Merry Christmas

And a Happy New Year.

Washington, December 21 - More than 90,000 people who have been out of work for months will lose their federal benefits today, when a program to aid the long-term unemployed expires.

During the first six months of next year, more than 2 million unemployed people across the country will be cut off from the extra assistance, unless Congress acts.

When you read the article, note how the same dog-eared cliches about unemployment benefits discouraging people from working are vomited up to justify the callousness. If you can stomach the implicit bilge about ordinary workers being lazy slugs looking to loll about on the dole long enough to think about the argument, you'll realize that what's really being said is that the benefits sometimes enable people to hold out for a job that provides a living more like the one they lost instead of having to take just anything at any level of pay to avoid penury - that is, they provide a brake on the ability of employers to depress wages and increase their control over employees.

Which is a hell of a lot more accurate a reason than all the crap about how the economy is improving and dammit, prosperity is just around the corner.