From: 1389 Blog

At Christmas, let us pray for those who cannot find work to support their families!


This video is a real shocker:

Unemployment Benefits: The 99ers

Vast numbers of Americans who were laid off back in 2008 still cannot find jobs. There simply are nowhere near enough jobs to go around.

Despite what was said in the news about extending unemployment benefits for another “thirteen months,” this was a lie. There was no extension of benefits for those who have exhausted their 99 weeks of unemployment benefits and who still cannot find work, or are working at part-time jobs that don’t pay enough to live on.

You don’t have to be a wastrel to end up in that predicament. Many of these people are older, educated professionals who did all the right things: finished college and professional school, worked diligently, kept their skills up to date, saved for their retirement. Now they are cashing in their IRAs and their 401Ks just to survive, selling their homes at huge losses, moving in with strangers, going to soup kitchens, picking through garbage for items to recycle.

Per the video, “No one is expecting Congress to vote another extension of unemployment checks, given our historic budget deficits.”

House adjourns with no mention of tier 5 unemployment extension for 99ers

December 23rd, 2010 8:58 am ET.

The House of Representatives yesterday evening passed a motion to adjourn the 111th Congress with no mention of H.R. 6556, the bill that would have provided unemployment benefits for the 99ers. The bill was sponsored by Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA).

In an eloquent eulogy for tier 5, Michael Colliss laid into Lee, writing on the website All247News, “This latest disappointment to the 99ers was little more then an effort by a relatively unknown Congresswoman to get publicity. The 99ers have suffered – and are continuing to suffer – enough. This was a totally unnecessary, and in the opinion of this writer, basically cruel and insensitive effort by a person who did not care who she hurt to gain headlines. Considering the sad, unnecessary turmoil created by Congressman Barbara Lee of California, many unemployment advocates as well as 99ers are probably asking themselves, ‘With ‘friends’ like these who needs enemies?'”

Michael Colliss worked for 21 years as a staff member in Congress. He is now retired and works as a volunteer advocate for the 99ers.

The 112th Congress begins on Wednesday, January 5th, 2011. It is unlikely to pass legislation providing unemployment benefits for the 99ers. When asked about the future of the 99ers earlier this week, White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs said that the President intends to focus on job creation.

Read the rest.

I know only too well what the President means when he “intends to focus on job creation.” This means pork-barrel jobs for the TSA gropers, for the new food-inspection Nazis, for unneeded school administrators, and for all of the bureaucrats who are putting a stranglehold on private enterprise. There will be jobs for the SEIU and for other unions that have contributed to the election of Barack Hussein Obama.

This is how Obama’s “job creation” has worked out thus far:

Hot Air: Chart of the … year

(h/t: Iron Fist)

posted at 11:36 am on December 7, 2010 by Ed Morrissey

Quite a few people have had the same reaction to this chart from Business Insider and Calculated Risk as John Derbyshire at The Corner, which is to offer a res ipsa loquitur rather than clutter it with commentary. But there is more to be said about the ramifications of this chart:

Chart showing nearly flat 'recovery' from 2008 recession - click for larger image

But calling it the Chart of the Day seems too limiting. I’d call this the Chart of the Year, for a couple of reasons. It demonstrates the folly of the Obama administration’s insistence that we have been experiencing a recovery and any sort of significant growth in job creation. After hitting the nadir of job losses relative to our peak inter-recession employment, we have essentially flatlined for far longer than any other post-recession period. Nothing in the data shows a hint that we will soon break out of that pattern either, and Ben Bernanke says we’ll probably go four to five more years on this same trajectory.

Read the rest.

But that’s not all, folks. The Obama Administration has been creating jobs, all right – but not for Americans! The jobs are in other countries, in various industries that are profiting from US subsidies, sometimes through the costly stimulus program that was touted as a means of stemming American unemployment.

Our Tax Dollars ‘Saved or Created’ Jobs – OVERSEAS!

Our economy is a mess – millions of Americans are out of work and those who do have jobs are finding it increasingly difficult to afford the ever rising costs of living. With this in mind, it might make sense for the Obama administration to direct some of our tax dollars towards job creation, but what doesn’t make sense is the fact that millions of our dollars are being used by the Obama administration to create jobs in foreign countries!

Democrats are working very hard pushing the ‘green’ meme and fighting tirelessly to divert money to China for wind turbines – which if made here instead could help put Americans back to work.’
[…]
Not to be outdone by his former rival & current underling, good ole Barry spent $22 MILLION dollars to train high tech workers in Sri Lanka! Jobs that, again, I’m sure many AMERICANS would have loved an opportunity to be trained for and to get. There was a lot of coverage of this in the right-blogosphere, and virtually none in the MSM (try not to look so surprised), here’s what Ed Morrissey had to say about it at Hot Air:

Obama WH spends $22 million to train workers …
August 4, 2010 by Ed Morrissey
As I noted earlier, Democrats plan to punish businesses that locate higher-paying manufacturing jobs overseas with higher taxes. What will they do with a White House that will spend $22 million to train programmers in Java — and English — in Asia? The program from USAID will train 3,000 programmers to compete for business in the high-tech sector…

Much more here.

H-1b: Importing foreigners to displace American tech workers

As if all that were not enough, the H-1b visa program remains in effect. This program imports foreign workers to work at high-tech jobs where there is supposedly a shortage of American workers. The program was a fraud from the get-go, and it still is. Never has there been a shortage of American workers in the IT and engineering fields. Instead, the H-1b workers are being imported as contractors, at lower wages than what American workers would be paid, despite the laws that supposedly prevent that. Because most of the H-1b workers lack understanding of the American business environment, not to mention English-language communication skills, the quality of their work falls far short of that of the experienced American workers whom they have displaced. But too many CEOs and CIOs who want to cut corners to improve their short-term results make use of these H-1b workers in droves.

I am one of the 99ers.

At the age of 57, I am one of those who are considered “too old to rehire, and too young to retire.”

If Barack Hussein Obama has his way, there will never be a job at a living wage for the likes of me.

Having been laid off from an IT job early in 2008, I am one of those who have no more unemployment benefits. I am currently working as a part-time retail clerk, at minimum wage. To put it bluntly, I am a diligent and reliable worker with a clean record and a cooperative attitude, and I am exceedingly frugal, but it is flat-out impossible to survive on what I earn. I have requested more hours, but business has been much too slow.

Unless my situation drastically improves after the beginning of 2011, I am seriously considering emigration.


Also see: