The person in question.
Posted on 07/02/2010 7:29:22 AM PDT by blam
The Clock Is Running (Out)
Friday, July 2. 2010
Posted by Karl Denninger in Editorial at 09:34
Oh boy.....
Debra Rousey of Gainesville, Georgia, says that she received an unemployment check of $194 last week, half the usual amount she receives, along with a letter announcing that this check would be her last. She is now in a complete panic over what to do next.
Welcome to a thing called "reality."
"I'm desperate and devastated," she told HuffPost. "I didn't get any warning. I was barely making ends meet on $330 a week, trying to diaper my grandchild and put food on the table for the four people I support. What do I do now? How am I going to make rent next month? I keep thinking, 'If I end up in a cardboard box, can I find one big enough for everybody, or do I have to send my son to live with someone else?'"
Ok, let's think here. Four people you support? One is a grandchild (where's Dad - if not Mom?); who are the other four?
Since Rousey, 45, was laid off from her job as a branch manager for Suntrust bank in November, she says she has been "frantically looking" for a job -- everything from entry-level marketing positions to a fry cook job at McDonalds -- but hasn't had an interview in months. As of tomorrow, she will be one of nearly 1.7 million people whose unemployment benefits have prematurely expired while Congress sits on legislation that would renew those benefits.
How long did you have that job and how much did you save of your income during that time? Little - or zero? It sounds like it. This situation, incidentally, is why that's a bad idea.
Rousey is currently pursuing a master's degree in adult education through an online program, and her son, 17, and her 25-year-old daughter are also full-time students. She said all three of them are desperate for work.
How is the school being paid for? And the 25-year old - how long has she been in school?
"They cut off my Internet and cable about five minutes ago, and my landlord is already calling," she said. "I don't have time to wait for Congress to extend these benefits. I'm drowning fast."
Oh, I see. And in November, when you lost your job, the Internet and Cable (which is likely $100 a month or so) was not something you cut off proactively to conserve funds? Why not?
Got a cell phone? What's the monthly nut on that?
Diapers are expensive in packages. Cloth ones are cheaper. Yes, they're less convenient - a lot less convenient. I remember buying the packages of Pampers for my daughter. If I had been broke, cloth it would be.
What's your electric bill? Did the AC get cut off in November too, or has it been blasting away all spring and summer? Was your heat set at "Jimmy Carter" levels over the winter months, or was it a nice toasty 72F inside?
November -> June is six months during which the standard 26 weeks of unemployment (that you do pay into via taxes and premiums that are assessed on your employer) ran.
The rest is a handout.
Over those six months this individual appears to have made no adjustments of materiality to compensate for the fact that she lost her income. Now she's in a panic and is looking for someone to blame.
Notice that nowhere in that article is even the first hint of accepting responsibility for not cutting back on significant discretionary purchases when the job was lost and attempting to stretch every dollar as far as it could possibly go.
I empathize with this woman's dilemma, but here's the problem: We (the government, the people) don't have the money to keep doing this.
Yes, I also recognize that we squandered an awful lot of money, but those funds are gone. Take it out on whoever you'd like for those acts. I did my level damndest to stop it, and failed. We gave money to GM, we gave money to Chrysler, we gave money to AIG, we gave money to foreign banks. Both republican and democrat administrations did this, including President Barack Obama who, I remind everyone voted for TARP along with a number of other pork-laden bills.
Nearly three years ago I recommended that the government fund and put aside $200 billion in actual cash to provide emergency shelter and food for up to 25% of the population for as long as 12-24 months. I was entirely serious, although I'm sure that many Congressmen and women who got my faxed letter perceived me to be absolutely insane. My recommendation was to be prepared to provide "three hots and a cot" on closed military bases or unused parts of active facilities for this purpose. These would not be "luxury accommodations" or even trailers - we're talking literally "three hots, a cot, hot water to shower with and flush toilets." That's all.
The simple fact of the matter is that huge swaths of America literally have saved nothing. They have been goaded into borrowing amounts that in some cases exceed their annual earnings. Most of these people are literally one hiccup in their income stream away from utter destitution.
