magekillr

Play this game: http://playspent.org/ Uh, no, I'm not full of it. You were discussing welfare programs. Medicare and Medicaid aren't welfare programs (and even though Medicaid provides help to poor people, almost 50% its funding goes to nursing homes; Medicaid is also the cheapest health care out there). Health care fraud is a result of doctors misreporting and criminal groups, not poor people cheating the government. http://money.cnn.com/2010/01/13/news/economy/health_care_fraud/ Also, too, the Pentagon has a greater amount of fraud and waste than Medicare. Rich people benefit when the rest of the society benefits. Moreover, rich people have more to gain from government, so they should be paying for more of it. What's funny is that I also believe a lot of the ways food stamps and welfare are currently structured keep people trapped in poverty, just like you do; the only problem is that this is a direct result of people like you. For example, many people want to tell people what to spend their benefit money on. Minnesota has been discussing the possibility of banning poor people from holding cash. Others want to force people to only buy certain types of food with their food stamps. It's a load of crap. We shouldn't even have specific programs for specific needs (food stamps, housing assistance, etc). It should just be a straight cash allowance. Give people the freedom to spend their money how they see fit, and you'll see better results. Rather than being forced to spend the money on all food, the parent might sacrifice some food but instead spend more money on their kid's education. This results in future generations moving out of poverty rather than having generations stuck in the cycle. Crap like this keeps people stuck in poverty: And then we have the facts: Misuse of welfare money is minimal, data show

If you actually look into the statistics you're providing, most (overpaying/underpaying) were determined by sampling random people's files administrative side, comparing what they are getting to what they should be receiving (i.e. "family of four making X per year"), and then reporting on that. I don't know how the fraud report is generated, but I assume it's "if convicted of fraud", which is a much more stringent definition than most of us would apply Just give it up already. The level of fraud in government programs or government insurance is no different than in the private sector, it accounts for a very low percentage, and it's not widespread. Moreover, the level of fraud is so paltry that increasing funds to find evidence of fraud is more likely to cost more money than just giving the money out in the first place. You're so concerned with such a small amount of money simply because you feel these people are undeserving parasites, and were born in the wrong family. Rather than seeking to correct these injustices of the accident of birth, you react with "I got mine." That's fine, you're perfectly allowed to hold those beliefs (and I'd rather you be honest about it, as you were with Flying). But don't complain about how much money is being lost over it when there are plenty of other bigger fish to fry: just say you don't think we should be helping people unless they're dying in the street. They find jobs much sooner because they're like, "oh [cabbage], which do I choose: a substantial paycut and a movedown on the social ladder despite everything I've worked for, or nothing." Choosing nothing doesn't feed the family. It's not evidence of fraud, it's evidence that they're unwilling to take a paycut (with good reason). There's also evidence -- which I can find if you want -- that taking that lower paying job that they otherwise wouldn't take hurts longterm growth. (edit: currently looking, just saw it maybe 4 days ago).

I can: 1.9% of payments were fraudulent or were abused. 1.9% of payments 10 years ago are known to have been abused. That doesn't mean that the other 98.1% of all payments were not abused, or that the figure is the same 10 years later. Try again. I provided you with a statistic that is unlikely to change regardless of the time it was taken. 10 years ago is not an outdated statistic for something on this sort of measure. It's been consistent for a long time: welfare abuse and fraud is not abundant, and constitutes roughly 1-3%. Here's stats from the United Kingdom's benefit fraud from 2009: 2.2%. It's like you think people want to be on welfare. They don't. It's humiliating, and they want dignity in their own work just like everyone else. It's always the poor who are gone after while banks are committing hundreds of times greater damage in mortgage and housing fraud, or defense contractors who continue to get billions in corporate welfare. Full disclosure: as an aerospace engineer, I receive indirect benefits from our abundant military spending, and I want the defense budget cut in half.

I can: 1.9% of payments were fraudulent or were abused. Meanwhile: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irgmLEPyEcw

At this point I'm wondering if the people arguing against helping poor people are against public education. Of course I know many libertarians are against it by shear principle, but one would think that everyone here arguing against these basic automatic stabilizers should also be arguing against any and all social goods. Also, like Ginger, I am against protectionism and will almost always support free trade policies. And my mistake, CrustyGoblinFoot.

