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

That's not what I'm saying. Of course it creates short-term frictional unemployment. I'm saying.. if you look at the course of history. The improvement of technology via machines.. is what has made it possible for our society to have more intellectuals, and jobs in other positions, that were previously not possible. So replacing jobs with machines is actually a very GOOD thing for society.

I mean we could get rid of all machines and technology, and there would be PLENTY of jobs for everybody! We'd all be insanely poor, and reduced to expending the majority of our energy on hard labor in order to simply survive, but we'd definitely all have a job to do...

 

outthere2

You've said that you're against Corporate Welfare? Why than do you agree with Balbus?

Our argument this entire time has been about Corporate Welfare. I've been against it, he's been for it... If I recall correctly, you've sided with him.

 

You're failing to realize that there is a large group of humans, who are simply not suited for 'intellectual' work. This group will always be there, no amount of education will turn your average assembly line personnel into an engineer. As it turns out, these are the people who's jobs are being replaced with robots, and other automation. Taking these jobs away does not add to the pool of lawyers, doctors, therapists, etc, it adds to the unemployment line, welfare, and food stamps.

 

Wrong

Again I really think you need to read the posts as I’ve covered it many times (and can you please address the criticisms of your views rather that bringing up stuff that has already been covered).

Oh hell, please don’t tell me you are going to be as evasive as Indie?

Ok as pointed out already you cited, then produced the parable “in response to me saying - if you want say manufacturing to remain stable or improve in an economic down turn it might be a good thing to give it assistance”

(I know you say that’s not true but as I pointed out you only need to look at the postal record to see I’m correct.)

I also asked you to read Utopia, no just Keynes
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=328353

Where I say that government can nationalise or buy up viable businesses that have got into trouble during a turn down.

Again are you saying the baker is a bad business that he must accept the consequences of things beyond his control?
That the baker’s use of insurance to pay for an accidental breakage is at the expense of all the other businesses in the scheme and so he shouldn’t be allowed to have assistance?
As I’ve pointed out the only person in the story that needs help is the baker and you seem to be saying that rather than paying into an insurance policy that could help him in such times of adversity he should instead spend the money elsewhere and just hope nothing happens.
Your argument is that if money is invested in one thing it will not be invested in another.
If it is invested in say some type of insurance or scheme to help in case of accident or economic downturn then it isn’t been invested in something else.
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Also how do you know what it would be invested in would be as good or better?
You say

But as I’ve already pointed out - it depends on how you define prosperity, I mean there are things that governments have created or helped to create, I mean I’ve already talked about the sewers and such things as the Erie Canal, then there was the railways and the roads, I mean Eisenhower’s Federal Aid Highway act of 1956 has been called the "Greatest Public Works Project in History". Then there is the development of jets as well as the internet and the World Wide Web. I suppose you could argue than none of them contributed to prosperity but…
You might say that the money would have been spent by others to do these things but then again they may not it’s an unknowable.
Also as I’ve explain to you earlier governance can legislate to improve peoples conditions for example with housing and working conditions in New York (and other urban areas).
How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York explained not only the living conditions in New York slums, but also the sweatshops in some tenements which paid workers only a few cents a day. The book explains the plight of working children…This book along with the “publication in 1895 by the U.S. Department of Labor of a special report on housing conditions and solutions elsewhere in the world, The Housing of Working People, ultimately led to the passage of the Tenement House Act of 1901, known as the New Law, which implemented the Tenement House Committee's recommendation of a maximum of 70 percent lot coverage and mandated strict enforcement, specified a minimum of 12 feet for a rear yard and 6 feet for an air and light shaft at the lot line or 12 feet in the middle of the building (all of these being increased for taller buildings), and required running water and water closets in every apartment and a window in every room. There were also fire-safety requirements. (wiki edited)

I don’t believe in black and white, good or bad but in what might be for the best, sometimes that can mean government regulation sometimes mean public money, sometimes private money and sometimes a mixture.

As I’ve pointed out it is also a disputed example – it seems to have not been that deep, did not really effect the financial sector, and was rather long compared with a number of post45 recessions. Also it’s been argued that the Fed’s easing of interest rates in 1921 also had a role in ending it.

 

Wrong

Back this up.

Try reading - Free market = Plutocratic Tyranny
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/s...?t=353336&f=36

 

There are 4.4 million receiving welfare checks. Another 40 million receive food stamps, and 5.6 million receive Medicaid. 50 million receive Social Security and Medicare. Republicans plan to destroy all of it.

