NYT: Like a Cloud, Economic Woes Follow Bus Tour

[Nambe]

--- "This week, three members of my cabinet — Treasury Secretary John Snow, Commerce Secretary Don Evans and Labor Secretary Elaine Chao — visited business owners and their workers in the Midwest," Mr. Bush said in his weekly radio address on Saturday. "They received reports that the economy is picking up."

Well, yes and no.

Anyone on the trip, which was a very un-Air Force One-like, two-day, six-city bus journey across Wisconsin and Minnesota (Ms. Chao dined on Tuesday night at Burger King), could see that the cabinet members charged with promoting the president's tax cuts also heard a lot of anger from workers about foreign competition and laid-off relatives and friends.

As Mr. Snow put it, "I'm going to go back and tell the president, `Mr. President, I ran into a lot of people who asked me personally to express my gratitude to you for worrying and thinking about us.' " ---

[annagull]

1. This has to be the most unpopular tour bus

since Great White.

[kskiska]

2. I saw coverage of this trip on TV tonight

Can't remember which channel – maybe cspan.

How about this guy from Crawford:

"You look at the tax breaks he's cut for everybody and I wonder how he's able to do that," said John Dutschmann, 32, a sales manager for a concrete products company who had just attended services at Crawford's First Baptist Church. Mr. Dutschmann, a Democrat who supported Mr. Bush in 2000, said he was still behind the president, although he had trepidations about the economy. "We just put our trust in him, and we hope he knows what he's doing," he said.

[mhr]

3. Talk About Unbalanced Reporting

That is one of the worst articles Iv'e read in a long time.

The reporter didn't even bother to mention

www.jobforjohn.com .

After being unemployed for three years I have come to learn that the BFEE has no shame. Said differently his cronies will misrepresent anything.

[dwillison]

4. You have not been able to find employment for three years?

Would that not have begun during the previous administration?

I find it impossoble to believe that an able-bodied,willing-to-work
individual cannot find employment of some type for three years.

[Sick of Bullshit]

5. That depends on where you are, who you know

what you know, what you can do, and how much you can grovel without it appearing that you are groveling.

[dwillison]

6. It's much easier to find a job you like while doing a job

you don't like. I cannot imagine someone sitting on their
butt and whining for three years. A job at Home Depot is better
than no job at all.

[indictrichardperle]

7. the headline should be

Huge, Lingering Stench follows Giant Turd on wheels.

[Buns_of_Fire]

28. A job at Home Depot sounds pretty good to me right now

As a matter of fact, I DID apply at a semi-local one. Just like I applied at WallyWorld. And at the local supermarket, for a cashier or stock position (where they actually asked for my friggin' RESUME for those positions, believe it or not!!!).

The response in every case? "You're overqualified for this position." Like they were doing me some kind of FAVOR by not giving me a job!

So don't get too cocky, kid. If whoever you work for decides it'll add $50 to their bottom line by stringing you up on the company flagpole, you'll be flapping in the breeze before you know it.

(Edited because at four in the morning, I can't tell a "," from a ".")

[aquart]

8. Really?

You don't live in New York then, do you?

[dwillison]

9. Unless the parole board is holding you back, highways head out

of New York in all directions. That's a lame excuse.

[grasswire]

10. how old are you, sonny?

You're a little quick with advice.

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[grasswire]

13. so you got yours...

...during the years of economic expansion brought to you by Bill Clinton. And screw everyone else, eh, now that your boy has the world in chaos? Is that it?

[dwillison]

20. To be honest, I lost a bunch during the last couple of Clinton

years but I never blamed it on His administration.

[GCP]

33. Lost a bunch during the last two years of Clinton?

Funny how I don't believe that. Your other comments make you out to be a "compassionate conservative" - the biggest oxymoron of the 21st century.
Why don't you re-join your fellow travelers at freerepublic.com, you'd be much more at home there, trust me.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

15. Age is a state of mind.

Yours is approximately 9 years old.

If you had to deal with what is happening in the job market now, you would be fingering the razor blades and drawing a hot bath.

[liberalmuse]

12. Don't stop there...

I mean, the poster you presume to judge wrote 4 whole sentences. I assume you would be able to write an entire novel full of lies and speculation about this person's life. Go on. I patiently await...

[dwillison]

16. I believe fair is fair. Unless he's flaming, he lost his job during

the Clinton Administration.

I worked hard all my life and did a lot of work for very little
money. I have never asked the government for one red cent except
my military pay.

To hear anyone admit they have sat on their ass and whined about
the state of their pocketbook for three years to me is unrealistic.

