Monday, September 18, 2006

Look for a job, and get a nice white jumper that ties in the back.

On Sunday, Swedes voted out of power the Social Democrats who have ruled longer than Castro – 67 of the last 74 years. Long considered some sort of Socialist Shangri-La, the state has been in steep decline: the real cost of labor has multiplied fivefold since WW2, and youth unemployment stands at nearly 25%. So it’s no surprise that the party that pulls this kind of stunt finally gets deposed in spite of rigging everything up in its’ favor:

That's the message 25-year-old Swedish citizen Jessica Pettersson got from the state unemployment office. Pettersson has a high school degree in economics and has worked in a post office and in a grocery store, among other jobs. After being out of work for a while, her supervisor at the unemployment agency told her that she ought to meet with a work-psychologist since "it is so hard to be without a job".

[...]

The unemployment agency explained that it was simply a matter of changing a code in her status as unemployed. If she agreed to be classified as mentally disabled she would be entitled to a range of government subsidies and programs. In fact, she could begin working at "Samhall" - a government project aimed at providing employment for the disabled. There she could get a job cleaning and building wheelchairs.

[...]

Petterson finally managed to convince the unemployment agency that she would never agree to become classified as mentally disabled. She told
Expressen that her family, her friends and her boyfriend have reacted strongly to this notion.

Alarmingly, what happened to Petterson is not an isolated incident in Sweden. The state unemployment agency is constantly attempting to force people to "admit" to being disabled. Today 19.3 percent of those seeking jobs at the unemployment office are being classified as disabled.
Only in a Socialist echo-chamber of social micro-management would you end up with most people accepting the inference that you’d have to be mentally ill to want a proper job, and not manipulate social categories and programs to work things out. Worst of all is the mendacity: having to tell yourself that this is the only way.

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