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

The solution is quite simple, cease buying all things produced abroad, and only purchase products made in the U.S.

Economic growth is easily achieved, devalue the currency, increase wage demand to offset rising prices, allow government to borrow more money to redistribute and voilà, the economy is perceived to be growing.

The problem as I see it is that each individuals needs, wants, and value to society can differ greatly from that of others, and that's where normal people in the society are usually much more qualified than government in deciding where to apply charity.

 

The problem with normal people deciding where to apply charity is that of the many that would, few have the money (and of the many that wouldn't, few have the money, too).

Most people will simply not give for charity, it's only exceptional people that do. And most very rich people are exceptionally nasty, and that's about the extent of their virtues.

Foodstamps have just about nothing to do with economic growth, sorry.....

As for buying things produced abroad, I buy things from first world countries. Generally the US, europe, israel, japan, korea.

There are two exceptions to my rule: mexican soda, which is the only way to get some flavors that I want (tamarind, grapefruit, real sugar sweeteners) and I pay full US prices (besides, I think that the US and mexcio and canada should fuse.... but that's a whole other discussion) and computer parts, which (because of american companies) are made in third-world shitholes and I have little choice. If I could buy an american-made motherboard for three times as much, I would do it.

 

So it boils down to a resentment of the rich, who you perceive to be very nasty, and lacking in virtues?
I didn't know food stamps had no cost at all, if that is true than government could produce enough of them to give everyone in the world who could then eat at no cost at all and have no effect economically.
When I used to live in Atlanta, I believe AMI in Norcross was still producing motherboards there although I know they have manufacturing plants around the world too. I can't begin to imagine what a computer, or for that matter most any high tech product would cost at the market if totally produced in the U.S. If nothing else it would eliminate their exports as very few if anyone outside the U.S. would be able to afford them.
I think you'd have a hard time selling to Canadians, especially in Quebec, or Mexicans the combining of their countries with the U.S., after all what has the U.S. to offer them other than debt?
As for my own purchases, I tend to use quality and price as the primary determining factor in deciding what I purchase. I just bought a Samsung LED TV for my wife and daughter yesterday, although I previously only bought Sony TV's.
You could probably find some American company who would be willing to produce a one-off mother board for you, although I think the cost would be far greater than three times as much, but when it comes to populating the board with components that might be a problem.
You appear to have no problem separating the rest of the world from the U.S. and even separating Republicans, conservatives, Libertarians, or anyone on the Right except for what they have that you can take from them in creating your version of a society. Perhaps instead of enlarging the U.S. it would be more efficient and effective to break it into a Left America and a Right America?

 

Hey, I said my combination idea was for another thread...... It would involve massive governmental redesign, obviously. The oposition from mexico and the US to that combination would come from the opposite ends of the countries-washington sees a big border issue, I can see mexico on a clear day and there's no border issue here, it's very integrated, I know people who commute from mexico several times a week, effectively living on both sides of the border. They'd be fine with getting rid of the red tape and BS, and it would greatly benefit both countries. As for canada, well their current government seems to really suck, but they're not as fascist as the US yet. quebec can shut the fuck up, I live in texas and I hear the secede crap too, it basically tells you that you can stop taking whoever you're talking to seriously.

Food stamps are NOT a huge economic force. Car-stamps might be.

Samsung and sony manfuacture in korea and japan, if I'm not mistaken. Fine by me.

As for manufacturing locations, no, I'm just fine with buying things from other places, but if they're not being paid the full american price for the product, the government should be picking up the profit margin and redistributing it to make up for the american jobs lost to make that product somewhere else, as opposed to a corporation taking the american jobs and the profit gained by doing such.

 

When I said "fortress america",what I mean is to think of this country as a self contained unit. WE make it here-we buy it here. I don't care what other people make in other countries--I just don't want it to have much to do with this one. They need to make the progress in their countries that those in the 20th century made here-by blood and tenacity. Yes there will still be owners/bosses and they will make plenty of money,but not at workers expense. There was some horrendous actions by business owners back in the day and they were stopped only by the concerted efforts of the working class.
Does anyone think the working class brought on the worldwide financial mess we see now? Nope. The usual suspects.

