I do not deny being Sarahfeena, and I stand by all that I have said. But you did not quote me in post #95. 
Oops! Right you are. Rather a pity, actually, it was a very sensible position.
(Blast and damn, she got away this time! Release the flying monkeys!..)
Indeed. Far to sensible to be any opinion of mine, I’m sure.
No, it wasn’t, and no it doesn’t. War isn’t peace and welfare isn’t “making capitalism work the way it should”. Capitalism isn’t supposed to provide for everyone’s needs. It’s just an economic system. When the government provides a safety net, there’s nothing wrong with calling that welfare-- that’s what it is. That doesn’t make it good or bad, it just describes it.
We have failed to take into account your youth and innocence, John. Those of us wizened by years are aware that “welfare” is a buzz word amongst certain circles, used to connote something that everybody can freely despise without any need to define or examine.
I thinks a bit disingenuous to claim that a term “simply describes” when you know that the term is freighted. “Your sisters a lazy slut!” “What!” “Hey, its just a description…”
Evil Captor’s point was, if nothing more, better stated and more substantial than your snarky dismissal thereof.
This is not one of those circles.
It was factually incorrect. Government assistance to those in need (welfare!) isn’t making capitalism work the way it “should”. The idea that free market advocates believe that capitalism meets everyone needs is nonsense. It doesn’t.
With regard to how to deal with the fact that the rich don’t have much incentive to care about helping the poor, or the fact that their wealth gives them disproportionate influence (I’m not sure which part elucidator wanted remedied, but my answer’s the same in either case): I’m not sure. I wish I knew. I mentioned it not to suggest that I have the answer, but to indicate that I feel the poor minority is more likely to have their needs marginalized than the rich minority (at least in my country, which I now realize isn’t the same as Sam Stone’s country.)
If I’m pressed for a suggestion, one thing that might help (with the second issue) is stricter caps on political donations, but I’m hesitant to advocate for anything that treads on free speech.
Regarding the first issue, I’m idealistic enough to hope that many people would care about the poor out of compassion alone, and that perhaps part of the problem is not enough education about the situation. I mean everyone knows it sucks to be poor, but I’m not sure how informed the average American (myself included) is about how widespread the problem is. My wife is pursuing her master’s degree in social work, and I’ve often been appalled by some of the statistics and specific cases she’s brought home. So I think that one thing that might help would be if every high schooler had to take a class on poverty, like a more elementary version of one of my wife’s classes. Nothing advocating for a specific policy, just “these are some of the causes of poverty, these are some of the results of poverty, these are some of the specific problems impoverished people face, these are statistics about how many Americans are effected, etc.” That way people would at least be sure to have all the facts when voting on these issues (or voting for candidates based on these issues).
You might say: Well, why just a class on poverty? As long as I’m revamping the standard American high school curriculum, I’d say we need a class on international relations, too. If you want to make things more general, maybe make “poverty” a unit within a socioeconomics course and cover international relations within a general current events course. I can tell you that when I was in high school (in the 1990s) these courses weren’t required or – so far as I can recall – even offered. The closest we got was U.S. History and World History, neither of which ever got past World War II.
Somehow we as a society have decided knowing “Columbus sailed in 1492” or “Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin” is more imporant than knowing the current U.S. poverty rate (13%, according towikipedia – I had to look it up) or more importantly what that level of income means in real-world terms.
Of course, the wealthy are probably the most well educated of any economic group, so if my concerns that the rich aren’t strongly motived to help the poor are justified, then lack of education about the issue probably isn’t the reason. So I’m back to “I don’t know” – although I still think it’s important that American students learn about this and other issues that our elected leaders have to deal with.
I’d agree that if being on welfare seen as preferable to supporting yourself from gainful employment alone, then the system is broken. I also agree that wealthy countries should be able to insure that their citizens have minimum standard of living (in fact, I think we have a moral obligation to this effect). But I’d put the minimum a bit higher than merely “not freezing or starving to death.” Of the top of my head, I’d say the government should make sure everyone has the following needs met (by providing for those who can’t afford to provide for themselves):
[ol][li]food: at least the cheapest food that provides them adequate nutrition[/li][li]shelter: A roof over their head, a door that locks, heat, and A/C in some cases (very hot climates, or if they’re susceptible to heat stroke due to age, etc.)[/li][li]clothing: at least the cheapest climate-appropriate attire[/li][li]health care: at least essential health care, and preventative care (e.g. innoculations) for serious illnesses and in cases where it’s more cost effective[/li][li]child care: meaning either one parent should be able to stay home (during the hours the kids aren’t in school) without the family losing unemployment benefits, or enough money to pay a liscenced child-care provider in your area[/li][li]education: up through high school for all minors[/li][li]basic job search needs: such as a mailbox, local phone service, bus fare to travel to an interview across town[/ol][/li]
At least in America (I don’t know about Canada) I don’t think these needs are being universally met (except perhaps education, and even then the quality is greatly lacking in some areas). If someone wants a spacious apartment or house, stylish clothes, cosmetic surgery, or to send their kids to a private school – for that matter, if they want to be able to satisfy more modest desires like owning a car, or owning a television, or even being able to order a pizza-- then that’s their incentive to work hard at finding a job. But if someone is having their heat turned off in December because they can’t pay the bill, or if they are faced with a choice between being kicked off welfare for not getting a job or having their kids taken away because they left them home alone, then that’s taking things too far. (For what it’s worth, I picked those examples because even in my own limited experience I know of Americans to whom that’s happened.)
Theres a joke they used to tell in Tucson, during the drought. Good news, bad news. Bad news, theres nothing left to drink but sewer water. Good news, not enough to go around.
