The Bums Lost, Lebowski! Stopping Unemployment

The Bums Lost, Lebowski! Stopping Unemployment

This news piece is a little dated, but I finally got around to finishing up all the loose ends to this, so here you go. In case you didn't hear, we extended the Bush tax cuts and decided that cutting unemployment benefits was somehow a good thing...

Washington (CNN) -- Senate Republicans promised Wednesday to block legislative action on every issue being considered by the lame-duck Congress until the dispute over extending the Bush-era tax cuts is resolved and an extension of current government funding is approved.

All 42 Senate Republicans signed a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, vowing to prevent a vote on "any legislative item until the Senate has acted to fund the government and we have prevented the tax increase that is currently awaiting all American taxpayers."

"With little time left in this congressional session, legislative scheduling should be focused on these critical priorities. While there are other items that might ultimately be worthy of the Senate's attention, we cannot agree to prioritize any matters above the critical issues of funding the government and preventing a job-killing tax hike," the letter said.

The 2001 and 2003 tax cuts enacted by former President George W. Bush will expire after December 31 if Congress fails to reach an agreement on their extension. Top Democrats and Republicans disagree sharply over whether the current tax rates should be extended just for families earning $250,000 or under per year or for everyone regardless of income.

Republicans contend that a failure to extend all of the tax cuts would hamper an already-sluggish economy. President Barack Obama and Democratic congressional leaders argue that the roughly $700 billion price tag attached to an extension of the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans would be fiscally irresponsible.

White House and congressional tax negotiators began deliberations Wednesday morning. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner characterized the initial talks as "very civil" and said that while everything was discussed, there were no surprises.

House Democrats, meanwhile, announced their intention to move forward with a vote Thursday to permanently extend the breaks only for families earning $250,000 or less.

On the spending side, a continuing resolution responsible for funding the government is scheduled to expire Friday.

Democrats are trying to pass several pieces of legislation before a more Republican Congress is sworn in in January, including the START nuclear arms treaty with Russia, a repeal of the ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military, and the so-called DREAM Act, which would create a path to citizenship for young illegal immigrants.

Reid blasted the GOP letter on the Senate floor Wednesday morning, calling it part of a "cynical" and transparent" Republican strategy to "obstruct" and "delay" legislative progress while blaming the Democrats for failing to effectively govern.

"Last month, the American people issued their verdict on the Democrat's priorities," replied Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky. "We need to show the American people that we care more about them and their ability to pay their bills than we do about the special interests' legislative Christmas-list."

Wow. Just fucking wow. But hey, I love the framing in this article:

Top Democrats and Republicans disagree sharply over whether the current tax rates should be extended just for families earning $250,000 or under per year or for everyone regardless of income.

Makes you wonder if we should give tax cuts to just the selfish few earning below 250k? Or should we be fair here, people? How about we just should have let all the tax cuts expire as they were meant to under the original legislation? If they were meant to be permanent then Bush would have made them so.

Then again, they were probably designed to be permanent but engineered to bite the ass of the democratic president that followed Bush. So good job, I guess.

It's pretty impressive stuff here. That the republicans could potentially cut off 2 million people off unemployment, then the temporary retail hires from the Christmas consumerist season all get shitcanned, then there's going to be a massive economic catastrophe happening almost simultaneously with the republican congress taking control. That's like, what, at least 2% of the individual income of the country being destroyed over a month?

My goodness. I can't even get excited about this anymore. Life is no fun when the worst things always happen, we need some variety to keep it up, know what I'm saying? You know the situation is pretty desperate when you have a guy that thinks the soviet union would have ever launched a first strike is railing about CEOs.

Then again, I think we're past desperate at this point. But hey, just look at what Michigan is up to.

LANSING, Mich. (AP) -- Michigan says it will stop taking new extended unemployment benefit applications after Saturday because Congress has failed to renew the program.

The state Department of Energy, Labor and Economic Growth says about 162,000 Michiganians exhausted their jobless benefits from January through November and about 181,500 will exhaust their unemployment benefits from this December through April 2011, barring an extension by Congress.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm wrote congressional leaders last week, asking for extension of the federal Emergency Unemployment Compensation program.

Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency Director Stephen Geskey says the state's own unemployment benefit program will continue to provide up to 26 weeks of benefits for the newly jobless.

