When I set out to write bluntly about my own health care coverage woes in the individual market, it’s not like I didn’t anticipate the predictable, knee-jerk response from my hateful trolls: “Get a job!”
In fact, this was exactly the response I was looking for, as nothing demonstrates the intellectual bankruptcy of the anti-reform crowd more than their refusal to recognize how our employment-based health insurance system distorts the market and stifles innovation.
For example, just take a look at some of my own varied career choices.
I graduated college in 1985 with a B.A. in History and a passion for musical theater, only to stumble into a proto-Dot.Com career years before the buzzword became vogue. Hired by Philadelphia-based Information Companies of America for the position of “20th Century Renaissance Man” (yes, that was the title I put on my cover letter), my original duties ranged from writing movie reviews to developing and maintaining online versions of health industry publications such as The Medical Letter, and the always entertaining Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
During my three-plus years at ICOA and its sister company, US Fax, I quickly rose to the somewhat inflated title of Vice President of Product Development, in which role I wrote the functional specs for a consumer-oriented online service that was never developed, and the world’s first store-and-forward fax mail and broadcast system that was, but which was never fully brought to market. It was an exciting, creative job that paid well and provided generous health benefits. In fact it paid so well compared to my frugal, post-college lifestyle, that I soon had enough savings to leave Philadelphia and the world of full-time employment to pursue my dream of writing Broadway musicals.
Moving to New York with my songwriting partner (he music, me words), I spent the next few years writing, rewriting and workshopping what eventually became The Don Juan and the Non Don Juan, a chamber musical that with the distance of years I can honestly say was only slightly worse than its title. The show opened in December of 1991 at the respected Vineyard Theater in Manhatten, only to close for good three weeks later. That’s right, I am the co-author of an Off-Broadway musical flop, and I’ve got the bad review in the New York Times to prove it. Not to mention the bad review in the New York Post, the New York Daily News, and so on.
Oh well. That’s show biz.
During my time in New York, and with the help of my songwriting partner, who was also a software engineer, I expanded my technical skills, taking on odd consulting and programming contracts to supplement my dwindling savings. Together we also developed the world’s first rhyming dictionary software, initially for my own use, but eventually with the goal of finding an interested publisher. After following my new wife to her native Seattle in 1992, she and I decided to publish the software ourselves, and in April of 1993 the newly redesigned A Zillion Kajillion Rhymes hit the shelves to generally positive acclaim. And yes, I have the good review in the New York Times to prove it.
That’s what you call irony.
I don’t necessarily recommend starting a business on credit cards, but that’s what we did, and over the next few years we went on to develop and publish upgraded versions for Mac, Windows and eventually Palm OS, a companion cliche and catchphrase thesaurus, and our best-selling, if most short-lived product, a space-simulator shoot-em-up game for Macintosh, whimsically titled Eat My Photons! At its peak, Eccentric Software had one employee in addition to ourselves, and several hundred thousand dollars a year in sales within the U.S. and abroad. We hired a local designer to create our packaging and sales literature, contracted with Trojan Lithograph in Kent to print, duplicate, assemble, warehouse and ship our product to resellers, and did tens of thousands of dollars of business annually with Auburn based Zones Inc., which for years served a dual role as both our biggest customer and our biggest vendor. (You didn’t think the ads in those software catalogs were free, did you?)
As a mom and pop startup we pumped our fair share of business into the local economy, but while we never operated at a loss, we also never made enough money to pay ourselves a decent wage, let alone pay off our capital investment. By 1997, after Zones unexpectedly stiffed us over a holiday promotion gone bad, we had accumulated a six-figure personal debt.
Oh well. That’s capitalism.
Still, it’s hard to consider either venture a total loss. Sure, I guess my musical flopped Off-Broadway, but how many aspiring writers even get that far? Few artists ever achieve commercial or critical success, and those who do usually do so only after years of struggle. Without so many writers, performers and directors willing to try and fail, there would be no Broadway, no Hollywood, no multi-billion dollar entertainment industry at all.
Likewise, few start-up businesses survive beyond a handful of years, yet even in “failing” contribute greatly to the economy, often while preparing their founders and employees for future success. My then-wife, a former magazine editor, took the skills and experience gained from our business and turned them into a more lucrative job at a young Real Networks, whose stock options (and health benefits) helped us pay off our debt, while granting me the luxury of enjoying the first few years of my daughter’s life as a stay at home dad.
And while our rhyming dictionary software never made us rich, it was more than a little gratifying to know that so many successful songwriters were using it to make their lyrics better. Indeed, for a number of years straight, there wasn’t a single Tony, Oscar, Grammy or CMA presentation that didn’t include at least one nominee who I knew for a fact to be a customer.
