When all your state’s remaining residents are forced to rely on unemployment benefits, that’s pretty much the only thing keeping the economy afloat. But Michigan Governor Rick Snyder doesn’t care. He signed a law that on the surface seems like it was just written to allow residents to collect benefits extended by the federal government, but hidden in the language is a cut to unemployment benefits next year, changing the law so Michigan will only pay 20 weeks of benefits, the lowest level in the nation. The Michigan Chamber of Commerce says the law is a “huge win for job providers,” but isn’t that an oxymoron? Who exactly provides jobs in Michigan these days? Pretty much just U-Haul. Get out while you still can, Michiganders. Rick Snyder is trying to destroy you.
“It turns the clock back 50 years at a time when unemployment is at historic highs since the Depression,” Representative Sander M. Levin, Democrat of Michigan, said in an interview, adding that he worried that the state would set a precedent that would be followed by other states, including Florida, that are thinking of curtailing their unemployment programs. “I think that Michigan should not be to unemployment insurance what Wisconsin has become to collective bargaining.”
One would think the unemployed, a symbol as important to the character of the state in modern times as the wolverine or the Petoskey stone, would be the third rail of Michigan politics. (Never mind that Michigan doesn’t have rails, because there any transportation but cars is evil and foreign.) One would think there is no way a Republican like Snyder can get re-elected in Michigan stabbing at the unemployed like this, but perhaps if he causes the state to collapse into a great slush of rust, acid, and icy lake water, all the people who haven’t left the rapidly depopulating place will be killed, and he can appoint himself nerd-governor-for-life of the wasteland.
It was a nice place while it lasted. Probably shouldn’t have elected this guy, Michigan. [NYT]
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Michigan: The Britain of the Midwest.
???
I think he's referring to the Tories' big cuts in benefits that are magically supposed to fix the UK economy.
It's true; when we formally address our governors, we say: 'Ello, guvnah!
a great mush of rust, acid, and Asian Carp Infested lake water
And zebra mussels. Delightful with a bilge sauce reduction, sprinkling of rust, and salty, salty tears.
Build the dang fishnets!
How soon before Snyder collects unemployment insurance?
The recall petitions start circulating in July
Hopefully he'll start later this year.
Not soon enough.
Ha! It isn't like he would need it or anything (I would wager that he isn't even personally acquainted with anyone who ever relied on unemployment or sent their children to public schools). However, luckily for us elected officials do not qualify for unemployment benefits if they lose their jobs. I guess that goes down as a win in our column (which makes the score 999,999 to 1).
Sander Levin may have unwittingly come up with a perfect new slogan for the GOP: "Turning the clock back 50 years."
Ironically, back to the Kennedy administration.
Try 150 years. I'm just waiting for all the Wapo and WSJ op-eds about how robber-barons have been judged unfairly by history, and how children actually enjoy mining coal and dipping matches and sweeping chim-chim-in-eys and so forth.
150 years sounds about right. Just before the Civil War — slavery was legal, income tax was 0%, no 14th, 17th, etc amendments. No Reagan though.
The man was about 200 in the 1980s, so he had to have been born sometime around then.
Wasn't he born around then?
In perfect 1984-ese, Snyder's press release called it “Snyder Signs Bill to Protect Unemployed." Any bets on what Faux News' will headline their story on this?
"Any bets on what Faux News' will headline their story on this? "
"Unions wreck Michigan's economy"?
50 years ago, the tax rate for the super-rich was 90%; that would be nice to go back to. It's 80 years, back to the pre-FDR days.
Going back 50 years would be a good thing, unless you're black or gay, they probably wouldn't like that.
No, 50 years ago… You know, when there were no black people or gay people.
Just coloreds and queers.
"but isn’t that an oxymoron?"
I thought Rush lived in Florida.
Heeey! I see what you did.
But Rush won't hear since he has oxy cotton in his ears.
I think it's bad when your social contract is modeled on Haiti's.
You know who else cut out unemployment insurance?
John Galt?
Rick Scott? Yep!
Croesus?
Nikki Haley?
Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette?
Might have been Bill Clinton. Pretty much everyone had a job when he was President. Even me. How foolish we were to follow his economic and tax policies!
Caligula?
The Koch Brothers?
Genghis Khan? FYI, he hated unions too.
