Jump to content

Welfare... continued from the Rants forum


Dr_Elephant

Recommended Posts

Gid,

 

 

 

Good idea to bring this off-topic. I've never actually set [virtual] foot in this part of the forums before.

 

 

 

To continue our discussion that was begun on this thread for those wondering

 

http://forum.tip.it/viewtopic.php?t=472350&start=30

 

 

 

Before I begin, I want you to be aware that I am not implying any perception that your father is a thief. I don't believe that by any means. What I'm going to do is use an extreme comparison to make my point. Also, please read all the way through, because even if part of it makes you angry, you may not disagree with my conclusion and suggested alternatives.

 

 

 

Personally, I'm a person who was raised with a high ethical standard. I was taught that stealing is wrong. To take it a step further, I was taught that stealing is defined by taking something without asking for it.

 

 

 

Now, if I approach you and - at gunpoint - take money from your wallet, that's stealing. Even if I'm a little more high-tech and figure out a way to take a portion of your income before you get your paycheck for the net amount, that's stealing. Finally, even if I don't actually steal the money myself, but get someone else to do the deed for me, it's still stealing.

 

All three individual pieces of this equation amount to stealing. However, in today's society (or at least in my governtmental system of income taxation), adding these three parts does NOT equal stealing. For some reason, it's called welfare.

 

 

 

Here's why I draw the comparison. If someone needs government welfare, what do they do? They go to someone else to get it for them (Welfare is funded by the taxpayers, therefore the IRS gets it for them... indirectly). That someone else (again, the IRS) is able to take that money out of the taxpayers' gross pay before we even get our paycheck. Finally, if we (the taxpayer) try to refuse to take part in this, it will be taken from us forcefully (we'll be imprisoned), maybe even at gunpoint, depending how far we dare to take our refusal.

 

 

 

Now, I just talked about how I was raised with ethics. Ironically, my parents believed in the welfare system because they thought helping the less fortunate is an ethical thing to do. At it's core, I agree with that statement. I don't dislike welfare because I'm selfish and I want to keep more of what I earn (even though I am and I do). I also don't hate taxation that funds public services for all, like highways, police, military, etc. I do find a fundemental flaw in any system that redistributes wealth, because that's called stealing. Yes, I loved the Robin Hood stories as a kid. No, I don't believe it's right to "rob from the rich to give to the poor."

 

 

 

Keep in mind that Robin Hood essentially stole money back from his era's version of the IRS and gave it back to the people it was taken from.

 

 

 

Now obviously if I suggest that the entire welfare system be repealed, I'd get a lot of well-meaning people asking a lot of "what if" questions. "What if your grandmother were on welfare?" "What about the starving kids?" I expect that, and frankly, I love that about those who disagree with me. I do truly appreciate your sense of compassion.

 

 

 

Before you ask me those questions though, ask yourself this: Are you putting your money where your mouth is? I ask that sincerely and not to be accusatory.

 

Me personally? My conscience is clear because roughly 12% of my gross income (even before Uncle Sam gets his share) goes straight to three of my favorite charities, one of which specializes in helping the poor.

 

 

 

That said, I'm not suggesting welfare be ripped away in one painful stroke. That would be political suicide for anyone to suggest and I'm no idealogue either.

 

The first step I'd take is creating accountability. Let the taxpayer see - included with their tax returns - what money is being allocated where. Don't make us look for it in well-spun press releases. How much money that's supposedly for welfare is really getting to the recipients? How much is actually going to tenured beaurocrats who push pencils and get 6 weeks of vacation time every year? My charities tell me how much money actually goes to the people they're supposed to be helping. Between the three of them, roughly $0.90 of every dollar I donate goes to help the poor and most of the remaining 10% goes into marketing campaigns that help find more donors. Can our governmental welfare system say the same?

 

Second step is choice. Even if I can't opt-out of paying into the program right away, let me invesitate the success/failure rate of some of the different existing programs (for God's sake, don't add any more) and let me decide specifically which ones will be getting more of my tax dollars.

 

Third step is a gradual opt-out. If I'm already donating a portion of my income to a certain charity that does something similar to welfare, let me opt-out of contributing that amount to the public version.

 

Eventually, we'd work toward eliminating the government-run version altogether, as more people get used to donating to the private charities and more recipients get used to requesting assistance from them instead of the goverment.

 

 

 

With private charities, there is more accountability on the part of the recipients, because there are more stringent qualifications (private charities don't have the luxury of government enforcement to keep the funds rolling in, so they have to be more picky about how the funds go out). This would remove the beer-drinkers you referred to, but still give your father a leg up during rough times as long as he qualifies.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In the UK, we need a much better screening system to make sure people who deserve the money, get it.

 

I only resent the fact that a portion of the money i fork over in Tax goes to people who dont work, and live comfortable on benefits, when they are perfectly capable of working.

 

I think if you are on benefits, they should be stopped after 3 months, to make sure people go out and attempt to get a job, and dont just take from the government and the taxpayer.

 

 

 

~Jimmie

Link to comment
Share on other sites

:D

 

 

 

This looks interesting. However I'm in the college library and have only ten minutes of typing time. ;)

 

 

 

Just a quick post to address this point:

 

 

 

 

 

Here's why I draw the comparison. If someone needs government welfare, what do they do? They go to someone else to get it for them (Welfare is funded by the taxpayers, therefore the IRS gets it for them... indirectly). That someone else (again, the IRS) is able to take that money out of the taxpayers' gross pay before we even get our paycheck. Finally, if we (the taxpayer) try to refuse to take part in this, it will be taken from us forcefully (we'll be imprisoned), maybe even at gunpoint, depending how far we dare to take our refusal.

 

 

 

Let's look at two examples.

 

 

 

 

 

First ones imaginary. ;)

 

 

 

Jimmy Chav, 21 years old. Born in Fleetwood [My town]. Went to primary school, dropped out of secondary at the age of 16. Never worked a day in his life and has lived of the state for the last 5 years of his life. I think this type of example fits the point your making. He is stealing from you, and enjoying his breakfast beers in the process.

