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It's nice up there in the right-wing ivory tower... In this Hardball segment, Chris Matthews cracks up after James Sherk, a Heritage Foundation analyst, explains that the unemployment checks keep people from packing up and moving to find work -- you know, like in the Dust Bowl days? (I know people who can't afford to pack up and move across town, let alone across the country.)
So Tweety asks him if he has any friends who are unemployed. Sherk says yes, he does. Tweety asks if he's encouraging his friends to pack up and move elsewhere to look for work, and the look on the guy's face is priceless.
You see, his friends are looking for specific work in their field, as he quickly explains.
Just watch.
.
How does keeping Americans "OFF THE DOLE" contribute to the economy?
.
Starve the WAR Beast...
... Save the World.
in America is about being clever at cooking up "innovations" that the rest of the people in the world can use in order to churn things out for us at twenty cents an hour?
So do you like to lie, cheat, steal and betray your country's deepest values for money? Well lucky for you the Republican party is always hiring corporate shills! Get ready to take America apart brick by brick and then send her to China! Hurry and apply. Lucritive positions are still available in red states near you.
Ding ding!
Today's winner.
If I were a psychopath, I would join the republican party, and get in on the gravy train taking the Teabircher morons to the cleaners.
So ever how many million people who are out of work should just move to Nebraska? Is Nebraska ready for this?
I saw this segment yesterday and about half way through the interview you could tell this guy realized he was in over his head so he just grinned and tried to stay afloat.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
underwear, hats, gloves, scarves, earmuffs, etc. Long, cold winters up there.
He did, correctly, cite Texas as a place where the economy is stronger. And yes, there are Dust Bowl Grapes of Wrath scenarios being played out right now. Take this example: Last September I was headed down by Austin for a music-playing gig, and I saw a couple with a dog walking down I-35 on the south side of Dallas. I picked them up 'cause they looked dejected (could see it in their walk) but the dog was obviously having a great time, out walking with his people. Their story, which I believe, was that they'd left Springfield, Illinois when everything there closed down. His mother had looked online to find a place for them to go, so that he could get work in his field-- construction-- and she in hers-- hotel maid, Houston, Texas looked like the best bet, so they packed everything in their car and headed out. Their car broke down in Oklahoma City and they spent much of their gas money trying unsuccessfully to repair it-- but eventually had to walk away. That was the day before. By that night, someone had dropped them off on the wrong freeway; I-45 goes to Houston. I fed them (they had dog food in the backpack but not people food) and dropped them off in Austin on the right highway.
Sound like a modern-day Steinbeck story? Unemployment wasn't an option for them, probably because of working under the table or switching jobs as the economy melted down.
It's not the only story like this. There's a million of 'em.
"Courtesy is owed. Respect is earned. Love is given." --Unknown author, found in Guide to Texas Etiquette by Kinky Friedman
with under 5% unemployment: Nebraska and both Dakotas. I'm positive they could pick up the slack and put every american back to work despite the fact they have actual "unemployment" just like every other state.
I had a wingnut at work make the same exact dustbowl/benefits check argument the other day, but claimed all the jobs were in Texas (8%) and Florida (11.7%)because for these people nothing has changed since 1965.
No wonder conservatives hate science since quantum mechanics says you can't go back in time.
I would assume that if a large migrant population made its way to Nebraska and the Dakotas, the unemployment rate would go up, as the number of people there would increase, but the number of jobs wouldn't.
Nice try, moron in the video. Didn't pass even basic logical analysis.
He said "Nebraska" figuring no one would know where it was or how to check on unemployment. Hell, it worked for Time Magazine in 1980 (or was it '84) where the presidential election results map reversed Nebraska and Kansas. See? -- I bet you're thinking "what's the difference?" right now . . .
Anyway, "Nebraska" isn't what matters. What matters is it's somewhere out there where these damn unemployed people should move so we don't have to see them, since people are really small when viewed from 35,000 feet.
these people supposed to move to Nebraska (or anywhere else, for that matter) WITH????????
Just get an old Model T truck, hope that the guy selling it to you hasn't packed the diff with sawdust to hide the whining of worn out gears, grab Grandma and Rose o' Sharon and everyone else and head out. If the cops stop you, just act "Bull Simple".
any finding, opinion, or suggestion emanating from the heritage foundation should be given the response it deserves: derision
....folks at the Brookings institute are on the side of extended unemployment benefits, so I'm not sure what this idiot is talking about.
Beware of anyone promising a future full of yesterdays.
