Pack Your Bags, Whiners

You know, I don't want to hear any of you whiners pissing and moaning about all the people who have lost their jobs in this here mental recession when there's PLENTY of work out there for folks who've got the gumption to pack up their bootstraps and go for the gold:

Under a program called Project Match, IBM will help workers laid off from domestic sites obtain travel and visa assistance for countries in which Big Blue has openings. Mostly that's developing markets like India, China, and Brazil.

Of course...

"...the program is limited to "satisfactory performers who have been notified of separation from IBM U.S. or Canada and are willing to work on local terms and conditions." The latter indicates that workers will be paid according to prevailing norms in the countries to which they relocate. In many cases, that could be substantially less than what they earned in North America."

But so what? I say that any red-blooded American worth his salt will welcome the chance to earn an honest rupee instead of turning into a damned Welfare Queen sitting on his ass waiting for Obama-the-socialist to give him a handout. Right??

Seriously people...this is what it's come to? IBM was one of the great American companies and now the best they can do is relocate employees to second- and third-world countries...for second- and third-world salaries? For Christ's sake.

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SPAM

I feel like I'm spamming you guys with posts on the economy and politics and I know that an awful lot of you don't follow my journal to read this kind of stuff but dear God I can't believe what's going on. It's especially important for you people in other countries to read this because you might still be basking in that lovely inaugural glow and thinking that things are going to start getting better now but you need to know that the very people who failed so horrifically over the last eight years are being given a nationwide platform on just about every news outlet to spew propaganda about the president's economic stimulus and it's working and the Democrats are doing nothing to stop it. Polling shows that public support for the stimulus package (already cleverly re-dubbed "the spending package") is dropping and where the fuck are the guys who ran such a brilliant campaign? Where is all that amazing PR and grassroots organizing and messaging?

The Democrats are doing what they've always done -- assuming (incorrectly) that the American public is "smart enough" to figure out what's really in their own best interest. If that hasn't been true since the day we elected Ronald Reagan, why would it ever be true now? Not to mention, how can the vast majority of Americans possibly be expected even to know what's in their interest when all they see and hear is that the stimulus package is "larded up" with pork and free condoms and God knows what and what's really, really gonna save the economy is more tax cuts.

John Cole over at Balloon Juice says it best:

"The problem is who is informing us with what. Our media is simply failing us. Why have they not asked the Republicans how tax cuts are going to provide jobs? Why are they not laughing openly when the Republicans bring up capital gains tax cuts as part of a stimulus package. Why are they not asking the Republicans to explain how infrastructure spending is not stimulus? Why are they pretending this woman’s minor tax oversight is on par with outing a CIA agent or letting tens of thousands of people soak for a week in New Orleans. Why are they gleefully reporting about Joe the Plumber giving economic advice to the House republicans while their colleagues are writing about the Republicans being unified in opposition to the stimulus and putting two and two together and realizing that the opposition to the stimulus from Republicans is based on the deep thoughts of a drug addled radio host and a guy who installs toilets?

You can call me naive all you want, and I know I have a habit of falling for BS talking points, but I guess it is finally clear to me- it really is all just a game to these people."

Yes it is, and in this game we are ALL going to lose. To quote John Cole again:

"I am seriously buying a generator, a goat, and a plot of land in the mountains for when the shit goes down. These people are killing us."