The war on poverty was a failure.

Liberal policies are always destined to fail. Mainly because the government cannot give a dollar to anyone without taking more than a dollar from somewhere else. So in the end, liberal programs will always be a self-defeating exercise; never solving the problem, and making life worse on those who never had the problem to begin with.

The best that government can be is to know what it's limited role is, and to do it in the most efficient way possible. That is why liberalism will always be an antithesis to good government.

It is also a mistake to think that liberals create these programs out of their own "good intentions". If they had "good intentions", they would pull a dollar out of their own pocket and give it to someone who they think needs it. Instead, they believe that a dollar must be confiscated from someone else, to be spent in a way that suits their liberal agenda. That is not what we should think of as "good intentions", that is what is known as "stealing".

 

"Better plan? Vouchers of course."

Taxcutter says:
Vouchers = Section 8 housing. It merely spreads out the crime.

Better solution: Quit providing any housing. Let people find their own.

 

Lack of rebuttal noted.

 

What economic philosophy are you resorting to when making your claims? For example, I believe that supply side economics should be supplying us with better governance at lower cost. From my perspective and in that alternative, anything less than full employment of resources is an inefficiency that must be corrected for to the extent possible with existing legal and physical infrastructure. Thus, Any natural rate of unemployment engendered by Capitalism, is the equivalent to a percent "market failure" rate or inefficiency rate. Your line of reasoning only makes a claim for the wealthiest becoming wealthier, even if at the expense of the least wealthy.

 

Let me discredit your source real fast,

Wow. The decade that followed was better then the 6 years prior? lol... What a thing to measure it against.

Lets try a longer measure:



What type of data do you want to see? We have piles we have building up in other threads. There being not a single success story in a single neighborhood turned around I have all sorts of data. Like the millions they poured into the Detroit area, all the programs to raise education in the inner city etc.. and they have a 53% literacy rate. 3rd world stuff.

What about the millions of poor that used to immigrate here? We can't get our own levels down now and we stopped immigration.

You will notice that we are right back to where we started really, despite trillions spent.

http://www.investors.com/image/ISSfull_120627_345.png.cms

 

Would they come if the wages paid were not enough to make a living?

I ahve worked along side migrant workers here, that doesn't seem to be the case. You know many risk their life to come here? Others are part of a guest worker program. What state are you talking about?

Not a good incentive really.

They didn't create the welfare state, dont blame its costs on them. Unemployed workers cost more. Cheap food makes your life better

It would if the welfare state were removed, and farmers had to offer more to make it worth it, and food prices went up as a result.

 

Well, the better solution for housing that is politically feasible. People will never believe that poor people had shelter in NY city before 1968. They believe their families came here, were homeless, bummed around until welfare saved them and now they are members of the middle class.

Crime I think is best solved with flood the zone policies, youth employment (goodbye minimum wage), and atmosphere of intolerance for crime.

 

Their definition of living is a bit different from ours. When you come from a country with much lower standards, you're going to have lower expectations.

In NC, there have been numerous scandals involving some of our agricorporations. Perdue was subjected to a raid a while back.

Agreed, but that's why we need to change our jus soli policy.

It depends on the company, but when it comes to the welfare state, we can easily blame companies like Walmart for exploiting the system (along with agricorporations).

If the welfare state was removed, we'd just become a slightly nicer version of Mexico.

 

So they don't need welfare? The question was, without welfare if the would they come if the wages paid were not enough to make a living? If the wages are enough for them, what is your beef with the farmers again?

Well outside of the border states I imagine they have to get creative, different here. We have more immigrants here then you can shake a stick at.

Hard to do though admittedly, kids dont deserve hardship... tough call here. If they got it closer to the actual cost of a kid probably keep the incentives out of it.

Would we be better off if those people were unemployed? Would they be better off pay wise at their competitors? Isn't this just a case of knocking businesses that are a) large and b) hire unskilled workers?

Was that who we were before the welfare state, or were we the largest economy in the world with the most powerful military and a dynamic and growing private sector?

 

I'm sure the wages are luxurious compared to what the average citizen of Niger makes, but I don't think that's a good reason to defend paying people poorly.

That's largely because Mexico is in terrible shape.

What typically happens with a Walmart location is that local governments give out a sizable tax break to have Walmart show up. This does create jobs, but in the end, since their workers still use welfare programs due to poor benefits from the company, the net result is more debt for the government.

Clearly, some of their competitors do pay better -- like Costco and Target. Those companies give better benefits as well, so they don't make as much of a burden for taxpayers -- even if they get tax breaks as well.

Honestly, we were essentially just a nicer version of Mexico back then.

The whole concept of income equality is a relatively recent thing. Only a minority of countries in the world have low wealth disparity, and the vast majority of them have well designed public amenities. The countries with the worst wealth disparity are typically either devoid of them or have very poor ones.

Among First World nations, America has some of the biggest problems with poverty, and not surprisingly, some American states have very poor public amenities.

 

You do realize we walked on the moon before the war on poverty really went into affect right?

