Straight Dope Message Board

[Wrenching Spanners]

Originally Posted by fedman

but the same conservatives do not apply "personal responsibility" when banks default due to their bad decisions, then it's okay for "welfare" for businesses

You're referencing the 2007-2008 Financial Crisis, correct? You are aware that many banks did go bankrupt, and many others were partially taken over by governments in exchange for funds to provide liquidity? That thousands of people lost their jobs and millions of investors lost their investment? Pretty much everyone that was involved with the troubled banks suffered financial consequences. On top of that, the US government fined banks $150 billion. (https://www.theweek.co.uk/87574/ten-...sis-in-numbers) What do you want - blood?

Your "welfare for businesses" was worldwide government interventions to save the banking systems that are a lynchpin of the modern economy. Those interventions, and the actions necessary to restore liquidity, cost the banks and their owners huge amounts. You can make the argument that banks were inadequately regulated before the crash and should have had tighter lending policies. Of course if that had happened, you'd be complaining about conservative-led banks refusing to lend to the poor. 151

[Crane]

WS,

Of course there is an argument in favor of the financial benefits of the corporate form. But, that is not the issue under discussion. Can you argue that incorporation does not shield participants from personal responsibility? 152

[Crane]

Scylla,

If personal responsibility is limited to supporting ones self and family then is the society obligated to provide an environment in which it can be done? 153

[k9bfriender]

Originally Posted by Scylla

Those who make a net positive contribution to our society.

How do you determine this? Are you looking only for people that can hit the ground running and help SpaceX get its next rocket into orbit, or are we talking about people with potential? Do children make a net positive contribution?

I would say that the overwhelming majority of those who want to come here and make a better life for themselves and their families will be net positive contributors, and in fact, immigrants tend to contribute to the economy more than native born. So, if your only desire is to get people in here who will be contributors, than your best bet is to outlaw reproduction of citizens and get as many immigrants here as you can.

I may be wrong, but I think he is fine with legal immigration.

That's up in the air, but any legal immigration that he wants is based on racist ideals, not based on who would make a net positive contribution to our society.

I don’t think I’ve made such a complaint. It doesn’t make sense to extend benefits to non citizens, when our society does not fully meet the needs of all of its less fortunate ones though. So, I am not a fan of benefits to illegals.

This addresses nothing that I have said. I talked about helping those less fortunate, which includes, and in my statement was only referring to, your fellow citizens. I have no idea why you chose to throw in your stuff about non-citizens, and then without missing a beat, then conflate non-citizens with the soft slur of "illegals".

Yes. Economically the country needs more.

Yep, unfortunately, those we need are currently sitting in a detention center wondering if they will ever see their children again.

This may surprise you, but not all jobs can or should provide a living wage.

This may surprise you, but people need a living wage in order to you know, live. Sure, I agree that not all jobs can or should, but jobs should be available that do. If there are no jobs that one can obtain that pay a living wage, then the job market has failed at its job.

What do you mean make plans for? This whole market economy thing works because people respond to incentives. They are capable of determining their market value, making plans and decisions for themselves as individuals better than we are.

If they have access to the resources to fully understand and implement their decisions, which they do not, which is why your theory here utterly fails in the real world.

Why not. Labor is a service like any other good or service. What is the nature of your objection to suggest that it is invalid?

Labor is not a service like any other good or service. In fact, labor is not considered by economists to be a good or a service, but rather, an input into goods and services. Do you also consider rent and capital to also be no different than other goods and services?

Tell you what, you said you had economics friends, you ask them your question of "People own their own labor and can sell it as they see fit. If it was not a living wage, wouldn’t they go elsewhere, thus limiting supply and driving up price?". After the congratulate you on making a good joke, then explain that no, you are serious, and you do not understand why they do not go elsewhere in order to drive up the price.

They will start off by trying to explain terms like "fungibility" and "elasticity" to you, but if you then tell them that they need a refresher because they don't agree with you that the labor market can be accurately modeled by a simple curve on a supply demand graph, they will use terms amongst themselves like "opportunity cost" and "dead loss", then they will go out to lunch without inviting you along.

I’m not insulting. To speak intelligently about this topic you either have to know certain things, or be cognizant of your ignorance. That is, to know that you don’t know. You are demonstrating neither. That’s not an insult. It’s an observation.

It is observed by the fact that I called you out on your simplistic notion that you can model the labor market with a single curve on a supply demand graph? That's a pretty poor observation on your part.

Your post demonstrated a massive ignorance of the nuance of economics, and your followup posts have done nothing to show otherwise.

As your only basis for thinking that I need a refresher was in my pointing out of your simplistic post, it is you that everyone can observe to be severely lacking in this subject.

Yes. Why is that a problem?

Okay, so how bad do you want to let things get? Keep in mind that whole food riots are one of the least efficient way of distributing resources, they are an inevitable effect of seeing how bad things can get.

Yes. The unemployment rate should be higher. Overall the fact that is not means that we are not doing as well as we could.

Actually, as an employer, I kinda agree. It is hard to attract and retain good talent in the current labor market. Unfortunately, I cannot raise my pay much without raising my prices, and I can't raise my prices unless there are more customers that are able to afford them.

Unfortunately, that’s just a fact.

I disagree. There were times in history that that was true. There were times when there wasn't enough food to feed everyone, so there were those who went without. Now there is. Now we have houses sitting empty with homeless in the street. We have food being wasted with people suffering from malnourishment.

These are not a lack of resources needed to take care of people and alleviate their suffering, these are artificially created scarcities that serve only to enrich the already wealthy at the expense of others.

Not right now. Why should the government pay to train workers and move them for corporations? Especially when those corporations are desperate for workers. Why would we subsidize the Fortune 500 any more than we already are?

Believe it or not, the Fortune 500 is actually not the only employers out there. There are many more smaller companies that are trying to grow, and need edcuated workers to do so.

I ask, since you are against retraining, are you also against training, as in publicly funded school systems? Do you complain that we spend public monies in order to train workers for the Fortune 500?

Originally Posted by Shodan

You misunderstand. I wasn't pointing out that Romney was wrong, because he wasn't. I was pointing out that you were wrong, because you are. That is, your claim that Romney's wealthy peers do not pay taxes for the government services they receive is amusingly bizarre, but not otherwise worthwhile.

In order for me to be wrong, then there would be no high net worth person who payed no federal income tax. In order for Romney to be wrong, there only needs to be one high net worth person who didn't pay federal income tax.

Is that the hill you are willing to die on here, that not a single one of Romney's peers managed to avoid paying federal income tax?

Also, your notion that property taxes are regressive. Can you explain how a person with a million-dollar home pays less in property taxes than a person living in an apartment? Rhetorical question, obviously, because you can't.

Your question makes no sense, as a regressive tax does not mean that the wealthy pay less, but that they pay less proportionally to their income. Please rephrase your question into something that resembles reality and try again.

I am not strawmanning you. You are strawmanning yourself, and not doing a very good job.

You straight up admitted that you were strawmanning in that last post. Are you taking that back?

Originally Posted by Wrenching Spanners

Maybe it's because I live abroad, but with the possible exception of relocation assistance which I haven't heard about as a government program, I consider every one of the things you've listed to be a conservative value. My starting point is that I want a government that’s effective and that operates under a reasonable tax burden. That requires that the vast majority of people meet most of their own needs. It also involves trade-offs. At their worst, liberals have a very broad list of the needs government should meet, far more than your basic list, and think that all those needs can be met if the rich are taxed sufficiently. And their definition of rich is someone making more money than they are.

You may consider them to be conservative values, but, when talking about the US, the party that claims to be conservative considers them to be an anathema.

By the way, in a thread about personal responsibility, if we want to talk about a proposed US federal program that liberals favour and traditional conservatives should disagree with, can we talk about the Student Loan Debt Relief Act? If you want evidence liberals don’t believe in personal responsibility, there you go:
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/23/eliz...-students.html

Student loan debt is a problem for more than just the student. It is a problem for the economy, the job market, well for everyone. I personally have a bit of SLD, meaning that I give about $400 a month to some loan companies, rather than spending it in the economy. Now, if you understand debt, then you know that when you create debt, you create money, you grow the economy. When you retire debt, you destroy money, you shrink the economy.

There is 1.5 trillion in student debt, and that is 1.5 trillion dollars that will not be contributing to the economy.

It's a double sided problem. Not only does the debt hold back students from becoming productive members of society, but the apprehension of taking on the debt will dissuade many from pursuing a degree. The ability to take on debt to finance education is one of the factors that allowed tuition costs to explode as they have.

So, student loan debt makes students less able and/or willing to go to college, it burdens those students and prevents them from moving on with their life, and it drains money out of the economy that all these 20-30 college graduates should be spending.
[quote]

Originally Posted by Bone

I'm not quite sure because it's difficult and tedious to read the fisking style you seem to like, but this sounds like both a personal insult, and an accusation of lying. Dial back the hostility, or go play in the Pit where it's appropriate.

[/moderating]

I apologize, at the time, I thought that Shodan was admitting that that line was an example of a strawman, and so I was responding to the fictional poster that would hypothetically make such a bad faith statement.

Now that he has changed his mind, and claimed the statement as one of his own, I can see how my comments would be seen as directed at him.

Quick question, was your observation of my posting style an actual mod instruction, or just a chance to get a dig in while wearing the mod hat?

