Looked around the forum and haven't seen any thread about welfare. I am conflicted by it and can't really make up my mind. Do you support it and do you think it is a bad thing? Who should benefit from it, if you support it?
Don't debate me.
What is your opinion of welfare?
Welfare is neccesary to have a modern economy going on.
You need corporate welfare to transfer billions of dollars to companies like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, United Technologies Corporation, L-3 Communications, IBM, BAE Systems, General Electric, General Motors, etc., so they can develop over priced, useless military hardware to protect America from Russia and China. Of course, most of the technology developed is used later for civilian purposes. Did you really believe that cell phones and computers came out of nothing?
And, of course, you need civilian welfare to keep the Deplorables over the line, otherwise they will revolt and it will be ugly.
You need corporate welfare to transfer billions of dollars to companies like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, United Technologies Corporation, L-3 Communications, IBM, BAE Systems, General Electric, General Motors, etc., so they can develop over priced, useless military hardware to protect America from Russia and China. Of course, most of the technology developed is used later for civilian purposes. Did you really believe that cell phones and computers came out of nothing?
And, of course, you need civilian welfare to keep the Deplorables over the line, otherwise they will revolt and it will be ugly.
With God's help, I'll conquer this terrible affliction.
By way of deception, thou shalt game women.
Diaboli virtus in lumbar est -The Devil's virtue is in his loins.
Private sector (including churches) still helps people in need. Many doctors dedicate a day per week to help people who can't afford healthcare. Yesterday I saw people gathering around for free soup (some locals made it).
Look how much people donate during catastrophes...
You don't need government taking from people, giving to another and charge 90% commission.
Look how much people donate during catastrophes...
You don't need government taking from people, giving to another and charge 90% commission.
In a perfect world, it is probably unnecessary but what with all the inequality and the hoarding of wealth by the top. 05% we have to look out for the little guy. I dont mind paying more taxes or whatnot if it means old, sick, or poor people can get some food/Healthcare.
I think that is the wrong question. The question I would ask is: Is the creation of a welfare state inevitable and, if so, to what degree is it inevitable and what is the most pragmatic way to maximize your lifestyle within such a system?
Not everyone can just leave and move to another part of the world to seek a better life with more freedom and opportunity and not everyone can just pull themselves up by their bootstraps as the government increasingly makes it more difficult for an honest man to start and build his own legitimate enterprise without going bankrupt as a result of increasing taxation and overhead, being muscled by some multinational corporation with no connection or loyalty to him or the place where he lives, being sued into insolvency, being shut down by some lobby or new certification requirement he can’t afford at the moment, etc. Most men are stuck in the system and will continue to be so until that system collapses under the weight of its own massive size and distance from the common man like the Mongol Empire. In fact, a way for a man to, in his own small way, expedite the process by which said system is bled dry and killed is to take as much from it as he legally can as often as he can.
At a certain point, it becomes almost dumb for a man to not go on some form of welfare and/or government assistance. It is not so much a matter of whether it is right or wrong since you will always be outvoted by women, leftists, and cucks so what you think is right wil never come to pass in the West without a complete systemic collapse and revolution of some kind.
As I was told by an instructor tasked with preparing myself and other soldiers for civilian life when I was getting out of the Army, the assistance programs and benefits will be there and you will pay for them with your taxes whether you take them or not and, if you don’t take them, someone else will so you might as well because they are going to ultimately cost you the same regardless.
Also, when women entered the workplace en masse, they began competing with men, with the help of diversity quotas and other things, for the jobs that men had traditionally been able to support themselves and their families on. Suddenly, we had at least twice as much competition (more if you factor in the quotas and other things) for the same number of or even fewer jobs. This is the main reason why real wages have not increased in the US and probably the rest of the Anglosphere since the 1970s and also why prices have simultaneously skyrocketed as women drive the prices of everything up (80% of consumer spending in the US is done by women and they drive up housing prices too as they live alone as much as men do now).
