Texas made over $25 billion last year from Fort Hood

First, think about how many times you've heard multiple states petition Obama to secede from Union with Texans leading the way. You may have also heard the claim from a bunch of politicians saying the government does not create jobs. Well, here's the truth on those claims. Should Texas actually go it alone, then they would lose Fort Hood along with other bases and their money. They would also lose jobs.

While it may sound good to some, they don't want anyone to think about what the truth is. They would also have to buy the buildings on the military bases and then fund their own defense.

Study: Fort Hood boosts Texas economy
Post's impact topped $25 billion last year
KXAN.com
Published : Thursday, 06 Dec 2012

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Fort Hood, long billed as the largest Army post in the Free Word, is also a large economic driver for the state of Texas.

That's the finding of a study released Thursday by state Comptroller Susan Combs, which concludes that the military installation 100 miles north of Austin pumped $25.3 billion into the Texas last year.

“Fort Hood’s importance to Texas goes beyond the significant role it plays in our nation’s security,” Combs said. “Fort Hood is an economic engine that helps growth in Texas.:

She said that projects on and around the post help bring investment and jobs to Central Texas.

According to the analysis, nearly 70,000 jobs were directly attributed to Fort Hood operations in 2011, up from about 67,000 jobs in four years before. Employees at Fort Hood consist of active duty military, federal civilian workers, contract personnel and Killeen Independent School District workers.
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Ex-homeless veteran passing "blessings" to struggling families

Once homeless, vet steps foward to pay power bills for others
Dec 5, 2012
Written by
Jerry Carnes

STOCKBRIDGE, Ga.

After serving two tours in Iraq, he returned to the United States with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. There were problems with his military benefits that took time to resolve.

Curtis Butler just can't stop giving.

For the second time in two weeks, the military veteran arrived at the Georgia Power building in Stockbridge with a handful of cash ready to pay the bills of strangers.

"God can't stop blessing us," said Curtis. "Why should we stop blessing others?"

On Monday, Curtis was paying his own power bill when he overheard a couple struggling to make ends meet. He paid their bill, then turned to others in the crowded lobby. Before the day was done, Curtis had forked over more than $2-thousand dollars to help more than a dozen Georgia Power customers.

"Just being thankful for what I have," said Curtis. "I'm not rich but when you can put a smile on someone's face, that's a major blessing."
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Thankful for greedy bosses proving it

Thankful for greedy bosses proving it
by Chaplain Kathie
Wounded Times Blog
November 23, 2012


When you think about what is going on today with some bosses, you may think it is all new, but it is history being repeated. While we may spend money at some of these businesses, the thought of how the employees were treated never really entered into our minds. We'd see the friendly server taking our order at Denny's. After the meal, we'd leave a tip knowing they made most of their pay from tips during the day. Cheap bosses in the food industry is a given but when you stop and think that they are being blamed because this election couldn't be bought, it makes me want to avoid all of places I go to until they make things right again.

The Men Who Built America "John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford and J.P. Morgan rose from obscurity and in the process built modern America." But if you watched this series there is one outstanding businessman who decided to make sure his workers were not only treated well but were able to make enough money to be able to buy the product they were building.

The man was Henry Ford and the workers not only built the cars, they bought them! The rest of the men took great ideas someone else had, spent their money taking advantage of the brilliance of others, then instead of being grateful, they treated their workers as if they didn't matter at all.

8 bosses who screwed their employees after Obama’s reelection
Papa John's John Schnatter isn't the only "job creator" putting his workers' salaries in jeopardy
BY LAUREN KELLEY
ALTERNET
NOV 20, 2012

Most of us have had a terrible boss or two in our day, but right now thousands of Americans find themselves with a very special kind of bad boss: one who uses Obama’s election as an excuse to threaten to cut their hours, roll back their benefits, slash their wages or fire them outright. Much of this worker abuse centers on the new law that businesses with 50 or more employees must offer workers healthcare options by 2014. Jon Stewart noticed this recent post-election “trend” and issued a strong judgment:

Denny’s/Dairy Queen franchise threatens “Obamacare surcharge,” reduced employees hours.

Red Lobster and Olive Garden parent company may rely on more part-time workers.

Papa John’s CEO plans to slash workers’ hours so he doesn’t have to cover them.

Applebee’s New York CEO says he’ll ax jobs because of Obamacare.

Small business owner in Georgia says he fired workers who voted for Obama

Las Vegas businessman says he laid off 22 employees after election night.

Builder of “Queen of Versailles” mansion told employees that Obama re-election “threatens their jobs.”

Coal company lays off 160 workers because of Obama’s “war on coal.”