 

 

 

My Father. :P 40[something] years old. Worked since he was 23 years old, paying taxes every year. 15 odd years down the line, he finds himself in job which pays a lot less than those he's had in the past and has a little trouble paying for everything that needs paying for. Finally. He reaps some benefit from the taxes he paid all those years. You are not paying for my fathers welfare, he paid it himself over a 15 odd year period.

 

 

 

Bah, I wanted to say more but i'm being kicked out of the library.

 

 

 

I'll be back ;)

 

 

 

-Gid.

'Rock Hard' boss pure - 60/60 Attack | 99/99 Range | 1/1 Defence | 44/44 Prayer | 99/99 Strength | 99/99 Mage - level 79 combat EOC

 

## '07 Server ## "Best Runescape update ever: Removing 6 years of updates."

 

Rock_Hard.png

 

"Warning: If you are reading this then this warning is for you. Every word you read of this useless fine print is another second off your life. Don't you have other things to do? Is your life so empty that you honestly can't think of a better way to spend these moments? Or are you so impressed with authority that you give respect and credence to all that claim it? Do you read everything you're supposed to read? Do you think every thing you're supposed to think? Buy what you're told to want? Get out of your apartment. Meet a member of the opposite sex. Stop the excessive shopping and masturbation. Quit your job. Start a fight. Prove you're alive. If you don't claim your humanity you will become a statistic. You have been warned- Tyler"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Jimmy Chav

 

 

 

I demand you give him a different name, before you give all the Jimmys (or Jimmies) a bad repuation!

 

 

 

Although I do like your views. But what penalties can you impose on people who are "stealing" as the author puts it, from the benefit system.

 

A few people in this country sustain minor injuries, and claim Disability Benefits from it for several months, however, you can hardly break down their door and prove they aren't injured, it must be proved.

 

(There was a case of someone claiming disability benefit, and he was photographed walking around town, carrying heavy items, such as washing machines, he was forced to pay back some money, but not all of the money he received)

 

 

 

~Jimmie

Link to comment
Share on other sites

i agree with you, im completly against welfare of anykind. have you studied any economics over it? all of ayn rands novels are pro laissez-faire capitalism, any of those would be good. if you want to go way back, adam smith's a wealth of nations would be a good read. walter williams has a column in the forum section of sunday's paper, if you get that. i dont know how far you go with this, all three of those people go all the way to being completly free. some may not agree entirely with that, since roads/electricity/water would no longer be maintained by the government.

q8tsigindy500fan.jpg

indy500fanan9.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

My Father. :P 40[something] years old. Worked since he was 23 years old, paying taxes every year. 15 odd years down the line, he finds himself in job which pays a lot less than those he's had in the past and has a little trouble paying for everything that needs paying for. Finally. He reaps some benefit from the taxes he paid all those years. You are not paying for my fathers welfare, he paid it himself over a 15 odd year period.

 

-Gid.

 

 

 

Several years ago, when I lost my job, my mother was using the same argument with me. I was a young married man (no kids yet) who had been paying my share of taxes up until that point and my mother urged me to get some assistance until I could get back on my feet. Something in me just wouldn't allow myself to do it though. I didn't have a reasonable argument against her at the time. All I knew was that it didn't seem right.

 

 

 

Looking back, I'm glad I made that choice. It has to do with supply and demand (in a bizarre sense, not in the capitlistic sense). If I were to go to the government well and draw from it, it would create that much more of a demand for resources and could evenutally lead to a greater tax rate for myself when my situation did improve (not to mention the people paying taxes before my situation improved).

 

 

 

Granted, the one thing I left out of my original post with reference to stealing is intent. I would never call a welfare recipient a "thief" because I know there isn't a malicious intent to take what isn't theirs from an unwilling victim. Frankly, as I re-read my post, I'm impressed that you weren't more offended at the implications I seemed to have been making. That says a lot about you as a reasonable person Gid. Thanks for giving me the benefit of the doubt.

 

 

 

i agree with you, im completly against welfare of anykind. have you studied any economics over it? all of ayn rands novels are pro laissez-faire capitalism, any of those would be good. if you want to go way back, adam smith's a wealth of nations would be a good read. walter williams has a column in the forum section of sunday's paper, if you get that. i dont know how far you go with this, all three of those people go all the way to being completly free. some may not agree entirely with that, since roads/electricity/water would no longer be maintained by the government.

 

 

 

I've read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. While I agree with many of the ideals she conveys in the novel (the evils of forced charity and government control over private enterprise), she seems to take it a bit further than me. She seems to find (I say "seems to" because it's conveyed through her fictional protagonists instead of her coming right out and saying it) any charity of any kind repugnant. She's a better-than-average fiction writer though, I'll give her that. Plus, to have any famous writer agree with me on this subject - even a little - is a breath of fresh air.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

i aggre with very limited welfare.

 

today in america, tons of people are living on wellfare alone, and the parents of this generation living on welfare are setting their kids up to live on wellfare.

 

the implication is that if you're on wellfare, you can never work up because of college expenses. therefore the government must supply as much wellfare as they can.

 

however, if you look at the children who are being set up for wellfare, you will find that its not that they CANNOT work up, its that they choose not to. basically the kids in middle/highschool are setting themselves up to live on wellfare because they are, simply put, lazy.

 

they walk around being all 'ghetto'. they bomb tests, sleep in school, etc. the fact of the matter is, these kids (and there are quite a few who have), have the possibility of working up to go to college if they were motivated or not. children who get a's in low income neighborhoods can be noticed and colleges are willing to give these motivated children a chance.