Your Majesty, the peasants are revolting.
They certainly are.
Snyder needs to choke on one of his pretzels.
if there's anything I've learned from the last 30 years, it's that the recent 86% break in state corporate taxes will more than make up for the slash in UE benefits by providing plentiful jobs with great benefits and constant sexual gratification for the state's poor and out-of-work.
trickle drown!
See SOUTH CAROLINA for a road-map to that success thing.
Not that I like the place but SC does have BMW, Michelin and now Boeing.
All non-union jobs in a state with a 10.2 percent unemployment rate! And Medicaid about to be defunded, and our shitty state-supported colleges with annual tuitions nearing 10 grand a year, and our shitty highways, and on and on.
This must be just like living in
paradisePyongyang.Not to mention Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint
and unicorns – i believe there will be unicorns, too, when all taxes for all corporations and rich people are abolished
a unicorn in every pot!
Whats the line on Rick Snyder for the Doche of the Year? Who's the front runner because the field is mighty crowded.
Which bracket? Executive, legislative or judicial?
T'would be the first time in history the whole fuckin' horse race tied by a nose.
Too many brand names.
In a field with Rick Scott, John Kasich, and Scott Walker, he probably ranks at the bottom of doucheness. He and Mitch Daniels look near-sane, by comparison.
The Michigan House and Senate. Well, that's a whole other bag-o-shit, right there.
Jesus would be so proud of today's GOP.
They use Jesus the way Gadsden used the snake: not as an object of sincere worship, but as a convenient and impactful symbol, intended to stir emotions rather than intellect.
That the baggers have abused both in exactly the same way is a triumph of American stupidity.
I just can't fathom the amount of evil it takes to believe that the cure for unemployment is to not pay unemployment benefits.
Seriously. What kind of a human being actually thinks that being poor is a life choice?
Get off (out of, whatev) your hammock you lazy bastard. (This is, if not a verbatim GOP quote, a fav meme of theirs.)
Nah, cutting unemployment is the best way to kickstart the underground economy. That meth's not going to make itself, people.
Plus, underground economies don't generate tax revenue and didn't the GOP decide that tax revenue is bad?
Winter's Bone II – Ree moves to Michigan.
8 Mile kind of already served that purpose.
"That meth's not going to make itself, people. "
Oh!
*smacks forehead*
So THAT's what I've been doing wrong!
Tax revenue is only bad if paid by rich people.
I am so refreshed to see the dick face ass licker pissing on the poor. It is the republican way. Hate your neighbor. Steal from the poor. Kick people when they've fallen. Drown puppies and kittens in the local river. Pollute all the ground water and soil. Never pay your taxes. Oh, I almost forgot, God, Guns, Gays. Go get 'em
If we were all in this together, you wouldn't need guns. But we aren't, so you do. Now: git off mah land.
Its even more ambitious that the traditional pissing on the poor. The Modern GOP will render the entire middle class poor, and then piss on them thus creating the permanent peon class the hacienda owners require, Koch suckers.
Hate doesn't kill people. Haters kill people. Got that?
Son's of bitches
You're getting an upfist for that.
Don't worry folks. Once Michigan gets crappy enough Michael Moore will be able to do another documentary about it, and the cycle of life will continue.
Once Michigan gets crappy enough, Michael Moore will be able to BUY it.
I think that would work out well for Michigan, actually. A benevolent dictator is a much better option.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/wealthy-swiss-to...
yes…over a lying dickhead pustule like they have now…at least Michael Moore wouldn't try to frame "fixing the budget" while really jamming a spig into every other class for the wealthy to drink from. Either this country is fast approaching being beyond repair thanks to these pricks or we're going to need a lot of gibbets after (and if) America ever pulls the bacon it's pulled over its eyes and demands these people get the French Revolution treatment. Being the eternal optimist…I'd say the latter, being a realist…clearly the former. I guess I could always move to the UK…I have distant relatives in Ireland…and Ireland is too poor for Republican rape (with Democratic non-fixes in between) games, so I can at least elude them until the giant nuclear fireball happens.
I thought the same thing in 1984, but I was mistaken.
And now we have an entire generation that thinks it's better to live on their knees than die on their feet.
I can't imagine how Michael Moore could be worse than the ruler Michigan already has.
