Unemployment Benefits in Michigan will cease.

[oladub]

This is all , designed to take the heat off the elite who've brokered the deals that brought them here. Nobody complained in the second half of the 1990s when NAFTA brought the price of corn so low that Mexicans couldn't farm profitably anymore. So they went where the money is. If you have unregulated CAPITAL across borders, you're going to see unregulated immigration too.

But no. We're just going to sock it to the immigrants, while the banks and elite laugh and laugh at how we are so easily fooled. "Man, we just keep fucking them over and over and over again and they just take the bait and fight against each other! I love this country! Haha!"

It isn't all nonsense. Those numbers are from the US government and the Pew Research Center. Maybe you can come up with some more up to date numbers? Meanwhile, namecalling is a poor substitute for facts. If you would more carefully read my suggestions, #8 was a call to end NAFTA [[we agree ) and #3 only suggested fining cheating employers and using the proceeds to extend the unemployment of US citizens who are the ones suffering from corporatist policy whose interests you partially support. My unemployment concerns are for US workers and taxpayers rather than what bankers or the Mexican President want our President to do for them.

I posted the Pew numbers only because Gistok imagined that my numbers came from 'Beckistan or Rushistan' and Novine didn't think that white collar workers and manufacturing workers where he is are losing their jobs to illegal aliens. I don't think that The Pew Research Center information is 'xenophobic'. If you do or are concerned of some danger of relating government unemployment statistics with Pew statistics, then you should take it up with The Pew Center or some would be government 'fair speech' censors.

[Detroitnerd]

It isn't all nonsense.

No, oladub, being concerned about the immigrants is nonsense. You can't see that big, red-white-and-blue dick up your ass.

[Hermod]

Hermod, I love when you post stuff like that. Your dad was actually in the CCC? Awesome. And no, I didn't think it would be a walk in the park. But it seemed like a constructive approach for a country that lurches from not wanting to throw those seemingly chosen by lottery to the wolves to not wanting to subsidize failure. "Hard core" could be taken in different ways, but regardless, those in Detroit and elsewhere who have been unemployed for a long time would have options that they could count on. I too think that those who are unwilling to humble themselves, if necessary, and do what it takes, well, the heck with 'em. I've had to humble myself before to get by. It's part and parcel of why we hate ...... bags, in my opinion. :-)

My father wasn't in the CCC. The CCC camps were run by officers detailed from the US Army.

My father was a soils expert working for the Dept of Agriculture Soils Conservation Service and was detailed as a technical expert to CCC camps near Zanesville Ohio, Rustberg, Virgina, and Blackstone, Virginia. He didn't live in the camps, but worked from the camp. I was born while he worked out of the Blackstone camp. We lived in Crewe. As WWII heated up, he became concerned that he would be called up [[ROTC commission from MSU) and we moved back to Detroit when I was 18 months old in 1940.

[maxx]

I agree with the republicans. Everyone I know who is receiving un-employment benifits has no intention of finding a job until their un-employment runs out, or they already have a job now working under the table somewhere.

RIght because people are really lliving it up on unemployment. And of course, everyone should just jump at the first job they see even if it's at some fast food joint that pays less than even the unemployment. Get real.

[Zacha341]

All I know is that 20 years ago you could maybe start looking mid-point of your un-employment run if you lost your job. Not any more -- you need to start looking the first week as the 6 - 12 months fly by IMO. And there will be no more 24 months it appears.... Actually you should keep your resume freshh and sorta be "looking" a bit while you are working... at least keep your ears open the way these companies are cutting back.....

RIght because people are really lliving it up on unemployment. And of course, everyone should just jump at the first job they see even if it's at some fast food joint that pays less than even the unemployment. Get real.

[oladub]

No, oladub, being concerned about the immigrants is nonsense. You can't see that big, red-white-and-blue dick up your ass.

You seem incapable of offering more than crass insults as your contribution to the discussion. Statistics work better. I guess we better agree with you so you won't turn nasty. Sigh..

The legal term is illegal alien. Alien as opposed to citizen. Illegal as opposed to legal. I don't opposed immigration. There are legal ways of immigrating. No one was talking about that. The topic had to do with the ending of unemployment benefits. I seem to have noticed a relationship that you would rather not discuss intelligently. My concern, again, is for US unemployed workers and taxpayers; groups which you apparently don't priortize. We all have to make our choices in both style or substance.

[fryar]

Like I said, are illegal immigrants really an issue in Michigan? I didn't have the impression that they were when I went out to eat. Living in downtown, I guess I didn't see a whole bunch of gardeners, though. Construction, maybe?