I'll admit to the fisking(even though it makes it sound dirty), as that is not an inaccurate description of how I make sure that I respond to the things that other posters say, but I find the style of declaring "So, you're wrong" in response to any question you can't answer or point you cannot refute to be far more tedious. 154

[k9bfriender]

Originally Posted by Wrenching Spanners

With regards to ownership, corporations are not about personal responsibility. The owners are at risk of losing their investment, but unless they are involved in the decision making of the corporation, they aren't liable for the bad actions of the corporation. I think this is a necessary feature of capitalism. It's definitely a structure that protects the wealthy. But society as a whole benefits when investment is enabled. However, limiting the risk of owners is different from protecting decision makers within a corporation, which includes the board of directors. Those people should be personally responsible for their actions, and shouldn't be allowed to blame the corporation or society for their bad acts.

For a recent example, look at the Volkswagen emissions scandal. Volkswagen shareholders shouldn't be subject to lawsuit because Volkswagen engineers and leadership rigged their cars' exhaust systems. If shareholders were liable, you'd have fewer people investing in car companies. Maybe that's not so bad for diesel, electric cars aren't risk free either. I want there to be investment in the next generation of electrical cars. If a collection of executives knowingly release a battery with a hazardous flaw, then absolutely hold each of them responsible, both civilly and criminally. If the consequences cause the company to go bankrupt, then the investors lose the money they put into the corporation, which isn't a small thing.

I'll agree that shareholders shouldn't be liable for the actions of a company that they invested in, but directors and CEO's absolutely should be. I see corporations as sociopaths with superhuman powers*. You can tell a superhuman sociopath to make widgets, to provide customer services, or to rob a bank. It has no morals or conscience, and so will do anything within its power with equally lacking sense of pride or guilt. Their CEO's and directors are the guardians of this entity, and should be wholly responsible for the harms caused. I have rarely seen the people in charge of a corporation to be held to nearly the same account as if a average citizen had caused the same amount of damage.

People do sometimes claim that it is not fair to the investors that their investment itself is at risk if the company is held liable for the damage it causes.

I'd also like to point out that an LLC does not entirely absolve the owner from liability of debts. Landlords and banks are not stupid, and will require an actual person to sign a personal guarantee on the debt, meaning that if the LLC goes belly up, the owner may well be stuck with debts incurred by it.



*superhuman, not supernatural. They can do things that individual humans cannot. 155

[WillFarnaby]

Originally Posted by Esprise Me

Financially unsuccessful companies, to some extent yes. Morally bad companies? Can you give an example of stockholders being held accountable for that?

Morally bad companies become financially unsuccessful. It may take awhile.

In any case, to suggest someone should be held directly responsible for someone they didn’t personally hire, don’t know, and do not supervise or manage is not what most people would consider personal responsibility. 156

[Scylla]

Originally Posted by thorny locust

You know, after I posted last night I thought "I bet that bit about such jobs being meant for teenagers whose families are well able to support them is going to show up'.

And if that were really what was going on, there'd be something in that argument. But for there to be anything in that argument, then it would have to be in the ordinary course of events for nearly everyone to work such jobs as teenagers -- and probably for a while afterwards, because there's massively more poorly paid work than could possibly be done by teenagers, especially if they're supposed to have any chance to go to school; and then it would need to be in the ordinary course of events for nearly everyone, by the time they were old enough to start raising kids, to start being paid enough to support themselves and to support those kids.

But that's not what happens. What happens is that yes, some teenagers who don't really need the money take such jobs for a while and then move on to much better paid work; some other people never do the poorly paid work at all; and a whole lot of others wind up in such work as adults, because most of it is, after all, the basic work that needs to be done to keep the society going, so we need a whole lot of people to do it.

I mentioned several different part-timers besides teenagers. You know there is data on this? About 1 in 5 workers is a part time worker? Contrary to your opinion, the part time labor force is pretty big. Do you know that we have a whole government agency that does nothing but complete labor statistics? If you can’t get into statists, you might check out bus.gov and take a look at some actual data.

I'm 68. During my life ever since I became old enough to notice, every time that there have been proposals to raise the minimum wage I've seen those same arguments. And every time, sooner or later, the minimum wage gets raised; generally not enough, but far more than those people making the arguments want it raised. And every time so far the roof has not fallen in and society has not collapsed.

Big whoop. It’s not going to. You are just going to some businesses suffer, others close, and a bunch of workers who need the job getting fired.’

Alternatively, of course, we could leave wages where they are, but provide benefits to the people in those jobs so that they can still live decent lives -- and do so without giving them a hard time about qualifying, without making them worry every month that they won't have enough to manage, and in particular without complaining that they're not being personally responsible and therefore don't really deserve any help.

Maybe you could do that. I don’t have that kind of cash laying around.

Theoretically, property taxes aren't regressive, because they're generally based on the value of the property, and rich people do indeed buy or rent more expensive houses than poor people do (though as there are multiple factors involved that's not a perfect match.)

But they are indeed often regressive in practice, because current value of a home is often drastically disconnected from both current income and overall wealth of its owner(s).

People don't pack up and move every year to a house or apartment commensurate with their current income. (If they did, not only would this be massively disruptive both of community ties and of individual lives, but it would be horrendously expensive.) It's quite common, in many areas, for people to still be living in property they purchased twenty or fifty years ago, or that their parents or grandparents purchased even longer ago. Many places that were cheap when they were bought have become horrendously expensive due to accidents of location -- lakefront property even if liable to flooding, for instance, is now often priced extremely high. And the tax assessments are based on what somebody -- almost anybody, including someone from a densely populated area on the far side of the country -- would pay for it. So people with almost no financial resources can wind up stuck with the same property tax the millionaire is paying.

Oh my fucking God, what a disaster!!! You mean they bought a house for 60k a long time ago and now it’s Worth millions? Those poor bastards!

A lack of incentives means that people don't see any likely chance that changing what they're doing will produce any improvement. That doesn't mean that they're satisfied. It only means that they don't want to go through a lot of extra trouble and disruption in order to wind up no better off, and considering the costs of said trouble and disruption quite possibly worse off.

Quantitatively, that is exactly what I said, only pessimistically phrasesd.




No, that's not the unfortunate reality we must recognize. You've entirely missed possibility 4:

We as a society invest in plants manufacturing solar panels, windmills and windmill equipment, and whatever else actually is currently needed; site these plants in areas where coal mines and other obsolete or otherwise unfavored jobs are dying; and provide training and work in the area where the people losing their jobs are already living, so they don't need to move away from the places they've lived their whole lives, their friends and family, and not so incidentally the support structure provided by those friends and family, which is probably all that's keeping them going right now.

So, you want the government to compete with private industry? You are aware that these types of industries already exist, yes? What are you going to do with all the workers you’ve displaced by training miners to do their jobs? Invest in retraining build new plants and destroy another industry? What if good locations for solar and wind aren’t near where the miners are?

But the whole point being made here is that they're not supporting themselves at a low paying job; because those jobs don't pay enough for people to support themselves on.

Yes. You said this beforehand and I explained to you that not everybody who is working needs or is willing to commit to a job that provides a living wage, and that forcing all jobs to pay a certain amount tends to make jobs below that threshold of value disappear, removing the marginal utility that those jobs and paychecks and services provide to the economy. You are just doing damage. Good intentions combined with ignorance tend to do that.

So you do need to be aware of the consequences, and are responsible for them, if the pesticide used to grow your grapes is killing children in the country in which the grapes are grown but you buy those grapes even though you could afford to buy ones grown without doing such damage?

No. I gave that to you as an example to show how flawed that kind of thinking was. Virtually all the shit you buy and everything you do causes harm.

I thought in post 88 that you were giving being aware of the consequences of which food you choose to buy as an example of something you thought was absurd to bother with. Maybe I was wrong.

No.

And we are all a burden on each other. It's unavoidable. We should all do our best to carry our share of the burden; but claiming you can be entirely self sufficient requires a very narrow and temporary definition of "self sufficient." You are dependent, among other things, on the work being done by the people in those jobs which don't pay enough to live on.

I’d that’s your response, you completely don’t understand what I am talking about. 157

[k9bfriender]

Originally Posted by Crane

WS,

Of course there is an argument in favor of the financial benefits of the corporate form. But, that is not the issue under discussion. Can you argue that incorporation does not shield participants from personal responsibility?

It does, but that is the point. That it is abused is the problem, not that it exists. That those in power push to increase the loopholes in which i is abused is also a problem, but once again, this is not a disparagement against the basic idea limiting the potential losses of an investor to that of the investment.

To your example of the home builders, I am having trouble finding any particular cited research on the topic, but I will agree that it is a very common complaint among home buyers that their less than 5 year old home is falling apart, and the contractor that built it has flown the coop. The way that that works out exactly, I do not know, but I do personally know several homeowners stuck with tens of thousands of dollars in repairs that should have been taken care of by the original builder. Yes, there is (or at least was) absolutely a loophole that allowed these home builders to escape the responsibility of building a sound home and standing behind their work.

Originally Posted by Crane

Scylla,

If personal responsibility is limited to supporting ones self and family then is the society obligated to provide an environment in which it can be done?

Of course not. The truly responsible family builds its own cabin, builds its own road, educated its own children and those who work for them, produces its own safe water, disposes of its own sewage... They owe nothing back to society.

Here's a brief documentary on the subject. 158

[thorny locust]

Originally Posted by Scylla

I’d that’s your response, you completely don’t understand what I am talking about.

As the post that line's from is your response, you completely don't understand what I am talking about.

Just got back from doing a market on four hours' sleep. I may go into more detail tomorrow or the next day, if I decide that it might be worth it if only for other readers. 159

[Scylla]

Originally Posted by Crane

Scylla,

If personal responsibility is limited to supporting ones self and family then is the society obligated to provide an environment in which it can be done?

