Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[wierd]

You cannot help those who will not help themselves nenjin.

It is the honest to whatever morbid god there is truth.

Reela:

When you hold people above the poverty line, you remove the incentive to improve, because going to work means a REDUCTION in living quality until you improve enough to step above.

[smjjames]

Reela:

When you hold people above the poverty line, you remove the incentive to improve, because going to work means a REDUCTION in living quality until you improve enough to step above.

So, um, does that mean a living wage or a min wage that is above (or just at, but it's a moving target) the poverty line would have the same effect?

[Reelya]

When you hold people above the poverty line, you remove the incentive to improve

"Keep 'em poor for their own good". I'm about to get angry now, because that's just fucked up.

So you're promoting suffering as the great motivator to improve the human race?

Why don't we beat students with sticks whenever they fail a test as well? After all if purely random suffering is such a good motivator, then scientifically applied suffering should get much better results. Unfortunately, scientific studies of suffering as a motivator are kind of down on the idea.

The problem is that it's actually more expensive to leave people suffering than it is to provide basic services: for every "up by their boostraps" person there are a dozen failures who end up in prison, who wouldn't have otherwise.

[smjjames]

I keep trying to throw other lines of conversation but you guys keep ignoring them

[wierd]

See the euro interlopers contribs.

Raising the min wage causes a systemic increase in all prices, such as housing. It just shrinks the middle. Raising assistance to match, creates toxic disincentive. You cannot fix poverty this way.

[nenjin]

You cannot help those who will not help themselves nenjin.

Sure. We experience that right now.

But what you're talking about is a very personal "wanna look you in the eye and make sure you're not a fuck up", then trying to make government policy based around it. That. Doesn't. Work. If this shit was simple we'd be arguing about something else because it'd already be solved.

So when you trot out solutions like 'only help people worth helping', like it's some binary checkbox, that makes the rest of us nervous and/or completely incredulous because it looks like a one-size fits all solution to a complex problem with disastrous implications. "Oh well we'd form a thing in the government and fund it real good", that thing Conservatives are so famously willing to do on behalf of the poor, which we already have right now but which our current president is as likely to gut as the EPA. So yeah, sorry, no one likes welfare queens but none of us are comfortable with arbitrarily labeling millions of people "hopeless" and saying we'd be ok if they just starved on the streets. Maybe they could get jobs picking up all the bodies of dead people on the streets. It'd be the perfectly cyclic solution to poverty. Just die, or get a job picking up those that die for minimum wage. And be glad for it!
 
Jesus, at least Reelya gets where I'm coming from. Do you post in the 40k thread wierd, because that's some 40k shit right there.

[smjjames]

Reelya is Australian though, not European.....

[wierd]

When you hold people above the poverty line, you remove the incentive to improve

"Keep 'em poor for their own good". I'm about to get angry now, because that's just fucked up.

So you're promoting suffering as the great motivator to improve the human race?

Why don't we beat students with sticks whenever they fail a test as well? Basically, if starving is so great as a motivator then you should be able to deliberately starve people and see an improvement in their overall condition.

Reela, it is fucking real.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_trap

I have lived right next to people who were PROUD to not have to work, and actively taught their kids to get on the system too. I HAVE SEEN IT.

Nenjin, I support limited assistance. Time limited, and rate limited. When the money will run out, you look for ways to support yourself.

Trust me, I know that painfully well first hand.

[Shadowlord]

When you hold people above the poverty line, you remove the incentive to improve

"Keep 'em poor for their own good". I'm about to get angry now, because that's just fucked up.

So you're promoting suffering as the great motivator to improve the human race?

Why don't we beat students with sticks whenever they fail a test as well? After all if purely random suffering is such a good motivator, then scientifically applied suffering should get much better results. Unfortunately, scientific studies of suffering as a motivator are kind of down on the idea.

The problem is that it's actually more expensive to leave people suffering than it is to provide basic services: for every "up by their boostraps" person there are a dozen failures who end up in prison, who wouldn't have otherwise.

There's even a sarcastic saying that encapsulates this:
"The beatings will continue until morale improves"

[Reelya]

In the welfare trap example, there's a core problem with the logic:

- the person doesn't take the low-paying job because they would be worse off by working. So we'll take away the alternatives, forcing them to take the worse-off choice. And this will make them better off, because being worse off is now redefined as better since no "better" choice exists.

But then the anti-welfare trap person says: but being financially worse off would be better, because they're not "dependent" any more. But they are: they're dependent on the whims of private employers.