 

Last i heard we have a tarriff on Canadian lumber. I would love to build a deck, barn, etc. I cant afford the high price of American lumber. Wonder what else the US govt. has put tarriffs on to keep citizens poor? Your average person cant afford to build their own house. Keeps the housing industry in money and us poor citizens slaves to the banks and landlords.

No were not really benefitting from cheap labor. Levis and Nike's cost more now then when they were made in the USA. Cheap imports was part of the sales pitch. It aint happening. Those benefitting from cheap labor are keeping the profits. They are not passing them on to the consumer. The other cheap Chinese things are mostly junk. You get what you pay for.

Great idea! Thats what a lot of other countries are doing. They are looking out for their communities and neighbors. Thats what me and my friends are doing. No Walmarts, no foriegn made when I can find US or Canadian made.

 

I live in one of the most poverty stricken states in the south. We have generational welfare families here. I used to work with the public in retail as most of us probably did at one time. I have seen gross misuse of welfare funds. Selling of foodstamps, etc. Even people who really do have babies because who cares, the government will feed them and take care of them.

I at one time was on food stamps because I needed them. I was a college student full time, worked full time and had a child. My husband and I didn't make much and being a college student I qualified for food stamps. I received a lot of animosity from people in my family who thought I was abusing the system since I got food stamps. Simply because I was a college student. Now I've repaid what I got for those few months in food stamps in taxes plus some. I will never hopefully ever be on them again. People like my family is what it's for. It's to help people temporarily who fall on hard times. We should never use it as a crutch or force families to see it as the only way out.

We need stricter rules. In my state now, if you aren't working and aren't a college student you must find work in order to keep food stamps. How some people get away with not finding work is beyond me. I am a believer that education is our answer and we must invest money in helping these children from at risk families and making college more affordable, spending more time with them to establish their personality and make them realize they too can have a good job and get out of poverty. Stop the welfare cycle.

 

Do you NOT understand that by buying cheaper canadian lumber you are putting americans out of business, as money leaves the country and the american's job is essentially outsourced to canada? THAT is what makes americans poor.

There are some things where a tariff makes no sense and IS just protectionist. One example is the sugar tax, designed to keep people growing sugar in a place where the shit doesn't grow right, when it grows just fine south of the border, while the american producers are well known to just use immigrant labor anyways, so the same amount of money goes to latin america and american sugar barons get rich in the process.

So it obviously depends on the product at hand, but in general and with things that we make just fine, if you buy outside the US you are undermining the economy, and YOU are the reason for the economic problems here, for enabling companies that are raping the country.

As you yourself say, prices don't go down here. Maybe it's a little cheaper on the shelf next to the american product, but in the end it's more americans out of business as big business pockets the profits instead of passing on the savings. Think about it: if they made the same profit margin, they would have no reason to outsource, they do it for one reason and only one reason: to take advantage of you. In the end the short term savings will ruin the country.

It works like this: you buy a tool made in china and you save ten dollars.... you get a crappy tool that will break and hurt you and mess up the job you're using it for, and meanwhile the US loses the tooling and knowhow to make quality tools of that type as the factory is abondoned or scrapped or moved thus becomming dependent on china to make those, and the workers who made good money making those tools are out of a job. The company importing the tools charges you forty dollars instead of fifty, but instead of spending forty making the tool, they spend five making it and two shipping it. The company saves money, and you appear to but the penalty is more unemployed americans (which lowers US wages, because there are more people who want jobs, and will work for less because of the brutal competition) and in the end you pay more for EVERYTHING, including the tool, because of this outsourcing. Meanwhile the corporation that used to employ americans to make the tool, making a profit of ten dollars per tool, makes a profit of 33 dollars while telling you that they're giving you savings or "always" low prices or whatever, and individual posts making this sound like that company is using global competition to give you a better product at a better price, and like the executive who is pocketing the extra is actually working hard for that money by exploiting exchange rates and poverty in another country, and like he deserves that money more than the american people do and it's some sort of crime to tax him and give it back to the people who are out of work because he outsourced his company to rip off americans.

