“Extending aid to the unemployed is not only the right thing to do, it is also one of the best ways to stimulate economic growth.” That has become a frequent talking point whenever the subject of unemployment compensation is discussed.
New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen used that argument during an MSNBC interview. “This is one of the best things we can do to help stimulate the economy, because for every dollar we put in unemployment, it pays back about $1.60. And we know that people who are on unemployment are going to go out, and they’re going to spend that money, they’re going to pay for groceries at their local grocery store, they’re going to buy gas in their car.”
—-from an article posted by PolitiFact.com
PolitiFact.com rated Senator Shaheen’s statement as “Half True.” Well, if it’s half true, that means it is also half false. So I sent Senator Shaheen a simple math test. I was surprised when she replied, and this is one of her answers. Her strong suit is not math.
Help me out here. I’m simply incapable of following the economics and math of sending checks to the unemployed. It may be due to a case of being terminally feeble-minded, but I don’t understand how an unemployed person spending a tax dollar drawn out of a state or federal treasury can magically produce a $1.60 return to the economy. In other words, the taxes YOU paid out of your labor were worth only a dollar, but somehow your tax dollar was suddenly worth $1.60 if the government takes it from you and sends it to someone who is unemployed and spent it.
Think about that. Your taxed labor is worth $1.00, while someone else’s non-labor is worth $1.60. One might say, “Well, you didn’t spend it.” Of course you didn’t. The government took it from you. But if the government lets you keep it and you spent it, is THAT suddenly worth $1.60? I have yet to find anyone who says it is. Oh, one more thing. Are there overhead expenses in handling your tax dollar, such as the salaries of hundreds or thousands of state and federal employess who take dollars out of the tax pile and process them over to the unemployment compensation pile? Yes. Are these overhead expenses part of the magic $1.60 equation? I’ll bet they aren’t. Here’s the new math, and it’s pretty damn close to what Senator Shaheen is claiming.
It gets worse. If you go to some websites, you’ll discover that spending unemployment dollars actually DECREASES THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE IN POVERTY AND CREATES JOBS, MILLIONS OF JOBS. Don’t believe me? Here’s some quotes from the website of Center for American Progress (CAP) (Footnote 1), and its logic is being used by many high-level federal elected leaders, including Senator Shaheen.
“Over the past few years, unemployment benefits have played a key role in helping unemployed workers pay their bills while they search for a new job. (Ok, I’m with you so far.) There are fewer people living in poverty in the United States because of these benefits. The Census Bureau has reported that unemployment benefits pulled 3.2 million people out of poverty in 2010, on top of 3.3 million in 2009.” Yikes! These statements peg the WTF meter. Then explain how the number of people in poverty has increased from 11% to 14% of the total population over that same time period, according to that same Census Bureau, which I quote as follows.
“The annual poverty rate rose to a rate of 11.3 percent in 2007 and increased from 11.3 percent in 2007 to 13.2 percent in 2009. The 2011 annual poverty rate of 14.0 percent was higher than the 2009 annual poverty rate of 13.2 percent.” So, how could over 6.5 million people be pulled out of poverty by unemployment compensation when nearly 10 million MORE people went into poverty in 2009-2011? Here’s the math that CAP used.
Back to more from these geniuses from CAP. “Unemployment benefits also boost the economy. They provide the biggest bang for the buck of the various kinds of government spending. Over the Great Recession, for every $1 spent on unemployment insurance benefits, the economy grew by $2, since recipients typically spend—not save—those dollars. That spending helps boost local economies as the unemployed can continue to pay their mortgage or rent and put food on the table.” Wow, this one tops Senator Shaheen’s claim of $1.60.
And even more from CAP. “The boost that benefits provide leads to job creation. According to a 2010 analysis by Wayne Vroman (Footnote 2), an economist and senior fellow at the Urban Institute for the Department of Labor, unemployment benefits increased employment on average by 1.6 million jobs each quarter from mid-2008 through mid-2010. Of that increase, nearly 900,000 more jobs existed because of regular unemployment benefits, while two federally financed programs—Emergency Unemployment Compensation and Extended Benefits, which provide additional weeks of benefits after workers have exhausted the standard 26 weeks—were responsible for increasing employment on average by slightly more than 700,000 each quarter.”
