OT: Why welfare doesn't work!

[snip]

Because our society doesn't value actually producing anything. People at the bottom of the food chain see executives getting paid whether they produce or not. So they figure, "If them, why not me?" Companies degenerate into entities that outsource their engineering and manufacturing, slap their logo onto an imported product and we (the consumers) hold their brands in high regard. Why is welfare considered bad, but charity good?

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Paul Hovnanian	paul@hovnanian.com
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Have gnu, will travel.

You're missing two elements to a proof. The first element is proof that your assertion of fact (that there is a correlation between a parent living on welfare and a child going on to live on welfare) is true, the second element is proof that the correlation is a causal one, i.e. that a parent living on welfare _causes_ a child to live on welfare.

I do think that there is at least a weak causal connection, because I'm only two degrees of separation away from a woman who purposely has children to stay eligible for welfare (in the US welfare is for the kids, not the adults; to "benefit" from welfare as an adult you have to be a nonworking parent of a minor child). Assuming that a couple of people that I believe to be trustworthy are telling the truth, then this is a known practice (perverse, to my mind, but known).

I would expect that if your 'fact' is indeed true that the stronger cause is that folks who don't know how to work, or are discriminated against because of their race, or who are congenitally stupid, or who have congenital physical problems that make them come across as "lazy*" will pass those traits on to their children, and those traits will make their children more likely to be eligible for welfare.

As far as a reasonable solution -- I dunno. Welfare was instituted to keep babies from dying from starvation, exposure, and lack of medical care. If you don't mind starving babies, then abolish welfare without replacing it with something else.

Before we had welfare we had poor farms or poor houses, where the indigent were made to go work for their keep. I don't know why they were abolished, but I suspect that the strong resemblance to slavery had something to do with it.

One alternative to welfare would be to take the kids away from their parents and raise them in government-funded creches. I'm sure there'd be strong support for that from both the right and the left -- perhaps you should suggest it?

If I were going to modify the system in any way it would be to (a) make damn sure that the kiddies got good educations, (b) make it easier for early-adolescent kids to get real paying jobs, (c) structure a path out of welfare where more work always gets you more money (i.e. no sudden drop-off of benefits to hold you back), and (d) make the welfare contract between a mom and the government a promise that she gets money in return for not having babies, backed up with long-term birth control if she has problems keeping up her end of the bargain.

Of course, wingers both right and left will want to pillory me for making such sensible suggestions, so you can imagine how long it'll be before anything useful happens on this front.

• In my community when I was growing up we had a whole family of perceived ne'er do wells who complained of chest pain whenever they worked hard. Once they got enough money to go to the doctor it turned out that there was a heart condition that ran in the family that made them hurt when they exerted themselves.

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Because charity isn't enforced at gunpoint.

Thanks, Rich

Because welfare is based on theft, and charity is based on love.

Hope This Helps! Rich

"Paul Hovnanian P.E." wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@hovnanian.com:

Charity is people or groups of people giving because they WANT to,but "welfare" is the State giving after TAKING from people whether they want to give or not.

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Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
kua.net

Yep. Unions are a leftist thing. Our Democrat Congressman Moron Mitchell is amongst a group of leftist SOB's that want to do away with the SECRET BALLOT in union elections!

In my estimation, a bunch of fascist shit-heads :-(

...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |

                   Liberals are so ignorant...
         They don\'t even know the definition of ignorant

an Moron

Apparently, the system for forming unions is broken - which I guess explains the sign-up cards, which some interpret (prehaps correctly?) as a loss of secret ballot status. But if the facts below are correct, then something is clearly wrong... Not sure how I would fix it.?

From the AFLCIO website:

Cornell University scholar Kate Bronfenbrenner studied hundreds of organizing campaigns and found that:

Ninety-two percent of private-sector employers, when faced with employees who want to join together in a union, force employees to attend closed-door meetings to hear anti-union propaganda;

80 percent require supervisors to attend training sessions on attacking unions; and 78 percent require that supervisors deliver anti- union messages to workers they oversee.

Seventy-five percent hire outside consultants to run anti-union campaigns, often based on mass psychology and distorting the law.

Half of employers threaten to shut down partially or totally if employees join together in a union. In 25 percent of organizing campaigns, private-sector employers illegally fire workers because they want to form a union.

Even after workers successfully form a union, in one-third of the instances, employers do not negotiate a contract.

[end]

Then again, I have this flashback of a bunch of GM & Ford employees all sitting a dark little room with their secret ballots in-hand, none of whom really have a viable future because they're all engaged in making over-priced SUV's that Americans neither want nor can afford to drive, and whose employers are gutting the respective company 100-year success stories with risky off-balance sheet derivitive financings (not to mention investment in sub-prime in the case of GMAC / Ditech), and other shady financial misgivings..... I wonder who will be left to count the ballots?

