I'm trying my hand at blogging again...this will be my third attempt. I tried blogging at Myspace, but it was annoying...much like Myspace. Then I joined Mindsay which was awesome, but readers had to join to leave comments, so it was kind of unwieldy. Most of the bloggers I know/read end up here, so Blogger must be doing something right...LOL.
On of my favorite bloggers, Blue Gal says that the way to become a good blogger is to blog every day for a year...so I'm gonna try!
I guess I should give some background...
I live in Kansas, I have a fleet of Chihuahuas and am currently unemployed, have been since September. I've interviewed for job after job, but nothing has come up yet. There are good things about it (being able to watch all of the Conference Tourney games on TV) and there are bad things about it (no health insurance, existing on next to nothing, being looked down on by people who feel unemployment is just a sign of laziness, etc..).
With this background, I'm sure you can understand why this story at Crooks & Liars made my blood boil. Erin Burnett was posing the question (in that "I'm not thinking this, but there is talk" kind of way) about whether extended unemployment benefits are necessary/beneficial. The implication being that those of us who are filing for or getting extended benefits are doing so just because we don't want a job/are lazy.
Here's the thing:
If companies were hiring, if the companies that are hiring would pay a living wage (instead of using desperation and high unemployment as a reason to lower wages) or if all the unemployed could just "up and move" (of course where exactly would you move now?) then most of the unemployed would be employed. I hate to break this to Scarborough and his band of bimbos, but you can't really live lavishly on $4 or more less an hour then you were making before....especially with out health benefits.
Unemployment benefits do several things. They allow more people to stay in their homes/apartments, keep them from defaulting on car loans, allow them to feed themselves (trust me you don't have enough money to do much else). Maybe that's what they (Scarborough, bimbos and mythical/ultra-conservative economists, I'm looking at you) are really complaining about, the fact that we don't just have to roll over and take it. All of us that aren't fortunate enough to feed at the teat of a giant conglomerate should be forced to flip burgers/stock shelves at Wal-Mart like the peasants we are.
