Wonkette
Are you reading this at work? Lucky you! The national unemployment rate saw its biggest month-to-month jump in 22 years, and is now at 5.5%. Department of Labor numbers show 49,000 fewer jobs in May, due to General Economic Horror and the Growing Panic. When you’re done screwing around with the political news, here’s a fun article about how to survive unemployment. [Wall Street Journal]
DOOM
Monthly Jobless Surge Biggest Since 1986!
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Get your hobo bindles out of the closet, America!
No worries. My bindle is packed and ready to go, and I’m currently high bidder on a maple walking stick on eBay. See you at the rail yards!
…jobs are for ELITIST!
NoWireHangers: Damn, beat me to the bindle reference. Guess I’ve already had my share of the low hanging fruit today.
NoWireHangers: …Im heading for the soup line NOW, you want me to save you a spot in line?!
According to the intelligent right-wing analysis I’ve encountered, everything was going just great until those damn Demo-craps stole the 2006 Congress elections and so ever since they came in of January 2007, even though the sub-prime crisis started way before that, everything has been their fault.
Reading those survival tips for unemployment, I did notice one omission. Where’s “drink cheap vodka while watching Montel Williams”?
Jobs?
Tyler Durden: God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.
Can you attach standard-issue suspenders to a barrel, or do they need to be of a higher tensile strength? Just exploring my options, here.
Fuck you all, I’m selling pencils and apples on the corner.
…Bush-ville’s? Bush Town? Bush City? Bush-a-tropilis?
ManchuCandidate: …dibs on shoe shine guy!
sweetladyirony: I recommend sandwich boards, they are much lighter. If you’re modest, you can use the variety that laces up on the side. Plus, you can sell advertising. Bonus!
Obama Fireside Chat in 3…2…1…
Tip #4 for the unemployed. Research free and inexpensive entertainment. Why book an expensive arena to party down with 10,000 supporters in Virginia when you could have just as much fun placing a late-night booty call to that Sexy Sixty-year-old Senator you’ve been ogling?
Sex industry, here we cum!
Pardon me, would you like to buy some slightly-used Grey Poupon?
AfghanVet: Maybe Obama will give you a GI bill so you can get a doctorate or something, for free!
I’ve been unemployed five months now. Let me tell you, it’s no damn fun. I spend my days making cheeky, bitter comments on blogs. I’d drink myself blind, but I don’t have the money to buy booze!
Wait until Dubya is out of office. His life will unravel fast. And I’m betting that Hillary will boot Bill’s ass out the door any day now.
Unemployment is at 5.5%. We’ve moved from manufacturing things (steel, cars, etc.) to playing with other people’s money (hedge funds, dirivatives, etc.). The fat lady is warming up, kids.
EnBuenOra:
That’s correct. Things have gone horribly wrong because the Democrats have been rubber-stamping Bush’s budgets instead of the Republicans. That totally makes a difference.
madirishman: We all give the President too much credit when times are good, and too much blame when things go in the shitter. The rest of the world is slumping, too, and with higher unemployment. By all means, hate on Bush, but I’m sure you can find a way to hate him for something he can control.
Great Onion headline from Our Dumb CEntury:
FDR Promotes ‘Big Deal’ Plan to Combat Depression… ‘Big Deal, I’m Rich!’
madirishman: …I hear mouth-wash is like 75% alcohol! Think about it, you can be shit-faced drunk and minty fresh at the same time
FMA: Sadly, the Montel Williams show is in its final season. But at least in these trying times we know we can count on Maury Povich.
ReelectTilden: …normally I would agree with you on the whole allocation of blame thing, but NOT with “W”! Essentially all the problems that we are experiencing now have stemmed from his incompetence. Out of control inflation, a sub-prime apocalypse and a federal debt that will take decades to pay off. When you combine all of these factors the natural outcome is going to be an economy thats in a nose dive.
You can always pick up cans and subsist on free samples from the grocery store.
NoWireHangers: This blasted system screwed up my comment!
What I typed was a reply to FMA:
Sadly, the Montel Williams Show is in its final season. Luckily, in these trying times we know we can count on Maury Povich.
AngryBlakGuy, please save me a spot in the soup line. I’ve gotta have a full stomach before I hop a boxcar to Californee.
