This is a question that never needed to be asked but must be asked now: if you can get by without working, why work at all?
It is a question rich layabouts would ask themselves sunning on their daddy's yacht, sipping blender drinks and pawing eastern European pole dancers. But now just about anyone, of any color or stripe, with access to unemployment benefits, welfare, or food stamps can ask themselves that question too.Yeah, you can live large on fifty bucks worth of food stamps a week. (The welfare check would of course all go to the pool boy and valet.) Sign me up for that life o' leisure!
But you don't have to be unemployed to earn Gutfeld's contempt; if you think a forty-hour week of busting your hump should be worth three hots and a cot at least, in his eyes you're just as bad as a welfare bum. (Only the well-off and those who bust their humps and sleep on straw without complaint escape his wrath.) Gutfeld opposes a living wage because it's demeaning to the worker, who never gets to experience the wonderful feeling of achievement one gets by moving up and out of a minimum-wage, hard-labor job:
The concept of a living wage (which is essentially dramatically increasing the minimum wage) will create entry-level workers who never move up or off that first rung. Why bother moving up if the wage moves up for you?...
We create a brutal assessment of menial or service work—that it is so awful for your soul, you are better not working, period. I guess the only way a liberal can live with the idea of such work in their world is to reward these poor souls with cash and punish their evil bosses...
And God, that is wrong. The only way to enjoy the higher rungs of the ladder is to have climbed those lower ones first, as a teen, a college kid, or new "resident" to this country. Not only do you feel the pride of achievement through the upward climb, but at the top you can look down at everyone else and say, in an annoyed voice "You know, when I was your age..."The following is from Gutfeld's Wikipedia page:
After graduating from UC Berkeley with a degree in English, he interned at The American Spectator, as an assistant to conservative writer R. Emmett Tyrrell. He landed his first full-time job as a staff writer at Prevention magazine. He formerly worked in Emmaus, Pennsylvania for approximately a decade as an editor at various Rodale Press magazines. In 1995, he became a staff writer at Men's Health. He was promoted to editor in chief of Men's Health in 1999...I'll cut to the chase: there's no burger-frier or busboy jobs in there (though maybe just being around Tyrrell is sort of like being spattered with grease all day). I suspect Gutfeld's equivalent of the hard-knock life was having to wonder why his corner office was taking so long.
With these guys, the rap always starts off like Horatio Alger and inevitably turns into Patrick Bateman.
(Other key words in the article: "Sharptons," "race baiters," and, I'm not even kidding, "Murphy Brown.")
You don't know how much Greg G. has suffered, man.
ReplyDelete~
Blah blah, learning the value of a dollar, blah blah hard work builds character, blah blah pride in your achievements...
ReplyDeletebut at the top you can look down at everyone else
Now we're talkin'!
"But now just about anyone, of any color or stripe, with access to unemployment benefits"
ReplyDeleteI mean, it's not like unemployment benefits ever run out.
"Decades ago, work wasn't about survival, but about pride and principle."
I mean, it's not like we live(d) in a capitalist society where we sell our labor for food.
"Feeling satisfaction from repetition."
I mean, it's not like there's a deeper pleasure than the fortieth toilet scrubbing of the day.
"Even if that [McDonald's] employee waiting on you, on that lowest rung of the ladder, is just like you—but saving for his future."
I mean, it's not like the recent Visa-McDonald's public relations fiasco proved that it was impossible to save money working McDonald's and another job.
(Christ, what a fucking asshole.)
From the comments: "American exceptionalism does not sit around and take hand outs."
ReplyDeleteDamn straight; it (if we can posit "exceptionalism" as an actor) goes out and takes hand outs by force!
The concept of a living wage (which is essentially dramatically
ReplyDeleteincreasing the minimum wage) will create entry-level workers who never
move up or off that first rung.
Well, you know, Greg, most people don't. Entry-level means different things for different jobs, but the vast majority of workers will never be self-employed or have a job with significant authority over others. That's always been the case: it's kind of how this whole 'division of labor' thing works. Apparently the right really has convinced itself that everyone can own their own business and not rely on anyone else's labor, and the economy can structurally support that. And here I was thinking they secretly knew it was bullshit. Serves me right.
