Do entitlements help the poor get out of poverty?

[VanceMack]

We people live on the planet earth, where decent human beings are generally expected to care about the less fortunate and not spend 100% of their time selfishly looking out for No. 1. I'm not a religious person myself, but I believe there was a gentleman who lived several thousand years ago who had something to say on this subject.

I believe that gentleman you referred to would promote the idea of self reliance as well. Not being a religious type, you probably have a certain connection with science...Darwin...survival...and what happens to crippled and dependent pets who cant provide for self care.

 

[AdamT]

And this general expectation should remain a general expectation, not a requirement of the law. When we governmentalize compassion and goodwill, the compassion and goodwill fade and people actually do stop caring about the less fortunate eventually. Caring about the less fortunate becomes someone else's job, and nothing more than a tax to the producers. When they need more, the visceral reaction becomes "I'm already taxed up the wazoo for that, buzz off." It's the DHHS' job to "care about the less fortunate" now, and my only job therefore is to make money that the government can confiscate for its supposedly good motives (of course, buying votes is part of the agenda). It's no longer personal, but mandatory, and free men and women tend not to like a bunch of mandates hanging over their head from an authority figure, with no actual guarantee of return or clear terms to the always lofty and fluid "social contract."

Liberals want a parental relationship to emerge when free legal adults begin to suffer. The sufferer, by virtue of the fact he is suffering, becomes the dependent child who is entitled to getting his needs met. The taxpayer becomes the daddy who brings home the bacon. Government the mommy who feeds it to the little ones. It's not entirely surprising that this schema is applied to situations in which a person suffers. Our individual families have this general structure, stereotypically speaking. But that doesn't mean it works at all levels.

It seems that the corollary of what you are saying is that, if the government stops providing for the less fortunate, then individuals will feel empowered to do so and things will actually improve and not get worse. But I see no evidence of that. The poverty rate was much higher before the modern safety net was put in place. The elderly are in much better shape now than they were before social security was implemented.

 

[AdamT]

I believe that gentleman you referred to would promote the idea of self reliance as well. Not being a religious type, you probably have a certain connection with science...Darwin...survival...and what happens to crippled and dependent pets who cant provide for self care.

Hmm, I'm familiar with his teachings about caring for the poor and the trappings of wealth, but I don't recall a lot about self reliance. I'd appreciate it if you could point that out.

As far as Darwin goes, I tend to think that evolution works on the level of species as well as at the level of individuals.

 

[VanceMack]

Hmm, I'm familiar with his teachings about caring for the poor and the trappings of wealth, but I don't recall a lot about self reliance. I'd appreciate it if you could point that out.

As far as Darwin goes, I tend to think that evolution works on the level of species as well as at the level of individuals.

Not being a scriptorian I will let someone else do a much better job of fighting the religious fight. i do seem to recall a parable regarding talents, increase, and the sin of sloth. Again...we'll let the biblically inclined folks bang that out more thoroughly. As for the continuation of species...it would certainly appear counter-evolutionary to facilitate the weakest of the species to continue to pollute the gene pool.

Look...heres the beauty of all of this. NOTHING in this world prevents you from giving all of your increase to others. Point of fact I would absolutely LOVE to see all the people that profess so much care and concern for others to stop expecting everyone else to do what they profess to believe in. Just DO IT for Gods sake. There surely is enough accumulated wealth amongst the left leaning folks in the world to provide for all of your socialist wet dreams. So...what is stopping you? Where is this maganaminous bank account designed to give those that WONT work a free ride through life? Where y'all at?

 

[AdamT]

Certainly people who are able and not completely self absorbed do give to charity directly. That does not supplant the need for a social safety net.

 

[VanceMack]

Certainly people who are able and not completely self absorbed do give to charity directly. That does not supplant the need for a social safety net.

You have a really good track record of blathering on about **** you know nothing about. Many of us give more time and financial resources than you will ever dream. But we give to programs designed to actually HELP people. Some of us work daily with people that have accepted this message that they cant succeed, dont have to succeed, are destined for a life of midiocrity...many of whom have lived for decades in such an existence. Some of us see the byproduct of such an existence and are determined to actually do something about it rather than continue to perpetuate it. Some of us work in ways you couldnt fathom to help break that cycle and effect positive change. There is a reason why some of us are as passionate about changing the cycle of dependence and it has nothing to do with greed. It might jsut shock the hell out of some folks.

