Economy

[rstrong]

Your quote doesn't mention outsourcing.

If you look real hard, you will see "people without jobs". Now, if you think real hard, you just might find a reason why there are "people without jobs".

Well of course: Your quote starts the clock in 2007, so the obvious source of any increase in "people without jobs" would be the 2008 recession / Wall Street collapse.

Meanwhile, there have always been people without jobs. As shown above, NAFTA has meant less people in America without jobs.

[indago]

Your quote doesn't mention outsourcing.

If you look real hard, you will see "people without jobs". Now, if you think real hard, you just might find a reason why there are "people without jobs".

Well of course: Your quote starts the clock in 2007, so the obvious source of any increase in "people without jobs" would be the 2008 recession / Wall Street collapse.

Meanwhile, there have always been people without jobs.

Yes, and that's only part of the picture...

[Mr.B]

All I can say is.......I'm so humbled and grateful for the 1.7% increase in SS benefits I'll be receiving next year.......

I've already received 4 notices of increases in payments of other services...is this a great country, or what?

[Mr.B]

I agree with Mr.B. We need better socialism like, say, Canada.

That said, I believe the US does a fairly decent job of elder support relative to other industrialized nations. It's in support for the rest of society where we really fail.

"...one child in every 30...2.5 million American children were homeless at some point in 2013."

That's a disgrace.

And I agree with that. All those hungry children; the homeless depending on Homeless Shelters to survive; the Homeless Shelters begging for money to keep them afloat........and we have politicians, and their supporters, spending obscene millions to get elected/re-elected to an office. And the most obscene part of it all is that not one damn one of them will step up to take on hunger and/or homelessness in their own home state; let alone on a national level.

[indago]

From CBS News 60 Minutes:
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There are a lot of people in the United States right now who think the country is falling apart, and at least in one respect they're correct. Our roads and bridges are crumbling, our airports are out of date and the vast majority of our seaports are in danger of becoming obsolete. All the result of decades of neglect. None of this is really in dispute. Business leaders, labor unions, governors, mayors, congressmen and presidents have complained about a lack of funding for years, but aside from a one time cash infusion from the stimulus program, nothing much has changed. There is still no consensus on how to solve the problem or where to get the massive amounts of money needed to fix it, just another example of political paralysis in Washington.
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Infrastructure

All the money that government wasted could have been used for this purpose. Some examples:

WASTE: $11 Billion In IRS Faulty Refunds - $11,000,000,000

WASTE: Improper food stamp payments - $4,500,000,000

WASTE: $8 Million PR Contract To Promote Obamacare - $8,000,000

http://thewastelist.nrcc.org/

[O Really]

All the money that government wasted could have been used for this purpose. Some examples:

WASTE: $11 Billion In IRS Faulty Refunds - $11,000,000,000

WASTE: Improper food stamp payments - $4,500,000,000

WASTE: $8 Million PR Contract To Promote Obamacare - $8,000,000

/

And certainly that $23.5 billion could have been put to better use. Do you want to put those numbers in context as to what percentage of total expenditure for each of the first two categories that is? For example, did you know that the $4.5 billion is less than 5% of the total? And that there haven't been "food stamps" for years - it's now SNAP. Did you know the $11 billion is less than 3.5% of the total refunds?

And do you suppose it would have taken less than $8 mill to educate people on ACA if Republicans hadn't been doing a negative full-court press from day one? Did your source also identify how much was spent on that?

And to put those percentages of error in context, analysts who do this stuff for a living say that about 80% of hospital bills contain errors - only rarely in favor of the patient.

And some researchers say that around 4% of convicts charged with major crimes are wrongly convicted. Following that path, we find that criminal convictions in the courts have a worse error rate than the "food stamp" waste or the IRS faulty refunds. And BTW, much of that IRS "faulty refunds number is due to intentional fraud, not necessarily error.

Sure, there's a lot of waste, but raw numbers out of context are meaningless.

