recycled

[TNPdukie]

Does Recycled ever post here. Miss talking to him.

[Sgt. Dick]

Dukie sighting 

It looks like Recycled's last post was over a year ago. 

Maybe Quads can tell you when he last logged in.

[[BTF] Reflex]

If it's the same recycled.. RecyCled plays almost daily on the servers.

[Waffle Whiffer]

Where the hell have you been? 

[TNPdukie]

Unemployed all of 2011 and 6 months of 2012. Everone wants to hire me, but no one wants to pay me. No internet except for the phone. Just making ends meet. Hope to be back someday

[|iR|Focalor]

Unemployed all of 2011 and 6 months of 2012. Everone wants to hire me, but no one wants to pay me. No internet except for the phone. Just making ends meet. Hope to be back someday

You ain't exactly alone. Depending on what field you're in, that's basically the name of the game across the board. When the shit hit the fan about the time Bush was packing his shit and moving out of the White House, looking for a job was like looking for a leprechaun. Awful lot of people stayed unemployed for a year or more. Job market improved some, but no one was willing to hire anyone new at a salary like they used to get. But these people were fucking desperate to have anything that would pay, so they bit the bullet and accepted. Shit's gotten even better since then, and many of these employers could actually afford to pay their employees decent salaries comparable to what they used to make. But... they realize they don't HAVE to, and now they won't. That's basically my old man's story word for word, and zillion other people's stories too. He's currently making about HALF of what he used to make back in 2007. It's bullshit, it ain't right, it's a sin, but that's just the normal everyday climate in the American business world now. They all saw how bleak shit got in the thick of the depression, and they're paranoid that it could happen again at any time with no warning. So from now on they have to clamp down and cut costs and be prepared for another economic apocalypse. It ends up meaning that the old concept of the "American dream" for regular everyday middle class working stiffs is always gonna be at fingertips length at all times. Just gotta do what you can do and that's all you can do. Might mean having to work 2 or 3 jobs, having no day off for anything, and basically spending every waking moment working until one day you up and die like a plow horse that's been worked to death. But it is what it is.

Which is what really fucking sucks about Obamacare. Theoretically, if EVERYONE was paying for insurance, the cost of shit was supposed to go down, more people would live healthier, and shit would be hunky-fuckin-dorey. But what ended up happening was dirt poor shitheads on government assistance got dirt cheap healthcare, while the struggling to stay afloat middle class got dick-punched... YET AGAIN... with a 100-200 dollar a month increase on their healthcare premiums. <sarcasm> That's GREAT news for the majority of the people who can already barely afford to put food on the table. Dammit, if only we could re-elect this fucking genius for another 4 years. It'd be soooo interesting to see what new and exciting way his cabinet could devise to buttfuck the people even worse.</sarcasm> If another democrat gets fucking elected, I hope they do us all a real big favor, take a page out of Clinton's book and just get blowjobs from interns their whole term and QUIT FUCKING WITH SHIT! If they were a doctor, they'd get sued into bankruptcy for malpractice. Every time they try to "fix" what's wrong, they just end up fucking shit up even worse. PLEASE! TAKE MORE VACATIONS TO MARTHA'S VINEYARD AND HAWAII! PLAY GOLF! The cost of those god damned vacations to the taxpayers is a helluva lot easier on the wallet than all the stupid fucking shit they do in the office.

[TNPdukie]

Focalor, a more poignant post I've never read. Things might get better for me at some time, but I've been in precision sheet metal manufacturing for 30 years and it all moved to China.  It's coming back here slowly because of quality, but nobody wants to pay for 30 years of skill in a trade. Probably gonna die like a plow horse that's been worked to death lol! (Has anyone seen MaxPing?)

[|iR|Focalor]

Probably the saddest part of that little rant is that all these business owners are actually doing the "right" thing, at least for themselves right now and for the entire country in the long term. Because in all likelihood, the bottom IS going to drop out again at some point. If (more like... when) it happens, the more businesses that stay afloat during that period, the better off EVERYONE will be, even the people in fields that might not be directly effected by it. History has shown us what happens when economic depression hits hard and unemployment reaches a certain level. We skimmed the threshold of it here in America as indicated by the Occupy Wall Street movement. As I mentioned "history", recall what happened in post-WW2 Germany before the National Socialist German Workers Party found their opening to gain power. Unemployment was insanely high, the people were furious with the government, it bred extreme points of view amongst the people, and allowed them rationalize supporting political candidates with extreme agendas. And the standing US government recognized the remote possibility of that scenario repeating itself here in America during the Occupy Wall Street movement too, because the FBI and Homeland Security were watching everyone involved in it like hawks, even though they publicly claimed that they acknowledged it as nothing more than a peaceful protest. Being proactive in covering their own asses and seeing to it that they keep their job security, plain and simple.