 

but the kids want to slack off, so thats what they do.

happiehour.jpeg
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll copy and waste what i wrote on the other thread:

 

 

 

And in response to allot of this welfare stuff I will write this:

 

 

 

I firstly want to make it clear that, as I am 16, middle class, go to a private school In Britain (the Welfare state) I am highly unusual - I am a free market economist, and, when it comes to the economy, I am almost radicaly right wing. Let it be known that in the atmopshere of a middle class, private school in England, not being socialist or communist is actualy a very rare thing. Alot of the interlectuals are left wing, and when i go to debating society you can't move for reds. As the saying goes, "if you're not a communist when you're young, garden tool have no heart, If you are a communist when your old you have no sense". Well I, as it seems, have no heart. I am a great believer in the economics of Adam Smith (the author of the wealth of nations), which often attracts much argument in Debating Society. But, as i said before - "only those who have never had to work have the time to be communist"

 

 

 

 

 

The welfare state is a conundrum - I do not wish to see those who are unable to pay for medical treatment die or live poor quality lives. I recognise that society need the dustbin man, the street cleaner and the shelf stacker. Those people who are unable to pay for thier medical care still need acces to the care. However, the simple solution (cut off free healthcare past a certain rate of income) is invioble.

 

 

 

This forms a tax on succes, and a tax on succes is detrimental to success, which is detrimental to the country, which is detremental to all of society. If we cut off free healthcare at a certain point, then many people will try to maintain thier incomes at the rate they need to gain acces to healthcare. Moreover, the succesful are punished for being so. The same problem occurs with taxes - i will tax you more beacuse you are richer, and therefore can afford to pay, falls down along the same lines.

 

 

 

So this means something is going to have to give. We cannot afford free healthcare for all without taxes, and we cannot tax the rich extra to pay for the poor.

 

 

 

How do we answer this problem - with a fiscal blackhole like the NHS (For those of you who are forieghn, that is the National Health Service) and risk the tax on succes? I would answer no. The NHS is too comprehensive. it covers all the ailments that are unesecary to the functioning of people's lives, and that do not decrease thier well being much. This must be reduced. Moreover there should be a flat tax for eveyone - lets say 20-30% of total earnings. This would mean that the rich pay more in actual quantity, however, they pay the same percentage of earinings so it is not a tax on succes.

 

 

 

Yet there is still a flaw in this plan - there is a point where taxation of even 20% of earinings is too high - if you earn $10 (for those Americans) a week then going down to $8 may put you below subsitence level. So society needs to fund these people. Yet it is by thier own merit that they are in this position of low earnings - it has been shown repeatedly that, whilst the middle and upper class my have an advantage, the lower class can still achieve great things. Margaret Thatcher was working class - yet she was the longest consecutivley reigning PM in recent times. And a radical right wing economist.

 

 

 

Therefore there must be some punishmet for failure, as society is still giving these people so much, they must not be comfortable enough not to go and get a Job. So we can reverse the principle of no taxation without representation to being no representation without taxation. TO put it shortly, if you do not pay income tax, you do not have the right to vote. This may, initself not be enough, so sate grants must be reduced, and the poll tax introduced.

 

 

 

This would lead to a slightly better society in my opinion. Companies must be free and unrestrained to make profits, as, in the long term, the succes of the companies filters down to the lowest parts of society - more jobs, more money and better opportunities are the gifts the large companies can give to the poor. And if the companies pay thier workes too little they may leave. The government must only esnure the market stays free - that companies do not work together to keep labour cheap by setting maximum pay rates. That is free market capitalism. Unlike socialism it means that everyone has the opportunity to win, rather than causing economic instability and removing any desire to work.

 

 

 

disclaimer: - I was not realy thinking much about this is before or as i was writing, just providing some of the arguments i have provided before. There are going to be lots of flaws but right now i'm too tired to bother to sort them out, or even to re-read what i've written. So If i've said something wrong i probably dont mean it, just wasn't think whilst i was typing :lol:

 

 

 

 

 

Afilliated links:

 

 

 

http://www.online-literature.com/adam_smith/wealth_nations/

 

 

 

http://www.bibliomania.com/2/1/261/1294/frameset.html

 

 

 

Its best to read both, then make up your own mind

 

 

 

For the mods, check both links if u want - thier well respected sites and the first that came up on a google search. Neither have anything to do with me.

magecape,Mo%20Gui%20Gui.gif

mo%20gui%20gui.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Therefore there must be some punishmet for failure, as society is still giving these people so much, they must not be comfortable enough not to go and get a Job. So we can reverse the principle of no taxation without representation to being no representation without taxation. TO put it shortly, if you do not pay income tax, you do not have the right to vote.

 

 

 

Yeah so the people who do have jobs and can vote will vote in parties whose policies will make it harder for those without jobs to get them.

Some people are changed by being a moderator. I wouldn't be.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Therefore there must be some punishmet for failure, as society is still giving these people so much, they must not be comfortable enough not to go and get a Job. So we can reverse the principle of no taxation without representation to being no representation without taxation. TO put it shortly, if you do not pay income tax, you do not have the right to vote.

 

 

 

Yeah so the people who do have jobs and can vote will vote in parties whose policies will make it harder for those without jobs to get them.

 

 

 

And what right do those who contribute nothing to society - and here we are talking about those living entirley off state benefits - have to effect soceity. Those who are in emplyment or pay income tax contibute and therefore are rewarded by the gift of being able to vote. Voting is not a right. Its a gift our prdeceasors waged wars for. And i meant to insert the bit about those who are emplyed but still to low earnings not to pay income tax still getting a vote.

 

 

 

moreover, if you had read the first link i appended, then you would realise it is in the intrests of noone to see that others do not get a job.

magecape,Mo%20Gui%20Gui.gif

mo%20gui%20gui.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It is not about whether it is their right to affect society or not, what you were proposing would make it impossible (or at least make it very difficult) for them to shrug off their joblessness. It would create a virtual slave-class.

 

 

 

Voting is a right. You sound like the sort of person who wants your own vote to be the only one that counts. Your proposition is an ignorant one because it doesn't take into account all circumstances. What if there is a single mother, abandoned by the father of her child and her family - she can't work as she has to look after her child, you think she deserves punishment? Ignorant.

