Here is about the most depressing article you will read in a long time:
Throughout the Great Recession and the not-so-great recovery, the most commonly discussed measure of misery has been unemployment. But many middle-class and working-class people who are fortunate enough to have work are struggling as well, which is why Sherry Woods, a 59-year-old van driver from Atlanta, found herself standing in line at a jobs fair this month, with her résumé tucked inside a Bible.
She opened it occasionally to reread a favorite verse from Philippians: “And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ.”
Ms. Woods’s current job has not been meeting her needs. When she began driving a passenger van last year, she earned $9 an hour and worked 40 hours a week. Then her wage was cut to $8 an hour, and her hours were drastically scaled back. Last month she earned just $233. So Ms. Woods, who said that she had been threatened with eviction for missing rent payments and had been postponing an appointment with the eye doctor because she lacks insurance, has been looking for another, better job. It has not been easy.
***These are anxious days for American workers. Many, like Ms. Woods, are underemployed. Others find pay that is simply not keeping up with their expenses: adjusted for inflation, the median hourly wage was lower in 2011 than it was a decade earlier, according to data from a forthcoming book by the Economic Policy Institute, “The State of Working America, 12th Edition.” Good benefits are harder to come by, and people are staying longer in jobs that they want to leave, afraid that they will not be able to find something better. Only 2.1 million people quit their jobs in March, down from the 2.9 million people who quit in December 2007, the first month of the recession.
“Unfortunately, the wage problems brought on by the recession pile on top of a three-decade stagnation of wages for low- and middle-wage workers,” said Lawrence Mishel, the president of the Economic Policy Institute, a research group in Washington that studies the labor market. “In the aftermath of the financial crisis, there has been persistent high unemployment as households reduced debt and scaled back purchases. The consequence for wages has been substantially slower growth across the board, including white-collar and college-educated workers.”
***Things are much worse for people without college degrees, though. The real entry-level hourly wage for men who recently graduated from high school fell to $11.68 last year, from $15.64 in 1979, according to data from the Economic Policy Institute. And the percentage of those jobs that offer health insurance has plummeted to 22.8 percent, from 63.3 percent in 1979.
Though inflation has stayed relatively low in recent years, it has remained high for some of the most important things: college, health care and even, recently, food. The price of food in the home rose by 4.8 percent last year, one of the biggest jumps in the last two decades.
On the other hand, things are pretty ok for some people:
But rewards at the top are still rich — and getting richer. Now that 2011 proxy statements have been filed, the extent of executive pay last year has finally become clear. Median pay of the nation’s 200 top-paid C.E.O.’s was $14.5 million, according to a study conducted for The New York Times by Equilar, a compensation data firm based in Redwood City, Calif. The median pay raise among those C.E.O.’s was 5 percent. (The full list is available here.)
That 5 percent raise is smaller than last year’s. But it comes at a time of stubbornly high unemployment and declining wealth for many ordinary Americans. Even corporate pay experts say that this is hardly the kind of change that will quell anger over the nation’s have-a-lots by the have-lesses, particularly in an election year.
And for some people taking 80,000 dollar tax deductions on their horses, life is just outstanding.
redshirt
The entire republican ethos in a sentence (with a parenthetical aside): I got mine, go fuck yourself (except you poor shlubs who’s votes we need: Guns! Gays! God!).
Brachiator
The sad thing is that a certain percentage of the population believe that a President Romney will be able to wave his magic free market dowsing wand and rain jobs down onto a parched American landscape.
Villago Delenda Est
@Brachiator:
That would be the 27%, of course.
Keith
Oh, jeez, this can’t be good, since about 3 out of 4 posts here are pretty depressing.
trollhattan
“Sherry Woods needs to be grateful we job creators(tm)haven’t outsourced that van-driving job to Vietnam.”
Crap, my heart just isn’t in it. The blue-collar middle class is basically defunct and I can’t foresee it coming back. But the president is blah, so vote 4 Willard.
FlipYrWhig
@Brachiator: And it’s not at all clear how it’s supposed to work. I assume the idea is to cut taxes even more, which puts more money in Job Creators’ pockets, and then, voilà, jobs. But I don’t think Romney says it like that, or says anything at all, really. It’s just “I know how jobs are created, therefore, jobs will have been created on my watch.”. HOW?