 

[Simon W. Moon]

What the heck is a "nose"?

In this context, it's kind of like an issue.

 

[Simon W. Moon]

As far as Darwin goes, I tend to think that evolution works on the level of species as well as at the level of individuals.

I am pretty sure that Darwin's theory of evolution does NOT apply to individuals at all. I am reasonably sure it only applies to species.

 

[OscarB63]

I am pretty sure that Darwin's theory of evolution does NOT apply to individuals at all. .

especially when society subverts evolution and allows the unfit to survive. :shrug: Idiocracy, here we come.

 

[mpg]

Of course people should be discouraged from borrowing money that they can't repay. That's what banks are supposed to do.

That's what they normally do, until the government intervened in an ill-fated effort to increase home ownership.

That's also why we need stricter banking and derivatives regulation.

The regulations are the problem, not the solution.

 

[OpportunityCost]

eh? Derivatives need regulation. They suck as an investment and are extremely easy to game. Regulate the **** out of em if you ask me. They are like playing texas with a stacked deck.

 

[imagep]

Well, I would say that it's precisely the role of government to provide for the general welfare, including providing a safety net.

The reason we have poor people is not because most poor people are lazy. We have poor people because, in a capitalist society, there is a wide range of jobs which command a wide range of salaries. Do you think that everyone who works at a low paying job is lazy? What do you think would happen if we could wave a wand and suddenly make NO ONE lazy? Would the now industrious and energetic people who clean our bathrooms start earning $100k a year? Or would we simply have no more bathroom cleaners? Would the fry cook at McBurgers be given a $30k/yr. raise, or would we simply have no more fry cooks, because only lazy people are fry cooks are there are no more lazy people?

No, for our society to function properly we need to have people at all levels of the pay scale. It may make you feel better about yourself to deride those at the low end, but it doesn't make them any less necessary.

Minimum wage is $8.25/hr. Thats about $17k per year. The official poverty level for a single individual is $10,890. So anyone who works full time, even at minimum wage, is above the poverty level. Even a family of three with just one minimum wage worker working 43 hours a week is above the official poverty line. A family of 7 with two full time minimum wage workers is also above the poverty level. Thus, it is almost impossible to work full time and technically be impoverished. People who are legally impoverished, are by definition "slackers" (by not working or not working a normal 40 hours a week).

Your definition of poverty may be a little wider than the legal definition. The only way that I can figure that normal person could feel sympathy for the "poor" is if they are talking about the working poor. People who normally work full time and who may be responsible, but just don't make enough money to quite have a truely middle class lifestyle.

Ya, I have a lot of sympathy for those people also. Income disparity in the US is incredable. It is just inconcievable to me that one person could possibly be more productive than 300 or a thousand hard working people. No one is a thousand times smarter than our average citizen, no one can work a thousand times harder, no one can work a thousand times longer. Yet we have people who have incomes of tens of millions and hundreds of millions and even billions a year. Their income simply doesn't match their economic value. They recieve income that is vastly in excess of what they produce. Income is can often be more of a function of power or luck than personal production.

I think that the disconnect between the way that a capitalistic system works in theory and the way that it works in reality is that work is not the only way to have income, yet work is the only way to produce physical and intelectual wealth (as opposed to money wealth).

Every dollar that one person is underpaid represents a dollar that someone else will be overpaid. And every dollar that someone is overpaid represents a dollar that is effectively robbed from those that are underpaid. It's imposible to eleminate poverty because most of the truely impoverished choose to be impoverished. However it is absolutely possible to significantly raise the standard of living of the working poor and the entire middle class, by more effective and natural distribution of income and wealth. And this can be done without harming the lifestyles of the rich. This does not require a direct "rob from the rich give to the poor" policy which tends to be anti-productive, although it does require exceptionally progressive taxation.

There are things that we could do as a society through government intervention that would reduce disparity of income. Unfortuntely extreme ideologs, left or right, don't recognize the reality. They see the world though glasses that filters out everything that doesn't match up to their ideology.

 

[AdamT]

That's what they normally do, until the government intervened in an ill-fated effort to increase home ownership.

CRA had nothing to do with the financial meltdown. If anything it would have been worse without it.

The regulations are the problem, not the solution.

No, the lack of regulation and lack of enforcement, was very definitely the problem. Banks should have been required to hold far more capital than they were holding. Much more transparency should have been required in derivatives. The ratings agencies should have been audited on a regular basis. No document mortgages should have been illegal. Mortgage contracts in general should have been much clearer to average borrowers. Predatory lending should have been policed. Traditional banks should not have been allowed to engage in investment banking. All of these breakdowns contributed to the fiasco.

