The Republican Party is only viable because of Southern racism

[xj0hnx]

You seem to think that there are entirely enough jobs to go around, that Capitalists really want everybody to work, when that's not true at all.

Not true at all, were you speaking into a mirror when you wrote that? Capitalist need people to buy their shit to make money, people needs jobs to make money to buy capitalist shit. You theory as an abject failure.

 

[davmat787]

So you're serving up pablum, while maintaining an ideological position against "dependency".

How else would you propose we "grow the economy" under current conditions? Mitt Romney style?

What does the current economy have to do with the failure of our welfare system? Ghettos and multi generational welfare families and other symptoms of this systemic problem existed under Clinton during the .com boom too.

I don't understand while you are bringing Romney into the conversation other than to divert. Not sure why you are so defensive on the subject of the failure of our welfare system, I wonder why.... :hmm:

 

[Jhhnn]

Not true at all, were you speaking into a mirror when you wrote that? Capitalist need people to buy their shit to make money, people needs jobs to make money to buy capitalist shit. You theory as an abject failure.

If everybody worked, we'd have excess production, which would drive prices down below the ability to show a profit. That's what happened to farming in the lead in to the Great Depression.

That's even more true with increasing automation, where fewer people can produce more stuff/ services than ever before.

The result is an enormous expansion of credit to bolster purchasing power, an attempt to compensate. When that debt becomes unsustainable, as it did in 1929 and again in 2008, the system crashes.

Only action by the FRB & Treasury prevented cascading collapse as in 1929, which puts us in a new realm, one with high unemployment and record corporate profits on reduced production. Margins are obviously better than ever, huh? How else could such a situation exist?

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

So you're serving up pablum, while maintaining an ideological position against "dependency".

How else would you propose we "grow the economy" under current conditions? Mitt Romney style?

Well hell, send me a check so I can do nothing. I'll "grow the economy" for you.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Well hell, send me a check so I can do nothing. I'll "grow the economy" for you.

Can I get in on this?

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

If everybody worked, we'd have excess production, which would drive prices down below the ability to show a profit. That's what happened to farming in the lead in to the Great Depression.

So everyone was given a check to do nothing, not learn how to work, etc. Well, no. People were given a shovel and a broom and other basic implements and they got shit done. What did we have? An overproduction of infrastructure? Hardly. How much overproduction of cleaning up streets are there? Removing graffiti?

Your justifying giving a check to generation after generation while making it harder for those who labor as being a good thing doesn't work.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Can I get in on this?

We can have the govt. cut us a check. Why not? We don't have to work and we can just buy crap from overseas. What a splendid idea, eh?

 

[dank69]

Well hell, send me a check so I can do nothing. I'll "grow the economy" for you.

Can I get in on this?

Sure! Quit your jobs and get yourself some of that sweet sweet welfare cash! You can tell all your friends how great it is!

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Sure! Quit your jobs and get yourself some of that sweet sweet welfare cash! You can tell all your friends how great it is!

If the idea is that having people on welfare is good from an economic standpoint because it "grow the economy" then give us all lots of free money and watch it take off!

 

[nehalem256]

Sure! Quit your jobs and get yourself some of that sweet sweet welfare cash! You can tell all your friends how great it is!

Well considering in the past couple of days we had people claiming it would be awesome to live in Nigeria and Kenya countries with per capita GDPs of ~$2500 and $1750...

You must be able to live like a King off of the welfare money

 

[dank69]

If the idea is that having people on welfare is good from an economic standpoint because it "grow the economy" then give us all lots of free money and watch it take off!

Reductio ad absurdum is only valid when it builds on assertions which are actually present in the argument it is deconstructing, and not when it misrepresents them as a straw man.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

How else would you propose we "grow the economy" under current conditions? Mitt Romney style?

The poster I quoted equated dependency on a welfare check to "dependency" on working for a living. Now you want to try that logical fallacy trick again?

 

[dank69]

The poster I quoted equated dependency on a welfare check to "dependency" on working for a living. Now you want to try that logical fallacy trick again?

Are you saying that people don't depend on their paychecks? No, you wouldn't think that. I'm not sure what point you are trying to make. The fact is, nobody is claiming that giving out free money to everyone will fix our economy, which is the only point your post refutes.

 

[nehalem256]

Are you saying that people don't depend on their paychecks? No, you wouldn't think that. I'm not sure what point you are trying to make. The fact is, nobody is claiming that giving out free money to everyone will fix our economy, which is the only point your post refutes.

You are also dependent on oxygen. But I do not see how that is an argument for why dependency on government largess is good.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I do love the whole institutionalized dependence song and dance.

Nearly all of us both enjoy & suffer from institutionalized dependence- some of us have jobs as our form of dependence, some of us have other means. Enormous sections of the country depend on welfare of one sort or another to sustain commerce, maintain the jobs that exist. Take Mississippi, for example, where they get $2 for every $1 contributed in federal taxes, and where 40% of the state budget is federal money. If you think that the whole place wouldn't descend into total economic stagnation w/o that money, you're delusional. The indirect dependence of everybody there on the welfare state is enormous, from Walmart workers to shopkeepers to medical professionals- you name it.