Martin
The thing I think I’m most pessimistic about, and most worried about, is that this opportunity will be lost. The GOP has nominated the patron saint of the 1%. The rich are dumping hundreds of millions of campaign money on the guy, who again champions tax cuts. If there was ever a moment when the real problems of the country were perfectly represented in politics, this is it. This should be a watershed moment for the nation – a massive, overwhelming battle over what democracy means and what the US ought to look like economically, and I fear it’ll actually be a debate over which gas station makes the best hoagies.
Davis X. Machina
@FlipYrWhig: The magic of the Market, blessed be It.
The God That Sucked.
kindness
Ahh, the truth comes out. John is hatin’ on rich people because they are rich. It’s OK though because we all agree with him on this one.
We’re all Commies on this bus. (if you remember the Firesign Theater album of a similar name you get bonus points)
trollhattan
@Martin:
Demonstrating, again, we have less sense than the French.
Davis X. Machina
@kindness: Hand me those pliers, while you’re at it….
trollhattan
@kindness:
Go ahead, squeeze the wheeze. Many people like to.
RaflW
“…the percentage of those jobs that offer health insurance has plummeted to 22.8 percent, from 63.3 percent in 1979.”
I can’t wait for the Broccoli-haters to declare freedumb! for all the entry level workers. What a yolk of oppression will be lifted!
Quarks
Now, now. According to the local news that expensive horse just created a lot of jobs for FedEx since the Olympic horses all had to be shipped on a special FedEx plane to London. Why do you hate FedEx and the jobs they create?
Also, the horses are pretty. I’m less sure about the attractiveness of their owners, granted, but the horses are pretty.
BGinCHI
Every day I’m surprised not to read about poor, hopeless people doing some violence on rich people who have contributed to this country’s misery.
I don’t know whether it’s restraint or lack of energy.
Things can’t go on like this.
eric
@Martin: class warfare, blah, blah, blah, You liberals can’t win a race with real job creators, so to catch up you want the government to bring the winners back to the pack — just like every kid gets a trophy and we don’t celebrate the excellence of achievement in grade school anymore. Mittt Romney, like so many other, earned his way into the 1% but not losing the millions he inherited. You just wish you had the ability to not lose that money. Your envy is one of the seven deadly sins, but then again you anti-christians don’t believe in sin.
General Stuck
Yup, one of them dying with cancer, and the other young and pretty.
redshirt
The only thing that ever trickles down are fluids no one else wants.
RaflW
@Martin:
“This should be a watershed moment for the nation – a massive, overwhelming battle over what democracy means and what the US ought to look like economically, and I fear it’ll actually be a debate over which gas station makes the best hoagies.”
Well, that is the role of the GOP-fluffing media-infotainment complex (ie: most networks and most media conglomerates): distract, distract, distract.
trollhattan
@eric:
George Soros would like a word.
eric
@General Stuck: according to the news there may be many Americas…
rlrr
@eric:
You liberals can’t win a race with real job creators,
New rule: You can’t call them job creators unless they actually create jobs.
Patricia Kayden
It appears that the Republicans in Congress have decided that getting Obama out is worth destroying the economy. Yesterday, didn’t they vote no on a bill to create infrastructure jobs?
Why aren’t people asking the Republicans in charge of the House what they’ve done to move the economy in the right direction? They’ve done nothing.
Mobile Grumpy Code Monkey
1979 is an interesting year to compare against. Kinda sums up the whole Reagan Revolution in a nutshell, don’t it?
rlrr
@Patricia Kayden:
Don’t be silly, everyone knows government has never, in the history of ever, created a single job…
Quarks
@rlrr: To be fair, some of those job creators are creating jobs. Just not jobs in the United States. But if you’re going to be picky…
jrg
You libruls are so ignorant. If we all work hard, we can all have ponies, and car elevators, and homes in the Hamptons.
If libruls weren’t so goddamn lazy, all resources would be infinite. But alas, libruls are lazy, so there are only enough yachts and ponies for people who inherit lots of money.
BGinCHI
@eric: This is the most awesomely stupidest fucking post I’ve read in months.
