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20 More Weeks of Unemployment Aid
The Senate unanimously passed a bill Wednesday that would extend unemployment benefits for up to 20 weeks in states with rates of joblessness above 8.5 percent, which means the jobless in those areas could get up to 99 weeks of benefits. (States with lower rates would get 14 weeks.) This is the “second stimulus” some have buzzed about (though Democratic leadership has avoided the term); it contains other measures to boost the economy as well, all of which were in the original $787 billion stimulus package but were set to expire. This includes an extension of a first-time homebuyer tax credits, credits for homeowners who lived in the same place for at least five years, and would allow businesses who suffered operating losses in 2008-2009 to seek refunds on taxes paid over the past five years. The legislation will likely pass the House Thursday and be quickly signed by President Obama.
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How curious that Obama and the dems boast on one day that the recession is over, and then a few days later extend unemployment benefits for the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs on Obama's watch.
Maybe Obama and his cronies should spend a little less time worrying about the ultra-wealthy banksters at Goldman Sachs and a little more time worrying about average Americans who would like to find a job with a private company. Maybe instead of growing the government, Obama should try to grow the economy.
JOBS at private companies aren't coming back until private companies no longer have to worry about the tax hikes and regulatory messes of Obamacare and the energy "cap and tax" disaster. Obama needs to put the economy and the American people first, and quit sabotaging the economy with his radical legislative agenda.
To suggest that jobs are being held back on the count of the threat of your fantasy of what the optimum tax rate, regulation or environmental issues is disingenuous and preaching failed policy's. I know that you recall a couple of years ago, Plant, when the value of property was cratering as a result of banks choking on toxic mortgage assets. And the jig was up on being able to use your home as a ATM... Well guess what Plant... The economic conditions that we are experiencing are directly related to that event.
Actually the stinker you Planted on this story is one of your silent ones that drives people from the room.
By asserting that the root cause of our economic mess is due to our new President,
one misses out on the glaring fact that our system is hopelessly compromised by lack of term limits, and the resultant consolidation of power by the Senate Commitee Chairs.
The lobbyists know that they have to spread the wealth around some, but by stuffing the Chairman's behinds, their dollars go a lot farther. And despite President Obama's good intentions, any bill that finally crosses his desk will be hopelessly compromised by pork and assorted loopholes.
Instead of coloring the healthcare debate with terms like "Obamacare" it might be more appropriate to call it "Porkycare". But, whether we call it Porkycare, or Cheneycare, or KarlRoveacare, the fact is, this little tempest in a teapot has had very little impact on "JOBS at private companies".
The alleged link between current unemployment levels and porkycare does not exist.
On the other hand, the link between unregulated derivatives trading, and our crashed economy is irrefutable. Thank God they did not succeed in privatizing Social Security.
Jobs? Did someone say anything about jobs?
"In December, 1995, Time Magazine's Richard Stengel gave Michael Stephen Levinson a one liner in his article, "Look Ma, I'm Running," a piece about unknown candidates for president in New Hampshire. "Lev" proposed building ten thousand clipper ships for a jobs program, but Stengel left out his concept of college students paying lesser tuition for crewing the ships, "sew" with or without a cargo, the clippers generate money, and pay for their building carrying cargo.
We build clipper ships, with semi-automatic computer controlled sails. College students crew the ships, get their undergraduate education via internet, and pay lessor tuition, so with or without a cargo the ships make money and pay for their building! Not complicated.
We could say to any country, we will take all of your goods without tariff, as long as the goods come to us on our clipper ships. The students could inspect the cargoes as they are loaded, with state of the art detectors, so weapons of mass destruction, or contraband, won't be coming in on our ships.
My shipbuilding program creates meaningful steady work on the East Coast, Gulf Coast, West Coast, and the shores of Lakes Huron, Michigan, Erie, Superior, and Ontario, perhaps three and a half millions jobs total wherever there is water and people need work.
