unemployment

One expects a Reagan/Bush appointee to stand up for the welfare of the 1%, and Martin Feldstein certainly delivers. He has nothing to say about the effect of low rates on employment, but he agonizes over any loss of capital gains.

Unemployed workers are losing productive years now, which they will never get back. Not only lost wages, but also mounting debt, erosion of skills, and family crises. Feldstein can't spare a single mention of their losses.

Let's not forget how that risky capital can also be invested in new ventures, new plants, and new equipment. Why are companies sitting on cash in the bank, or investors chasing a few basis points by going after T-bonds? Why aren't we seeing productive investment?

We've all heard the GOP blame over-regulation, but no amount of complexity ever deterred a hedge-fund or derivatives broker. What industry needs is demand, and demand comes from consumers who spend what they earn - assuming they are employed.

What’s Brewing in Raleigh? Possum Stew!

The most recent unemployment numbers in North Carolina show a continued decrease in employment. Gaston County, like all the counties in the state recorded more unemployed citizens than the previous month. At 11.1 % unemployment on the county level and 10.2 state-wide, the frenzied activity in Raleigh to right this sinking ship must be at an all-time high, right? Unfortunately the answer is no. Instead the feverish legislation coming out of Raleigh amounts to a piping hot bowl of possum stew!

Instead of an “all hands on deck” approach our law-makers in Raleigh have set their sights on laws that are not only insignificant, but smacks of silliness in the face of current economic calamity.

Tell NC lawmakers to drop their draconian, hurtful, immoral unemployment insurance proposal.

Republican legislators in North Carolina are pushing an extreme package of cuts to unemployment insurance.

The Senate committee in charge of the issue, the Revenue Laws Study Committee, voted to move the proposal forward on Tuesday. It will come to the General Assembly for a vote when they reconvene on January 30.

The proposal cuts the weekly maximum benefit by 35 percent, (even though the statewide average benefit is much less). It also reduces the number of benefit to a sliding scale between 12 and 20 weeks, even though the average length of unemployment is at an all-time high of 40 weeks.

Take action now – tell the North Carolina legislators to keep unemployment benefits strong

Thankfully, earlier this week Congress fulfilled its (minimum) obligation to the long-term unemployed by passing an extension of federal unemployment benefits as part of the “fiscal cliff” deal.

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Rachel Maddow just called out four GOP Senators including NC's own Richard Burr. Seems he voted against the veterans' jobs bill today in the US Senate. Burr previously worked with the bill's sponsors to get his ideas included in the bill. Then he voted against the bill.

From Think Progess online:

Senate Republicans prevented a veterans’ jobs bill from coming to a vote today by forcing a budget point of order vote. Democrats came up 2 votes short of the 60 needed to defeat the GOP’s budget measure.

It’s hard to know whether to laugh or cry at such an embarrassingly dimwitted and offensive statement.