Discussion about hot topics trending today

[Annoyed]

That's nice and all, but not the point. The point is, why keep voting for people who will do -exactly- what you are railing against. Take trumpcare. With very few (if any) changes it will pass and become the law of the land, you will be stuck with it,

Actually, I don't think it's going to pass in its current form. Aside from the devil being in the details, and we have to wait for them, I myself have no real problem with the Senate bill. But it's not gonna get past the the Senate vote, let alone the reconciliation process with the House bill. The current Senate bill includes several items that a number of Republicans won't vote for, such as pre-existing condition protections and the creation of new entitlements, tax credits and such. And they're not going to get help from the Democrats.

[mad_gater]

Instead of importing workers, why doesn't Microsoft or Disney train unemployed/underemployed US citizens? Oh, wait.. In Disney's case, they HAD US workers who were told to train their imported replacements.


One method is they only count people who are actively claiming unemployment, which runs out after 26 weeks or whatever. Once they drop off the unemployment rolls, they are no longer counted, regardless of whether or not they find a job. Typically, the "real" unemployment rate is twice the official number.

The govt. started this practice, along with jiggering the consumer price index, inflation rates and other statistics back in the days of President Peanut Farmer (a period of both high unemployment and high inflation) in order to both make the situation look better than it is and to allow the govt. to skip raising various benefits such social security which are tied to the inflation index, for example.

not to mention the ILLEGAL immigrants that we're talking about usually tend to take jobs that don't require much skill at all, like farm work....that's something every Tom, dick, and Harry could do with little training but those jobs are going to people here illegally

[mad_gater]

Do the unemployed citizens have the requisite skills to get the job? Being a citizen is not enough to get hired for the job, no matter what the job is. As for outsourcing jobs, that's your free market. As an individual you might be of the opinion that the US should be protectionist, you can even push that stuff through congress and the senate and make it law, but business is globalized now, weather you like it or not. Live in the past and you get left behind.

How so?


Then why make it difficult for people to get the skills to be employable? Take the miners, those "oh so important coal jobs". Mining jobs, by and large are not coming back, no matter what the government does. They could open all the coal mines in the country and all they would need is a -fraction- of the jobs that would have been created even 50 years ago, and most of them would require some form of specialized education or training. Trumps plan however strips funding and support for the FEW groups who are actively trying to retrain the low skilled miners into jobs where they have some future proofing.

except I don't think the problem is access to learning new job skills...at least in the Buffalo, NY area anyway.....in my neck of the woods there's a pretty fair number of temp agencies, the BETC (Buffalo Employment Training Commission), etc. that can help in that area....the problem, again in my area, can't speak for other areas, seems to be too many unemployed and underemployed people and not enough jobs to go around....and part of that, as Annoyed will, and probably has, told you, is the fact that NY has some of the highest tax rates in the nation, a situation that tends to lead to many business owners packing up and moving to an area that has lower tax rates, putting a bunch of people out of work in the process

[Womble]

I've got an idea. Why don't we round up every single illegal immigrant in the country, as well as any legal immigrant who is drawing public assistance of any flavor and ship them to Womble's country. And we can begin a serious effort to apprehend anyone sneaking into the country and send them over too.
Let's see how Womble feels about himself and the other taxpayers in his country picking up the tab for them.

How's that sound, Womble?

Pretty lame, if you must know. I live in a country which in the last 30 years absorbed the number of immigrants equal to 25% of its total population; that is twice the proportion of immigrants-to-natives compared to the USA. There was lots of whining from some circles, local equivalents of Annoyed/Gharkal brand of politics, about immigrants getting too much welfare and absorbtion benefits, having too many elderly dependents, driving up crime and what will you. As it happens, in the same 30 years Israel went from being an economic basket case with inflation of 450% to being in the top 20 of world's most highly developed states.

The thing about immigration, you can either waste resources fighting it, or you can learn to make it work for you.

P.S. If you bring us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, we just might take them in. But throw in the Statue of Liberty while you're at it, because what's gonna be left from your American pride?

[garhkal]

Before i get onto replying to quotes, i thought i would share this..

Wow.. Once again we are shown how incompetent our fed govt workers are.. For YEARS the IRS has known people were defrauding the govt, yet cause of some BS laws they don't work with the Dept of homeland security or INS, to get info out to those who have had their SSN stolen, that "HEY your ID is compromised"..

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...hat-illegal-i/

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...cial-security/

In this environment, is it any wonder a LOT of people feel the IRS just needs to be DISBANDED, and we go to a flat tax..