Yumping Yiminy, am I going mad? This gibberish says, “The longer you don’t work and continue to draw and spend unemployment compensation, the more jobs you create.” Did you do the math on that statement? I did. There are 8 quarters from mid-2008 through mid-2010. So 8 x 1.6 million jobs created per quarter equals 12.8 million jobs created. FROM UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION, for Pete’s sake. Yet the Federal Reserve states that the total number of people employed in the U.S. during that exact same time period went DOWN by 8.7 million.
I just know that there is someone out there in the cyber world who can straighten me out on this. Am I incapable of critical thinking? Were the math and econ teachers in my caveman K-12 and higher education experience all fools? Is this where I’m headed? Some might say I’m already there.
Footnotes.
(1) The Center for American Progress (CAP) is no fly-by-night organization. It is a powerful, well-connected and partisan liberal public policy research and advocacy organization. Its website states that the organization is “dedicated to improving the lives of Americans through progressive ideas and action”. CAP presents a liberal viewpoint on economic issues and has its headquarters in D.C. Its president and chief executive officer is Neera Tanden who worked for the Obama and Clinton administrations and for Hillary Clinton’s campaigns. Its first president and chief executive officer was John Podesta, who served as chief of staff to President Bill Clinton. Podesta remains with the organization as chairman of the board and currently serves as a counselor to President Obama. He was born in Chicago.
(2) “According to a 2010 analysis by Wayne Vroman, an economist and senior fellow at the Urban Institute for the Department of Labor” Did that quote from the article, made by the Center for American Progress, lead you to believe that Vroman works for the USG, specifically the Department of Labor? He does not. He is an employee of the Urban Institute, a so-called “non-partisan think tank” established in 1968 under the Lyndon Johnson administration. It receives 55% of its income from the federal government for “studies.” 100% of the Urban Institute’s employees political contributions went to Democrats, as reported by U.S. News and World Report in 2013. Uh, that’s my definition of non-partisan.
I’ve pondered this question for a long time, proposed it to my liberal friends, presented it to my progressive relatives. They spit, they sputter, they get mad and change the subject to bush or republicans, as if by pointing out the obvious flaws of the other party grants there inept party a pass.
I’ve concluded that like most religions, most people don’t seek an answer, they just want to be told what to believe.
It’s the state that regulates and permits work , therefore when jobs are destroyed and entrepreneurship oppressed via restrictive regulation it should be the state that pays the bills.
The state forcibly confiscated FICA from workers checks thereby denying the access to future use of those funds, so the state should pay as long as former tax slave in unemployed just as the state continues to pay Federal worker ticks years after they’ve ceased their service to the Leviathan.
It’s funny that one sucking Uncle Sam sugar teat their entire lives, having never created nothing of value outside of profits for the prison and MIC would begrudge another seeking those same benefits.
Hello pot.
If only we were a nation of Laurence Vance’s…
I am a libertarian. Our enemy is the state. Our enemy is not religion, corporations, institutions, foundations, or organizations. These only have power to do us harm because of their connection with the state. And since war is the health of the state, the state’s military, wars, and foreign interventions must be opposed root and branch.
I am a libertarian. I believe in laissez faire. Anyone should be free to engage in any economic activity without license, permission, prohibition, or interference from the state. The government should not intervene in the economy in any way. Free trade agreements, educational vouchers, privatizing Social Security, etc., are not the least bit libertarian ideas.
I am a libertarian. The best government is no government. That government that governs least is the next best government. Government, as Voltaire said, at its best state is a necessary evil and at its worst state is an intolerable one. The best thing any government could do would be to simply leave us alone.
I am a libertarian. Taxation is government theft. The government doesn’t have a claim to a certain percentage of one’s income. The tax code doesn’t need to be simplified, shortened, fairer, or less intrusive. The tax rates don’t need to be made lower, flatter, fairer, equal, or less progressive. The income tax doesn’t need more or larger deductions, loopholes, shelters, credits, or exemptions. The whole rotten system needs to be abolished. People have the right to keep what they earn and decide for themselves what to do with their money: spend it, waste it, squander it, donate it, bequeath it, hoard it, invest it, burn it, gamble it.
What this nations need are more Libertarians..