Sure, call us failures if you want, but it’s people like us, eager to innovate and willing to take risks who have always been the engine of our economy, and from whom the occasional spectacular success arises. Do we really want to make their struggle even harder? Do we really want to sneer at would-be entrepreneurs, that if they want access to health care they should go get a job?
Or to phrase the question as clearly as possible: why was my salaried position at a venture-backed startup worthy of equal access to affordable health coverage, while my 24-hour workdays at my own startup was not? What is the economic or moral justification in that?
Impoverished by my years as a progressive blogger and activist, I may very well have to give in to my trolls’ admonishment to get a real job—one which hopefully comes with generous benefits—but to suggest that salaried employment should be a prerequisite for access to affordable health care is to ignore the profound complexity and diversity of our economy, while totally dissing the entrepreneurial spirit on which it is supposedly based.
Thus, as an answer to my own health insurance woes, “Get a job!” isn’t just an insult to me, it is an insult to America. And, by stifling innovation, mobility and entrepreneurialism, it is a surefire recipe for economic stagnation and decline.
Well, Goldy, it just goes to prove that the trolls hate capitalism, for all their protestations to the contrary. They hate entrepreneurship, but adore wage slavery.
It’s not just “get a job!”
It’s “get a job” at a place that provides health benefits (because not all do) and one that won’t fire you if you use them (because some do) and with an insurance campany that won’t cut you off if you get sick (because some do), and hope you don’t have a pre-existing condition (or you’re up shit creek), and hope you don’t exceed your “lifetime benefits limit” (or you’re up shit creek), and on, and on, and on…
We have fairly good medicine here, but a terrible way of paying for them, and incredible systemic inequities.
Great post, Goldy!
And yep, universal healthcare would be a big boost to innovation & entrepreneurialism. I remember hearing an interview with The Decemberists, when asked what kinds of things they considered before quitting their day jobs they all yelled “health insurance.” Having partners who’s health plans they could be covered under was a big consideration for them.
As for health plans, have you tried Group (“now serving #84 at window #3…) Health? It’s a bit 1984, but they do a good job and have some reasonably priced plans.
great post.
Tom Jefferson would be proud of Goldy. How many hear know that for all his efforts, Jefferson died nearly bankrupt?
President Jefferson’s vision of this country was easily summed up in the one word “opportunity.” He, of course, created the greatest of opportunities … the Louisiana Purchase. That was followed by a government funded effort to facilitate entrepreneurs moving to and developing the Northwest … we call the modern descendants of Lewis and Clark DARPA, NIH, NOA, NASA, and the NEA.
The result of this socialist support for opportunity is all around us in Seattle … the Douglas Fir, Boeing, Coulee Dam, the Apple II, Microsoft, Internet, GPS, Quincy Jones, … all of these are built of the idea that our government exists NOT to maintain the family wealth of the Blethens (or even the Gates or Blethens) but to encourage their successors.
Where is Jefferson’s dream going? Do Walmart and our huge military contribute to entrepreneurship? How does the raising cost of education encourage growth of the middle class? Aren’t any of the conservatives worried that 10-15% annual increases in health care will deprive the US of dollars to fund entrepreneurs?
It seems to me a lot of this comes back to our Reprican screwed up tax system. They keep yelling that taxes stifle opportunity. So maybe a little of the exorbitant waste we call Paul Allen might be taxed in some way to encourage an entrepreneur like Goldy?
The pre-existing condition thing is such a sham. You can add up every cent that that pre-existing condition has cost, compare that person with everyone else with that condition in your data base and project how much that person is going to cost you in the future.
Pre-existing conditions are a known cost.
Yeah, what #4 said.
Cheer up, Goldy. Working for a living ain’t that bad. And speaking of jobs and healthcare, I wonder what kind of healthcare plan comes with this gig?
“I am thrilled to be joining the great talent and management team at Fox News,” Palin said in a statement posted on the network’s Web site. “It’s wonderful to be part of a place that so values fair and balanced news.”
Employment-based health insurance, as a substitute for a national health-care system, no longer works. With national borders collapsing, employment benefits have entered a “race for the bottom”, with every employer seeking to minimize the benefits they pay out.
Employers have been limiting benefits in an increasing number of ways. They do it by outsourcing jobs. They do it by turning employees into temp workers employed by a temporary agency. They do it by limited worker’s hours to just less than the amount required to qualify for benefits.
In fact, it could be argued that this is one of the infrastructure disadvantages which is encouraging the out-sourcing of our nations jobs and wealth to other nations.
