Income and Insight

[Greenbeard]

Well you can say its a ridiculous article, but I'll put Thomas Sowell's education, track record, experience, and credentials as a social historian up against yours or anybody else's here on USMB and will expect that it will be no contest as to who is most credible in their perspective and analysis.

I'd encourage you to put aside "education, track record, experience, and credentials" for a moment and actually evaluate the article's arguments and the evidence presented to back them up. A minute or so of scrutiny will reveal specious arguments, a conflation of "the War on Poverty" with "any policy even tangentially related to the Great Society," factual inaccuracies, misrepresentations of the goals of certain policy initiatives, and in general a complete lack of evidence to support his points (and, at times, even an explicit point is lacking since he seems to think insinuation is a valid rhetorical device here).

I didn't bother to point it out earlier but parts of it are actually incoherent. For example:

The black family, which had survived centuries of slavery and discrimination, began rapidly disintegrating in the liberal welfare state that subsidized unwed pregnancy and changed welfare from an emergency rescue to a way of life.​

Followed by:

The poverty rate among black families fell from 87 percent in 1940 to 47 percent in 1960, during an era of virtually no major civil rights legislation or anti-poverty programs.​

If the esteemed social historian believes that AFDC was created during the Great Society and not the New Deal (which apparently he does, since the anti-poverty measure that he accuses of destroying the black family apparently didn't exist--in his mind--during the 1940s when he says poverty rates fell for black families) then he probably would also need to be reminded the War on Poverty didn't contain any welfare programs--instead of simple transfer payments, it consisted of programs aimed to help the poor better themselves (Time listed them in a 1968 article: Job Corps, Neighborhood Youth Corps, Work-Study Program, Adult Basic Education, Rural Loan Program, Migrant Worker Assistance, Employment and Investment Incentives, Work Experience Program, Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) and the Community Action Program, which set up Head Start, Upward Bound, Legal Services and Health Service Centers.)

Either way the War on Poverty is not entitled to credit for success that it obviously did not merit.

At no point did anything in that article show this. Certainly that seems to be the philosophy underlying the article but he didn't bother to support it, nor did he support his much firmer thesis: "The disastrous consequences that followed have made the word 'liberal' so much of a political liability that today even candidates with long left-wing track records have evaded or denied that designation."

 

[FA_Q2]

Do not mix the system of government (republic) with the system of commerce (capitalism). Greed is not a force that a republic focuses to good purpose, it simply negates some of its ills with that constitution that governs our rights. Unfortunately, money and greed is bleeding over to our government and that is not a good thing. I would agree that there needs to be change in that aspect and spoke a little to that in another forum. Caps on donations from any single source would be a good start. I would say that your 'last 30 years' and my outlook on entitlement is misplaced as overreaching and wrong. There is an issue with the poor and entitlement and it is keeping many people down. I will get into that in a minute. Wall street and the banks do not have an entitlement problem. They have a legal problem. The politicians in this country not only are influenced by the amount of cash that is flowing to them (a problem as I have stated earlier in this post) but the ones that are against the banks are simply not as intelligent as them. Laws that are written to regulate the banks are circumvented because of the insane legalese that they are written in and the banks with all their resources are smart enough to hire people that can navigate around them. I stand by the fact that GOVERNMENT is the problem here. Separate the two, get the government out of the banking and bailouts and there will not be an issue. This is going into another topic so I will digress for the moment...

Your second point seems to hint that the poor NEED these handouts to survive and I will state that it is flat out wrong. No one is supporting that we take ALL aid from everyone but what is considered poor in this nation is rich for many others. The poor are not hungry unless it is of their own accord. I have seen people get alcohol instead of food with food stamps, buy beer and cigarettes and THEN not have money for food and watched the welfare checks roll in only to be frivolously spent or used on drugs. You do not truly respect what you have unless you had to work for it. I do not mind homeless shelters to feed and shelter the poor but why do you feel that it is necessary to PAY poor people for not accomplishing anything?

Prohibition has been a complete and total FAILURE and it is precisely why you cannot support an entitlement mentality. What you end up creating is a group of individuals that perpetuate in their state because it is easier to continue then it is to break through and in many cases BETTER. There are many instances where working harder would net you LESS than taking the handouts. What would behoove an individual to work harder for less? That is the problem with handouts that have no strings attached. You get a fuzzy feeling inside, they become slaves to the system.

I have a problem when someone says government is the problem. Bad government and corrupt government is a problem. And we need to always be diligent citizenry, but a hands off 'let the invisible hand of the market' approach is ignorance and it reeks of what you and Foxfyre have been dancing with...a culture war and the false belief that wealth equates to morality. The purpose OF government in regards to economics is to write and enforce laws, craft regulations and rules that facilitate commerce and create true free markets where no one can make themselves rich, by making someone else poor. A playing field where you can only lower cost of production or operation by efficient practices, NOT through 'regulatory capture' where profits are increased at the detriment of others by externalizing costs. Better known as corporate welfare.

You claim 'prohibition has been a complete and total FAILURE'. I say you are wrong. When you look at LBJ's War on Poverty, it was a great success. The only thing that stopped or impeded it was a party that espoused the same philosophy as you.

When I refer to the last 30 years, I am talking specifically about the biggest failure in my lifetime and possibly in the history of our nation. The complete and total failure that was called the Reagan revolution. It led us down the road to serfdom We, the People now find ourselves in the smoking ruins of.

It was people that called themselves 'conservatives' who were nothing resembling conservative. They desecrated conservatism by ignoring all the hard earned lessons our ancestors learned. They were ideologues that believed only THEY were smart, and that there exists a class of people that should be entitled. And that entitled class would leave enough bread crumbs for the rest of us... It FAILED and it continues to fail, no matter how many tax cuts we lay at their feet. These ideologues that call themselves 'conservative' threw out or removed all the laws and regulations our ancestors crafted to 'negates some of its ills' as you called it. They too believed that government is the problem. And all we needed to do was remove the hands of government so this entitled class could lead us down the road to Utopia...THEY got their Utopia, but We, the People got serfdom and a middle class that is now a debtor's class.

In regards to human foible you and Foxfyre focus on as some moral barometer, no one should supports laziness or corruption. But we need to exhibit an equal amount of outrage whether it is a poor person OR a rich person. And I would tend to give a lot more leeway to the poor.

Yes yes, throw words into my mouth and then jump on a partisan bandwagon. Never did I say anything about the government not writing regulation at all. the government IS there to protect the citizenry but it is going beyond that and therein lies the problem. When the government goes in and bails out banks and gets into the banking business instead of writing simple and concise laws that protect the people then we end up with the system that we have today. Politicians think they are smarter than the people they are regulating and that simply is not the case. Law is so confusing that no one can understand more than a small portion of it at any time.

