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

I'm not sure why there is always mention of the poor not paying taxes as if they're getting away with something. That those who have, pay most of the taxes is the way it should be. Nothing to brag about there. If there were enough jobs,there wouldn't be many poor,there would be tax paying citizens. Typical disdain for those whose hopes and dreams have been destroyed by events over which they had no control or never had a fair chance to begin with.

 

Wrong

Yes I have noticed you don’t seem to like questions I mean you are not replying to that many of them.

So let’s see your reply to ‘Why are they not willing?’ - is that ‘they’ don’t want to but I’d ask why they don’t want to I mean why did you want to and not them?

This is also from the Washington Post - Why student aid is NOT driving up college costs

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...college-costs/2012/05/31/gJQAFvEX5U_blog.html

Can you tell me what views of yours you see as being left wing?

 

Wong

You have a very narrow view of what Political means to me it covers everything of, for or relating to the citizens of ones ‘polis’ (village, town, city, state even world) that means the governance but also the socio-economical even cultural issues.

What I was pointing out was that by implying your views are ‘natural’ (normal) you are implying that views different from your own are unnatural (abnormal). It also implies that your views are not dictated by politics but are based on them being ‘natural’ when in fact they seem all about political ideology.

But the market isn’t ‘natural’ it is a human construct that in many ways needs governance to exist.

To repeat –

Neoliberal/Free Market/ laissez faire theory is based on the idea of supposed ‘free competition’ between all social entities (be they the lowest individual or the wealthiest corporation) were by a process of ‘natural selection’ the ‘fittest’ product or service always achieve ascendency to the ‘evolutionary’ betterment of society.

But the human constructed marketplace is not a ‘natural environment’ and ‘free competition’ is virtually impossible to achieve because of the inequalities within any system (an individual and a wealth corporation are unlikely to be on an equal footing in a competition) so it is likely to stifle fair competition by promoting unfair competition (look at the metaphorical running race above).

Plus there is the problem of positive outcomes, the problem with Neoliberal/Free Market/ laissez faire ideas is that it seems to encourage short-term maximisation of profit this can mean harmful speculation rather than positive investment leading to bubbles and crashes that have a detrimental rather than beneficial effect on society. In other words such thinking is it more likely to harm than benefit society.

 

Wrong

Ok both the public and private can invest in something but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will have an inevitable more good or bad outcome. So just putting money into something does not inevitable mean you will get more of it, you might hope to do so but it’s not inevitable.

 

Wrong

The The broken window parable like all fictions was written to make the point the author wanted it to make its artificial.

Anyway are you sitting comfortably –

Once upon a time….a baker had his shop window broken by accident (Bastiat) or by a ‘hoodlum’ (Hazlitt) and ‘the crowd’ say that the baker shouldn’t be angry because this will make work for the glazier and so help the towns economy. But says the narrator ‘the crowd’ are wrong because if the baker hadn’t had to pay for the window then he would have spent that money in an economically beneficial way anyway.

Well that’s alright as far as it goes it is meant to be a story to explain a theory that covers a whole economy, but it seems rather simplistic rather to clean.

For example it presumes that the baker is going to spend the money, but he might just keep it under his mattress and its also based on the idea that it will be spend it in a way beneficial to that town, but what if he losses in speculation with a travelling gambler?

Now I grew up in small businesses and it’s true that such accidents do occur but that’s exactly why we had insurance (and if such businesses are without insurance I’d say they didn’t have a good businesses plan). Now insurance is a community chest in which you pay in small amounts so you can take large amounts out if such a problem arises, over the lifetime of a policy things even themselves out or the issuer makes a profit. So it’s like paying in during good times so you can pay out in bad times.

So lets say their was an accident that resulted in the bakers business burning down. If he has no insurance it is likely that could finish him. The town looses a good baker, his expertise and that businesses contribution to its economy. But with some type of insurance that doesn’t have to happen. He might have to pay higher premiums for a while but at least he has that livelihood.

Now it seems to me that the Hazlitt argument is that the baker should not pay into such insurance but spend the money on something else and that would be better for him and the wider economy. But that is fine if things are going well but if things go wrong then BANG, it could mean no more bakery and no-body to bake.

Now another story - Once upon a time a baker’s bakery burn to the ground, now he’d been told by a silly free market economist not to have insurance so he was finished. Now the town government, knew the bakers was a good baker and that having a bakery in the town was good for the people and the town, so they built a bakery out of public money and gave a stipend to the baker so he could live until the bakery is built.