AngryBlakGuy: You’re right that the federal debt is his fault (and Congress’s), and that does cause inflation and raise interest rates. I’m not sure we can pin the sub-prime thing on him, though. The same lack of regulation and crazy greed existed in previous administrations.
Of course, the war is still his fault, so there’s that.
Hey people, there’s an easy answer to unemployment: Iraq.
C’mon, you wanna sit around your parents house or you wanna kill some Arabs?
Let’s go!
ReelectTilden: Oh, I’m not blaming Bush alone for the economy, though Lord knows he made it easy for his oil-buddies to rape and pillage. No, I’m just saying he’s led a charmed life of insane privilege so far, and sooner or later karma is going to bite him on the ass BIG TIME! What the hell will he DO with himself once he’s unemployed? If Laura runs for the Senate, I WILL drink myself blind!
I have two jobs. Is that helping or hurting?
ReelectTilden: And Katrina was made worse by the fact that he appointed jackasses to run FEMA instead of competant professionals, so that’s kind of his fault, too.
AngryBlakGuy: Mouthwash is only 8.5% alcohol (I checked the bottle). Not enough bang for my buck. And I’m not big on mint. I much prefer Irish Car Bombs (Guinness and Bailey’s). Just a hint of coffee and chocolate, while being politically incorrect!
I look forward to the days when I cart my worthless dollars around in a wheelbarrow!
ReelectTilden: As America has [or had] the strongest economy, as it goes in the shitter, it drags everyone else with it. BushCo is dumping us down the toilet. I just hope he doesn’t flush it before he leaves office.
The new, privatized Ministry of Love, CACI and Blackwater USA are hiring.
NoWireHangers: Oh my God, we’re going to reenact The Grapes of Wrath.
madirishman: If you’re looking for an oasis from the bitterness and mordant sarcasm that pervades so much of modern life, you’ve certainly come to the right place.
tunamelt:
I’ll bring the grapes if you bring the “wrath” of a 20 pound sledge.
ReelectTilden: …his banking policy DIRECTLY caused the sub-prime shit bomb that went off last year. Not only did he recklessly lower the interest rates but he also allowed the fox to guard the hen house by appointing Ben Bernanke to head the FEC and Henry Paulson to head the Treasury. There was absolutely positively NOOOOOO oversight of the lending industry and that my friend is “W’s” fault.
tunamelt: with the food prices these days, samples will start to cost 10cents each.
Since 1986? Hey, Bush really is Reaganesque.
Naked Bunny with a Whip: And no, we can’t blame the current Democratic Congress — in-depth analysis by the Heritage Foundation reveals this economic mess is all Bill Clinton’s fault. Probably for letting gays in the military and saving spotted owls.
Humble Pi: Brilliant!
AngryBlakGuy: wait a minute, wait a minute!!! he actually had a policy?!?!!!
7) Scout out the classiest dumpster in your ‘hood and partake with wild abandon. Om nom nom.
ReelectTilden: Heckuva job, Georgie!
The Journal ran an article on how investment bankers and other Wall Street types can deal with unemployment. Two suggestions that I remember:
1) Don’t forget to file for state unemployment comp.
2) Maintain as many club memberships as possible since they well be good for networking.
But soon the old joke will be new again:
How do you find an MBA on Wall Street?
“Waiter!”
Will be nice to see them starving in the gutter.
madirishman: You’re going to laugh - if that’s the verb I’m looking for - but unemployment is actually about 8%. The Department of Labor is understating it with all their might, but it’s becoming painfully obvious. Just as they are trying to keep a lid on the fact that the real inflation in the States has reached about 12% annually.
AxmxZ: My mom’s house has like 11 different types of fruit-bearing trees. If nothing else, I am safe from scurvy.
Domestic Goddess: …good point!
ReelectTilden: Ummm no. Bush and his cronies hand-picked the leaders of the regulatory agencies so they could ACTIVELY ignore or change oversight so that their business budies could run roughshod over the American public. Look at the voting for regulatory legislation and you’ll find EVERY stinkin’ Repub and only a few Dems. Bankruptcy law, FCC ownership, SEC oversight, tax cuts, uncessary war that eats up taxes that could have gone into infrastructure which would have created jobs to manufacture infrastructure goods and build said infrastructure, complete disdain for governance of a nation of 360 million people. Sorry, blame can be SQUARELY placed on the shoulders of this man who LED the GOP with his creepy operatives and has driven this country straight towards the cliff.