Some people are changed by being a moderator. I wouldn't be.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dr Elephant, nice post. I find myself agreeing with most of your points. I place myself to the right on economic as well as social issues (another topic for another day), and welfare honestly makes me uncomfortable. However, the conclusion that I've reached is that viewing taxes as stealing just doesn't work.

 

 

 

Here's my reasoning. Granted this is an Amerocentric view - but since that's where I live, it's metric I used.

 

 

 

It's rather simple. Being in a democracy means that sometimes you lose. Sometimes you don't get your way. Fair has nothing to do with it. One thing that lots of Americans seem to have forgotten is that if you don't win, you get to go around again in just a few years. It's unfortunate. All of the Democrats who throw out the "Bush isn't MY president" really don't understand what they're saying. So, if you don't like welfare, vote to have it removed or lessened.

 

 

 

Congress has the right to tax us - it's spelled out in our contract, the Constitution. They also have the right to spend it. So, vote the buggers out if you don't like the policies. Or, you always have the right to vote with your feet. Personally, I think that there are much more important things to combat in America than welfare, and I will vote in such a way that increases the chance of change. Of course, this means I vote for people that I don't 100% agree with - heck, I may not even 50% agree with them.

 

 

 

I guess in the end, I don't think government welfare is the best solution. Does it waste money? Sure. But better to waste than not give it to the people who really need it.

 

 

 

This was kinda rambling, but I'm tired.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Firstly, an example of how the "free market system" isn't the panacea that some of you are making it out to be. The quote below compares the American free market version of healthcare with the UK national health service:

 

 

 

 

http://www.economist.com/science/displa ... id=6877069

 

 

 

Annual medical costs, measured by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development using purchasing-power parities, which take account of price differences, amount to $5,635 per person in America compared with $2,231 in Britain. Yet an American's life expectancy at birth is 77.2 years compared with 78.5 for a Brit.

 

 

 

 

The state can intervene to improve welfare, and can intervene effectively. Of course, if you're one of the 16% of Americans that don't have health insurance, you probably already know this.

 

 

 

~~~

 

 

 

So, why welfare?

 

 

 

1. It is moral. A decent society should protect its poor. There should be a minimum standard of living that should be guaranteed to all citizens.

 

 

 

2. The number of people who are living in "luxury" from welfare is vastly overestimated. The media loves reporting cases of people who have told the state they have a broken leg, who then go out and do a marathon or something, and that over-reporting makes it seem like there are a lot of them. But are there really? What's statistically more likely to kill you... a shark, or falling aeroplane parts? The media hypes up shark attacks, but falling aeroplane parts are much more deadly.

 

 

 

3. No one chooses to live on welfare. I know that in the UK, I'd have a massive problem trying to live on the amount that welfare pays. In addition, we have a scheme whereby if you are out of work for a year, then the government will give you a choice of either taking a job, or undertaking further education. If you do neither, then your benefits will stop. In the US, I believe that welfare payments are even lower. I think I read some years ago that they are actually below the US's own set minimum poverty line. People don't choose to "be lazy" and live on welfare. If they do, it's because they don't know about other opportunities.

 

 

 

4. It provides a buffer zone for risk and bad luck. Entrepreneurs might be less likely to risk it all if they know that they'll be practically starving if they fail. Similarly, if you lose your job even through no fault of your own, it probably takes a while for you to find a new one, and the state helps you out in the mean time.

 

 

 

5. Having a massive underclass of poor people doesn't help the rich. Underclasses steal, rebel, strike. They are easy to bribe.

 

 

 

 

 

Why shouldn't charities be responsible for welfare?

 

 

 

1.They're unfair. They tend to have special interests: either religious, cultural, gender, etc. The government is more impartial.

 

 

 

 

 

Why redistribute income?

 

 

 

1. It is fair. The fact is, the statistical likelihood is that you will stay in the same earning decile that your parents were in, or maybe go up or down one decile. Is this because the children of dustmen have something in their genes that says they are only fit to become dustmen, or hotel cleaners? Nope, it's because their parents can't/don't provide the same opportunities. The fact is, we all like to think that we rise and fall upon our own merits, but statistically, it doesn't happen.

 

 

 

2. Taxes are not a barrier to success. No one ever thinks "I won't bother earning another million, because it'll be taxed so highly".

 

 

 

3. The opposite is actually the case. If people get too rich, they just retire early. Slowing the earnings of the richest people actually encourages them to do more work.

 

 

 

4. 40% from ̣̉100,00 has the same impact as 10% from 10,000. The reason that there are income tax bands, is that 10% from an annual income of ̣̉5,000 will be noticed a lot more than 10% from an annual income of ̣̉500,000. The poorest people have to spend all of their money just to live. Things like food, water, electricity cost a similar amount for poor people as rich people. Hence why the top rate of income tax is 40% in the UK.

 

 

 

5. Wealth will not be redistributed by a free market system. The argument that when the country gets richer in absolute terms, some of it will trickle down to the poorest people, is a fallacy. Many countries have a rich elite class, that doesn't help any of its people.

 

 

 

~~~

 

 

 

Concerning Atlas Shrugged, I was recently reading articles about it, though I confess that I haven't read it yet. This article is mainly in support of Ayn Rand's novel, however it has an interesting quote:

 

 

 

 

http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies ... rand_x.htm

 

 

 

Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, CEO of the Leadership Institute at Yale University, said executives who take refuge in the capitalist utopia of Atlas Shrugged are "reading themselves into a trance of defensive self-delusion."

 

 

 

He says great American industrialists were in fact community-minded, going back to the pioneer frontiersmen who circled their wagons and built barns together. The philosophy of Atlas Shrugged does not explain successful CEOs such as Milton Hershey, who during the Depression provided employees of his chocolate company with free medical care and paid off the mortgages of every church in town, Sonnenfeld says.

 

 

 

Rand should have written fewer screenplays and "watched more Frank Capra to better understand the real values of her new adopted country," Sonnenfeld says.

