Are you saying we're stupid?
Posted on 07/25/2005 4:34:39 PM PDT by StoneGiant
It was actually the Republican congress that forced him.
If a man can't do those things, he can't do them. How does eliminating welfare change the fact that he can't?
When welfare laws are constructed to cut benefits to families if a man is present in the home, then yes you are correct, welfare leads to the disintegration of families. It is sad, indeed, when the best a man can do for those he loves is to leave. But then it seems the law needs to be changed to permit fathers to stay with their families without penalizing the children.
I would say that if the young ladies actually put some demands on these men, for example - "I'm not sleeping with you until you get a job and keep it", it might turn the situation around.
I paid 7 Trillion dollars for midnight basketball, welfare fraud, and millions of illegitimate kids. I want my money back,...with interest!Slave Reparations my ass!
I remember an interview with a never married welfare mother of two. She was asked what she would do without a welfare check. Her reply? "I'd get me a husband."
. . . and the higher the welfare payment is, the tougher it is for some men to meet that standard.It is sad, indeed, when the best a man can do for those he loves is to leave. But then it seems the law needs to be changed to permit fathers to stay with their families without penalizing the children
. . . which would tend to put the whole nation on welfare. Unfortunately, I don't think it is possible to ameliorate the problem - the more you make welfare accessible, the more addictive it will be.It means, I think, that the only practical political attack on the problem is the one which is content to help and inspire the next generation to do better than its parents did. And leave the physical aid to the church and community. Such aid, precisely because it is limited and will be husbanded, will do more good than the government providing welfare as a "right."
Nice post!
He'd find it difficult to do otherwise. I once heard Sowell
and Walter Williams discussing this on the Rush show (where
WW was sitting in for Rush. They had some criticism of
the one chapter, but they didn't sound like the liberal nuts
who usually sound off. Of course one doesn't have to rely on
TBC. There are numerous authors who have reached similar
conclusions. (Richard Lynn, Glayde Whitney, Michael Levin,
J. Philippe Rushton, and Arthur Jensen to name a few).
The knee of the curve is around 30% and quickly goes up from there when it is considered "normal" to not have an unmarried mom with no long-term father figure.
The number of white births out of wedlock is getting pretty close to what the black % was in the 1960's. If this continues, it does not bode well for the whites either in 15 more years.
Bump for later
Perhaps the higher the cost of keeping a roof over one's families head, the higher the cost of medical care, food, transportation and the lower the wages, the more difficult it is for a man to meet his family's needs.
. . . which would tend to put the whole nation on welfare. Unfortunately, I don't think it is possible to ameliorate the problem - the more you make welfare accessible, the more addictive it will be.
There is something terribly wrong with an economy that can't reward workers with sufficient pay to make work more attractive than welfare.
It means, I think, that the only practical political attack on the problem is the one which is content to help and inspire the next generation to do better than its parents did.
A friend's father was an immigrant, with less than a high school education. He worked as a janitor and was able to buy, not just one home, but a vacation home as well. He had good medical benefits, a retirement plan, and SS. His mother worked seasonally for Dole, canning. His dad was able to spend plenty of time with the family because he only need one job. Most of the time his mother was home, cooking, cleaning and just being there for her two sons. It is not possible to do that well anymore, with the exception of a very few. The home he grew up in now sells for over a half of a million dollars, way beyond the reach of a janitor.
Our economy is out of whack, big time. The church can't make up for it. Most people are average, they are not stars, can't be stars no matter how hard they work.
When I was growing up, way back in the 50s, we were lead to believe that a large and strong middle class was unique to the US and was what gave our country stability - the idea being that doing a good job, even if humble, was rewarded with sufficient pay so that a man could support his family by the sweat of his brow. Ain't that way no more.
If you are correct and most Americans would tend to be on welfare, then our system has failed.
If you are correct and most Americans would tend to be on welfare, then our system has failed.
To say that "most Americans would tend to be on welfare" is no more than to say that everyone - not just Americans - is suceptible to the fantasy of the money tree. Everyone would like to win the lottery and have enough money to not need to do anything but tell others what you want, and have them do it. And to propose that welfare be increased is just a version of the money tree.Socialism in general is just the money tree fantasy. Which is really no different than the time travel fantasy of being able to go back and take advantage of a "second guess." Indeed people who propagandize for socialism are in fact doing nothing else but second-guessing the people who took risks - made decisions that might have been wrong - and prospered when others did not dare to try. After time has shown that their decisions were good, the "This problem, when solved, will be simple" rule applies. After the horse has won the race it's too late to bet on it, though.
Except as a way of aggrandizing its leaders at the expense of society, socialism doesn't work - precisely because it is based on second-guessing, and when you are actually in charge your first guess is the one that counts. The the blame-shifting sets in, and people who didn't have the authority (because the socialist leader got it all) get blamed when that first guess doesn't work.
Every four years the Democrats nominate someone for president, but they do not nominate a leader because they do not want a leader. Their system is all about the second guess, and that was painfully obvious with John Kerry's campaign - he wouldn't take a firm position on anything (except that everything was wrong, and it was all Bush's fault).
My uncle, who was a warden in a prison, once told me that most of the inmates came from fatherless families. Some had divorced parents but most had fathers who never married the mothers.