This idiot is not talking about anything.He's just mouthing his limited understanding of the Heritage Foundation's standard blathering points and not very well at that.Were I his boss there he'd be offering an explanation for such a weak showing then perhaps joining the ranks of those looking to move to Bugeaterland although he doesn't look like he'd know how to drive a tractor or much else that'd be useful.
...his ass would be out of work, so he could test his theories for real. Would love to see how long HE'd be accepting unemployment benefits before he decided it was better to sweep floors or clean shitters (on the crummiest hours available - IF he were even offered the job) than to 'just sit around and collect benefits'...
I wonder if Matthews was laughing because this guy is such a yutz, or because Matthews thinks the guy is funny.
Matthews thinks both.
Tell me about it. How can a person work for an organization that specializes in economics be so ignorant of the stupidity of policy suggestions (I know, he's paid well to be so ignorant)? Jobs have to be there TO reject, and as we know there is little to no productive investment in the economy, there are no jobs, we have a contracting economy. I'm so tired of people like this.
the better educated among us seem to have a belief in what i call techno-triumphalism; the belief that there is always a solution, and that our system of government will survive, there is a real danger in assumptions like this.
the time is past for tinkering with the system, now is the time for direct action such as job corps, nationalization, a new homestead act, true reform of the financial system, any number of rational socialistic reforms.
and yes, the assumption that one can find a job where one lives, could be considered unreasonable. my parents moved for my fathers job (back in the day when wives stayed home), that was what was required. not to say our job situation is not dire, it is, but what is being proposed is not going to fix it.
my point is that this guy is not the only one out of touch, pretty much our whole technocratic class is losing it.
Sell your home, pack up the wife and kids, move to Nebraska. Take yourself and your immediate family away from the support network of extended family, friends, and colleagues. I would have thought reverence for home and hearth were among the grab-bag of Republican family values but apparently theirs is a creed of fear, selfishness and desperation.
"Family values" means literally the family of the person speaking the phrase and no other family; every other family must suffer to support their family.
I am surprised the stupid bast**d didn't say they should move to China. They can find work at about $.50 an hour. What's the problem?
These people need to read about the reign of terror and Robspeirre.
If I were a psychopath, I would join the republican party, and get in on the gravy train taking the Teabircher morons to the cleaners.
"I would have thought reverence for home and hearth were among the grab-bag of Republican family values"
They're very reverential. Towerds their homes and hearths, not yours.
heartless bastards.
Well, yeah, of course rich people should receive unemployment benefits, because they're not a drain on the system. And, of course, poor people should be FORCED to move to find work. Vote Republican!
If you don't have yours, that's your own fault. It's downright Malthusian/Calvinist.
"Courtesy is owed. Respect is earned. Love is given." --Unknown author, found in Guide to Texas Etiquette by Kinky Friedman
like I said above, "They're heartless bastards."
I wonder what billionaire family this a**hole is decended from?
"You know Williston, our James is really a dim bulb. What is gonna become of him?"
"I will call up the Heritage foundation and get him a wingnut welfare job. Any idiot can do it, and it will keep him out of my hair at the office!"
If I were a psychopath, I would join the republican party, and get in on the gravy train taking the Teabircher morons to the cleaners.
james spader classic "rich boy" accent down pat
Yes, I noticed his accent too. I searched for info on him, but couldn't find a real bio that tells where he was born and grew up.
Here's what Politico's "The Arena" says:
"James Sherk is the Bradley Fellow in Labor Policy at The Heritage Foundation.
"As the Bradley Fellow, Sherk will continue his work on the minimum wage, card check, rising standards of living and other tax, labor and economic issues in Heritage's Center for Data Analysis.
"Sherk's fellowship is supported by the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation of Milwaukee. The foundation is 'devoted to strengthening American democratic capitalism and the institutions, principles and values that sustain and nurture it.'
"Sherk joined Heritage in 2006 after interning there in the summer of 2003.
"He graduated from Hillsdale College in Michigan, where he earned a bachelor's degree in economics and mathematics. Sherk then pursued graduate studies in economics at the University of Rochester in New York, where he concentrated in econometrics and labor economics. He received his master's degree in economics from Rochester in January 2006."
In other words, he's probably never had a real job, which is of course why the Heritage Foundation has him in a special position for labor policy right out of college.
Hillsdale College (see Wikipedia) is a private conservative college in Michigan (Blackwater's Erik Prince also graduated from it). Sherk and some fellow students founded the Evangel Society (dot org), a right-wing Christian fundamentalist group that wants to take over the country.