Which is better for planet good ship mother earth, fleets of clippers with semi-automatic computer controlled sails, or giant container ships three stadiums long with thirty-four crewmen? Any sea mammal, napping on the sea top is dead meat for these mammoth ships and what matter, with lobbyists representing the owners stuffing the blubber down the throats of your district's I-must-be-reelected congressperson.
When my clipper ships come across hundred acre wide swaths of sea top with garbage floating everywhere, the "stew dent" volunteers will lower long boats with electric motors and rake the sea, bring the garbage aboard and, supervised by the captain, weigh it up, because the kids will be paid $100 a pound for time and trouble. This is a great way for a stew dent to "sea" the world and work their way through college. Harvard, their fleet, forty ships, will have 1600 additional undergraduate seats to fill.
Mother Nature will shine on your good deeds as a seafaring people. Her dolphins will jump the long electric motor boat bows in unison, as wild dolphins have been known to playfully jump the bows of boats when their mood arises; the gentle Right whales and Sperms, in pods, will show off their kids, and let you hop on their backs for a sea top ride.
Whoops.
I left out all that required slush money for your corrupt leader bleeders. The filthy money these people require for their reelections was excluded from my bill of lading. Recollect lobbyist slush deregulated the financial industry, nearly sinking the world's financial house!
The handing over of billions to the banks' sinkholes shows your whole congress is on the take. They all need to go.
"Sew," regardless how many decent people are stuck between a rock and a hard place with bill that must be met and no job in sight, you won't be building any clipper ships because how to, you don't know, it's too creative an enterprise, and the container shipper's lobby won't allow it to be even talked about as they own all the committee chair persons.
Expect instead your hollow Congress' derision, their laughter and spittle in your innovative ship building face. Of course you could build fleets of clippers without the government, the investment from the university endowments. Not-for-profit corporations, run by the universities whose students are the crew, could manage sailing the ships regardless, underbidding for a steady cargo, except for all your elected on-the-take bleeders in office blocking your way.
Do not expect five million jobs to materialize up and down the coasts and Great Lakes waters without your Blagojevichite congress tithing your pay.
michaelslevinson.com
Hip - hip - hooray!
Obama saved the day!
for a few more days
I will manage to pay!
saaved the day at the golf course?
Congress needs to do without pay until the country is back on track, ALL of it.
I am sure they would figure it out, sooner, more efficiently and in the best interest of the People if they did not get paid, or perks until they did.
That is a good idea but didn't they spend a boat load of money on pay and perk for themselves? Liberals are the biggest bullshitters and could care less about people. a trillion dollars in the pocket of Americans would have created jobs. the slobs in DC need the money to flog there party. at least when the Republicans are in we were getting a tax break in the mail.
When are people going to wake up and see that the libs are pure evil.
Who got tax cuts when repugs were in? You must be in the top 1/3 of wage earners, because the rest of us got zilch. What the rest of us got was, a shrinking middle class, stagnant or falling wages, higher health care costs, 401K's that went in the tank and a economy that fell right off the cliff., but lower taxes...Nope didn't happen.
only people who pay taxes get tax rebates or its welfare
Oh boy, what a witty comeback. I noticed you didn't try to refute anything I said, but that's OK.
I also assume you are talking about that great one time tax rebate that bush handed out to all us little people, right? Well that sure fixed the economy, and got everybody back on the fast track didn't it? That sure made up for the falling or stagnant wages over those wonderful repug years, while the top 1/3 got huge tax cuts, and the rest of us got a rebate.
I thought i did answer you but, im not a rich man we just work for a living.
was the check you got Zilch? if it was then you are the rich man for us it was a nice little check at a good time. we used are check for a new lawn tractor. just doing my part to pass it on
So you work for a living, just like most everybody else, and how's that working for ya? Just think how well you will be doing if repugs could pass more tax cuts for the top 1/3 and we could also give more money to oil companies and take the rest of those pesky regulations off of wall street. And then to just add icing to the cake, they could give us working stiffs another tax rebate. Oh boy, I can't wait.
