David Stockman says we're headed towards a nasty recession

[senseamp]

Defense spending is welfare for Trump Trash.

 

[desura]

Defense spending is welfare for Trump Trash.

Disagree. We actually get something for defense spending. When we give out money for welfare...what do we get, exactly? I really hate arguments that we must give welfare because children are individuals and it is for their welfare. Parents need to take responsibility. If you cannot take care of the kid, don't have a kid. Get an abortion, give it up for adoption, be more careful with sex, etc.

 

[interchange]

Disagree. We actually get something for defense spending. When we give out money for welfare...what do we get, exactly? I really hate arguments that we must give welfare because children are individuals and it is for their welfare. Parents need to take responsibility. If you cannot take care of the kid, don't have a kid. Get an abortion, give it up for adoption, be more careful with sex, etc.

Until I started working as a physician I really didn't understand "welfare". Honestly I still don't, but it's a whole lot more complicated than handing out money to people to support kids they shouldn't have had.

But I do think that there are problems with entitlements. The pressures ought to point in the direction of using aide to better yourself rather than to become more and more dependent. Rewarding people with entitlements reinforces, you know, their sense of entitlement.

But really, we have a narcissistic problem in this country at all levels. Not that we're all narcissists, but society keeps pushing us into validating a sense of goodness without tying it to reality. I have plenty of that problem, too. We ought not invalidate people, but exchanging that for validating ego-distortions doesn't work either.

 

[Jhhnn]

Disagree. We actually get something for defense spending. When we give out money for welfare...what do we get, exactly? I really hate arguments that we must give welfare because children are individuals and it is for their welfare. Parents need to take responsibility. If you cannot take care of the kid, don't have a kid. Get an abortion, give it up for adoption, be more careful with sex, etc.

Please. Your comments about welfare fly in the face of reality & human nature. Your FYGM attitude flies in the face of common decency, as well. Nobody picks their parents, asshole.

The wealth of this country is astounding & we'd be better off if the financial elite wasn't engaged in creating artificial scarcity & shitty FYGM attitudes.

Military spending is part of that. If we weren't so busy blowing up people on the other side of the world we'd be able to create the institutions & infrastructure to better take care of ourselves.

Nah. We want private industry to do that stuff. When there's insufficient profit, well, we don't get that stuff. We could cut Billionaire's taxes until they were all like Donald's & not change that enough to matter. But we're gonna give that good ol' trickle down economic theory another go, aren't we? You betcha.

When do we say enough is enough when it comes to greed at the top? Not right now, obviously.

 

[desura]

Please. Your comments about welfare fly in the face of reality & human nature. Your FYGM attitude flies in the face of common decency, as well. Nobody picks their parents, asshole.

The wealth of this country is astounding & we'd be better off if the financial elite wasn't engaged in creating artificial scarcity & shitty FYGM attitudes.

Military spending is part of that. If we weren't so busy blowing up people on the other side of the world we'd be able to create the institutions & infrastructure to better take care of ourselves.

Nah. We want private industry to do that stuff. When there's insufficient profit, well, we don't get that stuff. We could cut Billionaire's taxes until they were all like Donald's & not change that enough to matter. But we're gonna give that good ol' trickle down economic theory another go, aren't we? You betcha.

When do we say enough is enough when it comes to greed at the top? Not right now, obviously.

? It is exactly in line with human nature. If you incentive something, it happens. If you shame and stigmatize something, it doesn't happen. There are exceptions, but it reduces occurrences.

The problem is the cult of individualism. Human reality is that we are of families. So it makes zero sense to incentive Octomom. If it means her kids have to starve? Well, she should have thought about it. So yes, they should starve. Or be taken away from her, scattered, put up for adoption. Millions of other people think about it and they are responsible. Why do we encourage the irresponsible ones?

And there does exist private adoption and abortion. There isn't really any excuse, especially with contraceptive technology.

 

[CountZero]

? It is exactly in line with human nature. If you incentive something, it happens. If you shame and stigmatize something, it doesn't happen. There are exceptions, but it reduces occurrences.

The problem is the cult of individualism. Human reality is that we are of families. So it makes zero sense to incentive Octomom. If it means her kids have to starve? Well, she should have thought about it. So yes, they should starve. Or be taken away from her, scattered, put up for adoption. Millions of other people think about it and they are responsible. Why do we encourage the irresponsible ones?

And there does exist private adoption and abortion. There isn't really any excuse, especially with contraceptive technology.

We have a problem with our entire welfare system in that it is punishingly hard to get out of. If you are completely broke you get plenty of help but if you are working poor you get crap. There are income levels between 0 and being completely off all welfare where your total income (actual pay + government benefits) go down when you make more actual pay. It perversely punishes those that work out of the system. Even worse if you fall back in the time to get benefits again is extreme punishing those that even try to leave.

What we need to seriously consider is what the future looks like. Universal healthcare and universal basic income are likely the ways forward.

Bring those two out and drop every other entitlement program. No welfare, SS, disability, unemployment insurance, medicaid, housing (section 8 and others), etc. Drop the minimum wage completely, with UBI the work has to be worth your time or people won't do it. Remove all tax deductibles, loopholes and weird incentives, just a progressive tax structure. Every adult gets UBI, small bump for your first child but after that no bump. No UBI/UH for illegal immigrants and extremely stiff penalties for having any work for you even if they lied about their status. That's it.

Then we just need to get over the negative idea of some people not working. With productivity gains some people are not going to be working, period. Working 40+ hours a week at a job isn't a noble endeavor, it never has been and it never will be. There will be people that do nothing but UBI won't be a great way to live, it'll be passable. And since every dollar you make working increases your total pay there's a much larger incentive to work out of being poor.

 

[Jhhnn]

? It is exactly in line with human nature. If you incentive something, it happens. If you shame and stigmatize something, it doesn't happen. There are exceptions, but it reduces occurrences.

The problem is the cult of individualism. Human reality is that we are of families. So it makes zero sense to incentive Octomom. If it means her kids have to starve? Well, she should have thought about it. So yes, they should starve. Or be taken away from her, scattered, put up for adoption. Millions of other people think about it and they are responsible. Why do we encourage the irresponsible ones?

And there does exist private adoption and abortion. There isn't really any excuse, especially with contraceptive technology.

There's no excuse for your attitude about America's children. They are innocents who should be free of the sort of original sin you cast upon them because of their parentage.

It's particularly disturbing in this incredibly rich country. We can well afford to take care of the weakest & most vulnerable among us rather than getting all judgemental as to their supposed moral failings. Small children have none.

I freely admit to being a member of the lucky sperm club. Not Donald Trump lucky, but lucky nonetheless so I don't begrudge anybody less fortunate what little they can get out of govt. I'm proud that my taxes help in the effort, as well. If we left it up to the much revered job creators there would have been bread lines in 2009.

"Cult of individualism"? That stupid & greedy John Galt individualism Of "Me!" & "Mine!" & other libertarian delusions?

 

[Fern]

We're always headed for a "nasty recession".

Fern