who is getting hurt by welfare?

Government Assistance Statistics:

Year	Recipients	% of Eligible Pop.	Est. Eligible Pop.	White persons %	White persons #	White as % of Eligible Pop.	Black persons %	Black persons #	Black as % of Eligible Pop.
2009	~44 mil	18.6%	~240 mil	11.8%	~5 mil	2.2%	38.9%	~17 mil	7.2%
2010	~48 mil	20.2%	~239 mil	12.7%	~6 mil	2.5%	40.9%	~20 mil	8.2%
2011	~50 mil	20.9%	~239 mil	13.2%	~7 mil	2.7%	41.3%	~21 mil	8.6%
2012	~52 mil	21.3%	~245 mil	13.2%	~7 mil	2.8%	41.6%	~22 mil	8.9%

Growth:
2.67 million additional recipients per year
0.67 million additional White Recipients per year
1.67 million additional Black Recipients per year

Dynamics of Economic Well-Being: Participation in Government Programs, 2009–2012: Who Gets Assistance? (US Census.gov)

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Population estimates 2010:
309 million persons
72.4% White persons
~224 million White persons
12.6% Black persons
~39 million Black persons

Assistance:
~239 million eligible persons
78% of population eligible for assistance
~48 million Recipients
15% of entire population are Recipients
2.7% of White persons are Recipients
50.8% of Black persons are Recipients

QuickFacts - US Census.gov

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Population growth is ~4% per year.

4% of 224 million White persons is 8.96 million new White persons per year.
0.67 million White persons are added to the Government Assistance rolls per year.

4% of 39 million Black persons is 1.56 million new Black persons per year.
1.67 million Black persons are added to the Government Assistance rolls per year.

More Black persons go on Government Assistance per year than are born.

Rs vs. Ds - Questionist - Re-Blog

re-blog post of The Questionist... some formatting and all emphasis are mine... no edits of content.

Every once in a while a post comes along that shines a very bright spotlight on just how profoundly insulated some people's personal echo chambers are. This one is mind boggling in its contempt for reality. Before I deconstruct this fantastical narrative, I need to clarify that this is NOT a defense of Republicans, nor is it an indictment of Democrats.

Claim #1:
Democrats are responsible for 65 straight months of economic growth.
Facts: The economic collapse of 2008 resulted in economic indicators that reach 75 year lows. These numbers were so far from average that the chances of them improving were near 100%, no matter what the government did or who was in charge. This results from a statistical phenomenon called “regression toward the mean.”
One famous example of this phenomenon in action is the “Sports Illustrated Cover Jinx.” Athletes or teams that are featured on the cover are chosen only following extremely good performances. Regression toward the mean all but assures that their performance will not be as good as the exceptional performance responsible for getting them on the cover. The same phenomenon holds true for any variable metric.
The economic growth that we have realized is much smaller and slower than expected, and the evidence that Democratic policies are responsible is non-existent, especially considering more than half of that growth was realized under a Republican House.

Claim #2:
Democrats are responsible for record 56 months of private sector job growth.
Facts: See #1.

Claim #3:
Democrats are responsible for unemployment falling from 10.1% to 5.9%.
Facts: Both the Employment to Population Ratio (also called simply the employment rate) and the Labor Force Participation Rate have dropped to 30+ year lows.
The unemployment rate of 5.9% that we see on the news does not give us the entire picture. If you add those actively seeking employment + short term discouraged workers + long term discouraged workers + part time workers who want to work full time, the number is closer to 23%. And if we used the same unemployment measurement we used prior to 1994, unemployment would be around 18%.
Add to this that people who are reentering the labor force are getting jobs with lower wages and fewer hours, and add to this that income inequality is increasing, and add to this that wages are not keeping pace with inflation; and the 5.9% unemployment rate we see in the headlines is not particularly meaningful. And... See #1 – regression toward the mean.

Claim #4:
Democrats are responsible for the budget deficit being reduced by two-thirds.
Facts: This one is more complicated, and I'm not going to pretend to understand all the reasons for this. What we do know from looking at revenue compared to spending is that spending has largely leveled off, and revenue has slowly increased since a $500 billion dip following the collapse; so part of this reduction is due again to regression toward the mean. Spending under Bush increased at a faster than normal rate due to increased military spending and, because for most of his term, Republicans controlled both houses of Congress. Any time the same party is in control of both the executive and legislative branches, spending increases.
I'll conclude that this claim has some truth to it, but keep in mind that the National Debt has increased from $10.7 trillion to $18 trillion under Obama. In terms of debt as a percentage of GDP, it has increased under Obama from 65% to over 100%. As a comparison, under Bush it increased from 55% to 65%. This is a long term trend that has little to do with who is President or who is in control of Congress, but it is a distinctly unhealthy trend.