 

For it is the greyness of dusk that reigns.

The time when the living and the dead exist as one.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Im not going to give such a highly detailed reply as Dusqi's post above me but I would like to stress a point.

 

 

 

Peoples opinions are overwhelmingly based upon what the see around them and their personal perception of the world. Saying that Im going to go out on a limb & presume (at my own risk) that you have been raised in a family that has had no particular financial trouble, which is fair enough your parents have worked hard and done well.

 

 

 

However, its not like that for alot of people who are born into poor families or areas where there is widepread poverty. Children can't help being the family they are born into or the area they are brought up in but these factors do affect their ability to succeed in life.

 

 

 

Where Im from that is really obvious. Alot of people who I grew up with just can't seem to do well because of the lack of job prosects in the area among many other issues. Life can be a postcode lottery at times. From my high school, I can name 10 or more people who quite frankly were brighter than I am who because of their family's financial burden were never able to make it to further education and therefore will never reach their full potential.

 

 

 

Also recieving welfare is not a permanent situation, many people use it as a springboard to get out of the situation they're in and into better employment. I know that particularly because when my own father left the army he had to go on benefits while looking for work, otherwise we would have starved - and finding work where I live isnt that easy.

 

 

 

Actually to help explain where I live better read a little of this guys blog that I found today. http://drongomala.blogspot.com/2006/03/ ... r-7th.html

 

 

 

-------------------------------

 

 

 

Sorry I know I did end up covering similar ground to Dusqi but my point essentially is, you need to look at things from other peoples perspectives.

wild_bunch.gif

He who learns must suffer, and, even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart,

and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.

- Aeschylus (525 BC - 456 BC)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was going to write up a longer response but my power flickered and I lost it. To be brief welfare is like insurance; there are a lot of legitimate uses of it but all you ever hear in the media are the people ripping off welfare or people defrauding insurance companies and this propagates the idea that welfare isn't doing a good job. When you deal with millions of people it is impossible keep track of them without spending more then whatâââ‰â¢s reasonable and thus why you sometimes see slackers living of it.

 

 

 

Why should we have to pay insurance when you may never have to draw from it? Because you will be sorry if you didnâââ‰â¢t pay for it and you do have to draw on it. Social security is too important to be left as a decision for you (to join or not), much like every other service the government provides. Why would a business want to invest in social security when there is no profit to be made?

 

 

 

Should sick people (and people from work accidents), low wage workers, full time students (which in turn fill technical positions), people were fired, people who want a new job and so forth be panelised because a couple of people are spoiling it for them? In my country it is getting harder to bludge off the system due to mutual obligation (attending job searching workshops 9am-5pm and so forth), maybe you need to find a way to discourage people from taking advantage of the system rather then scrapping it altogether. You wouldnâââ‰â¢t remove the science budget because a couple of people are putting in shoddy research propositions.

 

 

 

Sorry I havenâââ‰â¢t really gone into it too much since I lost my original response to a power surge.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Firstly, an example of how the "free market system" isn't the panacea that some of you are making it out to be. The quote below compares the American free market version of healthcare with the UK national health service:

 

 

 

 

http://www.economist.com/science/displa ... id=6877069

 

 

 

Annual medical costs, measured by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development using purchasing-power parities, which take account of price differences, amount to $5,635 per person in America compared with $2,231 in Britain. Yet an American's life expectancy at birth is 77.2 years compared with 78.5 for a Brit.

 

 

 

 

The state can intervene to improve welfare, and can intervene effectively. Of course, if you're one of the 16% of Americans that don't have health insurance, you probably already know this.

 

 

 

~~~

 

 

 

So, why welfare?

 

 

 

1. It is moral. A decent society should protect its poor. There should be a minimum standard of living that should be guaranteed to all citizens.

 

 

 

2. The number of people who are living in "luxury" from welfare is vastly overestimated. The media loves reporting cases of people who have told the state they have a broken leg, who then go out and do a marathon or something, and that over-reporting makes it seem like there are a lot of them. But are there really? What's statistically more likely to kill you... a shark, or falling aeroplane parts? The media hypes up shark attacks, but falling aeroplane parts are much more deadly.

 

 

 

3. No one chooses to live on welfare. I know that in the UK, I'd have a massive problem trying to live on the amount that welfare pays. In addition, we have a scheme whereby if you are out of work for a year, then the government will give you a choice of either taking a job, or undertaking further education. If you do neither, then your benefits will stop. In the US, I believe that welfare payments are even lower. I think I read some years ago that they are actually below the US's own set minimum poverty line. People don't choose to "be lazy" and live on welfare. If they do, it's because they don't know about other opportunities.

 

 

 

4. It provides a buffer zone for risk and bad luck. Entrepreneurs might be less likely to risk it all if they know that they'll be practically starving if they fail. Similarly, if you lose your job even through no fault of your own, it probably takes a while for you to find a new one, and the state helps you out in the mean time.

 

 

 

5. Having a massive underclass of poor people doesn't help the rich. Underclasses steal, rebel, strike. They are easy to bribe.

 

 

 

 

 

Why shouldn't charities be responsible for welfare?

 

 

 

1.They're unfair. They tend to have special interests: either religious, cultural, gender, etc. The government is more impartial.

 

 

 

 

 

Why redistribute income?

 

 

 

1. It is fair. The fact is, the statistical likelihood is that you will stay in the same earning decile that your parents were in, or maybe go up or down one decile. Is this because the children of dustmen have something in their genes that says they are only fit to become dustmen, or hotel cleaners? Nope, it's because their parents can't/don't provide the same opportunities. The fact is, we all like to think that we rise and fall upon our own merits, but statistically, it doesn't happen.

 

 

 

2. Taxes are not a barrier to success. No one ever thinks "I won't bother earning another million, because it'll be taxed so highly".

 

 

 

3. The opposite is actually the case. If people get too rich, they just retire early. Slowing the earnings of the richest people actually encourages them to do more work.

 

 

 

4. 40% from ̣̉100,00 has the same impact as 10% from 10,000. The reason that there are income tax bands, is that 10% from an annual income of ̣̉5,000 will be noticed a lot more than 10% from an annual income of ̣̉500,000. The poorest people have to spend all of their money just to live. Things like food, water, electricity cost a similar amount for poor people as rich people. Hence why the top rate of income tax is 40% in the UK.

 

 

 

5. Wealth will not be redistributed by a free market system. The argument that when the country gets richer in absolute terms, some of it will trickle down to the poorest people, is a fallacy. Many countries have a rich elite class, that doesn't help any of its people.

 

 

 

