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Senate To Pass Latest Unemployment Stimulus Bill: Cost To Futures Generations: A Penny Or Three (NPV)
In keeping with the tradition of digging America into a debt hole so ridiculously large any conversation over whether the US will be able to ever pay this debt off is immediately moot, the Senate has just ended debate over the latest micro fiscal stimulus, specifically the legislation extending unemployment insurance benefits. It appears the latest iteration of the "you never have to work again as long as you vote for Obama" bill is about to pass. Next up: free government jobs for everyone as the census becomes a monthly affair. And when that fails, free Bernanke Bux for all who still remember how to breathe after all the daily Desperate Housewives of Liberty 33 drama. As for the cost of this latest freebie: $25, $50 billion.. who cares - at the eventual hyperinflationary discount rate, the NPV is about a penny or three. As for current funding, two Fed Assured 2 Year glitchless auctions at record low rates will take care of it.
More on the latest chapter in the development of the USSA via iMarketNews:
The Senate voted Tuesday to end the debate on legislation extending unemployment insurance benefits, setting the stage for final passage of the bill in the Senate later in the day.
The Senate voted 60 to 40 to end the debate.
The vote occurred after the new interim senator from West Virginia, Carte Goodwin, was sworn in.
If a final Senate vote on the UI benefits occurs later Thursday, the measure would go to the House for its consideration.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said he expected the House to approve the bill Wednesday.
The bill would retroactively give UI benefits to more than 2 million people who have lost them since the end of May. It extends funding through Nov. 30.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said that Republicans believe the $34 billion UI package should be offset by tapping unused funds from last year's fiscal stimulus bill.
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I use skilled trades because I know about it and have experience with the demand. Job training for other stuff would be good as long as there is demand for those jobs. No women's studies programs or furniture making! (Nothing against furniture making but you have to compete with prison slave labor. Look it up)
You're on drugs. Those jobs have been in or moving to Mexico and China for 20 years now.
My drug use non-withstanding (sharp spinning things+drugs=really stupid), are you trying to tell me that every electrician, plumber, or carpenter that comes to your house is Mexican or Chinese? Every town I have ever been in, no matter what the size as some sort of machine shop. Who do you think runs that?
Power plants, mass transit systems, Government buildings are all large employers of skilled trades people. That's not to mention all of the small manufactures(yes they exist). Steel mills, bakeries, food processing plants, large buildings, municipalities, cell towers; get my point? Your world doesn't run on its own, people are continually working in the background so you can get 3g on your IPhone and Sara Lee bread.
Personally, I am an aircraft electrician by training, industrial electrician, welder, and pipe fitter by trade. I worked for Toyota in California(NUMMI) as a skilled trade person for three years before it shut down in March. 5000 people were on the street basically overnight, line workers(high school educated), management(college), and skilled trades(trade school or military). Out of everybody, the skilled trades people have fared much better. Most of the guys and girls I worked with had a job before the unemployment benefits kicked in. Some paid a bit less, but many were comparable.
I challenge you to do a search on any job site for skilled trades and amaze at the amount of jobs that are there. My wife is a nurse, always bragging about how many jobs there are for her. She was scared when I lost my job but when I got five return calls the day after I distributed my resume, you could see the relief on her face.
HaHa, I love it! A bunch of "left-out in the cold" Republican party members complaining about the costs of UI! Don't hate the Socialistic agenda because you have absolutely no clue as to how to work it. Sure, throw the unemployed out on the street....watch what it does to your GDP, crime, real estate values, inflation, Wall Street, deflation and the over-all quality of your life.
PS- this country doesn't want full employment at this time (even though that is the solution to our problems). Age, drug tests, background checks, greedy banksters/CEOs, homelessness and credit checks reduces the capacity to hand-out jobs. Therefore, it is essential to hand-out $$$$$. Otherwise, it would be chaos.......which appears to be what most of you seem to want.