 

The wild thing is the people who want to see these people in prisons verses helping them are PAYING THE TAXES TO KEEP THEM THERE LOL .. SO FOR ALL YOU RIGHT WING CONSERVATIVES keep paying your taxes and keep supporting the private prison industry and make a few people super rich lol lol lol

 

Cheap Canadian lumber could only benefit indydude. Making him pay more for his deck actually makes HIM poorer, because that's less money he has to spend on other goods and services. Instead of making foreign goods as shitty and expensive as ours, we need to be looking at the reasons why our goods are so shitty and expensive in the first place. Im not going to try and teach economics via a forum, but just look at historical examples where these two visions have been played out. One of the best ones, is hong kong and china. China had almost the exact isolationist policies that you're advocating throughout the entire 20th century, and they lived in utter and complete abject poverty. It was only when they began opening up their markets to trade and deregulating their economy that they started catching up in technology and standards of living.
Hong kong on the other hand, which operated outside of china as a british colony, is ranked 2nd in economic freedom by the Heritage Foundation. (Which measures by tax burden, regulations, free trade, and stable currency). And despite them having practically zero natural resources, they've developed one of the highest GDP per capita, and has one of the best upward mobility rates out of any market on the planet. In fact, throughout the 20th century, citizens from china migrated to hong kong illegally in droves to escape from your isolationist country and reside somewhere more prosperous.
Treehuggingrock, you're absolutely right about the welfare state, and I'm glad you're able to contribute your first hand experience. Entitlements do not help the poor, they just create complacency and dependency. What is best for the poor is not hand outs, which give incentives to, and perpetuate being "down on your luck", but a business and job friendly environment where there is upward mobility and opportunities for the poor to improve their standard of living through hard work. That is the secret of hong kong. They dont have a welfare state at all. Yet impoverished Chinese workers jump at the opportunity to go there and work to improve their lot. You could go to hong kong right now with a cart full of wares and legally sell them to passerbys on the street. Do you realize if you try that here, you could be arrested? Why? Because of ridiculous regulations that incumbent businesses LOVE to lobby for, that limit competition and deny entry into industries. You can't even open a lemonade stand legally because of the regulatory burden in this country.. Can you not see how big businesses, who are already established, would like policies and regulations that limit new businesses from entering? It's sad to see people who I'm sure are trying to look out for the best interests of the poor, advocating for things that only hurt them. Tarriffs, hand outs, regulations, minimum wage laws, (basically government) only succeed at hindering the poor by keeping them that way. History and the statistics agree with me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOXQUpDDCac&feature=youtube_gdata_player"]I highly recommend this video about hong kong and it's economy, it's just 2 minutes

 

Milton Friedman rules!

 

Thats what im thinking. If I could get lumber at a reasonable price I could buy more things like tools and install nice hardware, etc. Keeping lumber costs high keeps average Americans from homesteading. It makes us have only two choices. Mortgage or rent. Which keeps us broke. Its a racket.
Lumber is a renewable resource. Theres more then enough. Yet its the most expensive part of the house. Shingels (processed of oil) are reletively cheap. Windows have lots of plastic, vynle, glass which takes much resources are relativly cheap. The big hurdle is the wood, the framing. It should be the cheapest part of the whole house. And the govt. is keeping the price high thus the ability to build and own a home/shelter closed to the average citizen.

In govt and busness eyes theres greater economic benefits in prisons then welfare. At least with the welfare mom staying home raising her kids who would likely go to college or trades school or the military, which is a return on the little bit of piddly welfare given to the mom. Now the mom has to work at minumum wage and pay childcare and is even more in poverty and shes losing the kids and neigborhood to crime.

 

And this is why america is in the tubes.

You really are the only one who benefits. And you're hurt as much as anyone else. It's ruining your country, too, not just ours.