The other thing the business giants had in common with some of today's owners is they thought they could just buy a President. They managed to do that twice. They made sure that William McKinley got the office chair. He repaid them by allowing them to do whatever they wanted. When McKinley ran for re-election Teddy Roosevelt was speaking out against what they were doing so the men with the money made sure they just made him Vice President. When McKinley was assassinated, Roosevelt took the chair and changed the way the "men who built America" did business.

History is being repeated all over again except the richest people in this country were not able to buy the oval office. They could only afford to buy the control of the Congress. Actually that's where their money was well spent because the House controls the money and the rules.

Getting back to the tyrants of today, this really exposes them for what they really are. They didn't care enough about their employees to pay them a living wage or care enough that their own employees couldn't afford to go to the doctor to be healthy? This also shows the rest of us that if they do not care about their own employees, why would they care about their customers in the same income range?

There are a lot of great employers out there taking care of their workers much like Henry Ford did and it matters. It matters to the customers they want to have when they are good to their own workers. To Americans in Ford's days, they knew people mattered more than making money. In return, they happily made him more money and I bet he was able to sleep at night.

Today we are reminded again from the program that in the end, these greedy men ended up trying to change how they did business and they gave a lot of their fortunes to charity after the rules changed and they were on their way down. Too bad they didn't think of that when they were getting more and more money on their way up.

We see great bosses across the country and many of them are hiring veterans. Seeing what some greedy bosses do, it should make all of us more grateful the good bosses are still out there and deserve our business.

Debt threatens security clearance for troops

How big debt is threatening security clearances for thousands of troops
By Bill Briggs
NBC News contributor

Nearly 36,000 active-military members who hold security clearances have recently sought urgent financial advice or aid because heavy debts and delinquent bills threatened to void their classified status, according to a nonprofit that helps troops and veterans solve money problems.

“You can lose that security clearance if you have credit or debt issues,” said John E. Pickens III, executive director of VeteransPlus. “If you lose that clearance, you can become un-promotable or you can be taken from your assignment. And, ultimately, you can even receive a bad-conduct discharge.

“If you’re going to be entrusted with national security,” he added, “the military figures you’ve got to at least be able to pay your bills on time.”

Approximately half of America's 2.4 million active duty, National Guard and reserve troops hold some level of security clearance, said Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. James Gregory. Most of those 1.19 million service members possess the second-highest security rating - "secret" - while the next largest portion hold a higher status: TS/SCI, (Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information), he added. The sensitive nature of certain military jobs typically dictate the security classifications.
read more here

Fort Carson Soldier Saves Local Family from Foreclosure

Fort Carson Soldier Saves Local Family from Foreclosure
Monument, CO
(SBWIRE)
06/04/2012

The national economic downturn has hit one local family hard recently; so hard that they were facing foreclosure. The Stowell family had been able to faithfully make their mortgage payments for nearly two decades, when health and employment issues came knocking. But, someone else came knocking, too… Wells-Fargo, their mortgage holder, who filed a demand to take their home away. The Stowells could not catch up the payments, let alone the thousands of dollars in fees. The American Dream of home ownership was turning into a nightmare. Then one clear day this past January, just ten days before their home was to go to the Trustee’s Sale, a letter arrived.

Luke Humphreys, a Fort Carson soldier facing retirement was looking for a way to replace his Army income.
read more here

1 in 6 Floridians now depends on food stamps, government says

1 in 6 Floridians now depends on food stamps, government says
Fallen middle class turns to government aid, food banks

By William E. Gibson, Washington Bureau
12:44 p.m. EST, December 21, 2011

WASHINGTON –—
As Floridians prepare to celebrate the year-end holidays with food and festivity, the U.S. government has delivered some distressing news: the number of state residents who rely on food stamps has nearly tripled since the Great Recession.

Figures released this month by the Agriculture Department paint a grim picture of widespread dependence nationwide but especially in Florida, where a record 3.1 million people — one in six residents — received food-stamp aid in September.

The numbers reflect a need witnessed every day by those who distribute food to the poor and to the growing ranks of Floridians who have fallen out of the middle and working classes.

Food banks in South and Central Florida report that they can hardly keep up with the demand for emergency assistance. Even some who once donated food now seek help for themselves.
read more here

Navy vet, now homeless and suffering from PTSD, part of Occupy

Reporters have been very lazy on the Occupy reporting. Most have taken the easy way out instead of talking to the people trying to change things. They come from all walks of life but as most reports are tied to the Iraq veteran Scott Olsen, there are many, many more suffering when they come home after all their service to this nation.

Politicians make the rules and fund the programs but it is the men and women risking their lives paying the price. It is the men and women dedicating their lives to making a difference for others paying the price for what they do. The truth is the values of the elected have been corrupted and people no longer matter unless they are wealthy. If we can't take care of our veterans, what chance does anyone else have?