I retired, i was just a civil servant for the city of NY and by no means at the top 1/3
So you retired...Are you on that evil government run Media Care?
"i was just a civil servant for the city of NY"
Oh my word the hypocrisy.
So you worked for the GOVERNMENT, which supported your family, gave you better health care than most of the country, gave more vacation and sick days than most of the country, and gave you a retirement plan unavailable to most of the country, ALL PAID by most of the country's tax dollars.
YOU were part of the system you malign. YOU directly benefited from the system you say isn't good enough for anyone else.
Tell you what, when you give up your health care and your pension, then your arguments might have some credibility.
"Let them eat cake" indeed.
I shall now only refer to you as Marie, being that her royal high-ass is a good comparison to your selfish disconnect.
Wow progressive...Game, set and match.
Angels81 im not there and wont be for a long time (49) if ever. my job pays my insurance for life and if that ends my wife's will and if that ends im paying for my daughter to go to med school now so she better be helping the old man.
Perhaps they should just turn TDB into a forum, since commentators spend more time discussing others posts than the article in question. :/
progressiveaggressive
You ROCK!!!
manticore1223
Great job doing the very thing you are complaining about. LOL!!!
djanimaequeen, its was more an observation. When we start getting into assessing personal characteristics rather than the issue at hand or the point being discussing, it just becomes a soapbox where we talk about ourselves or other. I think the anonymity provided by these posts helps encourage discussion, so someone isn't immediately shot down or prejudged before their point is heard. When you start identifying yourself to legitimize your points, it kind of defeats the purpose.
I like this suggestion. Plus, if Congress did not pay, I'll bet a lot of crooks would lose their grip on the economy and we might attract a less greedy, narcissistic group of people. Some say that electing the rich eliminates those who want to be in office for financial gain, although I don't get that angle considering money goes to money and rich people never think they have enough. That's their incentive program: more money, more power, more laws to protect big business.
http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/gdp_large.gif
ERE.net
News and Features
Companies Not Hiring, Workers Not Looking As Economy Falters
by John ZappeSep 30, 2008, 1:29 pm ET
The ranks of passive jobseekers are growing as workers decide now is not the time to look for a new job. Many, in fact, are considering taking classes to improve their job prospects, while 41 percent told pollsters they intend to stay in their present job until they retire. Another 38 percent said they expected to hold onto their current job for at least another year.
Wise decisions, considering that only 23 percent of the companies surveyed intend to add full time workers in the next three months.
These are some of the findings reported in CareerBuilder.com and USA TODAY's "Q4 2008 Job Forecast" released today. The report was based on a survey of more than 3,000 hiring managers and HR professionals and over 6,100 workers in private sector companies nationwide.
The number of companies saying they would be hiring in the last quarter of this year is 8 percent lower than the 25 percent who reported adding staff between July 1 and today. The survey, conducted by Harris Interactive between August 21 and September 9, also found that 14 percent of companies had layoffs during the third quarter. That was 40 percent more than the number predicted in the "Q3 2008 Job Forecast," a sign, perhaps of the worsening economy.
In fact, in a footnote to the forecast released today, CareerBuilder warns "The 'Q4 2008 Job Forecast' survey was conducted before the full financial crisis became known and so may not fully reflect the effects of that crisis." That helps explain why the survey again found that only ten percent of the companies expected layoffs in the fourth quarter; 63 percent expect no change in their permanent, full time headcount.
"Employers are maintaining a conservative approach to recruitment as they maneuver through a weaker economy that has produced its share of casualties," said Matt Ferguson, CEO of CareerBuilder.com. "Certain sectors such as IT and Healthcare are still showing solid job growth while others struggle with reorganization, cost containment and other measures to stay afloat."
We really have no choice but to extend unemployment benefits. People are hurting. People want jobs. If the job situation doesn't improve by the next election. the peoply will switch to Repubs in congress. When times are bad, they switch parties.
I do think the least we can do is extend benefits.
Isnt that welfare NewhookerR? You sometimes confuse me with your positions
"Let them eat cake"....that's the republican mantra, you dont strike me as a republican when you make the statement that "the least we can do is extend benefits"..
