Wikinvest Wire

Tom Delay: People want to be unemployed

Monday, March 08, 2010

Former House Majority Leader Tom Delay shares a few thoughts on the high jobless rate, arguing that extended unemployment benefits encourage more of the same. Fortunately, he had the good sense to stop short of saying we are a nation of slackers.


While the term "funemployment" has been popping up on a somewhat regular basis over the last year, this is clearly a twenty-something phenomenon and those with families to support would no doubt overwhelmingly argue that there is nothing fun about it.

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19 comments:

Anonymous said...

people in the real world know that you must prove that you've applied to three jobs per week to keep your unemployment benefits.

Tom took so much money when he was in office that he didn't need unemployment benefits otherwise he'd know that.

Anonymous said...

TOM THAT IS TOO FUNNY. YOU NATIONALIZE OUR INDUSTRY - SHUT DOWN 381 COMPANIES FULL OF TAXPAYING CONSUMING AMERICANS AND THEN BLAME US....I BET THOSE CHRYSLER DEALERS WANTED UNEMPLOYMENT TOO WHEN THEY NATIONALIZED THE CAR INDUSTRY. THE HEALTHCARE PEOPLE ARE GETTING READY TO JOIN THE "WANTOBE" UNEMPLOYED....THIS IS THE SAME IDIOCY THAT SAID THE MORTGAGE CRISIS WAS ONLY THOSE STUPID SUBPRIME PEOPLE....BUT SLOWLY THE LAVA EQUALS THE PLAYING FIELD AND GOOD "A" PAPER LOANS ARE TANKING FASTER AND FASTER...........25 MILLION UNEMPLOYED TODAY, 50 MILLION IN A YEAR......AND KEEP SPEWING THAT THEY WANT TO BE UNEMPLOYED AND YEAH LIVING IN THOSE TENT CITIES, YEAH WE BUY THAT........SOON TOM IT WILL BE SOMEONE IN YOUR FAMILY....

Unknown said...

I sympathize with the majority, and do not propose my example is the norm, but I have a friend who was laid off in July 2008. After a couple of week with no promising prospects, he decided he would go back to school while collecting unemployment checks. After a couple of months not doing that, he decided to concentrate on his music (he is a good musician). Then he decided he was moving to Miami to find work there, but he didn't. Then he decided he was moving back to New York to work there, but he didn't. He is still collecting unemployment checks. He is 53 years old.

Anonymous said...

He has a point, some idiots i work with want to get fired so they can sit at home and draw unemployment.

Anonymous said...

I have been looking a job for the past 6 months.

I DON'T LIKE IT.

I was bring in $5,000 per month...now I can barely make it off of $300 a week.

Are you kidding me!!!!

The problem with the people in Washington is that they have been sitting in a bubble so long they have no clue.

Remember when gas was $ 2.65 a gallon and President Bush had no clue how much gasoline was? He was surprised to hear how high it was.

Same goes for Hillary Clinton not knowing how to pump gas!

And another thing --- these are the same folks that won't pass healthcare reform. GIVE US YOUR PLAN!

I can't even get sick --

They creatd this mess and now they are saying we are all lazy cause the rate is really 18% or 19%

Anonymous said...

Tom is talking about a study. That is it. Everybody else keeps putting words in his mouth. As long as the Government cuts checks people will cash them. Tom is right. I am busting my tail and making less than people on take. The government has never ever guarenteed employment. That is what the endless extensions are doing we have to stop them it is a cycle that will end in ruin.

Anonymous said...

A culture of entitlement. Our culture: Advertising, schools all of it. We tell people they deserve this or should get that. Unemployment is meant to be a transitional program. One job to the next. The attitude is funded by non existing tax dollars. the gov is running up its credit cards to support an entitlement culture.

Anonymous said...

I take exception to these 'Tom's got it right' comments. Anyone who believes people can make a living off $300 a week obviously have never tried it.

I would agree that it's not the government's responsibility to guarantee citizens a job. However, what about what is government's responsibility? That is not to give tax breaks to corporations who successfully 'outsource' our jobs to India?

That's what's caused this problem and good old Tom and friends better not forget that.

Struggling in Florida

Anonymous said...

I'm with SIF. So sick of these "they're just lazy, look at me how hard I work" comments.

The fact is that the ratio of people looking to open positions is 5:1, the worst since the 1930's depression. You don't just "transition" on to the next thing in that environment.

Zeroing in on cheaters and various exceptions to the rule is weak but of course utterly predictable. Cowards always find it easy to kcik down rather than punch up.

me said...

I seem to recall the decade of Delay and wasn't that the one where the market was worth more in 2000 and employment was higher in 2000? Just asking.