This is almost as good of an outcome as the "Canada buys MI" suggestion upthread.
I think he's already done that a couple of times
It's like a race to turn America into Dickensian England with these should-be-infected-with-incurable-rectal-cancer heartless Rethuglican troglodytes.
Yes, and what of our party? They used to play this game before FDR came up and thew the gameboard away…Republicans would just absolutely rape the shit out of this country…then Democrats would come in and say "we need to fix the scam so the rape doesn't hurt quite so much" this continued on and on until (arguably) the Triangle Shirtwaist burned down and Al Smith seized the reigns to become the first populist governor of NY…which set the stage for FDR. What we have now is…deja vu (glad my great grandparents and grandparents are dead) but there's no Triangle Factory fire (at least not here) to begat Al Smith to begat FDR….so in other words, we're pretty much fucked.
Eliminate unemployment insurance + issue begging permits = JERB CREASHUN!
Don't raise taxes. Instead there will be $75.00 fee for the begging permit in addition to the$150.70 fee for a photo id so you can not vote.
Yes…that's how Republicans create jobs…they thinking cutting all these people off so they can be homeless Hooverville residents will inspire Halliburton to build a bunch of refugee tent cities which can be named after each Governor, and thus jobs will be created. Jokes on them, though…Halliburton will HAPPILY build the tent cities and HAPPILY overcharge…but the workers? Tent city residents who get a tent after the jobs done…at bulk cost and without wages…because according to the rich, that's the decent thing to do and they ain't runnin a charity here. That's just how Halliburton rolls.
Good thing everyone's issuing FOIA requests for Michigan labor studies professors. They might conclude that this hurts the economy and who wants that published?
Rick Snyder: MUHAHAHAAHAHAH!!!! Now that we've got of that pesky unemployment we can work on min. wage so companies can pay what they want. Then what we tea-baggers REALLY ARE AIMING FOR REPEAL OF THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION!!!! NOT JUST FOR DARK PEOPLE BUT FOR ALL POOR PEOPLE.
Nahh….Republicans would never force whitey into slavery, how would that look? No, they'll just make browns, black folks and asians slaves while "appropriating" their possessions to go loyal wingnuts…ala a certain party from a few decades ago. White liberals? Yeah, we'll get put into "summer camps" all together…concentrated if you will, where we can be watched…and we'll get the sweatshop jobs (for free of course) to make clothing and such for wingnuts.
"And such" = Hoverounds,
These guys, unfortunately, are not stupid. Evil and disgusting, but they know their limitations. Snyder couldn't take on the public employee unions right away like Scott Walker did so he and the Rethug dominated legislature are attacking the most vulnerable sections of the population first. Cutting unemployment–next in line is a state tax on pensions.
If Hell existed they would be roasting in it one nanosecond after their last breath.
Arizona's doing the state tax on pensions, too, and sliding it into law before the olds even find out. In fact EVERYONE's getting an income tax increase … except those making more than $250,000 annually. For God's sake, haven't they suffered enough?????
Let them eat Koch!
Clearly the unemployment program is keeping jobs from being created by forcing salaries to be artificially high in order to entice workers. Now, under Governor Snyder's plan, after 20 weeks Michiganders will work for bags of dirt, and then everybody'll have a job, and these Democratic crybabies are opposed to this idea because they don't want their nanny-state politics refuted by their overindulged constituents. Oh, and throw a couple more peasants on the fire James, my toast is getting cold.
Who made the clone army that all of these repuglican governors seem to come from? Obviously all from the dark side of the force.
They were manufactured in a Koch brothers plant. They only do one set of eyes there. Kinda dull, dumb, mean eyes. Border line cross-eyed. With the crazy baked right in.
It's fairly obvious that someone is pulling the strings behind the latest attacks on the American public.
Isn't this the same goobernor who wants to take over government in any municipalities found to be insufficiently libertarian?
Yes, yes it is.
Class war? What class war? Ain't no class war here…
Wars require 2 sides. There's war alright, it's just not us waging it.
i think it's like this: "hey, why are you hitting yourself, huh? why do you keep hitting yourself?"
Snyder is certainly classless, yes.
Maybe call it Crass War?
Clueless, certainly. That boy is all eat up with the Asperger's.
like school in summertime. no class.
