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04/19/2003 01:40:56 PM · #51 |
You misunderstand me...I am not opposed to Section 8 housing, nor to the concept of welfare programs in general. What bothers me is people who say they are opposed to welfare, but then say they are in favor of Section 8 or tax deductions or farm subsidies or whatever.
I'm saying let's accept the idea that the government has a role in ensuring that no one dies of starvation, disease, or exposure, and develop cost-effective and humanizing ways of achieving that, instead of complaining about taxes or a "welfare state" which keeps perpetually at the edge of poverty, and currently shifts total wealth from the poor to the rich. I happen to think it should flow somewhat the other direction...
Message edited by author 2003-04-19 13:41:16. |
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04/19/2003 02:18:15 PM · #52 |
... forgive me for butting in...
Originally posted by GeneralE:
and currently shifts total wealth from the poor to the rich. I happen to think it should flow somewhat the other direction... |
Hello... are you talking about equal distribution of wealth?
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04/19/2003 02:35:10 PM · #53 |
Originally posted by Journey:
About culling the herd, i am a strong believer in population control. And if you have a minimum wage job (to quote you form a previous post) one should a) not put (more) children in this world if one can barely take care of oneself b) try to better oneself so that one can command more than a minimum wage salary. You might say that i advocate survival to the fittest but i would call it taking personal responsibility. |
China has a policy you may be interested in looking into. They are strong believers in population control too. I've been there and I can tell you that until you see the pain and suffering it causes, you may not want to advocate that kind of "control" anywhere else...
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04/19/2003 02:39:49 PM · #54 |
Originally posted by Anachronite:
[how about no welfare at all, none... if they want money they get a job and work.. |
Damn straight! All those 7 year old homeless kids should get off thier lazy butts and get back into the sweatshops where they belong!!!
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04/19/2003 02:46:35 PM · #55 |
Originally posted by BadPigg:
... forgive me for butting in...
Originally posted by GeneralE:
and currently shifts total wealth from the poor to the rich. I happen to think it should flow somewhat the other direction... |
Hello... are you talking about equal distribution of wealth? |
No, it needn't be equal. But for some individuals to be making hundreds of millions per year while there are some 12 million hungry kids (in the USA) seems too extreme in the other direction.
I believe too many people are making too much money merely for making money, rather than performing any "productive" work. Which would YOU rather do, make stock trades on a computer or clean sewers? So why should the stock trader be rewarded 100 times as richly as the plumber AND get the cushy job? People should be rewarded for their labor in roughly inverse proportion to the desirability/safety of the job (those who work hard and risk their lives should be paid more). We have approximately the opposite today, and I believe it leads to a lack of "domestic tranquility" and ultimately to either authoritarianism or revolution. I don't look forward to either of those...
"We're mad as hell, and we're not going to take it any more!"
--Paddy Chayefsky, Network |
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04/19/2003 02:49:44 PM · #56 |
Originally posted by myqyl:
Originally posted by Anachronite:
[how about no welfare at all, none... if they want money they get a job and work.. |
Damn straight! All those 7 year old homeless kids should get off thier lazy butts and get back into the sweatshops where they belong!!! |
Perhaps it's time to take a new look at Jonathan Swift's Modest Proposal. |
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04/19/2003 02:55:22 PM · #57 |
Originally posted by GeneralE:
You misunderstand me...I am not opposed to Section 8 housing, nor to the concept of welfare programs in general. What bothers me is people who say they are opposed to welfare, but then say they are in favor of Section 8 or tax deductions or farm subsidies or whatever.
I'm saying let's accept the idea that the government has a role in ensuring that no one dies of starvation, disease, or exposure, and develop cost-effective and humanizing ways of achieving that, instead of complaining about taxes or a "welfare state" which keeps perpetually at the edge of poverty, and currently shifts total wealth from the poor to the rich. I happen to think it should flow somewhat the other direction... |
i refuse to make a blanket acceptance of the welfare system in america. i'm glad we agree that section 8 works, that doesn't mean that the rest of it does as well. |
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04/19/2003 03:07:17 PM · #58 |
On the redistribution of wealth issue (this thread is covering a lot of ground), I don't believe in equal distribution of wealth, but I think think any society that wants social justice MUST provide an equal distribution of oppurtunity... We waste our worlds most precious resource when someone can not afford an education.