Well, thing is the entire industrial economy has never paid for itself, it has always been funded on more debt. That is why there has been an ever increasing debt load on the monetary system since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
increasing debt is used to fund everything from industrial production to social welfare. None of it is really funded by taxation, this just serves as a recycling mechanism to keep the whole system afloat. If you don’t provide Unemployment Insurance money to the UE, they stop becoming Consumers and stop buying the stuff produced by the Industrial Apparatus. so you have to keep distributing out money this way if you expect to keep this appparatus running.
You only run into problems with the scheme when you run thin on resources to buy with the debt, which of course is generally the situation we find ourselves in now. However, in order to keep it running as long as they possibly can, TPTB will keep trying to pitch out the debt. Problem there is there are few people left who are not tapped out credit wise and up to their eyballs in debt already.
RE
I just read an ‘article’ on CNBC where the Atlanta Fed President is worried about inflation being too low and admits he is surprised at the most recent GDP numbers. Either these people are complete idiots and have absolutely no idea of what they are talking about or they think we are. At least the first handful of comments all pointed out the obvious that inflation is high already and this guy is clueless.
How $100 turns into $160 ….
—– 1) You get to fill up your car with gas … $40.
—– 2) You buy a cheap gun …. $50.
—– 3) You buy bullets …. $10
—– 4) You drive to a white neighborhood and steal $60 worth of shit.
—– 5) $40 + $50 +$10 + $60 = $160
Your welcome.
Well, thank heaven we have spent 10 trillion like this the last 7 years because if we had not, the economy would have been worse than the flat GDP just registered and 73,000 net jobs lost last month.
And retail sales would be on balance negative even with inflation Janet says we do not have.
So lets raise minimum wage to 25, no make it 100 and lets double it cause its a great idea. Lets increase and make permanent unemployment insurance.
But then lets freeze social security for seniors, as they actually did pay into the system and they really did not earn the benefit they actually paid for.
You know i could go on, but DC is really in a state of stupid.
Silly asshole GOPper wants to force private employers to pay even highers wages, thereby increasing not only the cost of doing business , but the prices of goods and services as well.
Limited government…hah..the only thing limited in those who vote Republican expecting a limited and principled government in their degree of intelligence.
They don’t call it the party of stoopiud fer’ nuthin’. Vote Stoopid , get stoopid.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/05/09/romney-minimum-wage/8891273/
“I part company with many of the conservatives in my party on the issue of the minimum wage. I think we ought to raise it,” Romney said during an interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe.
Free trade gutted the American dream. It is a republican vice to blame people for not being able to find employment when the employment has left the country and turned off the lights.
Enforcing regulations actually creates jobs for the enforcers as well as for scientists, engineers, construction workers, etc. Of course this is a further detriment to the victim business. But on the other hand, they make up for it by paying their employees in other countries slave wages. It is all very complicated.
I am dubious about the math of unemployment compensation. However, it keeps people from filing bankruptcy, robbing convenience stores, stealing copper, selling their kids to science, etc., while they seek employment.
I think the medical field is the way to go. There will never be a shortage of sick people.
The road to repairing a nation of unemployed check cashers is to bring in 20 million more uneducated workers feigning to look for work.Yep…thats the ticket… GOPpers saving da’ Republic…ba ha ha..
GOPES!
Deadline for Immigration Overhaul Is August, Says Diaz-Balart (Video)
http://www3.blogs.rollcall.com/218/deadline-for-immigration-overhaul-is-august-says-diaz-balart/?dcz
Diaz-Balart told CQ Roll Call in April that lawmakers had developed a policy that would adequately address concerns about border security and the 11 million unauthorized immigrants.
“So I feel optimistic that we’re going get it done because I think most people in the House understand that what we have is unacceptable,” said Diaz-Balart, once again adding, “And if we don’t get it done by this August, it just doesn’t get done.”
Although he is optimistic, Diaz-Balart cautioned that an immigration overhaul still faces an uphill climb to pass the House. However, Diaz-Balart said, “I wouldn’t be working this hard at it if I didn’t think there was a legitimate chance of getting it done.”
I think it’s obvious the jobs created by poverty spending are government jobs. The math doesn’t have to add up once you create the govt job. Once you create the govt job, life is better for everyone and unicorns fart rainbows.
BTW- $1=1.60 when your money isn’t worth anything, anyway, and you just manipulate the results as you see fit. Poof! It’s 1.60. Poof! It’s .35!