It's fun to see the new GOP governors compete to see who can be the biggest douchebag and ruin the country fastest; although the nakedly fascist Scott Walker is still winning, since he decided to say fuck you to the courts and illegally implement his union-busting law after being ordered not to:
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/03/walker...
Similar to Snyder having been viewed as the sane [sic] Republican in the Michigan primary, most Wisconsin voters, GOP & Dem alike, thought Walker was a safer choice than Mark Neumann.
Big mistake.
When will they learn – there is no safe choice any more where the GOP is involved.
If Scott Walker was that sure he could get away with it, he would order the payroll deductions immediately instead of waiting for Apr 21.
I would like to see him do it, and then the Dane Country judge orders him arrested for contempt of court.
If I recall, there's somebody in Flint who can teach all the rest of the Michiganders how to raise bunny rabbits for food. A bunny in every pot! (Unless you're using that pot to piss in)
Many states had salted away too little money in their unemployment trust funds during good times — often because they cut taxes on employers — and saw their funds depleted by the length and depth of the recession, and the slow pace at which businesses have begun hiring again.
So states were trying to spur job creation by giving breaks to employers who weren't going to hire anybody, and now said states are broke and blaming all those unhired workers for its problems. Got it.
If the states don't owe the corporations after they figure their taxes, they're foing it wrong!
And they Republicans and media have nicely switched over to calling our corporate overlords by the euphemisms of "employers" and "job creators", as if their main purpose was to create jobs, rather than make a shitload of money and avoid paying the people who do actual work.
"Corporations cannot of course offer a completely stable and nurturing environment for their employees: Businesses fail; consumer tastes change, technology marches along. … But we do expect corporations to provide jobs … that is the rationale given for every corporate tax cut, public subsidy, or loosening of regulations. … Elected officials coddle the corporations for our sake, we are always told; there is no other way to generate jobs."
–Barbara Ehrenreich, _Bait and Switch_, p223
Fiscal responsibility and planning ahead are for the little people – you know, everyone but the top 1%.
Check-o-shay.
I fail to see how this is a big win for Mr. Qaddafi.
Lots of unemployed will enlist!
Well, if the mitten fits you must a….quit giving folks a little help?
I-75 and 1-94 are both one-way streets out of Michigan.
I-69
Really, I do.
I have four words. None of them rude.
Blood
From
A
Turnip
I'm thinking… BLOOD LIBEL!
Quit smearing Rick Snyder's good name.
Can we call teabaggers "turnips" and take it from there?
I admit it sounds bad, but I'm going to withhold judgment until I hear Eminem's take on the matter. Maybe next Super Bowl.
Snoopy Snoopy Poop Doggy is a better source of opinion than Enema Man.
Time to call on Jack Kevorkian, my main Michigander.
> Fippy Darkpaw scowls at you, ready to attack. "You Michiganders have ruined your own lands! You'll not ruin mine!"
The real problem, though, is with all of these people living high on the Michigan hog with their $300 per week. Man, what a sweet deal. Well, you lazy good for nothings, get off this gravy train. Yeah, you have to actually look for a job to collect, BUT YOU AREN'T LOOKING HARD ENOUGH.
Honestly, what is their endgame? 99% of the population barely getting food to eat or a place to sleep? I can't take this any longer.
Someone explain it to me.
For the first time, my mother seriously talking about a move to Canada.
Those torches won't light themselves..
Do you live in Canada? Do you have any space to rent to me?
I do! And every day I realize that putting up with Stephen Harper, the dullest man in the dullest political scene in the Western World, is a small price to pay to have universal health care and strong banks that legally can't do crazy shit.
They're not smart. They don't realize that the workers are the customers. Endgame? Look at Phillipines or Bangladesh and you'll see it.
unless they're banking on increasing what we export and don't care how much Americans spend on products made in America.
What do we export? Besides soybeans and pork bellies?
Looking for a nice little apartment for my books and cats near the strip clubs in Windsor. Polite old man in the corner, bring him his scotch and water, press a little boob against his arm, good tipper.
Not if they can't afford the state-issued ID cards required at the voting booth.
My poor, poor fuck'in State. I'd leave if I could sell my house for a can of hobo beanz but hobo beanz is trading up today.
