The welfare state

[miketheidiot]

Originally posted by: Dissipate
The funny thing is that the biggest welfare state today is the military. I've heard these redneck conservatives rail against welfare handouts in one sentence and then talk about how we need a stronger military (as if half a trillion dollars is not enough already) in the next sentence. Ridiculous.

Edit: sorry, the military is the second biggest welfare state today, right after social security.

IMO the military-industrial complex deserves its own thread

 

[miketheidiot]

Originally posted by: DragonMasterAlex

Originally posted by: Dissipate
The funny thing is that the biggest welfare state today is the military. I've heard these redneck conservatives rail against welfare handouts in one sentence and then talk about how we need a stronger military (as if half a trillion dollars is not enough already) in the next sentence. Ridiculous.

Why not? Between Socialist Security and Welfare ALONE we spend a TRILLION dollars every single year. I hardly think it's out of line to spend as much on LEGITIMATE government functions such as the military as it is the ILLEGITIMATE functions of SS and Welfare.

Jason

I'm glad your so willing to take MY money and give it to YOUR military, which I find morally repugnant, to use the arguement you used before.

 

[miketheidiot]

Originally posted by: HalosPuma

Originally posted by: miketheidiot
Interesting. You in particular have no problem taking our money to waste on the military industrial complex.

The raising of funds to support of a navy and the militia is defined as part of Congress' responsibility in Article 1 Section 8 of our Constitution.

that article does not mandate it though, nor does it say we have to spend have a massive standing army, nor does it say that we have to use it often.

Originally posted by: miketheidiot
Also, I'm quite sure that wealth is poorly correlated to effort, and the hardworking poor also can become resentful of those who benefit with no work, and contribute nothing to society (the rich). Let me make this clear. Very few people are rich through hard work, (although very many who hard hard are still poor) and even fewer are VERY rich through hard work. People who do become rich generally do it through violation of the system (bill gates anyone?)

That is nothing but nonsense. Just take a look at every small-business owner out there and tell them that they didn't do any hard work and that the poor work more than them.

a small business owner isn't rich dumbass. Thats why they are called a small business owner.

Originally posted by: miketheidiot
Corporate welfare is real, and it is not a conspiracy theory. One prime example is the airline industry which has been and continues to be proped up with government funds.

That is not corporate "welfare." It's corporate bankruptcy protection and bailout. There is a difference. "Welfare" means we get ZERO return on investment. Money is stolen from the successful and transferred to the lazy who contribute NOTHING. Corporate bankrupty protection and bailout does provide ROI - employees still have jobs and the items/services that the corporation provides are still available. Now that we have that clear, it's a bad practice and should be stopped. (Wow, did we just agree on something? ) There are other successful airlines - Jet Blue. Let the free-market economy purge the unsuccessful corporations and reward the efficient ones.

No thats corporate welfare. In the aviation senario you lose massive ammounts of money supporting a busniess that cannot support itself. In the same paragraph you use two exactly opposite arguements. First you argue that we should support the failing airlines, and then you say that we should let the market weed out the failures. In the same paragraph you advocate socialism and the freemarket.
Congratulation, your an idiot.

 

[Train]

Originally posted by: miketheidiot
...Let me make this clear. Very few people are rich through hard work...

liberal propaganda. Go to Amazon, and read the Millionaire Next Door, with recent surveys of American millionaires. almost 90% of Millionaires in America are self made, and never receieved a dime from inheritence. The majority of them are small business owners, who started that business from scratch (pretty hard work)

Originally posted by: desy
...
Crime statistics go up as poverty rates go up, if you have nothing to lose
...

Yet Welfare, though it has cost more than WWII in inflation adjusted dollars since Jimmy Carter started the "War on Poverty", has never even put a dent in the percentage of americans below the poverty line. 25 years of money down the drain

Originally posted by: Dissipate
The funny thing is that the biggest welfare state today is the military. I've heard these redneck conservatives rail against welfare handouts in one sentence and then talk about how we need a stronger military (as if half a trillion dollars is not enough already) in the next sentence. Ridiculous.

