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Jobs in America

post #1 of 32
12/14/10 at 8:43pm
Thread Starter 
I love Henry Rollins:

Quote:
If an American company has a drop of patriotic blood coursing through its system, then surely it would set up in America and employ Americans, right? Would products be “overpriced” or would they be more realistically priced? If you paid Americans a living wage, they would be able to pay for products made by Americans in America. What’s the downside of this? What are they afraid of? Prosperity? I thought Americans kick ass and work hard for a living, isn’t that what made America the powerhouse that it brags about being, bootstraps and all that? Why don’t these companies want to take advantage of all those well-fed American-born citizens? They’re the greatest, right? America is the best at everything, so then you would want Americans in your factories and other industries because they are absolutely the finest in the world. If you are an American company who has taken its business out of the country, you obviously don’t share that sentiment. Why do you hate America? If you’re an American company and don’t have your operations in America, shouldn’t you gtf out?
From his new piece in Vanity Fair, The Simple Solution to America's Unemployment Problem.

I think he kind of gets to the heart of it. This is what I believe as well.
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post #2 of 32
12/14/10 at 8:54pm
Cue the far-right: 'Well, we WOULD stay in America and employ Americans, but those damn collectivist Unions make it so hard for us to do business. It's the unions' fault!'
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post #3 of 32
12/14/10 at 9:02pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fafhrd View Post
Cue the far-right: 'Well, we WOULD stay in America and employ Americans, but those damn collectivist Unions make it so hard for us to do business. It's the unions' fault!'
You are correct. One of the greatest strategic triumphs of big business is somehow making it a crime to advocate for workers, as if higher wages somehow don't benefit a consumer-driven economy, but higher profits at the top and bonuses do.
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post #4 of 32
12/14/10 at 9:18pm
I saw the thread title and I was about to ask "Where?"
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post #5 of 32
12/15/10 at 1:37am
Quote:
Originally Posted by yt View Post
You are correct. One of the greatest strategic triumphs of big business is somehow making it a crime to advocate for workers, as if higher wages somehow don't benefit a consumer-driven economy, but higher profits at the top and bonuses do.
A big reason for this are the workers themselves. A mention or rumor of another store trying to unionize (usually break-room bullshit) and I'll hear a rattling of workers complaining of it being "communist" or "socialist" or whatever they happen to hate even though they don't really know what the words mean. Most of these workers are in the same boat as me working 32 hours or less; a sizeable number are the elderly who couldn't squeeze by under social security so they have to waste a lot of the life they have left greeting people at the door.

I work part-time at a Wal-Mart, 32 hours a week (sometimes more, sometimes a lot less). Most of its employees are the same, a small number are full-time employees. After almost three years working there, I take home around $400 every two weeks. Most of the time the store is under a "hiring freeze" where they won't hire anyone even if people quit. The one extra eight-hour-shift a week for the full-timers puts them at risk of overtime, which a notice is left for by the time clocks to inform them so they can cut the time so they won't go over 40. I believe they'll actually get in trouble for going over, but, not being full-time, I don't know for sure.

Full-timers get a week's vacation time every year, part-timers (who have to occasionally work 40 depending on the work circumstances, like the current holiday season) get a week every two years. My already horrible paycheck will whither away after New Years when one of the richest companies cuts the hell out of everyone's hours, until kicking back to (around) normal around the end of spring.
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post #6 of 32
12/15/10 at 1:52am
The whole problem with his viewpoint is you have to willfully ignore the entire history of big business in America to make the sorts of appeals he is advocating. The history of the modern corporation is the history of the privileged few screwing over the poor masses. Businesses, as institutions, are built to achieve the single goal of maximizing profit and they're usually run by truly horrible human beings.

If you want to help the American worker, get behind your local unions' political efforts and volunteer for your local campaign finance reform and single-payer health care field offices. The first step is making sure the people we have hired in a representative democracy to practice our political liberty aren't fucking corporate shills, the next step is pressuring them to get shit done.
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post #7 of 32
12/15/10 at 2:04am
He's right.
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post #8 of 32
12/15/10 at 2:31am
It comes down to self-interest and greed.

