Quote :

"You say you don't think less of these people, but then you chose your deadbeat relative as a representation. Is everyone on welfare a deadbeat? What about the guy with no legs, the guy with an IQ of 65, the lady with 3 kids whose husband left them, the 70 year old grandma who can't get a job?"

If I give those people money for food and they don't spend it on food, then it's the same issue. I don't care whether you're a deadbeat or disabled or retired, once I've given you the money earmarked for an item I've already made the choice to give you the money. The issue here isn't means testing or whether you deserve the money or not, but whether you're spending it on the things the money is intended to be spent on.

Quote :

"Yes, food stamps are meant for food. But is it a huge deal if they choose to spend some of it on sweets?"

I suppose it largely depends doesn't it? After all, chances are we're now subsidising their health care too, and if you're poor, you have a much higher risk for diabetes. At what point to the tax payers get to say "look, since we're paying for all of this, you need to not do things that are going to cost us more money"

Quote :

"Unfortunately, that's not always how it works. Welfare is meant to give poor people a decent standard of living. To me, that includes a little bit of "luxury"."

And this is where we differ. Welfare isn't about providing a decent standard or living, it's about providing a helping hand until such time as you are better able to support yourself.

6/10/2014 10:08:57 AM

Quote :

"Welfare should be a stop-gap to get people back on their feet. Not provide a standard of living. Standard of living to me implies something long term."

Quote :

"And this is where we differ. Welfare isn't about providing a decent standard or living, it's about providing a helping hand until such time as you are better able to support yourself."

No, that is a subset of welfare. Some people require long term or permanent assistance. And those people should be afforded a decent standard of living. That includes a little bit of purchasing freedom.

We're not talking about your money here, btw. It's the state's money. You just get a very, very small say in how it's spent.

[Edited on June 10, 2014 at 10:26 AM. Reason : .]

6/10/2014 10:26:06 AM

Quote :

"Welfare and "standard of living" should never be included in the same sentence, and it doesn't surprise me that you think this way."

Just plain wrong. Not even bothering to attempt for correctness.

There is no such thing as a minimum cost of living. We set what that level is. How in the holy hell do you think charity organizations could ever advertise to take care of a starving child in Africa for $1 per day?

Everything between that dollar per day and what we have is luxury. Your body needs calories or it will stop functioning. It is my prediction that, in the near future, we will refine petrochemicals to make ultra-cheap food too. So that dollar per day isn't a price floor either.

You don't put a fundamental physical price on the minimum needed to stay alive. Standard of living is about humanity. It has always been about humanity. Welfare exists to give them a minimum level of humanity. Your logic is a diabolical kind of people farming. Your political thinking is that of a James Bond villain.

Quote :

"No, that is a subset of welfare. Some people require long term or permanent assistance. And those people should be afforded a decent standard of living. That includes a little bit of purchasing freedom."

Although, this isn't what we have. The number of people on these assistance programs is a significant fraction of the entire nation. Only a niche minority needs perpetual assistance due to fundamental reasons.

The rest of them, we put into perpetual poverty.

6/10/2014 10:51:49 AM

Quote :

"Only a niche minority needs perpetual assistance due to fundamental reasons."

True, I was just trying to get the point across. This applies to any welfare situation. People on unemployment shouldn't be strapped to a library computer with a Soylent IV.

[Edited on June 10, 2014 at 11:29 AM. Reason : .]

6/10/2014 11:25:46 AM

Quote :

"That includes a little bit of purchasing freedom."

As soon as you start earning your own money, you can have purchasing freedom. Until then, fuck off. It only makes sense that the one giving the money should have a say in how it is spent.

6/10/2014 11:11:18 PM

Quote :

"A few years ago I started asking why our gov't doesn't offer to pay high risk females/males for hysterectomies/vasectomies. Why can't the gov't offer convicted prostitutes, drug dealers, habitual felons, and dead beat parents a lump sum of tax-free cash to snip/clip???"

That's been brought up before. It's discussed in this book: http://www.amazon.com/What-Money-Cant-Buy-Markets/dp/0374203032

In general he doesn't think you can solve social ills with markets and thinks there's something morally repugnant about it, which is why you got the reactions you did.

6/10/2014 11:39:08 PM

Quote :

"A few years ago I started asking why our gov't doesn't offer to pay high risk females/males for hysterectomies/vasectomies. Why can't the gov't offer convicted prostitutes, drug dealers, habitual felons, and dead beat parents a lump sum of tax-free cash to snip/clip???"

I don't know about every state, but in NC Medicaid Family Planning is relatively easy to get. It's pretty much the only medicaid services that non-disabled adults with no children can get. http://www.ncdhhs.gov/dma/services/FPW-Fact_Sheet_042914.pdf

Covers STD testing and voluntary sterilization. Also some other testing and birth control for women.

People eligible are "Women ages 19 through 55 and men ages 19 through 60 whose income is at or below 185% of the federal poverty level"

6/11/2014 1:09:11 AM

Quote :

"We're not talking about your money here, btw. It's the state's money."

WTF? No, WTF, the state's money is our money. The state is us.

Quote :

"Everything between that dollar per day and what we have is luxury. "

Well no, because a dollar per day won't even come close to keeping you alive in America. The costs of living in America vs the fucking Congo aren't remotely comparable.

6/11/2014 8:59:36 AM

Quote :

"WTF? No, WTF, the state's money is our money. The state is us."

Yeah, exactly. The state's money is not your money. It's everyone's money. Meaning that % that comes out of your paycheck is as much Joe Welfare's as it is yours.