Now try reading - Utopia, no just Keynes
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=328353

Here is a snippet –

In the up period the government pays off its debts incurred in the low period and possibly its stakes in some industries and business it nationalised or bought in the low period.

In the low period the government is then in a position to put money into the system and nationalise or buy up viable businesses that have got into trouble

(Think the baker after the fire)

Oh that old book as far as I can remember it was basically a rant against Keynes.

Anyway I suppose it depends on how you define prosperity, I mean there are things that governments have created or helped to create, I mean I’ve already talked about the sewers and such things as the Erie Canal, then there was the railways and the roads, I mean Eisenhower’s Federal Aid Highway act of 1956 has been called the "Greatest Public Works Project in History". Then there is the development of jets as well as the internet and the World Wide Web...i could go on.

Now I suppose you could argue than none of them contributed to prosperity but…

 

I use the word cons, because that's what they do, they con America into believing they are conservative.

If you look at the year 2008-2009 it shows the election year. That's why there is a (R) and a (D) for the oval office. The senate and house were both controlled by the dems. The deficit shot way up because of the Wall Street banks bailout that year. And Shrub had already signed the budget for that year in September, before the election in November.

 

My "view" was from a dictionary, so I don't think it's fair to call it "narrow", however at least we've clarified what I was talking about.

I don't like the government, period. So I tend to be left-wing where they too, dislike the government. Wars of aggression, the military industrial complex, and I also lean-left on most social issues, like being pro-choice, however I think those decisions should be left up to individuals and institutions, not the government. I don't really look at in a left or right way, I have a bias against force and coercion, you can extrapolate my view on everything from there.

You keep adding to or changing the stuff I say. I said you get "MORE", nothing about whether the outcome is good or bad. But whats the point of this? I mean we both acknowledge the purpose of investing in something is to expand it... Do you deny that through SNAP we're investing in hunger, or disability checks in the disabled (etc)?

(He would have spent the money in an economically beneficial way anyway, AND still have his window.)

Shouldn't the goal of economics be a better "whole economy"?

But your refutations are still largely based on fallacy. Before I go into them, you do realize that your arguing that by DESTROYING STUFF, you can somehow create economic prosperity. If this were true, and breaking windows were indeed beneficial to the economy, why don't we just break all our windows?

OK so the first one, where he keeps it in his mattress. (Although, he has greater incentive to put it in a bank or other investment, where he will earn interest.) Assuming he does choose to stuff it in his mattress though, he's doing this because, for whatever reason, he believes consuming it later will be more valuable to him than consuming it now. He must have a incentive to believe this, and unless you believe that people inherently have bad judgement in these matters, we can presume that it will indeed yield him greater consumption in the future. Let's say he doesn't consume it at all, and instead passes it to a relative upon his death. It does not change the fact it will still be consumed eventually, does it? So if the relative buys a suit (or 10 now since the money has appreciated), the baker will still have his window, and his relative will now have 1 (or 10) new suits. Still a net gain compared to if the window had been broken, and the money was spent to repair it. Adding the element of time, changes nothing. But supposing the VERY worst case scenario happens, and the baker, suffering from paranoia, buries the money deep underground, so deep that he doesn't even remember where he put it, and it's lost forever. Even the most Keynesian of Keynesian's will tell you that, by reducing the money supply, the long-run result is that the remaining circulating money is just worth that much more. So anyone possessing money will have slightly more purchasing power, and the baker will still have his window. Although burying the money doesn't create a net gain (unless you use your own logic and only look at the 'stimulus' created from the increased purchasing power of everyone else), the result is still the same as if the window had been broken and the money was spent to repair it. The only difference being instead of society being out 1 window, it's out a windows equivalent in specie (or currency). Using your reasoning, instead of burying the money deep underground, he could just bury his window, spend the money to buy a new one, and this would somehow benefit the economy.

Now, where he loses the money to a traveling gambler. The gambler will still buy a suit (or whatever) in a neighboring town right? It will still go into that towns economy, improving it, increasing it's ability to export and trade with the neighboring town, the baker still has his window and there is still a net economic gain. Even if we assume the worst and the traveling gambler hops on a plane (with a ticket he had purchased before he won the money), and flies to China where he spends the money there. The same things remains true. It benefits China's economy, increasing there ability to export and trade, the baker still has his window, and there is still a net economic gain. Your argument would suggest that we should eliminate trade all together. The reductio ad absurdum of this is that we should prevent any money, any resources, and further any travelers from leaving any town and this will somehow end up benefiting each town.

