Guns and Butter 2010

The LA Times offers an eye-opening example of just how far our mission in Afghanistan has "creeped," describing the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff telling an Afghan leader that the goals of the upcoming surge in Kandahar include "providing jobs." Is that really why we are still fighting a war there nine years later, spending American blood and treasure? The Bush-era rationale for these overseas misadventures was always: We'll fight 'em over there, so we don't have to fight 'em over here. Today, it seems, we're fighting to create jobs for 'em over there, while we don't have enough jobs for our people over here. At a time when so many hardworking middle class families are reeling from the economic crisis that seems like the most perverted of priorities.
Arianna Huffington, HuffPo

US Unemployment for Those Under 25 is 54%

The GOP lacks a sense of urgency about the current economic situation.
Newt Gingritch points to philosophical aspects.

Newt cited Camus.
“The authorities can’t stand the truth.” His discussion of Orwell was more narrowly targeted. The message of “1984,” he explained, is that centralized planning inherently leads to dictatorship, which is why having a secular socialist machine try to impose government-run health care in this country is such a significant step away from freedom and away from liberty, and towards a government-dominated society.
He did not predict the outcome of a gridlocked Congress.
Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2010/03/08/100308taco_talk_hertzberg#ixzz0h1DJzBDP

Putting the Unemployed Under the Bus
Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the Republican whip, argued that unemployment benefits dissuade people from job-hunting "because people are being paid even though they're not working."
Unemployment insurance "doesn't create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work," Kyl said during debate over whether unemployment insurance and other benefits that expired amid GOP objections Sunday should be extended.
"I'm sure most of them would like work and probably have tried to seek it, but you can't argue that it's a job enhancer. If anything, as I said, it's a disincentive. And the same thing with the COBRA extension and the other extensions here," said Kyl
- Huffington Post

Economic Prospects for Citizens Grim to 2019
If the COLA for food stamps is frozen over the next eight years, NPP analysts project a 19% erosion in the buying power of those stamps due to inflation. This means that, by the end of 2019, a similar family of four, eating at exactly the same level, would be paying $611 a month for its food, or $100 more, while still receiving that same $321.
In other words, if the 2011 budget and its projections proceed as planned, a great many Americans will be hungrier and still jobless in a harsher, meaner world, while what budgetary savings are achieved on the backs of the poorest Americans will be gobbled up by wars, weapons, and other “security” needs. Ordinary Americans will largely be left in a sink or swim world and the waters will be very, very cold.

Jo Comerford, National Priorities Project

The Doom Cycle
The good news is, there 's still plenty of time to do for financial reform what Obama should have done for health care -- go out and sell a clear and specific package. And he needs to make the point that, much like health care, doing it incrementally won't work. Leaving too-big-to-fail banks to continue doing business as they have been is like operating on a cancer patient and taking out only half the tumor -- the disease is guaranteed to come back. And eventually prove fatal.
- Arianna Huffington HuffPo

Unemployment Success

Without a salaried position since 1978, I have learned how to stay alive and interested. A major step was to migrate to a poor area that had a supply of abandoned homes. With an unemployment rate of 50%, there were plenty of sympathetic neighbors loaded with good advice. A certain degree of self-sufficiency is necessary. Growing one's food and having skills in the building trades are helpful. It is best to disconnect from governments, banks and utility companies. A net worth of zero puts one financially ahead of most of the employed population. The human race prospered for 4 millions of years without Starbucks.
If your nation lacks EFCA and single payer health insurance, I would advise leaving it at once.