My goodness, the tax breaks let people keep more of what they've earned, unemployment benefits lets people collect money that they haven't earned.
-Conservative

I, however, do not care about tax cuts because they ain't spending. 250k isn't even that much, I seriously mean that, why should that be the threshold? I mean, 500 sounds more reasonable. It's not like 250k income is 5 times higher than the median household income in the country or anything.

I know people who just got rejected for an entry-level job after two rounds of interviews, three rounds of testing/assessment, and two six-hour sessions of unpaid training; for failing the credit check....

The twist in all that? They were interviewing for their old job back - and at a 22% pay cut. Even more so, they asked if he could pass out some flyers to his friends, as they were hiring a lot of people this season...

Yeah, I have to say that it's been pretty entertaining watching all the news outlets finally lose every last bit of hope from 2008. The sooner we lose all hope, the sooner we can try to rebuild. It makes you really wish you would have taken that job with the CIA. You know, so you could just get paid for flying heroin all over south east Asia.

It's pretty simple folks, Tax cuts generate government revenue, tax increases decrease it. That's basic college education, right?

The thing you should really come to realize is that unemployment payments are keeping, like, 800,000 people employed. If we end a lot of those then you can kiss that off, I guess. Just go back to the tax cuts and hope that rich people hire poor people despite not needing any extra capacity because demand is plummeting as no one has any money.

In the end, it's pretty simple - This recession was basically caused by some rich people and the government, so to not extend unemployment benefits is really hideous..... um.. geez, am I turning into a libertarian? What is happening to my brain?!

Am I A Muppet?

Am I A Muppet? 

Quick question. Which Muppet lives in a trash can and has no money or no home? In a couple of months, all of them!






After last week's first presidential debate, one thing is certain. Mitt Romney simple does not care about felt people. Forget the fact that Jim Leher got shitted on in the worst way possible. As one of my good friends put it so nicely;

Romney: I like you, Jim. So I'm going to smile to your face as I tell you I'd gut PBS, and purge everything you've worked to build at NewsHour over your 40 years with the network, extinguishing all legacy you possibly lay claim to in the field of broadcast journalism. I'd kill Big Bird, too.
Leher: ..
Romney: I do not respect you as a man.
Romney: Now give me the final word.
Leher: Ok.

I mean, let's be honest, Leher was a shitty moderator and couldn't reign in these two assclowns to actually answer a single question. Not to mention, just let them walk all over him. But still, the real victim here is that the muppets that live on Sesame Street may not be on Wall Street, nor on Main Street. But if Romney wins, they'll be put out to the side of the curb.

Oh how I wish Mister Rogers was still around.


It's appalling that they even consider gutting PBS of any funding. It's very important to the future of America as well as any hope for getting children started off right in education. Romney may boast about how the private sector can take care of their own, but considering how little the amount Public Broadcast actually cost and the long lasting effect it has on the viewers who grow up with it, this issue alone could be a nail in Romney's coffin.

 

 How exactly did PBS become public enemy #1 of austerity? I mean, how is this even possible? Well, it looks like that terrorist cell decided to release a public response to being put on blast at the debate.

 ARLINGTON, VA – October 4, 2012 – We are very disappointed that PBS became a political target in the Presidential debate last night. Governor Romney does not understand the value the American people place on public broadcasting and the outstanding return on investment the system delivers to our nation. We think it is important to set the record straight and let the facts speak for themselves.

The federal investment in public broadcasting equals about one one-hundredth of one percent of the federal budget. Elimination of funding would have virtually no impact on the nation’s debt. Yet the loss to the American public would be devastating.

A national survey by the bipartisan research firms of Hart Research and American Viewpoint in 2011 found that over two-thirds of American voters (69%) oppose proposals to eliminate government funding of public broadcasting, with Americans across the political spectrum against such a cut.

As a stated supporter of education, Governor Romney should be a champion of public broadcasting, yet he is willing to wipe out services that reach the vast majority of Americans, including underserved audiences, such as children who cannot attend preschool and citizens living in rural areas.

For more than 40 years, Big Bird has embodied the public broadcasting mission – harnessing the power of media for the good of every citizen, regardless of where they live or their ability to pay. Our system serves as a universally accessible resource for education, history, science, arts and civil discourse.