There comes a point where many if not most men would actually make more money and do better for themselves on some form of welfare and/or other government assistance than they would working themselves to death for a faceless corporation that couldn’t care less about them and their well-being if it tried or being taxed into bankruptcy as an entrepreneur. It also becomes a sort of revenge because the money they get would be coming mainly from the multinational corporations and elites who are disproportionately responsible for creating the situation they are in by pushing women into the workplace (thus pushing men out), pushing them into colleges and other training programs (again, also pushing men out in the process), and paying for and protecting the political leaders who have brought this all into being.
The primary argument for pushing women into universities and the workplace is that it increases corporate profits and drives economic growth on a national/federal level. In other words, the primary benefactors are large corporations who can continuously get away with greater outrages while paying employees less and treating them worse and political leaders whose salaries and benefits increase as the economy grows and their ability to extract more through taxation increases with it (20% of 1 million is more than 20% of 1000).
Jack Donovan talks about it in Becoming a Barbarian when he discusses the “Empire of Nothing” and Aaron Clarey mentioned it in Enjoy the Decline as a purely pragmatic response the the objective reality of man’s place in the modern West.
Aside from all this, there are increasingly fewer jobs in the complex Western economies which can be done by a person with an IQ below 85 and that segment of the population is not just going to go away as IQ is almost entirely hereditary and no one has thus far been able to figure out a way to greatly increase an individual’s IQ, especially once their brains have already fully developed. Even entrepreneurship is now almost exclusively a high IQ enterprise if we only consider those who actually succeed at it, usually after enduring several failures before success is finally achieved, as a deep understanding of various technologies, regulations, complex financial systems/tools, and so on are becoming increasingly necessary to stay legal and competitive.
Since we in the West are becoming increasingly less religious and less involved in our respective communities (if we can even be said to have such a thing), thus becoming increasingly less likely to engage with religious charities and things like that, and the concepts of close family ties and familial support have all but been erased from the psyches of most of us, it is not surprising that the state would eventually be invited or forced in to try and fill the void and provide for the downtrodden, the habitual bad decision makers, and the incapable who, like the rest of us, are usually atomized and alone with no one to lean on when life becomes overwhelming.
Not everyone can just leave and move to another part of the world to seek a better life with more freedom and opportunity and not everyone can just pull themselves up by their bootstraps as the government increasingly makes it more difficult for an honest man to start and build his own legitimate enterprise without going bankrupt as a result of increasing taxation and overhead, being muscled by some multinational corporation with no connection or loyalty to him or the place where he lives, being sued into insolvency, being shut down by some lobby or new certification requirement he can’t afford at the moment, etc. Most men are stuck in the system and will continue to be so until that system collapses under the weight of its own massive size and distance from the common man like the Mongol Empire. In fact, a way for a man to, in his own small way, expedite the process by which said system is bled dry and killed is to take as much from it as he legally can as often as he can.
At a certain point, it becomes almost dumb for a man to not go on some form of welfare and/or government assistance. It is not so much a matter of whether it is right or wrong since you will always be outvoted by women, leftists, and cucks so what you think is right wil never come to pass in the West without a complete systemic collapse and revolution of some kind.
As I was told by an instructor tasked with preparing myself and other soldiers for civilian life when I was getting out of the Army, the assistance programs and benefits will be there and you will pay for them with your taxes whether you take them or not and, if you don’t take them, someone else will so you might as well because they are going to ultimately cost you the same regardless.
Also, when women entered the workplace en masse, they began competing with men, with the help of diversity quotas and other things, for the jobs that men had traditionally been able to support themselves and their families on. Suddenly, we had at least twice as much competition (more if you factor in the quotas and other things) for the same number of or even fewer jobs. This is the main reason why real wages have not increased in the US and probably the rest of the Anglosphere since the 1970s and also why prices have simultaneously skyrocketed as women drive the prices of everything up (80% of consumer spending in the US is done by women and they drive up housing prices too as they live alone as much as men do now).