The only thing keeping James Sherk employed is his willingness to say whatever the Heritage Foundation tells him too.
What happened to that conservative common sense, they all like to talk about?
Only about 1.8 million people live in the state of Nebraska, less than 20% of the population of New York City. How many jobs could there be in Nebraska? It is doubtful that people moving to Nebraska would increase the number of available jobs. Unemployment would dramatically rise on the influx of people looking for work. Just like happened in California during the time of the Dust Bowl.
the jobs that are available in Nebraska are mostly those that have been traditionally filled by migrant workers. So you get 3 months of work in NE and then what?
Haven't you heard? There's lot's of jobs in Callyforny picking oranges! I saw a webpage...
I'd like to know how I can get one of those think tank gigs. I mean, I went to college; I can churn out reams and reams of bullshit -oops! - I mean position papers - with the best of 'em. Move to Nebraska. Yeah, Sherkoff - we can all become farmers. Stupid motherfucker!
If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're gonna get selfish, ignorant leaders.
George Carlin
think tank gigs.."
You betcha. I can bs with the best of them!!!
"I'd like to know how I can get one of those think tank gigs. I mean, I went to college; I can churn out reams and reams of bullshit"
All you need is a nice suit and you're in!
Reminds me of Bob Hope in -- I think -- "My Favorite Blonde". "Being a detective took courage, brains and a gun. And I already had a gun."
Okay, so this Heritage Foundation representative thinks that unemployment checks create a disincentive to finding a job among the unemployed. Fair enough. He's entitled to suggest arranging societal and govt incentives so as to promote his personal interests. There's a depression on, and that creates a unique opportunity for the super-wealthy to get the non-super-wealthy in our society used to a dramatically lower standard of living, with no safety nets to fall back on to avoid giving in to the most extreme downward pressure on living standards.
But is this person, and the Heritage Foundation, and the super-wealthy who fund the Heritage Foundation -- are they the only people entitled to suggest arranging societal and govt incentives so as to promote their personal interests? I'm thinking in particular of those artificial disincentives that keep the non-super-wealthy from mounting this guy's head on a pike, along with those of his paymasters. Hey, every crisis is an opportunity, and in the libertarian paradise this guy wants, we should all feel free to go for what is in our interests, without letting politically correct notions of due process, justice and fairness get in the way.
Chris Matthews nailed it. Oftentimes these conservative/libertarian types live in a twilight zone-like place far removed from the everyday reality that most of us deal with.
And that's OK, but they shouldn't try to tell us that exist in the real world what's right and what's wrong because they oftentimes have no idea.
This reminds me of what I have read about Milton Friedman and his 'Chicago school.' His policies were nice and fascinating among the halls of academia, though transplant them to the real word, and you have disasters like Pinochet's Argentina.
This is also why I say that if someone has not existed on welfare for a period of time, you should have no say in determining welfare policy. Same thing with women's reproductive health: No uterus, no say.
I should apply for those kind of jobs! The heck with trying to be an English teacher. More teachers are being let go these days than being hired. Is anyone even looking at my resume?
"Courtesy is owed. Respect is earned. Love is given." --Unknown author, found in Guide to Texas Etiquette by Kinky Friedman
That's the thing; I imagine you know more about what women go through than some guy filled with religious fervor. The same thing with welfare. Being that you understand what it's about, and can see it's nothing that makes you (I assume) feel particularly proud or use as a strategy to avoid work, then It think that that puts you in a better position to work on such matters than an entire herd of politicians or policy wonks (or wonkettes, in this particular case).
we can send all the unemployed to DC so they can write position papers for the Heritage Foundation.
Where Have We been? Where Are We Going?
There's your Republican "freedom." Can't find a job because Repugs (and Corporate-sponsored, DLC DINOS) destroyed the American Middle Class and sent your job to China? Ride the rails to Nebraska! What's old is new again!
The Republican Party: Sponsors of the new Gilded Age... where the rich own and run everything and everyone else knows their "place."
Soon the only jobs left will be to give some rich bankster's wife a manicure! So "Uniquely American!"
All Repugs can do is blame the victim. That's their pattern because their "solutions" are all a ruse to trick dupes into supporting policies that have turned "The Land of the Free" into "The United States of Serfs and Lords." By the time the Teatards realize they've been played, their well-fed masters would have already disappeared behind the walls of their gated communities to laugh at them.