Edit: sorry, the military is the second biggest welfare state today, right after social security.

lol, my favorite forum nutjob, here we go again.

figured out by the hour, I made 33 cents an hour in Marine bootcamp, and let me tell you, it was harder work than anything you will ever do, how you figure welfare state out of that is beyond me.

 

[illustri]

Like many people on these boards I am able, educated, and driven enough that my career outlook isn't a question of if I can get employment, but rather how well compensated or respectable that employment will be. With that in mind I sometimes wonder how any able person would need or even want welfare...

But then I realize just how much of my ability, education, and drive comes from privilege. My family came to this country because here we strive to give everyone some semblence of equal opportunity. I understand that most on welfare did not have the same opportunity I or most of you naysayers do.

That said, I'm not bleeding-heart-blind to the problems evident in the system at hand; but the solution doesn't come from disposing any more than dismissing welfare. That helps no one. The problem of poverty is multifaceted: social, cultural, educational, and yes welfare programs must all be used to solve it.

 

[Dissipate]

Originally posted by: Tom

Originally posted by: DragonMasterAlex

Originally posted by: Tom
"#1 - IT'S MY MONEY, NOT YOURS! "


That's isn't really accurate. I know it's the most common reason people give for being against government spending, but that doesn't make it an correct statement.


Money is a way to measure economic activity. Work is one part of an economic system, but it isn't the whole thing.

The pay a person receives for doing work, or the profit a person receives for investing capital, are in part based on the larger economic system they are a part of. So the money you "earn" before you've paid your share of the cost for the whole economic system, isn't really "YOURS", only part of it is. Part of it comes from the fact that your part of a larger eonomic system.

So if you're willing to look at that reality, then it's possible to make rational decisions about what the entire economic system should look like, what things add to the overall success of the system, what things don't.

If we look at the real world, it's obvious that countries that just let poor people starve to death, aren't the most economically successful countries.

Sorry, but you are just WRONG. When you get paid for a job, you are being compensated for YOUR work, YOUR labor, YOUR effort, YOUR mind. The product of that labor rightly belongs ONLY TO YOU.

Jason

Maybe an example would make my point more clear. If you were your own little economic system, and you chopped down a tree your "pay" would be some wood.

If you were part of a larger economic system, say the USA for example, you can exchange your wood for money. But only because there's a Treasury department that prints the money, a banking system to manage the flow of money, roads for you to get your wood to the person who wants it, police and courts to make the roads useful, an Army to keep the Canadians from stealing your wood, a homeless shelter so you don't trip over someone on your way, a prison to keep a robber from stealing your money, and on and on and on.

All of these things are part of why you get paid what you get paid. Without them you would either get paid a lot less for the same work, or even more likely, if you look at the real world, you would simply starve to death.

Some of those services are important (i.e. roads, police, courts and national defense), but the fallacy of your logic lays in the fact in that we cannot stop paying for these services, even if we wanted to. If you do, the government will send you to prison or exact other penalties against you. The government is not like the voluntary marketplace with benevolent bureaucrats out to serve us (as it would like us to believe), it is ultimately force. Suppose I live in a community that wants to stop paying for those services. The community sets up its own monetary system, courts, roads, and police. Will we be allowed to seccede from this so-called "voluntary club" we call government? Of course not. The IRS would demand that taxes be paid on the estimated value of all the stuff we traded, and the government would probably send the national guard in to restore its authority.

The second part of your argument, which is basically the utilitarian case for the government is also highly dubious. Economist David Friedman (who happens to be Milton Friedman's son) has written a book claiming just the opposite, that without government we would all be far more prosperous and better off.

The Machinery of Freedom

 

[Dissipate]

Originally posted by: Train

Originally posted by: miketheidiot
...Let me make this clear. Very few people are rich through hard work...

liberal propaganda. Go to Amazon, and read the Millionaire Next Door, with recent surveys of American millionaires. almost 90% of Millionaires in America are self made, and never receieved a dime from inheritence. The majority of them are small business owners, who started that business from scratch (pretty hard work)

Originally posted by: desy
...
Crime statistics go up as poverty rates go up, if you have nothing to lose
...