Yes, much of it (if not all of it) is their own fault. They have saved nothing. They run $100 cable TV and Internet bills, and another $100 for "smart" cellphone service - each and every month. They have their financed car(s) on which they must maintain full coverage insurance (instead of a "moving jalopy" that is paid for, worth little, and on which one only needs liability insurance at 1/4 the cost.) They're entitled to a 75 degree house in the winter or summer, even if it generates a $300 electric bill. They believe they're entitled to student loans to go to college (instead of refusing to attend until the colleges get costs in check) further damaging their economic futures.
This state of affairs did not come about in an afternoon and it can't be fixed in one either. We cannot allow people to starve, but we also cannot continue to fund handouts as we have. The money simply is not there.
We need to figure out how to live in a nation with a forty percent smaller GDP than we now have. Yes, 40%. That means you, I, everyone else. The "living large" game is over. All Ponzi Schemes ultimately collapse - they do not go quietly into the night. The collapse is brutal, it's quick, it's efficient and it's devastating to anyone caught in it.
Every time.
These are facts, not fantasies.
If you are not prepared today, you need to become so by tomorrow.
Incidentally, yesterday would have been better.
There are some things we can do to help though, and they don't cost much money at all.
One of them is to kick out the 20 million+ illegal invaders who are consuming resources of all sorts - including taking jobs that Americans could be doing. The non-institutional working-age population (of legal residents and citizens) has gone from 230.6 million in 2007 to 237.5 million now. The number employed has gone from 144.2 million to 139.5. That's 11.5 million citizens out of work but ready, willing and able.
So tell me why we have 20 million illegal invaders in our nation again? Sure, some of them have jobs. But every one of those jobs is one that an American could be doing. It is an outrage that we allow our nation to be overrun with illegal Mexican invaders while our citizens are out of work and days or weeks away from being evicted and living under a highway overpass.
People tell me we can't deport 'em all. My retort is that we don't have to. Drive a bus with armed security to every chicken plant and strawberry field in America. Pick 'em up, fingerprint 'em electronically, bus 'em to the border. Make clear that if they get caught again in the United States they'll do five years at hard labor, no possibility of early release, before being deported again. Third time, 10 years. And so on.
It'll be a week before they all leave on their own, except the gang bangers, of which there are many. Those we'll have to actually go round up the hard way.
There's your employment problem.
Who was it that gave a speech yesterday exhorting us to "understand" all those illegal invaders in our country, let them keep the jobs that Americans could be doing, and not kick them out again?
That would be President Obama, I think.....
Hmmm...
Misogyny.
Her friggin warning was when she went on unemployment. The program is not to continue to pay your wages until the next extension. It is to help you so that you have time to go find work. It’s high time the government got out of this welfare replacement business. Yes, there are jobs. Not your first choice, but there are jobs. There would be a hell of a lot more jobs if we sent the Mexicans home.
Good post!
I am voting for him. Right on! LOL
Did the same for me. Just awesome!
Well golly gee,your supporting 4 others, get your a$$ in gear and find work or let the other 4 find work, wheres the parents of the grandchild? I and others are tired of supporting your lazy a$$.
People gt mad when you tell a simple truth. Many people just won’t take care of themselves. When times get tough, they won’t make it. I can recall living on next to nothing when my husband and I were first married. I did use cloth diapers. I did make my own baby food, I breast fed (because it cost nothing) and we ate mostly mac and cheese. We didn’t have cable and we kept every cost as low as possible. We saved every penny we could.
I resent paying now for people who think the rest of us owe them a comfy life. I don’t mind a hand up for the truly needy, but it’s no favor to keep subsidizing those who aren’t willing to cut to the bone, take any kind of job to get by (my husband drilled bowling balls and did odd jobs but we had a roof over our heads and ate ever day).
sometimes the truth hurts...I feel bad for some of these people but you know what?? I can’t keep working six-to-seven days a week, 50-60 hours a week on my job to not only make my ends meet but pay for those who use their money for IPads, Iphones, Ipods, (which I have none of) and also want “free” health insurance....
its’ about time people start taking responsibility for themselves....