So there will (most likely) always be a class of workers who aren't going to advance much further in their careers. That's built into the system. What's not built into the system is that we have to pay them 9 bucks an hour and go sniffing through their pantries and medicine cabinets and lecture them from on high about what's a responsible decision and what isn't. That's not systemic, that's just a conservative truism, that in order for society to work there has to be a massive underclass, and they must be economically desperate and impoverished. I don't know what 'living wage' proposals are on the table now, but I doubt anyone's setting the floor much higher than $20/hour, which is maybe $40,000 a year. You know, enough to actually have a shot at paying for everything life demands of you. I don't know what conservatives who insist on actively impoverishing the working class think would happen if they all made $40,000 a year. The apocalypse, presumably.
I guess the only way a liberal can live with the idea of such work in
ReplyDeletetheir world is to reward these poor souls with cash and punish their
evil bosses...
He somehow manages to contradict himself in less than half a sentence: Real workers hardly even need money, they just need hopes and dreams and a pure heart, but taking any of that useless, soul-sullying money from their bosses would be punishing them. Beyond that, conservatism is so much bean-counting, with an endless supply of blowhards screaming about tax brackets and social security and the federal debt, but when it comes to the people who actually need more money, because they're literally barely making enough to survive, they all suddenly turn into pop-spirituality bullshit gurus. "Poor workers don't need money, they need the pride of achievement!" No, you fucking ghouls, they need money, or else they're going to be evicted or give up their diabetes meds or some other thing that you rich fucks never have to worry about.
It's just like Mickey explained in the documentary Rocky III, people do their best when they're hungry. So, if the American worker is always hungry, this great nation will surely stop falling behind Europe and Asia.
ReplyDeleteYou can save $100 per month on a McDonald's salary if you don't use any heat. In a place like Miami or San Diego, that's practically a nest egg.
ReplyDeleteFor all their cheering of capitalism, they really don't understand it as a system. (Fucking magnates, how do they work?)
ReplyDelete"I’ve been thinking about the latest job figures for black teens, which are tragic: four in ten are not working.
ReplyDeleteFor people who struggle at math, that’s like 40 out of 100. Or 400 out of 1,000. I could go on, because I am drunk."
FOUR IN TEN!!11 BLACK TEENS! NOT! WORKING! Well, maybe when you sober up you might experiment with teh Googles and discover that approximately 40% of white teens are also not working. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/youth.nr0.htm School, hmmm. How DOES that work?
As an aside, the admission to drunkenness does at least partially explain some of the reeking stupid in that piece. F'rinstance before you collect UNemployment benefits you first had to have strung together many months of having BEEN employed.
The beatings will continue until morale improves!
ReplyDeleteI want to hear about what all the Walton heirs learned by climbing those lower rungs of the ladder, what pride they achieved by having been born to the right parents. $20 billion + each must be a poor salve for not being able to look with pride on having climbed to the top all by their lonesomes, but I guess it will just have to do, given their shitty luck in having been cheated out of a life of striving.
ReplyDeleteIt's a salient point. If breitbart.com is willing to give you good money just to cut and paste talking points from email forwards, why the hell should you work?
ReplyDeleteNow it's your turn, to paraphrase Neil Innes.
ReplyDeleteYou forgot the 'f' in that final word.
ReplyDeleteif you can get by without working, why work at all?
ReplyDeleteGreg Gutfeld: principled end-stage Marxist
Decades ago, work wasn't about survival, but about pride and principle.
ReplyDeleteA few sentences later:
The fundamental cause of our dying society is our steady elimination of the financial and spiritual necessity for work of any kind.
He can't even keep his own bullshit straight. I wonder, how many decades ago was it that work wasn't about survival? Gutfeld's only a year short of 50, so he was already an adult during the 80's. Was that when people worked for pride and principle? Gee, I think I'd remember that. And since he's against increasing the minimum wage even to what it was back in his fantasy world, and opposed to a living wage, and against food stamps and unemployment insurance, etc., how is he not in favor of creating a world where work is about nothing but survival, and where survival is practically impossible?