Corruption undid the Soviet Union. Greed is undoing us. If you can squeeze your employees and make bleeding cuts in your workforce and maintain the same level of productivity through fear (because the survivors aren't gonna quit - there are no jobs!), then your profit margins are fatted up. Record profits for American companies. Sitting on $1.5 trillion+ of dead capital. No investment, no capital expenditures, no hiring.

Corporatism is quite a different thing from straight-forward capitalism. Corporatism is what the Boston Tea Party was about. But ignorance has taken root at such a deep level, and it's become such a potent narcotic, that this fact means nothing. Our political system is wrecked: fine. Our political system is designed for that. It's supposed to suck, for the most part. There is no point in our history that you can point to and say "look there . . . we were all on the same page then, doing what we thought was right." Because that doesn't exist. It's a fiction.

But something has nonetheless gone terribly wrong, and I make no hesitation in thinking the root of it all is the Supreme Court. It's fucked. Bush v Gore is incomprehensible. It's been gibberish since. Something has happened there, and I don't know what, but it's not good. I think it goes beyond mere politicization. I think some of the Justices maybe have succumbed to telekinetic mind-control. Maybe Roberts is an android. I can't say. But it's fucking rotten, and anyone with half a sense can tell you that.
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post #9 of 32
12/15/10 at 2:50am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zhukov View Post
There is no point in our history that you can point to and say "look there . . . we were all on the same page then, doing what we thought was right." Because that doesn't exist. It's a fiction.
1940-45?
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post #10 of 32
12/15/10 at 2:57am
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Rain Dog View Post
1940-45?
American corporations were in business with the Axis openly until we officially went to war and then kept friendly relations with them through back channels until it was apparent they were going to lose. (William Randolph Hearst, a pillar of that era's business community, was a personal friend of Hitler's.)

Also, regardless of what The Rocketeer wants you to believe, the Mafia also did not take America's side in WWII. Luck Luciano forced the US Navy to pay him protection money in order to ensure saboteurs didn't find their way onto the docks.

And there is the he fact that the progressive community worldwide had been against the war, right-wing isolationists were also against the war, and so forth.
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post #11 of 32
12/15/10 at 3:13am
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Rain Dog View Post
1940-45?
What Cuch said. Also: internment camps, segregated regiments, Roosevelt refusing to shake Owens' hand (leaving that honor to Hitler), and ultimately leveling Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the atomic bomb because the war was over the day Russia entered the conflict.

There were significant and widespread populations throughout the United States who supported the Nazi war effort before this period, during this period, and after this period (please see recent revelations concerning the U.S. offering and secure jobs for non-critical and culpable Nazi officials). The same goes for those sympathetic to communism and Stalin. And, inescapably, the racists.

Yes, hindsight is 20/20, but knowledge is not an anesthetic. If the whole world were mad and no one knew better, maybe. But people did know better, even then. And people fought against these injustices and insanities and corruptions even then. And to suggest otherwise is a slight against their effort, and a complicit acceptance of limitless evil.

And I would include in that category of limitless evil the nuking of Pacific and Aluetian atolls in an attempt to cow our former Soviet allies with the might of our bomb, because that did more to proliferate the unimaginably complex science of atomic death than anything else.

I recognize and accept the positive qualities of the 1940-45 period, obviously. Liberation of the death camps, equality for women, the democratization (for most) of the American Dream. These are all good thing and only a pedagogue would deny that. But there is an ever-present dark-side to America's role in the world, and World War II is no exception.

Maybe, because America notionally strives for something more than the grim reality, we should get some points for effort. I'm fine with that. I can flip the vernacular and talk about 'humanity's last best hope' and quote the Declaration and all that as well. It's always going to be a grim, discouraging muck when you're talking history. We certainly agree there.

