I have a question for some of the conservatives in this thread. Do you think the present environment is doing a good job of capitalizing on human potential? Do you the costs we pay as a society (underutilized and wasted talent) when people live so close to the edge is outweighed by the positives of having an efficient marketplace?
I doubt it; conservatives regard the poor as worthless scum. They aren’t likely to admit that any human potential is being wasted, because admitting that it’s being wasted mean admitting to the imperfection of the Holy Free Market.
Oh, take me back to the good old days on the manor. Problem is there just aren’t enough rich folks to go around.
No need to stop there. My first summer job away from home (second actually) in 1958 was at a little beach restaurant on Cape Cod. The owner broke me in as a fry cook at 55c/hr, close to 12 hrs/day, 6 days/wk, no car, walked or hitched 3 mi to my room in town, can’t remember now maybe $10-15/week. I was stylin’. He shared with me an idea he had for eliminating the waitstaff that involved conveyor belts from the kitchen to the tables.
I did lunch alone (busy, great lobster rolls) and was second cook behind him at dinner which was a madhouse. I’d been there maybe 2 weeks and as he told me, things finally came together and dinner went smoothly after that.
After I’d been there six weeks and, emboldened by a visit from my parents, I asked for a raise. He wouldn’t consider it and I went back to NY. I suppose he another high school asshole like myself in the wings. Now that I think about it, it was probably the dishwasher on his way up.
I think you posted the wrong link. Nothing about an economic turn around.
I meant Downturn:smack:
(Edited for length).
You are, to a large extent, comparing apples to oranges. You said the vast majority of Americans lived below middle-class. Then your figures started covering households. The difficulty with this is that number of Americans vs. number of American households is skewed because of a common family structure of the poor - the single mother.
A single mother and her one or two children is a household. Single mothers (as in your case) are disproportionately poor. The typical household in the US of two parents and their 2.3 children is not poor, commonly, but are counted once, just like the single mom.
Suppose, for instance, you have ten households - six single mothers, each with one child and earning $25K, and four married households with two children each, earning $45K. The majority of households are earning less than $45k, but the majority of people are living in families earning $45K. IFSWIM.
Regards,
Shodan
I have been tossing around this question for the last few weeks, and been trying to phrase it as a GD question without sounding like a beast.
I live in an area that is just outside of a major metropolitan area, and my county includes seriously impoverished areas like Gary, Hammond and East Chicago. I read the daily paper, and there are two stories coming out of these areas:
1 - They need more tax money from somewhere, for something
2 - Stories about political corruption, theft, rape, violence and murder
So, I guess I just don’t see all that much “wasted talent” coming out of those areas, and I’m a little sick of the automatic handout. I have no problem with safety net programs, to make sure everyone has access to food and shelter. But these areas contribute almost nothing to the tax base, while at the same time demanding (yes, not asking, but demanding) Federal and state tax money. This money is supposed to help these cities get on their feet, but that’s been the story for decades, and nothing has changed.
Simply put, I’m sick of trying to give a leg up to people who are unwilling to even stand on their own. These areas breed violence and stupidity, and nothing has changed in the 30+ years I been alive. Things have only gotten worse.
No one has in this thread has really answered what we can do for “these people”, and I suspect because everyone is out of ideas and tired of what appears to be feeding the beast. Maybe it’s time for a policy of “here’s opportunity, now you do the rest” No responses to whining about transportation (you mean the bus doesn’t stop directly at my doorstep, whine, whine), no action on affordable housing above a certain level (what, no pool/three bedrooms/balcony), no restructuring of county, state and Federal programs designed for all citizens to target these areas (we have large sections of rural areas in Indiana that need job training, etc, but that money is going to urban areas.), etc.
I know that we should want to do everything we can for those in trouble. But, when you have a kid, it’s does them no good to do all their work for them. Most of the time, the best lesson is for them to fail, and then give them the opportunity to try again.
Just so long as you don’t complain when “those people” decide to bash your head in for the finski you’re carrying on your person because they wanted to buy a magazine or otherwise they have nothing better to do with their day and decide to maim you, you’re cool in my book.
What was Gary like when its industrial base was thriving? There’s nothing native about a “bad element” as much as you’d like to believe.
I think you misunderstand me.