What a piece of fucking work.
Hey, that paste is viscous (and delicious!).
ReplyDeleteI promised myself I wouldn't lose my temper over politics anymore, but fuck that.
ReplyDeleteWhy is it that no one who writes this kind of article ever acknowledges that the economy sucks? Why is it that not one of them seems to be aware that there was a slight downturn about six years ago? This finger wagging "Get a job young man" bullshit might have passed muster in 1996 - when our problem was that the economy was growing too quickly - but now? Knowing that two out of three job seekers are not going to find employment? Where do you find the balls?
Gutfield's piece seems to focus on a recently popular sub-theme - people are complacent in their jobs, losing any ambition to climb the ladder. After all, why would anyone want more money? But the assumption is that this is a lack of ambition, that these thirtysomethings supporting their families on a minimum wage position are doing so by choice. Meanwhile, back in reality where every major contracted a few years ago, upward mobility has become a farce. Thanks to people in senior positions (including those in allegedly "recession proof" fields like engineering) being dropped, we now have people with years of experience who are back at their original jobs. Of course, this creates a ripple effect, and now everyone is overqualified for the positions they hold and no one's budging. That's reality, assholes.
But you know what the really fucked up part is? There's a highly rated comment down there from someone who acknowledges that the surplus of highly qualified applicants is making it impossible for young people to jobs...and then fucking blames the young people! Man, any excuse to divert blame away from the upper class, huh?
In a model economy - the kind that economists put on paper to validate their theories - this would work. The oldest employees would leave, being replaced by their subordinates, with the new base formed by new employees. A perfect cycle.
ReplyDeleteOf course, this is real life, where we have people with fifteen years' experience working in the mailroom. Kinda throws a little dirt on that model, don't it?
You had me at "Christ, what a fucking asshole."
ReplyDeleteI mean, it's not like unemployment benefits ever run out.
ReplyDeleteFrom the comments:
When unemployment runs out you can go on disability forever
Thirty-one upvotes, no downvotes.
I'm so chatty in this thread because as luck (?) would have it I had a conversation with a co-worker today who could have very well written Gutfeld's column. He seemed convinced that welfare payments are like a cheat code to the sweet life, and there are millions of people out there just living it up on welfare funds alone, with no repercussions. I do not understand this attitude, at all, and it pops up so much. I think if you stay on welfare for a year (and most people don't), it's about $10,000. Few people can live on 10 grand a year. No one with kids, or a chronic illness, or a high rent bill in a big city can do it. And any job would be a little better in terms of raw salary-even minimum wage would net you a few thousand dollars a year. And even if you ignore all that, the fact remains that American political culture is frighteningly hostile to the very poor. To most Republicans, to be on welfare, even temporarily, is to be less than human. And they really think that millions of people are willing to put up with all that shit because they'd rather not work? Is it that fucking hard to put two and two together and figure that long-term welfare recipients are doing so because they are looking for a job and can't fucking find one?
ReplyDeleteThe only reason I'm so pissed is that I'm starting to take this shit personally. When the economy started to turn to shit, I figured I could ride it out overseas for a year or two until it stabilized. Well...didn't happen, and since my field (education) is particularly rancid at the moment, I've been begging every employer I know for the right to their most demeaning job. So whenever I read something like this, my first response is something along the lines of "You should be very glad that you didn't say this to my face."
ReplyDeleteOf course, as with McArdle and her articles about marriage, I'm being a bit facetious when I take offense. After all, I'm Caucasian; clearly, none of these bloggers have me in mind when they write these things.
"...if you can get by without working, why work at all? "
ReplyDeleteIt's always projection with these jerks. Unlike Mr. Gutless, some of us actually want to go through life DOING things ... not just mooching off the wingnut gravy train doing as little as possible to keep breathing. It apparently has never occurred to this bum (as my sainted mother would call him) that real work can actually be fulfilling. Well, of course it wouldn't, because none of the "jobs" he's ever had actually produced anything except hot air.