Do the cliches just tumble over one another in your little mind?
Thank you, Jesus.
BGinCHI
I think a clown car just crashed into this thread.
the Conster
@eric:
Well played. You’re getting really really good at speaking wingnut.
bk
@General Stuck: I think she’s kind of homely, actually.
gex
Keep clinging to that Bible and keep voting for those Bible thumpers, then lady. If your hours get cut well then you must not be worthy enough for Prosperity Jesus to grant you a living wage.
Corner Stone
@Quarks:
Yeah, umm…about that:
FedEx bracing for slowing global economies and earnings growth; 4th-qtr results top estimates
“FedEx Corp. said Tuesday that slow global economic growth will crimp its earnings over the next 12 months. The company vowed to make significant cost cuts to counter any drop in package shipments.”
NonyNony
@BGinCHI:
Oh come on that was snark. That had to be snark. Nobody could post this:
without having their tongues firmly planted into their cheeks. Could they?
sharl
Great timing, whut-whut! All of you check your schedules and cancel any interfering plans – or at least set yer DVRs, for pete’s sake! – to make way for Rielle Hunter’s tell-all interview and book promo!
And kindness reminds me: NO DELIVERIES IN SECTOR ‘R’ AFTER CURFEW, so plan accordingly.
Bubblegum Tate
@eric:
Also, “common sense conservative policies benefit everybody, not just a chosen few!” (I seriously saw a wingnut make that argument the other day. I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!)
Michael Demmons
John Edwards’s
eric
@NonyNony: alas, no one expects the spanish inquisition
Corner Stone
And not to derail this Domestic Downer post but I just thought I would break in to say “ruh roh”.
Pakistani Court: Premier Disqualified From Office
“But some aides have suggested that the prime minister might try to hold on. If Mr. Gilani were to resist the order, it could spark institutional deadlock and social unrest, even raising the possibility of the army staging a coup as it has done three times in the country’s past.”
trollhattan
@sharl:
They never come up into the hills!
eric
@Bubblegum Tate: lol….i will put that one in the file…
also, you make fun of a handsome Romney because liberals are all so ugly.
rlrr
@Bubblegum Tate:
Hearing the latest conservative cliches, it has become clear conservatives have mastered the Orwellian concept of doublethink.
Corner Stone
@Michael Demmons: One of the most cogent posts you’ve ever made here.
FlipYrWhig
@Quarks: Uh, if it weren’t Equine Romney, it would have been some other dancing horse, which also would have been shipped this way. I don’t see how that “creates jobs” for FedEx any more than sending Tom Levenson’s book somewhere instead of mine would. Either way, the same cargo is getting sent. No? I know it was a meta-snark comment about the news, but the underlying concept seems super stupid even beyond that.
Lurking Canadian
@Martin: Since that was the basic thrust of the president’s recent speech on the economy and it was met with resounding “But it was TOO LONG” by the media, I fear you are probably right.
Litlebritdifrnt
OT – sort of Scott Brown is a chicken
http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/06/sen-brown-rejects-kennedy-debate-invitation-126653.html
Brachiator
@Villago Delenda Est:
No, this is probably a higher number, especially with the economy continuing to falter, GOP obstructionism, etc.
@FlipYrWhig:
Actually, he does. He does, after all, speak French, and so,”voilà, jobs.”
But apart from this, Mitt is selling the smoke and mirrors of his supposed great business acumen, so powerful that he could see amending the Constitution to require business experience in future great leaders.
Cris (without an H)
I’m no Biblical scholar, but I don’t interpret this as promising material wealth. Look at the line before:
I think Paul is saying something like “you don’t need to pay me, I’m happy to have Christ’s love.” Which is not something you want to say during your salary negotiations.
cathyx
when you consider how many are underemployed like the woman in the story, then those jobs numbers are even more pathetic.
Cargo
You just know that Sherry Woods, 59-year-old van driver from Atlanta will vote for Romney, as will all of her family and friends, while the .01% laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh.
catclub
@RaflW: “be a debate over which gas station makes the best hoagies.”
Obama continues to be a lucky man. Gas prices are down.
