Please explain how a family which has difficulty affording a $50 bicycle isn't going to have their lives dramatically changed by $1000, let alone $7000.He doesn't have to, because that's not what he claimed. See Comrade Jeff's post above and "the trick".
For the record, as a poor American, albeit one without a family to provide for, I wouldn't know what to do with seven thousand dollars, let alone twenty thousand, and would probably die from a drug overdose or prostitution-related mishap within, oh, let's say, six-eight months after receiving such a princely sum.
Thank you, American plutocrats, for knowing what is best for me.
IIRC, quite a few people in the states who end up winning the lottery end up poor (or even worse off) only a few years later. Giving people a chunk of cash doesn't necessarily mean people will be responsible with it, or even know how to be responsible with it.
Although that just means that if you want to benefit someone, sometimes it's better to buy them the bike (to use an example given above) than the cash.
Lazar: its not the mirror that i dislike so much as the lack of at trash can. How do you demonstrate that an idea, no matter how well intended, isn't true?
In this case it really doesn't matter what the culture is, the law is that the money doesn't flow to those who need it. That seems to be more important than some quasi existing culture.
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Please explain how a family which has difficulty affording a $50 bicycle isn't going to have their lives dramatically changed by $1000, let alone $7000.He doesn't have to, because that's not what he claimed. See Comrade Jeff's post above and "the trick".
For the record, as a poor American, albeit one without a family to provide for, I wouldn't know what to do with seven thousand dollars, let alone twenty thousand, and would probably die from a drug overdose or prostitution-related mishap within, oh, let's say, six-eight months after receiving such a princely sum.
Thank you, American plutocrats, for knowing what is best for me.
IIRC, quite a few people in the states who end up winning the lottery end up poor (or even worse off) only a few years later. Giving people a chunk of cash doesn't necessarily mean people will be responsible with it, or even know how to be responsible with it.
Although that just means that if you want to benefit someone, sometimes it's better to buy them the bike (to use an example given above) than the cash.
Yep. That is my issue with all "throw money at it" programs. take welfare, many could feed their children healthy food and help them advance out of it. Most seem to prefer pissing it away on snackfoods and redbull and teach the kids how to sign up and use a welfare card themselves. These people were never equipped to handle life and no money throwing, not even in the millions, will help
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@Andrew R I've been reading this thread and i think i've finally gotten the joke. You've been RPing this entire time, you're playing your avatar Asmodeus.I am not so patiently waiting for him to suggest eating the poor. They stand around all day like livestock anyway, why not take the next logical step?
Not at all, i come from poor, i am poor. It is how the people that are poor deal with it i have an issue with.
Does me not wanting to give every crackhead and welfare abuser someone else's money make me evil to you? One of the true marks of a free man is being able to own what is his, having a gov that can take it as much as they want at whim just shows how little off we are from tyranny in the name of "think about the poor". But some of you WANT tyranny, since that means freebies for you....
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Most seem to prefer pissing it away on snackfoods and redbull and teach the kids how to sign up and use a welfare card themselves.
Source Cite?
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@Andrew R I've been reading this thread and i think i've finally gotten the joke. You've been RPing this entire time, you're playing your avatar Asmodeus.I am not so patiently waiting for him to suggest eating the poor. They stand around all day like livestock anyway, why not take the next logical step?Not at all, i come from poor, i am poor. It is how the people that are poor deal with it i have an issue with.
Does me not wanting to give every crackhead and welfare abuser someone else's money make me evil to you? One of the true marks of a free man is being able to own what is his, having a gov that can take it as much as they want at whim just shows how little off we are from tyranny in the name of "think about the poor". But some of you WANT tyranny, since that means freebies for you....
You seem to misunderstand the concept of society. You do things like drive on roads, and drink water. You probably went to school, and enjoy the protection of police and military. These are provided by the society. In exchange for what the society give you, you must in turn give things to society. When your society has a government, that generally means money. It isn't your money. You owe it to society. The government didn't take your money. It was never yours. The government lets you use their money to facilitate financial transactions. At the end of the day, the government gets it's money back. How much it gets back it a product of many factors, but the money is the government's to take.
Then the government spends that money doing things that provide for society.(see above) Sometimes you may not personally agree with how the money gets spent. No one gives a flip what you think. Nor does it matter, because the money being spent isn't yours anyway.
@Andrew R I've been reading this thread and i think i've finally gotten the joke. You've been RPing this entire time, you're playing your avatar Asmodeus.I am not so patiently waiting for him to suggest eating the poor. They stand around all day like livestock anyway, why not take the next logical step?Not at all, i come from poor, i am poor. It is how the people that are poor deal with it i have an issue with.
Does me not wanting to give every crackhead and welfare abuser someone else's money make me evil to you? One of the true marks of a free man is being able to own what is his, having a gov that can take it as much as they want at whim just shows how little off we are from tyranny in the name of "think about the poor". But some of you WANT tyranny, since that means freebies for you....
I don't think you're evil. I just think you make the same arguments Asmodeus would make to get people to give up their rights. Whether you do so out of a truly impressive sense of ironic humor or whether you do it out of a legitimate, yet erroneous, belief is the part I can't decide.
Truth is not the issue with a scientific model. The test of a model is it's predictive ability.Lazar: its not the mirror that i dislike so much as the lack of at trash can. How do you demonstrate that an idea, no matter how well intended, isn't true?
and its explanatory power, both of which are a measure of its veracity.
Well, I for one am thrilled with Andrew R's progressivism. He is the first human poster to blame liberal and poor humans for nearly all of societies' ills, instead of blaming liberal and poor goblins. I'm going to write my Congressgobs to have his face carved onto... er... {remembers she flunked History}... well, some kind of historic goblin monument.
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@Andrew R I've been reading this thread and i think i've finally gotten the joke. You've been RPing this entire time, you're playing your avatar Asmodeus.I am not so patiently waiting for him to suggest eating the poor. They stand around all day like livestock anyway, why not take the next logical step?Not at all, i come from poor, i am poor. It is how the people that are poor deal with it i have an issue with.
Does me not wanting to give every crackhead and welfare abuser someone else's money make me evil to you? One of the true marks of a free man is being able to own what is his, having a gov that can take it as much as they want at whim just shows how little off we are from tyranny in the name of "think about the poor". But some of you WANT tyranny, since that means freebies for you....
That everyone other than you and the poor folks that you approve of are naturally crackheads and welfare abusers speaks volumes.
Indeed. So long as people stay out of poverty, it doesn't matter much how much someone else makes. The fact of the matter is, no matter how you look at it, if you were to take the money from the ten thousand richest and distribute them evenly, most people wouldn't even notice. It's just a way for socialists to play on people's envy.That's just not true. You're still underestimating how extreme the divide is.
I haven't seen numbers for the top 10,000 specifically, but in the US, the top 0.01% hold about 10% of the country's wealth. Which is more than the bottom 2/3 of the population. They'd notice.
Not that I'd advocate actually doing so. There's still time for gentler measures to work.
Worldwide the billionaires have a total of $6.4 trillion, that is less than $1000 per person worldwide. That total is a bit over 1/3 of the current US debt.
If we take all 12 million High Net Worth people, they have $46.2 trillion which is less than $7000 per person. So yeah, the poor in the US would "notice," but it's not going to change their lives.
Nice trick. If you take the top money from the whole world and divide it across the whole world, you'll get an amount that won't change the lives of the poor in the US. That's true. But that's because the US as a whole is relatively rich and has a proportionately high cost of living.
It would however utterly transform the lives of the poor in the much of the world. In impoverished countries, $7000 would be a fortune for much of the population. Multiple times the median annual income. Especially since you're dividing it per person, not per worker or household.
Or, if you stuck with the US and divided the wealth of the richest in the US among the US population, then you're in the ~$20,000/person range. Which isn't quite as transformative, but still going to be a big change.
The only data I found for the US was for the top 400. Even so $20k is only a bit over 1 years wages at minimum wage. Do you believe that will change anyone's life? It certainly wouldn't change mine, and I don't make that $20k.
Plus a lot of that wealth isn't money, it's the businesses and property that are owned. Congratulations you now have 200 shares of Microsoft stock. It doesn't do you any good if no one out there can buy it.
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I don't think you're evil. I just think you make the same arguments Asmodeus would make to get people to give up their rights. Whether you do so out of a truly impressive sense of ironic humor or whether you do it out of a legitimate, yet erroneous, belief is the part I can't decide.@Andrew R I've been reading this thread and i think i've finally gotten the joke. You've been RPing this entire time, you're playing your avatar Asmodeus.I am not so patiently waiting for him to suggest eating the poor. They stand around all day like livestock anyway, why not take the next logical step?Not at all, i come from poor, i am poor. It is how the people that are poor deal with it i have an issue with.
Does me not wanting to give every crackhead and welfare abuser someone else's money make me evil to you? One of the true marks of a free man is being able to own what is his, having a gov that can take it as much as they want at whim just shows how little off we are from tyranny in the name of "think about the poor". But some of you WANT tyranny, since that means freebies for you....
Wait, me not wanting the gov to have the authority to take what it wants is taking other peoples rights? WTF
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That everyone other than you and the poor folks that you approve of are naturally crackheads and welfare abusers speaks volumes.@Andrew R I've been reading this thread and i think i've finally gotten the joke. You've been RPing this entire time, you're playing your avatar Asmodeus.I am not so patiently waiting for him to suggest eating the poor. They stand around all day like livestock anyway, why not take the next logical step?Not at all, i come from poor, i am poor. It is how the people that are poor deal with it i have an issue with.
Does me not wanting to give every crackhead and welfare abuser someone else's money make me evil to you? One of the true marks of a free man is being able to own what is his, having a gov that can take it as much as they want at whim just shows how little off we are from tyranny in the name of "think about the poor". But some of you WANT tyranny, since that means freebies for you....
No the fact that you want to rob honest people to pay for them is telling.
