The media everyday tell us that 9.8 percent of Americans (as of November) are unemployed.
They seldom mention that that is the average across the racial divides.
The white unemployment rate (November) is 8.9 percent. That’s just over eleven million people.
The black unemployment rate is 16.0 percent. That’s just under three million people.
The Latino unemployment rate is 13.2 percent. That’s just over three million people.
People employed part time because they couldn’t find full time work or had their hours cut numbered nine million.
Another two and one half million wanted work, couldn’t find it, and were not counted as unemployed because they had given up the search in the last four weeks.
That’s about twenty-eight and a half million people whose lives have been damaged by rich people, Wall Street financiers, bankers, and their enablers in Congress. The rich people and the finance people have benefited enormously from their rapacious and sociopathic machinations. They haven’t been hurt by the damage they’ve caused: the taxpayers, courtesy of George Bush and the Republicans, and now Barack Obama and the Republicans, gave them all their money back and set them on the course to ripping more vast sums of money from a teetering economy.
And now, despite the rationalizations that sound reasonable dripping from the lips of the President, he and the Republicans want to reward these rich bastards by keeping their tax rates low. They get a free ride on the backs of the crumbling middle class and the working poor while, despite Republican mythology and lies to the contrary, they contribute nothing to reviving the economy and creating jobs.
A suitable analogy might state that you can rape a girl as often as you like, beat the crap out of her week after week if you like, and get away with it as long as you own the police and the judges and the prosecutors.
Well, the rich own the Congress, they own the Supreme Court, they’re buying the President, and they’re raping America. The only choice we’re being given is whether we we want it bending over or on our knees.
Grumpy Lion 
So basically, we’re screwed.
LikeLike
Not necessarily, but it doesn’t look good.
LikeLike
“and their enablers in Congress”
Like Barney Frank and company that pressured national banks to lower lending standards, so people who couldn’t afford loans signed up for them? I’d hold off on pointing that finger of blame at Bush or the banks until you focus on the root causes.
LikeLike
Nobody forced the banks to give loans to people who couldn’t afford them. Deregulation, under Bush and the Republicans, allowed the financial industry license to plunder. When your local bank doesn’t have to hold your mortgage but can sell it to someone who can sell it to someone else who can package it, or pieces of it, with other mortgages, then you’re asking for trouble. Deregulation removed responsibility, and the financial people acted accordingly, in any way they could think of to line their pockets. You might want to hold off pointing that finger of blame until you focus on the root causes: unregulated greed enabled by Republican policies over thirty years. Which is not to say the Democrats are blameless, but if you want to get down in the dirt where the roots are, you’ll find Republicans covered in the filth.
LikeLike
“Nobody forced the banks to give loans to people who couldn’t afford them. ”
Actually, Barney Frank used Fannie/Freddie to pressure the national banks to do this. That’s 100% forcing, them, and there’s even a name attached. Look up Barney Frank, Andrew Cuomo, ACORN, etc in relation to this. They actually changed the reasonable practices of these banks, which was income verification and substantial down payment. Once this happened, the level of risk went up, along with the prices.
LikeLike
It’s a lot more complicated than picking one guy to be your boogeyman. You could have noted that the Republicans had years to enact reforms, but didn’t. Barney’s fault, of course.
‘Nuff said. You’ve got your boogeymen, I’ve got mine.
LikeLike
I have no boogeyman, I’m just pointing out a glaring one that you’ve seemed to have held harmless, yet he’s a root and direct cause of the mess. Yet, you’ve held one group as the sole center of the problem. Kind of hypocritical, don’t you think?
LikeLike
There were, and are, a lot of people involved in making bad decisions in the matter. Am I supposed to every time name every one of them to satisfy your need for a villain? Or am I to figure out which villain each reader wants to blame so I can include all the names in what I write before I publish?
I painted with a broad brush because there’s plenty of blame to go around, but most of it focuses on modern so-called conservatives because that’s where the problem started and where it continues to fester.
If your boogeyman is Barney Frank (and you, not me, brought him up and laid the weight of the problem on him), go ahead, but do it someplace else. Your hypocrisy is to put him at the center of the mess and ignore the Republican/Conservative policies and implementations that are actually the root and direct cause, with the help of some Democratic wobbling.
Go have a nice Christmas. Santa is calling all his elves in to announce cutbacks in staff and product.
LikeLike
“There were, and are, a lot of people involved in making bad decisions in the matter.”
Not at all, you just can’t ignore a MAJOR portion of the current problem, and then try to repeat your argument louder as if it were not at all a part of the problem.
I’m no hypocrite here. Our current mortgage mess stems from people going for loans they couldn’t afford. Why were they suddenly offered these? Well, you’ve seen the answers. Is this to say this is the only contributing factor here? No. But that wasn’t my point. My point was not to ignore root causes. And Barney Frank and company are a giant one, yet those of your political persuasion never seem to even notice. Even despite his refusal to allow regulation (the word you like) of Fannie/Freddie. Had he, we wouldn’t have the credit swap and derivative trading messes we’re in.
Your focus on the rich and the conservatives is like blaming one kid who pushed another, but not the one who pulled out a gun and shot him for doing so. It’s very narrow-minded and non-liberal thinking.
LikeLike
I overheard a depressing conversation at work. One guy was complaining about all these leeches that sit back getting fat off the unemployment and the myriad methods the have for cheating the system.
My immediate thought was, “Spoken like someone who has never been unemployed.” Sure, he approves giving billions to the fabulously wealthy but begrudges the down-and-out even a crumb.
LikeLike
You might ask him how he knows so much about cheating the system.
LikeLike
For young men (aged 20 to 34), 1.8 percent of whites, 3.7 percent of Hispanics and 11.4 percent of blacks are currently incarcerated.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/01/minority-unemployment-facts_n_775351.html#s165933
As if the only black guy who isn’t unemployed or in jail is the President…
LikeLike
It does sort of look like the President will join the ranks of the unemployed in about two years…
LikeLike
I feel he’s going to be in jail in two years. The House will find a way to outlaw socialism. Life sentence for caring for the people.
LikeLike
It would be nice if we had some socialism here to begin with. All we’ve got are fragments of practical plans to help the sick, the weak, the poor, the old.
LikeLike
Japan and Germany have a better economy and better social policies. I love the Gini coefficient, it tells if the poors are too poor while the wealthies are too rich in a country:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient
It tells that America looks like Russia and Iran. NO country in the Western World, NONE is like America.
According to Gini, the most socialist countries are Denmark, Japan and Sweden. What’s not to love about them?
And the most capitalist countries are Namibia, Lesotho and Sierra Leone. It’s Hell on Earth.
I can’t conceive socialist can be used as an insult.
LikeLike
Oh crap, math!
But good charts and maps.
LikeLike
Damn that’s depressing. I think I’m going to eat a tub of ice cream.
LikeLike
Sharesies!
LikeLike
Math aren’t necessary to show how screwed the average American is. But they show it well…
LikeLike