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."Extending unemployment insurance is unsound economic policy. It reduces incentives for workers to find employment or shift to new industrial sectors. Even Krugman recognizes this, but says Republicans are mean anyway. Zandar the Stupid just uses this as one more chance to scream RAAAAACIST!!!
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.
Added: William Jacobson links, "Is Paul Krugman Heartless, Clueless or Confused (Pick Only One)?"
5 comments:
Zandar has fallen for a Loony Left neologism. Their operational definition for the term racist is that it means insufficient pandering. The implicit claim that one should pander to any extent is faulty reasoning. It begs the question as to whether one should pander in the first place.
One can only hurl the pejorative "racist" so many time before it has no value except to a very small minority of people who are very, very partisan. It is so easily refuted that I suspect that even most Democrats don't believe it or like that it is being used in this manner.
Yep, you sure got me pegged, guys.
Way to miss the larger point. Not all Americans unemployed are minorities.
But they sure deserve to be cut off in the middle of the worst economy in sixty plus years. That will help create demand!
Oh wait, demand's so bad now that chains like Sam's Club are resorting to help people take out small business loans to buy things at the store.
Clearly what we need now are more tax cuts for corporations, right?
Actually, not extending unemployment benefits is idiotic and the reasoning behind not doing so confuses cause and effect. Unemployment isn't high because so many people are getting an unemployment check. Rather so many people are getting unemployment checks because unemployment is high.
Cutting off unemployment is not going to magically create a bunch of jobs that aren't there now. A sudden availability of a bunch of people at the end of their rope is not going to create jobs and, if you believe it will, I challenge you to explain what sort of magical mechanism is behind a change that puts people to work not because the job is needed, but because someone is willing to take it. No one anywhere is ever going to employ someone to do something that doesn't need done.
I'm not sure why I'm wasting my time writing out this comment since, 1) your mind's made up and you've chosen to take voodoo economics as a matter of faith and 2) rightwing blogs brook no dissent, so this isn't going to get past the moderator.
From the writing of liberal economist Paul Krugman of NYTimes fame:
"...…public policy designed to help workers who lose their jobs can lead to structural unemployment as an unintended side effect. Most economically advanced countries provide benefits to laid-off workers as a way to tide them over until they find a new job. In the United States, these benefits typically replace only a small fraction of worker’s income and expire after 26 weeks. In other countries, particularly in Europe, benefits are more generous and last longer. The drawback to this generosity is that it reduces a worker’s incentive to quickly find a new job. Generous unemployment benefits are widely believed to be one of the main causes of “Eurosclerosis,” the persistent high unemployment that affects a number of European economies."
Does not seem to be a "Right" thing and if the Dems were not pandering they would admit the problem.
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