I also never said that wealth equates to morality. You are labeling me with things I do not believe or have said. As a matter of fact wealth AND corporations do not have any morality. That is a problem that the left has, they need things to be moral or amoral and cannot understand that people are the only things that have a moral code. Business will do what is best for business without regard to morality whatsoever. That is where basic and concise regulation come in. There needs to be regulation but what we have is not the right type of regulation.

The reference to LBJ is my fault, I was not referring to equal opportunity employment that was originally set out to be. I agree with anti discrimination laws. I was referring to what it has turned into where there are actual quotas that need to be met where you are REQUIRED to hire a minimum number of minorities per so many employees. Tose laws were particularly dreadful in CA, my home state. Race has been flipped around to a REQUIREMENT TO DISCRIMINATE in another's favor and that is not only wrong but promotes the type of thinking I was referring to.

So, since you claim that us evil conservatives are removing all that regulation that our ancestors learned the hard way and that today we are in smoking ruin - what regulations are you referring to? How are we in smoking ruin and what policies are you placing the blame on? You partisan crap is vexing. There is a reason that we are here today and that is because there is no real conservatives that exist within the republican party. It is not just about tax cuts but spending cuts and reduction of government. They are all corrupt politicians. For that matter, I don't think there has really been a true liberal in office either. Clinton may qualify but he actually had a somewhat successful presidency. You say the war on poverty was a grate success and then IMMEDIATELY claim we are in smoldering ruins! My inclination is that you are full of hot air but I have been wrong before.

 

[FA_Q2]

this sums up the core of my point. if we separate humanity from the systems we hope to organize humanity with, we still have greed and sloth in the human tradition. these are character traits which will always be represented in a societal cross-section. adding capitalism back in to the mix, we have a system which rewards ambition and freedom. a cheat or a thief who aims to cut corners to obtain these rewards is not a product of capitalism. rather, these individuals continue to represent the unscrupulous hoarders in our unorganized cross-section.
capitalism is the system (social and economic) which has supported human innovation, population growth and the concept of wealth altogether. the idea of removing it from humanity has never succeeded; it is an extension of our humanity in many ways.

That was exactly my point. Both socialism and communism fail because they fail to take human nature into account. Capitalism does take it into account. Far from removing it from capitalism, it focuses those traits it can into something useful and punishes that which is not useful. In pure form, capitalism goes to far but tempered with small portions of socialism and coupled with a small government there is no limits on what it can accomplish.

adding social policies into solution with humanity and capitalism was thought to improve standards of work and living as a social aim, and to empower the creation of wealth in an economy via commerce as an economic aim. in both aims, the policies of the last 100 years, be it progressive tax, social security, medicaid or welfare, have affected these intended aims. similarly to capitalism and greed, it doesn't take a genius to point out the role that the less motivated folks in the cross-section will take up with a welfare state available.

my point is that the greedy and the lazy are inherent in groups of humans, especially numbering in the hundreds of millions. they are accommodated in ways which our society has found to benefit from in the end. along with these relative handfuls in the broader spread of american demography are the brave, the enterprising, the intelligent, the hard-working, the disabled, the elderly, the less educated and the young... i could fill a page with other ways to describe my fellow americans from what they've got going for them or against them.

the bottom line is that the system which garners criticism for the 'support' of the lazy and the greedy, works well for the rest of us, too. i argue that it works better than the places i've visited in the third world, where they have not mitigatrd the plight or economic participation of their poor. i think it is better off than the countries in the developed world which have adapted different policies and supported capitalism and socialism in different ways than we have here.

We need the social safety nets that are in place but what we are creating is not a net to catch those that cannot or will not perform but a net to capture the lower classes. That is where bfg's serfdom is coming from, the gradual building of a barrier between those dependant on the government and those that are not. As I said before, there are people that would LOOSE wealth if they began working or were to work more. The tax code and much of the welfare laws are poorly written. I win not advocate for a complete lack of protections for the poor but I cannot stand by a system that encourages people to stay poor and that is what is taking form. Nor will I stand by a system that rewards inaction or tells people that they need help when they do not.

 

[FA_Q2]

how would you suggest that policy be changed?

If you are asking me...
The tax system is the first thing that I believe is a problem. Today there are to damn many tax breaks and there should never be any credits. I believe you already know my view on a flat rate progressively tiered tax system as we had an in depth debate a while ago.


Welfare needs a time limit and more importantly, come with strings attached. You should have to be actively searching for jobs and show proof of that. In some states you do need to do exactly that but most do not and even when they do it tends to be rather laughable. I would also like some sort of adult education within a trade as another requirement to drawing welfare. In essence, welfare should be just as difficult as a job.


Laws that govern racial hiring need to be completely wiped out. Discrimination laws are a must but the laws that tie an employer's hands to who he can and cannot hire within legitimate reasons are bullshit.


That's it for starters. I know there are a lot more but it would likely take a year to put them all down. If you have a specific policy I would address that but if not I will likely expand on this later.

 

[Greenbeard]

Welfare needs a time limit and more importantly, come with strings attached. You should have to be actively searching for jobs and show proof of that. In some states you do need to do exactly that but most do not and even when they do it tends to be rather laughable.

I'm curious why you say most states don't have those rules. The federal rules for TANF are fairly clear:

Highlights of TANF
Work Requirements:

• With few exceptions, recipients must work as soon as they are job-ready or no later than two years after coming on assistance.
• To count toward a State’s work participation rate, single parents must participate in work activities for an average of 30 hours per week, or an average of 20 hours per week if they have a child under age six. Two-parent families must participate in work activities for an average of 35 hours a week or, if they receive Federal child care assistance, 55 hours a week.
• Failure to participate in work requirements can result in a reduction or termination of a family’s benefits.
• States cannot penalize single parents with a child under six for failing to meet work requirements if they cannot find adequate child care.
• States must engage a certain percentage of all families and of two-parent families in work activities or face financial penalty. These required State work participation rates are 50 percent overall and 90 percent for two-parent families; however, States can reduce the targets they must meet with a caseload reduction credit. For every percentage point a State reduces its caseload below its FY 2005 level (without restricting eligibility), the credit reduces the States target participation rate by one percentage point.

