Internet idiocy of the day: So this story pops up on Facebook this morning. This is about one thing and one thing only; to program the population toward further dependancy on government. When they see the word "unemployment", people in today's society immediately think of a monthly check - not a life situation. This is not the kind of thinking that built this country. Just staying home on the government tit is better for your mental health than taking a little personal resposibility? I had a couple of jobs in my youth that I didn't like but I did them because I had to earn a living. It taught me to take advantage of all the opportunities available in this country to better my options and create my future - not just quit and live on the dole to save my sanity until that perfect job comes along. Guess what...that "perfect job" is earned through hard work, not handed to you on a silver government platter. (And if you are not happy about "income inequality", stop crying to the government to make the rich share their wealth - get off your ass and create your own wealth. Then we'll see how fast
you're willing to share what your own labors have produced...) 78,85,62,0,B
Good job or bad job, we all have to eat.
ReplyDeleteAmen!
ReplyDeleteExactly right.
ReplyDeleteI think it could mean another thing, eg follow your dream and you will most likely be happer in the long run.
ReplyDeleteUnemployment payments are not paid to people who quit or get fired for cause. Basically you have to be part of a layoff or reduction in hours. Even then, the employer has to agree or it's not likely to happen. If you you were layed off and the employer agrees, you might get 50% of your wage for a max of 26 weeks limited to about $400 a week if you were making $800 or more per week.
Even then, the state requires several verified job applications per week for that layed off worker to continue benefits. Lower paid workers get less and at least a half year of employment is required first. Not exactly living large on the government, which by the way is only the administrator of an insurance program paid for by the employer. Many small and service employers are exempted from the beginning.
Good job rj. Had many a boring job but always learned something. I sometimes felt work interfered with my hobbies and interests. Never found a way around that though. I met a man in MI who informed me he was going to apply for welfare when his union factory job in Detroit fell through in the 70's. After all, he only had two new cars, a big house, a boat, and so forth but no high paying job anymore. I had to tell him he would not qualify for welfare.
ReplyDeleteJohn,
ReplyDeleteDon't believe everything you see or read on the internet.
there's an interesting phrase- " good paying job".. it cures unemployment - even if the job sucks, eh?
ReplyDeleteTo live to work to eat seems a terrible waste of the pitifully short time given us. Wish I had thrown in the towel a lot sooner than I did. You fled the mundane and seem to be doing alright as a man of leisure.
ReplyDeletePreach!!!
ReplyDeleteHow much hard work might have been possible after mangling a leg? How much morality might we find in lifestyles funded by endless cashflow? Not all of us are investment banker-capable. For some, "hard work" is two jobs, little sleep, day care, and choosing between canned goods and medicine. It may be more productive to put your compassion to work rather than waste your heart in parroting the party line.
ReplyDeleteWhat is more puzzling is why reasonable people read *anything* and claim it to be news or important or relevant. Of course, no one vets their sources or chooses a variety of credible sources. If it pops up on my screen then it MUST BE NEWS!!!
ReplyDeletePractice discernment, seek variety and truthiness
A young Texas extremely wealthy man told me once that he thought happiness was found in doing what one wants to do--following ones dreams. And I think that is true in employment or earning a living. Then it does not even seem like work. It is truly enjoyable. Once I signed up to learn to be a court steno reporter because it paid better than my government job. The university tested me. I scored 1/2 of 1% out of 100% to do that work in the interest area. I scored 99% interest area to teach and in other areas like psychology, physical education, medicine, etc. So I earned my B.A., etc. And when I picked up my paycheck from teaching I honestly felt like a thief for taking money for something I liked so much to do.
ReplyDeleteI once mentioned having a job where I turned to a co-worker and said "they pay us to do this!".
ReplyDeleteThey guy I mentioned it to looked at me with a look that said 'what are you talking about?'
I don't think he'd ever had a job that he liked....
eligibility-benefit
ReplyDeletehttp://www.twc.state.tx.us/jobseekers/eligibility-benefit-amounts#unemploymentBenefitsEligibility.
ongoing-eligibility-requirements
http://www.twc.state.tx.us/jobseekers/ongoing-eligibility-requirements-receiving-unemployment-benefits
Less then 2 minutes of work to find the links.
I collected unemployment because of being laid off, being fired for no reason (right to work state), and once for failure to qualify for the job after working 18 months. I quit and never received benefits. I worked hard for years and all I got for it is a bad back.
Not every individual has the same opportunities as you. Stop damning me for living my life the best way I knew how. It was hard and to do what I loved was not in the cards because I had to eat and put a roof over my head.
