A few years ago, my aunt had a high paying (over 70 grand/yr) office-type job working for some company I am not familiar with. She frittered away her money buying all the most expensive things... jewelry, an expensive apartment with a high rise ceiling (I think is the right word?), a new car, etc. The list of purchases gets more extravagent as I keep listing them, but this is all beside the point. She wasted her money, did not save any of it for the future, and in general, was just irresponsible.
A few years later, she just decided she hated her job, and quit. (she was over forty at this time.) Very soon thereafter, what money she did have in her accounts dried up, and she moved out of her apartment, moving in with other people she knew. She tried to get other jobs, but couldn't. Her old job refused to take her back. For a few years, she moved about, from friend's house, to friend's house, living there, trying to get by, going from small job to small job, working as cashiers at grocery stores, and other small jobs. Finally, she moved BACK in with her parents, and lived there for a couple years, not working. She applied for welfare, and food stamps, and got them.
She then got into disagreements with her parents, and moved in with other relatives of hers. (My house.) As I watch, she has no job, but goes out to Barnes and Noble every other day, buying expensive, extravagant drinks at the Starbucks there, and spending the day there reading, before coming home. Her parents give her money occasionally, which, 90% of the time, is frittered away like the rest.
That's pretty much it. I hope you enjoyed the story. Welfare in America, 2006.
Oh! For those who are wondering, her political affiliation could summarized with two descriptive terms: democrat/liberal. You bet she got pissed off when GWB announced his plans to replace Social Security with private retirement accounts.
Currently, she whines about degradation of the environment, Bush privatizing social security, conservatives who want to do away with welfare and food stamps, "rich americans who who won't donate to foreign aid", and of course, those "greedy" and "selfish" people who want to abolish tax-supported foreign aid.
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Xel2006-06-22 16:48
>>1 I appreciate your sharing, but this is like me giving a second-hand report of some soldier in Iraq that I know, who "used stray dogs for target practice and only enlisted so that he could 'kill a bunch of camel-fuckers'", and then ending my story with: "American Goodoldboys, 2006". Bring us some stats, or at least some kind of report, if you're going to end your one example with that kind of generalization.
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Anonymous2006-06-22 16:59
>>2
Yeah, I realize it's just anecdotal evidence at best. Still, I just felt like sharing it.
Glad you enjoyed it.
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Anonymous2006-06-22 17:55
>>1 A good story, though keep in mind, the real reason welfare/food stamps is immoral is not because the people who recieve it don't work (not saying they do or don't, but in reference to your example, the person was not), but rather that just because one person has money, and has had success in attaining it, and another has not, is not justification to take from he who has, for the sake or benefit of he who hasn't.
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Xel2006-06-22 19:26
>>4 Environmental determinism. It is a factor that belongs in the welfare equation. Property is not theft, since wealth is not a constant. But when too much of the newly produced wealth only feeds itself and not all contenders for wealth have the same starting position and environment, the ensuing inequality must be levelled somewhat.
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Anonymous2006-06-22 20:42
>>5
It is not the rights of the recipients which are to be considered when evaluating this equation, but rather, the producers. It is the producers right to do with their wealth as they choose, including to give it to other people.
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Anonymous2006-06-23 22:21
>>5
In Capitalism, where businesses and the people who own them and work for them must earn their fortunes through work, rather than political pull (as is often the case in a mixed-economy), the superior quality goods and services created by the businessman serve to further create more wealth by increasing the productivity of every other worker in the system.
Consider the amount of effort it takes an average american farmer to move a load of manure several miles. All he needs to do is load the manure into the back of a truck, drive the truck to it's location, then dump it.
Consider the amount of work it would take a primitive savage to move the same size load of manure... one truckload, several miles, as the farmer with the truck did so easilly and quickly.
Through the innovations and creations of better tools created by Capitalism, more wealth is created per individual, per man-hour of labor that goes into it.
Over long periods of time, this amounts to a substantial rise in the standard of living of the nation. Because of the increased production, goods and services' prices drop significantly, allowing more affordable products to everyone in the society.
Still skeptical? Consider Henry Ford and his application of the assembly line to the automobile. Do you think every family in the United States, today, would have an automobile sitting in their garage, if not for him and his application of the assembly line to automobile production?
Thus, the rich have easilly earned their fortunes. The prosperity creating benefits of all their ideas, inventions, and innovations make their contribution to society on an individual basis, by far the greatest.
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Anonymous2006-06-23 22:41
>>4
I've been on food stamps before. I once had an awesome job, everyone loved me (well, not everyone, but you get the idea), I was moving up in the job (I'd easily be senior management by now), I was going to college for my accounting degree (which the company fully paid for--like I said, awesome job), and in general my life was perfect. I had a new car (not overly expensive, but it was new and mine), and I was almost set to move out of my parents home.