[neoplacebo]

Spent five hours at the unemployment office today getting registered after being laid off from my job of 16 years; imagine my elation when I found out I am eligible for 14 weeks of benefits at $350 a week. The only other time I had to register for this (1998) the benefits were for 26 weeks. Thanks, Meadows, Tillis, et al.

[JTA]

Spent five hours at the unemployment office today getting registered after being laid off from my job of 16 years; imagine my elation when I found out I am eligible for 14 weeks of benefits at $350 a week. The only other time I had to register for this (1998) the benefits were for 26 weeks. Thanks, Meadows, Tillis, et al.

Sorry to hear the bad news man. I hope everything works out for you!

[neoplacebo]

Thank you, I appreciate it. All things must pass.

[indago]

Spent five hours at the unemployment office today getting registered after being laid off from my job of 16 years; imagine my elation when I found out I am eligible for 14 weeks of benefits at $350 a week. The only other time I had to register for this (1998) the benefits were for 26 weeks. Thanks, Meadows, Tillis, et al.

Well, you now have more competition for a job...

Journalist Stephen Dinan wrote for The Washington Times 25 November 2014:
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Under the president’s new amnesty, businesses will have a $3,000-per-employee incentive to hire illegal immigrants over native-born workers because of a quirk of Obamacare.

President Obama’s temporary amnesty, which lasts three years, declares up to 5 million illegal immigrants to be lawfully in the country and eligible for work permits, but it still deems them ineligible for public benefits such as buying insurance on Obamacare’s health exchanges.

Under the Affordable Care Act, that means businesses who hire them won’t have to pay a penalty for not providing them health coverage — making them $3,000 more attractive than a similar native-born worker, whom the business by law would have to cover.
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article

[neoplacebo]

Spent five hours at the unemployment office today getting registered after being laid off from my job of 16 years; imagine my elation when I found out I am eligible for 14 weeks of benefits at $350 a week. The only other time I had to register for this (1998) the benefits were for 26 weeks. Thanks, Meadows, Tillis, et al.

Well, you now have more competition for a job...

Journalist Stephen Dinan wrote for The Washington Times 25 November 2014:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Under the president’s new amnesty, businesses will have a $3,000-per-employee incentive to hire illegal immigrants over native-born workers because of a quirk of Obamacare.

President Obama’s temporary amnesty, which lasts three years, declares up to 5 million illegal immigrants to be lawfully in the country and eligible for work permits, but it still deems them ineligible for public benefits such as buying insurance on Obamacare’s health exchanges.

Under the Affordable Care Act, that means businesses who hire them won’t have to pay a penalty for not providing them health coverage — making them $3,000 more attractive than a similar native-born worker, whom the business by law would have to cover.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

article

Competition doesn't bother me; I welcome it. My point was how the NC GOP has eviscerated the safety net that used to exist. Corporate welfare is fine but let's fuck the little guy. I hope Tom TIllis chokes on his turkey.

[Boatrocker]

Not to derail or deflect, but what is it with the wingnuts going to the moonie paper as a source? That's right up there with using The New York Post.

[neoplacebo]

Meanwhile, neoplacebo has cheap food thanks to all the immigrants doing the agricultural work that Americans won't do.

Plus, the Obamacare mandate only applies to "businesses with 50 or more employees", something in the article that indago neglected to quote. neoplacebo, I know the business you got laid off from was not that big. Since leaving the Navy have you ever worked for one that was? If not and if you don't want to, you may have no added competition at all.

Then, there's the fact that all these newly legalized immigrants will now be paying taxes while not causing additional Obamacare costs or requiring the very steep immigration enforcement costs anymore.

Finally, millions will now be free to be fully engaged, productive and positive contributors to our communities in myriad ways without being forced to live in the shadows.

Leave it to the Moonie Times and indago to report on a supposed negative without discussing obvious mitigating factors.

The biggest company I ever worked for was Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company. Ten years there....it was a privately owned concern when I started but was bought by Tenneco before I left. And this good cheap food is rapidly making me put on the pounds......