I became homeless 5 different times in the past 45 years. Yes each one was my fault. The first time we were in a recession (1980) and there just was not any work. The second time I got laid off and my room mate kicked me out. The third time I was preparing to get sober. The forth time I just gave up because the jobs offered were 50 cents above minimum wage, and the fifth time I had enough and wanted to die instead of working at another worthless job.
45 years of crap jobs as a result of Conservative Economics. The employer was able to dictated where the money goes because of the active effort to decrease the value of Unions (they provide workers protection from greed). I worked and did the labor, they, the employer, did not pay benefits, good wages, holiday pay, overtime, or education assistance. I lived hand to mouth for most of those years and the only time I did well was my 8 years in the Navy. I had one job where I made 10 dollars an hour, Customer Service, that was in 1991. Today that job pays 12. You can blame the worker for his lot in life, but you also have to blame the employer and stupid ideological politicians that let it happen.
There are some people that are living off the system, maybe less than .01%. The rest are hard working individuals that work in a system that makes it hard to get ahead. The real parasites in our society are the major stock holders, CEO's, the top 1 percent, Banks, Corporations, Military Industrial Complex (got to have money to finance war), Insurance companies, Hedge Funds, etc., the so called Ayn Rand Producers.
Yes I am a Democrat Socialist. I believe in the people that work for a living, you know the ones, waiters, waitresses, factory workers, the people that answer the phone when you call to buy stuff, the gas station attendant, mechanics, telephone operators, UPS Drivers, Mail Persons, janitors and maids, the person that makes your coffee, the farm labor that picks your fruit and vegetables, the stock clerks, cashiers, Police, Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, the people that maintain the roads you drive on, the clerk that works in the insurance company. And all those people I did not remember. They have to work by the rules set down by people that want to make money off their labor. So when you have to deal with someone, remember that they are doing a low wage job to make some parasite richer.
So when ever you shout out about how some working/unemployed person is taking advantage of you, remember this, you support and voted for the Politician that assists the parasites that put that worker in that position. The workers are the engine of the economy, not the parasites.
Never ceases to amaze me, how in my lifetime,(I'm 57) that some inhabitants of the greatest nation on this earth have begun to shun as one commentator called it "Conservative Economics". There seems to be a growing pocket of the economically uneducated for socialist ideas in this country, like in every nation around the world, of course, but the good news is that the vast majority of people, in their heads and in their hearts, know full well that capitalism is the only way forward.
ReplyDeleteAll people are better off in a free market economy, even though some people are rich and some are poor. That will never change in a Free Market Economy.
In fact, a majority in most countries back free markets, albeit with some glaring exceptions: in Greece (predictably), Japan (amazingly), Spain (less so), Jordan (sadly) and Argentina (tragically), the majority in these country's have rejected free market economy's
Around the world, socialists have lost the intellectual battle. People do not call themselves socialists any longer. The Democratic Party of the United States has never been socialistic. Ever since the capture of the Democratic Party by the Populist William Jennings Bryan in 1896, and then the conquest by the Progressive Woodrow Wilson in 1912, the Democratic Party has been in favor of the welfare state. But the senior managers of the Democratic Party have always been insiders. They have been members of the Council on Foreign Relations (1921-). They have come out of Harvard and Yale and Princeton, with Woodrow Wilson as the model. He was the man who single-handedly turned Princeton into the insiders' university that it became after 1903.
No socialist has ever clawed his way to the top of the heap in American history. The closest that any socialist ever got was Henry Wallace in 1941 through 1945. But Roosevelt didn't die, and he dumped Wallace in 1944.
It is not easy to overcome the logic of the welfare state. People who are on the dole do not want to get off the dole. Also, the programs tend to become permanent, so they have developed large constituencies. But here is the central fact: the constituents redefine the welfare state to be consistent with the free market. People who receive Medicare and Social Security handouts always insist that the money is deserved in terms of prior payments. They never admit that they have become dependent on the welfare state. They take offense if you tell them that they have. They see themselves as Tea Party members in good standing.
This is the price of ideological victory. The socialists have been driven from the field. In the case of the United States, they never got a hearing. It is only because people perceive the welfare state as being socialist that they perceive the extent of the almost total intellectual victory that the defenders of free markets have had over the defenders of socialism.
When I hear the term "free market economy" I think of Mexico.
ReplyDeleteI thought bible thumpers were supposed to be compassionate instead of judgmental. You are a rich white boy from New York who sold out and dropped out and now you resent the people who are disenfranchised by our winner take all system. You need to ask yourself,"what would Jesus do"?
ReplyDeleteA bad job can build good character.
ReplyDelete