Anonymous said...

Unemployment is course for life and world. So we should try to remove it.
The Unemployment blog has the latest news on rates and benefits as well as state relevant information for Ohio, New York, Florida, California, Pennsylvania, Washington, New Jersey and Wisconsin.
unemploymentblog

Anonymous said...

So government subsidies do not alter behavior in any way? Yeah right. I have a friend who worked in a social security office and was disgusted with what she saw. People would work pretty hard to game the system. A lot of times you would have thought it was easier to just get a job. I'm not saying that is the case ALL of the time, but to deny that things like that happen is foolish.

Up until about a year ago, that was the reason given for generally higher unemployment in Europe. Now you have people like Krugman refuting themselves in editorials, and acting as if he NEVER said these things when he actually wrote it in a textbook. Delay and many others have said this for decades.

It would be nice if Washington would focus on creating an environment that makes it easier for the private to create more jobs instead of vilifying every profit seeking organization and dreaming up new ways to increase the cost of doing business.

Anonymous said...

I have mixed feelings about extended and enhanced unemployment benefits. I had a hell of a time about five years ago finding a new job, and my benefits got cut off after a few months (as was the norm) because we had this so-called booming economy. And I didn't have any help with COBRA payments either! If more people had their benefits cut off, there'd be a lot more activism to get our leaders to do what needs to be done to get our economy moving again.

Anonymous said...

"So government subsidies do not alter behavior in any way? Yeah right. I have a friend who worked in a social security office and was disgusted with what she saw. People would work pretty hard to game the system. A lot of times you would have thought it was easier to just get a job. I'm not saying that is the case ALL of the time, but to deny that things like that happen is foolish."
That's the problem, the skaters have bilked the system dry, keeping folks that really need benefits from getting them.

Denaliguide said...

Tom DeLay is so severely credibility deprived that I dont consider his comments relevant but lacking anything else they can do, I guess they see running their jaws as useful. I dont.

DENALIGUIDE

Anonymous said...

It doesn't shock me to hear something like that from a government pension parasite.

I'll be happy to 'Never Ever Ever' qualify for a government entitlement if I could simply keep the funds the government vampire squid sucks out of my labor income stream.

I could buy a rental condo each year with that amount. Of course I need to pay for THEIR retirement so THEY can quite at 52 ...

Not to mention the biggest tax cheats are gov workers because they know how the money is wasted.

Anonymous said...

This is what really is happening, people get laid of their 30 dollars an hour job, they can't find a job at that rate they go threw their unemployment (extension and all) and right when they about loose their unemployment before they end up with nothing and in the gutter they get what ever job they can get for minimum wage, by then they already lost their homes and foreclosures happen "boom the bubble burst!" in the residential mortgage markets.

me said...

Blah blah blah, go find another job lazy ass. Sounds nice but you people are clueless. There are no jobs. Here we are the then of the first quarter and IBM has continued its relentless transfer of jobs out of this country by firing another 255 Americans, yeah, US job action only.

Along with firing 10,000 ever year I haven't seen anyone post up who is HIRING 10,000 a year.

And all the cottage industries that used to be called start ups are not longer in this country.

Anonymous said...

Oh please. Tom DeLay?
Why would anyone even listen to this guy? The entire system has been gamed right out of existance by the top end and now they want to say the people who are out of work are respopnsible? That's like saying the trees in the rain forest are responsible for global warming because they enticed people to cut them down. Tom DeLay has about as much credibility as a mafia hit man in the middle of heroin deal shoot out - none at all. He has gotten his - and he is fine - and he thinks we ought not to support the millions who will lose their homes and lives over this crisis - well - perhaps when HUD was planning how to help Americans get their mortgages paid off in the 90's (when they saw the massive unemployment coming) he should have been paying closer attention instead of joining the fat cat easy money loan the nation into oblivion crowd.
This scam is so wide and deep there is no one in the political system of this country who is not either IN it or fighting it - and the only one STILL fighting it, after all these years that I can see is Ron Paul - and everyone has (almost) stopped laughing at him for trying...
There are no jobs. There will not BE any jobs - and there won't be any infrastructure to support anything soon enough - we are allowing our nation to be frittered away like so much sawdust.
Party politics just makes it easier for them to point fingers while they all have the other hand in the cookie jar - no one does shit and everyone blames the people on the street. But Goldman Sachs, B of A, Citi, Chase, Wells and the rest are all still riding the big wave of foreclosure profits and no body berter mess with that - Hell we don't even TALK about reform anymore - or Predatory lending - or indictments.
When the heads of major banks can actually use "we thought housing prices would never stop going up" as their excuse for rampant fraud - then we are really done. D.O.N.E.

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