Claim #5:
Democrats are responsible for fewer Americans in harm's way in war zones.
Facts: The reduction in troops in Iraq was the direct result of the U.S.-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement signed by Bush in 2008.
Yes, there are fewer troops overseas, but what Americans wanted and expected when they voted for Obama was a drastic reduction in military interventionism, not just the number of troops on the ground.
What we did NOT want or expect was hundreds of drone strikes in Pakistan, an invasion of Libya, American citizens killed in Yemen, 17,000 residual forces, diplomats, and defense contractors left in Iraq, and 10,000 troops left in Afghanistan after the end of 2014.
As recently as September of 2012 Obama said. “We are bringing our troops home from Afghanistan. And I've set a timetable. We will have them all out of there by 2014. And when I say I'm going to bring them home, you know they're going to come home.” This is clearly not the case.
We did not want or expect an escalation in Iraq that included renewed airstrikes. We did not want or expect a new war in Iraq and Syria.

Claim #6:
Democrats are responsible for zero attacks by al Qaeda on US soil.
Facts: I'm not sure how Democrats are responsible for this, and there are far too few data points to draw any conclusions about which party is better or worse at preventing terrorist attacks.

Claim #7:
Democrats are responsible for record stock market growth.
Facts: This is perhaps the most clear example of regression to the mean. A stock market at rock bottom has nowhere else to go but up. In addition, the Federal Reserve dumped 16 trillion printed US Dollars into the market in 2008-2009, and has continued to pump 85 billion printed US Dollars into the market ever since. There is no possible way that the stock market could NOT have gone up under these conditions, and the negative effects are a dramatic increase in wealth inequality, a huge stock market bubble, and economic growth that is supported almost exclusively by debt. Despite the record stock market numbers, the US economy is very sick in a very real and long term sense.
Again, this has nothing to do with which party is in power, and much to do with short-sighted monetary policy on the part of the Federal Reserve. Almost all politicians focus on short term solutions with complete disregard to long term effects. This cliff will be very difficult, if not impossible, to retreat from.

Claim #8:
Republicans are responsible for two economic recessions.
Facts: Recessions are largely the result of natural economic fluctuations, and the only influence that politicians can hope for is to reduce the effect or shorten the duration. The recession of 2002 was a direct result of the bursting of the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s.
The collapse of 2008 was the result of several factors, none of them having anything to do with which party was in power. The precipitating factor was the collapse of the housing bubble which was, in turn, precipitated by artificially low interest rates by the Federal Reserve and ridiculously easy lending terms which resulted in millions of people getting mortgages that were above their abilities to maintain.
Another factor was the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act which separated commercial and investment banking. This allowed commercial banks to, effectively, gamble with our money. The repeal of this act was supported by both Democrats and Republicans, and signed by Bill Clinton.

Claim #9:
Republicans were responsible for the worst financial collapse since the Great Depression.
Facts: See #8.

Claim #10:
Republicans were responsible for the worst terrorist attack in history.
Facts: This claim is probably the most disconnected from reality of any of the claims on this list. One only needs to read exactly what Osama bin Laden himself explained as the reasons for the attack. [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/nov/24/theobserver]
Among the motivations stated by bin Laden for the attack were: long term US aggression in the Middle East, US attacks on Somalia, US support for Russian atrocities in Chechnya, Guantanamo Bay, the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia, immorality of Americans (including the President), US support for Israel, and US sanctions against Iraq. (People seem to forget that Clinton was bombing Iraq throughout his term on a regular basis.)
None of these alleged provocations had anything to do with which party was in power, although the most immediate of them (and infuriating for bin Laden) happened on Clinton's watch.
Another possible motivation for the 9/11 attack offered by terrorism experts is that bin Laden wanted to provoke America into a war that would incite a pan-Islamist revolution. Considering what is currently happening with the Islamic State, one can only conclude that this strategy has been largely successful.

Claim # 11:
Republicans were responsible for the two longest wars in US history.
Facts: This claim regarding the war in Iraq is mostly true. This happened on Bush's watch with fabricated claims made by his administration, and a large majority of Republicans supporting the Iraq War Authorization. Note that a majority of Democratic Senators also voted in favor of the resolution.
This claim regarding the war in Afghanistan is, however, completely false. Only three members of Congress did not vote in favor of this, one Democrat and two Republicans.

Claim #12:
Republicans are responsible for the worst record of job creation since Herbert Hoover.
Facts: It is true that job creation under Bush was the worst since Hoover, and a certain amount of blame can be placed at the feet of Republicans. Another factor is (you guessed it) regression to the mean. After the dot-com boom, employment was exceptionally high, and it was a statistical near certainty that job creation would slow down or decrease.
Another factor is that the forces that led to the 2008 collapse were working against the economy well before the actual collapse itself. It's also worth a reminder that governmental actions have limited effects on job creation, and what small effects there are can lag several years behind the action.

