On Monday, the president had framed himself with the three chronically unemployed Americans in an effort to bolster his argument that jobless benefits should be extended again despite the fact that his party had put no thought into how they might be paid for.

The president poses on Monday with the trio of soon-to-be Czars.

“We’ve got a responsibility to help [Americans who’ve been laid off in this recession] make ends meet and support their families even as they’re looking for another job,” insisted the president during prepared remarks.

Late yesterday, upon hearing of the Senate’s decision, the president declared, “Today, I’m going to put action to those words.

“Now, some out there may think that parading people who have been out of work for a number of years in front of the press is shameless political grandstanding.

“They’re gonna say this is just a maudlin, overstated exhibit in support of extending unfunded entitlements and it’ll never work because the American people are smart enough to see through that kind of malarkey.

“Well, I’m here to tell you they’re wrong! It was the silent strength of these three folks, their stoic dignity, their selfless civic mindedness that shamed the Senate into standing up to the bullying Republicans who dared to suggest fiscal reality should interrupt the fulfillment of our obligation to put food on our citizens’ tables.

“Without the strength they marshaled, this measure could never have passed.

“And so, I’m pleased to now offer these three brave souls employment within my own growing administration, where they’ll never have to worry about unemployment – or anything else in the real world – again.”

The new appointments are as follows, and are effective immediately (Czars are not subject to Congressional confirmation procedures):

• Jim Chukalas, who worked as a parts manager at a Honda dealership until he was laid off two years ago, is now Auto Parts Czar for the White House
• Leslie Macko, an unemployed fitness worker since last year, is now White House Fitness Czar.
• Denise Gibson, a laid off real estate agent, is now White House Real Estate Czar

Below is the complete list of all 31 current White House Czars:

The game, dubbed ‘Obamanopoly’, will feature many of the original’s longstanding elements like property spaces, board layout and a bank but with major rule changes celebrating the President’s newly launched policies.

Now kids can redistribute wealth, just like the President

One major twist: instead of buying properties, houses and hotels from the bank, players will now be able to finance them through a Mortgage Lender (an offshoot of the game’s Federal Bank), paying off each purchase in small installments stretched across 30 game ‘turns’.

“Instead of just a couple of hours, families can now enjoy literally months, years – heck, even unlimited playtime. It’s the game that keeps on giving!” exclaims Shrilly Bettercakes, Vice President of Fun! at Hasbro subsidiary Parker Brothers, makers of Monopoly.

Other changes from the original game include:

Foreclosures – Instead of mortgaging properties, players can simply stop paying on loans, while still earning full rent values.

GO – Changed to HOPE. When a player lands on or passes this space, they will collect a $2,000 ‘tax break’ and get two to twelve extra turns, depending on the dice roll.

Jail/Go to Jail – Jail is renamed ‘Gitmo’ and is therefore closed, effectively a free space. The ‘Go to Jail’ space is now a ‘Yes We Can’ space that instructs players to print between two and twelve $1,000 bills using the game’s added rubber stamp U.S. Treasury Printing Press and stack of blank bills, depending on the dice roll.

“You’ll never go bankrupt again!” Bettercakes replied to questions as to purpose of the added game pieces.

Free Parking – Changed to ‘Free Housing’, granting anyone lucky enough to land on the space freedom from all debts to the Federal Bank.

Chance and Community Chest Cards – Now Called ‘Change’ and ‘Entitlement’ cards respectively.

Examples include a Change card that forces the player with the most money to pay a $10,000 tax break to all other players and an Entitlement card that grants the player with the least amount of property their choice of half of the properties owned by the richest player.

For now, both Hasbro and Parker Brothers are remaining mum as to the shapes of the player pieces as well as property names, including the Railroad spaces, Water Works and Electric Company spaces.

As for the Income Tax and Luxury Tax spaces, Ms. Bettercakes tells us that “the player with the most money who lands on these spaces must pay fifty percent of their assets to the Federal Bank.”

Originally posted 2009-03-04 19:40:37. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

They point to examples like Tony Mosley, who is currently unemployed and recently failed yet again to impress a recruiter in the Human Resources Department of a major prospective employer.  Mosley, 36, embodies many of the same characteristics of the “suddenly employable” who would not normally be hired unless an employer needed to fill a vacancy quickly despite the risk of not hiring the highest caliber employee.

Mosley previously worked as a Customer Service Specialist for the Little Giant Vacuum Company of Walla Walla, Washington and has been unemployed for eight months now, but has managed to earn several interviews during that time.

“The economy’s hard right now.  But I’ve been interviewing.  And until Obama extends the bailouts to individuals, I guess I have to keep looking.  They say that getting past HR is the easy part, but I never seem to clear that hurdle,” he said.

As it turns out, Mosley, who got his job with Little Giant via an executive-level uncle, has made lasting impressions – but of the wrong kind.  Recruiters for nearly every major prospective employer in the Pacific Northwest have rejected him after initial interviews.

Apparently, at various times, Mosley has undermined himself by complaining about his former job, daydreaming during the interview, eating crackers while speaking, and excessive flatulence, among many other blunders.

One common theme in every interview attemped by Mosley and those like him is the belief that somehoe the job seeker is entitled to the position simply because he/she doesn’t currently have one.  In short, say headhunters, Mosley has become a microcosm of incompetent, poorly trained nitwits possessing bloated senses of self-entitlement.

“He looked the part enough, and his resume was OK, but as soon as he opened his mouth, it was all downhill,” said Gloria Ruiz-Tuscalera at a seminar for Women in Recruiting.  Ruiz-Tuscalera was the latest recruiter who declined to forward Mosley’s information to the hiring manager.  “If he’d had toilet paper stuck to his shoes, it wouldn’t have been any worse.  He even had the nerve to ask me if there were any attractive women in our firm.  I mean, who asks that in an interview?  Besides, what does that say about me?  Yes, I’m married, but I like to think I’m not some fat pig.”

Other recruiters shared Ruiz-Tuscalera’s low opinion.  A recruiter for Boeing, who requested anonymity, indicated that when Mosley wasn’t staring at her chest, he practically begged for a job, as his extended unemployment has forced him to move back in with his parents.  Compounding matters, he picked his nose while groveling.

“That’s nothing,” said a recruiter for Alcoa, Co. “When I interviewed him, he propped his feet up on my desk, and promptly stopped paying attention to the interview.   He just spaced out.  I don’t know if he was on drugs or just stupid, but his head was somewhere else.  So to cross him up, I asked him, out of the blue, what ethical considerations the CERN physicists should have when repairing their particle accelerator.  His answer? ‘How the [expletive deleted] should I know?’  The guy actually dropped an f-bomb in the middle of the interview and wonders why he didn’t get hired.”

“At least he didn’t insult your children,” countered Ruiz-Tuscalera.  “My son is in the Navy, and he made a wisecrack about the Navy taking the Army to the action so they could do all the fighting.  I think he thought it was funny, but I was genuinely offended.  The really sad thing is, in a better economy, he might have gotten hired anyway just because anybody better already had a job.”

For his part, Mosley believes that if he could just get past the recruiters, he could impress a manager and earn gainful employment.  “Those HR airheads wouldn’t know a good employee if one bit them in the backside – which I might do next time,” he said.  “At least then, I know I’ll have made an impression.”

Originally posted 2009-03-04 19:39:12. Republished by Blog Post Promoter