Brilliant! (4.00 / 2)

Some Republicans say cutting off aid will spur people to find work.

The solution to unemployment is for people to get off their lazy asses and get a job!  Duh.  Need employment?  Get a job!  Problem solved.

Why are liberals so dense they can't see that?  They're always worrying about jobs being available and crap like that.

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by: Mark Matson @ Thu Apr 29, 2010 at 18:31:35 PM CDT

Angry (4.00 / 1)

I'll tell you that really, really made me angry.  This isn't just some argument over a fine point of legislation, this is people's lives.  I mean, what are they (we) supposed to do when this runs out?  I linked to a "restaurant" piece I had written about these clowns and their lifestyles on the money taxpayers send (that includes Wall Streeters).

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Seeing The Forest -- Who is our economy FOR, anyway? Twitter: dcjohnson

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by: DaveJ @ Thu Apr 29, 2010 at 18:46:07 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Yeah (4.00 / 1)

I have bailout rage.  It's totally cool if tax cheat Timmy pays out on AIG's CDS to Golden Sacks and others at 100 cents on the dollar, but preventing people from starving?  Too expensive.

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by: jasonbox @ Thu Apr 29, 2010 at 21:35:16 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

... (4.00 / 1)

Yep if only they'd apply to those millions jobs lost during the bush administration... Lazy bastards.... Can't even afford their own planes or to pay off their own mistresses.

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by: yitbos96bb @ Thu Apr 29, 2010 at 21:05:25 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

When I was unemployed (4.00 / 2)

I got that reaction from many people...just go out there and get a job.

Great, did that, now what?

I was maddening to the point of having a nervous breakdown. To the point where they make me doubt myself "Am I really trying hard enough? Am I really a failure?"

When I finally found a job, I vowed always to fight the idea that the unemployed will get a job "if they try"

I'm the proof that unemployed persons can't just "go out and find a job"

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by: DTOzone @ Thu Apr 29, 2010 at 21:32:45 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Un-fucking- conscionable (4.00 / 4)

Does the ruling class not realize or not care that people recognize that the money was there for Wall Street but not for them? I'll defer to Chris Floyd:

Perhaps the most striking fact revealed by the global financial crash - or rather, by the reaction to it - is the staggering, astonishing, gargantuan amount of money that the governments of the world have at their command. In just a matter of days, we have seen literally trillions of dollars offered to the financial services sector by national treasuries and central banks across the globe...

Year after year, the ordinary citizens were told by their governments: we have no money to spend on your needs, on your communities, on your infrastructure, on your health, on your children, on your environment, on your quality of life. We can't do those kinds of things any more.

Of course, when talking amongst themselves, or with the believers in the think tanks, boardrooms - and editorial offices - the cultists would speak more plainly: we don't do those things anymore because we shouldn't do them, we don't want to do them, they are wrong, they are evil, they are outside the faith. But for the hoi polloi, the line was usually something like this: Budgets are tight, we must balance them (for a "balanced budget" is a core doctrine of the cult), we just can't afford all these luxuries.

But now, as the emptiness and falsity of the Chicago cargo cult stands nakedly revealed, even to some of its most faithful and fanatical adherents, we can see that this 30-year mantra by our governments has been a deliberate and outright lie. The money was there - billions and billions and billions of dollars of it, trillions of dollars of it. We can see it before our very eyes today - being whisked away from our public treasuries and showered upon the banks and the brokerages.

Let's say it again: The money was there all along.

http://seminal.firedoglake.com...

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by: david mizner @ Thu Apr 29, 2010 at 18:55:57 PM CDT

Instead, we ought to pay people to _work_ (0.00 / 0)

Being able to find work to support one's family is an issue of human dignity.  I bet not a person today on unemployment, those fortunate enough to have it at all, want to be unemployed.  The conservative talking points to the contrary that people are on holiday is the usual pure fantasy.

There's plenty of stuff to be done in this country.  There ought to be a job for everyone.  I am a subscriber to L. Randall Wray's buffer stock proposal, from his excellent book on Modern Money.  Suggested by someone here and I think a great read.

That people waste away, idle, skills spoiling, is another neoliberal failure.  Oh, and the crock that is free trade.

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by: jasonbox @ Thu Apr 29, 2010 at 20:00:21 PM CDT

... (0.00 / 0)

I know I can barely make it...

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by: yitbos96bb @ Thu Apr 29, 2010 at 21:11:48 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Notice the Speaker Has a Job? (4.00 / 1)

What strikes me is that many of these Republicans have decent jobs, often in government, no less. What's even worse is that many jobs could pay more, and should pay more, but don't because of the political ideology of the past thirty years. You know, busting unions, firing teachers, offshoring jobs, and otherwise depressing wages.

Keynes also supposedly had a great line, something like it is better to wrap dollars around bricks, bury them in a mine, and ask people to dig them out than do nothing. I'm continually amazed at people who still push Herbert Hoover's line, as if somehow the government has no role to play, that it should do nothing but coddle the already wealthy.

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by: TSlavin @ Fri Apr 30, 2010 at 09:55:48 AM CDT