The answer is rather obvious, as has been done in almost every other industrialized country – a national health care system which isn’t tied to employment. Then employees would be free to choose jobs based upon the one which rewards them the most and makes most efficient use of their skills and talents, rather than being subject to the “golden handcuffs” of a firm with a medical plan which covers their particular condition. Employers would be able to hire employees to work work full-time, rather than having to worry about cutting them off at a certain number of hours.
But if you feel secure that you have a good job with health-care benefits, you are living in a dream world if you expect that to continue indefinately.
By the way, I’m wondering why the Republicans are so opposed to providing health-care coverage to family farmers. As small-business owners, they have the most difficult time getting insurance for themselves and their families. Those that can often send their spouses out to work at any job which allows them to get insurance for their families, which might involve driving for quite some distance for relatively low wages.
Just thought that needed repeating.
– – –
My favorite part of the NYT slam on your musical was – In a final self-defeating note,…
ok, why is the “get a job” suggestion hateful. Sheesh, haven’t you read some of the venom spewed her ?
Interesting job/resume. What I get out of it is that you don’t have a way with words…at least not when it comes to naming products or plays. A Zillion Kajillion…:-)
But to answer your question. Your access to health insurance in the venture based startup was available because the company paid for it and you got it as a benefit.
On the other hand, the owner of the second startup was either too cheap or to uninformed to sign up for health insurance for his employees. Even if you are a one man or two man company, there are many plans out there you could have signed up for. But yes, you would have to pay for it…same as the Philly company paid for it.
Don’t make it sound like you didn’t have the option. You chose not to. Sorry
Get a job? I thought the right wing didn’t like our current systems forcing American companies into an anti-competitive situation with foreign companies who don’t have to provide health care for their workers. Are you saying the right wing folks on here WANT private companies to be the one and only solution to getting health care? (scratches head) Confusing. Why is it the responsibility of Blockbuster to make sure their employees have health insurance?
Of course the ‘answer’ is that unless the private employers do it, you won’t GET insurance in our nation, ever. Well, 95% of the country won’t have insurance, because almost everyone has “pre-existing conditions” that outright deny coverage or make it so expensive as to be pointless. Since there is no government insurance, IBM, Blockbuster and CostCo are stuck with being the ones to provide it. If they don’t, most American’s simply wouldn’t have any insurance.
This, like much of the talk going around progressive circles, is a red herring.
Progressives should hate the Senate Bill as much as conservatives. It is merely a gift to big pharma and insurance companies. It doesn’t do anything Obama promised as a candidate. Well, it does, it breaks his promise not to have an insurance mandate. In fact, so far as I can tell, that mandate is pretty much all the bill does do.
Just because you put the word ‘change’ or ‘reform’ in front of something doesn’t make it good.
Re 12
“Why is it the responsibility of Blockbuster to make sure their employees have health insurance?”
Exactly. It isn’t. It is a gift given employees to attract qualified applicants and retain qualified staff. It is not in any way something your employer owes you.
Need insurance? Go out and buy it. Most folks can afford a car, but that doesn’t mean you have a right to a Jaguar. Good planning would mean people could afford insurance, if they wanted it. Otherwise it is the fault of the ones who didn’t plan that they aren’t insured.
Dutch @11,
We bought health insurance for ourselves through the individual market, because as a mom and pop startup, we didn’t have the benefit of belonging to a larger group (unlike the venture-backed startup I worked for in Philadelphia, which had about 30 employees). So we paid more, and received less coverage than had we been doing the same work salaried for somebody else.
This distorts the market by shifting health care costs to small startups and independent contractors, thus making such ventures more expensive and less attractive.
#13 More or less true. It’s not a great bill. Neither party gets what they want. Democrats really wanted national health care, universal. We got this. Republicans voted in Reagan and 2 Bush’s because they wanted smaller less powerful government, but got more powerful bigger government (Homeland Security, Patriot Act, Medicare Drug benefits, S&L bailouts, etc). Shocking, but whine and bitch about “your party” vs the other guys…and in the end, both parties mostly suck.
#14 That’s stupid. That’s the crazy Republican “if you get cancer it’s because you deserved it” kind of attitude. If you “planned well enough” you can afford insurance? That’s STUPID and shows how ignorant folks are in this debate. You can’t PLAN for cancer, car accidents, breaking a tooth, etc. And the kicker is….ONCE you get cancer, or and endless number of other health issues, your insurance is either not obtainable or SO expensive and to be cost prohibitive. The irony has ALWAYS been that if you don’t NEED insurance, you can get it cheap and quick.
“PRE-EXISTING CONDITION” is that anything like the longer you live the closer you are to dying?
lost @ 14
No private insurer will sell me individual insurance. At any price.