The numbers Oladub cites probably make sense, although it's probably not a straight-forward a-b=c proposition. For example, we might just start importing 100% of some of our fruits and vegetables without illegals driving down the cost of production [[i.e. harvesting). Beyond that, however, immigrants add dynamism to our economy; the unemployment resulting from their presence in the labor pool is a current cost that will result in greater growth in the future.

"Tell that to the unemployed?" Fair 'nuff, but any attempt to close the sizeable loopholes in immigration enforcement probably won't result in any immediate changes, either.

[Novine]

Whatever you want to call them, we have fewer illegal immigrants here today and higher unemployment. Illegals aren't the cause of the current economic crisis and deporting them won't magically create jobs for many of the unemployed. But it's a great distraction for the right-wing in this country who can blame a whole raft of ills on illegals as they don't have anything else to offer to the unemployed in the US.

[Zacha341]

I don't doubt the opportunism on all sides to either cast the illegal aliens as mistreated nobles OR demonizing them as the cause of ALL ills. That's the politics of it -- tit-for-tatt.

Withstanding all of that, I have friends in California that are describing more specific, and less pleasant stories from personal experience regarding living with the illegal population shifts and that impact on already scare resources and infrastructures and not one of them is a republican or right winger.

Over here east of Chi-town [[Michigan and upper east coast) of course we are not really personally or directly effected...

Whatever you want to call them, we have fewer illegal immigrants here today and higher unemployment. Illegals aren't the cause of the current economic crisis and deporting them won't magically create jobs for many of the unemployed. But it's a great distraction for the right-wing in this country who can blame a whole raft of ills on illegals as they don't have anything else to offer to the unemployed in the US.

[1KielsonDrive]

Illegal immigrants may not be as big of a problem in Michigan as elsewhere, but they are a problem. If they are ILLEGAL, they have no business being here. Yes, I believe illegals, from whatever country, take jobs and pressure wages downward. It's unfortunate though, that they are demonized and treated poorly. I'd do the same things, if I was in their shoes, to obtain work and pay. Our country is in need of some strong and fair immigation laws with equally strong and fair enforcement measures.

[Jimaz]

Whatever you want to call them, we have fewer illegal immigrants here today....

From what I've read the trend has been their moving back home due to our sour economy. That makes sense to me. Who would want to continue suffering a broken family when there's no work anywhere anyway?

Interestingly, that little factoid hasn't received much press since Arizona's "but-it's-a-dry-hate" issue reared its ugly head.

[Zacha341]

I hear that! I did not mean to imply that there is no problem. Just the opposite. But I think in Michigan we can easily minimize the issue because it is not [[or we don't perceive it to be) impacting us as directly and personally as in the border states etc.

Illegal immigrants may not be as big of a problem in Michigan as elsewhere, but they are a problem. If they are ILLEGAL, they have no business being here. Yes, I believe illegals, from whatever country, take jobs and pressure wages downward. It's unfortunate though, that they are demonized and treated poorly. I'd do the same things, if I was in their shoes, to obtain work and pay. Our country is in need of some strong and fair immigation laws with equally strong and fair enforcement measures.

[Novine]

"But I think in Michigan we can easily minimize the issue because it is not [[or we don't perceive it to be) impacting us as directly and personally as in the border states etc"

Last time I checked, Michigan is a border state.

[Jimaz]

GRITtv: Organize the Unemployed

Workers are under assault, says Bill Fletcher, Jr., and the labor movement needs to fight back. One of the best ways to do this, he suggests, is for labor to start organizing the unemployed as well as supporting their membership. Meanwhile, Fletcher notes, 15 tea partiers get together and it makes national news, while labor's struggles are marginalized or ignored. There's plenty to fight for, though--more stimulus, jobs for those who don't have them and fair wages for those who do, better attention by the leaders to their base, and for the administration to keep its promises. Fletcher joins us via Skype from Washington, D.C. to discuss. Distributed by Tubemogul.

It's not as if there are too few unemployed to have an effect or that the unemployed haven't the discretionary time to contribute to a cause that directly affects their fate. This is another example of a conspicuously mysterious absence of a movement.

The Detroit USSF is mentioned.

[Zacha341]

Oh, of course... but we are not getting the numbers from Mexico... at the same level as the southern border states. That was my point.

"But I think in Michigan we can easily minimize the issue because it is not [[or we don't perceive it to be) impacting us as directly and personally as in the border states etc"

Last time I checked, Michigan is a border state.