Split from the Rush Thread: Thoughts on the Political Left

cool the kid

Carnivore wrote: As elementary school kids in Brooklyn, my brother and I were two of just a handful of white kids on our schoolbus, and we got beat up on and had knives pulled on us, and had to fight to defend ourselves just about every day. Those were the early Reagan years. I don't recall any right wing freaks going on about how that was emblematic of the Reagan era or Reagan's America then.

Prob cause u

- were an elementary age school kid, not really following political talk radio

and u

- were too busy gettin beat up

Not to cosign Rush but we are in a much different time regarding media coverage and visibility.

Plus not too long ago in American history there really were demonstrations of outright racism against people captured on major media outlets.

Dude is an idiot, but I see more PC knee-jerk monday night quarterbacking than actual response to anything worth talking about.

Never mind the fact that the more oversensitive people go the passive aggressive route of blogging about dude, rather than actually looking to engage him directly and question + discuss things with him face to face, the more power & reach you give him, as well as inevitable listeners who will look to hear what he says and investigate.

Incredibly, in this era of instant easy communication, people seem to have grown less open to constructive debate, instead seeming to congregate amongst people who think like themselves, creating a kind of cultlike mentality that stifles any free thought and resorts to meaningless back and forths involving nothing more than talking points with no hope for critical thought....

And we are left with, on the left:

'Rush is a racist! Bush was bad!'

And the right,

'Obama is a racist! Blacks are reverse racist!'

And no real progress or constructive contributions from either side, with the same self-serving smugness and satisfaction one would get from listening to one's self talk all day further insulating said groups....

God forbid any cookie cutter left leaning self-proclaimed forward thinker actually look at the fiscal state of the US Federal Govt, and see how Obama's record breaking '10 federal budget couldn't come at a worse time, and legitimately stands a chance at undermining US' standing as the world's best debtor and global reserve currency holder

Or that any right winger honestly look at any of the complete blunders made by Bush & Co during his tenure here.

A REAL AMERICAN TRAGEDY, prob the worst ever, let me tell you.

Why did I even come to this section...

boygabriel

I can send you to a couple blogs that are engaging in real debate and activism if you want.

Many of them were spurred by the crimes and excesses of the Bush years, and they've found things to engage in with Obama as well.

cool the kid

Boygabriel wrote: I can send you to a couple blogs that are engaging in real debate and activism if you want.

Many of them were spurred by the crimes and excesses of the Bush years, and they've found things to engage in with Obama as well.

I'm down to check them out

doctorj

Cool The Kid wrote:
God forbid any cookie cutter left leaning self-proclaimed forward thinker actually look at the fiscal state of the US Federal Govt, and see how Obama's record breaking '10 federal budget couldn't come at a worse time, and legitimately stands a chance at undermining US' standing as the world's best debtor and global reserve currency holder

Self-proclaimed left-leaning forward thinker here. I looked at those numbers and had a think about it (as well as reading a lot about it). Short term it looks like Obama could be underspending. Long term, your taxes are going up &/or the debt will be repaid by higher inflation and interest rates, but it wasn't Obama's administration that got us here, and it won't be new spending in his '10 budget that's responsible to any meaningful extent either. The course of the big ship America was set early in the Bush years, and there's no turning it around now.

cool the kid

doctorj wrote: [quote=Cool The Kid]
God forbid any cookie cutter left leaning self-proclaimed forward thinker actually look at the fiscal state of the US Federal Govt, and see how Obama's record breaking '10 federal budget couldn't come at a worse time, and legitimately stands a chance at undermining US' standing as the world's best debtor and global reserve currency holder

Self-proclaimed left-leaning forward thinker here. I looked at those numbers and had a think about it (as well as reading a lot about it). Short term it looks like Obama could be underspending. Long term, your taxes are going up &/or the debt will be repaid by higher inflation and interest rates, but it wasn't Obama's administration that got us here, and it won't be new spending in his '10 budget that's responsible to any meaningful extent either. The course of the big ship America was set early in the Bush years, and there's no turning it around now.

Well I am in no way absolving the abysmal performance of Bush & Co, and up till Obama I was sure Bush would be a shoe in for the worst president in the past ~100 yrs. Him + the incompetent Congress + the foolish optimism of the Fed were instrumental in the creation of the financial crisis.