Never mind that this is due to recession in Europe. If they were up, he would be hammered night and day on it. Instead, crickets. Small blessings.
This is a case where smarter opposition would use lower gas prices to blame Obama. Smarter opposition we aint got.
I know it is stupid. I also know that EVERYBODY talks about it as if it matters.
FlipYrWhig
@Cris (without an H): Yes, totally agreed, the point as usual is that there are heavenly metaphorical riches that outweigh earthly real poverty.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@BGinCHI: Sure they can. They can get much worse than they are. The plutocrats, and the system that supports them, are in no physical danger and they know this.
When we hit Great Depression levels of unemployment and actual starvation, it might be time to throw the proles a few bones. But not before. There’s money to be made.
trollhattan
@catclub:
No kidding. Was it, what, three months ago everybody was blaming Obama for doing nothing about gas prices? Which smartypants Republican candidate was promising two-buck gas–was it Newton or Michele?
Ah, good times.
Morbo
Beyond the grave America and realm of the living America?
Jennifer
@catclub: Curiously, though…gas prices started falling the week after the president announced they were going to investigate speculation in oil. So far, they’ve fallen over 20% here, right at the time of year when they usually go up.
I don’t think the situation in Europe tells the story – at least not the whole story – of why for no reason we were paying close to $4 a gallon 10 weeks ago, and are now paying $3.05 at the beginning of the traditional “people are taking road trips so it’s time to jack up the gas prices” season.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Cargo: The “resume in a Bible” thing is the giveaway, isn’t it?
shortstop
@BGinCHI: They can go on like this…for a very long time. There will be pushback. But I’m afraid it could take another 20 or 30 years. And meanwhile, the 1% is busily turning the middle class into a huge, permanent underclass, precisely because it knows that all revolutions–economic, physical and otherwise–are powered by the middle class, not by the hopeless and resourceless poor.
rlrr
@catclub:
George W. Bush brought down gas prices dramatically by tanking the economy…
Mike E
I don’t have time to read the article since I have to go from my $10/hr part-time job to my other gig that pays $7.50 per.
kc
Just had a conversation this weekend w/a born-again Christian Republican relative, who opined that the reason unemployment is high is because people just don’t want to work. When I pointed out that unemployment is high because employers just aren’t hiring, her response was that people just don’t want to work HARD. Maybe if Americans weren’t so lazy, job creators would hire them.
BGinCHI
@shortstop: It’s barricades, then.
BGinCHI
@kc: What does she do for a living?
BGinCHI
Harry Reid to a Roll Call reporter:
“That’s a clown question, bro.”
kc
@BGinCHI:
Same thing Ann Romney does (though without the fancy horses, I grant you).
BGinCHI
@kc: She orders servants around and shops?
Glass houses, lady.
kc
@kc:
In other words, she has no freaking idea what it’s like out there, as I tried to politely tell her.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@Litlebritdifrnt:
There’s more to this story BTW, which Politico doesn’t mention (please, contain your shock).
Earlier in June there was a kerfuffle over a “debate” Brown wanted to have on Dan Rae’s talk radio program (a local gliberarian/conservative radio host). No way Warren’s people were going to let her into that lion’s den… this would be like Romney and Obama debating on Glenn Beck’s radio program.
Unfortunately, local media up here is in the tank for Scotty. His wife’s a local anchor, and the “neutral” AM News station WBZ has been displaying a bias that I have never, ever heard from them before.
It’s kind of fucked up, actually.
Good local summary here.
shortstop
@kc: And she doesn’t want to know. Her ability to blame the victims must be preserved.
fuzz
Does anyone else think that things are never going to get better though? Count me among those who have lost hope. I’ll vote for Obama but I just think at this point we’ve turned into Brazil or some other country with a massive wealth disparity for good.
khead
It’s pretty clear to me –
God hates passenger vans.
dww44
@Cargo: Sherry Woods is an African-American (there’s a picture at the linked NY Times story) and I’d be pretty much gob-smacked if she and any of her family and friends will be voting for Romney.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God:
He is still scared of two girls (or that is the way I am going to frame it anyway) :)
cathyx
@fuzz: The first thing that has to change is get the money out of politics with public financing of elections. But since that will never happen, I don’t see things getting better, in fact they will get worse. Income disparity will get worse.
the Conster
@fuzz:
I’m with you – I think we’re a dying empire with all the attendant death rattles, but I’d never not vote for Obama, unlike many of my progressive betters who want to heighten the contradictions on their way to the purity purges.
