Study: More Than Half a Trillion Dollars Spent on Welfare But Poverty Levels Unaffect

I do not want to increase their power by a long shot which is why I am for Ron Paul the only one stqanding against this stuff.

 

Quality jobs with good wages and good benefits can ONLY be given to people with the proper skills and education to sustain them. We can't just go around handing briefcases to uneducated people in poverty and throwing them in cubicles. About the only thing I agree with Rak on is that this is not the way the world works. Welfare handouts rob people of the motivation to seek the proper skills and education necessary to obtain the types of jobs you'd like them to have. Life on the bottom is not easy, the jobs available are certainly not ideal, but it's this exact reason that motivates people to gain the skills needed to lift themselves up off of the bottom. It's basic human nature.

This is what I'm saying: If I can earn $1000 a month sitting at home watching my TV, as opposed to lets say $1200 a month working 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, doing menial labor at a mill... I think it's pretty obvious that I'm going to keep watching my TV (even in light of the slight pay increase). Where as if the free $1,000 a month was not available to me... I'd have much more motivation to take that menial labor job. Can you really not see this?

The job might not be ideal, it might not have great working conditions or benefits, but it gets my foot in the door. It gives me work experience. I might learn the business over the years and get promoted to a manager, or the strenuous nature of the job might spur me on to begin putting money aside to start my own mill, or to go to school to gain the education of securing a better paying job doing something else. By attempting to make poverty more "comfortable", we're cutting this process off at the roots.

The above model doesn't even take into account the effort required to seek out and obtain that crappy mill job, and just assumes that it's somehow magically offered to me while I'm getting paid to watch TV. This detriment to motivation is really an irrefutable effect of welfare... There is an overwhelming amount of evidence to support it. I mean, for christ sakes, we have a first hand, primary source testifying to this fact on this very forum!

 

Not exactly how it works lol. While it's true that employers will naturally try to pay employees as little as possible, firms compete for labor the same way they compete for customers. If my business is more efficient, and I'm able to offer a slightly higher wage than my competitor down the street, which business do you think is going to attract the more skilled workers? Basically, you should look at wages as the same way you look at product prices. Because what is a "wage" other than the price of someones labor? Wages naturally rise as the means of production improves, the same way that prices naturally fall because of the same thing. If what you said was true, every employee would earn minimum wage (that being the bare minimum legally allowed to be paid).

In fact, it's ONLY through the above process that wages can rise, and be sustainable. If a worker is paid more than he or she is able to produce (via legal means or however), than the end result is simply unemployment.

 

Rak

Ok so from what I can tell your argument seems to be (and please correct me if I’m wrong) – the only jobs available are paying two or three times below a living wage and have little prospect of improving peoples lives in either the short or long term?

The reason why this has come about is because of ‘free market’ neoliberal thinking and you fear that the situation is going to get worse?

That the only way for some people to survive is for them to seek assistance?

 

Indie…indie…indie

Again you repeat you do not address.

Here is something I posted earlier

When the US was doing well economically and there was a huge rise in the number of the middle class was in the period from the end of WWII to the rise of neoliberal ideas. During those periods the top tax rate was much higher (94% in 1945) and the national debt was reduced from the war time high of 117% of GDP to a reasonable 32.5% in 81.

But in the thirty odd years of neoliberal ideas there was a huge increase in the wealth of a few while the real term incomes of those below have either stagnated or fallen. While the policies pursued have also caused a ballooning of the national debt and brought about a social and political system where wealth have great (and in many peoples opinion too much) power and influence.

The problem I see with right wing libertarian ideas like yours is that it would most likely increase the power and influence of wealth while making life worse for most people in society through the implementation of even great neoliberal policies.

Here is something I posted even earlier

After WWII the US’s national debt was up to around 117% of GDP it was brought down in just 36 years less than one generation (by 1981 it was down to 32.5%) until successive right wing and neo-liberal policies (tax cuts and anti-communist military spending) from the 1980 onward increased it cumulating in the profligate spending and tax cuts of the Bush Admin. At the same time the free market ideology (deregulation, hollowing out of manufacturing and a belief that the ‘new’ markets were safe) set up the financial sector for a fall and has caused the debt to rise to around 80-90% of GDP.

The problem isn’t ‘government’ the problem is a right wing, wealth supported, neo-liberal, free market ideology that hijacked the system.

Try - The Decline and Fall of the America Empire: Part One 1945-
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/s...?t=435209&f=36

Fall in top rate tax
1945 - 94%
1970 – 70%
1982 - 50%
1990 - 28%
2010 – 33%


Rise in top levels of pay
In the 1950’s CEO pay was 25-50 times that of an average worker that has risen to 300-500 times by 2007.
A bigger gap than any other developed nation.