A whole can of hobo beanz for a house. You must live in Grosse Pointe. In my neighborhood just north of Detroit, you can get a pretty nice colonial for just a handful of beanz.
Narrow minded self centered douche bags. They might as well say "Let's blow up the world, it will create jobs" Can't they see beyond their stupid noses?
Fry, I'm afraid you're an optimist. Ordinarily, I'd abide by the saying, "Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity", but this is just ferkin' ridiculous. They've pretty much given up any pretense of trying to create jobs or do anything but put the bottom 99% through a meat grinder, just because they can.
No
What? U-Haul is hiring and no one told me!?
Maybe if you were out looking for a job instead of laying around talking on your cell phone, watching your cable TV, and eating brand name Cheetos instead of the generic equivalent, you would know this!
And fapping, you left out the fapping.
Someone told me once "If the Chamber of Commerce thinks it's a good idea, it's probably the worst fucking idea in history."
Okay, I'm paraphrasing, but those guys can go fuck themselves.
This should be engraved on stone (or gold, your choice) tablets.
Nobody can burn Shit like Detroit…once they get started the whole state will burn in a massive wave of anger and misery.
We've already burned down all of the most burnable neighborhoods, we're running out of things to burn. Sigh, it would be refreshing to burn down an ex-urb, they have an Ikea out there and I've been thinking of getting new bookshelves.
"The Michigan Chamber of Commerce says the law is a “huge win for job providers,”
Especially those motors of the economy: pimps, strip club owners, blood bank managers and kidney salesmen.
This is good news for Oleg Ivanov!
I didn't stabbing someone for their wallet was a job.
Les Gold, the star of the reality show, Hardcore Pawn.
I am still amazed when a state-level Chamber of Commerce, which usually has some fairly bright business-people involved with it, can stick its metaphorical head so far up its metaphorical sigmoid colon.
Job creators have been looking to hire workers, but they can't compete with $300/week unemployment checks.
Me, I'm getting an unpaid internship loading cargo trucks and digging ditches. I'm just glad Republicans have finally shown me that hard work is its own reward.
Loading trucks and digging ditches? Hell, that's like having a fancy health club membership. And no money for food? Think of it as a diet! Six months from now when you see your hollow cheeks in a puddle of dirty water, you'll feel like you ought to be paying them.
How did this guy get elected? in Michigan?
They found out Obama is black (sort of, although he'd be happy to compromise on this,)
The state is losing population as labor (and the blue votes) goes elsewhere. That leaves the unemployed and poor, who traditionally don't vote that much, and the rich who own Grand Rapids and what's left of Detroit.
Add a do-nothing 8 years under Granholm, who actually tried shit but was stymied at almost every turn by an idiotic state congress, and there's yer governerd.
At least here in upstate NY "what's left" includes old people who are unable or unwilling to go elsewhere. They hate the poor, they hate minorities, and they're generally content to vote in a way that makes everything up here worse for what few young people (i.e. people with economic potential) are here. They'll be rotting in 20 years (and their children will probably be relieved) and the rest of us will have to deal with the consequences.
I plan to fuck off out of here in a couple of years, but unless it's out of the country, I don't see things being much better elsewhere.
Democrats were either too lazy, too stupid, and/or too emaciated to vote. We actually had our lowest turnout for a gubernatorial election in decades. I think Detroit had a voter turnout of something like 35%.
BTW, Michigan has no problem voting for a black guy. in the Great Lakes, only Obama's homestate of Illinois gave him a larger margin of victory in 2008. This ain't Ohio or Indiana. At the national level, this is not a swing state. Hasn't been for 20 years. Reagan kind of fucked up Michigan on the Republican Party. The stupid-ass "Reagan Democrats" (who has their founding in suburban Detroit's Macomb County, BTW) ended up regretting their vote to say the least.
Low turnout (old Kinks song).
It official the tea-party thinks the government's main function is to take bribes rather than help the inpoverished.
Think the Michigan sign reads, UNEMPLOYED? Don't let the door hit ya in the ass.
You folks aren't looking at this from THEIR point of view. It's a win-win for them; they get to fuck over the poor (read blacks), which they love, AND keep those dollars out of circulation, which will inhibit the economic recovery so that Barry's reelection prospects will dim.
Makes sense to me. Drive out all teh poorz and let the millionaires provide their own private security. Other than the rusting slag-heap of garbage and used needles everywhere, duh, Utopia.