Umm, I think Gutfeld has already amply shown that he's just another sick fuckin' puppy with a bigger soapbox than most people. Take away that soapbox and not even the neighborhood gossip would pay attention to him.
ReplyDeleteBut, what galls me about this pissant is that he's smug about being willfully stupid, because he's paid well to be that way.
In a backhanded way, he's proving that the American Dream is just a seductive myth. He's essentially saying that the way to succeed is to abandon all the other American cultural values that are otherwise promoted--fair play, decency, playing by the rules--and let your inner asshole prevail. Be a fucking monster and the wealthy who are monsters themselves will reward you. Lie and the fatcat liars will bless you. Shit on the unfortunate and you'll prosper. The malefactors of great wealth will make you their personal court jester.
But, at bottom, you're still willfully stupid, and you've happily tried to sacrifice the futures of millions of fellow citizens in order to further your own prosperity. Now, that's capitalism, and that's the real American Dream.
They can only look at their employees, noses pressed to the glass, wishing and hoping...
ReplyDeleteYou couldn't spend that much money in a month!
ReplyDeleteThe fundamental cause of our dying society is our steady elimination
ReplyDeleteof the financial and spiritual necessity for work of any kind.
He interned for the guy who built Replicants?
ReplyDeleteAnd remember Mitt Romney struggling in college, having to sell off stock to pay the rent.
ReplyDeleteI think if you stay on welfare for a year (and most people don't), it's about $10,000.
ReplyDeleteOh, it's a lot worse than that. From Roy's CBPP link:
Benefits fall below 50 percent of the poverty line in all states. They fall below 30 percent of the poverty line in the majority of states.
That's less than $8,549 per year for a family of three ($5,525 for a single person) in all states. And less than $5,129 for a family of three in the majority of states. And, even worse:
In 14 states, monthly benefit levels are less than $300 for a family of three (less than $3,600, or 20 percent of the poverty line, on an annual basis)
Imagine. $3,600 per year for a single mother with two children. And if they're really lucky, they get to listen to millionaires like Gutfeld wanting to deprive them of even that.
Here's my hypothesis:
ReplyDeleteThese sorts of freeloaders like Gutfield, who so transparently and hypocritically provide absolutely no value to society or humanity, yet sit on a giant pile of acorns they could never eat in a lifetime, have, since the Gilded Age, worked to maintain the transparent lie that "Anyone Can Make It To The Top" in America.
They must have known that they had a good scam going, because whenever it inevitably failed (as a bullshit "economic system" like unregulated capitalism must), and the marks would begin to see the con, they would turn the reins (and the responsibility) over to the Democrats to fix--just long enough for the rubes to settle their nerves and get back in the game.
This parasitical system worked for them as long as they were cunning enough not to kill their host, which meant they had to have some inkling of their role as bloodsuckers.
At some point, whether through in-breeding or just snorting their own product, the latest generations of parasites have forgotten what dance they (and their hosts) are engaged in. They either won't or can't stop feeding, and the host is dying.
Is Gutfield pathetically trying to hold the exposed con together with these blatant fantasies (seeing himself as the brave little Dutch boy), or is he a True Believer? And does it matter?
Even if they know it's bullshit, they have to pretend it isn't for it to work.
ReplyDeleteLike religion.
Kinda makes one wonder why Africans don't rule the world, what with their hunger and poverty and all.
ReplyDeleteThey should be the most industrious people in the Solar System.
He DIDN'T! Fuck. If I'd known that in the election...
ReplyDelete...still wouldn't have voted for him, but might have chuckled a bit.
It's the old "if you don't believe in Gawd, what's to keep you from raping, murdering, and pillaging across the land" argument.
ReplyDeleteSame folks; same blindness.
I kinda doubt that AmSpec's Tyrrell could build a fort out of couch cushions, let alone a replicant, but, just for argument's sake, maybe "intern" is just a euphemism, eh?
ReplyDeleteI'm really starting to believe that they don't even understand what capitalism is. The problem is that capitalism is an economic system, but what conservatives want isn't an economic system, it's a moral one. They want to believe that capitalism is something that, by its nature, rewards the upstanding hard workers and punishes the lazy, and that any failure of the system to do so must be the fault of the communists. The problem for them is that capitalism is not this thing they want it to be.