Re 16
You’re absolutely correct about party politics. The things candidates have to do to get elected should disqualify them for public office. Whether Democrats got more for their vote than Republicans remains to be seen, though. Ask yourself, of all the campaign promises made by Obama how many are already broken?
As far as planning goes I stand by that. I carry catastrophic care insurance for large dollar illnesses I can’t control. For preventive care like dentists and a yearly physical it’s much, much cheaper to simply pay out of pocket. The point is that insurance can be regulated. Consumers can tailor plans to the specific needs of their time of life, general health and employment status.
I’ll honestly say that the pre-existing condition thing gives me pause. On the one hand if I take my wrecked car to be insured, and ask for a policy to cover the damage the answer should be obvious. On the other my car is a manageable expense. Illness often isn’t.
I don’t know the answer, but feel pretty certain the government ain’t it.
Small companies today are not hiring. Because insurance is too expensive.
Small companies historically have been the source of job growth.
Want economic recovery? Then pass the current healthcare reform bill. It’s not the best plan on the table, but it’s a huge improvement.
Lower Premiums, Stronger Businesses: How Health Insurance Reform Will Bring Down Costs for Small Businesses
lost @ 19
You mean just like the Swiss system? That was the plan. It was called the public option. A small phrase for a big reform.
(But not big enough, by the people who understand these things.)
Re 18
I assume that this means you have some long term health condition. I’m sorry for your misfortune.
What I wonder is what the Senate solution does for you. I don’t ask this idly. I truly don’t know. For instance, are rates set to what you can afford with a pre-existing condition, or at the discretion of the insurer?
Lack of health insurance also inhibits people from running for public office.
As a rule, one can’t keep their day job and mount a winning campaign.
No day job, no insurance. Unless you’re rich.
rhp
I agree utterly with you on the issue of employer based insurance. It makes no sense for Microsoft to be selling SW AND healthcare. Why would someone even want to depend on Boeing for their next prostate surgery?
What really gets me is the weirdness of Republicans opposing measures that would get healthcare off of the back of ALL employers.
Seems like that supporting employer based healthcare be more natural for Big Labor? I guess that is why they are so pants bombered up about the caduillac health plan tax?
Switzerland seems to have a good answer that migh appeal to Repricans if they were nto luddites. En Suisse, the Federal government requires everyone to be insured and requires anyone selling insurance to offer a universal set of basic health services at a fixed, non profit price. If you wanna sell insurance for a profit en suisse, you MUST offer the non profit plan as well. So Suisse folk who want private rooms in the SPA or choice of non generic drugs are free to pay for that service.
But, WTF … what do the Swiss know about entrepreneurship and capitalism?
15: Goldy. I see, you got the individual plan. Great. But still it basically was the same as in the Philly startup. The company provided you with access to health insurance and the company paid for it (only that in the latter case the company pocket and the Goldstein pocket were the same).
However, I would say that you must have gotten bad advice from your insurance agent (if you used one). There were and are quite a few small group plans out there. And small companies like your can get access to those group plans. WA has a company/plan called WAHIT which puts small companies together in a group. Other options are to go via organisations like Alumnis, Professional Organisations (XYZ Professionals)…All of which offer access to group plans. There is no need to use an individual plan if you want to be part of a group. However, lately individual plans offer more options than small group plans.
@23 JO
Yep .. and prevents folks like Goldy from taking entrepreneurial risks as well.
I think the Reprican ideal is Walmary hiring lotsa poor Americans to sell Chinese junk (made in state owned factories) to the same Americans who can not afford to buy junk made here.
Jefferson would understand.
lost @ 19
You and me both.
Back in the day, mortality for my treatment was 90%. I’ve had a few other brushes with death since then. Once I hit 30, I had to get used to the idea I had a good chance of staying alive for another week.
Before I became a guinea pig, facing very long odds, my doctor [*] told me that statistics aren’t people.
At the very least, the work done on me advanced medical science. But I hope that I’m doing enough with my life to make the investment worthwhile.
Over 40,000 people die every year in the USA because they lack health insurance. To me, that’s an unconscionable waste of potential. There’s no telling what anyone of those people could have accomplished if they had lived longer. They might have walked their grandchild to the park to play on the swing a few more times. Or they could have designed innovative new software that would save society millions dollars.
You ready to decide, by default or by design, someone else’s fate?
[*] Dr Walker Douglas, just about the smartest, most compassionate persons walking this earth.
I once heard, but have never verified, that back in the day (circa New Deal) corporations understood that universal health care would save them huge money.
But the employers decided to provide insurance themselves, at a loss, so that Labor wouldn’t get too powerful.
Can anyone verify this?
lost @ 22
Thanks. I honestly don’t know with certainty yet. I think I’m good.