Those are our tax dollars paying for those people who could not see this crisis coming (sarcasm), wall street and the unemployed..we middle class americans are the ones who will pay in higher taxes the moneys wasted over the last 8 years by Bush. Those tax breaks given to the richest 1.5% which took 1.2 trillion out of the treasury..Who do you think is going to have to belly up for that stupid decision..Certainly it wont be the rich who you defend, and it wont be the poor...It will fall on an ever shrinking middle class.
Perhaps I misjudged you
Maybe you are saying that the only time you should look down at people is when you are giving them a hand up?
No!!!!!! if your eligible for benefit's it means you paid for your unemployment insurance. and that's what it for. get a clue or a job so you will know how it works
No!!!!! Marie.
If you are eligible for unemployment your EMPLOYER was taxed for the benefits.
BUT when unemployment is high,resulting in less money in the pool to disperse, the Federal government makes up the difference.
ie. The Fed gives monetary benefits to individuals-you know, welfare.
Give me your address and I'll send you a copy of "Unemployment for Dummies (and the hopelessly deluded, selfish bastards, that demand benefits for themselves while bitching about the unfairness of benefits given to others).
What? Let the evil Federal Government expand its tentacles and interfere with the Marketplace and feed Bureaucracies? You are a Lenin Liberal. Obviously you are for Socialism and are Republican in Name Only. You are hereby banned from all tea parties. Now we see that you are a traitor. All moderates who compromise on anything are traitors.
so now i will refer to you as Nancy your hero.
Nancy, any compensation you get for working is pay. it all comes from your employer. its insurance so some people never use it and some use it more then they pay into it. you sound sooooo smart but are you really??????
Well, maybe smarter than you Marie.
Who "insures" unemployment? The Fed, not Aflac, or Progressive, or State Farm.
Employers are taxed (depending on state policy) anywhere from 2-10% of a portion of each employees salary, which is fed into a pool.
But what happens when unemployment is higher than normal? What happens when the resouces of the "pool" are less than amount to be dispersed to people collecting unemployment?
The FED makes up the difference. Did you EARN that money or are you given a BENEFIT?
And since you are defending a system of taxation and redistribution of money (socialism), maybe you're actually more in line with Pelosi than you care to admit?
Nancy
this is the problem in a nut shell with the government is in the insurance business
Marie,
"I do think the least we can do is extend benefits."
So where exactly is your problem?
Is unemployment (government insurance) good or bad?
What are you defending or critisizing?
You know its difficult to convince people to your position when you can't even convince yourself.
Nance; im not the best as a matter of fact i may be the worst person at getting my point across on this computer but you must be misunderstanding me. i think the unemployment benefits definitely need to be extended. im for it 100% in IMHO there shouldn't be a expiration date. now if you can get your buddy in DC to stop wating money on dumb ass things we will be able to get the displaced workers back to work
@NewyorkerR
Anyone old enough to retire today (ie, over 65) is part of that generation who had opportunities to earn enough money to afford a home and get ahead by working for a secure company (lifer jobs) in the '60s through '90s. They (you) don't know what it is like to try to be middle class today for people just starting out in an inflated economy with few job opportunities.
Furthermore, no one likes the idea of the government having to step in to secure unemployment benefits for people who are no closer to having a job today than they were a year ago; however, it was the government, in essence, that stepped in and saved the billionaires in the banking industry from losing their bonuses and saved their very expensive necks. But when it comes to helping the poor, everyone screams "oh my god, not socialism" and no one is willing to part with any aspect of their security to help others in this dog eat dog culture we call American capitalism. Just like allowing the banks to fall apart was not good for our economy, neither is denying assistance to people who did work at one time (otherwise they would not qualify for unemployment insurance benefits, into which they paid, incidentally) but cannot replace their lost job/wages. Just more selfishness from those who have and cannot bear to see anyone encroach on their ivory tower.
