On poverty

You're asking the wrong question. Or to be precise, you're asking a question that shouldn't be asked. It shouldn't be asked because the answer lies all around you, in nature. What happens when a wolf behaves in a way which results in reduced security for the pack? Do the other wolves get together and find a way to enable that 'selfish' wolf to continue doing the wrong thing, and thus remain an eternal threat? Or do they allow nature to take it's course in the interests of the survival of the majority?

 

Exactly!

 

Absolutely nothing.

 

And if someone fails your criteria, doesn't get a job or can't keep it?
Sooner or later you are going to have to address my question or admit you don't have any answer.

 

Exactly nothing. None of you can address my question, so you're the moaners, not the doers.

 

Proof please.

 

Denmark has no minimum wage.

 

The real problem is people refusing to hire them after they get out of jail.

 

So you would let them die.

 

I'm a libertarian minded person ideologically but I accept for practical and compassionate reasons that we have to have government run programs like social security and programs for the poor.

SNAP is a prime example. Instead of having poor people running around to soup kitchens and food banks for private charitable help we give them a card and they can use it to buy groceries. Why we allow people to buy candy and soft drinks with the card makes no sense but it is a program that practically pays for itself because the card is used at stores.

Same thing for school meals. The cafeterias are run locally and the federal government reimburses the school district for the kids who get free or discounted meals.

Both those programs make perfect sense to me and are not economically negative. They practically pay for themselves. If somebody wanted to expand these as a form of universal income I would not care. Nutrition programs are not the reason we are 28T in debt. By helping poorer people with nutrition programs that gives them more money to spend on other things.

 

I agree with you there needs to be programs to keep people from starving or living in abject poverty. A country with a $22T economy can afford to spend $400B on welfare and poverty programs.

The issue I have is that we(Americans) like to celebrate these failures(George Floyd) for political reasons when they should be chided for burdening everybody else.

 

I wish that was the real problem. They can be found innocent and still be denied employment based on being arrested. The problem is the long list of laws put their names on the list in the first place. Cops are evaluated on a point system and need to arrest as many people as possible. Any action that does not produce a victim should not have a law making it a crime.

Of course, robbing young people of a bright future is extremely profitable and creates many high paying jobs with great benefits.

 

Proof of your statement please.

 

Try reading what I post before you respond.

I would like has been done in the past, put a time limit on benefits received by able bodied people. While they are receiving them prove they are getting training and education to enable them to be hired. Drug test them so that if a job is offered they will be prepared to accept it and qualify for it.

Now what what is your answer other than perpetual government subsistence at the cost to people who have been responsible in the lives get up every morning and go to work and then have part of their wages taken to give to those able bodied persons who do not?

 

You first.

 

Unfortunately, it doesn't pay for itself. 10% of Snap/EBT benefits are spent on sweetened beverages. The corn used to sweeten them is already subsidized. These people are more likely to be obese so once symptoms show, we then have to subsidize pharm products.

Making people sick so that the food and drug companies can enjoy record profits cannot be considered "helping" the poor.

 

Until poor George was killed, no one considered him at all. Certainly didn't sympathise with his lot.
However, I agree there is a liberal attitude that does seem to want to excuse any amount of laziness.

 

If somebody wants to talk about Andrew Yang's universal income idea what he called the "freedom dividend" I'm game. How that might fight poverty or relieve poverty.

To get the $1000 a month means to relinquish all other government benefits and he wanted to pay for it with a nationwide 10% sales tax which is regressive and taxes the poor the same rate as the rich.

I think we can use existing programs to do some of that.

 

FYI before the pandemic, the attack of the Chinese bio weapon the poverty rate in this country was 10.5% an historic low. The poverty rate among blacks and Hispanics were also at an historic low.

That was after 3 years of Trump's economic policies.

https://www.census.gov/library/stor...-hispanics-reached-historic-lows-in-2019.html

 

Yes that idea has been tried. I mean we are not wolves, we don't have a dominant male who tells all the weaker ones what to do.
So direct comparisons are difficult. But if you are suggesting that we drive out our failures, our ape ancestors moved away from that failed idea, so I'm reluctant to return to it.
Anyway humans have tried it a few times over the centuries and it doesn't work. The problem is that those just above the outcasts worry that they will be next, that but for the grace of god they will be cast out next. The outcasts become criminals, bandits, highway robbers and the poor shelter them.
The authorities resort to using evermore punitive measures, hanging for stealing a lamb, but the criminals just respond in kind.
Eventually the rich tire of losing loved ones and children killed for the shoes on their feet and realise once again that your method doesn't work.

 

The wolf analogy that was used by Crank simply does not apply to the human condition. We do not let people starve to death just for being lazy or stupid.

Disturbing that somebody would use an analogy like that.

 

No, the real problem is that all too often they were put in jail in the first place for "crimes" that didn't even violate anyone's rights.

 

By definition, what people do isn't in nature.

How did our ancestors outcompete the wolf (and chimp, gorilla, etc.) societies so comprehensively that we now outnumber those species by several orders of magnitude, hmmmm? Hint: it wasn't by doing what they do.

 

Alcohol does far more harm to society than all prohibited drugs combined. But 90 years ago, Americans were intelligent enough to understand that prohibition of that drug was even worse. Now, they are no longer intelligent enough to understand it.

 

I would like to propose an idea that has never been proposed before, let alone tried: liberty, justice, and truth. Human labor has become so fantastically productive that in a free and just society, everyone but the severely disabled/mentally ill would be able to support themselves -- and some of the jobs would be to look after the people who couldn't. Making sure people don't fall into destitution improves conditions in the community, increasing land value. If that additional land value were recovered for public purposes and benefit instead of being given away to landowners in return for nothing, the community would be able to pay for programs to keep its least productive citizens from falling into destitution. If the privileged had to pay for what they take, there would be plenty of revenue to provide the desirable public services and infrastructure whose value they currently appropriate for themselves.