I have no issue with people that are not lazy and useless falling on hard times asking for a little hand. i do not have an issue with temporary housing and food assistance when a parent dies, or unemployment for a limited time. i DO have a problem with cradle to grave paying for every action of the useless, drug addicted and criminal. Some safety net programs are good for society to have. Easily exploitable programs like our current welfare failure are corrupting our society
Most seem to prefer pissing it away on snackfoods and redbull and teach the kids how to sign up and use a welfare card themselves.Source Cite?
Here here.
Your description of people who need welfare or other social services seems like it comes straight from a book on Republican cliches.
As as kid...my family did actually go on welfare. My mom was profoundly embarrassed about having to use food stamps. And my parents worked their but off to get off public assistance programs.
Yes...there are people who exploit the system. Just like there are rich people who exploit the system to get out of taxes or skate on fraud.
If you don't have something like welfare, food stamps, medicaid, etc, than any time a personal crisis occurs there is a potential for someone to permanently fall into poverty, and never recover.
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Most seem to prefer pissing it away on snackfoods and redbull and teach the kids how to sign up and use a welfare card themselves.Source Cite?Here here.
Your description of people who need welfare or other social services seems like it comes straight from a book on Republican cliches.
As as kid...my family did actually go on welfare. My mom was profoundly embarrassed about having to use food stamps. And my parents worked their but off to get off public assistance programs.
Yes...there are people who exploit the system. Just like there are rich people who exploit the system to get out of taxes or skate on fraud.
If you don't have something like welfare, food stamps, medicaid, etc, than any time a personal crisis occurs there is a potential for someone to permanently fall into poverty, and never recover.
It comes from daily interaction. it comes from growing up poor and seeing how others do things. My family had welfare for a short time, my (disabled) father and i got off it shortly after my parents divorced. We worked our asses off in any ways we could to live without it.
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And i do not say to get rid of it entirely, i just want to take the fun out of it so it is not abused so much. My current idea is to NOT give them a card, tie it to state ID and only that person may use it. Mark the card "not eligible to purchase alcohol, lotto or tobacco" as they have no business buying those while taking from others. Only allow the card to buy actual food not redbull. Make them all take a class about shopping smart and cooking. DO NOT give them more if they continue to have kids they do not need insensitive to keep making the problem worse. Revoke it for criminal actions, if they don't care about their kids enough to leave the meth alone goe the kids to someone that gives a damn
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And i do not say to get rid of it entirely, i just want to take the fun out of it so it is not abused so much. My current idea is to NOT give them a card, tie it to state ID and only that person may use it. Mark the card "not eligible to purchase alcohol, lotto or tobacco" as they have no business buying those while taking from others. Only allow the card to buy actual food not redbull. Make them all take a class about shopping smart and cooking. DO NOT give them more if they continue to have kids they do not need insensitive to keep making the problem worse. Revoke it for criminal actions, if they don't care about their kids enough to leave the meth alone goe the kids to someone that gives a damn
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)
Eligible Food ItemsHouseholds CANNOT use SNAP benefits to buy:
Beer, wine, liquor, cigarettes or tobacco
So, are you going to fess up to the fact that you have this stubborn idea of what it means to be on welfare which has no correlation to reality?
That everyone other than you and the poor folks that you approve of are naturally crackheads and welfare abusers speaks volumes.@Andrew R I've been reading this thread and i think i've finally gotten the joke. You've been RPing this entire time, you're playing your avatar Asmodeus.I am not so patiently waiting for him to suggest eating the poor. They stand around all day like livestock anyway, why not take the next logical step?Not at all, i come from poor, i am poor. It is how the people that are poor deal with it i have an issue with.
Does me not wanting to give every crackhead and welfare abuser someone else's money make me evil to you? One of the true marks of a free man is being able to own what is his, having a gov that can take it as much as they want at whim just shows how little off we are from tyranny in the name of "think about the poor". But some of you WANT tyranny, since that means freebies for you....
No the fact that you want to rob honest people to pay for them is telling.
I have no issue with people that are not lazy and useless falling on hard times asking for a little hand. i do not have an issue with temporary housing and food assistance when a parent dies, or unemployment for a limited time. i DO have a problem with cradle to grave paying for every action of the useless, drug addicted and criminal. Some safety net programs are good for society to have. Easily exploitable programs like our current welfare failure are corrupting our society
TL; DR, it's okay when I do it. Only then.
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And i do not say to get rid of it entirely, i just want to take the fun out of it so it is not abused so much. My current idea is to NOT give them a card, tie it to state ID and only that person may use it. Mark the card "not eligible to purchase alcohol, lotto or tobacco" as they have no business buying those while taking from others. Only allow the card to buy actual food not redbull. Make them all take a class about shopping smart and cooking. DO NOT give them more if they continue to have kids they do not need insensitive to keep making the problem worse. Revoke it for criminal actions, if they don't care about their kids enough to leave the meth alone goe the kids to someone that gives a damnSupplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)
Eligible Food Items
So, are you going to fess up to the fact that you have this stubborn idea of what it means to be on welfare which has no correlation to reality?Households CANNOT use SNAP benefits to buy:
Beer, wine, liquor, cigarettes or tobacco
Here in MI they can get cash off the card and buy all of that at whim
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TL; DR, it's okay when I do it. Only then.That everyone other than you and the poor folks that you approve of are naturally crackheads and welfare abusers speaks volumes.@Andrew R I've been reading this thread and i think i've finally gotten the joke. You've been RPing this entire time, you're playing your avatar Asmodeus.I am not so patiently waiting for him to suggest eating the poor. They stand around all day like livestock anyway, why not take the next logical step?Not at all, i come from poor, i am poor. It is how the people that are poor deal with it i have an issue with.