There comes a point where many if not most men would actually make more money and do better for themselves on some form of welfare and/or other government assistance than they would working themselves to death for a faceless corporation that couldn’t care less about them and their well-being if it tried or being taxed into bankruptcy as an entrepreneur. It also becomes a sort of revenge because the money they get would be coming mainly from the multinational corporations and elites who are disproportionately responsible for creating the situation they are in by pushing women into the workplace (thus pushing men out), pushing them into colleges and other training programs (again, also pushing men out in the process), and paying for and protecting the political leaders who have brought this all into being.
The primary argument for pushing women into universities and the workplace is that it increases corporate profits and drives economic growth on a national/federal level. In other words, the primary benefactors are large corporations who can continuously get away with greater outrages while paying employees less and treating them worse and political leaders whose salaries and benefits increase as the economy grows and their ability to extract more through taxation increases with it (20% of 1 million is more than 20% of 1000).
Jack Donovan talks about it in Becoming a Barbarian when he discusses the “Empire of Nothing” and Aaron Clarey mentioned it in Enjoy the Decline as a purely pragmatic response the the objective reality of man’s place in the modern West.
Aside from all this, there are increasingly fewer jobs in the complex Western economies which can be done by a person with an IQ below 85 and that segment of the population is not just going to go away as IQ is almost entirely hereditary and no one has thus far been able to figure out a way to greatly increase an individual’s IQ, especially once their brains have already fully developed. Even entrepreneurship is now almost exclusively a high IQ enterprise if we only consider those who actually succeed at it, usually after enduring several failures before success is finally achieved, as a deep understanding of various technologies, regulations, complex financial systems/tools, and so on are becoming increasingly necessary to stay legal and competitive.
Since we in the West are becoming increasingly less religious and less involved in our respective communities (if we can even be said to have such a thing), thus becoming increasingly less likely to engage with religious charities and things like that, and the concepts of close family ties and familial support have all but been erased from the psyches of most of us, it is not surprising that the state would eventually be invited or forced in to try and fill the void and provide for the downtrodden, the habitual bad decision makers, and the incapable who, like the rest of us, are usually atomized and alone with no one to lean on when life becomes overwhelming.
It's bad. It encourages laziness and parasitism. It also is a wealth transfer from productive people to non-productive people.
Sure, a safety net for people who lose their job is fine, but unless one is disabled, it should always be temporary.
As for wealth inequality, welfare actually makes the matters worse. The very wealthy don't pay much in taxes because they have their money offshore and can afford armies of lawyers and accountants to use the loopholes in the tax systems. Welfare actually hurts the middle class because they can't afford the lawyers and accountants.
So with welfare and high taxes, you get a rapidly shrinking middle class, an increasingly wealthy 0.1%, and a growing, unemployed underclass on welfare.
Sure, a safety net for people who lose their job is fine, but unless one is disabled, it should always be temporary.
As for wealth inequality, welfare actually makes the matters worse. The very wealthy don't pay much in taxes because they have their money offshore and can afford armies of lawyers and accountants to use the loopholes in the tax systems. Welfare actually hurts the middle class because they can't afford the lawyers and accountants.
So with welfare and high taxes, you get a rapidly shrinking middle class, an increasingly wealthy 0.1%, and a growing, unemployed underclass on welfare.
Are we separating Welfare from Unemployment Benefits?
Welfare to my opinion... is actually a program that pays people to stay out of the workforce. If you want to keep people from coming up behind you and competing for your job, then Welfare is an ideal program. It creates a near permanent class of underachieving losers at low costs, while protecting high paying jobs from price competition.
Welfare to my opinion... is actually a program that pays people to stay out of the workforce. If you want to keep people from coming up behind you and competing for your job, then Welfare is an ideal program. It creates a near permanent class of underachieving losers at low costs, while protecting high paying jobs from price competition.
You don't necessarily need it, if you can find other ways to provide the jobless with jobs. Men need food, healthcare and especially ACCESS to sex. If they can't get it via "game" / real women, they need the money to at least get it from prostitutes.
Imo welfare should be designed around finding solutions that will help an unemployed individual get back on track, which in some cases might even mean changes his profession.