[Sick of Bullshit]

17. Yeah, that's right, vote with yer feet

Just pick up that LA TImes and look at all those jobs being offered. Then load up the truck and move to Beverly. Then find out that half of those "jobs" are not really jobs at all, just calls for applications and resumes that they make you run all over the LA area (600 sq. miles) to fill in but which they'll throw in the trash in three months. Then find out that the employment office can't do a damn thing for you, but maybe one of those $100/month job reports can.

But first, you gotta set up a residence. So where are you going to go? If you have no job, no one in a decent area is going to rent to you, and you don't really want to live in Compton. But, hey, that roach hotel in Culver City is only $100 a week, but there's no phone. Oh yeah, you can get a cell phone, but if that's the only number you can provide, employers are just going to say "This guy's just a transient. Screw him. And he's got a weird accent anyway."

Yeah, that's the ticket.

[dwillison]

18. It's cheaper to live in NYC without a job than it is in say:

Richmond, Va or Muncie In or wherever one might find a job? I didn't
know only jobs in Los Angeles or San Francisco were acceptable to one who has been out of work for three years.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

21. You really are reality-challenged, aren't you?

You sit at home all day, watch Faux News and steam, don't you? Al that unemployment would just go away if people just got a damn job, wouldn't it? it's their fault, isn't it, that they are unemployed?

News Flash, Sparky: The jobs simply don't exist. Increasingly, the ones that do exist don't pay enough to qualify as a living wage. For instance, Indiana has a local unemployment of 11%. Just a little higher than the national average, no?

But that's fine for you, because you are no longer in the game, you have your pension, and you are gonna straighten us all out with your Horatio Alger-like stories regarding yourself, right?

To quote a line I am sure you use with regularity: Your kind make me sick.

[dwillison]

24. No I play golf during the day unless it's lightening.

[Sick of Bullshit]

22. You really don't know what it's like looking for work, do you?

Oh, hey, you hear there's lots of jobs in Muncie, Indiana! Yee haw! So go get yerself set up in Muncie, and find out that there really aren't any jobs there after all and nobody gives a rat's ass about you there, either. But then you hear there are good chicken factory jobs in Mountain Home, Arkansas, but once you get there you find out they prefer Mexican labor because Mexicans work for less and don't complain about conditions. But then you hear they're opening a new Wal-Mart in Grove, Oklahoma, and surely they'll be hiring right? So you truck out to Grove with a Mountain Home address and hope that they'll call you in a couple of weeks like they said they might. But then you open up a paper and see that a machinist is wanted in Anderson, Missouri, and that's your ticket. So you truck on up to Anderson only to find that the job was filled almost immediately after you called.

Are we having fun yet?

[dwillison]

25. Sit at home, they'll knock on your door with the

job of a lifetime any moment.

[Sick of Bullshit]

27. Obviously you have never experienced life on the other side

Basically, what you're suggesting is something out of Grapes of Wrath.

I've gone that route before several times, and frankly, it sucks. I've stayed at Salvation Armies because it was either that or the street. Some of the people I talked with were in worse shape, having hitched rides back and forth across the country in a fruitless search for work.

Most people who are out of work don't have the capacity to go traipsing around the country hoping they'll land in the right place at the right time somewhere. It is especially difficult when they have a family in tow, And most of the time when they DO try to "vote with their feet", they end up in a place where no one gives a rat's ass about them. That's especially the case during tough economic times, like what we're going through now.

On the other hand, someone might elect to stay close to home because they don't have to worry about becoming homeless, or maybe they believe that their contacts at home just might pan out at some time in the foreseeable future.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

14. Believe it, Sparky.

And while you are at it, get yer' head out of your butt. It's unseemly and unattractive.

[are_we_united_yet]

19. Sure, if you want to/have to work out of your field

Or if you happen to have children in school and you don't mind uprooting them. The fact is many people have been out of work for extended periods. Not all of them unwilling or not looking.

[dwillison]

23. I traveled to job sites all over the Eastern United States, usually

gone for at least 10 days at the time. Survivors
go where the buck is to be made.

[NYC]

26. For 300 job openings, the restaurant received 10,000 applications.

A restaurant recently opened in NYC. They had 300 jobs to fill, and received 10,000 applications for those jobs.

[JoFerret]

30. Bushwhackers

The link then led me to: http://www.jointhebushwhackers.com for which - thanks.

[radfringe]

29. The Bush Recovery - will you survive?

Over 3.5 million jobs lost

[opihimoimoi]

31. Pus Tour is an idea from the WH Basement Gang. "F"!!!!!

These guys go for the SPIN every fuckin time every chance they get.

Recovery MY ASS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then he goes to the Pig Farm for reading lessons, forget the chainsaw, he cannot even start the damn thing, and forget riding the mech bull.

[JoFerret]

32. Pus tour? About right.

.