Yet Welfare, though it has cost more than WWII in inflation adjusted dollars since Jimmy Carter started the "War on Poverty", has never even put a dent in the percentage of americans below the poverty line. 25 years of money down the drain

Originally posted by: Dissipate
The funny thing is that the biggest welfare state today is the military. I've heard these redneck conservatives rail against welfare handouts in one sentence and then talk about how we need a stronger military (as if half a trillion dollars is not enough already) in the next sentence. Ridiculous.

Edit: sorry, the military is the second biggest welfare state today, right after social security.

lol, my favorite forum nutjob, here we go again.

figured out by the hour, I made 33 cents an hour in Marine bootcamp, and let me tell you, it was harder work than anything you will ever do, how you figure welfare state out of that is beyond me.

The amount of money is irrelevant, the fact of the matter is that it was someone else's which was forcefully extracted from them. What you did in order to "earn" it is also irrelevant. There is no distinction between your pay in the military and a welfare handout to an inner-city family. Why? Because in each case there was no objective evaluation of what should be paid out. These payments were not based on voluntary agreements between buyer and seller, they were decided arbitrarily by bureaucrats and politicians, and hence, any speculation about them is entirely subjective. Perhaps one could argue that in your case you provided some "service," and the welfare recipient did not. Well that is entirely subjective as well. Perhaps the welfare recipient's service to society is procreation, and we are merely subsidizing the propagation of the species.

Furthermore, the military has all sorts of benefit programs and bonus handouts. Boot camp pay is just the beginning. For the 2004 budget there was about $35 billion allocated to the military personnel of the Department of the Navy. The 2004 budget also had about $28 billion allocated to the Department of Veterans Affairs, for medical care, benefit programs burial benefits and pensions. Hence, in the end the military is currently the second largest welfare state. This does not detract any from the fact that it is part of the warfare state as well.

Source: Death & Taxes

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: miketheidiot

Originally posted by: HalosPuma
That is nothing but nonsense. Just take a look at every small-business owner out there and tell them that they didn't do any hard work and that the poor work more than them.

a small business owner isn't rich dumbass. Thats why they are called a small business owner.

Uhh, actually quite a few "small business owners" would be considered "rich". Didn't we have this debate during the elections? Yes, yes we did. Small business owners can and do earn 150k+, 200k+, or even 250k+. I know a few myself. Why don't you come back when you can atleast attempt to be honest.

CsG

 

[illustri]

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY


Uhh, actually quite a few "small business owners" would be considered "rich". Didn't we have this debate during the elections? Yes, yes we did. Small business owners can and do earn 150k+, 200k+, or even 250k+. I know a few myself. Why don't you come back when you can atleast attempt to be honest.

CsG

250k+ isn't rich, its comfortable upper middle class.

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: illustri

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY


Uhh, actually quite a few "small business owners" would be considered "rich". Didn't we have this debate during the elections? Yes, yes we did. Small business owners can and do earn 150k+, 200k+, or even 250k+. I know a few myself. Why don't you come back when you can atleast attempt to be honest.

CsG

250k+ isn't rich, its comfortable upper middle class.

Not according to the left here.

CsG

 

[illustri]

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY

Originally posted by: illustri

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY


Uhh, actually quite a few "small business owners" would be considered "rich". Didn't we have this debate during the elections? Yes, yes we did. Small business owners can and do earn 150k+, 200k+, or even 250k+. I know a few myself. Why don't you come back when you can atleast attempt to be honest.

CsG

250k+ isn't rich, its comfortable upper middle class.

Not according to the left here.

CsG

uhh... you're a liberal?

 

[miketheidiot]

Originally posted by: Train

Originally posted by: miketheidiot
...Let me make this clear. Very few people are rich through hard work...

liberal propaganda. Go to Amazon, and read the Millionaire Next Door, with recent surveys of American millionaires. almost 90% of Millionaires in America are self made, and never receieved a dime from inheritence. The majority of them are small business owners, who started that business from scratch (pretty hard work)

george bush never recived an inheiritance either, but he was still granted wealth. Most rich people (lets say $500k a year and up) Came from erther rich of upper middle class backrounds. Only an miniscule minority came from povery, and hlaf those are probably professional athletes or musicians.