I personally think access to higher education should be free and covered by the state, as access to education shouldn't be limited. Yes, you can educate yourself via the internet, but will struggle to compete when companies want a degree.
In poorer countries, welfare is simply a means of sustaining the people, but it won't aid them in reaching their goals or creating a better environment for themselves.
Imo welfare should be designed around finding solutions that will help an unemployed individual get back on track, which in some cases might even mean changes his profession.
I personally think access to higher education should be free and covered by the state, as access to education shouldn't be limited. Yes, you can educate yourself via the internet, but will struggle to compete when companies want a degree.
In poorer countries, welfare is simply a means of sustaining the people, but it won't aid them in reaching their goals or creating a better environment for themselves.
It doesn't matter.
In a free society, the people who wanted "welfare" could form a group together and force each other as much as they wanted to pay a tax for the welfare group and leave everyone else alone. Problem with socialists and pretty much everyone else is that they want to force other people to be part of it (and usually do all the hard work they are too lazy to do).
In a free society, the people who wanted "welfare" could form a group together and force each other as much as they wanted to pay a tax for the welfare group and leave everyone else alone. Problem with socialists and pretty much everyone else is that they want to force other people to be part of it (and usually do all the hard work they are too lazy to do).
I'm currently on government assistance, employment insurance or as we call it on the east coast of Canada, pogey. I work seasonal jobs, so when I was laid of on November 8th, I opened a claim and have been receiving the equivalent of about $1500/month which isn't much but it pays for all the dope I've been smoking and a shit ton of cheesies. I have no qualms about receiving money from a system that I've been paying into for over twenty years, even if I did gross over $80,000 last, don't hate the player, hate the game boys!
I go back to work on Monday, it's going to suck but by the time summer rolls around, I'll be back on the pogey train, collecting me cheques while I chill down home on Pogey Beach smoking fatties and eating lobster, fuck working all year, I don't know how people do it.
I go back to work on Monday, it's going to suck but by the time summer rolls around, I'll be back on the pogey train, collecting me cheques while I chill down home on Pogey Beach smoking fatties and eating lobster, fuck working all year, I don't know how people do it.
Quote: (01-03-2019 02:57 PM)scotian Wrote:
I'm currently on government assistance, employment insurance or as we call it on the east coast of Canada, pogey. I work seasonal jobs, so when I was laid of on November 8th, I opened a claim and have been receiving the equivalent of about $1500/month which isn't much but it pays for all the dope I've been smoking and a shit ton of cheesies. I have no qualms about receiving money from a system that I've been paying into for over twenty years, even if I did gross over $80,000 last, don't hate the player, hate the game boys!
I go back to work on Monday, it's going to suck but by the time summer rolls around, I'll be back on the pogey train, collecting me cheques while I chill down home on Pogey Beach smoking fatties and eating lobster, fuck working all year, I don't know how people do it.
Unemployment Benefits are NOT welfare. Unemployment is a requirement because low income workers cannot be expected to save 6 months to a years salary just in case. So instead it's best to use a form of insurance.
Welfare prior to Bill Clinton had no connection to your employment status. If you never worked a job in your life you could still access welfare and get a basic subsistence from it.
Excellent post Waqqle. Here are my thoughts.
I believe in charity. I don't believe in forcibly taking resources from some people to give to other people, because it's not efficient and does not create a better society (individual or corporate, regardless).
Families: It changes the dynamics between men and women. When women are as well-off or better off without baby-daddy, the relationship changes. The mutual need is decreased.
Men: In men-women relationships, men want to be needed (vs women need to be wanted). Welfare removes some of that need.
People need to struggle to appreciate life. Welfare removes some of that struggle.
People appreciate things for which they struggled. Welfare removes the struggle for resources.
Welfare increases risky behavior. Eg, obesity rates among the poor, bankruptcies by businesses.
Welfare isn't terribly efficient. Unless you believe governments are more efficient than any other possible organization.
Welfare changes the relationship between those being taken from and those being giving to, usually toward division. In the presence of charity, most everyone recognizes it's a good thing. With legalized redistribution of wealth, both sides are pissed off at the other.
