Ted Rall for January 23, 2015

Why is he complaining about no raise if he has no job?

Dammit, if there’s one thing I expect from a Ted Rall strip it’s blind hatred of anyone who doesn’t march in lockstep with his beliefs. If there are two things I expect from a Ted Rall strip, they are blind hatred of anyone who doesn’t march in lockstep with his beliefs and internal continuity.

@s49nav – Ah if only it were so simple. Nobody should be “given” a job. If it is given to you it won’t be valued and you will not treat it as the treasure it actually is.

And where would you say we get this job that we give him? Should the government open it’s doors wide and accept anyone who is homeless and unemployed as a new worker – Growing the government wage rolls and requiring even more taxes?

Or should we force businesses to increase their rolls by say 10% to take in all these homeless and create a hidden tax of higher prices on US goods making them less competitive against foreign competitors.

I think the Republicans are trying to help this guy far more then the “Give a Handout Democrats”. They are trying to get our economy back on strong footing so that there ARE jobs for people to work.

“If you really want to help, give him a job, not a program.”Give him training programs so that he can learn to do the jobs available.

@ Meph and Jase:Repubs efforts help those with lots of money make more money. What the wealthy have is never enough. As is currently being witnessed, a strong economy does not mean that companies will hire, or that wages will be enough to live on. Forget employee benefits..There are training programs available at state & federal levels. But companies will not hire workers over 40. and, if one has been unemployed for over a year, they will not consider him/her. Lastly, unless you have recently performed the same job at the same type of company, they will not look at you.

Won’t somebody these days please film a decent re-make to “The Magic Christian”?

If you read carefully, Ted takes a swipe at President Obama, rightly, for droning, and incorrectly for too much golf (to demonstrate indifference). Then he goes and says nothing Obama would have done would have mattered because of the republicans.The point is that Obama should have been doing more for the jobless even if it were to be blocked in congress. I agree with Ted on everything except the golf thing. Obama should have been much more adroit in leading and negotiating with congress. The problem is that the republicans do not understand the difference between nation state sovereign finances and non-sovereign finances, especially given the reserve currency status of the dollar. Fortunately, the dems controlled the purse strings in 2009, so we did not end up in the same boat as the EU. But be a use the government stepped up aggregate demand, and to a lesser degree, saved the auto industry, our economic situation is the best of any developed nation on earth. This did not a tackle structural issues of age discrimination, job training and other educational issues, or the need to overhaul our national infrastructure (water, sewer, power grid, transportation, etc., etc.). With interest rates as low as they are, what a great time to make these investments! Oh, I forgot, the republics must like potholes, leaking water systems, and dumb power grids. Instead they trot out the Laffer curve. Proven wrong time and time again to be foolish policy…Kansas is the latest example, though without sovereignty over the currency used in the state, they don’t have monetary policy tools, they certainly have screwed the pooch with their use of fiscal policy.

“If you really want to help, give him a job, not a program.”??#But it’s government programs that can provide the opportunity for jobs in the private sector, such as CETA “Comprehensive Employment Act”. I know this to be true as I benefited from that program. It literately turned my life around!

@OldCoal – I’m not sure what you think is imaginary about Reganomics.

Companies that have customers and can produce the goods economically in the United States will hire people to do the work.

Of course progressives point to every job pushed offshore and say – See they are just taking jobs away.

Globalization and efficient logistics means that companies can and will produce many products, more cheaply and with less difficulty, overseas.

But lets focus on jobs that can’t be pushed offshore – Service Jobs come to mind – The cleaning people at a local hotel for instance. The owner of that hotel will hire workers to clean the hotel when patrons sully the room. The government didn’t create the job – Paris Hilton’s dad did. You can have a great economy but if nobody took the risk to create a hotel and serve travellers there would be no job for that cleaning person.

Progressives (like you) always look at well established businesses and assume 1) They have always been there and 2) they have an obligation to open up their coffers and pour out money when the liberals feel there exists an injustice.The truth is – Those businesses exist because somebody (oft times many somebodies) pooled their money and took a risk by creating a business. Those risk takers are entitled to reap the profits of the business because they may lose money if the economy goes sour.

Reagonomics works as long as the regulatory arm of the government manages lightly. Too many regulations and the investor class decides to make their money in a more hospitable climate.

Socialism and Communism (The antithesis of Reganism) thrive when there is plenty of wealth to be looted from the producers. Unfortunately the producers get smart and leave the environment OR they stop producing because the looters have made the rewards of business ownership too paltry to warrant the risk.

I grew up in the Regan era and He took Jimmy Carter’s tanked economy and turned it around in 2 or 3 years. By 1983 everyone who wanted to work could find a job and those who didn’t want to work were Pissing and Moaning about how unfair it was of the government to expect them to earn a living.

Nice try, revisionist.“By 1983”

unemployment was higher than at any time other than the Great Depression.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/jan/07/gene-sperling/there-are-3-unemployed-people-every-job-opening-ob/

“what jobs are available???”Wasn’t the point of all those tax cuts Republicans gave to the wealthy over a decade ago so they would create jobs?

I had an interesting conversation a couple of months ago with somebody I met on the subway here in Toronto. He was a youngish guy, mid-twenties I’d say, wearing work clothes and a hard hat. He had a job as an electrician downtown at a big construction project. He got his job after an apprenticeship that was a joint program funded half by the Ontario government and half by the union. He said that there are lots of jobs out there for him and the people who have been through the program. He was very proud of himself. It was a great conversation, and it made me feel good about Ontario.