~~~

 

 

 

Concerning Atlas Shrugged, I was recently reading articles about it, though I confess that I haven't read it yet. This article is mainly in support of Ayn Rand's novel, however it has an interesting quote:

 

 

 

 

http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies ... rand_x.htm

 

 

 

Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, CEO of the Leadership Institute at Yale University, said executives who take refuge in the capitalist utopia of Atlas Shrugged are "reading themselves into a trance of defensive self-delusion."

 

 

 

He says great American industrialists were in fact community-minded, going back to the pioneer frontiersmen who circled their wagons and built barns together. The philosophy of Atlas Shrugged does not explain successful CEOs such as Milton Hershey, who during the Depression provided employees of his chocolate company with free medical care and paid off the mortgages of every church in town, Sonnenfeld says.

 

 

 

Rand should have written fewer screenplays and "watched more Frank Capra to better understand the real values of her new adopted country," Sonnenfeld says.

 

 

 

 

I'm not even going to try answering the length of that post right now. I'm just going to say you're wrong. You have heavily confused Equal Opportunity with Equal Outcome. I have answered about every point you have made in my other post, which you then blithley ignored. You appear to have read niether of the works i propposed, and come across very much like, although slightly less intelegntly than, most of my friends at debating soceity. It is, however, impossible to shift a socialist though arguments, as I have reapeatedly found out. They either go out and make money and change thier views, or they go out, don't make money, and become poor socialists with nothing to live on, which in turn makes them more ardently socialist. People will not work if you pay them the same for not working. Why bother taking responsibility if you get payed the same for not taking it. What reward is there for working hard if you get payed the same if u don't. Socialism relies on humans naturlay getting together and heloing each other as much as they help themeselves. This does not happen. Read my sig.

magecape,Mo%20Gui%20Gui.gif

mo%20gui%20gui.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There have been many (and lengthy) replies so far. Instead of going through each person's post and refuting every argument, I will simply repeat two points I tried to make earlier, which seem to have been ignored.

 

 

 

1. To redistribute wealth (taking something from one person and giving it to another person) is arbitrary and immoral. Swampjedi, I respect you and agree with much of what you said, but you missed that I wasn't likening taxation with stealing, I was likening wealth-redistribution with stealing. To live as a member of a nation, I expect to have to pay my dues. I'm not anti-tax. I am however very vocal about how I prefer my taxes to be used and if I feel I'm overpaying my dues (because much of what I'm contributing is being wasted), I will use my vote to send that message and I will continue to call a spade a spade. Wealth-redistribution - when the group providing the funds would not do so if given the choice - is immoral. If you don't like me using the word "stealing", I'll adjust my verbiage and call it "legal extortion."

 

 

 

2. Someone here - I can't remember who - actually compared government welfare with private charity, calling government welfare the superior form of assistance for those in need. The reasons given were theoretical and lacked any substantive evidence. Granted, my reasons for preferring private charities were anecdotal (not my favorite kind of evidence), but at least some evidence was present. Whoever you were, I dare you to do a side by side comparison of how the funds are allocated (how much is actually getting to the recipients), what the success rate is (is it a hand-up or a hand-out) and include in your next post what evidence leads you to believe government charity is more impartial.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

 

 

I'm not even going to try answering the length of that post right now. I'm just going to say you're wrong. You have heavily confused Equal Opportunity with Equal Outcome. I have answered about every point you have made in my other post, which you then blithley ignored. You appear to have read niether of the works i propposed, and come across very much like, although slightly less intelegntly than, most of my friends at debating soceity. It is, however, impossible to shift a socialist though arguments, as I have reapeatedly found out. They either go out and make money and change thier views, or they go out, don't make money, and become poor socialists with nothing to live on, which in turn makes them more ardently socialist. People will not work if you pay them the same for not working. Why bother taking responsibility if you get payed the same for not taking it. What reward is there for working hard if you get payed the same if u don't. Socialism relies on humans naturlay getting together and heloing each other as much as they help themeselves. This does not happen. Read my sig.

 

 

 

1. I searched for "income mobility" on Google. This refers to the chances that a person will end up in a certain earnings quintile, based on the earnings quintile of their parents. Assuming a pure meritocracy, then no matter what earnings quintile your parents or grandparents are in, you are equally likely to be on the top as the bottom quintile. The reality is different. Fortunately, the NYTimes website has a happy interactive graphic to illustrate the subject with some facts:

 

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/na ... ex_03.html

 

 

 

40% of people stay in the same quintle as their parents. Not the 20% that would be expected in a meritocracy.

 

 

 

2. Are you familiar with the ideas of John Maynard Keynes [Wikipedia.org]?

 

 

 

3. You must be very old, wise and experienced to have seen so many socialists either go and make money and reform their ways, or else die in poverty.

For it is the greyness of dusk that reigns.

The time when the living and the dead exist as one.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There have been many (and lengthy) replies so far. Instead of going through each person's post and refuting every argument, I will simply repeat two points I tried to make earlier, which seem to have been ignored.