Does me not wanting to give every crackhead and welfare abuser someone else's money make me evil to you? One of the true marks of a free man is being able to own what is his, having a gov that can take it as much as they want at whim just shows how little off we are from tyranny in the name of "think about the poor". But some of you WANT tyranny, since that means freebies for you....
No the fact that you want to rob honest people to pay for them is telling.
I have no issue with people that are not lazy and useless falling on hard times asking for a little hand. i do not have an issue with temporary housing and food assistance when a parent dies, or unemployment for a limited time. i DO have a problem with cradle to grave paying for every action of the useless, drug addicted and criminal. Some safety net programs are good for society to have. Easily exploitable programs like our current welfare failure are corrupting our society
Um i don't touch the system, i have in all my life taken one week of unemployment
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Here in MI they can get cash off the card and buy all of that at whimAnd i do not say to get rid of it entirely, i just want to take the fun out of it so it is not abused so much. My current idea is to NOT give them a card, tie it to state ID and only that person may use it. Mark the card "not eligible to purchase alcohol, lotto or tobacco" as they have no business buying those while taking from others. Only allow the card to buy actual food not redbull. Make them all take a class about shopping smart and cooking. DO NOT give them more if they continue to have kids they do not need insensitive to keep making the problem worse. Revoke it for criminal actions, if they don't care about their kids enough to leave the meth alone goe the kids to someone that gives a damnSupplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)
Eligible Food Items
So, are you going to fess up to the fact that you have this stubborn idea of what it means to be on welfare which has no correlation to reality?Households CANNOT use SNAP benefits to buy:
Beer, wine, liquor, cigarettes or tobacco
That's illegal. You can't exchange SNAP for cash:
http://www.fns.usda.gov/fraud/what-snap-fraud
I used to work in a supermarket. They told us to look out for scams that tried stunts geared for that. Report the people who are doing it: the gov'ment will revoke their SNAP. Again, worked in a supermarket... seen it done.
Here in MI they can get cash off the card and buy all of that at whimAnd i do not say to get rid of it entirely, i just want to take the fun out of it so it is not abused so much. My current idea is to NOT give them a card, tie it to state ID and only that person may use it. Mark the card "not eligible to purchase alcohol, lotto or tobacco" as they have no business buying those while taking from others. Only allow the card to buy actual food not redbull. Make them all take a class about shopping smart and cooking. DO NOT give them more if they continue to have kids they do not need insensitive to keep making the problem worse. Revoke it for criminal actions, if they don't care about their kids enough to leave the meth alone goe the kids to someone that gives a damnSupplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)
Eligible Food Items
So, are you going to fess up to the fact that you have this stubborn idea of what it means to be on welfare which has no correlation to reality?Households CANNOT use SNAP benefits to buy:
Beer, wine, liquor, cigarettes or tobacco
Doesn't work that way here, and I live in the cesspool of sin known as New York. You have to exchange goods(perhaps services, but that's quite rare) in order to do that.
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Doesn't work that way here, and I live in the cesspool of sin known as New York. You have to exchange goods(perhaps services, but that's quite rare) in order to do that.Here in MI they can get cash off the card and buy all of that at whimAnd i do not say to get rid of it entirely, i just want to take the fun out of it so it is not abused so much. My current idea is to NOT give them a card, tie it to state ID and only that person may use it. Mark the card "not eligible to purchase alcohol, lotto or tobacco" as they have no business buying those while taking from others. Only allow the card to buy actual food not redbull. Make them all take a class about shopping smart and cooking. DO NOT give them more if they continue to have kids they do not need insensitive to keep making the problem worse. Revoke it for criminal actions, if they don't care about their kids enough to leave the meth alone goe the kids to someone that gives a damnSupplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)
Eligible Food Items
So, are you going to fess up to the fact that you have this stubborn idea of what it means to be on welfare which has no correlation to reality?Households CANNOT use SNAP benefits to buy:
Beer, wine, liquor, cigarettes or tobacco
We have a system connected to snap called "cash assistance" meant to help cover bills and buy goods where cards are not an option. It is usable for anything, including drugs and strippers as it is cash in hand
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We have a system connected to snap called "cash assistance" meant to help cover bills and buy goods where cards are not an option. It is usable for anything, including drugs and strippers as it is cash in handDoesn't work that way here, and I live in the cesspool of sin known as New York. You have to exchange goods(perhaps services, but that's quite rare) in order to do that.Here in MI they can get cash off the card and buy all of that at whimAnd i do not say to get rid of it entirely, i just want to take the fun out of it so it is not abused so much. My current idea is to NOT give them a card, tie it to state ID and only that person may use it. Mark the card "not eligible to purchase alcohol, lotto or tobacco" as they have no business buying those while taking from others. Only allow the card to buy actual food not redbull. Make them all take a class about shopping smart and cooking. DO NOT give them more if they continue to have kids they do not need insensitive to keep making the problem worse. Revoke it for criminal actions, if they don't care about their kids enough to leave the meth alone goe the kids to someone that gives a damnSupplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)
Eligible Food Items
So, are you going to fess up to the fact that you have this stubborn idea of what it means to be on welfare which has no correlation to reality?Households CANNOT use SNAP benefits to buy:
Beer, wine, liquor, cigarettes or tobacco
Supermarket guy again. That's program is probably TANF or one of it's derivatives. There's a LOT of paperwork involved when using it, to justify what you buy with it.
