A BROKEN SYSTEM

I got up this morning at 3:30AM and decided to a) pay my rent...and b) fill out my federal probation report. Predictably, I was done with Clickpay (a private company) and my rent was paid in under one minute. But the probation report? Ah! The federal government. Never a dull or unfrustrating moment.

As related in previous entries, there have been some changes in my life. Like I now have a full time job. And I've moved money out of the equities market and into banks. All of this must be reported in detail to the probation department. I get that. But now for the third month in a row, all the new information I've volunteered fell off the report. And thus, I have to re-enter all the information every month. That's about tantamount to Clickpay losing all my info necessitating me to enter my landlord's name, address and amount I have to pay every month I log on. And bear in mind that I work banks for legal bonuses and thus, boast no fewer than 10 banks accounts, 8 of which needed to be re-entered this morning. That's the name, address, account number, and amount deposited. 

By the time I was finished, the needless task had put me in a foul mood and brought me back to the frustration and anger of staying in federal prison 3 months longer than I should have been there legally just because the system itself - and the bureaucracy which operated it - was such a mess. 

I've run a laundry list of all the departments and operatives who've fucked up in my experience dealing with the government on this blog. But today, I'll add a new one. Here's a fun fact: Fully two thirds of the people who lost their jobs because of Covid and managed to wade through the bureaucracy (no easy task, I'm sure) to get both their state unemployment insurance and the federal supplemental funds are now making more money sitting on their asses than they were when they were working. How the fuck does that happen?

Obviously, it's a broken system that comes up with that solution. The people who lucked out in this way are by the numbers, low-level, semi to unskilled laborers who on balance, work jobs they don't want to work because they really don't want to work at all. This is not a group you want to incentivize to sit on their asses and do nothing as that's mostly their life goal. 

I'll give you a perfect example: Mine. After 12 weeks working at the church, I am to be laid off (that's when the grant which pays me ends) my $700/week job. By the state formula, I'll receive $161/week in unemployment compensation assuming the census bureau who has already hired me to start when the church gig ends, fires me when they complete my background check. (I don't care about that anyway. Twenty eight bucks an hour working on my own seemed like a pretty sweet deal until I found out what the job entails. Chasing down people who don't want to answer the census in the first place.) 

But I digress. If the federal supplemental unemployment insurance which currently ends at the end of July is extended, guess how much I'll be getting in benefits! $761! Had I been on the job for say six months before getting laid off? $893! Too many Americans are lazy to begin with. Why you wanna pay them more to sit on their behinds than to work a shit job they need to stay out of trouble?

I don't have the answers to all this. I just know that with all this happening...and the total embarrassment who runs this shit show, the system is broken. God bless America. Because nobody with any less power can save it if you ask me.