Over the course of a year, 91% of all U.S. television households tune in to their local PBS station. In fact, our service is watched by 81% of all children between the ages of 2-8.

Each day, the American public receives an enduring and daily return on investment that is heard, seen, read and experienced in public media broadcasts, apps, podcasts and online – all for the cost of about $1.35 per person per year.

Earlier in 2012, a Harris Interactive poll confirmed that Americans consider PBS the most trusted public institution and the second most valuable use of public funds, behind only national defense, for the 9th consecutive year.

A key thing to remember is that public television and radio stations are locally owned and community focused and they are experts in working efficiently to make limited resources produce results. In fact, for every $1.00 of federal funding invested, they raise an additional $6.00 on their own – a highly effective public-private partnership.

Numerous studies -- including one requested by Congress earlier this year -- have stated categorically that while the federal investment in public broadcasting is relatively modest, the absence of this critical seed money would cripple the system and bring its services to an end.

I mean, I know Romney is so addicted to downsizing and dismantling corporations he buys out. But killing Big Bird? Now that's too much!

When you think about it, cutting PBS funding is one of those propositions that's so cartoonishly evil that I still have trouble comprehending that a real person is even suggesting such a thing. But then I have to remember that a big chunk of the republican base literally think that PBS is a tool for communist propaganda. So I guess it's never really about the money that is used for it. I really wish it was a communist propaganda tool.

1, ah ah ah ah! 2, ah ah ah ah! 3! 3 Bankers against the wall! Ah ah ah ah!

Sensiable Ideas On How To Fix What Can Not Be Fixed - Our Economy

Sensiable Ideas On How To Fix What Can Not Be Fixed - Our Economy

In an effort to actually do something instead of just always complaining about others NOT doing so, here it is. The politicians obviously don't know what they're doing. So perhaps it's time that we toss in a few ideas on how to get businesses growing again and get the economy back on track! If enough of us do this, then perhaps we can chug chug chug that economy along to a bigger and brighter future!

- Give tax breaks to businesses who provide on site sleeping accommodation for employees. This would save people the hassle of having to commute and encourage businesses to look after their workers better!

- Remove mandatory paid overtime, but replace it with 'bonus time' card system where employees can earn points from extra hours which increase their attractiveness to potential employers when applying for new jobs. As well as increasing productivity, this could encourage some healthy 'can do' competitive spirit in our dispirited workforce!

- Promote scientific advancement by liberalising experimentation rules and proceedures, my friend was paid for some human experimentation done on him once and he was fine AND he bought a new car! Accelerating scientific advancement and putting money back in the economy (and unlocking latent psionic powers!?), I'm suprised no government has done this already

- Encourage bankers to 'adopt' and sponsor orphaned and disadvantaged children by building a large monument which records and honours every banker who does and hold a yearly TV award show!?

- make a list of every rich person in order of richeness and visit each one in turn with a mob of armed anarchy teenagers.

- Introduce a ghost tax, legalize ghosts and tax them!

The last idea would work great in combination with the plan right before it. Essentially it would be killing the rich and then billing them for the bullets.

What we really need to do in order to turn this economy around is to fire every politician ever. And by that I mean get every politician ever and light them on fire.

Come on folks, when's the last time socialism worked at all? It's time to face the grim reality of it all. I mean, the radical perspective is kind of cute, but come on now. Cuba is around, sure, but it's entering the post-Castro era. Liberalism has won, and with it comes the spoils to the victors. Perhaps the one thing that needs to happen will save everyone;

Nationalizing Walmart

Who's Doctoring?

Who's Doctoring? 

Well, you know. I guess I couldn't leave well enough alone considering that we're here on another Saturday and there is just no Doctor Who on. I guess let's retouch the departure of the Williams. You know, now that I'm sure everyone has seen it by now.

Let's go back to Rory and Amy and how they ended... Rory died and Amy lived on after him for a good six years without her family and friends, never being able to have another child, the Doctor being unable to visit her without risking New York's safety... and really, who gives a shit about New York, anyway?

In the grand scheme of things, they had a daughter that they couldn't raise and resulted in them being unable to have any other children and were transported to a generally awful time to be, isolated from the lives and loved ones they left behind. In the grand scheme of things, the more I think about it, the more Rory and Amy's fate seems just plain awful.



