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

As you probably know, Liberalism is different than Neoliberalism.

Welfare spending and poverty are concerns to liberals. Welfare spending is anathema to neoliberals.

You seem to be confusing the terms.

 

Are you referring to ME? confusing the terms? I'm not using them at all so how might I be confusing them?

Welfare spending and poverty are concerns of everyone and as the thread title implies, increased spending doesn't appear to be reducing poverty at all.

 

You just asked a question about "those terms" in post #540.

 

Classical liberalism and liberalism as its used in the context of American politics can be quite different. A liberal may in fact be pro welfare state or anti welfare state depending on how they're using the term.

 

I could see how a liberal capitalist would be anti welfare state.

I've heard some negative commentary about the value of understanding political science terms but I disagree. I don't claim to be an expert on the terms but i believe it is generally a good idea to understand the terms when trying to understand a subject.

 

The terms I asked about were "welfare spending" and "poverty", although I did question your line "neoliberal ideas had persuaded many that nothing could go wrong", with nothing added to indicate that I was confusing liberal with neoliberal. Perhaps you should have focused on the "nothing could go wrong" part of your statement as where I was looking for clarification. It's pointless to base questions and answers on labels which are constantly redefined to allow the real issues to be avoided.

The relevant issues of this thread should be constrained to "spending on welfare" and the affect/effect it has and has had on "poverty", and not labels which are more useful in an attempt to denigrate the views you disagree with.

 

Indie

This is such crude propaganda that is laughable it on a par with German soldiers eating babies from WW1 and the belief that there’s a ‘Jewish’ conspiracy to take over the world – oh and so we now have lefties want to fire bomb your home.

As I’ve said - Keynesian ideas work perfectly ok without accidents (or causing ‘accidents’) they don’t need accidents BUT it is an economic system that prepares for bad things happening rather than just hoping they will not and telling people to spend the money that could be used to be prepared for such bad times - causing them great hardship when the inevitable bad thing does happen.

 

Indie

You question this.

I’ll repeat something I posted back in 2008.

That was the impression that many advocates of neoliberalism tried to give, which was that neoliberlist policies couldn’t lead to a ‘crash’ because it could deal with such fluctuations.
Many pointed out this wasn’t the case even some free market economists (who believe such ‘corrections’ were necessary) but in a black and white world, something is either all good or all bad, deregulators pushed the ‘good’ and dismissed those that talked of the risks as pessimistic scaremongers.

As I’ve said since people were told the risks were very low and even then could be dealt and so it quickly went in many peoples heads from shouldn’t to couldn’t.

We had people claiming that ‘boom and bust’ was over and here is someone seeming to claim that financial and technological innovations meant ‘financial stability’ that any financial crash was limited or easily dealt with.

Historically, banks have been at the forefront of financial intermediation, in part because their ability to leverage offers an efficient source of funding. But in periods of severe financial stress, such leverage too often brought down banking institutions and, in some cases, precipitated financial crises that led to recession or worse. But recent regulatory reform, coupled with innovative technologies, has stimulated the development of financial products, such as asset-backed securities, collateral loan obligations, and credit default swaps, that facilitate the dispersion of risk…
Although the business cycle has not disappeared, flexibility has made the economy more resilient to shocks and more stable overall during the past couple of decades. To be sure, that stability, by fostering speculative excesses, has created some new challenges for policymakers. But more fundamentally, an environment of greater economic stability has been key to the impressive growth in the standards of living and economic welfare so evident in the United States. That old right wing libertarian and friend of Ayn Rand – Alan Greenspan

Thing was it was a con-trick; some people knew it was and some not, some people tried to warn about it and other did not.

 

Indie

As to "welfare spending" and "poverty" and your views on them I’ve been trying to discuss them with you - but you have seem rather reluctant – if you are now willing to do so why not address the many outstand criticisms of your views (they are all there above).

 

Bal,

"A young hoodlum, say, heaves a brick through the window of a baker’s shop." That doesn't sound like an accident.

It's common sense for each of us to hope for the best but prepare for the worst. Big government tends to interconnect individual bubbles together in a way that only assures that problems, when they occur, engulfs a large portion of the population simultaneously.

 

Bal,

Although I don't believe poverty can or will ever be totally eliminated, income producing work along with charity does reduce it without increasing the debt and deficit spending of government.

 

Indie

Again you really need to read the posts –

Once upon a time….a baker had his shop window broken by accident (Bastiat) or by a ‘hoodlum’ (Hazlitt) – post 505

If you knew the parable of the broken window you’d know that originally it was presented by Frederic Bastiat (c 1850) and the window was broken by accident.

Henry Hazlitt re-wrote it (c 1946) and the window was broken by a ‘hoodlum’.

But as pointed out this didn’t seem to be the lesson being promoted by neoliberal/free market ideas and their promoters, like Wrong above.

Again you are just re-stating you viewpoint, I think we are all aware of your viewpoint by now – what I’m asking is why are you refusing to address all those outstanding criticisms of your viewpoint?

 

56 pages and you guys are still going at it. I will say one thing--you guys sure are persistant.






carry on.

 

Bal, we KNOW you think charity is okay as long as the government does not provide it.

The problem is that the "free market" or whatever, is not providing enough for some people.

If charity took up the slack, the government would not need to.

