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Welfare spending tops one trilllion dollars.

People with drive, work ethic, college degrees, and marketable skills aren't seeing that gravitational pull in 'this economy.
 
Fletch said:
My point was that money is a measure of value. If a person doesnt have an education, doesnt possess any marketable skills, lacks drive, motivation and a work ethic, money will not 'gravitate' in their direction. A 'valuable skill' is determined by the value of a particular skill--to others. That you see a particular skill as valuable, doesnt mean anyone else will. You may consider basket weaving a 'valuable skill' but it is of value to whom? If people are not willing to part with value--money--for your particular skill,then it is of no particular value.
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We have created a situation in which people who do have valuable skills, drive, motivation, an education, and a work ethic can't find jobs that pay a living wage.

which is why our recession is so difficult to reverse.
 
Deuce said:
Goodness, spending on social safety nets increases during a recession and with increasing populations!? I'm shocked. Shocked I tell you.

Also, going by these definitions shouldn't we start calling business tax credits "welfare?"
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What you liberals call "corporate welfare" is not welfare.
 
johnny_rebson said:
So you oppose freedom of speech?
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Sure, sure, that's it. Money talks, Congress listens, and comes through with even more money. It's freedom of speech, as well as legalized bribery.

That's how we get the best government money can buy, after all.
 
Lutherf said:
And yet, the spending is still there. You seem to be quite clear in your convictions on this matter so, if you will, the money is being spent so where's it going? More Americans are living in poverty so why aren't they being helped by this increased spending?
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Most of it is going to social security and medicare, the former of which is responsible for drastically cutting down on the number of seniors in poverty, and medicare keeps a lot of our seniors alive. So... all of that spending IS helping. As for the rest? Most everyone who goes on social assistance programs doesn't stay there. The person obtains help for less than a year before getting back on their feet. The reason we have more poverty now is that staying on your feet is much harder, what with constant layoffs, the housing ponzi scheme, and consistently inadequate funding for education. So, tell me again which part isn't helping?
 
Paschendale said:
Most of it is going to social security and medicare, the former of which is responsible for drastically cutting down on the number of seniors in poverty, and medicare keeps a lot of our seniors alive. So... all of that spending IS helping. As for the rest? Most everyone who goes on social assistance programs doesn't stay there. The person obtains help for less than a year before getting back on their feet. The reason we have more poverty now is that staying on your feet is much harder, what with constant layoffs, the housing ponzi scheme, and consistently inadequate funding for education. So, tell me again which part isn't helping?
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Social Security and Medicare are not a part of that 1.03 trillion figure.

and yes, without SS, a lot more seniors would be in poverty. More importantly, without Medicare, seniors would not be able to have health insurance at all. What private, for private insurance company is going to target the most expensive part of the population?
 
johnny_rebson said:
What you liberals call "corporate welfare" is not welfare.
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Of course it is. The oil companies makes profits on TOP of profits and THEY get welfare from the government.
 
Dittohead not! said:
We have created a situation in which people who do have valuable skills, drive, motivation, an education, and a work ethic can't find jobs that pay a living wage.

which is why our recession is so difficult to reverse.
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What you are describing is a short term problem. Generally speaking, if you have the qualities you list in your post, poverty is a virtual impossibility. In a market economy, an individual with marketably skills will be compensated commensurate to those skills. But you have to be able to find the person willing to trade value--money--in exchange for those skills. That is why skills, education, motivation and work ethic are so important. If it is difficult providing for yourself with those attributes, how impossible will it be without them?
 
Paschendale said:
Most of it is going to social security and medicare, the former of which is responsible for drastically cutting down on the number of seniors in poverty, and medicare keeps a lot of our seniors alive. So... all of that spending IS helping. As for the rest? Most everyone who goes on social assistance programs doesn't stay there. The person obtains help for less than a year before getting back on their feet. The reason we have more poverty now is that staying on your feet is much harder, what with constant layoffs, the housing ponzi scheme, and consistently inadequate funding for education. So, tell me again which part isn't helping?
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Please re-read the article. It mentions that this figure is for low income assistance programs and that medicaid (not medicare) is the biggest part of it.
 
Lutherf said:
Please re-read the article. It mentions that this figure is for low income assistance programs and that medicaid (not medicare) is the biggest part of it.
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The answer still applies. The expenditures ARE helping. The trouble is that the infrastructure that maintains the middle class (mainly education and employment) are breaking down. People are falling out of the middle class a lot more often than previously.
 
Paschendale said:
The answer still applies. The expenditures ARE helping. The trouble is that the infrastructure that maintains the middle class (mainly education and employment) are breaking down. People are falling out of the middle class a lot more often than previously.
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So spending is increasing and things are still getting worse and somehow or other that equates to "help".

Look, I know that you mean well but if your boat is taking on water then it doesn't really help that much to keep shipping more water on board.

I see this mentality all the time. Mr and Mrs X sit across my desk and tell me how they've been helping junior pay off ridiculous amounts of credit card debt. Inevitably junior has some kind of problem that prevents him from helping himself so mom and dad are "obligated" to help but now not only is junior in deep financial **** but mom and dad have blown through their retirement and the house is in hock up to the chimney. I talk to junior and find out that he can't stop racking up debt because he's putting groceries and rent on the cards. He can't get a better job because he has to attend psychotherapy 4 days a week and his asshole employer refuses to give him the necessary time off. Fortunately he's pretty sure that he'll get on disability this time around and he'll finally have some money coming in. "Oh, by the way," he inevitably asks, "do I need to declare the money someone pays me for doing some side work. It's just $100 a week."