Currently to get a free secondary education in this country (USA) you better be a good ball player (and male)... I believe that any student that maintains a near A average through high school should be provided with a full grant for a college education at a top notch university. It's a win/win situation... A motivated student gets the benefits of a world class education, and the tax payers get a brilliant mind working in a lab somewhere on undreamed of medicines / weapons...
By the way Anachronite... When you said "if they want money they get a job and work.. even if it is cleaning government buildings... there is plenty to do... lots of work... we can find something... " were you aware that you can see this plan in action today? You should really head over to China for a while and see how well your plan works in practice...
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04/19/2003 03:08:53 PM · #59 |
Originally posted by myqyl:
Originally posted by Anachronite:
[how about no welfare at all, none... if they want money they get a job and work.. |
Damn straight! All those 7 year old homeless kids should get off thier lazy butts and get back into the sweatshops where they belong!!! |
The problem is they can't afford the plane fare to Indonesia where the jobs have been exported...
Put the blame where it belongs: on greedy corporations and consumers. Low Prices PLUS High Profits requres cheap labor = export jobs = US workers on welfare. Either be willing to pay more to buy American-made, or reduce the amount of profits and re-distribute that to the poor...unless you want to truly want to abondon the democratic experiment and return to feudalism and indentured servitude.
Call me Robin Hood or merely a follower of the Judeo-Christian tradition of helping the needy at the expense of the obscenely wealthy, but I think it should be clear by now that true lassaiz-faire capitalism leads to pollution, corruption, and explotation of both human and natural resources, and inevitibly leads to a concentration of wealth and power. The only logical question to me is to what degree unbridled capitalism is brought to rein, and just how much weight the fat cats will have to lose... |
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04/19/2003 03:09:14 PM · #60 |
Originally posted by ChrisW123:
[ The arab world saw this as a sign of weakness and attacked us |
i thought Al-Quaeda , a terrorist group were responsible for the attacks on 9/11 not the whole arab world.
No arab government has declared war on the US., and as to my knowledge not even Iraq has done this, they fought an invading alliance. |
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04/19/2003 03:19:19 PM · #61 |
Originally posted by achiral:
i refuse to make a blanket acceptance of the welfare system in america. i'm glad we agree that section 8 works, that doesn't mean that the rest of it does as well. |
Right -- not THE welfare system, but perhaps SOME welfare system. I am aware many defects of the current system as both a former client and as it affects many of my current clients. However, remember it is not those poor clients who set up the current system -- to penalize them because the "experts" have failed with their current ideas is a form of "blaming the victim," and is to be avoided in a just society.
And of course, the attack at my clinic (described in one of the old threads) was apparently precipitated by an issue of MediCal billing fraud. |
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04/19/2003 03:46:00 PM · #62 |
"President Clinton has the respect of the world??????" NOT!!!! He doesn't really have the respect of his own country's citizens. I see him as an adulterous, lying, cheating, immoral person.
I'm not even going to jump into the rest of this thread, but to say CLINTON is respected....lol I wouldn't want the man near my daughter or son. No telling what he may do,and then lie about it.
I have no hatred or animosity towards him, but respect? Nah! Trust? Nah!
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04/19/2003 04:26:53 PM · #63 |
Originally posted by Gracious:
"President Clinton has the respect of the world??????" NOT!!!! He doesn't really have the respect of his own country's citizens. I see him as an adulterous, lying, cheating, immoral person |
Sorry Gracious, but your former President Clinton still has a lot of respect here in Holland. Why? Because when he was president there was a foreign Policy. I don't know how to call this new policy of the Bush administration. The only thing we hear now is "Join us or fear us!!!". It is not up to me or my government's to judge a foreign president by his private activities. And his formal activities made a better impression than those of mr Bush.