But talk of American exceptionalism, of our "God-given" role in spreading liberty and democracy, of offering excuses for authoritarian over-reach in the name of the American dream: all that's horsehit, and it always has been.

We do the best we can, I reckon, but we do less than we could when we buy into that crap.

For clarification: I'm definitely not accusing you of being complicit in that horse-shit trade, Rain Dog, not at all. But when historians start getting misty-eyed about the 'greatest generation' and all that, I just can't let it be. "You can count on America to eventually do what is right, after exhausting all other options." I can dig that. But even then, we're no angels.
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post #12 of 32
12/15/10 at 3:17am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cuchulain View Post
Businesses, as institutions, are built to achieve the single goal of maximizing profit and they're usually run by truly horrible human beings.
Sometimes the horrible human beings are short sighted stock holders, who often can't see beyond the next quarterly report and can expect an unrealistic ROI.

But a big part of the problem here is the US consumer. You want the cheapest possible price? Well, what else do you expect?
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post #13 of 32
12/15/10 at 4:05pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cuchulain View Post
Businesses, as institutions, are built to achieve the single goal of maximizing profit and they're usually run by truly horrible human beings.
I was just about to head to the clinic for the employees Christmas whipping but had to comment: wtf?

That's a lot of hyperbole in that sentence so I'll be dense and ask, with puppy dog eyes: are you talking about business beyond a certain size, just public companies, or what?

I'll check back later but I have to build up a head of rage running down old ladies and daycare kids on my way in.
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post #14 of 32
12/15/10 at 4:32pm
Funny how the one company mentioned in this thread is a big part of the problem. Wal-Mart gets the vast majority of its products from outside the USA. When Wal-Mart first opened here where I live (Sam Walton was still alive and in charge), every ad in the paper very prominately displayed the words Made in USA to show how many products were manufactured here. Today, the conservative estimate is 70-80% made outside the USA. If you look at their history you can see how many companies large and small were forced to relocate elsewhere to get cheaper labor to lower Wal-Mart's costs. Maybe the government can step in and start to tax retailers based on the percentages of domestic products they sell. You sell more domestic, you have lower taxes.
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post #15 of 32
12/15/10 at 5:53pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Napoleon14 View Post
Funny how the one company mentioned in this thread is a big part of the problem. Wal-Mart gets the vast majority of its products from outside the USA. When Wal-Mart first opened here where I live (Sam Walton was still alive and in charge), every ad in the paper very prominately displayed the words Made in USA to show how many products were manufactured here. Today, the conservative estimate is 70-80% made outside the USA. If you look at their history you can see how many companies large and small were forced to relocate elsewhere to get cheaper labor to lower Wal-Mart's costs. Maybe the government can step in and start to tax retailers based on the percentages of domestic products they sell. You sell more domestic, you have lower taxes.
Back in the day when everything from wal-mart was supposedly made in the USA, they weren't actually made in the USA. Most of the stuff was made in US territories (primarily Puerto Rico), allowing the company to skirt labor and minimum wage laws while still technically having products that were made in the USA.
So, even those good old days weren't that good.
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post #16 of 32
12/15/10 at 8:20pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zhukov View Post
What Cuch said. Also:...

...For clarification: I'm definitely not accusing you of being complicit in that horse-shit trade, Rain Dog, not at all. But when historians start getting misty-eyed about the 'greatest generation' and all that, I just can't let it be. "You can count on America to eventually do what is right, after exhausting all other options." I can dig that. But even then, we're no angels.
Oh for sure, and to be honest I put a question mark at the end of my suggestion for that exact reason. I was more offering a query - one that's been amply covered by yourself and Cuch. Which was kinda the illumination I was hoping for.
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post #17 of 32
12/15/10 at 9:37pm
The reason why the linked article in YTs post is, to be honest, utterly unfounded idealism and cynicism mixed with a hefty dose of reality-denial is two-fold.

Not only do the big corporations, big business or what you want to call it play a large role, the consumer, down to the entry-level part-time worker who just wants to save up for his new Xbox, is to blame too.