Trade deficit
1960 – Trade surplus of 3.5 billion
2008 – Trade deficit of 690 billion
(The last time the US posted a trade surplus was in 1975)

Decline in manufacturing
1965 - Manufacturing accounted for 53% of the US’s economy.
2004 – It accounted for 9%
The Economist (10/1/2005) stated: “For the first time since the industrial revolution, fewer than 10% of American workers are now employed in manufacturing.”

OH hell is it impossible for you to remember posts that don’t totally agree with your views? We have been through this hundreds of times.

Yours is an ideology it dictates your thoughts on ‘government’.
Your theories don’t hold up to scrutiny very well as any move toward your model would become corrupted to the interests of wealth.
You don’t seem to care that your model doesn’t hold up and therefore you would seem to want a system in which wealth would have control at all levels.

 

Yomama

Right wing libertarian ideas give more power and influence to wealth, try reading a few posts and try answering the criticisms of it, rather than just seemingly accepting such ideas without question.

 

Wrong

You seem to be shaping up to be another Indie clone that just refuses to address criticisms of the flawed ideas you rhetorically proclaim are the truth and the light.

The problem is it is the same right wing, neoliberal gibberish that has hundreds of criticism outstanding against it that so far no supporter of it has been able to address let alone refute.

Sit at home and do nothing?

What do you define as ‘comfortable’?

So you are saying you are the kind of person that wouldn’t work if you were offered a job with a living wage and with the prospects of improving you life?

On wages

Try reading - Also read - Kicking global wealth out of the driving seat.
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=353922

 

No.. I'm saying if I was an uneducated, unskilled person (the variety who receives welfare), I would be more apt to sit at home collecting a free check, than I would be to work 8 hours a day for the same, or even greater wage. Look at unemployment benefits, they have the exact same effect. As this study shows.. I'll read your link if you read mine.

 

Okay Bal, below is the tax rates for 1945.

$0 - $2,000 23%
$2,000 - $4,000 25%
$4,000 - $6,000 29%
$6,000 - $8,000 33%
$8,000 - $10,000 37%
$10,000 - $12,000 41%
$12,000 - $14,000 46%
$14,000 - $16,000 50%
$16,000 - $18,000 53%
$18,000 - $20,000 56%
$20,000 - $22,000 59%
$22,000 - $26,000 62%
$26,000 - $32,000 65%
$32,000 - $38,000 68%
$38,000 - $44,000 72%
$44,000 - $50,000 75%
$50,000 - $60,000 78%
$60,000 - $70,000 81%
$70,000 - $80,000 84%
$80,000 - $90,000 87%
$90,000 - $100,000 90%
$100,000 - $150,000 92%
$150,000 - $200,000 93%
$200,000 - and over 94%

How many people paid taxes and how many dollars were collected at each tax rate?
And if you were running a large corporation and going to give some of your employees a $10 a week raise, ($520 a year), executives who were earning over $200,000 a year would likely be given a minimum of $9,000 increase resulting in a $540 after tax increase.

 

It costs a lot of money to work a job. Daycare, car payment, car insurance, maintanance, gas, clothing, lunch, supplies, tools, health insurance. How much of that $1200. paycheck is left over to pay rent, utilities, food, kids needs?
On paper it looks like it would be against the persons best interest to work the minumum wage job. On top of that many people on govt. assistance have collection agancies, student loans and the IRS waiting to garnish their paychecks when they do get a job.
Does the parent, who stays home collecting benefits while raising children, have any value? Or ae they a liability. What is the stay at home parents value in monetary terms?

 

Balbus,

Between your accusing others of failing to address your "criticisms" and your posting of the same old "power to wealth" rhetoric, could you go back to posts #335 and #340 just to answer a couple of questions asked of you and to perhaps address a few criticisms of your ideas?

And, how about addressing the effects of the entire scope of the "neoliberal" ideas -- which include a multitude of "assistance" programs -- rather than just those you consider part of the "military-industrial machine".

 

In most cases that is the case. Some people can get excellent jobs through luck, good looks or connections within or outside of the family, but few are that lucky.

My point may seem to be nonsensical, but then the world is not a logical place and has never had good labour policies.


Much of the jobs you get referred to, unless your lucky, are silly provisions-only jobs where you have to sell electronical divices or insurances to old grannies personally or over the phone or work in factories without a decent contract where they only pay you if they want or pretend like your work was so terrible they cannot keep you, as a way to justify not paying you at all.

The more liberal the economy will get the more employers will find ways to exploit workers, which will make fewer people willing to work in the first place.

 

Wrong

Ok its not a ‘study’ it is an editorial from the web edition of the right wing Investor’s Business Daily that in a previous editorial claimed that "People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the UK, where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless."
Problem is that Hawking’s is British and is very much alive and has said “"I wouldn’t be here today if it were not for the NHS, I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived.".

As another paper said the Investor’s Business Daily is not that far above Rush Limbaugh in its views.