Lapses are usually due to bureaucratic laziness or corruption. Again, please report it if seen. Gov'ment will shut it down lightning quick. Many States are "you are guilty until you've proven yourself innocent" with TANF and the like.
In fact, one can be a real jerk and report someone completely innocent, making their difficult situation even more difficult, since they have to resubmit paperwork to reinstate the benefit. That's how paranoid the program is...
***EDIT***
It's not SNAP though... SNAP is a welfare program, but it doesn't allow cash in.
Here in MI they can get cash off the card and buy all of that at whimAnd i do not say to get rid of it entirely, i just want to take the fun out of it so it is not abused so much. My current idea is to NOT give them a card, tie it to state ID and only that person may use it. Mark the card "not eligible to purchase alcohol, lotto or tobacco" as they have no business buying those while taking from others. Only allow the card to buy actual food not redbull. Make them all take a class about shopping smart and cooking. DO NOT give them more if they continue to have kids they do not need insensitive to keep making the problem worse. Revoke it for criminal actions, if they don't care about their kids enough to leave the meth alone goe the kids to someone that gives a damnSupplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)
Eligible Food Items
So, are you going to fess up to the fact that you have this stubborn idea of what it means to be on welfare which has no correlation to reality?Households CANNOT use SNAP benefits to buy:
Beer, wine, liquor, cigarettes or tobacco
Could you cite a source?
Cause the website from the state of Michigan disagrees with you.
What should I know about my Food Assistance and/or Cash Account?
Food Assistance Account
It does not cost you to use the Michigan Bridge Card for Food Assistance transactions.You do not get cash back when you use it.
That's from another site. I'm sure there are places that circumvent the law, but it's not legal.
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that is just snap, there is more to it
Sure there's more programs, but they all have a function. Specifics depend on the program.
http://www.michigan.gov/dhs/0,4562,7-124-5453_5526---,00.html
http://www.michigan.gov/dhs/0,4562,7-124-5453_5526_61229---,00.html
Even lists many ATMs that you can get cash off of
That's TANF related they're using, not SNAP... and you have to submit the receipts when using TANF with a multipage application that justifies why you needed to buy it. Total pain in the butt. Plus, to be perfectly honest, the typical poor person doesn't get much money for TANF. The average I saw spent was like $20. Most I ever saw a single family have spent was $50 (and it was a BIG family).
Look... I can think of a dozen ways I could use SNAP or TANF to buy crack or street girls... but all of them are illegal and require knowing someone in the system who can work the corruption (a clerk or desk jokey for example). Or using the criminal blackmarket and illegal sites. It DOES happen, but most of them fail or are discovered fairly quick... usually after $100 is stolen.
There's no fool proof system with money. The gov'ment ran programs have this kind of corruption. The corporate ran programs have this kind of corruption. Donation programs have this kind of corruption. Anything that involves money and people, will have this kind of corruption. It's what bad people do... however that doesn't mean government, corporation, or donation programs are so inherently flawed, they're not worth it... or that it doesn't get noticed to be fixed.
Just report what you saw... 99.9% chance it's illegal and will be terminated with prejudice.
***EDIT***
Corrected wording.
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I have a brief program that I should like to implement in the United States that should make everybody here happier.
1) I know, you think it's going to be international proletarian socialist revolution. But it isn't. Not this time.
2) Kick everybody off of welfare. All of them. The moochers and the drug addicts and the mentally retarded*, all of them.
3) With no one left on EBT, SNAP, TANF, whatever, there will be nobody left to buy Fiji waters and cherry blunts at three o'clock in the morning from Citizen R.
4) With the loss of his clientele, Citizen R.'s employer regretfully informs Citizen R. that he is going to cut costs and no longer run an overnight shift. He gives Citizen R. two weeks' severance pay.
5) Citizen R., of course, never files for unemployment because that would be parasitical and anti-freedom. So, he looks for a job, but, alas he can't find one because he is now competing with every former moocher, drug addict and mentally retarded person who every sucked from society's teat.
6) Unable to find work, Citizen R. moves himself and his wife into the hinterlands of Montana where he happily lives in a prepper's paradise, off of the grid, enjoying the bucolic, pastoral life, eating healthy, avoiding the government, frolicking with the prairie dogs, etc., etc., etc., and, most importantly, not logging on to Paizo.com.
Anyone wanna sign that petition?