Work Activities – Activities that count toward a State’s participation rates are (some restrictions may apply):

• unsubsidized or subsidized employment
• work experience
• on-the-job training
• job search and job readiness assistance – not to exceed 6 weeks in a 12-month period and no more than 4 consecutive weeks (but up to 12 weeks if a State meets certain conditions)
• community service
• vocational educational training – not to exceed 12 months
• job skills training related to work
• education directly related to employment
• satisfactory secondary school attendance
• providing child care services to individuals who are participating in community service.

Five-Year Time Limit:

• Families with an adult who has received federally-funded assistance for a total of five years (or less at state option) are not eligible for cash aid under the TANF program.
• States may extend assistance beyond 60 months to up to 20 percent of their caseload. They may also elect to provide assistance to families beyond 60 months using State-only funds or Social Services Block Grant funds.

I'm not aware of how many states choose to continue providing assistance after the time limit is up using state resources or what their work requirements during that period are. Do you have any resources on that?

 

[FA_Q2]

Welfare needs a time limit and more importantly, come with strings attached. You should have to be actively searching for jobs and show proof of that. In some states you do need to do exactly that but most do not and even when they do it tends to be rather laughable.

I'm curious why you say most states don't have those rules. The federal rules for TANF are fairly clear:

Highlights of TANF
Work Requirements:

• With few exceptions, recipients must work as soon as they are job-ready or no later than two years after coming on assistance.
• To count toward a State’s work participation rate, single parents must participate in work activities for an average of 30 hours per week, or an average of 20 hours per week if they have a child under age six. Two-parent families must participate in work activities for an average of 35 hours a week or, if they receive Federal child care assistance, 55 hours a week.
• Failure to participate in work requirements can result in a reduction or termination of a family’s benefits.
• States cannot penalize single parents with a child under six for failing to meet work requirements if they cannot find adequate child care.
• States must engage a certain percentage of all families and of two-parent families in work activities or face financial penalty. These required State work participation rates are 50 percent overall and 90 percent for two-parent families; however, States can reduce the targets they must meet with a caseload reduction credit. For every percentage point a State reduces its caseload below its FY 2005 level (without restricting eligibility), the credit reduces the States target participation rate by one percentage point.

Work Activities – Activities that count toward a State’s participation rates are (some restrictions may apply):

• unsubsidized or subsidized employment
• work experience
• on-the-job training
• job search and job readiness assistance – not to exceed 6 weeks in a 12-month period and no more than 4 consecutive weeks (but up to 12 weeks if a State meets certain conditions)
• community service
• vocational educational training – not to exceed 12 months
• job skills training related to work
• education directly related to employment
• satisfactory secondary school attendance
• providing child care services to individuals who are participating in community service.

Five-Year Time Limit:

• Families with an adult who has received federally-funded assistance for a total of five years (or less at state option) are not eligible for cash aid under the TANF program.
• States may extend assistance beyond 60 months to up to 20 percent of their caseload. They may also elect to provide assistance to families beyond 60 months using State-only funds or Social Services Block Grant funds.

I'm not aware of how many states choose to continue providing assistance after the time limit is up using state resources or what their work requirements during that period are. Do you have any resources on that?

Not at the moment but I could be wrong. I know that the last time I seriously looked into it was before bush and then I had a friend that was on welfare. They were required to turn in 3 applications a month, not really looking for work if you ask me. There were several changes that Clinton made to the system and I believe that 2 year limit was one of them (a MAJOR step in the right direction). I will need to investigate a little further, thank you for the info greenbeard.

I forgot to mention in my last that unemployment should also work muck more like welfare as well with having some strings attached. I do not want to count the times I have met someone that quit or was not looking for a job solely because of the unemployment. That should NEVER be the case.

 

[Foxfyre]

It isn't just welfare though that is the problem. That problem was remedied to some extent in the Clinton administration, though there are ways to continue to use the system if you know how to dodge a few land mines. It's a cultural sense of entitlement that somehow you are owed a piece of the pie whether or not you have earned it. And the anger and resentment that develops when it is perceived that some are getting a bigger piece of the pie than others and it is ingrained that this is somehow unfair.

It's hard to explain in a few words. And it's hard to explain until you've been eyeball to eyeball with a 'welfare' kid and experience first hand the apathy and unwillingness to help themselves in any way. They have been told by the system that they are disadvantaged and helpless for so long it has become part of their belief system. There are exceptions for sure. But we are losing generations of kids this way.

There has to be a better way.

 

[DavidS]

I need beer.

 

[Bfgrn]

Do not mix the system of government (republic) with the system of commerce (capitalism). Greed is not a force that a republic focuses to good purpose, it simply negates some of its ills with that constitution that governs our rights. Unfortunately, money and greed is bleeding over to our government and that is not a good thing. I would agree that there needs to be change in that aspect and spoke a little to that in another forum. Caps on donations from any single source would be a good start. I would say that your 'last 30 years' and my outlook on entitlement is misplaced as overreaching and wrong. There is an issue with the poor and entitlement and it is keeping many people down. I will get into that in a minute. Wall street and the banks do not have an entitlement problem. They have a legal problem. The politicians in this country not only are influenced by the amount of cash that is flowing to them (a problem as I have stated earlier in this post) but the ones that are against the banks are simply not as intelligent as them. Laws that are written to regulate the banks are circumvented because of the insane legalese that they are written in and the banks with all their resources are smart enough to hire people that can navigate around them. I stand by the fact that GOVERNMENT is the problem here. Separate the two, get the government out of the banking and bailouts and there will not be an issue. This is going into another topic so I will digress for the moment...

Your second point seems to hint that the poor NEED these handouts to survive and I will state that it is flat out wrong. No one is supporting that we take ALL aid from everyone but what is considered poor in this nation is rich for many others. The poor are not hungry unless it is of their own accord. I have seen people get alcohol instead of food with food stamps, buy beer and cigarettes and THEN not have money for food and watched the welfare checks roll in only to be frivolously spent or used on drugs. You do not truly respect what you have unless you had to work for it. I do not mind homeless shelters to feed and shelter the poor but why do you feel that it is necessary to PAY poor people for not accomplishing anything?

Prohibition has been a complete and total FAILURE and it is precisely why you cannot support an entitlement mentality. What you end up creating is a group of individuals that perpetuate in their state because it is easier to continue then it is to break through and in many cases BETTER. There are many instances where working harder would net you LESS than taking the handouts. What would behoove an individual to work harder for less? That is the problem with handouts that have no strings attached. You get a fuzzy feeling inside, they become slaves to the system.

