And for the record, when I say “you” in my second paragraph, I’m not addressing you with the face, I’m referring to the general “you, people who are adamant that tax-funded social programs are bad.”
you in the face: I didn’t forget selling it. However, some of the dealers have committed other crimes, like murder and firearms violations.
I think the War on Drugs, which the government has lost conclusively, has contributed to crime. Making something that is desired by many millions of people illegal only ensures that black-market types will traffic in it. And these black marketeers are not noted for a reluctance to break other laws or use violence.
I find myself drifting more and more towards Libertarianism these days, if only because when times get tight, the kindness I feel towards my fellow man most certainly gets strained.
This being said, tax cuts for the rich are just plain wrong, as is military spending at the expense of the common man, when we have fewer people employed, and more people starving in this country now than at any time in the past 30 years. My experience with having a higher income is that taxes didn’t impact me nearly as much as when I was vastly impoverished; the basics still cost me about the same amount. A quarter of my salary when I made $14,000 a year was a hell of a lot more painful than a third of it when I made $80k a year.
“The law in its infinite Majesty prohibits rich and poor alike from stealing bread & sleeping under bridges”, said Anatole France. This is the saddest and most appropriate thing I can think of. If we required our senators and congressmen to live in government-sponsored housing during their terms, and survive solely on welfare, food stamps, and medicare/medicaid, not only would we cut our expenses, but we’d have much more reasonable, and humane, human outreach services.
No, I don’t like paying taxes. But I like seeing people starve even less. I also think medical care is a basic human need, and should be available to all, regardless of the ability to pay.
The tax cut being implemented won’t really touch any of you or yours, folks, unless you happen to make over a million and a half a year or so. In other words, you’ll pay the same (or likely more) taxes so that the richest of the rich in our country can pay less.
These are the people who contributed the most to Bush’s campaign, and the ones who will benefit from this tax cut. This is also who Bush and Cheney are… multimillionaires. They’re trading their own tax burden for yours, despite the fact that multi-billion dollar corporations have methods of not paying a single cent in taxes, thanks to already existing loopholes (Microsoft and Pepsi are two examples I’ve read about in the past).
Regarding the push-through of the budget, there is a very specific reason that Bush pushed his budget to the house on the fourth day of the war, when the first heavy fighting began. It’s because, in times of peace, none of us would have stood for it. Alas, as Cicero said, “Laws are silent in the time of war.”
So, yes, to respond to the OP, our government is (currently) definitely this evil. Absolutely. Without a doubt.
Unfortunately.
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Living on public assistance is temporary, whereas sterilization is not.
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Could have fooled me.
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So, poverty= child abuse?
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And I think there should be a minimum IQ for posting on this board, but what are you gonna do?
- $5 a month??? * What the hell? Not if I don’t want my child to succumb to malnutrition. Yes, there are ways to save money on your food budget, but there’s no way in HELL to feed three people good nutritional meals on $5 a month. You need fruits and vegetables, after all, and those alone would cost more than $5.
Lissa:
So you think the poor are too good to live on rice and beans with a fried flour-ball side for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day of their lives? I mean, they’d still technically be alive, probably.
No, they aren’t apples and oranges. They are very much related. The world economy itself is growing. There are very few societies that are worse off today than they were a hundred years ago, and most of those that are have more to do with social disruptions caused by colonialism than by the wealthy countries taking more from them.
Wealth may be inequally distributed, I’ll agree there. But even in the US where wealth has been unevenly distributed for a few centuries now, the wealthy may be much wealthier, but the poor are also much wealthier than they were several years ago. Consider that since 1900, the richest quarter of the world’s population has seen its income increase about six-fold. However, the poorest quarter has seen its income increase three-fold. Have the poor benefitted much less than the wealthy? Yes. But they’ve still benefited. (figures from the IMF’s World Economic Outlook).
That may be so, but there are also a lot fewer peasants (proportionally) than there was 400 years ago. And very few people are worse off.
Not really that accurate. Japan, for instance, has relatively few natural resources compared to most other countries in the world, yet they do just fine. Many third world countries have the resources, they just lack the capital to exploit them or the means to export them or they, as you said, are in the hands of the powerful and wealthy few.