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*Me and my local comrade were peddling socialist newspapers on the mean streets of Lowell this past week when a middle-aged Puerto Rican man in paint-spattered clothing and smelling a bit like the demon weed approached the table. "Help raise the minimum wage? Check out a socialist newspaper?" I ask indicating the wide array of communist literature on display on our portable table.
We have a good conversation, you know, the usual, racism, capitalism, both parties suck, bosses suck, the rich suck, politicians suck, etc., etc. We get on to the subject of welfare and he starts going on about how they just slashed food stamps but they can find $500 million (billion? I don't recall) to train Syrian rebels, etc., etc. At some point he kept coming back to "and they're gonna b&~&% about some woman with six kids who gets five hundred bucks a month?!? They don't want to talk about that, do they?" as a rhetorical resting point before launching into some other bullshiznit aspect of American life. "And they're gonna b~#+% about some woman, etc., etc. They don't want to talk about that." And then it got weird.
"And you know what else they don't want to talk about? Do you know any people who have, uh, special needs? No, well, you're lucky. I know a few. And you know what they get? They get a bus that picks them up. That costs money." He starts ticking off points on his fingers. "Someone drives that bus. That costs money. That bus needs gas. That costs money. They get driven to the recreation center. That costs money." Etc., etc. "These special needs people get hundreds of thousands of dollars of tax-payer money and they're never ever going to contribute to society and they're gonna b+%** about some woman with six kids who gets five hundred bucks a month?!? They don't wanna talk about that, do they?!?"
No, they don't. Nor did we. We smiled uncomfortably and the next time he wound down we didn't prolong the conversation.
That co-efficient like many pure math assessements has it's major blind spots. The Soviet Union is not what I'd be comparing the United States to, what would be more apt would be many of the Western European countries from Sweden, Germany, Italy, and Great Britain. Other things I would compare would be average amounts of vacation times. (A lot of people don't realise that the United States falls pretty much at the bottom of that particular list.) A big issue with the Soviet Union and it's sucessor states, is that it's still a relatively poor nation despite it's land and population sizes. It's more useful to compare the U.S. to other First World economies that are more similar.Or more simply: Yay! We're better off than Russia!! Or at least the Soviet Union at it's worst.
Might be useful if actually debating a Stalinist, but otherwise: meh.
Stalin died in 1953. How is he relevant to the Gini coefficient of the Soviet Union in the seventies? Please explain.
The point of my comparison is that people believe higher taxes and more government control gives a more equal wealth distribution automatically. Indeed, more taxes and more government control is generally put forward as the solutions to the evils of uneven wealth distribution. I would go so far as to claim that the socialist focus on how terrible uneven wealth distribution is (even if everyone has enough to survive) is due to it being a way to sell higher taxes and more government control.
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Look... I can think of a dozen ways I could use SNAP or TANF to buy crack or street girls... but all of them are illegal and require knowing someone in the system who can work the corruption (a clerk or desk jokey for example). Or using the criminal blackmarket and illegal sites. It DOES happen, but most of them fail or are discovered fairly quick... usually after $100 is stolen.
"We" have provided lots of links to this before (in other threads), proving that the vast majority of fraud being committed is actually being done by the businesses in the program, not the welfare recipients as a whole. And also that the total amount of fraud is in the very low percentage (I believe it's less than 2%, but that's just off the top of my head). Andrew has been provided with this evidence several times.
Apparently none of it sticks and it's easier to continue with preconceived notions. The "Welfare Queens" are a Reagan myth.I know, I know, I could now link to the studies showing that facts seldom change strongly held beliefs. :-p
Stalin died in 1953. How is he relevant to the Gini coefficient of the Soviet Union in the seventies? Please explain.
I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that it is because anyone who would be singing the praises of seventies-style Soviet socialism would more than likely be a Stalinist of some variety. Maybe a few Trots.
So the people generally clamoring for more money and more control to the government are Stalinists? Good to know.
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Look... I can think of a dozen ways I could use SNAP or TANF to buy crack or street girls... but all of them are illegal and require knowing someone in the system who can work the corruption (a clerk or desk jokey for example). Or using the criminal blackmarket and illegal sites. It DOES happen, but most of them fail or are discovered fairly quick... usually after $100 is stolen."We" have provided lots of links to this before (in other threads), proving that the vast majority of fraud being committed is actually being done by the businesses in the program, not the welfare recipients as a whole. And also that the total amount of fraud is in the very low percentage (I believe it's less than 2%, but that's just off the top of my head). Andrew has been provided with this evidence several times.
Apparently none of it sticks and it's easier to continue with preconceived notions. The "Welfare Queens" are a Reagan myth.
I know, I know, I could now link to the studies showing that facts seldom change strongly held beliefs. :-p
SNAP and TANF, at the cashier to customer level, is fairly tight. Not only is there a camera recording the cashier, but there's papers that need to be signed. It's easier to pull off a regular credit card scam, than trying to rip off SNAP and TANF. I hate to admit it, but I used to HATE seeing people using either welfare program and having a lot of items in their cart, because it meant it would be a loooooong boring process. You have to check what they're buying, and see if there's a cheaper substitute or allowed. Moreover... it's kinda heartless. I remember telling people they couldn't buy a certain food item, because it was considered "premium brand" and they had to swap it with the cheap (often nastier tasting) stuff. I knew why they didn't want the garbage brand -- I sure has hell wouldn't eat it myself -- but rules are rules and they either got that or nothing at all.