I have a problem when someone says government is the problem. Bad government and corrupt government is a problem. And we need to always be diligent citizenry, but a hands off 'let the invisible hand of the market' approach is ignorance and it reeks of what you and Foxfyre have been dancing with...a culture war and the false belief that wealth equates to morality. The purpose OF government in regards to economics is to write and enforce laws, craft regulations and rules that facilitate commerce and create true free markets where no one can make themselves rich, by making someone else poor. A playing field where you can only lower cost of production or operation by efficient practices, NOT through 'regulatory capture' where profits are increased at the detriment of others by externalizing costs. Better known as corporate welfare.

You claim 'prohibition has been a complete and total FAILURE'. I say you are wrong. When you look at LBJ's War on Poverty, it was a great success. The only thing that stopped or impeded it was a party that espoused the same philosophy as you.

When I refer to the last 30 years, I am talking specifically about the biggest failure in my lifetime and possibly in the history of our nation. The complete and total failure that was called the Reagan revolution. It led us down the road to serfdom We, the People now find ourselves in the smoking ruins of.

It was people that called themselves 'conservatives' who were nothing resembling conservative. They desecrated conservatism by ignoring all the hard earned lessons our ancestors learned. They were ideologues that believed only THEY were smart, and that there exists a class of people that should be entitled. And that entitled class would leave enough bread crumbs for the rest of us... It FAILED and it continues to fail, no matter how many tax cuts we lay at their feet. These ideologues that call themselves 'conservative' threw out or removed all the laws and regulations our ancestors crafted to 'negates some of its ills' as you called it. They too believed that government is the problem. And all we needed to do was remove the hands of government so this entitled class could lead us down the road to Utopia...THEY got their Utopia, but We, the People got serfdom and a middle class that is now a debtor's class.

In regards to human foible you and Foxfyre focus on as some moral barometer, no one should supports laziness or corruption. But we need to exhibit an equal amount of outrage whether it is a poor person OR a rich person. And I would tend to give a lot more leeway to the poor.

Yes yes, throw words into my mouth and then jump on a partisan bandwagon. Never did I say anything about the government not writing regulation at all. the government IS there to protect the citizenry but it is going beyond that and therein lies the problem. When the government goes in and bails out banks and gets into the banking business instead of writing simple and concise laws that protect the people then we end up with the system that we have today. Politicians think they are smarter than the people they are regulating and that simply is not the case. Law is so confusing that no one can understand more than a small portion of it at any time.

I also never said that wealth equates to morality. You are labeling me with things I do not believe or have said. As a matter of fact wealth AND corporations do not have any morality. That is a problem that the left has, they need things to be moral or amoral and cannot understand that people are the only things that have a moral code. Business will do what is best for business without regard to morality whatsoever. That is where basic and concise regulation come in. There needs to be regulation but what we have is not the right type of regulation.

The reference to LBJ is my fault, I was not referring to equal opportunity employment that was originally set out to be. I agree with anti discrimination laws. I was referring to what it has turned into where there are actual quotas that need to be met where you are REQUIRED to hire a minimum number of minorities per so many employees. Tose laws were particularly dreadful in CA, my home state. Race has been flipped around to a REQUIREMENT TO DISCRIMINATE in another's favor and that is not only wrong but promotes the type of thinking I was referring to.

So, since you claim that us evil conservatives are removing all that regulation that our ancestors learned the hard way and that today we are in smoking ruin - what regulations are you referring to? How are we in smoking ruin and what policies are you placing the blame on? You partisan crap is vexing. There is a reason that we are here today and that is because there is no real conservatives that exist within the republican party. It is not just about tax cuts but spending cuts and reduction of government. They are all corrupt politicians. For that matter, I don't think there has really been a true liberal in office either. Clinton may qualify but he actually had a somewhat successful presidency. You say the war on poverty was a grate success and then IMMEDIATELY claim we are in smoldering ruins! My inclination is that you are full of hot air but I have been wrong before.

There isn't a lot I disagree with in your post except bailing out the banks and in particular AIG was necessary. There's no doubt it was a hold your nose move. But I would hate to see what WOULD have happened to hard working middle class workers' 401k's and retirement funds if we had let them collapse. After that we basically agree. Maybe it's just that we live two different political realities.

The ruins we live in today came about mostly due to regulatory capture. Unless you live on another planet, regulatory capture has become the platform of the Republican party. If you were paying attention to the health care debate, we witnessed an unscrupulous attack on regulation. But it was portrayed as fascism, socialism, communism, death panels, government take over of heath care; take you pick. AND, regulatory capture, the status quo which exists in the insurance cartel run system, was being sold as the invisible hand of the market. It was a think tank PR orchestrated campaign using propaganda techniques developed by Frank Luntz, who could have given Goebbels lessons.

And if you spend a few days on this board, the right has taken up the torch that we need MORE regulatory capture...they don't call it that, because they are unaware that it is not a free market, it is a captured market, it IS corporate welfare.

We, the People need a lot more liberal in government like JFK and Harry Truman. But the liberal movement hasn't been seen in the halls of government since the late 1960's. They were last seen boarding Bobby Kennedy's funeral train.

You are right, there are no conservatives in the Republican party. The party has been hijacked by authoritarians and theocrats. Even the far left Trotskyists abandoned the Democratic Party and now nest with the GOP.

"Harry Truman once said, 'There are 14 or 15 million Americans who have the resources to have representatives in Washington to protect their interests, and that the interests of the great mass of the other people - the 150 or 160 million - is the responsibility of the president of the United States, and I propose to fulfill it.'"
President John F. Kennedy

 

[Foxfyre]

Well you can say its a ridiculous article, but I'll put Thomas Sowell's education, track record, experience, and credentials as a social historian up against yours or anybody else's here on USMB and will expect that it will be no contest as to who is most credible in their perspective and analysis.

I'd encourage you to put aside "education, track record, experience, and credentials" for a moment and actually evaluate the article's arguments and the evidence presented to back them up. A minute or so of scrutiny will reveal specious arguments, a conflation of "the War on Poverty" with "any policy even tangentially related to the Great Society," factual inaccuracies, misrepresentations of the goals of certain policy initiatives, and in general a complete lack of evidence to support his points (and, at times, even an explicit point is lacking since he seems to think insinuation is a valid rhetorical device here).