 

 

 

1. To redistribute wealth (taking something from one person and giving it to another person) is arbitrary and immoral. Swampjedi, I respect you and agree with much of what you said, but you missed that I wasn't likening taxation with stealing, I was likening wealth-redistribution with stealing. To live as a member of a nation, I expect to have to pay my dues. I'm not anti-tax. I am however very vocal about how I prefer my taxes to be used and if I feel I'm overpaying my dues (because much of what I'm contributing is being wasted), I will use my vote to send that message and I will continue to call a spade a spade. Wealth-redistribution - when the group providing the funds would not do so if given the choice - is immoral. If you don't like me using the word "stealing", I'll adjust my verbiage and call it "legal extortion."

 

 

 

2. Someone here - I can't remember who - actually compared government welfare with private charity, calling government welfare the superior form of assistance for those in need. The reasons given were theoretical and lacked any substantive evidence. Granted, my reasons for preferring private charities were anecdotal (not my favorite kind of evidence), but at least some evidence was present. Whoever you were, I dare you to do a side by side comparison of how the funds are allocated (how much is actually getting to the recipients), what the success rate is (is it a hand-up or a hand-out) and include in your next post what evidence leads you to believe government charity is more impartial.

 

 

 

 

 

1. I gave 5 reasons in support of redistributing income. These reasons are given at the macro level. Perhaps the rich person doesn't want his earnings taken away "forcefully"... but society as a whole benefits when it happens. Just like, I don't want to pay for streetlights, but I love it when everyone else pays for them.

 

 

 

And understand, it isn't about making everyone have the same flat income, with no incentives for success.. it's about making people contribute what they can afford to contribute and using the money to give people a minimum standard of living. As I mentioned earlier, to a poor person earning $10,000 - 10% is a lot because they spend all of their income anyway just living, whereas to a rich person earning $1,000,000, 40% isn't that much, because they would probably have just put it in the bank.

 

 

 

Do the rich deserve their income anyway? Most of the jobs that pay extremely high salaries are the result of market failure or irregularities, rather than of "success". That is, markets not conforming to free competition... e.g. the "screen actors guild" which is practically a catch 22, with membership required before one can get an acting job, but requiring an acting job before membership is granted.

 

 

 

Similarly, as outlined in my post above, earning potential is highly determined by how rich your parents are (luck), rather than anything to do with success.

 

 

 

 

 

2. Like you, I don't know the percentage of tax that gets to recipients, and how much of that is defrauded. However, I do have the following arguments, other than my "theoretical" one, which was that charities have special interests and are not impartial, and which I believe is still sound.

 

 

 

Firstly, charities would not be able to deal with welfare on such a grand scale. If they did have to deal with it on a grand scale, they'd end up becoming ineffecient and corrupt like the government.

 

 

 

Secondly, I argue from history. In the UK, alms from Churches used to be the way that the poor could receive money to live. That system ended. Presumably because it wasn't working.

For it is the greyness of dusk that reigns.

The time when the living and the dead exist as one.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I will tell you that there is, as yet, no perfect system divised. Free Market Capitalism just has fewer flaws that communism of socilaism - as can be seen from all the attempts to establish communist and socialist states. For any of them to be sucessful they always have too force thier wokers to work - compare the two types of soviet farms (I have forgotten what they are called right now) in one people got payed the same, no matter what they produced, in the other people were payed on the basis of what they produced. The second type of farm was infinitley more succesful than the first.

 

 

 

Every time you say "income mobility" you confuse Equal Opportunity (the basis pf the neo-liberal idea) withe Equal Outcome (communism). The problem that we have, and this is a problem, is that people are not being provided with a good enough education - or, as is more often, they are not motivated to study in the same way. Now I have been to two state schools - one i spent a year in, the other was was just visiting as part of a private school and state school cooperationg programme. In the one i stayed in, the pupils were disciplined and comapitivley well behaved. The teaching was not much different in substace from the Private school (although they tend not to have as may people with Doctorates). They achieved resulst very close to those achieved at private schools. In the other, the students were uncontrolable by thier teachers. There was no work ethic, and the teachers had given up trying. In this atmospher it's impossible for a meritcoracy to begin to function. There are several methods for dealing with this, but none of them are relevant to the subject. Schools and education needs to be better funded and a much stricter atmosphere is needed. I believe in Equal Opportunity (allthough i recognise it can never truly be).

 

 

 

It must be made so that people succeded and fail on thier own merits as much as possible. This is not, therefore, an argument to justify the distribution of wealth, but increased education increases the meritocracy, which increases the strength of the free market economy, which increases the wealth of all eventualy.

 

 

 

as for the flat tax - as I said, if you are at a level where you are unable to pay income tax at the flat rate of 20% you don't. However, you lose certain would have to lose priviledges.

 

 

 

And youre argument that people don't deserve their wealth because they were lucky at the stockmarket is firstly a missaprehension - Most of the people I know who earn more the 100,000 a year are very hard working lawyers or doctors. And for those people who are lucky on the stock exchanges - they risked thier money, and the won. Takeing it away from them is like taking all the winnings of gamblers becasue "they just got lucky".

magecape,Mo%20Gui%20Gui.gif

mo%20gui%20gui.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I will tell you that there is, as yet, no perfect system divised. Free Market Capitalism just has fewer flaws that communism of socilaism - as can be seen from all the attempts to establish communist and socialist states. For any of them to be sucessful they always have too force thier wokers to work - compare the two types of soviet farms (I have forgotten what they are called right now) in one people got payed the same, no matter what they produced, in the other people were payed on the basis of what they produced. The second type of farm was infinitley more succesful than the first.

 

 

 

Every time you say "income mobility" you confuse Equal Opportunity (the basis pf the neo-liberal idea) withe Equal Outcome (communism). The problem that we have, and this is a problem, is that people are not being provided with a good enough education - or, as is more often, they are not motivated to study in the same way. Now I have been to two state schools - one i spent a year in, the other was was just visiting as part of a private school and state school cooperationg programme. In the one i stayed in, the pupils were disciplined and comapitivley well behaved. The teaching was not much different in substace from the Private school (although they tend not to have as may people with Doctorates). They achieved resulst very close to those achieved at private schools. In the other, the students were uncontrolable by thier teachers. There was no work ethic, and the teachers had given up trying. In this atmospher it's impossible for a meritcoracy to begin to function. There are several methods for dealing with this, but none of them are relevant to the subject. Schools and education needs to be better funded and a much stricter atmosphere is needed. I believe in Equal Opportunity (allthough i recognise it can never truly be).