***EDIT***
And yes... I know poor people might not have a right to be picky about what their food taste like, but that cardboard tasting oatmeal paste that's like sandy grit in your mouth is disgusting. I know they say you'll eat anything if you're hungry... but still... yuck...
So the people generally clamoring for more money and more control to the government are Stalinists? Good to know.
I doubt it. I'd be more inclined to vote for them if they were.
Government shouldn't be telling us how to live our lives... unless your poor, then you're too stupid to make your own decisions.
Government shouldn't be telling us how to live our lives... unless your poor, then you're too stupid to make your own decisions.
Unless you are Andrew R, then being poor is a badge that you get to brandish when you tell everyone else about how fuct up poor people are.
All you pinkskins be f@&!ed up.
Poor ones just can't afford the bills, s'all.
Ya know... poor people don't have to do anything illegal to have nice stuff. There's a LOT of scenarios... but here's one I know actually happened.
There's a guy named Bob on SNAP, TANF, and various other welfare programs. Bob works at Taco Bell, because the feds and state don't give welfare to people who can work. After a year or two, Bob has managed to save $1000 in cash from his job -- and maybe some extra gift money from friends and family who are better off than him. Bob uses that money (which he EARNED, not stole from the gov'ment programs or pulled a scam) and trades in his rundown hatchback (given to him by dad years ago) to buy a used sports car (whom the car dealer offered a loan deal with that $1000 down payment).
Now Bob -- who is still a poor person on welfare -- has a nice car. Better than mine, despite the fact I'm not on welfare and make more than him.
Okay... we can probably all agree that Bob made a terrible decision here. That car introduces property taxes, increased gas payments, and an insane interest loan... which all just make him poorer. There's a lot of things he could have used that $1000, which could have helped him STOP being poor, but he didn't do that. Guess what? He did nothing illegal. Stupid? Tremendously. Still makes him poor? Absolutely. But illegal? No. It was HIS money. Just like rich people, the poor can do what they want with their hard earned cash... however the difference is, the poor can't afford to make wasteful decisions like them.
People do that with clothes... with their phone... a lot of things. It's unintelligent choices, but not illegal. That's how a few of the poor people I know, have nice stuff (though most do not). It's not scamming the system... it's using the system as a crutch, when they might have moments to have found a way off it, but squandered the chance for something stupid and keeping them on the crutch.
***EDIT***
Incidentally... Bob will discover that by owning a luxury car, he increases his property value, which will invalidate him to being eligible for some of the welfare programs he's been relying on. That will make his life even more miserable, because now he will be even more poor... but hey, he has a nice car...
Ya know... poor people don't have to do anything illegal to have nice stuff. There's a LOT of scenarios... but here's one I know actually happened.
There's a guy named Bob on SNAP, TANF, and various other welfare programs. Bob works at Taco Bell, because the feds and state don't give welfare to people who can work. After a year or two, Bob has managed to save $1000 in cash from his job -- and maybe some extra gift money from friends and family who are better off than him. Bob uses that money (which he EARNED, not stole from the gov'ment programs or pulled a scam) and trades in his rundown hatchback (given to him by dad years ago) to buy a used sports car (whom the car dealer offered a loan deal with that $1000 down payment).
Now Bob -- who is still a poor person on welfare -- has a nice car. Better than mine, despite the fact I'm not on welfare and make more than him.
Okay... we can probably all agree that Bob made a terrible decision here. That car introduces property taxes, increased gas payments, and an insane interest loan... which all just make him poorer. There's a lot of things he could have used that $1000, which could have helped him STOP being poor, but he didn't do that. Guess what? He did nothing illegal. Stupid? Tremendously. Still makes him poor? Absolutely. But illegal? No. It was HIS money. Just like rich people, the poor can do what they want with their hard earned cash... however the difference is, the poor can't afford to make wasteful decisions like them.
People do that with clothes... with their phone... a lot of things. It's unintelligent choices, but not illegal. That's how a few of the poor people I know, have nice stuff (though most do not). It's not scamming the system... it's using the system as a crutch, when they might have moments to have found a way off it, but squandered the chance for something stupid and keeping them on the crutch.
***EDIT***
Incidentally... Bob will discover that by owning a luxury car, he increases his property value, which will...
Where do you live that property tax is calculated based on value of possessions? Where do you live that owning a (1) car disqualifies you for assistance programs? When did property value start being equal to net worth? When did net worth start going up when you get up-side down in a terrible auto loan?
But none of that has any relevance to how I feel about Bob. I hold no grudge against people who accept government assistance and happen to have a decent, reliable used car. If it goes fast and gets fast fast too, that's cool. It really has no bearing on me or my situation. Do I suddenly pay less in taxes if Bob buys a hybrid sedan? Or a minivan? What level of crappy car is appropriate for a poor person to own?