Jackass Boner-Unemployment insurance extension -nay
Trillions of taxpayer bucks to bail-out swindling banksters – yay
Fiscally responsible , he says..with a straight face. ba ha ha.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/john-boehner-nixes-unemployment-insurance-extension/
John Boehner nixes unemployment insurance extension
“We have always said that we’re willing to look at extending emergency unemployment benefits again, if Washington Democrats can come up with a plan that is fiscally-responsible, and gets to the root of the problem by helping to create more private-sector jobs. There is no evidence that the bill being rammed through the Senate by [Majority] Leader [Harry] Reid meets that test, and according to these state directors, the bill is also simply unworkable,” he said.
You should hear ’em.
You guys are missing the whole point of government programs.
You guys are hard working, tax paying and productive people who just want to be left alone to live your own lives, engage in a civil society and enact transactions with other people acting in their own self interest, for the mutual benefit of all parties.
We used to call this Life, Liberty, and The Pursuit of Happiness in our country and we naively assumed that our government was there to facilitate this.
SUCKERS!!!!
Government programs , besides being based on the theft of our money (=liberty), exist solely to create more people dependent on government, which automatically creates a pro-governtment voting block, and increases the wealth and power of the politicians who run them.
It is a perfectly contained positive feedback loop – more programs, more dependency, more votes, more power and on and on ad infinitum.
Until, like all systems without some checks and balances, and where have we heard that before, it blows sky high.
Until folks like the Tea Party or Clive Bundy, or the free range bloggers of the internet, come along to ask inconvenient questions, do some simple math, question the status quo, stand up to tyranny while heavily armed.
Admin calls it a Fourth Turning. I call it sitting on a powder keg and throwing off sparks.
Same same, it’s gonna be a big bad a boom when it blows. Go long bunkers, guns, ammo, food storage and water purification, that’s my advice.
I don’t understand how a guy who was making $1K per week and spending it into the economy and thus supporting the jobs it created, can become unemployed and receive $300 per week and this will create MORE jobs.
Over all, can’t fault you a moment for your logic.
But more and more, I am torn between two realities.
The point of view you champion is valid and has meaning. But when spend time with the greater bulk of people, your begin to realize that they are not at all equipped to “contribute” to society or to create something of value.
But they are still people. They have all the dreams and desires as the folks who are equipped to provide those things. Some of them are pretty decent folk.
So where do you go? How do you provide the structure for a society that is, by definition, populated with 50% of the inhabitants having a IQ 100 and a healthy dose of ambition.
The folks that write the drivel that so offended you and caused this written blast are from you are apologists for a system which benefits them. One should never forget that for a moment.
But the question remains.
What does one do with people who do not have, and probably will not be able to obtain, the tools and skills to contribute to a complex and technological society?
In the current cultural mindsets, the liberals trot out a failed educational system and posit that maybe, if we just throw more money at the problem, we can equip the Capite Censi with the tools neccesary to allow them to rise from their squalor and together we can create the City on the Hill.
Well, in the words of Robert Heinlein
“Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig.”
It appears that the Conservative mindset is more nuanced. It appears to involve going to church every week, praise Jesus at every turn, and the Holy Ghost will fill you and you will only then be allowed to create and contribute.
Seeing as Jesus had some rather unkind words to say about the rich and the accumulation of wealth, I have a feeling this won’t work either.
I don’t have the answer. But there are some folks out there who, while being worthless from an economic viewpoint, are some damn nice people.
What do we do with them?
“Extending aid to the unemployed is not only the right thing to do, it is also one of the best ways to stimulate economic growth.”
It doesnt stimulate economic growth just adds to the billions, for one, the Walton families [Walmart] are sitting on.
Degringolade, Im in Red State Texas and the public school system is no better than others. The teachers do not decide the curriculum those, mostly republicans here, elected to the school board do. They are NOT union drones, they tell the drones what they can and cannot teach.
Sure not all those getting welfare are able to work, but many are, I dont begrudge them but they should at least have to clean their neighborhoods, remove graffiti, mow yards of abandoned housing. Do something for that paycheck instead of sitting around watching the sparkle box of ignorance all day.
