The 99ers...long term unemployed

what has happened to the American spirit?

In the old days you had the 49ers.
Now you have the 99ers?

"The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) began on January 24, 1848, when gold was discovered by James W. Marshall (one of the lucky men who survived the journey) at Sutter's Mill, in Coloma, California.[1] News of the discovery brought some 300,000 people rushing to California from the rest of the United States and abroad.[2] Of the 300,000, approximately 150,000 arrived by sea while the others traveled overland.

The early gold-seekers, called "Forty-niners" (as a reference to 1849) traveled to California by sailing boat and in covered wagons across the continent, often facing substantial hardships on the trip. While most of the newly arrived were Americans, the Gold Rush attracted tens of thousands from Latin America, Europe, Australia, and China. At first, the prospectors retrieved the gold from streams and riverbeds using simple techniques, such as panning. More sophisticated methods of gold recovery developed which were later adopted around the world. At its peak, technological advances reached a point where significant financing was required, increasing the proportion of corporate to individual miners. Gold worth billions of today's dollars was recovered, which led to great wealth for a few. However, many returned home with little more than they had started with.

The effects of the Gold Rush were substantial. San Francisco grew from a small settlement to a boomtown, and roads, churches, schools and other towns were built throughout California. After a period of rule by the U.S. Army, settlers wrote a constitution and California became a state in 1850 as part of the Compromise of 1850.

New methods of transportation developed as steamships came into regular service and railroads were built. Agriculture and ranching expanded throughout the state to meet the needs of the settlers."

 

The American spirit has been outlawed!! In any case, there is no more open land.

You can't start start a small business without paying for all the licenses and fees.

If you dare to camp out (in your vehicle or tent) without paying someone, you probably get arrested and have your vehicle impounded!

You can't even build a shack in your own land without for city permit - if you can even get it! Everyone is forced to keep up with the Jones even if you don't to.

 

Exactly!

In America, people can get food stamps if they can't put food on the table.

It is housing that is the big issue. There is almost no housing help unless you have underage children. Many end up in the streets .....

 

LMAO! Are you serious? I'm pretty sure that had a lot more to do with FREE GOLD just sitting around waiting for people to grab it than the American spirit. No, it's not there anymore.

 

Now some employers are not considering those who don't already have a job....this ad makes it blatant. Other employers are less blatant, but screens out the long-term jobless just the same:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/...n_n_600665.html

 

A MILLION plus have quit looking for work, you have to understand that some may take years and years to find work as there is an average of about 5-6 people vying for each position at this moment.


In Brutal Job Market, More Than a Million Quit Looking
CNBC.com | June 07, 2010 | 01:13 PM EDT

If you think the jobs situation has become pretty hopeless, you're not alone. Roughly 1.1 million workers have given up hope of finding employment.

The staggering level of "discouraged workers" as the government calls them has swelled to historic proportions in 2010, past the million barrier for the first time since the Bureau of Labor Statistics has been tracking the number.

Though a bit off its all-time high of 1.2 million recorded in February, the metric stands as perhaps the most daunting statistic of last Friday's gloomy jobs report, which showed that almost all the new employment is coming from temporary government Census jobs and not the kind that will sustain an economy.

"The fact that people are sitting down indicates just how bad the market is for some categories of people," says Peter Morici, professor at the University of Maryland's Smith School of Business and the former chief economist at the US International Trade Commission.

That picture is unlikely to get any better, particularly in terms of the headline unemployment rate number on which most people focus. That figure actually dropped from 9.9 percent to 9.7 percent in May, but was as much a reflection that many people simply dropped out of the jobs market and are no longer counted as unemployed.

Even if those who have quit searching come back to the market, that will only keep the headline number high as the labor force increases.

"Now you're going to have the woodwork effect," Morici says. "All the people who were discouraged will be coming out of the woodwork to find jobs."

As the headline number has dropped from 10.1 percent in October 2009, the number of discouraged workers has jumped 34 percent, from 808,000 to 1.08 million.

The decline in active job-seekers, in fact, may be helping pad the employment picture at least on the surface.