Occupy Asheville expresses solidarity with Oakland march

By Bill Rhodes on 11/02/2011

About 100 Occupy Asheville marchers — along with a number of visitors from the San Francisco/Oakland area — marched from the local group's former Lexington Avenue campsite, up the hill to College Street and then to the U.S. Federal Building. Along the way, the marchers were met by several police officers, who directed them to get and stay on the sidewalk. The marchers ignored them.

The group continued to the Federal Building, trailed by a dozen police vehicles, sirens running. Other officers blocked off traffic on side streets. At the Federal Building, the march reversed course and headed for Vance Memorial.

Once there, the marchers chanted a variety of slogans and held signs up for all to see. After it appeared they were not leaving the monument property, the APD left the scene.

The protesters went through a series of speakers, each using the "crowd mic" technique: The crowd repeats what the speaker said so all can hear. There was a Navy vet, now homeless and suffering from PTSD. A woman from San Francisco said she had lost all at the hands of the government, and her sister was being held in some kind of lock-down at her Army base so she would not go AWOL. An older man related how he was from the "Viet Nam generation" and felt this movement was more profound and needed.
read more here

Media made injured Iraq veteran is face of Occupy movement

UPDATE
Now someone is claiming the police aimed at him?

“Before gas goes into a crowd shield bearers have to be making no progress moving a crowd or crowd must be assaulting the line. Not with sticks and stones but a no bullshit assault. 3 warnings must be given to the crowd in a manner they can hear that force is about to be used. Shield bearers take a knee and CS gas is released in grenade form first to fog out your lines because you have gas masks. You then kick the canisters along in front of your lines. Projectile gas is not used except for longer ranged engagement or trying to steer the crowd ( by steering a crowd I mean firing gas to block a street off ). You also have shotguns with beanbags and various less than lethal rounds for your launchers. These are the rules for a WARZONE!!

How did a cop who is supposed to have training on his weapon system accidentally SHOOT someone in the head with a 40mm gas canister?

Simple. He was aiming at him.

read more here

This is from Veterans For Peace Executive Director Mike Ferner. I would be shocked if it is ever proven a cop would know Olsen was an Iraq veteran and aimed right for him.

It isn't as if the Occupy groups need any extra sympathy from the rest of us since we've all been suffering too with the way things have been. So what is all of this really about?

Outrage over veteran injured at Occupy Oakland was the headline I used for a rant I had the other day. I was angry over the media blowing this all up and putting a spin on it as if the police targeted Olsen. As I wrote then, I sympathize with the protestors and what they stand for. They are taking a stand for average people in this country. What I don't get is the fact the media reports have all been about Olsen. Why is that? Is it because he's an Iraq War Veteran? If that were the case then they should be reporting on everything else going on with them. Shouldn't they? Would they have reported on this if Olsen was not a veteran? There have been others hurt and it isn't a far leap to understand how hard this is on police officers. So where are the full reports on everyone involved in all of this?

Injured Iraq veteran is face of Occupy movement
By Moni Basu, CNN
updated 8:15 PM EST, Fri October 28, 2011

A vigil is held for Marine Lance Cpl. Scott Olsen, who was injured during an Occupy movement protest in California

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Scott Olsen returned from two tours of Iraq without injury
But he suffered a fractured skull in the Oakland protests
The videos went viral, and Olsen became the face of the movement
His uncle says Iraq changed his nephew's views on war

(CNN) -- The chaotic scene unfolded with flash-bang grenades, rubber bullets and clouds of smoke.

Canisters whizzed through the air amid deafening booms.

Marine Lance Cpl. Scott Olsen went down.

"Medic! Medic!" someone yelled.

Olsen, 24, had seen his share of war in two tours of Iraq as a Marine. He was lucky, returning home physically unscathed.

But Tuesday evening, near the corner of 14th Avenue and Broadway in Oakland, California, Olsen went down.

The video images went viral: streams of crimson flowing down Olsen's head, his black T-shirt adorned with a white dove of peace, the war veteran carried to a hospital.

And with that, the Occupy movement had a face.

"We are all Scott Olsen," declared its website.

"It's ironic," said his uncle George Nygaard, that Olsen should be the poster child for this movement.

Ironic, said Olsen's Marine buddy and current roommate Keith Shannon, that a young man who fought for American freedoms should be injured exercising those same freedoms at home.
read more here

In fairness to CNN, they have been doing the best reports on veterans and telling their stories but as good as they've been, they seem to only want to report on what they think will get them the most attention and not what will do the most good for these men and women coming home.