Claim #13:
Republicans are responsible for a complete collapse of the stock market.
Facts: See #8. (It's interesting that three of the seven claims against Republicans are essentially the exact same claim. I could have come up with a lot more legitimate complaints against Republicans.)

Claim #14:
A budget surplus turned into a trillion dollar deficit.
Facts: It's true that Republican led spending on military intervention added to the deficits experienced under Bush. But yet again this can, to a large degree, be explained by regression to the mean. The 1990s saw an unprecedented information revolution, and a dot-com bubble that was further inflated by a badly timed reduction in capital gains taxes (which was supported by both Democrats and Republicans and signed by Clinton).

https://www.facebook.com/janisianpage/photos/a.357587427661315.87486.357191544367570/736868986399822/?type=1&theater

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Source:
The Questionist on Facebook - post

we've been saying this FOR YEARS

Congressional Budget Office says Obamacare "Creates A Disincentive For People To Work"... well no kidding.

REP. PAUL RYAN: Just to understand this, it is not that employers are laying people off, it's that people aren't working in the work force, aren't supply labor to the equivalent of 2.5 million jobs in 2024, and as a result that work force participation rate, less labor supply, lowers economic growth.

DOUG ELMENDORF, CBO: Yes. That is right, Mr. Chairman.

RYAN: So, who are these workers? Who are the people typically in this category? What kind of worker from an income scale side are being affected by this?

ELMENDORF: The effect is principally on the labor supply of lower wage workers. The reason is what the Affordable Care Act does is to provide subsidies focused on lower and more middle income people to buy health insurance, and in order to encourage sufficient number of people to buy an expensive product like health insurance the subsidies are fairly large in dollar terms. Those subsidies are then withdrawn over time for people as their income rises. By providing heavily subsidized health-insurance to people with very low income and withdrawing those subsidies as income rises, creates a disincentive for people to work, relative to what would have been the case in the absence of that act. These subsidies are, of course, make those lower income people better off. This is an implicit tax, not the sort of tax we normally think about, where if the government raises taxes we are worse off and face a disincentive to work more, but providing a subsidy people are better off, but they do have less incentive to work.

emphasis is mine...

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source:

CBO Director: Obamacare "Creates A Disincentive For People To Work" | Video | RealClearPolitics By Tim Hains, February 5, 2014

Hysteria Over The "Risk" Of Being Poor

By Neal Boortz

Please stand back.  I’ve been waiting all weekend to write this particular section for Nealz Nuze.  Seldom have I heard a more idiotic statement from someone in a position to know better … I mean this is so magnificently ignorant – even stupid – that if this woman’s ignorance were radioactive Democrats could build the mother of all nuclear brain bombs.  Just one could wipe out all intelligent life on Earth.

The woman we’re talking about is Melissa Harris-Perry.  Apparently she has a weekend show on MSNBC.  No surprise there.  At last check MSNBC had about 2,200 centrifuges at work 24/7 trying to purify stupid.  They’ve done quite well with Melissa Harris Hyphen Perry.

Melissa Harris Hyphen Perry is also political science professor at Tulane.  Read a bit further and you’ll pity her poor students.

Melissa’s meltdown (Can I just call her Melissa?  The Harris Hyphen Perry is tiring) occurred on her show over this past weekend.  The topic had turned to welfare and income mobility.  Melissa apparently lost it when a guest on her show suggested that people move from lower to higher income brackets by taking risks.  Oh my!  Now THAT yanked Melissa’s chain.  She actually started screaming and thrashing about on the air like a beached barracuda.  Here’s a section from the transcript of her hysterical fit, provided by Hot Air:

“What is riskier than living poor in America?   Seriously! What in the world is riskier than being a poor person in America? I live in a neighborhood where people are shot on my street corner. I live in a neighborhood where people have to figure out how to get their kid into school because maybe it will be a good school and maybe it won’t. I am sick of the idea that being wealthy is risky. No. There is a huge safety net that whenever you fail will catch you and catch you and catch you. Being poor is what is risky. We have to create a safety net for poor people. And when we won’t, because they happen to look different from us, it is the pervasive ugliness.”

Where to start?  This is like hunting over a baited field.  So many targets standing completely still with stupid expressions on their faces that you scarcely know where to shoot first.  (OMG!  A gun methaphor!)

