On poverty

And that is how it should be. It doesn't require being 'more democratic', it requires legislation to address the dishonesty in legislation.

And good luck getting that passed, eh?

 

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His proposal was for a very small negative income tax that required work and evolved into the EITC. The idea was that as people earned more money the negative income tax would phase out but what was lost was the disincentive for people to work MORE and earn MORE money instead of taking the free money. These modern proposal are NOTHING like the small program Friedman envisioned. What we have found that works is stricter work requirements and limitations on able bodied workers.

 

The resolution was between the two Houses of Congress and they sent the bill to Clinton and told him to sign it. He had already lost the Congress because of his economic policy and his political adviser to him to get on board with the Republicans. The tax rate cuts and welfare reform were NOT his policies.

It needs nothing more refute and post the link that does. I gave you the US Census data, now refute it.

 

That is incorrect. Beans and rice are less that $1 per pound. Fresh veggies cost less than fast food and soda. The psychology behind choosing fat, salt, and sugar is that it triggers the reward system in our brain.

https://www.walmart.com/grocery/browse/Fresh-Vegetables?aisle=1255027787131_1255027789453

Healthy food costs less and exercise is free. Food giants have spent a lot of time and money researching how to get people to consume their products. They have gained political power and enjoy a steady stream of tax dollars.

 

Thank you for the book recommendation. I listen to many audio books while driving and at the gym. I put it on my list.

My solution would involve limiting the food items that can be purchased and have benefits fade over time. Poor health from bad choices needs to be inconvenient for the patient; not those who maintain good health. They don't needs pharm products; they need exercise and a restricted diet. Human nature is to choose the path of least resistance, so to offset the expenses they create, they need to show progress in weight and health.

 

Do you favor a negative income tax? If so, would you place restrictions on it? ( I believe Friedman was opposed to restrictions which agree with his libertarian views ).

 

Again, I repeat. No one can force a president to sign anything, they can only pressure. Once signed, the president becomes an equal partner, as signatory.

That is irrefutable. Sorry. I won't comment again if you repeat the same nonsense.

You sign something, take it to a judge, and try to blame it on someone else, the judge will just look at you and say, sorry, you signed it, you own it. That is a universal truth, UNLESS, someone held a gun to your head.

What's to refute? What is your problem with it? Did the stats roughly agree the program acceptance requirements?

Were people cheating to take advantage? What, pray tell, is your argument? Be specific.

 

I don't know if Friedman mentioned the negative income tax in his book ( he might have, I don't recall ) but he did talk about it in an interview, which is on YouTube, somewhere. You'll have to research it.

Getting people to eat healthy and exercise for those that don't will not be an easy task. You are saying, no health, no money?

that would be a tough bill to get through any congress and senate. The food industry are big donors.

 

Sorry but no that is not the way it works. No legislation is not a contract. Clinton negotiated and had to give in to the Republicans demands not only to get just smidgen of what he wanted but to get reelected. Those were Rep policies and Rep budgets.

"Aides including Dick Morris and Rahm Emanuel told him to sign it and avoid having the issue thrown in his face during the campaign. Activists, policy wonks—including researchers at the Urban Institute who published a report finding that the bill would put 2.6 million more people into poverty—and all but one of his cabinet members disagreed. He signed.

Sources give conflicting accounts of how much Hillary was involved in this process. As Morris remembers in his memoir Behind the Oval Office, “She told me flatly that she did not want to become involved in the welfare-reform issue,” mainly over her objections to the deep cuts Republicans had packed into their original bills. As Morris was urging Bill to sign the third version, he recalls Hillary telling him, “‘I know the politics, I know the [polling] numbers, but it still bothers me deeply.’”
https://www.theatlantic.com/politic...of-hillary-clintons-political-realism/486449/

And of course the Republican welfare reform worked even with the concessions they had to give Clinton and people went back to work and unemployment feel to full employment levels. We need those same policies now, if you able bodied your time on government subsistence is limited.

 

Who chooses soda and the processed convenience foods, instead of rice and beans? The individual who purchases them, of course. I'll say it again - you cannot protect people from themselves.

If you put in place laws protecting people from themselves, you are sending a very clear message that they need never have any personal responsibility. How do you think that will go for humankind, long term?

 

Exhaustion is genetic? What in heck are you talking about now?

Meantime, how do you think all those poor but determined and hard working migrants got ahead? By lying down and claiming exhaustion? By wasting what little money they had on soda and frozen cheeseburgers? No, they did it the same way my parents in law did it when they migrated from the Third World to the First World - by buying old boiler hens and pressure cooking them til they were almost edible. By getting up at 4am every Saturday to take a bus and train to the wholesale market to buy boxes of the cheapest "D grade" produce. By working two or three jobs, by cooking all meals from scratch, by wearing the same clothes for 30+ years - repairing as necessary, by not indulging in paid entertainment - instead entertaining at home, by not drinking or smoking or indulging other expensive habits, by never taking a vacation, by ensuring their kids did well at public school, and making sure they pursued lucrative fields at university (for which the kids paid their own way). That's the reality of getting ahead when you start with little or nothing. Take it or leave it.