Look at your typical 3rd world country. Main difference: they usually have strong families, whose members help each other out.
If the entire state of Michigan becomes like Detroit, where will all the white folks go this time? Your answers after the jump.
The wealthier ones will go to Aspen or Vail or Jackson Hole. The poor ones will head for Branson.
Job Providers = Our New Reptilian Overlords.
"The claims of a conflict of interest are baseless.", my fellow Dinghus-berry™.
Better they should die swiftly, and ease the surplus population!
Like Canada would buy it – they'd have to provide health care and unemployment to all those Michiganders who are too in love with that frozen tundra of an economic wasteland to leave.
"those Michiganders who are too in love with that frozen tundra of an economic wasteland to leave. "
Which is a vanishingly small minority of them, apparently — and I think the correct term for those few is "Michigana", pronounced "meschugenah".
But we could get a BUNCH of beads for it!
Actually, it sounds worse than it is. Most states pay 26 weeks of UC before the Federal UC kicks in, which can run up to 99 weeks, and when those benefits are exhausted many states have a supplemental program to cover another 20 or so.
So you're not really talking about the difference between 20 and 26. You're talking about the difference between 139 and 145. But from a state budget perspective you are shifting the people off your account six weeks earlier which helps with budgeting.
I hate these fucks too but don't waste your credibility chasing straw men.
If you're unemployed, you can't vote. Everybody knows that. Duh.
Don't give them any ideas.
I can almost guarantee that Jan Brewer is probably trying to figure out how to pass a law to revoke the voting rights of the unemployed under the anti-immigration umbrella.
Jesus wrote in the Constitution that that is ok. Except that "all State employees" part. The Gov and his spouse are exempt, because THAT would be a conflict of interest – can't something you owe evaluating you. Sheez….
I wonder how many unemployed fuckers voted for this tool. It amazes me that people will vote against their own self interest because they hate the gays or whatever. What. The. Fuck?
My advice to all of you is to start drinking heavily.
"Start"? Hell, that's the one thing we're all masters at.
And it's cheaper than just executing the poor outright!
Republicans saved the states money, hurray!!
And of course every politician in the state is going to volunteer their staffs and themselves for piss tests, too. Right? Right??
jesus christ. he's like a cardboard cut-out republican villain only he was actually elected.
Like Mr. Burns, he's crossed the line from villainy to cartoon supervillainy.
Yep…that's Rick Scott for you…the son of a bitch got into politics by opposing HCR, why did he oppose HCR in spite of being exhibit A for why we need HCR? Because he had an idea for a chain of walk-in clinics (his idea was sort of like a whore house…only you're the whore) and HCR threatened the biggest crook in the medical business (which is saying something) from being able to pursue his dream of once again gouging the old, the young and the uninsured alike.
How a guy who was fired rather than prosecuted for being the biggest crook against Medicare in history could be elected to the governorship is beyond me….but it looks like, just as I expected he's wasted little time jamming his slimy hand into the honeypot…yet again. Well, maybe when the states are irretrievably bankrupt because of assholes like him (he's actually worse than Scott Walker, which is again, saying a lot) they'll finally string him up like what should have happened long ago.
How in God's name did Floridians justify voting for that unindicted felon? Or was it the retirees with their "I got mine, so fuck you" attitude?
It's a mystery. I'm not a Floridian, but as far as I could see, the D candidate was a seasoned, well-respected moderate; and Rick Scott was a crook with zero political experience and no platform. Go figure.
It's about the same as the voters in my native state both electing as Governor a guy who was a total failure as Milwaukee County Executive, and rejecting Russ Feingold in favor of a rich-by-being-son-in-law jackass.
Basically, too many people regard voting as an inconvenience.
This most certainly would not be happening were Bart Stupak still in office.
Fuck no. They'd have eliminated UI altogether. Except for unemployed embryos.
Outside the abortion issue – which Yoopers are very interested in because they are some pretty serious Catholics up there – Bart was about as liberal a house member as they come, particularly for a huge, rural district. The guy voted to expand hate crime legislation; he also gave the most hellish beat-down of President Bush's invasion of Iraq I've yet seen right before the war.