But Obama sold us the dream of change, and seems to be pushing to expand on Bush's mistakes (albein with a left lean and a certain George Clooneyesque coolness 8) ). He could easily do the right thing and slash budgets, create public works jobs rather than extend unemployment benefits, reign in the Fed and save America's currency (the lifeblood of our nation & its power), etc. There are a lot of what seem to me to be obvious fixes for someone with a long term view of the country's well being.

Instead he's enabling the Fed to print our way out of the mess, effectively taxing us indefinitely for the govt's incompetence, and solving all problems by just throwing massive amounts of cash at them. It's a terrible plan + course of action, and I think the pain will come well before he is out of office, putting a black eye on what was supposed to be a historic moment in American history.

None of the adamant Obama fans I speak with know about any of this, or really much of anything the government is doing. You're rare in your knowledge.

boygabriel

Cool The Kid wrote: [quote=Boygabriel]I can send you to a couple blogs that are engaging in real debate and activism if you want.

Many of them were spurred by the crimes and excesses of the Bush years, and they've found things to engage in with Obama as well.

I'm down to check them out

Ezra Klein, of late has been heavy on his specialty: health care, but also discusses other things.

Glen Greenwald, most common topics are media criticism (left & right), national security (left & right) and a host of other issues.

Political Animal by Steve Benen: general Washington goings-on

Talking Points Memo, possibly the most preeminent professional liberal political blog out there.

Washington Note

Firedoglake: a little angrier than I'd like, however has broken major stories (US Attorney firing scandal) and is really hard on both Obama & Bush

my caveat: as with anything I'm sure you can find questionable posts on these blogs. But I cite them because over time they build comprehensive arguments, philosophies and observations, with actual research and thought.

Most of these are progressive in outlook, which is my personal political philosophy.

vidro3

in my opinion david neiwert is the go to guy when talking about eliminationist rhetoric
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/

doctorj

Cool The Kid wrote: Him + the incompetent Congress + the foolish optimism of the Fed were instrumental in the creation of the financial crisis.

Bush tax cuts, fed holding rates too low too long, financial deregulation in the name of unbridled neoclassical economic theory and the efficient markets hypothesis, were the major contributors. There's a whole spectrum around the developed world of how bad things got, from Iceland which was run as one big private hedge fund (bankrupt overnight) to Australia where banks were tightly regulated (recession? what recession?). The US and Britain were caught with their pants down.

Cool The Kid wrote:
But Obama sold us the dream of change, and seems to be pushing to expand on Bush's mistakes (albein with a left lean and a certain George Clooneyesque coolness 8) ).

He didn't sell me a dream of major economic reform (though I was hoping for better on Health). There seems to be a seachange in social and foreign policy -- I think he's working on it. The thing is, if you promise not to raise taxes broadly, and you don't change the entitlement programs, and you don't slash the military, that leaves US presidents with just a teensy-tinsy amount of money to play with. Basically, apart from going to war, US presidents don't seem to have much power in practice.

Cool The Kid wrote:
He could easily do the right thing and slash budgets, create public works jobs rather than extend unemployment benefits, reign in the Fed and save America's currency (the lifeblood of our nation & its power), etc. There are a lot of what seem to me to be obvious fixes for someone with a long term view of the country's well being.

Ok, you've got some strange ideas about what's the right thing. Recommend reading up on some Keynesian economics. Paul Krugman's column is a good place to start. Extending unemployment benefits temporarily is absolutely the right first thing during a panic/crisis and major layoffs. Public works jobs take longer to get going, but that's also being done. The Fed is not the enemy -- they're also doing the best that they can under the circumstances. Looting by the private sector is the enemy. The most important fix is re-regulating banking, and that's the one I'm worried Obama is going to fail on.

Cool The Kid wrote:
Instead he's enabling the Fed to print our way out of the mess, effectively taxing us indefinitely for the govt's incompetence, and solving all problems by just throwing massive amounts of cash at them.

That's the right thing to do in the short term. All other governments around the world agree, and in one way or another, or depending on the severity of the crisis, have done the same thing. When people panic and stop spending, and unemployment spirals out of control, and dropping interest rates to zero doesn't make a dent, and deflation is setting in, then you have no option but continue to print money until the situation stabilizes.

Cool The Kid wrote:
It's a terrible plan + course of action, and I think the pain will come well before he is out of office, putting a black eye on what was supposed to be a historic moment in American history.