The truth of the matter is we could completely abolish 100% of entitlement programs and it wouldn't come close to fixing the deficit we are in. (Unless you count tax breaks for corporations as entitlement programs.) Even with 100% of entitlement programs off-the-books the economy would still suck right now. Entitlement spending is not an issue except in the minds of angry, little, petty, people who insist on finding someone to scapegoat their problems on.
Double bonus points if the person you find is working, getting paid under the table somewhere (so the owner of that business can avoid paying their share of income tax and overtime) busting their ass to make ends meet but having to deal with paying for medical bills, and diapers, and car repairs, and $4 gasoline, spouse's community college, all on top of rent/bills/tithe; because the important part is that person is stealing from you by having a job at the same time they are drawing SNAP benefits.
QUADRUPLE AWESOMEY QUATLOO CAPTAIN POPETASTIC POINTS if that person likes to drink a 6 pack of of domestic-sub premium beer in the 36 hours they call a weekend. That makes them a true drain on society. F%~!ing bastards.
Gobbo: The number I found with a cursory googling was a Gini-coefficient for Soviet Union of 0.38 in the seventies. The US has 0.45 now according to the same site. Brazil is going down and has 0.55 now. The EU is at around 0,3. Note, though, that this is just INCOME. The population in Soviet had rights to all sorts of things that are not free in the US today, but that right quite often did not mean they actually got those things. According to a man I know from Poland, the catch-phrase was "Feel free to demand it then" if you tried to get something without bribing. On the other side of the equation comes the various perks the wealthy people got, stuff that would have cost a lot to anyone NOT high up in the hierarchy, that also doesn't show in the equations. I would suppose the perks come out to far, far more than people imagine, and thus the Gini-coefficient is lower than it should be.
.....
The point of my comparison is that people believe higher taxes and more government control gives a more equal wealth distribution automatically. Indeed, more taxes and more government control is generally put forward as the solutions to the evils of uneven wealth distribution. I would go so far as to claim that the socialist focus on how terrible uneven wealth distribution is (even if everyone has enough to survive) is due to it being a way to sell higher taxes and more government control.
So, I finally wandered back to this.
My cursory google search for "Soviet Union Gini coefficient seventies" led me to something called Metapedia which says, under a heading of "General problems of measurement":
"In another example, the Soviet Union was measured to have relatively high income inequality: by some estimates, in the late 1970s, Gini coefficient of its urban population was as high as 0.38,[15] which is higher than many Western countries today. This number would not reflect those benefits received by Soviet citizens that were not monetized for measurement, which may include child care for children as young as two months, elementary, secondary and higher education, cradle-to-grave medical care, and heavily subsidized or provided housing. In this example, a more accurate comparison between the 1970s Soviet Union and Western countries may require one to assign monetary values to all benefits – a difficult task in the absence of free markets."
I mean, I suppose it's possible that the perks of the bureaucracy were so outrageous that the Gini coefficient is lower than it should be, but it sounds to me like they're suggesting it should be a lot lower.
One of the other articles I read while cursorily google searching was Social inequality, bureaucracy and the betrayal of socialism in the Soviet Union
I didn't read the whole thing, and the website is run by some dudes I really don't like, but I enjoyed this part about the dissident intelligentsia in the seventies:
Immediately after Stalin's death, various social reforms and social programs were introduced to improve the situation of the poorly paid and less fortunate layers of the population. In the following decade their standard of living improved, while the situation of the ruling bureaucracy, and also the better-off sections of the intelligentsia, worsened in a relative sense.
The concealed conflict between these layers of the intelligentsia and the bureaucracy, which broke out into the open in the 1960s and '70s, was rooted in this development. The external expression of this conflict was, on the one hand, the dissident movement, and, on the other, emigration.
The source of this conflict was not only the intelligentsia's striving for greater intellectual and spiritual freedom and access to power. It was also a reaction to the loss of privileges and material advantages which this layer had enjoyed under Stalin. As for the bureaucracy, it responded to the loss of privileges with an unprecedented level of corruption.
Not the bureaucracy, that was immense. The head honchos. The party high ups. The rich. Those people got a standard of living beyond anything possible anywhere else. See, corruption and no checks and balances is a very lucrative concept. When you also get tax money for your summer house, central apartments, travel expenses, and so on and so forth, that means massive wealth concentration.
Yes, I understand. We Trots were complaining about it as far back as '25.
Your larger argument about taxes and social democrats, I must admit, I am not very interested in. I was, however, interested in your earlier statement "the US figures for it don't come anywhere near those of the Soviet Union at its height," although you did state it less categorically as the thread continued.
From what I am looking at, though, that statement doesn't appear to be true--at least not without much speculation or more empirical evidence (how much are the ruling stratum's perks worth? how much the cradle-to-grave medical care and subsidized or provided housing for the rest of the population?, etc.) than you or I could provide.
However, it may turn out that you are right. Stalinist bureaucrats, head honchos or otherwise, suck.
It is very much an open question whether taxes and more government control makes wealth concentration go away or grow bigger. Or, otherwise put, the current fervor about wealth distribution and the means suggested to get there, give more power to the government, are very much suspect. Try it and the US may still get its Stalinist bureaucrats.