They come home with wounded bodies and minds. They come home to no more money coming in when they leave the military, no jobs to find and more cuts to social services. To a VA system overloaded trapping them beneath a mountain of other claims as if their ability to survive combat should satisfy them when they can't pay their bills. Stand Downs for homeless veterans happen almost every weekend but there haven't been many reports on CNN about these.

It is almost as if the cable news stations have nothing better to report on than anything ties to politics. The troops are not a political issue. They are a national one. Considering what happens to them when they come home, it should be the biggest story CNN has because it crosses all political lines. They are willing to die for one of their buddies and that is all that matters to them. Not politics. It's time for the media to do the same and stop fueling the political fire.

Outrage Over Veteran Injured at ‘Occupy’ Protest

When an Iraq veteran ends up in the hospital because of what police did, it makes news. It is not as if the police targeted him but that is the way this has been spun. Why? Because it causes people to get pumped up over it. If anyone should understand doing what you have to do because it is your job, it should be a veteran. The police did what they had to do no matter if they side with the protestors or not. Stop and think about the simple fact many of the members of police force have lost their jobs too. It is doubtful an officer tried to hit someone and even more doubtful they wanted to hit a combat veteran.

While I totally sympathize with the protestors, especially since I have been out of work for over three years, appalled no one in the media every stopped to think of who is responsible for even more jobs being cut with the "budget" talks or how much people have been suffering while the wealthy are more protected than anyone else, I do feel their pain, but this story has been spun.

These cops, many of them veterans, have a job to do and they are doing the best they can. If they don't do what they have to, then one of their own could end up hurt. Why can't the media understand that? Why can't they report on what is behind all of the anger the protestors feel? Why can't they stop and ask cops how they feel having to face off with citizens trying to make things better for everyone including the police losing their jobs too?

I am glad that Olsen is doing better and hope he recovers soon but this story is not the whole story about what happened.

Outrage Over Veteran Injured at ‘Occupy’ Protest

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
A sign Wednesday in Oakland, Calif., refers to Scott Olsen, an Iraq war veteran who suffered a fractured skull Tuesday in an Occupy Oakland clash with the police

By JESSE McKINLEY and MALIA WOLLAN
Published: October 27, 2011

OAKLAND, Calif. — For supporters of the Occupy Wall Street movement, whose diffuse anger has been a defining and sometimes distracting characteristic, the wounding of an Iraq war veteran here has provided a powerful central rallying point.

The veteran, Scott Olsen, 24, was critically injured on Tuesday night when he was hit in the head with a projectile thrown or shot by law enforcement officers combating protesters trying to re-enter a downtown plaza that had been cleared of an encampment earlier in the day. Mr. Olsen, who served two tours of duty in Iraq as a Marine, suffered a fractured skull.
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House doesn't care if you have a job or not

Wonder why the unemployment rate is going up? Look in one place for the answer. Hint, it's in Washington DC. The building is supposed to be housing people with one mission. That mission is supposed to take care of the people in this country. They called it "the people's house" for that reason.

The People's House is a colloquial term used to describe the institution of the United States House of Representatives.
The term comes from the populist characteristics of the House: smaller representative districts, shorter terms of office for its members and (perhaps most importantly) direct election by the people. The House of Representatives was the only branch of the Federal government to be directly elected by the people until ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1913, when the Senate was made a directly elected body.

Ever since January when this congress began session, it has not been about what the people in this country need. It has not been about our jobs or making this country a better place for all of her citizens. It has been all about focusing on the wealthy, protecting their tax discounts and cutting everything else so that the people in this country not interested in paying taxes won't have to. How unAmerican is that? It sounds good because no one wants to pay taxes but most of the people in this country fully understand that we have to pay to have this country succeed.

The military, funded by taxes, is not just about contractors making millions off every contract. It is also about the men and women serving this country, putting their physical lives on the line and their personal lives on hold. It's their families wondering how to make ends meet at the same time they are wondering if their loved one is in danger, hurt or if they will get the stranger in uniform at the door with sad news. It is about their retirement after they served their 20 years or more being able to collect military retirement and Social Security after paying into both systems. It is about knowing they will be able to take care of their families if they are wounded in action and if they will have their medical needs met.

You want to be able to fly with some assurance you will arrive safely? We're heading into the tenth year after this nation was attacked on that bright September morning. Four planes were taken over and since then security at airports across the country has been increased so that people will be safe to fly and no more plans will be used as weapons against civilians. We all understood this ten years ago but the people working for the TSA and the FAA don't do it for free. They have bills to pay just like everyone else. What did Congress do? They took off for vacations without funding the FAA. Now we have people out of work and money paid by passengers not collected for the country.

