Honestly, it’s as if Ron Ramsey were like “Oh my god! Governor Baby is getting all this attention for being a big dick. I had better go on out there and be a big dick myself, lest anyone forget that I exist.” (Note: Ron Ramsey doesn’t actually use words like “lest” because he hates the elites. He also, as you’re about to find out, hates poor people. It’s not wonder he has to hang out with mining companies. Otherwise, he’d be very lonely here in Tennessee, where our two biggest natural resources are poor people and snobby assholes who talk like Nebraskans.)
So, Fake Governor Ramsey thinks that unemployment has become a lifestyle and that people would rather sit around and earn $285 dollars a week than work. “There are jobs out there. … It may not be the job you want, but there are jobs out there,” Ramsey says. Okay, then Fake Governor, maybe you should set up a website that lists those jobs, since apparently people are having some difficulties finding them on their own.
But even more telling are the examples of jobs that are empty that Ramsey gives, “He cited a trucking company that wants but can’t find drivers and a heating and cooling firm with unfilled technician positions.”
So, get this, people. Let this sink in. These are good jobs. And they can’t find people to fill them. And Ron Ramsey doesn’t think for three seconds about why that might be. No, the conclusion he jumps to is that people must prefer to sit at home on $285 a week than to drive a truck or work on HVAC units. Let me reiterate: what a fucking dick.
But Ramsey has inadvertently told Tennessee something useful–we seem to have no way for people with no money to get the training and credentials they need to do the jobs that are open. You might be a great truck driver, but if you can’t get licensed, you can’t do the job. Same thing with HVAC technician. It doesn’t matter if you’re perfect for the job, if you don’t have the training you need to do it. And if you’ve been out of work for a long time, how do you have the money to get trained? Can the trucking company or HVAC firm afford to train you? Obviously not or they would be.
So, instead of acting like he’s so much better than regular Tennesseans who are supposedly so damn lazy, why doesn’t Fake Governor Ramsey work in the next session to set up some kind of program that would allow people to apply for grants or low-interest loans to get the training they need to take the jobs that are open? Maybe work with the employers who need trained workers so the employers could hire them now, the employees could go for training on the state’s dime, the employees could work and slowly pay the state back.
If he’s heard what the problem is, why doesn’t he work to help change it, rather than taking this as an opportunity to talk shit about people who are suffering?
Tiny Cat Pants 
I think Ramsey is more likely to suggest that any gov’t regulation requiring truck drivers or HVAC installers to be licensed be repealed.
Whenever these dudes talk about jobs and unemployment they sound fairly out of touch. I know full well from our extended encounter with the beast that those unemployment checks won’t do more than cover groceries and one or two utility bills. I can’t think of any person eager to subsist in that manner voluntarily.
I hear they are also having trouble finding OB-GYNs. He should put that on his list.
As it is now he comes off sounding like someone who thinks all jobs for which a tie isn’t worn are the same and can be done by monkeys.
I told you, B, that the $275 a week I drew for the first 10 of the 18 months I was out of work did not stop me from looking for work. Even when the three part-time or freelance jobs I fought to find and keep reduced that unemployment check every week to the point that I was choosing whether to pay my COBRA insurance ($475 a month), pay for prescriptions ($100 in co-pays), pay for my cell phone ($35 a month) to have a number for potential interview appointments, pay for gas ($125/month) to get to the three part-time and freelance jobs PLUS any interviews I might get, pay car insurance ($75/month) … you see where this is going. And that list didn’t mention rent, utilities, etc.
B is correct, Sen. Ramsey. And she’s much more pleasant than I am. Instead of talking trash about your fellow Tennesseans like some nasty old gossip, stand up, be a man and work with all of us to get our neighbors, friends, loved ones and fellow Tennesseans back to work.
Why, I even hear that some of those freeloading unemployed people are out there lavishing it up with BRAND NAME ramen noodles!
Why do we hate the poor rather than those who profit from their poverty? And before some well-meaning person comes along and says “now, now ma’am…” I mean every damn word of it. There is a class of people engaged in breaking the economy so that people are reduced to taking whatever is offered merely to survive and they have the balls to pretend that it’s somehow the magic hand of “markets” laying the smackdown.
That noise y’all just heard was me kissing Bridgett right on the mouth.
Bernanke was on NPR just now talking about “structural unemployment,” which is B’s point, Senator. Many people are unemployed because they cannot get access to the additional training they need to qualify for available jobs. But of course Sen. Ramsey didn’t hear that, because it came from the Liberal Media. And it requires a bit of common sense to understand, instead of knee-jerk insults.
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It’s amazing…I posted last night (first blog post in a long, long time) about this very attitude…and I didn’t even know Ramsey had gone there yet. Is there some course these people take to program them to be so freakin’ insensitive?
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Yeah, I called bullshit on that too. And in my post, I pointed out the 5,000 people who showed up for 1,600 forklift, production line & parts sorting jobs at Nissan’s jobs fair. Those are $12.50/hour jobs I might add. Not exactly the highest-skilled workers but the ones who have seen their jobs shipped to Mexico repeatedly. They kinda put the lie to Ramsey’s “oh Tennesseans are just lazy, look at all of these jobs my secret friends have told me about!” spiel.
Another Ramsey lie I mentioned was his claim of secret friends who keep telling him that government regulations are such a huge problem. But they won’t speak out publicly because they’re too scared of the Dept. of Environment & Conservation’s infamous goon squad. Really! Ramsey says so!
Hey guess what. I also have secret friends. They told me that certain companies aren’t locating their factories in Tennessee because of the recidivist, intolerant climate here and the toxic attitudes that prevail in the legislature, not to mention the sucky schools that are always being defunded, which sorta gives the impression that Tennessee is a place if you want to move your business backwards, not forwards. They’re just too scared to come forward.
Yeah, prove me wrong. I dare you.
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