Lumber could be cheaper if we could control the american lumber industry. It's expensive because they are unwilling to self-regulate and show any attempt at sustainable harvesting or foresting, their business model seems to mostly consist of lobbying to cut parks and other public old-growth for their own private profit, when they could be farming the shit. Pure lazyness and profit motivation.

 

If the Canadian government wants to subsidize its lumber industry, let them and as Milton Friedman once said, let the American consumers take advantage of the foreign aid.

gossip: Casual or unconstrained conversation or reports about other people, typically involving details that are not confirmed as being true.

 

There is no advantage to take. There is a numbers game that you can not win, and never will be able to win. You're happy in the short term, and unemployed in the long term, while the same people who championed cheap imports (like you, individual) will argue against the welfare that you need to eat, after losing your job and being unable to find one that pays a living wage, BECAUSE of those cheap imports.

It's the classic something-for-nothing bid, and you lose badly in the end, as the american economy is now showing.

 

Jobs come and go for many different reasons, and it's not a game at all, simply a fact of life which we adapt to. I've only allowed myself to be unemployed in the short term, which has led to my being happy in the long term. All I champion is the availability of a quality product at a price I'm willing to pay. Where the product comes from rarely becomes a relevant factor upon which my purchase decisions are based. I don't, and never have needed welfare to eat even after losing my job because I took the responsibility to find work that paid a wage, even less than a living wage, and simply lived within the means provided until I could find higher paying employment.
Yes, it is the classic something for nothing bid, which is degrading American society, as shown by the massive and rapidly growing debt our elected and appointed Federal, including most State and local governments are producing.

While I've never felt entitled to something for nothing, neither have I accepted government to have the power to mandate that I should receive nothing for something without need of my consent.

There is a great difference between charity and theft, with the former being performed as a choice of the individual irregardless of their wealth, and the latter performed under duress and more often than not, directly related to the wealth they are perceived to possess.

 

The problem here is twofold.

You refuse to understand that the US economy has been built, for hundreds of years, independently from external cheap labor, that labor has been forced to come to the US. Changing this as suddenly as we have, in just a few decades, has not given any advantage to US consumers but has instead ruined the american economy (with some help from the hucksters in charge of the whole gig)

And;

You refuse to accept that there is anything wrong with pimping the american economy for personal gain, or that the people who have done this and are still doing this should actually have to give ANYTHING back to account for the care of the people who are now left without a paddle, through no choice of their own.

 

You really DO like to gossip, don't you?

Maybe true for the 1st 100 or so years when the U.S. was primarily an agrarian society and our money was created by the people, but that ended with the industrial revolution and the Federal reserve banking system.

If someone has stolen something they should be required to give it back. If someone has provided something which others have willingly paid for, then they've not created any debt for which they should be held liable by any rational form of reasoning you've presented.
You seem to refuse to accept or understand that we live in a competitive world, always have and always will, and that greatly increased population only makes such fact more readily visible. The less effort an individual puts forth in competing with other individuals, the less chance that individual has of acquiring any success. The solution is not to criminalize competition and success, but instead to motivate each individual to produce what ever effort is necessary to achieve the success they are capable of achieving.
If you've lost your paddle, the only solution is to find a new one, or at least find something that will suffice until which time you can acquire a new one. Those are the choices from which one needs to pick, or remain dead in the water.

 

we have too many stoners and lazy people in the USA and everybody wants to be the boss but not work for anybody.. they all want to go to college and expect some other third world person to pick their food.

 

We need a shift in thinking. I think the root of our economic problem is high cost of housing. 1/3 to 1/2 or more of average americans income is going to housing. Just to shelter. A basic human need. Think of the economic benfits if we did not have to pay so much for shelter. We'd have a great economy. The 'living' wage would not have to be so high. We could live on part time or low wage jobs. We could do jobs that we enjoyed instead of just paying the bills. THe living wage is high because housing is high.
Our govt. has engineered, with the banking and real estate lobbying, to artificially keep housing prices high. Hence my posts about lumber tarriffs.