Jobless and hopeless in America

[helpme2010]

I have been in and out of jobs for 10 years now. And this is the worst I have seen the job prospecting, ever. The worst part and I hate to sound like a broken record is that I did the right thing, I went back to school during the recession and earned my degree with top grades. And yet nobody wants to hire me. Again I ask why do we have college and degrees if they are so worthless to hiring companies?

All I can say is the government had better keep unemployment extensions going, period. I don't care if someone is out of work for 3 months or 3 years, this is the only help we have until we find jobs again.

[tobee43]

It breaks my heart to watch this country continue to outsource our jobs, not invest in new industries/technology like other countries are doing, continue to allow the richest citizens to find loopholes or prosper, often while harming the poorest. Is there any wonder why we have such a shrinking middle class, such a growing class of poor, and why we keep rewarding the CEO's and top executives of corporations that screw our country, while we bail them out and then allow them to get even larger bonuses after they run their companies so poorly and require the taxpayers to bail them out. Just look at what the banking industry has done to us. They were supposed to take the bailouts and invest in the citizens that needed loans, but instead they hoard the money and invest in derivatives and offshore investments.

Every elected official in this country is out for himself or herself, including harming our country to go with their party which helps the elected official stay in office that much longer. Greed is literally turning our country into a 3rd world country. So sad. And all of us are the ones paying the price.

my parents were telling me that people are coming into the bay area with BAGS of money and buying up all the huge homes...and the news even said today that supply of these mansions are down and demand is way up...but it's people from other countries buying NOT us...

i have mentioned this before, but when i saw the scenes from katina we didn't just look like a 3rd world country...i think for that week we were...

[helpme2010]

tobee, I agree. If that were San Fran, expensive areas of Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, you better believe they would have cleaned that place up as fast as you can say MONEY$$$$

[tobee43]

tobee, I agree. If that were San Fran, expensive areas of Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, you better believe they would have cleaned that place up as fast as you can say MONEY$$$$

well, i guess there is something to the phrase...."location, location".....

[msm859]

however, what will that cost the public out of their own pockets...with so many unemployed and so many poor now in this country what can people pay. and, will the "rich" get better care? it's very scary!

Well that is the beauty of the simplicity. Congress makes sure that their coverage is affordable and provides good coverage. If everyone had the option to buy the same coverage at the same price that would force the Congress to make real changes to make health care affordable and available to all. It would also add real competition to private insurers.

[tobee43]

Well that is the beauty of the simplicity. Congress makes sure that their coverage is affordable and provides good coverage. If everyone had the option to buy the same coverage at the same price that would force the Congress to make real changes to make health care affordable and available to all. It would also add real competition to private insurers.

good point.....and you're right, if congress can make theirs affordable....darn right we should have the same option!!!

[Egr61]

There's a documentary movie that is pertinent to this thread, I think, called "Collapse", with Micheal Ruppert. It's an interesting movie.

I find it interesting that oil prices are on the rise again, now that the economy is improving somewhat. Is continued economic growth going to be possible without an unlimited supply of cheap oil, which there is not? Remember what happened right after oil hit $147 a barrel? That what was right around the start of The Great Recession.

[MSbklawyer]

Actually I have a "simple" solution to health care. Everyone needs to rally and demand a public option. The public option will be that everyone has the right to buy the exact same health care offered to Congress at the exact same price. Only then will they be forced to fix the problem.

Well, the price for the health care package that members of Congress have is upwards of $35,000 per year. The government pays for that coverage though as part of their Congressional salary / benefits package. You already have the right to buy the exact same healthcare offered to Congress. Fork over 3 grand a month and it's yours. If you're suggesting that the government pay for it for everyone just like they do Congress . . . that gives a whole new meaning to the idea of government debt.

[msm859]

Well, the price for the health care package that members of Congress have is upwards of $35,000 per year. The government pays for that coverage though as part of their Congressional salary / benefits package. You already have the right to buy the exact same healthcare offered to Congress. Fork over 3 grand a month and it's yours. If you're suggesting that the government pay for it for everyone just like they do Congress . . . that gives a whole new meaning to the idea of government debt.

I am only suggesting that everyone pay the same price of after tax dollars as Congress -- whatever that may be. However, if that is the costs then it further highlights the problem. Why should government employees - public servants - obtain public paid health care and no one else. We pay the taxes that pay for this benefit. If their health costs are as high as you say -- and presumptively a tax free benefit - how is it right that the common person does not get the same benefit - that should not be the case in a democracy.
And my proposed solution would force the Congress to come to a real solution. Perhaps that would mean they would have to pay more for their coverage or get a policy more like what everyone else has - and costs less. Perhaps they will have to find alternative tax sources to help defray some of the costs i.e. tax fast food, junk food alcohol and tobacco and have it go solely towards health care. This might also perhaps help with a healthier society that would minimize future demand for health care. The less Congress has to live as everyone else the more disconnected they are with the public. We should not let that happen.

[MSbklawyer]

I am only suggesting that everyone pay the same price of after tax dollars as Congress -- whatever that may be. However, if that is the costs then it further highlights the problem. Why should government employees - public servants - obtain public paid health care and no one else. We pay the taxes that pay for this benefit. If their health costs are as high as you say -- and presumptively a tax free benefit - how is it right that the common person does not get the same benefit - that should not be the case in a democracy.
And my proposed solution would force the Congress to come to a real solution. Perhaps that would mean they would have to pay more for their coverage or get a policy more like what everyone else has - and costs less. Perhaps they will have to find alternative tax sources to help defray some of the costs i.e. tax fast food, junk food alcohol and tobacco and have it go solely towards health care. This might also perhaps help with a healthier society that would minimize future demand for health care. The less Congress has to live as everyone else the more disconnected they are with the public. We should not let that happen.

Oh, I'm not suggesting that it's right for Congress to have these Rolls Royce healthcare plans while us serfs have to pray that we don't get sick. My point was that there's not enough money in the world to provide those kinds of benefits to everyone.

[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)

[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!

[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]

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!!!

[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.