One of them is to kick out the 20 million+ illegal invaders who are consuming resources of all sorts - including taking jobs that Americans could be doing. The non-institutional working-age population (of legal residents and citizens) has gone from 230.6 million in 2007 to 237.5 million now. The number employed has gone from 144.2 million to 139.5. That's 11.5 million citizens out of work but ready, willing and able.
So tell me why we have 20 million illegal invaders in our nation again? Sure, some of them have jobs. But every one of those jobs is one that an American could be doing. It is an outrage that we allow our nation to be overrun with illegal Mexican invaders while our citizens are out of work and days or weeks away from being evicted and living under a highway overpass.
Great post, blam
I SERIOUSLY doubt this lady and her progeny have made any legitimate effort to find employment. They pop into McDonalds and Burger King and fill out an application so they can tell the caseworker they did so to keep the free money flowing. Then when McDonalds and Burger King call to schedule an interview they refuse.
We all know the routine. I know plenty of small employers here in Cincinnati going nuts because they need help bad and have plenty of applications from people who are not truly interested when they are called and asked to schedule interviews.
I’d throw the whole pile of applications received before July 1 into the garbage and make the deadbeats re-apply now that the gravy train is grinding to a halt.
The “moderate” middle bought the Obummer sales pitch, “Join us for ‘Hope and Change’”, and they did, but the fools have literally consigned our once great nation to the Jim Jones garden patch surrounded by barbed wire, guarded by machine gun toting ideological zeolots.
A lot of folks just can’t wrap their minds around the idea of personally generating income, as opposed to finding somebody to give them a task, in an environment with strict rules and structure (some cannot even go to the restroom except at the appropriate time).
This woman and her dependents could bake pies and cakes and sell them in the neighborhood, if nothing else. Or, she could (heaven forbid) sit with an elderly person, plenty of whom need help since the country is aging. She could learn to sew and do alterations, or take in ironing.
The family should be the main social-welfare network, and the Gov’t has destroyed it.
In the 1930’s, my mother lived in one house with her parents, 3 brothers, 2 cousins and an aunt and uncle. When her Dad lost his job, her uncle supported everyone. Dad found another job, and then the older cousin worked as well. Everyone contributed, no one expected others to take care of them. There were few luxuries, but they maintained a decent home and even had a car which everyone shared. It was also the happiest time of their lives.
The person in question.
The sob stories, about unemployment checks remind me of the sob stories, about “health care” -—
Every health insurance agent knows people who decided to “work without a net” or go without insurance.
That is their RIGHT! I support that right, even though it “costs” me business.
However, when these “bulletproof” types actually get “hit” with an illness, they run to the MSM and the Democrats, and DEMAND that we bail them out of their bad choices.
I do not want them to starve.
I want their illnesses treated.
I also want them to go to bankruptcy court, because that is the choice they made, when they declined insurance!
However, with the privacy laws what they are, I would lose my license, as well as face criminal and civil penalty, if I “ratted out” anyone who is now crying about the “cruel” health care system!
Obama is the President of the reckless, the irresponsible and those motivated by envy.
And, before you tell me how horrible the private insurance system is:
I just had a client who lost his VA prescription benefits, retroactively, because he took money out of his IRA to help his daughter, who was laid off!
I just had a 3 different people I could not help, with Medicare Supplement insurance, since the GOVERNMENT will not issue them their “Part B” Medicare until NEXT YEAR!
It seems that COBRA insurance is “credible coverage” BY LAW, for PRIVATE insurance.
However, the Government says you have to sign up for Part B at age 65, even if you are on COBRA!
If you do not follow the GOVERNMENT rules, they deny coverage, and slap you with a penalty when coverage starts!
When has the MSM ever shown us a company bankrupted by GOVERNMENT rules?
I'm a firm believer in meeting one's obligations, but paying off debt in a rapidly shrinking economy makes no sense at all if it jeopardizes one's ability to pay other important expenses.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.