""left-out in the cold" Republican party members "
I'm a registered Libertarian. I think that we should rein in all spending - across the board. My biggest issue with todays vote? - stop calling 2 years of unemployment insurance anything but what it is - WELFARE.
"Sure, throw the unemployed out on the street....watch what it does to your GDP"
That is an interesting statement. Are you implying that the real GDP would go down when we cut off government assistance (that is paid for by selling debt)? I think that you are right, but it just is so hard for me to understand how you can be judged as more productive (measured by GDP) when you incur more debt. Is our system broken? Can you really borrow your way to prosperity?
Don't hate the Socialistic agenda because you have absolutely no clue as to how to work it.
It's not that I don't know how to sell out my neighbors for personal gain, I simply choose not to do so.
Been a member of 0H since it was on Blogger (2 years / less?) – so please don't junk me immediately.
I don't comment very often – as the comments fall into one of three categories:
1] Well informed insightful analysis that I cannot improve upon.
2] Insipid cheer leading or feckless bashing, that I care not a whit about contributing to.
3] Paid trolls meant to muddy the conversation & confuse the uninitiated.
That said, I gotta add my two cents here, as this bill passage directly impacts ME. (Something most of you folks that comment under the #2 description can certainly identify with. Me. Me. Me.)
I am:
- 45 years old. Divorced. No kids. (Therefore, luckier than most.)
- I saved & do not have any substantial debt. What little debt I have is very manageable.
- I sold my “bubble” house in early 2008 cause I saw this coming. Still took a small loss.
- I cashed out my 401k in early 2008 cause I saw this coming. Put the proceeds into portable commodities: Au, seeds, food stores, and other good stuff that I count as “savings”.
- I simplified & downsized cause I saw this coming. (Example: Sold my financed SUV in exchange for a paid for, very used compact import that gets 40 MPG. Canceled my gym membership. Quit shopping at Whole Foods. Started a veggie garden... Capiche?)
My background:
- Poor kid from a rural part of the country.
- I started working (officially) at 14 years old, when I got a work permit that allowed me to work outside the family business (which I had worked in since I could walk.)
- I excelled in school & was the 1st in my family to go to / finish college.
- I worked 2 and sometimes 3 jobs while in college to pay bills, plus took on what today seems miniscule – but at the time seemed insurmountable debt to pay for school. (Dept is still an albatross. $100 a month until the end of time...)
- My career has been characterized by overall general success. Not b/c I was smarter than anyone else – but b/c I was raised with loyalty and a determined work ethic. Never had a bad review in my life. I was always a “Top Performer”.
- I saw a lot of wealthy kids without work ethic do a lot better than me – b/c they played the “games” better. I also saw a lot of arrogant assholes get ahead by sheer brutality. I learned to take it all as it came to me. I just did a great job, and counted on my wits to get by. Sometimes it worked. Most times – wits were no match for politics and “class”. (By “class” I mean the Harvard MBA who has never washed his own dishes, but can socialize with the bosses on familiar terms. Who “connects “on a level I never could.) It was what it was. I accepted it.
- My last job, I was working 80+ hours a week – and willing to do it to keep the $90+k paycheck coming – feeding the savings. Still, I was in denial. I knew I was contributing, and I knew (I thought) it mattered, as it always had before.
In mid-2009, I got laid off. It was unceremonious. Not personal. I have been through multiple layoff rounds and usually survived (retained.) Previously, If I did get cut, I was re-employed within a few weeks to a couple months. No biggie. But this time I knew it was different (the world is different.)
It has been over a year. Not a single returned call. Not a bite. No response to email inquiries except auto-bots that say “Thank You – We will keep your resume on file.”
Next month, I am moving in with my Mother. God Bless Her.
I cannot allow my future to rest in the hands of a psycho congress. I won't have the comforts of independence that I have become accustomed to since I left home at 17 years old. But at least I won't have to pay rent either. Her yard has a sunny spot for a great vegetable garden. (Her house is paid for, thanks to me begging her to sell stocks in 2008 and pay off the last 40k of her mortgage. Best thing she ever did.)