Oh and the owner of these rather biased publications is William O’Neil whose great insight on the world lead him to the belief that an Iraq conflict would probably only last no more than six weeks.

In other word this organisation seems more interested in pushing is ideological viewpoint than it is in accuracy or cool analysis.

I think I can take what they say with a heavy dose of salt. I mean it is a right wing publication, pushing a biased right wing opinion, using right wing sources and been presented here by a right winger.

Basically this is the same wealth based lobbying that I’ve warned about many times.

 

Wrong

Sorry I’m confused, you would not take a job that offered a living wage and with the prospects of improving your lifeif you were uneducated and unskilled but you would because you are educated and skilled?

So its not human nature as you claimed earlier it’s a matter of education and training, so the solution to it is education and training as I’ve argued for many times.

Also if you are educated and skilled how do you know how you would react if you were uneducated and unskilled.

 

Education IS available. Do you suggest we force education on to those who don't want it?

 

letlovin

Why don’t they want it?

 

Fuck if I know Balbus. But there is a variety of different grants available to low income families to send them to school. When I was going to school, many of my classmates tuition was being picked up by the federal government.

Transportation, and child care might be issues. But I think many could work around it if they had to.

 

You're mincing words, and if such a simple concept has rendered you confused, I truly do pity you. I'd be less likely, in any situation, to "take" any job that requires working to support myself, if I can receive anything close to the same compensation for not working at all. But you do bring up a good point. I'm not on welfare, and never have been. It's impossible for me to know how I would act in such situation, and whether or not I'd be able to dredge up the motivation to do the work needed to improve my lot (in the face of the incentives being given to do the exact opposite) . Some people are, many people aren't.

Any time you subsidize something, you get more of it. This is not an issue of left vs right, conservative vs liberal, it's a simple economic fact. By subsidizing unemployment, unfit mothers, hunger, the disabled, etc... we've done nothing but gotten more of those things. Do you deny this?

It's not an issue of whether or not people "want" a better education or skills. It's whether or not they're willing to put in the work and effort to obtain it. The government has already tried exactly what you're proposing with their student loan program, making higher education "available" to all who want it. However, all we've seen is a drastic increase in drop out rates, inflated tuition prices, and a decrease in the value that employers give to college level degrees.

 

Personally I like living low on the food chain. But I do have skills that pay large amounts of money. I have been known to work 3 month and take off for 9 and live low and slow. I know a lot of people who are like this.

Yea if I worked everyday 8 hrs a day at my rate of pay for my skill I could make a lot of money. But it is difficult for me to want to be out there doing battle everyday. I love people but I am so different I think different and it is hard for me to blend in with most people and not get stressed because I cannot fit in. I think many poor people have difficulty living up to the standards of others not because they are stupid and could not do great things but because mediocrity and jealousy is so prevalent and competition so stiff some people just don't have the heart for it. I don't have the heart to be out in the dog eat dog world of lies and back stabbing. I don't like working my ass off and putting up with mounds of BS and the more money you make the more BS there is.

But now, I do know that life is like a shit sandwich the more bread you have the less shit you have to eat.

So either way it is bad for some people. I wish so bad sometimes that I was normal and could put up wit a bunch of crap. I can stand the crap of my own making better than the crap of others.

 

I read your entire post on the thread you linked me btw. I find it amusing that you'd accuse anything, anyone else links of having a bias, when you're in the habit of mainly linking back to yourself, and recommending books written almost exclusively by socialists.

What I said about wages still remains true. Wages can only rise if output rises. The struggle between employees and employers for wages is an expected and natural part of wages rising. There's nothing "political" about it. It only becomes political when the coercive arm of government is used (by one side or the other) to grant unfair advantages in the struggle. The only possible way American wages could be "too high" to compete with any other country, is because the American government has given a misplaced advantage to the side of it's workers.

Wages actually have much less to do with jobs going overseas than many people think. And only contribute to the problem because of the reasons stated above. We wouldn't have to significantly cut American wages in order to compete at all. Removing laws favoring unions and trade organizations would correct whatever imbalance exists (in wages at least).

For example, the US currently has approximately 10million workers in manufacturing as opposed 80 million in china. Total output in dollars in US manufacturing is about 15 billion, as opposed to 31 billion for China. This means the output per worker ratio between the 2 countries is about 3.9, favoring the US. So the average worker in the United States (equipped with our superior education, technology, etc) is able to produce, and be compensated for, 4 times that of the average Chinese worker. This isn't even taking into account the added costs our government inflicts on businesses through regulations, licensure, limiting work weeks, etc. Given our shorter work week, if you broke it down to output per hour, this number would be much much higher.

All we'd have to do to compete with China, or any other country for jobs is to remove the barriers placed there by the government. Work is voluntary. We should permit people to decide for themselves how many hours they work, in what environments, for what pay, and for whom. These decisions shouldn't be left up to the whims of some far removed bureaucrat, but to individual workers and their individual employees.