On July 12th, 2010 the Senate will once again vote on the Unemployment Benefits Extension issue. This is a very important issue because there are currently over 1 million people that will be effected by the decision of the senate. This bill has been voted down more than once over the past couple months. Republicans have been voting against it because they feel that the bill will add to the nation debt. And it probably will, between 37 – 45 billion dollars worth. But the Democrats are saying that the loss of the Unemployment Benefits will be bad for the economy and that people are suffering. So there is going to be another vote on the issue July 12th. What is interesting about the issue is that Republicans and Democrats are debating whether or not to extend unemployment benefits, but the reality is that this bill will not actually solve the real problem even if it is passed. The real problem is that there aren’t as many jobs out there in many sectors of the workforce and that the jobs that are left are being fought over with great competition.
But if the bill is not passed I think that the government will be sending us a pretty clear message that they want to see rapid transformation of the economy. The reason why I say this is because having people stay on unemployment isn’t going to fix the problem. It will just delay the inevitable. But it is pretty clear right now that people generally want this bill passed, people who need unemployment and those who have jobs alike. What really needs to happen is that there needs to be a surge of growth in the American economy. But that isn’t very likely to happen. What I foresee happening is that the bill will probably pass in order to appease the United States populace and the inherent problems of the system will continue. These problems include how automation is making the workplace more efficient but there is not replacement of jobs in other sectors with equal or higher wages. The growing national debt is going to make people loose faith in the economic system so all sectors of speculative financial investment will be dubious at best. So people who have money will be less likely to spend it and there will be less multiplication of wealth using Fractional Reserve Banking.
So I’m predicting that the bill will pass on July 12th and that our economy will still continue to decay. Eventually the prices of goods and services in the USA will become so cheap due to competition and the drop in the cost of labor, that businesses will eventually start to flourish again in 20 or so years. But in the meantime people will still have money to pay for food and housing with their unemployment.
But I’m not completely sure the bill will pass, I could be wrong. If it doesn’t pass we will probably see a double dip in the recession and the decay I mentioned earlier will happen sooner but it probably won’t take as long for the economy to flourish again.
There is another thing that could happen if the bill is not passed. If people loose their benefits and there is an impending double dip to the recession, there could be a large Metal War. I tried looking up “Metal War” on wikipedia and I couldn’t find anything. But I’m sure I didn’t make this word up. Just in case I did, here’s my definition: A Metal War is a large war fought using tanks, ships, small arms, and heavy weapons. This kind of war boosts the economy of the participants because it requires maximum employment in order to sustain the construction of weapons and armor. These tanks and planes and the like need to be constantly replaced and so consumption continues on a massive scale. A Metal War varies greatly from a nuclear war because it doesn’t use nukes or other huge devastating weapons, to do so would shorten the duration of the war. Also a Metal War utilizes less, “surgical strikes” and focuses more on large groups of troops fighting in open areas.
If the unemployment bill isn’t passed the USA will watch as its citizens become more desperate for work and growth. And our opinions will become more malleable when we are hungry and disenfranchised. If this bill isn’t passed don’t be surprised if we start seeing more propaganda in the media demonizing other countries. A metal war will probably be on the horizon either for the USA directly, or for other nations by proxy.
Here are some interesting links that talk about the unemployment issue:
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/32621/20100705/unemployment.htm
http://all247news.com/unemployment-extension-will-people-remember-come-november/1426/