Insurance has absolutely nothing to do with anything. We're talking about the money spent on repairing a broken window. A third party service that spreads the burden to the baker over a period of time doesn't change anything. The insurance company pays for the window upfront and the baker pays the insurance company over time. A more simple example of this is if the baker had no insurance and instead made monthly payments to the window maker. The money spent is still the same, and all things yield the same results. I don't see your point? No free market economist that I've heard of has ever argued against insurance...

Regardless of the degree of complexity you add to the parable, the lesson still remains true. Destroying stuff does not improve the economy, as Keynesian logic implies. I mean, Keynesian's believe that World War 2 got us out of the great depression.. you don't believe THAT do you?

This assumes that things built by the government would not have been built otherwise. Which isn't logically or empirically true. If anything the government provides has value, it will also be provided by the market. The very fact that government obtains it's resources through coercion, and not voluntary exchange, makes it impossible to tell if what the government builds has value or not. And you're still committing the fallacy of trumpeting what the government has built, and ignoring what was not built by the people who were forced to finance it (through tax).

I'd like to answer more of them, but these posts are getting uncomfortably long, and I'm starting to wonder if you or anyone cares about this conversation enough to read all of them lol. To this though, I guess you're right, I did kinda go in a circle there. I suppose everyone doesn't do everything they'd like because of a variety of factors. Their physiology, the way they were raised, the varying value scale they place on different actions, the scarcity of time and energy each person has. Whats your view? Why does a very small percentage of people who agree in the benefits of exercise, end up exercising?
http://www.libertariantee.com

 

I was just using a non-right wing source to show that college costs are actually increasing faster than the rate of inflation. This certainly doesn't mean I consider the Washington Post to be infallible. I read your article though and I did find it compelling. I'm not saying I'm necessarily right, it IS a theory, however the school of economics that I choose to follow has tended to be right about these things in the past, despite popular opinion. I'd argue that it has much more credibility.

So forgive me if I favor their model over people like your article's author, David L. Warren. Who by the way, is president of the NAICU (A Washington lobby representing Universities, that are obviously the main beneficiaries of the federal aid in question).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnekzRuu8wo"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnekzRuu8wo

 

Wrong

Why not take it the other way – how can we get as many as those people as possible to do exercise?

We could increase the availability of facilities or infrastructure that more easily facilitates people getting to taking exercise for free or at very minimal cost.

For example in Europe many sports facilities are public buildings built and run by public bodies. Many often have free or subsidised entry, for example in the UK there is free swimming lessons for school age children. We also have a large number of public parks where public money is spent building and maintaining exercise facilities everything from playgrounds, to skateboarding courses, to tennis and basketball courts.

As an aside the neoliberal idea of Thatcherism (the maximisation of profit and the reduction of ‘government’ cost) lead to many British councils selling off their playfields, (mainly to property developers) only then to find that people in their areas had nowhere to exercise.

Another example of government action to encourage exercise is bicycling in London. I know from experience that London used to be a very bad place to bike. Then the London authorities began improving things. The Congestion Charge limited the number of cars in central London and encouraged those that had used cars to take to bikes. Specially built bike lanes were put on many routes (limiting them to cars), many other roads were calmed or even closed to cars and turned over to bike routes and we have a mainly publically funded bike hire scheme. So a growing number of people use bikes to commute into and around London.

Also public money is spent on advertising to encourage exercise and healthy living and we have the NHS which has drives to target venerable groups on the same issues. And so on…

 

Wrong

Maybe rather than rely on what seems to have been a bad dictionary you should go back to the origin of the words Polis and Politikos, "of, for, or relating to citizens" "the things concerning the polis."

I think that is your problem – you have begun with a dislike of ‘government’ and then fitted your views to it. I’ve noticed in you a tendency to go so far with an idea, so far as it to fit in with your views but not to go beyond it to something that might reveal the flaws in your chosen ideology.
Like the parable of the broken window – the lesson you present is that if things don’t break then that would be better for the economy because the baker would have the window and the money he would have had to spend if it hadn’t broken. But in the real world things do break, bad things do happen; to me hoping they will not is not a good economics.