You know, people can have other responsibilities and ethics besides Personal responsibility, right?

Your second question is nonsensical. Society can’t give or take away the ability. 160

[Triskadecamus]

A corporation can own a corporation. It limits its liability to the amount of money the exercise costs. A corporation can loan its totally owned corporation enough money to build and operate very dangerous equipment, and make the terms of the charter specifically prevent the subsidiary from retaining any capital during the probable time period based on the useful lifetime of the very dangerous equipment. When that equipment fails to function, even catastrophically, the owning corporation's loss is never more than the cost of the loan. Profits from goods sold before the catastrophe have already been paid out as dividends. The very name Limited Liability Corporation comes from the function described.

Tris
______________________
The rich get rich, the poor get pollution. 161

[Wrenching Spanners]

Originally Posted by Crane

WS,

Of course there is an argument in favor of the financial benefits of the corporate form. But, that is not the issue under discussion. Can you argue that incorporation does not shield participants from personal responsibility?

Of course I'm not arguing that, I've said the opposite twice, in posts #133 and #149. I'm saying that the establishment of corporations was a key element in how the modern capitalist economy evolved, and that the modern capitalist economy is, overall, a good for society.

Do you think each individual who owns Volkswagen shares should have been directly fined based on the corporations fraudulent action to falsify diesel emissions? 162

[Wrenching Spanners]

Originally Posted by k9bfriender

Student loan debt is a problem for more than just the student. It is a problem for the economy, the job market, well for everyone. I personally have a bit of SLD, meaning that I give about $400 a month to some loan companies, rather than spending it in the economy. Now, if you understand debt, then you know that when you create debt, you create money, you grow the economy. When you retire debt, you destroy money, you shrink the economy.

There is 1.5 trillion in student debt, and that is 1.5 trillion dollars that will not be contributing to the economy.

It's a double sided problem. Not only does the debt hold back students from becoming productive members of society, but the apprehension of taking on the debt will dissuade many from pursuing a degree. The ability to take on debt to finance education is one of the factors that allowed tuition costs to explode as they have.

So, student loan debt makes students less able and/or willing to go to college, it burdens those students and prevents them from moving on with their life, and it drains money out of the economy that all these 20-30 college graduates should be spending.

Let's start with the bolded statement first. This is so thoroughly wrong that I'm wondering if you got your terms mixed up. Debt retirement is the act of paying off a debt completely. That's what's supposed to happen. When debtors pay back their loans, it enables the bank to loan out those funds to other borrowers, which grows the economy. Maybe you've mixed up debt retirement with bankruptcy?

Regarding the economic effect, the students were borrowing money to obtain an education and a degree, both of which are enhancements that should increase their future earnings. Monetarily, they were assuming a future cost, betting that their future earnings would exceed that cost. Assuming they've graduated and are now paying off their student loans, the economic effect is that they're now more productive than they would have been without the college education. (See here for a discussion about how a college education makes an individual more productive: https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb...d.php?t=879294 .) They're also able to use the knowledge and skills from their education to come up with new ideas. Increased productivity and creativity are two major drivers of economic expansion.

By the way, what is the debt stopping these former students from doing? If they've lost the bet about increased future earnings described above, then they're spending less than otherwise. However, the money from that reduced spending already went into the economy - it went to the colleges those students attended. Are you saying that former college student spending has a greater macroeconomic effect than university spending? The debt may force the former students to work more than they want to. However, from an economic standpoint, increased work is a positive. Not to mention there's much more to being "productive members of society" than spending.

Moving to personal responsibility, those students knew how much they were borrowing. They should have known about the reputations of the schools they were attending. They should have had a fair idea of their career prospects. All of that information is readily available. They should have been personally responsible for analysing the costs and benefits before taking out the loan and attending college. If they did the analysis and got it roughly correct, they've got nothing to complain about. Maybe they made a mistake and their future prospects were below what they expected. Personal responsibility is accepting the results of your mistakes. Or maybe the students wanting their debt relieved didn't really think about paying it off four years later, and just assumed everything would be good once they were out of college. Why should the rest of society, including people who didn't go to college, pay for their lack of forethought? 163

[Wrenching Spanners]

Originally Posted by Triskadecamus

A corporation can own a corporation. It limits its liability to the amount of money the exercise costs. A corporation can loan its totally owned corporation enough money to build and operate very dangerous equipment, and make the terms of the charter specifically prevent the subsidiary from retaining any capital during the probable time period based on the useful lifetime of the very dangerous equipment. When that equipment fails to function, even catastrophically, the owning corporation's loss is never more than the cost of the loan. Profits from goods sold before the catastrophe have already been paid out as dividends. The very name Limited Liability Corporation comes from the function described.

What you are describing is racketeering, which is illegal. If a corporation sets up a subsidiary with the intention of breaking the law, such as environmental regulations, the actors who set up the subsidiary can be criminally charged and the corporation is not shielded from fines nor liability. Also, in the US, the leaders of the corporation can be charged under the Sarbanes-Oxley act. For civil actions, such as creditors seeking payment, a corporate structure involving independent subsidiaries does provide a layer of protection against liability. However, that protection can be overcome by proof that there was a conspiracy to commit deceptive practices, or by proving that the independent subsidiary was not acting independently. Also, if the corporation is in a regulated industry such as financials services, the regulations will limit the actions of corporations to avoid financial responsibility. 164

[Crane]

A review of the above posts indicates we agree that the corporate form allows individuals to avoid personal responsibility. It's not a value judgement and the form is useful in an industrial society.

So, syllogistically:

The corporate form allows individuals to avoid personal responsibility
Some Conservatives use the corporate form
:. Some Conservatives avoid personal responsibility

So, accepting personal responsibility is not a universal attribute of Conservatives. 165

[Crane]

The OP addresses the issue of collective responsibility.

Collective responsibility, for those of us who live in the United States, is defined by the preamble to our Constitution. The Constitution establishes that we strive for the following social norms:

Support the federation of states
Maintain domestic tranquility
Participate in the common defence
Promote our general welfare
Provide for the future

So, in that context, a definition of personal responsibility would be:

Participate in the political process
Conduct oneself in a manner that is not disruptive to others
Volunteer for military service when necessary
Support policies that enhance the national population, not just an individual or group
Act in the context of history and the future not just the present

This implies that one is productive, has an income and pays taxes. 166

[Wrenching Spanners]

Originally Posted by Crane

A review of the above posts indicates we agree that the corporate form allows individuals to avoid personal responsibility. It's not a value judgement and the form is useful in an industrial society.

So, syllogistically:

The corporate form allows individuals to avoid personal responsibility
Some Conservatives use the corporate form
:. Some Conservatives avoid personal responsibility

So, accepting personal responsibility is not a universal attribute of Conservatives.

In post #107, I noted that a willingness to accept trade-offs is an aspect of conservatism. It's called pragmatism. We tend to leave dogmatism to the liberals. Conservatives also believe that if something is working successfully, it should continue. This is known as the principle of prescription. Corporate capitalism has been successful as an economic system for over 400 years. So yes, we tend to back it. It's not a mutually exclusive choice between backing personal responsibility and corporatism. I'll have the best of each, thanks.

If I see someone driving recklessly who then crashes, I'm going to call the emergency services, and then see if the person needs first aid. I'm not going to just move on because the driver has personal responsibility for the accident. Does that mean I lose my conservative credentials? On the other hand, I am going to support the person being punished for reckless driving. I'm not going to think "Oh the accident was punishment enough", or think society failed the driver by not providing him with proper driver education. 167

[Crane]

WS,

I'm not making a value judgement on corporations. The issue is the propensity of some conservatives to avoid personal responsibility. That, among others, eliminates personal responsibility as a universal attribute of conservatives. It's not a value judgement of Conservatives. Just a fact.

Some conservatives engage in business using the partnership form. They retain personal responsibility.

Sorry, I'm not clever enough to follow your line of thought in the accident example. You are not personally responsible for the driving habits of others or for reporting incidents. It's irrelevant. 168

[k9bfriender]

Originally Posted by Wrenching Spanners

Let's start with the bolded statement first. This is so thoroughly wrong that I'm wondering if you got your terms mixed up. Debt retirement is the act of paying off a debt completely. That's what's supposed to happen. When debtors pay back their loans, it enables the bank to loan out those funds to other borrowers, which grows the economy. Maybe you've mixed up debt retirement with bankruptcy?

No, I made no mistake here, and for you to assert that paying off a debt destroying money is "thoroughly wrong" tells me that you are very poorly informed as to how debt works in a fractional banking reserve system. Your point as to money getting back into the system to be lent out again is valid in some times and circumstances, but, as the banks are currently sitting on plenty of excess reserve that is just sitting there, not doing anything but earning interest from the federal reserve on the taxpayer dime, this is not one of those times and circumstances. The banks are not waiting around for depositors to deposit, or borrowers to repay, before they can lend out more money. They are actually looking for worthy borrowers, desperate to get some of this money out into the economy. The worst thing you could do to a bank is to have all its borrowers pay off their loans.

What do you think would happen if everyone paid off all their debt all at once? Well first, that's impossible, as there isn't enough money to pay off all the debt, but the attempt would crater the economy.

Yes, when a loan is originated, money is created out of thin air. When a debt is retired, which means to pay it off completely(nothing to do with bankruptcy), that money is destroyed. I used the extremes of the life cycle of a loan to better illustrate the point, but anytime you make a payment against a debt, that money disappears into the same fiat void that it was created from. When you swipe your credit card, that money "magically" appears out of nowhere, and when you pay your statement at the end of the cycle, that money disappears again.