Not to be a negative nancy, but another economic depression could literally be right around the corner... as soon as tomorrow, who knows. I keep reading about the ongoing falling oil prices and how the experts claim that if the trend continues, it can have disastrous results for the economy... which I don't really understand how that's possible. And while I'm pretty oblivious and uneducated about the finer nuances of the oil markets, it seems reasonable to assume that this many wouldn't be saying it if it weren't somehow true. And with the way the stock market keeps yo-yoing, who the fuck can really predict what's just another small daily downward trend and what's the beginning of an all out nose-dive market crash.

I really hope that shit doesn't happen again. If so, I hope it at least holds off until after New Years. Nothing worse than everybody being dirt fucking poor and miserable during the holidays.

[TNPdukie]

You have an insight in to this others lack. Interesting reading. I agree with damn near everything you said.

[quadz]

Which is what really fucking sucks about Obamacare. Theoretically, if EVERYONE was paying for insurance, the cost of shit was supposed to go down, more people would live healthier, and shit would be hunky-fuckin-dorey. But what ended up happening was dirt poor shitheads on government assistance got dirt cheap healthcare, while the struggling to stay afloat middle class got dick-punched... YET AGAIN... with a 100-200 dollar a month increase on their healthcare premiums. <sarcasm> That's GREAT news for the majority of the people who can already barely afford to put food on the table.

The Democrats may be mostly useless, but I haven't lost sight of how we arrived in the present situation.

Democrats wanted single-payer universal health care. Blocked by Republicans.

Failing that, the majority of Democrats wanted to make Medicare available to all--the so-called "public option"--a federal insurance plan as a competitive alternative to private plans. Blocked both by Republicans and, at the last moment, a few conservative Democrats led by Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska--whose biggest campaign donor at that time was 'coincidentally' the insurance industry.

So what did we end up with? National Romenycare. The Affordable Healthcare Act aka Obamacare is at its core the Republican plan, devised by the Heritage Foundation in the late 1980's, championed by the likes of Newt Gingrich and Orin Hatch in 1993 as an alternative to "HillaryCare", and implemented as Mitt Romney's signature legislation in Massachusetts in 2006.

Let's not forget who to thank for its awesomeness.

Dammit, if only we could re-elect this fucking genius for another 4 years. It'd be soooo interesting to see what new and exciting way his cabinet could devise to buttfuck the people even worse.</sarcasm> If another democrat gets fucking elected, I hope they do us all a real big favor, take a page out of Clinton's book and just get blowjobs from interns their whole term and QUIT FUCKING WITH SHIT!

Historically, it was more of the reverse.

Clinton's administration attempted the big universal healthcare overhaul--officially the Health Security Act, but pejoratively labeled HillaryCare--and was intimately involved in the drafting of the proposed legislation.

The Obama administration, supposedly learning from Clinton's 'mistake' of being directly involved--and generally pussyfooting around to avoid personal political risk, as Obama tends to do--stayed deliberately on the sidelines and left the drafting of the ACA up to Congress.

In short, my ranked list for who should bear most of the blame for the compromised legislation eventually passed as the Affordable Care Act, would be:

1. Insurance Industry Lobbyists
2. Congressional Republicans
3. Congressional Democrats
4. Obama administration

In other words, if we could knock 1 and 2 off the list, we'd right now either have universal healthcare, or at least Medicare-for-all as a competitive insurance option.

Not to be a negative nancy, but another economic depression could literally be right around the corner... as soon as tomorrow, who knows. I keep reading about the ongoing falling oil prices and how the experts claim that if the trend continues, it can have disastrous results for the economy... which I don't really understand how that's possible.

The systematic undermining of regulation of energy futures culminating in 1993 allowed speculation in oil to move beyond the traditional hedging in commodities markets--which can help create stability--and into the financial derivatives trading markets.

So the financial industry is gambling with peoples' pensions in energy markets, just as they did in the real estate market. (Using the same tools such as Collateralized Debt Obligations, Credit Default Swaps, etc.)

All aimed at maximizing short-term gain for the financial traders, long-term consequences be damned.

And since no substantive reform was passed after the 2008 crash, and given the spectacular failure of the SEC to prosecute any high level figures involved in the collapse--despite clear and abundant evidence of fraud--then yes: one should indeed expect them to be conducting business as usual -- and we should anticipate another meltdown sooner or later.

[Sgt. Dick]

given the spectacular failure of the SEC

I blame the Georgia Bulldogs 

[Th0m@s29]

Recycling is Good For the Earth!

[Th0m@s29]

But To Be Serious I Do Not Know Him At All.

[|iR|Focalor]

How fortunate for him.