So ask yourself, would you rather leave well enough alone, or add a hundred million to the unemployment lines, and maybe 50 million to the prison population at a rate of $40k per prisoner per year? Maybe fire up those nazi ovens again for another final solution?

Solve the unemployment problem first, don't add to the problem.

 

Where is your evidence that Republicans are planning to destroy all of those things?

 

Bal,

Did you not read my response?

About all we might ever achieve any agreement on is the fact that we can not agree on much of anything at all. So your so called challenge is for me to satisfy you in some way that might allow you to feel that you have proven something to me when you have not?

Reading your responses to others here who disagree with you seems to result in the same tactics you apply to me, accusations, belittling, irrational and unreasonable application of emotions, and little or no facts or evidence of any positive results in improving situations that continue to worsen for future generations.

 

And the Democrats are destroying the country for future generations. Actually government in general left/right democrat/republican has become the major problem facing all American citizens, and while we complain about the wealthy and lobbyists buying the politicians, we ignore the fact that a vast majority of voters are selling their votes to the politicians who promise to give them the most. This is how democracies begin to fail, and we are already a good distance down that road, about $16,000,000,000,000 not to mention an indeterminable amount of unfunded debt to be borne by future generations.

 

While we're at it, why not solve all our problems, and not add any more?

That's settled, now does anyone have a good cheesecake recipe?

 

There is a difference between Keynesian economics and corporate welfare. I believe you understand the difference.

Because he's a leftie like me. We're not trusting of authority and (if it must exist) feel mechanisms should be in place to limit its abuse.

Then I think you misunderstand his argument.

 

Did the middle class cause the world economic break down? Anywhere? Those on welfare,social security cause it? (he asks rhetorically) Pretty short memories here. A hint:Try and think back to the years 2000 to 2008.

 

Better yet, think back many decades ago taking into account the cumulative effect of many government actions which although based upon good intentions at the time, gradually increased the risks associated with undesirable consequences, such as the Fair Housing Act of 1968, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974, the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of 1975, the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, along with Fannie Mae 1938, and Freddie Mac 1970, to name a few, and how each of them contributed to the means by which the ends were produced.

 

Indie

Yes and I’ll ask again do you accept the challenge?

LOL we have been through this many many many times I mean how many times do I have to tell you, I DO NOT CARE IF YOU AGREE WITH ME OR NOT – I’m trying to work out why you promote ideas that you don’t seem able to defend in any rational or reasonable way.

Again you make me laugh – the reason for the challenge is because of the dilemma I talked about - if I repeat something that has been posted one thousand times only to have it evaded by you - what is to stop you evading it for the one thousandth and once time?

As I’ve told you over and over and over and over again – if my criticisms are so irrational and unreasonable with little basis in fact then shouldn’t that make them easier to refute – so why is it that you seem unable to address (let alone refute them)?

 

Indie

Hell man we have been through this many many many times -

After WWII the US’s national debt was up to around 117% of GDP it was brought down in just 36 years less than one generation (by 1981 it was down to 32.5%) until successive right wing and neo-liberal policies (tax cuts and anti-communist military spending) from the 1980 onward increased it cumulating in the profligate spending and tax cuts of the Bush Admin. At the same time the free market ideology (deregulation, hollowing out of manufacturing and a belief that the ‘new’ markets were safe) set up the financial sector for a fall and has caused the debt to rise to around 80-90% of GDP.

The problem isn’t ‘government’ the problem is a right wing, wealth supported, neo-liberal, free market ideology that hijacked the system.

Try - The Decline and Fall of the America Empire: Part One 1945-
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/s...?t=435209&f=36

Fall in top rate tax
1945 - 94%
1970 – 70%
1982 - 50%
1990 - 28%
2010 – 33%


Rise in top levels of pay
In the 1950’s CEO pay was 25-50 times that of an average worker that has risen to 300-500 times by 2007.
A bigger gap than any other developed nation.

Trade deficit
1960 – Trade surplus of 3.5 billion
2008 – Trade deficit of 690 billion
(The last time the US posted a trade surplus was in 1975)

Decline in manufacturing
1965 - Manufacturing accounted for 53% of the US’s economy.
2004 – It accounted for 9%
The Economist (10/1/2005) stated: “For the first time since the industrial revolution, fewer than 10% of American workers are now employed in manufacturing.”

*

 

Indie

Again we have been through this many many many many times already – in a well functioning democracy the votes of the many should balance the power and influence of wealth, to many the problem with the US is that wealth has too much power and influence and has used that to corrupt the political (and social) system to pursue its interests to the detriment of everyone else.