Chris
@BGinCHI:
The same reason most people don’t commit suicide when they’re depressed: if you restrain yourself, you can hope life will get better eventually, but if you don’t, if you give in to the impulse, your life is over. (Maybe not literally in the “assault a rich guy” case, but close enough).
redshirt
@fuzz: BRazil?! I’d take Brazil in a heartbeat these days. More like Russia, methinks. Oligarchs Unite!
kc
@shortstop:
It seems to be cast in stone. She’s all, “Well, they can work at McDonald’s.” Me: “MCDONALD’S isn’t hiring.”
I finally had to let it go . . . just let it go . . .
fuzz
@cathyx:
Couldn’t agree more.
Ruckus
@rlrr:
That’s Doublespeak! Double think would mean there was the possibility that even one thought could happen in a conservative melon, let alone 2 at the same time.
For proof, see, eric the idiot, above.
Chris
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Yep.
The fact is, people are capable of putting up with a tremendous amount of shit for a tremendous amount of time before finally snapping. Look at how long the Ancien Regime lasted in France before the revolution. Most people simply can’t afford to take on the 1%, especially when they know (or at least think) they’ll be alone in doing so.
rlrr
@Ruckus:
Touche!
Linda Featheringill
Yep. The working poor.
One of the real advantages of a good Marxist education is the ability to see that it might not be all your fault that you wound up in the working poor classification. You can then be tired and be poor but without the guilt and shame that some would throw at you.
The stresses of being poor plus the stresses of inhabiting an aging body plus the probably suppressed guilt and anger because you didn’t do better increase the incidence of alcohol/substance use, strokes, and heart attacks, which naturally leader to a shorter life span.
We pinko commies, on the other hand, cheerfully rail at “our betters”, using the finest cuss words in the land.
And, on the whole, we live longer.
shortstop
@Linda Featheringill: Love this comment all over.
gex
@kc: And yet, she’d probably say that you are anti-American all while she just badmouths Americans left and right.
I’ve calculated that my lazy ass right wing relatives are, apparently, the only people with a ‘work ethic’. If you go by self-reporting.
The only thing richer is to listen to them complain about all the Mexicans in the community. You know, the ones doing the field work my relatives decided they were too good to do anymore. Because apparently food just shows up on the table.
the Conster
@Linda Featheringill:
Well placed cuss words have added years to my life. I don’t know much, but I know that.
Ruckus
@Linda Featheringill:
I can’t afford the alcohol…
I’m pretty sure that I’m going to find out about that shorter life span.
Just got my rejection from 2 of the jobs applied for. Onward and downward is my motto.
Linda Featheringill
@shortstop:
[Blush.] Thank you. [Tee-hee.]
Linda Featheringill
@Ruckus:
Rejection is a bitch. Obviously, those companies are staffed with people who are very stupid.
[[hug]]
Valdivia
Not to get on a high horse but come on people. Throwing in the towel and moving somewhere else is not the solution. Staying here and fighting for the America we believe in is the only way. Also, as someone who comes from South of the Border. You think Brazil is that great for the poor? Really? Go and live there as a poor person–not a privileged American who moves there with money and talk to me about the wonders of living in the developing world. You would just be moving to be part of the upper class there, I know how fun right?
FlipYrWhig
@gex: There’s a funny logic to all of those cases, isn’t there, by which people who are doing OK start to think that since they’re no one special and they’re doing OK, it must not take anything special to be doing OK, ergo anyone who isn’t doing OK must be a particularly lazy loser. And it’s pretty much the opposite of what Christians are supposed to think, to wit, “There but for the grace of God go I.”
Scott S.