ReplyDeleteYeah, two years ago, when I spent a year unemployed, my dad was convinced that I just wasn't looking for jobs hard enough. I kept trying to explain to him the whole "four unemployed people for every open job position" thing, etc., etc., but he wasn't having it. Then I'm talking to him on the phone the other day, and the conversation turns to politics, and he's like, "Damn, people can't find jobs because these corporations just don't want to spend the money to hire people these days," and I'm all That's what I was trying to tell you two years ago. Oh well, at least he figured it out eventually, which is more than you can say for anyone on the NRO staff or at Breitbart.com.
ReplyDeleteI haven't decided what disability I'm going to put down when my unemployment runs out. Does "sprained wrist playing Mortal Kombat" count? I mean, they just hand out welfare money like it's candy, right? They probably don't even read the form. You just walk into the government office and they're like, "You want money? Well shit, here you go!"
ReplyDelete"They were designed to copy human beings in every way except their emotions. The designers reckoned that after a few years they might develop their own emotional responses. You know, hate, love, fear, anger, envy. So they built in a fail-safe device."
ReplyDelete"Which is what?"
"Wingnut welfare."
Someone had to give Voight-Kampff tests to the prospective FOX daytime anchors.
ReplyDelete"You’re in a desert walking along in the sand when all of the sudden you look down, and you see a tortoise. It’s crawling toward you. You reach down, you flip the tortoise over on its back. The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can’t, not without your help. But you’re not helping. Why is that?"
"'cause I ain't no Communist faggit!"
-PASS-
Ah, I see you've run up against the Church of the Free Market. The arguments make more sense when you parse them as dogma rather than reality-based economics, don't they? And rest assured, they'd be as bloody-handed as the worst theocrat you could imagine, and go home afterwards and sleep the sleep of the just, knowing that Saint Ayn is smiling down at them.
ReplyDelete"Apparently the right really has convinced itself that everyone can own their own business and not rely on anyone else's labor, and the economy can structurally support that."
ReplyDeleteNah, I don't think they believe that - it's just that (much like the RW gum-flapping about "REAL MERICANS don't support X") they've decided that anybody who doesn't / can't do that is beneath consideration as a person. It's the Underpants Gnome version of faux-populism:
1) state a wildly unpopular and/or ignorant and/or evil idea
2) redefine "people" to only include the folks who agree with (1)
3) OMG, (1) IS WILDLY POPULAR!
What about the people who, bluntly speaking, lack either the motivation or the intellectual capability to be more than grocery bagger? Vets with traumatic brain injury? People with Downs Syndrome? Maybe everyone with an IQ under 80 can get themselves a newspaper column, huh?
ReplyDeleteWell, it comes down to the triumph of gluttony over any kind of self preservation instinct. They don't want to be the first rat off the sinking ship, when it's so full of cheddar.
ReplyDeleteI am having a very difficult time understanding Gutfeld's apparent premise that scraping by on public assistance is just as attractive as being a rich layabout and therefore poses an equivalent moral hazard to state-facilitated intergenerational wealth transfers.
ReplyDeleteWell, there's always the Soylent Green factory. And I don't mean WORKING there...
ReplyDeleteThat line is the tell.
ReplyDeleteOh, I think American Exceptionalism mostly inherits its handouts.
ReplyDeleteSo Gutfield has pretty much been working in the same bubble - Rodale-land, Emmaeus, PA - since his internship fifteen years ago. What useful and productive contribution has he made to the world? What experience underlies his ability to pontificate about what poor people are doing? I would imagine that there are plenty of 40+ year old laid off workers in Emmaeus would could do well with a living wage job so they could continue their subscription to "Men's Health."