Simply put, american products cannot be cheap enough for the workers making them to buy enough of them to maintain a standard of living people are happy with. If you keep hunting the low prices, the discounts and the free stuff, you are feeding the need to reduce cost of production in order to maintain a competitive edge.

Working in retail (yeah sounds weird, but actually for the fun of it, not the money ) shows me that things like Amazon, Wal-Mart and whatnot are driving down prices to the point of outright killing any competition not able to slash costs likewise, which in turn means they hold more negotiating power when talking to the producer (since they hold a large customer base), who then slashes cost of production to offer amazon a better deal, and so on.

But people feel entitled, even compelled or expected to hunt for the best price in an ever growing movement towards the cheapest stuff, so we have more money to buy the other cheapest stuff we wanted, too! Get more for less is the mentality thats killing our own economy, not only the greed of a select few at the top.
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post #18 of 32
12/15/10 at 10:14pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Khaunshar View Post
But people feel entitled, even compelled or expected to hunt for the best price in an ever growing movement towards the cheapest stuff, so we have more money to buy the other cheapest stuff we wanted, too! Get more for less is the mentality thats killing our own economy, not only the greed of a select few at the top.
There's also an interesting related effect -- pricing certain items higher increases their desirability.

For example, when I used to make "enterprise grade" software and hardware, customers would almost be offended if we weren't charging an arm and a leg.

So, those giant screen tvs (not merely big) plus prosumer stuff (cameras, high blu-ray players, etc.) have that added snob appeal with the big sticker price.
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post #19 of 32
12/15/10 at 10:40pm
Thread Starter 
Khaunshar, with all due respect, I reject the argument that consumer demand for rock bottom prices is the engine of this. It's the old argument that hits every retail point, like why does music suck (I say corporatization, others blame dumb people) etc.

The one thing I can speak somewhat knowledgeably about in terms of pricing is clothes, and I can tell you that oftentimes high end stuff is made in the same factories in the same third world countries for the same miserable hourly wages as junk. The question these big corporations ask themselves is: do I need to make 300% profit or 3000% profit? Or 30,000% profit?

I completely reject this idea that to be profitable a company has only two choices: radically slash costs/offshore or raise prices incomprehensibly high. There is a middle ground, and frankly, I think pinning the blame on the consumer is untenable. And I think Henry Rollins wrote that piece knowing it was an impossible ideal, but that's the point. The simplest solution is also "reality denial." But it's not reality denial because of some consumer-driven discount madness, it's because the campaign big business has been waging for the past 50 years has totally paid off. It's simple, it's true, yet none dare call it unpatriotic to ship jobs overseas to increase profits at the top.

This thread is great to read though.

Elsnakeo, your post makes me so angry. It's so hard to believe that we've gone so far backwards in this country. My grandma worked her whole life as an executive in the union structure. I didn't know enough about history then to really talk to her about it when she was alive, but I wish I had. We're at a place now where people should be paying attention to situations like yours and what Walmart is getting away with in this country that gave the Walton family their untold fortunes. It's unspeakably vile.
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post #20 of 32
12/16/10 at 12:37am
Quote:
Originally Posted by sunwukong View Post
So, those giant screen tvs (not merely big) plus prosumer stuff (cameras, high blu-ray players, etc.) have that added snob appeal with the big sticker price.
Those are niche markets that can be profitable but are the minority.

Walmart makes tons of money because they sell stuff cheap, it doesn't get any simpler than that. It's not surprising they are a horrible employer for retail people. If they could get rid of the people in the store, they would do that, you don't shop at Walmart because of "the experience".
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post #21 of 32
12/16/10 at 8:05am
This story about Larry King brought this gem with Ross Perot and Al Gore watch

http://tv.yahoo.com/blog/five-fantas...terviews--1988
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post #22 of 32
12/16/10 at 9:42am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Johnny Daywalker View Post
This story about Larry King brought this gem with Ross Perot and Al Gore watch

http://tv.yahoo.com/blog/five-fantas...terviews--1988
Perot is a god. True shame he wasn't an elected official. Everything he said is correct and that's the same problems we have now, trade agreements. You know why things are so cheap from China? We don't impose high enough tariffs. In doing that we would level the playing field for American manufacturers and the American labor force. You can't blame business for trying to make a profit but you can blame the government for not penalizing them on how they do it.