I did not in any way mistake retirement for bankruptcy, which I may point out, is irrelevant where it comes to student loans, as they cannot be discharged through bankruptcy, unlike credit card debt that could have been ran up purchasing frivolites and luxuries.

Regarding the economic effect, the students were borrowing money to obtain an education and a degree, both of which are enhancements that should increase their future earnings. Monetarily, they were assuming a future cost, betting that their future earnings would exceed that cost. Assuming they've graduated and are now paying off their student loans, the economic effect is that they're now more productive than they would have been without the college education. (See here for a discussion about how a college education makes an individual more productive: https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb...d.php?t=879294 .) They're also able to use the knowledge and skills from their education to come up with new ideas. Increased productivity and creativity are two major drivers of economic expansion.

Not sure why you feel the need to point this out, of course higher education has the potential to increase your earnings, that is irrelevant to the discussion.

By the way, what is the debt stopping these former students from doing? If they've lost the bet about increased future earnings described above, then they're spending less than otherwise. However, the money from that reduced spending already went into the economy - it went to the colleges those students attended. Are you saying that former college student spending has a greater macroeconomic effect than university spending? The debt may force the former students to work more than they want to. However, from an economic standpoint, increased work is a positive. Not to mention there's much more to being "productive members of society" than spending.

What is it stopping them from doing? I dunno, moving out, renting an apartment, buying a car, buying a house, starting a family, starting a business, or just spending their money on small comforts and luxuries that make their lives better and bolster the economy. Some of that money already went into the economy, yes, at the schools, in the form of higher salaries for staff, or advertising, but given the nature of loans that you seem to have forgotten or skimmed over, most of the money that is paid is in the form of interest, which doesn't go to the school, but rather, to Sallie Mae.

The best way to stimulate the economy is to get money into the hands of those who will spend it the quickest, and the quickest spenders are young adults with their first taste of discretionary money. By removing that from not just a few, but from a substantial portion of an entire generation will lower the demand for goods and services, slowing the economy.

While being a productive member of society does entail more than just spending, that doesn't matter to the economy, where the only thing that does actually matter as a consumer is spending.

Moving to personal responsibility, those students knew how much they were borrowing. They should have known about the reputations of the schools they were attending. They should have had a fair idea of their career prospects. All of that information is readily available. They should have been personally responsible for analysing the costs and benefits before taking out the loan and attending college. If they did the analysis and got it roughly correct, they've got nothing to complain about. Maybe they made a mistake and their future prospects were below what they expected. Personal responsibility is accepting the results of your mistakes. Or maybe the students wanting their debt relieved didn't really think about paying it off four years later, and just assumed everything would be good once they were out of college. Why should the rest of society, including people who didn't go to college, pay for their lack of forethought?

First, this doesn't actually adress anything I've said, and your last question is pure strawman. Because I pointed out that student debt is a bigger problem to the economy and the country than just the individuals struggling with it doesn't mean that the rest of society should pay for their lack of forethought, but rather, that society should recognize that this is a problem for more than just the individual student struggling to pay off the debt. Do I think that student debt should be wiped out overnight? No. Do I think that actions should be taken to help to prevent young adults from being trapped into a cycle of debt, and that means of working their way out of that debt should be available? Yes. That is entirely different than how you choose to frame the issue.

As to the personal responsibility thing you are calling for here, you do realize that these are 16-18 year olds that you are talking about, right? Kids who are being told that they will be in poverty their whole lives if they don't go to college. Kids who are swayed by snazzy advertising and marketing campaigns that are paid for by current students who are going into debt. Should they be better informed as to the decisions that they are making? Absolutely. Are we, as a society, properly preparing and educating these teenagers in how to make a proper and informed decision on taking on the debt that is required for them to get ahead in life? No, I do not think so.

As an extreme example, if I force you to choose envelope 1 or 2, without telling you what is in either of them, and one is a million dollars, and the other is a million dollar debt, do you consider the person who got the million to be more personally responsible than the one that got saddled with the bill?

And with tuition rates rising significantly faster than inflation, this is not a problem that will go away on its own. Yeah, when people went to school 20 or more years ago, they could take on a more reasonable debt load in order to attend college. Now the debt that is asked of our students is nearly an order of magnitude higher, and it will only continue to increase unless the problem is addressed. 169

[Crane]

Amen - "promote the general welfare". 170

[Skypist]

Originally Posted by Wesley Clark

My impression is personal responsibility is a way to justify callousness. To justify cuts to the social safety net or harsh criminal sanctions. Also as OP mentions a way to justify lack of empathy towards minorities who do not have it as good.

When it comes to Republicans committing crimes, the mantra disappears. The modern conservative movement is based on paranoid fantasies of victimization, which is the exact opposite of the personal responsibility they claim to stand for. Railing that white Christians are victims because their iron grip on power is slipping is the exact opposite of personal responsibility.

Where is this mantra when coal miners see their jobs disappear and they refuse to train for a 21st century economy? Or when farmers vote for trump and then he passes tariffs that damage their companies? Or when Roy Moore and Donald trump threaten the people they sexually assaulted rather than accept what they did was wrong and their voters applauded?

All of this.

It's used as a way to justify cutting social safety nets and as a way for the speaker to feel superior to others. "So-and-so made a bad choice but I myself am perfect and have never made a mistake or done something stupid." So they don't have to feel bad about the US having very little safety net and people suffering miserable, short lives when many of them could have learned to lead productive lives with a little help. America seems to be determined to be a harsh and judgmental wasteland.

And yes, 45 goes on and on about trying to reel back outdated jobs for groups he likes such as coal miners, and nobody ever suggests that maybe a gov't program to retrain displaced workers would help them more, be more cost effective, and be better for everyone. As if there are no workers from other outdated fields who are also finding dwindling job prospects but nobody ever heard of them and 45 doesn't care about them so fuck them - nobody will help retrain them or try to yank back those outdated jobs. I guess 45 just got a hard-on for coal miners since Obama tried to reduce our dependence on coal. 171

[k9bfriender]

Originally Posted by Skypist

All of this.

It's used as a way to justify cutting social safety nets and as a way for the speaker to feel superior to others. "So-and-so made a bad choice but I myself am perfect and have never made a mistake or done something stupid." So they don't have to feel bad about the US having very little safety net and people suffering miserable, short lives when many of them could have learned to lead productive lives with a little help. America seems to be determined to be a harsh and judgmental wasteland.

And yes, 45 goes on and on about trying to reel back outdated jobs for groups he likes such as coal miners, and nobody ever suggests that maybe a gov't program to retrain displaced workers would help them more, be more cost effective, and be better for everyone. As if there are no workers from other outdated fields who are also finding dwindling job prospects but nobody ever heard of them and 45 doesn't care about them so fuck them - nobody will help retrain them or try to yank back those outdated jobs. I guess 45 just got a hard-on for coal miners since Obama tried to reduce our dependence on coal.

It's the standard conservative mindset that's *your* mistakes were foreseeable and avoidable, but *my* mistakes were due to factors outside of my control. 172

[thorny locust]

Originally Posted by Scylla

I mentioned several different part-timers besides teenagers. You know there is data on this? About 1 in 5 workers is a part time worker? Contrary to your opinion, the part time labor force is pretty big. Do you know that we have a whole government agency that does nothing but complete labor statistics? If you can’t get into statists, you might check out bus.gov and take a look at some actual data.

Yes. You said this beforehand and I explained to you that not everybody who is working needs or is willing to commit to a job that provides a living wage

Bus.gov appears to be about bus driving. Bls.gov may be what you were actually after.

From that site, and specifically from https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was essentially unchanged at 4.3 million in June. These individuals, who would have preferred full-time employment, were working part time because their hours had been reduced or they were unable to find full-time jobs. (See table A-8.)

Of course there are people who prefer part time work; and of course some of those people don't need more money (others are simply flat out unable to take full time jobs because they have obligations for unpaid work; and of course some are physically unable to.) But 4.3 million (a number which is not currently going down) who want full time work but can't get it is not a trivial number of people. And, as I keep saying, the problem is also people who are working full time but still aren't paid enough to live on.

Originally Posted by Scylla

Big whoop. It’s not going to. You are just going to some businesses suffer, others close, and a bunch of workers who need the job getting fired.’

forcing all jobs to pay a certain amount tends to make jobs below that threshold of value disappear, removing the marginal utility that those jobs and paychecks and services provide to the economy.

Raising low wages also puts more money into the hands of people who will spend most of it, thereby increasing the amount of goods and services that businesses can sell.

Originally Posted by Scylla

Maybe you could do that. I don’t have that kind of cash laying around.
.

The society as a whole, obviously. As you perfectly well know that I meant.

Originally Posted by Scylla

Oh my fucking God, what a disaster!!! You mean they bought a house for 60k a long time ago and now it’s Worth millions? Those poor bastards!.

Fifty years of inflation and probably a whole lot of work put into the place over those years aside, that probably looks like a good argument to some.

Of course, as most people can only get at that money if they pack up their lives and move, it's only a good argument to those for whom the word "home" means the same thing as "amount of money for which one could purchase alternative shelter". I've come to realize over the years that there are a lot of such people; and that it's probably not possible to fully explain to them why to a lot of other people that's the equivalent of saying 'why would it matter if you'd never be able to see your spouse again? There's probably somebody else who'd move in with you'. I ask those who don't understand it, however (though with little hope in some cases that this will get through) to recognize that there are quite a lot of humans to whom those statements are pretty much equivalent; and to whom it's the claim that unwillingly trading their home for money is a fair exchange which is nonsense.