 

 

 

It must be made so that people succeded and fail on thier own merits as much as possible. This is not, therefore, an argument to justify the distribution of wealth, but increased education increases the meritocracy, which increases the strength of the free market economy, which increases the wealth of all eventualy.

 

 

 

as for the flat tax - as I said, if you are at a level where you are unable to pay income tax at the flat rate of 20% you don't. However, you lose certain would have to lose priviledges.

 

 

 

And youre argument that people don't deserve their wealth because they were lucky at the stockmarket is firstly a missaprehension - Most of the people I know who earn more the 100,000 a year are very hard working lawyers or doctors. And for those people who are lucky on the stock exchanges - they risked thier money, and the won. Takeing it away from them is like taking all the winnings of gamblers becasue "they just got lucky".

 

 

 

Yup, you're right, Communism is flawed. I wasn't advocating Communism. As far as I remember, no one has posted to say that everyone should get paid the same, no matter what they do.

 

 

 

Progressive taxation is about taxing people what they can pay. It's "fair" in that it's based on what people need to use.. since the less you earn, the greater percentage you need to spend on necessities. You seem to recognise that this applies to the poorest people, since you say taxing 20% for someone so poor would be too much and they could be excused... but this also applies for the incentives to earn at every level of income. This is why in the UK, the tax bands are as low as 10% to up to 40%.

 

 

 

Another way to consider it, is to consider the effort that has to go into earning more money. For someone to earn an additional ̣̉20,000 per year, when they are currently earning ̣̉10,000 per year, involves a lot of effort and success. For someone to earn an additional ̣̉20,000 per year when they are currently earning ̣̉100,000, isn't anywhere near as hard. This is another way of considering why the additional ̣̉20,000 on ̣̉10,000 should be taxed at a low rate (to reward the large effort put in), compared to the additional ̣̉20,000 on ̣̉100,000 (to decrease the reward of the smaller amount of effort put in).

 

 

 

Concerning your suggestion that those who cannot pay income tax should not be able to vote, apart from the criticism from Anesthesia, which was that it would create an underclass without representation, and thus ignored by politicians.. I would like to add that everyone pays tax anyway, from driving taxes, through to VAT on purchases.

 

 

 

 

 

My point about high income earners is thus:

 

 

 

- Firstly, as you concede, to say that they got there through merit is flawed, since if they came from a poor background, it's unlikely they would be earning so much. Many of them just happened to be born to well off parents, who gave them the best opportunities they could.

 

 

 

- Secondly, many of the high wages are the result of market failure. For example, lawyers don't really need to spend 6 years learning law before they can do divorce settlements for example. Law has unnecessarily high "barriers to entry" - the long years of training that discourage other people from getting into the profession. If ice cream men had a trade union monopoly which said that you had to train for 6 years before you could make ice creams, then they'd probably be able to earn $100,000 per year also.

 

 

 

- Thirdly, and related to the point about market failure above, your doctor friends would probably still work as doctors if they were paid $50,000 per year. This is the evidence of market failure. In a fully functioning market, the wage rate for workers is just enough, so that if it dropped, then the workers would go into another profession. You can imagine, if the wage rate for burger flipping fell to $1 per hour, then the burger flippers would leave and become shelf stackers, and earn $4 per hour. That wouldn't happen with doctors. It's a similar idea with professional footballers. David Beckham gets paid ̣̉50,000 per week or something, but he'd still do it if he got paid ̣̉1,000 per week. It's just a peculiar quirk in the market that footballers get paid a lot, whereas rugby players don't.

 

 

 

And although partly, the high wages are a result of hard work and success... in a real free market system, they wouldn't get paid as much.. so they're not actually "worth" as much as they get paid. This is why it's "fair" to tax them a higher percentage of their earnings.

For it is the greyness of dusk that reigns.

The time when the living and the dead exist as one.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Jimmy Chav

 

 

 

I demand you give him a different name, before you give all the Jimmys (or Jimmies) a bad repuation!

 

 

 

Although I do like your views. But what penalties can you impose on people who are "stealing" as the author puts it, from the benefit system.

 

A few people in this country sustain minor injuries, and claim Disability Benefits from it for several months, however, you can hardly break down their door and prove they aren't injured, it must be proved.

 

(There was a case of someone claiming disability benefit, and he was photographed walking around town, carrying heavy items, such as washing machines, he was forced to pay back some money, but not all of the money he received) ~Jimmie

 

 

 

Although this is often true, sometimes it is not. I know that my mom had worked at an office typing all day, and that gave her artheritis or something along that line. Her hands had hurt FOR MONTHS, and eventually just quit. To this day, my mom STILL has hand problems, and also back problems from several car accedents (Danged drunk drivers).

[Admin Edit: No naming names in a negative light]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Jimmy Chav

 

 

 

I demand you give him a different name, before you give all the Jimmys (or Jimmies) a bad repuation!

 

 

 

Although I do like your views. But what penalties can you impose on people who are "stealing" as the author puts it, from the benefit system.

 

A few people in this country sustain minor injuries, and claim Disability Benefits from it for several months, however, you can hardly break down their door and prove they aren't injured, it must be proved.

 

(There was a case of someone claiming disability benefit, and he was photographed walking around town, carrying heavy items, such as washing machines, he was forced to pay back some money, but not all of the money he received) ~Jimmie

 

 

 

Although this is often true, sometimes it is not. I know that my mom had worked at an office typing all day, and that gave her artheritis or something along that line. Her hands had hurt FOR MONTHS, and eventually just quit. To this day, my mom STILL has hand problems, and also back problems from several car accedents (Danged drunk drivers).

[Admin Edit: No naming names in a negative light]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.