Oh yeah, it’s a nightmare alright

I have one thing to say about this below — Welcome to my world.

The Story:

Close your eyes and picture the scariest thing you can think of. Maybe it’s a giant spider or a giant Stay Puft marshmallow man or something that’s not even giant at all. Well, whatever it is, I guarantee it’s not nearly as scary as the real scariest thing in the world. That’s long-term unemployment.

There are two labor markets nowadays. There’s the market for people who have been out of work for less than six months, and the market for people who have been out of work longer. The former is working pretty normally, and the latter is horribly dysfunctional. That was the conclusion of recent research I highlighted a few months ago by Rand Ghayad, a visiting scholar at the Boston Fed and a PhD candidate in economics at Northeastern University, and William Dickens, a professor of economics at Northeastern University, that looked at Beveridge curves for different ages, industries, and education levels to see who the recovery is leaving behind.

via The Terrifying Reality of Long-Term Unemployment – Matthew O’Brien – The Atlantic.

I have been unemployed for 8 solid years. Now, some of that, is my fault. I got into some of that HERE, when I wrote about my job hunting.  But, some of it; is simply the bad economy here in Michigan and as of 2008; the entire Country.

One part that I quibble with on this piece, is this here:

It’s time for the government to start hiring the long-term unemployed. Or, at the least, start giving employers tax incentives to hire the long-term unemployed. The worst possible outcome for all of us is if the long-term unemployed become unemployable. That would permanently reduce our productive capacity.

We can do better, and we need to start doing so now. We can’t afford long-term thinking in either the short or the long-term.

Okay, let me break this down here:

  1. Our Government is broke. They hardly can afford the people that they have now! They are having to cut hours and staff to stay afloat. So, that is out. 
  2. As for the tax incentives; I just do not think that incentives would even remotely work. What the employers would do, is hire the people; declare it on their taxes and then turn around and let the people or fire them for silly reasons.

What will work is a strongly worded piece of legislation that would make it illegal for employers to discriminate against those, who have been unemployed longer than six months and make damned sure the law is enforced to the hilt. With fines and loss of business license being the penalties for the infraction.

Let me clear here; I am not in favor of big Government statism at all; however, there are times, when, because of the actions of crony capitalists, Government has to take action to protect the American people, namely long-term unemployed Americans, like me — from being discriminated against, for the simple crime of not being able to find a job.  My reasons for not being able to get a job in the field that I trained in are explained here.  Yes, I whacked a pole, trying to make a turn out of a parking lot; that was in 2003. I should have been able to find work with a trucking company locally or at least regionally. I have not, why? Because no one locally or regionally is hiring, outside a big company around here, which is notorious for screwing its employees.

Again, I agree with what this man is saying is this article; I simply just do not believe his solutions are the right ones.

Update on job

Remember that job possibility that I was telling you all about?

Well, it was a washout. This video here, tells more about it. Basically, I have not driven a semi truck or operated a manual transmission in a semi for about 7 or so good years…..and yes, it showed, badly.

So, I’m back to square one, unless I can find a local trucking company that will let me putter around in one of their trucks, which really will not happen, because of the insurance industry’s tight grip on trucking companies, by demanding that ALL driver’s have two or more years of experience. Problem is, I just cannot go OTR or “over the road.” so, that knocks that out.

So, once again, here I sit, painted into a corner. 🙁