Originally Posted by Scylla

Quantitatively, that is exactly what I said, only pessimistically phrasesd.
.

You said that a lack of incentives means that people are satisfied. I said that it can mean that they're extremely dissatisfied. I don't see how we said the same thing.

Originally Posted by Scylla

So, you want the government to compete with private industry? You are aware that these types of industries already exist, yes?

You're aware that fossil fuel subsidies already exist, yes? I gave you a cite.

And you're aware that private industries demand subsidies from various levels of government all the time?

Why do you think that existing private alternative-energy industries don't want to get some of the benefits?

Originally Posted by Scylla

What if good locations for solar and wind aren’t near where the miners are?

I wasn't suggesting putting the installations there; or, at any rate, not most of them, though I'm sure some would fit the particular locations. I was suggesting putting manufacturing facilities for the components there. You are aware that such components are currently shipped around world wide?

Originally Posted by Scylla

No. I gave that to you as an example to show how flawed that kind of thinking was. Virtually all the shit you buy and everything you do causes harm..

Arguably true.

And some choices of what you buy and what you do cause a lot more harm than others. You said (post #129) that people are responsible for the results of their choices, and for being aware of the likely results. But you appear to agree with that for only a very limited subset of such choices.

Originally Posted by Crane

The OP addresses the issue of collective responsibility.

Collective responsibility, for those of us who live in the United States, is defined by the preamble to our Constitution. The Constitution establishes that we strive for the following social norms:

Support the federation of states
Maintain domestic tranquility
Participate in the common defence
Promote our general welfare
Provide for the future

So, in that context, a definition of personal responsibility would be:

Participate in the political process
Conduct oneself in a manner that is not disruptive to others
Volunteer for military service when necessary
Support policies that enhance the national population, not just an individual or group
Act in the context of history and the future not just the present

This implies that one is productive, has an income and pays taxes.

The second half of your last line doesn't follow.

It's entirely possible to be productive and useful to society but wind up with either no income at all, or not enough income to pay income tax. 173

[Crane]

tl,

You are correct. Perhaps I could say the above assumes that citizens have income and pay taxes'. 174

[Wrenching Spanners]

So much to refute here. Apologies to Bone, but it’s going to require me to use your fisking style to point out all the wrongs in your statements.

Originally Posted by k9bfriender

No, I made no mistake here, and for you to assert that paying off a debt destroying money is "thoroughly wrong" tells me that you are very poorly informed as to how debt works in a fractional banking reserve system.

Since you’ve referred to the fractional banking system, I assume your definition of money is “commercial banking money”. I can only guess as why you failed to type the two extra words. There is a causation effect between commercial banking money and the M2 value of money supply. However, you’re really stretching it if you mean that a lower market for loans results in lower interest rates which further results in a reduction in deposits leading to a diminishment in money supply is “destroying money”. Or perhaps you’d like to explicitly detail your explanation of how loan repayments are “destroying money”.

Originally Posted by k9bfriender

Your point as to money getting back into the system to be lent out again is valid in some times and circumstances, but, as the banks are currently sitting on plenty of excess reserve that is just sitting there, not doing anything but earning interest from the federal reserve on the taxpayer dime, this is not one of those times and circumstances. The banks are not waiting around for depositors to deposit, or borrowers to repay, before they can lend out more money. They are actually looking for worthy borrowers, desperate to get some of this money out into the economy.

Your cite discusses the US Federal Reserve management of interest rate policy, and indicates they may be overpaying for “interest on excess reserves”. The federal reserve is ensuring that banks are able to borrow cheaply, in order for the banking system to have liquidity, but also ensuring that banks maintain adequate reserves – in other words hold more than the required minimum. Basically the article is saying that the federal reserve is getting the balancing act wrong. There may be a slowdown in some global lending, but if so it’s due to: 1) fears that the current upward business cycle is coming to an end, both because of a fear that the cycle has reached a natural peak, and because of uncertainty regarding US, Chinese, and European trade policies, 2) inflationary pressures which may require tighter monetary policy, and 3) the weaning off of cheap credit which, regardless of the fears outlined in point 1, is a move towards long-term monetary policy stability. Any shortage in current lending is not due to people paying off their loans. Furthermore, according to the IMF, global lending was at an all-time high in 2017. https://blogs.imf.org/2019/01/02/new...n-global-debt/ Do you want debt to continually rise, or would you prefer it to taper off after reaching a peak?

Originally Posted by k9bfriender

The worst thing you could do to a bank is to have all its borrowers pay off their loans.

A much worse thing you can do to a bank is create a moral hazard where customers feel it is unnecessary to pay off their loans, and then the government, or whatever other intervening agency, also refuses to pay off those loans.

Originally Posted by k9bfriender

Yes, when a loan is originated, money is created out of thin air. When a debt is retired, which means to pay it off completely(nothing to do with bankruptcy), that money is destroyed. I used the extremes of the life cycle of a loan to better illustrate the point, but anytime you make a payment against a debt, that money disappears into the same fiat void that it was created from. When you swipe your credit card, that money "magically" appears out of nowhere, and when you pay your statement at the end of the cycle, that money disappears again.

This statement is so problematic, I’m not sure if I’m being whooshed. You started your response addressing the fractional banking system. You do realise that is dependent on deposits and not magical money?

Originally Posted by k9bfriender

I did not in any way mistake retirement for bankruptcy, which I may point out, is irrelevant where it comes to student loans, as they cannot be discharged through bankruptcy, unlike credit card debt that could have been ran up purchasing frivolites and luxuries.

Congratulations. Ignoring the misspelling of frivolities, it’s one of the few things you haven’t got wrong.

Originally Posted by k9bfriender

Not sure why you feel the need to point this out, of course higher education has the potential to increase your earnings, that is irrelevant to the discussion.

Here’s your statement: “There is 1.5 trillion in student debt, and that is 1.5 trillion dollars that will not be contributing to the economy.” I’m rebutting that statement.

Originally Posted by k9bfriender

What is it stopping them from doing? I dunno, moving out, renting an apartment, buying a car, buying a house, starting a family, starting a business, or just spending their money on small comforts and luxuries that make their lives better and bolster the economy. Some of that money already went into the economy, yes, at the schools, in the form of higher salaries for staff, or advertising, but given the nature of loans that you seem to have forgotten or skimmed over, most of the money that is paid is in the form of interest, which doesn't go to the school, but rather, to Sallie Mae.

If the students taking on the loans have correctly bet that their future earnings will exceed their debt payments, their debt payments haven’t stopped them from doing anything. If they were wrong, then yes, they are undergoing some hardship, but it’s a hardship they signed up for. The initial economic benefit went to the school. You’re right that a subsequent economic benefit is going to Sallie Mae, which, if I’m understanding correctly, is the bank collecting interest on the loans? Please correct me if I have a misunderstanding. Otherwise, please explain to me why you object to a bank receiving interest on a loan?

Originally Posted by k9bfriender

The best way to stimulate the economy is to get money into the hands of those who will spend it the quickest, and the quickest spenders are young adults with their first taste of discretionary money. By removing that from not just a few, but from a substantial portion of an entire generation will lower the demand for goods and services, slowing the economy.

The single-best economic stimulus is investment, which funnily enough is often government investment. Picking an easy two, federal vaccination programmes and the US interstate system are two incredibly effective economic stimuli. Beyond the simple true-false refuting of your statement, it’s quite complicated. You’re assuming that the money spent by Sallie Mac will have less economic impact than the money that would have been spent by the loan paying students. If you’d like to discuss that idea, feel free to open up a new thread. Your assumption is not a self-evident truth.

Originally Posted by k9bfriender

While being a productive member of society does entail more than just spending, that doesn't matter to the economy, where the only thing that does actually matter as a consumer is spending.

Actually, deferred spending in terms of saving and investment matter hugely to the economy. Also, relevant to this thread, hasn’t spending already happened? A purchase of a college education has taken place. Are you discounting a college education and saying it has less value than “moving out, renting an apartment, buying a car, buying a house, starting a family, starting a business, or just spending their money on small comforts and luxuries”?

Originally Posted by k9bfriender

First, this doesn't actually adress anything I've said, and your last question is pure strawman.

My statement: “Why should the rest of society, including people who didn't go to college, pay for their lack of forethought?” Which statement of yours am I creating a false likeness of in order to burn down?

Originally Posted by k9bfriender

Because I pointed out that student debt is a bigger problem to the economy and the country than just the individuals struggling with it doesn't mean that the rest of society should pay for their lack of forethought, but rather, that society should recognize that this is a problem for more than just the individual student struggling to pay off the debt. Do I think that student debt should be wiped out overnight? No. Do I think that actions should be taken to help to prevent young adults from being trapped into a cycle of debt, and that means of working their way out of that debt should be available? Yes. That is entirely different than how you choose to frame the issue.

I’m basing my arguments on the CNBC article I originally cited:
“Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., introduced a bill Tuesday that would forgive student loans for tens of millions of Americans. Three-quarters of borrowers would have their balances reset to zero.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/23/eliz...-students.html
If you think that Elizabeth Warren’s bill is wrong, then we’re in agreement. If you think that more information should be supplied more explicitly to students requesting student loans, then we’re probably in agreement, although I doubt the relevant information is actually hidden.