@progressiveaggressive (@newyorkerR)
"i was just a civil servant for the city of NY"
Oh my word the hypocrisy.
You hit the nail on the head! Thank you for setting this entitled "newyorkerR" person (with the "hooray for me, I got mine, too bad about yours" attitude) straight. Ex-civil servants are the worst; especially in terms of bennies and perks paid for by the public. This retired, pensioned person now sits at the computer all day and blows hot air around about what's wrong with everyone and everything else today, while securely basking in warmth of benefits and perks most of us--regardless of how hard we work--will never see.
well that sucks for you but im sure it was just your mistake. not mine. personal responsibility. . by the way who is paying you to be on here? are you ripping off your boss or are you a paid blogger?
Normally I wouldn't agree with you NY but you hit the nail on the head with that one. Talk about hypocrisy. The private industry has the same amount (if not more) professional time wasters as the public sector. I'd sure like to know what health insurance companies do all day with my premiums.
It is difficult for me to buy your personal responsibity excuse, being that every day you got up and went to work for the system. If your convictions were real, there is no way you could accept that health insurance or that pension and be right with yourself.
Its striking how you complain about things in which you actively participate. Like an SS guard bitching about Hitler.
As for the "your mistake", am I to deduce that you are saying people that want stable health care and retirements SHOULD go work for the government? Won't that GROW government? You mean government provides the tools for stability?
Look, straight up, I 'm betting that in person you're probably a really decent human being. But on this board you are a reactionary, who can't clarify the positions you say are so important, so correct.
Do understand that none of us lives in a vacuum, the "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" is a lie told by the entitled to get the less fortunate to shut the hell up.
We do NOT have free market capitalism in this country we have corporatism. We do not have level playing fields, the deck is stacked against the middle class, and the poor will remain so if they don't have the opportunity (which includes imagination) to stop being poor.
Is our government flawed, of course it is, it is made up of deluded, greedy Americans. But you, YOU newyorkerR don't have to be that.
You want to represent conservatism, do it.
Be fiscally responsible, but ALSO environmentally responsible (Teddy Rex).
Small government, fine, but that ALSO means government has no place telling who can marry whom, or what women can do with their bodies.
Strict interpretation of the Constitution, OK, but that means NO place for prayer in schools, NO place for ID in biology, NO place for crosses on state house lawns.
Until you are ready to reconcile your philosophy with your selfish indulgences, I am unsure what you are hoping to contribute to the conversation.
NewyorkerR,
Well I was working so it's been a few hours since I have been able to visit..In my last post, I was attempting to give you the benefit of the doubt and a hand shake versus a berating. I was hoping you could clarify your posts as I was thinking I was misreading you..
I want you to understand something, I am a middleclass, american raised in farm country USA. I served my country and did two tours in vietnam. I have worked my way up the system though hard work and sacrifice. I enjoy a well paying job which has afforded me the luxury of paying off all of my debt and putting several kids through college. So I am not an elitist nor am I a illiterate joke that you can tell to go get a job..
In fact I do have a education that I worked my entire life to attain and maintain. I am one of those guys who has paid his taxes (often with my nose held closed). I have never complained about my high level of taxes even when I thought those dollars were going toward spending in which I was against (pre-emptive war).
As I have read the many post you have responded to, I can only conclude that you and I dont see eye to eye on all things...With that said, I do think you are being hyppocritical to condemn the very system that you benefit from.
Pirate!
Excellent comment. I was in Veitnam. 1968. Saigon. Cahm Rahn Bay. Da Nang. Here is a free copy of "New World Hors D'oeuvres":
michaelslevinson.com/newworld.pdf
To see the cover and back cover, not included in the pdf,
alphabet-learning.com/phonics.html
micdhaelslevinson.com
Mike, you are at it again. Everyone here knows your website. If they are interested, they will ask. Plugging it for pageviews..... is getting annoying.
So giving unemployed,unqualified 1st time home buyers an incentive to lay back and collect more"obama money"is going to stimulate the economy?Makes perfect sense to me.
Thank you.
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