Yes, there is an issue about people wanting to work but the other issue is that the global economy is too quick and efficient to tolerate your idiotic car troubles or your imbecilic grandmother's death or your moronic lack of child care (cue Scandinavia) or, and mostly, your stupid health. The economy was a Ferrari and now it's only a Honda, but either way, not much time for absences and no time at all for Keisha's learning curve. Keisha isn't just unemployed, she is completely unemployable. We can argue whether auto plants should pay $20/hr or $50/hr, but for certain there is no market for unskilled labor at all. Let me correct another grand mistake of the politicians and the talking heads in the media: this problem is likely to get much, much worse, not better, as the economy improves. There are no typos in that sentence. Read it again.


kleinbl00:

Yeah, no.

THING 1) My neighbors are on disability. It took one of them 28 months, the other 18, with constant investigations and denials, before they were approved. One of them legit had an I-beam fall on him at the shipyard. This whole "you have anxiety, therefore we'll slap you on SSI forever" thing is BS.

THING 2) A buddy is on disability. He's got Lyme disease. While he can occasionally work, he has to do it under the table because if his social worker can verify any real income, she yanks his payments in their entirety. Yeah - there's a government employee whose caseload includes making sure my buddy earns no money. This whole "wander from doctor to doctor like a leaf on the winds" thing is BS.

THING 3) I'm no psychiatrist, certainly not the last one, but I've heard a half-dozen people on disability refer to it as "retirement." They're not confused, they're making much of the fact that they're "gaming the system" because it's their only move to reclaim their dignity. They've been officially labeled broken by the system and that system functions largely on shame to encourage them to fix themselves. Meanwhile it also denies anyone's benefits the minute they earn any money on the side - I've heard the phrase "forced retirement" a few times. So no - "Keisha" understands the difference between "disability" and "retirement." And no - "Keisha" could probably tell you what it says on her disability paperwork. Trust me - she's gotta play a lot of games with that document on pretty much a weekly basis. But you? Hypothetical shrink that lays down the urban pseudonym like it ain't no thang? Sitting there judging her and interfering with her functional plan? She's not going to share shit with you because you're clearly just part of the game.

And then we go

    Narcissism has been on a steady rise since the end of WWII and went parabolic in the 1980s; all social policies have to be understood in the context of that psychology, that culture.

and then we go

    As long as they-- and the inmates and the etc-- are munching on food stamps, weed, and Xboxes, nearly illiterate but keeping their nonsense within their neighborhoods, the rest of us can go on with our lives.

And then I go

"You know, my mom sounds a lot like this guy when she's on an upswing." Physician, heal thyself.


posted 2976 days ago