It was the only plan (the alternative is mass bankruptcies, a large percentage of people out on the streets starving, like in the 30s). And it's temporary -- they can roll it back very quickly, without making a big difference to the long term bottom line. The Fed announced yesterday that the rollback had started, in fact. The real pain, looking 5-10 years out, is that long-term, the US spends too much on the military, way to much on health, that medicare and social security are unfunded promises, and that people expect Bush's tax cuts to be extended and won't broach a federal VAT/GST.

Cool The Kid wrote:
None of the adamant Obama fans I speak with know about any of this, or really much of anything the government is doing. You're rare in your knowledge.

Most people have a very fuzzy idea about what the total US budget looks like, what the role of the Fed is, and about what the role of good government is (save when times are good, spend when times are bad).

This graphic is from 2007, but it's instructive:
http://mibi.deviantart.com/art/Death-and-Taxes-2007-39894058

And I posted this before, but it is very instructive regarding where the current deficit came from:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/06/09/business/economy/20090610-leonhardt-graphic.html

boygabriel

great post doc

whynot_31

Boygabriel wrote: great post doc

indeed.

...I just hope changing course this late in the game will be enough.

cool the kid

doctorj wrote:
He didn't sell me a dream of major economic reform (though I was hoping for better on Health). There seems to be a seachange in social and foreign policy -- I think he's working on it. The thing is, if you promise not to raise taxes broadly, and you don't change the entitlement programs, and you don't slash the military, that leaves US presidents with just a teensy-tinsy amount of money to play with. Basically, apart from going to war, US presidents don't seem to have much power in practice.

Well perhaps it's time to take a long hard look at the entitlement programs. I'm 26 years old now. I won't see a dime of my SS or Medicare; it's pretty much guaranteed. And nothing's being done to fix that...

doctorj wrote:
Ok, you've got some strange ideas about what's the right thing. Recommend reading up on some Keynesian economics. Paul Krugman's column is a good place to start. Extending unemployment benefits temporarily is absolutely the right first thing during a panic/crisis and major layoffs. Public works jobs take longer to get going, but that's also being done. The Fed is not the enemy -- they're also doing the best that they can under the circumstances. Looting by the private sector is the enemy. The most important fix is re-regulating banking, and that's the one I'm worried Obama is going to fail on.

I keep hearing about Keynesian economics... I will have to read up on it.

The reason I brought up the unemployment deal isn' t so much that I have a problem with the money being spent as much as I have with it being wasted on people not looking for work, just living on the taxpayer's dime. That kind of problem is huge, I hear about and see it all the time. There has to be other oversight.

And the Fed is def incompetent... Bernanke continually demonstrates he either has no clue what's actually going on, or he does know and speaks unrealistically to keep people calm. In either case, people who know know he's full of shit, and people who don't know don't care what he has to say anyway.

We are attaining unsustainable levels of debt, period. I can't find the link now, but between apparently all our debt obligations now currently add up to 115 or so trillion dollars; the US Govt will prob only collect 2.5-3 trillion in taxes next year. That is like having a 100 thousand dollar mortgage on a home, and only making 2 thousand dollars a year to cover everything and take it off. Granted probably about 60 billion of that is in Medicare benefits, but even still, there's no way we can sustain this or scale back. Choices are debase the currency or default, and buyers of our debt know this and have been scaling back. You can see that in the somewhat failed auctions by the Treasury.

doctorj wrote:
That's the right thing to do in the short term. All other governments around the world agree, and in one way or another, or depending on the severity of the crisis, have done the same thing. When people panic and stop spending, and unemployment spirals out of control, and dropping interest rates to zero doesn't make a dent, and deflation is setting in, then you have no option but continue to print money until the situation stabilizes.

That can only work until inflation wipes us out, which is a definite possibility with the rates at which new money is being added to the system. Granted it is going more to banks and not yet in "circulation", but eventually I get the feeling there will be another big credit boom and bust that will be worse than the one we just saw.

Only saving grace would be some serious deleveraging in all sectors... that's the root of the problem.

doctorj wrote:
It was the only plan (the alternative is mass bankruptcies, a large percentage of people out on the streets starving, like in the 30s). And it's temporary -- they can roll it back very quickly, without making a big difference to the long term bottom line. The Fed announced yesterday that the rollback had started, in fact. The real pain, looking 5-10 years out, is that long-term, the US spends too much on the military, way to much on health, that medicare and social security are unfunded promises, and that people expect Bush's tax cuts to be extended and won't broach a federal VAT/GST.