Little tidbit from the Gore Perot debate.. Gore said NAFTA would "enlarge" our share of exports to Mexico with it's passage, he even said it was 70% at the time. Today?

Mexico

Exports = stuff they manufacture and sell to our country
Imports = stuff they buy from our country

Exports - partners:
US 80.5%, Canada 3.6%, Germany 1.4% (2009)
US 74%, Japan 8%, EC 4% (1992 est.)

Imports - commodities:
metalworking machines, steel mill products, agricultural machinery, electrical equipment, car parts for assembly, repair parts for motor vehicles, aircraft, and aircraft parts

Imports - partners:
US 56.7%, China 9.35%, South Korea 5.21% (2009)
 US 74%, Japan, 11%, EC 6% (1992)
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post #23 of 32
12/16/10 at 11:12am
Thread Starter 
Snaieke, I could be wrong, but weren't you one of the ones arguing with me against the notions of tariffs?

Ross Perot was absolutely right about the effects of NAFTA and other free trade agreements. Especially given that other major countries are certainly protecting their manufacturing bases.
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post #24 of 32
12/16/10 at 11:15am
Quote:
Originally Posted by yt View Post
Snaieke, I could be wrong, but weren't you one of the ones arguing with me against the notions of tariffs?

Ross Perot was absolutely right about the effects of NAFTA and other free trade agreements. Especially given that other major countries are certainly protecting their manufacturing bases.
Nope. You might be thinking of the closer.

The argument against it is protectionism. We're the fucking smoking hot prom queen that everyone wants, if we demand a corsage, limo and a hotel room for afterwards... no one could resist. Prom's going to end soon, thanks to trillion dollar deficits.
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post #25 of 32
12/16/10 at 12:19pm
The frustrating thing is that countries like China gleefully embrace protectionist practices, so we're not even playing by the same rules.
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post #26 of 32
12/16/10 at 3:09pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Snaieke View Post
Nope. You might be thinking of the closer.
Wadnt me. [/r kelly]
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post #27 of 32
12/16/10 at 7:18pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ElCapitanAmerica View Post
The frustrating thing is that countries like China gleefully embrace protectionist practices, so we're not even playing by the same rules.
Watching from this side of the border, we can say much the same thing about you guys, e.g., softwood lumber, WIPO/ACTA, etc.

You guys are exerting an enormous amount of pressure on us to conform to your models of intellectual property protection (e.g., digital locks) while asking us to also weaken safeguards on our cultural industries.

With respect to softwood lumber, you've never played by the rules of the treaties you've signed and are still trying to extract blood from the stone after the current Canadian government gave in for (supposed) peace through yet another treaty/penalty regime.

The lesson at hand: every country is actively protecting their competitive advantages with whatever leverage and/or underhanded trick they have.

China: cheap(er) labour, lax standards, cheap currency
USA: pervasive cultural industries, huge military industrial complex
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post #28 of 32
1/1/11 at 4:46pm
Corporations are certainly part of the employment problem, but I'm not convinced corporations are The problem. I think the problem is systemic and much larger than a mere shareholder self interest; bottom to top, dispersion of responsibility for social good has severly damaged western society. Structurally and psychologically, nearly every individual at every level of society has been distanced from any responsibility to the society in which we live. And that responsibility; by vote, by productivity, by tax, by charity, by contribution and so on; is fundemental to the architecture of democracy. (For the people by the people etc.)

