– Is this process for picking a new police chief going to produce different results than the last one?
– Jeff Merkley is a real hero on unemployment insurance, but it’s godawful that it has to come up at all.
– Oh my am I glad the people who gave us the Iraq war aren’t in power right now.
– I love that building
– In the last open thread, I said that Melissa Harris Perry was right to apologize, and I stand by that. But I also agree that there is a context.
– Holy shit Chris Christie.
– I don’t mind people taking pictures of everything, but don’t block other people’s view.
B-b-but Carl, don’t you know that according to Rand Paul, kicking people off unemployment benefits creates jobs?
1) And it is good for them! Builds character and all that.
So how much longer should we extend the unemployment benefits?
ten @3
How long? A better question is when will RETHUGS actually help to create jobs in this country for a change?
For every 3 people out of work (and still looking for work), there is 1 job. That job usually pays shit wages and will often cost the job seeker more than he/she will get back in wages.
Once when I was between good jobs I took a job which promised good pay after the probation period. Over that 3 months that job cost me $500 more than I brought home. I would have been better off financially watching TV. Then I got my almost a dollar an hour pay raise. I quit that day. Got a much better job soon after.
I was a kid back then. Nowadays I’d research the job before taking it.
Bible-thumping Oklahoma legislators who plopped the Ten Commandments on the state capitol lawn have brought on themselves a raft of mockery not to mention lawsuits.
http://www.businessweek.com/ar.....n#r=hpt-fs
We’re Number Two?
Not official yet but China may now be the world’s number one trading partner. Won’t know until the US releases it’s numbers.
If the US continues its slide into oblivion, we won’t need much of a middle class. Just one sufficient to service the needs of the rich.
New Year, same Republican house. What were the major actions yesterday….well abortion of course and gutting toxic waste regulations.
So what’s going to provide jobs is making sure companies that handle toxic waste don’t need to carry insurance to cover clean up costs. No, that won’t cost the Federal Government a dime. When the toxic spills happen, we can just leave them there. I mean, we want to be more like China if we are to compete.
A black woman shoots a warning shot into the wall and doesn’t kill anyone one, but she cannot use “Stand your ground” and gets 20 years.
Zimmerman can kill a black teenage boy and and use “Stand your ground” and get off scott free.
She got her case over turned on appeal and is re trial and is home on house arrest. However, the Florida State Attorney Angela Corey has it out for her. She’s gonna get someone, dammit. How dare a black woman defend herself.
What was her new crime? She left her house to run errands and got permission from the Sheriff’s Office ahead of time for every instance.
Yet another travesty of justice. I will never willingly move to Florida. because of ignorant petty people like Florida State Attorney Angela Corey in positions of power. While I’m probably safe, I’m white, my husband is black and our son is biracial. I can’t risk it.
An interesting rumination on Capitalism and automation. What do you do with the un needed bodies?
The best points:
What’s after capitalism? Will peak oil make this discussion invalid?
There are limits to everything, including academic freedom. Nothing pisses off a big university like pointing out its athletes can’t read.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/09/.....?hpt=hp_t3
On the Brand X blog, Jim Miller is whining that the Seattle Times ignored the Robert Gates book story. My response: If he ever bothered to actually read the newspaper, he might know what’s in it.
http://seattletimes.com/html/p.....sbook.html
For the record, the Times story was published on January 8 at 6:21 am, and Miller posted his blurb on January 8 at 2:47 pm, which means he had 8 hours and 26 minutes to look at the fucking newspaper before he blew smoke out of his ass.
From 4,
What
I was looking for as an answer, ekim, was something like 6 months, a year – something like that. What’s your time frame for the extension of jobless benefits?
ten @14,
How about 10+ years.
At $256/week they aren’t getting rich and the money gets spent right away, which has the secondary effect of being a stimulus to our economy.
Cheney’s unfunded tax cut for the rich has lasted that long so far and for some reason no RETHUGS have issues with it even though the RICH DON’T NEED IT and it is a drain on our economy.
@14 This is an insurance program. If a fire damages a room of your house, the insurer pays for repairs. If the whole house burns down, the insurer builds you a new house.
Insurance is subject to limits.
From 14,
OK, ten years it is! That’s what I was looking for – a definite answer.
@18 How about they last until right-wing asswipes stop demonizing the victims of their Great Republican Recession who lost their jobs and can’t find work?
How about they last until Republicans show they have the capacity to feel empathy for the victims of their policies?
How about they last until every deregulation-mad wingnut in America drinks a tall glass of toxic Virginia water?
How about they last until you start having sex with human beings instead of farm animals?
@17
Why yes, insurance is subject to limits. 100% of the replacement of your home or repairs to existing typically PLUS reimbursement for temporary housing if required. But you seem to think getting about 50% of your previous income for six months somehow compares? I pay a monthly premium and haven’t had a single claim just like most people who carry insurance. Damn glad to know that if a tree falls on my house today in the storm it will be fixed by my insurance company. Likewise, when employed, one pays a monthly premium against which the majority of those employed will never need to make a claim. But when they do, by republican logic the insurance company says, “Here’s a subsistence level check and no more and fuck you if you can’t find work in six months.”
Exhibit 3million and one that republicans can’t grasp the stupidity of their ‘arguments.’ (You were comparing something to insurance?)
@17 An insurance agent who is doing his job will sell you enough insurance to cover the house and its contents.
Unemployment insurance is much more limited. It replaces only a fraction of an unemployed worker’s wages. And it’s time limited in all states.
But apparently even that is too worker-friendly for you.
Unemployment insurance was created by the Social Security Act as part of FDR’s New Deal economic reforms. It’s paid for with payroll taxes on workers and employers; the federal UI tax pays for administrative costs, and the state UI tax goes entirely to benefits.
The standard UI program is designed for a normal level of unemployment in a normally functioning economy. The federal government backstops the program with additional funding during economic emergencies. During severe economic downturns, Congress can (and does) appropriate additional funding from general tax revenues to bolster depleted state UI benefit accounts and/or provide extended benefits to unemployed workers.
Extended benefits not only help workers pay their bills during periods of prolonged high unemployment, but also help jump-start the economy by putting money into circulation when consumer spending is weak. They’re a form of economic stimulus.
Of course it doesn’t do any good to explain this stuff to conservatives, libertarians, and their ilk. They’re not interested in learning anything. They’re just trying to pick a fight. So I say let’s give them one.
Conservative economic policies not only lack compassion, they’re bad for the economy. Austerity, opposition to unemployment benefits and social security, opposing stimulus, all make recessions worse. They’re not just wrong, they’re evil.
The majority of Americans don’t listen to rightwing economic nonsense anymore. The majority don’t vote for rightwingers. When their ideas are rejected at the ballot box by their fellow citizens, they have no right to run our country. . So why do they insist on minority rule? Because they’re nothing but a bunch of juvenile bullies determined to get their own way no matter what. They deserve what all bullies deserve — a royal ass-kicking.
>>How long should unemployment insurance last?
Until we figure out and have the will to implement a system so anyone who wants to get a living wage job can find one.
I don’t see that happening any time soon. The “Give me mine, Fuck You” party has no interest in that.