I was waiting to see the final language before I caught up.
I use myself as an example. Not for sympathy, because I’m pretty tickled to just be alive. But to make a point.
A lot of people don’t have insurance, can’t get insurance (or good insurance), are buried by medical debt, are making tough choices, and have little hope of ever coming up for air.
The current reform bill sucks. But it sucks a lot less than the status quo.
PS- re @ 14. I was diagnosed with aplastic anemia at age 19. Cause unknown. Not exactly the kind of thing someone plans for.
Great Post! Here’s what can happen to the novice songwriter without the rhyming software:
I’ve been a lotta places in my life and time.
I wrote a lotta music. I made a lotta bad rhymes.
Like this one:
Try Leppla Moving and Storage the next time you move. See! That doesn’t rhyme at all!
My apologies to Leon Russell and my never ending gratitude to Wonderful Russ and his hilarious advertisements.
Time to consider Canada! You can buy coverage for $50-75/month. Our system is so retarded and corrupt I doubt real change will occur on our watch.
i heard harry reid wanted to know if goldstein is a brillo haired jew, or a silky haired jew.
Goldy,
The troll’s comments on this site have no bearing on reality. I suggest that you ignore them.
re 32: I heard Trent Lott wanted to fuck your mother in the ass just so he could poke you in the eye.
@34
re 32: I heard Trent Lott wanted to fuck your mother in the ass just so he could poke you in the eye.
but you have no problem , i’m sure, with what harry reid said.
Goldy, your hateful trolls apparently haven’t gotten the word — jobs don’t exist anymore. From now on, workers are inventory.
http://www.businessweek.com/ma.....935448.htm
@7 So now Candidate Palin is going to be an objective journalist working for a fair and balanced news organization?
This, if course, is euphemism for “shill in propaganda shop.”
That’s a really great story. I had no idea. You are exactly right though. Access to insurance shouldn’t require enslavement to the man. Trolls just hope that someday they can be the man because they like to believe that they have what it takes to boss people around. They need feeble underlings to make them forget their hapless impotency.
@36
I needed new boxer shorts recently so, I sent out a few emails. One friend provided some silk, for which I traded one of my photo’s for (I’m a very amateur photographer). My cost about 8 bucks sent through Mpix, a small startup company in the mid-west. A few of my friends are rather handy- whatever the gender neutral term for seamstress is- and so I provided one of them with my favorite pair of boxers (super spendy ones from Patagonia) to pirate the pattern from and the silk. They did the sewing in trade for basil and tomatoes from my garden this summer.
I think the folks at business week are going to be rather disappointed in the future.
We have a problem with health care in this country.
Giving it over to the Government will not solve that problem.
FEMA, the TSA, and your local DMV are all government agencies. Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, the post office and Amtrak are quasi-governmental agencies.
None of these agencies is particularly good at providing timely, cost-effective services. How can health care possibly be any different? This question is NOT rhetorical. How can government health care possibly work? The VA is neither a good model nor a scalable one.
Isn’t it ironic that the entertainment biz, widely derided as the home of ‘liberal elites’, is one of the most cut-throat and competitive industries going? Everybody sees the successes, but not the thousands of failures…which is exactly what a capitalist model should look like.
But no, our so called conservative trolls would rather defend bailouts, subsidies, corporate tax giveaways, ‘too big to fail’ banks, monopolies, oligopolies, state capitalism, cronyism, insider dealing and self-dealing, absurd patent protections, barely disguised looting, inherited wealth, the craptacular failure that is our form of corporate governance, and huge disparities in wealth and income.
This they call freedom.
So when they threaten to ‘go Galt’, I say let them. They cost us dearly, and I could use the money.
The VA is neither a good model nor a scalable one.
Actually it’s not the worst, and in some ways quite good. And scalable? You never heard of the NHS?
Using standard economic free market assumptions, privately delivered health care inevitably fails, and we are bound and determined to show everybody else in the world just how spectacular that market failure can be.
@39 What’s going to happen is Americans don’t make anything except money anymore, and money is nothing more than scraps of paper or electronic blips, so what it boils down to is the barter economy you describe is the only economy we have left. I plan to get out of the stock market before the herd figures this out.
@40 Why not give it over to the government? They can’t do any worse than Enron, Worldcom, Adelphia, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Citibank, Washington Mutual, Seattle Times, ad nauseum.
@40 “FEMA, the TSA, and your local DMV are all government agencies.”
FEMA and TSA were run by Republicans. The solution to that is electing Democrats.
The last time I went to DMV (it isn’t actually called that in this state), I didn’t have to wait, the license clerk was courteous, the work was done accurately, and I had my new license in a few minutes; so I don’t what your beef is. My guess is you’re complaining because you like to hear yourself complain.