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04/19/2003 04:41:13 PM · #64 |
China does it because they have to. You can't support a population if you can't feed them. it was a doomed social policy advocated by Mao in the 60's where he wanted a lot of people to be born, and the people in the 60's had about 4-5 babies per family. Real bad idea. China do have the population under control now, if not, natural selection will do the job (see SARS, i know it's insensitive, but that's what dieseases are -- nature's way to control overpopulation). Sure it causes suffering from people who want to have a child or two child or more. But what's the alternative? Have them grow up and not have any food to eat and starve to death like Africans?
Actually China has implemented policy in recent years that allow people to have more than one child -- but they will get no government assistance in anything, i.e. no healthcare, etc. So in reality, only the more economically viable can have more children :)
What's FAR MORE dangerous is India which has NO population control and 90% of its citizens live in poverty even by India standards. There was a report by National Geographic about how the Ganges River literally RUNS DRY by the time it reaches the ocean because of population demand on the water. Pretty soon they're going to surpass China in population but their economy will not be anywhere near China's economy. They will be starving, and with a NUCLEAR armament India has, don't be surprised if they attack either Pakistan or China or both.
If you look at the US -- you can see a dangerous trend as well. The people with income higher than 90% of population (you know, your normal middle to upper middle class engineers, doctors, etc.) are NOT getting married and have children as early as those with a high school degree or those that live near poverty lines. It's interesting that the more education one receives, the less likely that one would want to have children :)
Originally posted by myqyl:
Originally posted by Journey:
About culling the herd, i am a strong believer in population control. And if you have a minimum wage job (to quote you form a previous post) one should a) not put (more) children in this world if one can barely take care of oneself b) try to better oneself so that one can command more than a minimum wage salary. You might say that i advocate survival to the fittest but i would call it taking personal responsibility. |
China has a policy you may be interested in looking into. They are strong believers in population control too. I've been there and I can tell you that until you see the pain and suffering it causes, you may not want to advocate that kind of "control" anywhere else... |
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04/19/2003 05:02:50 PM · #65 |
Originally posted by ChrisW123:
LOL, Clinton really said this? You can't make America better by fighting terrorism? WTF?! Yeah I guess if we let extremist Muslims attack the US and US interests abroad, without doing a thing about it, America will be a much better place to live, right Clinton? What a wimp he is.
The reason 9/11 happened is because Clinton was a spineless wimp who did nothing to fight terrorism when he was in office. The arab world saw this as a sign of weakness and attacked us because of EIGHT YEARS of a degenerate, spineless president, and thought they would "give us a try". But now (thanks to Bush) they know that if that happens again, Bush will find the country that supports them, and kick their ass. Simple as that, all they respect/understand is force and power.... So if that's what it takes, we'll give it to them. :) |
Yeah Bush really kicked some Iraqi ass!!! And who doesn't like to have his ass kicked? I bet those arabs are a lot less extreme now! The us really showed them who is the boss in this world. I guess those former terrorist would like to be good friends with the us now.(like in the old days of the cold war).
It's too bad that the average American has only the television as a window to the rest of world: If you can fill one screen with happy Iraqi's then everybody in Iraq must be happy.
Reality is a bit different: While the americans were fighting side by side with the kurdish resistance in north Iraq, the leader of a Kurdish terroristgroup was telling the world "We hate Sadam, but we will join him in his fight against Bush."
And now that Turkey has said that it will attack the Kurds if they try to form a own state in north Iraq, I'm afraid that Osama will be joined by some colleague's real soon. Because America is not going to protect the Kurds against Turkey.(Because they have to protect "US interests abroad")
Message edited by author 2003-04-19 17:05:40.