Thats the underlying fault with the whole “get 'em all to work” theme. There isn’t enough to go around. Recession is when your neighbor is out of work, depression is when you are. Market based theories of labor work splendidly for the market, and not so much for the labor.
A market based approach to the value of labor is fundamentally flawed. You have to have your garbage picked up, can you live without another middle management office buffalo?
And what, in the name of Eugene V. Debs, do we do with all the leftover people? And ask yourself this: is grasping greed really less socially destructive than laziness and sloth?
What country do you live in? I thought you lived in the US, but the conditions you describe are not those of the US. We have about as close to full employment as you can get in this country.
Oh, and “A market based approach to the value of labor is fundamentally flawed” is also a statement of political philosophy. I don’t know where you get this idea that you’re not interested in political philosophy. Or is that just something you say in order to dismiss someone else’s argument?
I feel like I should amend my post #109 to mention that so far as I know the welfare system in this country isn’t actually set up to let us say “we will pay for this but not for that” to the degree I suggest. I’d argue that’s part of the problem, since if you give people money they will presumably buy things in the order that they matter to their happiness, which may not correspond to the things I feel like we as a country are most strongly obligated to provide. E.g., we certainly don’t have an obligation to make sure everyone in this country is happy (how would that even be possible?), but I’d say we do have an obligation to make sure everyone can receive proper nourishment. But if someone can buy junk food and have money left for entertainment, or they can buy fruits and veggies but have no money left, a lot of Americans (of all income levels) would go for the junk food. I guess you could say “as long as they have the option to buy healthy food, that’s what’s important”, but if the taxpayers are footing the bill I think they can reasonably demand not to pay for non-essentials. Plus, if the taxpayers are paying for health care, they have added incentive to demand that their money pay for a healthy lifestyle.
So maybe the welfare system needs to be reformed to let the money already be focused more on essentials. But of course, revamping the welfare system to such a degree would have a significant monetary cost as well.
One more thought: the real solution (in as much as a solution exists) may be to get a politician into office with a clear vision for how to improve the situations, and the charisma or persuasiveness to get others on board. A big part of the problem is that a lot of people currently in office seem to focus on only one aspect of the problem to the exclusion of all others: E.g., saying “We need to provide more incentive for people to get off welfare”, and adding a bunch of requirements that people find work within such-and-such timeframe or lose their benefits, but then not worrying about what happens to those who nevertheless fail to find work. If you replace a bunch of people on welfare with a bunch of homeless people who are still just as unemployed, you haven’t really accomplished anything. It’s somewhat akin to the kind of thinking that keeps politicians from raising the poverty line because they don’t want to have anyone say “Poverty increased by X%”, even if no one’s financial situation has actually changed.
To my mind, I’m just expressing myself in terms you relate to. What I really mean is “For a CEO to make 1000 times more than a worker on his factory floor is fucking ridiculous!” I just went to Babelfish and translated it into High Fallutin.
Just a guess: You don’t live in Michigan, do you?
According to this list on cnn.com, there’s 12 states (and the District of Columbia) where at least 1 person out of 20 is unemployed. (Those numbers are for last December, but double checking with a few other sites they look to be pretty typical of any month.)
If I correctly understand how “unemployment rate” is calculated, that means 1 out of 20 people of employment age and actively seeking work. In other words, it doesn’t include children, or retired people, or stay at home moms, or college kids who are still fully supported by their parents. (In contrast, college kids who have a job would be counted.)
The fact that so many states have one in twenty or more unemployed out of those who could reasonably be called “job seekers” strikes me as rather surprisingly poor. The national unemployment rate of about 4 and a half percent also seems to compare unfavorably with many other countries, including Ireland, China, the UK, Denmark, Norway, Mexico, Cuba, Bangladesh, etc. In fairness, the wikipedia article cautions that the numbers are “not directly comparable” (without specifying why), but still, the fact that America ranks 56th, behind both many developed, capitalist nations and even a number of third world countries, can’t possibly be a good thing.
I guess I just don’t see much evidence that we’re “as close to full employment as you can get.”
Trouble is, tim, you start talking employment statistics and you enter a statistical blizzard, like a snowmaking machine set to hurricane level and powered by agenda. You’re probably gonna hear about how your statistics are naive and simplistic and don’t take into account the paradigm of entreprenuership, and stuff.
You’re in for a head-patting.
The poor in the United States earm about twice the world average income. A minimum wage earner in the United States earns 50% more than the world average income, and about 15 times the average income in the third world. The poor in America also have many subsidies available to them and medical coverage through Medicaid. They also get free education for their children, access to cheap transportation, often subsidized housing, and all sort of assistance for increased training or to find a job, access to public libraries and the internet. Almost all poor households have at least one television, a microwave oven, and most of them own at least one vehicle.
I’ve been poor. Very poor, by Canadian standards. And it wasn’t all that bad. Certainly not by the standards of the poor in just about any other country on the planet.
The unemployment rate at Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota is 83%.
Four percent of the residents are without shelter. Temperatures can reach forty below during the winter. Wind chills make that even more difficult. Some communities don’t have potable water.
In some homes there isn’t room for everyone to sleep and so some of the family will sleep in the car.
“It’s good to be greedy.”
Citatation please. and from an authoritative source.
Would you please provive an authoritative citation for this?
Good. Let’s do better.
Nope. I live in CA where jobs are plentiful. That is not an accident (I wasn’t born here).
Nor do I live on Pine Ridge reservation. The reservations were set up as welfare states, and they are a shining example of how well that works.