To neo-cons who think that welfare recipeints are lazy

Most people fail to realize that imperialism stems from progressive ideology.

 

Bingo, I have always considered welfare just another income stream. It is common for people to adjust their lifestyles to fit qualitification for benefits. It is not coincidence that Blacks have a high rate of out of wedlock children.

 

My hat's off to you, sir! I admire anyone that can actually say something and have it make it sense. This is a power I do not reliably possess.

About that part I bolded, though: I don't see the cause and effect, there. What keeps the banks from loaning out more money than they've actually got, again? 'Cause people can still write checks and the banks can still loan out money based on the money they have from those checks, can't they?

 

No one should get anything that was taken by force from someone else.

Tea Party. No redistribution of wealth for corporations or individuals.
OWS. Forget those rich guys, where's mine?

 

I have been on two forms of 'welfare'. New Start Allowance, which is (*)(*)(*)(*) difficult to stay on. Having to apply for a certain number of jobs each week and if you haven't found a job after a certain period of time you are forced to attend a course which is designed to show you how to find a job.
I had my job and they still forced me to go to that bloody course because a casual job wasn't good enough for them, only a full time job would do, even though it is near impossible to get a full time job these days.

Had my health care card a number of times. Having to fill out all this useless paperwork every six months to get the darned thing really annoys you, and they cut you off when you are just a dollar over their limit.

 

That's simply not true, Deathstar. It's called a lie. I have dealt with a lot of "poor" people who say nothing in their life is their responsibility. And, if rich people just didn't have so much then people like them would have more. There's a lot of jealousy out there but I don't know anyone who is jealous about deadbeats.

Poor people, and leftists, talk a lot more about rich people than rich people talk about poor people.

 

Baseless claim. I know a lot of high school graduates who are working and not on welfare. Oh, wait, there is that catch, isn't there? They're working. It's just not fair that you can't make a good living without working.

 

You mean you're unaware of corporate meddlings with the government?

 

Not legally; though if the property owner didn't have anyone that cared about him (including private police) then yes, this is effectively true.

It's all about social connections and the ability to get people to voluntarily help you. Thus social darwinism.

 

It's these kinds of comments that are totally without use. You should contribute something of substance instead of snappy one liners. Oh wait, that seems to be all that the Conservatives of today are capable of.

Reminds me of Reagan. Great salesman, worst president ever. Worked from lies and innuendo.

Reagan started this whole Welfare Queen image that was totally debunked but the Conservatives of America cling to it like it was truth.

Are there people who have abused Welfare and Social Security? Yes. Is it as rampant as the neo-cons would like us to believe? Absolutely not.

 

Yeah, I am terrible at trying to explain things like this in real life to people, especially the first paragraph because the mechanism by which the Fed creates money is sort of a chicken or the egg kind of circle that I can never quite remember where the best place to start is.

If banks allow customers to withdraw their gold-backed dollars at the same time they are being loaned out, that is the same as banks claiming they have more gold than they actually do, which is the equivalent of counterfeitting. You and I would go to jail for doing this. This was an inherent problem with fractional reserve banking, particularly in the Wild Cat banking era, where banks would claim to have more dollars than they did, and would eventually get run on, with many people losing their savings when the bank failed. So that's *supposedly* why the Federal Reserve System was created (to create a totally controlled elastic money that would work to stabilize prices, employment and the banking system).

But even an elastic money supply had its limits, so eventually the dollar was made fiat (totally delinked from gold), which meant an infinitely elastic money supply: the Fed can create Federal Reserve Notes out of thin air without limit. But let's be honest - elasticity implies that the money supply contracts at some point. The Federal Reserve has made no effort to permanently contract the supply of FRN's at any point in its existence, becuase the FRN has continuously lost purchasing power since it was formed. The real reason the Fed was formed was for the benefit of its largest member banks (to be able to collect interest on loans), and to bail them out when they get into trouble: privatized profits, socialized losses. An infinitely elastic money supply and a central banking system enables this. The prospects of banks being bailed out or even outright nationalized creates a moral hazard, becuase the banks know that taxpayers will be on hook to get them out of trouble...and so because of that will engage in more risky behavior to gain more profit.

So if banks are not able to create dollars out of thin air (by having 100% gold reserve ratios), they can't loan dollars they don't have, which means they will always be solvent. Zero inflation of the dollar will occur because you cannot create gold out of thin air (unless you're counterfeitting dollars). Banks caught counterfeitting dollars would be punished, so we would need strict federal regulation to ensure that banks are not counterfeitting dollars. The problem during the Wild Cat banking era was that banks were able to trick regulators into believing they had more gold than they actually did. Fortunately, today we have technology that wouldn't permit banks to get away with those "creative accounting tricks".