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04/19/2003 05:08:26 PM · #66 |
Originally posted by Damitriel:
Originally posted by Gracious:
"President Clinton has the respect of the world??????" NOT!!!! He doesn't really have the respect of his own country's citizens. I see him as an adulterous, lying, cheating, immoral person |
Sorry Gracious, but your former President Clinton still has a lot of respect here in Holland. Why? Because when he was president there was a foreign Policy. I don't know how to call this new policy of the Bush administration. The only thing we hear now is "Join us or fear us!!!". It is not up to me or my government's to judge a foreign president by his private activities. And his formal activities made a better impression than those of mr Bush. |
Gracious, I agree 100% with your appraisal of Clinton who lucked out with the economy which was ready to roll anyway when Bush Sr had cleaned it up.
Damitriel, you say it's not up to you or your gov't to judge a foreign presidentby his private activities. What do you mean by private? He was sitting in the Oval Office and on the phone with a Senator to discuss whether the US should get involved with Bosnia and all the while intern Monica, just a few years older than his daughter, was giving him a b-job. Yeah, truly private activities :) |
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04/19/2003 05:27:48 PM · #67 |
Originally posted by paganini:
Actually China has implemented policy in recent years that allow people to have more than one child -- but they will get no government assistance in anything, i.e. no healthcare, etc. So in reality, only the more economically viable can have more children :)
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That's exactly the type of population control i have in mind. You want more than say two kids? Fine, but you will pay for it yourself. Would like to see the same in the US: no tax exemptions, childcare credits for more than two kids, etc. Needless to say, that approach won't do any good for out of control countries such as India and pretty much all of Africa.
I once, and alas only once, had an employer with a sensible benefit package. It consisted of x% of your salary. If you had a number of kids, probably the entire basket would go to medical care. If you had no dependents, you had benefits to spare besides medical care and allocate that to something else that was of value to you. That way benefits were a fair part of compensation and performance rather than tied to how many kids you decide to put into this world. Not having dependents, I generally have felt shortchanged by the typical corporate benefits package that has nothing to do with performance. |
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04/19/2003 07:01:43 PM · #68 |
Gracye, in all due respect, how much international travel have you done lately. I base my claim that President Clinton has the respect of the world at large by speaking with people from the world at large. I hear over and over how much more respect the people of the various countries I've visited hold for President Clinton and how much they resent the obnoxious rantings of President Bush.
Edit : Before praising the 'population control' of China, please visit there and see it. Even with the recent 'reform' to the laws...
Originally posted by Gracious:
"President Clinton has the respect of the world??????" NOT!!!! He doesn't really have the respect of his own country's citizens. I see him as an adulterous, lying, cheating, immoral person.
I'm not even going to jump into the rest of this thread, but to say CLINTON is respected....lol I wouldn't want the man near my daughter or son. No telling what he may do,and then lie about it.
I have no hatred or animosity towards him, but respect? Nah! Trust? Nah! |
Message edited by author 2003-04-19 19:10:47.
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04/19/2003 08:46:44 PM · #69 |
GeneralE: I have a solution to your problem: MOVE to a Communist country such as North Korea. Everyone makes equal amount of dough. Wait, oh i forgot, no one really makes any money! All resources go toward a military.
You gotta be kidding me with that statement. You think Day traders aren't risking their neck on the line? Ever lost $50,000 in 2 hours? :) They are risking just as much. Some are just good at predicting short term trends and makes a killing, the majority of daytraders LOSE money. You don't read that in the newspapers, but they choose to focus on people who are successful at it and think it's too "easy" work. It's not easy, they can easily have the scenario where one minute they're up 10 million, the next hour their kids don't go to college.
People who clean toilets, to use your example, or sewage, dont' have the education to do other stuff. THat's what it is. Someone has to do that type of job. And 99.9% of the population can do it (except me, beecause i'd rather kill myself than to clean sh*t all day long, just can't do it, it's the smell really) as it doesn't require any intelligence, all you have to do is scrub...
Originally posted by GeneralE:
.