@45
The last time I went to DMV (it isn’t actually called that in this state), I didn’t have to wait, the license clerk was courteous, the work was done accurately, and I had my new license in a few minutes; so I don’t what your beef is. My guess is you’re complaining because you like to hear yourself complain.
you’re either a liar or a fucking idiot. in massachusetts there are always at least 50 people in line and about a 2 hour wait, minimum. but….we have free healthcare for illegal aliens…and try telling me i’m lying.
i amend my above post..we have free healthacre for anyone who doesnt have a job.
@43
This is one more reason why we need an income tax. With social networking and internet commerce you can get just about anything you want without paying sales tax.
When I decided I needed a nice warm wool scarf for this winter I just dropped a note on my Facebook page and one of my crafty friends knitted me one.
If the yarn was purchased over the net there was no sales tax. If the yarn was purchased in a shop, you’re still paying a hell of a lot less tax than you would for a fancy handmade wool scarf. And of course there were no taxes paid when I swept off her roof and cleaned out my friends gutters in exchange for the scarf.
@46
Last time I needed my drivers license updated I did it over the net.
@40
Under our current plan, I get my healthcare through my employer and Group Health. Under the new plan, I’ll get my healthcare through my employer and Group Health.
Under our current plan, if I quit my job or get laid off, I’m pretty much fucked healthcare wise. I can’t afford the COBRA. Under the new plan, if I quit my job or get laid off, I’ll get my healthcare though Group Health.
@45…..you didnt have to wait??? WTF, tell us where you went!
The last time I went to the DMVI had to wade through a sea of mexicans that couldnt speak english…
makes you wonder how the fuck they read the street signs…..
@43
Stock up on .22 ammo, there will always be a market for it!
re 35: I don’t argue with idiots — and this sock-puppet of yours is an idiot.
Remember Earl Butz?
re 35: In 1976, Rep. Secy. Of Ag, Mr. Earl Butz, made a remark in which he described blacks as “coloreds” who wanted only three things — satisfying sex, loose shoes and a warm bathroom — desires that Mr. Butz listed in obscene and scatological terms. He was driven from office.
Harry Reid said the word ‘negro’.
Lyndon Johnson said, ‘We gotta do somethin’ to help these nigras!’
Do you see a qualitative difference between the two attitudes?
What a pathetic, self loathing sob story-a shorter post could have been:
“Oh, woe is me…I made choices in my life and had to sacrifice in some areas, but I’m a role model because I tried and failed, but at least I tried.”
Entrepreneurship was here long before you and will be here long after you. Last time I checked there were plenty of self motivated individuals willing to do the sacrifice for the pay off. They have made and continue to make the same sacrifices you did and they do it without complaining because, hey, it was their choice to do so.
So, the next time you’re told to “get a job”, take it to heart or quit complaining, it’s disgusting to see a grown man cry about the decisions he’s made in his life.
…and SJ, you’re bat shit crazy if you think Goldy and Thomas Jefferson have ANYTHING in common. Jefferson would have had him horsewhipped back in the day for Goldy wanting the government involved in every facet of his life. And to think that you’re a professor at UW? Perhaps you should have taken more History classes.
Impoverished by my years as a progressive blogger and activist, I may very well have to give in to my trolls’ admonishment to get a real job
Tsk, tsk, that’s just a little limp, Goldy. You wouldn’t be giving in to the trolls, but rather your own need to make a real living and sock money away for retirement AND your child’s education at the UW. You want a glimpse into your future if you stay the course?: Eventually having to rent a basement room in Roger Rabbit’s cigarette smoke-filled house to make ends meet. That’s hitting rock bottom.
As far as I’m concerned the longer HA limps along, the better. Otherwise, Rabbit would have absolutely NO life, Daddy Love would have nothing to do during the day while he “works” at Microsoft, and we couldn’t enjoy your daily tirades against the Seattle Times (which are, almost certainly, due to your raging jealously over something they have and that you covet: readership!).
Onward, HA!
Goldy–
You call it “anti-reform”..
I call it “pro-right-reform” which includes Tort Reform!
Seems you KLOWNS are in the minority on this…and pretty much everything. Which is why Obam-Mao is tanking.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Hard concept for the allergic to work krowd Goldy…WE CAN’T AFFORD YOUR SOCIALISM!
Now or ever.
It’s a slippery slope.
The fight goes on.
36. Racist Roger Rabbit calls Puddy a Flying Monkey spews:
You are the hateful one dipshit.
Racist pig.
