Double A
Foreman
resident battery impersonator
Posts: 163
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Post by Double A on May 29, 2012 16:05:17 GMT -8
I think .4% of the US doesn't have a fridge. It might be .04%. I imagine the UK is somewhat similar.
True poverty simply does not exist in our countries, discounting vagrants.
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Post by King Sonic on May 30, 2012 4:22:26 GMT -8
Even if true, Third World-style poverty does not exist in the First World, there's still the principle that First World nations are so wealthy some things are just inexcusable. That there are starving children in our nation, which has 5% of the population(if that) and 25% of the GDP, just makes no sense. (This is of course where the nonsense argument that America's wealth stems from its limited regulations comes from; this argument blatantly ignores what made America so wealthy - a large population, cheap labor, and lots of land and resources) As the saying goes, "When I feed the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor are hungry, they call me a Communist." Cuts reducing economic growth in certain situations makes sense; it is falsely assumed all programs are of equal value/waste(depending which side you belong to). Programs inject money into the lower socioeconomic classes, who improve their quality of life by paying for goods and services. At the end of the day, the wealth trickles back up, but those in the middle benefit ENORMOUSLY, as they continue to have demand for their jobs. This demand evaporates if the poor have no cash to spend. --- Also, on the ability of unions to stand up for people... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_National_Detective_Agency
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Double A
Foreman
resident battery impersonator
Posts: 163
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Post by Double A on May 30, 2012 14:09:17 GMT -8
I feel the need to point out that, until a certain threshold, cutting tax rates increases tax revenues.
Also that it's inexcusable is BS. I know a girl who knows a guy who went to Atlanta with pretty much nothing but the clothes on his back to see if he could have a steady income and decent shelter by the end of three months just to see if he could. He did. Now, I have no way of knowing when it happened, but from the way the story was told is that it was in recent years, during the Great Deprecession, but the point of the matter is, the American Dream is still very possible if you put enough work into it, and quite a few poor people don't wanna because it's easier to leech off of the entitlement programs designed for people who actually need the extra cash influx and/or for politicians to get reelected for the fifth time.
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Post by King Sonic on May 30, 2012 15:39:47 GMT -8
For tax cuts to increase tax revenue, you need to be on the right side of the Laffer Curve. While conservatives have alleged that we are, each time they cut taxes, we only seem to be worse off than before. Each time we've allowed the wealthy to have more of their money and the poor to fend for themselves, our economy has worsened. The Gilded Age is NOT something to aspire to recreate, unless you're one of the few who would benefit from such.
What? How does the American Dream being alive make the fact some people starve in America BS? Mind you, I'm the child of a high school dropout who had kids at age 18, yet makes 150K a year; I am NOT a person you want to lecture on the American Dream being alive.
The welfare nobility are a myth. There are some who abuse it, sure, but they're small. Pride is the root of all sins, and there's no shortage of it among the poor. I have seen more than one poor person refuse to take welfare when they could. My father did, my friend did, and countless others continue to.
The point being? Humans are irrational actors. To trust them 100% on their own is a recipe for disaster. We are obsessed with the newest goods, which creates a constant cycle of debt, which in turn creates the mess we've been getting into lately. You must either limit individual choice, or allow irresponsibility to bloom. An ugly choice, but it's a choice that must be made.
Furthermore, refusing to make some welfare unconditional is to be blatantly ignorant of economic cycles. Booms and busts are a reality, and there needs to be some sort of standard modicum of goods and services for people who are screwed over by the system as is. Before you say this creates dependency, that's the real BS - tons of old people get jobs even if they're filthy rich. Why? Because being unemployed is freaking boring! Eventually the so-called welfare nobility would likely look for a job anyway just to get out of the house.
And to add more on top of that, expanding the consumer base is NEVER a bad idea. "It should be their own money!" is just a kneejerk emotional response. We benefit far more from this redistribution than we pay. The poor aren't screwed over, the wealthy get their money back(or even more possibly), and the middle class aren't laid off since there's demand for their services. We all benefit.
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Double A
Foreman
resident battery impersonator
Posts: 163
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Post by Double A on May 30, 2012 21:05:35 GMT -8
Need to go to sleep soon so I'll be more brief than normal.
Ok, didn't know which side of the curve we were on.
It looks like you just implied the American Dream didn't exist in the same sentence as providing evidence to the contrary. AWKWARD PHRASING IS AWKWARD
I just don't like how the current welfare system encourages people to do less than they could, or even nothing.
I prefer individual choice over any sort of control. People get screwed, but that's life. I definitely bitch and moan every time I get screwed, but everyone tells me to suck it up, and I typically do when I can't do anything about it. Also, humans who get screwed tend to become better at not being screwed. If you take away failure as a teacher, people will individually develop less. Plus there's not much point in helping people who can't learn. Regarding getting screwed when it's not your fault, there's a decent chance that it's because you were never taught economics in school. Let's reform schools. Or something. I was going somewhere with this paragraph but I must have taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque.
What about countries where the tax burden is over 70%? Their economies are kind of doing bad, and not just because of Greece. NZ and Sweden (to a lesser extent) have dewelfaretized because it has the nasty tendency to bankrupt the country, which makes economic hardship more common.
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