Where has compassion gone?

[fivekatz]

From Huff Post...

Later this week, North Carolina is expected to drastically reduce unemployment benefits for its residents, who face the fifth-highest unemployment rate in the country. The state joins seven others that have trimmed back benefits for the jobless since the recession.

Beginning in July, North Carolina would slash the maximum number of weeks a jobless worker can collect unemployment insurance from 26 to as few as 12. The new law would also reduce the maximum weekly benefit from $530 to $350 per person.

North Carolina's cuts are the deepest to unemployment benefits in the country and mean the state will also lose out on federal unemployment benefits, according to a new report on the proposal from the National Employment Law Project. Federal benefits are linked to the number of weeks and amount of money a person receives from his or her state. Approximately 80,000 North Carolina workers would be affected, the report found.

I am sorry but I find absurd in nation that pass out foreign aid in the billions to protect US business interests and provides subsides for highly profitable energy producers and agricultural corporations.

WTF. As a nation do we have no compassion for those who have fallen victim to the aftermath of the unbridled greed of the likes of Goldman-Sachs. Maybe John Thain could donate his 2008 bonus for selling the bankrupt Merill-lynch to the teetering Bank of America to NC so that the unemployed could eat?

[robertlouis]

From Huff Post...

Later this week, North Carolina is expected to drastically reduce unemployment benefits for its residents, who face the fifth-highest unemployment rate in the country. The state joins seven others that have trimmed back benefits for the jobless since the recession.

Beginning in July, North Carolina would slash the maximum number of weeks a jobless worker can collect unemployment insurance from 26 to as few as 12. The new law would also reduce the maximum weekly benefit from $530 to $350 per person.

North Carolina's cuts are the deepest to unemployment benefits in the country and mean the state will also lose out on federal unemployment benefits, according to a new report on the proposal from the National Employment Law Project. Federal benefits are linked to the number of weeks and amount of money a person receives from his or her state. Approximately 80,000 North Carolina workers would be affected, the report found.

I am sorry but I find absurd in nation that pass out foreign aid in the billions to protect US business interests and provides subsides for highly profitable energy producers and agricultural corporations.

WTF. As a nation do we have no compassion for those who have fallen victim to the aftermath of the unbridled greed of the likes of Goldman-Sachs. Maybe John Thain could donate his 2008 bonus for selling the bankrupt Merill-lynch to the teetering Bank of America to NC so that the unemployed could eat?

Simple if drastic solution - feed the bankers to the unemployed. I'm letting my inner Jonathan Swift do the talking tonight....:geek:

[fivekatz]

So you answer to the unemployed is to eat shit. j/k

[Ben]

Neither governments nor corporations are benevolent institutions.
Governments exist to serve corporate power. That's pretty much their function....
And corporations aren't charitable organizations.
They are, under legal obligation, designed to maximize profits....
Now people are different, of course. Most people are decent and moral but can't act on those impulses when in either government or a corporation. (Anyway, as the journalist Chris Hedges pointed out: we live in a corporate state....
Corporations, by their very design, are psychopathic institutions....
A great documentary about the corporation is actually called: The Corporation... link below -- :))

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xa3wyaEe9vE

[fivekatz]

Neither governments nor corporations are benevolent institutions.
Governments exist to serve corporate power. That's pretty much their function....
And corporations aren't charitable organizations.
They are, under legal obligation, designed to maximize profits....
Now people are different, of course. Most people are decent and moral but can't act on those impulses when in either government or a corporation. (Anyway, as the journalist Chris Hedges pointed out: we live in a corporate state....
Corporations, by their very design, are psychopathic institutions....
A great documentary about the corporation is actually called: The Corporation... link below -- :))

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xa3wyaEe9vE

I have seen the movie and its arguments are strong.

However the government role aside from creating an environment where business creates jobs and profits for its shareholders has an obligation to create safety nets and develop an environment that corporations can prosper.

While the GOP had a lot of fun with the Obama's sound bite "you did not build that" he was 100% right. Corporations haven't built the infrastructure that supports them, from electric grids, to the bridges and interstate highways and airports that carry their people and their products. The internet itself is a by-product of government spending.

And having American's able to feed their families in time of high unemployment helps corporations and too many starving folks ensure their demise IMHO.

[Ben]

I have seen the movie and its arguments are strong.

However the government role aside from creating an environment where business creates jobs and profits for its shareholders has an obligation to create safety nets and develop an environment that corporations can prosper.

While the GOP had a lot of fun with the Obama's sound bite "you did not build that" he was 100% right. Corporations haven't built the infrastructure that supports them, from electric grids, to the bridges and interstate highways and airports that carry their people and their products. The internet itself is a by-product of government spending.

And having American's able to feed their families in time of high unemployment helps corporations and too many starving folks ensure their demise IMHO.