@57
Obama’s Approval Rating Dips to New Low
“The president’s marks on handling health care, with reforms still under debate in Congress, are even lower – just 36 percent approve, while 54 percent disapprove. Both of these approval ratings are the lowest of Mr. Obama’s presidency.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2.....?tag=stack
Whine all you want Goldy and try and duck the “Get a job!” statement. You never DID answer why you don’t (healthcare bullshit irrelevant to this question) Simple Goldy….we’re waiting….
‘“Get a job!” isn’t just an insult to me, it is an insult to America. ‘
What’s an insult to America is non-producers like you bleeding the Commonwealth dry with your free handouts, gov’t cheese, and sucking off of Uncle Sam’s swollen tits. You will find you’ll have much more credibility when (and if) you ever become gainfully employed. Also with that, you’ll have a warm feeling called pride. That comes with making one’s own way in life. I wish you and the tens of other H.A. unemployed Libtardos luck in your struggle to get off the “entitlement” train. Perhaps George Costanza could be your inspiration…..(for a time anyhow.)
Interesting story Goldy. Who’d’ve thought there was such a varied backstory to someone known for making comparisons to a horse’s backside.
Coming from a country which provides health care to its subjects, Britain, it is a complete mystery to me how America has managed to avoid doing so for its citizens.
@50 “Racist pig”
Say, have you got anymore racist jokes you’d care to share with us, Mr. Klynical? That last one you told us that stereotyped black males as being afraid to work like a white man is getting a little old with the retelling.
steve–
Tollycraft steve…right?
“Tort Reform”…. Cynical, you are such a stooge. But I know you never let the facts get in the way of your opinions.
@60. mark1 then you will listen to George Soros? He’s a progressive with a lot of money and a job. Would that work for you, or would you find another excuse to not listen to progressives?
@60
Gov’t cheese was a program to help keep dairy farmers (R) from going broke from over production. Over production caused in large part by the agricultural policies of Richard Nixon (R) and his secretary of agriculture Earl Butz (R).
Goldy has a job running a successful blog.
Why do you think you have the right to order people around and decide what the can and can’t do?
Of course the insurance situation is fucked in this state.
Who was that Democrat bitch that drove out the insurance companies and all but closed the market for individual policies?
Poll: Gregoire job approval lowest ever
“The poll of 405 registered voters interviewed in late December found just 40 percent gave the governor a positive rating (saying she was doing a “good” of “excellent” job). That’s the lowest in The Elway Poll since Gregoire took office in 2005.”
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....cation=rss
@36. That business week article is what I would define as hell. How is a person suppose to raise a family with working conditions like that?
Conservatives, do me a favor, read that article and explain to me how that kind of job insecurity is a positive for families? I’d really know to know.
@56:
Right on the money bro!
Again @ 56:
Except you left out YLB arschloch; although I heard his old Lady limits his time bangin’ on the drums all day internet surfing. Poor thing.
@66: ‘Goldy has a job running a successful blog.’
Really? Does he pay taxes and get a liveable income from it? Do you consider panhandlers, beggars, and those guys with signs at freeway on-ramps working at their “jobs” as well?
‘Why do you think you have the right to order people around and decide what the can and can’t do?’
Funny, I didn’t read any of that written @60. Are you now a mind reader, or do you just have bullshit assumptions? Are you employed, and do you pay taxes? Let me guess….
Right wingers work VERY HARD 24/7 at a job they excel at. The competition isn’t anywhere close:
bein’ stupid tools…
poor things..
Something for our beloved “get a job” trolls:
http://www.businessweek.com/ap.....6BDD80.htm
Keep on belittling the unemployed right wing tools. It’ll serve you well in November.
Heckuva’ job!
@73 YLB Arschloch:
Ah yes, and what is your excuse for still being unemployed all this time? Let’s hear a good one….
Please think about it before you answer, I wouldn’t want to deplete your allowed internet time too much. Hell hath no fury like the scorn of your working and employed wife!
74 – Pretty good evidence of what I stated in 72.
Poor thing.. Used like a dishrag..
Uhhh. No comeback??
Thought so..
Like sunlight to a cockroach..
The unemployement statistics are worse than reported. As we have known for a long time, they tend to under-report unemployment because they exclude several groups of people: those that give up and become stay-at-home parents, those who go back to college because a job hunt would be fruitless, those who are “under-employed”, taking part-time jobs or those which are significantly less than those for which they are qualified.
The estimated actual figure of unemeployement and “under-employment” is calculated at somthing between 14% and 18%, but even that doesn’t include those who have gone back to school.
This is actually a bit better than the situation in January 2009 when Obama took office, at that point the unemployement was heading downward in a rather frightening spiral. Now it has more or less leveled off, with some net declines but not nearly the rate it was earlier.