 

[imagep]

Hmm, I'm familiar with his teachings about caring for the poor and the trappings of wealth, but I don't recall a lot about self reliance. I'd appreciate it if you could point that out.

...

OK, I'm trying not to bash anyones religion, but if your Jesus or Budda or God or Alla doesn't want us to be self reliant, they why the heck doesn't he just provide everything for everyone? He could just poof it into existance like he did everything else, it's not like it would be any sweat off his back.

I can only assume that the lack of any God from magically creating cars or television sets is proof that God must want us to be self reliant.

 

[imagep]

eh? Derivatives need regulation. They suck as an investment and are extremely easy to game. Regulate the **** out of em if you ask me. They are like playing texas with a stacked deck.

Yup.

The true purpose of derivatives is to transfer money from the suckers (oops I mean investors) pocket to the originator of the derivative. They do this by creatively packaging bad investments so that they look like good investments. There is no wealth created in the process, it's only transfered.

 

[Simon W. Moon]

especially when society subverts evolution and allows the unfit to survive. :shrug: Idiocracy, here we come.

I think this is a common misperception. Society is a coping mechanism that arose naturally. Society IS the result of evolution.
imho.
I am not actually a biologist or whatnot

 

[imagep]

That's what they normally do, until the government intervened in an ill-fated effort to increase home ownership.


The regulations are the problem, not the solution.

I have heard that many times and I'm not saying that is is an outright lie, but it was only a small factor. the way I understand things the real reason that banks made so many loans to so many people who they darnwell knew were highly likely to default is because they were able to pawn off the bad loans to companies that would use them as the bases for derivatives. Then those that they didn't sell they betted against by purchasing insurance from AIG which in itself was a fraud because it didn't have the assets to back up it's bets. For a while, banks could make money on any loan, good bad or indifferent. so banks made lots of bad loans. Thats not so much the governments doing, it was the decision of individual bankers and banks.

Banks used government pressure as an excuse, but even if the government pressure didn't exist, they would have still made these loans because for the time being at least, they were profitable.

If you still find it neccesary to blame government, then blame government for bad regulations. The "mark to market" accounting rule is the root of what caused this entire mess. Without the establishment of mark to market accounting, we would not have had the banking crises. It seemed like a good thing at the time, but no one can predict all possible consequences of any change in regulations. It was just something that didn't work out as expected.

 

[AdamT]

Minimum wage is $8.25/hr. Thats about $17k per year. The official poverty level for a single individual is $10,890. So anyone who works full time, even at minimum wage, is above the poverty level. Even a family of three with just one minimum wage worker working 43 hours a week is above the official poverty line. A family of 7 with two full time minimum wage workers is also above the poverty level. Thus, it is almost impossible to work full time and technically be impoverished. People who are legally impoverished, are by definition "slackers" (by not working or not working a normal 40 hours a week).

Your definition of poverty may be a little wider than the legal definition. The only way that I can figure that normal person could feel sympathy for the "poor" is if they are talking about the working poor. People who normally work full time and who may be responsible, but just don't make enough money to quite have a truely middle class lifestyle.

Ya, I have a lot of sympathy for those people also. Income disparity in the US is incredable. It is just inconcievable to me that one person could possibly be more productive than 300 or a thousand hard working people. No one is a thousand times smarter than our average citizen, no one can work a thousand times harder, no one can work a thousand times longer. Yet we have people who have incomes of tens of millions and hundreds of millions and even billions a year. Their income simply doesn't match their economic value. They recieve income that is vastly in excess of what they produce. Income is can often be more of a function of power or luck than personal production.

I think that the disconnect between the way that a capitalistic system works in theory and the way that it works in reality is that work is not the only way to have income, yet work is the only way to produce physical and intelectual wealth (as opposed to money wealth).

Every dollar that one person is underpaid represents a dollar that someone else will be overpaid. And every dollar that someone is overpaid represents a dollar that is effectively robbed from those that are underpaid. It's imposible to eleminate poverty because most of the truely impoverished choose to be impoverished. However it is absolutely possible to significantly raise the standard of living of the working poor and the entire middle class, by more effective and natural distribution of income and wealth. And this can be done without harming the lifestyles of the rich. This does not require a direct "rob from the rich give to the poor" policy which tends to be anti-productive, although it does require exceptionally progressive taxation.