Taking away welfare would objectively leave them worse off. But it also puts downward pressure on wages (more competition for the lowest-paid jobs), and means less total money entering that community. Meaning worse off, plus more worse off. People who want to do away with welfare usually want to do away with the minimum wage on top of that, meaning the minimum is going to be flexible and pushing people off welfare will therefore slash the effective floor on wages.

[smjjames]

* smjjames wonders if he himself is stuck in such a welfare trap.

Though I do get SSI and I do have some rental assisance (because rent is damn expensive in California), though jobs are kind of hard to find for me.

[wierd]

What is so hard for you people to grasp on this!?

I hate poverty. More than you can possibly imagine!

Know what I hate more? People that promote poverty.

Know what a perpetually enabled welfare class does? Perpetuate poverty.

Want to know why and how?

When a struggling household cannot get assistance, because the system is at its limit, because they are not impoverished yet, they miss important payments, they get into toxic, inescapable debt, and end up in deep poverty.

Keeping leeches off the system let's those people get the far less costly assist they need to stay up, and out if poverty. As the doctor says, an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.

I actually understand that money is a finite resource. I want the maximum number of people out if poverty as possible. That means cutting the ones you can't save loose, to save the ones you can.

I suggest visiting a trauma center. You will better understand afterward.

[nenjin]

Nenjin, I support limited assistance. Time limited, and rate limited. When the money will run out, you look for ways to support yourself.

Being poor isn't just a six month thing, as you know. Being black is forever. Being perceived as ghetto despite being an aight guy can be forever. The only way you over come the stereotype is by being skilled at something useful and being good at it. But how are you supposed to do that when you go to a school in a ghetto that no one gives a fuck about and no law or even belief exists that you should get help? "We support limited assistance for schools. Time limited, rate limited. When the money will run out, you look for ways to support the school yourself." And since what money schools get still goes through state government first....when the people holding the purse strings looks at the data and goes "they're all fuckups, fuck em", even promising people can get trapped in a place that makes them worse people, that makes them legitimately question why they should give a fuck if society doesn't give a fuck about them. And maybe their natural good character and try-hard will get them out of it. But since we're talking averages here, how much more of them would have succeeded if someone actually, truly gave a fuck. Enough they're willing to risk the money going to shitheads so they can help one person actually live the dream.

Trust me, I've known some fucks too and I don't disagree that welfare reform needs to happen on some levels. But welfare traps/fraud is hardly the basis for an entire attitude that basically kicks someone out of society with no formal declaration. Shit at least in prison they'd feed you. Think on that. Why not fulfill the stereotype then? You seem oblivious to the cyclical problem you say you hate.

[Reelya]

wierd: But prison is more expensive than welfare, and it's prisons which balloon when you do what you're suggesting.

"Cutting people loose" isn't some simple thing where those people are no longer members of society. Doing that causes:

- disease outbreaks
- generations of malnourished uneducated kids
- more crime
- urban militarization and large prison complexes
- higher insurance premiums
- more business costs (higher security requirements)
- less economic stability

[smjjames]

I want the maximum number of people out if poverty as possible.

So do I....

Also, it's harder to get out of welfare when disabled, because, well, jobs.

Nenjin, I support limited assistance. Time limited, and rate limited. When the money will run out, you look for ways to support yourself.

Being poor isn't just a six month thing, as you know. Being black is forever. Being perceived as ghetto despite being an aight guy can be forever. The only way you over come the stereotype is by being skilled at something useful and being good at it. But how are you supposed to do that when you go to a school in a ghetto that no one gives a fuck about and no law or even belief exists that you should get help? "We support limited assistance for schools. Time limited, rate limited. When the money will run out, you look for ways to support the school yourself." And since what money schools get still goes through state government first....when the people holding the purse strings looks at the data and goes "they're all fuckups, fuck em", even promising people can get trapped in a place they can't escape. And maybe their natural good character and try-hard will get them out of it. But since we're talking averages here, how much more of them would have succeeded if someone actually, truly gave a fuck. Enough they're willing to risk the money going to shitheads so they can help one person actually live the dream.

Trust me, I've known some fucks too and I don't disagree that welfare reform needs to happen on some levels. But welfare traps/fraud is hardly the basis for an entire attitude that basically kicks someone out of society with no formal declaration. Shit at least in prison they'd feed you. Why not fulfill the stereotype then? You seem oblivious to the cyclical problem you say you hate.

So why don't we discuss solutions then instead of arguing about who had a poorer upbringing?