Jobblog

As These Bastards is the foremost economics blog on the web, it is our duty to bring you the most cutting edge economic theories going. Mostly these have to do with the flagging job market where there are somewhere in the neighborhood of five applicants for every opening.

Now most of the new economic theories from our elected betters seemed to stem from them plugging their ears and yelling "Get a job anyway you lazy wretches, stop freeloading on the less than $12 grand a year in unemployment you would be theoretically getting if we in Congress could ever pass a jobs bill. You're all probably on drugs." You know, America's lazy peasant problem.

So we feel it's necessary to highlight any new solutions to our joblessness problem, for you: the unemployed hobo reading this while eating a tin of beans underneath a highway underpass. Don't deny it; we know that's 90% of our audience. We have the Google Metrics.

First up is Minnesota GOP candidate for governor Tom Emmer, who is chuffed that some bitch waitress expected a tip last night after she slowly delivered drinks that the asshole bartender was watering down.

Tom Emmer, the GOP-endorsed candidate for governor, told reporters at the Eagle Street Grille in St. Paul on Monday that the minimum wage for service workers who earn tips should be cut. Some waiters and bartenders, he noted, can earn as much as $100,000 a year, which he said is unfair to the employers that hire them.
...
Minnesota is one of few states that does not follow the federal minimum wage for tip-earners — $2.13 an hour. Instead, tip-earners make $5.25 to $7.25 an hour in addition to tips. Emmer says that hurts businesses’ bottom lines.

“Government can only inhibit business, can only keep it from growing, as opposed to creating jobs,” he said. “Right now, we have too much of it, guys. We’ve got to pull government back.”

I know. This economy would be right back on track if bartending and waitressing, two of the most lucrative and desirable jobs in America, nay, the world, we treated like the slave labor they were. I'm tired of these six figure waitresses killing businesses with their minimum wage salaries. Hasn't anyone ever heard of being grateful to be allowed inside an air conditioned building for a ten hour shift? Maybe you repay that shelter from the elements by serving a few drinks or a club sandwich or two without collapsing the world economy. Is that to much to ask, waitresses?

By the way, I'm going to need you to split this check.

On the other hand, potentially crazy... you know, what, I'm going to drop the "potentially" part. Crazy Democratic South Carolina U.S. Senate candidate Alvin Greene has another plan to help revive the job market. By employing people in what I'm sure is the seriously flagging Alvin Greene doll making industry.

"Another thing we can do for jobs is make toys of me, especially for the holidays. Little dolls. Me. Like maybe little action dolls. Me in an army uniform, air force uniform, and me in my suit. They can make toys of me and my vehicle, especially for the holidays and Christmas for the kids. That's something that would create jobs. So you see I think out of the box like that. It's not something a typical person would bring up. That's something that could happen, that makes sense. It's not a joke."

That is outside the box. Like outside of a padded box after the dose of medication they gave you didn't have any effect, then you overpowered seven guards before throwing a water fountain through the window, climbing out, and running to freedom. Luckily the reporter was able to finish the interview without being skinned and Alvin using his face as a mask.

So there you have it, the solutions to our problems: stop tipping rich waitresses and start making dolls of a weird Senate candidate. We'll be back on our feet in no time.

Quote of the day

Economist Larry Summers, current Director of the White House's National Economic Council, drops a quote attacking the notion that markets act rationally in an unpublished paper. It's successful in that area, but it's useful in so many other areas too.

THERE ARE IDIOTS. Look around.

Can I get that on a t-shirt? Maybe a mug or a mousepad?

Hey, man, I got five kids to feed

Membership in the Sarah Palin Abstinence-Only Club really has its perks, regardless of your adherence to the basic bullshit tenets of the organization. Take Levi Johnston, last seen escorting Dee Snyder to the Teen Choice Awards. Johnston, most famous for his Johnson, is cashing in on his strangely long fifteen minutes by shilling for, what else, nuts.

Art of the Day

The subversive genius of Mark Jenkins

Bilingual stupidity

As a service to our Spanish speaking TB readers, and really there has to be almost one of you, I wanted to point you all towards a new service being offered to you: Newt Gingrich! Tweeting! En espanol! Muy caliente!

You know, just in case all you in the Latino community didn't quite fully understand his myriad of denigrations towards your culture, language, peoples, status, countries of origin, and leaders over the years. Newtie is kind to the Spanish speaking cultures, deigning to translate his brilliance even if he feels you don't deserve it. He wants you to learn things, namely English. But if he must communicate in "the language of the ghetto" to teach you important things about which liberals you should be hating and exactly how racist Sonia Sotomayor is, then he will stoop to your level.