Here's the problem, Junior isn't half as ****ed up as he thinks he is. He's got a state appointed head shrinker telling him he's messed up because that's what the head shrinker gets paid for. Mom and dad are just going with the flow because, hey, the head shrinker is a professional. So mom and dad end up in section 8 housing, junior moves in with them. Eventually junior gets his disability. The state makes sure that they have heat, air conditioning, water, telephone and internet. They all get food stamps and save up enough to put gas in mom and dad's old Buick Regal which they pile into damned near every day to hit the casino.

Mom and dad were productive but aren't any more. Junior never was productive and never will be and as a household the American taxpayer is now taking care of 2/3 of their economic needs. It's a wonderful life, isn't it?
 
Lutherf said:
So spending is increasing and things are still getting worse and somehow or other that equates to "help".

Look, I know that you mean well but if your boat is taking on water then it doesn't really help that much to keep shipping more water on board.

I see this mentality all the time. Mr and Mrs X sit across my desk and tell me how they've been helping junior pay off ridiculous amounts of credit card debt. Inevitably junior has some kind of problem that prevents him from helping himself so mom and dad are "obligated" to help but now not only is junior in deep financial **** but mom and dad have blown through their retirement and the house is in hock up to the chimney. I talk to junior and find out that he can't stop racking up debt because he's putting groceries and rent on the cards. He can't get a better job because he has to attend psychotherapy 4 days a week and his asshole employer refuses to give him the necessary time off. Fortunately he's pretty sure that he'll get on disability this time around and he'll finally have some money coming in. "Oh, by the way," he inevitably asks, "do I need to declare the money someone pays me for doing some side work. It's just $100 a week."

Here's the problem, Junior isn't half as ****ed up as he thinks he is. He's got a state appointed head shrinker telling him he's messed up because that's what the head shrinker gets paid for. Mom and dad are just going with the flow because, hey, the head shrinker is a professional. So mom and dad end up in section 8 housing, junior moves in with them. Eventually junior gets his disability. The state makes sure that they have heat, air conditioning, water, telephone and internet. They all get food stamps and save up enough to put gas in mom and dad's old Buick Regal which they pile into damned near every day to hit the casino.

Mom and dad were productive but aren't any more. Junior never was productive and never will be and as a household the American taxpayer is now taking care of 2/3 of their economic needs. It's a wonderful life, isn't it?
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Well of course your view is skewed if that's what you think poor families look like.
 
Paschendale said:
Well of course your view is skewed if that's what you think poor families look like.
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Let me be really clear about this...Back in the mid 80's I was in Honduras and ran into poor people. I'm talking about 1000 people living on the side of a hill with little more than plastic and a couple of sticks for shelter. I'm talking about no clothes and drinking water that was basically sewer water. I met people that were far better off because they had a wood roof in a row house that looked like a damned stable. The kids from the hillside would sell gum in the streets and some of the adults would sell bananas. The wooden roof kids would sell their sisters and the parents would sell hammocks. I pulled the equivalent of $2.00 in change out of my pocket one day to buy some knick-knack and got warned not to flash that kind of money in public. Those people were poor.

In the early 90's I was in Puerto Rico working drug interdictions. I met a lot of poor people there too. I'm talking about families living 6 or 8 to a 1 bedroom apartment. They were way better off then the Hondurans because at least their kids went to school. The kids would shine shoes and wash cars. The parents would fish, sell mofongo or rice and beans or work the sugar fields. Those people were pretty poor too.

Today...today when I deal with the "poor" I'm almost always dealing with people who are working the system. They want me to sort out for them how much they need to make to max out EITC or what the potential for getting caught is if they claim their sisters kids because she already maxed everything out and doesn't need to claim them. They diligently fill out their compensation forms for various benefits and they always have some assistant at a state agency who told them that they need to do such and so to get this other benefit. They are experts at being victims of everything from failed education systems to failed economic systems to failed social welfare systems. They have been kept down by big business and greedy politicians and intolerant bosses. If they miss out on a benefit it's because somebody screwed them over and they have the litany down pat! Yet, when they are done complaining they leave their Starbucks cup on my desk along with the dozen wrappers from the candy dish that they demolished and they head home where they have heat and air conditioning and privacy and television and phone with apps and potable water that comes in both hot and cold. Yeah, they're poor alright but the lack of money isn't what's making them poor.
 
armor99 said:
Two words... "gold standard"
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The gold standard is every bit the "fiat currency" as what we have now. Gold is a shiny rock with only a few industrial uses. (some of which copper does just as well)

You cannot cover the current stock of circulating currency at the current "value" of gold. Therefore you would have to set an artificial value for gold, defeating the entire purpose. Either that, or a substantial portion of current, active currency suddenly becomes monopoly money and the economy shuts down. Great plan!

bonfire said:
18 words, "letting the free-market decide which currency(s) to use and which not to use"
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So, what, like a barter system? :lamo

Oh libertarians.
 
Deuce said:
So, what, like a barter system? :lamo

Oh libertarians.
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oh wow...

You think if the free-market is allowed to decide which currency(a) to use, they would pick an archaic, 1000+ year old system that has been proven not to work in large scales???

you so silly :lamo
 
If you import 80 million uneducated, poverty stricken Mexicans, all with huge needy families, to the country at the same time that all of the menial jobs are being shipped overseas, wouldn't it be logical to expect that the demand for welfare payments would exceed all limits?

Wasn't that the purpose of bringing the Mexicans here, to create a permanent dependency class that would keep liberals in office forever?

The problem created by the liberal importation of the Mexicans will never be solved. There will never be enough jobs for them. With a hundred million uneducated, poverty stricken Mexicans and blacks in America, greatness is gone forever. There is no way to ever come back.

This particular problem will not be solved by cute little tag lines and ridicule of Conservatives.
 
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