A friend's father. . . worked as a janitor . . . His mother worked seasonally . . . and [they were] able to buy, not just one home, but a vacation home as well. He had good medical benefits, a retirement plan, and SS.
[But now] The home he grew up in . . . sells for over a half of a million dollars, way beyond the reach of a janitor. When I was growing up, way back in the 50s, we were lead to believe that a large and strong middle class was unique to the US and was what gave our country stability - the idea being that doing a good job, even if humble, was rewarded with sufficient pay so that a man could support his family by the sweat of his brow. Ain't that way no more.
. . . Our economy is out of whack, big time. The church can't make up for it.
IMHO what is happening now is a rapid global democratization of opportunity. It represents the vindication, actually, of the vision of the framer of the Constitution, and it is a boon to mankind generally because a lot of people (Chinese representing a majority of them) are suddenly able to follow the American - the Adam Smith - model. Suddenly a couple of billion people who were locked out of the global economy by their own government are able, and willing, to make money.What to them is "money" is peanuts to your friend's janitor father, even now - but they make a comparison to where they were, more than to where some American is now or was in the past. So they're happy to work hard, and they do - they have mouths to feed but they also have hands to work, so the global economy becomes more prosperous. And America gets more prosperous too. But.
If I'm good at growing apples and oranges, and you aren't as good as me at either one but you are not as bad at growing apples as you are at growing oranges, do you just sit down and do nothing? No, what you will do is grow the few apples that you can, and trade me for some oranges. To do so, you will give me more apples than I think one orange is worth.That's called the law of "comparative advantage." And it explains why a perfectly good "apple growing" business in America can be put out of business by competitors in China who aren't doing anything particularly better that the American "apple grower" except putting the work of poor, unskilled people to the best possible use. And, over time, making those poor, unskilled people gradually less unskilled - and less poor.So even though you aren't as good as I am at growing apples, you still will cause me to concentrate on growing oranges, and let you grow most of the apples. I will end up with more oranges and more apples that way. And you won't have as many as me, but you will have more than you would by trying to grow the oranges when that is really hard for you to do.
What it means generally in America is that the price of "apples" goes down and the price of "oranges" goes up - "apple growers" go out of business but "orange growers" flourish and hire all the "apple growers." Which helps America generally but isn't much fun for American "apple growers." Unskilled workers in America are the "apple growers" - producing a real a "rich get richer" tendency here.
There is a different "rich get richer" tendency, no doubt, in China. There you would expect to see tycoons developing the new "apple growing" industries and getting filthy rich. Even though that would be a much more concentrated phenomenon in China, the few people getting Rockefeller rich would undoubtedly have high visibility there. Even though the predominant economic impact is that all the unskilled "apple grower" workers who had nothing now have a little, and the real prospect of more in the future.
bump
That assumes each country has a comparative advantage with which to enter the game. What is our comparative advantage? Certainly it can't be heavily subsidized agriculture.
Doesn't comparative advantage assume that an equilibrium between imports and exports will be established? How does our trade deficit fit the theory? What are the consequences long term? Getting back to the issue of welfare, what happens to displaced workers who are no longer able to sustain themselves as a result of shifting economic activity? Your example assumes the expansion of one sector of economic activity that absorbs workers made available by the shrinking of another - is that the case in the US now?
Compartive advantage does not assume an absolute advantage in anything. It merely postulates that there is typically a comparative advantage in something, and a comparative disadvantage in something else. Unless that is true, there is no commercial advantage to trade. And if it is true, there will be trade even if you don't make anything as efficiently and effectively as I do.Doesn't comparative advantage assume that an equilibrium between imports and exports will be established?
Not unless you include investment flows.How does our trade deficit fit the theory?
A "trade deficit" is really an investment surplus. If you buy more than you sell, that can only be because somebody is lending you money. As between an economy which doesn't attract investment and one which does, wouldn't you rather have the economy others want to buy a piece of?
Interesting. Imperial China traded silk, porcelain and tea with the West but the West had nothing to offer in return that China wanted. A growing trade imbalance lead to the Opium Wars. The West won and imposed the drug trade on China. A victory for free trade, I suppose, but is there anything free about what is imposed by force?
On a less dramatic scale that seems to be what is happening now. We want more and have less to offer in exchange. We must borrow money from our suppliers to continue to buy. Our debt grows as we are losing the ability to supply even our own needs.
Had the founding fathers followed the advice of the free traders, we never would have had a manufacturing base. We fought a war for independence to secure the right to develop our own manufacturing and the right to compete (it wasn't all about taxation). We fought another war among ourselves when the interests of the free trader South with its perfect advantage in cotton based on slave labor conflicted with the manufacturing North and tariffs. Many morn the loss, but how free is an economy based on the enslavement of human beings?
A "trade deficit" is really an investment surplus. If you buy more than you sell, that can only be because somebody is lending you money. As between an economy which doesn't attract investment and one which does, wouldn't you rather have the economy others want to buy a piece of?
Apparently I attract a lot of investors judging by the credit card offers received in the mail. If I accepted even half of them and took advantage of the full limit of investment each wants to make, I soon would be bankrupt.
LOL!
Are you saying we're stupid?
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