If governments cared they would prevent the free movement of capital and the free import of goods.
But now that corporations are able to move their capital abroad, well, they don't care about American workers, the American people. Why would they? What does caring about people have to do with making money. American companies are maximizing profits by exploiting cheap labor in China, in India, in Vietnam, in Cambodia. That's their concern.
I mean, the profit motive isn't built on care and concern for human beings. (Noam Chomsky actually pointed out: what's new in the business world is that people within these companies don't actually care about the companies themselves.
I mean, decades ago people within these institutions actually cared about the company. Now they don't. I mean, if some top executive can make, say, $100 million and the company goes belly up, well, so be it.... Again, this is new. So, if they don't care about the company, well, are they going to care about people in general.
Anyway, you internalize the corporate structure. That becomes your value system. Whereby you don't care about other people. And, again, governments serve this corporate system. Completely.)
As Chris Hedges pointed out: we've had a corporate coup d'etat....
And we also have a profound democratic deficit in this country. Which is: the difference between public policy and public opinion.
Anyway, if we had a market system, well, companies would invest here. That's one of the rules, as it were, of markets: investment income needs to stay in the country of origin. Otherwise markets won't work.
Adam Smith thought investors would have what he called: a home bias. Meaning: they'd invest in their own country... as to be closer to their money.... (I mean, corporations can't care. Look at, say, climate change.... Can the CEO of Exxon put the value of future generations above the myopic value of his shareholders. No, of course not. That'd be irrational.
We are collectively saying, through climate change, that future generations have no value. None....)
I think we've a merger or corporate and state power.
Anyway, corporations are private governments. The sole purpose of government is to serve those centers of power. Namely corporations. Namely the shareholders. That's what the whole system is set up to do: enrich those people who own the stock.
I mean, what does a widow living on a small pension have to do with that? Or a retired cop or firefighter? Or an old woman that doesn't have enough to eat?
What does that have to do with corporate power &/or serving corporate power.
It's like Adam Smith said: The principal architects of policy (which are corporations today) are going to pursue their own interests regardless of the grievous impact on others.
Well, think famine, think acid rain, think the acidification of the oceans, think McDonald's, think childhood obesity, think extreme poverty....
And:
Bill Clinton pointed out that WOMEN do 65 percent of the labor in the world, make 10 percent of the income and own 1 percent of the land. Is this fair? No.... It's the way the world, the corporate world, operates.
Anyway, when people organize and demand action, well, things change.
That's the hope -- :)

[Jericho]

It's not just the US.
Still, an interesting little piece from over here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9864568/Blow-as-court-says-Government-back-to-work-scheme-is-unlawful.html

[zerrrr]

Don't worry, they are all switching to Disability and collecting social security now. The way the system works you can only get benefits if you have no income so there is no incentive to work or get a job when you are unemployment and when it runs out you swap over to disability.

Everyone is doing it now. Don't be pissed at the government because everyone is moving from one bucket to another.

[zerrrr]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2012/08/22/is-disability-the-new-unemployment-insurance/2/

In 2010, there were 3.5 total recordable cases of non-fatal occupational injury and illness per 100 full-time workers, down from 5.0 less than a decade ago. In 1973 the rate was 11 per 100. The net decline amounts to a 3.7 percent reduction in these hazards every year for four decades.

Of course, not all injuries and illness are work related. Then again, is there any aspect of our lives that has not become safer in the last two generations? For example, auto injuries are always a factor. But those risks have collapsed with the advent of airbags, anti-lock brakes and other technological breakthroughs.

The Social Security Administration’s website cites two criteria for disability eligibility:
• You must be unable to do any substantial work because of your medical condition(s); and
• Your medical condition(s) must have lasted, or be expected to last at least 1 year, or be expected to result in your death.

Quizzically, from 1980 to 2002 there was no change in the percentage of the workforce claiming disability, yet the “disability participation rate” has embarked on a 4.5 percent ascent each year for the last decade. There is now 1 person collecting disability for every 12 in the workforce.

This occurred despite the evolution toward more of a “desk job” workforce. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that today only 14% of working Americans are in goods producing jobs, down from more than 25% in 1973. Yet, somehow, claims for disability benefits have headed in the opposite direction:


There are people out there that truly want to work but are too sick or injured to do so. Sadly, many are unfortunately being branded with a stigma because of legions that are gaming the system. That is the only way we can explain how almost as many people collect disability (10.8 million) as there are working in the entirety of manufacturing (12 million).

It is plain to see that permanently stagnant labor markets are making Social Security disability the new unemployment benefit.”

The article is worth a click for the chart.

[Prospero]

The advocates of the free market, much in evidence elsewhere on this forum, and of diminished government would tell you compassion is weakness. The poor have only themselves to blame.

[martin48]

The advocates of the free market, much in evidence elsewhere on this forum, and of diminished government would tell you compassion is weakness. The poor have only themselves to blame.


Capitalism is like Japanese Knotweed: nothing kills it off. If there were only two people left on the planet, one of them would find a way of making money out of the other. Capitalism is prostitution without the fun.

[NYBURBS]

The advocates of the free market, much in evidence elsewhere on this forum, and of diminished government would tell you compassion is weakness. The poor have only themselves to blame.

It's not weakness, but there is also always the issue of where to draw a line. Nothing is free, so if unemployment benefits are constantly extended that means either 1) Working people are taxed more or 2) Money is borrowed, thus increasing the debt and watering down the long term value of everyone's money.

I would also point out to you that the US is not a true free market by any means. That being said, my post here isn't in support of the cut nor in opposition to it, I just thought someone should respond to your post.