josephc

Adding on to that:

Obama had only the house for the first two years. The Senate has the filibuster rule which means control takes 60 seats.

On January 20th, 2009, 57 Senate seats were held by Democrats with two Independents (Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman) caucusing with the Democrats for 59 kinda’ Democrat-ish votes in the Senate. Two more needed for “both houses”.

Also, that included Ted Kennedy and Al Franken. Kennedy had a seizure basically at the start and never returned to vote. Al Franken wasn’t seated until July 7th, 2009 because of repeated recounts.

So really 57 Senate seats. Three or four more for him to have both houses.

Kennedy was replaced by Paul Kirk in September and three other people swapped parties. So Obama had full control of the House and Senate from September 24, 2009 through February 4, 2010.

Four months.

If you’re looking at that and thinking, “isn’t that when they wrote and passed the ACA?” then you’ve got a good eye and a better memory.

TIL I’m older than Linux and honestly it hurts a little bit.

If each job takes 30 minutes to apply to, that’s 50 hours per week, assuming you don’t stop to eat or rest. I think my average job application takes a little longer unless I fill it with bullshit answers.

That’s assuming you’re just filling applications. It doesn’t include finding them. I think in the time I was unemployed I passed over a few hundred absolutely reprehensible and morally objectionable positions.

Why so much ghosting? My speculation is perverse incentives of the modern world. Recruiters and HR need to justify their ongoing existence so they open positions that don’t need to get filled so they can spend time filtering candidates. Meanwhile, candidates need to turn to auto filling jobs because and bulk applying because there are so many of these ghost jobs that recruiters who do need people can’t get matched up. This turns into a race to the bottom of automation and counter automation where everyone loses.