The author is clearly cherry picking his quotes in this piece…
The actual argument (other than it is of course it is morally bankrupt to deny financial aid to innocent victims of the Wall Street engineered meltdown while the perpetrators prosper) is that payments will be spent immediately, boosting the real economy, instead of spending on military pork and tax breaks for the 1% policies of the GOP that pour into corporations (who pay little or no tax) and Equity/Commodity investment vehicles (that do nothing for the economy, as the failed experiment of QE has clearly revealed to all but the small number of those who benefit from the fiscal madness) that are artificially supported (levitated) by the injection of (tax payer funded) cash.
Simply more divide and conquer red meat for the angry mob…
“I am dubious about the math of unemployment compensation. However, it keeps people from filing bankruptcy, robbing convenience stores, stealing copper, selling their kids to science, etc., while they seek employment.”
—-winter
Glad to see the article may have moved you into the “dubious” category regarding the math of unemployment compensation. As for the rest of your observations, well, let’s just put them in the overblown hyperbole file.
Selling their kids to science? Robbing and stealing? All prevented by an unemployment compensation check? Really? I’m sure you have plenty of facts and figures to back that up.
@ srv
The article was intended to destroy the illogical mathematics behind unemployment compensation being spoonfed by elected officials and liberal organizations to gullible people like you.
I don’t doubt for a minute that unemployment compensation has gotten many, many people through rough times after losing their jobs. But to claim it returns a $1.60 or $2 to the economy for every dollar spent is absurd. Even more absurd is the claim it creates jobs, millions of jobs.
I ripped those claims to shreds, and I can now give myself credit for one more thing, srv. Proving that math is hard for people like you.
@sss
Yes, u r obviously a mathematical genius (just ask yourself…lol), as you so modestly, and publicly declared… I cower in shame and humiliation!
SRV (who spent 10 years working as a Statistical Analyst prior to moving into aerospace sector executive positions)
The concept of unemployment must be difficult to grasp for a lifelong government employee. You show up for work most working days until eventually you retire and play golf. Believe it or not it’s not like that for most people.
Thumbs up to srv for trying. Your’e gonna have to try harder than that, though.
Maybe put some of that ten years experience to use and post a comment that holds water. Or keep trying the same tired ethical arguments and narratives that don’t require statistical analysis, or facts. that’s bound to work someday.
Here’s how it works. We are not being taxed to pay the unemployment checks, hell.. we are close to a trillion a year away from paying our bills.
Uncle Sam will create the magic dollar out of thin air and send it to the jobless fuckers and add to a deficit we already will never pay back.
Sensetti learned years ago stand we accounting principles don’t apply to our Government, it’s all smoke and mirrors boys and girls.
You have been enlightened….my work is done here
Standard accounting
“is someone out there in the cyber world who can straighten me out on this. Am I incapable of critical thinking?”
Critical thinking is your downfall. You have to think like a socialist, because that is what our government has become. Socialists lie, they make up the truth to fit what they do, and most people don’t care as long as they get their government check every month, and can go to the store and get free food with their SNAP card.
Over time, these people become unemployable, and many, many get on disability, which gets them off unemployment. Once on disability, they’re set for life. The only problem is SS disability will be bankrupt in 2016. After that, we’re going to see taxes really explode. And, don’t forget, there are 100 million people on welfare, more than the entire population of Germany.
Socialism is great, until you run out of other people’s money. There are 80 million more people getting money from the government than have jobs. 10 states already have more people on welfare than people with jobs, including the socialist states of Illinois, New York, and California.
Having a job is for suckers. People on welfare make the equivalent of $54,000 a year in food, cash and benefits. It’s funny watching people try to use reason and logic to understand the bullshit spewed forth by the government and MSM. There is no logic, except redistribute money from productive people to parasites (socialism). It always ends the same way. Once people and other countries quit buying our IOU’s (treasury bills), the game is over. One of these days, faith will be lost, and then everything collapses, and no more freebies. That’s when the real fun begins.
Cameron, Confiscation, And “What’s Yours Ain’t Yours!”
Submitted by Martin Armstrong via Armstrong Economics,
David Cameron has come out and argued that taxes will rise unless he can raid bank accounts in the UK. Cameron argues he will “have to put up taxes” unless tax officials are given draconian powers to raid people’s bank accounts if they think they even owe money. Trust me – all politicians share ideas. Obama is already conniving a way to do the same thing – you can bet on that.