Some illegal, undocumented immigrant worker?

-mpm

So, you believe that extortion is to be rewarded?

Apparently so.

Perhaps Darwin has the solution then.

--
Keith

krw wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.individual.net:

A fallacy.The housing projects are crime-ridden,drug havens. Welfare only buys so much,and luxury items are not funded. So,they turn to crime to supplement their income. And worse,the residents have no stake in the housing,they trash the place. you also get 3-4 generations living in one apartment,since the more children they have,the more welfare they get.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
kua.net

Jim Yanik wrote in news:Xns9B13A5C37EDACjyanikkuanet@74.209.136.85:

BTW,that would be MINUS the State's cut for "management". Charities have much lower overhead than goverment operations,so more of the donations get to the actual needy.

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Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
kua.net

I'm thinking about the recipient's point of view. Either way, someone is handing them money, food, clothes, etc.

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Paul Hovnanian     mailto:Paul@Hovnanian.com
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This isn\'t right.  This isn\'t even wrong. -- Wolfgang Pauli

Both you and Richard are only addressing how welfare/charity affects you, not the recipient. Kind of a self-centered point of view, IMHO. Perhaps that's why we need to make a collective decision on how to provide aid. Because some people will talk big about giving. But just talk.

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Paul Hovnanian     mailto:Paul@Hovnanian.com
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Answer: Eight. Twelve if the light bulb is cross-threaded.

"Paul Hovnanian P.E." wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@hovnanian.com:

you DID ask why one is "good" and one not,and did'nt specify to whom it's good or not good.

OK;welfare tends to be neverending,not helping the people in the long view,but only sustaining them at a very low level,while charity is recognized as a short-term giving.(not a "lifestyle".

So,your way is to FORCE them to give?

(With a big bureaucracy and in a more wasteful manner,too...)

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
kua.net

"Joel Koltner" wrote in news:yynxk.73137$ snipped-for-privacy@en-nntp-02.dc.easynews.com:

But why is it "humiliating" for a welfare recipient to do something that is necessary, but people who have to do the same thing for a salary are just supposed to shut up and be grateful for the work?

THe other question re: "workfre' is, What sorts fo skills do the epole have? If you have no skills, then you have to do unskilled labor/work. Again, why is it that someone who does unskilled labor for wages is suppsoed to grin'n'bear it, but someone on the dole is "supposed to be entitled" to some lovely cushy position that most folks have ot attend college to get?

That's what bothers me.

Fair enough, with the one exception that I have to ask why trash-collection isn't "useful". A lot of poeple have to make their living doing those "menial" tasks. So why are those tasks "good enough" for wage earners but "beneath" welfare recipients?

[snip]

Really? How would you feel if some guy showed up at your door with a bunch of cash, "no strings attached", and you found out that he had just stolen it from your next-door neighbor?

IOW, how does it make you feel when you realize you're receiving stolen goods?

If that's what the country has come to, then it's time to emigrate, or revolt.

Thanks, Rich

@hovnanian.com:

Maybe leftists are just too stupid and weak to make their own money, their own decisions, and then follow through on them. They need and want to be forced/led, and can't understand why anyone can't understand that. Ever think of that?

I'm just speculating because I can't understand "the left's" apparently insatiable appetite for communism.

You're clueless. It's not the sign-up cards being talked about here, rather the elections themselves. Wise up!

The facts above certainly are, so why would we expect better below?

Illegal? Why shouldn't the employer tell his side of the story, on his dime?

Some loaded words you're using! No matter, nothing illegal or immoral there.

More loaded words.

It's often not a threat.

Proof?

Sure, they go belly up.

Do you always have these fantasies? (no need to answer)

More fantasies of a leftist weenie. The automakers are being gutted by the unions. They'll be gone before the unions wake up.

How many illegals (isn't that a bad word in your leftist circles?) do Ford and GM hire?

--
Keith

Corollary One can choose one's charity. Bums need not apply.

--
Keith

Why are leftists so clueless? I suspect they presume themselves to be the elite class who'll run all the shows. But they won't. As soon as they elect the proper fascists they'll find themselves in the lackey position, bend over, do as you're told, and we'll let you keep $100/week.

Four years ago, while back in WV for my wife's 45th HS reunion, I'm watching the news. Machinists at INCO (International Nickel Co.) are out on strike, wanting more pay. They're already averaging $50/hour in wages and benefits... makes you at hotsy-totsy income-level in WV. INCO allows as how they can't pay anymore than that. Machinists persist. INCO shuts the doors.

Facility is ultimately sold to Specialty Metals, who are now offering positions at ~$10/hours, no benefits.

Ain't unions grand?

...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |
             
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