Thing is that you don’t seem to want to restore balance but instead seem to want to vastly increase the power and influence of wealth and have even suggested that wealth be given greater voting rights so it can block the majorities votes.

 

Thing is that to blame the US financial problems on welfare is a cop out – in reality it is due to a lot of factors. There are many countries that have similar problems that have smaller welfare cover and there are those in better situations that have greater cover.

To me the great problem is the mindset of many Americans which seems to have been shaped by right wing propaganda for many years and those idea have then become the ‘common sense’ of many ordinary people who come to forums like this and try and push that right wing agenda – only to discover that they are totally unable to defend it from criticism, because it is indoctrinated ‘evidence’ that seems to have involved no real though on their part.

This manipulation for example can be seen in many Americans support for the anti-communist (basically anything left wing) policies at home and abroad in the past, the ‘rugged individualist’ mentality, the association of ‘free-market’ with ‘freedom’, and the belief in American exceptionalism.

And the seeming belief among many that basically feel that people who claim assistance are lazy scroungers living well off the backs of other’s labours and that the only way to get them to work would be to remove their comfortable existence by removing welfare.

The problem is that a vast number of people claiming assistance are working and in the main those that are not actually want work. Oh there are going to be a small group of people that will try and play the system but most systems are set up to catch and castigate such law breakers. But to colour all for the activities of a few is like calling a whole society criminal because a few in it commit crimes.

 

Bal,

If you have a legitimate question you'd like to ask, go ahead and ask. Like you, i could care less if you agree or not, and the simple answer to WHY I promote my own ideas as opposed to accepting yours is cost of yours in both debt and freedoms of our society.

The only 'real' challenge you present would be in finding the time and exerting the effort required to produce the many relevant facts you totally ignore in presenting your views.

Without identifying and accepting all the relevant facts there is nothing to debate. You seem to take a simplistic approach to acquiring a desirable answer to a very complex problem containing numerous interacting variables, by concentrating on changing a single variable, ignoring the effect it would have on the other variables, in producing the answer you would like as a result.

For example, you have more than once posted

"After WWII the US’s national debt was up to around 117% of GDP it was brought down in just 36 years less than one generation (by 1981 it was down to 32.5%) until successive right wing and neo-liberal policies (tax cuts and anti-communist military spending) from the 1980 onward increased it cumulating in the profligate spending and tax cuts of the Bush Admin. At the same time the free market ideology (deregulation, hollowing out of manufacturing and a belief that the ‘new’ markets were safe) set up the financial sector for a fall and has caused the debt to rise to around 80-90% of GDP."

Yes, you begin with what is a factual figure, although that would have been 1945, when spending on the military was 42% of GDP, and Federal welfare programs was 0.37% of GDP. Then in 1946 the debt rose even higher to 122% of the GDP. I would hope that even you would agree that the size of the debt in 1945 was a result of WW II, and the 1946 increase was a result of shutting down military production which put both my Mother and Grandfather out of work temporarily.

And by 1981 the debt had been reduced to 31.82% with military spending dropping to 6.19% of GDP and Federal welfare programs rising to 2.21% of GDP.

Between 1945 and 1981 you should take into account the many government social programs that were created, the Feds actions related to the money base, interest rates, etc. to name just a small number of things which have to be taken into account, all of which I've been unable to acquire all the details of from a reliable government source.

"Thing is that to blame the US financial problems on welfare is a cop out – in reality it is due to a lot of factors."

On that I do agree, although Federal welfare programs are rapidly becoming one of, if not the most costly programs contributing to the U.S. financial problems. While you may not want to admit it, wefare programs are a component only on the consumption side of the GDP figure contributing nothing to the productivity, but only consuming of it.

You speak of a "well functioning democracy", but in the American form of government democracy plays its part in how we select our representatives, and when our government is functioning as it should, the government is constrained by the limits of our Constitution in what it can do, and beyond that requires more than just a simple majority of the people and the States. A major contributing reason for stagnation now is the uncertainty that exists with a President who bypasses Congress with executive orders, and a Senate who will not allow a budget to be passed in order to keep spending increases alive by use of continuing resolutions.

There probably are a large number of people who would like to return to work, and if that is true, it will be proven so if Obama is not re-elected. Less than two weeks to go, so we'll soon find out.

So if you have a question you feel I've not answered, ask it clearly, and I'll answer as candidly as possible, but recognize as fact that just like you neither of us is capable of proving anything to the other. So what ever my answers 'seem' to say to you is a creation of your own mind, not mine. I simply don't accept that we live in a zero sum world acquiring by taking.