Originally Posted by k9bfriender

As to the personal responsibility thing you are calling for here, you do realize that these are 16-18 year olds that you are talking about, right? Kids who are being told that they will be in poverty their whole lives if they don't go to college. Kids who are swayed by snazzy advertising and marketing campaigns that are paid for by current students who are going into debt. Should they be better informed as to the decisions that they are making? Absolutely. Are we, as a society, properly preparing and educating these teenagers in how to make a proper and informed decision on taking on the debt that is required for them to get ahead in life? No, I do not think so.

I’m assuming that if they’re under 18, there’s a parent approving the loan, but please correct me if I’m wrong. Beyond that, yes, I do believe an 18 year old, or a near 18 year old should be able to do a risk assessment. I’d hope there would be guidance counsellors available to assist them with that risk assessment. If such guidance counsellors aren’t available, then that’s a community flaw.

[QUOTE=k9bfriender;21774835As an extreme example, if I force you to choose envelope 1 or 2, without telling you what is in either of them, and one is a million dollars, and the other is a million dollar debt, do you consider the person who got the million to be more personally responsible than the one that got saddled with the bill? [/QUOTE]
Yes. There is always an element of risk in life. One person may choose to drive drunk and not be caught. A second person may choose to drive drunk and get caught and punished. They each had personable responsibility for their actions. The luck of the unpunished drunk driver’s outcome does not provide moral justification for his decision. Choosing a path through college is far less binary than either of the above examples. However, choosing to accept and pay a loan is, compared to many other decisions in life, a straightforward choice and on where the debtor should be personally responsible for accepting the loan. 175

[Scylla]

Originally Posted by thorny locust

Bus.gov appears to be about bus driving. Bls.gov may be what you were actually after.

From that site, and specifically from https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

Of course there are people who prefer part time work; and of course some of those people don't need more money (others are simply flat out unable to take full time jobs because they have obligations for unpaid work; and of course some are physically unable to.) But 4.3 million (a number which is not currently going down) who want full time work but can't get it is not a trivial number of people.

That’s between 2-3% of the workforce. Do you remember when we talked about unemployment? Unemployment at 3. 7% is really too low because it means we are through actual full employment and there is a labor shortage. This number usually falls somewhere below the unemployment number (which is where it is now.) like unemployment, this number actually supports the opposite of what you are arguing. It tells us that there are too few part-timers seeking full time employment.

You seem to be trying to argue this idea that the economy is shitty for workers. It’s not. It is the best it has ever been, according to the data. That’s a fact that anybody who knows anything about this kind of thing is aware of.

And, as I keep saying, the problem is also people who are working full time but still aren't paid enough to live on.

The issue you bring up is found in “the working poor” figure. I don’t think we have the data from 2018 yet, but for 2017 that figure was around 4.5%. That figure is the lowest it has been since they started tracking it in 1986. It appears to be dropping really fast, and will probably be lower in this year’s figures.

This number is NOT the number of people working full time who are living in poverty. It is the percentage of people who have been in the workforce for at least 27 weeks who are living in poverty. The workforce are those who are employed full-time, part time, and those who are unemployed and seeking work. Those who usually work full time living in poverty equal 2.9%. This is also a really good number. 2.32% of these experienced a Labor market problem. One of these problems is low wages. 1.554% suffered from this. This is another really good number. There are any number of reasons why a person who usually works full time, has suffered from low wages and is living below the poverty line. The most common of these is that they are also suffering from one of the other labor market problems. There are other reasons why somebody might be suffering from low wages for reasons unrelated to the economy or job market. These are things like health issues, drug addiction, being jailed, being an unreliable or bad worker.

That’s about as simple as I can make it for you. The fact though is that this is not actually a real problem for our society. Again, it fits with the other unemployment numbers that we are looking at. The very bottom of the labor force, the most undesirable of workers are still doing very well because there is a labor shortage.

This problem that you are talking about is almost nonexistent, and in fact, like the other numbers we have discussed, it is actually lower than is actually good for the economy.

Raising low wages also puts more money into the hands of people who will spend most of it, thereby increasing the amount of goods and services that businesses can sell.

That’s technically possible, but in most economies it will be untrue. I can explain why, but we would now be in economics 317 (or something) and in order to do so I would have to go into detail about other factors and concepts that we haven’t discussed yet, and no offense, you don’t really have knowledge of.

The society as a whole, obviously. As you perfectly well know that I meant.

No. I don’t. The “society as a whole” doesn’t have a checkbook.

Fifty years of inflation and probably a whole lot of work put into the place over those years aside, that probably looks like a good argument to some.

Of course, as most people can only get at that money if they pack up their lives and move, it's only a good argument to those for whom the word "home" means the same thing as "amount of money for which one could purchase alternative shelter". I've come to realize over the years that there are a lot of such people; and that it's probably not possible to fully explain to them why to a lot of other people that's the equivalent of saying 'why would it matter if you'd never be able to see your spouse again? There's probably somebody else who'd move in with you'. I ask those who don't understand it, however (though with little hope in some cases that this will get through) to recognize that there are quite a lot of humans to whom those statements are pretty much equivalent; and to whom it's the claim that unwillingly trading their home for money is a fair exchange which is nonsense.

I’m struggling to find a rational argument in the above. They have something that is worth a whole lot of money but they don’t want to sell it because they are either emotionally attached to it, or doing so is a pain in the neck. But, they need money and/or owning this thing costs more money than they can afford to spend and so we need to help them why?

I had the exact same problem, except it was an ‘83 Porsche 911 turbo that was willed to me by the neighbor I worked for as a kid. He had no wife or kids, but was basically like a really close uncle. It was really hard and it was really sad to let it go. I loved that car, but I had kids, we just moved, I needed to be saving for my kids’ college. It was expensive as hell to run and maintain. the insurance was really high, and I couldn’t fit the wife and two baby seats in it. I sold it and bought a sedan, and put the rest Into UTMAs for the kids.

Boo-fucking-hoo!!! Poor me.

You said that a lack of incentives means that people are satisfied. I said that it can mean that they're extremely dissatisfied. I don't see how we said the same thing.

I’m sorry that you don’t have the knowledge to grasp it. You should if you wish to argue these things. I’ve been explaining a lot and it’s an undo burden to have to educate my debating opponent. What I said is that they are quantitatively the same thing, and that is true whether or no you grasp why.

You're aware that fossil fuel subsidies already exist, yes? I gave you a cite.

And you're aware that private industries demand subsidies from various levels of government all the time?

Why do you think that existing private alternative-energy industries don't want to get some of the benefits?

I am going to stop right there and give up. The rest of your posts is a lot like arguing labor statistics with you.l. You don’t know enough to have this discussion, and it’s not my place to bring you up to speed. I doubt you will find that satisfying. You may think I am being arrogant, or insulting, or what have you, but it is time for me to move on, because it is not rewarding for me to try to bring someone unwilling up to speed. If you have questions about things that you don’t know, I would be happy to answer them, but I am not going to argue with you to do so. You can have the last word. 176

[Crane]

Scylla,

The OP asks if it is our personal responsibility to make compensations for the racist history of our economy.

What is your view? 177

[Scylla]

Originally Posted by Crane

Scylla,

The OP asks if it is our personal responsibility to make compensations for the racist history of our economy.

What is your view?

I think to the extent that any individual is personally responsible for racist history, they should make compensation to the victims. 178

[steronz]

Originally Posted by Scylla

I think to the extent that any individual is personally responsible for racist history, they should make compensation to the victims.

This is a pretty simplistic view. In my OP I gave a specific example of a way that people are clearly benefiting from a racist history even though they weren't personally responsible for it. To summarize,

1) 100 years ago a bunch of well-off racists left the greater city and started their own community, barring blacks, jews, and other ethnic undesirables by statute (or rather, deed restriction)

2) When blatant systemic racism became untenable, the residents switched to a less systemic version of neighborhood associations to continue to keep minorities out of the community.

3) Without their prosperity to help bolster the greater city's community resources, there was a predictable decline in the quality of life for those unable to leave.

4) 100 years later, the grandchildren of those racists still live in this "bubble" of a community. Many of them feel no responsibility for those outside their community because a) they weren't personally responsible for those racist decisions, and b) those outside the community can or should take "personal responsibility" for their own well-being.

My question is, isn't "personal responsibility" if used in this scenario and in this manner just a code word for "I don't want to deal with the problems my racist grandparents helped create and I have clearly benefited from?" 179

[Scylla]

Originally Posted by steronz

My question is, isn't "personal responsibility" if used in this scenario and in this manner just a code word for "I don't want to deal with the problems my racist grandparents helped create and I have clearly benefited from?"

Yes, I got it. We are many pages in, and for some reason the concept that you can only be personally responsible for the things you yourself are responsible for personally seems to be a difficult one.

You live in relative comfort now because your ancestor Thag Stevens helped in the great Neanderthal genocide. You are descended from a long line of vicious selfish bad-asses who outfought, outfucked, outthought, outlucked, and rapes killed and stole from everybody else since the dawn of history. If you want to be sad about it, trace your lineage, and make all the reparations you feel. 180

[steronz]

Originally Posted by Scylla

Yes, I got it. We are many pages in, and for some reason the concept that you can only be personally responsible for the things you yourself are responsible for personally seems to be a difficult one.

The disconnect is that you keep talking about your own personal responsibility, but there are other kinds of responsibility, no? People, even conservatives, regularly feel a sense of responsibility for taking care of loved ones, family, friends, and neighbors. People feel a sense of responsibility for their communities, their country, etc. I don't know if you consider these responsibilities to be personal or not -- certainly they don't fit in with what description -- but they are responsibilities nonetheless, and they are very real.