The welfare state reintroduces money into the system of day to day commerce otherwise vanished by the financial elite, hustled offshore, stashed in non-lending banks, put into the market inflating equity values of boom/bust quality.

Are you saying that people don't depend on their paychecks? No, you wouldn't think that. I'm not sure what point you are trying to make. The fact is, nobody is claiming that giving out free money to everyone will fix our economy, which is the only point your post refutes.

My point relates to the post above yours. Individually we all depend on money. My point is that what I quoted makes an equivalency and dismisses the inherent and fundamental differences between earning a living and getting one. If sending money to states in the form of welfare is substantially the same then hell, just send us lots of it. I'm pointing to the absurdity of the argument, which reduces to the advantages of handing out money. My point is that giving money without doing something to change behaviors in dependent situations, not requiring any effort to learn work habits or improve one's education, to not take action against the core problems of unemployment such as outsourcing is not to be dismissed so lightly by saying in effect "one dollar is as good as the next".

I'm not arguing for the elimination of social programs, but I am for reformation with meaningful employment as the end, not just copping out and saying "gee isn't that great, people have money where they didn't before". People are not just the check they get.

 

[dank69]

My point relates to the post above yours. Individually we all depend on money. My point is that what I quoted makes an equivalency and dismisses the inherent and fundamental differences between earning a living and getting one. If sending money to states in the form of welfare is substantially the same then hell, just send us lots of it. I'm pointing to the absurdity of the argument, which reduces to the advantages of handing out money. My point is that giving money without doing something to change behaviors in dependent situations, not requiring any effort to learn work habits or improve one's education, to not take action against the core problems of unemployment such as outsourcing is not to be dismissed so lightly by saying in effect "one dollar is as good as the next".

I'm not arguing for the elimination of social programs, but I am for reformation with meaningful employment as the end, not just copping out and saying "gee isn't that great, people have money where they didn't before". People are not just the check they get.

When it comes to driving demand, they are essentially the same, which is what he was saying. Of course they aren't the same when it comes to GDP, which is not what he was saying.

There are incentives to work instead of collecting welfare, which you already know, btw, because you don't seem to want to quit your job to collect it, which was my point.

 

[nehalem256]

There are incentives to work instead of collecting welfare, which you already know, btw, because you don't seem to want to quit your job to collect it, which was my point.

Also the fact that in order to collect you pretty much have to pop out a couple of critters.

It also helps that the government when then take money from your baby daddy and send it to you as well.

 

[buckshot24]

Ok Libs. Should food stamps be able to purchase soda pop, candy or lobster? Maybe we can find some common ground on some reforms?

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Ok Libs. Should food stamps be able to purchase soda pop, candy or lobster? Maybe we can find some common ground on some reforms?

Those things are food, aren't they? If you're really arguing in favor of people taking responsibility for themselves, why do they need the government controlling their diet? True welfare reform is not in the government giving you a list of approved goods, it's getting people into jobs so they get off welfare and become self-reliant.

 

[Matt1970]

If everybody worked, we'd have excess production, which would drive prices down below the ability to show a profit. That's what happened to farming in the lead in to the Great Depression.

No graphs, no charts, no studies, no surveys, no links, no anything. I am just going to let this statement stand on its own and let everyone bask in the basic ignorance.

 

[buckshot24]

Those things are food, aren't they? If you're really arguing in favor of people taking responsibility for themselves, why do they need the government controlling their diet? True welfare reform is not in the government giving you a list of approved goods, it's getting people into jobs so they get off welfare and become self-reliant.

Yeah they are food but why should food stamps cover what I'd call luxury items? I am not interested in controlling diets I'm interested in giving people what they need and not what they may want.

 

[nehalem256]

Those things are food, aren't they? If you're really arguing in favor of people taking responsibility for themselves, why do they need the government controlling their diet? True welfare reform is not in the government giving you a list of approved goods, it's getting people into jobs so they get off welfare and become self-reliant.

So you want the government to provide them with food and you are questioning why the government should be controlling their diet?

 

[Atomic Playboy]

So you want the government to provide them with food and you are questioning why the government should be controlling their diet?

Yes. If you're legitimately interested in people learning self-reliance, then you should put them in charge of planning their own meals, not give them a specific list of acceptable items. If they want to spend it on Cheez-Its and Ho-Hos, that's their business. I'm more interested in limiting the amount of time they spend on food stamps; I couldn't care less what food they buy with it.

 

[nehalem256]

Yes. If you're legitimately interested in people learning self-reliance, then you should put them in charge of planning their own meals, not give them a specific list of acceptable items. If they want to spend it on Cheez-Its and Ho-Hos, that's their business. I'm more interested in limiting the amount of time they spend on food stamps; I couldn't care less what food they buy with it.

Your definition of learning self-reliance is handing your alcoholic brother with a suspended license your car keys on a friday night.

 

[buckshot24]

Yes. If you're legitimately interested in people learning self-reliance, then you should put them in charge of planning their own meals, not give them a specific list of acceptable items. If they want to spend it on Cheez-Its and Ho-Hos, that's their business. I'm more interested in limiting the amount of time they spend on food stamps; I couldn't care less what food they buy with it.

Don't you think if you restrict what can be purchased with foodstamps to bare necessities that this could, and I stress, could motivate people to make themselves more hire-able or heck even start a business?