Study: More Than Half a Trillion Dollars Spent on Welfare But Poverty Levels Unaffect

Social security,medicare and welfare? A ward of the state,looks like to me. Oh well,I get SS, so I guess I'm sucking the system dry. Sorry about that. I didn't mean to start working at 14. Just seemed right at the time. Still does,actually.

 

You have nothing to be sorry about. You've earned it

Neoliberal politicians who've engineered the crisis need to be put in prison for life.

 

Let's see:

Welfare cost...$1 trillion over 44 years.

Bailouts for rich folks cost...$1 trillion in 1 year.

 

Balls. Poor people are assholes, too. They just don't cost as much as rich people.

 

My assertion, if you'll read my post, was that you cannot assume things produced by the government would not be produced otherwise, if they have value. In this situation, I'd say value relative to the resources (land, labor, and capital) used to create it.

Again, you're "seeming" things that are wildly untrue. Your inability to quote where I implied that speaks for itself. I really shouldn't have to define every word used to you, it's rather tiring. I've just copied and pasted every definition I've provided from dictionaries, I suggest you start doing your own research if you're unfamiliar with the English language. Here's another for you though, Mainstream Economics,"a loose term used to refer to the non-heterodox economics taught in prominent universities." A good example of one who has helped refute the myth of the "Long Depression", is Christina Romer, a Keynesian.

Look you don't know the theory. The theory is that banks create booms and bust cycles by credit expansion which leads to malinvestment. The bust period, or downturn, is when the malinvestments that were made during the boom period are liquidated and realigned in ways that are sustainable. The only way to prolong a downturn of this nature is to try to prop up the malinvestments that were made (bailouts, nationalising, or whatever). That's the theory.

It's great you've been warning against corporate welfare since 1979, but it doesn't change that you're entire argument on this thread has been advocating for it. Whether it's dolled out by mother Teresa, or Pol Pot doesn't change anything. Corporate Welfare is corporate welfare. "Government support or subsidy of private business"

Can you point to a time in history when any governments actions weren't controlled by the "elites" of that country? I agree with what you said, but you cannot separate "the elites" from the government, in this age or any. ESPECIALLY not federal.

And what are the businesses that were nationalized, bought out, or bailed out(like you're promoting) during this period that made the recoveries so swift?

 

How does $100 being misspent justify $10 being misspent? That's not an argument. This is the equivalent to me killing my neighbor and then in court professing innocence because Ted Bundy killed many more.

 

No.

It's like if you killed your neighbor in self defense, and while the police wasted precious resources to build a kangaroo case against you for murder, ted bundy was running around raping and murdering and then raping some more.

It's obscene to be saying a word about welfare, if you're not saying a LOT more about our recent welfare for rich people.

 

It's still a non-argument. What we're discussing is the killing of my neighbor. Citing the killings of Ted Bundy doesn't make me any less, or any more innocent.

I'm against that kind of welfare too though, and have been arguing with Balbus about it this entire time. I'm against government spending all across the board. It's all welfare for somebody, at the expense of somebody else.

 

1. How often are you seeing posts in this thread relating to government welfare spending and the poverty level with any intent to reach a consensus on what changes could reduce both the spending and the number living in poverty?

2. I'm unable to relate in any way your response to what you provided quoting me. You obviously haven't a clue to what I had written.

3. You mean the baseless accusation? The larger government grows the more power it accumulates, and centralization of power makes it much more easy for those with wealth to manipulate and impose upon everyone else. It would appear to me that the real smoke screen is in implying that more government is better than less government, although I do agree that good governance is what the vast majority of people desire, and can only be achieved to their satisfaction when they retain authority over their government. Take a look at the map on electoral-vote.com and you might get an idea of what I'm saying. There are many areas where people disagree with one another and only the truly insane would assume that right and wrong can be determined simply by achieving the acceptance of a majority.

 

What's your point? I'm retired receiving social security which I paid into all my working life not because I wanted to, but because it was mandated by law and taken from my paycheck along with other taxes prior to my receiving my paycheck. Medicare, I don't use, and welfare programs I've never used either. I started work at age 13, and did so because I wanted to. That's my story, but still, what's the point of this line of posting in relation to the thread topic?

 

I think basically the only reason I've ever posted in here is because I like to get a rise out of some of you souless bastards. The reaon my posts have been short is because I've been in here for 12-13 years and I've gone into my reasoning years ago at length and I'm fed up of ever trying ,like Balbus does presently, to reach some of you to see if there's a heart behind your reasoning. Can't find it.

 

Uh, I think the latest report showed it OVER $1 trillion in the year 2011, and that was excluding social security, medicare, veteran benefits, and State funding of the 83 or so different programs.

What bailouts are we talking about for rich folks? Some of the below perhaps?

A123 Systems ($279 million) - Filed for bankruptcy
Abound Solar ($400 million) - Filed for bankruptcy
Amonix ($5.9 million)
Azure Dynamics ($5.4 million) - Filed for bankruptcy
Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
Beacon Power ($43 million) - Filed for bankruptcy
Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
ECOtality ($126.2 million)
EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million) - Filed for bankruptcy
Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million) - Filed for bankruptcy
Evergreen Solar ($25 million) - Filed for bankruptcy
First Solar ($1.46 billion)
Fisker Automotive ($529 million)
GreenVolts ($500,000)
Johnson Controls ($299 million)
Konarka Technologies Inc. ($20 million) - Filed for bankruptcy
LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($151 million)
Mascoma Corp. ($100 million)
Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million) - Filed for bankruptcy
Navistar ($39 million)
Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
Nordic Windpower ($16 million) - Filed for bankruptcy
Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million) - Filed for bankruptcy
Range Fuels ($80 million) - Filed for bankruptcy
Raser Technologies ($33 million) - Filed for bankruptcy
Satcon ($3 million) - Filed for bankruptcy
Schneider Electric ($86 million)
Solyndra ($535 million) - Filed for bankruptcy
SpectraWatt ($500,000) - Filed for bankruptcy
Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million) - Filed for bankruptcy
SunPower ($1.2 billion)
Thompson River Power ($6.5 million) - Filed for bankruptcy
Vestas ($50 million)
Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($700,981) - Filed for bankruptcy

 

Don't allow your reasoning to become enslaved by your emotions.

 

The above were loans or grants based on alternative energy business plans.
WHen i think of corporate welfare, i think of the free money given, no questions asked, to the banks and insurance companies. Even the 'bailout' of the auto companies came with high interest loans.

 

1. Which of those in the list I provided are loans, which I assume the implication is that they will be repaid? Doesn't sound like any of the alternative energy business plans have proven to be very good investments, does it?

I'd really like to know the name of Obama's investment advisor, I'd avoid him like the plague.

2. Free money? And those corporate welfare recipients would be who and how much?

 

As I understand it, the recipients of Obama's "investments" are also his primary investment advisors.

 

Reasoning that enslaves the poor for the benefit of wealth is fundamentally selfish and therefore unsound (and unsustainable).

 

Let us know if that ever happens.

 

it's called slavery

 

How is it relevant to the discussion?