My point isn't that your own personal responsibility should extend to those areas. My point is that conservatives use other people's personal responsibility as an excuse to eschew their own non-personal responsibility for their community, their neighbors, or their country. 181

[Triskadecamus]

My family has been fairly thoroughly researched. Although I cannot account for all branches prior to their arrival in the US, I have convincing evidence that none of my ancestors owned or sold slaves after immigrating, and fairly strong evidence that none were likely to have owned slaves in their respective native lands. (The research was not specifically oriented on the subject of slave ownership, but did include social information, and personal correspondence and records for those in the US, and records from Europe back to just after 1500.)

A few were actively involved Abolitionists, and some members of churches which opposed slave ownership. Most were not wealthy enough to own slaves. The few who were are well enough known to my family (although not to historians) that their feelings on the subject are also well documented.

I find it odious to claim that the acts of my ancestors convey some sort of righteousness to me. I think it absurd that someone who has slave ancestors thereby has been a specific victim of my ancestors. It is likely that few living American descendent of slaves have no ancestors who were white slave owners. Perpetrators or victims of the atrocity of slavery do not bequeath guilt, or moral obligation from its practice to their descendants. It is possible that property inherited from slave owners might be reasonably held to have clouded title. I own no real estate. Were there living former slaves, or slave owners, I suppose it might be possible to legally address the question of debt among them.

In the case of historically verifiable family estates based on slave ownership it seems reasonable that the descendants of slaves should have recourse to attachment of those properties; perhaps even as a class action versus that estate. But simply living in the country, and not being a slave seems to me to be insufficient cause to support the existence of debt.

If the crime of slave ownership conveys guilt by inheritance, what then of the crimes of theft, murder, fraud, extortion? Shall we enforce ex post facto confiscation of all inherited profit from formerly legal acts?

I feel no guilt for the acts of my ancestors. Not because my ancestors were uniformly innocent of wrongful deeds, but because I am not guilty of things I did not do. I have not profited from slavery. I hold no property because of the exploitation of slaves.

Some of my ancestors fled persecution. Some had their homes taken by invaders. No one owes me any money because of that, because I didn't suffer those losses. The people living where my ancestors once lived are not perpetrators of their ancestors actions, because they didn't do it. If I take someone else's wealth, home, or freedom because of their ancestry, that is my crime. 182

[thorny locust]

Originally Posted by Scylla

You can have the last word.

If you're going to give me the last word, then I'm going to take it.

Though I suspect that it won't actually be the last word in this thread.

Originally Posted by Scylla

That’s between 2-3% of the workforce. Do you remember when we talked about unemployment? Unemployment at 3. 7% is really too low because it means we are through actual full employment and there is a labor shortage. This number usually falls somewhere below the unemployment number (which is where it is now.) like unemployment, this number actually supports the opposite of what you are arguing. It tells us that there are too few part-timers seeking full time employment.
[ . . . ]
Those who usually work full time living in poverty equal 2.9%. This is also a really good number.
[ . . . .] like the other numbers we have discussed, it is actually lower than is actually good for the economy.

If you add up 3.7% unemployed, 2+% working part time who want to work full time, 2.9% who are working full time but still don't earn enough to live on, and some hard-to-determine percentage who aren't counted because they've given up actively looking for work, that gets you at minimum somewhere significantly over 8.6% of the working age population. And you say that's not high enough.

But that's not the main point. I'm willing to posit that as the economy's currently constructed you may be right. However: You can argue that the economy won't function unless there are significant numbers of people (the exact percentage isn't the issue) who can't find a job that pays them enough to live on. Or you can argue that people who don't have a job that pays them enough to live in are in that position due to their own individual choice to not be properly responsible for themselves. But trying to claim both of those positions at once just plain doesn't work.

Do you know the game 'musical chairs'? It doesn't matter how hard people are trying or how fast they are. If there are fewer chairs than participants, some people are going to wind up out. And you're saying that the economy only functions if there are fewer chairs than participants; but that the individual people who wind up without a chair are individually to blame for not having one.

Originally Posted by Scylla

The “society as a whole” doesn’t have a checkbook.

How did we get the interstate highway system, then? Or a judicial system? Or the military?

Originally Posted by Scylla

I’m struggling to find a rational argument in the above. They have something that is worth a whole lot of money but they don’t want to sell it because they are either emotionally attached to it, or doing so is a pain in the neck. But, they need money and/or owning this thing costs more money than they can afford to spend and so we need to help them why?

I had the exact same problem, except it was an ‘83 Porsche 911 turbo .

No, that is in no way the exact same problem. Driving a different car didn't upend your entire life.

You're failing to understand the problem because you think money is essentially exchangeable for homes; or, to put it slightly differently, that a home and a house are the same thing. Apparently, as I suspected from your earlier post, you're one of the people for whom this is true. Explaining why it isn't true for others is a bit like trying to explain the impact of color in artwork to someone who only sees shades of grey.

Coming at this from a different direction, which is almost certainly not going to work either but maybe somebody else will be able to see it so I'll give it a try: rationality is a tool that we use to get us what we want. It's a really really useful tool; it can make it possible to accomplish things we couldn't do without it; it can make it possible to accomplish things we didn't even know we wanted when we started to use it; and it can make it possible to avoid unwanted results that could make it impossible to get what we want. But rationality is never the driver. Emotion is always the driver; and it is absolutely essential. Wanting to keep one's home is emotionally based, yes. Wanting to have one's children succeed, by whatever definition of succeeding one believes in, is also emotionally based. Wanting to be able to get something to eat today is emotionally based. Wanting to stay alive, or wanting anyone else to be able to do so, is emotionally based.

So 'the underlying base of that argument is emotional, not rational' is in no way a useful argument. It applies also to everything you yourself want to have happen, no matter how much of a rational or rationalized superstructure you build on top of it.

(It occurs to me that you've also massively moved a goal post. This part of the discussion started because you said (post 101) that property taxes aren't regressive. I pointed out that often they are in practice. Saying that it's possible to get out of the situations in which they are doesn't mean that they aren't.)

Originally Posted by Scylla

What I said is that they are quantitatively the same thing .

Being satisfied with one's situation and being extremely dissatisfied with it but not expecting to be able to improve it are quantitatively the same thing?

Maybe. But they're not qualitatively the same thing. 183

[Kearsen1]

Originally Posted by Crane

WS,

I'm not making a value judgement on corporations. The issue is the propensity of some conservatives to avoid personal responsibility. That, among others, eliminates personal responsibility as a universal attribute of conservatives. It's not a value judgement of Conservatives. Just a fact.

Some conservatives engage in business using the partnership form. They retain personal responsibility.

Sorry, I'm not clever enough to follow your line of thought in the accident example. You are not personally responsible for the driving habits of others or for reporting incidents. It's irrelevant.

With that kind of strict definition of 'personal responsibility' or any other attribute to either conservatives or liberals, then neither of them can claim to have any attributes whatsoever and that my good sir is silly. 184

[Kearsen1]

Originally Posted by steronz

The disconnect is that you keep talking about your own personal responsibility, but there are other kinds of responsibility, no? People, even conservatives, regularly feel a sense of responsibility for taking care of loved ones, family, friends, and neighbors. People feel a sense of responsibility for their communities, their country, etc. I don't know if you consider these responsibilities to be personal or not -- certainly they don't fit in with what description -- but they are responsibilities nonetheless, and they are very real.

My point isn't that your own personal responsibility should extend to those areas. My point is that conservatives use other people's personal responsibility as an excuse to eschew their own non-personal responsibility for their community, their neighbors, or their country.

Altruism is a nice desirable quality. One that if left up to the individual is a great thing. If forced upon someone it stops being so nice. Maybe this is the difference between liberals and conservatives? Conservatives believe in live and let live, liberals want to make decisions for others? because they know better.

Right or wrong decisions be damned, we just got to do something! 185

[steronz]

Originally Posted by Kearsen1

Altruism is a nice desirable quality. One that if left up to the individual is a great thing. If forced upon someone it stops being so nice. Maybe this is the difference between liberals and conservatives? Conservatives believe in live and let live, liberals want to make decisions for others? because they know better.

Right or wrong decisions be damned, we just got to do something!

I'm not talking about forcing anyone to do anything. Conservatives believe in helping other people, right? Isn't that out of a sense of responsibility? 186

[Scylla]

Originally Posted by steronz

The disconnect is that you keep talking about your own personal responsibility, but there are other kinds of responsibility, no?

Of course. Why are you appealing to or suggesting hypocrisy by directing your argument against that doesn’t apply to the actual situation?

People, even conservatives, regularly feel a sense of responsibility for taking care of loved ones, family, friends, and neighbors. People feel a sense of responsibility for their communities, their country, etc. I don't know if you consider these responsibilities to be personal or not -- certainly they don't fit in with what description -- but they are responsibilities nonetheless, and they are very real.

Ok.

My point isn't that your own personal responsibility should extend to those areas.

No, it shouldn’t. I can say that I have responsibilities to my friend, country, school district, Etc. These are not personal responsibility. Doesn’t mean that they are not important, or that I can ignore them.

My point is that conservatives use other people's personal responsibility as an excuse to eschew their own non-personal responsibility for their community, their neighbors, or their country.

I think you’ve bungled the job.


It seems to what you are actually saying is that conservatives say “That’s not my mess, I’m not cleaning it up,” or “clean up your own mess.”

You do know that Republicans tend to give more to charity, don’t you? I don’t think what you are saying holds true.

