/rant
I hate buying unemployed cats beer and cable tv.
It bugs me that Congress is about to extend unemployment benefits again.
Look, I’m not unsympathetic to their plight, but I don’t see the benefit of spending money just to delay (and prolong) a reckoning that must be faced. Nor do I blame them for taking the money Congress offers. But enough is enough.
Cut the payments. Let them adjust their job, pay and lifestyle expectations. Maybe former middle managers will drive trucks. Or manage a McDonalds. Some will fall out the bottom and will be helped by state or city funded welfare. So be it.
The idea of paying people to sit around and do nothing for large periods of time appalls me. It just seems so wasteful, at a time when we can ill afford waste.
Have them mow the lawns of people that pay taxes. Or join the military. Or something. Don’t just just sit there and watch cable and collect my money or money freshly printed for you from the future. And don’t say “I’m trying to find work”. No you aren’t. If you were you’d have found something – maybe at reduced pay, but something. I see people doing it all the time. How about the former well paid construction worker that now cleans my office building? Or the former payroll bookkeeper I knew that now is a shift manager at McDonalds. I respect them profoundly for the steps they’ve taken to bring money in.
Is this a harsh view? No. It is a real view. You do not have a right to your previous job. You do not have a right to sit on your ass collecting other people’s money forever. I don’t care what you do, just do something.
\rant
May 23rd, 2010 at 6:39 pm
Everyone with a view thinks it’s a “real view.” Who will admit to fantasizing?
Since the rich are few and the unemployed many, and the elected Congress will not abandon the many, we will have unemployment benefits for as long as high unemployment lasts. And since the unemployed spend a greater percentage of their income than do the rich, it is stimulative for the economy to hand money to the unemployed. After all, we can still use stimulus. The only question is whether the money comes from taxing the rich or borrowing from them.
May 23rd, 2010 at 6:59 pm
the only question is when it all comes crashing down on the poor they claim to want to protect.
You might want to join the 21st century on economics, leave Freud and Marx behind.
May 23rd, 2010 at 6:59 pm
and Keynes.
May 23rd, 2010 at 8:54 pm
The economics hasn’t changed, just the politics and the interpretation of economic events. Which is why we do economics research and why the annual AEA meeting is chock-a-block with academic results of studying economics. One result is that the rich have a much better rationalizing machine than existed before the last big Depression. Supply-side economics, welfare Cadillacs, Laffer curves, Heritage and AEI, personal responsibility, etc.
May 23rd, 2010 at 9:29 pm
rationalization? Look, what I propose above is good for EVERYBODY. Rich and poor.
May 24th, 2010 at 10:37 am
I disagree, economics HAS changed. The world we live in today is fundamentally different than it was a century ago on one major factor: the people.
Harp on individuals as much as you want (because they can be rather oblivious and stupid in large groups) but we are infinitely more aware and connected than we were.
Also, post #1 implies a “steal from the rich, give to the poor” mentality common in strong government thinking. All that does is make the rich poor and the poor dependent.