Friday, February 12, 2010

Not Going to End Well

Your ideas say "idiot", your picture says "douchebag".


I'll admit it. I don't have an answer for unemployment. (Dude, we need more jobs!) I don't have the slightest idea what to do about all the jobs flowing out of the US to countries where people are paid a lot less. Morgan Warstler does not have any idea what to do about it, either.





Here’s an immediate employment policy for Republicans to take to
Obama: Keep the cheap jobs here.

Instead of some convoluted tax credit for new job creation…. let’s see
what kind of new low-economy businesses blossom when:

After 3 months of receiving unemployment insurance, a worker must be
willing to work 30 hours a week at a wage-subsidized job.

Unemployment insurance will make up for difference between what the
employees earn and $300 per week. ($7.25 x 40 hours). This means the
unemployed are earning $10 per hour ($300 for 30 hours work), and have 10
business hours left for job hunting.

Employers will be be able to search through anonymous lists of local
unemployed and hire these workers at a discount. Highest bids per hour
win. Employers will have to hire the workers for at least two weeks time.

To continue to receive federal aid, states must adopt this type of
policy and platform.



We have a large supply of untrained & unemployed
young workers & minority workers suffering disproportionately. The
government is spending billions in unemployment insurance. Why not
re-jigger the unemployment system to require work even if the real pay is low,
and make up the difference?

Perhaps daycare will get cheaper. Perhaps housecleaning will get
less expensive. Perhaps we’ll be able to compete with call centers in
India. These are all services that would help single mom’s and poor people
go back to work…. even to work from home. I suspect, like many credible
economists, when subsidized labor is $3, $4, $5 per hour, shovel ready jobs will
pop up.



What we do know is that if the unemployed have to work 30 hours per
week to receive their benefits… they will have more reason to go looking for
work and less reason to collect unemployment insurance.







$1200 a month, and Mr. Warstler doesn't mention taxes. Average rent in Boise, Idaho* is $600 per month for a 2 bedroom apartment. That's 2 paychecks per month under Mr. Warstler's plan. And that's just housing. That's not including transportation, food, health care, child care, heat, electric, water, etc.





But Mr. Warstler's idiocy doesn't end with assuming that $300 per week is sufficient.





Basically, you would create a permanent underclass of temp workers- Employers will have to hire the workers for at least two weeks time- without health care (total win for employers), who are significantly cheaper to hire than even full time minimum wage workers. Why would employers ever go back to paying even minimum wage when they could pay $2/hr for the same work for people they don't have to pay any kind of benefits for? They wouldn't. It would be stupid.





Perhaps daycare will get cheaper. Perhaps housecleaning will get less expensive. Perhaps we’ll be able to compete with call centers in India. These are all services that would help single mom’s and poor people go back to work. Go back to work for what? Permanent day laborer status with no possibility of benefits? Fantastic! Also, maybe we shouldn't create a permanent underclass of temp workers because "perhaps" anything. Maybe we should have proof first. Maybe that's just me.











*I had trouble finding overall housing costs for the US, so if you have that link, please let me know, and I'll update it. I chose Boise because it seems like a place that wouldn't have sky high rents like NYC or LA.

7 comments:

  1. I have an idea for job creation: the government can run concentration camps where we keep Republicans.

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  2. Bwa hahhaha $300/week in New York? Oh my. Oh my. I won't tell you how many paychecks I'd need just to cover my rent.

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  3. This guy should look at Denmark. Over here we get 8 weeks on unemployment benefits and then we're required to work for them. between 12 and 30 hours a week, depending on the abilities of the worker. The system intends these unemployment-jobs as a stepping stone into the ob market, as in the company takes on a worker that they don't pay for - the state pays all, and hopefully they'll appreciate their skills and hire them for reals.

    I've been at three places, and lemme tell ya. They're crap jobs and no you won't get hired because the business gets free labour and we don't get jobs, because the business doesn't really need us, they just get someone to do all those little things that wouldn't normally get done. Like sorting stuff that never gets sorted - or used - anyway.

    Oh yeah, and in one place I got told I was useless and that's why I was there and not in a real job - because I couldn't do anything. This by the person who was supposed to be the support worker for social outcasts (it was a charity thing), who knew very well I suffered from depression.

    Oh yeah, and whether you don't work because you're unable to, work for 12 hours or 30 hours, your unemployment 'benefits' don't change. Except you will have to pay transportation to and from the job on your own. Which means you have less money left to live for when you're working than when you're not, because when you're not working you can choose to not spend money on going anywhere.

