There are jobs. There is no incentive to take a $900 a week job if you can get $900 a week in unemployment benefits for 99 weeks. The longer you go without work, you lose skills. You don't need capital to start a business. If you can mow lawns and have a lawn mower, you have a business. If the govt. didn't regulate taxi cabs, all you'd need is a car and a map.
what if you don't have a lawnmower? What if you're without a car? Or you have 2 kids and no way to have them looked after while you apparently find a way to buy a car you need to become a taxi driver?
for the blacks to succeed, affirmative action needs to be done away with. the system will just self-adjust eventually and i think we are seeing this now. economic darwinism and the invisible hand is correcting despite government intervention.
Who is getting $900 a week on unemployment? Seriously. Oregon just bumped the max up to $512 per week & that's on the high end. Yes, business admins, programmers & engineers keep their skills sharp by working at McDonalds or mowing lawns. Not that McDonalds will hire anyone who has a degree(maybe as a manager, but there are even fewer of those positions), but I am not seeing how going to work in menial labor is keeping your specialized skills current... I am glad people who get a HS diploma & a bachelors or masters degree can look forward to their efforts paying off in the ability to start a law mowing business or an illegal taxi service. Also don't you at least want to set up an LLC to prevent your new entrepreneurial spirit from biting you in the ass? Setting up a business isn't for everyone & isn't exactly cheap.
What!? Everyone has a lawn mower, no one lives in apartments or in houses that don't have lawns. What? Some people don't have cars? Everyone has a car that never needs maintenance, especially when you put it into rigorous commercial service. Every mechanic shop will do work pro-bono because they know you're operating a taxi service with razor thin margins that in no way can compete with a professional service that has their own mechanic shop & can get a discount due to volume. One that is probably licensed & has the prerequisite insurance that protects their ass from being sued into the ground if by chance someone gets injured while riding around. julius, you obviously haven't heard about "picking yourself up by your bootstraps"... No wonder the American middle class is going downhill, not enough of the middle class is operating shady taxi services or mowing lawns...
It's illegal to shine shoes on a street corner in D.C. That law is over 100 years old. Figure out why that law was enacted, and who was targeted by it. Everyone can do something, even if they don't have a lawn mower. At the very least, one can go stand around at Home Depot. The point about the unemployment benefits stands. It discourages people from taking a job.
Nice try on the $900. Fail on the bad information. Out of one side of your mouth you say to keep working to keep up your "skills", out the other you say "mow lawns". Ridiculous adivce. We are in the midst of the worst employment disaster since the Great Depression. It is some sort of sick mink-fuck mythology to repeat that people could work "if they just really want to". Are there people collecting unemployment who could work? Yes. Same people (or the same sort) who were collecting unemployment when the rate was 5%. The MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of extra unemployed workers are evidence to dispell the notion that they could figure it out if it weren't for that mountain of money that rains on the unemployed each week. 99 weeks is running out, and soon you will get your wish anyway. Those that are able will move in with friends and family. Those without social support will be on the streets. Hey, and maybe a handful will get jobs.
McDonalds has a job fair in April for 50,000 jobs. Not new jobs, mind you, just the positions they normally fill due to turnover anyway, but they have the fair for a publicity stunt. They said they had 1,000,000 applications. And yet, you have the nerve to think that people out of work aren't trying hard and have no incentive. How out of touch are you?
Austin blows any assumed credibility he had by demonstrating he is clueless as to how Affirmative Action works. He correctly points out that it unfairly tips the scales so blacks are more likely to be hired than any other nationality. What he seems to be unaware of is that once in, these same often unqualified employees receive higher job protection than more qualified employees with more seniority. The more qualified workers will "have their jobs eliminated", then the exact same duties will be assigned to a "new" position which the black employee will be trained at taxpayer expense to fill. In the future, ALL government employees will be black.
Really. What safety net is that? If I am a non-disabled 55 year old, childless male, who loses a job after 10+ years, where the work was very specific to the company, who will not be rehired due to age and company specific skills and experience, what "safety net" exists after unemployment runs out? Please. Educate me.
And whose policies are to blame? Recessions happen; the recoveries are almost without exception robust. The problem is that the policies of the current administration are dampening recovery and growth and the only answer we're hearing is "more of what's failed before". Jesus. How much more evidence do we need that these policies have failed utterly and completely?
Im not saying it doesn't exist. I'm saying that it isn't the cause of the "disappearing black middle class".
They attacked the castles and killed the land barons who hoarded the wealth. They overthrew tyrannical governments by force. I see both happening in my lifetime.
The states they live in. If you have nothing, you can apply for government assistance. Or here's another crazy idea: what about a charity?