Let’s start with the poor.  The poor, poor, pitiful poor.  Just how risky is it to be poor in America?  Lose your job?  You’re on unemployment.  No job? You’re on welfare!  Can’t find something to eat?  Food banks and numerous feeding programs.  Just tell me when was the last time you heard of someone dying from hunger in this country.  You have to hide somewhere to do that.  No roof over your head?  Check in to a shelter.  Fact is, most people who sleep outside make that choice after rejecting a bed in a shelter because they don’t want to abide by the rules.  For every story of some poor person who died on a freezing night outdoors, there is a story of a bed in a shelter rejected.  Get sick?  Medicaid.  Nobody is denied basic life-saving medical care in this country because they can’t afford to pay for it.

What’s it like to be poor in America?  Dare I say it?  Not all that horrible, actually.  First – in a general sense – the average poor person in America has a higher standard of living than the average European.  Read that sentence again – you need to understand what I’m saying there.  Read it until it sinks in.  Take the average POOR person in America and tell them they’re going to have to live like the AVERAGE EUROPEAN .. and they’ll start screaming racism, discrimination, oppression, and every other leftist trigger word they can remember.  Tell a poor person in America that they’re going to have to lower their living standard to that of the average European, and the proggies will tell you that you be “hatin’” on the poor.

Specifics?  Yeah .. I have some specifics.

First .. let me go back to a story and picture that appeared in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution earlier this year.  The story is re-written for use every winter --- it’s about pitiful po’ folks having to wait in line to get their home heating assistance dollars from the government to heat their homes in the winter.  This past winter the AJC showed a picture of some pitiful poor person bemoaning the fact that she might not get her heating dollars.  Right there in her living room we saw her big-screen television (at least 50”) and the PlayStation video game.  There was also a space heater in the background.  The AJC writer told us that sadly this woman can only afford to heat the room she is occupying.  Well … guess what the hell what?  That’s the way the average European does it!  In Europe many think it’s just plain silly to heat a room you are not using.  That’s also the way your parents or grandparents probably lived in this country.  You wouldn’t expect this AJC reporter to know that though.  The purpose of the story was to make your heart bleed for this pitiful poor woman, not to give you any actual facts.

Pretty risky stuff, right Melissa?

More specifics?  Here you go.  This is from a two-year old study from The Heritage Foundation. 

• The typical “poor” household in America has a car
• 78% of “poor” households in America have air conditioning
• 64% of “poor” households in America have cable or satellite TV .. most have two TVs, along with a DVD player and  VCR
• Most “poor” households in America with children have a gaming system such as an Xbox or PlayStation
• 38% of “poor” households in America have a personal computer
• Most “poor” households in America have a refrigerator, an oven and stove, and a microwave. They also have other household appliances such as a clothes washer, clothes dryer, ceiling fans, a cordless phone, and a coffee maker.
• The typical “poor” American has more living space than the average European.
• The typical “poor” American family is able to obtain medical care when needed.
• The average “poor” household in America claims to have sufficient funds to meet all essential needs.

One can only assume that in light of the growth of Obama’s entitlement society these numbers are even better now.

But wait!  (As they say.)  There’s more!

I’m about to show you that you have more disposable income in America as a single mother with three children – from God knows how many different fathers – than does a traditional two-parent middle class family.  Hold on.

Let’s consider the head of a household of four making minimum wage in America.  More specifically – a one-parent household of four.  The mom – making minimum wage – and three children.  Compare this to a two-parent household with two children making $60,000 a year.  Wyatt Emerich of The Cleveland Current ran the numbers on these two families and discovered that the single-mom with three kids,  and no job marketable job skills that she could use to earn more than minimum wage,  actually has --- now get this --- actually has more disposable income than the family making $60,000.  How does that work?  Well .. you throw in the various government income redistribution programs such as the Earned Income Tax Credit, food stamps, the school lunch program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Medicaid, CHIP, Section 8 rent subsidies, and the heating assistance program and you have little Miss Minimum Wage – earning $14,500 a year – actually walking away with $37,777 in disposable income.  Meanwhile, the family earning $60,000, after taxes and childcare costs, brings home about $34,366. 

There, Melissa.  There’s your risky lifestyle.  Really?  Just where IS the risk you speak of?  Frankly, I don’t see that much at all.  It’s a life in thrall .. the government provides you with the security you so ardently desire in exchange for one simple little thing every two or four years … you’re vote. 

Do you want me to tell you about poor people and risk-taking?  Here you go:

• Having unprotected sex so that your boyfriend can knock you up, and then having a child you absolutely cannot afford to raise … that’s risky.

• Ignoring your education and job training opportunities to the point that you can’t qualify for a job that earns more than minimum wage … that’s risky.

• Getting hooked on drugs … that’s risky

• Spending your spare money on lottery tickets and at your local Tresses and Talons shop … that’s risky.

• Taking money you could use to buy your kids a book .. and spending it instead on a cool tattoo.  Risky.

