

Unemployment not only makes people dependant on the government, it fosters a class of people with a certain sense of entitlement, which fosters more dependance on the government, furthering their goals for ultimate power. You see it is not enough to just be the lawmakers, you need the spirit and will of the populace on your side. This furthers that end.

What's more, whether or not the US type of nuclear family is destroyed, they are manufacturing more cannon fodder for future wars that are already in the planning stage. As normal society decays, the military will look better and better as a prospect for the future to the young. It doesn't matter that they get screwed in the end, they don't know that yet, when they sign on the dotted line.

Likewise, old people are another target for apparent appeasement. Protecet their retirement. Well that maybe has not gone so well, so now it is a scramble to find whether tweedle dee or dum will get them a bigger check. And that welfare Mother mentality is sickening to me because most of the retirees should have been raised better than that. But it is hard even for one's solid background to fight decades of conditioning, to see the gov as the cureall for everything. I've found that trait in people to be exceptionally hard to fight, psychologically.

So that leaves us without solidarity, and a severe lack of true leaders. They win, and have been winning for quite some time. Most likely I know the system better than anyone else here, but I am having quite a bit of difficulty finding ways to reverse these negative trends, to make anything better. A great source of consternation I might add.

All you have to ask is just who made it so attractive to oursource jobs. There is the answer if you can figure it out. I am not talking about some back porch deal where I was a fly on the wall, I am talking about shit that it right in your face. The forest is plain to see once you get those trees out your eyes.

Now all you feel free to debate this to death for a few years, until you come to the same conclusion to which I came, twenty years ago.

T

(in reply to Fellow)

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RE: Does Washington care about unemployment? - 6/3/2010 3:54:36 AM

DomYngBlk

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So, the depression was orchestrated so that we would have the fodder for WWII? Come again?

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RE: Does Washington care about unemployment? - 6/3/2010 3:57:41 AM

luckydawg

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domyng blk......yes, by the Jews.

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RE: Does Washington care about unemployment? - 6/3/2010 3:58:46 AM

luckydawg

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that's sarcasm BTW.

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RE: Does Washington care about unemployment? - 6/3/2010 4:06:22 AM

pahunkboy

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...oddly- local economy is not that terribly bad right now.

A few places are hiring.

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RE: Does Washington care about unemployment? - 6/3/2010 4:10:44 AM

LadyEllen

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The costs of unemployment are paid for by taxation on the many. The benefits of outsourcing go to the few and are enough to arrange for neat tax evasion schemes. Additionally, outsourcing (and insourcing of illegal workers) suppresses wages in the domestic economy, (gotta keep that inflation at bay), obliging the many, on whom the tax burden steadily rises as unemployment increases despite their low wages, to secure their necessary supplies from discount outlets selling imported goods manufactured by way of outsourcing.

Its a beautiful thing all in all. The peasantrification of the western world. The rolling back of a century's worth of social and economic development. Back to the good old days of a wealthy elite where Arbeit und Brot are the only law.

Next question?

E

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RE: Does Washington care about unemployment? - 6/3/2010 4:12:35 AM

DomYngBlk

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Well said

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RE: Does Washington care about unemployment? - 6/3/2010 4:39:46 AM

Aneirin

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The government of any country is only concerned about unemployment in as much as they say they are, it makes good sound bites for the electorate, the electorate LE has described, a knowledge to some that something is being done albeit inexorably slowly.

The reality is unemployment is good for government and at the end of the day, they personally, do they really care, as to be honest, they have a job and they cannot put themselves in the position of the unemployed to understand, they only understand what they want to understand based upon advisory bodies and their own pseudo feeling on the matter, perhaps a false or misguided compassion.

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RE: Does Washington care about unemployment? - 6/3/2010 4:52:15 AM

housesub4you

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Personally, I think it is Corporate America who cares little about unemployment in this country. The sounds bites they give about the tax is just BS. To me it seems they are more interested in building a middle class in the countries with over a billion people to expand their markets. Thus making the USA the low end worker country, making the cheap products for those billions of people to purchase.

Think about it, we have a market place with about 325 million people, while there are emerging countries with BILLIONS of people who desire to live like we did. A good job, a house, education for your family, all things we once enjoyed and these things are becoming out of reach for the average American family, while it is becoming more and more possible as other countries begin to realize that developing their middle class can make them a strong player in the world of Macro Economics

< Message edited by housesub4you -- 6/3/2010 4:53:27 AM >

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RE: Does Washington care about unemployment? - 6/3/2010 4:58:59 AM

eyesopened

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Washington isn't Oz and there is no Wizard who grants wishes. How would you have "Washington" create jobs?

