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When (Inner-City) Men Won't Work
American Spectator ^ | May 17, 2012 | CHRISTOPHER ORLET

Posted on 05/17/2012 5:28:12 AM PDT by reaganaut1

It is a familiar sight here in the inner-city: young men in the prime of life aimlessly hanging out on stoops at midday, smoking and listening to hip hop music. Government statistics tell only half of the story. One in five American men does not work. It is worse in my hometown of St. Louis where the jobless rate for black men without a high school diploma reached 26 percent last year, and half of all students fail to graduate public high school. Needless to say, that is a lot of young men with nothing to do.

Many of these young layabouts find it unnecessary to work, save on those rare occasions when they need to make a fast buck. Unlike the middle-class suburbs or working class neighborhoods, it takes very few resources to get by in the ghetto. "You would be amazed at the number of persons you can cram into a small non-air-conditioned rental unit," a social worker friend tells me. Their expenses amount to little more than the clothes on their backs, bus tickets, cell phones and cigarettes. This easily can be earned by strolling down to the Temporary Labor Agency and putting in an honest day's work chopping ice or stacking brick, which leaves one free for the rest of the week. Others make a few bucks peddling dope or stealing pipe (a spray-painted sign on a nearby boarded-up building informs would-be thieves that they have already removed all the copper). A few ask for handouts. Many collect Supplemental Security Insurance for real or imagined disabilities.

Even if these aimless youth wanted to work, numerous factors militate against it. Foremost is the lack of good-paying, low-skill manufacturing jobs, the type of work that makes getting off the stoop worthwhile.

(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
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Cut welfare such as food stamps so that people are forced to work, and (more controversially), cut the minimum wage and deregulate the labor market so that employers are willing to take a chance on people without work experience.
1 posted on 05/17/2012 5:28:15 AM PDT by reaganaut1
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To: reaganaut1

Why work when you can rob and steal? In Atlanta, great sport and profit is made from students at GSU and Georgia Tech. EVERY week an incident is reported (by law).


2 posted on 05/17/2012 5:30:46 AM PDT by Gaffer
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To: reaganaut1

Too stupid to work with their brain and too lazy to work with their back.

Lucky for them, they get free food and baby mommas on Uncle’s tab, until they build up the energy to go steal something.


3 posted on 05/17/2012 5:31:58 AM PDT by SampleMan (Feral Humans are the refuse of socialism.)
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To: reaganaut1

They’re not hungry enough.

2 Thess 3:10
...he who will not work, nor shall he eat

Prov 16:26
A laborer’s appetite works to his advantage, because his hunger drives him on.


4 posted on 05/17/2012 5:35:34 AM PDT by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter knows whom he's working for)
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To: reaganaut1

I’d eliminate the tax on manufacturing as well. Eliminating the EPA and letting the states impose their own rational regulations wouldn’t hurt either.

We also need to find ways of encouraging self employment and small business.


5 posted on 05/17/2012 5:40:56 AM PDT by cripplecreek (What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?)
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To: reaganaut1
... the lack of good-paying, low-skill manufacturing jobs,

I wonder why the author thinks there should be such a thing. Low-skill jobs - unless they have very demanding physical requirements, such as great strength - will naturally tend to offer low pay as well. High-paying manufacturing jobs were the result of a union-government cabal's favoring some low-skilled workers at the expense of the larger economy, both consumers and excluded workers.

Now that system has fallen, as it was always destined to. Most low-skill/low-pay jobs have been eliminated by regulation. The drive to earn a living has been crushed by handouts.

6 posted on 05/17/2012 5:42:14 AM PDT by Tax-chick (Remember our veterans, today and every day!)
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To: reaganaut1
half of all students fail to graduate public high school

Wow, and those that do graduate still don't know anything.

7 posted on 05/17/2012 5:42:31 AM PDT by ROCKLOBSTER (Celebrate Republicans Freed the Slaves Month.)
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To: reaganaut1
Cut welfare such as food stamps so that people are forced to work, and (more controversially), cut the minimum wage and deregulate the labor market so that employers are willing to take a chance on people without work experience.

You want controversy?

When they get busted, sentence them to pick lettuce. Give the legitimate "guest workers" raises, and let them "manage" the inner-city youts.

8 posted on 05/17/2012 5:48:52 AM PDT by ROCKLOBSTER (Celebrate Republicans Freed the Slaves Month.)
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To: reaganaut1
They live on disability and food stamps. That crap about large numbers of them cramped in a small un-airconditioned apartment is classic social worker crap... they live with girlfriends, mom, sister or subsidized apartment...

Ever wonder how much money an honest person would have to save to generate this kind of income? It's in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

9 posted on 05/17/2012 5:50:47 AM PDT by GOPJ ( "A Dog In Every Pot" - freeper ETL)
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To: reaganaut1

The way they describe it sounds like Paris or Greece or something.


10 posted on 05/17/2012 5:51:27 AM PDT by GeronL (The Right to Life came before the Right to Pursue Happiness)
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To: reaganaut1

This is the natural result of publik skoolz and the present kulture plus the inner city mentality against “acting white”.