@kc: Reading stuff like that makes me want to go find a Huey Lewis CD, a raincoat, and an axe.
wesindc
I think there needs to be a national unemployed rights act created. I left my job voluntarily in late 2010 to travel and take a break for a year. Since that time I’ve been actively searching for employment but have hit so many barriers it’s ridiculous. Credit checks (employers are apparently not aware that credit checks ding your overall score in the long run)and Public Trust or Top Security clearances required for a freaking 10.00 and hour jobs that is more than likely at Radio Shack or BestBuy. Granted I live in DC so TS clearances are warranted for SOME jobs, and to boot many of them don’t sponsor the check so you have to pay out of pocket or have obtained a clearance in the recent past. I figured being in DC and working in IT getting a job after a year off would be easy. I was/am sadly mistaken.
jonas
@Villago Delenda Est: a lot more more than that — he’s running pretty much neck-and-neck with Obama.
Cris (without an H)
A couple years ago I talked to a woman who managed our local Arctic Circle burger joint (now closed). She had been trying to hire for some shifts, but wasn’t getting a lot of bites. The lady (who, for what it’s worth, has a “BAN BAUCUS” bumper sticker on her pickup) wrote it off to “high school kids don’t want to work these days.”
I think there’s something to it, but it’s more complicated than that. One, if it really is the case that teenagers — even rural teens — have their needs met well enough that they don’t need to get a lousy summer job, well isn’t that a good sign? Don’t we want to provide for our kids? I know, I know, they need to get a job to learn the value of work blah blah blah. But if that’s the case then don’t blame the kids, blame the parents for not forcing their teens to get a job.
Two, and this is more important, it’s not that people don’t want to work, it’s that they don’t want to work for what you’re willing to pay them. Superficially, some income should be better than no income. But in practice, accepting a job that doesn’t cover your expenses can be a worse proposition than remaining unemployed. Take that job at McDonald’s*, now you have less time to look for a job that really does use your skills and meet your needs.
[*] actually McDonald’s starting salary looks surprisingly close to a living wage around here. But we use “McDonald’s” metaphorically, rite
gbear
I wonder if there’s any chance that, sometime before November, it will finally sink in to the ‘average’ voter just what it means to be as filthy stinking rich as Romney, and all the over-the-top privilege that goes along with that.
I mean, up until now, people could imagine that someday, someway, they’d be rich too (only one lottery ticket away). But even in our wildest imaginations we really can’t imagine what it would be like to be part of the one percent.
It seems to me that this election is raising the curtain on just exactly what it’s like for the few that are totally fucking rolling in more money than they can ever put to use.
I think that by November, the 99% is going to have a better idea of why they don’t have any money and they’re going to be pissed.
In my dreams, the constant 27% that never budges will have been knocked down to 25% despict the fact that Obama will still be black.
Villago Delenda Est
@eric:
This is a superb parody troll post.
jonas
@kc: funny how everybody lost their work ethic in 2008 — like there was some kind of co-ordinated “hey, let’s all get lazy!” movement where everybody just walked off the job and decided to get their homes foreclosed!
Villago Delenda Est
@jonas:
Um, no.
The MSM would like you to believe this, of course, they have a horse race to cover.
If you actually look at the numbers that matter (and it’s still over four months out) Obama is curb stomping the rich sack of shit.
rlrr
@Cris (without an H):
As far as my kids are concerned going to school is their job.(they’re currently too young to work, but the oldest is only a couple of years away). If they want to work, they have to remember school comes first.
Bubblegum Tate
@rlrr:
Oh, absolutely. You know what he volunteered as an example of conservative policies that benefit everybody and not just a few? Cutting capital gains taxes. Doubleyou tee eff, over?
Cris (without an H)
omg they went galt after all
Less Popular Tim
@Michael Demmons:
Amen. At least he didn’t go with Edwards’; seems thats’ what most people do.
negative 1
@jonas: Senior bunk day writ large. Whose house did we all meet up at?
BGinCHI
@Less Popular Tim: Edwards’s and Edwards’ are both acceptable usages, but it’s always fun to see people try to out pedant one another.
redshirt
To quote Judge Smails: The world needs ditchdiggers too, Danny.
Anoniminous
@Linda Featheringill:
And us pinko-commies know the best strategy to thrive under any macro-economic condition: Co-operation.
rlrr
@redshirt:
“I’ve sentenced boys younger than you to the gas chamber. Didn’t want to do it. I felt I owed it to them.”