LadyEllen is right. It would take a reversal in the mindset of our nation. Profit and lots of it is such a singular goal. Beacuse we gotta keep the stock market healthy and the shareholders happy. I'm old. I remember a time when investing meant you put money toward a product or service industry and like planting seed to reap at harvest time, you watched it grow. But now people want instant wealth and have created "investments" that are nothing more than electronic shell games where there is no actual goods or services behind the bet. Companies used to "go public" because they needed an influx of cash in order to expand and grow. Companies go public now just to get their chips to place on the craps table that is Wall Street.

We have been lied to. We are under the impression that paying US workers to make anything will cost us more than we are willing to pay. What utter bullshit. Buying from China increases profits. Period. Have you shopped at WalMart lately? If they buy bath towels made in the US for $1.00 and sell them at $5.00 they make a nice profit. If the buy them from China at $0.25 and sell them for $4.75 they tell us we are saving money and they make even greater profit all the while making people feel dependent on buying that towel at this great lower price because they now are living on unemployment.

It's time to wake up. LadyEllen is right. The collective greed is a cancer. I wish I had some answer but I don't know how we get the people who benefit from their greed to see how harmful it is in the long run. As a society, we are easily bored and demand entertainment and even the horrors of the BP oil spill no longer interest us and Goldman Sachs are doing business as usual. If I sound pessimistic it's because I am feeling my age today.

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RE: Does Washington care about unemployment? - 6/3/2010 5:08:21 AM

Aneirin

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Interesting your use of the phrase we did, was that intentional ?

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RE: Does Washington care about unemployment? - 6/3/2010 5:38:29 AM

pahunkboy

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Congress cares about congressional employment.

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RE: Does Washington care about unemployment? - 6/3/2010 6:14:05 AM

DarkSteven

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When Reagan was President, he decided that deficits don't matter and spent like a madman without raising taxes. Obama is trying to raise the deficit as much as he can but has political opposition to doing so, something Reagan didn't have.

Since Delong seems to think that DC should do something, maybe he should specify what. Washington has cut interest rates to the bone and spent crazily. Not much else that can be done.

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RE: Does Washington care about unemployment? - 6/3/2010 7:11:32 AM

Sanity

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Defending the Reagan Deficits -
"To paraphrase a classic President Reagan line: Are you better off today than you were in 1980?"

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RE: Does Washington care about unemployment? - 6/3/2010 7:28:03 AM

rulemylife

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quote:

ORIGINAL: DomYngBlk

So, the depression was orchestrated so that we would have the fodder for WWII? Come again?

Wasn't having to listen to that paranoia once more than enough?

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RE: Does Washington care about unemployment? - 6/3/2010 7:30:44 AM

pahunkboy

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quote:

ORIGINAL: rulemylife

quote:

ORIGINAL: DomYngBlk

So, the depression was orchestrated so that we would have the fodder for WWII? Come again?

Wasn't having to listen to that paranoia once more than enough?

Yeah Domi wars only happen in the movies.

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RE: Does Washington care about unemployment? - 6/3/2010 7:33:25 AM

rulemylife

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Sanity

Defending the Reagan Deficits -
"To paraphrase a classic President Reagan line: Are you better off today than you were in 1980?"

Lovely.

The man who practically wets his pants bemoaning the current national debt finds nothing wrong with the President that started the deficit ball rolling.

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RE: Does Washington care about unemployment? - 6/3/2010 7:36:17 AM

pahunkboy

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That not true.

Ask your DR if depends are right for you!~ YOU RML STOMP

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RE: Does Washington care about unemployment? - 6/3/2010 8:37:03 AM

Musicmystery

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Fellow
Brad Delong in The Week asks the question: Does Washington care about unemployment?
http://theweek.com/bullpen/column/203544/does-washington-care-about-unemployment
He brings up the previous high unemployment period and he notices:
"In 1983, Ronald Reagan's Washington regarded high unemployment as a national emergency. Today, with unemployment kissing 10 percent, Barack Obama's Washington scarcely seems perturbed. Why?"

Well then Brad is not the brightest bulb in the bunch.

First, it's obviously a priority, right next to health care. Remember all that stimulus money? Remember the extended unemployment benefits Republicans blocked?

After Bush bought his way out of two prior recessions with monetary policy, the third left interest rates with nowhere to go.

Reagan threw money at the military-industrial complex, quadrupling the deficit. If that's your solution, If Obama spent $34 trillion dollars on new military development, we'd have more jobs.

I don't think that's a good approach. It wasn't when Reagan did it either.

(in reply to Fellow)

Post #: 20

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