• Getting a job --- and then making a habit of not showing up for work on Monday’s and Fridays … that’s risky. 

• Refusing to move out of a crime-ridden inner city environment and relocating, by whatever means necessary, to an area with better schools, less drugs and crime, and some basic job opportunities … that’s risky.  And don’t give me this “can’t afford it” crap.  Our ancestors did that walking alongside covered wagons with a few tables and chairs and maybe a bed inside.  They had to dig holes in the ground to drop a deuce along the way.  You have a car.  There’s rest areas on the expressways.  Load it and use it.

• Embracing the “no snitching” culture so that the police can’t do an effective job of ridding your neighborhood of the thugs that shoot your friends on street corners … risky. 

Now … dear, sweet, mindless Melissa.  You say that there’s no risk-taking in being wealthy?  Oh .. and that there’s a “huge safety net that will catch you whenever you fail over and over?”  Really?  Well .. you’re a political science professor .. so we’ll just assume you don’t know what in the hell you’re talking about.  Pretty safe assumption, I’d say. 

CNN’s Money.com tells us that households have lost a total of $16 trillion plus in household wealth since the recession.  Now this wasn’t wealth held by the pitiful poor.  By definition, they have no net wealth.  So where was the safety net for this $16 trillion in lost net wealth, Melissa?  Is the government out there making these people whole again?  Is the government restoring lost savings accounts?  How about depleted IRAs and 401Ks?  Being rich is risk-free? 

What of all the businessmen who have had to close down their businesses – their life’s dreams – as a result of the recession?  Where was that government safety net that catches them over and over and over?  Can you tell me one business lost to a small businessman that has been restored by government?  Can you tell me how the government stepped in and gave this businessman back the cash and time he invested in his business?  Isn’t it great that this guy wasn’t taking any risks? 

What about the stock losses in failed corporations?  What about the dividends no longer being paid by corporations on the financial brink?  Tell me, Melissa, how is the government stepping in to stretch a safety net under these investors?  Even The Huffington Post reports that wealth lost during the recession hit middle and upper income people the hardest.  Tell me what the government safety net did for them, Melissa?

Do you want to know what the safety net for the rich is?  It’s the exact same safety net your wonderful poor people have:  SNAP, Section 8, EITC, Child care tax credits, food banks, TANF and the rest of the social welfare programs that prop up your neighbors in that violent neighborhood you can’t bring yourself to leave. 

Don’t move, Melissa.  Trust me .. you’re right where you belong.  It’s nice they let you work in the house sometimes.  

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source:
Hysteria Over The "Risk" Of Being Poor

Happiness is.

what is happiness?... Aristotle had quite a bit to say on happiness... and so it seems do conservatives.

PBS (oft-thought as liberal) had a recent discussion about happiness and your ideological beliefs... this may come as a surprise to the liberals out there, but conservatives are happier on average... and the reasons may surprise you... below are some selected portions of PBS's findings:

One of the biggest correlates with happiness in our surveys was the belief of a meritocracy, which is the belief that anybody who works hard can make it. That was the biggest predictor of happiness. That was also one of the biggest predictors of political ideology. So, the conservatives were much higher on these meritocratic beliefs than liberals were.

belief in your own merit makes you happier... the belief that you are owed something makes you unhappy... this is what conservatives call "common sense".

Now, optimism alone doesn't determine contentment. Religion boosts happiness. So does marriage. But Napier's research accounted for that.

JAIME NAPIER: "We adjusted for education, for income, for marital status, religion, people who lived urban vs. rural, all kinds of things. So, you know, on average, just your ideology alone is an independent predictor of your subjective well-being."

did you get that?... i know the jokes about marriage, but it makes you happier... it makes me happier... just ask my wife; she'll tell you what i think.

and "religion boosts happiness"?... oh, the compounding effect of a religious conservative.

they even adjusted for education and income... this means that even poor, stupid conservatives are happier than rich, educated liberals... alternatively, a well educated conservative is still happier.

Napier says American economic malaise of the past few decades disheartened everyone, but liberals most of all.

So, everybody was decreasing in happiness as there was more inequality, but liberals to a significantly greater extent than conservatives.

And, in 1974, the difference between liberals and conservatives on happiness wasn't statistically significant. It was, basically, ideology didn't predict happiness in 1974.

so, the Summer-of-Love liberals were equally happy as their conservative counterparts... and while the inequality of wealth became greater, only the liberals became unhappy... apparently, they seem to think they aren't getting their fair share... the conservatives, on the other hand, aren't looking for a hand-out, so they are content to work for what they earn.

It's not true that conservatives are richer than Liberals. Liberals are actually richer than conservatives.