FAA
$200 million a week not being collected in taxes but paid by passengers. Fiscal responsibility? Nope. Then there are the employees out of jobs and in the unemployment line.


There are 4,000 of them in the unemployment line now along with 70,000 construction workers.

Then there are the weakest among us. The homeless. Since there are not enough jobs to go around even though some folks in congress kept the tax discounts for the rich going claiming they are the job creators instead of terminators, more people became homeless under their watch. Well, it looks like once we finally arrived at a time when there was a lot being done to help the homeless, we did a u-turn. Not only are they being left to fend for themselves more and more, now there are wonderful people out of work who used to take care of them.

Chicago

City Lays Off 24,

Owing to their homeless program's state funding being cut in half, the city's Department of Family and Support Services announced Tuesday that they have been forced to lay off 24 employees effective Sept. 1.

The majority of the workers being laid off staffed the overnight, midnight-to-8 a.m. shift, picking up homeless individuals and transporting them to shelters, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. Now those individuals will likely go without the city's help during the evening, making an already bad system even worse, according to Julie Dworkin, director of policy for the Chicago Coalition of the Homeless.

"They tell you to go to a hospital or a police station and the van will come to take you to a shelter. But, people often have to wait hours for the van to come," Dworkin told the Sun-Times.

"From now on if you call in the middle of the night, you can add another eight hours to your wait."
read more here
Cuts Overnight Emergency Homeless Services

In state after state public employees are losing their jobs, yet the same folks responsible for them walking the streets are the ones screaming about the unemployment rate pointing a twisted finger at the President as if they had nothing to do with any of this. Well, in a way they are right. They had nothing to do with putting people back to work but plenty to do with putting them out of work and as for the term "the People's House" they should put a sing up "Sold to the highest bidder."

One third of the homeless are veterans. Veteran lose their homes all the time because they cannot work and their claims are not approved fast enough leaving them with no income. National Guards and Reservist usually work in public service on their regular jobs, as police officers, firefighters, emergency responders and every other agency the rest of us depend on. Imagine being notified you will be deployed at the same time you get a layoff notice.

Now we may be able to appreciate the folks saying they don't want to pass on the debt to their kids but that is only if we don't look at them right now. What kind of country do we want them growing up in? One that takes care of the wealthy on the backs of the rest of the population or one that manages to do the right thing? Do we want them growing up worrying about their roads, bridges and tunnels being safe for us to take them for a ride? Safe to fly down to Disney for a vacation? Safe to take medicine, drink water, eat food without being made sick? Do we want to know that if they do get sick they can go to a doctor to get better?

Do we want them to grow up worried they will not learn enough in school because their classroom is overcrowded due to teacher layoffs? What kind of future will they have with a lousy education? Do we want them to know that they do matter and we fully accept the responsibility to make sure they have the best education possible no matter what income class their parents belong in?

There are folks in congress wanting to keep things plan and simple so that people will just think of their words instead of what their words mean. They want us to be deaf to the cries of our own neighbors, dumb enough to follow where they want us to go and blind to the fact they are being funded by the wealthy they owe their careers to.

America Is NOT Broke

Whenever you hear an elected official talk about how broke this nation is, you should be asking yourself a very important question. Why are they talking about this all of a sudden? It isn't that our debt just happened overnight. They turn this into a crisis and we should all be asking what their motive is.

They are going after veterans on top of everyone else.

These same people keep saying the tax breaks for the richest in this nation are a top priority because they create jobs but they have no answers as to where those jobs were when we were losing them after they got tax cut after tax cut. Why believe any of them now?

Veterans hate to think that their service has been forgotten when they become veterans but for too many, that is exactly what happens. In a nation with this kind of wealth we should not have one homeless veteran but we have hundreds of thousands of them.

Think about this

American billionaires
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
US citizens who have a net worth equal to or greater than one billion United States dollars, or had that net worth at the time of their deaths; see also List of Americans by net worth

But that is not the worst. While we kept losing jobs and saw veterans coming home with no jobs to go into, millionaires scored.

SEPTEMBER 16, 2010, 10:36 AM ET
Millionaire Population Soars — Again
Text
By Robert Frank

Earlier this summer, I reported on two surveys (here and here) that showed a bounce back in the population of millionaires.


Associated Press
Mr. Monopoly, played by Merwin Goldsmith, throws out Monopoly money during a promotion for the game at Washington’s Union Station in 2003.
Since then, the stock market has floundered, the economy has slumped and overseas markets have drifted sideways. And yet….America’s millionaire-manufacturing sector continues to outperform the rest of the economy.