 

[Tom]

"Economist David Friedman (who happens to be Milton Friedman's son) has written a book claiming just the opposite, that without government we would all be far more prosperous and better off. "

I did not specifically refer to government in my post, I don't think. For the point I was making it doesn't matter what word you use to describe the framework for social interaction, without it, work, and the resultant pay, is worth a lot less.

Since you bring it up though, if there is a person named David Friedman who has the view you've stated, I would consder him a lunatic, or incompetent. Anyone who believes that 7-10 billion individuals can all get along without any sort of organization is a fool.

That's all government is, an institution for governing the affairs of people.

 

[miketheidiot]

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY

Originally posted by: miketheidiot

Originally posted by: HalosPuma
That is nothing but nonsense. Just take a look at every small-business owner out there and tell them that they didn't do any hard work and that the poor work more than them.

a small business owner isn't rich dumbass. Thats why they are called a small business owner.

Uhh, actually quite a few "small business owners" would be considered "rich". Didn't we have this debate during the elections? Yes, yes we did. Small business owners can and do earn 150k+, 200k+, or even 250k+. I know a few myself. Why don't you come back when you can atleast attempt to be honest.

CsG

can doesn't mean many do, and most don't (by small business I think 50 employees or so) I believe the figure is 70% of new businesses fail in the first 3 years. also:

Originally posted by: illustri

250k+ isn't rich, its comfortable upper middle class.

 

[miketheidiot]

Originally posted by: Tom
"Economist David Friedman (who happens to be Milton Friedman's son) has written a book claiming just the opposite, that without government we would all be far more prosperous and better off. "

I did not specifically refer to government in my post, I don't think. For the point I was making it doesn't matter what word you use to describe the framework for social interaction, without it, work, and the resultant pay, is worth a lot less.

Since you bring it up though, if there is a person named David Friedman who has the view you've stated, I would consder him a lunatic, or incompetent. Anyone who believes that 7-10 billion individuals can all get along without any sort of organization is a fool.

That's all government is, an institution for governing the affairs of people.

I could see more prosperous in some definitions and emotionally the idea is appealing, but unfortunately prosperity is not what is needed, but what we need is sustainability.

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: illustri

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY

Originally posted by: illustri

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY


Uhh, actually quite a few "small business owners" would be considered "rich". Didn't we have this debate during the elections? Yes, yes we did. Small business owners can and do earn 150k+, 200k+, or even 250k+. I know a few myself. Why don't you come back when you can atleast attempt to be honest.

CsG

250k+ isn't rich, its comfortable upper middle class.

Not according to the left here.

CsG

uhh... you're a liberal?

No(thank God), but $200K seems to be what kept getting thrown around during the election season.

CsG

 

[illustri]

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY

Originally posted by: illustri

uhh... you're a liberal?

No(thank God), but $200K seems to be what kept getting thrown around during the election season.

CsG

so lets imagine for the sake of argument that the election is over, do you think 250k+ is rich?

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: miketheidiot

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY

Originally posted by: miketheidiot

Originally posted by: HalosPuma
That is nothing but nonsense. Just take a look at every small-business owner out there and tell them that they didn't do any hard work and that the poor work more than them.

a small business owner isn't rich dumbass. Thats why they are called a small business owner.

Uhh, actually quite a few "small business owners" would be considered "rich". Didn't we have this debate during the elections? Yes, yes we did. Small business owners can and do earn 150k+, 200k+, or even 250k+. I know a few myself. Why don't you come back when you can atleast attempt to be honest.

CsG

can doesn't mean many do, and most don't (by small business I think 50 employees or so) I believe the figure is 70% of new businesses fail in the first 3 years. also:

Originally posted by: illustri

250k+ isn't rich, its comfortable upper middle class.