I didn't bother to point it out earlier but parts of it are actually incoherent. For example:

The black family, which had survived centuries of slavery and discrimination, began rapidly disintegrating in the liberal welfare state that subsidized unwed pregnancy and changed welfare from an emergency rescue to a way of life.​

Followed by:

The poverty rate among black families fell from 87 percent in 1940 to 47 percent in 1960, during an era of virtually no major civil rights legislation or anti-poverty programs.​

If the esteemed social historian believes that AFDC was created during the Great Society and not the New Deal (which apparently he does, since the anti-poverty measure that he accuses of destroying the black family apparently didn't exist--in his mind--during the 1940s when he says poverty rates fell for black families) then he probably would also need to be reminded the War on Poverty didn't contain any welfare programs--instead of simple transfer payments, it consisted of programs aimed to help the poor better themselves (Time listed them in a 1968 article: Job Corps, Neighborhood Youth Corps, Work-Study Program, Adult Basic Education, Rural Loan Program, Migrant Worker Assistance, Employment and Investment Incentives, Work Experience Program, Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) and the Community Action Program, which set up Head Start, Upward Bound, Legal Services and Health Service Centers.)

Either way the War on Poverty is not entitled to credit for success that it obviously did not merit.

At no point did anything in that article show this. Certainly that seems to be the philosophy underlying the article but he didn't bother to support it, nor did he support his much firmer thesis: "The disastrous consequences that followed have made the word 'liberal' so much of a political liability that today even candidates with long left-wing track records have evaded or denied that designation."

I have been reading Thomas Sowell for several decades now and have read his books. If you think the minimal welfare programs initiated in the New Deal had any effect on society comparable to the War on Poverty and the leftwing initiatives that sprang up around it, you simply have not read anything but bad leftwing propaganda.

As you obviously have not read Sowell or any of the other great historians/sociologists/economists that have lived that entire era and have devoted a great deal of time and effort to research and identify correlations, causations, and consequences of various government programs with emphasis on the poor and minorities, I won't argue the point further.

But I stand on what I said because I believe I am on very solid footing. And Thomas Sowell still knows a gazillion more stuff than you know.

 

[FA_Q2]

There isn't a lot I disagree with in your post except bailing out the banks and in particular AIG was necessary. There's no doubt it was a hold your nose move. But I would hate to see what WOULD have happened to hard working middle class workers' 401k's and retirement funds if we had let them collapse. After that we basically agree. Maybe it's just that we live two different political realities.

I am not insinuating that the government do nothing, rather that AIG fall and go bankrupt for their bad business practices and then the government could step in and cover the insurance coverage as they see necessary for the protection of the PEOPLE, not the protection of the BUSINESS. FAR less money was needed for the people than AIG and the banks were the same case. That money should have gone to the people that were affected by the bad practices of banks that were not part of that decision making process. It would harm stockholders but that is the nature of the stock market as well as what MUST happen in order to get this cycle under control. Part of the problem here is the explosion of the average layman investing in stocks without the knowledge required to do so. That creates false markets and drives recessions/bubbles. That needs to stop and the only way is to affect stock prices as they should be affected. What has happened is the assurance that bad decisions will be covered by the government so if there is an ultra risky, high payoff investment you SHOULD take it. That is a terrible precedent to set. Already we hear of useless regulations that this president wants to place on those type of investments when they simply would cease to exist because they would not be profitable. Since the bailout proved they were the ultimate profit making investment without risk, they will continue to be made and I can guarantee that the cycle will continue with these regulations accomplishing nothing but lip service to the people.

The ruins we live in today came about mostly due to regulatory capture. Unless you live on another planet, regulatory capture has become the platform of the Republican party. If you were paying attention to the health care debate, we witnessed an unscrupulous attack on regulation. But it was portrayed as fascism, socialism, communism, death panels, government take over of heath care; take you pick. AND, regulatory capture, the status quo which exists in the insurance cartel run system, was being sold as the invisible hand of the market. It was a think tank PR orchestrated campaign using propaganda techniques developed by Frank Luntz, who could have given Goebbels lessons.

The ruins we live in today came about mostly due to regulatory capture. Unless you live on another planet, regulatory capture has become the platform of the Republican party. If you were paying attention to the health care debate, we witnessed an unscrupulous attack on regulation. But it was portrayed as fascism, socialism, communism, death panels, government take over of heath care; take you pick. AND, regulatory capture, the status quo which exists in the insurance cartel run system, was being sold as the invisible hand of the market. It was a think tank PR orchestrated campaign using propaganda techniques developed by Frank Luntz, who could have given Goebbels lessons.

I guess I live on another planet then...
Come on, R's at least give the lip service to removing regulatory capture. Liberals actually run on the premise of INCREASING IT. That is why I cannot call myself a liberal. When it comes to social issues and most rights issues (maybe minus guns and free speech) I actually agree with the liberal stance and am quite disgusted with the moral majorities influence over the republican ticket. The business and fiscal side of the liberal ticket is a disaster though. It is completely irresponsible and calls for grater control and regulation that the companies are writing anyway. The republicans are doing it too but they are pushing it at a slower pace as they run on the opposite concept. The idea that the government cannot run corporations and regulations are failing. As I said, we need to erase current regs and put in place simple regulations that protect the consumer instead of defining business priestesses. That part of regulation is seriously LACKING because business does not want people to be protected. They would much rather the government come in and regulate them a veritable monopoly which is what the government always ends up doing.

We, the People need a lot more liberal in government like JFK and Harry Truman. But the liberal movement hasn't been seen in the halls of government since the late 1960's. They were last seen boarding Bobby Kennedy's funeral train.

You are right, there are no conservatives in the Republican party. The party has been hijacked by authoritarians and theocrats. Even the far left Trotskyists abandoned the Democratic Party and now nest with the GOP.

"Harry Truman once said, 'There are 14 or 15 million Americans who have the resources to have representatives in Washington to protect their interests, and that the interests of the great mass of the other people - the 150 or 160 million - is the responsibility of the president of the United States, and I propose to fulfill it.'"
President John F. Kennedy

I guess we disagree here on basic ideology. I believe we need a more conservative government that understands what has made this country grate: Free enterprise and freedom of the people. I do like the quote though.

 

[FA_Q2]

It isn't just welfare though that is the problem. That problem was remedied to some extent in the Clinton administration, though there are ways to continue to use the system if you know how to dodge a few land mines. It's a cultural sense of entitlement that somehow you are owed a piece of the pie whether or not you have earned it. And the anger and resentment that develops when it is perceived that some are getting a bigger piece of the pie than others and it is ingrained that this is somehow unfair.

It's hard to explain in a few words. And it's hard to explain until you've been eyeball to eyeball with a 'welfare' kid and experience first hand the apathy and unwillingness to help themselves in any way. They have been told by the system that they are disadvantaged and helpless for so long it has become part of their belief system. There are exceptions for sure. But we are losing generations of kids this way.

There has to be a better way.