ReplyDeleteAh yes, Greg Gutfeld. Fought his way out of the mean streets of San Mateo without being overwhelmed and beaten down by the vile temptations of the Silicon Valley. Survived repeated attempts of mind-rape by the depraved Marxists at U.C. Berkeley, which only managed to stiffen his resolve to fight for meritocracy and Up-By-Your-Bootstraps Capitalism. Despite his deprived background, he managed to catch the eye of R. Emmett Tyrrell who recognized the unrefined genius in his boy wonder protege and urged him to refine his craft at The Rodale Press and Men's Health ( doing articles on how to get six pack abs and the sexual positions that drive women wild), and then slogged his way up to the top of Breitbart.com, the pinnacle of American journalism. His life should be an inspiration to all those freeloaders who would rather collect unemployment than do honest work for $7.25 an hour shredding lettuce at Taco Bell.
ReplyDeleteSing it. I just changed jobs, a downward transfer, with a 30% pay cut, because my employer eliminated my department. Oh, yeah, I thought it would be really easy to find another good job, but after a year of looking (we were lucky, we knew the closure a year ahead of time) I ended up taking an internal transfer for the continued benefits. Try being on the job market at 58. It's a real eye-opener.
ReplyDeleteHang in there. I got "lucky" - I keep my retirement and my health bennies at the cost of a 30% pay cut, but at least I'm still working. I job searched for a year, sent out hundreds of applications, and got just three interviews - two of them within my own company.
ReplyDeleteIf Oliver got fired tomorrow, what skills would he have? Roughly the same as mine, but at least I'd be honest about it. I’m incapable of real work. The hardest things I push are words.
ReplyDeleteJohn Oliver is, in fact, a skilled actor and comedian, with a recurring role on the sitcom Community; he also showed himself capable of succeeding (or replacing) Jon Stewart. Gutfeld's intractably lazy even when insulting someone that he fancies as a peer.
Also, here are some of the lazy layabouts that are sponging off the likes of Greg.
(which is essentially dramatically increasing the minimum wage)
ReplyDeleteIt's actually not that dramatic an increase, to go from about $7 an hour to about $11. The percentage increase is pretty similar to the percentage DECREASE I took when my employer shut down my department and I transfered to a demotion. People are weathering change increments like this all over the country.
You want a "dramatic" increase? How about the difference between what the entry level worker makes and what the corporate parent-company executive makes?
No, Gutfeld is living proof that one can survive merely by eating your principles. Perhaps he's saving his pride to provide sustenance in his retirement.
ReplyDeleteNo, they just get their pet congressman to steer no-bid contracts their way. 'Twas ever thus; check out the amount of dodging George Washington did around St. Clair's ignominious defeat, particularly with regards to the sub-standard supplies Henry Knox bought with tax dollars.
ReplyDelete"He formerly worked in Emmaus, Pennsylvania for approximately a decade as
ReplyDeletean editor at various Rodale Press magazines. In 1995, he became a staff
writer at Men's Health. He was promoted to editor in chief of Men's Health in 1999..."
Oh God, in the 90s I used to live 20 mins from Emmaus and I published some humor pieces in Men's Health. I may even have MET him when visiting the ed-in-chief who preceded him. And I did NOTHING. God damn it, give me that time machine.
I used to think that Gutfield was beneath contempt simply because he's a hack "humorist" whose every punch line begins with, "You know how liberals are..." Now he's spouting this swill?
These people really are moral monsters.
This is a statistic that shakes the brain, and it reflects a problem
ReplyDeletethat cannot be fixed by government programs that allowed such problems
to fester in the first place.
This guy is the M.C. Escher of wingnuttery.
By "interned for" read: "was created by."
ReplyDeleteThe unemployed people in Michigan are all the right height.
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing they have eastern European pole dancers for casual Fridays at the Breitbart Headquarters.
ReplyDeleteeventually it gets to Greg Gutfeld.
ReplyDelete"Eventually" is right. I thought you were doing a Favorite Wingnuttisms of 1966 retro.
...and Murphy Brown? Not just retro but retro-Quayle? Woe.
"but at least I'd be honest about it."
ReplyDeleteYou bet, Greg. Your honesty is one of your best qualities.