I believe too many people are making too much money merely for making money, rather than performing any "productive" work. Which would YOU rather do, make stock trades on a computer or clean sewers? So why should the stock trader be rewarded 100 times as richly as the plumber AND get the cushy job? People should be rewarded for their labor in roughly inverse proportion to the desirability/safety of the job (those who work hard and risk their lives should be paid more). We have approximately the opposite today, and I believe it leads to a lack of "domestic tranquility" and ultimately to either authoritarianism or revolution. I don't look forward to either of those...
"We're mad as hell, and we're not going to take it any more!"
--Paddy Chayefsky, Network |
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04/19/2003 08:49:33 PM · #70 |
I have been there. What's wrong with it? What have you seen that I haven't? And when did you go last? It changes dramatically from one year to the next, hard to keep up. What's the one child policy done? I haven't seen anything other than a disproportional number of men versus women (something like 1.2 to 1.0), which by the way, will help to reduce the population even further.
the only thing i will say is that people are very materialistic over there, at least in the major cities as capitalism flourishes. yes, capitalism.
Originally posted by myqyl:
Gracye, in all due respect, how much international travel have you done lately. I base my claim that President Clinton has the respect of the world at large by speaking with people from the world at large. I hear over and over how much more respect the people of the various countries I've visited hold for President Clinton and how much they resent the obnoxious rantings of President Bush.
Edit : Before praising the 'population control' of China, please visit there and see it. Even with the recent 'reform' to the laws...
Originally posted by Gracious:
"President Clinton has the respect of the world??????" NOT!!!! He doesn't really have the respect of his own country's citizens. I see him as an adulterous, lying, cheating, immoral person.
I'm not even going to jump into the rest of this thread, but to say CLINTON is respected....lol I wouldn't want the man near my daughter or son. No telling what he may do,and then lie about it.
I have no hatred or animosity towards him, but respect? Nah! Trust? Nah! |
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04/19/2003 11:08:24 PM · #71 |
Originally posted by paganini:
GeneralE: I have a solution to your problem: MOVE to a Communist country such as North Korea. Everyone makes equal amount of dough. Wait, oh i forgot, no one really makes any money! All resources go toward a military.
You gotta be kidding me with that statement. You think Day traders aren't risking their neck on the line? Ever lost $50,000 in 2 hours? :) They are risking just as much. Some are just good at predicting short term trends and makes a killing, the majority of daytraders LOSE money. You don't read that in the newspapers, but they choose to focus on people who are successful at it and think it's too "easy" work. It's not easy, they can easily have the scenario where one minute they're up 10 million, the next hour their kids don't go to college.
People who clean toilets, to use your example, or sewage, dont' have the education to do other stuff. THat's what it is. Someone has to do that type of job. And 99.9% of the population can do it (except me, beecause i'd rather kill myself than to clean sh*t all day long, just can't do it, it's the smell really) as it doesn't require any intelligence, all you have to do is scrub...
Originally posted by GeneralE:
.
I believe too many people are making too much money merely for making money, rather than performing any "productive" work. Which would YOU rather do, make stock trades on a computer or clean sewers? So why should the stock trader be rewarded 100 times as richly as the plumber AND get the cushy job? People should be rewarded for their labor in roughly inverse proportion to the desirability/safety of the job (those who work hard and risk their lives should be paid more). We have approximately the opposite today, and I believe it leads to a lack of "domestic tranquility" and ultimately to either authoritarianism or revolution. I don't look forward to either of those...
"We're mad as hell, and we're not going to take it any more!"
--Paddy Chayefsky, Network |
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Sorry, I'm not (never been) a Communist, and specifically and I explicitly stated that I didn't think everyone should make EQUAL, just somewhat less unequal than now.
I don't think risking bankruptcy falls into the same category of "risk-taking" as firefighting or coal mining, and it only seems so because we place more of a premium on making money than making anything else. Being rich doesn't make you intelligent (smart enough to choose rich parents maybe), and there are plenty of smart people working "menial" jobs who are still waiting for that "equal opportunity" everyone espouses but are unwilling to provide.