There is no elite private conspiracy of some dominating group. That implies some comprehension of what is even possible. I have sat in the room with such people and these conspiracy stories give these people way too much credit for being intelligent. Nobody smart enough to handle the job ever seeks such positions. Governments are run by lawyer-politicians who think they need only decree some law that solves the problem. They understand nothing. Why should people keep money in a bank in the UK after Cameron makes such a statement? He is way too stupid to realize people act in anticipation.
If I said I was going to punch you in the face, would you stand there or act in anticipation like move or fight back? Politicians cannot get this through their head that the economy functions always in anticipation of future events. They are just crazy – although not out of their mind entirely just yet. They can read a script, but they are incapable of understanding the people or math.
These people are simply beyond control. All they can see is the immediate issue to survive day-by-day. They have absolutely zero comprehension of what they are doing and even less understanding of what happens when there is no more money they can raid. Those at the helm of the world need no elite-conspiracy. They are too stupid to have long-term plans beyond 30 days. This is how Empires Collapse – they are following the precise step-by-step guide for total chaos.
@ srv
Ah, you were a statistical analyst. Got a question. What do you think the statistical probability would be in writing a single sentence that’s a whole paragraph long and contains just 3 commas with 5 comments in parentheses? I’d put that probability at about 1 in 1,000. How about you? Here’s the sentence. It might look familiar.
“The actual argument (other than it is of course it is morally bankrupt to deny financial aid to innocent victims of the Wall Street engineered meltdown while the perpetrators prosper) is that payments will be spent immediately, boosting the real economy, instead of spending on military pork and tax breaks for the 1% policies of the GOP that pour into corporations (who pay little or no tax) and Equity/Commodity investment vehicles (that do nothing for the economy, as the failed experiment of QE has clearly revealed to all but the small number of those who benefit from the fiscal madness) that are artificially supported (levitated) by the injection of (tax payer funded) cash.”
P.S. There’s a little punctuation thingy called a period. Try it. You’ll like it.
You should ask the folks who said NAFTA would be a good idea for America. That kind of thinking is going on.
So, that dumb bitch is arguing that taking a dollar by force from a taxpayer, who would either spend it – generating by their calcs $1.60 in benefit – or invest it – generating actual jobs and benefits well in excess of $1.60, is less beneficial than giving it to some baby momma or slum dweller.
That is some kind of stupid right there.
If the govt is gonna take that dollar, they need to spend it on infrastructure. That will generate a long-lasting payback to the country, as it creates a capital product, that will perhaps increase in value and will certainly provide benefits via productivity increases, etc.
We are fucking doomed.
Flash, you are so correct! Your comments succinctly and clearly speak to truth. Yet, the Left will label you a Right Wing extremist. Too bad they are indoctrinated in the government owned schools to believe in pure fantasy.
“The concept of unemployment must be difficult to grasp for a lifelong government employee. You show up for work most working days until eventually you retire and play golf.”
—-Zara
I understand you like taking potshots at my careers in the Air Force and CIA, Z, but permit me to offer some reality.
Promotions in the officer corps of the armed forces are MERIT-BASED. You cannot just “show up for work most working days until eventually you retire and play golf,” as you put it. The key promotion point is captain to major at ten years service. Majors can serve 20 years maximum and draw retirement pay. Here’s the math.
95% of lieutenants are promoted to captain. 70% of captains are promoted to major. That means that ONE OUT OF THREE officers in the armed forces never make it to the point of retirement (.95x.70=.665) because they’re kicked out. Didn’t make the cut.
If you want to spend longer than 20 years, you’ll have to get promoted to lieutenant colonel. Chances? 50%. Now, we’re down to one-third of your peers who will be around to collect that fatter retirement check for longer service. And that’s NOT including everyone who bailed out along the way for one reason or another. Stats show it’s less than 1 in 10 in your peer group who started the race actually crossed the retirement finish line.
That doesn’t sound like a system of just “showing up for work.”
Wow, you’d almost fool someone who doesn’t know better. Sure they instituted up or out a while back. What do their days consist of? Hours and hours of admin, because the paper pushing systems are so completely inefficient everything must be done multiple times over. After that a nice long lunch break and then a keeping up appearances meeting before everyone starts filtering out around 2:15 pm. The afternoon disappearance of government is the true don’t ask don’t tell. Gore Vidal said it best, don’t screw up my scam, and I won’t screw up yours. First hand, it gets eerily quiet after lunch, especially on Fridays. You’re not fooling anyone, anymore…
I think if you’re going to have “unemployment insurance” it should work something like this: you get back what you put in, less administrative costs.