Many do - depending on their line of work. Also a small business is defined as: "one that is independently owned and operated and which is not dominant in its field of operation." Now there are size limits. Wholesalers were the lowest total employee ones I could find at 100max, but otherwise size is calculated by dollar figures. Many companies qualify as "small businesses" and looking at the dollar size numbers -the owners could very easily be pulling down that sort of money.
Sure, many businesses fail in the first year(or 3), that wasn't even in question. But like I stated, 250k+ is "rich" as defined during the election season by the left. Taxes on the "rich" is where I believe the standard was set. ...something about tax-cuts for the "rich".

Anyway...carry on and believe whatever you wish.

CsG

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: illustri

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY

Originally posted by: illustri

uhh... you're a liberal?

No(thank God), but $200K seems to be what kept getting thrown around during the election season.

CsG

so lets imagine for the sake of argument that the election is over, do you think 250k+ is rich?

I think 250K+ a year could make one monetarily wealthy, however, these people may not be the "rich" as imagined by one's mind.

BTW - are you going some where with this? My only point in addressing this issue was to address the business owner/rich thing that was being misrepresented by mike. Many small business owners would be "rich" according to the standards laid out by the left during the election.

CsG

 

[illustri]

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY
I think 250K+ a year could make one monetarily wealthy, however, these people may not be the "rich" as imagined by one's mind.

BTW - are you going some where with this? My only point in addressing this issue was to address the business owner/rich thing that was being misrepresented by mike. Many small business owners would be "rich" according to the standards laid out by the left during the election.

CsG

well the point was miketheidiot's that small business owners aren't "monetarily wealthy"

/disagreeing with you on the 250k+ being rich
//disagreeing with halopuma that small businesses are necessarily rich

// don't know who [earie music]the left[/earie music] is you keep talking about but probably disagree with them too

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: illustri

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY
I think 250K+ a year could make one monetarily wealthy, however, these people may not be the "rich" as imagined by one's mind.

BTW - are you going some where with this? My only point in addressing this issue was to address the business owner/rich thing that was being misrepresented by mike. Many small business owners would be "rich" according to the standards laid out by the left during the election.

CsG

well the point was miketheidiot's that small business owners aren't "monetarily wealthy"

/disagreeing with you on the 250k+ being rich
//disagreeing with halopuma that small businesses are necessarily rich

// don't know who [earie music]the left[/earie music] is you keep talking about but probably disagree with them too

Kerry was one of those in "the left" as were people who spouted the "tax-cuts for the rich" tripe.
Using that logic - many small business owners would be "rich".

Again, they aren't all "rich" - never said they were, but he seems to suggest that they aren't or couldn't be when he states - "a small business owner isn't rich dumbass. Thats why they are called a small business owner." They very well can and do pull down sums that would be considered "rich".

CsG

 

[illustri]

CsG

I think you're slipping off the edge of this thread which is on the validity of the welfare system in this country. What does kerry or the left have to do with this now that (as we imagined for the sake of argument) the elections over?

 

[Anubis08]

A person *edit most people* will only perform at the level you expect them too. I am all for helping those who need it and are trying to get back on their feet, but it is not to be lived on. One thing that struck me during the U.S. presidential elections this year was the democrats were pushing for a minimum wage increase due to, if I remember correctly, there was a young mother raising her children on a minimum wage job and could not get enough money. Now, I'm not gonna say the democrats are trying to hide the real probelm like always, but the big problem is not that she cannot survive on minimum wage; it is that she is working at a minimum wage job. I namerica education is free, but it is now taken for granted and that is why americans repeatedly get spanked when put into international scholastic competitions. Sorry, but it has to be said.

 

[Anubis08]

Sorry, I got a little off topic.

 

[illustri]

Originally posted by: Anubis08
Sorry, I got a little off topic.

no you're on topic
the truth is that poverty creates a huge obstacle for advancement, the problem is that the mother of example probably would love a higher paying job, but for that she needs education, for education she needs time and money, neither of which she has. poverty's self propagating

now the other truth is also clear: life isn't fair, if she wants out she'll have to work harder and better than everyone else to fix her own problem

but for me to say that or to want to deny her aid, with every privilege I've enjoyed is callous and unbecomming