The reason that conservatives tend to be less concerned with income inequality is not because that they're ignorant. It's not because they're calloused. It's not because they have less of a sense of a morality. It has to do with the fact that they see the world differently.

sorry to take away all of your arguments, liberals... apparently, statistically speaking, you're the rich ones... but, somehow, you've made the claim that the conservatives are the 1%... not true... you've claimed they're ignorant, callous, and immoral... not true.

what is true is that liberals are the cause of their own problem... the expectation that someone else owes you anything sets up a logical fallacy... Person A expects value V from society Z... society Z is the sum total of all persons, "n"... for all persons "A" to each receive V from Z, then Z owes a total of V*n (split equally to A*n)... simple math... (V*n)/(A*n)= V/A or 1V per 1A... however, for society to have V*n to give, it must receive from A*n the total amount for distribution... that means, each A must contribute 1V to Z prior to receiving their 1V in return... liberals don't want to give into the system from which they expect to receive... but if no one puts into the society, it is fallacious to think you can get anything out of it... maybe you've heard of squeezing blood from a turnip?

liberals would have you believe that there are two groups giving into society and two receiving... person A is poor and needy (proletariat)... person B is rich and needless (bourgeoisie)... therefore, the above math goes something like this: 0A+2B=V₁ (value put into society Z)... V₁=V₂ (value taken from society)... V₂=2A+0B... "From each according to his ability; to each according to his need." - Karl Marx

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With regard to what happiness is (men) differ, and the many do not give the same account as the wise. For the former think it is some plain and obvious thing, like pleasure, wealth, or honor. They differ, however, from one another -- and often even the same man identifies it with different things, with health when he is ill, with wealth when he is poor.

Happiness is desirable in itself and never for the sake of something else. But honor, pleasure, reason, and every virtue we choose indeed for themselves, but we choose them also for the sake of happiness, judging that by means of them we shall be happy. Happiness, on the other hand, no one chooses for the sake of these, nor, in general, for anything other than itself. Happiness, then, is something final and self-sufficient.

Aristotle

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source:
Why Are Conservatives Happier Than Liberals? PBS NewsHour Dec. 9, 2011 PBS

welfare debunked: the crisis of our time

[The welfare state] is the outcome of a three-stage development during the last one hundred years, beginning with the stage of individual relief graded according to genuine needs, passing through public social insurance, and ending up in today's stage of universal, all encompassing security.

Social demagogues use the promises of the welfare state and inflationary policy to seduce the masses, and it is hard to warn people convincingly of the price ultimately to be paid by all. All the more reason for those who take a more sober and longer view to redouble their efforts to undeceive the others, regardless of violent attacks from social demagogues, who are none too particular in their choice of means, and from the officials of the welfare state itself.

Few people can still close their eyes to the contrast between the extraordinary successes of a social and economic order relying on the regulating and stimulating forces of the market and free enterprise, on the one hand, and on the other the results of a continuous redistribution of income and wealth for the sake of equality. It is a contrast which is intolerable in the long run. One or the other will have to yield -- the free society and economy or the modern welfare state. To use the words of another distinguished British economist, Lionel Robbins, a man who weighs his words carefully, "the free society is not to be built on envy."

Government-organized relief for the masses is simply the crutch of a society crippled by proletarianism, an expedient adapted to the economic and moral immaturity of the classes which emerged from the decomposition of the old social order. This expedient was necessary as long as most factory workers were too poor to help themselves, too paralyzed by their proletarian position to be provident, and too disconnected from the old social fabric to rely on the solidarity and help of genuine small communities.

People regard as progress something which surely derives its origin and meaning from the conditions of a now all but finished transition period of economic and social development. They forget that if we are to take respect for human personality seriously, we ought, on the contrary, to measure progress by the degree to which the broad masses of the people can today be expected to provide for themselves out of their own means and on their own responsibility, through saving and insurance and the manifold forms of voluntary group aid.

Are we to call it progress if we continuously increase the number of people to be treated as economic minors and therefore to remain under the tutelage of the state? Is it not, on the contrary, progress if the broad masses of the people come of age economically, thanks to their rising incomes, and become responsible for themselves so that we can cut down the welfare state instead of inflating it more and more?

A short time ago, a member of the House of Commons movingly described her father's plight in order to prove how inadequate the welfare state still is. But this is not proof of the urgency of public help; it is merely an alarming sign of the disappearance of natural feelings in the welfare state. In fact, the lady in question received the only proper answer when another member of Parliament told her that she should be ashamed if her father was not adequately looked after by his own daughter.

Today's welfare state is not simply an improved version of the old institutions of social insurance and public assistance. In an increasing number of countries it has become the tool of a social revolution aiming at the greatest possible equality of income and wealth. The dominating motive is no longer compassion but envy.

