Disposable Heart
Grandmaster
Had a thought the other day, but realized it was a pipe dream: Let's go back 2-3 years. Unemployment skyrocketing, .gov wanting to throw billions at anything, snake oil or not. Why not the Civilian Conservation Corps? Get alot of those guys unemployed from the housing crash, people freshly unemployed from production, etc... Maybe offer them a higher cut of unemployment or EXTENDED unemployment (instead of having extention after extension, you get it once, then off to the CCC ). Instead of throwing bad money after bad money, rebuild roads, build parks, improve local infrastructure, build water plants, plant trees, make noise walls for highway adjacent properties, etc... Make that money make America beautiful.
Then I realized that road construction companies were just as crooked as the .gov (having known several of their employees and their stories), the .gov wanted to help out Wall Street instead of Main Street, too big to fail was the thing dujour, and it would have taken forever with current .gov bureaucracy (or created more) and none of the money would have reached intended projects. I then also realized that stimmulus money did go to road creation, but to little effect and little amount after bureaucracy set in...
I think the idea of people on unemployment sucks (I have been there). But what gets me mad about the system isn't the perception many have of "bums", but those who keep filing extension after extension, after extension without even getting a small job to bolster their income. No desire to change education levels (pretty much free if on federal assistance) nor a desire to do community service inbetween looking for jobs. One would have figured a surge in volunteerism, but I looked at the numbers: It declined. The small percentage of those abusing the system ruin all of it for everyone, but also it can permeate out...
Then I realized that road construction companies were just as crooked as the .gov (having known several of their employees and their stories), the .gov wanted to help out Wall Street instead of Main Street, too big to fail was the thing dujour, and it would have taken forever with current .gov bureaucracy (or created more) and none of the money would have reached intended projects. I then also realized that stimmulus money did go to road creation, but to little effect and little amount after bureaucracy set in...
I think the idea of people on unemployment sucks (I have been there). But what gets me mad about the system isn't the perception many have of "bums", but those who keep filing extension after extension, after extension without even getting a small job to bolster their income. No desire to change education levels (pretty much free if on federal assistance) nor a desire to do community service inbetween looking for jobs. One would have figured a surge in volunteerism, but I looked at the numbers: It declined. The small percentage of those abusing the system ruin all of it for everyone, but also it can permeate out...