There are things that we could do as a society through government intervention that would reduce disparity of income. Unfortuntely extreme ideologs, left or right, don't recognize the reality. They see the world though glasses that filters out everything that doesn't match up to their ideology.

Yes, I pretty much agree with that. I wasn't talking about technical poverty, as in living below the (somewhat arbitrary) poverty line. In my view, even a single person who makes minimum wage is poor -- assuming he or she isn't living at home. Income disparity is a glaring problem in America. The ratio of what a corporate exec. makes compared to what a worker makes has skyrocketed. Conservatives complain that too many people aren't paying income tax, but part of the reason for that is that there are fewer and fewer working people making a reasonable income.

 

[Captain America]

Why? It was a direct response to a direct response. But if I am in a conversation actually WITH you I will be mindful of your delicate sensitivity.

Don't worry about MY sensibility Vance, I am not the one passing out the nastygrams.

 

[Neomalthusian]

It seems that the corollary of what you are saying is that, if the government stops providing for the less fortunate, then individuals will feel empowered to do so and things will actually improve and not get worse. But I see no evidence of that.

I don't care, because that's not my goal.

Your goal: Make the poor and suffering not poor and not suffering, by any means necessary.
My goal: Get the corrupt government out of the charity business.

I don't share your goal, so I don't care if my goal accomplishes yours. I care that my goal is accomplished, regardless of the conjecture about its outcome.

 

[haymarket]

I don't care, because that's not my goal.

Your goal: Make the poor and suffering not poor and not suffering, by any means necessary.
My goal: Get the corrupt government out of the charity business.

I don't share your goal, so I don't care if my goal accomplishes yours. I care that my goal is accomplished, regardless of the conjecture about its outcome.

I believe you are intentionally misstating the goal of such government programs so that you can then attack them as unsuccessful. You do this because you have an ideological loathing of government and government programs and are setting up a phony strawman to buttress your position which is at its heart intellectually fraudulent.

The goal of these programs is NOT to make the poor and suffering not poor and not suffering. It is to provide some level of help so these unfortunate citizens can survive and live.... even if living in relative poverty is still their lot.

 

[imagep]

I don't care, because that's not my goal.

Your goal: Make the poor and suffering not poor and not suffering, by any means necessary.
My goal: Get the corrupt government out of the charity business.

I don't share your goal, so I don't care if my goal accomplishes yours. I care that my goal is accomplished, regardless of the conjecture about its outcome.

My goal is to stop enabling slackers to slack. If we stop enabling them, then they will either die or become productive and we will ALL have more as a result of that productivity.

 

[imagep]

I believe you are intentionally misstating the goal of such government programs so that you can then attack them as unsuccessful. You do this because you have an ideological loathing of government and government programs and are setting up a phony strawman to buttress your position which is at its heart intellectually fraudulent.

The goal of these programs is NOT to make the poor and suffering not poor and not suffering. It is to provide some level of help so these unfortunate citizens can survive and live.... even if living in relative poverty is still their lot.

haymarket, you know that more often than not I have agreed with you on DP. But where in the heck do you get that poor people are "unfortunate"? Remember, by the definition of poverty, noone in the USA who works 40 hours a week is impoverished. We do have a minimum wage of $17k per year for a full time worker. And exactly which full time workers only make minimum wage? I even pay my workers more than that! Seriously dude, minimum wage is for teenagers, not adults trying to make a living.

Barring serious disabilities, if you are poor in America for more than a few years of your life, then you are just a sorry good for nothing lazy slacker! Slackers aren't "unfortunate" and people who work full time arn't poor.

We truely don't have a poverty problem in America, what we have are slackers who deserve nothing, and and full time employees who are being underpaid for their labor relative to the huge salaries that the very wealthy recieve.

 

[OscarB63]

I think this is a common misperception. Society is a coping mechanism that arose naturally. Society IS the result of evolution.
imho.
I am not actually a biologist or whatnot

society enables those who would normally perish if left to their own devices due to stupidity, laziness, etc to survive and pass on their stupid, lazy, etc genes to the detriment of the more capable.

 

[U.S. Socialist.]

society enables those who would normally perish if left to their own devices due to stupidity, laziness, etc to survive and pass on their stupid, lazy, etc genes to the detriment of the more capable.

Okay if you hate society so much go out in the wilderness.