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source:
Crisis of the Modern Welfare State by the US House Joint Economic Committee in July, 1994
As excerpted from the book "A Humane Economy: The Social Framework of the Free Market" by Written by Wilhelm Röpke in 1960. Excerpts are from the chapter, "Welfare State and Chronic Inflation."
FULL TEXT

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Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

- The Life of Reason: Volume I by George Santayana, 1905

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History, in par, repeats itslef.

- Mr. Kuhlman, high school history teacher

on "Human Nature" and grasshoppers

part of "Obamacare" is a provision to pay for long-term care... it expects healthy people to pay premiums now in case they become disabled in the future... the government is betting that more people will pay premiums than will require disabled benefits, thus keeping the program solvent.

But officials said they discovered they could not make CLASS [Community Living Assistance Services and Supports] both affordable and financially solvent while keeping it a voluntary program open to virtually all workers, as the law also required.
Monthly premiums would have ranged from $235 to $391, even as high as $3,000 under some scenarios, the administration said. At those prices, healthy people were unlikely to sign up. Suggested changes aimed at discouraging enrollment by people in poor health could have opened the program to court challenges, officials said.

well, DUH!
anyone who has teenagers (or ever was one) knows that it is human nature to bet on their own immortality and health... that is, until they discover mortality and/or sickness... then they cry for government intervention.

One summer's day, a merry Grasshopper was dancing, singing and playing his violin with all his heart. He saw an Ant passing by, bearing along with great toil a wheatear to store for the winter.
“Come and sing with me instead of working so hard”, said the Grasshopper “Let’s have fun together.”
“I must store food for the winter”, said the Ant, “and I advise you to do the same.”
“Don’t worry about winter, it’s still very far away”, said the Grasshopper, laughing at him. But the Ant wouldn’t listen and continued his toil.
When the winter came, the starving Grasshopper went to the Ant’s house and humbly begged for something to eat.
“If you had listened to my advice in the summer you would not now be in need,” said the Ant. “I’m afraid you will have to go supperless to bed,” and he closed the door.

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source:
News from The Associated Press

ReBlog - history will repeat itself

history will repeat itself... this is a truth we learned in our youth... our social studies, civics, and history professors said it time and time again... and yet we don't listen... we don't learn... history will repeat itself.

If we are to survive the looming catastrophe, we need to face the truth - By Janet Daley 9:00PM BST 06 Aug 2011 - Telegraph
[emphasis added]

Which of these is the most important question to ask in the present economic crisis: how can we promote growth? Should we pay off government debt more or less quickly? Is the US in worse trouble than Europe? Answer: none of the above.

The truly fundamental question that is at the heart of the disaster toward which we are racing is being debated only in America: is it possible for a free market economy to support a democratic socialist society? On this side of the Atlantic [UK], the model of a national welfare system with comprehensive entitlements, which is paid for by the wealth created through capitalist endeavour, has been accepted (even by parties of the centre-Right) as the essence of post-war political enlightenment.

This was the heaven on earth for which liberal democracy had been striving: a system of wealth redistribution that was merciful but not Marxist, and a guarantee of lifelong economic and social security for everyone that did not involve totalitarian government. This was the ideal the European Union was designed to entrench. It was the dream of Blairism, which adopted it as a replacement for the state socialism of Old Labour. And it is the aspiration of President Obama and his liberal Democrats, who want the United States to become a European-style social democracy.

But the US has a very different historical experience from European countries, with their accretions of national remorse and class guilt: it has a far stronger and more resilient belief in the moral value of liberty and the dangers of state power. This is a political as much as an economic crisis, but not for the reasons that Mr Obama believes. The ruckus that nearly paralysed the US economy last week, and led to the loss of its AAA rating from Standard & Poor’s, arose from a confrontation over the most basic principles of American life.

Contrary to what the Obama Democrats claimed, the face-off in Congress did not mean that the nation’s politics were “dysfunctional”. The politics of the US were functioning precisely as the Founding Fathers intended: the legislature was acting as a check on the power of the executive.

The Tea Party faction within the Republican party was demanding that, before any further steps were taken, there must be a debate about where all this was going. They had seen the future toward which they were being pushed, and it didn’t work. They were convinced that the entitlement culture and benefits programmes which the Democrats were determined to preserve and extend with tax rises could only lead to the diminution of that robust economic freedom that had created the American historical miracle.

And, again contrary to prevailing wisdom, their view is not naive and parochial: it is corroborated by the European experience. By rights, it should be Europe that is immersed in this debate, but its leaders are so steeped in the sacred texts of social democracy that they cannot admit the force of the contradictions which they are now hopelessly trying to evade.

No, it is not just the preposterousness of the euro project that is being exposed. (Let’s merge the currencies of lots of countries with wildly differing economic conditions and lock them all into the interest rate of the most successful. What could possibly go wrong?)