I agree with you there. Yes, what a "fat" country you live in: The struggle to eat: As Congress wrangles over spending cuts, surging numbers of Americans are relying on the government just to put food on the table This is why sees_all and the Heritage Foundation want the definition of "poor" changed, and why the semantics matter. 130% of the poverty line: if the poverty line changes, less people qualify, which makes the program easier to cut, which makes it easier to give tax cuts to rich people. But let's have Adam Smith, the author of The Wealth of Nations explain what it means to be "poor": Even when poverty is a matter of relative deprivation, it’s still poverty, since a large part of poverty is navigating the shame of being poor. That a low-income parent springs for nice clothing for his child doesn’t mean that he’s irresponsible; it means that he wants his child to avoid the shame that comes with having poor-quality clothes. Likewise, a poor family might not need an XBox, but owning one allows them to avoid feelings of inadequacy when confronted with guests who aren’t poor. There's More to Poverty Than Just Money

Do you or any of your leftist buddies have any idea how taxes on a sole proprietorship works? If you did, you'd understand why $250,000 a year isn't rich, and why raising their taxes will affect 72% of all businesses in the U.S. http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2010/tables/10s0728.pdf $250,000 per year isn't rich, but $18,550 isn't poor. Got it. Thanks. I see you didn't include the word "small" in there, which is a good thing considering most US corporations don't pay any corporate tax. So good, they should be "affected". [hide][/hide]

Here we go. Matt Taibbi is on point, as usual: Greed, Excess and America's Gaping Class Divide

Exactly. Relative is the key word here. We are talking about the poor in the Western world. I also feel people forget about financial stability, which is not high in this recession. Their definitions of rich and poor change when we're talking about people with actual wealth. People at Heritage will argue that people making $250,000 per year actually have it very difficult if they're living in Los Angeles or something (perhaps they ignore the people who walk by them every single day who are making far less than that). Hmmm, I wonder why this is? Could it be that they have an agenda to lower the tax rate on the very well off and cut services to people who need them? Nooo, couldn't be...

You know what's hilarious about this discussion? I constantly see people telling me that people who make $250,000 a year aren't "rich," and coincidentally they're the same people who tell me that people at the poverty line aren't "poor." You know, because people making $250,000 per year are "middle class," even though the average median household income is $50,000 per year. I don't think that's a coincidence. Also, these kids must be figments of my imagination: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK_RnxYdrqU

I was donating some stuff to a thrift store the other day. They had lots of old TVs, and by old I mean "not flat screen," on sale for under $10. That poor people have access to some gadgets and gizmos that poor people didn't have access to 50 years ago doesn't change the fact that it sucks hard to be poor. Exactly. Far from adequate. That's why this Heritage Foundation screed is ridiculous on its face (just like everything they put out). Their one goal in life is to suck up to rich people and give them tax cuts. Did you know that if we cut taxes even more than George Bush that we'll have economic growth that has never been seen in the history of America (or any country other than South Korea, for that matter)? That's what Heritage told me: [hide]A study just released by the Heritage Center for Data Analysis projects that The Path to Prosperity will help create nearly one million new private-sector jobs next year, bring the unemployment rate down to 4% by 2015, and result in 2.5 million additional private-sector jobs in the last year of the decade. It spurs economic growth, with $1.5 trillion in additional real GDP over the decade. According to Heritages analysis, it would result in $1.1 trillion in higher wages and an average of $1,000 in additional family income each year.[/hide] Yeah, they're living such a comfortable life. That's why I said what I said in the beginning:

You mean like an oven and a stove?! And these people still have the gall to accept food stamps? There's a reason why they have those things, and it's because of government provided benefits like food stamps and Medicaid. Did you know that 90% of black children will be on food stamps at some point in their lives? Yeah, maybe in Sierra Leone. Why do people forget that money is relative? The United States is the richest country in the world. There shouldn't even be such a thing as "poverty" or poor people. Sweden has done a much better job with less wealth.

No. Tobacco is more addictive than heroin, and I've known people to kick a heroin addiction before their cigarette addiction. I've been able to smoke cigarettes in moderation for over 6 years (probably go through a pack once every two months). So one cigarette every three days (it's more like no cigarettes during the week, and then if I go to a bar I'll smoke three in one night). Now that I'm out of college and will be drinking a lot less, I'll probably be smoking them even less than I already did. Now each drug is different in how it affects different people, so maybe heroin would be the drug that I couldn't resist, personally. But I believe I could probably do it once a month or something without any worry of addiction. I don't, though, for fear that that drug WOULD be different. Plus I am no longer in college, and I won't be doing any (illegal) drugs anymore anyway. I'm genuinely curious to see if you could actually do this. Heh, in a way, so am I. But I've seen a lot of meth and heroin addicts, and I have no desire to incur that risk. The risk/reward isn't worth it. If I had been offered coke in college I probably would have tried it, though. I would never have had that response to meth/crack/heroin.

The police say that the death is unexplained but not suspicious. Under the circumstances, there is no such thing as "not suspicious"; the degree to which the police have been dragged into this make that an automatic. When a security agency kills, it usually disguises the cause of death if at all possible. Creating a heart attack is SOP. When people start turning up dead, other people get the message.