More free time than who? People in 1st world nations? Not a chance. I think you may be misinterpreting someone’s conclusion. Compared to early agricultural societies, or medieval/modern peasants, hunter-gatherers certainly did have more free time. In fact, they were also better off nutritionally and generally lived longer than their agricultural counterparts. But not compared to the average person in the US or Europe or Japan.
Hunting-gathering is not easy. They would have had to spend time chipping tools from flint (very time consuming) and fashioning other tools. Making clothing. Finding food. Making shelter, repairing shelters. Tending to the children. Many hunter-gatherer societies also spent time tending wild plant life - clearing out competing foliage, etc. It’s a lot of hard work, and you don’t get weekends off.
However, the reason that agriculture evolved was because hunting-gathering was becoming less productive and agriculture was seen as a more reliable food source. Increasing populations densities, plus hunting big game to extinction particularly in the Americas and Australia/Polynesia.
Cite? With figures?
In that time, the economy has increased 30-fold, from about $311 billion to about $9.5 trillion in real 1996 dollars. Consider that in 1901 J.P. Morgan had a fortune worth $1.4 billion, the largest in the land. In 1996 dollars, that’s about $25.6 billion. That’s about 8.2% of the pie in 1901. In 2002, Bill Gates is the wealthiest person in the United States at $58.7 billion, or about $51 billion in 1996 dollars. Or about .5% of the pie. In order to match Morgan’s piece of the pie, a company would need to have US holdings worth about $905 billion in current dollars ($779 billion in 1996 currency). Not even the largest company in the world, Wal-Mart, has that - their revenues are about $220 billion with assets worth about $83 billion. In fact, to match it, you need to combine the revenues of the top 5 corporations in the world - Wal-Mart, Exxon-Mobil, General Motors, British Pretoleum and Ford Motors (actually, you exceed it by about $20 billion).
Anyway, you have yet to show that the wealthy are taking up a larger chunk of the pie than they were 100 years ago.
Any Moderator,
Could you please remove my first post in thisd thread? My post was meant to be a rhetorical reply to monstro’s statement that some of us should be left in a field to die, but I see clearly where it could very easily be taken incorrectly. Sorry.
Oops, make that $50/month.
No one should be prevented from having kinds b/c they are poor. In fact, I believe many poor people are excellent parents, as you would see if you bothered to read my entire post. However, if you want to use poverty as an excurse to abuse your children, I think society should have some input.
I am not looking for any recognition, as you do not known me and I rarely appear on these boards. I am simply trying to make the point that by being conservative (in the fiscal sense), I have managed to take care of myself just fine, and don’t feel the need to pay for the stupid choices of others. I you want to, feel free. I would even admire you for your choice, if that matters to you (it appears that the approval of others is importan to you). However, don’t force me to participate.
The suggestion that the government sterilize people as a condition to receiving public charity is absolutely barbaric.
Neurotik said:
This site has a chart.
This site also has a chart which seems to be from the New York Times article, but the link isn’t working. (Ignore much of the spewing of the author.)
This one claims economic disparity has grown over time along with the economy:
This is a great chart supplied by the World Bank.: It covers the growing disparity between 1870-1990.
I’m exhausted. As I said before, this is an incredibly complex subject, and I’m no expert. The information is out there if you’re interested-- plenty of books about it (those by Lester Thurow, for example.) Sociology texts sometimes also cover it.
I really don’t think we should take up any more of this thread with zero-sum game and wealth disparity issues. If you want to talk about it further, please start a GD thread. Perhaps some people who are more knowlegeable than I can contribute.
I have not read this entire thread, but this jumps out at me. Are you saying that Switzerland ($31,700 GDP per capita) has more resources than Russia ($8,800 GDP per capita)? Has Switzerland ever had more resources than Russia?
If someone has already made this point, I am sorry.
by The Peyote Coyote:
As long as any vice is illegal, a black market will exist; dismantling the drug black market will not change this. Simply another one will surface to take its place. I’m not saying we shouldn’t terminate the War on Drugs for that reason, because I think we should surrender. But making drugs legal with the intent of cutting down penal system expenditures will not really remedy the situation that drove people in jail in the first place. The teenager in the projects who sells crack for the Nino Browns of the world will not suddenly join the boy scouts and start pleasure reading encyclopedias just because the black market for drugs is gone. Cutting welfare will not be an impetus for positive change, either, IMO.
by culture:
That’s a bit generous, don’t you think? I mean, damn, you might as well buy them a BMW and a time-share in Costa Rica to go with all those marinated filet mignons they’ll be eating courtesy of that exorbitant allowance.