11 posted on 05/17/2012 5:53:32 AM PDT by GeronL (The Right to Life came before the Right to Pursue Happiness)
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To: reaganaut1

The article failed to mention their greatest source of housing/food - baby mammas. Most of these gutter rats have four or five stupid women who have their babies so they can hop from bed to bed while WE pay for those women to lay around with various men, adding to their monthly support with each child that is not even raised, just allowed to grow without direction.


12 posted on 05/17/2012 5:55:51 AM PDT by WhyisaTexasgirlinPA (ABO)
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To: Gaffer
Why work when you can rob and steal?

Within 3 blocks of the St Louis Blues Hockey Rink you will find industrious young men selling drugs.

Groups of 4 or 5 will be standing on street corners 2 blocks apart during the day as well as at night.

In broad daylight they are working and making money by standing in one spot.

13 posted on 05/17/2012 5:56:54 AM PDT by TYVets (Pure-Gas.org ..... ethanol free gasoline by state and city)
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To: GOPJ

BUMP!!

right on!!

You should send the author a message about that.


14 posted on 05/17/2012 5:57:20 AM PDT by GeronL (The Right to Life came before the Right to Pursue Happiness)
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To: cripplecreek
We also need to find ways of encouraging self employment and small business



I'm trying to start a small business. Actually more of a microscopic business. I don't expect it to ever be a multi-million empire, but if I'm lucky, it might grow to be a full-time income source.

Right now, I'd feel lucky if I broke even.

Here in Ohio, we have the equivalent of a franchise tax - $150 minimum. Registering with the SOS to form an LLC is $125. So already, before I sell anything or even bought any raw materials, I'm $275 in the hole. Luckily, I don't need to get any other state licenses, or it'd be worse.

Sure, if I were grossing a few $hundred thousand, $275 would be nothing. But every business has to start somewhere, and I can tell you that the profit from the first 30 products I sell (and I was hoping to sell 50 a year to start) go to pay just those fees.

So I have to ask myself, is it even worth my time? It's a big enough risk just coming up with a product, sourcing all the raw materials, designing a process, setting up a marketing plan, etc. Throw in the fact that half my first year sales, I won't even see a dime. How many great ideas are squished because starting small is made nearly impossible? Just figuring out where the hoops are that you have to jump through is difficult enough.

Even the largest corporation had to make it's first $1 in sales. If we want more successful employers, we need to concentrate on making those first sales as easy and painless as possible.
15 posted on 05/17/2012 6:09:57 AM PDT by chrisser (Starve the Monkeys!)
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To: reaganaut1

It’s not the lack of work experience that keeps people from hiring a laborer, it’s the lack of work ethics.

They don’t work even if you do hire them so there is no point in hiring them.


16 posted on 05/17/2012 6:13:19 AM PDT by IMR 4350
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To: GOPJ

or they live with Grandma who supports 3 generations in her govt welfare apartment with her govt social security disability or other welfare check

Then baby mama gives birf to kids who get SSI for ADHD and the cycle goes on


17 posted on 05/17/2012 6:15:19 AM PDT by silverleaf (Funny how all the people who are for abortion are already born)
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To: cripplecreek

I have a decade of experience in manufacturing.

The only applicants I get are immigrants and ex-cons.

The ex-cons normally MUST have a job as a condition of their parole. Their productivity is piddly compared to the hard working immigrants. Some of them turned out to be dangerous to the other workers so I laid them off.

I used to have a small factory in a rural area with 30% unemployment. The Foreman and I would make bets on how many hours the Anglos would work before quitting. Often the Anglos would walk off the job after a couple of hours.

Farm boys were the only decent native born workers that I ever saw, and most of them were Hispanic.

I started cutting lawns at age eight. Started working Summers and weekends at age eleven. A lot of it was hard, hot, dirty work.

Sorry to say many young people are just soft.


18 posted on 05/17/2012 6:18:40 AM PDT by darth
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To: reaganaut1

It doesn’t matter to them. The way they figure it, uncle Sam will continue to provide handouts. If not the gubmint, they can go to a soup kitchen. And if they come by their gains criminally, it’s a win-win: they don’t get caught, they have goods to pawn. If they DO get caught, they get three hots and a cot, an exercise yard, and they get to learn the greatness of Mohammed.

There’s nothing to incentivize them to work harder or better. Their basic needs are met: food and shelter. They go out and procreate at will with little regard for the welfare of the children.

LBJ’s “Great Society” completely destroyed any dignity left in the black community.


19 posted on 05/17/2012 6:20:07 AM PDT by rarestia (It's time to water the Tree of Liberty.)
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To: reaganaut1

And they can stroll into the food kitchen and get a free meal every day of the week. The LAST time I worked at a food kitchen, it seemed like half the “customers” were healthy young men. No eye contact, no thank you, sad. I was recently in Maui and went to the Catholic church there twice. They were very proud of their outreach program which fed several hundred people every day. I was going to give them my usual weekly tithe but decided not to enable this ministry. Guess that’s why I’m an evil conservative.


20 posted on 05/17/2012 6:20:28 AM PDT by Mercat
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