Once you exhaust that, there is no “welfare”. BUT, we’ll provide a job for you at minimum wage for as long as it takes you to find a better paying gig. There’s plenty of work to be done in this country and if they’re going to remove money from those working, those working should get something back. What kind of jobs? Thinking litter removal, planting trees, cooking meals from scratch at the schools, planting gardens to supply food to said schools, etc. Things that add value to the country and/or lower costs.
To my mind, local regulations are the most oppressive of all: the regulations are set up to maintain some sort of pristine upper middle class suburban lifestyle and that is only appropriate in those places. Every neighborhood should get to decide what kind of employment-squelching regulations they want in their area (poor neighborhoods will dump them all fast).
SSS – it is automatic to move from looie to capt. The bottom third of captains – essentially numbnuts – do not move through to major.
So, there is a 70% chance that an officer that so desires can hang in there for their 20 years, and retire on a half pension. There will be a lot of less than stellar performers in that scenario – many top performers would leave for greener financial pastures, and a lot of dimwits would stay as that is the best they could do.
And lets be clear – their are some exceptional officers out there. Those from the academies are a select group indeed. But from ROTC and OC school? Ummmm….. not so much.
What is that half-pension worth? Well, a quick google found this:
“The typical officer: The typical officer who retires in 2010 as an O-4 with 20 years of active duty service will receive $2,523,817 total over the next 34 years.”
Well, fuck me dead. For 20 years service, the officer gets retirement pay of $125k per year (that includes the indexing).
I am grateful to our servicemen and women. But that is absolutely fucking absurd.
Mike – if you only get what you put in, why have the system at all? What I mean is, shouldn’t folks be saving for a rainy day?
Why should the govt be the banker? That is not its job, to do stuff because its citizens are too damn dumb to take care of themselves. And the more it does for them, the stupider they become.
Shouldn’t people be responsible for themselves? If they are not smart enough to sock a bit away each week, well, too fucking bad for them. Not my problem.
SSS, I enjoyed your article very much. You are very funny and truthful.
I have no facts pertaining to what people would do without unemployment compensation.
I have seen some of my work aquaintances lose their houses or file bankruptcy. They were formerly middle class people. They accepted low wage jobs rather than let their benefits run out. In the end they just couldn’t pay the bills.
Others became unwilling wards of their friends and relatives because the jobs available to them did not afford them an independent lifestyle. Men who were married became dependents of their wives, much to their humiliation.
I had one co-worker who made extra money by donating his kids for every scientific experiment that came down the pike. He lived next to a university hospital. It was a pretty good racket for him until his kids grew up. Now he is floundering around like everyone else because of the constant layoffs.
I hate to admit it but his predicament gives me secret satisfaction because he used his kids for profit.
@deringolade – “What do we do with them?”
Right now the ideas gaining the most traction in liberal circles is to abolish our current welfare system and instead enact a few single pieces of legislation:
1) Single payer healthcare system instead of our current monstrosity. I’m not a fan of single payer, but I really hate what we currently have. I’m not known for my willingness to compromise, but our healthcare system is destroying almost as many lives as it saves.
2) Guaranteed income. Most notably the Swiss are implementing this, and I’m willing to bet they will enjoy some success with this.
Guaranteed income basically states that all people are entitled to some piece of the action, just be being born. In other words, its incentive not to work. The idea is that you are bribing people who would otherwise be stealing/committing crime by reducing the hopelessness of their life.
A noble goal, and one with some merits I think. The only problem is that this is the US, and we are not founded on logic and reality.
A nation can only enact a basic living income if they have a strong work ethic, low immigration, and a small existing number of poor citizens.
The US has none of these things. Fully 20% of our nation would go on this program over night, if not more. This would break the back of the staggering giant that is the US economy.
How would I fix it? I don’t know, thats a big question. And unfortunately an entirely academic, since we are not in a position where we can enact the sort of changes that would be needed.
How does taking money from one person and giving it to another person stimulate economic growth? The short answer is that it doesn’t. Sure, the person getting the money is better off; but the person who has his money confiscated is worse off by a like amount.
@deringolade – “What do we do with them?”
Why must “we” do anything? “They” are responsible for taking care of themselves, just like everyone else.
