Like most Americans, most of the unemployed don't let facts get in the way of a good story.

Yes ,if Republicans Eisenhower or Nixon were resurrected and tried to run in the DEMOCRATIC PARTY primaries, the DNC would criticize them for being too left wing and marginalize them the way they do to Kucinich, Dean, Nader.

Today's Republicans would call them enemy combatants.

Yes, why hasn't hope and change Obama proposed:

1)Elimination of income tax Raygun imposed on unemployment insurance benefits in 1986 ?

2)Increasing the cap on Social Security contributions in order to increase benefits for all recipients ?

3)Extending Medicare coverage to 55-64 year olds ?

You have hit the nail on the head. This is a sorry mess.

I'd have to see the study.

Prior to the onset of the Great Recession in 2008, most people found work BEFORE exhausting their benefits.

There are currently 5 job seekers per opening. That is the largest contributing factor in long term joblessness.

Your "study" sounds an awfully lot like the Republican idea that unemployment benefits are bad because they make people lazy - a red herring for sure.

What the hell are you talking about? I was laid off in early 2008 while Bush was still in office. I hated everything that criminal son-of-a-bitch stood for but he and the Dem led post-2006 Congress only allowed one two-month gap between unemployment benefit tiers his last year in office. Obama rode in with the biggest Democratic majorities in Congress in 35 years and those sorry DLC tools let a three month gap between benefit tiers hit right out of the gate--just when the lay-offs from the implosion of the Housing Bubble were at their WORST. I had to sell off half the stuff I owned to survive that gap. This article claims they let four (4) benefit lapses happen on their watch. Get your facts straight before you bloviate. Both dominant Parties cooperated on elevating neo-liberalism as national economic policy; both Parties cooperated to push corporate collectivization of small and medium-sized family farms; both Parties cooperated to legalize usury; both Parties cooperated to pass the "free trade" regime; both Parties cooperated to deregulate the banks and derivatives; both Parties cooperated to allow the TARP handouts to the big banks without any legal strings attached; both Party leaderships support more "quantitative easing," and the entity that has profited most from all these grand betrayals is Goldman Sachs, who is currently setting its own price on what it charges the Fed to buy up Treasury bills with Sachs as the middle-man. Former Goldman Sachs crooks have been senior economic advisors to presidents Clinton, Bush II and Obama.

Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."

Part II:

(4) A complete and transparent audit (that lists "black ops" expenditures without going into mission particulars outside relevant closed committees in Congress) should be made of the Department of Defense (DOD). The School of the Americas should be eliminated--not simply renamed. The Guantanamo prison system should be eliminated and its prisoners either put on trial in civilian courts or released to other countries who will have them. The Pentagon's policies should be subjected to a comprehensive cost/benefit analysis every five years commencing immediately. Regarding the "Global War on Terror," a competent cost/benefit analysis should entail the persistent asking of fundamental questions about policy effectiveness like: Have the last nine years of Pentagon and Executive Branch strategies and tactics in this global war reduced the overall number of terrorists here and abroad or triggered a growth in their numbers? Have these strategies and tactics reduced the overall number of terrorist attacks and attempted attacks or triggered a growth in the numbers of these events? Policy assessments and spending cuts targeting ineffective Pentagon and related Executive Branch strategies and tactics, failed defense programs and related wasteful expenditures should be made accordingly and they should commence as soon as possible to restore some fiscal sanity to our defense budget. We now annually spend two and a half times on the DOD what we spent at the peak of the Cold War when we faced the far more serious threat of global thermonuclear annihilation--and we have far less to show for it.

(5) We would have to accomplish a comprehensive domestic economic Green New Deal phased-in over a 7-to-12 year period to build a green domestic manufacturing base and a clean-as-possible energy paradigm in the United States. That should include substantial government subsidies of domestic green manufacturing start-ups in order to produce jobs making green goods, providing green services, expanding old and building new mass transportation systems, and building a fully modernized national electrical grid that can efficiently purchase surplus solar, wind and geo-thermal electricity from small-to-large private landowners. The federal government and/or States should subsidize the installation costs for privately owned solar, wind and geo-thermal energy systems, and the construction of a national network of renewable electricity re-fueling stations for electric cars, and guarantee private landowners a sustainable price floor for renewable energy generated by those systems for at least a twenty year period or more. Germany has pursued a similar grid model with great success and are on their way towards 30% clean renewable energy on their grid by 2020 with a national goal of 80% renewable energy by 2050. The U.S. has considerably less than 2% clean energy in its antiquated, fossil fuel dominated multi-grid system. A Green New Deal should also address by direct government job creation via a new Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) the elimination of our anti-competitive $2.3 Trillion dollar physical infrastructure deficit by effecting nationwide infrastructure upgrades of roads, bridges, sewage systems and storm drainage systems and proper maintenance and conservation of our national parks, wilderness areas, wetlands and national monuments. The new CCC should also embark on the task to fully re-plant our national forests that were clear-cut over the last forty years. Antiquated dam systems that interfered with salmon runs should all be eliminated and those river systems cleaned and restored. Full funding for the Environmental Protection Agency's clean-up "Superfund" should be compelled from original corporate and other polluters and not paid for by U.S. tax-payers. Food, drug and other product safety regulatory laws should bar former corporate executives from becoming federal regulators providing "oversight" on industries they previously had links with, and such regulators should be barred from going to work for industries they previously provided federal oversight on for at least seven years after they leave their regulatory positions with the government. This would encourage the rise of dedicated and objective, technocratic government product safety regulators to replace the current class of corporate hacks masquerading as product safety regulators.