Rose? Here's your mom your dad and a Blow-Up Doctor.
Martha? You're in UNIT now! Congrats!
Donna? You forgot your adventures with the Doctor, but at least you get a husband, a caring father and a winning lottery ticket.
Amy and Rory? ... Well, you've got each other.

They didn't even get to say goodbye to Brian. That's the harsh truth of the matter. Though I guess Amy and Rory both have magical cellular phones that work across space and time. So maybe they could just call Brian anytime they want and talk to him. Though, they'll have to find an adapter that will let them charge their phones in 1938....



It's also too bad that Rory left his charger in Henry the VIII's bedroom.... And that, my friends, is how you wrap everything up in a nice little bow.

When you think about it, there's a pretty extensive history with the Doctor stealing away companions and difficult things happening and leaving behind some sort of father-figure to deal with the aftermath. What I'm getting at is that there needs to be a special with The Doctor, Brian and Wilf

Cooking Under Economic Hardship Part 5

Cooking Under Economic Hardship Part 5

If you're still hungry and not in the proper mindset of really cooking for yourself under these tough times - but first, let's go on to the psychology of eating poor.

If this is your first experience being a Poor, well... welcome to you. However, you are probably going to experience some push back in your brain. Eating as a poor is a lot like going on a crash diet for the first time - If you restrict yourself too much, eventually you're going to snap and find yourself in a KFC drive through spending two weeks worth of grocery money and you won't remember how you got there.

Allow yourself a couple food luxuries, it really help keep you on budget and does a world of good for your mental health. My luxury is a real butter. $2.50 for 4 sticks vs a $1 jumbo tub of generic margarine doesn't seem like a deal, but it tastes so much better and you end up using less overall.

Second off, learn how to fucking bake. Sugar makes your brain feel good and you're going to crave it sooner rather than later. You can make a couple dozen tasty cookies for the amount of money you'd spend on a pack of Keebler's crap - even less! If you discover you enjoy baking, you can also save a ton of money on holiday gifts by spending a day in the kitchen and making some crazy brownies or whatever.

Making cooking and eating a communal thing, you probably don't have the cash to go out to eat with friends at this point, so perhaps you should invite them over, have people bring a dish or ingredient and everyone can hang out and smoke you up while you make dinner.

You can also buy a 12 packs of soda on EBT and then dump them out and take the cans back for enough to get you a 40oz of Steel Reserve. Ration the Steel Reserve so it will last a month - Problem.fuckin.solved.

But again, stick to real butter. I know plenty who survived on 2 meals of generic plain pasta and margarine a day, who would give their left nut and sold an organ for some real butter.

Remember - REAL.BUTTER!

The Presidential Debate

The Presidential Debate

Okay, was it me or did I just watch something of a satire on television in the Presidential debate last night. First off, it seemed like the whole thing was moderated with the power of stupidity. It just kept going in circles and it sure as fuck didn't seem like there was no one leading this cluster of a fuck.

It was pretty sad seeing the moderator ineffectually try to get any of these fucktards to actually answer a single question. I also can't believe that there are people who watched this and cheered at the things that were being said. It's just sad entirely.



Tax cuts.. oh hey, how can a tax cut NOT add to the deficit? Romney's statement about not cutting 5 trillion dollars in taxes, I just want to cut 4.95 trillion dollars. Look, I got five kids, man!

Mitt Romney: I say, your three cent titanium tax goes too far!

Barack Obama: And I say, your three cent titanium tax doesn't go too far enough!

Though, I should have known better. There's going to be a separate debate on foreign policy issues. That's typically the fun stuff. This is just back and forth on "Taxes ain't no good, braw". We may have made this debt, but why the fuck should we be the ones to pay for it? I mean, come on!

If there's anything I've learned, it's that to Never Pay Debts! We borrow money from China to pay for PBS... yes, that's actually something said in earnest by a potential president.

It's pretty comical that Obama was complaining about class sizes and outdated textbooks only a week after his Chi-town boy Mayor Rahm tried to crush the Chicago teachers union.

I'm also confused by how Romney jumped in favor of breaking up big banks. It's strange, but when did Romney become an anti-bank populist? The rhetoric used, even on something as mainstream as a presidential debate. You can see the wheels turning but never quite getting there. Like Obame is listing all the things that leads to the economic crisis, hmmm, it's almost like it's systematic. 