"If it weren't for the plunge in the labor force, the US unemployment rate would have climbed to 10% in May," Gluskin Sheff chief economist David Rosenberg says in his morning note Monday. "[T]he household survey actually flagged a 35,000 outright decline in employment last month."

And the growth in discouraged workers—technically defined as those who haven't looked for work in four weeks—could well stay high for the foreseeable future.

The long-term unemployed—those who haven't worked for at least 27 weeks, or more than half a year—remains mired at 6.8 million, a number that accounts for 46 percent of the total jobless figure.

Ramifications of the credit crisis and the ensuing efforts companies made at doing more with less have helped depress employment as well. Company productivity rose 2.8 percent in the first quarter.

"We don't expect any substantial improvement to the labor situation at all," says Richard Hastings, macro and consumer strategist at Global Hunter Securities in Newport Beach, Calif. "Companies just don't need as much labor to drive as much output from technology and machinery. If you're in the wrong industry and you don't have a track record in the right skills in other industries, you're going to be a long-term stat."

Some economists also worry that the government is providing a disincentive to work by extending unemployment benefits. It's a Catch-22 in which the government is hoping to help the long-term unemployed that could backfire as people become less interested in finding work the longer they remain idle.

"What's keeping people out of the job market is they're giving extended benefits," says Doug Roberts, chief investment strategist at Channel Capital Research. "A lot of people, especially those who are older, are figuring, 'I'll keep my unemployment benefits for as long as I can get them until I can figure out what to do.'"

Among the few positive notes to come out of the jobs report last week was a decline in what some refer to as the "real" unemployment rate, the calculation that counts all the jobless and not merely those who fit into the government's counting mechanism.

That number—technically referred to as the U-6 figure—actually dropped to 16.1 percent, though Rosenberg generally questions the government data because of a reliance on its "birth-death" model.

And some analysts also say that the stock market, at least, can continue to grow even in the face of such daunting unemployment trends.

BofA-Merrill Lynch Global Research said it is sticking to its projections of 275,000 monthly job gains for the fourth quarter. That estimate comes even though the firm says the monthly figures could turn negative later this summer when the Census hiring stops.

"Recoveries do not move in a straight line and NO, this is not a sign we are about to double-dip," Ethan Harris, BofA-Merrill's head of developed economics research, told clients. "Double-dips happen when there is a policy mistake, which we do not expect."

Morici, for one, takes issue with the notion that public policy is not jeopardizing the jobs market. A harsh critic of the Obama administration, he says the $780 billion stimulus was squandered on projects that don't help sustain industry and manufacturing and thus will not provide lasting economic relief.

"By and large they don't have a grasp of the scope of the problems, and we're not creating that much demand for labor," he says. "They're not putting the stimulus in the right places. This administration is really being run like a Junior Achievement project."

Yet companies, if not their potential workers, could yet benefit and in turn pass savings along to investors.

"It's not going to change," Hastings said of the jobs picture. "Some people believe that it's terribly detrimental (to the stock market) and we don't. Companies can drive earnings growth with less labor."

 

So what should the long term unemployed do if they can't find a job? Should they start their own business, i.e., become self-employed? Should they emigrate? Illegally immigrate to Canada where there is free health care and more jobs? Find a nice spot under a bridge in a state like California, where winters are usually mild? What are the options available?

 

Very hard to start a business without some capital. Too many regulations here. You cannot even run a coffee cart without huge fees and permits.......esp in California.

The long-term unemployed are doomed without savings or family help.

Obama no help. Never any help for the 1099ers who never get any benefits. All the benefits goes to the 99ers.

 

Looks like the only choices then are illegal immigration to Canada or finding a nice bridge to live under in California.

I still think they could a get a business going. Even illegals do that in California. Some start out offering gardening services, and gradually work their way up from there.

 

Many gardeners do not have enough business. They were losing clients since 2008. In good times, may be one can start a business like that. In these times, any new business is competing against established ones.

If one can hold on to their truck/SUV/camper/van or whatever, there is no need to sleep under the bridge.

Many are sleeping on the streets down town here in San Diego. It is very sad.