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I feel dirty
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I work for a company which specializes in reducing the unemployment tax rate. Unemployment is paid for by the employer. The tax is a sliding rate, based in some states on a ratio between benefits paid to former employees and taxable wages, or in most states on a ratio between taxable wages and an expected reserve, or in the case of nearby Pennsylvania, they collect taxes both ways --- and they are still broke. So we have lots of clients in PA. Either ratio gets multiplied by social costs and bureaucracy. And of course any reserves are fictional, having been long ago plundered. Unemployment is the fourth largest burden placed on employers by government.
Bureaucrats love nothing better than to nitpick an unjust illogical result out of a thing Makes their petty day. Form supersedes function, and therefore, in the course of reducing rates we handle a lot of claims, because it's all in how you say it. When I began there twenty years ago we had a raft of Pennsylvania sewing factories and such as clients. A typical claim was some lunkhead who could never get to work on time because she overslept. These mills promptly shut down one after another as overseas competition won lowball bids from WalMart. Big job growth in nursing homes kept us afloat. A typical claim was a lunkhead who could not get to work on time because she overslept. Here in the last couple years, the big job growth is temp staffing agencies. About three quarters of the jobs created this year are part time jobs filled by staffing agencies, who won't work a guy over 30 hours nor more than a few months because they don't want to pay benefits. The cost to the place where these people actually work is less than they would have paid if they hired the person themselves, because what they would have paid to the worker in benefits is now the margin which the temp agency earns. No medical, no vacay, no nuttin. A typical claim is some poor sob who can't get to work because he can't keep his car on the road working 25 hours a week at eight bucks an hour. Can't find himself another $200 klunker either, cause our fascist in chief took it upon himself to crush all the klunkers and sell the scrap to China ... that was his genius plan to keep Detroit from going bankrupt. Between that and the Volt.
I feel dirty. I was looking at a claim yesterday where some poor slob turned down a temp job assignment at $7.25 an hour saying he needs $9 at least. What's a guy gonna do with nine bucks an hour, twenty five hours a week? After taxes, he can't even pay rent. And he never knows when that assignment will come to an end; only knows it won't be long. Our job is to put down on the claim form that he refused an assignment, so he won't collect.
When I got out of college, my first job was on a loading dock. Memory is a funny thing, but I think I was making $3.25 an hour. Rent was $35 for the houseboat I lived on. Next year, I moved in with a girl, we rented a house on 3 1/2 acres with a pool, a bamboo grove, fruit trees, air, all for $95 a month, and thought we paid a lot. Houses went for 25 grand then. Today, a house goes for ten times that, a crappy apartment rents for ten times what we paid, and this guy is gonna get denied unemployment cause he would not accept twice what I made back then. Plus, I got to work full time, I got insurance, I got time off, and I would not be let go in a few months. When I was a boatbuilder, I made twelve and a half an hour. This was 1975. If you were not making a hundred a day you were getting nowhere. How's a young man build a schooner and take off on his adventure today? How's he save for a house to raise his brood? How's he even eat?
But there's more: This month he's required to sign up for a twenty grand health insurance policy. Can't afford it? No prob. It's subsidized. Guys who pays the taxes for that? The Dems tell you the rich will pay. Yeah, right, like that ever happens. The Reps tell you taxes kill jobs. What jobs are left to kill?
I feel dirty. I hate it. How can we service clients like these? It's like working for a slum lord.
I am no fan of Obamanomics.
Bailouts for billionaires, food stamps for the working man.
Gotta go now. Work calls. Just had to vent.
Bureaucrats love nothing better than to nitpick an unjust illogical result out of a thing Makes their petty day. Form supersedes function, and therefore, in the course of reducing rates we handle a lot of claims, because it's all in how you say it. When I began there twenty years ago we had a raft of Pennsylvania sewing factories and such as clients. A typical claim was some lunkhead who could never get to work on time because she overslept. These mills promptly shut down one after another as overseas competition won lowball bids from WalMart. Big job growth in nursing homes kept us afloat. A typical claim was a lunkhead who could not get to work on time because she overslept. Here in the last couple years, the big job growth is temp staffing agencies. About three quarters of the jobs created this year are part time jobs filled by staffing agencies, who won't work a guy over 30 hours nor more than a few months because they don't want to pay benefits. The cost to the place where these people actually work is less than they would have paid if they hired the person themselves, because what they would have paid to the worker in benefits is now the margin which the temp agency earns. No medical, no vacay, no nuttin. A typical claim is some poor sob who can't get to work because he can't keep his car on the road working 25 hours a week at eight bucks an hour. Can't find himself another $200 klunker either, cause our fascist in chief took it upon himself to crush all the klunkers and sell the scrap to China ... that was his genius plan to keep Detroit from going bankrupt. Between that and the Volt.
I feel dirty. I was looking at a claim yesterday where some poor slob turned down a temp job assignment at $7.25 an hour saying he needs $9 at least. What's a guy gonna do with nine bucks an hour, twenty five hours a week? After taxes, he can't even pay rent. And he never knows when that assignment will come to an end; only knows it won't be long. Our job is to put down on the claim form that he refused an assignment, so he won't collect.
When I got out of college, my first job was on a loading dock. Memory is a funny thing, but I think I was making $3.25 an hour. Rent was $35 for the houseboat I lived on. Next year, I moved in with a girl, we rented a house on 3 1/2 acres with a pool, a bamboo grove, fruit trees, air, all for $95 a month, and thought we paid a lot. Houses went for 25 grand then. Today, a house goes for ten times that, a crappy apartment rents for ten times what we paid, and this guy is gonna get denied unemployment cause he would not accept twice what I made back then. Plus, I got to work full time, I got insurance, I got time off, and I would not be let go in a few months. When I was a boatbuilder, I made twelve and a half an hour. This was 1975. If you were not making a hundred a day you were getting nowhere. How's a young man build a schooner and take off on his adventure today? How's he save for a house to raise his brood? How's he even eat?
But there's more: This month he's required to sign up for a twenty grand health insurance policy. Can't afford it? No prob. It's subsidized. Guys who pays the taxes for that? The Dems tell you the rich will pay. Yeah, right, like that ever happens. The Reps tell you taxes kill jobs. What jobs are left to kill?
I feel dirty. I hate it. How can we service clients like these? It's like working for a slum lord.
I am no fan of Obamanomics.
Bailouts for billionaires, food stamps for the working man.
Gotta go now. Work calls. Just had to vent.
“It has been a source of great pain to me to have met with so many among [my] opponents who had not the liberality to distinguish between political and social opposition; who transferred at once to the person, the hatred they bore to his political opinions.” —Thomas Jefferson (1808)
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This country is in trouble, in more ways then one.
And no bozo with .......I better stop now....
"Bailouts for Billionaires, food stamps for the working man" is the foundation plank of the Democrat Party Platform.
The Republicans is the same, except for the food stamps part.
Oh, and PM to you sir.
"If you do not read the newspapers you're uninformed. If you do read the newspapers, you're misinformed." -- Mark Twain