What it seems to me that you are trying to do is say: “something bad happened here 50-100 years ago, so I want to force this group of people who had nothing to do with it to give some stuff to this other bunch of people that had nothing to do with it.” Somehow you are trying to tie this in to Personal responsibility so you can paint conservatives as hypocrites or whatever.

The fact is that I think redistribution are generally bad and unworkable and undesirable on so many levels as to be dismissible. It’s easy to be generous with somebody else’s stuff.

The way I, as a conservative handle these things in one very small way is that I also promote the common good in my community. I have God’s own lawnmower. The trout commission owns land across the street. I mow it for free so kids can play and people can walk their dogs and such, because I can, and it’s nice for my community.

It is not my “personal responsibility” to do so, any more than it is for me to pick up garbage I find on the road when I go for a run.

I too live in a community that is not far away from one that is not so nice. I do things that help improve that community too. I have done them personally, financially, by serving boards, etc.

Lots of conservatives, liberals.....people just do these things, because it’s nice and feels good (and let me the first to admit that being a well thought of charitable community minded guy has its own benefits, but so what?) 187

[Scylla]

Thorny:

I know I promised you the last word, but I cannot stand to see the math butchered the way you did.

You can’t add percentages that way.

If 50% of people are male, and 50% of people are female and 20% are minorities and 20% are left handed, and 39% admit to picking their noses and eating when nobody is looking that does not add up to 179%

The actual number of working poor who usually work full time who are living below the poverty level and who have had low wages as a contributing cause to this represent 1.55 percent of the general workforce according to numbers from the census bureau and BLS in 2017.

Realize that that number does not say that low wages are the only reason. The vast majority of that group are also going to be suffering from other issues, labor market issues, and personal issues.

This thing you are worried about is really not a thing at all. 188

[Kearsen1]

Originally Posted by steronz

I'm not talking about forcing anyone to do anything. Conservatives believe in helping other people, right? Isn't that out of a sense of responsibility?

Not forcing? What do you think expectation is?

Sure, its responsibility, but it isn't personal responsibility. 189

[Shodan]

Originally Posted by steronz

I'm not talking about forcing anyone to do anything.

You are if you are talking about government programs. Paying taxes is not optional.

My question is, isn't "personal responsibility" if used in this scenario and in this manner just a code word for "I don't want to deal with the problems my racist grandparents helped create and I have clearly benefited from?"

No, it's not.

Personal responsibility is an easy case to make. Most people understand that, if I do something, I am responsible for the consequences. I do something wrong or stupid, I bear the harm and must make it right. I do something right or smart, I get the benefits. That's the general rule, and most people understand that.

But "you didn't do anything wrong, but you are responsible for fixing it" is not something that can be assumed. You have to actually make the case.

OK, there are poor people over there in another town. I didn't make them poor, but I am supposed to make them not-poor. Asking what the poor people are going to do is not avoiding personal responsibility.

Maybe there is something I can do to help. But that doesn't end all discussion, because personal responsibility is something I value as a conservative, and therefore I want to know if everyone else is valuing it as well.

Regards,
Shodan 190

[steronz]

Originally Posted by Scylla

Of course. Why are you appealing to or suggesting hypocrisy by directing your argument against that doesn’t apply to the actual situation?

I'm not accusing anyone of hypocrisy at all.

Originally Posted by Scylla

No, it shouldn’t. I can say that I have responsibilities to my friend, country, school district, Etc. These are not personal responsibility. Doesn’t mean that they are not important, or that I can ignore them.

We agree on this, re-read what I wrote.

Originally Posted by Scylla

It seems to what you are actually saying is that conservatives say “That’s not my mess, I’m not cleaning it up,” or “clean up your own mess.”

Sort of.

Originally Posted by Scylla

You do know that Republicans tend to give more to charity, don’t you? I don’t think what you are saying holds true.

Charity is only one part of this. Also, where charitable contributions go matters, which is also sort of my point.

Originally Posted by Scylla

What it seems to me that you are trying to do is say: “something bad happened here 50-100 years ago, so I want to force this group of people who had nothing to do with it to give some stuff to this other bunch of people that had nothing to do with it.” Somehow you are trying to tie this in to Personal responsibility so you can paint conservatives as hypocrites or whatever.

The fact is that I think redistribution are generally bad and unworkable and undesirable on so many levels as to be dismissible. It’s easy to be generous with somebody else’s stuff.

No, no no no no. I'm not talking about forcing anyone to do anything, and I'm not talking about hypocrisy, and I'm not talking about being generous with somebody else's stuff.

Let me put it this way. When Mitt Romney said, "I'll never convince [the 47%] to take personal responsibility and care for their lives," was he

a) making a nuanced argument about whether aid to communities in need should be compulsory or voluntary, or
b) making a value judgement about which Americans deserve help at all?

Do you think statements like that about people being unable to take personal responsibility and care for their lives are likely to increase, or decrease, voluntary charitable aid from those who agree with that message? 191

[steronz]

Originally Posted by Kearsen1

Not forcing? What do you think expectation is?

Voluntary service.

Originally Posted by Kearsen1

Sure, its responsibility, but it isn't personal responsibility.

I agree 100%. You'll notice my thread title include the phrase "avoiding responsibility," not "avoiding personal responsibility." 192

[steronz]

Originally Posted by Shodan

You are if you are talking about government programs. Paying taxes is not optional.

I'm not talking about government programs. Thanks for the civics lesson, though.

Originally Posted by Shodan

But "you didn't do anything wrong, but you are responsible for fixing it" is not something that can be assumed. You have to actually make the case.

There's all kinds of charity that people don't bother making cases for, right? Someone at your church has hit hard times and needs a new washer and dryer so they send around a collection basket, happens all the time. Do you feel a personal responsibility to replace their broken washer and dryer? Of course not. Do you feel a general responsibility to help those in your church community when they fall on hard times? Most people would say yes. And people do that without putting the recipient through the ringer about whether or not they've exhibited an appropriate degree of personal responsibility, or whether charity in this case will breed dependence. It's a much simpler equation. 193

[Scylla]

Originally Posted by steronz

I'm not accusing anyone of hypocrisy at all.

Ok

Let me put it this way. When Mitt Romney said, "I'll never convince [the 47%] to take personal responsibility and care for their lives," was he

a) making a nuanced argument about whether aid to communities in need should be compulsory or voluntary, or
b) making a value judgement about which Americans deserve help at all?

Do you think statements like that about people being unable to take personal responsibility and care for their lives are likely to increase, or decrease, voluntary charitable aid from those who agree with that message?

I think Romney was saying a third thing:

C. When people are dissatisfied, unhappy and circumstances are not what they want them to be, they are likely to blame anything and anyone but themselves, and this is bad.

And I agree with that. Life is what you make of it.

I don’t feel like that because I want people to admit they are inferior pieces of shit, or fuckups or they made their own bad and have to lie on it.

I feel like that because people learn from fucking up, and if you don’t realize that you fucked up you can’t learn and you’ve wasted the experience and you are probably going to fuck up again.

Also, because taking personal responsibility is empowering. Perhaps you are in a situation where 98% of it isn’t your fault or there was nothing you could do about it. That leaves you 2% to work with. Taking personal responsibility let’s you identify the things that you can work on to change your circumstances. If you don’t, your stuck. 194

[steronz]

Originally Posted by Scylla

I think Romney was saying a third thing:

C. When people are dissatisfied, unhappy and circumstances are not what they want them to be, they are likely to blame anything and anyone but themselves, and this is bad.

And I agree with that. Life is what you make of it.

Do you think Mitt Romney wants to help those people? 195

[Kearsen1]

Originally Posted by steronz

Voluntary service.



I agree 100%. You'll notice my thread title include the phrase "avoiding responsibility," not "avoiding personal responsibility."

Which is all fine and good but irrelevant in this thread since we are talking about conservatives holding 'personal responsibility' in high esteem. 196

[Kearsen1]

Originally Posted by steronz

Do you think Mitt Romney wants to help those people?

Relevance when talking about personal responsibility? 197

[Scylla]

Originally Posted by steronz

Do you think Mitt Romney wants to help those people?

Oh, God, really? 198

[steronz]

Originally Posted by Kearsen1

Which is all fine and good but irrelevant in this thread since we are talking about conservatives holding 'personal responsibility' in high esteem.

It's my frickin' thread, if it was irrelevant I wouldn't have taken care to phrase it that way.

Originally Posted by Kearsen1

Relevance when talking about personal responsibility?

I pretty much laid it out in the OP. I don't think Mitt Romney feels any responsibility (note I said responsibility, not personal responsibility) for helping those people because they refuse, in his mind, to take personal responsibility for themselves. It's a value judgement of their character that he's using to avoid feeling responsible for them as Americans. And that's the way, I'm arguing, that conservatives tend to use the phrase "personal responsibility." Not as a value they personally hold, even though I don't disagree that they do, but as something that other Americans lack. 199

[Shodan]

Originally Posted by steronz

I'm not talking about government programs.

Then why do you keep bringing up Mitt Romney, and what he said about taxes?

There's all kinds of charity that people don't bother making cases for, right?

No.

And people do that without putting the recipient through the ringer about whether or not they've exhibited an appropriate degree of personal responsibility, or whether charity in this case will breed dependence.

Who said anything about putting people thru the wringer? Asking people what they can do to solve their own problems is not putting people thru the wringer.

It is assuming that other people are responsible for their own lives more than I am. Sometimes, sure, they are helpless victims. But I am not going to assume that.

"Your great-grandfather oppressed my great-grandfather, and that's why I'm poor. Gimme money."

"What are you going to do with the money?"

"Stop putting me thru the wringer!"



Regards,
Shodan 200