For all you Smart People who see me as a “Them”, try to keep in mind the following:
- Over the course of my 30+ year working life, I paid a shitload of taxes – including my employers paying into Unemployment Insurance for the privilege of having me dedicate decades of lost vacation days, 24x7 access via Blackberry (once that came into play), unrelenting deadlines that I always met, regardless of how arbitrary or pointless they were.
- I am one of the “Them” who generally work just beneath “You”, making it all “So” - so you can look like a genius to your boss, and earn your fat bonus (I got a much smaller one, if at all.)
- People like me, outnumber you, 100 to 1 – easily. (Whether we are currently unemployed, or still shoveling your paper or nodding and smiling to your bullshit, correcting your mistakes, and generally covering your ass. And just so you know, we have your number and we detest your smug crap.)
You think I am sitting on my ass collecting a check at your expense?
(If you are so frigging worried about the National Debt, trying opposing the endless, pointless wars, the military/intelligence complex, the TBTF banks, and our national addiction to petroleum. Do that first.)
I think you are sitting on my head – have been sitting on my head for my entire life – while I worked my tail off to ingratiate myself to you, get noticed for my superior skills and dedication, and hope upon hope that in the end, it would all work out like my high school guidance counselor promised it would. (He bought in hook, line, and sinker, too. I do not blame him or any of the other folks that encouraged me to escape my own limited expectations.)
Not likely. Now you resent me.
The $425 a week that the state sends me every week covers my – now very downsized – expenses.
I wonder if you have had the foresight to plan ahead as well as I have? I wonder what you would do if the fat paycheck suddenly came to an abrupt end and your BMW was threatened? I wonder how much of your personal net wealth you've entrusted to the rigged markets? Are you willing to take a chance that the HFT could destroy you in a moment – without the backstop of that fat paycheck and bonus?
I wonder. I can hope. I pray for your moment in reality to come around.
I look forward to the day when you and I meet again (I have known “You” my entire life), and you are hoping beyond hope that the CONgress extends your $400 a month check another 4 months. I'd like to meet you on that equalized playing field. It'll be an interesting game.
Something tells me, I'm gonna be on top in whatever trade your proffering. Something tells me my fresh veggies, warm blankets, fresh laid eggs from the hens I raise, are going to look like a lottery win – in a time and place where your Harvard (insert Keynesian business school degree here) sheepskin is essentially worthless. Just like your superior attitude. Just like your sense of entitlement. Just like your bullshit posturing. Just like your almighty dollar.
Inflation? Deflation? Who cares. I need to buy s'more 90% at whatever the price – to ensure I can still buy 50 lb bags of rice in two years. So I can sell it to you at a 900% mark up. I'll take your two kids in exchange. They look like they can be taught the value of a day's hard labor in exchange for a warm meal. My Mom's shed has enough room to keep the rain off their precious little heads.
The 10% (5%) of the folks who currently own the so called wealth and control of this nation, are precariously close to encountering the 90-95% of those of us who have been doing the labor FOR them for our entire lives. Indentured servitude does, eventually, come to an end.
You 5% folks better call your CONgressmen to ensure those extended unemployment benefits continue to get extended - forever. You REALLY do not want to deal with us one-on-one on the street, when we're finally fed up with your texting-while-driving, your entitled sensibility, or your arrogant belief that we have somehow not “earned” our keep. We earned our keep, yours, and your snot nosed, soccer-playing, spoiled rotten brats, keep too. In fact, in terms of labor extended, in the long run – we own you. (I'll take mine in labor or .999% pure please.)
You think Obama is an idiot? Obama is trying his dead level best to avoid an all-out War – at home. You and Yours are the very first people that we, “Them”, are coming after when the social bailouts stop. We've had a bone to pick w/ You for quite awhile.