His C-Street involvement eventually soured my on him, but looking at who he was replaced by, I wish every day now we still had a Democrat representing the UP. I'd have gladly put up with some of his idoelogical fixations and eccentricites given what replaced him, a total moron of a man.
But once all the unemployed leave, he'll be crowing about what a success his program was because of the drop in THE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE.
Meanwhile, Indiana, Illinois and Ohio's rolls soar. He is creating the next great dustbowl economy of migrant unemployed while we give huge bailouts to GM so they can send their jobs to Korea or Mexico. We won't need a fence to keep Mexicans out anymore. They'll need one to keep Michigonians out.
Anyway, I though people were leaving Detroit because of the Liberals?
Oh, they won't even have to leave. The minute unemployment benefits cease, the unemployed person is no longer counted at all. If all of us who have long ago fallen off the rolls were counted, nationwide unemployment figures would be much more frightening than they already are. You can move, but you're just a moving ghost.
I have never heard us called "Michigoanians." This Michigander/Michiganian will be using that one, too. There is actually another one "Michiganite", but that one never caught on.
The last governor used Michigander and the current one uses Michiganian, and there is always a war, but it ooks like Michigander has finally won out if you believe the most recent polling on this. (yes, we actually poll that kind of shit, here)
The more you know…
Michigander it is, then. Because voting has worked so well so far for both MICHIGANDERS and Wisconsinites so far.
(Frankly, I think your moniker is sexist. What about the MichIgeese?)
Well, WE didn't elect him.
John Hawkes would have been good for it, though.
(I recently came around to liking Miranda July's You & Me & Everyone We Know, & Hawkes is a big part of that. Plus, his pervert kid: ))<>((.)
How did Michigan go from Gov. Jennifer Granholm to this piece of shit?
I apologize for snarking you. I'm from Maine. All meant in humor in order to deflect the pain.
It school. At this point… we're all in it together… and by "it" I mean-
A steaming pile of radioactive, fuck the Non-rich, working class shit.
I snark because I am really sad for most people in MY LAND and it doesn't seem to be on the "up".
(Plus we got a bunch of morons around and someone voted for them)
Reminds me of that e-mail that was going around shortly after the November 2008 election when the Bush economy was in complete collapse.
Since it was obvious that businesses were going to have to lay employees off to survive the Bush Depression, it was suggested that anyone that had an Obama campaign sticker on their vehicle should be the first to be laid off.
At the time, I thought it was a total B.S. e-mail, but now, not so much. The class war will grind on, if Obama is re-elected in 2012.
I would be so happy if my poor state magically became part of Canada. But chicken_thief is right, there is no upside for Canada.
Yep so some rich fuck tears apart unemployment coverage, with no intention of ever getting reelected. Chances are rich fuck gets recalled and leaves office early. Incoming administration is friendly to labor and vows to restore unemployment benefits to previous levels. Which then in turn prompts another 30 years+ of accusations that they are pro-spending and pro-taxation. Rick Snyder has won the internet.
You mean whoring for the remaining moneyed folks?
The one's with minimum wage jobs will say the unemployed are wicked and deserve to suffer, rather than admit "it could happen to me!"
An army of rentboys? A cadre of catamites? A passel of pederasts?
There are people here in Michigan who are already planning on starting the recall campaign on July 1st. Unfortunately, the Michigan constitution gives elected officials a six-month honeymoon period before you can begin a recall campaign. He has already pissed off film industry workers, union workers, teachers, public employees and pensioners. If he's not careful people will be out with ropes to grab him out of his limo.
A few things since I'm a little sensitive to criticism, today:
- Outside of the Eastern Corridor, Michigan is the only place in which Amtrak operates where they own a siginificant portion of the rails on which they operate their services.
- A 0.55% decline in population over the decade is not a "rapid" decline. It's true that states the size of Michigan don't lose population over a decade, but the decline is nearly statistically insignificant. Metro Detroit is a fucking mess, but otherwise, Michigan's a rather pleasant place to be, at least as pleasant as any out-state community in the rest of the Great Lakes.
- Michigan's unemployment is still above the national average, and it's still among the top, but it's been one of the fastest falling unemployment rates. In fact, Michigan posted it's best employment numbers in years at the end of 2010.
Buy, yeah, politically, economically, and socially, Michigan's pretty fucked up at the moment. It's like a perfect storm. Word to the rest of the United States: You're next.