Pshaw, the Tyrell Corp built quality.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was posting regularly at manboobz we had a regular who although seeming sincere in her commitment to gender equality was also a total fucking wingnut, and every time we told her to knock it off with the hilarious jokes about poor people and Muslims and prison rape*, she would cite Greg Gutfeld and his glib insights as proof that she had PC liberal culture all figured out. So basically, I associate Greg Gutfeld with dumb excuses to be a horrible person.
ReplyDelete*not really jokes, she was extremely pro-prison rape
"This is a statistic that shakes the brain,..."
ReplyDeleteGotta have one to shake, first, Greg ol' boy.
We're so exceptional we get money by all these means, and more!
ReplyDeleteMy first job, in high school cafeteria, paid $1.65 per hour. Enough money for 4-to-5 gallons of gas. Try getting 5 gallons of gas with today's minimum wage.
ReplyDeleteThey can all work for American Thinker or WND
ReplyDeleteYes, the conflate Capitalism with Christianity and Democracy. In their minds criticism of One is criticism of them All. And they are Holy, perfect.
ReplyDeletePretty much any republican policy position anymore is Calvinist theology disguised as something else.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to the improvement in quality.
ReplyDeleteDon't you know its LIBERALS who are claiming our economy sucks, that jobs are scarce and low-paying. Why? Because Liberals don't wanna work, they wanna get free handouts from teh Government.
ReplyDeleteI think if you stay on welfare for a year (and most people don't), it's about $10,000.
ReplyDeleteOh, it's much worse than that. Check out Roy's CPBB link:
[TANF] Benefits fall below 50 percent of the poverty line in all states. They fall below 30 percent of the poverty line in the majority of states.
...
In 14 states, monthly benefit levels are less than $300 for a family of three (less than $3,600, or 20 percent of the poverty line, on an annual basis).
Imagine. Less than $3,600 a year for a single mother and two kids. But if they can afford a TV, they can hear a millionaire like Greg Gutfeld ranting about depriving them of even that pittance.
"The only way to enjoy the higher rungs of the ladder is to have climbed those lower ones first, as a teen, a college kid, or new "resident" to this country. Not only do you feel the pride of achievement through the upward climb, but at the top you can look down at everyone else and say, in an annoyed voice 'You know, when I was your age...'"
ReplyDeleteYeah, because guys like Gutfeld take such pride in their own work, as a person can absolutely tell.
Well, Murphy Brown is the leader of ACORN, which as we speak is joining forces with the New Black Panthers and the UN to steal all our golfs.
ReplyDeleteWell, Murphy Brown is the leader of ACORN, which as we speak is joining forces with the New Black Panthers and the UN to steal all our golfs. (had to move this)
ReplyDeleteThere's many levels of achievement to "Right-wing Wurlitzer Hack".
ReplyDeleteThere's "Pammy Gellar Gutter Crawler" all the way through to "David Brooks Reverse Darwinian".
"people do their best when they're hungry"
ReplyDeleteIndeed! Which is why Russia in 1914 was the mightiest empire ever known, and its starving, shoe-leather-eating soldiers not only conquered the Kaiser, but have ruled the world with an iron fist ever since. This is why Hitler didn't have so much fun in Stalingrad. QED, bitchez!
Also, there is no luck. Anything fortunate that happens to me is the result of me.
ReplyDeleteIt's a Möbius Strip of stoopid.
ReplyDeleteThe TV proves that they aren't poor! The moochers probably have a fridge and a phone too.
ReplyDeleteNext thing you know they'll want fresh food.
Plus you get a phone and an introductory package of lobster.
ReplyDeleteI always imagined they had those little hot dogs in croissants and Michelob lite
ReplyDeleteI kind of doubt that he was drunk; I think that it's his little way of saying, ha ha, look, I am a comedian, do not take me seriously. (I don't take him seriously, but not because he's joking, because he's not funny.)
ReplyDeleteDulce welfare inexpertis
ReplyDeleteThis is a question that never needed to be asked but must be asked now ... now just about anyone, of any color or stripe, with access
ReplyDeleteto unemployment benefits...
Uh... "We never needed to think about it when white people could relax, but we should take a hard look at the system if it's going to let black people relax too." Did he really just write that?!? Oof. These people...