Believe it or not–and I know this is one grizzly concept to get a hold on, so brace yourself–not everyone who is poor is so because of stupid choices. And I know not one child who is responsible for his own poverty. There are probably plenty of hard-working, smart, sensible people reading this thread who are unemployed and struggling to make ends meet right now, and don’t appreciate being looked down upon simply because the economy put them in dire straits. Is it fair to say that their kids deserve to eat wish sandwiches every night, simply because someone else made a “stupid choice”?
This “don’t force me to participate” argument belongs in a crockpot of boar cum. I could easily say that about any government project that I don’t believe in and that doesn’t directly affect me (ummm…like this war?). Shit, I could say that about Bush’s salary. I didn’t vote for him so why is the government extorting money from me to pay him!!! Boo hoo! Watch the tears fall down my pitful face.
Go knock on some wood if you haven’t already.
I didn’t say they would eat well. As a matter of fact, i would not like to eat on a $50/month budget. I am simply making the observation that it can easily be done, and that there is no excuse (with a few exceptions I am sure) for being hungry in America other than 1) You are incompetent 2) you are a child with incompetent parents.
You point of not wanting to participate is, of course, I must admit, perfectly valid. However, based on my experience with the poor (which unfortunately is more than the average american), most would not need public assistantance if they (not all apply to everyone, and none apply to some):
- Paid attention in school and got a HS degree.
- Paid more attention to a job/real life and less to having fun.
- Got rid of the cable, cell phone, caller id, plasma tv, etc.
- Didn’t have kids before establishing themselves in a job.
- Only had kids with people they had a stable long-term relationship with.
- Worried less about having the right car, shoes, electronics and more to long-term finacial stability.
- Dropped the gambling, alcohol and tobacco habits.
I believe that extant social services enable and encourage this behavior as opposed to removing it. Social services should only be supplied if the recipient is willing to change to behavior that led to the problem. This is the disconnect that currently does not exist in social welfare programs. Have kids at age 17, we’ll take care of you, don’t worry. Get caller ID and cable, we’ll pay the grocery bill. This does not do anyone any good.
Social welfare is a necessity, but a personal responsibility requirement must be added or you are wasting your time. I have seen this too much even in my own family.
I think our differences can perhaps be summed up in your “knock on wood” comment. While you do nothing but knock on the furniture and hope nothing bad will happen, I assume bad things are CERTAIN to happen and prepare for the future through savings, insurance, education, family stability and hard work. I think my chances of surving hardship thorugh this method greatly exceed your “knock on wood” and stick your heads in the sand method. Of cource, even extereme preparation this can fail, but it minimized the chances. Most americans do nothing, assume others will bail them out when the bad times come (and they will), and your position encourages this behavior.
One last set of comments.
If you agree that wealth can be created then you must agree that one person’s gain in wealth need not come at the expense of from another person’s. The gain may simply come from the new available wealth that was created. Ergo, the economy is not a zero-sum game.
Fair enough as long as there are no more blanket statements about the economy being a zero-sum arrangement.
Hijack out.
I don’t know about this. For some, this is certainly correct. However, if you lost your job and did not have savings to allow yourself to live for six months without a job, and you were spending discretionary income prior to unemployment on things such as:
- A car that cost more than $12,000
- Cell phone, caller id, call waiting, cable
- Played the lottery or gamble
- Going to the movies
- Timeshare condo
- Cigarettes, alcohol or drugs
- Concerts and CDs
- Vacations to Las Vegas
- A boat/motorcycle/ATV
- Deer lease
- Other crap you don’t need to live
I would argue you were making some poor decisions.
OTOH, and you were working and spending everything you made on non-discretionary necessities and still were not able to save for a rainy day, I would be happy for the government to help you out until you can get back on your feet. Don’t kid yourself, however, as 90% of the “unemployed poor” fall into the first category.
If I give you money after you blew yours on the above, I am paying for it, and I think this is outrageous. I want only to help those who help themselves first. Is this wrong? Why should I subsidize poor choices?