6/11/2014 9:10:58 AM

Quote :

""We're not talking about your money here, btw. It's the state's money.""

This is exactly why nobody seems to care about government finances. "Its not our money, its the government. They have plenty."

6/11/2014 9:20:23 AM

If you're a salesman, and you land a million dollar sale at your job, do you get all the money? No, because the company you work for supplied the framework for your success. As such, the money is shared between everyone.

6/11/2014 9:24:47 AM

Quote :

"That's been brought up before. It's discussed in this book: http://www.amazon.com/What-Money-Cant-Buy-Markets/dp/0374203032"

From the book's excerpt:

Quote :

"Without quite realizing it, Sandel argues, we have drifted from having a market economy to being a market society. Is this where we want to be?"

It's a meaningful thesis, but even this wording reflects an unnatural pedestal of markets. It is mistaken to consider the free market. There are only markets, plural. Some problems are solved well with markets. Some problems don't meet the basic requirements to have a healthy market. Technology changes this, and we're sure to commodify more elements of our lives as time marches on. On the reverse end of the spectrum, feudalism was the quintessential anti-market. Waring lords still played a numbers-based game in order to maximize their gain. However, any wealth to their name only fits the definition of "wealth" dubiously. Since there is no reasonable assurance of property rights, wealth was only commensurate to the degree you could protect it.

Neither conservatives or liberals actually endorse the free market. Defense spending is reflective of a social obligation, just like welfare is an obligation domestically. Both forms of spending exist to quell the risk to our sovereignty (and thus, property rights). Foreign war is hardly any more dangerous than revolution, historically, as well as today.

An alternative position is completely possible. Let's say that I want no welfare and no spending on defense. I'm just not concerned about challenges to my property rights. This is a better description of the future than the present, unless the inequality instability is a real thing.

Modern welfare would best be described as reparation for globalization. I'm convinced that it would be totally unnecessary if international trade was totally outlawed.

So far, no conservative ITT has accepted any of my offers for welfare alternatives. Let's see if any have the balls to reply to this one.

6/11/2014 10:15:43 AM

Quote :

"Modern welfare would best be described as reparation for globalization. I'm convinced that it would be totally unnecessary if international trade was totally outlawed."

That is what the programs were sold as in the 90s. But since the poor disproportionately spend their income on traded goods (food, fuel, goods) the best statistics we have suggests the poor gain more from international trade than the rest of us do. As such, while outlawing trade would certainly hurt the measured incomes of the rich more than that of the poor, it is only the poor that will find themselves crushed by the resultant higher prices.

6/12/2014 12:38:16 PM

By that logic, downward pressure on the Consumer Price Index (deflation caused by globalization) should have had a larger effect on spending power of low-wage workers than the stagnation of their wages. The entire "stagnant wages" narrative is (usually) a graph of compensation corrected for inflation. I agree that those two factors worked in concert, but we know which one "won" a priori.

Of course that doesn't prove that the trend would work the same in reverse. There are lots of problems with that. The consequences of reversing productivity growth are beyond my wildest imagination. Booming economic times can reduce inequality, but I generally hold that they do the reverse, as more recent economic cycles have shown.

6/13/2014 12:04:21 PM

Not true, as the CPI basket disproportionately includes services and quality improved goods the poor never would afford. A couple attempts have been made to recalculate the CPI basked for the poor and doing so in concert with other corrections wiped out any compensation stagnation. It was also recalculated for the rich and what they buy, but of course inequality still increased dramatically over recent history.

[Edited on June 14, 2014 at 7:44 AM. Reason : mnb]

6/14/2014 7:40:08 AM

Quote :

"A couple attempts have been made to recalculate the CPI basked for the poor and doing so in concert with other corrections wiped out any compensation stagnation."

Interesting, I would like to find this. If true, it would likely show globalization has been good for the poor in developed nations. There are other conflating factors, but I generally look to globalization to explain these trends. It's certainly the elephant in the room.

I can see it for heavily commodified consumer products, many of which have maintained the same nominal price for decades. But on the other hand, shelter, health care, and gas have stubbornly inflexible demand curves and have been inflation leaders.

6/14/2014 4:34:35 PM

It is quite telling the three products you mention. For the poorest among us tend to share subsidized shelter, receive Medicaid for healthcare, and disproportionately ride public transit.

6/14/2014 10:05:49 PM

Look at all those bleeding-heart hippies on Tumblr.

It's like they have no concept of the value of a dollar.

6/16/2014 6:17:28 AM

Bad people exist which look for excuses to be mean to others. That they chose that day to pick on someone because their family is on welfare is not shocking. Had they not been on welfare, they would have picked on them for something, anything, else.

If you find it offensive others, even rich people, are on welfare, direct your anger where it belongs: politicians. That is where it belongs. That a third party decided to bestow gifts upon someone is no ground to think anything less of that someone. Although it may be grounds to think less of that third party.

[Edited on June 16, 2014 at 12:53 PM. Reason : er]

6/16/2014 12:51:07 PM

Wake up, wake up, wake up it's the 1st of the month
To get up, get up, get up so cash your checks and get up

6/17/2014 11:13:26 PM

I'm surprised you didn't throw this one out...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzspsovNvII
It's free! Swipe yo EBT!

Still isn't it strange that people from underprivileged backgrounds sing about their life experiences? It's almost like they're human

6/19/2014 3:55:46 PM

http://www.vox.com/2014/6/30/5857252/a-homeless-shelter-wouldnt-let-a-philanthropist-give-its-residents

meh, people from Africa are subhuman anyway.

7/1/2014 2:37:43 AM