Also collapsing before our eyes is the lodestone of the Christian Socialist doctrine that has underpinned the EU’s political philosophy: the idea that a capitalist economy can support an ever-expanding socialist welfare state.

As the EU leadership is (almost) admitting now, the next step to ensure the survival of the world as we know it will involve moving toward a command economy, in which individual countries and their electorates will lose significant degrees of freedom and self-determination.

We have arrived at the endgame of what was an untenable doctrine: to pay for the kind of entitlements that populations have been led to expect by their politicians, the wealth-creating sector has to be taxed to a degree that makes it almost impossible for it to create the wealth that is needed to pay for the entitlements that populations have been led to expect, etc, etc.

The only way that state benefit programmes could be extended in the ways that are forecast for Europe’s ageing population would be by government seizing all the levers of the economy and producing as much (externally) worthless currency as was needed – in the manner of the old Soviet Union.

That is the problem. So profound is its challenge to the received wisdom of postwar Western democratic life that it is unutterable in the EU circles in which the crucial decisions are being made – or rather, not being made.

The solution that is being offered to the political side of the dilemma is benign oligarchy. Ignoring national public opinion and turbulent political minorities has always been at least half the point of the EU bureaucratic putsch. But that does not settle the economic predicament.

What is to be done about all those assurances that governments have provided for generations about state-subsidised security in old age, universal health provision (in Britain, almost uniquely, completely free), and a guaranteed living standard for the unemployed?

We have been pretending – with ever more manic protestations – that this could go on for ever. Even when it became clear that European state pensions (and the US social security system) were gigantic Ponzi schemes in which the present beneficiaries were spending the money of the current generation of contributors, and that health provision was creating impossible demands on tax revenue, and that benefit dependency was becoming a substitute for wealth-creating employment, the lesson would not be learnt. We have been living on tick and wishful thinking.

So what are the most important truths we should be addressing if we are to avert – or survive – the looming catastrophe? Raising retirement ages across Europe (not just in Greece) is imperative, as is raising thresholds for out-of-work benefit entitlements.

Lowering the tax burden for both wealth-creators and consumers is essential. In Britain, finding private sources of revenue for health care is a matter of urgency.

A general correction of the imbalance between wealth production and wealth redistribution is now a matter of basic necessity, not ideological preference.

The hardest obstacle to overcome will be the idea that anyone who challenges the prevailing consensus of the past 50 years is irrational and irresponsible. That is what is being said about the Tea Partiers. In fact, what is irrational and irresponsible is the assumption that we can go on as we are.

history will repeat itself... this is a truth we learned in our youth... our social studies, civics, and history professors said it time and time again... and yet we don't listen... we don't learn... history will repeat itself, unless we heed it's dire warning.

war on poor

'Let's not look at the intentions behind minimum wage,' he said. 'We have to ask, what are the effects? Put yourself in the place of an employer who must pay $7.25 no matter whom you hire. Will that employer hire a person who can only add $3 or $4 of value per hour?' [says Walter Williams of George Mason University.]
He will not. And so fewer young people get hired and 'get their feet on the bottom rung of the economic ladder.' This hurts all young people, but black teens most, he says, because 'many of them get a fraudulent education in the public school system. So a law that discriminates against low-skill people has a doubly negative effect on black teenagers. The unemployment rate among black teens today is unprecedented in U.S. history. In the '40s, black teenage unemployment was less than white teenage unemployment.'

by John Stossel in his article, Government Against Blacks

while it may be statistically true that the minimum wage laws have hurt (primarily) young blacks, the real problem here is that a minimum wage hurts poor people, regardless of color/race/ethnicity... the idea behind minimum wage was to protect the poor from the corporate wage-masters... but has it kept more people down than it has raised up?

so, my question is this: knowing what has been painfully obvious for decades, what is the solution?... can we simply remove minimum wage laws without leaving workers unprotected against unfair employers?... if we overturn the Davis-Bacon Act, do we leave ourselves open to the lowest bidder who pays slave-like labor rates?... have we gone too far down the rabbit-hole to return from whence we came?

my apologies to Obama on healthcare

i actually found something President Obama said which i agree with... i know... i'm as suprised as anyone!

from, then Senator, Barack Obama in an interview with Ellen DeGeneres (February 28, 2008) regarding requiring an individual mandate to buy healthcare:

Well, if things were that easy, I could mandate everybody to buy a house, and that would solve the problem of homelessness. It doesn’t.

Video and Transcript

you know what?... that actually makes sense... BUY ME A HOUSE!

I WANT MY FREE ICE CREAM!!!!!!?

Talk Back on Economics: The Right to Free Ice Cream RIGHTNETWORK