You are correct, children do not cause there own poverty, their parents, however, by and large, do. However, what is wrong with the kid eating a p&j sandwitch b/c there parents mad poor choices. This is how kids learn, by observing to consequences of bad behavior. This is a lesson most parents today do not understand, and they want to shelter kids from consequences. This is a very, very bad idea. Current social welfare programs have this same effect of sheltering people from their poor choices.
by culture:
How many poor people do you know? It seems that you would have to know a lot to allow you to make such a bold pronouncement. Now let’s take my mom. Every day she works with poor people; most of her friends and acquaintances, in fact, rely on some degree of public assistance. She talks with these folks daily and is quite familiar with their lives and circumstances. Her job as a activist is unglamorous, stressful, and unappreciated, and yet she’s been at it for most of my life, doing the work she believes in very passionately.
This woman, who I’m betting knows a lot more poor people than you do (and I may be wrong, but I seriously doubt it), doesn’t believe that incompetence is a usually a requirement for hunger. Sometimes shit really does happen. Sometimes you get laid-off and your apartment burns down to the ground within the same week. Sometimes people get sick, or you get robbed, or unexpected expenses come up that you leave you in debt. Sometimes life is fucked up. A housewife with three kids who suddenly finds herself single may be more competent than our president, but if she can’t find work due to certain circumstances (sick kid, lack of jobs, etc.), it would be cruel to say that if only she were just a little bit more competent then perhaps she could feed her kids.
These kinds of things happen a lot more than you seem to be aware of. A person is struggling along but making just enough to keep their nose out of the water and then BAM! their only form of transportation breaks down, their company decides to downsize a bit, or a relative needs emergency surgery. Maybe it makes you feel superior to think that most people are poor because they rather invest in Tommy Hilfiger instead of a house, but you’re wrong to think that. Go ask people that actually work with the poor.
Okay, whatever, I don’t care about your list. I don’t really care about your personal opinion about the spending habits of other people. When it comes to welfare, how do you discriminate between the slackers and the non-slackers? Is everyone presumed to be a slacker until sufficient evidence is produced that they are not and therefore, deserving of money? What if a welfare recipient does smoke. Should their children be punished because of that sin? Should the children of slackers and non-slackers be differentiated when it comes to aid? How can you justify letting a kid starve because his mother didn’t think a HS diploma was worth the effort?
That’s assuming that there is a discernable behaviorial problem that led to the problem. A great many times it is not that cut and dry. Poor people tend to beget poor people. Can a person who is the product of four generations of poverty really be told “if you only would just be more willing to change yourself, you wouldn’t be in this position.” Laughable.
You make it sound like these people are living in Pleasantville or something. What kind of world are you living in?
culture, you’re frightfully ignorant of the ways of the world. We don’t live in a vacuum, never had and never will. The kid who grows up eating pb & j sandwiches (if that) will have lower odds of becoming a productive member of society than a kid who eats well-balanced meals (you know, vegetables and meat and shit).
Since you seem to see things only in terms of yourself let me break it down so you can really understand: the kid who grows up eating pb & j sandwiches will be the same kid twenty years later who will have little problem picking the lock to your nice, mortage-paid house and pocketing your hard-earned possessions. The kid who grows up eating pb & j will not care how many times you beg for mercy when he sticks that gun in your blubbering face during a car jacking.
The kid who grows up eating pb & j will grow up to hate you and everyone else who thinks the children of stupid adults deserve to be malnourished “for teaching purposes”. It’ll almost serve you right when you find yourself face to face with one of them, with nothing but your dog-eat-dog-world ideologies as defense.
Riiiight. Which is why I’ve spent the last decade of my life busting my ass in veterinary school and have already figured out how I will pay off my student loans in the next five years. Right.
Or Culture, some people may make just enough money to live month to month, and aren’t able to save up money. Not everyone has the luxury of having a two income household with each income enough to support the entire house. Some people work jobs that they love or that are providing them with invaluable experience they’ll need in their careers (such as myself) that don’t pay all that well. Some are putting themselves through school (myself, again) so they don’t end up being in debt later. Some actually do make just enough to pay rent, utilities, gas, food and car payment (of a car that costs less than 12,000 so it should still be acceptable to you I would hope) with very very little left over each month (i’m talking lke, $20 a month, it would take me years to be able to save up enough to survive 6 months without a job). What i’m getting at here, is that it’s not quite as simplistic as you’re making it out to be. Not everyone has disposable income. And goddess forbid anything happens with their employment, or else they’re just morons who blew their wads on Nike’s and are stealing your hard earned money that you pay your taxes with (nevermind that they pay them too. As a matter of fact, I’m about to write a $600 dollar check with money I don’t have to spare for those taxes). I’m the money youdole out for taxes, you don’t even blink an eye at. After all, you could live just fine if you didn’t even work at all for a year, right?