Gas prices are through the roof thanks to Benghazi.
ReplyDeleteOr Flipper.
ReplyDeleteEven ignoring the minimal amounts in most public assistance:
ReplyDelete> But now just about anyone, of any color or stripe, with access to
> unemployment benefits, welfare, or food stamps can ask themselves
> that question too.
This is is surely as true as:
'Anyone with access to a fortune need not work to have money.'
'Anyone with unparalleled athletic prowess can be a champion sportsman.'
'Anyone with an F.T.L. matter-transmitter can visit Proxima Centauri with ease.'
'Anyone with access to monkeys flying out of his arse can do well to avoid facing away from the banana table at Whole Foods.'
> The only way to enjoy the higher rungs of the
ReplyDelete> ladder is to have climbed those lower ones first,
...a pleasure available to all, as there is always as much room at the top of a pyramid as at the bottom.
Amen...I think it extends even unto the Abominable Fancy.
ReplyDeleteThat's the punchline for every cartoon offered in the "New Yorker"'s _dirty_ cartoon caption contest.
ReplyDelete> "Decades ago, work wasn't about survival,
ReplyDelete> but about pride and principle."
This is exactly wrong: decades ago, work was nearly entirely about survival, and little above that. It's only changed because of some things of which he'd likely approve (people's making money from improving technology that helps more people live well) and much of which he wouldn't (government's encouraging research, and trying to make sure that at least some of the benefit of increased productivity filters down below the Ubers [as a Mr Harper, not the P.M. but the inventor of the 'screamer' called them]) .
I stand corrected. Always assume the worst, I guess.
ReplyDeleteThere you go, more justification. "The experience of living as a poor person in this economy must be preserved, for it prepares the poor sinner's soul for Hell, that it might not come as quite so much of a shock."
ReplyDeleteSee, it's disability forever, because with the amount of shit you have to do to prove that you're disabled, you don't have any time to get better, and certainly not to get a job.
ReplyDelete"I’m incapable of real work. The hardest things I push are words."
ReplyDeleteICE FLOE IT IS, THEN.
My animosity toward Gutless goes way back, and knows no bounds. He's the guy who seems to think it's hilarious when Canadians die in Afghanistan and says really toxically homophobic/misogynist things about the Canadian military, like that all our soldiers do is "get pedicures" and sit around in "gorgeous white capri pants."
ReplyDeleteSo he's an idiot of long standing.
Let's not even forget that while he's waxing nostalgic about teenagers working minimum wage jobs, I was a teenager during a recession worse (in Canada) than this one, during the early 1990s. There wasn't dick in the way of jobs open to teenagers in my hometown. I didn't get my first job until I was already a legal adult, and in university. (Granted, I *was* still 18 at the time, and technically a teenager, but shit.)
Here in Soviet Canuckistan, they have this thing called "student minimum wage" which is actually lower than the normal minimum wage, but you can only pay it to people under 18 who aren't emancipated minors. That of course means a lot of people *lose* their McDonald's jobs about 3 days before their 18th birthdays, for totally spurious reasons, but suggesting such a thing might make wingnuts shut up about teenagers getting job experience.
Oh, who the fuck'm I kidding...those assholes NEVER shut up.
Hey, man, when times are good, only 3 in 10 handicapped people (who can work and want jobs ever) ARE working. Not to go all Oppression Olympics on y'all, but if 70% of any other demographic were out of work that much, there'd be frickin' riots...
ReplyDeleteAhhhh my blood pressure...
I'd rather read the writings of a brain-damaged cornflake than Greg Gutfeld. Someone with Down's would be a vast improvement.
ReplyDeleteAt least they spared us the version of this scene in the book where Bateman had already blinded the homeless man once with a knife, and then when he finds him a year later the homeless man recognizes the voice of the man who blinded him and pisses himself before Bateman finally kills him.
ReplyDeleteAnd the habit-trail. I thank God every day that they didn't portray that scene in the movie. Though in a way it's worse that my mind's eye has to imagine it.
B.E Ellis is one sick puppy.
Well, this is not fair.....
ReplyDelete_______________________________________
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