— Judge Smails
Smails was obviously a Republican…
Rafer Janders
@fuzz:
We wish we could be Brazil:
“The rise of Brazil’s middle class over roughly the past decade is nothing short of remarkable. Prior to Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s administration in the late 90s, Brazil’s economic history was fraught with tales of woe. From inept currency management to massive income disparities, Brazil was a black hole….
“However, as the result of successful policy from three consecutive administrations, Brazil’s middle class is thriving. According to the Brazilian government, the middle class now constitutes 54% of the population: a remarkable feat considering that just a generation ago, the majority of the populace were objectively ‘poor.’
“During former president Lula’s administration alone, Brazil was responsible for lifting ’28 million people out of extreme poverty and allowing 36 million to enter the middle class, in a country of 190.7 million.’
the Conster
@redshirt:
Sherry Woods’ ball went in the lumberyard.
Mnemosyne
@Cris (without an H):
This is part of the problem with our social welfare system — if you take that crappy job with McDonald’s, you’re quite likely to lose your Medicaid coverage but unlikely to be able to afford the insurance that they offer, so you have (theoretically) more income, but you lose things that are even more important, like health insurance.
redshirt
@the Conster: Phrases that sound dirty but aren’t for 1000, Alex.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
One of the single best things about health care reform is that it is not “job killing,” but promotes economic mobility by making it unnecessary for people to make these kinds of decisions in order to keep some minimum health coverage.
Ruckus
@Linda Featheringill:
They may be stupid but they have jobs rejecting the likes of me. Reminds me of a Jean Shepard story of the Every Other Thursday Club about a group of people at the unemployment office. One of them hated being there and unemployed so he got a job at the unemployment office.
As others have pointed out to get a job you not only have to be qualified but seemingly currently employed and have a spotless criminal and credit record. I do great on the criminal record thing but how is someone who is unemployed for any length of time supposed to have a good credit score? The only way I can see is to be filthy rich in which case one wouldn’t need to be looking for a food money job. For which I seem to be overqualified. So I have to thread the needle in finding the job I’m qualified for, that is open, that is in driving distance and that is willing to pay me. Slim pickens is what is, what it is.
It’s a rigged game, unless you’ve already won you can’t even play.
Less Popular Tim
@BGinCHI: You win, you out-pedanted me
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@kc: Problem was you didn’t take it far enough. next time you should stake out a more extreme position than her, like you thought about and the right is right. When you were on unemployment you didn’t ask for handouts from the government like these mouchers. You think the lazy bastards need to be gased. Men, woman, children, the healthy, the ill, black or white; gas all of them if they can’t get off their butts and get a job with in six months.
See how she likes conservationism when it flashes across her eyes that housewife = moucher. There was a reason Ann Romney screamed so loud.
Southern Beale
I also wrote about John Edwards today. The thing that makes me the angriest at Edwards is not that he screwed around on his wife (really, I could give a shit who you’re fucking), but that he was the ONLY national politician to bring the plight of the working poor onto the national stage, and he dropped it like a hot potato when he got tripped up by ambition and his penis.
burnspbesq
@ John Cole:
Depending on the facts, the Romneys may be legally entitled to claim those deductions. I don’t know whether they are. Neither do you. The difference between you and me is that I give a shit about the facts.
negative 1
@burnspbesq: I don’t think the argument was that they weren’t entitled to them, simply that it may make them, how shall we say, a little out of touch with the rest of us?
And yes if they are racehorses or workhorses they can take a deduction, if memory serves there is a 3 year depreciation on racehorses and 5 (or maybe 7) on workhorses. But that’s from memory, and you know what they say about free advice.
Rafer Janders
@burnspbesq:
And as long as they are legally entitled, no one has any right to complain, make fun, or note that maybe, just maybe, they’re using the cover of legal entitlement to game the system at our expense. That’s just how politics works.
kc
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I was trying to keep the family peace. :) I even endured a lecture about the Parable of the Talents without going all smart-ass.
I did suggest that maybe she should get out more, but I refrained from adding, “out of your FREAKING MCMANSION,” because then she would think I envied her mcmansion.