The military, and even the 2 wars really don't cost that much I don't think. IIRC, this year we will spend about 10% of what we collect in taxes to pay off interest. I know SS and MC take up more than 12 what we collect, so interest and the military are pretty close.

doctorj wrote:
Most people have a very fuzzy idea about what the total US budget looks like, what the role of the Fed is, and about what the role of good government is (save when times are good, spend when times are bad).

This graphic is from 2007, but it's instructive:
http://mibi.deviantart.com/art/Death-and-Taxes-2007-39894058

And I posted this before, but it is very instructive regarding where the current deficit came from:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/06/09/business/economy/20090610-leonhardt-graphic.html

I remember both of those, lol. And yea, for the most part Americans are dumb in regards to how their country works, which is probably one of the biggest issues with our current political system. Unlike a dictatorship, democracy takes an engaged, informed and interested group of citizens to function properly.

doctorj

Cool The Kid wrote:
Well perhaps it's time to take a long hard look at the entitlement programs. I'm 26 years old now. I won't see a dime of my SS or Medicare; it's pretty much guaranteed. And nothing's being done to fix that...

I agree. One of the two good things Bush actually wanted to do, but couldn't get done (the other was immigration).

Cool The Kid wrote:
I keep hearing about Keynesian economics... I will have to read up on it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynsian_economics
It used to be old hat, because everyone thought the Great Depression could never happen again, because interest rates would never fall to zero, because in an efficient rational market there's no such thing as panic.

Cool The Kid wrote:
The reason I brought up the unemployment deal isn' t so much that I have a problem with the money being spent as much as I have with it being wasted on people not looking for work, just living on the taxpayer's dime. That kind of problem is huge, I hear about and see it all the time. There has to be other oversight.

This kind argument is made by the Neoliberal (Chicago) school of economics,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_economics
which has a rather poor reputation at the moment. If the markets are efficient, then recessions don't exist, and people become unemployed because they don't feel like working. If they don't feel like working, they don't deserve unemployment benefits. It's a very bad argument, as anyone who lost their job recently will tell you. It was even a bad argument a few years ago when economies were growing strongly. It is possible for an economy to be at the NAIRU
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAIRU
i.e. the optimal rate of employment, and be growing healthily, and have a strong social safety net. In fact, a strong safety net goes hand in hand with steady economic growth, because it acts as an automatic stabilizer on government budgets -- shrinking when things get too hot, expanding when growth slows.

Cool The Kid wrote:
And the Fed is def incompetent... Bernanke continually demonstrates he either has no clue what's actually going on, or he does know and speaks unrealistically to keep people calm. In either case, people who know know he's full of shit, and people who don't know don't care what he has to say anyway.

Well I disagree -- I think he's done a remarkably good job, under what might be called trying conditions (i.e. the threat of collapse of the entire world's financial systems). Only one clear screw-up so far, and people are still debating that. He's more honest and less cryptic than his predecessor, and fortuitously his specialization was the study of the Great Depression. Did you expect him to predict the future? No one saw this coming. Best case scenario was taking bold and timely action in response to an unfolding situation.

Cool The Kid wrote:
We are attaining unsustainable levels of debt, period. I can't find the link now, but between apparently all our debt obligations now currently add up to 115 or so trillion dollars; the US Govt will prob only collect 2.5-3 trillion in taxes next year. That is like having a 100 thousand dollar mortgage on a home, and only making 2 thousand dollars a year to cover everything and take it off. Granted probably about 60 billion of that is in Medicare benefits, but even still, there's no way we can sustain this or scale back. Choices are debase the currency or default, and buyers of our debt know this and have been scaling back. You can see that in the somewhat failed auctions by the Treasury.

Yes, long term, those debt levels are unsustainable at current rates of taxation. At some point, taxes will go up &/or inflation and interest rates will go up. However, the economy is still extremely feeble, and people (especially foreigners) are still paying high prices for US Treasury debt (where else should they put their money?) and the debt:GDP ratio (what you should be looking at, not the absolute numbers) is still manageable by historical standards (way better than e.g. Japan).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt-to-GDP_ratio
To put it another way: $2000 to pay off a $100,000 mortgage is just fine so long as the interest rate is 0.25%.

Cool The Kid wrote:
That can only work until inflation wipes us out, which is a definite possibility with the rates at which new money is being added to the system. Granted it is going more to banks and not yet in "circulation", but eventually I get the feeling there will be another big credit boom and bust that will be worse than the one we just saw.