Sorry, no spin BS here.
Ken: I used the GI Bill to get my BS and part of my MS. Funny, I’ve put in 20 already and getting ready to do more…but I guess McSame knows best.
AxmxZ: …CORRECT! Unemployment only keeps track of people who are receiving unemployment benefits, so if you have been on it to long and they kick you off then you dont count! Secondly the inflationary index doesn’t include such “volatile markets” as FUEL & FOOD!!!(you can thank Ronald Reagan for that one)
AfghanVet: …thanx for the cover fire on that one!
NoWireHangers: I’ve gotta have a full stomach before I hop a boxcar to Californee.
Believe it or not, you won’t find it so hot, if you ain’t got the do-re-mi.
tunamelt: There was a great article at some point - not even an article, more a developed presentation - by a Russian dude about the parallels between the USSR collapse and the imminent American collapse. In a nutshell, Russians were well-prepared, because they all owned their own apartments (the Communist government didn’t rent them out, it gave them out); they tended to live with their families as opposed to everyone separately, which lessened the financial strains and psychological burdens; they were used to hardships; and most of them had plots and dachas in the countryside where they grew their own fruit and veggies and picked wild berries and mushrooms.
His concluding paragraph could’ve been paraphrased with Nelson’s “HAH-hah.”
AngryBlakGuy: Also the way they evaluate and “adjust” the price of consumer goods is rigged to minimize the appearance of inflation.
WadISay: I see what you did there.
Look, the GOP economic policies can ALL be traced to their worship of Milton Friedman and the Chicago Economic cabal who pray to the idea of a free market that miracuously has “perfect information”. Leave the markets unfettered by regulation and they will correct and adjust themselves.
Too bad that corrections take place AFTER the fact and involve HUMAN BEINGS, oh and are DIRECTLY influenced by PERCEPTIONS that cannot be acurately graphed. Too freakin’ bad that the moRANs that worship at this alter don’t understand that regulations are not to protect just the people, but to protect the MARKETS themselves as human nature is to be greedy little fucks who will take the short-term win in order to secure themselves and crash the market in the process, which then kills everyone else as the PERCEPTION or REALITY of the market is that it is unstable.
Too freakin’ bad speculators and finance majors are allowed to basically gamble on the poker table that are basically unwatched markets and, like my friends on PokerStars who call each other while they play at the same table, the collude basically killing the idea of “perfect information”. Oil markets anyone? Any surprise the price of oil is dropping despite an explosion at a plant in Kuwait? Of course not since it was announced that the SEC is investigating speculation in the oil markets.
Sorry the GOP since Nixon has planned the actions implemented in the last 7 years and they should be and hopefully will be held accountable. Their use of religion to secure positions necessary to implement these rediculous THEORIES makes only that much worse.
Again, sorry, pushed a button.
AfghanVet: Clearly, and that button was CAPS LOCK.
It’s cool, though, because when the economy recovers in ‘09, Obama will get the credit. He’ll cruise to re-election while Hillz cries in her Crown Royal and McCain … I don’t know … stays inexplicably alive.
AfghanVet:
Clap clap clap
AfghanVet: I was poised to weigh in. No need. Thank you.
AfghanVet: Wait, are you saying that it is a bad idea to plan
economic policy on a bar napkin?
…so i guess leaving my job because it wasn’t paying enough without finding a full-time replacement Wasn’t a good idea?
crap, it’s my last day.
Ah, it is great to see Reaganomics at work again. And to think some say George W. Bush is not a true Conservative.
madirishman: Yes, but Hand Sanitizer is often 70% alcohol, and can be often found in public access bathrooms now days!
madirishman: Who needs booze when you’ve got Kool-Aid and Purell? Sure, it might kill you . . .
Damn you, Lionel Hutz Esq.! I knew I shouldn’t have wasted time searching for a recipe link.
natoslug: No reason to get upset. I for one am glad to have a recipe. Good to know that Kool-Aid will take the edge off. I would suggest that we call the drink an O’Reilly
Lionel Hutz Esq.: It’s only an O’Reilly if you stir it with a loofah.
Lionel Hutz Esq.: It’s only an O’Reilly if you stir it with a loofah.
Hopefully this isn’t the second posting of this — I can’t tell if the comments system is ignoring me or just a bit stoned right now and slow to respond.