She really can be pretty judgmental and harsh on other people who are not as fortunate as her – well, of course, she doesn’t think luck had anything to do with it, it was all her hubby’s hard work and her making it possible by staying home with the kids.
Anyway, I’ll remember this the next time they ask me to donate money for their mission trip to Costa Rica (not making that up).
shortstop
@Rafer Janders: I suspect that will go right over his head…again.
ruemara
@Forum Transmitted Disease: Quit being douches. She’s probably a Democrat. I know people like her. It’s called being black in America and the last fucking straw you have is the hope that things will turn around and the fucking mythical creator your pastor has told you cares about you as an individual, who supposedly has known you in your mother’s womb, will stop the fear and pain you are going through. So fucking stop condemning her, because she’s a believer. One day, she may get up, look up at the sky and curse this, stone silent deity that doesn’t seem to give a rat’s ass about her or any other poor person on this planet. Or maybe she’ll go to her grave with creo console. But her beliefs don’t tell you a goddamn thing about how she votes.
Rafer Janders
@shortstop:
Oh, I don’t know, he has a good point. After all, Kerry was legally entitled to go windsurfing, which is why that was off-limits to comment in 2004.
shortstop
@Rafer Janders: Good observation. Also, McCain was legally entitled to own seven houses and not know how many there were, and thus no one was able to comment on that. And there’s no law against sighing in debates, saying you wouldn’t want the death penalty for your wife’s rapist/murderer or not being able to articulate how the economy affects you, so Gore, Dukakis and Bush I got a totally free pass on all of those.
The Thin Black Duke
@ruemara: Amen.
Bottom line, black people don’t commit suicide in the voting booth.
Not like those (koff koff) “What’s The Matter With Kansas?” white folks.
shortstop
@The Thin Black Duke: I doubt those guys knew Woods was black when they made those comments. We’re all well versed here in how white Christians love to commit voting seppuku.
Ripley
That doesn’t even mean anything!
Fuck, is there no one who will stand and up and create a program that will help these people, so they have real, actual jobs and some kind of future, instead of relying on bullshit platitudes that reference three different pronouns?
This country! Fuck!
The Thin Black Duke
@shortstop: Problem is, it’s not just “white christians”.
How many white women and/or white people from the LGBT community have you met who going to vote for Romney?
There’s more than a few of ’em.
And this is the dangerous anomaly that makes me nervous.
shortstop
@The Thin Black Duke: Totally agree, but in this case I was responding to ruemara’s comment about people of faith. It’s simply and sadly the case that most white women carrying around bibles are voting for Romney. Almost no black women carrying around bibles will be.
Corner Stone
@wesindc:
But how was the year off? Was it worth it?
TenguPhule
Therefore, eat the rich.
Or they can start paying their fair share, I’m not too picky.
TenguPhule
And Frackers can legally pollute drinking water without penalty. You fucking fail fallacies forever.
Ruckus
@TenguPhule:
And credit card companies(banks) can charge 25 or more percent interest(usury) even though it isn’t allowed in his big black book.
It must be when one of his betters says that’s how it is, he gets on board. As long as it’s legal or a bunch of old fuckers in robes and strange hats approve then look out.
Lurking Canadian
@TenguPhule: We could, I suppose, start by eating their horses first.
No need to start on them unless we’re still hungry.
Ruckus
@Lurking Canadian:
I would imagine that conservatard would taste like shit. Their policies sure do.
tech98
The Repukes have the solution: destroy Medicaid.
moderateindy
A couple of days ago I was checking out at a dollar store when the cashier when the clerk, a foreign man from some middle eastern country began talking about jobs. I have no idea what I said that got him speaking on the subject, but he told me how there were plenty of jobs out there, if you wanted to work, and that in fact he had two of them. I asked him how many hours he worked a week and he was so proud that he worked 60-65 hours a week. I just walked away but the time I got to my car it struck me how insane this guy was. Even working 60 hours a week he wasn’t making enough cash to support a family at anything but subsistence levels. In a country that has so much wealth. anyone working a 40 hour week should be entitled to make enough cash that they could support a family of four well above the poverty line. In a country where many people make more in a day than a huge part of the populace makes in a year, no one should have to work two jobs just to get by.