Sam, you and Colbert need to "non-coordinate" your SuperPac's. :rolleyes:

Jon Stewart is my guru. Everything else I post is simply the meanderings of my brain off medication. :p:

I guess he doesn't care about balancing the budget after all...:eyebrow:

Oh, I don't think he actually means to PAY them. He never said anything about THAT. They need to know their place. Pay?

word up

Except that a lot of low income youth don't have any role models who work. Finding a way to make working more profitable than not working seems a valid goal and Mitt worked for Bain not Newt.

I think some type of program where the utes of America do some type of service for the country ... other than fighting wars could be a good idea, although not a novel one.

Yeah, he was describing a younger Americorp. Creating disincentives to work is a Democrat thing, we won't see that in a Republican proposal. Remember that Obama's administration wants to prevent farm kids under 16 from working. Let's call a truce no Republicans in the bedroom and no Democrats in the fields.

I'd be curious about just how much "a lot" is, and how one would measure the number of role models available to any given group of kids. Seriously.

Yeah, sorry about that. Sometimes my bizarre and tiny brain confuses such things.

It is my feeling that a number of different things will have to happen to a number of different groups before any real change occurs. The stereotype is that so long as drug dealing remains such a lucrative business, kids will choose to deal crack or meth or whatever over working for minimum wage at McDonald's.

The stereotype is that so long as certain Native American tribes make the decision to pay their members just for existing, some will choose to party their lives away. A job just gets in the way of a life of chronic alcoholism.

And so on...

But I think it’s a vast over-simplification to say that members of minority groups are merely shiftless substance abusers in need of role models.

We need to take a long, hard look at racism and the active role it continues to play in America today. I read a statistic somewhere which stated that one in three African American men between the ages of 18 and 30 have been in prison, or are in prison now, or will be in prison in the near future.

And if that’s not bad enough, look at the unemployment situation for black Americans NOT in prison. In December, black unemployment rose from 15.5 % to 15.8% overall and from 39.6 to 42.1 among African American teens.

Contrast these statistics to an overall unemployment rate of 8.5 percent for the same time period – an actual improvement even as the situation for black Americans worsened.

Hispanics did somewhat better at 12.5 percent unemployment.

And last, but certainly not least, here’s what’s happening with Native Alaskans and American Indians.


Read more and weep here.


44 percent. 12.5 percent. 15.8 percent. 42.1 percent.

These statistics are outrageous. America should be ashamed. Instead we blame Hispanics, blacks, and Natives for not having “enough good role models” and proposing special work programs for them. No one asks if the children in these groups have the same access to a good education that the children in white suburbs have. We don’t talk about the food and nutritional needs of children living in poverty except to make cracks about obese “welfare queens.” God forbid that the “food stamp president” make decent meals available to the children of the poor. No one asks about the children whose families live in homeless shelters and how difficult it is for these “street kids” to make the same educational progress as a child who has a settled home to go to. And Newt forbid that we consider the medical care or lack there of available to children of the poor.

OK, I see this post is taking on TWesque proportions, so I’ll stop. I have only one more question. How are we going to pay for this proposed SOCIAL program of providing jobs for disadvantaged youth? You think the Tea Baggers are going to cowboy up and find a way to do it? Not hardly.

We have major, major problems facing our society. The Republican response is to simply cut all social programs and hold the hands of the rich. Newt’s or whoever’s proposal for jobs for kids is just so much more hot air.

Metropolitan Unemployment rates ...
Best to worst - I couldn't get the chart to work out...

10 worst ... ALL but one in CA. The other in AZ. Ranging from 14+% to over 27%


http://bls.gov/web/metro/laummtrk.htm

Pretty interesting link. Apparently, anyone seeking a job should move to North Dakota where the unemployment rate is something like 2.8 percent. Intrigued, I checked out North Dakota on the vast City Data Forum.

Word on the forum is that North Dakota is experiencing quite the oil boom in the western part of the state. If you want a job on the oil rigs, its THE place to be. Except there's no housing.

However, the oil-rama has caused the entire state to boom, so you can find jobs even in the eastern half of the state in Fargo and Bismark, etc. And the housing is pretty cheap. I checked out the Fargo paper's classifieds and was stunned at all the job listings. I could even continue in my new found career as motel desk girl, given all the openings they had in the hospitality industry alone.

Good to know in case I become truly desperate. But I can't feature moving to North Dakota unless my situation here becomes untenable.

How's that for thread drift? ;)

Sam, if it makes you feel any better, the situation with Australian Aboriginals is even worse. Life expectancy is 15 years less (or more), they're 10 to 12 times more likely to be in prison, etc etc.

Look at people not stereotypes. I didn't hear myself say any of the things you said I did. Humans learn best through role modeling, unemployment rates are high and higher in minority communities. The long-term unemployed can not show their children what it looks like to go to work 5 days a week and simultaneously organize a household. Newt was not saying anything that Democrats hadn't said before. I have an aide in my classroom right now who would be better off unemployed because her families' significant health care needs were better met under medicaid. She persists because she wants someday to have a middle-class life, but the cards are stacked against her. Most of Newts solutions are not likely to be helpful, but to dismiss them out of hand because of party bias isn't helpful either.

Anyone that's been paying attention knows the politicians have created a monster in the welfare system. Now several generations in, how do you correct it? Cutting it, to force recipients to work when there's no jobs for them, will lead to a horrendous crime wave. Maintaining the status quo will lead to more people trapped in the system. I think education is the only way out but nobody's figured out how to implement that.

Obama is finally jumping on the Bain Capitol bandwagon....

New Obama OMB director a Bain alum

http://campaign2012.washingtonexamin...in-alum/317976