According to a new survey from Phoenix Marketing International’s Affluent Market Practice, the number of American households with investible assets of $1 million or more rose 8% in the 12 months ended in June. The survey says there now are 5.55 million U.S. households with investible assets of $1 million or more.

That follows two years of declines and brings the millionaire count back to 2006 levels. Of course, that is still below the peak of 5.97 million in 2007 and the current growth rate is well below pre-financial crisis levels, when the millionaire population increased as much as 35% a year.

Still, the numbers offer further evidence that the wealthy may have decoupled from the rest of the economy. The study’s authors say high salary growth, rather than investments, are the main drivers of the millionaire expansion.

The very wealthy seem to have had a better year than the mere millionaires. The population of American households with $5 million or more in investible assets surged 16%. The population of those with $10 million to invest increased 17%.
read more here
Millionaire Population Soars — Again/

Yet we are supposed to believe these same politicians care about the troops and our veterans? How many of their families had to use food stamps to feed their families while one of their own was risking his/her life in Iraq or Afghanistan?

They tell us that we have to pay down the debt for the sake of our children but they don't say it is important today to feed them, shelter them and provide for them. They don't address families living on the streets because the parents lost their jobs and ran out of unemployment. They don't say anything about the 60 minutes report about homeless kids in the Orlando area right down the street from Disney. They don't talk about rent along with everything else going up but not compensation for veterans or social security for the elderly, just as much as they don't want to talk about the fact congress did in fact get cost of living raises for themselves.

Now they want to go after teachers, firefighters, police officers, all other public employees, the elderly and veterans. They want the rest of us to think these people are suddenly a drain on the country instead of the backbone of it. They don't want us to think about how much we are all suffering today as long as they put up that smoke screen about the debt we pass on when we wonder how to put food on the table or fill our gas tank to get to work if we are lucky enough to have a job.

The GOP politicians are the ones who got us into this mess and now they want to be able to continue to destroy all of it for the sake of the wealthy! They are praying the poor in this country are too busy listening to their empty stomachs than they are listening to their words.

Say what you want about Michael Moore but he is right on this and it is about time someone said it!

Michael Moore:
America Is NOT Broke
Saturday 05 March 2011
by: Michael Moore | MichaelMoore.com | Speech


Michael Moore spoke to protesters in Madison, Wisconsin, on March 5, 2011.
Edited: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t)
America is not broke.

Contrary to what those in power would like you to believe so that you'll give up your pension, cut your wages, and settle for the life your great-grandparents had, America is not broke. Not by a long shot. The country is awash in wealth and cash. It's just that it's not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the uber-rich.

Today just 400 Americans have the same wealth as half of all Americans combined.

Let me say that again. 400 obscenely rich people, most of whom benefited in some way from the multi-trillion dollar taxpayer "bailout" of 2008, now have as much loot, stock and property as the assets of 155 million Americans combined. If you can't bring yourself to call that a financial coup d'état, then you are simply not being honest about what you know in your heart to be true. click link for more

Labor Day would have been better if they spent the money making jobs

You really have to wonder what people are thinking when they have all this money but they are not spending it to make jobs for us,,,,,,,

Unions, Democratic Party politicians rally for more jobs in Orlando


Updated: 3:26 p.m.
Sunshine, pulled pork, Democratic politics and festive live music could only go so far Monday to lift spirits at a Labor Day rally during this year's stagnant economy. Read more...

Maybe, just maybe if they spent the money from the stimulus, we could have more jobs?

September 5, 2010 Article
Florida slow to spend federal stimulus cash
By William E. Gibson, Washington Bureau

...40 percent of their share of federal stimulus money, a slow flow of funds that has...share. In all, about $5.7 billion of stimulus grants awarded to Florida has yet to...about slow spending is that much of the stimulus money is still coming, a time-release...

Record suicide rates highest with jobless, middle-aged

Record suicide rates highest with jobless, middle-aged
By Chris Bergeron/Daily News staff
The MetroWest Daily News
Posted Jul 19, 2010 @ 12:00 AM
Over the last year a "record breaking" number of people, including more middle-aged men and women, called the Samaritans suicide prevention hot line, a trend site director Eileen Davis attributes to the current recession.

She said the Framingham and Boston centers of Samaritans Inc. fielded 132,000 calls between July 2009 and June 2010, up from 119,000 calls over the same period the prior year. Davis said the "biggest age group of callers" was men and women from 45 to 54 years old.

"Sadly, we're seeing definite increases in all age groups. But we believe we're getting more calls from people in their 40s and 50s who've been most affected by the downturn in jobs, housing and medical coverage," she said.

Davis' observation echoes a recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that men and women between 45 and 54 years old have the highest suicide rates in the country among nine different age groups.