Where else will you learn about his appearances on Neil Cavuto's show to talk about some $16 million "mouse" Nancy Pelosi is building? Why is el diablo Pelosi constructing such a large and expensive rat? Who knows, but it is probably completely unrelated to the fact that that Newt doesn't know casa is actually the word for house. Newt Tweeting in Spanish despite not knowing words you learn on the first day of Spanish class? That's just some of the brilliance you'll be on the receiving end of, Latinos. Now we're not the only ones who have to listen to and understand him, you have to suffer along with us.

Your new Republican party

Joe the Plumber advises GOP-ers

Fresh off his stint as a war correspondent in Gaza, Joe the Plumber is now doing political strategy with Republicans.

When GOP congressional aides gather Tuesday morning for a meeting of the Conservative Working Group, Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher – more commonly known as Joe the Plumber — will be their featured guest. This group is an organization of conservative Capitol Hill staffers who meet regularly to chart GOP strategy for the week.

Michael Steele, new RNC Chairman

Michael Steele had a lot to overcome. One of his opponents, the sitting GOP Chair from South Carolina, had just resigned from an all white country club and admitted that he became a Republican in reaction to his personal experience with desegregation. Another opponent, Chip Saltsman, sent out a wildly racist CD to RNC members which included the now infamous Magic Negro and Star Spanglish Banner songs.

Anyone wonder why they're the minority party and in danger of becoming the regional south only party? Not only are you taking political advice from the guy who thinks taxes are socialism and the military should have autonomous control over the media to keep the truth from getting out, they elected Michael Steele to head your party, but only barely ahead of the guy who resigned from a whites only country club the week before and who became a Republican because Democrats let black people go to his school.

Michael Steele, whose '06 Senate campaign saw him lose by double digits to a man without a discernible pulse and saw Steele unveil his brilliant campaign strategy of pretending to be a Democrat (even printing up blue placards that said Steele Democrat, and handing out fliers in black neighborhoods that said he was a democrat) and stumping around the state in a bus with Mike Tyson and Don King. He also made up a story about a racially motivated attack (people throwing Oreos at him) and was the guy the RNC used to trot out whenever someone in the party did something egregiously racist and needed him to provide some "It's no big deal" cover.

The strategy sessions between those two ought to be dynamite. Though really I guess they don't really have to strategize beyond "Oppose Obama", "Oppose Obama w/filibuster", "Blame Obama for the stuff that Bush did". The job practically does itself.

In further news, fuck the Republicans

This is almost too good. Apparently one of the front-runners to fill Hillary Clinton's potentially vacant Senate seat is Christine Quinn, New York City Council Speaker and the second most powerful city politician behind the mayor:

The top contender for Clinton's seat is New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, O'Halloran said. Other names in the mix, O'Halloran said, include New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a moderate Republican, as well as Christine Quinn, the first female and openly gay speaker of the New York City Council.

Now, I'm in no way attempting to marginalize Quinn's record on the City Council, which has been stellar since her election in January 2006. So pardon me the schadenfreude as I ponder a blind, black, Democratic Governor of one of the bluest states in the nation replacing "Secretary of State Hillary-fucking-Clinton" with a brilliant, young, gay, liberal female who cut her teeth hammering out legislation mandating equal health care benefits for both married couples and same-sex partnerships.

Seriously, what else can we add to this equation that will further infuriate the right? Can Quinn take her senate oath on a stack of Nation back issues, wrapped in the Drapeau tricolore and standing atop the rubble of a freshly bombed Liberty University? Maybe something involving "Happy Kwanzaa" banners with a special appearance by Paul Krugman and Kanye West? Can Barney Frank be somehow involved?

By the way, that sound you hear is Jerry Falwell turning in his sulfur cave.

Broken News: Paulson, Bernanke to Jump Economy on Rocket Cycles

Artist's conception of proposed cycle jump

WASHINGTON—In an innovative step designed to address the worsening worldwide economic crisis, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and United States Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson have announced their intention to jump the economy on custom-designed rocket cycles. The government's financial titans hope this dramatic gesture will reassure lending institutions and help open up frozen credit markets.

“This is the bold leadership our country needs in a time of crisis,” remarked Samuel Grasscock, economic analyst and host of NPR’s I Want to Eat the Corn Out of Money's Shit (Weekdays 3-4 PM). “I just don’t think these bailout plans restored enough confidence in the system. The government might have thrown $700 billion in taxpayer money at the problem, but did it gamble with anything that really mattered? Now P-Son and Big Bank are putting their lives on the line. I think Wall Street is going to be impressed. We might just get out of this.”