On the down side, as you said, borrowers cannot withdraw all of their dollars at the same time. That is why competing fractional bank notes would form (that are only partially backed by gold). Depositers would be able to withdraw whatever they wished but would also be made aware of the risks associated with fractional reserve banking (that the bank could fail and depositers lose everything). However, by letting the free market take over with the absence of the moral hazard, banks would not be as risky as they are under our current system. They would set competing reserve ratios, and the poorly managed banks would eventually be weeded out. But it is my opinion that no bank note would ever be able to out-compete a currency that is 100% sound (the dollar in that case).

 

The fact of the matter is that today in America, if you're poor, you're probably going to stay poor, and your kids are going to be poor, and your grandkids are going to be poor. That is what socialism does to an economy. This was not true half a century ago when a high school education could get you a decent paying job that you could raise a family on. Today, a high school education doesn't get you (*)(*)(*)(*). You need to go to get a 4 year college degree, and poor people cannot usually afford to go to college.

The reason is because of the federal government driving up the cost of education with endless amounts of funding, which doesn't give educators any incentive to lower the cost of education, but to continue raising the cost of education while pocketing the government funding. Inflation is also very harmful. Because of this, most people have to take out loans through banks or other lending institutions. Unfortunately, you need a cosigner to do this...and if you don't have a cosigner with good credit, have fun finding a loan shark. So poor people basically have a choice between no college at all, minimum wage and welfare for the rest of their lives....or going to college for a degree that might not even pay well enough to service their loan shark debt, while at the same time being able to afford their own personal cost of living. What a choice.

As I said, I think the reason a lot of poor people feel helpless is because both the cost education and the cost of living are so high and they keep going up, due to inflation and lack of incentives for educators to lower their costs....both government created problems. It's impossible to maintain an adequate standard of living on a minimum wage job unless you plan on getting yourself and your children (second generation welfare recipients) and grandchildren (third generation welfare recipents) into hopeless amounts of debt, possibly even bankruptcy...which is again, a function of our banking system/govt driving the cost of living too high.

To summarize, I am blaming corporatism for our problems, which is really just a form of socialism. If we had a Constitutional free market, none of these problems would be happening. If we used gold as money, the standard of living for the poor would continuously increase.

 

Yeah and how old are these high school graduates? Are they trying to raise a family? Were their families poor when they graduated from high school? How much opportunity for career advancement do new high school graduates have?

 

Yes, legally. "Not legally" implies the presence of government. Something is not illegal just because a private police force says it is.

 

hmmm interesting. But is there a way to make sure that private police all act in according to "natural" Law?

Is there a way to do so without violating "natural" Law?

Is there a way to know that "natural" Law exists?

 

No. The police could do whatever they want. Their primary motive would be profit.

Depends on how you define "natural law".

Yes, you define "natural law" in a social contract that everyone in the society is bound to.

 

That is arguable.

Is individual property strict enough to where taxation of any kind, to support the existence of a non-private police organization, would be unacceptable by natural law?

 

Nice strawman of the poor brainwashed neo-cons.

My personal opinion on welfare comes from an 11th grader (with a 2 or 3 month old child) I taught 16 or 17 yrs ago. She was mad at the system. Why? Well, because her parents made too much money (and lived in a house that they (and the bank) owned, and were together as a family), she wasn't able to get her "baby check." While I realize all welfare recipients don't have that attitude, I think it is not uncommon.

 

How so? Profit is always the primary driving force behind economic growth. That's what makes the free market function so efficiently.

You technically don't own any property if there is no government to enforce your nautral right to own property.

 

She wasn't a welfare recipient though, she wanted to become one and wasn't allowed. Rightly so, if she was in the legal custody of her wealthy parents.

 

Wouldn't this competition work between police organizations?

Effectively maybe or maybe not, but many would argue that you do, even if no one else recognizes this right.

 

How would competition stop the police forces from doing whatever they wanted?

But then somebody can take it from you by force, and there is nothing you could do about it. Unless you had some kind friends or money to back you up.

 

I hate to say it, but people don't effectively have any rights because anyone can do whatever they want to anyone else, if they have the power and/or opportunity to do so at the time.

 

The reason why people depend on welfare is mostly....because of the choices they make. Which is in part exasperated by what society evolves to expect.

Sex outside of marriage---is the main cause of welfare. A lack of personal responsability for one's actions...is the main cause of welfare. Selfishness and self-gratification----main cause of welfare.

At least in the past 60 years back or so---our civilization discouraged such attitudes. But now we celebrate it.

Corporations which are run by people and people's motivation---can get just as dependent----planning on governments help instead of saving or planning for self-relience from a corporation's profits.

 

But alot of the times people are on welfare not because of decisions they make, but simply because the cost of living is too high for them to get anywhere. We can thank the Federal Reserve System and Federal Government for that.

This doesn't make any sense. Please explain how sex outside of marriage is the main cause of welfare.

Baseless claims.

We also discouraged white people from interacting with black people just because their skin had more mellatonin in it. Tradition is not any way to sustain a functioning society, especially if that tradition is barbaric/non-scientific, etc.

Agreed. Perhaps I can convince you that government is also responsible for the cost of living being too high for the poor, who need to turn to welfare.