Titled " U.S.A. Suicide: 2007 Official Final Data," the CDC report documents a steady increase in suicides for 45- to 54-year-old men and women over a 10-year-period. In 2007, the last year in which national data was available, 17.7 people out of 100,000 in that age group committed suicide.
read more here
Record suicide rates highest with jobless middle aged

Foreclosure help in Orlando: Millions in federal money unspent

Foreclosure help in Orlando: Millions in federal money unspent
Federal funds aim to help neighborhoods hit by foreclosures in the Orlando area.

By Mary Shanklin, Orlando Sentinel

7:47 a.m. EDT, March 31, 2010


Florida and several local governments within Central Florida are way behind in spending $91 million statewide in federal funds aimed at stabilizing neighborhoods shaken by foreclosures.

Florida trails all but three other states in putting the foreclosure-relief dollars to work and could lose any funds not committed to projects by the end of September, according to a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development report this month on the Neighborhood Stabilization Program.

"It's obvious that the state … was unprepared to handle processing of those kind of grant resources and has dropped the ball," said U.S. Rep. Adam Putnam, a Republican who represents parts of Polk, Osceola and Hillsborough counties.
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Millions in federal money unspent

Sen. Jim Bunning prevented unemployment extension for over a million laid off workers

Jobless benefits start ending on Sunday
By Tami Luhby, senior writer
February 26, 2010: 3:55 PM ET


NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Depending on extended unemployment benefits to see you through the Great Recession?

You'd better not: The Senate failed to push back the Feb. 28 deadline to apply for this safety net.


Starting Monday, the jobless will no longer be able to apply for federal unemployment benefits or the COBRA health insurance subsidy.

Federal unemployment benefits kick in after the basic state-funded 26 weeks of coverage expire. During the downturn, Congress has approved up to an additional 73 weeks, which it funds.

These federal benefit weeks are divided into tiers, and the jobless must apply each time they move into a new tier.

Because the Senate did not act, the jobless will now stop getting checks once they run out of their state benefits or current tier of federal benefits.

That could be devastating to the unemployed who were counting on that income. In total, more than one million people could stop getting checks next month, with nearly 5 million running out of benefits by June, according to the National Unemployment Law Project.

Lawmakers repeatedly tried to approve a 30-day extension this week, but each time, Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., prevented the $10 billion measure from passing, saying it needs to be paid for first.
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http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/26/news/economy/unemployment_insurance/?hpt=T2

Veterans left off Jobs Bill

Vets deserve a piece of jobs bill, VFW says

By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Feb 25, 2010 17:46:40 EST

The nation’s largest organization of combat veterans is demanding changes in the $15 billion jobs bill that passed the Senate on Wednesday because veterans were left out of a package of tax credits and highway projects aimed at increasing employment.

“Despite having more than 1.1 million unemployed veterans, the 60-page package failed to mention ‘veteran’ or ‘veterans’ even once,” said Justin Brown, a legislative associate with the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

Brown was referring to HR 2847, the Hiring Incentive to Restore Employment Act, or HIRE Act, that passed the Senate on Wednesday by a 70-28 vote and is pending before the House.
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Vets deserve a piece of jobs bill, VFW says

Metro Orlando unemployment jumps to 11.8%

Five years ago we moved to Florida because I was supposed to be able to just work part time and do my work with veterans online the rest of the time. We bought a house in a nice area and after doing some temp work, I found what I thought was the perfect job for me working for a church.

The first few years here, it was easy finding work but that ended in 2007 when I lost my job due to the economy and the decision of the church to close down the education department opting instead for volunteers to run it. I haven't been able to find a paying job since then. Not even temp work.

I did accounting and held positions in just about every aspect of the business world from offices and retail but two years working for a church and then becoming a chaplain, didn't help my resume out much. It's almost as if I don't fit in anywhere anymore. I can picture the expressions of the HR heads reading my resume, seeing Chaplain and Christian Education then quickly putting it in the reject pile. It doesn't seem to matter that I'm just about desperate enough to take a job sweeping floors right now.

It gets even harder to find hope of finding a job when the malls were not even hiring for Christmas, driving past empty stores and closed down restaurants, sucks the air right out of any hope. If it's hard on me, then stop and think how hard it is for the men and women in the National Guards.

Think about this. Their rate of unemployment is over 20%. Who wants to hire them when they think about the fact they can get deployed again? Then there is the attitude that they will be too messed up in the head to do a good job. (Yes, even in this day and age the misinformation about PTSD is alive and kicking) They never seem to think that a National Guardsman or woman can do a great job just because of the type of individual they are.