Then I hurt my back.
No longer was I able to work. No longer was I able to make those car payments. No longer was I able to save money. I lost everything I had worked so hard for. Insurance? They declined my disability claim because the doctors were unable to determine the name or source of my ailment. I went from having a savings of $10,000 at the age of 20 to $0 by 22.
It was only in the past year that I was able to start working again. Only now it is my mother who has become disabled (temporarily, I hope - 2 broken legs + something the doctors haven't been able to diagnose), and I am fully supporting her now. She will be going onto food stamps like I had for all those years soon, and will hopefully be able to get off them once she finds gainful employment again.
As someone who has been on both sides of the poverty line, I will tell you this: If the system is reformed to ensure that far-less people are abusing the system, then I would gladly pay an extra few dollars per paycheck in taxes to support welfare and welfare-type programs. I don't even know what I would have done if the state I lived in didn't have such a wonderful state-run health care system at the time.
Of course, we first need to get these god-damned illegal immigrants out of the U.S., do NOT grant them citizenship based on years in the country or whatever bullshit, and start encouraging REAL Americans into taking the jobes they leave behind.
Hell, I know quite a few people who wouldn't mind being part of a cleaning crew for a company. Why take such a lowly job? Because it's a job.
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Anonymous2006-06-23 22:47
>>1
Um I think welfare policies are extreme and everything, but she earned 70k a year? What are her marketable skills and why can't she get another job? That sounds unlikely, if she has thrown away a decent life for the humiliation of asking her friends to look after her, she must be on drugs or have a mental illness or something.
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Anonymous2006-06-23 22:53
>>9
Whatever, you don't have to believe it if you don't want to. I tell you, and give you my word it's true. If you don't believe it, what can I tell you other than that I give you my word it is?
I give you my word it is true, if it makes any difference.
"if she has thrown away a decent life for the humiliation of asking her friends to look after her, she must be on drugs or have a mental illness or something."
She's not insane that I know of. She is very irrational though. She is happier now than when she had her job, she says. She said her boss was a 'bitch,' among other things. She claimed that, emotionally, she just could not stand to work for her anymore, and just quitted one day. She has repeatedly said thereafter it was something she 'just had to do,' also saying I could never understand why this is.
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Anonymous2006-06-23 23:00
>>10
Well the conscious decisions to fuck up your life is possible I guess.
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Anonymous2006-06-23 23:15
>>11
No, she's just an irrational, non-materialist, religious person. She's happier just living on welfare and the rest of her immediate family (the sweat and blood of other hardworking americans) than going out and getting a job of her own.
This way, she's free to pursue her political agenda, eat, sleep, read, and follow her religion without pulling her weight at all.
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Anonymous2006-06-23 23:48
>>12
Oh, so in other words she's cannon fodder in my utopia.
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Xel2006-06-24 4:56
>>7 Sure, but we can't assume that everyone are born with the same possibility of acheiving their potential, nor can we assume that limiting the immoral practices of corporations are attacks against capitalism or entrepreneurship. As long as there are ways to prevent corporations from avoiding consumer scrutiny and evaluation, I'm all for it. But without consumer power, the market will take everything, they're working on the internet as we speak.
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Anonymous2006-06-24 15:51
>>14
"Sure, but we can't assume that everyone are born with the same possibility of acheiving their potential"
That's correct. They aren't. But nobody has the "right" to the property of other people. They do have the "right to property," though what this entails, is not the "right" to the property of others, but to the right to the property which they themselves create, generate, or work for and earn.
"nor can we assume that limiting the immoral practices of corporations are attacks against capitalism or entrepreneurship"
There is no need to assume anything. It clearly is. Capitalism is a system in which all property is privately owned. The more regulations and such on how individuals use or dispose of their property further contributes to the formation of a Socialist society.
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Anonymous2006-06-24 15:58
>>12
Yeah, but she can't afford hot water or computer games or anything, so she's fucked up her life.
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Anonymous2006-06-24 16:14
>>16
Not really. Currently she's just raking in welfare checks, food stamps, while living in her families' house, or friends' house. She has several friends and family members whom she has been mooching off over the last couple years.
She goes out shopping/reading at Barnes & Noble every other day or so, and comes back with expensive coffees and shit for four dollars a cup or something..