Then again, the GOP candidate is appearing more moderate in the Presidential debate compared to the GOP primaries? Well then, I never! 

It should be noted that the affordable care act was sabotaged by Republicans refusing to go along with anything Obama proposed and filibustering everything to make sure he would be a one term president even though it was the most flaccid, feeble attempt at reform imaginable.

The affordable care act was sabotaged by Republicans refusing to go along with anything Obama proposed and filibustering everything to make sure he would be a one term president even though it was the most flacid, feeble attempt at reform imaginable. Can we also agree that Clean Coal is a fucking stupid term. That's like saying we all should drink some dry water.





In the very end, at the very least they both have some nice tasteful American flag pins. Though I just noticed that Romney's is 3x the size of Obama's. I bet he had an aide with a suitcase full of them bring the one that was clearly bigger, but not "Sarah Palin big". 

Carmageddon - Not So Scary

Carmageddon - Not So Scary


The 405 can be a scary place. Well, it can be a slow place. A very, very slow place. A location that will rob you of your extra time and can feel like getting to the valley from the west side is a stretch into forever. Though it can be said that it's a needed evil. Without you would have to drive all the way around the Santa Monica mountains in either direction. That in itself would be more difficult.

Where am I going with this? Well, clearly to talk about Carmageddon. The event that closing the 405 made everyone believe that the end of Los Angeles car community would be brought about with. The doom and gloom that was spouted off for the six or seven weeks leading up to it was just comical, at best, and far above and beyond the scare that Y2K brought about.

Now that we're on the other side of it, not to be one of those to say I told you so, but you're sure as fucking right I said I told you that not a goddamn thing was going to be a problem with it. Now the Mayor came out and proclaimed the whole thing as a success...

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Sunday called ‘‘Carmageddon II,’’ the sequel to last year’s shutdown of one of the nation’s busiest freeways, a success and thanked drivers for staying off the road and keeping the weekend traffic unusually light.

Bridgework that forced the closure of Interstate 405 was completed and lanes of the freeway through the Sepulveda Pass began reopening Sunday night, hours ahead of a planned reopening for the Monday morning commute.

The connector ramps to Interstate 10 were opened first, followed by the northbound lanes and the on-ramps, police Det. Gus Villanueva said. The process will be repeated for southbound lanes.

Boy howdy, if there isn't a photo op that this douche bag hasn't taken the chance to stick his nose into. What an asshole. I sure hate him with a fucking passion. But hey, at least he's willing to admit that he was wrong... no wait, that's not what the did. He thanked folks for not being on the road. Which seems a little strange as that wasn't the message being presented to motorist for the last two months.


The stupidity of it all just repeated itself. People freaked the fuck out and decided not to go out at all. The last time this happened, even though there was an increased number of public transportation offerings, as well as free bus lines, ridership was lower than on most Sundays. Which just tells you that people stayed in and didn't go out at all. Which, in a sense, is good for people like me who are tired of crowds. But on the flip side, it's bad for consumer spending.

Though, I have to admit that as a driver it was probably the best days to drive in Los Angeles since the days when roads weren't covered in cars. In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that perhaps we should do this more often. While it may not be great for the folks who live near the freeway on a driver, it'll be a lot better for their health concerns. You see, last year when they pulled the act of closing down the freeway for the weekend, the air quality went up 83%

The reprieve lasted for only one weekend, but UCLA researchers say that last year's Carmageddon closure of the 405 Freeway rid Los Angeles of both traffic and another notorious problem: pollution.

Air quality near the closed 10-mile portion of the freeway reached levels 83% better than typical weekends, according to research released Friday by a team at UCLA's Institute of the Environment and Sustainability.

More striking, the researchers say, air quality also improved 75% in parts of West Los Angeles and Santa Monica, suggesting that whole swaths of residents stayed off the road in those areas. Overall, air quality across the region was 25% better than normal.

Wow. I have to say, I know I'm not one to take to public transportation, thus I'm part of the problem. I know I sure do need to use my bike more often. But if just closing down a highway for one weekend can get this much better air quality, there should be some sort of indicator, or at least some sort of attempt to encourage more folks to get off the road more often.

In the end, Carmageddon had no teeth. Why am I not surprised that the panic is far larger than the actual reality of things.