 

As I’ve said the problem with ‘poverty’ is that it is much more complicated than the right wing CNSNews piece cited in the OP (and the Cato report they use) would have people believe.

I mean according to the National Poverty Centre at the University of Michigan -
In the late 1950s, the poverty rate for all Americans was 22.4 percent, or 39.5 million individuals. These numbers declined steadily throughout the 1960s, reaching a low of 11.1 percent, or 22.9 million individuals, in 1973. Over the next decade, the poverty rate fluctuated between 11.1 and 12.6 percent, but it began to rise steadily again in 1980. By 1983, the number of poor individuals had risen to 35.3 million individuals, or 15.2 percent.
For the next ten years, the poverty rate remained above 12.8 percent, increasing to 15.1 percent, or 39.3 million individuals, by 1993. The rate declined for the remainder of the decade, to 11.3 percent by 2000. From 2000 to 2004 it rose each year to 12.7 in 2004. (15.1 percent in 2010 my edit)
So basically it goes up and down

1950s - 22.4% (US government began calculating poverty figures 1959)
1960s –70s declining to 11.1%
1980s – rising to 15.2
1990s-2000 declining to 11.3%
2000-10 rising to 15.1%

But there are problems here first the way the US defines ‘poverty’ doesn’t seem very good -

The current federal poverty line was created in 1964 by Mollie Orshansky, an economist working at the U.S. Social Security Administration.1 Tasked with setting a threshold for what it meant to be poor, she started by analyzing the cost of one of life’s basic necessities: food. Orshansky’s first step was to determine the cost of feeding a family on the “economy food plan,” the cheapest of the four food plans deemed nutritionally adequate by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). She then estimated that the average family spent one-third of its budget on food. The poverty threshold, then, could be set by multiplying the cost of the most basic food plan by three... Except for annual adjustments for inflation, the poverty line has not been touched since. (Beyond the Poverty Line By Rourke L. O'Brien & David S. Pedulla

But what about housing, water, electricity, the environment etc

I mean - In 1950, 27 percent of all households in the country lacked access to complete plumbing facilities…By 1970, only 5.9 percent of all U.S. households lacked piped water.
Still Living Without the Basics
http://win-water.org/reports/RCAP_full_final.pdf

Now this was mainly achieved through public investment in the water and waste infrastructure.

So while a lot of people in 1950’s America (some 50% in rural areas) had no plumbing or flushing toilets by today only a few go without those things.

Now this is a great improvement in many peoples quality of life (and health) and could be seen as a movement away from an ‘existence of poverty’ but it also comes with a utility bill that would not have been there before, an extra cost that is not taken into account by the US definition of ‘poverty’.

As I say it’s more complicated that it looks.

 

Indie

Sorry but that’s just more hollow rhetoric, I mean come on while I’ve explained many times and at length why I think neoliberal policies have caused many of the US current problems and while you’ve said you don’t agree you have put up little in the way of rational argument for your beliefs.

And as I’ve pointed out you often pronounce on ‘freedom’ but when examined this seems to come down to the ‘freedom’ of a few to exploit everyone else and gain power over the majority.

I’ve asking and have asked many times can you defend your ideas from the criticisms levelled at them and all you seem to do is evade with such things as this empty rhetoric.

As I’ve said if my views are supposedly so weak why do you seem incapable of addressing them?

And then you basically go on to confirm what I said or at lest you don’t seem to be disputing it – and over the years I’ve covered many of the ‘small things’ that have had an influence on the US economy over the years amongst others – the bad Bretton Wood system set up at US insistence - anti-communist military spending (including the expensive wars in south east Asia and the Reagan era Military Keynesianism) – the oil shocks – prison spending (imprisoning more people than anyone else) – the war on drugs – war on terror – war in Afghanistan, war in Iraq (and its occupation) – and as mentioned Bushes tax cuts and the free market ideology (deregulation, hollowing out of manufacturing and a belief that the ‘new’ markets were safe) that set up the financial sector for a fall.

*

"Thing is that to blame the US financial problems on welfare is a cop out – in reality it is due to a lot of factors."

But the thing is that the best thing is to get people into jobs that pay living wages and the prospect of improving their station – and as pointed out neoliberalism doesn’t seem to be about that.

I said - in a well functioning democracy the votes of the many should balance the power and influence of wealth, to many the problem with the US is that wealth has too much power and influence and has used that to corrupt the political (and social) system to pursue its interests to the detriment of everyone else.

Thing is that you don’t seem to want to restore balance but instead seem to want to vastly increase the power and influence of wealth and have even suggested that wealth be given greater voting rights so it can block the majorities votes.

Can you address these criticisms of your views?