I dunno -- ask Warren Buffett, who I don't think would argue he's "earned" his billions of dollars in the same sweat-of-the-brow way his receptionist earns her thousands of dollars:

"NEW YORK, June 26, 2007 -- Warren E. Buffett was his usual folksy self Tuesday night at a fundraiser for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) as he slammed a system that allows the very rich to pay taxes at a lower rate than the middle class.

"Buffett cited himself, the third-richest person in the world, as an example. Last year, Buffett said, he was taxed at 17.7 percent on his taxable income of more than $46 million. His receptionist was taxed at about 30 percent.

"Buffett said that was despite the fact that he was not trying to avoid paying higher taxes. "I don't have a tax shelter," he said. And he challenged Congress and his audience to see what the people who "clean our offices" are taxed, to loud applause.

"Buffett said that he and other privileged Americans must do more to help the less fortunate."

.... but what would Buffett know about the privileges of a rich person in America? I'm sure you're much wiser.

No, the fear of losing that wealth is what makes them afraid and do evil acts to "protect" themselves. I agree with Metal bring on the guillotine!

Most on the list are "self-made" billionaires?

I suppose. To a degree.

Indeed, I'm sure they didn't really benefit from the public highways and public transit that got their workers to their companies. Nor from the public K-12 and public universities that provided them with educated workers who can read, write, and engineer complex computer components. Nor from the publicly-developed Internet that allows them to communicate instantly with professionals and workers and customers all over the world. Nor the publicly-subsidized airports or rail lines that allow them to ship their products from coast to coast. Nor the public court system that protects their copyrights and patents from infringement, and allows them to prosecute those who steal their trademarks. Nor the system of public parks, wilderness areas, open spaces, and libraries that keep their workers entertained and inspired and active and healthy. Nor the publicly-supported firefighters who keep their factories and homes from burning down, nor the publicly-supported officers of the law that keep their offices from being looted. Nor the public supervision of the banking industry (and recent public bail-out of the same, to the tune of $700 billion) that keeps the investment money in their products flowing. Nor the public laws that protect the quality of the water they drink, the air they and their workers breathe, the safety of the autos they drive, and the quality of the food they feed to their children.

Not to mention how much they benefit from the cheap food they can eat thanks to underpaid migrant workers, and cheap products they can buy thanks to underpaid foreign factory workers.

But, yeah, aside from that, they are completely self-made, to the extent that they obviously don't owe a damn thing to the society in which they thrive, do they?

That said, I don't mean to come across like one of the many ranting Marxists who run amok on this site. I do happen to recognize that government rarely "creates" wealth -- it merely (ideally) creates the conditions that allow entrepeneurship and creativity to flourish, tries (ideally) to maintain a level playing field, and helps (ideally) to ensure that society as a whole gets to enjoy the fruits of its investments.

But to suggest that multi-millionaires, "self-made" or otherwise, don't owe something back to the society in which they thrive seems ignorant at best, and downright mean otherwise. Sure, we have to find a balance. But right now, there IS no balance. Millionaires and corporations get to pick the politicians and media they want, and manipulate them like their own personal puppets. The rest of us fight each other for the scraps.

Sorry, but that just ain't right.

Though I'm sure the bastards at Goldman Sachs who will award themselves $3 million each in bonuses this year "earned" every damn penny. I'm sure they've convinced themselves they do.

Huh?

Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."

I certainly have. I hope we can continue our discussion on the wisdom and humanity of supporting long-term corporate welfare, bank and insurance firm bailouts, "free trade," the shifting of the tax burden away from High Finance, Big Insurance, and the Rentier Class and onto productive labor and industry, and "quantitative easing" in lieu of other possibilities.

Metal, when you come back from the day room, you'll need to take your meds.