I'm pretty sure the training to become a journeyman plumber, welder, or mechanic is longer, and requires every bit as much intelligence, as the training to become a stockbroker.
Q: How do you get a college student off your front porch?
A: Pay for the pizza. |
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04/20/2003 02:17:09 AM · #72 |
Originally posted by Journey:
That's exactly the type of population control i have in mind. You want more than say two kids? Fine, but you will pay for it yourself. Would like to see the same in the US: no tax exemptions, childcare credits for more than two kids, etc. Needless to say, that approach won't do any good for out of control countries such as India and pretty much all of Africa. |
This is ridiculous. You penalise the children for their parents' mistakes, and condemn them to a life of poverty and instability. What kind of future will they have? Poverty is a cycle, they'll just hand it down to THEIR kids.
History has shown that the way to population control is through educating women and giving them the ability to live independently of a husband. If they can't support themselves, they have to marry to get security, and in return provide their husband's family with children. This is the equation that governs people's lives all over the world. You break the cycle by getting little girls into schools and then into jobs as women. They get to choose whether or not they want to marry, and whether or not to have children after that. This is what has driven down birthrates throughout the western world. |
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04/20/2003 05:57:36 AM · #73 |
Originally posted by lisae:
They get to choose whether or not they want to marry, and whether or not to have children after that. This is what has driven down birthrates throughout the western world. |
Combine that with a really crappy economy and the fact that you can't get a decent job after 40 ("Help Wanted -- Only under 40 need apply!), so you better have one already, and you have the Japanese situation, which is a steady and dangerous decline in the birth rate.
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04/20/2003 09:50:58 AM · #74 |
Originally posted by myqyl:
Originally posted by Anachronite:
[how about no welfare at all, none... if they want money they get a job and work.. |
Damn straight! All those 7 year old homeless kids should get off thier lazy butts and get back into the sweatshops where they belong!!! |
ok so you want me to be specific? ok no problem... no money, no welfare, not a damn thing for the lazy ass parents who won't work... find a way to help homeless children? sure, no prob.. but their lazy parents get to work doing something, even if it is shining toilets or sweeping floors... they need to do something.. America was not founded so the the government could take care of you.. it was founded so people could live out a dream of independence, the American dream... by continuing to allow people to collect free checks and do nothing for it, we are creating nothing but a big giant flock of sheep that need uncle sam to run their lives and tell them what to do...
we are becoming sheeple...
Message edited by author 2003-04-20 10:02:06.
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04/20/2003 09:55:40 AM · #75 |
Originally posted by GeneralE:
Originally posted by myqyl:
Originally posted by Anachronite:
[how about no welfare at all, none... if they want money they get a job and work.. |
Damn straight! All those 7 year old homeless kids should get off thier lazy butts and get back into the sweatshops where they belong!!! |
The problem is they can't afford the plane fare to Indonesia where the jobs have been exported...
Put the blame where it belongs: on greedy corporations and consumers. Low Prices PLUS High Profits requres cheap labor = export jobs = US workers on welfare. Either be willing to pay more to buy American-made, or reduce the amount of profits and re-distribute that to the poor...unless you want to truly want to abondon the democratic experiment and return to feudalism and indentured servitude.
Call me Robin Hood or merely a follower of the Judeo-Christian tradition of helping the needy at the expense of the obscenely wealthy, but I think it should be clear by now that true lassaiz-faire capitalism leads to pollution, corruption, and explotation of both human and natural resources, and inevitibly leads to a concentration of wealth and power. The only logical question to me is to what degree unbridled capitalism is brought to rein, and just how much weight the fat cats will have to lose... |
how about giving the boot to all the illegal immigrants and stopping the flood of illegal immigration into this country... lots of jobs would open up then.. jobs hard working americans have done for years before the low wage illegals took the jobs...
Message edited by author 2003-04-20 10:03:39.
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