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Anonymous2006-06-25 16:12
the real reason welfare/food stamps is immoral is not because the people who recieve it don't work
What the hell is the welfare for if not the people who can't get a job? Of course in a perfect world everyone has a job and has nothing to whine about but realistically thinking there will always be people less fortunate than you. And since you use the internet I can quite safely assume that you eat 3 meals per day and make ends meet easily. Just because some people don't have it as good as you do they don't deserve the money because they're not doing anything for it? You are a merciless man.
Of course in >>1's example it was partly (if not all?) her own doing, and there are "social bums" leeching off the welfare system, but there's really some people out there that haven't done anything wrong and still need to be on welfare.
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Anonymous2006-06-26 22:26
>>18
Fuck welfare. It doesn't matter if they have a job or not, I shouldn't have to pay for other people. People need to learn to take care of themselves, and stop depending on the nanny-state to babysit them.
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Anonymous2006-06-27 13:09
>>18
"What the hell is the welfare for if not the people who can't get a job?"
There are plenty of people on welfare who have no current interest in getting a real job. My aunt is one of them.
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Xel2006-06-27 14:27
>>20 One needs some numbers here. I know there are plenty people that don't want to get a job, but that isn't enough if one is to effectivize welfare. Just doing away with it is just as unacceptable as considering it a viable solution.
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Anonymous2006-06-27 18:22
>>21
What is so "unacceptable" about individual accountability? Everyone should pull their own weight. Even if they can't, it doens't mean I should be forced to.
Another thing to consider is that, like in the poster's case, there is always private forms of 'welfare,' such as going to live with a family member for a while.
And, you can join a convent for free, right? Your life is not over just because you can't find work. That is just bullshit.
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Anonymous2006-06-27 23:05
I read somewhere where the majority of money spent on welfare programs goes to administrative costs. I forget where I read that, but that deserves looking into.
Anyway, if people didn't have to pay ridiculously high payroll taxes, they could be encouraged to save for emergencies in other ways, such as tax-free accounts and stuff. I'm all for the privitization of Social Security. The government has proven itself incompetent of managing the money - well, what money is left anyway. People who want the government to continue supporting Social Security have to realize the money isn't there for the government to manage.
Dude, you don't know the half of it. My aunt had a nice job, and she quit. She then had other jobs, and she stopped working, not because she couldn't, but because she just didn't feel like it. Even the jobs at the supermarket... she'd be making as much as she is on welfare if she'd take them... but she IS NOT.
"I read somewhere where the majority of money spent on welfare programs goes to administrative costs. I forget where I read that, but that deserves looking into."
Definitely. I heard similar things as well. It is unbelievable what they do with our tax money. The government is like a black hole... we are essentially flushing our money down the toilet.
Not only that, the feds have the federal reserve... when they run out of spending for their dumb programs, they just print off another billion. (Of course, this devalues everyone elses' money who has actually EARNED it the hard way, but forget about that, these politicians obviously know how to spend our money better than we do.)
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Anonymous2006-06-27 23:29
We should be searching for ways to close down Social Security once and for all, and abolish welfare of all forms, corporate, and individual.
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Anonymous2006-06-27 23:58
>>24
Threaten to force her to live in your garage unless she gets a job.
>>30
You'd be doing her a favour. Explain why you are doing it to her.
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Xel2006-06-28 9:38
Okay, if so much money is going to administrative costs then something must be done. I prefer soc. sec. over no soc. sec. but it has gone too far; I'm a Swede (highest taxation in the world) and I'm horrified. The problem is that minimum wages are at their demicenturial lowest and the poverty block has grown steadily since 2000. The dems don't offer an alternative and the rights are poor for the economy. I think you should give the libertarians a lot more credit for what they're offering.
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Anonymous2006-06-28 11:30 (sage)
This site should be visited by every hard working ami:
>>32
I agree. Change is needed very desperately here, and I think the best party for the job is the libertarian party.
Unfortunately, we have a two party system. Election after election, the republicrats get voted in.
As time goes by, they both seem more and more alike... John Kerry/George Bush... in the debates, with the exception of a very select few issues, their response to the other's comments was something like: 'I'm for that too!', both competing to look as much alike each other as they could.
Kerry tried to go out hunting to ditch the democrats image of the traditional anti-gun nut given to them by the Clinton administration, and the republicans tried to come across as "compassionate conservatives," attempting to look slightly more liberal than they were.
I think it is resultant from a lack of competition. (the two party system.) If we had more parties with a shot at the White House, I think it would be an almost non-existant problem.
So many people in the United States just don't care because they don't see any significant difference between the main two candidates, it's disgusting.