It's possible. It's possible that the fed and govt. will be too slow turning off the stimulus, and things will overheat. We're not there yet. It could also happen that budgetary and taxation reform once the economy starts growing prove to be politically impossible (the US is barely governable) and the deficit continues to grow when the economy is growing and unemployment is falling. In which case taxation by inflation is the only way to pay down debt. But we're not there yet.

Cool The Kid wrote:
Only saving grace would be some serious deleveraging in all sectors... that's the root of the problem.

i.e. a lower debt-to-GDP ratio. Private sector has been deleveraging as fast as it can, which is part of the problem, which is why the public sector has had to take on so much debt. Best outcome is a stable steadily growing economy, where people know how much risk to expect, and where there is a rulebook that tells you how much leverage you're allowed. i.e. re-regulation.

Cool The Kid wrote:
The military, and even the 2 wars really don't cost that much I don't think. IIRC, this year we will spend about 10% of what we collect in taxes to pay off interest. I know SS and MC take up more than 12 what we collect, so interest and the military are pretty close.

Good thing it's government doing the borrowing and taxing us to pay for it, because they're the best credit risk and get the lowest interest rates on their debt of anyone in the world. There is a serious SS and MC problem long-term, partly because of the aging population and retiring baby boomers. However, all rich countries are in the same situation, and a number of them have managed to balance their budgets with even more generous social programs and worse demographics. Higher military spending, lower taxation (particularly of the very rich) and very high health care expenses due to looting are what makes this economy peculiar and unsustainable long term. This was well-known before we went to war, and before the financial catastrophe.

The wars are up around 1.6 trillion total. Not enough to fix the budget long-term, but a sizeable chunk of change nonetheless.

Cool The Kid wrote:
I remember both of those, lol. And yea, for the most part Americans are dumb in regards to how their country works, which is probably one of the biggest issues with our current political system. Unlike a dictatorship, democracy takes an engaged, informed and interested group of citizens to function properly.

But depending on how you set it up, you can make it more foolproof or less; more hamstrung or less. It gets harder of course to get anything done when you have a larger population. New Zealand (3mil) was able to completely restructure the way they do democracy a few years back, picking the best model available. Can't see the big ship America nimbly changing course like that.

Oh well, look on the bright side: at least the Fed is a high-functioning benevolent dictatorship.

cool the kid

I will respond to the rest later, but people definitely saw this coming. At least the real estate bomb. Couple that with the product of the incredible conflicts of interest in the rating agencies, and the colossal failure of the CDO type product... both inherently flawed ideals from jump street, along with the obvious fraud in the real estate sector... with all the details it would have been strange if something didn't happen.

Anyway,

Here is a thread started by a dude in July of 2007 I've been following prob for the past year and a half. Keep in mind the DJIA was at its peak when the thread came out, and dude's predictions have all been spot on... and he is just a run of the mill worker in the financial sector; not an expert economist or CEO somewhere.

http://honda-tech.com/showthread.php?t=2397005

whynot_31

Cool The Kid wrote:
The reason I brought up the unemployment deal isn' t so much that I have a problem with the money being spent as much as I have with it being wasted on people not looking for work, just living on the taxpayer's dime. That kind of problem is huge, I hear about and see it all the time. There has to be other oversight.

DrJ wrote: This kind argument is made by the Neoliberal (Chicago) school of economics,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_economics
which has a rather poor reputation at the moment. If the markets are efficient, then recessions don't exist, and people become unemployed because they don't feel like working. If they don't feel like working, they don't deserve unemployment benefits. It's a very bad argument, as anyone who lost their job recently will tell you. It was even a bad argument a few years ago when economies were growing strongly. It is possible for an economy to be at the NAIRU
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAIRU
i.e. the optimal rate of employment, and be growing healthily, and have a strong social safety net. In fact, a strong safety net goes hand in hand with steady economic growth, because it acts as an automatic stabilizer on government budgets -- shrinking when things get too hot, expanding when growth slows.

whynot chimed in:
Yes, there will always be some level of unemployment for the above reasons, but also b/c the economy is always changing. Economies that don't change end up falling behind economies that do.

...and a functioning safety net would be a wonderful thing.

Even in a thriving, growing economy some workers will become displaced as a result of advances in technology, movement of industries to other places (including other countries). None of this unemployment is inherently "bad", and without this "reserve pool of unemployed people" the economy would cease to be able to grow and adapt.

For example, people who are unemployed are often willing to learn a new skill the economy needs if it means they will soon get a paycheck. ...such folks also tend to keep wages from rising to unsustainable levels.

