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

Wrong

Again I ask questions and seek explanation and you call it straw-men. And don’t answer or explain.

I’ll ask again what I asked you the last time you made that accusation - can you point out where the supposed straw man is and can you actually explain why you think it a straw man?

The problem for me is try to work out what your arguments actually are can be difficult to fathom when you seem unwilling or unable to answer questions or explain your thinking to repeat –

apart from telling me I’m wrong because you are telling me I’m wrong you still haven’t addressed the criticisms I’ve got with that parable of the broken glass you presented. You make pronouncement about such things like ‘value’ but when asked to explain them seem to become rather coy, again I’m getting the strong smell of evasion in your posts that is familiar from other right wing posters.

 

Wrong

But to quote you said - Not to mention, there were NO REGULATIONS throughout the entire 19th century, oh lord! how did we ever survive?

But if there were no regulations, what regulations allowed government intervention?

But you have said (as commented on above)- I've pointed you to several depressions where the government did NOT intervene, did NOT give bailouts, did NOT give monetary stimulus, and not only did we still recover, we recovered FASTER. [my bold]

Now you seem to be implying that government constantly intervened in the economy?

 

Wrong

Again you really need to actually read Utopia, no just Keynes
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=328353

The problem I had with much of neoliberal ideas was that it seemed to be saying (before the crash) that - there was little to worry about because the ‘new’ economic model they were pushing was able to take on any ‘shock’ and survive.

This led to the idea among some that having a huge national debt during an up period was ok because there wouldn’t be a ‘down’ of course if a down turn came and a bail out was needed it would vastly balloon that debt.

And some encouraged the idea that if things went wrong the market would sort it out, companies or banks would just go to the wall and the taxpayers wouldn’t need to bail them out. But many people pointed out (and were ridiculed or dismissed) that at some point in a crisis a government might have to step in or watch the whole financial system go down the tubes.

I say I believe – “In the low period the government is then in a position to put money into the system and nationalise or buy up viable businesses that have got into trouble.”

That bit is not about prevention but what to do to “alleviated, softened so that the effects [of the downturn] are not as bad for most people.

I really wish you’d read my posts.

 

Wrong

Anyway I’ll try and work out what you seem to be saying once the restatements, misrepresentation and vitriol have been removed.

So called ‘booms and busts’ have always existed to one extent or another and you think that when ‘busts’ come it would be ‘better’ if nothing was done in the belief that things should just be allowed to crash and burn in the hope that the economy will eventually, sometime off in the future possibly ‘realign’ itself and emerge better than it was or at least just be the same as it was before, but again why prolong a downturn?

 

Bal,

Go back and re-read what ever you're talking about, and this time consult a dictionary for the meaning of the words that were used.

 

Perhaps 'cost' is what you're fishing for?

 

Indie

Again you evade.

I’ll ask again why do you promote ideas that you seem totally incapable of defending from criticisms in any rational or reasonable way?

 

So in practice, the economic prescription from the right is austerity for the poor, bailouts and tax loopholes (welfare) for the largest companies and banks.

Of course, the right will not talk about the disconnect between their practice and their theory.

 

Bal,

You're like a broken record.

 

Indie

Actually I’d honestly like to know why you hold onto ideas that you seem totally incapable of defending a large number of criticisms that seem to fundamentally undermine them.

 

Bal,

I have answered you as to both WHAT and WHY in each and every case, and have not seen any valid criticism which as you claim fundamentally undermines my responses to you. Accept as fact that you and I disagree primarily over the role of government in solving most, if not all the problems that we have discussed.

 

Indie

You are a complete and utter liar – but please prove me wrong and produce evidence of your supposed rational and reasonable ‘answers’.

As I’ve told you ignoring criticisms does not mean it goes away.

I now you and I disagree – but to repeat I’m trying to work out why you hold onto ideas that you seem unable to defend from criticism?

 

This thread brings to mind the ancient sport of Cadaverous Equestrian Pugilism.

 

But I don’t like horses

 

The whole thread is based off a 'study' by an organisation whose ideological position makes the study inherently biased.

Let's get the Marxists to do a study on worker payments next, I'm sure it will be reliable.



also
I read your comment as 'the reason being?' so I take back that last bit.

 

What is it you are claiming to be biased? The more than half a trillion dollars was spent on welfare and/or poverty levels were unaffected?

The government spending is public record, and I've not seen anyone here posting that poverty is being reduced. Are not both claims factual?

 

Indie

Post 899


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.

 

Bal,

For the umpteenth time I have no idea what you feel I need to defend. I think I've made it quite clear more than once that societies are a creation of the people who in turn create and empower their government not by the choices of a simple majority, but through the choices agreed to by a super majority, as the U.S. Constitution set forth.
A small Federal government, as I think I have mentioned previously, is most efficient in caring for the duties that a vast majority of the people and States allow it, leaving the individual citizens of each State the freedom to make the choices of what duties they will empower their State with, and all other powers should then be left in the hands of the individual citizens. Power should originate with the people, and not ever simply from elected politicians, who seldom, if ever, are elected with a mandate over every issue that can be imagined. Most voters don't even know what the issues are when they vote, other than possibly one or two that they feel would benefit them directly or indirectly, or punish someone they dislike. If you like collectivism, stay in Great Britain or move to another country where it already exists more to your liking. It is not a form of National government I would like to live under no matter how fair and utopian you try to make it sound. I trust ordinary individual humans much more than any person who ascends to an elected, or worse yet, appointed political position of power.

 

Bal,

You seem to like to dig up some facts, so to put everything in perspective, at least provide the figures year by year, along with the number of persons, poverty level, and spending by both the Federal and the State governments related to each program.

Also, I always try to get facts beginning as far back in history as possible, at least 1900 or earlier as the consequences we deal with are often caused by events that took place much earlier than when their effects become known. Sort of like the housing crisis that Bush gets blamed for, among others.

I have to throw all that into a spreadsheet before I can make sense of it. Of course you can spin it how ever you like when you don't care about ALL the relevant underlying facts.

 

Exactly!! Rather than attacking the source, why not just point out the errors included in the report of the OP.

(responses consisting of gratuitous one-liners and lacking any substance whatsoever are fully expected)