I agree but I bring up welfare, handouts and selective laws because that cultural sense of entitlement comes from somewhere and I believe it comes from those concepts. That video I put up earlier captures that basic premise, she seen a democrat take office and immediately thought her rent was covered and in fact, it may have been with some of the policies that are coming out of this administration. That mentality keeps people DOWN, it does not rise them up and that is not a positive. The only way to combat that mentality is to require people to earn their way and what we set up is the opposite. There needs to be a catch for those that fall off the ladder of progress and some encouragement for climbing back up but what we are putting in place is neither. Instead we are replacing it with a bucket that keeps people barely floating by but gives them almost NO incentive to get back on their own merit. I know, I have been there and went through it and watched many others sit in poverty because that was the easy way out. It is not helping our nation.

 

[Bfgrn]

There isn't a lot I disagree with in your post except bailing out the banks and in particular AIG was necessary. There's no doubt it was a hold your nose move. But I would hate to see what WOULD have happened to hard working middle class workers' 401k's and retirement funds if we had let them collapse. After that we basically agree. Maybe it's just that we live two different political realities.

I am not insinuating that the government do nothing, rather that AIG fall and go bankrupt for their bad business practices and then the government could step in and cover the insurance coverage as they see necessary for the protection of the PEOPLE, not the protection of the BUSINESS. FAR less money was needed for the people than AIG and the banks were the same case. That money should have gone to the people that were affected by the bad practices of banks that were not part of that decision making process. It would harm stockholders but that is the nature of the stock market as well as what MUST happen in order to get this cycle under control. Part of the problem here is the explosion of the average layman investing in stocks without the knowledge required to do so. That creates false markets and drives recessions/bubbles. That needs to stop and the only way is to affect stock prices as they should be affected. What has happened is the assurance that bad decisions will be covered by the government so if there is an ultra risky, high payoff investment you SHOULD take it. That is a terrible precedent to set. Already we hear of useless regulations that this president wants to place on those type of investments when they simply would cease to exist because they would not be profitable. Since the bailout proved they were the ultimate profit making investment without risk, they will continue to be made and I can guarantee that the cycle will continue with these regulations accomplishing nothing but lip service to the people.

The ruins we live in today came about mostly due to regulatory capture. Unless you live on another planet, regulatory capture has become the platform of the Republican party. If you were paying attention to the health care debate, we witnessed an unscrupulous attack on regulation. But it was portrayed as fascism, socialism, communism, death panels, government take over of heath care; take you pick. AND, regulatory capture, the status quo which exists in the insurance cartel run system, was being sold as the invisible hand of the market. It was a think tank PR orchestrated campaign using propaganda techniques developed by Frank Luntz, who could have given Goebbels lessons.

The ruins we live in today came about mostly due to regulatory capture. Unless you live on another planet, regulatory capture has become the platform of the Republican party. If you were paying attention to the health care debate, we witnessed an unscrupulous attack on regulation. But it was portrayed as fascism, socialism, communism, death panels, government take over of heath care; take you pick. AND, regulatory capture, the status quo which exists in the insurance cartel run system, was being sold as the invisible hand of the market. It was a think tank PR orchestrated campaign using propaganda techniques developed by Frank Luntz, who could have given Goebbels lessons.

I guess I live on another planet then...
Come on, R's at least give the lip service to removing regulatory capture. Liberals actually run on the premise of INCREASING IT. That is why I cannot call myself a liberal. When it comes to social issues and most rights issues (maybe minus guns and free speech) I actually agree with the liberal stance and am quite disgusted with the moral majorities influence over the republican ticket. The business and fiscal side of the liberal ticket is a disaster though. It is completely irresponsible and calls for grater control and regulation that the companies are writing anyway. The republicans are doing it too but they are pushing it at a slower pace as they run on the opposite concept. The idea that the government cannot run corporations and regulations are failing. As I said, we need to erase current regs and put in place simple regulations that protect the consumer instead of defining business priestesses. That part of regulation is seriously LACKING because business does not want people to be protected. They would much rather the government come in and regulate them a veritable monopoly which is what the government always ends up doing.

We, the People need a lot more liberal in government like JFK and Harry Truman. But the liberal movement hasn't been seen in the halls of government since the late 1960's. They were last seen boarding Bobby Kennedy's funeral train.

You are right, there are no conservatives in the Republican party. The party has been hijacked by authoritarians and theocrats. Even the far left Trotskyists abandoned the Democratic Party and now nest with the GOP.

"Harry Truman once said, 'There are 14 or 15 million Americans who have the resources to have representatives in Washington to protect their interests, and that the interests of the great mass of the other people - the 150 or 160 million - is the responsibility of the president of the United States, and I propose to fulfill it.'"
President John F. Kennedy

I guess we disagree here on basic ideology. I believe we need a more conservative government that understands what has made this country grate: Free enterprise and freedom of the people. I do like the quote though.

Maybe you and I have a different understanding of regulatory capture. But let's talk some reality here. There IS NO alternative to government writing and enforcing regulations. The alternative is NO regulations. If you listen and decipher, THAT is what the GOP is really promoting. And the more you moved toward the liberal/progressive end of the Democrats, the farther away from regulatory capture you get. If you payed close attention to the health care debate, the 'solutions' the GOP finally forwarded were NOT free market solutions. They were citizen's blood in the corporate shark waters. They were sold and PR'ed as free marketeering and creating competition, but all they were doing was cutting off the legs of the people, fitting them with peg-legs and sic'ing the insurance cartel beavers on us. Their sell 'across state line' fiasco created a race to the bottom nightmare where insurance cartels could move to the states with the least consumer protection. They could slightly lower premiums because they would be drastically lowering actual coverage. It would require every citizen to hire a personal lawyer before buying health insurance.

Regulatory capture occurs when a state regulatory agency created to act in the public interest instead acts in favor of the commercial or special interests that dominate in the industry or sector it is charged with regulating. Regulatory capture is a form of government failure, as it can act as an encouragement for large firms to produce negative externalizations. The agencies are called Captured Agencies.

If you want a very enlightening insight into the health insurance cartels, I recommend this interview with a 20 year insider. Pay close attention to the part about 'medical loss ratio' and you will find REAL death panels. Also the insurance industry's take on Michael Moore is fascinating.

Bill Moyers Journal . Wendell Potter on Profits Before Patients | PBS

 

[FA_Q2]

Maybe you and I have a different understanding of regulatory capture. But let's talk some reality here. There IS NO alternative to government writing and enforcing regulations. The alternative is NO regulations. If you listen and decipher, THAT is what the GOP is really promoting.