The US may look a lot like Rwanda circa 1992 before long. There are a LOT of pissed off people hanging by a thread (a thread that ends in November.) Who needs the serfs after November? Humm... I think YOU do. YOU need us pacified... otherwise... You and yours are going to have one hell of a nasty comeuppance on your spoiled rotten, over-privileged hands. Somehow, I just do not think your well-manicured cuticles are ready for our “Project Mayhem”. We – unlike you – are used to long days, hard work, no recognition, and doing the dirty work that the board never gets to hear about.
This time, it's not North vs. South. This time, it's BMW and bonuses and the Hamptons / Pawleys Island set vs. “The Thems” who are sitting on their asses, sharpening their machetes / zeroing their scopes.
Welcome to the New World Order.
+1
Amen
hey midtowng - you held your own "up there" - best wishes to your & yours.
hey midtowng - you held your own "up there" - best wishes to your & yours.
But those of us who work for a living are not allowed to hold our own. We must pay and pay for the benefit of others while our families go without.
shall I hope for you to lose your job so you too can live the unemployment paradise lifestyle?
stop whining and "hating" individuals and focus on those who are creating this state of affairs - when you blame individuals for a systemic problem, it makes you look like someone who isn't able to look beyond the scripted lies the media sell you to opine, and scapegoating whole marginalised "groups" is sloppy thinking at best.
the whole point of ZeroHedge, IMO, is to wake everyone up to the massive defraud going down - and the lies and doublespeak that are perpetrated daily. . . it doesn't help when people come here to repeat crap the media uses to manipulate "thinking". . .
Yes, I'm a whiner because I hate supporting you.
I don't want to pay for your life and that makes me bad.
Yadda, yadda, yadda.
Typical criminal mind.
ferocity points max'd.
thank you for taking the time to share some home truths Grace. . . there are a lot of misconceptions in this thread, most fed by some growly-shouty talk show hosting, most full of shit.
really a pleasure to read a post that rings true.
enjoy your gardening!
OhYa! Dude- "Them" on this site are not "Them". Them on this site live in Mom's basement. Them on this site have an "orange penis" from Cheetos and porn. Them on this site are crabs in a barrel- they'll drag you down back down. Them on this site live in fear and transmute it to hatred. They pretend that they will be affluent someday, so You must suffer today.
Thank you ! Its feed them , or fight them !!
You are a class warrior. You were happy to collect 90k checks and be in the upper class (compared to most americans). And now you resent not making good money.
I never made what you make. Yes, I still work for half what you made. I don't go to the Hamptons and no one ever spoiled me.
No one owes you a job, or 90k or anything else. You sound soft, afraid and resentful. I doubt you will start a war, but if you do you will lose.
Thanks for that moment of sanity, ITG.
We now return you to the moochers and looters....
Internet Tough Guy,
I think you might have mis-interpreted some of my post (filled with vitriolic, late night, hyperbole as it was; that's not your fault.)
My point was, that anyone who is working now is a "Them", and the TBTF billion-dollar bailout recipients, the war machine captains, the CEO's who earn 500x the paycheck of their employees + bonuses, etc., etc., are the "You's".
The MSM does a really good job of making regular working folk think they are affluent, when in fact they are just temporarily, well-lubricated cogs in the machine. The cogs are disposable. And they will be disposed of any time it is convenient to the machine operator. Then suddenly you become a "Them" (just one of a growing pile of rusting cogs, sitting on the floor taking up precious space and resources.)
My point was that we need to be aware of the fact that eventually the pile of rusting cogs is going to overcome the space alloted, and start falling all over the place rather chatoically. (Particularly if a few of those rusty cogs were inclined to think they really did matter, and get pissed off b/c they can no longer support the rhetoric they once believed by the fact of their own dislocation from the machine.)
People need to work. The human mind needs occupation and purpose - or it degenerates to madness. When this happens en masse, terrible things happen - as we have seen repeated over and over again in places like the Middle East, Africa, and former Soviet States (Bosnia.) Lack of useful employment, scapegoating, and division is at the root of every civil war ever experienced. I'm just saying...