    Fancy that.

    We have that shitty system. And it doesn't work for shit. And by now I've been stuck in it for over a year, because I have Asperger's Syndrom and can hardly be said to fit into a normal workplace. And this they cannot handle. This system is not designed to help real live people. It's designed to scare and force work-a-phobics into work. Work-a-phobics I'm doubtful as to whether exist at all outside the government's minds.

    It's a real waltz to call it 'benefits' too, 'cause you can't actually survive on them. I've been mooching off my (now ex-)boyfriend and currently my mum for the past year, all the while racking up massive debts.

    And while I know debts seem real attractive to all those Republicans, who think welfare fits its name, everybody with half a brain between their ears would really rather be able to make ends meet - even if they have to work for it - than go deeper and deeper into debt. And quite a few of us are quite interested in being (and feeling) useful and productive, which sitting at home or being forced to work for no pay doesn't really go a long way towards.

    /spleenvent

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  4. actually, $600 a month seems reasonable, outside of *major* major urban centers -
    in Montgomery AL in 1995, the rent on a 2 bedroom garden apt was about $500.
    in Redding, CA, the same sort of apartment, in 1998, was $550.
    in Columbus, OH, the *cheapest* apartment that i have been able to find - at ALL - was a teeeeeeeeeny tiny studio for $400. it's possible to get a bigger apartment [a one bedroom, say, instead of a studio] for that price, but i wouldn't condemn even Rush Limbaugh to that area. it's seriously scarey.

    i have a friend in San Jose, living in a not-ghetto-but-not-good area, and her very small 1 bedroom is $900 a month - a deal, because she's been there so long; if it were to be rented to someone new, it would be about $1,200. my step-sister just moved from Monterey CA, where she was so INCREDIBLY happy with her 2-bedroom that was *only* $1,300.
    in Cincinati, i know several people who live in the same apartment complex, not *in* Cincinati but near it, at the 1-bedrooms start at $545.
    in Dayton, i have a friend who lives with his wife and infant in a squalid 2-bedroom with a leaky roof and subpar wiring for $450.
    a friend in Georgia [Savahana, however it's spelled] rented an apartment a few months ago, for the very reduced "student bargain" of $745 + $35 [for her dog] a month.
    a married couple i know are living near DC, and pay more than $2,000 a month. i think a lot more, but they won't say, exactly - just that they are moving to Colorado soon, and are looking at apartments that are "only" $1100-$1200 and they say "it's less than half what we pay now! for a townhouse instead of a garden!"
    Kansas City, according to a few friends, if you don't want to hear a gunfight on a weekley basis, you need to expect $650-$700.

    i'm trying to think of rural prices - but everyone i know who lives rural is either A) older and bought the place 20+ years ago, or B) is living with family who fulfill condition A.

    our rent is slightly under $600 - but we live on campus, are 4 blocks away from one of the ghetto-y areas, are in a basement in a converted house, with REALLY bad maintenence [seriously - it took the landlord 4 MONTHS to put up the banister on the staircase from the door. thank god the stairs are inside. and the porch has NO railing, and he's been promising to put one in since AUGUST, and the gutters are so clogged that they over-flow, so i can't GET OUT of my apartment, because there is 4 INCHES of SOLID ICE covering the entire porch, which handles 3 doorways - and the sidewalk ALSO has that much ice, all overflow from the gutters]
    a "better" apartment of the SAME SIZE, in THIS area, would be at least $800. we'd have to go out a couple suburbs to find something this size for this price.


    $300/week is a *joke* if you have a family at all :(

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  5. This data is a little old (2008) but according to this website: http://www.city-data.com/city/Boise-City-Idaho.html, average rate for rent in Boise is $786.

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  6. The rumor going around Andrew Breitbart's biggovernment.com is that Morgan Warstler had sex with his sister. Can you believe that Breitbart writer Morgan Warstler had sex with his sister? What a bhenchod.

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  7. who? what? huh?


    my first question is; why are you posting this on year-old a dead thread?
    my second question is; why the FUCK would we CARE who is having sex with whom, so long as it's sex and not rape?

    buh-bye now

    ReplyDelete

Comments are for you guys, not for me. Say what you will. Don't feel compelled to stay on topic, I enjoy it when comments enter Tangentville or veer off into Non Sequitur Town. Just keep it polite, okay?

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