Of course if you're too special for that life, and/or you think First Worlders shouldn't have to suffer such an unpleasant lack of luxury, then just say so.

 

Corporations (whether food industry or otherwise) exist because we demand that they do. If we stopped demanding their stuff, they would cease to exist in a heartbeat.

Each of us shares the power to stop them, by choosing not to purchase their products. But it's we, the people, who have all the power.

 

It's called pressure. The president doesn't have to sign a ******ned thing if he doesn't want to. IF Clinton were a true liberal, no way in hell would he have buckled to the pressure. But pressure is NOT force. No one can force a president to sign anything.

Clinton has PROVEN he is a neoliberal, THAT IS WHY he acquiesced, because its in his blood, ANYWAY.

Proof of the above is when he repealed Glass-Steagall and signed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act which deregulated derivatives. You MUST have neoliberalism in your veins to do this, no real liberal would have done it nor any of the above. Every dem I know thinks of Bill Clinton as a neoliberal, and not a true liberal.

He signed those bills because he's got neoliberalism in his veins and by that account, he is equal partner to all of them.

 

You are trying to change the subject. Who legally steals so much money from them that they will still be poor even if they do choose rice and beans, hmmmmmm?

You loudly blame the poor for not scrimping a few dollars per month on food in order to deflect attention from the fact that the privileged are stealing hundreds of dollars from them per month through rent seeking. Despicable and disingenuous.

You again disingenuously try to divert attention from the laws that actually make them poor in the first place by forcibly stripping them of their rights and making them the private property of the privileged.

The justice I advocate is better than the injustice you advocate precisely because it is better for humankind, long term.

 

You have confused the topics of two different paragraphs. Maybe you should get some sleep.

By running the treadmill that powers the escalator of the privileged a little harder than their fellows, thus making both the treadmill and the escalator run a little bit faster.

So, you figure if they had to sacrifice and sacrifice and sacrifice themselves to make up for the injustice visited upon them by the privileged, everyone else should have the same injustice visited upon them as well, so that they have the opportunity to demonstrate their virtue by sacrificing themselves? All so the privileged can continue to visit the same injustice on everyone else undisturbed?

Somehow, I kinda figured it'd be something like that....

And when the privileged legally own your right to liberty, and make you pay them full market value just for their permission to exercise it.

I'll definitely spurn your claim that there is no alternative to the treadmill and the escalator of the privileged that it powers.

No one -- first, second, third, or any other world -- should have to pay rich, greedy, privileged parasites full market value just for permission to exercise their rights to liberty.

 

I wish you were correct, but the laws of supply and demand are circumvented by lobbyists and politicians to ensure a steady flow of tax dollars. The leading cause of illness is the Standard American Diet (SAD) Once symptoms show, drugs are prescribed to mask symptoms so that the patient can comfortably continue consuming these products. Those drugs cause additional conditions (Side effects) that require more drugs.

Since the ACA, pharm products are consumed at record levels and results show that Americans are sicker than ever. Food and Drug companies have their friends in the FDA ready to use their rubber stamp "Safe and effective"

You do not have the option not to purchase these products. If you pay taxes, (In the US) you are forced to buy these items even if you don't consume them.

 

If the PEOPLE stopped buying their crap tomorrow, they would be gone within a week. No Govt is going to fund a company which sells nothing.

 

1) No, so that they themselves could become 'privileged', and have choices. That's the darned point of the exercise, Love.

2) I'm not saying there's no alternative at all, just that there is no alternative if you're starting with nothing. I suppose you could enter lotteries, but that may not be quite as reliable as living within your means and saving every spare cent.

 

Thus victimizing others in their turn. As I said: you want people to suffer injustice because suffering builds character, and those who are not strong enough to overcome the suffering and injustice you seek to inflict on them have merely proven their unworthiness to prosper.

It is if you think the darned point of prospering despite injustice is to place oneself in a position to profit from that injustice oneself rather than to end it. I.e., if you think the darned point of a slave escaping is so that they can work hard, save up some money, and buy some slaves of their own.

Why should they start with nothing rather than starting with their rights?

 

I guess you haven't been keeping up on the renewable energy scam.

 

Yes. I bought one of those carboard boxes full of electric from Amazon, when I opened it there was nothing there. lol

 

I wish it was that simple. If you eat beef, chicken, pork, farmed fish, you are buying corn. Do you buy toothpaste, soap, spark plugs, tires, ...

Like drug users, people are not going to change their habits until it becomes inconvenient. Forcing the burden on us healthy people has only made matters worse.

 

And there's your problem (and answer). The power lies with us, but we won't use it.

 

If others decide not to do what it takes, it's their freely made choice. That's where the buck stops. We know there is no institutional or other environmental factor preventing people from choosing the path out of poverty - since plenty of people manage to do it - so there's nowhere else to take that buck. People who choose not to make the effort are NOT victims, meantime. They are free agents, who've made their choices as they see fit.

They have their rights. They have absolute freedom to pursue financial security, and the opportunities to help realise it. Exactly what all of us have in our glorious Capitalist Democracies.