But the problem is that with each rescession since 1981, we are seeing a built-in structural under-employment which has been resistent to change. This under-employement has hit the working middle-class the hardest. As industry titans have out-sourced our industrial production beginning in the 1980’s and even our “customer service” workers in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, and just about every other form of manufacturing during the early part of this decade, middle-class jobs have become more and more scarce, and considerably less secure and rewarding. Workers are told that they should expect less pay, less job security, and few if any benefits, and they should just be happy they still have a job at all.
As Warren Buffett pointed out, you can’t indefinately buy manufactured goods from overseas, and borrow money from overseas to fund deficit financing, without eventually running out of money to pay for those goods. I think we are at the cusp of that realization – the transfer of the country’s wealth under the Bush administration from the middle-class to a rather select few of the very wealthy is almost complete. The middle class simply doesn’t have much left to give.
Even Henry Ford knew that paying his workers a living wage ensured a customer base for his products. The executive class in this country is simply interested in quickly wringing the last dime out of our pockets, after which point they will look elsewhere for new victims to rob.
@66 The USDA’s surplus food program, along with a variety of subsidies including paying farmers not to plant some of their fields, were originated to deal with a mid-century issue called “the farm problem”, which could be defined in just three words: too many farmers. This led to a vicious cycle of overproduction driving prices down, so the farmers were getting squeezed between what they were getting paid and what they owed, so they’d desperately grow even more, etc. So, Uncle Sam broke the cycle by paying the farmers to let land lie fallow (which may have helped prevent another Dust Bowl) and absorbing the excess. The latter yielded some social benefits, like the 35 cent school lunches most of us old boomers remember, and the ability to send shiploads of grain over to countries that were struggling with famine.
The situation is completely different now. Large corporate farms employ comparatively few workers growing the ingredients for fast/junk food and maneuver to play what’s left of the system and suck the subsidies originally intended for Ma and Pa Kettle into corporate coffers.
@77 To boil it down even further, a society in which nobody is employed doing useful work is most likely doomed to collapse.
Oh, there are plenty of people who have plenty to offer…but nobody’s buying.
Think about that one for a while, kiddies.
re 60: You need to let off a little steam. Maybe you should accompany Rush to the Dominican Republic with a suitcase full of ibogaine and rubbers.
rhp @ 77
The official unemployment rate confuses me. Every one claims it’s fudged.
Seems like a pretty straight forward problem.
How many people are capable of working? What I’d call the working age population.
How many hours could they potentially work? Average 2040 per year.
How many jobs are there? Should be easy to determine from tax receipts.
How many hours are worked? A bit harder. Assume salaried employees are overworked.
Adjust the numbers for students, the disabled, etc.
Plug in the numbers, turn the crank, and voila: actual divided by potential hours worked for a ratio showing employment rate.
All the types of unemployment economists (and policy makers) use just muddy the waters.
We definitely have the computing power to figure this stuff out in near real-time.
Jason–
What about UNDERemployed people?
Folks working jobs way below their qualifications. Some folks have the guts to get out and work and avoid the handouts…unlike YLB Arschloch
Jason–
UNDERemployed amounts to an additional 5-6 percentage points and is getting higher as folks unemployment runs out.
Let them eat cake.
Cynical,
Ya know the arschloch could have one of those internet work at home jobs. Puddy wonders what it could be.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha – I’m LMAO after reading your resume Goldboy. No wonder you backed that dilletante Burner for Congress in 06 and 08. You are the male version of the Darcy.
Either get a job OR, if you are so hell-bent on being an entrepreneur, then get into a line of work at which you are actually proficient. Since you continue to whine about how little money you make as HA host, perhaps the writing is on the wall………….
Ya know the arschloch could have one of those internet work at home jobs. Puddy wonders what it could be.
http://www.onlineuniversalwork.com
By that I mean latching on to this or that latest, most innovative idea that some self styled money making guru has put out in the hope it’ll go viral and make them a lot of money off the backs of all the headless chickens who will follow them blindly down a blind alley. Its a shame but a truism nonetheless that people will follow where someone they see as an expert leads. Even if they lead them to certain disaster, which is what most of the gurus tend to do to their flocks.
The trick is to recognize a shadow when you see it!
Your troll fails to understand that many of the uninsured in our country do in fact have jobs. Jobs that do not provide health insurance or provide health insurance so crappy you might as well not have health insurance.
Being employed (as opposed to self-employed) is no guarantee of having health insurance. Just as the millions of folks employed in our country who are uninsured.
None of your GD business you right wing name-calling fool.
Keep wastin’ what’s left of the empty space between your ears:
wonderin’…