To the inefficiency point, it's a lot easier to scam a government out of resources than a charitable organization or an individual. Hell, government employees scam the government out of resources.
Again, the inefficiency point, it's naive to think that welfare is looking out for the little guy and that it means old sick poor people can get some food and healthcare, and that without welfare that doesn't happen. I want the little guy looked out for and I want old sick poor people to have access to some wealth in a wealthy society. Welfare is the least efficient way of doing that. Families are the most efficient way of doing that. Hell, even with welfare, the old poor sick people are still better off with family support. Plus, add in welfare, and you'll inevitably lose some charity (from private sources).
Carolla talks about this. He has a brother in law who is severely schizophrenic and supported by modest means by the family. I can't find a clip, but he occasionally talks about how important - how much more important - family is in these types of situations (homelessness).
Plus, just listen to nerds...
His points are on the current welfare state in the U.S., so you could propose there are better ways to run it. It's extremely difficult for a government to administer welfare in an efficient manner, without such obvious problems as he notes.
I'd be all about it if it worked though.
I believe in charity. I don't believe in forcibly taking resources from some people to give to other people, because it's not efficient and does not create a better society (individual or corporate, regardless).
Families: It changes the dynamics between men and women. When women are as well-off or better off without baby-daddy, the relationship changes. The mutual need is decreased.
Men: In men-women relationships, men want to be needed (vs women need to be wanted). Welfare removes some of that need.
People need to struggle to appreciate life. Welfare removes some of that struggle.
People appreciate things for which they struggled. Welfare removes the struggle for resources.
Welfare increases risky behavior. Eg, obesity rates among the poor, bankruptcies by businesses.
Welfare isn't terribly efficient. Unless you believe governments are more efficient than any other possible organization.
Welfare changes the relationship between those being taken from and those being giving to, usually toward division. In the presence of charity, most everyone recognizes it's a good thing. With legalized redistribution of wealth, both sides are pissed off at the other.
To the inefficiency point, it's a lot easier to scam a government out of resources than a charitable organization or an individual. Hell, government employees scam the government out of resources.
Again, the inefficiency point, it's naive to think that welfare is looking out for the little guy and that it means old sick poor people can get some food and healthcare, and that without welfare that doesn't happen. I want the little guy looked out for and I want old sick poor people to have access to some wealth in a wealthy society. Welfare is the least efficient way of doing that. Families are the most efficient way of doing that. Hell, even with welfare, the old poor sick people are still better off with family support. Plus, add in welfare, and you'll inevitably lose some charity (from private sources).
Carolla talks about this. He has a brother in law who is severely schizophrenic and supported by modest means by the family. I can't find a clip, but he occasionally talks about how important - how much more important - family is in these types of situations (homelessness).
Plus, just listen to nerds...
His points are on the current welfare state in the U.S., so you could propose there are better ways to run it. It's extremely difficult for a government to administer welfare in an efficient manner, without such obvious problems as he notes.
I'd be all about it if it worked though.
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
The US is the richest country ever - why are libertardians and others so obsessed with dismantling welfare?
It's kind of un-Christian to hate on poor people, if you ask me.
It's kind of un-Christian to hate on poor people, if you ask me.
Welfare should be the domain of the church, family and community level groups. They have a nose for who is being a lazy sponger. The move to welfare states has ruined the West. But of course that was the point of them in the first place. It was all a socialist ploy to make addicts of the citizenry.
I come from an Indian (feather) family so welfare is even more culturally ingrained than that hoser Scotian.
Welfare as a thought is fine. If someone happens to be born into a shitty family, doesn't get the skills necessary to make something, ends up losing job after job, then its something that at least keeps them fed and housed during the shitty times. If they keep their shit together and don't become addicts, life will eventually turn around.
For my Indian brethren its going on three generations of welfare now. Its now officially part of their DNA most likely, which leads to my next point.
I think I support drug testing for welfare checks. Scotian has to take them in order to work, so it only makes sense to take them in order to get free shit.
