Rapaire - Oh yes. I have collected some from unemployment; after all, it was put there by my company for that purpose.

Nicole C - Just to show you what kind of "brain power" we're talking about leveraging here, I used to think I'd be able to make a living playing music. And I did sort of well, until the 1980's (Reagan) when the music business went pretty much into the dumper. Then I got my teaching degree and did pretty through the 90's (Clinton) as a Corporate trainer. Now under GWB I'm back to substitute teaching, hoping to catch on full time in the fall; unfortunately, it seems that the "teacher shortage" is being offset by the need for school districts to cut budgets. In other words, other than the Sciences, Mathematics or Special Ed., they aren't hiring "new" teachers. Their letting attrition and larger class sizes solve two problems at once.

Geez, I read somewhere that if you take the money their cutting and divide it by the number of jobs expected, it works out to over 300 grand per job. Give me 100 grand and I will start my own business and hire a couple other guys, too. That's a savings of 800 grand to the country, plus the taxes me, my employees and my company would pay. Do you think they'll go for that deal?