But the question is are you doing it for the same reasons as a left winger?

I think there are few people that would admit to wanting ‘wars of aggression’. But then one persons ‘terrorist’ is another persons ‘freedom fighter’ one persons ‘police action’ is another’s ‘imperialism’.
I think the so called ‘military industrial complex’ morphed into ‘corporatism’ about thirty odd years ago with the rise of neoliberal ideas. The problem as I’ve pointed out is that neoliberal/free market ideas are likely to make that bad situation worse.
Often when examined the supposedly leftie ideas of right wingers are nothing of the sort, they just have a right wing take on social problems, often when looked at the right wingers mean that they ‘don’t care’. The left wing approach on social issues is try and help, to assist, to change, to try and improve a situation - for example in drugs they see it as a health issue and want to assist, and with abortion they ask why and try to work so they are not even needed. Often the right wing approach (that they claim to be leftie) is basically ‘I don’t care as long as it doesn’t affect me or means I have to pay for it in taxes’, it is not about helping people with problems but about not caring if they have problems, and they do this by hiding behind such phrases as ‘those decisions should be left up to individuals’.

Sorry not sure if that is true, however I do think that is what you would like people to believe.

I believe you said you would still have government – how would it govern and be financed?

 

Wrong

Again I’m just trying to seek clarity too often you seem to speak in assertion or statements that you seem to find difficult to explain.

But you asserted was that if you invest in something the outcome will always be growth – I’m just saying that the outcome might not be growth, not everything invested in comes off.

No that is wrong - you invest in something to try and get a positive outcome dependent on you agenda that might be profit or social good.

It is about assisting people in need, I’ve asked you before - are you saying that you would let the hungry starve, and what would you do to reduce or get ride of the disabled?
To the question I’d ask is why are they hungry? I’d try and tackle that so as to stop people being hungry.

 

Wrong

How are you going to stop the accident from happening?

But what is an economy for? To me an economy works for the betterment of society as a whole, otherwise you end up with the tail wagging the dog.

LOL – sorry the parable you cited was about destroying stuff and I worked with what you presented – if you look at what I’ve written in the past (and now) my argument has always been about investing to build good outcomes for everyone in a society.
Read – Utopia, no just Keynes
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=328353

And as I’ve said bad things can happen so in my view it is better to be prepared for them rather than just hoping they don’t happen – its not about breaking windows but been prepared if a window breaks. Its as I’ve said many times here neoliberal/free market economic theories only seem like half theories, they are alright if things are going well (it also covers up its flaws) but seem useless when things go wrong.

 

Wrong

Hey man - the story seems to be set in a world with no insurance companies so why do you assume there would be banks?

Well eventually we will all be dead.

Again read - Utopia, no just Keynes
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=328353

There are many mechanisms to try and entice people to spend money in a slowdown.

Again how are you going to prevent the accident? As I keep saying accidents do happen, it seems to me to it would be better to tell people to be prepared for that, rather than telling people (like you seem to be) that such things can never happen.
Again I don’t think you have understood the message of - Utopia, no just Keynes
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=328353

My point was that speculation - such as caused the last financial crisis - can end up being detrimental to the economy and those in it, not all investments are beneficial to all the people in a society.

 

Wrong

I can see why you would like to dismiss the idea of insurance with it the baker is prepared for accidents, you seem to be telling the baker that accidents can’t take place so he should spend his money and not worry about it – which is fine until a accident happens and he finds himself broke.

How the hell would that be simpler or make sense – I mean how does the baker know in advance that it is going to be the window that breaks rather than something else? As I’ve said accidents happen it might not be the window, it could be his oven or anything; with general insurance it covers all eventualities.

With the baker prepared it is likely that he can weather any drawback that might effect him but if he spend in the belief than nothing bad will happen then when the window breaks he might be in deep do do.

Thing is you are suggesting the best thing for the baker to do is to be prepared for such accidents you are telling him that the best thing would for him to not have any accidents. But what happens if an accident does happen?

I repeat - the parable you presented was about destroying stuff and I worked with what you presented – if you look at what I’ve written in the past my argument has been about investing to build good outcomes
In fact in this I’m trying to get the best outcome - to me it is better to pay into something that will, when things go bad, be of assistance. You seem to be arguing that in you system nothing can go wrong, that there is no need to be prepared because the window will never break.