Welfare as a thought is fine. If someone happens to be born into a shitty family, doesn't get the skills necessary to make something, ends up losing job after job, then its something that at least keeps them fed and housed during the shitty times. If they keep their shit together and don't become addicts, life will eventually turn around.
For my Indian brethren its going on three generations of welfare now. Its now officially part of their DNA most likely, which leads to my next point.
I think I support drug testing for welfare checks. Scotian has to take them in order to work, so it only makes sense to take them in order to get free shit.
Quote: (01-03-2019 03:27 PM)TigerMandingo Wrote:
The US is the richest country ever - why are libertardians and others so obsessed with dismantling welfare?
It's kind of un-Christian to hate on poor people, if you ask me.
No one hates poor people. What we hate is those that abuse the system and rely on it as a in-perpetuity-failure-enabling crutch rather than a temporary safety net.
Nothing breeds resentment more than extended compassion being used as a lubricant for fucking productive hard working society at large.
Edit
To answer your question above "Because it not only doesnt work it does way more harm than good". We've had over 60 yrs of results.
Ill let the brilliance of Thomas Sowell make my case
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/...dd53a24bf0
Quote:Quote:
As public intellectuals go, few have been more prolific than Thomas Sowell. For more than 40 years, he’s been churning out books at the rate of one a year, in addition to writing a syndicated column and academic articles and teaching courses at Cornell, UCLA, Amherst, Brandeis and Stanford, where he is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. His wide-ranging interests include economics, history, race and ethnicity, poverty, higher education, justice, and children with delayed speech.
A Marxist radicalized into a free-market libertarian by a year working at the U.S. Labor Department, Sowell is now the go-to black academic for conservative media outlets. The son of a maid, he earned his way in the old-fashioned style to and through New York’s elite Stuyvesant High School, Harvard College, Columbia and the University of Chicago. He has waged a relentless crusade against those who would try to alleviate poverty or equalize opportunity through welfare, affirmative action or anything else that interferes with the operation of free markets.
‘Wealth, Poverty and Politics: An International Perspective’ by Thomas Sowell (Basic)
Having written so much, it is perhaps not surprising that Sowell has very little new to say in his latest book, “Wealth, Poverty and Politics.” Although its subtitle proclaims an international perspective, it’s quickly apparent that these are largely pretexts for having another go at his usual American targets: liberals, academics, universities, the media and civil rights leaders, along with anything that smacks of multiculturalism or social justice.
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Sowell’s central message is that the reason some people are poor — in any country, at any period in history — is not discrimination or exploitation or malicious actions on the part of the rich. Rather, people are poor because they don’t or won’t produce. For him, the only mystery is why.
Geography may have something to do with it. Civilizations that shut themselves off from the rest of the world, Sowell writes, are those that lag behind. Sometimes that is because of physical barriers, like mountains or a lack of navigable waterways or the unavailability of pack animals. Other times, as with China and Japan in the 15th and 16th centuries, it is because political leaders seeking to protect their own power cut themselves off from the world. Either way, the isolation inhibits the development of the “knowledge, skills, experiences and habits” that lead to economic growth. It also prevents humans from developing antibodies, making them susceptible to devastating diseases when foreigners arrive, as happened with the Incas and the Native Americans.
A second determinant of economic success is culture, by which Sowell means customs, values, norms and attitudes. For him, the proof of culture’s importance is to be found in the experience of minority groups, in various countries, that have achieved extraordinary economic success: Germans in Eastern Europe, Lebanese in West Africa, Japanese in Peru, Chinese in other parts of Asia, Jews and Indians everywhere. These immigrant groups arrive with a taste for entrepreneurship, a focus on education, a commitment to family, a reputation for honest dealing and an instinct for hard work. They also have high levels of trust and cooperation among themselves. Successful countries have learned to incorporate these cultural traits into their own, in contrast to “lagging” ones that envy and resent these minorities and concoct grievances against them to explain their own lack of success.