No that is NOT what a conservative wants and NOT what the GOP is going for. They want the government out of business but that does not mean an end to regulation. As long as you hold that view you cannot understand what we are fighting for on the other side. I know and understand what place the government has and accept that there are needs that the people have that must be protected with government regulation. You attack simple concept like the ability for insurance to be sold across state lines with falsehoods like the race to the bottom. Much like the new limitation on minimum coverage that exist with latest HC there needs to be the same concept places within any insurance that would sell across state lines. The first was placed in the law, why was the second ignored? The mandate that was pushed by the libs, THAT is regulatory capture. Now the insurance companies don't need to compete because you MUST purchase. How can you see that BOTH parties are doing it. The only difference I can see is that the libs rub it in our face and claim victory for us as they are incorporating it.

 

[FA_Q2]

House approves campaign finance bill in 219-206 vote - TheHill.com
An example of something that I would consider a form of regulatory capture. This bill passed by the democrats with extremely small republican support (one of the original GOP sponsors even backed out after it turned into exactly what you are talking about) will regulate campaign finance and then adds exemptions for favored groups. It even gives the republicans a bone with the NRA. That bought them at least 2 R votes, 2 that hopefully never see the house again (after their next election).

 

[Bfgrn]

Maybe you and I have a different understanding of regulatory capture. But let's talk some reality here. There IS NO alternative to government writing and enforcing regulations. The alternative is NO regulations. If you listen and decipher, THAT is what the GOP is really promoting.

No that is NOT what a conservative wants and NOT what the GOP is going for. They want the government out of business but that does not mean an end to regulation. As long as you hold that view you cannot understand what we are fighting for on the other side. I know and understand what place the government has and accept that there are needs that the people have that must be protected with government regulation. You attack simple concept like the ability for insurance to be sold across state lines with falsehoods like the race to the bottom. Much like the new limitation on minimum coverage that exist with latest HC there needs to be the same concept places within any insurance that would sell across state lines. The first was placed in the law, why was the second ignored? The mandate that was pushed by the libs, THAT is regulatory capture. Now the insurance companies don't need to compete because you MUST purchase. How can you see that BOTH parties are doing it. The only difference I can see is that the libs rub it in our face and claim victory for us as they are incorporating it.

First of all, I would appreciate it if you would stop cutting up my posts. Second, I surmise you didn't check out my link and listen to the interview.

You clearly have some warped view of regulation. 'Government out of business' is the END of ANY regulation. You have some disconnect going on in your thinking. And you are dead wrong about insurance being sold across state lines not being a race to the bottom. It is not only a race to the bottom, it is mass deregulation.

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

Selling insurance across state lines: A terrible, no good, very bad health-care idea

The big Republican idea to bring down health-care costs is to "let families and businesses buy health insurance across state lines." Jon Chait has some commentary here, but I want to simplify a little bit.

Insurance is currently regulated by states. California, for instance, says all insurers have to cover treatments for lead poisoning, while other states let insurers decide whether to cover lead poisoning, and leaves lead poisoning coverage -- or its absence -- as a surprise for customers who find that they have lead poisoning. Here's a list (pdf) of which states mandate which treatments.

The result of this is that an Alabama plan can't be sold in, say, Oregon, because the Alabama plan doesn't conform to Oregon's regulations. A lot of liberals want that to change: It makes more sense, they say, for insurance to be regulated by the federal government. That way the product is standard across all the states.

Conservatives want the opposite: They want insurers to be able to cluster in one state, follow that state's regulations and sell the product to everyone in the country. In practice, that means we will have a single national insurance standard. But that standard will be decided by South Dakota. Or, if South Dakota doesn't give the insurers the freedom they want, it'll be decided by Wyoming. Or whoever.

This is exactly what happened in the credit card industry, which is regulated in accordance with conservative wishes. In 1980, Bill Janklow, the governor of South Dakota, made a deal with Citibank: If Citibank would move its credit card business to South Dakota, the governor would literally let Citibank write South Dakota's credit card regulations. You can read Janklow's recollections of the pact here.

Citibank wrote an absurdly pro-credit card law, the legislature passed it, and soon all the credit card companies were heading to South Dakota. And that's exactly what would happen with health-care insurance. The industry would put its money into buying the legislature of a small, conservative, economically depressed state. The deal would be simple: Let us write the regulations and we'll bring thousands of jobs and lots of tax dollars to you. Someone will take it. The result will be an uncommonly tiny legislature in an uncommonly small state that answers to an uncommonly conservative electorate that will decide what insurance will look like for the rest of the nation.

As it happens, the Congressional Budget Office looked at a bill along these lines back in 2005. They found that the legislation wouldn't change the number of the uninsured and would save the federal government about $12 billion between 2007 and 2015. That is to say, it would do very little in the aggregate.

But those top-line numbers hid a more depressing story. The legislation "would reduce the price of individual health insurance coverage for people expected to have relatively low health care costs, while increasing the price of coverage for those expected to have relatively high health care costs," CBO said. "Therefore, CBO expects that there would be an increase in the number of relatively healthy individuals, and a decrease in the number of individuals expected to have relatively high cost, who buy individual coverage."

That is to say, the legislation would not change the number of insured Americans or save much money, but it would make insurance more expensive for the sick and cheaper for the healthy, and lead to more healthy people with insurance and fewer sick people with insurance. It's a great proposal if you don't ever plan to be sick, and if you don't mind finding out that your insurer doesn't cover your illness. And it's the Republican plan for health-care reform.

Washington Post - Selling insurance across state lines: A terrible, no good, very bad health-care idea


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

The most dangerous part is the provision that allows health insurance to be sold "across state lines." We know it is the most dangerous because it's modeled after the deregulation that gave us usurious credit card interest rates and obscene late fees. It's why consumers are buried in debt from which they cannot recover. And it's what Congress is quietly attempting to do to American health care.

"Selling health insurance across state lines" is a euphemism. This is health insurance deregulation. Its intended, practical effect is to eliminate state regulation of health insurance. The health insurance industry is already blessed with an antitrust exemption, allowing it to determine prices by collusion; now it will suddenly be free from the state regulation that protects consumers. Does your state require insurance companies to cover medically necessary abortions or vaccinations? Not anymore. Does your state require that your health coverage be automatically renewable? Not anymore. Does your state require that newborns be automatically covered at birth? Not anymore. Borne of a bill originally intended to increase competition in insurance, this mass deregulation will decrease competition and trigger yet another race to the bottom. We've seen it before.