 

Good. Perhaps you'll understand why I didn't really bother to rebut anything. I think partisan bickering is a waste of time. I'm happy to exchange points of view or even extended argument, which I know for some is very tiresome, but empty one-liners are not much fun especially when there is something of substance to a thread.

 

To frank on economic philosophy - none. I like to dig around and think for myself. In this one it's common sense and I owe a tip of the hat to Engels and Marx who may have been the first to work it out. The common sense bit is mine - if capitalism is so effective then it would not allow unemployment except of those who don't wish to work or can't work. So it seems to me that because there is unemployment of those who wish to work, capitalism isn't as effective as it could be in terms of employment. The point about a "reserve army of the unemployed" being necessary for wage control is not mine, it's Engels and Marx, but it makes sense to me. If everyone is employed and there is still a demand for labour then workers can ask for more wages to stay in a job or look for another job that will pay higher wages. If that was replicated across society there would be as wage-bidding war and the wages-costs spiral would appear. Capitalism requires unemployed workers so that it has some leeway in that regard.

 

Or perhaps you merely couldn't let's repeat

If government politicians keep their hands out of it it does remarkably well.

Yes they will, even during the recession/911/dot/com bubble of 2000/2001 unemployment only went to 6.5% for one month. That administration cut tax rates and got out of the way.

Lack of profit us usually brought about by a lack of demand as in typewriters, guess what happened to the people who made typewriters? They got other jobs in the expanding PC industry.

Tell that to the majority of the socialist European countries.

 

If government politicians keep their hands out of it it does remarkably well.

A remark, unremarked upon.

Yes they will, even during the recession/911/dot/com bubble of 2000/2001 unemployment only went to 6.5% for one month. That administration cut tax rates and got out of the way.

That was in response to my post:

In that paragraph you isolated this sentence, “If the economy is going well then yes, new jobs will be available. If the economy is not doing well then they won't be available.”

You responded with: “Yes they will, even during the recession/911/dot/com bubble of 2000/2001 unemployment only went to 6.5% for one month. That administration cut tax rates and got out of the way.”

Devoid of context my statement as you've presented it is an example of stating the bleedin' obvious. But I'm not suggesting you did so deliberately. What I was saying was that the general state of the economy is important in looking at the aftermath of a business failure. If the failure is of a single business due to mismanagement and the rest of the economy is sound then it is highly likely that there are other jobs which people can get. If the failure of the business is due to an economy-wide problem such as a depression then no, jobs will not be readily available.

A recession is, as I understand it, a correction in capitalism. If unemployment went to 6.5% for a month (not doubting your figures, just framing my response) in that period of recession then it appears that the recession was limited but ultimately effective. I don't know the reasons for that and since I'm not an economist I'm not likely to be able to suggest any credible reasons.


Lack of profit us usually brought about by a lack of demand as in typewriters, guess what happened to the people who made typewriters? They got other jobs in the expanding PC industry.

Lack of profit can be as a result of lack of demand, agreed. But what causes lack of demand?

As for I'll take your word on the typewriter to computer example but offer that anecdotes are not persuasive arguments.

This an interesting analysis - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivetti

Tell that to the majority of the socialist European countries.

I'll get a note out to them ASAP.

 

While it may have been true in the past, our understanding of economics in modern times is such that full employment should have the effect of only outperforming inflation and increasing the circulation of money in our money based markets. Why would any private sector be worse off with any increase in the circulation of money in our Institution of money based markets.

 

Yes, it indisputably does. All government spending on desired services and infrastructure that is not wasted through incompetence or stolen through corruption is given to landowners as a welfare subsidy giveaway.

Nope. The only right to private property is the producer's right to own the fruits of his labor. There is no other basis for private property. And as land is never the fruit of anyone's labor, there can never be a right to property in land. Private property in land is just a fiction invented by the Romans to justify their forcible appropriation of other peoples' lands.

Yes, well, that's what slave owners said about slavery, too...

Nope. You only want to end the subsidies that don't subsidize you. You want to keep the subsidies to yourself and rich, greedy parasites, just as I said you did, and in the exact, precise way I said you would:

Thank you for proving me right.

When the "property" consists of a legal privilege of abrogating others' rights without making just compensation, protecting it is definitely a subsidy. It's just a subsidy that you profit from, so you want to keep it.

 

While paying landowners just for permission to exist...

 

Everyone, because you can't earn enough to stay alive at 1 cent per hour.

 

Why do we still have persistent, structural unemployment?

 

Because we outlaw forced labor and have a minimum wage.

 

After you have chased all the red herrings, the simple fact remains: Despite a half century of effort and trillions of dollars spent, poverty has not been diminished by LBJ's "War on Poverty."

His ideas clearly did not work. Time to cut losses. Eliminate and defund all "War on Poverty" programs immediately.

 

Because socialism requires social morals for free; we merely need to be moral enough to our Founding Fathers' Cause, to bear true witness to our own laws, especially those regarding the concept and legal doctrine of employment at will, and unemployment compensation.

 

Good intentions may not make up for bad decisions, but it doesn't invalidate the good intentions.

 

Intentions don't matter in this case. LBJ's "War on Poverty" has been given plenty of time and money but has failed.

Time to cut losses.