Please understand that my more far flung statements (slavery, machetes, etc.) were not true reflections of my own belief or intent. I was - however - repeating things I have heard from others in a position similar to my own. People who have been less able to adjust to the new reality of their unemployment / their lack of purpose and lack of being necessary. People who once thought of themselves as a hard-working, tax paying contributor, who were taught to resent those free-loading, lazy, unemployed "Them's".
They now are having difficulty reconciling their new status, and that's causing a lot of mental conflicts. It's causing some violent thoughts, some violent words which lead to actions, which lead to.... chaos?
All I am saying is "be careful" how you see yourself in the "Us" vs. "Them" rhetoric. "You" can become a "Them" pretty quick. And then where will you be? We all need to take a hard look at who is actually to blame. It isn't the guy working hard every day for his $30, 40, 90, or even $150k salary. It's the Trust Fund set that never did an honest days work in their entire lives, yet earn millions annually in tax loop holed investments, run companies into the ground just as they parachute out, call the shots to our leaders from the shadows, and control monetary / fiscal policy to the detriment of the people who actually rely upon a fiat currency paycheck.
Something tells me that is NOT "You". You and I are most likely the same "Them". We're just at different mileposts on the same path.
What we have to be VERY careful of is that WE do not allow THEM to confuse us on this point, causing US to TURN on one another - which is their goal.
I am sorry I was so unclear on this in the above post. It was late. I beg forgiveness for the hyperbole.
--G.
You sound like a voice of reason, not hyperbole. Your words would be handrail for many if they knew where to look for the truth. We will lose many to suicide because they cannot see the collapse for what it is - they blame themselves...
Your comment devolves into your own category #2. How useless.
Oh and if not supporting over 120 weeks of extended welfare means I'm in the top 5% and earn well over 90K a year, I have a HELL of retroactive pay increase coming to me. I'll take cash, check, or metals.
Keep paying people not to work or they might get angry and use their sharpened machetes and scoped rifles?? Fuck you coward. Come try to pick my pocket in person. I'll even let you get close enough to meet some 3.5" magnums.
For all your insight and prudence in how you saw this coming, it boggles the mind that you can't take the next logical step. Eventually even the best of intentions won't put food on people's tables, won't put money in their bank accounts, and won't keep the TV flickering opium into their brains. Maybe at that point we can just steal from whoever you deem unworthy? Maybe slap them around a bit because of their pampered life? Show them what's what?
The looters are coming, the looters are coming. Let's quit prolonging it and get this shit-storm started proper.
Chump, et al,
Please see above clarification and apolagy for my over-dramatic verbiage.
I have no desire to pick your pocket, in person or otherwise. (That's being done by TPTB quite nicely, every time they pass a budget allocation to a Trillion-$ war, bailout a TBTF, or whatever. The Unemployment Extension is pennies on each of these millions. Tho the MSN would have you believe otherwise.)
I have no desire to "get the shit storm started", proper or otherwise. I was just pointing out that it is starting, and we each need to examine carefully where we sit and what rehetoric we internalize, as it gets underway.
--G.
in a time and place where your Harvard (insert Keynesian business school degree here) sheepskin is essentially worthless.
Economic stimulus by way of robbing me to support you IS Keynesian, you idiot.
I need to buy s'more 90% at whatever the price – to ensure I can still buy 50 lb bags of rice in two years. So I can sell it to you at a 900% mark up. I'll take your two kids in exchange.
Right -- you need to steal my earning via taxation and do-gooder handouts so that you can speculate in PMs in an effort to enslave other peoples' children. Now I see why extending your benefits is a necessary and compassionate thing to do.
hey Crock, try this variant, see if it helps. . .
your "taxation" doesn't go to benefits - none of it - all of your taxed monies goes directly to buying big-ass military equipment to fight poor people in their own country, every penny. . . the gubm'nt hears your cries, and realises that you don't like to fund in-country, so every single penny taken from you goes directly into the war machine. . .
problem solved.