I do not believe that Gary or anywhere else is rooted in violence; it’s just that, in my area, it’s the wrong side of the tracks. It has nothing to do with race, culture or geographic location.
“These people” came from another poster - I was just using it as a shorthand reference to that post and my reply from earlier in the thread.
So, now that I’ve hopefully changed your notion that I am some elitist jerk, what’s your actual thought on how to fix some of these problems? Or do you actually think that all they are capable of is theft and violence?
You have to realize that financial responsibility, like intelligence, is to some degree innate and trying to generalize from your atypical example is like basing a society on the assumption that everyone can go to Harvard.
Trying to formulate public policy based on the experiences of you and your poor friends who managed to bootstrap their way out of poverty is just as “ivory tower” as any academic’s proposal that is based on their social circle.
I dug ditches with a pick and shovel for an old man on what might be considered a small farm- technically though it was not. This was about 9 years ago in the midwest. I unearthed some huge copper cables and allowed for the installation of a water line. It was like mining- the copper was worth about what it cost to employ me.
Actually, digging ditches paid about 40% more than my regular job, which paid more than minimum wage! 
So…
policy option 1) offer the bare minimum welfare support: this puts incentive on families and individuals to “bootstrap” themselves up the financial ladder. The tradeoff is it leaves some families behind.
policy option 2) offer generoous welfare support: this helps more (all) poor families. The tradeoff is that it creates disincentives for individuals to better themselves (and as a result their contribution to society).
Why is the 2nd option supposedly better? It’s certainly different – but I don’t see how it’s objectively better.
Since there is no magical objective test to identify out the exact individuals who are motivated and don’t need welfare vs those who are innately disadvantaged and do require welfare, you can’t optimize public policy for both.
This is wrong. Liberals regard the poor as worthless scum. Liberals think that the poor wouldn’t amout to anything if it weren’t for the government holding their hand every step of the way. Conservative believe that all people should be treated equally and given the opportunity to succeed. Liberals end up creating a hand-out mentality in poor people, thus insuring that they will always remain poor. Conservatives treat all people like human beings, expecting the best from them, instead of treating the poor like worthless scum that are good for nothing and therefore mut be taken care of by the government.
By slightly redistributing our inequitable wealth in this country you will be able to put more money in the hands of more people which would thus grow the economy.
But that’s a pipedream. I’ll settle for changing our regulatory/legal/social welfare framework which does a bang up job of helping to keep the depressed depressed.
Darn. It’s opposite day and no one told me about it?
Because you’re assuming that being more generous creates disincentives for people to better themselves. Wrong. Of course, you probably think “bettering yourself” means working 2 minimum wage jobs.
No, actually it is quite correct.
Regards,
Shodan
It’s common courtesy to provide a clipping of the point you’re citing, y’know.
The only one who doesn’t seem to understand the Free Market is you (and** Der Trihs**)
Just because something is necessary does not make it valuable or irreplaceable. And that is the point. A coffee shop owner can get nearly anyone on the planet to be a waiter, busboy, dishwasher or cashier. Sure these jobs are necessary to his business. But no individual in those jobs is so important they can’t be replaced. That is why their wages never rise very high. Someone else a little bit more desperate is willing to do it a bit cheaper.
You mentioned salespeople as being more highly paid. Well, in the Free Market you despise so much, no one is preventing someone from going out and becoming a salesperson. So why is this person stuck in their low paying job?
Your mistake is that the Free Market is amoral. It does not guarantee we will all have a high standard of living. All it does is communicate how much value society feels you are worth for your particular job. It ascribes no moral judgement on whether that wage is enough for you to live the lifestyle you choose.
Ultimately the question is why should a working poor person make more money than they are currently making? How should society pay for it? And how much should society pay for (and thus reward) people’s bad decision making?
If the problem could be solved simply by throwing money at it, then we could simply throw money at it.
Which demonstrates how tossing money at the problem doesn’t work. Because eventually you run out of businesses and wealthy people to take money from.
Well, really what will happen is anyone with means or anyone with the potential to bring businesses to areas where “those people” live which would have provided them with jobs and a source of income will shy away from those areas. They will simply decided that those towns are too dangerous and violent and not worth the risk of doing business there. So what you will end up with is “those people” just bashing each other’s heads in.