And one wonders, HOW MANY of those workers who 'failed to identify the fraud' got raises or pay bonuses??

[garhkal]

How so?g.

Many people just stop looking for work when their unemployment insurance runs out, and those then get taken OFF the rolls of 'the unemployed'. Also those Underworking (less than 20 hr/wk part timers), get counted..

It says little about the "moocher", it speaks to the rest of the community.

Hold on. SO you are saying someone who willfully mooches off a communities grace, is not having much said about him, but if that community cuts him off, it speaks about the Community??

[Annoyed]

Hold on. SO you are saying someone who willfully mooches off a communities grace, is not having much said about him, but if that community cuts him off, it speaks about the Community??

It just goes to reinforce what I've suspected for a long time. An awful lot of people just look at the US as the world's "free money" pot.

[The Flyattractor]

Of course its FREE. ITs TAX MONEY! That just magically pops out of thin air for EVERY ONE to use ....don't it!?

[Gatefan1976]

Hold on. SO you are saying someone who willfully mooches off a communities grace, is not having much said about him, but if that community cuts him off, it speaks about the Community??

Not at all. I was speaking to your specific example. The community has a choice, cut off all support for the moocher, or provide bare minimum subsistence for them. The moocher is a moocher, that is not going to change, the only thing that does change is the way the community deals with it. THAT is why it speaks to the community, not the individual.
Ya dig?

[Annoyed]

And if a community repeatedly opens its wallet to an endless series of moochers, what does that say?

"Pretty damned stupid community"

[The Flyattractor]

Sounds like the kind of COMMUNITY ORGANIZING a certain Former U.S President once had the job of ORGANIZING certain COMMUNITIES into.....

[Gatefan1976]

And if a community repeatedly opens its wallet to an endless series of moochers, what does that say?

"Pretty damned stupid community"

Well, lets look at the alternatives:
You could give them nothing, and humans being humans will find a way to survive, and the easiest way for that to happen in a community is to resort to crime. So, now you don't have a moocher, you have criminal acts being perpetrated on the rest of the community. Next, you want to punish the criminal, so you lock them up. Who is paying for that? The community. Now however you have to pay for the prison, the upkeep of the prisoners, and you have created a victim for there to be a prisoner. Instead of just supporting the moocher to a controlled degree, you will have doubled the expense on the community for the moocher, and not solved the problem in the slightest.

Don't get me wrong, the moocher is not something to be desired in a community, but it is all but inevitable in any society that there will be those who cannot, or will not take care of themselves. This is not "free handouts for all", but dealing with an inevitable problem in the cheapest way possible.

[garhkal]

Not at all. I was speaking to your specific example. The community has a choice, cut off all support for the moocher, or provide bare minimum subsistence for them. The moocher is a moocher, that is not going to change, the only thing that does change is the way the community deals with it. THAT is why it speaks to the community, not the individual.
Ya dig?

Well, like with drug users, if one continues to ENABLE them by not cutting them off, etc, then they just keep on the downward spiral. Cutting them off, forces them to choose..

Well, lets look at the alternatives:
You could give them nothing, and humans being humans will find a way to survive, and the easiest way for that to happen in a community is to resort to crime. So, now you don't have a moocher, you have criminal acts being perpetrated on the rest of the community. Next, you want to punish the criminal, so you lock them up. Who is paying for that? The community. Now however you have to pay for the prison, the upkeep of the prisoners, and you have created a victim for there to be a prisoner. Instead of just supporting the moocher to a controlled degree, you will have doubled the expense on the community for the moocher, and not solved the problem in the slightest.

Don't get me wrong, the moocher is not something to be desired in a community, but it is all but inevitable in any society that there will be those who cannot, or will not take care of themselves. This is not "free handouts for all", but dealing with an inevitable problem in the cheapest way possible.

So IYO, cause it winds up being cheeper, its easier to live with the mooching then do anything about it..

[The Flyattractor]

Why not just KICK the Moochers OUT of the Society.

[Gatefan1976]

Well, like with drug users, if one continues to ENABLE them by not cutting them off, etc, then they just keep on the downward spiral. Cutting them off, forces them to choose..

Why do you insist on moving the goalposts? Every time you add new conditions, you change the way people respond. Yes, you will force them to choose, and for the most part, they will choose to resort to criminality to get their fix. That's not just druggies either.

So IYO, cause it winds up being cheeper, its easier to live with the mooching then do anything about it..

No, you should absolutely do something about it. What I am saying is that the cost of your plan is much higher than the cost of mine. You want to employ what amounts to aversion therapy to the problem, and it does not work.