1) The number of candidates for every job opening is at a ALL-TIME high. (Duh!)
2) Pols are very aware that the social fabric is getting dangerously strained. See this:
http://www.archein21.com/2010/04/americans-and-government.html

2a) Remind me again how many firearms we’ve got in private hands in this country? Hmmm?
2b) The UE rate is the bottom quintile of income is at 31% (!!)

3) Mix the 3 items from 2) above and add to the mix some important factoids from the Great Depression, like for instance, all these men that camped near the Capitol for months? What do you think could be its modern equivalent if UE benefits would be cut now? Anyone think desperate people don’t do desperate things? Has human nature changed THAT much?

While were on the topics of “benefits” anyone wanna talk about the incredible “benefits” of 28 of the biggest corporations in the US who did not pay ANY US taxes in the last 3 years?

Let’s dispense with the cheap ass moralization and look at the cold hard facts: this is a tremendous recession that disproportionately affect those at the bottom, while those at the top keep on getting tons of goodies from the govermin.

And some people want to push those at the bottom to absolute despair? Sup with that? Looking for real trouble much, aren’t we? Is that the agenda?

I wanted to share this Andrew Sullivan post which seemed very relevant to your recent post titled “An Epidemic of Laziness?”. See below. Btw, I also enjoyed the recent post from Barry on healthcare reform — I don’t even care about your views on the issue, although I have my own, it’s just nice to hear from another level head.

-Ned

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/03/the-view-from-your-recession.html
The View From Your Recession

22 Mar 2010 05:10 pm

A reader writes:

I posted an ad on craiglist for an $8.55 minimum-wage, part-time person to work at our dog kennel in Snohomish, Washington. The job is not glamorous. Picking up poop, walking dogs cleaning diarrhea, etc. I received over 245 resumes in just a couple of days. Everybody from the high school kid up to the unemployed 60 year old. It’s simply amazing how many people are dying to get even a low paying job like this.

OK. I don’t know it’s about any psychosis or not (I would like to think of it as a healthy skepticism based on sound political philosophy), but in my view the number of comments is due to everyone having had personal experience with the job market, some of us with UI, and our experience watching peers move in and out of the job market. We’ve all got our stories and anecdotes — the topic strikes close to home. That’s what I think explains the number of comments because I didn’t see a lot of anti-govt rants above.

Definitely a great thread, though!

You raise a couple of excellent points that get lost in the sturm und drang of blaming the majority of the victims. Don’t let anyone know about that. Another unspeakable is a person who uses the time to go back to school or get training. They should be working, and school is for sissies.

To me, it’s another example of America’s anti-government psychosis: beating up on the underdog and attributing bad character to individual citizens, who in most cases are victims, is part of the anti-government attitude so prevalent in this country. The anti-government spokesperson par excellence, Ronald Reagan, used to engage in this stuff regularly. He loved his story about the welfare “queen” who rode in a Cadillac and he was known to argue publicly that he couldn’t understand how all these people could be unemployed when there were so many jobs listed in the want ads; he went on to add that it was his theory that they were just taking a vacation. Blaming the victim for economic woes is so deeply ingrained in the American psyche that most of those unemployed during the Great Depression blamed themselves. I call this a national psychosis because such widespread beliefs, so incredibly contrary to actual reality, call out for some kind of national derangement as an explanation.