I don't see billionares lined up to pay for food-stamps and medicaid.

If there was enough charity, the government would not be involved at all.

But if there's not enough charity as it is, how about we fix that, and THEN worry about taking away government aid?

I realize that you don't think that if government aid stops there will magically be lots of private charity, and that you think that life just sucks and those kids should have thought about that before picking to be born to parents in the ghetto... but that's not the case, and if private people are not picking up the slack, somebody needs to. Government is doing it because rich people are greedy worthess fucks, essentially.

 

Bal,

I read the post you were referring to, and it did not mention an accident. Accidents are one thing and vandalism is another. In the case of accidental damage, the property owner should either have had the foresight to be insured or have adequate funds saved to repair the damages incurred, while in the case of malicious inflicted damages the person responsible should be held liable for the costs of repairing the damages. Governments only involvement should be in the latter case, apprehending the person who caused the damages, and prosecuting him/her.

I'm not sure what you think "Wrong" was promoting.

"Although I don't believe poverty can or will ever be totally eliminated, income producing work along with charity does reduce it without increasing the debt and deficit spending of government.

My viewpoint: "I don't believe poverty can or will ever be totally eliminated."

The rational and reasonable solution: "income producing work along with charity does reduce it without increasing the debt and deficit spending of government."

Ideally, government should not become involved at all, but even if it does it should do as little as possible. Those who feel government should do more could easily put their efforts and money into charitable organizations where they feel it would be put to use most efficiently.

 

The "free" market does not provide, but only makes available for purchase the things people need or want. "Free" enterprise is the means by which the medium of exchange is acquired to purchase things from the free market.

 

Indie

Once upon a time….a baker had his shop window broken by accident (Bastiat) or by a ‘hoodlum’ (Hazlitt) – post 505

To quote Bastiat “Have you ever witnessed the anger of the good shopkeeper, James Goodfellow, when his careless son has happened to break a pane of glass?”

Now in my book that is an accident, but how would you describe it?

Is the hoodlum known and can be picked up, was he caught, what if he wasn’t, does the baker then have to pay? Also do you think that a ‘young hoodlum’ that goes around breaking windows for fun is the type to have the money to pay for there replacement?

Normal insurance usually covers damage (from accident or malicious intent).

But as pointed out “it is meant to be a story to explain a theory that covers a whole economy”

The point Bastiat and Hazlitt were making is that although the broken window may have given work to the glazier, it means the tailor (who the baker was going to buy a suit off) loses out, and that it would be better for the economy if the window wasn’t broken then the baker would still have his window and the tailor would still be paid.

As I said that is fine - but how do you stop the window from being broken? Yes it would be better if the window didn’t break but it had broken, and so the moral to me is that it is best to be prepared for something bad happening.

I then come to insurance (having some kind of mechanism or institution that can help in times of hardship). This undermines the broken window argument, because while nobody wants things bad to happen at least it you are prepared you are more likely to weather the storm.

Also since such ‘insurance’ has already been budgeted for the baker doesn’t need to use his suit money to pay for the broken window, so the baker gets his window replaced, the baker gets his suit, the tailor gets his money and the glazier gets a job.

Now Wrong’s argument seemed to be that paying out for insurance was the same as the baker paying out his suit money for the window because the money was being spent on being prepared rather than being spent on other things – in other words the baker should spend the insurance money on something else and just hope that he is never visited with misfortune.

Now as pointed out “it is meant to be a story to explain a theory that covers a whole economy”

So the parable of the broken window is saying that it is better for the economy to spend your money and just hope that you are never visited with misfortune.

And for me that was one of the problems with neoliberal/free market thinking as explained above it seemed to be based on the hope that nothing bad would happen (and if it did the ‘market’ could deal with it and make it insignificant)

As I’ve told you to do so in the past you really should do your research The shopkeeper runs out furious, but the boy is gone. It was a him, a boy.

But anyway, you need to read - Utopia, no just Keynes
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=328353

It explains than a Keynesian approach is to be prepared for difficulties rather than just hoping they will not happen.

 

Indie

Oh HELL man we have been through this hundreds of times – first as I’ve pointed out to you many times you need to define what you mean by ‘poverty’ (post 199 in this thread as well as many other places). The problem with it is that it can depend on time and place.

As to having jobs and charity again we have been through that time and again and I’d ask you again why can’t you seem to address of the already outstanding criticisms of your views on these subjects?

Another restatement of your views and again you are not addressing the many outstanding criticisms of it.

AND AGAIN you are restating something but you are not addressing the many outstanding criticisms of it.

Again this is just hollow rhetoric if you are unable to address the many criticisms of your viewpoint and so far you do seem unable to address the many criticisms of your viewpoint

Also once again I would remind you that there never has been and never will be a ‘free market’. Try reading - Free market = Plutocratic Tyranny
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/s...?t=353336&f=36

 

I'll try one more time^^
The story has NOTHING to do with the cause of the window breaking, that's why the two economists are able to substitute the cause without losing the point of the story. The point of the story is simply to answer this: is breaking a window a boon for the economy? Yes, or no?

Are you arguing that if the baker has insurance that it would make breaking the window a boon for the economy? Yes or no?

 

If it IS considered a boon for the economy then wouldn't it be true that highly contagious diseases are also a boon for the economy?