I know this sounds more ideological than practical, but there is a certain point where an ideological breakdown is a practical breakdown. For example, it helps an older generation if their children paid well enough to support their elders past they're working years — but young people are earn less in lower skill level jobs than their parents did. Is that because of corporate greed? or government failure? or because an established generation could earn more if they held back those coming up behind them? or all of the above?

Is it really advantageous to coroporations to create a society of people who can't afford the goods and services they offer? Is practical to expect to be employed in an industrial complex based on 20th century innovation? Who is responsible for innovation — and the jobs it creates?
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post #29 of 32
1/6/11 at 2:00pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Adam Warren

Is it really advantageous to coroporations to create a society of people who can't afford the goods and services they offer? Is practical to expect to be employed in an industrial complex based on 20th century innovation? Who is responsibleView Post for innovation — and the jobs it creates?


Free market principals are based on the idea of (as someone said on twitter recently) "yay me, too bad for you," so even though a logical person, like, say, Henry Ford, would decide to pay his workers a living wage so they will buy his cars, the greedy classes of today don't think that far.  There are always financing tricks that will deliver the riches without the need for logical and sane economic practices.  Greed has been king for a while now, and no one in the mainstream challenges big business' insistence that profit-making trumps any kind of societal consideration.  More than that, our corrupt campaign finance system allows these same businesses to buy politicians who will allow them to simultaneously steal the public's money while sending all its jobs to China.  Supply side free market voodoo economic are a cancer that all but kills its host.  The same is true for innovation.  If you have the market cornered, you will take great pains to ensure it will never be made obsolete.  More gifts from the "free market."

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post #30 of 32
1/7/11 at 2:05am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cuchulain View Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by The Rain Dog View Post
1940-45?
American corporations were in business with the Axis openly until we officially went to war and then kept friendly relations with them through back channels until it was apparent they were going to lose. (William Randolph Hearst, a pillar of that era's business community, was a personal friend of Hitler's.)
 


American corporations continued doing business in Germany throughout the entire duration of the war. Indeed, they were making so much money playing both sides of the field that they lobbied Roosevelt to ensure that American and British bombers did not drop ordnance on their factories and even went so far as to commission detailed aerial maps which they handed over to the US Air Force and Bomber Command. Of course, it didn't take long before German citizens realised that the only structures in town still left standing were mysteriously American and you ended up with the farcical situation of them creeping in at night for safety.

 

As for organised labour in the US - it has been fighting a losing battle since Taft-Hartley (and arguably before). The big corporations thought the sky would fall in when they were banned from hiring gangs of thugs and mercenaries to break strikes, intimidate workers and murder people who made just a bit too much trouble for them. But the truth is it was a blessing in disguise. PR/Propaganda has been a far more effective tool at mitigating union power. Most people have simply no idea about the huge (and ever-growing) sums of money which are spent every year with the aim of dissuading people from organising. 

 

It's worked so well that the word "Union" has now become a dirty word for a substantial proportion of the working population. They speak with absolute authority on the perils of a unionised labour force with neither a trace of irony or an inkling that the very words they're using were written by some Right Wing think tank whose sole task is to deceive workers into thinking there is no other way.

 

I kind of agree with Adam when he says the problem is systemic rather than solely the fault of corporations. ATEOTD we all must share responsibility for the mess we are in. But I certainly don't believe we should share EQUAL responsibility. After all, it's one thing to live a life of ignorance. But fostering it amongst the masses is quite another. 

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post #31 of 32
2/15/11 at 9:51am
Thread Starter 

A letter from a disillusioned 99er, bolded for the tl;dr crowd.

 

From Mark's letter:

To the unemployed, sick, disabled and poor:


Hello,

 

I'm unemployed over two years now, a 99er without any benefits for three months. I followed Unemployed Friends almost from its start, never posted until now, but am grateful for my time with you all. I did as asked with calls and e-mails, etc. I've a confession to make to you all. I'm a criminal.

