On poverty

How do you help someone who won't help themselves? You can't.

 

Education will not change attitudes. The well formed character must come first, if the education is to be any use. And once the kid starts school (with the right attitude), the parents must fully support his/her education for the duration, with 100% commitment.

So let us know how you plan to compel parents to change their parenting in favour of their kids escaping poverty.

 

It's all cleverly designed to sound helpful and generous, but without making the slightest bit of difference. No rational adult thinks that throwing money at a problem makes it go away (unless it involves hitmen), so it's pretty obvious BS.

Make no mistake, these programs are designed to make black people more dependent.

 

I don't have a problem with pragmatic solutions like this. I would certainly consider payment, but it should be in reverse to have maximum benefit. IOW, loss of discretional in situ financial assistance, for each kid who drops out or fails. To be replaced with rations and basic utility housing in circumstances where penury might result.

Give the parents a dose of future reality for their kids, when they let them fail.

 

He just signed on, Gingrich and Kasich own it and the results and I blame or give credit to whomever deserves it not on a intellectually shallow reason. And again how about the 2009 budget and it's deficits to you blame Bush43 for that?

 

Oh I agree and all those leftist who believe it will make things better are as you note note very rational.

 

Yeah, it was HockeyDad who said it, I was having a conversation with him, and yours appeared and I didn't note who was saying what. Sorry.

 

It's not revolutionary, education, but it's a place to strive for shaping minds, with the cooperation of parents.

There is no magic bullet, which you seem to be asking for. You got some ideas, feel free to enlighten us.

 

The fiscal buck stops with the president to the fiscal year. Bush's fiscal year ended on Sept 30 2009.

I do this philosophically, because republicans are always taking credit or good things happening on their watch, well, then they must take credit for bad things. You can't have it both ways.

If you want to nitpick on who,specifically, proposed what, fine, you go ahead and do that, but I'm going with how republicans on the hype parade promulgate their brand.

Pew fiscal analysis:
Between 2001 and 2011, about two-thirds (68 percent) of the $12.7 trillion growth in federal debt has been due to new legislation. Forty percent of this legislative growth was the result of tax cuts enacted after January 2001, and 60 percent resulted from spending increases. Technical and economic revisions combined caused about one quarter (27 percent) of the growth, and changes in other means of financing accounted for 6 percent.

 

It takes three things for disadvantaged young people in the U.S. to have a high chance of entering the -middle- class in -one- generation... let alone a near foolproof method of escaping "poverty":

1. Graduate from FREE public HS. 2. Get a job, ANY job, and stay employed in it. 3. Don't have children young.

If it were rats running a maze, would be a straight corridor to the cheese, it's THAT easy.

Meaningless obfuscating jargon such as "neoliberalism" (and 1000 other horseshit social science jargon terms) notwithstanding.

 

I don't advocate cash income support payments anyway. People need food and a safe place to sleep, fine. Give them what they need. If they really can't look after themselves, let them live in supportive housing. I'd never give people cash for nothing.

 

The sane thing to do would be to ask what we can learn from countries who are doing better at combating poverty than we are.

 

Are you referring to Third World countries who had a lot of poverty but then made great improvements in reducing it?

 

Learning from everyone is good, but nations with first world economies are liable to be more analogous. Nations with low levels of poverty, and nations that have had striking reductions in poverty, would be particularly interesting.

 

That may be where you are mistaken.

I have long pointed out in the past that the US is more analogous to a First World existing side by side in parallel together with a Third World.

This can explain many of the seeming "paradoxes" in the statistical indicators of the US compared to many other world countries.

 

What do you do with those who outwardly appear to be able to work but socially struggle to hold a job. I have had a number of these appear in my company over the years.

 

I may be, but prioritizing the comparison of first world economies with first world economies is pretty standard in economics. The onus would be on someone who wants to reject that in a particular case.

 

It may be a mistake. Just because something is common practice does not make it right.
You can't put the onus on someone not to break from informal tradition.

I keep feeling that the very typical practice of comparing the US only to White English-speaking, Western European, and ethnically Northeast Asian countries (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore), is a little bit of biased cherry-picking. Those select countries might only make up 18% of the population of the world.

 

In the UK, we have found the "minimum wage" has become "The wage" in many sectors.
Whereas at one time a Restaurant looking for staff would look around to see what other restaurants pay and offer a bit more to get staff. Now most folk you speak to see the minimum wage as a starting point.

 

That's what you get when there is a surplus of labor supply relative to demand for that labor supply.

It is a result of the UK and Europe's immigration policies.

 

Also see this thread: The effect of population growth on the economy

 

No, but if the experts believe something that you don't, it's most likely they are right.

This is standard among economists. Flick through some economics books on Amazon.

 

Either that, or there's some biased disingenuous reason why the believe what they do.

In this case, wanting to make America more like Europe with their socialized systems.
With so many numerous smaller countries in Europe, it makes European countries seem to stand out more on comparative graphs.
So the US is made to look like a bad outlier.

 

Yes, if you provided good reason to believe that, it would certainly make your other claims more plausible.

 

same here, been that way for years and years, which is why raising the min wage is so important