This isn’t Switzerland, amigo / bro.
First thing we have to do, is call things by what they really are.
In the footnote, CAP describes themselves as, “dedicated to improving the lives of Americans through progressive ideas and action.”
As Upton Sinclair, the author of “The Jungle” and self-proclaimed socialist once wrote, “Americans will accept socialism, but not the label. We must outflank them.”
Socialists and Marxists understand the importance of not using the actual words “socialism” and “Marxism.” The Socialists didn’t disappear. They are still here. They are still running for office. They are in office. They just achieved so by changing what words mean, no different than Orwell described that they would in his book Animal Farm. That’s why it’s also not strange the the liberal media has changed what Animal Farm was about, saying it wasn’t about communism, it was about capitalism.
The re-defining of words and the meanings of things is one of the major pillars of socialism.
So when I see the CAP statement, “through progressive ideas and actions” my brain, newly wired for freedom, read that simply as, “through socialist ideas and actions.”
Ah…see? NOW understand what they are all about it.
Senator LIar Shaeen knows it is a lie, CAP knows it is a lie, I know it is a lie and theFSA even knows it is a lie. The FSA just uses the lie to justify their stealing from the producers. Senator Liar Shaeen uses those votes to perpetuate herself in a position to steal even more than FSA. I use it for vaseline.
@IW – All I did was state which way the liberal left is leaning, not that I thought those policies would work here. The obstacles are almost insurmountable.
Just because things work in Norway/Switzerland doesn’t mean they will work here. We are not culturally homogenous, geographically small, or subject to a small number of immigrants.
The US is a unique snowflake, with unique problems.
I recognize that many citizens are struggling financially and the monthly unemployment checks from the government are a life-line for them. However many of those who receive monthly government subsidies will never truly help themselves to prosper THE MOST unless they have good paying jobs according to their ability, education, and experience.
These jobs will never be created in our own country because too many citizens simply accept the government subsidies (aka “bribes”) and keep re-electing the same democrats and republicans – who keep failing to create the conditions for substantial growth of good jobs in our own country because they are controlled by big money special interests who oppose crucial reforms.
No reforms plus increasing personal and national debt plus lack of growth of millions of good jobs plus dollar devaluation by the federal reserve, etc. all add up to continued economic disintegration and collapse. If citizens refuse to reform government to gain enough opportunity to find good jobs and reduce our crushing debt, they only undermine themselves, their children, and future.
So Mr. Unemployed takes that dollar he receives from UI and spends it at the largest retailer in the US, Walmart, and we know that 85% of what Walmart sells is purchased offshore which means only about 15% stays to recirculate in the US economy. OK now explain how that $.15 manages to create $1.60 of stimulus in the US economy.
Politicians are funny when they pretend they can think. Their function is to follow orders and pretend to care, while justifying the orders.
Giving cash to the unemployed has several negative effects, and would be insane in a free market economy. TNSTAAFM though. (there’s no such thing as a free market) at least not in the real world. In this world, employers are taxed to pay for UI, and that tax effectively lowers wages received (above the minimum), so a case can be made that most UE are owed these payments. Also many of the Oligarcorps that own the politicians, shipped their jobs to slave economies and want UE payments made so they can sell their cheap imported shit here.
What do we do with them?
What we do with them is force them to work or starve. Really very simple. Guve them a shovel, a rake, a bit of land to work, and have them work. Deal with those that turn to crime ruthlessly. Combine that reality with a system offering unlimited realeducational and skilling-up opportunities.
This, of course, will never happen.
Any nation – any – that pays folks not to work will ultimately fail. Multi-cultural nations that do so will fail especially quickly.
In the long run, a reversion to survival of the fittest will be necessary. It is the way of things. Ultimately, the fittest will demand it, anyway. It may take a while, but it is coming.
“for every dollar we put in unemployment, it pays back about $1.60” Forgive me, but this is the old multiplier myth. I was astonished even in high school as to how people who studied mathematics (though not as a major) in economics would forget the other side of the equation. Although even the multiplier effect as such is debatable, even if it existed it is mathematically always below, never above zero: If you take money out of the hands of investor A and give it to (investor or consumer) B then by whichever factor you assume the multiplier to be for the spending of B, you must on the other side of the equation assign a “contractor” for the money just siphoned away.