 

I've obeyed the 10 commandments and all laws except: I'm unemployed and that's now a crime, I'm poor and that's a crime, I'm worthless surplus population and that's a crime, I'm a main street American Citizen born and raised in the USA and that's now a crime, and I'm euthanizing myself as I write this note -- so arrest my corpse. This isn't a call for help, the deed is done, it's not what I wanted. Death is my best available option. It's not just that my bank account is $4, that I've not eaten in a week, not because hunger pangs are agonizing (I'm a wimp), not because I live in physical and mental anguish, not because the landlady is banging on the door non-stop and I face eviction, not that Congress and President have sent a strong message they no longer help the unemployed. It's because I'm a law abiding though worthless, long-term unemployed older man who is surplus population. Had I used my college education to rip people off and steal from the elderly, poor, disabled and main street Americans I would be wearing different shoes now -- a petty king. Hard work, honesty, loving kindness, charity and mercy, and becoming unemployed and destitute unable to pay your bills are all considered foolishness and high crimes in America now. Whereas stealing and lying and cheating and being greedy to excess and destroying the fabric of America is rewarded and protected -- even making such people petty king and petty queens among us.

 

Since the end of 2008, when corporate America began enjoying the resumption of growth, profits have swelled from an annualized pace of $995 billion to the current $1.66 trillion as of the end of September 2010. Over the same period, the number of non-farm jobs counted by the Labor Department has slipped from 13.4 million to 13 million -- there is no recovery for the unemployed and main street. We taxpayers have handed trillions of dollars to the same bank and insurance industry that started our economic disaster with its reckless gambling. We bailed out General Motors. We distributed tax cuts to businesses that were supposed to use this lubrication to expand and hire. For our dollars, we have been rewarded with starvation, homelessness and a plague of fear -- a testament to post-national capitalism.

 

Twelve years ago, I lost the last of my family. Ten years ago, I lost the love of my life, couldn't even visit him in the hospital because gays have no rights. I fought through and grieved and went on as best I could. Seven years ago, I was diagnosed with Diabetes and Stage 2 high blood pressure with various complications including kidney problems, mild heart failure, Diabetic Retinopathy. These conditions are debilitating and painful. I am on over eight prescribed medications, which is very difficult without insurance and income. But I struggled on and my primary caregiver was very pleased with my effort overtime with my A1C at seven. Still these physical disabilities have progressively worsened, and I have had a harder and harder time functioning in basic ways. All the while, I give thanks to God because I know there are many more worse off than me -- and I tried to help by giving money to charities and smiling at people who looked down and sharing what little I had.

 

I am college educated and worked 35 years in management, receiving written references and praise from every boss for whom I worked. Yet, after thousands of resumes, applications, e-mails, phone calls, and drop ins, I've failed to get a job even at McDonalds. I've discovered there are three strikes against me -- most 99ers will understand. Strike one -- businesses are not hiring long-term unemployed -- in fact many job ads now underline "the unemployed need not apply." Strike two -- I am almost 60 years old. Employers prefer hiring younger workers who demand less and are better pack mules. Strike three -- for every job opening I've applied, there are over 300 applicants according to each business who allow a follow up call. With the U3 unemployment holding steady at 9.6percent and U6 at 17 percent for the past 18 months, the chances of me or any 99er landing a job is less than winning the Mega Million Jackpot. On top of that, even the most conservative economists admit unemployment will not start to fall before 2012 and most predict up to seven years of this crap.

 

I believe the Congress and President have no intention of really aiding the unemployed -- due to various political reasons and their total removal from the suffering of most Americans, their cold-hearted, self-serving natures. Had they really wanted to help us, they could have used unspent stimulus monies or cut foolish costs like the failed wars or foreign aid, and farm subsidies. The unspent stimulus money alone cold have taken care of ALL unemployed persons for five years or until the unemployment rate reached 7 percent if Congress and the President really wanted to help us -- and not string us all along with a meager safety net that fails every few months. In any case, if I were to survive homelessness (would be like winning the mega-millions) and with those three strikes against me, in seven more years, I'll be near 70 with the new retirement age at 70 -- now who will hire an old homeless guy out of work for nine years with just a few years until retirement?