 

Wrong

And in what logical way can you prove otherwise? Empirically you would need to have two worlds one in which public money was used and one in which it wasn’t. Are you hiding another world somewhere, to observe and experiment on?

It depends on what your definition of value is - can you explain it?

Why?

Again in what logical way can you prove otherwise? Empirically you would need to have two worlds one in which public money was used and one in which it wasn’t. Are you hiding another world somewhere, to observe and experiment on?

 

As I’ve said many times here over the year to me the neoliberal/ free market economic theories are nothing of the sort they seem like only half theories and not even very good half theories. They didn’t work very well in good times (because they set up the system to fail) and when that failure happens they don’t seem to have any way of dealing with it in any rational way.

The above is a good case in point. The free market argument seems to be that things should not go wrong and even if they do ‘the market’ is self fixing. So it implies it is ok not to be prepared for it going wrong and instead spend the money on something else instead.

This bad things shouldn’t happen of course became bad things couldn’t happen. Many free markeeers have since argued that isn’t what they meant, but they didn’t seem to be trying very hard to me.

And people and institutions took these wrong headed theories to heart and decided that it was OK to have large debts or to leverage themselves to 30, 40, 50 times their assets, or to have tax cuts and conduct an expensive war, I mean why not they had been told that economically things couldn’t go wrong. And they ignored the ones saying differently.

But of course real world economics caught up with the pie in the sky free market theorising and down came the house of cards.

The problem is that they don’t seem to have learnt any lessons.

 

You've ENTIRELY missed the lesson. The lesson is that in economics you must look at both sides of the coin. The Keynesian paradigm only looks at the visible half of the coin (the economic stimulus resulting in the glazier getting business), and not the unseen side of the coin (the stimulus that would have taken place anyway to the suit maker). Now, apply this to your manufacturing subsidy. You're looking at the visible economic benefits it has on manufacturing (the glazier), and not the benefits that would have occurred anyway if those resources had been left alone (the suit maker). Forgive me, I didn't realize you failed to understand even the most basic lesson behind the parable, and thought you were attempting to offer a situation where the window breaking could indeed create an economic gain.

I would have as little as possible, and only what is needed to protect individual rights and property. I don't necessarily think we need government AT ALL, however I can only speak to this theoretically as, like you said, it has yet to be fully tried. First and foremost I'm arguing for much less.

When we're free market ideas tried again? In fact, everything you just named was the result of following Keynesian ideas, which are the complete opposite of "free market ideas". It was free market economists that were the ones warning people that "things could go wrong"... what in gods name are you talking about?
I assume by tax cuts, deficits, and a huge war you're talking about Bush? Many people forget that Bush inherited a recession resulting from the 2000 crash of the dot com bubble. His response to it was perfectly in line with the main-stream, Big Government, Keynesian policy that you're touting:
1. The FED Lowered Interest rates to record lows (expanded the money supply)
2. Government began running deficits (by increasing spending, and tax cuts, just what Keynes recommends in a 'slump')
3. And wasn't it war that got us out of the great depression? Are you saying now that stimulus resulting from war spending isn't good for the economy after all? (As all Keynesians claim)

There's nothing "free market" about the policies of Bush, or any other recent administration for that matter.

The entire reason why we have business cycles in the first place is because of the malinvestment created by artificially low interest rates via easy money (Another product of our government). The free market people are the small minority saying that government should leave interest rates, and the economy alone. Since we're suggesting reading to each other, I suggest you read about the Austrian Business Cycle Theory. Using this theory, those crazy Free Market economists (like Petsr Schiff, Marc Faber, Ron Paul, etc) were the ones warning people for years that things not only can go wrong, but WILL.... Keynesian's (like yourself), were fucking clueless.

Here's another one of those crazy free market guys, using one of his crazy half theories, to predict the housing bubble, in flawless detail, as early as 2001
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFd8YluIVG4&feature=youtube_gdata_player"]Ron Paul predicts housing bubble in 2001

 

Because services the government supplies have been successfully supplied privately in the past? (Roads, Courts, Defense, Schools, etc). Is that not empirical evidence that things of value the government supplies can also be supplied by the market? In the absence of socialized medicine in Europe, would there be no medicine in Europe at all? Just because the government exercises a compulsory monopoly over something, doesn't mean that the service won't be supplied in it's absence.

 

Quite the opposite. Bulbus crushed you with your own broken window analogy :devil:

wtf?