So far, so good. But it’s when Sowell adopts these historical lessons as the only explanation you need to understand inequality of incomes and opportunities in 21st-century America that he reveals how little he’s learned in the past 20 years.
Culture matters, of course, and Sowell has been courageous in calling attention to the growing acceptance of a black “ghetto culture” that has rejected traditional values. Dressing neatly, speaking proper English, achieving academic success, raising children in the context of stable marriages — by the 1970s, Sowell argues, these were demeaned as “acting white,” setting back the economic prospects of a generation of African Americans after decades of advances.
“None of the usual explanations of racial disparities — genetics, racism, poverty or ‘legacy of slavery’ — can explain this retrogression over time,” he writes. “One of the few possibilities left is that the culture within black communities has in some respect changed for the worse over the years.” And what is Sowell’s proof of this “retrogression”? That elite high schools such as Stuyvesant no longer boast as many black students as they used to.
In fact, while “ghetto culture” may help to explain the stubborn persistence of a black underclass, there is ample evidence of the progress of black Americans since the 1960s in statistics on poverty rates, educational achievement and household incomes. Gains relative to whites have slowed, but there are still absolute gains. Nor can “ghetto culture” explain the growth in poverty, the decline in marriage, the slowdown in educational achievement or the widening income gap in white America.
As Sowell sees it, this “retrogression” took root because of a virulent multiculturalism, imposed by academics and the media, that now makes it socially and politically unacceptable to criticize any group’s culture. And it is reinforced by an overly generous welfare state that has lulled poor blacks into a permanent state of dependency and sloth — “non-judgmental subsidies of counterproductive behavior,” in his felicitous phrasing.
This may have been a somewhat valid story line when Sowell and others first raised it in the 1980s, but his rendition remains unchanged 20 years after the passage of welfare reform and sharp cuts in cash assistance targeted to the poor in favor of the earned-income tax credit. His suggestion that there are still legions of working-age Americans who live better on welfare than by working is nothing more than a right-wing canard.
This book, in fact, is filled with such instances of overreach.
Sowell is certainly right in pointing out that when people talk about changes over time in the income of the top 1 percent or the bottom 20 percent, they are unaware that the households in each group are constantly changing. And the simple fact that earnings tend to increase with age means that most people’s incomes aren’t stagnant over their working lifetime, as many liberals often claim.
But to leap from those useful corrections to the sweeping conclusion that inequality is not rising — or, if it is, is not a problem — more than trifles with the truth. Even after accounting for the usual churn and life-cycle changes, the share of national income going to those at or near the top has grown dramatically, concentrating the benefits of economic growth in fewer and fewer hands. This is neither a statistical mirage nor a figment of our imagination.
Sowell is also right to point out that, contrary to the constant liberal refrain, economic mobility in America is not dead and that unequal incomes are not, by themselves, proof of unequal opportunity. But surely that is no reason to cavalierly dismiss a growing body of evidence of large and growing gaps between rich and poor children in terms of their physical, emotional and intellectual development and their later success later in life. As Sowell sees it, life has always been unfair, and if poor children start out with life stacked against them, they have no one to blame but their parents and their culture.
“Some children today are raised in ways that make it easier for them to become doctors, scientists or engineers,” he blithely writes, while others “are raised in ways that make it more likely they will become welfare recipients or criminals.”
Moreover, by his reasoning, any attempts to equalize opportunity would be counterproductive because they would deny society the higher output of the well-bred. In making such a calculation, however, Sowell never stops to consider what the ill-bred might have contributed to society if they had had a similar chance to develop their natural talents and capabilities.
As an intellectual combatant, Sowell thrives on jousting with straw men whose existence he posits with little or no proof. In the world according to Sowell, liberals (including rich ones, apparently) are so filled with envy and resentment that they will deny billionaires the chance to create new jobs and new products if it means adding even a dollar to their incomes. Black leaders want to keep their people in poverty because otherwise they would have no purpose. The media and government officials systematically ignore and cover up racially motivated black-on-white violence (he knows about these incidents, according to the footnotes, from major news outlets). These are more like the rants of a talk-radio host than the considered judgments of a respected academic.