That said, the unemployment insurance system (a big frayed part of our country's safety net) has issues that never seem to get addressed. In addition to being tied to one's state of residence (discussed in another thread), the system:

a. Isn't means tested.
Folks get the payment (presently a maximum of $430 a week, and I think the minimum is something like $305) regardless of their resources.

Despite it not being an efficient use of resources to pay a rich person this money, they are eligible. (social security has this same problem).
However, some limit (lets say 1M in assets, just for the hell of it) could be in place. The rich people on unemployment always upset that masses, but the money saved by such a limit would be very little because the vast majority of the people on unemployment truly need it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/24/us/24unemploy.html?pagewanted=1

The argument AGAINST means testing involves the fact the everyone paid in, therefore everyone should be eligible. i.e. We should not punish people who have the discipline to save for a rainy day by making them ineligible just because they have resources.

The debate goes on....


b. Does very little to help folks get jobs.
It's no secret on this board, I'm presently on unemployment, and have been since early August. (fear not, I'm quite skilled and I expect to get an offer within the next month). Returning to the topic at hand, I have been offered the same services that all unemployed persons receive: Very Little.

Basically I've been given a list of job websites and been required to state "I'm looking and haven't found anything yet" on a weekly basis.

I've been offered the use of a Dept of Labor computer lab to job hunt and resume workshops. If I was motivated, I could learn how to drive a truck (get my CDL) for free. Tempting, but no thanks.

Suffice it to say, if I really needed help getting a job, this system would not be of much help. However, much like the former welfare system, fixing it costs money and leaving it alone costs very little. (The system would have to pay for benefits AND training...)

...and any progress in this direction seems to be stopped by policy types who feel it would be "demeaning" for folks in my demographic to have to attend workshops on a daily basis, or to force me to take a food service job just because one was available.

For folks like me, $430 a week represents much less than I could earn in the workforce. As a result, I'll be returning to the workforce soon. (we'll get to the other end of the spectrum in a the next section)

..so the system doesn't change, and there is very little oversight of what people are doing when they are on unemployment.


c. The system isn't need based. You get the same amount whether you are feeding a family or just an individual.

This creates a problem at the other end of the income (dare I say "skill"?) scale. Let's assume the person is single and receives the minimum of $300 per week, or $1200 a month.

This level of support far exceeds that of public assistance, yet (as discussed above) comes with none of the stigma or "workfare" requirements. The payment for a single person on public assistance is something like $300 a month. $900 less!

Ditto, it does not require the extensive documentation of disability (or wait period) such as SSI and SSD (which pay around $800 a month, depending on your status).

Returning to this "unskilled individual", their wage prospects are not likely much better ($10 an hour?) then the unemployment benefit, so they may decide that its is in their best interest to:

1. Remain on unemployment until their benefits almost run out (the length is now something like 70 weeks) before re-entering the workforce.

2. Supplement their benefits by working off the books.

In the instance of a family, there may be costs of going to work (such as child care) that lead a parent to remain on unemployment. The unemployment benefit may be able to be supplemented by food stamps, also causing one to remain on unemployment longer than they otherwise would.

Needless to say, many feel that this is a poor use of the state's very limited resources. In the system's defense, it attempts to address such incentives through the following:

a. People who were fired or quit their job can't get unemployment.

b. A lot of the costs of providing the benefits is passed on to the person's former employer. This prevents people from hiring you, then laying you off six months later in exchange for a kickback from you of $3k. However, when the former employer ceases to exist, the taxpayers have to pay out.

....and then there are the folks who argue that the economy does not benefit when a person who has welding skills is forced to take a job washing dishes. ...he/she should be able to have a while to obtain a job that matches their interests and skills, while not starving in the meantime.

All of which are valid, yet often conflicting interests and points of view.

A final factor is that people who are unemployed are not "hated or stigmatized" in the same way as those public assistance. While I personally feel neither group deserves to be viewed negatively, suffice it to say that the absence of negative emotions toward the employed contributes to the present system's inertia.

Which is why the system may continue to remain as confused as it is ..it just never reaches the top of either the left or the right's To Do List.

cool the kid

I in no way meant all people on unemployment were gaming the system... however there is a lot of gaming of the system that can be fixed by simple measures.

whynot_31

correct: most are not gaming the system.

incorrect: fixing it is simple. Lots of politics prevents any solution.
...plus leaving something alone is always easiest