Monday, April 4, 2011

Money Grows On Trees (The Unemployment Nightmare)



They say money does not grow on trees? Well I gotta tell you....A while ago I was laid off from my full time job and no....money does not grow on trees....However now after 1 month and 26 days I'm back in full time employment. The thing about that is at least now there is more money "on my tree".....


For the last 8 weeks or whatever it was I ate a lot of my savings and got very little unemployment. I've only been at this a short time and I have to say that my heart goes out to people who have been looking for over 6 months. Every day you wake up and don't know if your keeping your house? Where is your next set of cash flow is coming from and or do you have to move?


A few weeks ago I was randomly selected for a training program for unemployment. About 35 of us showed up and had to watch a presentation on how to get a job....Even though I had a job coming in I did not have the offer yet so had to go to full fill my unemployment. What a joke..... The presentation was on how to get a job and what to do and not to do...I gotta tell ya I've been a professional all my life and here were some of their mistakes.


First the presentation went 40 minutes over the time allotted. Now people then had to scramble to the computers and do their work sessions with the time that was left (but eaten up by the lady who went over on the presentation). What was even more pathetic is when they said "because we went over by 40 minutes on the presentation" now everyone had to finish their computer work by 4:30 or they could not claim that time for unemployment for that week. What? excuse me? Your holding the people who want to show up and find out how to get a job that they are now punished because you and your fat ass went over on their time?


Now you would think for about 35 people they would have more than one person trying to help the people who were trying to get stuff done by 4:30? but now 2 of the instructors were in questioning people and the 3rd was left to the 35 people.


Luckily for me I could run a computer and had my homework done before I showed up and could just print it off. But there was some people there who could not even run a computer nor could they or have they ever typed up a resume. I think the point I'm after is they should not have had this a pre requisite for this class. They should have trained these people how to do a resume and made a whole class out of it.


What got me going is I had already found a job (because I worked my ass off at it) but had to attend this class to get one more week of unemployment. So now statistically they can say I went through their program and their numbers are going to look that much better. Which to me is a farce....No wonder all of these people out there who have been unemployed for so long are so frustrated.


The moral of this story is don't depend on some agency to get you a job....Depend on "YOU".... Just because the State is giving you a training session don't think "They" know it all...Because they Don't'....


The Black Widow

Friday, April 1, 2011

GE Pays No Taxes on 1.5 Billion



First off when hearing about this story I was pissed at GE....In 2010 they made a 14.2 BILLION (yes with a "B") Dollar Profit. Not sure my numbers are totally correct but about 5.1 Billion of that 14.2 was from profits made in the United States.


I ran the numbers several ways vrs my salary of ($53,000) and I got to tell ya thats a shit load of cash. But first let me say I'm torn between two lovers on this issue.


Issue #1 .......What the fuck!!!!....How can they make that much money and not be taxed? I can't make 53K and the government is after me for like 28% of my cash. Not only that but I'm also hearing GE got rid of about 1/5 of their employees. See that was the reason I got laid off from my last company .... because they wanted more profit. Hey lets get rid of the Black Widow and keep another $53K in our pocket. Many corporations out there are just down sizing and keeping more profit (and hoping like hell they can survive on more profit without quality issues).


Issue #2..........BUT WAIT.......Now after shutting off my radio in the truck and thinking about this issue a second time I thought (WHERE IS MY GOVERNMENT)???? Who is out there making sure that companies like GE can get some tax breaks in THIS FRICKEN COUNTRY.....create some jobs....but then also be held accountable that they are not just keeping profits? And are actually creating and keeping jobs over a proposed time frame. And this number will be accountable to the U.S. Government and the tax payers.


Summation...... Good Job GE.......(This power move make Donald Trump look like a shoe salesman).....If this was my company and I could figure it out I would have done the same thing. It's a shame that that corporations get taxed so much that they have to snake their way to another country. But on the other hand.......What is our Government doing for us (the people under 100K?) on this issue? Right now I don't see much at all.


Politicians better wake up in the U.S. and in Wisconsin because April is coming and its time to Vote. This year I'm very intersted in how the Independant votes come across on all the issues. Especially on ones like this.



The Black Widow