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Anonymous2006-06-28 14:49
bush=coke
kerry=diet coke
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Anonymous2006-06-29 1:53
Even though people don't admit it openly, there obviously are people who seem to mentally omit or blank out where the money for welfare comes from. Seriously, some people just never connect the dots, that somewhere along the line, some taxpayer had his hard earned dollars extorted to provide it. (basically, people have this mindset that unconsciously assumes that this money just falls out of the sky.)
People need to wake up. They pay for stuff like THIS.
Furthermore, all the bureaucracy and administration required for programs like this means that a lot less money actually gets to where it is intended to go than is taxed away.
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Anonymous2006-06-29 12:34
>>8
State-run healthcare is dumb. I shouldn't have to pay for the negligence of others, or for those who don't exercise or eat right, and then resultingly get horrible diseases.
As for the insurance? They should have paid up. Even if they didn't, is no reason others should have to.
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Anonymous2006-06-29 21:03
State-run healthcare is dumb.
Despite being more efficient? Despite a healthier populace (you know, less contagious diseases you might catch)?
Enjoy your run-away insurance and AIDS.
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Anonymous2006-06-29 21:17
>>38
I don't want to have to pay for stupid shits who wont eat right, exercise, or who smoke, drink excessive amounts of alcohol, or in general, do other stupid activities. Yes, state-run healthcare is dumb.
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Anonymous2006-06-29 22:08
>>38
Americans are pretty healthy, and we do not have national healthcare.
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Anonymous2006-06-29 22:21
>>39
Cheers. I get a mild cold about once every year and that's just about it (and I'm living in Minnesota). I don't smoke/drink/do drugs/practive unsafe sex habits/ ect. Pay for your own unhealthy habits.
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Anonymous2006-06-29 22:58
People look after their health so they don't have to pay so much insurance.
As New York Times columnist Fred Brock recently wrote, "So-called reform of the Social Security system is looking more and more like a solution in search of a problem."
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Anonymous2006-06-30 5:57
People look after their health so they don't have to pay so much insurance.
You'd think.
Of course, the current trend in insurance fees indicates that isn't the case. People act for short-term gratification, which leads to long-term detriment.
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Anonymous2006-06-30 6:16
Americans are pretty healthy, and we do not have national healthcare.
Long story short, gentlemen, is that fact and fiction are not the same thing. Dogma should not get in the way of practicality.
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Xel2006-06-30 6:46
>>48 Decentralize spending yet make sure no states get up to selfish/anti-constitutional business, is that a solution? Also, stop eating the culinary equivalent of exrement, get meat/crop manufacturers to stop cutting costs at the expene of their customers and start changing the two-job culture from its roots. Better eating and less obesity/health costs would probably ensue. Don't think I have any credibility here though.
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Anonymous2006-06-30 14:39
>>47
Then let the private companies charge them through the nose... I don't care. I live right. Just don't make it mandatory to have insurance...
>>48
We're pretty god damn healthy compared to most other shitholes in the world.
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Xel2006-06-30 15:58
>>51 I never said business was unconstitutional, I'm talking about hard gun legislation/saying that gays can't adopt; silly, voter appeasing holy cows like that.
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Anonymous2006-06-30 22:12
We're pretty god damn healthy compared to most other shitholes in the world.
Yes, that's definitely true. Everything is relative.
But there's also room for improvement.
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Anonymous2006-06-30 23:00
>>53
Yeah. My life is pretty good right now. There's always room for improvement. I should go steal something to make it better.
>>55
My point would be that it would be unjust. I view taxes as slavery/stealing. If we are doing ok as it is healthwise (and we are... better than a lot of countries) then that is just fine. National healthcare is far from a must, and not enough Americans care. I'd rather not have it.
We should cut the govt programs that there ARE and leave it to the market. I shouldn't have to take on the burdens of unhealthy people who don't eat right, don't exercise, eat at mcd's, etc. Not only that, such programs are cutting deeply into the federal budget, and many citizens are not even able to recieve the promised benfits because our budget is so strangled from the war and other dumb programs.
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Anonymous2006-07-01 23:06
>>56
Such people would have less incentive to eat healthy (and not at McD's) if we had some kind of national health care. The public would bear the financial burdens... not them.
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Anonymous2006-07-02 0:02
I view taxes as slavery/stealing.
In which case, it's time to reevaluate the social contract. Leave.
Your education was supported by taxes. The electricity and telephone grid development was heavily subsidised by taxes. The roads you drive on are public works. The enforcement agencies that ensure there isn't arsenic in your toothpaste are funded by the government. Fire brigade? Police force? Even public transit?
And most people accept that taxes are necessary, and some are bright enough to understand how this relates to economy of scale. That's why they exist, because you don't get these things for free. If you don't like that, you're in the wrong place.
Maybe Timbuktu is the place for you.