Sowell does manage to score a clean hit on those who now complain that income inequality is too high by noting their refusal to say what level of inequality they would consider acceptable. What we also learn from “Wealth, Poverty and Politics” is that there is apparently no level of inequality of income or opportunity that Thomas Sowell would consider unacceptable.
_______________________________________
- Does She Have The "Happy Gene" ?
-Inversion Therapy
-Let's lead by example
"Leap, and the net will appear". John Burroughs
"The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure."
Joseph Campbell
Welfare keeps people off the streets, which I think is its main benefit.
I do wonder how many people would actually get off their ass and get a job if they had to, or whether these are people who just have not interest in doing anything.
My beef is that in Canada, the new Welfare is called Ontario Disability Insurance. Its basically being used as a permanent luxury welfare ticket for a lot of people. Get one doctor to sign off that you've got a bum disc in your back and you're set for life with weed and welfare.
Agree with EI not being welfare. You're entitled to your entitlements.
I do wonder how many people would actually get off their ass and get a job if they had to, or whether these are people who just have not interest in doing anything.
My beef is that in Canada, the new Welfare is called Ontario Disability Insurance. Its basically being used as a permanent luxury welfare ticket for a lot of people. Get one doctor to sign off that you've got a bum disc in your back and you're set for life with weed and welfare.
Agree with EI not being welfare. You're entitled to your entitlements.
“Where the danger is, so grows the saving element.” ~ German poet Hoelderlin
I think that taking money, at gunpoint, from one set of people to give to another set of people is evil.
I believe that there is great virtue in charity and no virtue in welfare.
I believe that there is great virtue in charity and no virtue in welfare.
Quote: (01-03-2019 04:12 PM)chicane Wrote:
I think that taking money, at gunpoint, from one set of people to give to another set of people is evil.
Its called socialism / communism and its killed hundreds of millions of people (and continues to do so)
Quote: (01-03-2019 04:12 PM)chicane Wrote:
I believe that there is great virtue in charity and no virtue in welfare.
Well said
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I think welfare should go to the old and disabled. But nobody else. Not sure about free education though.
Don't debate me.
Welfare will lead to the destruction of ALL countries that create such a system. Fundamentally you can't force productive people to subsidize unproductive people for an extended amount of time. On top of that in america almost 50% of people don't actually pay into the system and yet benefit from it. So you end up with lazy welfare addicts and angry workers who are forced to sustain the system. And when you add the fact that we are running deficits.. You can see that this will lead to the destruction of the Country.
Something like 60% of all tax money in America goes to welfare. This just isnt sustainable.
Something like 60% of all tax money in America goes to welfare. This just isnt sustainable.
Not sustainable? Lol please. If we can bail out the criminal banks for billions of dollars we can afford to give poor people some food stamps.
Y'all are focused on the wrong target.
Y'all are focused on the wrong target.
Welfare isn't a problem.
Social security and medicare are.
Might as well call it old people welfare, because that's what it is.
And if you didn't have 2 children to support you and your wife's replacement, you don't deserve any of it.
Otherwise, get rid of it. It's nothing more than a tax that the government double dips into.
Social security and medicare are.
Might as well call it old people welfare, because that's what it is.
And if you didn't have 2 children to support you and your wife's replacement, you don't deserve any of it.
Otherwise, get rid of it. It's nothing more than a tax that the government double dips into.
Quote:Quote:
Not sustainable? Lol please. If we can bail out the criminal banks for billions of dollars we can afford to give poor people some food stamps.
We can sustain being robbed so being robbed is moral justified? Nope.
Government food stamps can be replaced with local community initiatives.
No, they can't be replaced by community initiatives. That's because most people don't give a shit about the poor and the sick. Not that they have to, but it's worth pointing out. Everybody's got their own shit going on to worry about others.
Sorry, but the government has to stay involved in this. There will be always be leeches but on the whole the system works.
Sorry, but the government has to stay involved in this. There will be always be leeches but on the whole the system works.
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