Sweet dreams.
Michigan's unemployment rate is declining because either the unemployed have moved, or your state has simply ceased counting them. UNemployment rates can fall while employment doesn't rise one iota. It's like Iran claiming they couldn't discriminate against gay people because they don't HAVE any gay people.
Not true in this case. Part of the drop is definitely people falling out of the workforce either due to giving up looking, retirement, moving out of state, etc…but a significant part of that has been the actual adding back of jobs that were cut during the recession. The Big Three were running so lean at one time that they had no place to go but up when things picked back up, marginally.
No, the rate isn't just falling because of people leaving the workforce. Just sayin', there's still a lot of fight left in this rusty, old bastard of a state in spite of those within and without who'd seek to totally obliterate us.
No offense intended, but the US population growth in the last decade was 9.7%, so -0.55% is pretty significant in relative terms.
I'm not trying to diss Michigan. I grew up across your namesake lake. A zillion years ago, when I was in college, we used to argue about whether Madison or Ann Arbor was more liberal. And the Packers and Lions played on Thanksgiving, and the games mattered.
Obviously, the inhabitants of my native state have proven to be as politically obtuse as those of your state. Michigan has a special burden because its economy was, for so many years, centered around a single enormous industry. Hell, the competitive problems of US automakers have caused substantial knock-on effects in Wisconsin and Indiana and Ohio, but in those states it was just bad news.
Good luck. It's a beautiful state. Throw the bum out. Beyond that, you need to find somebody that has some ideas about how to regenerate and diversify the economy. No one would be much happier than I to see a comeback by the Big Three-ish, but you still don't want your entire regional economy to be tied to a single industry.
Look, in some ways, it's not so bad. Here in Cali, we're probably gonna have to wait until shit gets so bad that a majority of people are forced to be renters and we might finally get rid of the Prop 13 albatross, and be able to pay our fucking bills.
Didn't try to make the case that .6% wasn't significant, more that it is not a "rapid decline." That's a statistical stagnation, plain and simple. I know that it may not be important for others folks, but I think it's important to accurately portray something, and a less than one percent loss of population over a decade isn't some kind of mass exodus, particularly when you consider that the state's hispanic and asian populations grew each by 30% respectively. It'd be different if everyone was leaving, but they aren't.
Hell, yes.
We call him "Ricktator."
It's funny, because there are actual wild pheasants that have become to repopulate the urban prairies of Detroit. But, even that's not a blessing for the hungry as with any other city in the nation, you can't hunt inside city limits. lol They also have packs of feral pitbulls that has taken up residence in certain ends of the city menacing citizens. But, in typical Detroit fashion, on the other side of these fields are historic mansion districts and functioning neighborhoods.
Yea, she is a city of extremes.
I don't think that's true. The unemployment stats come from questionnaires that are sent to a couple hundred thousand households every month. If one of those respondents is still "actively" looking for work (by whatever the questionnaire criteria are), he/she is still "unemployed", even if his/her benefits have expired.
Disclaimer: this information comes, admittedly, from the Department of Labor. I have no personal knowledge of how the unemployment stats are baked. But, it does seem that the "official" unemployment rate tends to run somewhat higher than the percentage of possible workers receiving UI benefits. I could be reading this wrong, but I think the DoL reports that for the week of 3/5/11, 8.775M people received some kind of unemployment benefit., whereas the average number of unemployed persons (from which the unemployment rate is calculated) for 2010 was 14.825M. From this, it looks like roughly 60% of the "official unemployed" are actually receiving UI benefits. I could probably make the time-frames coincide exactly, but it's a terribly-organized website.
i want to know more.
and now a reading from the Gospel of Wealth.
In addition to the union busting, raising taxes on the poor and middle class, cutting business taxes and other pro-business and anti-worker laws that have been spilling out of Lansing, Snyer recently signed a bill that was rammed through by the supermarket lobby that eliminates the requirement that stores put prices on individual items. I heard an interview with Snyder this morning where he insisted that this new law is a "win-win", that it will cut costs for stores, but won't result in any job losses and that consumers will see lower prices as a result. He actually sounded like he believed what he was saying despite the fact that it made no logical sense and the interviewer didn't even call him on it. What the hell?
YOU LIE!
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