Considering they put others first, put mission ahead of their personal life and are willing to take a bullet for a buddy, you really can't ask for a better employee, but aside from that, there is also the fact they follow orders well, train well, adapt well and have a habit of not complaining very much at all. Think of a better person to hire?

If I don't fit in then think about how hard of a time they have fitting back in. They still have bills to pay and families to support. What happens is they also come back to jobs long gone and competition for a few jobs from hundreds of people while they also get to worry about having to be redeployed back to Afghanistan or Iraq or waiting for the next natural disaster at the same time they have to worry about finding a job. All in all as bad as we may think we have it here looking for a job in Florida, they have it much worse and we, well we never seem to find the time to think of them at all.

Florida sees worst job losses in U.S.
Metro Orlando unemployment jumps to 11.8%

By Jim Stratton

Orlando Sentinel

December 18, 2009


There's little holiday cheer in the latest unemployment figures, which show Florida lost more jobs in November than any state in the nation.

Employers shed 16,700 positions last month, pushing unemployment to 11.5 percent. Michigan lost the second-highest number of jobs, with 14,000 positions eliminated from October to November.

Florida's unemployment rate is up two-tenths of a point from October's revised rate of 11.3 percent and is at its highest point since May 1975.

Metropolitan Orlando's unemployment rate climbed even higher, to 11.8 percent, up three-tenths of a point from October's revised rate. At the county level, Osceola came in at 13.3 percent, Polk at 12.9 percent, Lake at 12.7 percent, Volusia at 12.3 percent, Brevard at 11.9 percent, Orange at 11.7 percent and Seminole at 10.9 percent.

Flagler County had the state's highest jobless rate: 16.8 percent. Tiny Liberty County in the Panhandle had the lowest: 6.1 percent.
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Florida sees worst job losses in US

Landlord remembers Lord and takes care of tenants out of work

He Works So Others Have Homes
Posted Oct 22nd 2009 5:30PM by Brett Widness

At age 54, Ed Pierce thought his income from rental properties in West Virginia and South Carolina would provide sufficient income to retire in Rock Hill, S.C., and be closer to his adult daughter.

When his tenants told him they couldn't pay their rent, he could have started the eviction process. Instead, he went back to work at a local Walgreens.

"I sat with them and prayed for better times," Peirce told a columnist for The Herald. "These are stand-up guys. Family men. Proud. They paid me before, when they were working. You don't show your faith, your Christianity, in words. You do it in deeds."

While we tend to think of landlords as disgruntled ogres who clamor outside your window for their monthly monthly check, property managers are generally very reasonable and even generous people.One of Pierce's tenants worked in construction and has a wife and two small kids. A second worked in utilities contracting and has a baby in the house. Both tenants got laid off several months ago.
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He Works So Others Have Homes

Des Moines Department of Corrections jobs saved

Department-by-department cuts
The Des Moines Register • October 22, 2009


DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS
This department, which receives little funding from any sources besides the state’s general fund, would lose by far the most jobs under the plan submitted Wednesday. The state’s nine prisons, which house 8,400 inmates, would have fewer correctional officers to monitor convicts and provide treatment, counseling and conduct programs to help prepare inmates for release, state officials said.

• Jobs before cut: 4,200

• Amount cut: $36 million

• Total positions eliminated: 777
Layoffs: 515
Open jobs cut: 262

• Budget after cuts: $321 million
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3 kids, no job — relying on God

3 kids, no job — relying on God

By Jim Stratton

Sentinel Staff Writer

August 23, 2009
FRUITLAND PARK - The faith of Charlie Thompson fills a room.

He has been jobless for seven months, can't make his mortgage payment and may lose his car. He and his wife are raising three kids — all with Down syndrome — and have already lost three others to neurological disorders.

Yet, as I sit on his couch, his daughter playing next to me, he says that, ultimately, he feels lucky, that God is protecting his family.

"Maybe that's just looking for something positive," Thompson, 53, says quietly. "But I really believe it."

A moment later, his wife, Barbara, breaks the silence.

"From our experience," she laughs, "we've learned you don't pray for patience."

It's tempting to say the recession has taught Charlie and Barbara Thompson about what really matters, but they've had a pretty good sense of that for a long time now. Married 31 years, the couple have endured enough pain for two lifetimes, yet managed to keep bitterness at bay.

They've filled their lives with children — four adopted, three biological — and faith, leaning on both when times were bad. They take little for granted.

"We had two children who never rolled over on their own," says Barbara, a fourth-generation Floridian. "So seeing these three be naughty is a treat."

"These three" are Luke, 18, Ashley, 14, and Billy, 13. Their oldest child, 30-year-old Charles Byron, is married, living in Lady Lake.
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http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/orl-jobless-search-082309,0,5417699.story