The Guardian is reporting that John Yates, who was in charge of the Metropolitan Polices phone hacking investigation, will resign today. Thats two top officials of the most important police force in England gone within two days time. The WSJ has a screed about how mean everyone is being, and how the journalists are being unnecessarily targeted with bad reputations: News and Its Critics http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Hzh1jZPOkU Wanna watch the culture of lying at News Corp. get interviewed? Watch that clip. And then how could we miss the biggest spin out there yet: the issue should be about how hacking is rampant and it's going to get us in our sleep! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9gOSsvLIO4 "Yes I murdered that woman, but you're missing the point: you shouldn't be concerned with me murdering her, but people are dying! People are getting hit by buses and other murderers! The problem isn't this specific murderer, we should be talking about the problem of murder!"

No. Tobacco is more addictive than heroin, and I've known people to kick a heroin addiction before their cigarette addiction. I've been able to smoke cigarettes in moderation for over 6 years (probably go through a pack once every two months). So one cigarette every three days (it's more like no cigarettes during the week, and then if I go to a bar I'll smoke three in one night). Now that I'm out of college and will be drinking a lot less, I'll probably be smoking them even less than I already did. Now each drug is different in how it affects different people, so maybe heroin would be the drug that I couldn't resist, personally. But I believe I could probably do it once a month or something without any worry of addiction. I don't, though, for fear that that drug WOULD be different. Plus I am no longer in college, and I won't be doing any (illegal) drugs anymore anyway.

I think it's possible to have used heroin* or meth as a productive member of society and be able to continue to use them in moderation, but that these cases would be extremely rare. I think it's more likely for cocaine to be among that family than meth and heroin, but it's still fairly addictive (and easy to OD because the high is very short). This is why I am not sure legalization of such drugs is a good idea (decriminalization is always a good idea, though). Each drug is different, and as a person with a non-addictive personality, I believe I could probably safely use heroin, meth and cocaine without picking up an addiction. However, I have chosen not to try any of those three for fear that it would become an addiction (not to mention I don't know anyone who regularly uses/sells heroin, meth or coke). http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18956525

The hits just keep on coming: Scotland Yard Chief Quits Over Hacking

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TblMETUE8yw

Rebekah Brooks arrested by hacking police Heh, there you go, Ginger.

Worth reading: Murdoch's Watergate The Journal Becomes Fox-ified Many people's alarm bells went off when Murdoch bought Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal. You had to be skeptical that he wouldn't degrade the paper (the reporting anyway, the editorial page had long been a cesspool). But I wondered how the world would fare when one of its most important sources of financial news became corrupted by a player with both a political and financial interest in slanting the news. That NYT article spells it out pretty nicely.

If you're a full-time student you don't pay by credit hour, you pay by semester. This means you pay the same price if you take 12 credits or 18. I think taking the classes are a good idea, perhaps even taking the test. But he's asking if he should retake these tests, and I think it's a waste of time and money. I don't know anyone who came in with AP credit and took less than four years to graduate. It's advantageous if you want to take fewer credits per semester in the beginning, but that's really the only advantage. If you really wanted and your high school offered enough courses, it's conceivable that you could graduate in three years instead of four, but I don't know anyone personally who took this route. Most people who could have done that if they wanted didn't: they wanted to enjoy their college experience. Also, as an engineer, I needed 136 credits rather than the traditional 120. Due to that structure, it wasn't possible to graduate in three years due to prerequisites.

AP exams are overrated. Just take the courses in college. It's a good refresher, and unless you come in with around 30 or so credits you'll be on a 4-year plan anyway. Besides, if you take the courses in college and do well, they boost your GPA.

https://twitter.com/#!/MichaelWolffNYC/status/92226702989737984

I believe that most people should experiment with drugs and alcohol at some point in their lives barring any illness/disease/addiction problem they might have. All drugs should be decriminalized just as Portugal has done, focusing resources on rehabilitation and health instead of crime. Even if you don't believe that you have to admit that the War on Drugs has been an abysmal failure. If you want to criminalize drugs, at least argue for Sweden's model instead of the US model. I believe that marijuana and mushrooms should be legalized, outright. The remainder of the drugs should be decriminalized and we should start telling the truth about drugs in general, just as been done with tobacco and sex. "Just say no" isn't a strategy, it's a marketing campaign designed to assuage parents and make them think something is being done. As far as legalizing the others, I would not advocate for that -- at least not outright. And I might not ever think they should all be legalized (but they should be decriminalized). I believe we should allow for the sale of alcohol past certain times, as disallowing alcohol to be sold in a store at midnight (or 9 pm for liquor) encourages people to go to the bar and drive home intoxicated. "Oh, I don't have any beer in the fridge and it's too late to buy it. Well, let's go to the bar!" Public transportation should be encouraged and invested in all metropolitan areas with high population centers. I have tried marijuana, mushrooms, Vicodin, alcohol, caffeine, tobacco and hydrocodone. However, now that I've graduated college I won't be doing any drugs again. I probably won't drink that much, either.