And Guin, to your comment about not being able to choose a charity $1 freakin’ dollar of your paycheck goes to comment. Note, that she said the employees could choosewhere there money went to. So your argument doesn’t hold up.
And to throw another thing out there. If any of you out there who are being robbed blind by all the money grubbing baloney sandwich stealing kids out there are pro-life? You might want to re-think your position on that, because guess what kind of kids are going to need those sandwitches?
Sorry for the choppiness and somewhat inchoerentness of my post. I’ve read this entire thread and got so upset at culture’s moronic and sanctimonious lecturing that I had to post, a little too quickly and without proofreading, as you can see. 
I would like to make a few points to help continue this discuss on a serious basis:
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There are no generalizations that apply to everyone. However, we can make observations that fit a large number or even the the majority of a given population. It is these type of generalizations that I am discussing.
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Social services are a needed part of society. As you with the face noted, it is in everyone interest for all children to grow up to become productive members of society. The real question is how this can be accomplished, not if it is an appropriate goal. I, and I think most others, already agree with this.
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Qualifications: I know poverty first hand, not second hand. I am from SE Oklahoma, and poverty in the US simply does not get any worse than this. Check out the demographics for Haskell County, Oklahoma if you don’t believe me (Stigler in particular). My father actually worked picking cotton in the fields as a child. I grew up in what today would be considered poor (but not dirt poor), although I never considered myself to be poor, I thought we were normal. I worked weekly in a soup kitchen in Somerville, MA for three years. This does not make me an authority on poverty, but it certainly gives me some first-hand knowledge that many others do not have.
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If you think eating p&j for every meal instead of steak is what makes children go bad, we are on such different planets that we might as well stop talking now. I wonder why so many of the Ph.D. engineers I work with grew up in India where they lived a lifestyle where they envied the poor in the US? I also know numerous people in the US that are accomplished despite growing up on lard sandwiches (My father and his bothers for example). Children go bad, for the most part, because bad behavior is modeled to them. Parents have the most influence, but the community is also important. If proper behavior and decision making is modeled for children, most will respond well and grow up to be productive citizens. This will happen irrespective of income.
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Almost all people in the US could save a portion of there income if they desired. If they claim they can’t, I will simply point you to a person who makes 10% less and tell you to live like that person. You may not like it, but you can do it b/c that person does and you can do the same. However, this is simply not done because people are not required to do so.
Obviously. But most do. If you and your spouse both make $14,000/yr, live on $14,000 and save the other half. Other families live on $14,000, why can’t you? Thats what my wife and I did while were both in graduate school at the same time, living in the third most expensive city in the US. When we graduated, we rewarded ourselves by purching the cheapest new car we could find for cash (pontiac grand am).
True, but why should I have to pay for this? If you intentionally make less than you could, that’s your problem, not mine.
I admire this. I would like to provide you with a scholarship to help out. Or would you rather have some welfare handouts? Teach a man to fish, etc. etc.
I have never met anyone with a job who does not have disposable income. While i am sure they exist, they are few and far between. The biggest problem is most people do no know the difference between need and want. If I sat down with you, I guarantee I would save you some money. It is only a matter of desire. I mean, are you saying that no one in the entire city you lives in live in 10% less than you make? Simply emulate that person.
True, I could. But that’s not the point. The point is that most other people could if they wanted to. And I think temporary public assistance is a great idea, if people are required to help themselves in addition to being helped.
My, you must assume I am some type of “conservative”. I am a fiscal conservative (which is opposite of both republicans and democrats), and am clearly a flaming liberal on social issues. I support abortion rights, oppose the war in Iraq, oppose school prayer, support gay rights, support decriminalizing drugs, and would probably pass most of the other social liberal litmus tests you could offer. I simply want a social welfare system that will actually solve problems, not create a permanent social underclass. And that is what we have right now.