So, here I am. Long term unemployed, older man, with chronic health problems, now totally broke, hungry, facing eviction. My landlady should really be an advocate for the unemployed -- she bangs on my door demanding I take action. A phone call and a "please" are not enough for her -- she is angry. She is right to be angry with me, I am unemployed -- as apparently everyone is now angry with us unemployed.

 

Two hundred and eleven and social services cannot help single men. Food banks and other charities are unable to help any more folks -- they are overwhelmed with the poor in this nation. So I have the "freedom" to be homeless and destitute and "pursue happiness" in garbage cans and then die -- yay for America huh? It's the end of November and cold. A diabetic homeless older person will experience amputations in the winter months. So I will be raiding garbage cans for food, as my body literally falls apart, a foot here, a finger there. I have experienced and even worked with pain from my diseases -- hardship I can face. I just cannot muster the courage to slowly die in agony and humiliation in the gutter.

 

I have no family, I have no friends. For the past two years, I've had nobody to talk with as people who knew me react to the "unemployed" label as if it were leprosy and contagious. I am not a bad person, in fact people really like me. But everyone seems to be on a tight budget these days and living in incredible fear. It is hopeless since we all are hearing more and more that we unemployed are to blame for unemployment, that we are just lazy, that we are no good, that we are sinners, that we are druggies, yet we are the victims who suffer and are punished while the robber baron banksters and tycoons become senators, congress, presidents and petty kings. So the only option left for me is merciful self euthanasia.

 

It is with a heavy heart that I have set my death in motion, but what I am facing is not living. So off I go, I have made peace with God and placed my burden on Jesus and He forgives me. This nation has become evil to the core, with cold-hearted politicians and tycoons squeezing what little Main Street Americans have left. It is not the America into which I was born -- the land of the free and the home of the brave with kind folks who help neighbors -- it is now land of the Tycoon-haves and the rest of us have-nots who march into hopelessness and despair.

 

Every unemployed person I have met over these past two years have been saintly. Sharing what little they have, and being charitable -- being kind and patient and supportive. Isn't it amazing that we Americans who suffer so much, have not taken to the streets in violence, riots or gotten out the guillotines and marched on tycoons and Washington in revolt as would happen in most other nations? But rather we plead with deaf politicians to please help us. We don't demand huge sums -- just 300 bucks a week, barely enough to cover housing for most. Most of all we say, please help us get a job, please allow us dignity.

 

I can't help but juxtapose our plight to the tycoons and politicians. They are never satisfied with their enormous wealth, and always want more millions no matter whom it hurts. They STEAL from pension funds, banks, the people and government, and little Wall Street investors. Then rather than face punishment, they become petty kings in this world. They are disloyal to America, unpatriotic, and serve their own foreign UN-American greedy causes and demand more and more and more. I feel that this is not the nation into which I was born. I was born in America, the land of the free and the home of the brave. America, where people give as much as they receive. America, where all people work for the common good, and try to leave a better and more prosperous nation for the next generation. America, where people help their neighbors and show charity and mercy. This new America is alien to me -- it is an America of greed and corruption and avarice and mean spirited selfishness and hatred of the common good -- it is an America of savage beasts roaring and tearing at the weak, and bullying the humble and peacemakers and poor and those without means to defend themselves. I am not welcome here anymore. I don't belong here anymore. It's as if some evil beast controls government, the economy, and our lives now.

 

I must go now, my home is someplace else. Goodbye and God bless you all. God bless the unemployed and poor and elderly and disabled. God bless America and the American people except the tycoons and politicians -- may God retain the sins of tycoons and politicians and phony preachers and send them to the Devil.

 

Mark

 

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/disillusioned-99er-shares-his-disappointment-american-dream

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post #32 of 32
2/15/11 at 5:53pm

Sums it up basically.

 

How fucking horrible.

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