The working man pays for all taxes either directly or indirectly.
Then the working man gets to go home and look at his wife's frowzy dress and his kids' worn out shoes.
Why do you hate people who work for a living?
Uh, wow, great comment. What kind of chicken operation do you run?
.
A very small one: Two dozen layers, a couple sets of breeders. Enough to keep me & mine in high-quality, home grown protein (eggs) until the end of time.
I keep the hens & pawn off the excess roosters as I can.
Anybody need a rowdy longhorn youth with a great home defense attitude, bred in? I have several available that need a good home!
:-)
** Edited for typo.
Excellent! That's a good number. ~9 eggs a day?
Wish I had room for the longhorn. Have one of these?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZzUfPcEQMg
You won't have to chop as much wood if the power/gas becomes unavailable...
Okay, I can see where this is headed. The Goverment will just make CableTV and 100USD PhonePlans a basic right of every citizen and it will be paid for in wholesale by the gov/fed/wallst just to keep the voters happy. Oh, and in case you need that cheap beer and pringles to go along with you favorite day-time show here's an UE paycheck to cover your productive needs. See you in November, and please take this guide on 'Voting for Dummies' courtesy of the Obama Fund for the Mentally Handicapped Voters.
GOP Cracker !!!
Partisan buffoon.
The feds get back about 1.6$ for every dollar of UI- the highest payback of any stimulative spending. If you give poor people money they spend all of it- and money velocity is what counts.
UI is generally a bad idea because People Are Scum and must be ruled by fear.
$34B for millions of unemployed folks (many of whom were working before the cavaliers of credit fell on their incredibly ass-like faces).
Or half the size of the supplementals run up in 09 to keep boots in the deserts of Iraq and mountains of Afghanistan (if you're gonna piss on out of control spending and 'useless idiot' job programs, start with the biggest).
Oh I see, all those 50-something guys who have applied for 30 jobs in which they were one of several hundred applicants are supposed to join the army to eat?
So you're saying that because the government steals my money to kill innocent brown people overseas it has the right and moral obligation to steal even more of my money to buy votes from a particular demographic?
Perhaps I'll make a list of all the things I'd like to spend YOUR money on, how'd you like that?
your "argument" is devolving Crock - gubm'nt doesn't "steal your money" - at best they loan you pieces of worthless FedPaperz to wave around. . . more likely you're allocated some pixels into a TBTF account that makes you feel worthy and important because you're a "contributor" to the system.
seriously, make two columns, name one "gov't spends" and the other "MY FUCKING MONEY" - put every penny you're taxed in the latter, and compare the result. . .
the taxes YOU pay are a dot on the horizon - stop pretending otherwise.
OK. The government spends a lot on complete garbage. Therefore, and due to the ratio of my tax burden / total government expenditures, I have no right to complain about government confiscation of said monies at the end of a gun. Complete logical failure. For one, it implies that as long as the government continues to spend a lot on whatever whim du jour, no one can say a damn thing about any spending, which is obviously false. Second, it implies that the validity of complaints about government expenditures is wholly contingent on the size of your tax bill. Do you want to go down that road? I thought not. And let's not overlook the fact the government funds more of its expenditures through debt issuance than tax collection.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/bny-convergex-every-1-proceeds-taxpayers-federal-government-issues-more-1-new-debt
The government is spending your kids' kids' kids' tax monies. If this seems morally repugnant that's because it is.
Two wrongs don't make a right, etc. etc. End all non-defensive wars, end all welfare, end all unemployment benefits, end all useless government expenditures. There, your point is obliterated in one fell swoop.
Now, government, stop taxing me to death and killing the economy through faulty fiscal and monetary policy. Thanks.
You are criminally insane. No point in arguing with you.
In the end, you'll get what you deserve.