"Selling Insurance Across State Lines" is Health Insurance Deregulation


Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all.
Edmund Burke

 

[antagon]

We need the social safety nets that are in place but what we are creating is not a net to catch those that cannot or will not perform but a net to capture the lower classes. That is where bfg's serfdom is coming from, the gradual building of a barrier between those dependant on the government and those that are not. As I said before, there are people that would LOOSE wealth if they began working or were to work more. The tax code and much of the welfare laws are poorly written. I win not advocate for a complete lack of protections for the poor but I cannot stand by a system that encourages people to stay poor and that is what is taking form. Nor will I stand by a system that rewards inaction or tells people that they need help when they do not.

to your earlier contention that neither communism nor socialism are aligned with the nature of humanity, consider that communal societies predated capitalist ones. it is not until you introduce surplus that you get specialization. from specialization you get trade, then currency, THEN capitalism begins to be feasible. add population and government to organize it, and capitalism begins to fail in it's ability to sustain society - to sustain itself. the government's role in managing currency in a way which supports capitalism, especially in a technological age, becomes more and more dependent on socialist mechanisms as a natural response to shoring up the freedoms and rewards of capitalism.

there are conditions, then, which all of these different systems are natural to humanity. the family unit remains a vestige of communal life which these other principles have made a mess of.

.....

i think that we've gone great distances to make capitalist principles work better within the broader economy and society. we've decided that unfettered capitalism fails in these objectives much like a motor with no car attached fails to be a valuable means of transportation. what about the fetters of socialism?

i dont believe that it's possible to eliminate the propensity for capitalism to benefit the greedy or socialism to benefit the slothful, however, regulations on capitalism have helped to curtail its end. socialistic policy has not been controlled to the same extent.

working with the system we've got, i would suggest some changes to take the perversions out of welfare:

for new registrants, or those who have 1 child and aren't pregnant, limit the benefits to the one-child level, then eliminate household income restrictions and restrictions on adults eligible to work in the household. a high child to parent ratio and a de facto single parent household incentive, makes the current clintonian workfair system difficult to enforce.

this reform might suffice for another decade or so, but the future will call for other innovations and reforms in capitalism, socialistic and communistic components of american life, in order to seed growth and strength in our economy. could we afford to dogmatically exclude any of these principles?

as to tax.. we did have a drawn out conversation, i believe. rather than dogma there, the good and bad of the tax system need to be seen for what they are. the current trend is for targetted taxation on industry, and an increase rather than decrease in exemptions and deductions.

i consider tax to be a vestige of communist policy; deductions are the means which the capitalistic end of the spectrum reclaims parts of the communal largess to account for private infrastructure.

 

[antagon]

House approves campaign finance bill in 219-206 vote - TheHill.com
An example of something that I would consider a form of regulatory capture. This bill passed by the democrats with extremely small republican support (one of the original GOP sponsors even backed out after it turned into exactly what you are talking about) will regulate campaign finance and then adds exemptions for favored groups. It even gives the republicans a bone with the NRA. That bought them at least 2 R votes, 2 that hopefully never see the house again (after their next election).

i'm strongly against campaign finance reform. look what it's done to the GOP, and by extension, the balance of policy in the country.

i think that regulatory capture combined with heavy taxation on the capturers is the wave of the future. the idea of regulatory capture and corporate welfare being bad things needs to be reviewed. it is one of those inevitabilities of capitalism acting against communal policy, which government should consider rewarding, although with a commensurate shift of the tax burden from personal incomes - even corporate incomes (by way of expensibility) to the capturers and the advantages which they demand from government.

 

[antagon]

the civil rights and progressive legacy has made american life better, particularly for the lowest-income, women and minorities. granted that, the democrats have had a handle on the lower income demography for 80+ years. these groups seem to support the dem agenda's principles on the table today, but i'd imagine this history draws some benefits in these doubtful times.

they say all questions are valid, but i don't adhere to that, fox. i think some questions posed as PC has are loaded with righteous intentions - invalidating them by way of prejudice. i've never felt a need to dance around that, and the party putting this question forward has a track-record of this sort of bollucks. it's betrayed this time by subsequent commentary and convenient omissions of the facts being discussed.

LOL. You'll forgive me if I have to see a pot/kettle analogy in an opinion that is based on prejudice re an individual or ideology while accusing the same of prejudice.

From my perspective, and from decades of experience working with low income people both as vocation and avocation, it is necessary first to separate out the temporarily low income--college students, temporarily unemployed, those volunarily on sabbatical and such--before analyzing the dynamics involved.

Then you look at the more or less 'permanent' low income demographic and how or why they acquired that status. And from my perspective, it is those well intentioned but poorly thought out 'helpful' government programs that assigned large groups of people to a permanent underclass. And yet that same underclass mostly does not seem to understand that. Those who see the light, generally manage to dig themselves out.

It has nothing to do with political parties or who is in the White House. It has everything to do with the net effects of programs to 'benefit the poor'. I am speaking in strictly general terms and overall effects irregardless of the occasional exception that those who ardently defend such programs will almot certainly evoke rather than look at the whole picture. The conclusion I have reached is that too many well intentioned government programs to benerfit the 'poor' have in fact created a permanent underclass of 'poor'. And, as governments generally will do, some in government now know that it is to government's advantage to maintain that permanent underclass.

I realize that you on the Left don't agree with my perspective and I'm already braced for the inevitable incoming.

But unless somebody can demonstrate how I'm wrong, I will continue to believe I'm on pretty solid footing here.

And THAT is what the thesis of this thread as it relates to the lowest income group should be about. I am wondering if any on the left are capable of discussing it on those terms rather than continuing to focus on somebody to demonize.

i believe that the rights and lifestyle of lower income americans, whether or not they are divided into your observations of temporary and permanent, have benefited from the progressive agenda in the last hundred years. in this way, i dont think that your separation of those making a lower income as you have vindicates your pot and kettle claim.

there is far more to progressive policy than entitlements, to wit, the labor and access to education reforms, sex, age and racial discrimination law and infrastructure development which has empowered your temporary low income group.

this is the basis of gratitude and trust which plays a small part in democratic party support of those in this bracket. on top of that, democrats continue to put out policy in that vein, garnering continued support. it isn't the only, or the right perspective on politics, per sa, but its merits are appreciated by some over others on these bases.

perhaps this is a more whole picture, rather than looking at progressive policy as entitlements alone. perhaps this is why folks to the left of you find your conclusions disagreeable and lacking of the footing that you're so confident in.

 

[Mr. Shaman]

Obama's rhetoric concerning the rich and corporations plays right into the lower income brackets thinking process....let's face it...the lower income bracketted individuals are basically high school drop out uneducated types who don't have shit...and have to rely on government assisstance.

....Much unlike those "conservatives" who rely on government for EMPLOYMENT, right??

​