While excitement has whirled through the banking world, questions have arisen as to the logistics of such a jump. Will Paulson and Bernanke simply jump Wall Street, or will the plan call for a pass over the Chicago Stock Exchange as well? Including the CSE would necessitate a jump over the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department, not to mention the House Oversight Committees and any bills relating to financial regulation. Perhaps these various institutions, with all their suspicious liabilities, could be bundled into one institution and placed elsewhere, providing a clear angle of approach for Bernanke and Paulson.

“We’re goin’ whole hog,” said Dr. Ronnie “Handsome Devil” Tucker, former daredevil relegated to stunt coordinator after his 1997 Jump-for-the-Kids ended with his careening through a children's cancer ward. “The entire United States, save Hawaii and Alaska. Coast to coast. One jump. How do you like them apples? Not only do we think it’s going to have a big effect on the financial and banking industries, but just think of all the other problems we’re jumping. Homelessness, job loss, health care, Wyoming. This one jump may cure them all!”

When asked how two motorcycles could possess enough speed to jump the entire continent, Dr. Ronnie was confident. “Look, people might doubt our ability, but we’ve been working for almost a month on the two most cutting-edge rocket cycles in existence. They cost almost $350 billion a piece and are state-of-the-art fuel drinkin', fire blazin' rocket machinery. The problem isn’t jumping the US; it’s that we might jump Europe, too. Once we finish the ramp and calibrate the bikes, it’s all smooth sailin’. I mean rocketing. Yeah, smooth rocketing.”

Still, some are asking, "Why now?" given that Congress passed the Paulson plan a few weeks ago, giving the Treasury Secretery almost completely unfettered access to deal with the problem as he saw fit. Why the seemingly complete scrapping of that entire plan for a new one involving rocket cycles?

“Look, larger action was needed,” said Secretary Henry “His name is Robert” Paulson from the US Rocket Bike Testing Grounds and Old Fashioned Candy Confectionary (USRBTGOFCC) on the outskirts of the Great Salt Flats. “We needed to grab the imaginations of Wall Street and show them we were committed to helping them address the catastrophe that arose directly as a result of their culture of endemic greed and shortsightedness. We’re showing them we mean business… Paulson style. Yesterday's Dow Jones gains gave us the confidence that we wouldn’t need to plug holes with stop gap measures, that we could go for the gusto and solve this problem once and for all. With big, rocket-based motor aerobatics.”

At that point Chairman Bernanke chimed in, having just emerged from the USRBTGOFCC’s Official Aquafina Rubdown, Hand Action, and Massage room. “Some people might be worried by the fact that Hank here conceived of a colossal 2-1/2 pages of bailout plan requiring the government's purchase of bad assets that he swore was the only solution, then abruptly switched to urging the government to buy equity stakes in banks, then decided he wanted to jump the economy with a rocket bike. But I am here to tell you there is no need to worry. He didn’t come up with Project Rocket Economy. It has been US policy for quite some time now.”

This much is true. The tradition of employing complex distractions to address dire situations was begun by Alexander Hamilton, America's first Treasury Secretary. Hamilton used fireworks attached to roller skates to jump over Virginia’s four finest mules to convince the country to authorize the US Mint. A distinctly less successful example is Ogden Mills' failed attempt to jump Fay Wray on the newly invented motor scooter during the early days of the Great Depression, an incident that is widely credited by historians with exacerbating the crisis.

The jump is tentatively planned for early next week, pending wind conditions and the erratic emotional state of Henry Paulson. The recent uptick in world stock markets has provided these two financial daredevils with the opportunity to solve this crisis once and for all. One hopes, if this is the plan they’ll actually stick to this time, that their rocket-based danger cycles will bring us back to sound economic footing.

Zombie Apocafest 2008

via the Brothers Brick comes these shots from BrickCon, the Lego convention, and the themed show dubbed Zombie Apocafest 2008. 35 participants, 30 original buildings, dozens of vehicles, and hundreds of zombies and survivors. This needs to go into mass production. I would spent any sum for a massive, sprawling, Zombie Wasteland Lego set. Yes, I am allegedly an adult. I don't care. Check out the full Zombie Apocafest 2008 photoset on Flickr.

You stay classy, Espana

They all look the same to us.

Pictured above, the Spanish men's basketball team reaches out to the 2008 Olympic host country in a landmark moment for international relations. I know what you are thinking and the answer is yes, they are, to the last man, pulling at the corners of their eyes.

The story only gets more stupid and offensive. Was this a piece of photo shoot gag reel surreptitiously leaked? Perhaps some skillful photoshopping? Sadly, no. This is the art for a full-page courier company advertisement that ran in yesterday's edition of Marca, Spain's best-selling newspaper.

Sin Virguenza!

Side note: While looking up the appropriate curse with which to finish this post, I discovered that the Spanish colloquialism for cunnilingus, Bajar al pozo, translates literally as, "to lower the well."

So, you know, do with that what you will.