When are we going to storm the Bastille? Can we at least have a national strike already?
Another day, more http://RepublicanDirtyTricks.com
On the 16th we storm the Bastille.
"Courtesy is owed. Respect is earned. Love is given." --Unknown author, found in Guide to Texas Etiquette by Kinky Friedman
Procrastinators' Bastille Day? Aux armes, citoyens! Quelquefois plus tard!
I watched this yesterday.
It's amazing how much we've removed our children from reality. This Randian child bitched and moaned (and please no matter how much he danced around the issue, he clearly had no appreciation for how REAL people live) about the "disincentive" of unemployment insurance, yet when Matthews questioned him about HIS friends, somehow they are "different".
This child, like so many modern children suffering from "affluenza", is so frighteningly removed from reality that ignorant or not, he is a threat to our very way of life.
"Ironic, isn't it Smithers? This anonymous clan of slack-jawed troglodytes has cost me the election, and yet if I were to have them killed, I would be the one to go to jail. That's democracy for you." --Mr. Burns
Spending a summer in Nebraska detassling corn all day might do him a lot of good.
Apparently, Jimmy here thinks we should be a nation of migrant workers, following the jobs around in our gypsy wagons.
is that where Ben Nelson is from , i know he would share the wealth and health care with us .
every time you throw a little mud , you lose a little ground .
Seriously? What the fuck?
He's advocating that we remove the safety net so that we can go back to the good ol' days of "The Grapes of Wrath". You'd think any moron stupid enough to advocate that sort of thing would be ignored, immediately.
But the "new politics" say that there is no past -- only the present, and it's all about immediate danger, immediate consequence. "Gut social security, unemployment insurance and medicare, or else teh chinese will ownz you!?!?!" It's preying on the inability of the general populace to grasp how any of this works, and it's making me very sad for my country that it's working.
Then again, this fucker is from the Heritage Foundation. It's like having an insurance company exec on a news show to discuss Medicare. He's a paid shill, and the only reason he's given credence is that no one seems to understand the fallacy of false compromise.
Just because there are two sides does not mean that one is in any way, shape or form valid or correct -- it just means someone doesn't agree. That doesn't make them right. At all.
On Fox he'd be given non-stop coverage with no other views presented.
he was fellated on camera?
Are there suddenly 10M new jobs in a state with 1.8M people?
It'd be precious to see the reaction if all of the unemployed and underemployed in California moved to Nebraska. How fast would the Nebraska natives flee to Iowa or Kansas?
There aren't nearly enough jobs anywhere in the country to absorb even a tiny fraction of the currently unemployed. To suggest they should move to stand in a long line somewhere else to look for work is totally stupid.
What a sherkoff
First, he argues that benefits should be cut because it encourages people to spend too much time looking for jobs in their field and for jobs close to home.
Later, when asked about his unemployed friends, he says they're looking for jobs that match their skills. He later says if his friends were unemployed for a year and a half, he'd tell them to take the lower level jobs.
His friends are doing EXACTLY what he says is wrong with the system.
These people are certifiable psychos.
In a single breath, it's "The stimulus bill didn't work" but "enough new jobs were created in Nebraska to employ most of the 8 million who lost their jobs due to this latest bout of Reaganomics."
If he had crossed his eyes, stuck out his tongue and announced he was the reincarnation of Pinkie Lee he would have come off more sane.
Heritage Foundation doesn't want to
look like the populist cretins they represent
so they bring in a reasonable conservative
who does reflect the republican
consensus but does it in a way that
Mathews was not ready to debate.
Making republicans look reasonable
and Mathews unreasonable was the
whole point of this argument, not
unemployment.
to say that the heritage foundations represents populists ("populist cretins") is to say you are not familiar with the heritage foundation
and, holy frijoles, you think that this flack made republicans look reasonable?
Right when Mark said Terri Schiavo's name, I thought the neocon fella was going to have a conniption!
w00t!
...keep Haitians from moving back to their old neighborhoods.
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=wea...
Because what these think tanks are notorious for is confirmation bias. They look for only one particular kind of forcing factor and when they've found what they're looking for they stop looking. Smells like BULLSHIT to me.
I bet that's one of the Republicans' new talking points.
Doesn't that yahoo realize that locals are often favored for jobs? Does he understand how expensive it is to move? How does one go about doing that if they're broke and their credit is shot? What if they go into debt to make a move and then either can't find a job or only find short-term employment? Jobs nowadays don't pay enough to support a nomadic lifestyle.
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