Of Course: Dem Bloggers play race card on unemployment

Man, pick a day to sleep in after the Holiday weekend and all sorts of stupid breaks out. Must have been too much Holiday for these idiot liberals. Because most of them are talking out of their rear-ends!

I will forewarn you; this is going to be a very long posting….

First up, we have Paul Krugman, who is once again, talking out his rear end about unemployment:

Wait: there’s more. One main reason there aren’t enough jobs right now is weak consumer demand. Helping the unemployed, by putting money in the pockets of people who badly need it, helps support consumer spending. That’s why the Congressional Budget Office rates aid to the unemployed as a highly cost-effective form of economic stimulus. And unlike, say, large infrastructure projects, aid to the unemployed creates jobs quickly — while allowing that aid to lapse, which is what is happening right now, is a recipe for even weaker job growth, not in the distant future but over the next few months.

In reality, here is the reason why passing unemployment benefits, is just wrong:

• States provide unemployment insurance (UI) benefits to involuntarily unemployed workers. UI benefits typically replace 35–40 percent of a worker’s weekly income.
• States normally provide UI benefits for up to 26 weeks. Workers in states with high unemployment rates may collect extended benefits for an additional 13 weeks for a total of 39 weeks. The federal government and the states normally split the cost of these extended benefits.
• Congress has modified the UI program so that workers in states with high unemployment now qualify for a maximum of 99 weeks of UI benefits—almost two years. Congress increased extended unemployment insurance benefits to 46 weeks and now covers the full cost of providing them. Congress also created the Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) program, which provides benefits for an additional 34 weeks in all states. Workers in states with unemployment above 6 percent qualify for an additional 13 weeks of UI benefits, and workers in states with unemployment above 8.5 percent qualify for an additional six weeks of benefits on top of that.
• Under current law, the EUC program expires on February 28, 2010, and benefits will continue to be paid until July 31. Workers who lose their jobs after February 28 will not qualify for the 53 weeks of EUC benefits. The full federal funding of the extended benefits program also expires on February 28. Congress will probably vote on continuing these programs before this happens.

Higher Unemployment

• By reducing the need to look for new work, extended UI benefits cause unemployed workers to take longer to find new work. Heritage Foundation macroeconomic modeling shows that the previous extension of UI benefits from 26 to 46 weeks increased the unemployment rate by 0.22 percentage points.[1]

Subsidizes and Extends Unemployment

• The consequences of extended unemployment benefits are some of the most conclusively established results in labor economic research. Extending either the amount or the duration of UI benefits increases the length of time that workers remain unemployed.[2] UI benefits subsidize unemployment. They reduce the need to search for new work and to make difficult choices—such as moving or switching industries—to begin a new job.
• Roughly one-third of workers receiving UI benefits find work immediately once their benefits expire. This happens both when unemployment is high and when unemployment is low.[3]
• Economic research shows that each 13 week extension of UI benefits increases the average length of time workers receiving benefits stay unemployed by approximately two weeks.[4]

Reduces Other Income

• Families respond to unemployment benefits by reducing other income. Wives’ earnings fall by between 36 and 73 cents for each dollar of UI benefits married men receive.[5]

Ineffective Stimulus

• Extended UI benefits are frequently claimed to provide significant economic stimulus. The studies that come to this conclusion ignore the effect of UI benefits in raising unemployment and incorrectly assume that unemployed households spend every dollar of UI benefits they receive. Empirical studies contradict both of these assumptions.
• Heritage Foundation macroeconomic modeling accounting for both these factors show that for each dollar spent extending UI benefits to 46 weeks, GDP expands in the first year by just $0.17. Almost any other use of resources would provide a greater short-term boost to the economy.[6]

Negligible Wage Effects

• Some analysts suggest that extended UI benefits should enable workers to find better jobs and increase their wages when they return to work.
• Other analysts suggest that workers’ skills deteriorate when they are unemployed and, by encouraging longer unemployment, extended benefits will reduce workers’ wages.
• Economic research finds neither effect—extended benefits do not increase or decrease unemployed workers wages when they find new jobs.

Well, that’s settled, right? Think again; when the liberals find themselves proven wrong about their silly liberal taking points. What do they do? Play the race card and being spouting silly conspiracy theories. Like So:

It’s the same folks who say America is a the greatest country on Earth, that its people are exceptional and destined, who talk about how special we are as a people, invariably they are the first to turn on their neighbors and say “I don’t care if there’s not any jobs out there, go paint fences and collect aluminum cans.  I’m not helping you.  Get a job you lazy bastard.”

The deficit numbers are just an excuse to heap more misery upon the unemployed.  That’s because a lot of people in Krugman’s first two categories believe everyone who is unemployed still must be lazy, or trying to scam the system, or trying to fleece them personally.  It’s a depressingly cynical worldview, and in reality that’s just covering up for fears of something far more nasty:  that everyone who’s still unemployed by this point is shall we say of a certain ethnic background.

Unreal. class warfare and race baiting; all in two paragraphs. Wow. 🙄

Not to be outdone; this liberal says it is all a big conspiracy:

Well of course that’s their goal! After all, the Democrats are the ones (nominally) in charge right now, and the ones Americans are going to blame when things don’t get better, regardless who is actually sabotaging the efforts to improve circumstances, and that can only help the Republicans in their quest to return to power . . . and make things even worse for everyone, given their complete incompetence and near-insanity of policy positions long since proven counterproductive, but then there’s a reason Mencken’s quote wasn’t about overestimating the intelligence of the American public.

And really, who can blame the Republicans for these kinds of tactics? They aren’t going to be punished for making things worse. Their own partisans will swallow whatever cockamamie excuse they come up with and cast the blame on Obama and the Dems, and the partisans on the left will, if recent history is any guide, decide that the failure is due to the fact that Obama never really wanted the legislation passed and is just using the Republicans and Blue Dogs as an excuse to cover for its failure, and then cast the blame on Obama and the Dems. Under such circumstances, one can hardly blame the Republicans for acting the way they do.

Get that man a tin foil hat, Stat! 🙄

Now do you see why I will never vote Democrat again, ever?

The truth of the matter is; we are in this situation because of the social engineering of the Carter and Clinton Administrations; who thought it would be cool to give people houses that they could not afford. Now that the Economy is in the toilet, because of the stupidity of the Democrats; the very people, of whom leaders caused this entire mess — is now trying to blame the Party that wants to help America get out of said mess.  It is classic progressive spin, by the very people who voted the people in, who destroyed the economy in the first place.

What really steams me is the fact that the Democrats are not trying to use the old, “Republicans hate black people” line to explain why Republicans are not to keen of passing unemployment benefits. First off, not everyone who collects unemployment is black, further more, if you had the choice between looking for a job and sitting on your butt collecting unemployment; which would you do? I think we both know the answer to that. I mean, I realize that there are cases where people cannot find a job and I totally understand that. But the good majority of the time, most people would rather collect a free check, than actually get out and work.

What you are seeing here is a classic case of the establishment left now shifting gears and the grassroots left trying desperately to distract the common folks into believing a lie. You see, the same establishment left was singing the hosannas of President Barack Obama are now stuck, having to explain why the “promised one” has turned out to be a normal human being and has not been able to change a thing. This now puts this grassroots; which includes the lefty Bloggers into spin mode as well. What they are doing is trying to shift the blame onto the Political opposition for the failures of the Obama Administration. It is classical political spin, with a 21 century twist. It works to a point. The politically uninformed will buy it. But thinking people will look at it; look at the facts and reject it. Most independent thinkers are just not that stupid.