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Xel2006-07-02 4:33
>>58 Some experts, but not all, say that the Swedish taxation level (highest in the world) may be the best in the world: assuming the rest of the economy and the actual spending of it is skillful. Good luck with that when the incumbents are a bunch of incompetent socialists.
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Anonymous2006-07-02 6:14
I don't care what the best taxation level is. I just find people pulling out garbage like "zOMG taxes are stealing lol!!1!" intensely irritating.
Taxes exist because it's in our collective interest to have certain essential services performed for everyone. The payment for these services is enforced by the community, because there are always people who just want to ride on the coat-tails of everyone else (see: tragedy of the commons).
Some people want more services (high tax), some people want few (low tax), but only a complete moron believes that taxes are slavery/stealing/random bullshit sound-bite.
Of course, this world is filled with morons.
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Anonymous2006-07-02 20:49
>>60
The key word is "essential" services. In other words, it's not "essential" that we have a national health care system.
"Some people want more services (high tax), some people want few (low tax), but only a complete moron believes that taxes are slavery/stealing/random bullshit sound-bite."
Taxes are slavery. They are evil. That's why I agree with the first thing you said, that we should only have the "essential" services. Taxation is evil, but it is a necessary evil. We should only be taxed to the extent necessary for the preservation of our freedom.
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Xel2006-07-03 5:48 (sage)
>>61 People who consider "evil" to be a necessary word that justifies its own existence by its usefulness scare the living intecourse out of me. Sage.
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Anonymous2006-07-03 19:49
>>62
Why don't you argue down my argument instead of just saying it's frightening?
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Xel2006-07-04 12:34
>>63 Okay. I have, on at least three instances, explained why taxes are justified due to the US not being meritocratic enough. If person A gets opportunities that B does not, simply because of them being born in different situation, then person A is technically only evening out an unfair situation by paying some welfare to B. The problem is not that taxes are intrinsically evil, the problem is that the money is not spent effectively. Evil is not only a philosophically wrong term, it is also not applicable to taxation. The problem is the lack of nuance, a complete overhaul may be necessary but calling it slavery is a semantical mistake.
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Anonymous2006-07-04 14:18
>>64
What if A is less fortunate than B, but worked harder?
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Anonymous2006-07-04 14:49
>>64
Slavery is evil. Taxes are slavery. Taxes are evil. The reason there should be no income distribution from money willed to another after death is because the rights in question are not the recipient, but the person who is giving the money.
If I decide to just give you 20$, why should that be taxed? The right to property is the right to use, possession, and disposal, as you please. If I give you 20$, or will you 20$ when I die, the rights involved are not yours to recieve it, but mine to give it.
Rich people who have earned their dollars the hard way in life deserve to be able to give them to whom they wish.
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Xel2006-07-05 2:41
>>65 In general this isn't the case. >>66 Your semantics and lack of flexibility in thinking is sad. I do think that taxation on inheritance is not as justified, though.
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Anonymous2006-07-05 3:33
>>66 also money being inherited has already been taxed when the person who willed it obtained it. just another useless tax
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Xel2006-07-05 10:33
>>68 A point. The acceptability of inheritance tax is whether giving money to those after you is a privilege or a right. I'm for the former, but I'm about as far from an educated economist as you can come.
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Anonymous2006-07-05 12:07
>>67
If they didn't tax inheritance, companies would use some rather ... shady techniques to transfer large amounts of money. Something I, for one, would not like to see.
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Xel2006-07-05 12:39
>>70 Which is why I'm not so keen on radical changes in taxation systems, one needs to make sure exploitation of loopholes doesn't ruin society. Changing taxation levels is a whole other ball game though.
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Anonymous2006-07-05 15:39
>>71
People should be taxed for how much they use from the government. People who live in a trailer park and take it apon themselves to prevent crime in their neighbourhood for instance will pay less tax than an oil refinery that will likewise take efforts to reduce it's tax bill by reducing the strain on the road system and the environment.
>>1
The fact that someone can get away with doing that in the United States of America today is sickening.
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Anonymous2006-07-07 19:59
f
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Anonymous2006-07-09 23:21
>>1 Why are fat sluts like her getting welfare money instead of people who really need it, would be a good question to ask.
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Anonymous2006-07-10 4:18
FAT SLUT, EH?
I CAN SOLVE THIS FEMALE'S FINANCIAL PROBLEMS
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Anonymous2006-07-12 1:00
>>1
Come back and bitch after you've paid income taxes.
I know people who complain non-stop about welfare recipients, despite the fact that they haven't worked a day in their life, having their education, their car, and everything they own paid for by their parents. How admirable is that?